8 Principles For Success
Chris’ 8 Principles to optimize for quality: From studying personal development and intentionally surrounding myself with successful people since I was 16, I’ve written down 8 principles/ideas that I believe, if one has (no matter one’s current situation in life), the sky's the limit. I look for these principles in those who I look up to and those who I choose to closely surround myself with.
1. Extreme Open-mindedness (vs closed-mindedness): While I'm generally not a fan of secret societies, Kevin Trudeau shared a great concept from what it takes to rise up the ranks as a FreeMason. One needs to have an extremely high “teachability index” (Teachability Index = Willingness to Learn X Willingness to Accept Change). Without realizing it, most people have low willingness to learn anything after they graduate from high school or college and would score say below a 5 on a scale of 1-10. In my opinion, a small fraction of people have a high willingness to learn (above 7) BUT are still extremely resistant to accept change even when presented with new/better information. A relatively high willingness to learn (>=7) times a relatively low willingness to accept change equals a low teachability index. I try to surround myself with the very few who exemplify high willingness to learn AND high willingness to accept change (get out of one’s comfort zone and form new habits/relationships that better serve you).
2. True growth mindset (vs fixed mindset): Carol Dweck, PHD in psychology and professor at Harvard/Stanford/Columbia, wrote one of my top 7 favorite books called “Mindset” that dives deep into this topic. In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort. I view success in any area of life like climbing up a muddy mountain - if you stop climbing up the mountain step by step, you begin to slide down, eventually gaining momentum downwards until you steadily climb back up. I also love Tom Bileu’s definition of “Success” - building a set of skills that allows you to DO something very well that positively impacts other people”. “Failure” simply equals not trying (less about the result and more about the process/effort).
3. Internal locus of control (vs external): In my mind, this concept is closely related to having a growth mindset but isn’t quite the same. In personality psychology, locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they have control over the outcome of events in their lives, as opposed to external forces beyond their control. People with a strong external locus of control tend to praise or blame external factors such as the teacher or the exam. They’ve done countless studies that a common denominator of successful people is that they ALL have an internal locus of control. An external locus of control is synonymous with a “victim mindset” and is the equivalent of a Pavlovian dog in my opinion.
4. Perspective management (narrowing emotional highs/lows, emotions on a continuum, expectation management/gratitude-focused): Perspective management encompases a few ideas, is highly related to the concept of “emotional intelligence”, and is perhaps one of the most important principles on this list. This concept is also related to Fredick Dodson’s “Levels of Energy” book that I highly recommend.
Generally, the older (and wiser) I've gotten, the less my emotions “swing” from high highs and low lows (think of a sine graph that has been compressed, but still shifted up on a graph towards a higher average energy level). The way I think about it is that children (and the majority of immature adults) let their emotions swing all over the place (largely from external factors) while mature adults know how to properly handle/channel their emotions to live in a more controlled/balanced state where decision making can be more rational in general (why I resonate with Stoicism).
Emotions on a continuum is a concept I came up with when I lost a brand new $400 pair of Persol sunglasses while boating with my friends in Capri, Italy. I forgot to wear my cheap $20 pair I brought and within 10 minutes of getting out on the water, the Persol’s flew off my head after hitting a big wave going 30mph+ (my friend was driving super fast). Everyone panicked to turn the boat around but I stopped them knowing they’d be lost for good. At this point, I’d ask you - how long would one “normally” grieve over the loss of beloved sunglasses? 1 day? 1 week? several weeks? Point being that each person would have a different answer for themselves and society as a whole often has conditioned times that it’s socially acceptable to feel certain emotions. However, perspective management is about being able to realize what emotions best serve you, and choosing to feel those emotions as often as possible realizing that we can choose to allow any event to affect us for any period of time (emotions on a continuum). Furthermore, in any situation like this where something (bad) happens out of your control, it is my opinion that you can beneficially do only two things 1) ask yourself, “what can I learn from this happening?” and 2) minimize the time it takes to get over it. Of course I was sad momentarily about the glasses but (whether it was “my fault” or not) after about 10 seconds, I chose not to let it ruin my day and had an incredible rest of the day and trip.
Lastly, having high expectations rarely benefits one in any scenario. Chip Conley shared these life equations I really like on these points:
Despair = Suffering - Meaning
Anxiety = Uncertainty x Powerlessness
Disappointment = Expectation - Reality
Happiness = Wanting what you have (gratitude) / Having what you want (gratification)
All of these “life equations” can be radically shifted with proper perspective alone. Per Gary Vaynerchuk (one of the masters of perspective IMO) says it best - you already won the lottery for coming into this world as a human! (not a tree, rock, bird, etc.)...add on the fact that you’re born in the USA, let alone in California (arguably the best state), let alone with (hopefully) parents who love and support you, have an education (likely from a great school), are good looking...the list goes on and on - we are extremely fortunate to be apart of the 0.0001% from birth, it’s very easy to take this for granted without perspective management. Two of my favorite short sayings on this are “Life is too short not to ________” and “This too shall pass”. The shortest path to happiness: start and end your day with gratitude (which is driven 100% by your perspective).
5. Detachment from Ego: Read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle to understand why detachment from the ego is essential. Research has shown that over 90% of our daily thoughts and worries are the exact same day to day. The vast majority of these thoughts consist of 1) biological drives (I’m hungry/thirsty, I’m horny, etc.) 2) socially conditioned beliefs (men are ____, asian people are _____, etc.) and 3) ego gratification (trying to look cool). For those of you that believe in life after death, as a thought experiment I'd ask you, what part(s) of us go to heaven? Certainly none of what was just stated! Many would say that the truest thing they would take is their relationship with their creator, with their close friends/family, and the positive amazing memories and emotions they created while on earth.
6. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff & The Magic of Thinking Big: Both of these ideas are book titles (on my list below) and are somewhat opposite, yet dually necessary beliefs to hold concurrently in my opinion. “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff...and it’s All the Small Stuff” is one of the best little books on perspective management that helps one put into context how truly short life is, what really matters, and why (“How Will You Measure Your Life” is great for this too). The Magic of Thinking Big is about reframing what’s possibly achievable in life and to shoot for the Pluto even if you want to land on the Moon per se (10x rule by Grant Cardone is complementary too). The combination of these two concepts allows one to play with the idea that nearly everything is both incredibly important, yet utterly unimportant at the same time in the grand scheme of things and aids in understanding several of the other principles more deeply.
7. Focus on what you WANT - Be solutions oriented: Tony Robbins has gone all over the world studying success and human achievement. 99% of the time he asks people what they WANT and they unknowingly tell him what they DON’T want (E.g. Q: How do you want to feel? A: Well, I don’t want to feel tired all the time! Instead of saying they want to feel energized/excited/passionate Or Q: How do you want your financial situation to change? A: I don’t want to be broke all the time! Instead of saying they want financial abundance to take care of their families etc. What you focus on grows in any area of life, focus on what you want and think HOW can we solve this, not WHY can’t we solve this.
8. Abundance mindset (not scarcity): This is one of the most important concepts that relates heavily to the law of attraction best taught by Bob Proctor, Kevin Trudeau and others. One can easily spot an abundance (or scarcity) mindset in the subconscious of others by the simplest of actions - the crabs-in-a-barrel concept being one of the most obvious among groups of people. In short, a scarcity mindset says: “There isn’t enough (money/opportunity/success)”, “Success is a fixed pie”, “Not everyone can win”, “ “My friends/family/acquaintances/enemies that are getting ahead in life are somehow hurting me”. An abundance mindset says: “There’s more than enough for everyone”, “Anyone succeeding around me actually helps me”, “I want everyone to win”.