 I think one of the biggest reasons why this whole success and self-growth industry exists is because people are really wondering what are the key essential things that actually make the difference in being successful or building an incredible life. And I thought I would share two of the biggest things I've noticed that are more soft skills. They're more traits and more of an approach to life that you take that dramatically increase your odds of success. So these two things I think if you carry these into the new year you will be the 1% in terms of how quickly you see yourself reach your goals and your dreams. So first let's talk about how the small life happens. Perfect example. For the last two years there's been a virus going around and it's made people act very weird. People under stress act in ways they wouldn't ordinarily. And one of the things that really jumped out to me was when I asked people why they got the vaccine or people why they did not. Just as a science experiment, social experiment rather, I got very interesting responses from the people that got the vaccine. Here's what I heard. I heard what they said and then what was unsaid. And I disregarded what they said because I know that more often what is unsaid reflects and mirrors our subconscious and our psychology. So what was very interesting was that 95% of the people surveyed on that side that got it. What they were really saying was not that they had read all these scientific papers or that they saw really good evidence was it was they were afraid. And the smaller percentage that actually thought about it had said well there's just so much pressure from other people that view me as a bad person if I don't. Now I don't want to throw all my friends and family and whoever under the bus. I just want to point out that fear and social pressure are the two biggest, the single biggest reasons that you will always stay the same, that you will never grow and you will never achieve the life and the dreams that you want. And so I bring this up just as a point because this year has been almost a macrocosm of what is usually a microcosm where ordinarily in life you see the things that you've always wanted to do and the reasons you get talked out of it are almost always, if you're being honest, it's the fear and it's the social pressure from friends and family. If I change, how will they act? If I book that trip to Spain or if I don't finish school and I decide to become an entrepreneur or if I decide to do something non-traditional with my religion or my sexuality or the way I dress, how are they going to react? And so most often what I see as the deep limiting factors are fear and social pressure and usually social pressure is still just fear. So that in a microversion is often why we stay the same and live a small life. So let's talk about bucket number one. Trade number one you need in my opinion is guts, bravery, maybe these fall into the category of inner fortitude because you know I think about all the things I did that made a big difference in my life, like the dreams that most humans will never do but they have the same dreams I did and I'm not that special. You know, booking that one way to get China when I was just 23, people were like why the hell would you do that? Like China? Don't you know they eat dog meat there and they think foreigners are weird and they're rude and it's dirty and polluted and all the stereotypes and it's all communists and they're going to kill you and string you up somewhere like North Korea. What you hear even other people say is them projecting their fear on you. You know when I think about writing my first book I had all the same fears. Like I mean who am I to write a freaking book? I've read books. I've actually read whole books. That's pretty unusual apparently but who am I to write a book? I heard the same thing when I finally went back to do my passion, do a doctorate in Chinese medicine because that was always what I wanted to do. You know the worst most cutting insult people would tell me is why not just become a real doctor, right? Why not just go into a field where you know you're going to make at least 150k and if you specialize at least 300 plus k and then you'll have status and respect too. All these people misunderstand that is fear speaking because fear is saying stay the same take the proven course get status and prestige and money the things that will lend you to be respected by your peers. This is all fear it's all the words of fear that people project on to you and so I felt fear at all of those turns in the my story of my life but the difference is that I didn't make the decision based on that and I think that is one big thing that if you take to heart if you make that decision based on what draws you instinctively what draws you in your hero's journey and don't listen to that fear especially the words of other people incredible things can happen. Now second trait number two is you need to stop caring about fitting in and being liked. Now when I was a teenager you know I was really into spirituality and mysticism so when I was in high school I went to an all-guys Jesuit like religious high school and I was always reading books on mysticism and paganism and druidry and shamanism those were my passions so there's one Christmas I ordered you know my grandpa was like what do you want for Christmas and I wanted just a little chest to keep all my little like trinkets in and like incense and hippy stuff and the website was like something pagan occult mysteries.com something like that like a geocities.com and they ordered it but my grandpa and everyone else my family kind of sat me down for an intervention or like why the hell are you ordering things from something with pagan in the name like are you about to sacrifice goats and we're going to find one of your siblings strung up naked in the backyard during the full moon or what's going on here like they were scared legit scared and I think this is really telling because this is this goes back to social pressure where people want you to stay in little boxes they want you to stay in ways that you are predictable and they know you're not going to be different and they know you're not going to change but no one I admire that ended up doing great things was ever that person and was ever concerned about the box they were in and most often they made their own box keep in mind that at 16 you're not going to be a very popular kid if your hobbies are like paganism and shamanism spirituality like all the little boys were chasing the girls at some other school and I'm over there like trying to attain enlightenment and like doing rituals at the full moon outside with my cats you know you're not going to be very cool in school and so when you're young like that it is painful because you want to be liked and you want to feel normal and you want to fit in but as I got older I realized that was a superpower because adults still have that same fear it's called keeping up with the joneses right but now instead of being cool in grade school it's having as big of a house and as green of a yard and as hot of a wife and as white of a picket fence and it's the same inner psychology just repeating itself all over again nothing has changed so if you can realize that it becomes a superpower when you don't care anymore and when you're really willing to do whatever your guts your inner directive as I call it says your intuition you can build such an incredible life that what was once painful is now your superpower because now you're doing the things that everyone only dreams of and only talks about and you did it because you were brave and you didn't care what people thought and you didn't care about fitting in or how green your frigging yard is that you never even stepped in all you care about is how aligned you are with your inner purpose in life so as we go into this new year I deeply believe that these are the two singular traits that will produce the biggest difference in your life they are character traits and their habits that you develop they're not specific things necessarily but they're ongoing processes and ongoing aspects of yourself that you have to cultivate because they'll make you fearless in life and they won't give you the the crutches that we all rely on when we feel like we're excommunicated from the tribe or that no one connects with us or no one gets us no one has to get you you're the only one that has to make sure you're living in alignment with who you want to be and when you look in the mirror then the night it's not your mom you see it's not your dad it's not your friends it's not your family it's not your kids it's yourself that's the only person you have to answer to at the end of the day and it's not an easy journey but it's the most important one all right you guys so happy new year catch you on the flip side and watch these two traits in your daily life