Will Chou

I sat down with the co-Founder 12 Labours CrossFit and 12 Labours Lions Team Captain. They placed 2nd place in 2016 against titans such as Rich Froning's team, CrossFit Mayhem Freedom. And 9th place at the CrossFit Games 2014 and 6th place in 2015. Team 12 Labours Lions, of 12 Labours CrossFit in Maryland, is a four-time CrossFit Games team with an all-time best finish of second place in 2016. That year, it was one of only three returning top-10 Games teams from 2015 (CrossFit Mayhem Freedom, CrossFit Solid) and just two from 2014 (CrossFit 808). A top-performing Mid Atlantic and Atlantic Regional team since 2010 with just two regional absences from 2012-2013, the team has been training together in part since 2010. In 2016, four of its six members were returning members of its 2015 Games team. Named for the 12 labors of Hercules, the team took its second-place finish in 2016 with two event wins and eight top-three event finishes.

Brené Brown is a University of Houston research professor who has spent decades studying shame and vulnerability. For most of human civilization, men have hid behind the mask of masculinity, concealing any signs of shame and vulnerability because they believed that a man should never show weakness. But it turns out that Brené found that vulnerability is a vital part of mental health, communication, and working relationships through her scientific study. Men are waking up and realizing this — even entrepreneurs like Lewis Howes have wrote books on it. If you’re not familiar with the vulnerability, shame, and guilt movement, start out by checking our Brené’s TED talk, which has gotten millions of views: “Vulnerability is not weakness. I define vulnerability as emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty … Vulnerability is our most accurat

One of my life goals is to read all the books written by billionaires. That’s a tall order considering there are over 150. If you want a quick book to start with on the list, A Passion to Win by Sumner Redstone, is a good choice. Here’s what I learned from the book… If you prefer listening to reading, I recorded a podcast episode you can listen to on this topic: Today’s billionaire case study is

“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” -Benjamin Franklin One common, frustrating theme I have found when talking to people who have mediocre lives is that they’re all excuse-generating machines. Every time I try to give reasons that their obstacles are solvable and tactics to do so, they come up with a mediocre excuse so that they can remain where they are. I recently had an especially frustrating case of this recently with an Indian man I met who had trouble making friends. After hearing about my own struggles with this, he came up to me and told me he had similar problems but he was over a decade older than me. He also had insecurities with his race because most of the people he met were white and he thought he couldn’t relate to them. But as I dove into the issue, my eagerness to help quickly turned into frustration as I discovered he was immovable as a rock with his beliefs about the world…

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Oh, the frustration and stress that comes with information overwhelm. You feel like there’s so much to consume yet so little time. How do you even begin to deal with all the articles, videos, books, and information out there? I have felt this way many times before and it sucks. I feel overwhelmed because there is simply too much out there. I feel like I am missing out or not doing what I could be doing. I end up giving up because I can’t get to it all. Today, I want to share with you some innovative strategies to deal with information overload. You can listen to the audio version of this (with unmentioned bonus tips) through my podcast episode here: 1. You have the luxury and obligation to be choosy in this era For centuries, useful information was a rare privilege. Those who were lucky enough got their hands on a single book over their lifetime. Then, the printing press was invented and books were available to the masses. An

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is one of the only books that exist on how to make friends. And it’s wildly successful, selling millions of copies. But after reading the book and the reviews, I realized there were critical components on how to make friends that were missing. People complained about the following in the book: * Short-term manipulative tactics are used that can destroy your long term success with making friends. * Some of the tips are focused on ways of getting people to like you for business and networking, which is different from making friends because you’re encouraged to be someone other than your true self. * The tips to smile more, be nice, and be interested fail to account for the female gender. When women do this, it can be misinterpreted as a sexual advance and encourage harassment. * Pretending to be interested in something you’re not and being too agreeable can cause you to end up

Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine. -Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba If you’ve been studying successful people for any decent length of time, you know how important never giving up is. Life is long and you never know what may turn in your favor over that time. But how do you develop persistence when you fail at staying consistent at most things in life? What if you fail at not giving up when it comes to simple things, like maintaining a healthy diet, avoiding fast food, and always exercising? Well, I used to be a quitter. But now I have maintained a very consistent exercise routine, meditation routine, and I have uploaded 1,000 YouTube videos on my channel without quitting. I’ll explain how you can do the same with science. Listen now: Like this episode? Please subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It

A year ago, I stumbled on an article on how to be mentally strong that got a ton of comments and shares. It confused me. Why do all these people care about this? I didn’t care about being mentally tough. I wanted money and happiness. And I didn’t see how mental toughness would help me with that unless I wanted to change my goals to becoming a Navy SEAL. But everything’s changed since then. Mental toughness is incredibly important to your peak performance. Today, I’m going to share with you everything you need to know on a critical skill you may be overlooking. I’ll share with you why mental toughness matters and how to improve it. And if you’re wondering why you should trust me, it’s because all my advice comes from people you can trust: the world’s top performers.   What is Mental Toughness? Mental toughness is the strength of mind to keep pushing through when your body and other psychologi

What matters in life in order to success? The standard debate goes something like this, “What bring success in life: luck vs hard work?” But that’s the wrong approach. Both are at play. It is not one or the other. Also, there are more factors you can leverage to succeed. Today, I cover the following topics: * How luck plays a role in someone’s success. * How hard work is a lot more valuable than you think. * Keys to motivating yourself and having a strong work ethic. * What matters more: luck, hard work and effort, or other factors (I’ll explain what these other factors are). * Does luck play an important role in life success? (Hint: It depends. Are you aiming to be #1 in the world or just to earn a good living?) You should trust my advice on the luck versus hard work debate because I reference proof and case studies from successful people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Listen

Imagine finding yourself in the only social event you will go to for the day, ready to talk to people. You’ve prepared yourself for the moment. You know you’re deathly shy and scared of talking to new people. But if you don’t take action in this one moment, you will regret it. There won’t be many more chances to make new friends or meet a hot date. But despite your preparations, you freeze up when it’s time. You find yourself doing anything except talking to other people. Then, the event is over. You are kicking yourself in your head and you dwell on the fact that you did nothing for the next hour … or even the entire week. I’ve been there. I’ve had crippling shyness. It sucks. It still sucks. But you are not alone. There are hordes of perfectly kind, mentally healthy people who are just too shy to do meet others. To this day, I still run into people (even successful, attractive young women) who struggle with these issues and fail to reach their potential.

I got a question: “I’m driving myself to insanity with over-thinking, self-analysis, self-doubt, self-loathing, internal misery and zero action. What do I do?” Well, you’re talking to the king of overthinking. I’m definitely in the top 1% of overthinking and over-analyzing everything (I mean just look at this blog). I didn’t think I was that bad until I started journaling all the thoughts I remembered happening after dates or stressful situations. I ended up with essays that were multiple pages long analyzing every issue. These thoughts included: “If I say this, will I look weird?” “They’re judging me because I’m one of the only Asians here.” “Do I look weird or awkward? Why aren’t they talking to me? Do they hate me?” When I showed it to people I trust, they were blown away by how much I thought. For some guys, all they think about during a single date is

Did you know that human psychology is one of the most powerful tools to getting what you want inlife? Humans are slow to evolve. So, as legendary businessman and advertising legend, Claude Hopkins says, once you learn human psychology, you will never have to unlearn it. The truth about humans is that they are emotional creatures that make many illogical decisions. If you can understand and master these cognitive biases, you can use them to your advantage to safeguard your own decisions and ethically guide others to the decisions you want. Before we continue, I want to emphasize that what I am going to tell you next must be used for ethical reasons. Otherwise, it will backfire for you in the long run. To use the power of science and our research of the mind to improve your success in life. If you’re looking to level up your life by discovering new opportunities to succeed, this is the episode for you. There are plenty of psychological biases and faulty ment

Josh Waitzkin became a national champion in two skills by his early thirties: chess (as a teen) and Tai Chi Chuan, a competitive martial arts. Later on, he became a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and the first student to do so under Marcelo Garcia, a man widely regarded as one of the best pound-for-pound grapplers in the world. He was also the basis for the popular chess film, Searching for Bobby Fischer. What was his secret for mastering so many skills so early when most people can’t master one skill in their entire lifetime? According to Josh, the secret was that he was better at learning than others. He succeeded in his  second skill after quitting chess by applying his ability to learn. The great news is that Josh wrote a book, The Art of Learning, to teach you how to learn better. Here is my The Art of Learning summary. You will learn the top accelerated learning techniques to learn faster, retain the information, and progress in your chosen craft quicker.

How do you overcome procrastination? We all have it. We all want to fix it. We all hate it. Yet we still find ourselves putting off what we know we should be doing to do something more fun (but less productive). I’ve poured over advice from the world’s most successful people on this topic, like Brian Tracy. And want to provide you with some tips. Listen to the podcast episode below: Subscribe to the podcast:

Imagine hitting all your life and financial goals. Sounds great, right? But many people who get there hit a funk. Pat Flynn, an online entrepreneur, received this chilling email not long ago. He shared this email in his book Will It Fly? It’s worth sharing if you think money alone is all that matters: Subject: I make $20,000 per month and I’m not happy. Hi Pat, I’m sorry to email you like this, but I had no one else to turn to. I feel like I know you because I listen to your voice all day. You’re like a friend, even though we’ve never met. Sorry if that sounds weird. Anyway, I want to thank you. You don’t know this, but you’ve taught me so much about how to build a successful online business. I currently generate over $20k per month in recurring revenue, but here’s the thing… I’m unfulfilled. I’m not as happy as I thought I was going to be. A few years ago, before I started my company, the thought of making this kind of money online

For the longest time, I felt like it was way too late to make an impact on the world and become successful. I am ambitious and I wanted to be really successful. But the news made it seem like if you did not become a singer, actress, or tech entrepreneur by the time you were 21, it was over. It turns out I’m not the only one. A lot of other people (some into their 40’s) think it’s too late. But then I got into personal development and did some research. I studied hundreds of the world’s most successful people and I was startled at what I found. It’s not true at all. When you think it is all over, it’s really just the beginning of an incredible journey. Get Excited. The Best Years of Your Life Are Ahead. Napoleon Hill spent his whole life studying the hundreds of nation’s richest

“It’s good to learn from your mistakes. It’s better to learn from other people’s mistakes.” – Warren Buffett. This quote means a lot to me because people don’t learn from others’ mistakes. Instead of studying the history of business, successful people, and failures, most people spend their time watching YouTube, television, or Netflix. Because of that, they consistently repeat the mistakes of their ancestors. “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes” -Mark Twain This provides a huge opportunity for you to get ahead if you just spend a bit of time to study the past and look for patterns. You could save years of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars in failed investments. Personally, I’ve learned quite a few financial lessons this year from the mistakes of others, here’s one: Make sure you read and understand all of any contract you sign. * An older example:

When I was in school, I was a beast. I was juggling ALL advanced placement courses, practicing one to two hours of piano for competition, studying hours for the SAT, and running track … all in one night. Yet it was one of the most productive, fulfilling, and exciting times of my life. Why? Because most people don’t realize the opportunity in hacking studying. Studying is an art form that can be improved and used not only for school, but also for modeling masters when you enter the corporate world.  You will learn in this audio podcast episode how to study effectively (hint: all you need is to use a secret tactic during lunch time). Thanks for Listening! With most skills or goals in life, there is a proven pattern of success that has worked most effectively so far in life. If you want to earn more and perform at a higher level,

“You control your time. Sitting and thinking may be a much higher priority than a normal CEO, who has all this demand and feels like they have to see all these people, [thinks]. It’s not a proxy of your seriousness that you fill every minute of your schedule.” –Bill Gates on what Warren Buffett taught him about productivity. Today, I want to share with you how to improve personal productivity without burning out. As hinted at by the quote, I’ve spent a few years studying the best in the world when it comes to time management. It turns out there are different paths to success. And some let you feel more relaxed and at peace. Bill Gates fills out every minute of his calendar. He even budgets a specific time for showering. Warren Buffett, on the other hand, has three or four tasks per month on the calendar he carries around. And it’s not because he’s light on tasks