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Poor people have big TV's. Rich people have big libraries. -Jim Rohn
Hey everyone,
This post is part of my Monday Book Summary series. But I’ll be on vacation next week and didn't want to miss my chance to post this summary.
One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel is a billionaire venture capitalist, a contemporary of Elon Musk, and co-founder of PayPal. His saying is more of a challenge than a quote.
How can you achieve your 10-year plan in the next 6 months – Peter Thiel
I always admired this quote from afar. I admired the people who could achieve their 10-year plan in six months, but never believed it applied to me, until now.
What changed me?
The book I wrote this summary for did. It’s called: THE 21-DAY MIRACLE: HOW TO CHANGE ANYTHING IN 3 SHORT WEEKS by Ed Rush.
Yeah, I know, it’s a cheesy title. It sounds like an empty promise meant to sell you shit.
But when you read the book, you can’t help getting hypnotized by the author’s enthusiasm. The author is a retired U.S. Marine Corps F-18 pilot and a business consultant. He graduated from the prestigious Top Gun fighter pilot school.
Yes, the Top Gun school from the movie. Don't get all wheepy on me now.
The author really makes you believe that you can change anything, including the world, in 21-Days. He does this with a combination of examples, a plan of action, and hammering home the message that "You Were Meant For More. You have a message, a story, or experience that’s going to change the world."
Let’s get started, shall we?
2-Sentence Summary
The biggest lie in personal growth is that slow and steady wins the race. That’s because in real life speed always wins.
Bullet Point Summary
Favorite Quote From Author
Introduction
We’ve been brainwashed by parents, schools, churches, and that fairy tale about the tortoise and the hare to believe that waiting is going to make your dreams come true. Ed Rush flips that bullshit on its head with his book, the 21-Day Miracle. In Ed Rush’s world speed kills. Ed Rush is a retired F-18 fighter pilot and graduate of the U.S. Navy’s prestigious Top Gun school. It’s that experience that made Ed believe anything can be accomplished in 21-Days.
Why 21-Days?
It’s 21-Days because that’s all the time the U.S. Navy needs to train a new fighter pilot. They can turn a greenhorn into a winged angel of death in 3 weeks.
21-Days, that’s it.
It’s not a walk in the park, and it feels like drinking from the fire hose, but the U.S. Military perfected the science of turning the incompetent into the competent with speed and efficiency.
The lesson to take home is, that an intense focus on anything for 21-Days will change your life.
Lessons From The 21-Day Miracle: How To Change Anything in 3 Short Weeks
Lesson 1: The most successful people design their lives around Strategic Sprints.
Believing it takes years to accomplish a goal is bullshit. Peter Thiel’s challenge to compress your 10-year plan into 6-months becomes doable when you create a plan around strategic sprints. Ed Rush says your strategic sprint should be 21-Days of intense focus on one thing. He created three principles that make this seem a little less intimidating.
Principle 1: When it comes to accomplishing your dream, you don’t have to do it all at once. Do what you can today and forget about tomorrow - until tomorrow becomes today.
Principle 2: The thing you thought was hard eventually becomes easy on the other side of implementation.
Principle 3: Once you decide to stick with something, the results show up. You just need to hang around long enough to get them.
Lesson 2: State your desired result.
Stating your desired result is the first step in the 21-Day Miracle’s 3-step process. This is where my last book summary for the Affirmation Matrix helps because it involves creating an affirmation.
State your desired result in the present tense like this:
“I have total master over money.”
”I have total mastery over my mind.”
“I look great. I am at my ideal level of fitness, and I eat healthy food that I love.”
Next, eliminate and replace a negative idea you have about your goal. If you want to master money, eliminate and replace a negative belief that you have about money. Many people were taught that money is the root of all evil. If you believe that, you’re probably broke. Replace your belief with something more realistic like
“There are good rich people and bad rich people in this world. I choose to be a good rich person who helps people with my abundant resources.”
The last part is to be accountable. Write down your goal, say it out load, post it somewhere where you can see it every day, and tell people what you intend to accomplish.
Lesson 3: Associate a strong emotion to your desired result.
You have to see, hear, and feel what it’s going to be like when you accomplish your goal. The author suggests knowing how you process information. If you’re a visual processor, use your imagination to see yourself accomplishing your goal.
If you’re an auditory processor, use your imagination to hear something related to your goal. Like, someone asking you how you accomplished your goal so fast.
Finally, if you’re a kinesthetic processor then imagine how you will feel after achieving your desired outcome.
Lesson 4: Create the plan and act.
This lesson is straightforward. Create a realistic plan and act. The author is lite on planning strategies. But he does offer advice to help you stay motivated.
Piece of advice number one - the first three days are the most difficult, but if you stay the course things will get easier.
Piece of advice number two- you’ll face two enemies that don’t want you to succeed.
The Inner Critic: You’re your own worst enemy and you will try to blow up your efforts with negative self-talk.
The Outer Critic: Some people have the best intentions, but they’re the worst critics. Some of these people are your friends and family.
The lesson is the majority is almost always wrong. If someone criticizes you and they’re broke, out-of-shape, or unhappy, just say “Thanks for sharing” and move on. This includes dealing with your own inner critic. If you start to sabotage your own efforts, tell your monkey mind, “Thanks for sharing” and move on.
Like I said before, the author is lite on actual planning strategies. However, the rest of the book is devoted to real 21-Day Miracle examples that can be references when you create your own plan.
My suggestion is to utilize a project management tool. I used a project template in Evernote to create my 21-Day Sprint. Trello is another tool that would help. Both are free to use.
Conclusion
The 21-Day miracle is short and simple. That’s what makes it brilliant though. No one’s ever told me that you can change your life in 21-Days, and that probably goes for you too. Sometimes all you need is to hear the truth. We’ve all been told to slow down, be patient, and don’t climb so high. The reality is though that there are no limitations. All limitations exist inside your own head.
Most of us have been spoon-fed bullshit by broke, miserable people, and their nonsense is playing on repeat inside our heads. Remember the authors' words.
You Were Meant For More. You have a message, a story, or experience that’s going to change the world.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
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