Question to accelerate your progress:

How wide is my Information-Action Gap?

The time lag between receiving information and acting on that information is what I call the Information-Action Gap.

• If it's wide, there's a long delay between information and action.
• If it's thin, there's a short delay between information and action.

An observation about the highest performing people I've been around:

They have a razor-thin Information-Action Gap.

They gather information and advice like the rest of us, but unlike most, they also act on it almost immediately.

Note that action can come in various forms:

• Process and reject new information or advice as unuseful.
• Follow up on new information to dig deeper.
• Teach new insight to someone to cement learnings.
• Incorporate new information into existing routines and process.

The key is that new information does not lie fallow—uncultivated, unused, unproductive—for very long.

Here's a helpful framing:

If information isn't nurtured with action, it loses its power.

Nurture all new information and your progress will accelerate.

Quote on controlling your response:

"Progress is being aware when there is a storm happening inside of you and remaining calm as it passes by." - Yung Pueblo

You can't control the darkness that comes, but you can always control how you react to it.

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Framework to beat imposter syndrome:

The Yet Mindset

This tweet changed my entire perspective on imposter syndrome:

Imposter syndrome is a part of life for all highly ambitious people.

That feeling of discomfort when you start pushing past your preconceived limits is natural. It can even be reframed as a good thing, a hidden sign of personal growth as you're taking on things that scare you.

But for many of us, imposter syndrome can be crippling, as it forces us to retreat to the safety of our current competencies, to avoid those new opportunities that might vault us to new heights.

The next time you feel it bubbling up, here's a simple trick to fight back:

I call it the Yet Mindset.

The next time you start feeling like you can't do something, add the word "yet" to the sentence:

• "I'm not good enough" becomes "I'm not good enough...yet."
• "I don't know how to do it" becomes "I don't know how to do it...yet."
• "I'm not capable of that" becomes "I'm not capable of that...yet."

"Yet" becomes your one word reminder that you can achieve anything that you set your mind to. It is the reminder that you are dynamic and capable of so much more than you realize.

It is the unlock for your growth mindset.

Embrace the Yet Mindset and change your life.

Short movie clip with a powerful lesson:

This quote is from one of my favorite movie endings:

"At some point, everything is going to go south on you...and you're gonna say 'this is it, this is how I end.' Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work. That's all it is, you just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem. Then you solve the next one. And the next. And if you solve enough problems, you get to come home."

This is the beautiful thing about life: No matter where you are today—no matter how deep in the darkness—you are always just one good decision away from being in a better place tomorrow.

You can always focus on that one decision—that one problem—in front of you.

Don't worry about the hundreds or thousands of decisions that you still have to make to get to where you want to be—just focus on the next decision. Just begin. Solve one problem. Then solve the next one. And the next.

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." - Confucius

Advice to a 25-year-old reader:

A 25-year-old asked me how to improve his standing in life.

I gave him 3 pieces of advice:

1. Wake up early and work out.

This isn’t guaranteed to change your life, but it will make you break any negative thought patterns and start identifying as a winner. I believe it is the fastest way to break a negative identity cycle.

There’s no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5am and works out. One simple act that immediately makes you self-identify as a winner. This has ripple effects.

2. Invest your free time to build a marketable skill.

Building a marketable skill creates real financial upside.

It won’t be fun to sacrifice free time in the short run, but it’s an investment in your financial upside that will pay dividends in the future.

3. Live well below your means.

Living cheaply to build a base of savings and investments is how you step off the financial treadmill. Save half and invest the other half in a low cost market ETF.

Again, not fun in the short run, but it will allow you to break out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle in the long run.

Most people dramatically underestimate what they can do in a year.
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If you commit to doing those 3 things consistently for one year, I guarantee you’ll find yourself in an entirely new world on the other side. I hope this helps someone else out there make forward progress on their journey.