Mindset & Identity Sculpting

Remember
Shaping Your Mind
Action-Orientation
The "Do" Manifesto
Focus
Learning
Inputs
Creativity
Effort
Business
Memento Mori
Identity Sculpting
Character Traits
Desired States / Affirmations
Personal Vision
Health & Fitness Vision
Mind & Spirit Vision
Social Vision
Creative Vision
Wealth Vision
Business/Professional Vision
Future Visualization
Inspiration
Archive

Remember
Shaping Your Mind

🧠 The quality of your mind is the quality of your life.

Mindset & Identity Sculpting 1

 🔥 You build your character, then your character becomes your destiny. -
Naval

🌎 With our minds we create the world. - Buddha

Be very careful how you spend the first and last two hours of
each day
My closest mentor—one of the most successful leaders in the financial industry—
gave me this tidbit early in my career: “Most people wake up reactively, adhering
to the world’s needs, not their own.” In a world of unlimited communication,
people don’t disconnect from society to analyze their lives.

The first two hours of your day should be spent aligning your short-term efforts
with your long-term goals. I wake up during the week at 8:30-9:30 a.m., taking
the time to meditate and read for 20 minutes. Then I spend an hour doing an light
workout.
The last two hours of your day dictates your energy for the next day. I spend an
hour studying or learning a new skill, and the last hour planning my next day.
Learn to work harder on yourself than your job.

🔥 Build an anti-fragile identity. Re-orienting what your ego is based around.

What you build your self esteem around matters. Most people build it
around being right, good, worthy. These are dead ends. You will inevitably
run into things you are not right or good about. If you build around being
praised around end results and not the process, you will hit a dead end.

Let people "cancel" you. What's dead may never die.

Re-orient around being a learner, about being relentlessly unshakeable,

then you are anti-fragile.

Learners seek the faculty to overcome and move forward.

Mindset & Identity Sculpting 2

 Have to want something super amazingly badly. Willing to sacrifice ego comfort,
and NEED to find truth in pursuit of the goal.
Have to turn “wants” into crushing NEEDS.

You don’t get what you want, you get what you need. -Tony
Robbins

Action-Orientation
Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.

Being successful is rarely about your ability to plan – it’s about your ability
to act.

Be careful about over-planning

👉 Spending too much time designing a system is also a great way to

never get started. Over-planning is often procrastination in
disguise – our brain loves doing what feels rewarding now (doing
research, reading, watching video tutorials) instead of starting the
hard work.

Curiosity, courage, and persistence are the new gatekeepers.

Each day is a new battle to say yes to what matters and say no to what
doesn’t. Focus is a practice. -James Clear

The "Do" Manifesto

Inspired by "Manifesto of a DOer", heavily modified & extended from various
inputs and reflections

1. The way to attract good luck is to be reliable in a valuable area. The more
you repeatedly deliver value, the more people seek you out for that value.

Mindset & Identity Sculpting 3

 Your reputation is a magnet. Once you become known for something,
relevant opportunities come to you with no extra work.

2. "At the higher levels of competitive swimming, something like an inversion of

attitude takes place. The very features of the sport that the 'C' swimmer finds
unpleasant, the top level swimmer enjoys. What others see as boring—
swimming back and forth over a black line for two hours, say—they find
peaceful, even meditative, often challenging, or therapeutic. They enjoy hard
practices, look forward to difficult competitions, try to set difficult goals.
Coming into the 5:30 A.M. practices at Mission Viejo, many of the swimmers
were lively, laughing, talking, enjoying themselves, perhaps appreciating the
fact that most people would positively hate doing it. It is incorrect to believe
that top athletes suffer great sacrifices to achieve their goals. Often, they
don’t see what they do as sacrificial at all. They like it.”

3. What are the minority of my actions that drive the majority of my results?

4. Deadlines serve you best when they are short, hard and (at first glance)
impossible. Urgency gets things done.

Set Goals that scare you, that you don't know if you can reach using your
existing skills and resources. That high bar pressures you to look for new
sources of leverage.

5. Create a habit of always following through. On the big things. On the small
things.

6. Focus on the goal. If something isn’t pushing the goal forward, it's a
distraction. Distractions are the enemy.

7. Obstacles will come your way, think of them as gifts. They will make you
stronger. They will make you more capable. They will define you.

8. Always ask: "What matters most right now?" That's THE question.

"The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

9. Sprint. Rest. Sprint. Rest. We get more done in bursts followed by rest.

10. Keep your energy for pushing forward. The past is done. Things out of your
control cannot be changed. Energy spent being angry, jealous, or cynical is
wasted energy. Don't waste energy, use it.

11. Say no. And say it often. Protect the zone.

12. Make a pact with failure early on. Don’t fear it.

Mindset & Identity Sculpting 4

 13. The energy available to get things done is directly proportional to how much it
matters to you. Only commit to things that matter.

14. Find your multipliers: people, teams, tools that can accelerate the change
you want to make.

15. The few influence the many. Find influencers. Be an influencer.

16. Every minute that you take away from a core activity, or spend distracted by
something else, it takes about twenty-three minutes to get back into that flow
state of productivity. Those distracted moments represent an enormous
opportunity cost.

Focus

⚠ Your most persistent distractions will seem justified to you.

How would the person I want to become spend their time? -Nir
Eyal

“The cost of a thing is the amount of ... life which is required to be exchanged for it,
immediately or in the long run.” -Henry David Thoreau

Learning

💡 "Man,” he said, “you are a learner. Tell me. How can I be a learner?”
“It’s simple. To be a learner, you’ve got to be willing to be a fool.”

Inputs
"Your actions are a consequence of your thoughts.

Your thoughts are a consequence of what you consume.

Mindset & Identity Sculpting 5

 And in the modern age, what you consume is largely a consequence of how you
select and refine your social media feed.
Choose better inputs. Get better outputs." - James Clear

Creativity
Creativity and curation is the drive to find the interesting, meaningful, and relevant
amidst the vast maze of overabundant information, creating a framework for what
matters in the world and why.

“Chance favors the connected mind.” - Steven Johnson

Eventually, everything connects:

“Eventually everything connects–people, ideas, objects … the quality of

the connections is the key to quality per se.” — Charles Eames

We need to learn how to see:

“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

Seeing must lead to thinking:

“The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what
nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.” — Arthur

Mindset & Identity Sculpting 6

 Schopenhauer

Thinking must lead to productive thought:

“Combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought.”

— Albert Einstein

Ready to start? Find where the last person left off:

“I readily absorb ideas from every source, frequently starting where the last
person left off.” — Thomas Edison

“A good idea is never lost. Even though its originator or possessor may die
without publicizing it, it will someday be reborn in the mind of another…”
— Thomas Edison

Effort
"People with writer’s block don’t have a problem typing. They have a problem living
with bad writing. The best way to deal with it is to write, and to realize that bad
writing isn’t fatal." -@SethGodinBlog

"A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of
the time — most people don’t even try, and just accept that things are the way that
they are. People have an enormous capacity to make things happen. A combination
of self-doubt, giving up too early, and not pushing hard enough prevents most people
from ever reaching anywhere near their potential."

"Ask for what you want. You usually won’t get it, and often the rejection will be
painful. But when this works, it works surprisingly well. Almost always, the people
who say “I am going to keep going until this works, and no matter what the
challenges are I’m going to figure them out”, and mean it, go on to succeed. They
are persistent long enough to give themselves a chance for luck to go their way." -
Sam Altman (Source: How To Be Successful)

Business

🔥 Success is something you attract, by the person you become - Jim Rohn

Memento Mori
LAST BUT MOST CERTAINTLY NOT LEAST...

Mindset & Identity Sculpting 7

 “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life.
Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. …
The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is
never short of time.” Seneca

At a Roman triumph, the majority of the public would have their eyes glued to the
victorious general at the front—one of the most coveted spots during Roman times.
Only a few would notice the aide in the back, right behind the commander,
whispering into his ear, “Remember, thou art mortal.” What a reminder to hear at the
peak of glory and victory!
It is reminders like this one that we desperately need in our own lives—a thought or
an idea that we’d rather ignore, do everything to avoid and pretend is not true. Most
often, our ego runs away from anything that reminds us of the reality that sits at odds
with the comfortable narrative we have build for ourselves. Or, we are simply
petrified to look at life’s facts as they are. And there is one simple fact that most of us
are utterly scared to meditate, reflect on and face head on: We are going to die.
Everyone around us is going to die.
Such reminders and exercises take part of Memento Mori—the ancient practice of
reflection on mortality that goes back to Socrates, who said that the proper practice
of philosophy is “about nothing else but dying and being dead.” In early Buddhist
texts, a prominent term is maraṇasati, which translates as ‘remember death.’ Some
Sufis have been called the “people of the graves,” because of their practice of
frequenting graveyards to ponder on death and one’s mortality.

Meditating on your mortality is only depressing if you miss the point. It is in fact a tool
to create priority and meaning. It’s a tool that generations have used to create real
perspective and urgency. To treat our time as a gift and not waste it on the trivial and
vain. Death doesn’t make life pointless but rather purposeful. And fortunately, we
don’t have to nearly die to tap into this. A simple reminder can bring us closer to
living the life we want. It doesn’t matter who you are or how many things you have
left to be done, a car can hit you in an intersection and drive your teeth back into
your skull. That’s it. It could all be over. Today, tomorrow, someday soon.

Find this thought invigorating and humbling. It is not surprising that one of Seneca’s
biographies is titled Dying Every Day. After all, it is Seneca who urged us to tell
ourselves “You may not wake up tomorrow,” when going to bed and “You may not
sleep again,” when waking up as reminders of our mortality. Or as another Stoic,
Epictetus, urged his students: “Keep death and exile before your eyes each day,

Mindset & Identity Sculpting 8

 along with everything that seems terrible— by doing so, you’ll never have a base
thought nor will you have excessive desire.” Use those reminders and meditate on
them daily—let them be the building blocks of living your life to the fullest and not
wasting a second.

Identity Sculpting
Character Traits
Motivated: I wake up by 9:30am, at my desk by 10:30am. Stop time at 11:00pm,
then in bed by 12:30pm to read, lights-off meditating at 1:00am, eyes closed by
1:30am

Relentless: I will stop at nothing to win and achieve my goals, I will push
through anything. I will forcefully drive toward my goals, taking multiple key steps
every single day.

Fearless: I am not afraid of anything and have a high pain tolerance.

Thoughtful: I am smart and thoughtful about what I take on and how I

implement.

Powerful: I will act and implement with confidence.

Forgiving: I forgive everyone for everything.

Creative: I will explore new and old concepts alike. I will combine existing bits of
insight, knowledge, ideas, and memories into new material and new
interpretations of the world. I find patterns where others see chaos.

Curious: I am a curiosity architect, a discovery engine for interestingness. I

have a relentless drive to find the interesting, meaningful, and relevant amidst
the vast maze of overabundant information, creating a framework for what
matters in the world and why.

Desired States / Affirmations

Personal Vision
FAMILY FIRST. EVERY DAY IS MOTHERS DAY AND FATHERS DAY.

Mindset & Identity Sculpting 9

 I AM A LOYAL FRIEND, A PASSIONATE LOVER, AND A FEARSOME
OPPONENT.

I AM CAPABLE OF RAPIDLY MANIFESTING THE LIFE OF MY DREAMS

I TAKE ACTION TODAY, I LIVE IN THE PRESENT.

I AM IMPECCABLY DISCIPLINED. EVERYDAY, I MAKE CHOICES THAT WILL

CONTRIBUTE TO MY SUCCESS.

I ONLY SAY YES TO THINGS THAT MATTER.

Health & Fitness Vision

I AM STRONG, HEALTHY, AND RIPPED.

I AM FREE FROM UNHEALTHY HABITS, BEHAVIORS, FOODS, AND

SNACKS.

I HAVE GREAT POSTURE - SHOULDERS BACK, BREATHING THROUGH

NOSE, EYESBROWS UNFURROWED, JAWS UNCLENCHED, SOFT BUT
FOCUSED GAZE.

I DO NOT EAT MANUFACTURED CHEMICAL SLOP. I ONLY EAT NATURAL

FOODS WHICH CAN BE GROWN OR KILLED.

I AM COMPLETELY IMMUNE TO ALL PHYSICAL AND MENTAL ILLNESS.

Mind & Spirit Vision

I AM THE LUCKIEST MAN ON EARTH. MY LUCK GROWS WITH EACH NEW
DAY.

THE LIGHT INSIDE ME SHINES BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN. THE SPIRIT
INSIDE OF ME IS STRONGER THAN STEEL.

I AM THE SOLE CUSTODIAN OF MY MIND, NOTHING AFFECTS ME UNLESS

I ALLOW IT.

I LIVE A LIFE FULL OF MAGIC, THE UNIVERSE AGGRESIVELY CONSPIRES

IN MY FAVOUR AND ORGANIZES ITSELF IN SUCH A WAY THAT THE VERY
SEAS THEMSELVES PART SO THAT I MAY WALK THROUGH THEM.

MY CONNECTION TO THE DIVINE IS REAL AND INFINITE.

EVERYTHING IS WORKING OUT PERFECTLY FOR ME AND WILL

CONTINUE TO DO SO

Mindset & Identity Sculpting 10

 NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER.

I DO NOT TURN MY BACK TO FEAR, I FACE FEAR HEAD ON. I AM AFRAID

OF ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THIS WORLD.

I AM UNSHAKEABLE AND RELENTLESS. NO PRESSURE NO DIAMONDS.

THE OPINIONS OF OTHERS ARE MEANINGLESS TO ME.

I AM IMMUNE TO DEPRESSION.

Social Vision
I HELP PEOPLE CONNECT TO THE TOOLS, RESOURCES, AND IDEAS
THAT THEY NEED TO HAVE TO GO WHERE THEY WANT TO GO.

I VIBRATE WITH HIGH ENERGY AND DETERMINATION WHICH I AM ABLE

TO TURN ON AT WILL.

I MOVE WITH POWER AND POISE. MY AURA NATURALLY ATTRACTS

POSITIVE OUTCOMES.

I ONLY GIVE MY ENERGY TO POSITIVE LOYAL PEOPLE WITH LONG TERM

GROWTH MINDSETS.

I AM CONFIDENT SOCIALLY AND ENJOY LEADING PEOPLE. I MAKE

FRIENDS EVERYWEHRE I GO - ZERO RISK, INFINITE RETURN.

I FORGIVE EVERYONE FOR EVERYTHING.

Creative Vision
I AM A CARTOGRAPHER OF CONNECTION, A CURIOSITY ARCHITECT, A
READER WHO WRITES, A DISCOVERY ENGINE FOR INTERESTINGNESS

I TAKE ALL THAT IS ALIVE AND AWAKE TO THE WORLD AND AMASS A
COLLECTION OF CROSS-DISCIPLINARY BUILDING BLOCKS -
KNOWLEDGE, MEMORIES, BITS OF INFORMATION, SPARKS OF
INSPIRATION, AND COMBINE AND RECOMBINE THEM INTO NEW THINGS

I FIND PATTERNS WHERE OTHERS SEE CHAOS - CHAOS IS THE

OPPORTUNITY

Wealth Vision
MONEY COMES TO ME EFFORTLESSLY

Mindset & Identity Sculpting 11

 SPEND MONEY TO CREATE LUCK

MY CUP IS OVERFLOWING WITH INFINITE WEALTH. BECAUSE I AM

BLESSED WITH EVERYTHING I NEED, MY BLESSINGS MULTIPLY OVER
AND OVER AGAIN SO THAT I MAY SHARE MY JOY WITH OTHERS.

I CONTINUE TO ATTRACT WEALTH BECAUSE I AM HELPING OTHERS

ABUNDANCE IS MY NATURAL STATE

I LOVE MONEY BECAUSE MONEY LOVES ME

Business/Professional Vision
Outline what you would like to see your work life to be like in 5 to 10 years
[mines redacted]

Future Visualization
Essay painting picture of future self in 10 or more years. Or write a sample daily
journal of a day in your life in 10 or more years. Really depict it with a lot of revealing
detail. We will do exercises on this in future live sessions.

Inspiration
Photo Montage of Images I want to shape myself and my life into.

Or if you prefer, try what I do and turn your Pinterest and/or Instagram accounts
into inspirations boards.

Use music to program your mood. Here's my Spotify.

Archive
Save old ones here that no longer resonate as much, never know if you might
want to access them again.

Mindset & Identity Sculpting 12