mindset

Book Summary of Be Your Future Self Now by Benjamin Hardy

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In “Be Your Future Self Now,” Benjamin Hardy makes the case that in order to achieve ultimate success, you must become your highest self, or “future self.” Achieving this requires identifying your higher self and committing to life-changing goals above all else. This guide will explore Hardy’s argument and provide recommendations for adopting the necessary mindset, supplemented by other success experts.

The Importance of Your Higher Self

According to Hardy, success in life means reaching your full potential by becoming your highest self. This requires all your present actions to move you closer to that goal. Identifying your higher self early on is crucial because your present actions are driven by your future goals and desires.

Having a clear and ambitious vision of your higher self helps you take productive actions in the present that will benefit you over time. Conversely, lacking a clear vision of your higher self leads to unproductive actions that harm your progress towards becoming your best self.

When You Lack a Clear Vision, You Become Unproductive

According to Hardy, lacking a clear vision of your higher self leads to unproductive behaviors that hinder your progress towards becoming your best self. These include instant gratification and non-crucial activities that feel rewarding in the short-term but do not contribute to your long-term goals.

Engaging in such behaviors takes away from the time you should be dedicating towards becoming your higher self. Hardy recommends identifying your higher self and committing to your future goals and desires to avoid unproductive behaviors and ensure that your present actions are beneficial in the long term. The following sections will outline his recommendations for doing so.

How to Become Your Higher Self

The next sections will cover Hardy’s four primary suggestions for achieving your highest potential and how to apply them.

  • To become your higher self, according to Hardy:
  • Identify who you want to become and the big goals that person has achieved.
  • Prioritize three achievable goals to work on over the next five years that will lead you towards your higher self.
  • Set specific 12-month goals with clear success criteria to measure your progress towards your priorities.

For example, if your higher self is a renowned graphic designer, your priorities may include getting degrees with stellar grades, building an impressive portfolio, and doing freelance work for local businesses. Your 12-month goals may include finding a mentor, planning your required courses, and achieving a minimum B grade in each class.

Recommendation #2: Set Your Higher Self as Your Daily Priority

To make steady progress towards becoming your ideal self, prioritize daily actions that align with your goals and avoid distractions.

Principle #1: Disregard Non-Crucial Activities

Avoid activities that do not contribute to achieving your goals, such as painting your house, which takes time away from pursuing your 12-month goals.

Principle #2: Schedule 12-Month Goals First

Schedule daily time to work on your goals before other urgent tasks, such as working on your graphic design portfolio before your sales job.

Principle #3: Replace Instant Gratification Habits

Cultivate beneficial habits that align with your goals, such as checking out book cover designs on Goodreads instead of playing video games to improve your graphic design skills.

Recommendation #3: Seek Out Beneficial Environments

Hardy’s Recommendation #3 is to seek out environments that will aid in becoming one’s higher self. This can be achieved by stepping out of one’s comfort zone and surrounding oneself with people who are better than them.

These actions can help develop the skills and habits needed to progress towards one’s goals.

To do this, one should attempt tasks that their higher self would excel in and seek out individuals who have achieved similar goals or are closer to achieving them.

Recommendation #4: Have an Empowering View of Life and Fate

Hardy argues that a disempowering view of life and fate can prevent people from becoming their higher selves. This view is often shaped by three factors: their past, their current circumstances, and a sense of helplessness about their ability to control their future.

Hardy advises adopting three empowering beliefs to become your higher self.

  1. Firstly, don’t let your past dictate your future; learn from it and use it to grow.
  2. Secondly, take ownership of your circumstances and ability to change. Find at least one way to benefit from any situation and identify actions you can take to change your circumstances.
  3. Lastly, believe that you’re the creator of your own fate and that your purpose is to achieve fulfillment and become the highest version of yourself.

Adopting a firm belief that you will become your higher self and expressing gratitude for it will reinforce your belief in yourself and empower you to take necessary actions to achieve your goals.

Book Summary of Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

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Psycho-Cybernetics teaches us to view our mind as a machine, which can be programmed for success and happiness. By adopting this mindset, we can significantly enhance our self-image and boost our capacity to achieve our goals.

Part 1: What Is Psycho-Cybernetics?

In the initial section, we delve into why plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz turned to psychology and cybernetic theory to decipher the root causes of success and failure. Subsequently, we elucidate Maltz’s theory on how the human brain functions in achieving goals based on cybernetic principles.

Why a Plastic Surgeon Turned to Psychology

During his stint as a plastic surgeon, Maltz noticed a distinction in how patients reacted to “physical flaws” being corrected. Post-surgery, certain patients experienced an immediate upswing in self-esteem and confidence, leading to increased goal attainment.

Conversely, some patients’ personalities remained unaltered post-surgery; their thoughts, emotions, and actions stayed the same as if the “flaw” was still there. Despite their transformed external appearance, their self-perception and success rate remained unimproved.

Your Physical Appearance Doesn’t Define Your Self-Perception

Maltz’s observation of the variance in patient response to physical correction prompted his pursuit of the mind-body connection and its impact on confidence and success. He ultimately concluded that self-perception holds greater significance than physical appearance.

One’s thoughts about themselves shape their approach to life, success, and happiness, not their physical features. Maltz realized that to achieve self-improvement and success, it was crucial to eliminate negative thought patterns that hindered patients’ self-perception and success.

Cybernetics: Your Mind Works Like a Machine to Reach Goals

To understand why people perceive themselves the way they do, Maltz analyzed the reverse process of successful goal achievement and linked it back to self-perception. This led to his interest in cybernetic theory, which revealed that the human brain operates based on similar principles as machines. Both rely on positive and negative feedback to guide them towards goals.

For example, a missile uses sensors to hit a target, while the brain uses feedback to learn how to eat. Once a successful process is recorded, the brain discards negative feedback, allowing for repeated action without conscious thought.

Part 2: Your Self-Image Defines Your Experience

Maltz believed that our brains work like a cybernetic machine, using feedback to reach goals. However, it’s not always easy to achieve our conscious goals if our internal programming doesn’t align with them. For instance, you may want to make friends but subconsciously push people away. This conflict arises due to a discrepancy between your conscious goals and your self-image, according to Maltz.

What Is Your Self-Image?

Your brain has recorded all your experiences, shaping your self-image which defines who you are, how you express yourself, and how you act. For example, falling over can be perceived as a fact or lead to an identification like “I’m a klutz,” influencing your behavior and self-image.

What Influences Your Self-Image?

Maltz believes your self-image is a product of thoughts you’ve chosen to believe about your past experiences, even if they’re inaccurate. Your nervous system reacts to your thoughts as if they’re true, regardless of their accuracy. Maltz illustrates this by comparing it to being hypnotized into thinking you’re in a snowstorm, causing your body to physically react to the suggestion.

Your self-image is shaped by the opinions and beliefs of those around you and your own imagination. Mental images and strong impressions become beliefs that define your self-image. Your nervous system reacts to these beliefs, creating emotional and physical responses.

Your Self-Image Impacts Your Behavior

Maltz believes humans and machines interpret feedback differently to achieve their goals. Humans rely on their self-image to interpret feedback, which can lead to failure or success. To achieve success, you need to align your self-image with your goals and interpret feedback that moves you towards them.

Part 3: Use Your Imagination to Create Success

Maltz suggests that by using your imagination, you can improve your self-image and reprogram yourself. The first step is to become aware of whether you’re using your imagination positively or negatively.

If you’re using it negatively, you need to make a conscious effort to create a mental picture of yourself as successful and practice feeling successful. By regularly creating positive feelings, you can replace negative beliefs with new successful beliefs and improve your self-image.

Five Self-Image Alignment Methods

Maltz presents five methods for using imagination to improve self-image and achieve success:

  1. Change a daily habit to prove that change is possible and affirm that you can choose to think differently.
  2. Practice physical relaxation to make your mind more receptive to positive suggestions and create space for positive thoughts.
  3. Use imagination to recall successful memories and create successful feelings to imprint on your self-image.
  4. Focus on a clear goal to find the motivation to change your self-image and develop the habit of success.
  5. Cultivate happiness to improve overall wellbeing and increase resilience to physical setbacks. Maltz argues that negative attitudes are bad for health and happiness.

Part 4: Release Your Limitations

Maltz suggests that breaking free from negative thoughts and developing a happy, successful mindset is possible by creating positive feedback loops. He recommends three methods to replace negative thoughts with positive ones and redirect yourself towards success.

Method 1: Turn Challenges into Opportunities to Improve Your Self-Image

Maltz believes challenges are opportunities for growth and success, but those with negative self-image often see them as crises. Planning ahead is crucial in overcoming fears and moving past your comfort zone. By identifying fears and using imagination to visualize confident responses, one can better prepare themselves for challenges.

Method 2: Practice Reflecting Only on the Facts

Maltz argues that negative feelings are a result of your habitual thought process, and not an indication of reality. Negative thoughts can lead to false conclusions that keep you stuck in a negative feedback loop. To break this cycle, choose to replace negative thoughts with rational ones that encourage positive beliefs.

Method 3: Forgive and Forget

Maltz argues that holding onto past mistakes and traumas prevents people from experiencing success in their lives. Emotional scars created from these experiences may seem protective, but they actually keep people trapped in a negative state.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, allows individuals to heal emotional scars and move forward. Accepting that everyone makes mistakes and forgiving yourself and others liberates you and enables you to focus on your goals.

Book Summary of Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

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Robert Kiyosaki grew up with two dads: his biological father, a financially illiterate PhD who valued job stability, and his best friend’s father, a high school dropout who built a business empire worth millions. Kiyosaki calls them Poor Dad and Rich Dad, respectively.

Poor Dad believed in the traditional view of work and money, which is to get a good education, a secure job, and buy a house without a clear long-term plan. In contrast, Rich Dad had a contrarian view of finances and life, focusing on achieving financial independence, having money generate more money, and taking calculated risks.

Kiyosaki argues that most people adopt the Poor Dad view and let money control their lives, leading them to get stuck in jobs they dislike for the sake of money, trapped in a cycle of working to make ends meet.

Lesson 1: The Rich Don’t Work For Money – Money Works for Them

To become wealthy, it’s not enough to just earn a high salary – owning income-generating assets is crucial. The rich buy assets that generate income and limit spending on expenses and liabilities. Those who are not wealthy either spend all of their money on spending or acquire non-income producing obligations. The objective is to amass enough assets that produce income so that you may stop working.

Lesson 2: Buy Assets, Not Liabilities

To build wealth, focus on buying income-generating assets, not liabilities that drain your money. Assets create more money for you, while expenses reduce it. However, beware of deceptive investments that look like assets but are liabilities in disguise, such as overpriced houses.

Real assets include businesses, stocks, bonds, income-generating real estate, and intellectual property. Treat each dollar as an employee working for you 24/7 to create more wealth. Remember, every dollar you spend today is a missed opportunity to generate future income.

Lesson 3: Reduce Taxes through Corporations

Kiyosaki suggests setting up corporations to deduct business expenses pre-tax instead of paying with post-tax dollars.

Lesson 4: Overcome Your Mental Obstacles

To achieve your Rich Dad goals, you need to overcome common mental obstacles:

  • Self-doubt: Success requires more than intelligence and grades. Guts, chutzpah, balls, and tenacity play a big role.
  • Fear: Courage is needed to pursue great opportunities, and failure is an opportunity to learn and grow. Don’t let fear of failure or others’ opinions hold you back.
  • Laziness: Busy people can be the laziest, using busyness as an excuse to avoid investing in their future.
  • Guilt for feeling greedy: Embrace your desire for wealth and the power it brings.
  • Arrogance: Be open to new ideas and don’t dismiss anything as beneath you. Even sales techniques can be valuable.

Lesson 5: Build Your Economic Intelligence. Continue To Learn

Understanding accounting, investment, markets, and legislation is a prerequisite for having financial intelligence, which entails applying that knowledge to problem-solve ingeniously. Incremental improvements in knowledge can have a significant impact over time, and the faster you can learn and apply your knowledge, the greater the rewards.

Book Summary of Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss

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Tim Ferriss’ book Tools of Titans describes the routines and convictions of 101 top achievers, including IT investors, business owners, athletes, and artists. You can succeed by adopting the behaviors and viewpoints of those who are successful in your preferred field.

Our summary focuses on the book’s major themes of habits, showcasing patterns in motivation, work and business success, happiness, and health across all 101 individuals.

Inspiration and Goals

Visualizing long-term goals is a common habit among titans, as it provides clarity and motivation for the hard work ahead. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, stresses the importance of having a clear vision of the end goal, as it helps endure the challenges and pain on the way. Knowing why you’re pushing hard makes the journey easier.

Be Courageous. Be Brazen

Feeling unprepared to tackle a big goal? You may be holding yourself back with artificial constraints. Titans advise pushing past these boundaries, whether self-imposed or societal. Remember, every admired titan faced formidable obstacles just like you. The difference is their courage to push through.

Tim Ferriss’s Fear Exercise

Overcoming fear can be achieved through Tim Ferriss’s fear exercise. Firstly, imagine the change you wish to make, then consider the absolute worst possible outcome in vivid detail. Ask yourself how bad and permanent the damage would be, and how likely it is to happen.

Next, envision the best and realistic outcomes and how they would improve your life. Through this exercise, you’ll realize that even the worst outcome isn’t permanently crippling, and you can recover even if you fail.

Work Habits and Career

After setting your goals, productivity strategies are essential to make progress in limited time. Titans advise on laser-focused prioritization of opportunities that align with your goals.

Instead of getting caught up in minor tasks, prioritize big rocks first, and evaluate opportunities based on the “hell, yes!” rule. Avoid the “culture of cortisol” by focusing on goals and cutting out unnecessary activities that cause unhappiness.

Deciding What to Work On

Advice for choosing a career path in a world of endless options:

  • Become a double/triple threat by being above average at two or more things and combining them.
  • Augment your career with useful skills like communication, management, sales, finance, and internationalization.
  • Make an impact by working in a field where you can’t be easily replaced.
  • Example: Tim Ferriss chose to focus on self-improvement instead of becoming a venture capitalist because he could make a greater impact on people’s lives.

Personal Habits

The book features highly disciplined and goal-oriented individuals, and offers advice on personal habits. Success comes from action, not just knowledge.

Start with small actions to build momentum towards your goals. Identify and confront your weaknesses, and imagine your future self giving advice to overcome them. Don’t make excuses for your weaknesses, visualize the real costs and work towards improvement.

Creativity and Ideas

To generate more good ideas, focus on quantity over quality. Don’t be afraid to generate bad or silly ideas, as they can lead to good ones. Challenge yourself to come up with a certain number of ideas each day, even if they’re not all business-related.

To think of ideas, ask dumb questions, question conventional wisdom, and put yourself in new environments. Remember, being imaginative is more important than being right. To do innovative work, you need to believe something that few others believe.

Testing Ideas

How to identify good ideas from a pool of many? It’s difficult to be objective about your own ideas, as you may not see the bigger picture or spot flaws. To ensure that an idea is worthwhile, seek feedback from others who can stress-test it.

Investor Marc Andreessen and co-founder Ben Horowitz, for instance, scrutinize every idea they bring up to each other. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman gauges his staff’s mettle by whether they push back on given strategies.

Meanwhile, the military employs “red teams” whose mission is to sabotage plans to challenge their efficacy. If an idea can withstand such critical evaluations, then it is likely a good one.

Business Strategies

Entrepreneurial titans shared their tips on starting and growing successful businesses. Rather than having millions of followers or being a global superstar, you only need 1,000 true fans who will buy anything you produce.

Authenticity is key, as people crave connection and realness. Don’t be afraid to differ from societal expectations to be yourself. When it comes to business tactics, think 10 times bigger rather than 10% bigger, avoid hyper-competitive areas, and charge for your product. Failure should be avoided, and quick execution is essential.

Happiness and Mindset

Success isn’t just about productivity and achieving goals; being happy and emotionally in control is important too. Titans practice gratitude and reflect on their lives, focusing on what worked and taking risks.

When dealing with negative emotions like anxiety, stress, and anger, it’s important to stay calm and acknowledge the emotion rather than suppressing it. Being cynical or jaded is like being dead; it’s important to keep an open mind and stay curious.

More Useful Questions to Ask

Redesign your life now, instead of waiting for $10 million. Tim Ferriss found that his desired lifestyle cost less than he thought, and the resource he lacked was time, not money. Try doing the opposite of what you normally do for 48 hours to find new successful ways of doing things. When you lose something like an investment or opportunity, don’t try to make it back the same way you lost it. Tim Ferriss sold his house instead of wasting time managing it, realizing that his time was a valuable asset that could be used to grow his brand and business.