In life we have to decide how much of life we really want. If you want more in life, that means you have to give up more of your life to get more. There are exceptions to the rule but for the majority of us, we need to decide what is enough. If you always want bigger and better things, there will always be bigger and better things to get but that requires more money and time. Then where are you going to get that money and time from? 

Don't let other people's expectations tell you what you need in your life. You have to ask yourself, how much is enough. Remember when you win the rat race, in the end you're still a rat. So beware of your choices and what you're giving up to get those choices. Are you working in a job that you hate or working many hours but the trade off is losing time with your family? Time with you kids and spouse is something you can never get back again when it's over. So choose wise with the things you choose to pursue.

Journal Prompts

1. How will you know when you’re going after too many things?
2. How can you ensure that enough is sufficient and not too little?

A lot of success comes down to getting the easy stuff right like showing up for a meeting on time, having proper hygiene, being nice, having a great attitude, and having the correct grammar in your emails. This takes effort and time, but if you can't get the easy stuff done in front of someone, what makes you think that the other person will think you will get the hard stuff done right. 

People will notice if you get the easy stuff done because not a lot of other people get the easy stuff done right. But you will get the easy stuff done because you have high standards for yourself and take pride in setting the example for others. You're making the world a better place with your action and eventually it will come back to you. 

Journal Prompts

1. What will happen to your life if you don’t get the easy stuff right?
2. What are some of the easy things that you need to do right? How would this set you apart from others?

We live in a competitive society and it shows. Back 30-40 years ago, if you had a college degree there was a high likelihood that you could get a really good job and be fine for the rest of your life. Now, a bachelor's degree is not enough to get you noticed in the economy and forces some people to spend more money and time on masters degrees and PhDs. You have to decide what path you want to take and what are the trade offs. If you don't want to get a higher education, then going in business or sales for yourself is a good way to make money. Both the academic and business path are going to be a lot of work, but it's what is necessary to set you apart from your competition. So don't wish it was easier, just wish you were better and the way you get better is start focusing on your skills. 

On the path to greatness, there will be sacrifices. Saying no to going out with friends, a lower standard of living while you work towards your goals, and moments of loneliness because not many people are doing what you're doing, but you're a strong individual that can handle that because you trained for this moment. So keep wishing for harder moments periodically because it's what you need to stay focused and stay strong and when other people come at you, you'll be ready for it because you didn't wish it was easier.

Journal Prompts

1. If you constantly did hard things, while the majority of folks did easy things, how would this make you more prepared for life?
2. What is an area that you wish was easier? How can training make it easier for you to do?

This is a trick question because you can't be an average person to become a Marine. For many Marines, they have people come up to them and say they thought about being a Marine but then they didn't do it. Us Marines like to roll our eyes because all you really had to do is say yes and show up. That’s all it takes but Marines know they don’t have an easy journey ahead of themselves. You know it’s going to suck but a Marine once transformed is never the same again.

Same thing with any other ambitious task that you have in front of you. If you want to start a family or a business, you just have to say yes and get started. You'll figure it out as you go. Whatever you want to accomplish in life, there is a path, some paths are going to be more difficult than others and that's okay. Average people don't want to go down that path because it's not average but average gets you average results.

Journal Prompts

1. What does average give you in this life time?
2. How can you not be average with your life?

Life is constantly going to be more and more complicated as we get older as we add responsibilities to our plate. So we need to ensure that we are training our body and mind to handle that increase in responsibilities. So the only easy day should be yesterday. If today was easier than yesterday, then you're not training yourself hard enough. If you want to conquer your dreams and have a great life, you need to challenge yourself to get better every day. Even if the progress is incremental, you still did what was necessary. 

If you have to take a day off, take a day off, but make sure you don't rest for too long because then it might be hard to start again. As people we constantly look for problems because we want to be challenged but sometimes we just keep the problem in front of us because then we don't have to address it, it is there as a scapegoat and go back to it when things didn't go our way. If you keep challenging yourself, then you can learn to overcome and go on to the next challenge. Remember, the only easy was yesterday and you're being transformed into a winner that can handle anything.

Journal Prompts

1. How can you take pride in knowing that the easy day was yesterday?
2. How can you track your days so that you’re doing something challenging every day?

If you want to live the good life, self-mastery over one's self is going to get you there. Once I started working on yourself by becoming physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually stronger, that's when you’ll be able to start seeing real growth in your life. Once you establish this dominion over yourself, then you’re free to live your best life. 

Also, when you can't control yourself, how can you have influence on others? They won't take you seriously if you can't take care of yourself. There is nothing worse that having an incompetent person in charge of you and you should be a competent person yourself so you're not being a hypocrite. If you fail but are trying to be better, that's much better than failing because you didn't even try. So get working on yourself and enjoy the benefits of self-mastery.

Journal Prompts

1. What is the best way for you to gain dominion over yourself?
2. How will you know when you have dominion over yourself?

We have to realize that 2 plus 2 can be greater than four if you bring the right twos to the table. If you substitute your skills with a piece of paper and pencil instead of a computer, you won't be able to go as fast if you had a computer helping you out. With a computer you'll be able to get ten times the amount of work in an hour versus manually doing the calculations yourself. So when you look at your life, look for the 20% that will give you 80% of your results. Not everything holds the same value but the right combination can give you exponential value. 

You can grow the pie to be larger and have more to eat if you get the right pieces together but you must understand how things work together in order to see this growth. This is why studying different fields of study is so useful because you can see how if you mix one idea with another, you can create something new that is really useful. So don’t focus on the whole, focus on the parts that make up the whole and see what needs to be improved on.

Journal Prompts

1. How is focusing on the parts better than focusing on the whole?
2. How can you make the sum of the parts greater than the sum in your life?

The way they train circus elephants is that as babies they put a heavy chain on the elephant's leg and then they pull and pull but can't break the chain. Eventually they just stop trying. Then what happens as an adult, only a rope is on the elephant's leg, which they easily could move but they accepted the victims mindset and will just let rope keep them locked up. 

When you play the victim card, you're letting your past determine today. Just because something happened in the past doesn't mean all the new situations will end out the same way. A victim just stays in the invisible cage and says that they can't move. The best thing you can do is just keep taking action until you finally break through. It might take a long time but the day you quit is the day you become a victim and you might never escape it. 

Journal Prompts

1. Are there any invisible cages that are holding you back? How is your history creating this cage?
2. What is the destiny you want to fulfil? How can you use today to help you get where you want to go?

The world is changing and we can't stop it. If we stay the same as a person, then that wave is going to crush us. The wave is likely not coming for a while but what you can do in the meantime is learn how to surf. There are a ton of skills that we can learn to become better people and help us become more resilient to adversity.

You can hope that the wave doesn't come but it will come. You can't stop the world so enjoy what it gives you and learning how to surf can make the ride a lot more enjoyable. 

Journal Prompts

1. What was a change that happened in your life where you weren’t prepared for it? How did this set you back?
2. What are you doing to learn how to surf?

Winning the lottery could be one of the worst things that could happen to someone. Within a few years, 70 percent of them go broke. While losing a job, could be one of the greatest things that happens to someone. Now they are free to do what they really want and can choose a better life for themselves. That bitter trial was the kick in the butt that they needed to get started. For lottery winners, people just want to hang around them because they have money and will try to get them to spend down their money without worrying about their long term success. 

We tend to learn more from the downsides than the upsides. So when you go through something bitter, just realize down the road, it could serve as something powerful to help you with your future self. 

Journal Prompts

1. What is a bitter trial that you have been through that was a blessing in disguise? What lessons were learned?
2. Where have you learned your greatest lessons? From down or up moments? Why is it like this?