Building a Routine for Success
Small tweaks for big impact
There are many perks for employees at Prime Movers Lab. The first is the people we work with, but a close second is the continuous attention to personal development, which takes many forms. Two I will highlight are attendance at Tony Robbins events and bi-weekly coaching with our Executive Coach, Michael Savage. I got the opportunity to attend my first event, Unleash the Power Within, March 4–7, and it was among the most emotional experiences of my life.
If you’re not familiar with Tony Robbins there is a great Netflix documentary called I Am Not Your Guru that will give you a sense of his mission. To get the full experience there is no substitute for his content; a “live” event in this case (a well-oiled, perfectly produced virtual event, to be precise). I won’t try to explain it because there is no way I can do it justice, but I will attempt to explain some of the small tweaks I’ve made in my life from the insights I had along with some additional guidance from Coach Savage.
Priming
Priming is a practice, designed by Tony, that helps you generate an outstanding emotional state to begin your day’s activities. What that means in my case is energized, confident, motivated, joyful, and grateful. I was on the track and field team in college. I didn’t roll out of bed, eat some leftover pizza, and get into the starting blocks. Athletes develop rituals before they compete to pump themselves up and get themselves into the right state to perform. Lebron’s chalk toss comes to mind. Why do we expect to roll into work immediately after waking up? I have certainly been guilty of opening my laptop three minutes after my alarm goes off and can assure you it is not optimal. Priming makes sure I’m ready to give 100% to my coworkers and everyone else I work with. It’s also a great 10 minutes that my wife and I spend together every morning. Coach Savage has been leading our team in daily priming here and is writing more in depth on the topic on Monday, so stay tuned!
Mantras
This is new to me but I tried it for the first time yesterday during my morning run and really enjoyed it. Coach Savage shared one of Jocko Willink’s sayings with me, responding “Good” anytime someone comes to him with a problem. I adopted that into a mantra to try on, “Problem? Good!” and spent the first five minutes jogging along, repeating it in my head. Eventually it took the tune of “Ice Ice Baby” which was my cue to continue in silence, but it really does help frame how I look at the day. Part of my job as Chief of Staff is to address all the myriad small issues that come up on a day to day basis. I can choose to be exasperated when I answer the same question five times, or I can be grateful that I get to help five people be more productive in their jobs. I can choose to be bored at helping coordinate a webinar every two weeks, or I can feel amazingly lucky to get to chat with world-leading scientists about their passions and help them share that love. The point is that I’m not just embracing the great parts of my job, I’m embracing every part of my job and making them great. My mantra is a way to frame each moment.
Infectious energy
One of the questions I’ve gotten quite a bit is, “what is a Chief of Staff? What do you do?” My friend and coworker Anton Brevde has written about when to hire one and what to look for and covers this question well. One aspect I’m trying to add is being energy enriching to my team. You know this when you feel it. I felt it while I was interviewing and finished every get-to-know-you call happier and more energized than I had been when I started. I want to bring 100% of myself to every call, and to lift up everyone around me. A simple way I practice that is to express genuine excitement in every interaction. This is self serving as well. If I’m excited in my conversation with you, my energy will lift you up, and your energy will lift me up. Doesn’t that sound like a great team to be on?
It’s not about you
I was listening to an episode of 20VC and Phil Libin, co-founder and CEO at Evernote and now mmHmm, mentioned that his thoughts are just one opinion and shouldn’t hold any more weight than any other. The sentiment resonated with me and was something I thought about a lot at UPW. Tony Robbins’ philosophy is that fulfillment comes from serving something greater than yourself. This is applicable to every one of us every day. Very few people individually change billions of lives, but each of us has a role to play in our own life and in the lives of those around us. Sometimes it’s helpful to dismiss the voice in your head and focus on how hard your coworkers are working and how your work helps them. Often the drive to help others is stronger than the drive to help ourselves and we can tap this to our collective benefit.
Have grace
Speaking of helping ourselves, allowing grace is something Michael reiterates to me every time we speak and bears repeating to any high achiever. Any kind person will show grace to others but sometimes we forget to be kind to ourselves. Things go wrong, things are delayed, and sometimes it’s your fault. The world won’t end (and if it will, someone should have been double checking you). Allow yourself some grace and focus on what you can learn from your mistakes.
Before I began UPW Dakin made me promise that I would commit 110%. I can confidently say I met that standard, but the bigger takeaway is that the more we give, the more we get. That goes for relationships, experiences, life itself. Coach Savage chipped in here as well when I asked him for advice about giving 110% at 11pm with my daughter asleep in the next room. Giving 110% doesn’t have to be yelling, screaming, pounding chests, although that can be fun. Giving everything is a state of mind that you find internally.
It’s been two weeks since my experience and I’ve been incorporating as many of the lessons into my routine as I can. I hope you find some of these tactics useful and I hope you have an energized, confident, motivated, joyful, and grateful day!
Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation, and agriculture.
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