That’s an old adage … but I’ve been known to say it does more than that …
Success Leaves Exquisite
Precise Patterns You Can Replicate
However, it takes a trained eye to recognize them.
My clients include some of the most accomplished people in the world … elite performers in the world of business, sport, arts and entertainment. Yet despite their enormous achievements they count on me to be… their “Secret Weapon.”
These folks don’t need me to tell them how to do what they already do extraordinarily well .. they look to me to help them get out of their own way … go past their limitations … an experience breakthroughs in their lives … where the surface patterns they use to create success just won’t work and fail them completely.
Why Should You Give A Damn … Or Believe Another Word I Write?
Allow me to briefly introduce myself, and why you should care about what I have to say about all this …
My name is Dr. Joseph Riggio. Chances are you’re unlikely to have heard of me before (unless you happen to move in the same circles my clients do – folks who call me their “Secret Weapon”), but finding out what I do — and how I do it — may be the very thing you’ve been waiting for to experience the breakthrough that will change your life.
Without bragging too much I’m uniquely and enormously qualified to speak on this topic:
There are literally only a handful of folks on the planet who know as much as I do about how to improve cognitive performance, how people make critical decisions, how people communicate to create extraordinary relationships and elite teams … and how even average people can improve their personal and professional performance so that they are capable of outperforming just about anyone when they put their attention and mind on it with my input.
This is where my background as an applied cognitive scientist, expert modeler and master mentor comes in on your behalf.
I’ve spent more than twenty years learning and perfecting my skills as an expert modeler and master mentor, using my deep knowledge of applied cognitive science, to seek out and uncover the patterns of success and elite levels of performance – and to translate them into INFORMATION YOU CAN USE.
[If you'd like you can get some more details about my background here: Joseph Short Bio & CV]
In any case let’s agree that it takes someone with enormous expertise to notice the “pattern behind the pattern” of success and elite performance – because often what’s happening at the surface, i.e.: what’s obvious, isn’t actually what it is that makes the difference that counts. The deep patterns of success and elite performance are often hidden, yet the most successful elite performers in the world have internalized the deep patterns, but they are completely removed from view at the surface. You won’t learn these patterns from anyone who’s bent on teaching “technique” or “the seven, plus or minus two steps” to success, performance or anything else for that matter, because they don’t know them and they can’t teach them.
This last bit is critical, because it does you very little good to “know about” or even “understand” things that you can’t use … the real benefit comes when the internal patterns of success and elite performance are translated and delivered to you a way that you can integrate and apply them in your own life.
I’ve spent the vast majority of my adult life ferreting out the deep patterns of success and elite performance – AND just as significantly I’ve trained myself to deliver them to my clients in a way that they can immediately integrate and apply them in their lives.
Once you realize the impact of these deep patterns of success and elite performance have in your life, you may find yourself beginning to count on me in the same way my elite clients do to translate these deep patterns into INFORMATION YOU CAN USE.
BUT … there’s much more to it than that …
Let me step back for just one minute and explain a little bit about what my most elite clients count on me for, and what I actually do for them.
Lies We’re Told In A Mercantile Culture
Like I said above almost everyone who’s come of age since WWII has done so in a distorted “Mercantile Culture.”
We’ve been raised on a story based on establishing beliefs like, “anything that is “FASTER” … “BIGGER” … “MORE” is better” … but that’s not “TRUE” … it’s JUST A STORY!!!
We were raised on this story … just one possible story of many, many possible stories … and told that it was the truth.
The lie we were told about “anything that is “FASTER” … “BIGGER” … “MORE” being better is not the problem though …
If the major lies used to create and sustain the “Mercantile Culture were just about what we were supposed to believe about “how things are out there” we’d be just fine …
But, we were also taught to believe that the story of the Mercantile Culture is more important – and more valuable – than our own personal stories … specifically our personal Life Story … and that’s devastating!
Another way of saying this is that we’ve been taught that the epitome of what it means to be fully human is to become the best merchants we can possibly become – even at the cost of our soul, or if you prefer, our personal integrity.
Rather than being taught, and encouraged …
to find our own way … to follow our personal fascinations .. to be true to ourselves …
we were taught and encouraged to adopt the Company Line of the Mercantile Culture, that …
“FASTER” … “BIGGER” … “MORE” … is better.
We were taught and told that “Productivity is More Important Than Creativity”
and to do things the way our parents, teachers and employers wanted us to –
even when we knew that in our hearts that for us there was a better … if different … way.
It doesn’t matter if what you do as a merchant is more self-directed like becoming an entrepreneur and establishing your own business, or working for someone else for the highest wage you can negotiate – remember, it’s all about the deal … making as much as you can.
When you measure success in financial terms … and that’s what a Mercantile Culture teaches and rewards as the primary metric of success … it leaves no other way to establish self-worth or contribution that’s more important than how much you earn, have or can give away.
However … making money is NOT the primary goal of what I do with my clients … either for them, or for me … in fact making money is sometimes about as far away, and opposite to what I do, as you could get.
The Most Important Story Ever Told … The Story Of Your Life
You probably recognize that you have a story that your living … a story we can call “Your Life Story.”
Your “Life Story” is really comprised of three distinct descriptions:
- who you think you are
- who you tell other people you are
- what other people tell you about who you are
When these three separate stories are all the same you can say that you’re living an integrated life. When your life’s stories are at odds with one another it can cause discomfort and disruption in your life … or worse. Yet very few people even really know their “Life Story” well enough to take control of it and weave these three stands together into a single strong, integral thread.
In other words, you have an “Internal Story” that you can contain completely, AND you have an “External Story” that is contained in the contexts you engage in – that you cannot contain completely (your External Story is open to interpretation and input from others both within your influence and beyond your absolute control). It is only when you take control of your Life Story – assuming responsibility for the entirety of it – that you can hope to be at rest within yourself; and have a sense of profound power, wholeness, satisfaction and peace in relation to the world-at-large, and your place in it.
Most people live inside the story that’s been imposed upon them and as a result are in constant conflict with themselves. They are out of integrity – finding no sense of integration between their inner life and their outer life … who they believe they truly are, who they lead others to believe they are … and who others know them to be … their internal and external stories are out of sync. Until they resolve this major conflict in their life there is no possibility that the system can (or will) come to rest for them.
“If you don’t know your own Life Story you will always be at the mercy of the story imposed upon you …
and it will be controlling you.”
There’s a real reason that your Life Story may be so elusive to you … because it’s NOT Your Story.
What I mean by that is when we are very young, long before most of us have had a chance to experience, explore and engage with our own life’s story, others begin imposing another story on us. This other story is one that fits the needs and desires of others, e.g.: our parents, our teachers, our employers, society-at-large, and not us … but it isn’t our story. The story imposed on us is designed to keep us in control, and worse than that it actually keeps our own story from us.
In other words, the story most people are living isn’t their own, and this “false story” limits and controls them.
This may mean you never fully realize your potential … you will never achieve the success you are capable of, or do things that actually matter most to you … your relationships are always less fulfilling and rewarding than they could be … you will find yourself in “what if” or “if only” loops, questioning yourself about whether you are living your life, or a life that has been imposed upon you … instead of living a life of settled satisfaction, you live a life of endless striving — and despite even considerable success never really feeling “good enough” …
Uncovering You Life Story … Living The Myth Of Who You Are
Helping my elite clients to uncover and discover their Life Story is central to the work we do together. There are multiple ways to do this work, and I have my particular approach that I’ve been refining over more than twenty years of working with thousands of clients … but regardless of the approach you take there are a few things that stand out:
- It takes time to release the story that’s been imposed upon us, and to establish a new story to begin living from
- Everyone has a personal template that is unique to them for how they operate in the world at their best, fulfill their potential and live out their Life Story … what I call their “Success Blueprint”
- Your Life Story rests upon a “Success Blueprint” (that is NOT the Life Story), but … your Life Story can only emerge when you are operating from your “Success Blueprint,” and free of the limiting story that’s been imposed upon you
You don’t have to be a the mercy of a limiting story that’s NOT your own
… your unique “Life Story” will free you!
One of the most powerful things you can experience is to have your Life Story revealed to you in an unvarnished, crystal clear way. Usually in their first encounter with me my clients know more about their Life Story than they ever did — and they begin to take control of it, often for the first time.
This is moment of powerful clarity … a moment of significant revelation about what’s possible and living life from a position of integrity and absolute liberation. Many people say that having the experience of knowing their Life Story for the first time is the most profoundly transformational moment of their lives. It’s as though years and decades of constraints they’ve been unknowingly laboring under simply fall away … and that in that moment they are completely free to begin having the life they’ve always felt they should be living.
Your Life Story is a combination of:
- knowing who you truly are(having a profound sense of yourself and your individual identity – beyond the one that has been imposed upon you) …
- setting a path and the direction you intend to take your life(knowing your place and how you will make it in the world-at- large – what I call having “directionality“) …
- knowing what you want your relationships to be about(understanding the “rules” of connecting – why, how and around what it is that you connect with others) …
- knowing your life’s purpose and mission(a personal sense of destiny and legacy, what you want your life to be (and have been) about, in the grand scheme of things) …
Of course there could be more, but getting these four things in place is critical to getting your Life Story in place.
While your Life Story is almost always instantly recognizable and intimately familiar to you, what that story is about … “who you truly are” … is often as shockingly surprising, as is it familiar.
What’s most amazing is just how obvious your Life Story will be to you once it’s revealed …
Even more surprising once you get “IT” is how you have held yourself back from knowing your Life Story … and how you’ve keep alive another “false” story that you’ve been living.
All my work (including what I’ll be offering to my UA Carbon Private Access members) is organized aesthetically and mythologically – it is based on:
- releasing the impositions of your previous “bad” learning …
- coming into contact with and getting clarity around your essential story … and
- ultimately, integrating your Life Story … until “IT” becomes the foundation from which you live your life
The way I propose to lead you through the discovery, emergence, unfolding and integration of your Life Story is a bit unique as I’ve already stated. The approach I take is based in concepts that are easier to express in terms from Eastern Philosophy rather than more familiar Western concepts. Please allow me just another minute or so to introduce you to a few more ideas, some of which may be still be novel for you … e.g.: Sabi, Wabi and Shibumi … but you may find that when you become familiar with them they might change your life forever.
Shifting From Too Much “Yang” to a Little More “Yin” … and the Gentle Way of “Shibumi”
In terms of “Eastern Philosophy” we could say that the entire premise of the Mercantile Culture’s Story is extremely “Yang” … where many people believe the greater the force they apply, the harder they work, the more aggressive they are … the more they will be accomplishing.
Yet, using an overly Yang approach many people find that they are applying maximum effort and getting minimum results.
Instead of accomplishing more using the common Western “Yang” approach, they accomplish and achieve less … they exhaust themselves (and others) … they alienate people … they exceed their resources and wind up in debt … they are pushing as hard as they can but not moving forward .. they are failing despite their best efforts.
This is the cost of too much Yang energy in the system.
What I do is is much more “Yin” …
In a “Zen” way of looking at what I do we could say that it is more like art than technique i.e.: “Sabi” … e.g.: simplicity, minimalism and the acceptance of imperfection, ultimately leading to a perfection that may be beyond attainment, and that my personal philosophy and approach more based in “Wabi” … e.g.: the tranquility and calm of being fully present in the moment, aware and sensitive to the movement of time, and capable of instantaneous “right” action without attachment … leading to a state of “Shibumi“ – a sublime and poignant statement of utter simplicity refined beyond petty judgements of right/wrong, good/bad, beautiful/ugly …
Shimbumi exists as eloquent silence and understated elegance …
It may be easiest to grasp the idea if you think about it like this, “Shibumi equals a way of creating maximum impact with minimum effort.” In some ways it is more about limiting what you do to what is essential, than about finding more things you could be doing … i.e.: becoming comfortable and at ease with doing nothing, until the moment reveals itself in which action is propitious, and then to act without reservation.
More than anything “Shibumi” could be said to be an overall approach to life, which provides a platform for perpetual readiness to confront and engage life fully at all times calmly, powerfully and in good spirits… it is a means of enhancing the quality of your perception, thinking, decision-making and action … and, through it’s practice to come fully to rest within yourself, with a complete knowledge and understanding of your place in the world when you are truly coming from your own center.
… this is what my most elite clients want from me as their mentor … the experience of “Shibumi” …
What’s interesting is that most of my clients would never express it in this way, i.e.: using the word “Shibumi” or anything so exotic or esoteric. What my clients actually get and come to most value from our interactions is a new way of being in the world – what they want and think they are paying for (at least at first) are practical, implementable ideas they can use to enhance their performance and their ability to get the outcomes they need and want to manifest – what they wind up with is a new and higher quality of life.
My most elite clients literally keep me on call to ask about how to address the issues and challenges that show up in their life as they happen … they want to know how to move through the world with the sublime elegance and eloquence that only operating from their center, having integrated their Life Story can provide … a life of “Shibumi” … more “Yin” than “Yang.”
… to experience profound power, wholeness, satisfaction and peace within themselves and in the world.
This is the work I do … what I am inviting you into … an opportunity to, live a life of integrity based in knowing and integrating your Life Story … and I’m willing to do what it takes to help you take the first crucial step.
In my most intimate and intense private work mentoring clients, together we uncover the basis for allowing their Life Story to emerge and unfold in all it’s glory. This is a monumental task for some, and for others remarkably obvious and easy. However, what remains most consistent is that the approach I use in my private work with clients never fails to reveal their Life Story to them.
It’s my intention to build a relationship of trust and unique value with you, so I need to be clear and share something with you right here, upfront … unfortunately, there simply is no substitute that I know of to replace the value of intimate, intense private one-to-one work with clients.