Most people are lukewarm. They live life with one foot in the door, one foot on the porch. They live each day second-guessing themselves. They spend most of their energy battling the internal voice that tells them what they know they ought to do with the voice that tells them it's OK to take it easy, and they shouldn't have to try too hard. These same people never fully decide, are always in internal conflict, and have big dreams that they steadily lose hope on, or subtly minimize their dream each day, week, month and year. Eventually, opportunity passes them by. They never experience the deep joy of tasting the sweetness of their ultimate potential because they're too busy defending the weakness of their current actions. What I'm getting at today is this — you have to be ALL IN, or ALL OUT. You cannot be 80% of something that you say you truly believe in. I've been talking with a lot of leaders lately. People who are business owners, managers, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs... And you know what they all say to me? "Jake, why do I feel like I'm not living up to my potential as a leader?" The answer is one of two things. If you don't know what you believe, you need to get out of your own head by picking up an inspiring book, listening to people with vision, getting away from the distractions of the digital age for an afternoon or get behind another person's vision for a while. Then, when you find what you believe in, meaning, what you believe is worth dedicating your mastery, genius, energy, and time to... you must guard it with your life, set actions that you do not compromise, and take daily action toward it.

If you do not do what you say you believe, you are not guarding what you believe in with your life, setting actions that you will not compromise under any circumstance and taking daily action toward what you believe is worth dedicating your mastery, genius, energy and time to.

We can summarize this point in a single question: Do your actions reflect your beliefs?

In other words, do you BACK the things in life that you say matter? If you DO NOT back what you believe... You are in a constant state of conflict. You say exercise matters, but you're overweight and unhappy with your body, never having enough energy. You say eating healthy is a good idea but you claim you have no time to plan out meals and make them. You say having more money would change your life but you never set a budget, invest monthly, prioritize paying off debt, and then get clear on a strategy to make more money, or get a coach or mentor. You say you want to become a writer but you don't write... EVERY single day. You say you want to help other people get results but you haven't figured out how to get yourself results.

Listen... There's a simple solution to all this.

1. Get remarkably clear on what it is you want to achieve.

How do you do that? Ask yourself what TRULY matters to you. If you died in 5 years, what would you want to be in the middle of doing or at the end of having achieved? In 10 years if you were to die, what would you hope people would say at your funeral? The goal with this exercise is to look inside at what excites you, inspires you, and motivates you. If nothing comes to mind, get busy studying others, reading autobiographies or working from someone else. Get a coach or a mentor. Be unafraid to pay big money to have someone save you time and increase your capacity to add value and generate true wealth in the world.

2. Create a strategy.

Create a one-quarter plan, broken into months and then conduct a weekly review of what your big 2-3 things you must achieve in order to move you toward your goal. Then each day, plan out what your tasks should look like and review these daily.

That's it... I said it's simple, and I meant it. You have 2 things you need to focus on for now.

1. Get clear on what you want to achieve and, if you must, find someone you can apprentice under, study, or pay to coach you if you are in your own way.
2. Have a quarterly plan and break it into 3 parts, 1 plan for each month... Then review this weekly and see how you are performing, assigning yourself daily tasks to make it a reality.

So I leave you with this...

Be so busy experiencing the deep joy of living out your genius each day — that you have no time left for a single excuse.