How To Get Shit Done

By Leo Gura - July 13, 2015 | 100 Comments

The inner game of creating results

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Hey, this is Leo for Actualized.org, and in this episode I’m going to talk about how to get shit done. the inner game of creating results.

One thing that I notice looking at people around me is that, generally speaking, people are really bad at generating results. And this is very important if you want to self-actualize. You need to become a results-maker.

I don’t know if you realize this, if you’ve noticed. But the world runs on results, right? Whether it’s business, or money, or career, or fitness — or even your internal mood. All that stuff is a result. Everything that you’re looking for in life is a result.

So, if you can’t do this, if you’re not a results-maker, and you don’t have this in your pedigree — to be able to go out there and achieve extraordinary results, uncommon results — then, basically, you’re fucked in life. You see this? You see how this is a very fundamental problem?

And most people who are having problems in life, like getting their finances together, or getting their relationship together, or getting whatever other facet of their life together — it’s because they are poor results-makers. It’s not because they suck in that one particular facet, although that can certainly be the case. But it’s more general than that.

It’s like you’re bad at making results happen. You’re not a results-maker. and you want this kind of pedigree. So that you can say to yourself: “You know, I’ve made big results happen in the past. Whether it was in my relationship, or with my internal mood, or with my finances, or with whatever. And I can trust myself to make big results happen in the future”.

This is like an attitude thing. It’s an attitude you take towards life. So, what I want to talk about here is — I want to give you a little bit of deeper understanding of the mindsets and attitudes that a results-maker takes towards life. Why this is important. And then I want to give you a very juicy list of ways that you can adopt some of these results-maker mindsets. I’m going to give you a whole, nice juicy list.

Pursuit The Results

So, when we talk about self-actualizing, when we talk about living up to your full potential, do you realize what that actually entails? That entails getting results. Not just dreams, and ideas, and theories, because — yeah, those things are nice. And you could argue that everything starts as a dream at first.

But the problem is that many people just get lost in the dreams. And the theories. And the ideas. And then they talk a lot of shit about what they are going to do with their life. How they are going to change it. Or what they are going to create for themselves. Or how they are going to lose some weight. Or go get married, or whatever.

But then, all that talk and all those dreams — they don’t mean shit unless you know how to translate them into the real world. And that’s an ability. That’s something you train yourself to do. And what’s interesting is that modern-day society, in a sense, makes it easy for us to lose sight of results.

Because what you can do is — you can just go with the flow of society. And you can just go get your standard nine-to-five job. Some basic career. Just kind of work that. And live, and survive. And you can even maybe thrive in that kind of environment. Because life’s pretty easy these days. It’s not like it was ten thousand years ago. Think about what it was like ten thousand years ago.

Ten thousand years ago, you couldn’t just plug yourself into the system. Ten thousand years ago, it was like — create results or die. And a good way to prove this to yourself is: try just going on a camping trip for a couple of weeks. Maybe for a whole month. Or, at least do this in your mind if you’re not going to do it in practice. Do it in your mind right now.

Imagine you go on a camping trip. And it’s just you. You and nobody else. No one to help you. You don’t have any food with you. All you have is a tent, a knife, and a gun. That’s all you get. Maybe you got a canteen for some water. That’s it.

Now, what are you going to do to survive for that whole month? Out there in the wilderness, all by yourself? Well, you’re going to have to create some results, aren’t you? You’re going to have to go, first of all — find some water. Because if you don’t get water, within two days you’re going to be dead.

So, you got to go find a good, clean source of water. Make sure that it’s actually clean. If you find a bad source of water, and drink it — you’re going to die within a few days. If you don’t find water, you’re going to die within a few days. So, there’s just that.

Then, you’re going to start to go hungry. So, you’re going to have to go and hunt using your rifle. Now, you got to actually learn how to shoot the rifle. You actually got to learn how to sneak up on animals, find the animals in the wilderness — because it’s not like animals are just running around and waiting for you to shoot them. You got to spot them first, track them down.

And then, after you shoot them, you got to clean them up. Make sure they’re edible. You got to use your knife to skin the animal. You got to cook it somehow. You got to start a fire somehow, right? And you don’t just have to do that once, but you got to keep doing that consistently.

In fact, you got to probably shoot half a dozen animals a day in order to feed yourself just for that one day. Because hunting requires a lot of expenditure of energy. So, that’s just the basics there. But then you also need shelter.

So, you got to build yourself some kind of shelter. Make sure that it’s not getting overheated by the heat, by the sun. So it’s not getting too cold at night. And you got to manage all of that. And you got to be actually creating a certain result. Because, in the wilderness, if you’re not getting the result — then, basically, you’re dead. Something’s going to kill you at some point.

Now, it was easier to be in touch with that ten thousand years ago than it is now. Because nowadays, if you just let yourself go, society will kind of take care of you. And even in the worst-case scenario, like a bum on the street, who doesn’t have a place to live, still — they have a lot of luxuries these days that you wouldn’t have ten thousand years ago.

The Fire Of Reality

So, that’s one problem, right? The other interesting facet of this is that I find there’s this interesting dynamic going on here of why people are not good results-makers. And it’s because they don’t hold their own feet to the fire of reality. That’s what I call it.

So, what I noticed in myself, especially when I was younger, is that I would come up with cool ideas and dreams for a business that I want to start. Or how my career is going to go. Or for how I’m going to learn a lot of money. Or travel somewhere. Or do some cool thing. So, I would have these ambitions.

But then, what would happen is that I would spend a lot of time thinking about this, and planning it all out. But that was like me living in my little bubble. My fantasy bubble. It wasn’t connected to reality in any way. My feet weren’t getting held to the fire of reality.

Then what happened is that I was getting older, and older, and older. And I started to get out of college, and I started to go to the job market. Find myself a real job. Actually started paying my bills. That sort of thing. All of the sudden, it’s like: “O-oh. Now the rubber meets the road. And now all my dreams are suddenly shattered and thrown out the window. Because there’s no way they can work in real life”.

Because now, what happens is that the bubble touches the edge of reality. And when it does, it usually bursts. Because the bubble’s not strong enough. And so what happens is that you have to scramble, and you have to start to think: “Oh, shit, how do I re-adapt my beliefs and my dreams, and my ambitions to, actually, what will work in the real world?” Because you try to get something to actually work in the real world.

And you discover, like: “Oh, well the marketplace doesn’t want this project that I was dreaming up. No one wants to buy it”. Or it’s like: “Well, I thought I could charge a thousand dollars for it, and it turns out that people don’t even want to pay fifty dollars for it. It turns out that people even don’t want it for free. Oh — I didn’t anticipate that. Oh — that’s how markets actually work? Shit — what am I going to do now?”.

And now you have to scramble. And the interesting psychological dynamic here is that it’s emotionally disturbing and uncomfortable for us to have our bubbles popped. We don’t like it. We like to live in fantasy land. And so, what a lot of people do, I suspect, is that they live in fantasy land, but then they never ground themselves. Because this grounding process — it doesn’t just happen once.

You have to keep doing it again, and again, and again, and again. And this is what a really good results-maker is able to do. He’s able to hold his own feet to the fire. Or, as the other people, what they are is — they are just dreamers. They are dreamers, and they are big-talkers. And they talk a lot of shit — but they don’t actually get anything accomplished.

And I think that one of my personal strengths is that I am results-oriented. And for me, this happened, actually — there was like a shift in my life when this happened. Because I used to be a very big dreamer throughout middle school and high school, and into college. And after college, I had to get very serious. Had to start going off on my own, leave the family nest.

And this shift happened psychologically, within me. Where I kind of had to bite the bullet and tell myself: “Shit. If I want these dreams to actually get accomplished — if I really value my dreams — then that means I have to be willing to do what’s necessary to be done”. And that’s usually dirty work.

“I have to be willing to get into the mud. Get myself dirty in order to translate the dream into reality.” And that translation process — that’s a very messy, dirty, emotionally difficult thing to undertake. Because what has to happen is, first of all — you have to be flexible enough to relinquish a lot of your fantasies and beliefs.

Because here’s the cool thing about reality — reality doesn’t change for you. You got to change for reality. Now, there are, really, two options that you have. One is — you can come up with all these cool dreams and then, when you try to implement them within reality, you see that: “Oh, shit, it’s not working”. And then you have a choice.

You could say: “Ok, it’s not working. So, let me just go and fantasize some more and forget about this whole thing or trying to make my dreams real. Let me just not to that. It’s kind of painful. Kind of unpleasant and uncomfortable. I don’t want to go through all that”. So, that’s one option. That’s the emotionally-easy option.

Then there’s the emotionally-difficult option. Which is to say, and this is the mature option, which is to say: “Man, I was really misguided about my understandings of reality. I thought this thing would fly — it’s not going to fly. Not even close. Shit. Let me go back to the drawing board. Let me think of a new idea. Let me not only do that, but also let me introspect and analyze my own process.”

“What kind of beliefs do I hold about the world, which are making it impossible for me to make this project actually fly in the real word? Oh, yeah, I got a couple of these beliefs. I can see not how those beliefs are probably wrong. But, man, I don’t want to give up those beliefs. Oh, man, but I have to give up those beliefs if I want to make this work”.

So, basically what happens is that you have to mature. And you have to evolve. And you have to let go of your old dogmas about the way you think things should work. And then, actually, you have to be humble enough to let reality work on you. This is why I call — holding your feet to the fire of reality. And it’s an emotionally painful thing. For me, I discovered this when I started to work within the video game industry.

Working Your Way Up

One thing I wanted is to create these cool games. But, you know, creating cool games costs lots of money, takes lots of work. And what I quickly realized is that all my fancy ideas for games that I’ve been dreaming up for the last five or tens years — a lot of those are not going to fly. And I’m going to have to make a lot of sacrifices to make some of those work, right?

And that’s when my face, not just my feet, but my face got smashed into reality. And that was painful. And that was difficult. And it’s disillusioning, right? Disillusioning. When people tell you that: “Oh, used to be idealistic, like you, but then, you know — reality showed up and now I have to lower my expectations, lower my dreams and all that stuff”.

Well, you could do that. And some people, what they do is that they just keep living in their fantasy bubbles. And they don’t actually admit to themselves that all the shit that they’re fantasizing isn’t getting translated into real results.

It’s interesting, because — I talked about the stages, in my “Science vs. Religion” video. So, if you’ve watched that one, then you know what I’m talking about here, which is stage green. Stage green is a certain stereotype of people. It’s a certain level of psychological development. Actually, it’s a pretty high level. Most people aren’t even at green.

But the green stage is stereotyped as the hippie, or the new-ager. And what’s interesting about these people is that they really have this sense of concern for the world, right? So, their circle of concern increases, so that they don’t just care about themselves selfishly. But now they care about other countries, and societies, and other people, and even animals.

So, that’s a cool thing. And also, what happens is that they become empathizers. They start actually caring. And they have genuine concern about the emotions, and feelings, and suffering of other people, right? So, these people usually are interested in charitable causes, like saving the whales, and saving the polar bears. And helping poor children in Africa, right? And that’s a good intention.

But one of the problems with this stage green is that, even though these people have really good intentions, and the are very idealistic, and they want to come together and share ideas, and they want to talk it out, and they want to come up with a plan for how to live in harmony and in peace, and so that everybody loves each other, right — they are not actually good results-makers.

And so, what happens in practice is that they come together, sit in a circle, and they sing Kumbaya. And they talk about how everyone should live in peace, and everyone should love each other, and how we’re going to save the environments, and save the whales, and do all this nice stuff.

But then, in reality, what happens is that you just have that moment, of sitting in a circle. And then everyone disperses, goes home. And nothing actually changes in the real world. So, they are not very good results-makers.

Are you that way in your life? Do you talk a lot of shit, but then don’t get anything done. Do you have a pedigree of creating results? That’s very important, if you really want to create either success or even happiness. You might think that: “Well, happiness doesn’t depend on creating all these tangible results”. But actually, it does.

And in fact, these green hippie people who like to preach spirituality and how spiritual they are. And who also are very big into relationships — they also talk about how connected they are to everybody else, and they very much values intimacy and relationships, and communication.

Well ,these things: spirituality and relationships — these are actually categories within which it takes serious results-making to get good results. It’s one thing to talk about how you’re going to have this loving relationship. And then, it’s another totally different thing to actually have a loving relationship. And to actually engineer that, to design it. To make it happen.

Because a loving, intimate relationship doesn’t happen by accident. That takes a lot of skill to develop that. You need to develop yourself as a human being in order to be able to sustain a really high-quality intimate relationship.

And a lot of times, these hippie people — they might talk about relationships and how great they are. But then, in practice, you take a look at their lives and you see that: “Oh, man, their relationships are shit”. Or — spirituality. They might talk about how spiritual they are, and yada, yada, yada. Talk about chakras and energy, and love, and all these fancy spiritual concepts.

But then you actually take a look at them. Are they actually spiritually developed. Do they actually understand? Are they conscious of their own ego? And all the illusions that are happening there? And what you find is that, oftentimes — they are not.

In fact, what they are doing is — they are using all the spiritual talk as a way to muddy the waters. So that they can distract themselves from having to look at the fact that, actually, in reality — they aren’t spiritual at all. This is what I mean by holding your feet to the fire.

What you need to do as a results-maker, if you want to really be a results-maker and self-actualize — you need to bite this bullet at some point in your life. And you got to say to yourself: “Man, ok, I can’t be one of this people who just dreams shit up and then doesn’t make it happen. I got to bite the bullet on this, and I actually got to get humbled by reality”.

“Like, if reality wants to beat my face to a bloody pulp, then I’m willing to take those hard knocks. Because that’s worth it to me. Because I actually care about getting my dreams realized.”

And then you actually got to take those knocks and pay that cost. And what that might mean for you is — giving up some of your very cherished beliefs that you’re clinging to. Or reconciling some of the issues you’ve got with money. Or the way that the economy works. Or the way politics works. Or the way that relationships actually work.

Not your fantasy ideal of how love works, and how everyone should love each other unconditionally. Because that shit doesn’t happen in real life in an intimate relationship. An intimate relationship is not unconditional love. It’s a very selfish kind of love. It’s really like a business negotiation.

But do you have the balls to admit that to yourself? To admit that, and then work within that, and then transcend that? That takes some real doing, right? And that requires willingness on your part to take on the burden of expending emotional labor to make this stuff happen. Which is what most people are not willing to do.

Going All The Way

So, instead of talking a bunch of shit, what I’d like from you is to actually do the things and ask yourself to get the real results that you want. So, if you’re going to start a small business, go start the business. Stop talking shit about it.

If you want to go earn more money, and take care of your finances, shut the fuck up and go take care of your finances. So that actually, the numbers in your bank account are increasing. That’s the thing that you should be judging yourself on.

Not how well you can talk. Or how well you can dream some shit up. If you want to move to a new country, when you actually move to that new country — that’s when it counts. before that, it’s just a bunch of talk. Same thing with losing weight. Same thing with your relationships. Same thing with your happiness levels.

Are you actually increasing your happiness levels, or are you talking a bunch of shit? Enlightenment — are you really pursuing enlightenment, or are you just talking a bunch of shit about enlightenment? You need to shut the fuck up, do less talking and more doing.

And when you do doing, don’t confuse just doing for results. There’s a very big difference between just doing stuff and getting results. Because you can do certain things that will never generate a results at all. And, in fact, a lot of people make this mistake. A results-maker makes this distinction makes very clear in this mind.

If I’m doing something, and it’s not generating results within a week or two, I got to change that shit up. So that I’m doing something else. Kind of — change my approach. Can’t get stuck. A lot of people, they get stuck in these cycles where they are just doing stuff they think it’s going to produce something later on. And it never produces anything.

And they don’t want to change. Because change is emotionally difficult. Not let me make the counter-point. Which is that — some people might listen to this and say: “Ok, Leo, you’re really hammering on results. But isn’t there more to life than just results?”

And the answer, of course, is yes. There is more to life than just results. So, I don’t want you to take my point here as being that you got to be this neurotic results-maker. only focusing on results everywhere. No. But first what you got to do is, I think, build a pedigree of creating results.

After you’ve done that, and you’ve proven that you’re a results-maker, and you’ve developed that discipline and that skill, and those mindsets — then you can ease off the pedal and maybe sit back, and meditate. Enjoy life a little bit. Don’t be so results-focused.

But I think, for most people, what they need more of is — they need more of this results-making mentality. Because the results-making is usually the hard thing. It’s the emotionally difficult thing. Just sitting back and relaxing, in a sense — that can be emotionally difficult too, to actually properly relax.

If you’re a workaholic type, who’s always working his ass off, then you probably actually have this opposite problem, Which is that you can’t sit back, and your relax and enjoy yourself. So, for you, maybe you got to swing the pendulum the opposite way.

But for many people, that’s not the case. So, I’m not telling you here to become a workaholic, necessarily. You don’t need to work yourself to death. But you do need to develop this kind of mentality. It’s a mentality thing. So, with that said, how do you actually do this? Let me give you a good, juicy list. Here’s how a results-maker thinks.

So, the first thing is that you actually have to value tangible results. This is a mindset thing. An attitude thing. So, for example, if you’re an employer. And your employees are coming to you with stuff they are supposed to be doing for you, right? You have to be the one that actually sets the standard for tangible results being created.

If you’re an employee right now, one thing you can do is, again, you can start to value tangible results. Are the people around you creating tangible results? Are you holding yourself to that standard of “I got to create tangible results, otherwise I’m not really doing anything”? That’s the first thing.

The second this is — you actually have to create shit. Seems a bit crass and oversimplified, but it really is this simple. Are you a creator in your life? Or you’re doing something else? For me — I’m creatively-minded. I’m also project-minded. What this means is I see my life as a series of projects that I’m working on. And I find that this is a very useful mindset for creating results.

Because if you are like an average person, who doesn’t thing about their life as a series of projects and, instead, just thinks of it like: “Yeah, I got my job and I’m just going to keep doing that while it pays me money, and maybe later I’ll get a new job, and I’ll just keep bouncing from job to job, and just survive that way” — if you’re that kind of person, you’re going to suck at generating results.

See, the way I think about it is like this: “Ok, I got a project that’s due six months from now. I got to release this product. If I create this product, and I release this product, then I’m going to go on and create the next product. Then, maybe I’m going to go create this business. Then I’m going to start a new business two years after that. And so on and so forth.

Those projects are like specific, tangible things I got to put out into the real world. Whether it’s a website, a blog, a video, a video course, a set of audios, a book I want to write, or whatever. That’s how I think of my life. In terms of these milestone projects. Which I want myself completing every six or twelve months, or so, right?

Some of them are small, and some of them are bigger. But that’s important. Start thinking of your life in terms of projects. What are you actually creating in the next six months? Is it a tangible thing? When it’s a tangible thing, that means you got to actually make it.

Because then it’s very clear in your mind that, if you don’t make it within the next six months, you know you failed. Now, if you never set that tangible thing in the first place, then it’s like — well, you can’t even tell whether you failed or not, because you had nothing you were working towards.

Creating Impact

Another point. Desire to impact people. For me, this is huge. Personally, this is the reason why I want to be a results-maker. Because I want to actually change how people think and what they feel. And I want to change the world.

To have an impact on the world, you need to actually create something. That is the impact. So, by definition, you have to be a results-maker if you want to create impact. Now, for me, that’s because I actually want to change people. Or, you know, I want to change something.

Whether it’s creating a more beautiful piece of art, or whether it’s writing a cool blog post. Or creating a new video that’s going to change someone’s mind, right? The video has to be created in order for someone’s mind to change. Someone’s mind is not going to change just from me sitting and dreaming shit up.

Most people, though, they don’t care about impacting anyone. All they want is a cushy life. If all you want is a cushy life, you’re going to be terrible at making results. Because you really don’t have a strong enough motivation to create results. When you have a real valid reason to be creating work which is connected to you life purpose, then you can go out there and really make some strong results happen.

Talk Is Cheap

Next point is something that I call “Talk is cheap”. And it really is. People tell me all the time all the hit they’re going to do. People will email me, and tell me projects that they want to collaborate with me on. And: “Hey, Leo, let’s write a book together” or “Let’s do this” or “Oh, I want to start a business” or “Oh, I want start this charity organization that going to transform the world” or “I want to cure AIDS in Africa”.

But all this is just talk. It’s just talk. One in a hundred people will be serious when they’re telling me this stuff. The other ninety-nine percent — they are just jokers. Just talking shit. So, in my mind, what I’ve done a long time ago is — I’ve totally discounted talk.

When someone tells me they are going to do something, in my mind — it means nothing. It’s like empty sounds. You’re going to do something? Don’t tell me you’re going to do something — go fucking do it.

Don’t tell me you’re going to lose twenty pounds — go lose the fucking twenty pounds, then come talk to me about it. Don’t tell me you’re going to write a book — write the book. Then come show it to me. Then we can talk. Oftentimes, talk is just a distraction from holding your feet to the fire.

Nothing But Excellence

Another point is: work for excellence. Value excellence for its own sake. Want to be putting out the best you can be putting out. It’s crazy to me, because I worked with contractors sometimes, that helped me do stuff for my business. And I’ve worked with contractors for a long time in other businesses that I’ve had.

And basically, they are either writing stuff for me, or doing some coding, or whatever task I have them do. But then, they submit their work and their work is just this sloppy work. No, granted that I don’t always pay them that much that they’ll be doing the most beautiful work ever.

But still, it’s like sloppy work. You’d be ashamed to submit that kind of work to a boss or somebody. It’s just crap work. No excellence is put into it. It’s like they don’t value excellence. If you don’t value excellence, then how can you be a strong results-maker?

Another point is: take personal responsibility for making it happen, whatever it is. Losing weight, starting a business, some project at work, earning more money for somebody, whatever. Personal responsibility has to be taken. You have to believe that it’s your job.
Nobody else is going to do it for you.

Stop waiting for somebody else to lead you. To show you the way. To tell you what to do. If there’s some initiative at work that needs doing, step up and do it. Take personal responsibility. I always assume that, if I don’t get it done, it’ll never get done and no one will do it for me. That’s like my general operating principle for life.

Whatever it is, I have to do it. Sometimes, I can even get a little neurotic. Where it’s even difficult for me to work with people. Because I just tend to assume that they’re inherently unreliable. Because a lot of them are. But there’s still an art of finding reliable — you can find reliable people. So, don’t let that be a limiting belief.

Another important point is: working the big picture. A results-maker is powerful because he has a big picture, high-level understanding of what we’re working towards, and why we’re working towards it. There’s a purpose behind what he’s doing.

He’s not just doing some menial labor for somebody else, just because he’s going to get paid for it. That’s a terrible way to go about it. Instead, it’s like he can see, from a thousand foot elevation, what needs to be done and why it needs to be done.

I think that’s another attribute that I have that’s contributed to my success in life — it’s that I’m always looking at the big picture. Why am I doing this? How is this thing going to play into the next thing? And how’s that going to connect with my long-term vision for my life and for how I want to impact the world? A lot of people don’t think this way. You have to start thinking that way.

Mind The Work Ethic

The next point is work ethic. You got to build a strong work ethic. And that’s something that’s lacking these days. Because, again, in modern society, especially kids growing up these days — we’re so spoiled with all the shit that we get. All the free entertainment, and free thing, and free that. Everything’s taken for granted.

Just thing back even a couple of generations ago. A hundred years ago. when your great-grandparents were alive. The kind of work ethics that people had back then. Mind-blowing, amazing. Sometimes I read books about successful people in the past. I think about someone like Benjamin Franklin or Nikola Tesla. People that lived a couple of hundred years ago. Thomas Edison. Thomas Jefferson.

What these people were able to accomplish in their lives is amazing. And they had to work through a lot more shit than we had to do these days. It was a lot harder back then. But they had these incredible work ethics. They were work mules, these guys. That’s rare these days.

It’s tough to develop that. Especially in our modern culture. Our culture is very much focused on spoiling us and making us comfortable. And it really devalues work ethics. So, you have to go against the grain on this.

And you have to be willing to use brute force. That’s something I’ve always left open s an option. That, if there’s some result that I want to get to, and I can see that I can brute-force my way with work to get to that result — then I’ll just do it. I’ll gravitate towards doing it.

Whereas, what I see with some people is that it’s like: “Yes, we could accomplish this goal by brute force, but, oh, I don’t want to brute-force it. Isn’t there a shortcut? Isn’t there some magic solution? Do I really have to sit there for five hours and hammer on this thing until it gets done? I don’t want to do that”.

And so, what they say is: “Uhm, let me go look for another approach”. And then they never find that approach. And they never get anything done. Now, this is not to say again that you have to be a workaholic and work stupid. No, you work smart.

You don’t want to be just working for work’s sake and doing bunch of menial labor. But if you can see that menial labor, by doing it for a short period of time, can get you to the next level, then you have to be willing to go there and do it. That’s brute force.

Comfort Is A Bad Thing

Next point. Sacrifice comfort. A lot of times, you got to sacrifice some of your own personal comfort to generate some powerful result in life. Maybe you got to stay up late to finish writing this book for the publishing milestone. Or maybe you got to skip your next vacation in order to do something and advance yourself.

Well, are you willing to do that? Or are you living life just for comfort? If your life is lived for comfort, then your life is going to, actually, very ironically, be a very miserable life. because it’s like this self-serving, ego-indulgence — its like hedonism. And hedonism, counter-intuitively, doesn’t actually produce the greatest happiness. So watch out for that.

Next point, which is a really important one. You have to be willing to change yourself to get the result. This right here is actually the whole foundation of Actualized.org, if you realize it or not. That the reason we’re growing and we’re self-actualizing is so that we could produce better results, so that we could impact the world in a more powerful way.

That, to me, is the nutshell of it. Most people are not willing to do this. Most people — they’ll go as far as getting up to their edge of their comfort zone and saying: “Ok, well this is the edge of what I could possibly do. So that’s it. That’s it. I’ve maxed myself out”.

No. The real results-maker, what he does is, he says: “Well, right now I’m only capable of going here. But my result is five steps beyond my current ability level. So what I’m going to do is transform my entire psyche as necessary to get those five steps extra, that I can’t get to right now”.

Whatever it takes — building skills, reading books, taking coaching, seminars, studying, practicing, research, all that stuff. Not just that stuff. That stuff is basic. That’s like a mandatory thing. You got to learn technical skills to get good at what you want to create. I’m talking a bout even going further than that.

Like — dropping entire chucks of belief systems out of your world view. Like, deep psychological changes, right? Changing how you view the entire cosmos. Your thoughts on God and on physics and on science. All this shit, I found, has to be changed in order to really become an amazing results-maker.

And it’s hard for most people to see that. Why are these changes necessary? These changes seem so deep, and so abstract, and so loosely connected to being able to generate practical results. But for me, it’s all interconnected.

For example, if you’re a very dogmatic person, if you’re not able to be very open-minded, you’re going to have a difficult time generating the best results you possibly can. And most people are so dogmatic they don’t even understand what the word ‘dogma’ means.

And they will deny their dogmas till their death. To me, this is ridiculous, right? Because, like I said, a long time ago I made the decision that I’m going to align myself with reality no matter what the emotional cost is to me. I’m not going to try to preserve my ego and make myself more comfortable.

I’m going to align myself with the harshest truths that are out there. Because I now that that’s going to, eventually, pay off really big for me. And it has. And it’s going to continue to. That’s one of my founding principles by which I live life. Which I think that most people don’t do. I’m kind of surprised by it, honestly?

Next point: throw yourself into demanding situations. There’s nothing like just throwing yourself — launching yourself outside your comfort zone. Think about a military boot camp. This is exactly what it is. You take some soft, new recruits. Throw them into a couple of months of brutal, intense boot camp training. And all of the sudden, they come out soldiers in the end.

And what happens in that process is that their psyche just gets shell-shocked into transforming, right? It’s like a total shock to your system. And you have so much emotional pressure on you. Some people break down. Some people lose it. Some people can’t handle it. But then, those that do survive the process — they come out much stronger.

And that’s what you got to do in your life. So, if you’re living that easy, comfortable life that you have been for the last five or ten years, how about throwing yourself into a demanding situation? Such as moving to a new country. Launching yourself into a new relationship. Starting a new business. Or whatever else you can think of like that.

Pick Your “Surroundings”

Next point: be around exceptional people. If you surround yourself with mediocre people, who are not generating any results in life, then you will assimilate their attitudes and mindsets. And you will think that that’s normal. Whereas, if you are a results-maker, what you do is — you actually want to distance yourself from those people. Surround yourself with other results-makers.

And then, what happens is that those results-makers bring you up to their level. Because, if you’re friends with a person who’s able to generate incredible results, you start to see that: “Oh, shit, I didn’t even know it was possible to generate results of that caliber. And if that guy could do it, maybe I could do it too? And if this guy could do it, and if that guy could do it, then I could probably do it too”. It raises up your expectations of yourself. Important.

The next point is, and I just touched on this, but: starting your own business. I think that nothing holds your feet to the fire more than starting your own business and seeing the harsh cut-throat, and brutal realities of the marketplace.

Because, when you first start your own business, you have these fancy business ideas. But then, what happens is that you write up this cool, nifty business plan. But then, what happens is that you actually go and you try to implement it — and it all goes shit.

None of it works. No one’s willing to pay you a dime. Your marketing doesn’t work. You’re not able to attract a single client. No one’s interested in your stuff — even for free. They don’t care. And then, that’s when you have that real big eye opener.

It’s like: “Oh, shit. I really don’t understand how the marketplace works. My understanding of the marketplace is so childish. It has to really mature. And that’s where your feet get just burned on that fire. And that burning — that’s a good thing.

See, most people, when they feel that burn — they don’t like it. It’s not comfortable to them. So they run away. And they feel like: “Oh, the burn is bad”. But actually, the secret to life is that the burn is good. You have to train yourself to love that burn in a kind of masochistic, sadistic sort of way, right? Just don’t take it over the top.

For me, starting my own business was really big. That was the point where I really took on the challenge, bit the bullet and said: “Ok. I’m going to figure it out somehow. And I’m going to take full responsibility”.

And the stakes were so high that I had to figure it out. Because, literally, I left my nine-to-five job. And then, what happened was that — if I was going to be earning money, if I wasn’t going to be able to attract the clients, and actually get dollars in my bank account — then I would be homeless within a relatively brief period of time.

So, that really lit a fire under my ass, and the stakes were high. And when the stakes are that high, then what happens is that you — usually, your ego relents, and it surrenders. And it says: “Ok, I’ll change myself to live”. So, take that leap if you really want to master results-making.

Memento Mori

And the last point I’m going to say is: think about your death. That’s a little odd. “Think about your death? How does that help you to be a results-maker?” Well, for me, very directly. In fact, I found myself thinking about my own death on a daily basis nowadays.

Like, randomly thinking about my own death. How I’m going to die. Like, maybe I’ll get killed by a meteor landing and smashing into the earth tomorrow. And I won’t even wake up to know — I’ll just burn away. Or some nuclear war starts while I’m asleep, and then I never even wake up to see it.

To me, this is important because it shows me how little time I have to get shit done. I don’t have eternity. I have a very short window within which to make my results happen. So, this makes me focused on generating results, right? My own death.

This is something that most people don’t do. They don’t really think about this stuff. In fact, they actively try to distract themselves from thinking about their own death. So that they can pretend to have forever to live. And then, when they think that they have forever to live, they don’t do anything.

They piss away all their time. Piss away their youth. And then, when they are old and in their sixties and seventies — then they start with all the regrets. And all the shit that they should’ve done when they were younger. And yada, yada — you know how it works, right? Don’t fall into that trap. Think about your death often, so that you’re reminded of how little time you actually have.

So, that’s my list. The point in all this, and what I want you to take away from this video is, simply, that — you need to get off your ass. Now. If you’ve been falling into this rut of watching a lot of Actualized.org videos, thinking that they’re making you smarter, and cooler, and all this stuff — stop that shit. Take action on the things I’m telling you.

Every video — you should be thinking about: “How can I take action on it?” And your ratio of watching my videos to taking action should be, like, ten to one. Ten times action taking, one part watching a video, right?

Wrap Up

Whatever you want — what is it? A career? More money? Relationship? Happiness? Meditate better? Decide the result that you want, make a project out of it, get off your ass, start doing it. Hold your feet to the fire. Feel that burn, and learn to love that burn.

And also, I think you should check out my life purpose course, which I just released. Because this course is all about how to get the most important piece of this puzzle together for you. Life purpose.

Talk about being a results-maker. If you can find your life purpose, and apply the principles that I talk about in so much depth in this course. Over twenty hours of content. I think it’s getting above twenty-five hours now, actually. Over two hundred gigabytes. Over ninety videos. And I’m going to keep expanding that into the future.

If you start applying this stuff in your life, and taking action on it, you’re going to become one of the most extraordinary results-makers in your life, that you know. In your whole circle of acquaintances and friends. And the shit you’re going to be able to achieve, and the satisfaction that you’re going to get from being able to achieve it — is going to be remarkable.

It’s really — the pinnacle of life is getting there. And I want you to get there. So, there’s so much material there. Go check it out. Maybe you’re interested in — it can help you to launch yourself into the next level.

Alright, I’m Leo, I’m signing off. That’s it for this one. Post me your comments down below. Click the like button, please. Share this video with a friend. And then come check out Actualized.org. I have a free newsletter there. Other exclusive stuff you can find on the website.

You can find the life purpose course there. You can find my book list there. So, a lot of resources if you’re really serious about getting some strong results in your life. Come check it out. I’ll see you soon.

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Don says:

Awesome!
Thank you.

Gema says:

Hi Leo,

this is the best shit I’ve ever had the pleasure to listen to.

I love your direct and open style. These days, it is hard for me to find something that doesn’t push me to multitasking (of course, multitasking is not possible which means I end up not listening to what I was listening to or not reading what I was reading). Your video was engaging from beginning to end (ok, I did check my emails once or twice, but honestly, compared to the rate I quickly shift to other stuff, your video got 90% of my attention).

It may be me, but your straight to the point, no-fluff approach really works with me.

I’m about to start my NLP modelling project after I’ve finished my NLP Master Practitioner course, and I can tell you that ‘Becoming Results Oriented’ will be the title of my project and my goal, and you will be one of my exemplars, so I’ll be watching all your videos to get my answers.

Thank you for your generosity in sharing so much valuable information. Like you, I am an addict to self development and after all the achievements, there is so much still to be achieved… and you are going to help me big time.

Thank you. So much

Gema

Leo Gura says:

Cool! Good to see folks getting involved with self-help

Bella Hollywood says:

Leo, you help me so much. Your insight is for my life in every stage of my life.
Gracias.

Marjorie says:

your a great model besides Leo Gura, i’m all out to you and your project. I wish you well.

Gema says:

Thank you Marjorie

MARK says:

Results are intrinsically part of the ‘big fat cumulonimbus thought clouds’ that prevent me from enjoying my day!

Can we be enlightened and be a results seeker? Are results food for the ego?

Leo Gura says:

Full enlightenment is the hugest result you can ever achieve. It will take you 20+ years and you will have to adopt many tricks in the result-marker playbook to do it.

Mark says:

I want a better result than 20+ years well played! Cheers

Gema says:

Great question Mark, I was pondering on the same yesterday: ‘are we going to feed the ego when looking for excellence?’

Then I came across some readings from Tao Te Ching that reminded me that all paths get you to self-actualisation or enlightenment.

For me, looking for excellence and being results oriented will mean getting out of the circle of complacency and laziness and also overcome my own fear of success. None of this is good for the soul’s evolution. I choose to see this way instead of wondering what it will do for my ego. As long as my ego is working for my soul and not the other way round, I will always be in the path of evolution of my soul.

On the spiritual path, on the path towards enlightenment, my experience has been so far that once I heal or transmute one thing, immediately more doors open that show me what is coming up for healing next. That is why it takes so long and there is no shortcut, for knowing thyself is a vast subject, as vast and intricate as knowing the Universe, for there is no difference.

With love. Gema

henrique says:

So Great!!! thank you Leo.

Grace says:

Hey, especially loved the 10:1 comment re watching the videos vs doing the actions. I listen to them whilst running and sometimes I forget the main action point/to do list. Be great after each video if there were like 5 reminder bullet points? I find myself trying to toggle back through video to remember the key take always so be great if there was a very minimal bullet list of words that act as reminders.

I love these videos!

Kaz says:

Make your own bullet point notes as you’re watching you can even pause while you jot them down…or wait for the transcript…..
In regard to your note below about healthy eating/food etc….check the books tab. Leo recommends a good book about it. Hope it helps

Grace says:

Leo,
Where are your videos on super healthy eating. I am healthy eater and live eating healthy whole foods but sometimes I fall off the path. I think it would be great to have some of your thoughts on this. Around changing for life. I’m good 70% of the time but I hate that when I fall off I’m eat crap and drink crap which has no intrinsic value or soul nourishment. Thanks

Marjorie says:

Hi,
I have felt strong notions on mindset. I owe it all to you, because when people tell me you have to this you have to that, i say yeah that’s right, but then i go back to sleep, and i don’t think twice about what i was told.
I have the committment to get things done!
I have the committment to see the picture of the process of making things happen.
I have the committment to work towards reality, to see work done well in a proficient manner.
I have the committment to excel in excellence. I want to do great work, in a excellent way, so i get honored for what i worked so hard to learn, which is through self actualization, opening my chances of showing better models of efficiency.
Thank you Leo, you. I know i will benefit from the videos, and the course, i just believe, because i want to get better at what i do, and can do.

Cathy says:

Hello,
I loved this video.
it really helped me understand that I cannot keep just wishing and hoping my dreams will come true and that I really don’t have all the time in the world.

I already set up my calendar to fit in the activities that will lead me into realizing my dreams.
Thank you

Toomas says:

Hi Leo,

Most important point you made was to hold your feet to the fire and actually enjoy it. Without having the grit to immerse yourself into the hard work, the struggle no technique will make you great. I’m sure all great men and women of our time and past will relate to that.

Like the prophet who new what was coming and still did not choose to run and hide but faced his destiny and ultimately death.

You summed it all up very well: love that burn!

Well done – thank you!

Michael says:

Expectations (including of results, and especially of karma) are an inconvenience, especially when it comes to trying to drain karma or attaining enlightenment. A lack of intention is also a good way to drain karma and make the path to enlightenment a smoother practice.

I found some really useful information from Mooji that although I have been learning from him for a long time, only very recently have a understood what is being said, it all makes so much sense now. I would be very pleased to try and explain to you if you like.

Thanks, I appreciate your work,

Michael

Leo Gura says:

Yes, but you still need to work your ass off in the self-inquiry process, or meditation process, or whatever process you use.

See, most people will interpret a guru who says, “Just sit back and do nothing” as “Oh, so I can become enlightened by continuing living my everyday existence and it will just magically happen?” And the answer of course is No! It will never magically happen. The process of sitting back and doing nothing is actually something very emotionally difficult that almost no one is able to execute on properly. Proper not-doing is hardcore getting-shit-done.

Michael says:

Yes I totally agree. Mooji teaches the Self-Inquiry method, which has been passed on from master to student since the founder of it, Ramana Maharshi, discovered the method. You can’t just do nothing, it requires constant mindfulness and total commitment. I see it as the true self being this silent true self awareness, the emptiness. The ‘I’ thought that identifies with labels, emotions and thoughts and has an ego is not the true self as this is an illusion and it is always changing. The idea is to let go of all this and be still, the only thought should eventually be deliberate thought from the true self, and all desire and impurity would have disappeared with the false self or would no longer be noticed as you would no longer be interested, it would eventually become the background noise that you are used to and no longer notice. All suffering and joy arises with thought, the true self sees this but is unmoved. You notice ‘oh, this has happened’ or ‘oh, this is going to happen’, ‘one day this body will perish’, but that’s okay because I am now, I am unmoved, nothing disturbs me because I am not ego, but the still emptiness. What is is.

Freedom of expectation and intention is an extension of this, it does not mean complete inactivity (as I’m sure you already know). It just happens to also aid in draining karma, this means that things are less likely to distract you if there is no karma and so things run more smoothly and neutrally (those of the God realms are often too busy enjoying their good karma and the hungry ghosts too miserable and distracted by their thirst for temporary pleasure to practice).

I hope I have explained this well, It is very difficult to explain. I hope I have interpreted it correctly, it has taken a long time to get here.

Leo Gura says:

Self-inquiry has been used in Zen for hundreds of years. One of their standard koans is “Who am I?”

Anthony says:

Hi Leo,

I’ve been following all your videos for a while now with special attention to the ones pertaining to enlightenment. I know you said in one of your earlier enlightenment videos that pursuing enlightenment alongside other self-improvement pursuits is fine and even recommended. I’ve been working with “the book of not knowing” to help with this enlightenment pursuit but I also just ordered “thick face black heart”. Because I think I may be too much of a people pleaser. This is ironic to me. You did say pursue other things alongside enlightenment but also said that if your far down the self actulaized ladder and you need more money or something and that’s real important maybe pursue that first and do enlightenment later (i.e. Enlightenment is advanced work). I have already done some consciousness work and really want to continue but can something like enlightenment (all about compassion and love for everything) be pursued alongside working with a book like “thick face black heart”. I’ve rationlaized that it can in the sense that sometimes cold or harsh can actually be compassionate to others in that it can motivate them to see and change their shortcomings and thereby actually help them. I think it was Osho that I heard was kind of a coarse/harsh Master in this way. What do you think?

Thanks,
Tony

Leo Gura says:

The problem you’re having is that you’re working really on two totally different levels there. The self-help stuff like reducing people-pleasing, etc is good stuff, but it has nothing to do with enlightenment. Think of it like riding a bicycle and playing the piano. Two nearly unrelated things.

Now, in the end, they will become related and you will start to see how self-help is just a weak and largely misguided form of consciousness work. But for now, that won’t be clear and it will just get you confused. Pick your target and focus on it. If you are serious about enlightenment, like it sounds, then you need to be busy every day deconstructing every thought, every belief you have. Don’t read other types of books other than enlightenment books. A general self-help book or something like Thick Face, will distract you from the deconstruction process. Enlightenment work is the deepest level and almost no other books take the truths of enlightenment into account when talking about self improvement. Because very few authors understand or even know about enlightenment.

Michael says:

To continue with our conversation:

Yes, that is the ultimate question within the enlightenment. Do you think I got it right? That enlightenment is noticing that the silent, still awareness (the one who witnesses everything if you will) is true self and the absence of ego and the labeling, person identifying ‘I’ thought.

Leo Gura says:

We could say that that is only the very beginning question within enlightenment. Full enlightenment takes decades of inquiry.

Michael says:

Thanks, I’m glad I could clarify that. Yes, it takes a long time, a lot of practice. I’m glad I interpreted it all correctly as at least I know what it is I need to understand. Now it is just practice, practice, practice. Constant mindfulness and reflection. Luckily I have had a good starter on mindfulness and reflection (I have trained my mind to reflect on a situation as it is happening, just after and, if necessary, a while after too). Now I need to make my reflection more efficient whilst further improving my mindfulness, as I don’t think my mindfulness is quite adequate yet. I have odd moments where I drift off. My mind ALWAYS checks that I am following ethical principles. But even then the mind is unreliable, I need to learn to work off my own steam entirely now.

Thanks again,

Michael

Anthony says:

Leo,

How did you find someone to teach you this stuff? A Master. Or do you not have a specific Master yet? Is there a place to look up someone like this in any state? I live in PA. Or should I move to Tibet? Lol

Tony

Michael says:

Thanks Leo. I’d be really interested in your thoughts on contemplating death. I think this is a really positive and non-morbid subject if done the right way.

Leo Gura says:

I’ll make a video on it soon.

MOIN says:

Hi leo

I have been following your video for about a month now. Your insights are truly valuable. Would you make a video explaining your life starting from the childhood to how you got into personal development, your mentors, the stages of your development and how it has changes from where you have started?

Leo Gura says:

I go into some depth about that in the life purpose course. Specifically I talk about how my career evolved, how I transitioned businesses, etc.

Ni says:

AMAZING !!!! GOD BLESS YOU

MM says:

Hi,

I bought the Ultimate Life Purpose course and I have now completed about half of the “lessons”.

I think the core concepts videos (from 1 to 40) are very good, but they don’t give me very much new things because I have already studied quite much self development (watched all your free videos, for example).

But the next part (videos from 41 to 54), that’s great! That’s totally awesome! I used about 2 days for thinking and doing those exercises, and I can honestly say that I believe that part has given me more value than anything else, more than any video or book or lecture. Actually it’s not just for to discover life purpose, every person should do those exercises…

I’m very keenly looking forward to the next parts of the course!!

Thank you so much Leo and greetings from North Europe!

MM says:

I still have to say that I experienced very strong emotional release after the exercise in page 52. And I hadn’t even noticed that issue before (at least not its effects), but for example it made me to have negative motivations for four of my main values. Huge change! Right now I’m positively shocked, but relieved

Leo Gura says:

Yeah, the course is front-loaded with theory, and back-loaded with exercises. Keep going! Some of the best exercises are still ahead of you.

KAT says:

Dear Leo,

Thank you for this video. I agree with your stance, you make a really good point and it is necessary to go into action to move forward. But what I do not understand is that it can be too much and have a paralyzing effect. It feels like you have to constantly produce results or life will not be satisfactory…and not to mention the psychological mindset you need to have. Can I ask you how do you cope with that, do you always keep going? Because I personally think it needs letting go, …and some things do take time and are not so easy…
It would be great to hear your stance.

Have a nice day;

Katrijn

Leo Gura says:

The Mastery concept needs to be applied. You gotta learn to love your life’s work. That’s not easy to do. And I’m not telling you to be a workaholic and grind stuff out. You have to take plenty of breaks, rest well, vacations, retreats, time for yourself, meditation, etc.

Daily meditation is HUGE!

Kat says:

Dear Leo,

Thank you for your insightful feedback. You are right and I truly believe daily meditation is huge.

Have a nice day,

Katrijn

WingWizard says:

What I have noticed in your very recent episodes is the pressing of innate human nature, the ego being an illusion etc. in the service of very practical matters. For example, you mentioned a person evading his own true nature for being a workaholic and working himself out. Obviously it points out to the fact a person engages himself in some sort of work to prevent himself from feeling inactive, even if at the level of the mind. That doesn’t certainly point to anything such as a him evading his own internal nature. Why are you doing this? Why are such pragmatic dealings having such irrational answers? This is very much unlike your previous, older episodes where you dealt with such matters in much practicality. I sincerely hope you make more episodes where you come up with practical solutions to practical problems.

Leo Gura says:

Because it is in fact the case. You don’t see enlightened workaholics. You don’t see enlightened depressives. You don’t see enlightened worriers. You don’t see enlightened negative-thinkers.

As my understanding of psychology is deepening every day, I start to see the root causes more clearly and can’t help reporting them.

This is going to keep happening even more as I become more developed myself. My videos a year from now will be very advanced and seem “impractical” to many of you who don’t keep up. The more one grows, the more one sees how stupid society is and how people absolutely refuse to listen to the actual honest-to-God solutions. No one cares about root solutions. All people want are magic pills, and this we call “being practical”. Actually it’s not. It’s being lazy and stubborn.

This is why people don’t listen to Zen Masters or Yogis. Because the Yogi tells you a solution you view as “impractical” and even mystical or out-of-touch with reality or stupid. But that’s just how an advanced solution looks to an under-developed psyche. I’m guilty of it myself. It’s a very big obstacle that virtually no one is aware of. Even really successful people in the self-help industry don’t understand this and so never rise to the highest levels of development

WingWizard says:

Why is it that these root and deep realizations don’t make sense to people with an underdeveloped psyche? I perfectly understand the concept of low awareness and it is perfectly true in many a cases. But somehow these very deep truths need to make sense to a person in order for them to understand it. Believing in things one doesn’t understand is absolute ignorance.

Your Spiritual Enlightenment series for example, talks about the truth of no self and the ego being an illusion. I perfectly understand what is meant by it cannot being asserted through language. How will you make someone ‘be’ it then? Rigorous self inquiry is an absurd process in respect to the fact that, at no time can it make you realize what the truth is? Self-inquiry would give subjective results to every individual. Then how can this be an apt method?

Very adjacently, it becomes extremely mysterious to someone who doesn’t understand such truths, if there supposedly exist any, to get serious about them. When such a concept doesn’t rationalize or call to an individual, how is he supposed to pursue it? It has been clearly mentioned that benefits are an illusion, apparently. How do you propose, someone will wrap his head around such concepts which cannot be made any sense of?

Leo Gura says:

That problem is resolved as soon as you stop taking your own thoughts too seriously. You gotta wonder why, of all the phenomena found in nature, you pay blind obedience to thoughts. After all, they are just arbitrary phenomena: sounds, images, and labels. They have zero intrinsic meaning. Can you intuit that? Whatever thoughts or reasonings you come up with, they’ve got no more meaning than a leaf blowing in the wind and they say nothing about what reality is.

No, you don’t yet appreciate the full ramifications of having low awareness. No amount of thinking can solve the problem of low awareness. Low awareness is what has you completely stuck in thoughts without realizing what thoughts actually are. If you actually saw what thoughts actually are, then you would become enlightened right then and there.

The deeper truths don’t make sense to the psyche because the psyche is built around the lie of the self, so the entire psyche is designed to protect this illusion and hide the deeper truths. The psyche’s main concern is self-survival, not truth-realization. Truth, it turns out, is destructive to the self, because the self is a falsehood. So if a self is ever to appear real, it must be through a clever mechanism of lies. This mechanism = thoughts + low awareness. This very mechanism is reading this sentence right now, unaware of its own falsehood, struggling to deny it’s own falsehood. Look at how it’s been corner! Like a rat! It’s deliciously ironic! A work of beauty, really.

WingWizard says:

What does a man really want? What is the man really seeking?

And how does he know what he is seeking is the thing he is seeking?

John says:

Hi Leo, great vid again.

When you have spoke about deconstructing the ego and our own thoughts we eventually come to the realisation that every day things that we used to talk about with our friends like sports and politics are really just bollocks and hot air, but we may have once spoke about things with lots of passion, I would assume this diserpates quite abit the more enlightened we become? So in turn do we start to distance our selves from our friends and social circles as it no longer fufills us? In this modern day society surely we would gravitate to be some sort of recluse?! My question is are you still able to live a ‘normal’ everyday life along side your enlightening pursuing side life?! (Got there in the end)

Hope you have to time to answer and help me challenge my thought processing fear of pursuing enlightenment!

Much regards, John from England

Leo Gura says:

The phenomena you describe — of outgrowing your friends/family — is true of all personal development work, not just enlightenment. If you significantly change your psychology in any way, you will probably have to shed some friends/family along the way. Don’t worry about that. You will make even better friends with your new psychology. Your family connections will deepen or maybe you will detach from certain “asleep” folks. But that’s exactly what you want in the end.

You don’t need to become a recluse unless you want to. Plenty of enlightened people are not recluses and interact with the world. You will probably extract yourself from mainstream society though. But that’s a good thing. You will start to see that mainstream society is very toxic and offers little of value to you. You will be self-reliant and won’t need this crutch any more.

So don’t worry about this. Just go for the truth with reckless abandon. You can’t be too worried about fallout if you are serious about success on this journey.

John says:

Thank you Leo for taking the time to give me an indepth reply to my earlier comment. It has given me valuable in-sight.

I will keep watching your video tapes!

John from England

Michael says:

Hello John,

I’m sorry for talking about something that’s not very relevant. However, as I always see myself as from ‘The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’ even though I am technically English I don’t see myself as English as I am proud of every country in our wonderful nation. I am curious as to what makes people only identify which one country. If you don’t mind me asking, why do you see yourself more as English rather than of the United Kingdom?

Anthony says:

Leo,

I can’t help but notice, every time I see it, that your last name is so close to the word Guru, and if you’re not one already you’re certainly on the path. It’s so coincidental it almost makes me think this all has to be a dream.

I had to.

Yvan says:

Dear Leo,

After watching this video of yours, I now feel myself like a superhero.
It is undoubtedly the best video I have ever seen on Actualized.org, and how was I longing to see such video !
Leo, I was awaiting a good video either from you or from other successful people which would give me advice sufficiently good as for killing procrastination, and becoming a machine of execution, as you yourself and other successful people are. To me, you are all superheroes on the same level as my new superheroes : Mad Max, Tony Montana, and the space pirates Cobra and Harlock.

Yvan says:

Long live to you Leo, and I shall listen to this video until I exhale my last sights ! Count upon me for recommending it a thousand times to a thousand friends and acquaintances !

Leo Gura says:

Glad it hit the spot. Thanks for your support!

Yvan says:

It broke even the spot, and you really are most welcome !

Rosa says:

Leo,
to say the in a nut shell, inspiring! I really need to put my feet in the fire. This I know I have been lacking…I no longer want to be a talker I want to be a doer. I have taken notes and will put this into action immediately. I will follow up with my status. Thank you for the in your face attitude, this is what I needed.

Michael says:

I once promised myself that I would sacrifice anything on my path to enlightenment and I have lived up to that so far. I set myself the goal of getting my head behind what self and emptiness actually is, in which I have been successful. I have done all sorts of volunteering including a 30 mile bike ride for the Tsunami Appeal and 50 mile bike ride for the Sea Cadet Corps, I raised the second highest amount of money for the Poppy Appeal in the Sea Cadets for my county and I help with the construction of an ecology centre.

I am very aspirational and I really want to make a big contribution not just to the study of birds, but I want to dedicate my self to the benefit of the avian world directly. I am not bothered about winning or losing and use every experience as a learning opportunity. I really would like some the african grey parrot and the macaws to gain legal personhood, and I believe in the concept of equality.

I love learning, in fact, it takes up almost all of my spare time, reading about the things that I love to learn about and thinking about how I can adapt what I have learned and apply it to real life, and then actually do it. I am currently working on destroying the illusory self or ego so I don’t feel the need to demonstrate it, in fact, I prefer to avoid demonstrating it. I like to take everything into account when thinking about something and see the bigger picture and I’m not afraid to give my pinion, even if it is different to the mainstream. I am able to tolerate a difference of opinion but I can struggle to appreciate an opinion I find easy to make invalid or that I find irrational. I do believe in long term strategies with a long term effect and I have have noticed that the world uses a lot of temporary solutions whilst foolishly digging a hole for itself. I would like all beings, especially the avian world, to have access to personal spiritual growth and enlightenment. I would like problems such as war, poverty, disease, hunger and political oppression to stop but I also see the difficulties of doing this such as how to have a moneyless global economy that works and isn’t abused. I do understand that sacrifices will have to be made to achieve this and I believe it is worth it, for example, loss of wealth.

What stage would I be on the Graves’ scale? You appear to have better sources for/understanding of this system.

Michael says:

Whenever I am literally relaxing, I feel as though I am wasting time. So even if you caught me sat outside on a chair enjoying the weather, in my mind, I’m still working. However, I do feel as though I could value tangible results much more. Even though I am actively pursuing things like enlightenment. I do like it when I do get a result. I also see life as a series of projects, I consciously and subconsciously monitor myself to see how well I am doing and what I need to do differently. I would like to make an impact, as I explained above. I have become aware of the talk issue, and I have been actively working to avoid this problem. Taking responsibility is essential a step towards waking up and realising that you actually have to do something to get things done. I do like to have a purpose behind whatever I do. My work ethic is “one’s job is one’s duty”, it was incredibly helpful when I got through difficult moments or times of year when doing my morning paper round. I learned to enjoy hard weather by seeing it as an opportunity to test my endurance, which later led to me joining the Royal Marines Cadets which I really enjoyed. I have sacrificed gaming and listening to music all the time to concentrate on the path to enlightenment. I have been changing myself for as long as I remember, since I was small. I have dropped politics, something I was very enthusiastic about to concentrate on enlightenment. I do like to face the realities. I do need to throw myself into more demanding situations. I do go out of my comfort zone a lot to open my mind and advance spiritually. I have stepped into the fire, now I would like to go further and jump in, something I am already taking steps to do. The death method seems really effective, just testing it it seems effective, I’m using that now.

So where do you think I am on the Graves’ Scale? Thanks.

ShaRon Carr says:

Hi Leo,

I would like to start by saying this video is very inspiring and that I will value getting things done. I been watching your videos consistently for a month now, and it’s already having a big impact on my life. I am only 20 years old and I can see the true value of reaching my full potential. I’ve always knew there was more to my life and I’m still trying to figure it out. I believe through the help of these videos and hard work will push me to the next level.

Thanks Leo, keep the videos coming.

Michael says:

I have found an excellent video about enlightenment, shall I send it to you, put it on here or something?

Todd Schafer says:

I’m sure it wasn’t your intention, but I found your “animals aren’t just running around waiting for you to shoot them” as very funny. Laugh every time i hear that line.

Martin says:

Thanks for the ideas in your video.
Leo, does the idea of enlightenment connect with the current video in achieving results? Ultimately, I think we all want to be happy as a result of life. I would then want to know the easiest way to achieve this through enlightenment. Is this a possibility?

lisaMclane says:

Wait, you are saying that you feel intrinsically motivated and driven to get shit done when you think about your death. But aren’t these emotions that you feel even there because you are identifying with your false self? Aren’t you going with the stories? Or this means that one should go with the story if the story is good?

Leo Gura says:

Contemplating death makes you a bit more aware of the false self and the fact that soon you will become no-self whether you want to or not. So this is a special case.

lisaMclane says:

In an attempt to defend and protect the false self, the psyche induces strong and powerful sensations, All of the non enlightenment personal development stuff i get into seems to be doing nothing other than feeding the false self to manipulate the psyche so that these strong sensations work as an intrinsic drive. It’s just like working against enlightenment. SO how can you ever be fully enlightened and master something the FALSE YOU desire?

Leo Gura says:

Enlightenment fixes the false-you issue permanently, regular self-help doesn’t, although it is still very beneficial.

lisaMclane says:

Its not just that regular self help stuff cease to fix the false you issue, it seems to be revolving around it. Practicing that stuff is literally like anti enlightenment work. How do you manage to pursue enlightenment and practice the regular self help stuff at the same time?

Todd Hirsch says:

TAKE ACTION!

Good stuff Leo!

Happy to see you replying to posts here on your video.

I am going to buy your course. Any plans on making an
affiliate plan with it?

Thanks bro, and the month I spent mediating in Thailand was
amazing and you inspired me to do it!!

Any plans on making an
affiliate plan with the course?

Leo Gura says:

Maybe. That would take some work. I’ll look into it.

Alex Holt says:

Leo (quoted but not quoted): If you can’t talk to a girl after a couple of glasses of beer, or more, then you should try begging for sex sober. Look Leo, people with issues probably don’t have them due to alcoholism or drug abuse alone. Scores of bright people and especially writers and artists have indulged in these things. There has to be a reason for it first, and as you’ve said upbringing and too much toxic company have a lot to do with it. But also it has even added to their abilities. Do you honestly believe that the cerebral cortex is stopped in its tracks by a few drinks? All this try harder stuff, you’re like a over demanding teacher or trauma inducing parent. I bought your crap at first. What do you want to do next, simulate a mosque, sing the praises of all the Muslim bullshit?Familiar with Shakespeare? ‘Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no cakes and ale’?

People who keep asking for discipline don’t give a fuck about other people’s dreams. (Known)

Michael says:

I’m sorry but that was uncalled for.

Alex Holt says:

What was uncalled for? Are you or Leo Gura so self important that you’re impervious to criticism now? Get back to the kindergarten or nursery class of the dark ages mate. The bigger person, should address what is actually said, not just say it’s uncalled for – or what the hell is that? Shows that you don’t respect the democratic right to discuss things, or have the integrity to value the truth. The point is not just to win. You need empathy and understanding. Your inferior ethic Michael (I used to know a lot of Mike’s funnily enough, literally and figuratively) seems more concerned with looking good, and pleasing an ally, than actually doing what is good and genuine. Leo’s a successful guy who tells us he doesn’t give a fuck what people think (not the same as having no compassion). I even admire much of what he does, but none of us can be inalienable, or tolerate those who are. Then we end up giving our lives to despots, or losing our chances of happiness due to abusive manipulators.

Michael says:

Having an opinion is fine, but that’s not the problem here. It is the way that opinion is conveyed that can be a problem. I’m not going to argue with you and this problem won’t solve itself until we can both speak in a properly manner to each other. Perhaps, if you are willing, we can start again and I can explain the problem and if you disagree then that’s fine, but anger only causes problems to escalate and only creates suffering, it is highly unproductive. I don’t satisfy anger, I satisfy mindfulness and compassion. Have a nice evening.

Tony says:

It seems, Alex, that you want to drink and or smoke something to help talk to girls or get along in life some other way. I relate completely. But imagine if you could do some work that would enable you to do whatever it is you’re struggling with and do it without alcohol; writing, art, or talking with girls. Whatever you want to do your potential at those things is higher without the mind altering stuff. Your mind is more capable when it is unmolested by drugs. It may not be yet but it has the potential to be.

Leo may not be perfect, yet. Who is? You?
That being said do you really think he’s not here to help?
If he is a manipulator he’s trying to manipulate people to improve themselves.
And really who cares what his motives are. if his ideas and techniques are good approaches to life then use them. If not, then don’t. Bashing him for your belief that some of his ideas aren’t helpful is pointless. If you don’t like them, don’t adopt them. And if drinking turns out to help you then come back and tell us (the whole world and Leo) how great it’s made your life. If there’s evidence for it I’ll drink myself to betterment. Hell ya. But it’s probably not.

Alex Holt says:

I’m not bashing Leo, we’ll certainly not for being imperfect. Michael and Tony, (another of my least favourite names – probably a cultural-religio-genetic thing) don’t you vilify me you deny everything. The pair of you are a charlatans dream. Someone like Leo with his intelligence must be embarrassed to be defended by people like you. It’s a good thing he doesn’t have to be. Michael basically uses a dressed up version of Star Wars for his philosophy, there’s clearly a lot of Yoda in there, and an utter load of crap. As for Tony, well you can’t admit a bad thing and call it good, for the sake of some superstitious BS ‘If he is a manipulator he’s trying to manipulate people to help themselves’ – no Tony that’s not good enough – psychology has moved on. I am not entirely happy in my life, but I believe there are ways such as audio hypnosis, NLP and yes meditation – but more like a science of the breath, brain and central nervous system. People have enough when they are mentally healthy, and it feels good – or if they get their kicks from abusing others without a second thought. Sincerely you may be happy, but you lack sincerity.

Michael says:

You are undoubtedly a troll, therefore I am not continuing this discussion as my attention is reserved for mature individuals. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Tony says:

You don’t like my name? Lol. Good luck with all that other stuff.

Vitali says:

Sorry if I bother you with this bullshit Leo, but actually how the fuck do I upload a picture of myself to my Account here? I see people having profile pictures on their comments, but I have searched everywhere and cannot find the option to upload one.

Michael says:

Create a Gravatar account and add a profile picture to that. If you then reload this page or close it and open it again, your profile picture will appear on all your comments.

Sandra Young says:

Leo,

I”m a big fan of your work! I can listen to you all day.

Kat L says:

We don’t have a lot of time on Earth but we are eternal beings.
All I know is we have a lot of sleepers on the planet and a whole shit load of issues to solve. IF we each did a little something we could accomplish a lot. First thing: turn off the damn TV! and start un-programming yourself. Thanks Leo. Great stuff.

Allan says:

Hi Leo,
I’ve been in the engineering and then the dental professions for many years but have never been truly happy in either careers. In university, I constantly dreaded the work involved to complete those degrees so it was almost impossible to ‘get the shit done’. As a result I squeaked by with below average marks. You see, I believe I pursued those fields for the wrong reasons such as to impress others, to accumulate wealth, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I am doing well financially, have a great family and I could carry on like this until I retire(which isn’t long from now). But I’m 50 and I feel my life is almost over and would like to do something different. Something I love and look forward to everyday. Here’s the thing, I have always had an interest in acting but I lack the true confidence required, have a fear of failure and have had little to no moments of creativity (or certainly nothing groundbreaking nor revolutionary) which I believe is essential for any great artist. The 20 dreamkillers you talk about apply to me in most if not all the cases. I know you have already touched on this but can you offer any other sage advice to ‘get the shit done’ towards my thespian dreams or is this a midlife crisis and thus should I be thankful for what I have(which is still good).
Thanks.

Dominique says:

Hi Leo

These vids are brilliant!
Quick question. I would like some short motivations to listen to during my day/driving/shower etc
Could you suggest anything in particular?
Thanks
Dom

Riley says:

You must shit wisdom, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Good work.

Kat Lopez says:

Agreed Riley, full time focus on personal evolution. Ups downs and all arounds, very rewarding and ‘figgin’ out of this world! Who needs TV when the reality you can create for you is sooo much more fun and juicy. Life IS good indeed when your eye is open. This is for the betterment of mankind and our Earth, IMO.

Lina says:

Grateful for such deep insight
It is hard to value excellence, while friends are coasting comfortably for pleasure
Eating, playing cards, having lots of pets, visiting for fun…

Payoff is what I need to think and motivate myself about
Moving forward by yourself is a lonely and uncomfortable and inconvenient road and process. I am willing to be different. Am I willing to take on the challenge???

Mental toughness is very much needed ingredient

Lone wolf says:

Talking is cheap. Keep talking about it is at least better than not raven thinking about it, but talking is cheap!

Thanks Leo

Laurie says:

Brilliant video. I just learned for real why thinkin your dream in a bubble get you nowhere. Full of wisdom!!!

Truly hit the nail in the head…

Results are the measurement, get the results. Don’t keep working but never generate results. Keep your eyes on the results.

Thank you brother Leo. Bless you.

Kacy says:

Must be humble and let realize teach you! That is holding your feet to the fire. It is emotionally painful! But got to do that if you want result. It is disillusioning when we are only inside our own bubble. We hate to have our bubble burst.

Marketplace is the reality, not just our own head dreaming up a price we can charge. Burst the bubble, the early the better. Then try new ones with more wisdom and experience and confidence.
Thank you Leo

Anna says:

Love it!!
You are awesome Leo.

evonn says:

Very nice. I’m watching too many videos– I have to go do nine things now. Thanks for the kick in the butt.

leslie says:

can i just say that i am so thankful for you taking the time out to make these videos because they are truly changing my life and how my attitude and mindset is. i think you are a great person with a great mind and are truly an inspiration and role model and some one i genuinely enjoy listening to and my goal is to watch every single on of your videos and commit to action to video watching ratio being 10 to 1 because you give me hope that i can improve my life and find my lives purpose and make my dreams into reality and that anything is possible so thank you so much and your amazing and i enjoy how straight forward and blunt you talk because i need that so don’t stop calling me a liar and don’t ever start being nice about it and cussing me out because thats the main reason i actually do love your videos and website more so thank you and i love how you talk in all your videos and i hope you never want to change them or make it different because i love them exactly how they are thanks for making me and preparing me to be a better person in this world.
signed,
one of your biggest fans

David Karczewski says:

Leo. I think this video set me over the top. I got lazy, stuck in a rut. Simple. I just didnt act motivated or live up to my potential. I acted “cushy” and didnt even realize it. I love your work and appreciate what you do for people. This really helped me. Thank you.

Roger says:

Hi Leo,

First and foremost, thank you for Actualized.org – simply awesome
and inspirational!

I was wondering, have you ever given Brazilian Jujitsu a try?
If not, I can really recommend it for personal development, especially because
it is not like the striking arts.

Since we don’t know each other, to illustrate where I’m coming from: I’ve
studied academic philosophy for some ( years, had a lot of similar issues
with it as you mention in some videos, quit it three years ago, since then took
up BJJ and meditation (thank you for that one, it was your “No bullshit guide to
meditation”-video that got me to stick with it), took a few years to develop
myself and slowly starting to figure out how to solve the business part of life
again (after the burnout, depression and so on; btw, did that before I found your
site, sorry ).

Regarding BJJ, I’m still a beginner (white belt), but what I’ve found, is that BJJ in
combination with meditation gives a very challenging, “nowhere to hide”
confrontation with the ego. I could go on and on about it, connecting it to a lot
of points you mention in a lot of your videos, but let’s just leave it at this:
Ever tried to stay relaxedly aware, focussed and breathing calmly (as in
meditation), while sparring with a committed, resisting trainingpartner?

Still struggling with that myself, but man.. it’s hell on the ego.. I’ve learned
things about myself there, that really blew my mind, especially because results
in BJJ are immediate. Either a technique works, or it doesn’t. Either you are
on top, or the other guy/girl is.. and then the chatter starts – also a good way
to get a list of almost all excuses that are humanly possible.

A very hard road to take, especially the first year, but loving it!

Besides sex, meditation and working out, I’ve found no better way to connect to
my body (something you mention in another video).

So, thanks again for Actualized.org and if you have the slightest interest, I
can really recommend giving BJJ a solid try.

No expectations, but if you do, I would appreciate it if you shoot me a message
after six months or a year (just curious, that’s all).

Have a great day!

Samir says:

Leo,
I sincerely think that your videos are too long, simply not straight to the point, and filled with unimportant stuff. You would really do great, if you simply cut the crap. Make your videos not more than 10-20 mins. Do you know about TEDx?Those videos are usually short Leo and ya, there’s a reason for that.

Ash says:

Leo

Thank you for this very indepth insight into getting things done. I can relate to all the things you said..
I have been successful, then I allowed myself to take a back step and enjoy the comforts..
Unfortunately you have to constantly work at results to maintain the comforts. As you say stop talking and get results and put yourself into the ‘fire’ and get that passion…
Less words and more action going forward.

Milos says:

Hi, Id like to be good drawer. Can u help me get a plan psychology?
I like the videos but I have less opportunities to earn money.

Joe nicholson says:

After Becoming part of the MFA club, as I call it, I wouldn’t say that I slipped a bit but more like became complacent. Well this one really hits home.

Kooch says:

Being a victim/success story of the old phrase “spare the rod, spoil the child”, I grew up extremely ambitious never to rely on my caretakers or any authority figures for my well being… Leo, much of your work verbalizes many of the things I have already figured out.. But I am constantly surprised how well you connect the dots… In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t compete with the excellence of your presentations… Which also gives me reason never to try, haha… And the freedom to listen with openness and appreciation.. Many times I realize I am already at “Master” levels of these skills, while simultaneously falling dreadfully short.. Glad to witness your strides to the peak.. (wink)

Lisa says:

Leo I just want to say I so enjoy your video’s and they are inspiring because no matter what your age is what as I’m going to be age 62 this year. The information inspires me to keep moving and learning. I feel we must be life long learners. Thanks for creating this web site and all the videos

Fergal ORourke says:

After a lifetime of feeling that I’m a quitter and a general lack of motivation to achieve (I mean in life – I won awards in University), this video motivated me to check out and then go and do the life purpose course.
25 hours of videos – not that much really. 10 times the action per video sort of increased that a bit. Releasing negative emotions took a bit longer than expected but I’d recommend it. You said it could be a deep rabbit hole but I never expected it to be the full on Alice in Wonderland/Through the looking glass variety. Roland Bal (therapy) taught me how to feel emotion without falling into its story. Leo, you helped me see to some extent that what I thought of as reality was also a story. That training (and meditation training) allowed MDMA therapy and pharmahuasca to bring me through the fairy surface glamour (big beautiful trap) into the underworld and understand the myth of Orpheus. Being the son of the muse of ‘Ecstatic music’ (rave today) and the god with power to travel consciously to the dreamworld should have been a clue. He traveled a terrible journey to the underworld to find the source of his pain, bring it to the surface, see it/her as she truly truly was and only then was able to release her. It’s been a long, very unexpected, and arduous journey and took help and mental training, but if you’re willing to go the distance of having your psyche smacked sideways, then as Leo says ‘Just fucking do it'(.) I still have to develop a work ethic, value excellence, face the fear and start that business I was planning two years ago when I started the course, so kinda still at the beginning but I’ve got that rabbit problem seriously sorted. As a result the ground I’m on now feels like a reasonable foundation to build on, whatever side of the looking glass I’m on. It’s a good start! So seriously lots of love and thanks to you Leo.
(.) or if the underworld is not your thing, perhaps going raving might be easier – if literally all indigenous cultures ever are anything to go by.

I’m A Virgo I was killed in 1998 March I should’ve focused on building water fuel cells from scratch so I can expose every real government is selfish evil hypocrites
they cheated since the 20th century to murder all important irreplaceable men
who invented the most complicated inventions possible instead of being graceful
and mature losers they were the sorest losers on earth even the most immature
Toddler is a more mature loser than the fucking government banning genepax
water powered cars in japan

Moral of my 1998 government killed water fuel cell car inventor to betray humans
NEVER DRINK ANY DRINK IN THE SAME RESTAURANTS WITH ANY INVESTORS or
Before you unknowingly SWALLOW SAME FUCKING POISON I WAS FED SECRETLY
BEFORE I VOMITED SCREAMING”(Belgian male Investors )THEY POISONED ME!”I
WAS BETRAYED BY BELGIAN INVESTORS THEY WITH EVERY OIL COMPANY cheats
THEY NEVER PLAY FAIR THEY SHOULD BE KILLED OR TRAPPED IN PRISON forever

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Replying To: Roger