What happens when I miss a step?

This morning I was rushing to get out of my parents' house to catch a bus up to NYC. I missed the bottom step of the stairs that I've walked down thousands of times in my life and down I went. Hard.

What happens when I miss a step?

I end up on my ass.

When I realize what happened, I did a quick check to recalibrate, make sure nothing was broken or injured, laughed it off and then kept going.

Why am I sharing this?

Because I have many conversations with people who are so worried that they have to be perfect.

It is easy to get caught up in this mindset. If I make one wrong step, it could ruin everything. There is real fear behind this. We've seen it happen on social media countless times. It's a part of our culture these days just as much as gifs and tik tok (can't wait to see how this reference ages in a few years).

When we are fearful that one wrong step could derail our entire lives, we don't ever take that next step.

We become stagnant. We don't move. We freeze. We allow the fear to run the show.

It's no way to live.

If we want to achieve the greatness and impact we desire in this lifetime, we have to take steps each and every day knowing that some days we're going to miss a step. We have to trust in our abilities and reflexes to keep us safe and allow us to quickly recover.

Even with the misstep and wipeout this morning, I still made the bus, my day will go on, and in very short order it will be like it never happened. On to the next one.

How do I control the things I can't control?

We humans have been hardwired to desire a perception of control since before there was recorded history. Studies show that control is not only essential for our well-being, but that in earlier times it was a biological imperative for our survival as a species.

So it's no wonder we want to control anything and everything.

And yet we can't.

We can't control the weather. We can't control the color of the sky. We can't control other people's feelings and experiences. In fact, there is actually very little in this world that we as an individual can control.

The simplified version of what we can control from my perspective is this:

• Mindset
• Focus
• Self Care
• How we show up

That's pretty much it.

All of those things within our control are internal, and yet we put some much effort into trying controlling the external world. We spin our wheels and exhaust ourselves physically, emotionally and spiritually with virtually nothing to show for it. And it makes sense if we think about it from an evolutionary standpoint. Our ability to control was central to our survival, but now it's almost the opposite.

Today, our ability to let go of the need for control of our external environment is key to our health and happiness. What served our ancestors so well is the very thing that is holding us back today.

When I find myself trying to control the things I cannot control, I go through a simple exercise.

What's the worst that could happen? What's the best that could happen? And what's the most likely thing that could happen? Once I identify these, I make them real in my mind so that I can feel and experience each of these possible paths. From there, I'm able to let go of my need to control the things I can't control. I have prepared myself for whatever will happen, so I can focus on the things I can control.

Trust me, I know this is easier said than done. I'm experiencing this all right now in real time with my father being in the hospital. And I keep coming back to this frame of control. I will control the things that are within my control, and I'll let the rest of it go.

Who's calling the shots around here?

At the core of my being, I consider myself to be a builder and a scientist.

I build products, technologies, and teams that help humans be better, and I create experiments to test my wild assumptions and hypotheses about the ever-changing world we live in.

I have noticed recently that I have been allowing my Human to be calling the shots with some of my experiments. I wrote yesterday about a major change to that. Let me explain.

My Human optimizes for moment to moment pleasure and pain avoidance with a very short term focus. My Higher Self only wants one thing: to actualize my potential within this lifetime.

With my Human at the helm, my experiments often result in falsified data.

For example, about a year ago I tried banishing alarm clocks and normal sleep schedules from my life. I would go to bed when I felt exhausted, and I would wake up naturally when my body was well rested. To my Human, this was incredible. Total sleep freedom. To my Higher Self, it was a hot mess. No schedule, no consistency, no rhythms, no structure. Every day was an adventure, which is certainly exciting but definitely not optimized for getting shit done.

When I'm out of alignment, the wisdom of my Higher Self gets diminished and the voice of my Human wins.

I'm realizing that I have done this with so many things. Work, diets, exercise, distractions, video games, finances, relationships. The list goes on and on.

When I run these micro experiments from an unaligned place, its easy for my Human to justify the results to be more focus on the here and the now. Now, there was nothing wrong with letting my Human run these experiments. At the time, I'm sure I needed more sleep or craved distractions. My Human has got my back. I know that.

This simple yet profound awareness explains so much of the inner conflict that has been present recently. I am past the stage of needing the protection of my Human. What a beautiful gift to have my Human know exactly what was needed when it was needed. Thank you.

Now it's time though to let the Higher Self back in the driver's seat so we can make it rain abundance on the whole damn planet.

Why am I going all in with Mamba Time?

The news of Kobe Bryant's death hit me hard.

I want to take the space here to work through what has been coming up and why this feels like such a significant moment in time for me personally.

Kobe admittedly was not perfect, and it is entirely up to you to choose to forgive him for the things he did. Or not. It makes no difference to me which way you decide. I'm not going to say which way I fall, because it really doesn't matter for this conversation. What matters here is that Kobe has something valuable to teach me, and I can separate that lesson from the rest of his life. Just as Einstein and Jobs were geniuses, they also did things with which I fundamentally disagree. Same with Kobe.

I'm also not writing this for page views or in an attempt to capitalize in any way from this tragedy. I'm writing this now because it feels so real and raw. I'm writing this for me. As always.

---

ESPN shared a video the day after the crash with the following quote from Kobe:

"I've always said that I want to be remembered as a player that didn’t waste a moment. Didn’t waste a day. I’ve felt extremely blessed with this god given talent. At the same time I didn’t take it for granted at all.

If I could be remembered as a person who was born with a lot of talent who did everything he could to overachieve and live every day as if he was 12th guy on the bench. I think that’s a very powerful message to have."

This video stopped me dead in my tracks.

Have I done everything I could to overachieve with the talent that I was given?

Absolutely not.

Gut punch.

I truly believe that I have massively underachieved compared to what is possible for me in this lifetime. I've taken my talents for granted. I've wasted more days and moments than I ever care to admit.

It makes me sick to type this out, because I know it's true. Ahhhhhhhhhh! Fuck.

That ends right now.

In future Thoughts, I'm sure I'll want to work through the situations and scenarios that led me to this moment, but this isn't the place for them. This isn't about the past. This is about owning up to wasted moments and under performance. And this is about stepping into the new me. The guy who doesn't waste a moment and does everything I can to overachieve with what I've got.

I truly believe that I have the talent to be an all time great entrepreneur and leader. But talent alone doesn't cut it. It's the moment to moment decisions and actions that make that possible. I realize how far fetched that sounds based on where I am at presently and what I've accomplished thus far. It feels like I'm playing "Horse" in the elementary school gym while talking about winning MVPs, scoring titles and multiple NBA championships.

There are similarities that are jumping out about what it takes to be an all time great at anything in life. Intense, laser-like focus on the most important thing. Incredible discipline. Leading others to elevate their game to new heights. Never wasting a moment. Sure, there are massively successful entrepreneurs who might do the opposite of some of those, but that hasn't worked for me. These are what has allowed for me to be my best for brief moments in the past, and I'm tripling down on that.

I don't yet know all of the answers of how I channel my dark energy into an alter ego like the Mamba Mentality, and I'm ok with the answers revealing themselves over time. What I do know is this.

For the next 60 days, I'm committing to Mamba Time. I've blocked off 3 hours every morning starting at 5am. I will begin each day by watching this video and then move into 1 hour of mediation, 1 hour of yoga, 1 hour of reading / writing. Every day.

At the end of 60 glorious days of Mamba Time, I'll re-evaluate. By starting each morning from this foundation, I will have set myself up powerfully to make the most of each and every moment I have on this planet and overachieve with the talent I was given.

Why do I seek out difficult conversations?

This might sound counter intuitive at first, but I have found that a measuring stick for the greatness of a leader can be marked by the number of difficult conversations that they've had.

A first tendency could be to think that the best leaders aren't having very many difficult conversations at all. They are incredible visionaries who avoid all obstacles and conflicts. They are fully pre-emptive in everything that they do. All sunshine and rainbows.

We know that is not true.

Being a great leader is measured in how we perform in the good times and the bad and everything in between. And one of the most important things a leader can do is to always be willing to have the difficult conversations. Say what needs to be said with no fear or hesitancy of the challenging aspects of these conversations.

It's not easy, especially in the beginning, to always be the one who is saying the things that need to be said, and yet it is so critically important to the impact and success of a leader. It takes courage. It takes a certain level of detachment from how the leader may be perceived in the short term. And it takes a willingness to ruffle some feathers to help ensure the highest possible outcomes.

The best leaders I know are actively seeking out the difficult conversations. These conversations are wide ranging:

• With a team member who may be upset about something
• With a client who is angry with how they've been treated
• With a prospect who is going to go with a competitor
• With an investor who has some critical feedback on growth
• With a family member who is doing something hurtful
• With a significant other when there is some form disagreement

The list goes on and on. The way to the best results and biggest impact is through these difficult conversations. Once we have opened up a safe space for people to say what isn't being said, we can embrace it head on. Otherwise, these things may linger in the background leading to assured destruction: either through catastrophic damage or a slow drip of degradation of quality or engagement that corrupts everything it touches.

When we open up space for these conversations, it has the opportunity to move the relationship forward in leaps and bounds. It also has the possibility to end a relationship that is no longer aligned. And while that might not feel so good at first, it is way better to be open and honest and say what needs to be said rather than pretending everything is fine.

As leaders, we want to know these things so that we can take action. Armed with the knowledge of the unspoken, we can properly steer the ship. Otherwise, we are guessing, second-guessing and making assumptions.

In my personal experience, these difficult conversations do not get easier. They are always difficult, hence the name. What does happen though is we get more skillful in our approach, in our delivery, in reaching our desired outcomes. And the only way to build that skill is through getting in more reps.

The best leaders are the ones who have had the most difficult conversations and are well versed in cutting through the bullshit and speaking the unspoken.

Please don't artificially manufacture difficult conversations if there's nothing there. There will be plenty of opportunties to practice this as step into our role as leaders. Just be ready to face them head on when they arise.