1: What’s the difference between waking up early and being an early riser?

Or, eating a healthy meal and being a healthy eater?

What about getting some work done and being a productive person?

Waking up early, eating a healthy meal, and getting some work done are good things.  Certainly.

These are things you do.

Describing yourself as an early riser, a healthy eater, or a productive person shifts focus … continue reading

1: “Early-stage passion doesn’t look like late-stage passion,” Steven Kotler writes in The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer.

Imagine LeBron James as “a little kid standing in front of a big hoop, trying to get his shots to drop,” Steven writes. “On the front end, passion is nothing more than the overlap of multiple curiosities coupled to a few wins.”

Sure, to be passionate, we want to … continue reading

1: DO THE HARD THING reads the sign above author Steven Kotler‘s desk.

Yes, the phrase is “a great reminder to attack life’s challenges,” but that’s not the point, he writes in The Art of the Impossible.

Its “real function is much smaller: It’s to remind me to do one extra item on my to-do list before I take my first break,” he writes.  

“If my day’s first … continue reading