pursuit of balance will take you. In the bubble, after a short time, your body will deteriorate . . . and so will your ability to think. You will never find balance; the notion is folly and simply a sales pitch from a scared child who has quit on his or her life.
I offer a simple truth: do three simple things in the five pyramids of performance and carve out six nonnegotiable hours and activities a day as the foundation for truly living life. You will not balance time to achieve the baseline, nor will you give up one category for another. You will literally create a baseline to think and grow. From the six-hour baseline, I have seen men and women run ultramarathons, grow their wealth by two times in a year, turn around a failing marriage, and start a new life and thrive.
For the past six years of sustaining my own six-hour baseline while training and witnessing my clients struggle through a life of not having the nonnegotiable baseline, but instead overweighting one pyramid while destroying the other four areas of life, I am very clear on the value of sharing the process and method with you. I noticed businessmen and women work a 12-hour day and produce millions while neglecting family and health. I witnessed great athletes training for 7 hours a day and produce number-one status while excluding relationships and lacking the ability to find a dollar in a bank. I have seen parents spend up to 6 hours a day shuttling kids around while giving up their own health and ambitions. Negotiating with life, always adjusting to the changes without having a nonnegotiable baseline, causes epic long-term failures. The baseline will allow you to achieve much more in each of the five pyramids.
Shocking as that may seem to you, the conditions I just described are found everywhere in our society. The new norm, as it seems, always ends badly. But everyone seems to be on this railroad leading to a cliff of destruction. And, trust me, the cliff where the train falls off going full speed was happening for every successful executive, every top athlete, and seemingly every marriage.
The executives literally worked with the thought process to build a business to make money to support their family and lifestyle. Twelve-hour workdays, as I began to notice, were killing the family because there was no family time or activity. The extreme focus on work excluded health and created a horrible eating, sleeping, and activity cycle. As I continued to notice over time what was occurring in this overweighted life paradigm, the inevitable outcomes of running the train off the cliff became predictable.
At some point in time, the leader would give up half of the income to the spouse. Divorce cuts income by half, let’s not quibble. After all those hours, all those years of working a 12-hour day, the money would be cut in half, not to mention the exhausting process of a divorce. It was predictable. After two years of seeing all the indicators and developing a series of questions, I began to realize I could even “short the market” and bet against the companies’ success simply because the boss’ work-to-family life ratio was off.
The most disturbing aspect of the overworked leader became deadly clear looking at the lack of any tangible commitment to physical health. I will describe the details later; however, neglect in physical health didn’t lead to going over a cliff, but it led straight into a brick wall. The 12-hour normal workday eventually kills the leader. Yes, they die or get so sick they can no longer work, or they die within two years of retiring. As it were, they were losing everything at the end. Leaving a trust for the kids seemed to be the norm because most had a trust fund set up by age 50 and knew they were sick and not doing well. The scary part is everyone was doing this. We all seemed to be in a rat race no one could avoid or we just can’t get off the flywheel.
The leaders and top performers had negotiated themselves out of sustainable performance in the five pyramids. More of one pyramid is alluring. Being number one is too. Yet, without a baseline, without the rest of your life being on point, none of the accumulation of stuff is sustainable. The six-hour baseline of doing three simple nonnegotiable things in each of the five pyramids of life literally make success easier and much more sustainable. The rest of the book is stories about the detailed processes and methods to follow in order to set up and maintain a six-hour baseline.
CHAPTER ONE
Build Your Foundation
Honor Your Word and Never Give Up
The Process: Success begins after you fail! The only differentiating factor of success is failure. The process to build, after failure, is from the foundation of honoring your word and never giving up.
How do you navigate the chaos of a storm? In this life you can bet there will be storms and downturns and dense jungles to challenge you. You will also have to learn simple ways to deal with the wind and rain, express the emotions of depression, and ultimately find the next step forward.
Over the past 30 years of operating as a Navy SEAL and training leaders to lead during chaotic times, I have observed many who are close to their greatest achievements give up and others who never did. Giving up is an option in the SEALs. Many men select that option. We never try to keep men around who quit, because quitters do incalculable damage to those around them. You can’t give up on yourself, your operation, or your team and survive combat—and the same is true for everyone else. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, what type of work you do, or if you’ve never been a SEAL. No matter who you are, this valuable foundational principle will help you shift your mindset.
Never Give Up!
In my time in leadership and training leaders, I’ve developed foundational principles to achieving sustainable performance. Like most great principles of success, my own life experiences have given me a lot of clarity about the things that matter. There are several critical principles of success; however, two core principles stand out. These are the two traits that every great leader I’ve observed has, and they are resilience (the ability to never give up and stay the course) and integrity and consistency, which is honoring your word.
The ability to honor your word literally is the core principle of all success. The inability to honor your word distinctly causes failure. Those who can’t honor their word are inconsistent and often unreliable.
Honoring Your Word Matters
Let’s talk more about this foundational principle and how it applies to your own life. What do I mean by “honoring your word”? Even though the human race is on the brink of real greatness, the “honoring your word” principle is rare. Making a promise and keeping it is very rare. Getting expressed commitment from one out of 1,000 people is stunningly rare. Often this rarity would be called persistence or even relentlessness. Those two words are mere adjectives describing a more fundamental principle. The deepest principle in success is honoring your word, which is rooted in integrity.
All leaders lead with fear or hesitation, yet they lead in spite of it.
Leading is solely about consistency, relentlessness, and asking more of yourself than you do others. Leading by honoring your word and never giving up will define everything that you say or do. Do you honor yourself, your time, and your team?
The ability to say something, then to go and do what you said you would do, will set you apart from the herd. Even in the smallest aspects of your life, when you master the principle of honoring your word, your actions will lift you up and success will happen. What if you said you would make your bed, then you actually made your bed?
What if you said you would do your homework, and you actually did your homework? What if you said you would do 100 pushups a day for 21 days, and you actually did the pushups? What if you said you would talk to one new prospect a day, then you actually talked to one a day? What if you said you would be faithful to your spouse and you actually honored your word? Imagine the level of success, peace, and
