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Legal Stuff
We won’t include a bunch of legal terms here, but the book should
only be shared in its entirety. Do not share screenshots, reproduce
or copy specific text, paragraphs or images for use on your site
without the appropriate credit and links back to the author.
About The Author
Mitchell Harper has launched 6 companies, generating over
$200M in sales and raising $1555M in venture capital. He has been
featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
Entrepreneur, Inc, FastCompany, Mashable and TechCrunch.
He is a voracious learner and has always had an obsession with
productivity, high performance and what makes people great. He is
also an advisor, investor and coach to individuals and businesses
with a focus on growth, performance, culture, psychology and
leadership.
Follow me on Facebook
Page 1​ of 98 Want To Grow Your Business Faster?
If so, come along to my new webinar this week. It’s called "The 9
Specific Things We Did To Build A $100M Business In 3 Years".
I’ll walk you through the critical things we focused on to grow one
of my companies to a $100M valuation quickly. I’ll show you what
we did, but also what we avoided when it comes to hiring, raising
capital, building products and scaling our customer acquisition.
Click here to learn more and register
Page 2​ of 98 Table Of Contents
Introduction
Planning
10 Years
Priorities
Thinking
Inner Voice
Self Sabotage
Energy Cycles
Wellness
Stress
Subconscious Mind
Page 3​ of 98 BEFORE WE START
Introduction
Page 4​ of 98 Extreme productivity separates average people from
exceptional ones. But what exactly is productivity and how
can you become more productive?​ ​Since 2001 I’ve built 5
companies and have been obsessed with constantly
improving the return on my time invested. As it turns out,
the surest way to achieve your goals faster is to audit where
you spend your time and why.
Being productive doesn’t mean using a particular goal
setting system or even necessarily working longer hours. To
be in the top 1% of the world’s most productive people
requires significant alteration to your psychology, routine,
expectations and communication style. All of which I cover
in this book.
Whether you want to make more money, lose weight, find a
partner, be a professional tennis player or even the next
president of the United States ­ being powerfully productive
improves your odds of success significantly.
Let’s get started…
Page 5​ of 98 CHAPTER ONE
Planning
Page 6​ of 98 To say I’m obsessed with productivity and time­ROI is
probably an understatement. For as long as I can remember
I’ve been fascinated with the art and discipline of goal
setting. Over the last 10 years I’ve probably tried every
system there is. And none of them worked. So I decided to
build my own hybrid approach, which I’ve been using since
2011.
There are thousands of articles that talk about the impact of
goal setting so I’m not going to go there. What I do know,
though, is there’s no one­size­fits­all approach. By hacking
together the best approaches from various systems and
mentors, I’ve created something that I would estimate has
helped me to be 10x more productive over the last few years.
I take it to the extreme, though, so I’d say you can at least 3x
your productivity by following this simple system at the start
of each week.
What do I mean by productive? I mean getting more
leverage from the resources I have and accomplishing more
while exerting less personal effort. I mean defining a clear
roadmap for the next 12 months that’s balanced across the
important areas of life, which are health, business,
relationships and contribution. I mean knowing what to say
yes to — not because it sounds interesting, but because
Page 7​ of 98 what you say yes to is in context and part of the roadmap
you’ve defined for the coming year.
Before any goal setting or productivity system will work,
though, you’ve got to have the right people on your team.
That means the right leaders (if you own a company), the
right partner (if you’re married), etc. Fix your people
problems first otherwise they’ll slow you down massively.
That lesson is hard to learn but easy to give.
The system I’ve been using for a while is pretty basic and
there are 4 parts. I’ve shared it with maybe 20 people I know
(employees, friends, relatives, etc) and it’s changed their
lives by dramatically boosting their focus, productivity and
clarity. Basically it will make you outcome focused so you
stop doing stuff just to be busy.
#1 — Goals categorized by area of focus
Every year starting on December 1st, I spend about a month
brainstorming goals for the different areas of my life. I
scribble those goals down — even if they aren’t clearly
defined yet. I come back to them whenever a new goal comes
to mind and add it to the unsorted, messy list.
Page 8​ of 98 Once the list is finished, the goals are moved into areas of
focus that are important to me. Those areas are:
1. Family
2. Marriage
3. Financial
4. Giving Back
5. Investing
6. Travel
7. Fun & Hobbies
8. Possessions
9. Stuff
It’s no mistake family and marriage are at the top of the list.
The areas here come from Ted Leonsis’s great book ​The
Business Of Happiness​. His book will change your life and is
a must­read.
Ted is a personal mentor of mine and is part of Revolution
Growth, through which Steve Case sits on the board of
Bigcommerce (my previous company). He is also owner of
the Washington Wizards NBA team, which makes flights to
Washington exciting.
Page 9​ of 98 After you move your goals into the areas of focus, you
prioritize them. Most important goals at the top of the list,
least important at the bottom. Easy.
#2–12 month timeline
The next step is to use something like Google Docs,
Photoshop or Trello to create a horizontal timeline of the
calendar year. You then go about roughly placing your goals
across various months of the year — about where you’d
expect to complete that goal.
For example, if you plan to hire a head of marketing early
next year, put that goal in February. If you plan to take a trip
to Japan later in the year, place that goal in October.
After you’ve placed all of your goals on the timeline, you end
up with something like this:
Page 10​ of 98 This is the timeline I created back in December 2013 for the
2014 calendar year. For privacy reasons I’ve blocked out
most of the goals, but you can see that I categorize goals by
color as they’re laid out on the timeline.
As you progress every week, you move the green bar across
the timeline to represent where you currently are in the
year. As you achieve your goals, you grey them out, like this:
Page 11​ of 98 Again, I’ve just blocked out the details. You can see that by
the end of December 2014, I’d achieved all but one goal for
the year. Goals that were really important for the year are
marked with a magenta color as they’re completed — just to
remind me of their importance as I look back on them.
You might think it’s weird to position your goals on a
timeline like this, but it’s incredible what it does to your
subconscious mind. By writing something down and giving it
a completion date, you find your goals are almost
automatically completed within a few days of that date.
Page 12​ of 98 Your brain works behind the scenes to figure out the
resources, team, advisors, communication, planning, etc you
need to get something done.
#3 — Draft look back statement
You can’t predict the future. Or can you?
Once I’ve laid out my goals on the timeline, I then write a 2–3
page look back statement. I start by asking myself this simple
question:
It’s December 31 2014. Knowing you’ve achieved all of your
goals, how would you describe the year when you look
back?
I look across all of my areas of focus and the goals I’ve set,
and I write a story that talks about the success I’ve had
during the year. Now you have to remember I’m writing this
before the year has even started. I write this on December
31st of the previous year for the upcoming year.
Why do this? It comes back to your subconscious mind. The
power of writing something down can’t be underestimated. If
you’re a visual learner, the timeline locks the goals in your
Page 13​ of 98 head. If you’re an audible or kinesthetic learner, the look
back statement locks the goals in your head.
So how do you write a look back statement? Organize your
list of goals not by area of focus but by overall priority. Start
at the top of the list with the most important goal you will
achieve next year and work your way down.
Then just write a paragraph describing what achieving that
goal means for you today (remember, you’re standing a year
in the future from now) and why achieving it was so
important for your life.
You must write these paragraphs in past tense, as in, you’ve
already achieved them. This is another way to trick your
brain and subconscious mind. Your brain has no idea if what
you’re telling it is true or not and it assumes everything you
say is true and works to make it so.
This has been proven over and over again by science.
#4 — Wheel of life
I’ve borrowed the wheel of life from Tony Robbins. It’s a
simple construct that helps you grade each area of focus
every week. For areas where you grade yourself low (on a
Page 14​ of 98 scale of 1 to 10), you dedicate some time and focus to boost
your rating — say from a 4/10 to a 7/10.
Your wheel of life is structured as a circle and the areas you
want to focus on are included as spokes on the circle, like
this:
Page 15​ of 98 Areas you’re doing well in get a rating of 8, 9 or 10. Areas
where you’re doing OK get a 5, 6 or 7. Areas where you’re
struggling get a rating of 1, 2, 3 or 4.
The analogy Tony uses for the wheel of life is a tire on a car.
If you look at how you connect each of the spokes on the
wheel — and if that were a tire on a car — how would the
car drive?
A high performance tire is round, so if you look at the
example wheel of life above, you’ll see that the spokes are
connected with lines that are jagged. If this were a tire on a
car, the car would barely drive.
And that’s the idea. You need a focused approach to all the
areas of your life that are important to create a well­rounded
tire. If you rate your business progress a 10 and family a 2
then your wheel will be off — and your car (your life) won’t
drive (function) well.
See the 3 highlighted areas of focus in yellow? Those are the
3 areas you choose to focus your efforts on over the coming
week. Generally you choose the 3 areas where you’ve
self­rated the lowest.
Page 16​ of 98 You then take those areas and look at which of your goals
you can work on in the coming week to drive those ratings
up.
In the example wheel of life, those areas of focus are:
1. Business
2. Learning
3. Health
To improve each of those, you’d look at your goals timeline
(part #2) and pencil time in your calendar to work on
progressing towards the goals you’ve selected. It’s OK to add
new goals to your list if you need to as well. The idea is that a
system is just a system. It’s there to provide structure and to
support you, but it’s not set in stone.
You should review all 4 parts of the system at least once a
week and pencil that time into your calendar as a recurring
event. I like Sunday afternoons or Monday mornings for an
hour.
Once you’ve decided what you’ll focus on for the week, make
sure you block out that time in your calendar as well. It’s a
forced discipline that lets you “set and forget” so you end up
with at least 50% (ideally 70%) of your awake time accounted
Page 17​ of 98 for. And that’s the time where you’re making progress on the
goals you’ve decided are important to you.
That’s it​.
It’s a pretty simple system that works. The idea is that your
yearly goals define your quarterly focus which defines your
monthly and weekly priorities which are what you work on
to improve the areas of focus that are important to you.
I don’t believe you can be happy when most of your areas of
focus aren’t performing well. With this system, you’re
forced to give attention to the things you’ve decided matter
to you, so it keeps you progressing on all fronts throughout
the year.
Like all systems though, it only works if you stick with it.
Once I came up with the system it took me a few weeks to get
used to it, but now I can’t live without it.
I don’t think it’s a great system if you’re planning
incremental gains in your life over the next 12 months. For
those, you can use Clear, Omnifocus, Google Tasks or some
other basic system. But if you want to 10x your productivity,
goals and progress then maybe give it a shot and see how you
like it.
Page 18​ of 98 Want To Grow Your Business Faster?
If so, come along to my new webinar this week. It’s called "The 9
Specific Things We Did To Build A $100M Business In 3 Years".
I’ll walk you through the critical things we focused on to grow one
of my companies to a $100M valuation quickly. I’ll show you what
we did, but also what we avoided when it comes to hiring, raising
capital, building products and scaling our customer acquisition.
Click here to learn more and register
Page 19​ of 98 CHAPTER TWO
10 Years
Page 20​ of 98 Creating anything that has a shot at becoming great (like a
company) takes at LEAST 5 years. In most cases it takes 7–10.
Ask anyone who has done it.
When you start anything new, it’s tempting to focus maybe 3
years out at the most. “We don’t know how things will
change beyond 3 years”. That’s a valid point, but building
something great is as much about sticking it out as it is doing
the work (such as creating a product and finding customers).
You can’t win a marathon unless you put in the work and
have stamina. It’s the same with creating something that will
eventually be great.
Most modern companies you think of as great took at least 5
years to get on that trajectory and some took 10 years. Think
Uber. Airbnb. Hubspot. PayPal. Tesla. SpaceX. Chobani.
GoPro. Spanx. The list goes on.
It took us 6 years to get my previous company,
Bigcommerce​,​ to any level of scale. The good news is, I like to
play the long game. Because that’s the only game worth
playing when it comes to achieving greatness at
anything — business, relationships, health, you name it.
Page 21​ of 98 Don’t believe the get­rich­quick gurus or the
lose­20­pounds­tomorrow infomercials. They are outright
lying to you. Nothing good happens without insane amounts
of consistent, focused work.
I truly believe that when you start anything, you should do it
with the intent of becoming the top 1% in your field, ideally
the top 0.1%. And do you think that’s a realistic possibility in
1, 2 or 3 years? No way.
There are heaps of great videos, lectures and presentations
online about “how” to be great. How to be a great musician.
How to build a great company. How to be a great manager.
They teach the mechanics of success, or what to “do”. But
that’s it.
You know what absolutely none of them talk about? The time
decay of your passion, interest, patience and emotional
energy. That’s hard to maintain over 3 years let alone 5 or 10
years, let me tell you.
How often have you ended up bored with your workout
routine? Your partner? Your diet? Your daily routine? Your
company?
Page 22​ of 98 The path to creating anything great is filled with doubt, fear
and frustration. People will screw you over, talk sh*t about
you and try to stop you from achieving what you set out to do.
You’ve got to have the emotional and mental fortitude to deal
with that. Every. Single. Day.
The people that create greatness instill in themselves a daily
ritual of self­belief, patience and performance. They know
greatness comes after 10 years of work. Whether it’s
affirmations, setting goals with a compelling “why” or via a
coach, they train their emotions like most people train
muscles in the gym. And that’s what gives them stamina.
The next time you see a great person or company, don’t refer
to them as an “overnight success”. Realize they got where
they are with at least 5 but probably 10 years of brutally hard
and emotionally draining work that most people simply
couldn’t handle. They made mistakes. Course corrected.
Asked for help. Kept at it when things got hard.
But never lost sight of their vision and their goals. That’s why
they’re great.
Page 23​ of 98 Want To Grow Your Business Faster?
If so, come along to my new webinar this week. It’s called "The 9
Specific Things We Did To Build A $100M Business In 3 Years".
I’ll walk you through the critical things we focused on to grow one
of my companies to a $100M valuation quickly. I’ll show you what
we did, but also what we avoided when it comes to hiring, raising
capital, building products and scaling our customer acquisition.
Click here to learn more and register
Page 24​ of 98 CHAPTER THREE
Priorities
Page 25​ of 98 Success is about many small efforts compounding over time
to produce something great. Too often, though, we fall into
the trap of doing what’s urgent and not what’s important.
People are always going to want more of your time. And the
more you give them, the more they’ll take. Remember — if
you’re not working on your own plan, you’re most definitely
part of someone else’s.
So, how can you achieve massive success without working
168 hours every week? The key is to shift your focus to spend
more time on what’s important and less time on what’s
urgent.
Important means anything that will get you closer to your
next milestone or goal (you’ve got those worked out, right?).
Urgent means anything that has a perceived (note the
emphasis) importance to you or someone else, when in
reality the world won’t end if you don’t get to it now, or even
at all.
Here’s the rub, though. Doing the urgent stuff makes you
feel good. They are the things you can put a tick next to in
Wunderlist, Clear or Asana and say to yourself “Wow, I got
18 things done today!”.
Page 26​ of 98 The important stuff takes longer, is harder and isn’t nearly
as fun. But it’s the stuff that will drive you forward and get
you closer to your goals.
How do you know if something is important or urgent?
Simple — just ask this clarifying question:
“If I invest time to do this, which goal will it get me
closer to completing and how?”
If the answer is “none” and “I’m not sure”, then it’s
urgent — defer it. If the answer is a specific goal and you
can measure the impact that task will have on getting you
closer to your goal, it’s important — do it now.
Let’s look at a few examples of each so you get a better idea of
what I’m talking about here.
Important:
● Finish plan for next quarter
● Start new content marketing campaign
● Hire another Rails engineer
● Create draft of pitch deck
● Fire poor performing sales rep
Page 27​ of 98 ● Refine customer personas
● Find business coach
Urgent:
● Reply to 154 emails in my inbox
● Get up to date on TechCrunch/Reddit/etc
● Return calls from friends/family/etc
● Decide on colors for office wall paint
● Update my ToDo list
● Rearrange office to maximize space
● Organize lunch with John
You get the idea. Now of COURSE sometimes you have to just
get something done that’s urgent. I get it. But I’m talking
about the other 95% of how you allocate your time.
If you want to skyrocket your progress, do nothing but more
important tasks and less urgent tasks for the next 30 days.
Page 28​ of 98 Want To Grow Your Business Faster?
If so, come along to my new webinar this week. It’s called "The 9
Specific Things We Did To Build A $100M Business In 3 Years".
I’ll walk you through the critical things we focused on to grow one
of my companies to a $100M valuation quickly. I’ll show you what
we did, but also what we avoided when it comes to hiring, raising
capital, building products and scaling our customer acquisition.
Click here to learn more and register
Page 29​ of 98 CHAPTER FOUR
Thinking
Page 30​ of 98 Most people live in a reactive state. They work on stuff until
someone distracts them. Then they react to what the other
person needs. That’s true at home and in the office. And it’s
the easiest way to keep spinning your wheels for months or
even years on end.
Look at the calendar of most people and you’ll find a good
assortment of the usual events like team meetings,
one­on­ones, lunches, etc. You might also find some
personal events scheduled, such as family dinners, soccer
games, birthdays, etc.
But what won’t you find on 98% of calendars?
Time blocked out to just think. Blocks of 1, 2 or even 3 hours
at a time with no agenda. No additional attendees. No
anything. Just “thinking time”.
Time is our most precious resource. And where you spend
your time influences how you do in every area of your life.
Want a better body? Spend more time eating right. Want to
be a better husband/wife? Spend more time listening. You
get the idea.
Page 31​ of 98 But how do you know if you’re working on the right things?
You guessed it, you need to constantly re­visit your goals and
strategy. Sometimes it makes sense to do that with people
(colleagues, board, partner, family), but you also need some
alone time where you can just lay your cards out on the table
and think about what’s working and what’s not.
So what should you “think about” during the time you
schedule to think? Here are some ideas:
● How are my important relationships going?
● Which goals aren’t I making progress on? Why?
● What’s coming up that I need to prepare for?
● What should I do differently?
● What new skill do I need to start learning? Why?
● Am I happy? If not, why not?
● How can I get more done this week?
● Should I take some time off?
● Am I working hard enough?
I’m sure you spend time thinking about these things, but I’d
bet it’s done in chunks of 10 or 20 minutes here and there,
not 1 or 2 hours of solid, sit­in­a­quiet­place thinking that
happens week in, week out.
Page 32​ of 98 As I was preparing to launch my previous company, I
scheduled 5 hours each week just to think. Yes, each week.
During that time I was unavailable and literally unreachable
to the outside world. I turned off my phone, closed my email,
set my Mac to Do Not Disturb and put a note on my door “Do
not disturb until 2pm”.
During my thinking time I focus on not “doing” anything. I
don’t try to make progress on anything tangible. I don’t mark
off goals on a ToDo list. I just sit in silence and think about
things that are important or top of mind.
I learned about this “success habit” from a life coach I had
back in 2011 and it’s a common strategy used by everyone
from Beyonce to Bill Clinton, Roger Federer, Richard
Branson and Tony Robbins.
How much thinking time do you need each week and which
day is the best for thinking? Those answers will vary based
on how you work, but for me it was Monday morning from
8am until 11am and Friday afternoons from 4pm to 6pm. I
simply created two recurring events in my calendar each
week at those times with the label “Thinking Time”.
Page 33​ of 98 It’s such a simple way to do it, but if you stick with it, it will
transform your life. Give it a try and you won’t be
disappointed.
Page 34​ of 98 Want To Grow Your Business Faster?
If so, come along to my new webinar this week. It’s called "The 9
Specific Things We Did To Build A $100M Business In 3 Years".
I’ll walk you through the critical things we focused on to grow one
of my companies to a $100M valuation quickly. I’ll show you what
we did, but also what we avoided when it comes to hiring, raising
capital, building products and scaling our customer acquisition.
Click here to learn more and register
Page 35​ of 98 CHAPTER FIVE
Inner Voice
Page 36​ of 98 Words have the power to inspire nations, build
relationships, kill people, create companies and sell
products.
They also have the power to slow you down, or even
worse — stop you from even trying to attain or achieve what
you want in life.
Part of success is learning to manage your own psychology.
I’ve written about that before, but it’s easy to write about and
a lot harder to do in real life, even if you’ve achieved some
level of success in the past.
Understanding the impact of words is critically important for
anyone that wants to be better than average.
The words you use define who you become, where you end
up and the kind of contribution you make to the world.
Even more important, though, is understanding the
consequences of the words you say to yourself — you know,
the words you keep thinking about over and over in your
head.
● “I’m not good enough”
● “I don’t really deserve that”
Page 37​ of 98 ● “What if it makes my friends jealous”
● Etc…
There are two words that can completely screw with your
psychology and progress more than you can imagine. And
they’re words you know and probably say to yourself at least
a few times every day.
When put together into a simple phrase, these two words
can trigger feelings of fear, failure, insecurity and ultimately
stop you from having what you want — even if it’s so close
you can almost grab it.
Those two words are:
“What if”
● What if I try and fail?
● What if I can’t do it?
● What if things don’t go as planned?
● What if it’s not really what I wanted?
● What if my husband/wife/partner/kids/parents
don’t approve?
● What if my husband/wife/partner leaves me?
● What if I make a fool of myself?
● What if I lose everything?
Page 38​ of 98 “What if” is the scariest question for anyone who wants to
succeed at anything — whether it’s building a company,
leaving a failing relationship, moving to another country,
quitting a job or any of the thousands of other decisions we
have to make across the course of our lives.
The good news, though, is that if you can learn to be
comfortable with the absolute worst outcome, then you start
to move forward and at least try.
What most people don’t tell you is that the chance of the
worst outcome happening is so low, (in most cases) it’s not
even worth thinking about. We’re talking about less than 5%.
All we’re really talking about here is risk and opportunity
cost. Remember — doing nothing is still making a decision.
You just chose not to pursue your goal.
To stop all of your “what ifs” from slowing you down, you can
run each of them through 3 really simple filters. These filters
will make you think hard and give you perspective on not
just the risk involved, but also how you can mitigate that risk
so it doesn’t stop you from proceeding.
Let’s do a quick example — you’re weighing up whether to
leave your high paying designer job at
Page 39​ of 98 Google/Facebook/Twitter/etc to launch your own design
agency:
Q1: What if I try and fail?
● I’ll have to find another job
● I’ll have to fire the people I hired
● I’ll have to tell investors I’ve lost their money
● I’ll have to tell my partner it didn’t work out
Q2: What is the realistic chance that I’ll fail?
30%
Q3: What can I do to reduce the chance of failure?
● I’ll have to find another job — take 6 months of
unpaid leave to see if I can get my agency going and
bring on my first 3 paying clients
● I’ll have to fire the people I hired — only hire
contractors initially and do a lot of the hands­on
work myself
● I’ll have to tell investors I’ve lost their
money — keep things lean and use $50,000 of my
savings to get started
● I’ll have to tell my partner it didn’t work
out — explain the risk up front and say you’re going
to spend 6 months giving it your best shot
Page 40​ of 98 The idea is simple — look at all of the reasons you might fail
and come up with your best plant to mitigate the chance of
each one actually happening.
When you break down your “what ifs” in this way, you’ll
start to form the foundation for a plan. A plan that can help
you build a bridge from where you are now, to where you
want to be.
The next time you feel the “what ifs” creeping in and
stopping you from making a decision that could
permanently improve the quality of your life, just stop.
Write down all of your “what if” questions, realistically
assess your chance of failure (and conversely, success) and
spell out each risk along with a plan to mitigate it.
Then you have a plan. A plan that can unlock the key to your
wildest dreams and take you from where you are now to
where you want to be in the future. Sure, you might fail, but
let me ask you this — what’s the absolute worst “what if”
question you can ask yourself?
“What if I tried [your goal here] and succeeded?”
Page 41​ of 98 Living with regret is 100x worse than living with feature of
failure (or even real, “holy­shit­it­didn’t­work” failure), so
whatever you want to do, at least give it a try.
Don’t be the kind of person to look back on a boring life that
you could’ve made amazing, had you just taken a little more
(calculated) risk.
Page 42​ of 98 Want To Grow Your Business Faster?
If so, come along to my new webinar this week. It’s called "The 9
Specific Things We Did To Build A $100M Business In 3 Years".
I’ll walk you through the critical things we focused on to grow one
of my companies to a $100M valuation quickly. I’ll show you what
we did, but also what we avoided when it comes to hiring, raising
capital, building products and scaling our customer acquisition.
Click here to learn more and register
Page 43​ of 98 CHAPTER SIX
Self Sabotage
Page 44​ of 98 Most people see a big goal and don’t even get started because
it scares the sh*t out of them. Need to lose 60 pounds? Wow,
that’s a lot. Want to build a $10M revenue company? That’s a
whole lot of zeros.
Whether it’s constructing a 100­storey building, losing
weight, building a company or fixing a relationship, most
goals are hard. And the harder the goal, the bigger the
reward.
So how can you actually accomplish those really big, really
hard goals you’ve been putting off for years?
First, you need to ignore the actual goal and break it down
into a series of smaller milestones instead. The idea here is
that you can knock out a milestone pretty easily, therefore
building momentum and progress towards completing the
actual bigger goal over time.
For example, if you want to build a company that generates
$10M revenue per year, you don’t start by focusing on that
goal. Instead, you break it down into a series of smaller
milestones over time that feel more achievable:
● Year 1: $100K in revenue
● Year 2: $300K in revenue
Page 45​ of 98 ● Year 3: $700K in revenue
● Year 4: $1M in revenue
● Year 5: $2M in revenue
● Year 6: $3M in revenue
● Year 7: $4M in revenue
● Year 8: $6M in revenue
● Year 9: $8M in revenue
● Year 10: $10M in revenue
You would then break year 1 down into a series of smaller
milestones:
● Hire founding team
● Build MVP of product
● Find 20 beta customers
● Decide on pricing model
● Create logo + brand
● Etc…
Suddenly building a company that generates $10M in
revenue doesn’t seem as scary, because you’ve spread that
goal out over 10 separate milestones. Instead of focusing on
the big $10M number, you dedicate all of your focus for this
year on hitting the $100K milestone, which is only 1% of 10M
and psychologically easier to digest.
Page 46​ of 98 This is the exact process I used to launch 5 companies. I also
used it to lose 30 pounds (and subsequently gain 40 pounds
of muscle), conquer fear of flying, my fear of heights and my
fear of public speaking. So it works. Really well.
What about another example that most people struggle
with? Losing weight. Let’s say you want to lose 60 pounds in
2016. “60 pounds” sounds like a lot of weight, but if you
break it down into 12 milestones, it’s only 5 pounds a month.
Better still, what about weekly milestones? 60 pounds
equates to only 1.15 pounds per week, or a deficit of 500
calories per day. Easy!
The key with large goals is to change your frame of
reference and become short­term focused, so you
make regular, measurable progress often.
The second key is to be deliberately short sighted in the
context of that particular goal. Don’t look at your end goal
($10M revenue or losing 60 pounds) too often because it will
stress you out.
Instead, look at your next upcoming milestone every few
days or every few weeks, depending on how spaced out your
milestones are. Add it to Evernote, Wunderlist, Clear or
whichever goals app you use. Seeing a milestone that says
Page 47​ of 98 “Lose 1.15 pounds this week” is a lot easier than seeing “Lose
60 pounds this year”.
Large numbers play tricks with your brain and your
progress. Wherever possible in life, always try to break large
numbers down to a size you feel comfortable with. Whether
it’s debt, revenue, weight or whatever. We aren’t wired very
well to deal with large numbers, I’ve found.
The final thing to remember when it comes to achieving
large goals is to actually jump in and get started. That’s why
breaking your goals into tiny milestones is important. As
human beings, we’re wired to avoid disappointment. If your
goals feel unachievable, you’ll start to self­sabotage.
If a milestone feels within reach, you’re much more likely to
get started and make at least some sort of measurable
progress towards it.
Time for a bit of proof. Read the questions below and notice
how you feel about each of them:
● Can you lose 60 pounds this year? How?
● Can you lose 1.15 pounds this week? How?
Or if you’re building a company, try these:
Page 48​ of 98 ● Can you build your company to $10M revenue?
How?
● Can you build your company to $100K revenue this
year? How?
See what I mean? I bet it was easier to answer “how?” for the
questions with smaller numbers. Same outcome, different
approach.
Don’t work against your brain. Embrace our limitations as
humans and work with smaller, more manageable
milestones and numbers. You’ll have a much better chance
of achieving the goals that scare the sh*t out of you.
Page 49​ of 98 Want To Grow Your Business Faster?
If so, come along to my new webinar this week. It’s called "The 9
Specific Things We Did To Build A $100M Business In 3 Years".
I’ll walk you through the critical things we focused on to grow one
of my companies to a $100M valuation quickly. I’ll show you what
we did, but also what we avoided when it comes to hiring, raising
capital, building products and scaling our customer acquisition.
Click here to learn more and register
Page 50​ of 98 CHAPTER SEVEN
Energy Cycles
Page 51​ of 98 We all feel ups and downs throughout the day, but like most
people, you probably pay little attention to what you work on
and when you do the work. For example, you might do your
meetings in the first half of the day and then do your emails,
etc at the end of the day — because that’s what everyone
else does.
Understanding your energy cycles and the impact they have
on your mood and clarity of thought can actually help you be
more productive and work fewer hours each day.
But what are energy cycles and how can you measure them?
Measuring your energy cycles
Put simply, your energy cycles are the points throughout the
day when you feel “up” (happy, positive, motivated) and
when you feel “down” (unhappy, negative, less motivated).
The best way to determine your energy cycles is to chart
them for a few days, which is really easy to do. Here’s how:
1. Set a reminder in your calendar every hour (such as
9am, 10am, 11am…. 4pm, 5pm) to write down how
you feel on a scale of 1 (down) to 10 (up)
Page 52​ of 98 2. Do this every day for 3 days
3. After 3 days, create a basic chart in Excel to show
your trends over the last few days
Here’s my energy chart from the last 3 days. Each color
represents a single day of tracking my energy levels on a
scale of 1–10:
In the chart above you can clearly see that my energy levels
are highest between 9am and 11am, as well as 4pm and 5pm.
They are the lowest between 12pm and 3pm.
Page 53​ of 98 What you can then do is “map out” the times throughout the
day when you’re “up” and when you’re “down”, as I’ve done
below:
The trick now is to schedule the right kinds of activities
throughout the day.
Scheduling activities based on your energy levels
If you work in an office then you probably have two kinds of
activities:
Page 54​ of 98 1. Those that involve people (meetings, phone calls,
presentations)
2. Those that don’t (email, planning, writing)
The good news is that it’s really easy to schedule activities to
maximize your energy cycles. Quite simply, you schedule the
“people tasks” when you’re “up” and the “non­people tasks”
when you’re “down”.
The logic behind this is simple — when you’re “up” you’ll
be in a better mood, will feel like talking and the energy will
be apparent in everything you do. Those are the times when
you want people to see you and be around you.
On the other hand, when you’re “down” your mood takes a
hit. You feel less motivated and as a result should try to avoid
“people tasks”. When you’re “down” it’s best to focus on
tasks that involve just you. These are typically responding to
emails, planning your day and doing any writing that needs
to be done, such as putting together presentations.
Boosting your “up” time
What if you track your energy cycles for a few days and your
results show that you have a lot of “down” time? How can
you improve your results so you have more “up” time and
therefore improve your mood and motivation?
Page 55​ of 98 The best trick is to exercise at a time just before your energy
levels start to drop. Referring back to my chart, the ideal time
for me to exercise is either 10:30am or 5:30pm:
Exercise releases a chemical in the brain called
dopamine — it’s commonly called “the pleasure hormone”.
That dopamine will not only curb any further drop in your
energy levels, but it will shoot them right back up to where
they need to be (a 7 or more) for you to get back to being
“up”.
Page 56​ of 98 What kind of exercise should you do and how long should
you exercise for? The answer depends on when you work out
and where. Generally at least 30 minutes of moderately
intense exercise (walking, riding a bike, lifting weights) will
do the trick and get enough dopamine released to get you
back on track.
Restructuring your calendar
The final step to bring everything together and take
advantage of your energy levels is to look at how your days
are laid out in your calendar.
In a perfect world you’d move your “people tasks” to the
times of the day when you’re “up” and your “non­people
tasks” to the times when you’re “down”, but that’s not always
possible. If you work for someone else, then move as many of
the recurring events around as you can.
If you have regular big meetings scheduled right in the
middle of some “down” time, then ask your boss or the other
attendees if you can move them a few hours back or forward.
It can’t hurt to ask, right?
Page 57​ of 98 Once you’ve restructured your calendar it’s time to think
about applying the principles of energy levels to the other
areas of your life outside of work.
What about time outside of work?
Now that you’ve optimized your calendar to take advantage
of your energy cycles at work, why not do the same at home?
The best way to start is to track your energy cycles beyond
work hours, from when you wake up until when you go to
sleep for 3 days. As you did at work, determine when you’re
“up” and when you’re “down” and try to do the “people
tasks” (sounds a little harsh, but this would be the time you
spend with your family, friends, etc) when your energy levels
are high and the “non­people tasks” (cooking, gardening,
reading, etc) when your energy levels and mood are low.
Reassess every 90 days
Finally, reassess your energy cycles every 90 days or so.
Depending on your job, home situation, etc, they can and will
change. Just repeat the same 3­day tracking process
explained above and if you see they’ve changed you’ll need
to adjust your calendar to reflect the new “up” and “down”
periods throughout the day.
Page 58​ of 98 Page 59​ of 98 Want To Grow Your Business Faster?
If so, come along to my new webinar this week. It’s called "The 9
Specific Things We Did To Build A $100M Business In 3 Years".
I’ll walk you through the critical things we focused on to grow one
of my companies to a $100M valuation quickly. I’ll show you what
we did, but also what we avoided when it comes to hiring, raising
capital, building products and scaling our customer acquisition.
Click here to learn more and register
Page 60​ of 98 CHAPTER EIGHT
Wellness
Page 61​ of 98 There’s a huge connection between physical wellness and
mental clarity. When you’re in shape you have more energy.
You can get more done. You think better, sleep better and
just make better decisions, period. Your productivity will
skyrocket, too.
When it comes to physical wellness, as the statistics show,
most people will fail. And they’ll fail for two primary reasons:
1. The system is designed around failure
2. They’ll focus on the wrong things
The weight loss industry is worth an absolute boatload of
money and it’s in their best interest to keep you overweight.
Otherwise you’ll stop buying their gimmicks, pills and
powders. They peddle overnight solutions to weight loss,
when deep down we all know they don’t work. But we keep
buying them because the promise of being in shape is a
powerful motivator.
Success starts with your own self­perception. And if you
don’t like yourself, that will negatively affect everything you
do, making even a moderate level of success much more
elusive.
Page 62​ of 98 So why would you listen to an entrepreneur about losing
weight? Well, weight loss isn’t about the mechanics as much
as it is the mindset. And being an entrepreneur means you
need to be pretty good at dealing with tough situations,
building yourself up and believing when no one else does.
Plus, I was overweight until 2008. I was working long hours
building my third company and I lived on Red Bull, pizza and
McDonalds. But one day I snapped (figuratively, not literally)
and decided to do something about my physical condition,
by focusing on my mindset first and body second.
Over the following 18 months (September 2008 — March
2010) I completely transformed myself physically. I lost 31
pounds and then put on 37 pounds of muscle using lots of
trial­and­error, Youtube videos and advice from sites like
BodyBuilding.com.
The transformation improved my effectiveness as an
entrepreneur by at least 10x. I was sharper on my feet, made
better decisions, could do more in less time and started to
bounce off the walls with unlimited energy.
Not only did I experience a transformation, so did my
business. Sure it was still a lot of work to grow the business,
but it didn’t feel as hard as it did when I was carrying the
Page 63​ of 98 weight. I had better clarity of thought and my stress levels
were kept down by the hormone regulation that resulted
from regular exercise.
Truth be told, it wasn’t all that difficult to lose weight once I
figured out what it was really about, which is 80% mental,
20% physical. I break it down into 5 key areas of focus. They
are:
1. Why?
2. Foundation
3. Routine
4. Food
5. Mental Toughness
Let’s look at each key area of focus in more detail.
Why?
Before you do anything, you need to figure out why you want
to lose weight (or put on muscle). You need a compelling
“why”. This is the psychological part of weight loss you’ll
never hear about in an infomercial, but it’s the driving force
behind the stunning physical transformations you see on
shows like The Biggest Loser. Without your “why”, you’ll
yo­yo diet and put all of the weight back on within a few
months. Guaranteed.
Page 64​ of 98 Your “why” is something that should make you cry if you
can’t have it some time in the future. It should be
EMOTIONAL. It should be something you feel. It needs to be
bigger than “Look good at the beach”. The thought of not
having it should steer you away from temptation (because
you will slip up, many, many times) and shock you into
action when you feel lazy.
It should also be measurable and time bound. So what’s a
good “why”? Here are a few you might want to use:
● Get back to my college weight of [weight] so I can
FEEL strong, confident and fit again by December
31st 2016
● Be a ROLE MODEL for my kids and make them
PROUD of me by losing 45 pounds in 2016 and
keeping it off for life
● Lose 45 pounds by December 31st 2016, so I can
TEACH others how to do what I’ve done
● ENJOY watching my kids grow up and have enough
ENERGY to chase them around the house by losing
45 pounds in 2016
● Get in shape by losing 45 pounds to FINISH the 2016
New York marathon
● COMPETE in an all­natural body building contest in
2017 with body fat of < 7%
Page 65​ of 98 Before I got started losing weight back in 2008, I found a
photo of me from 4 years earlier. I was about 30 pounds
lighter and was in good shape. So my “why” revolved around
that photo — “Lose 30 pounds and then gain 20 pounds of
muscle by the end of 2010 so I look BETTER, have EVEN
MORE ENERGY and FEEL AS GOOD as I did in that photo”. I
kept that photo in my wallet and looked at it every day for
motivation. And it worked. Really well.
Foundation
It’s a lot easier to lose fat first and then gain muscle. Yes you
can do both at the same time, but it’s hard. You want to give
yourself the best chance of success, so focus first on losing
the fat and then building the muscle.
I like to call it your foundation — if you build a great (low
body fat) foundation, it’s easier to stack muscle (lean or bulk)
on top of it down the track. If you’re overweight right now,
you’ll have quite a bit of subcontinous fat covering your
muscles anyway, so why not get rid of it first?
In my experience, the best way to lose fat is not to do cardio.
Slow cardio (walks, treadmill, bike, etc) burns up fat but also
muscle. Cardio is great for your heart, especially HIIT, but
isn’t necessary to lose fat.
Page 66​ of 98 There’s a bunch of research online about cardio vs lifting
weights for losing fat, but I prefer to use diet and weight
training (moderate weight, high rep — if you’re female, you
won’t put on bulk) to lose fat. Control your calories via food (a
500 calorie deficit per day based on your BMR) and keep
your metabolism burning using weights.
When you think about where most people come undone, it’s
normally not in the gym. It’s relatively easy to workout 3–4
times per week for most people. It’s the food temptation
that’s the hardest. I’ll talk more about that below.
To build your foundation, you first want to get your BMI
(Body Mass Index) into the normal range, at around 20. You
can calculate yours ​here​. Once you’ve done that, you’ve got a
foundation on which you can start to build some good, lean
muscle quite quickly.
Routine
Treat your workouts like business meetings or
appointments. Schedule them in your calendar as recurring
events every week. You’d never miss a meeting with your
boss or a date night with your partner. Treat your workouts
with the same level of urgency and respect.
Page 67​ of 98 Try to space your workouts over the week and keep at least 1
day between them. Try to combine one push and one pull
muscle group in each workout session, such as:
● Chest and back
● Shoulders and arms
● Legs
If you’ve never lifted weights before, please please please
please please find someone who has, so they can build a good
program for you and show you proper technique. Don’t just
turn up at the gym and jump on the machines — you’ll
make zero progress and give up.
Find a friend and ask them to come to the gym with you for a
few weeks. Better yet (and if you can afford it) hire a personal
trainer. They’ll not only show you what to do and how, but
they’ll hold you accountable too.
As a final option, ​find a program​ on ​BodyBuilding.com​ and
watch the instructional videos on your phone at the gym
before you start an exercise. Always focus on form first and
weight second. If you lift heavy because everyone else is,
you’ll injure yourself and you’ll be out of the game.
Page 68​ of 98 To build your foundation, you want to focus on keeping your
metabolism high when you’re NOT in the gym, which means
moderate weight for 10–15 reps over 4 sets per exercise.
Bonus points if you add supersets or pyramiding. I added
super sets to my routine 2 years ago and I’d estimate it
increased my progress by at least 30%.
Before you workout, have some sort of pre­workout snack.
Coffee is a popular pre­workout, but I like a banana and a few
scoops of Optimum Nutrition’s pre­workout powder. You
need energy stores to lift weights and sugar (such as fructose
from fruit) converts into useable energy fast. Don’t eat a
huge meal before going to the gym.
When you’ve finished your workout, make sure you eat
protein and fast­digesting carbs within an hour. I like to have
a protein shake and some fruit, like 2 bananas or a tin of
pineapple slices.
After a workout your body goes into a catabolic state where it
starts to break down muscle for fuel, so having a high­carb
meal prevents that and keeps you in an anabolic state
(muscle building) as your body starts to repair the (good)
damage you made to your muscles (micro tears) during your
workout.
Page 69​ of 98 Once you’ve built your foundation (lost excess fat) and want
to put on some muscle, you can lower your reps (from 10 to
6–8) and increase your weight.
When you want to continually gain muscle over time, I’ve
found it helps to do 1 of the 3 things during every workout for
at least one exercise:
● Lift heavier weight (without sacrificing form)
● Reduce rest time between reps
● Reduce rest time between sets
Food
First, if you’re focused on losing fat, aim for a deficit of
around 500 calories per day or 3,500 per week. There are
3,500 calories in one pound of fat, meaning you’ll lose (at
least) 1 pound of weight per week — probably more initially
as you lose water weight and flush out other waste.
You need to know your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) as a
starting point, which is how many calories you need to
consume each day based on your current activity levels. You
can calculate that ​here​. Once you know your BMR, subtract
500 calories. That’s your daily calorie target.
Page 70​ of 98 Download MyFitnessPal and track EVERYTHING YOU EAT
OR DRINK. The psychological impact of tracking goes a long
way to keep you on track. If you screw up at one meal, you
can make it up at the next meal by eating fewer calories, etc.
Protein is extremely important because it’s the building
block for creating new muscle. Generally you want to take in
1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, per day. If you
weigh 200 pounds, you consume 200 grams of protein per
day — typically 2­3 protein shakes and 3 meals per day.
To keep sane and stop your metabolism from slowing down,
you should also have one day per week where you eat
whatever you want. This is called an “off day”. If you’ve been
craving chocolate, fries, etc, you eat them on your off day.
Keep in mind, however, that you shouldn’t eat 20,000
calories during your off day. Eat what you want, but don’t
over do it.
If you feel like eating crap during the week and the craving is
really, really bad, keep an “Off Day List” which contains all of
the foods you’re craving. The simple act of writing down the
food you crave and knowing you’re only 1/2/4 days from
being able to eat it will help.
Page 71​ of 98 When you have a craving for a food you only eat on your off
days, go back and read your “why” statement. Read it 20
times. Then go on Youtube and watch a few “before and
after” weight loss (or muscle gain) transformation stories.
That should be enough to curb your cravings 95% of the
time.
You’ll also want to regularly check your pH levels using pee
sticks. You can buy them from any drug store. New research
is showing a strong relationship between the acidity in your
body and the amount of fat you hold on to, regardless of how
much exercise you do and what you eat.
If your pH level is low (5.5 or less on a scale of 0–10), your
body is highly acidic and will hold on to fat to protect organs
from damage. The lower your pH level, the higher your
chance of cell damage and mutation which can lead to
cancer if enough acid forms in your system over time.
If your pH level is neutral or slightly higher (6.5 to 8), your
body is more alkaline, contains less acid and therefore your
body won’t hold onto fat, as there’s no damage to protect
your organs from.
What’s the easiest way to get your pH level up so you’re
more alkaline than acidic? Drink at least one (ideally two)
Page 72​ of 98 fresh green juices every day. Buy a Nutribullet and throw in a
handful of spinach, a handful of kale, half a cucumber, an
Apple, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a cup of water.
Blend it up and drink it. Simple.
Mental Toughness
What causes 99% of people to stay overweight? It’s a lack of
mental toughness. When it comes to losing weight, gaining
muscle and generally staying healthy, it’s all about habit and
routine. You need to get very, very good at doing the same
thing over and over and over and over again. That’s the
secret to success at anything.
Here are some tips that have helped me stay on track over
the years.
If you don’t feel like working out:
● Build a gym at your house or put a gym in your office
(my gym is 5 feet behind me as I type this from my
office. When I need a break I spin my chair around
and hit the weights).
● Don’t think about the actual workout — just get in
your car and start driving to the gym. When you get
there, read your “why” statement on your phone and
put on some music to get you in the mood.
Page 73​ of 98 ● Take your shirt off and look at yourself in the mirror.
Visualize the body you want and then get in the car
and go straight to the gym.
● Change your workout. You should change it every
6–8 weeks anyway. Mix it up if you get bored. Swap
exercises, switch between free weights and barbells,
machines and body weight exercises, etc.
● Ask your partner for a reward that will be waiting for
you as soon as you get back from the gym. You know
what I mean.
If you don’t feel like eating well:
● Eat what you crave, but log the calories in
MyFitnessPal and make sure you keep under your
calorie count for the day. If it’s chocolate, eat a few
squares, not an entire bar. Get just enough to satisfy
you then stop.
● Go out and eat at a restaurant. Mexican food in
particular (beans, rice, chicken and vegetables) has a
great macro­nutrient profile (high protein, moderate
carbs) if you avoid the cheese and fried items.
● Eat something high in protein first, like a protein
shake or tuna. Protein fills you up and will curb your
appetite. You might still eat the bad stuff but you’ll
eat less of it.
Page 74​ of 98 ● If all else fails, just give in. Have an “off meal” and on
your “off day”, just have 2 bad meals instead of 3. As
long as you’re making progress every day, don’t beat
yourself up for falling off the wagon every now and
then. It happens to everyone.
● Finally, realize that if you eat poorly now, the “good
food” like chicken, tuna, rice, sweet potato, spinach,
kale, quinoa, chia, etc will taste horrible because
your body is used to (and craves) the taste of salt, fat
and all the other processed crap. Over a few weeks
your taste buds will adapt and you will start to crave
the good food. Sounds crazy but it’s completely true.
Transforming your body will transform every other area of
your life too. Your mood will improve, you’ll have more
energy and as a result you’ll demand more from life. You’ll
stop settling and will have a new self­confidence which will
make you a better partner, friend, parent, boss, etc.
Do the work and be a role model for everyone around you.
Find your “why”, create a workout program and make it part
of your routine. Eat well 80% of the time and don’t be too
hard on yourself when you mess up.
After a few weeks you’ll see progress. After a few months
you’ll wonder how you lived without the gym and your
new­found energy. You’ll need new clothes and you’ll start to
Page 75​ of 98 receive compliments from people you haven’t seen in a
while. Those positive feelings will push you to work even
harder, leading to more positive feelings and more progress.
I know these statements seem a bit pie­in­the­sky now, but
give it a few months. Stick with it. You’ll see what I mean.
Page 76​ of 98 Want To Grow Your Business Faster?
If so, come along to my new webinar this week. It’s called "The 9
Specific Things We Did To Build A $100M Business In 3 Years".
I’ll walk you through the critical things we focused on to grow one
of my companies to a $100M valuation quickly. I’ll show you what
we did, but also what we avoided when it comes to hiring, raising
capital, building products and scaling our customer acquisition.
Click here to learn more and register
Page 77​ of 98 CHAPTER NINE
Stress
Page 78​ of 98 Doing anything important over time has a lot to do with your
habits, the team around you, etc.
It has more to do, however, with what you tell yourself every
day during those “internal conversations” that play out in
your head.
Psychology is the most under­appreciated, yet most
important part of success and productivity. It rarely gets any
attention because it’s not “sexy”. But man is it important.
Everyone talks about greatness being akin to rollercoaster
rides. There are high highs and low lows. The highs are easy
to deal with — you celebrate, share the victories with your
friends and partner and maybe even down a few beers that
night.
What’s harder to deal with are the (seemingly constant)
lows — when things don’t work out as you expect them to.
The only way through all the shit is to make sure you talk to
yourself every day — but in the right way. Not out loud, of
course, but in your head.
Page 79​ of 98 There are also certain ways you can look at problems to
quickly figure out if they’re potential “killers” or if they’re
just bumps along the way.
You always need to find constant inspiration and rationale to
move forward. That’s what I’m hoping to give you in this
chapter.
Here are some “no bullshit” ways to manage your
psychology. Everything here comes from my direct
experience over the last decade.
1. Use best/worst/probable analysis when weighing
decisions
Most things we fear never materialize, but we spend so much
time stressing over the “what ifs”. An alternate approach is to
look at decisions and problems rationally by creating a
best/worst/probable case analysis.
It’s easy to do — create a spreadsheet with the following
columns:
● Outcome
● Chance (%)
● Stop
Page 80​ of 98 ● Start
● Keep Doing
… then fill in the spreadsheet with 3 outcomes:
1. Best outcome
2. Worst outcome
3. Probable outcome
Chance (%) is the chance of that outcome happening. It’s a
percentage from 1 to 100. In the “stop” column, list the things
you’d stop doing if that outcome came to fruition. In the
“start” column, list things you’d start doing if that outcome
came to fruition. In the “Keep Doing” column, list things
you’d keep doing if that outcome came to fruition.
Pretty simple stuff, but writing down each possible outcome
and looking at things objectively and rationally can help get
the negative, fearful thoughts out of your head extremely
quickly, especially when you realize the chance of the worst
outcome actually happening is probably tiny.
2. Focus like crazy to make meaningful progress
Progress beats the crap out of fear. Every. Single. Time.
Page 81​ of 98 If you feel like shit, commit to spending the next 24 or 48
hours working your ass off to make meaningful progress on
something that’s important to you — and it does NOT have
to be about your business or work.
You could run 10 miles each day, spend more time with your
partner, design a new product or write a 10,000 word blog
post. Writing works best for me (​check out my essays on
Medium​). Whatever it is, make sure the effort is rewarded
with a legitimate feeling of progress in some area of your
professional or personal life.
Feeling like things aren’t moving as quickly as they should
be is the productive person’s curse. You always want things
to move faster and it’s easy to get frustrated when they don’t.
3. Know when to step away
Some days you’ll just feel down. It happens to everyone. On
those days, don’t go into the office. Cancel your meetings.
Spend time alone and do whatever takes your mind off
things. Read, write, exercise, play video games. It doesn’t
matter.
One big key to maturing as someone who is obsessed with
success is to know when you’re just not up to working as you
Page 82​ of 98 normally would. It might be one day every month or one day
every year. But tune in to your thoughts and feelings and
don’t fight them. When you’re forcing yourself to work, it’s
time to do the opposite.
4. Talk to someone and get advice
As a go­getter it’s normal to think you’re the only person
who doesn’t know how to solve a problem. But most
problems have already been solved by someone else. Instead
of beating yourself up for not knowing the answer, talk to
someone — ideally a mentor or coach, but if you don’t have
one, post on Quora or Clarity.fm.
Don’t ever be embarrassed to share your problems and ask
for help. The top 1% of all people are the most vulnerable and
the most opening to learning and listening to others.
5. Ignore your competition
Run a business? Then this tip is for you. Has your closest
competitor just raised $100M. Or gone public? Or won a big
customer. Or hired a smart executive? Who cares?
Spending too much time thinking about your competitors
will run you into the ground. Instead, dial up the time you
Page 83​ of 98 spend with your customers. If you’re not spending any time
with them, now’s a great time to start.
Just email a few and ask them to catch up for a chat. Ask
about their business, how they use your product and what
you can do to make it better.The main thing you’ll get out of
this is real, authentic feedback from paying customers who
LOVE what you do. And that positivity will rub off on you and
how you feel. Trust me.
6. Watch Tony Robbins videos on Youtube
He’s the master of human psychology, plain and simple. Just
go to Youtube, search for “Tony Robbins” and choose a few
videos. After an hour you’ll feel like a different person and
will get more clarity and a better perspective on what’s
important and your current situation.
7. Compare your life today versus 5 years ago
Another easy one. Write down 5–10 things you have today
that you didn’t have 5 years ago. This will bring about
feelings of gratitude, which will help release
dopamine — the “happy chemical” in your brain.
When you write this list, don’t list “stuff”. Write down things
about your business/job, your family (wife/husband, kids),
Page 84​ of 98 places you wanted to visit that you’ve been to, people you’ve
helped, books and people that have changed your life, etc.
8. Realize it takes 7–10 years to make anything truly great
If you’re a few years in, you’re just getting started. 98% of
successful people took at LEAST 7–10 years to make their
first mark on the world. Building anything great is a
marathon not a sprint. Step back and put this into
perspective whenever short term problems are clouding
your long­term view.
9. Go to your vice regularly
What’s the one thing you do that excites the hell out of you?
It should take 100% of your focus and make you feel amazing
when you’re done.
It could be exercise, sex, drawing, painting, public speaking,
helping someone, volunteering, video games or cooking.
Whatever it is, do it regularly to top up your dopamine levels.
If you don’t have a (healthy, safe) vice, spend some time to
find one. Try a lot of new things and keep the ones that make
you come alive.
What’s the worst thing that can happen?
Page 85​ of 98 Suppose you fail. What’s really the worst thing that can
happen? You have to start again? So what. Your lifestyle
takes a bit of a hit? So what. Your pride gets crushed? So
what. You have to tell investors you’ve lost their money, if
your company fails? That’s hard to do, but they’ve baked
your small chance of success into their models.
The odds of everything falling apart are so small that most
times it’s not even worth considering — and that’s from
someone who has been so close to the wheels falling off
dozens of times in the last decade.
You might come close, but the wheels rarely, if ever, fall off.
The next time you feel down/upset/angry/frustrated/like
shit, step back, be aware of how you feel and do whatever it
takes to manage your own psychology — because in the end
that’s really all that matters.
Page 86​ of 98 Want To Grow Your Business Faster?
If so, come along to my new webinar this week. It’s called "The 9
Specific Things We Did To Build A $100M Business In 3 Years".
I’ll walk you through the critical things we focused on to grow one
of my companies to a $100M valuation quickly. I’ll show you what
we did, but also what we avoided when it comes to hiring, raising
capital, building products and scaling our customer acquisition.
Click here to learn more and register
Page 87​ of 98 CHAPTER TEN
Subconscious Mind
Page 88​ of 98 When we launched Bigcommerce in September 2009, we
had no idea how the company would do. We wanted it to do
well, but sometimes you can have the right product at the
wrong time and you’re toast.
I remember very clearly the day we “launched” — which,
back then, meant getting the web site live and crossing our
fingers that our payment gateway wouldn’t choke when
someone tried to sign up.
We were in our third office by that time, in Sydney,
Australia. Eddie and I had locked ourselves in the meeting
room (we only had one back then) for 2 weeks straight, 7 days
a week doing whatever we could to make sure we would
launch on time.
During those 2 weeks we created our affiliate program,
integrated the affiliate software with our web site, designed
our (terrible!) first logo, built the web site, wrote the web site
copy, created all of the web site’s visual assets with
Photoshop and put together a rough marketing plan.
When we finished our 2 week blitz and went live, I was sitting
in my office one morning and had a feeling in my gut that
Bigcommerce was going to be big. Really big. But it felt like
Page 89​ of 98 we were so far from where I thought we could be — and I
knew it would take years of hard work to get there.
At the time (October 2011, a few weeks after launch) we had
about 400 customers. When I thought about my BHAG (Big,
Hairy, Audacious Goal), I decided it would be 10,000 paying
customers.
To me, that would be nirvana. A quick back­of­the­napkin
scribble worked out that would be about $3.6M in ARR
(Annual Recurring Revenue). Subtracting our costs of about
$2M (there were only 12 of us at the time), that’d be a great,
profitable business.
(This was before we’d raised any of our $125M, mind you)
Getting to 10,000 customers seemed a long way off when we
only had 400 at the time. To help get me in the right mindset
every day when I walked into my office, I decided to
implement a simple visualization strategy that I’ve used
before both in business (to build and sell previous
companies) and also personally (to lose 31 pounds in 2008
and then gain 37 pounds of muscle in 2010).
I fired up Photoshop and printed off this page after about 10
minutes:
Page 90​ of 98 Our goal was 10,000 paying customers, so I decided to 2x that
to 20,000 to push myself even harder. You know what they
say — reach for the moon and you’ll land on the stars. Well
10,000 customers was my “star”.
Every morning when I walked into my office and every night
when I left, this completely fake, made up headline was
staring me in the face. I couldn’t avoid it and I’d read it at
least 20 times a day.
Page 91​ of 98 So why did I make up a TechCrunch headline and post it on
my wall? Was I crazy or was there a reason? Let me talk a bit
about the power of visualization and how it can help us as
entrepreneurs.
It All Starts In Your Head
I’ve always been a big believer in visualizing the things you
want. Not chanting with incense and jumping up and down
or anything like that, but legitimately spending time every
week planning and just thinking about where you want to go
and what it feels like to ​be there.
Present tense is really important when you visualize,
primarily because your brain can’t tell if what you’re
thinking about is the truth or not, so your subconscious
mind goes to work trying to align the resources you have to
make your vision your reality.
If this is the first time you’ve heard about visualization, you
might want to re­read the last paragraph until it sinks in.
Visualization is one of the most underrated skills of being an
entrepreneur.
I knew that in order to grow Bigcommerce, we needed to
think big. Much, much bigger than what the company was at
Page 92​ of 98 the time (12 people, completely bootstrapped up until that
point). Uncomfortably big. So big that it made me feel queasy
and nervous.
At that particular point in time, October 2011, it was 20,000
paying customers. That was the number that made me
uncomfortable, so that’s what I decided to 1) visualize and
think about every morning and 2) plaster on my office door
so I was ​forced to think about it, even when I had other stuff
to do.
Seeing that number every day made me start to expand my
context and the belief I had in not just us as founders, but our
product, our vision and our team.
Instead of making decisions in ​today’s context, I would make
them in the context of having 20,000 customers. A small but
important detail.
● I started to read more about building high­performance
organizations and wondered if we could hire leaders
from companies I admired, like Google and Salesforce.
● I wondered if we could one day power billions of dollars
in online orders, instead of a few million dollars (which
is what we were doing at the time).
● I thought about what our business might need to look
like with 20,000 business owners all depending on us
Page 93​ of 98 for their livelihood — not to mention the hundreds of
employees we’d have by then.
● How could my decisions today make sure we’d never
miss a pay run when the company was 50x bigger?
Training myself to think bigger was one of the best things I
ever did, because it put current ​tactical problems into
context when compared to the ​strategic decisions we
needed to make to grow the company to 20,000 paying
customers and beyond.
Never underestimate the control you have over what you
feed your subconscious mind. Feed it good stuff and you’ll
get good stuff. Feel it bad stuff like negative thoughts, fear
and self­doubt and those things will eventually manifest in
your life (rubbish in, rubbish out).
I know this all sounds like “airy fairy” hippy stuff, but
visualization and what you say to yourself when no one is
around has a huge impact on where you end up 2, 5 or 10
years from now.
Did Visualization Work?
So that’s my story. That’s why I made up a TechCrunch
headline. That’s why I stuck it on my office door. And that’s
why I forced myself to look at it dozens of times every day.
Page 94​ of 98 Did it work? Most definitely. Today Bigcommerce has well
over 100,000 paying customers, 500 employees and tens of
millions of dollars in annual revenue, but back in October
2011, 20,000 sure did seem like a big number.
While I’m no longer operational at the company I
co­founded, I really believe that without visualization and
thinking big in the early days, the company would be a
fraction of the size it is today.
Page 95​ of 98 Want To Grow Your Business Faster?
If so, come along to my new webinar this week. It’s called "The 9
Specific Things We Did To Build A $100M Business In 3 Years".
I’ll walk you through the critical things we focused on to grow one
of my companies to a $100M valuation quickly. I’ll show you what
we did, but also what we avoided when it comes to hiring, raising
capital, building products and scaling our customer acquisition.
Click here to learn more and register
Page 96​ of 98 About The Author
Mitchell Harper has launched 5 companies, generating over
$200M in sales and raising $155M in venture capital. He has been
featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
Entrepreneur, Inc, FastCompany, Mashable and TechCrunch.
He is a voracious learner and has always had an obsession with
productivity, high performance and what makes people great. He is
also an advisor, investor and coach to individuals and businesses
with a focus on growth, performance, culture, psychology and
leadership.
Follow me on Facebook
Page 97​ of 98