Today is New Year’s Eve. 2015 was in almost every way the best year of my life.
Broke most business records. Traveled the world for half the year with my wife. Had dozens of unforgettable high impact peak experiences with my friends. Rekindled my drive to learn and much more.
Thought I would share the little retrospection I did for myself — they might inspire some upgrades in your life.
Here are some of the top lessons I’ve learned in 2015:
Upgrade #1: Harnessing The Power of ROCK SOLID DATA
If you don’t have ROCK SOLID DATA, you’re doing the dance of delusion in the land of confusion
In the middle of the summer, I got some health data that blew my mind. It literally shocked me into some massive changes.
I was using some inferior tools to track some progress and when I went with the REAL data, the “muppet data” was off by 50%.
Choose your trackers wisely — it always pays off to get the best data you can. This is also one of the big reasons why I developed Gold Lantern.
Thanks to that mind-blowing data, I’ve been able to change the things that were throwing me off.
It’s really easy to tell ourselves what we want to hear. Data smashes the delusions and that’s a great thing.
Upgrade #2: Experimenting With Bleeding-Edge Brain Technology
I’ve been devoted to doing intense inner spiritual work for almost 7 years now and have experienced an entire psychic change as a result.
However, this year I had the chance to do some of the most intense brain training/spiritual work I’ve ever done.
I was locked in a cutting edge lab for 7 days with my brain wired. I was receiving instant feedback on whether or not my brain was producing alpha brain waves.
And while my brain was wired, I worked on my deepest resentments, fears, stuff I was in denial about, pains of the past, character defects, and more.
And thanks to the technology, I was able to SPEED UP the spiritual progress by years (possibly decades). The data doesn’t lie. You’re either doing the work or you’re not. Another beautiful delusion smasher.
I’ll be writing about The 3 Attributes of The Power Brain in future articles.
One of the biggest benefits I experienced is a massive increase in NEURO-PLASTICITY, which is a fancy way to say BRAIN FLEXIBILITY.
I felt a massive shift in neuro-plasticity thanks to the brain training technology. I’ve always been a natural experimenter, but now I’m constantly pushing my flexibility to new levels.
For those who don’t know — here’s the quick breakdown of the 4 main types of brain waves (and their benefits):
Beta: this is where the majority of the population is the majority of the time. This is a high alert mental state. Beta is a fast brain wave. There’s often stress and anxiety associated with this state.
Alpha: Brain waves slow down. This is often experienced when doing meditation or other types of relaxation. Benefits of this state is: better thinking, more creativity and less stress.
Theta: Brain waves slow down even more. This is the mental state that enlightened spiritual masters LIVE in. There’s also a band of theta brain waves that we often hit when we go to sleep. It’s the state where you start dreaming and you’re semi-conscious.
Delta: Here brain waves are at their slowest. When achieved awake, this state is associated with the most charismatic people. This is also the brain wave that we hit in our deepest sleep.
After 7 days of doing this intense brain training, the average person is able to create the alpha brainwaves of someone who’s been meditating for 20 years.
To say it was a profound upgrade, is a major understatement.
I will be writing a full report about this soon.
Upgrade #3: Simple Sleep Upgrades
I’ve been working on optimizing my sleep for 15 years. I had 2 of the simplest yet most profound upgrades ever this year.
- Wear blue light blocking glasses 2 hours before bed
- Go to bed earlier
I feel significantly more rested in the morning from these 2 changes.
These two changes go hand in hand.
For a long time, I resisted going to bed earlier.
The truth was, I was CRANKED at night.
Wide awake… I could stay up until 2 am or 3 am. I didn’t know it at the time, but the blue light from computer, TV, iPhone, iPads and Kindles were keeping me up.
My brain thought it was still day time.
I take my sleep seriously so I would sleep in until 9:30 am. But even with 7 or 8 hours of sleep, I wouldn’t feel 100% rested. It was like I had a slight hangover.
Thanks to the blue light blocking glasses, I was able to FEEL SLEEPY. Usually 2 hours after I put the glasses on, I’m yawning deep.
Because I’m blocking all the blue light from TVs, phones, and bulbs — my brain thinks it’s DARKNESS and starts producing some vital sleep hormones such as melatonin.
There’s a positive hormonal cascade that happens when you block blue light, go to bed at 11 or earlier, and not eating before hitting the sack. It’s called the prolactin cycle.
This is when your body releases melatonin, and Growth Hormone (one of the most powerful anti-aging hormones in the body).
This is where the saying “1 hour of sleep before midnight is worth 2 hours of normal sleep”.
It’s true because of the hormonal boost you get.
I’m in the process of investing $15,000 in upgrading my sleep technology and systems to the next level. Make sure you subscribe to get the latest updates.
Upgrade #4: Embracing My Next Business Skill — PROCESS Management
My “unique ability” as a business man is marketing. And earlier this year, I realized it’s NOT a big win to go to an another marketing event… read another marketing book… hit another marketing mastermind…
Sure, I can improve 1% from these, which compounded, would add up.
However, what if I can up my entrepreneurial powers by 20%? That trumps a 1% gain.
It was a key realization that as a businessman, it’s a much bigger win to learn some new areas that could greatly benefit the organization instead of just continuing to get incrementally better at my core strength.
As entrepreneurs there are dozens and dozens of vital skills that can benefit our businesses.
As a businessman, it’s better to have WIDTH OF SKILL than depth. The main reason is: you can’t manage what you don’t understand.
You’ll have much more business power if you’re good or half-decent at: marketing, hiring, strategizing, executing, and getting traffic, than if you’re just world-class at marketing and suck at everything else.
You can always hire people that are the best of the best at very specific tasks.
If you’re providing very specific services and you’re a small business, then maybe this doesn’t apply.
For example, if you’re a small Adwords agency — then continuing to sharpen your Adwords skills can be a bigger win. However, if your agency becomes BIG, then you’ll need to start expanding your overall business skills.
And the Universe conspired to get me into: PROCESS MANAGEMENT.
Process management is about creating the checklists. Project management is about making sure the boxes get checked. Process management is about diving into each phase and optimizing the process.
I REALLY DISLIKE doing project management. It goes against all my natural wiring. I’m into creating game plans, visions and strategies, and moving onto the next thing.
The key for me is to partner with Integrators (since I’m a Visionary, using “Rocket Fuel” terminology — I highly recommend this book).
Some extremely successful business friends of mine also strongly recommended: Traction.
I invested in a course on managing change and goals.
I started process mapping all my visions and ideas using LucidChart.
This is my core business learning commitment for 2016.
I will upgrade my process management skills by 100%. Our teams are committed to fully integrating Traction’s 12 business tools.
I think this is a big key to going from a 10-20 person company to a rock solid 100+ people organization.
Upgrade #5: Harnessing The Joys Of Giving
More and more, I’m experiencing the joys of giving back my time, resources, and money to others.
And that feeling of JOY is motivating me to give more and more of it.
One of the bizarre things that happened that really boosted my joy factor was directly giving money to people.
I like supporting the Habitat For Humanity, but it’s not as emotionally gratifying because I’m not seeing the direct result.
So I was in Vegas, gambling in a tournament and every time we would win, I would go up to the walkway between the Venetian and the Wynn, and give away hundreds of dollars. I instantly got high, people were blown away, and then we would go back and win more money.
It was awesome.
I plan to keep on giving more of my time, energy and money in 2016.
Upgrade #6: Getting My Brain To Work For Me Instead Of Against Me
Our bodies are the greatest pharmaceutical machine ever created.
Our perception is constantly triggering emotions which flood our bodies with biochemical neurotransmitters.
Serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline are just a small sample of the “designer drugs” our bodies can produce literally ON DEMAND.
I plan on taking full of advantage of this in 2016 by eliminating unproductive perceptions working against my brain.
For example: instead of comparing where I am to where I want to be, and feeling the pain of that gap… I’ll focus on where I am and compare it to where I was, and focus on the GAINS while feeling gratitude.
That little gem came from Todd Herman. I do a gratitude list every morning when I wake up as one way to implement this.
Another great tip from Todd is: create smaller goals to give my brain dopamine hits.
I’ve also changed how I score my goals.
2015 Was A Blast, and 2016 Will Be Even Better
So there you have it — my year-in review for 2015.
I’ll be elaborating in the future on each of these upgrades in more detail.
For now, I’d like you to take some time to reflect on YOUR #1 upgrade of 2015, and comment below and tell me about it.
I’m a human experiment machine, and would love to hear what’s working for you in taking your life to the next level.
