As a young man, Dan Peña turned less than $1,000 investment into nearly half a billion. This lead him to create what is now the Quantum Leap Advantage. Dan Peña is the world’s leading high-performance coach, having created over $50 billion in equity through his coaching. He is also the author of the book “Your First $100 Million.” Dan now runs high-performance seminars at his castle in Scotland.

Favorite Success Quote

“Just freaking do it.” – Dan Peña

Key Points

1. Stop thinking and pull the trigger.

We live in an age of abundant information. With the click of a button, one can download the ideas and thoughts of millions of individuals straight to their computer. Any issue you face can be solved by a quick Google search, and any history test can be aced with a glance at wikipedia.

However, this information has come at a cost. Now more than ever, individuals are in states of permanent planning, the gung-ho, ready, fire, aim mentality of past generations has vanished, replaced instead by an attitude of sparse action taken only after extensive research.

To achieve success, we must realize that experience is the best teacher of all, we must feel the fear of failure and take action anyways. No more sitting and waiting to have all the information, to have the perfect plan laid out. You must take action now!

2. You are the average of the 5 people with whom you spend the most time.

“Show me your friends and I will show you your future.” The words of John Kubleur ring true now more than ever, you cannot be a high achiever while associating with low performers. It is key that you seek out high quality relationships to fill your life with people who will push you, convict you, and challenge you to rise above mediocrity.

If you cannot find people in your area, then, as Charlie Munger put it, “make friends with the eminent dead.” Read classic works, fill your brain with the words of the wisest individuals past and present, because who you associate with will be the key to your future.

3. Schooling and money is not necessary for success.

The lack of a college degree is no excuse for poor performance. Some of the greatest businessmen and talents of our time deferred college in favor of pursuing their goals. You must realize that the keys to success are never external, but internal.

You can have every degree and accolade in the world, but without passion, without fire for what you are doing, you will never be a success. It is far better to be a high-school dropout willing to work 20 hour days to accomplish his dreams, than a Harvard graduate dreading every task before him.

4. Mentors Are Essential.

Mentors are the force multiplier on your path to success, they can direct you to where you want to go, and help you avoid the missteps that are so commonly made. When searching for a mentor, you must realize that it is there time, not their money that is the most valuable asset they have to offer.

You must also realize that you bring very little to the table for high caliber mentors that they do not already have, so you must make up for this lack of financial and business resources with a burning passion to succeed.

5. Focus on your passions.

All the money in the world isn’t worth a damn if you are forced to do things you hate to earn it. If you truly want to be a success in life, you must heed the old cliche and follow your passions. Find something that excites you so that you tap dance to work in the morning.

Find something you are so pumped for that you don’t need an alarm to get up, because you couldn’t even sleep knowing that there were missing out on time that you could have been pouring into your life’s dreams.

6. If an idea doesn’t work, pivot, don’t quit.

Many times over the course of your journey, you will fail. That is a simple fact of the game.

However, when something you have invested heavily in fails, don’t waste precious resources trying to salvage a lost cause, and don’t quit unnecessarily. Simply pivot. Tweak your business plan, your product, or your approach until you are able to achieve the success you’ve been working towards

7. Focus on the Few Not the Many.

With the excess of information and opportunities nowadays, it is quite easy to get sucked into the trap of multi-focus. You must learn to have single focus on your one important goal, business, task etx. if you hope to succeed. You only have 100% to give each day, so why not give all of it to the one thing that will change your life the most?

Focus on the 20% of tasks, that will get you the 80% of results and leave the rest to the dogs