As you are reading this, I’ll be knee-deep in fresh powder with 40 of my closest friends. This weekend is the legendary Maple Summit trip – hosted by my dear friend Dan Martell.
This is hands down my favorite trip of the year – and it’s the first one I always block first in my annual planning. The reason I love this trip so much is that I can honestly say it’s the highest caliber group of folks that I have ever seen assembled.
These folks are all high-level founders, including many 9-figure and even billion+ companies – but it’s not the wealth that makes the group interesting. It’s the mindset.
You see, this group is about a whole lot more than money. These are family men, athletes, and seekers of spiritual truth. The conversations in the snowcat are even deeper than the pow.
I’m not a fan of the term life hack – it implies that there is some sort of shortcut to doing the work. But if there was ever a hack, it’s surrounding yourself with winners – and seeking to understand what sets them apart.
This is why I attended a different event last week – this one hosted by world champion poker player Phil Galfond.
It’s the same reason I show up every week to my boxing gym to be trained by Hall of Famer DaVarryl Williamson.
I seek to surround myself with champions, but more importantly I observe and ask them about their mindset so that I can integrate their habits as my own.
There is a lot of advice out there on how to get ahead. Morning routines, productivity hacks, and business operating systems all promise increased output and with it, increased profits.
But what I’ve learned over the years is that no single system or productivity hack is really better than any other. The key is choosing one and sticking with it.
If you truly want to get ahead in business, you need to train like a champion.
I like to call this turning pro. Once I started looking at performance holistically, my results grew exponentially.
Going pro means training your body. It means taking sleep seriously. It means monitoring what you put in your body, including substances.
Poker is a great example of this evolution. At the beginning of the poker boom in the early 2000s, many of the best players were obviously unhealthy and living the traditional gambler lifestyle: late nights, poor diet and exercise, and hard partying.
But by the 2010s a new generation (including Phil Galfond) had displaced the old pros. They treated the game seriously, and they sought to gain an edge by training seriously and honing holistic performance, including body, mind and spirit. These young guns trained like athletes and utilized performance coaches like Elliot Roe.
And it worked. The old hard-living professional gambler was all but forgotten as this new breed of professional came onto the scene.
So if you are looking to take your business to the next level, or if you’ve been stuck on a plateau, perhaps the answer to growth lies outside the business itself.
Ask yourself: What would it look like to turn pro?
I can’t guarantee instant results, because that’s not how this game works. But I can promise that if you treat yourself like a professional athlete, you will find a new gear for business.
And as you build your new habits, you never know – you just may like the person you become as a result.
Train like a champion,
mb
