In partnership with

From Italy to a Nasdaq Reservation

How do you follow record-setting success? Get stronger. Take Pacaso. Their real estate co-ownership tech set records in Paris and London in 2024. No surprise. Coldwell Banker says 40% of wealthy Americans plan to buy abroad within a year. So adding 10+ new international destinations, including three in Italy, is big. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.

Invest for $2.90/Share

_{Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.}

Have you been forwarded the DARE High Performance newsletter? You can sign up here to receive your own copy in the future.

DARE is the mental model for high performance and change.

You write your story through your DECISIONS, ACTIONS and RESULTS and a thorough EVALUATION of how you did.

A new Result requires new Decisions and Actions.

This Week’s DARE at a Glance:

Thought of the Week: ‘The best way to predict your future is to create it.’

How to Design Your Future: Keeping it very simple.

My 5 Top Tips for Failure: Avoid these pitfalls - and build your future.

Thought Of The Week

‘The best way to predict your future is to create it.’

(attributed to) Abraham Lincoln

Summer Reset #4: How to Design Your Future (and my 5 top tips for failure)

This week’s reset brings you magic which is so simple that most people prefer not to trust it. Then they give up quickly when results are not fast.

“See, I knew it wouldn’t work”, you’ll hear them say as they invest in another self-help book instead.

Can you design your future?

Not entirely. Who would wish to?  I’ve spent a lot of time in the Middle East. I would never say ‘see you tomorrow’ to a Muslim friend or client without adding an ‘inshallah’ (‘god willing’) to avoid being politely, but firmly, corrected for my arrogance.

Of course we don’t control everything!

But if you want to build a house, you create a design and then you lay bricks until the thing is done. Likewise to learn Japanese, carpentry or freediving…

You don’t say ‘I cannot control the outcome, so why bother?’ It is the same when creating our futures. Of course, events may intervene. That is no reason not to start.

SO, let’s start:

First, define the RESULT and the ACTIONS that you will DECIDE upon to deliver your RESULT.

Second, DECIDE to do these ACTIONS to deliver your Result every day until it is done.

“Jim, too simple! To run a marathon in X hours I need a training plan and then I must show up and do it. Got it. Move on, give me something ‘better’!”

Ah, but it is all I know and all I have ever needed. It is all I have ever seen work – in elite sport or in global transformation programs or in me getting my book published or in my own adventures.

To persuade you, I am now supposed to make it ‘science backed’, say ‘dopamine’ several times and mention your trauma. 

But seeking ‘academic’ answers to questions of character and courage demonstrates a preference for talk over action. It may tell us how the car works, but not how to drive it.

So instead, here are the top ways I see people fail to design their future. To succeed: invert them, Charlie Monger style.

How to Fail #1 - Avoid Clarity.

Thinking is deeply underrated.

When was the last time you spent 90 minutes thinking about and designing the future you want to live in and scheduling the actions to build it? And the last time you watched a movie or attended a ‘great course’ that you didn’t action?

If you do not have real clarity of the Result and haven’t Decided on the required Actions, you will obviously fail to prioritise those Actions tomorrow morning when the emails flood in.

How to Fail #2 - Create an Easy, Ignorant Plan.

Long ago, to become a jockey, I booked some lessons at a riding school. The easiest route, planned without any experience or wisdom. An easy and ignorant plan.

The dopamine rewards were in place. The loudly proclaimed goal, the ‘action’ and the regard of others for my progress. An understandable, ‘nothing I could do’ failure that I could easily explain in a meeting room was baked into the process.

It is vulnerable and exposing to ask a serious person for assistance. You may be rejected or, even worse, accepted!  

Book Jim To Speak.

How to Fail #3 - Permit Emotional ‘Urgent’ to Beat Intellectual ‘Important’.

Urgent (the inbox/boss/meeting) brings nagging anxiety if delayed or refused. We’re trained to answer these emotional alarms with compliance immediately.

Important (changing your pre-diabetes markers, being an active parent, getting the promotion or pay rise – to design the future you want to inhabit) is far away and there are no biochemicals emoting you to action.

Now you have to trust the process - your intelligent plan - whilst your emotions distract you with ‘urgent’ activities that add little.

Showing up to do the work - with no guarantee of success and few signs of progress - instead of doing ‘urgent’ tasks is where most people fail. And there’s always an urgent task to distract you.

How to Fail #4 - Avoid conflict: People-Please.

High performers must create boundaries to protect the time and energy to do the Actions required for the Result. That brings conflict. Always. This is not ‘selfish’. Things like making time to be a parent or team leader are being protected here too.

Standing up for yourself, taking tough decisions, saying ‘no’, it all requires a spine.

‘People pleasing’ isn’t ‘societal conditioning’. That’s very disempowering to think. It is also highly unlikely, since so many people of both genders seem to have skipped that conditioning somehow.

People pleasing is choosing the easy path in the moment because it feels good and lowers the risk of conflict. We can all change that (with spine).

How to Fail #5 - Manifest Some Motivation Before Acting.

Motivation rarely comes out of the blue. Discipline is how you design your future. You do the work because it is your new, chosen identity: it is who you are and what you do, and because it delivers your future: who you will be.

Motivation FOLLOWS action.  Design the plan. Show up and do the work. Enjoy the rapid progress.

Or wait for motivation. It’s an easy path to a harder future.

Here’s this week’s challenge: Swap a 90-minute film for a 90-minute clarity and planning session. Talk it over with loved ones or colleagues.

Then ask a serious person to guide you in creating a serious plan of Actions to deliver your Result.

It works. You CAN do this too!

Write YOUR story 🖋️

Jim

PS

A reminder of our Bold Goal Summer Resets so far:

• Summer Reset #1: Your POWER. Your AGENCY. Do you write your story authentically or as dictated by your Tiger?

• Summer Reset #2: The knowledge and understanding to THINK consciously about uncertainty and risk and not be driven by the algorithmic, emotional comfort zone

• Summer Reset #3: You acted – before you were ready – to begin the thing. (Or did you tell yourself a story about why action is impossible?)

• Summer Reset #4: How to Design Your Future (and my 5 top tips for failure)