The Space Between

It's Harder to Be Mediocre Than It Is to Be Great

99% of people believe that they are incapable of achieving greatness, and will settle for a mediocre life. The level of competition is aggressive amongst those battling to achieve “realistic” goals. Hence, there is much less competition for bigger goals.

Stay Sober

People flood social media, hyping up their accomplishments, telling ego stories, metaphorically pounding their chests for all to see. This is just noise. Much of it is smoke and mirrors. I know because I was one of those people a few years ago. I wasn't actually successful, but people sure thought I was. To my hardworking friends doing it in silence: Stay focused. Move forward without the validation. Your ego may crave it, but you don't really need it. Talk less, do more. Talk only takes you away from action. It's merely a distraction. Keep doing. You'll be rewarded for it. “And that’s what is so insidious about talk. Anyone can talk about himself or herself. Even a child knows how to gossip and chatter. Most people are decent at hype and sales. So what is scarce and rare? Silence. The ability to deliberately keep yourself out of the conversation and subsist without its validation. Silence is the respite of the confident and the strong.”― Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy Another quote from the same book: “Most successful people are people you’ve never heard of. They want it that way. It keeps them sober. It helps them do their jobs.” Stay sober, my friends.

added 4 years laterKind of a quirky post, but it's aged well. Rings true.Don't Be Afraid to Smell the Shit

At present, I am in Tulum, Mexico. Plumbing is pretty bad in Tulum. It's often nonexistent. There's a bathroom I walk by every day that smells brutal. So foul. Makes you shake your head back and forth violently. I always avoid smelling it, opting instead to hold my breath for a long 15 seconds. Today, as I walked by, I decided to just breathe. Smell it and all of its foulness. Then, this thought hit me: Don't be afraid to smell the shit. Applies to so many situations in life. If we want to improve anything in any area of our lives, we have to reckon with it eventually. We have to be willing to smell the shit. Don't be afraid to smell the shit. Or else, you'll live in shit. Don't live in shit.

Jordan's Rules

added 9/1/26 · 3 years later At a company retreat in Breckenridge, Colorado, we all prepared little TED-style talks to give. I decided for mine to do a simple, hard-hitting, easy to comprehend list of my favorite aphorisms and tips for living well. I rattled off the initial list of maybe 36 around a snowy campire late at night. It was a ton of fun to share and got a lot of engagement!Inspired by my favorite books and (little) life experience, this is a running list of aphorisms that are core to who I am and how I live my life. 1. Sleep on decisions. Get distance. Elevate perspective. 2. Say less. Don’t over-explain. 3. People under stress lose their self-control and expose character flaws. Someone might say “oh I wasn’t myself yesterday” but in fact they were showing more of themselves than ever. You had the opportunity to see them with their polite social mask off. There's no way to tell until the heat is on, but pay extra attention in those moments. 4. Tell stories in present tense, not past tense. More interesting that way. 5. A special PSA for TSA: pls stop making us take our laptops out of our bags at the airport. 6. Hiring = sales Money still changes hands, just in a different way. Instead of selling products + services, sell culture and vision. 7. Read the Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene and thank me later. 8. As A Man Thinketh is a transformative 24-page book written in 1903 that you can purchase for $3 on Amazon. Dollar for dollar, best book out there. 9. It’s proven that people who believe they are lucky are actually luckier. As you think, you are. 10. Your thoughts effect your physical health. Feel that pressure on your heart when you have an anxious thought? Your heart can only take so much of that… For the sake of your health, be kind to yourself. 11. Your thoughts create your reality. 12. Life is a paradox; It’s incredibly short, a flash. But also also incomprehensibly long, an eternity. 13. Life isn’t black and white. So, avoid speaking in extremes, using words like “always” or “never” or “all” etc. instead, the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. And often, both extremes are true. Remember, life is a paradox. 14. Classic rock is the best kind of music. 15. Ignore politics. 16. When you buy cheap, you usually end up having to buy twice. Expensive often = better. 17. Things weigh us down and make us less mobile. Own fewer things to be freer. 18. Materialism is the antithesis of freedom because when you buy something expensive, now you have to work to pay for it. Owning that expensive car isn’t freedom, in fact quite the opposite; slavery. 19. Give a smile to get a smile. To be interesting, be interested. You get what you give. 20. Smile first. 21. View the way others treat you as largely flowing from your own attitude towards other people and all of life; something you can control. 22. Stop asking “how are you?” unless you are genuinely interested in the reply. 23. Be kind to your future self. Do the hard things today to make your tomorrows easier. 24. Make eye contact. 25. If you raise a concern you better bring a solution to the table as well. 26. Love others. Even those that may disrespect you. Appreciate the human nature in them anyway. 27. Remember to breathe. 28. Your reputation precedes you. 29. Do drugs… intentionally. Use drugs to go deep on learning about yourself and others. Then, let yourself graduate from the use of them. You don’t need to do drugs forever. 30. Empathy is a state of mind. Empathy is patience. The patience to actually listen, watch, pay attention to body language. Look beyond words. 31. Even if the lips are silent, often the fingers chatter. 32. The face doesn’t lie. You can get a picture of someone’s mindset and life just by looking at their face. Do they have a lot of forehead wrinkles, wrinkles from a furrowed brow, drooping eyes? Or do they have a more pleasant exterior evidenced by smile lines and the like? 33. Often, the loudest people on social media, boasting about their successes, are the least successful. Working is more productive than talking. Skip the talk, forgo the attention, keep working on your craft. You don’t need the attention where you’re going. 34. We always give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. But we attribute the mistakes of others to character flaws. Give others the same benefit of the doubt you give yourself. But also know that people never do anything just once. 35. Seek simple ways to serve the group. Do things “below your pay grade.” Nobody is above picking up trash, for example. 36. Feel confident in your ability to bounce back from failures and maintain your sense of destiny to succeed. 37. Remain connected to who you were as a child. 38. Wherever you go, there you are. If you aren’t happy here, odds are you won’t be happy there either. Like a tree, grow where you are. 39. How you wake up matters. Waking up via light stimulation is infinitely better than a jarring alarm. 40. No phone for the first 30-60 minutes of the day. Start by reading and/or exercising. 41. If you think people don’t like you, it’s probably because you don’t like people. 42. Date your spouse. Minimums: 1 date night per week, 30 minutes of conversation per day, time together on the weekends. 43. Everyone in the world is unique. We’re also all the same. 44. You teach people how to treat you. 45. If you ask for little, you’ll get little. 46. Believe so firmly in your own greatness that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 47. Don’t let failures harden you nor lower your self-confidence. 48. How you carry yourself reflects what you think of yourself. 49. Slow down to go fast. Don’t burn out by overworking yourself. Slow down. 50. Stop regretting things. Surrender to the past and put it behind you. 51. Focus on inputs. 52. Don’t drop a dollar trying to pick up a few pennies. 53. Don't cry over spilled milk. 54. Money is a means.

Here, Not There

Video: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7330583118552182785/ It’s been a while. The past few years I’ve been in monk mode. Getting quiet, building, doing the work. Now, I’m ready to reintroduce myself. Age 3: Home video of me crying “I can’t do it” while riding my bike… doing it. My starter mindset. Age 17: Nothing on my resume. No sports. No clubs. “I know Jordan can do it. He's a sponge,” my mom told the guidance counselor. ‘Sponge' became prophecy. I read Awaken the Giant Within. I remember my brain literally turning on within the first few pages. I still have the picture in my head of being in my room the moment the On switch was flipped. Mapped out a 45-day plan to finish the book. Kept that promise to myself. Probably the first time I ever really did. Spring 2015 marked the beginning of my thinking life. Age 18: Moved to LA to learn from Steve Jordan, celebrity trainer to people like Tobey Maguire and Jordan Belfort. Lesson #1: Even the water you drink should be consistent with your brand. I walked in with a generic brand water bottle on Day 1. It was to be Fiji from then on. Had the honor of running his studio solo the next year while he traveled for 2 weeks. Again the following year. Responsibility = rewarding. Age 18/19: Start college. Week 1, I joined the cheer team, ran for president of my residence hall (won), and joined a fraternity. Learned to make bold decisions quickly, without hesitation. Being so quick about these decisions didn't leave any room to talk myself out of it. I started to believe I could do anything, even be president of the US if I really wanted to. “Why not me?” I thought. “Who else my age has a leg up on me?” Age 19-20: Became a certified personal trainer. Got clients. Then learned to build websites. Started getting paid. Then realized... I couldn't scale PT, but I could scale digital work. I'd have to do 50 PT sessions to make what I was making on a website that took me 5 hours. Pivoted. Age 21: Launched Growth Mindset University podcast + book. Self-published 184 pages in 30 days. Interviewed Mark Manson, Robert Greene, Ryan Serhant, Kevin Rudolf (my favorite artist I listened to on the bus in 5th-6th grade), and more. Just would reach out to my favorite authors and entrepreneurs. I was making a name for myself and having fun doing it. Age 22: Graduated with a degree in Entrepreneurship (fitting). About 7 months post-college, I had nearly 6 figures saved thanks to my growing business. Things were clicking. Life was fun. Lots of time with family. Exactly how I drew it up when I set out to design a life at 17/18. Age 23: Bought my first house. Spent almost every dollar I had. Became house poor. Got humbled. Got to work. Briefly tried wholesaling real estate on the side. Cold called annoyed homeowners 2 hours per day for 6 months. Didn’t pan out. But I learned. Nothing is a waste, especially not your “bad” experiences. All is medicine. Age 24: Started Zeus, an operations consultancy. Built assembly line-esque project management systems for service businesses. We’ve provided the stable foundation for over 100 businesses to grow big. Age 25: Traveled Europe for 4.5 months. Had my best month ever money-wise that January. Then: brutal business partner breakup. Restarted from zero in February. TOUGH 4 months. Came back stronger though. Forged my character a bit. By year end, business was back to pre-breakup revenue and all but one team member joined me at the new company, which meant the world to me. Age 26: Reconnected with someone I’d met 5 years earlier in the Exumas, a killer of a real estate investor in St Pete. She became my mentor. What was a black box of confusion 3 years earlier now suddenly all made sense. 1 on 1 mentorship does that. I moved to St. Pete. Bought my first rental property. Then a quadplex that was falling apart. While transitioning my life to St Pete, I lived on a 6-inch single mattress on the floor for 3 months, on a construction site. Used my bathroom sink as a kitchen sink. Literally danced through it. Yes, when the project was over, I danced for the first time in my life. Spiritual chains I’d been trying to break free of my entire adult life were finally broken once and for all. As for the quad: Refinanced, pulled cash out, kept the asset. Learned a ton. Results: $143,000 in renovations added $345,000 of appraised value. After refi, I’d essentially gotten 4 rentals for only $18,000 out of my pocket and it still cash flowed $1000/mo. Age 27: Under contract for a waterfront teardown. Fell through. Then another. Also fell through. 135 days of work and nothing to show for it. Knocked on the door a third time, willful as I am. Closed on it. When I want something, I persist until I succeed; There’s always a way. Now I’m about to embark on building one of the most beautiful homes St. Pete has ever seen. My name's on $2.8M of debt. And I couldn’t be more grateful. A few lessons I've learned along the way: 1. Your visions become your reality. I take my visions very seriously. Visions are like seeds. Diligent action is the water that brings them to life. Another metaphor that's been helpful for me recently is that of a bricklayer. I imagine myself as a bricklayer, with each action being a brick. Rain or shine, lay another brick. 2. You direct the scene(s of your life). 3. Every hero bleeds. Challenge is a spice of life. 4. Think of yourself less often = the way of peace. 5. Life is really as simple as pursuing your interests. Sounds obvious, but 99% of people don't do this, instead leading lives of quiet desperation. 6. You can be anyone you want. You are exactly who you think you are. 7. Experiences, memories, time, people you care about and who care about you; these are the real riches in this life. 8. You can never give up hope. 9. The only way to live a good life is to do your best. To do anything less than your best in life leads to poor outcomes. 10. I’ve been preaching and living this one since I first put it in my IG bio as a freshman in college... Don’t make a living; design a life. If you don’t consciously design your life, other people will do it for you, and you don’t want other people to do it for you. Life’s too short to not live it how you want. “Everything is going to go south on you. You can either and accept that or you can get to work. You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem. And you solve the next one. And then the next. And if you solve enough problems, you get to come home.” - Mark Watney in The Martian Thank you for reading. I hope you got something out of it.added 9/2/26 · 1 year later What's interesting is that I wrote this post re-introducing myself the day before having an experience that would change my life, something I think will probably end up as the most impactful event of my life that altered my course dramatically. It's almost like I knew. Life sure did. So yeah, I guess I knew since it was out there in the collective subconscious. More on this another time! Let this one marinate for now ;)

My Way

The Winner’s Manifesto Eat clean - Fruits. Vegetables. Meats. Organic. Exercise - Weight lifting. Cardio. Yoga. Adapt - Cold plunge. Sauna. Stretch. Time alone - Fill your cup. Take yourself on little dates. Have a dialogue with yourself. added 1 year laterIf you're reading this, you're witnessing this now. This is literally just me having a 70+ year conversation with myself. Probably eternal conversation, really.Have a 70+ year conversation with yourself. Think about things. Think about advancing. Think about Increase. Creativity - Give your creativity room to run. Give yourself the gift of downtime spent not consuming, but creating. Give yourself that space, that fertile soil from which flowers bloom. Write. Draw. Mind map. Whiteboard. Paint. Blank space - Give your mind space to roam free so that your creativity may be all the more inspired. Get a mason jar and spend a couple hours selecting sea shells one by one to put in there. Quality time with good friends - Friends who inspire you to be the best you. Do fun things together that don’t involve alcohol. Sunset and swim at the beach. Listen to music under the stars. Paddleboard. Community events. Coffee/kava shops. Talk about life. added 1 year laterNever spend too much time talking about other people, and close off immediately - without hesitation nor remorse - to those whose favorite topic is others. This doesn't mean being disrespectful.Talk of Increase and Abundance. Your tone of conversation should always be that of Increase, always centered on productive ideas, never centered on complaining or negativity of any kind like talking poorly of others or of things you don’t like. Learn - Read, listen to podcasts and audiobooks, learn from friends who inspire you. Always stay a student of life. Always be bettering yourself. Always improving. Always growing as you will. Never stagnating. Your word is your bond with the Universe, with God - Speak with intention. Your word is your sword. Whatever you say (and however you think), generally goes. “I plan to do XYZ by March of next year” leads to success far more than “I hope to do XYZ one day.” Hope is not a strategy, and the Universe thrives on specificity. That is, the more specific you are, the more clearly you describe and imagine your vision, the more likely it is to become reality. Change your language, change your world. Be the hero - You are the hero of your own story, the main character in your own movie, and it’s a movie you are making, a story you are actively writing, right now. You are the producer, protagonist, and author of your story. You direct the scenes of your life. Every scene, you direct. Make it an inspiring, empowering, beautiful movie. The pen is in your hand. Live in your Divine Intelligence - Tap into the universal wisdom already within you. Everything you need is already within you, because God is within you. Divine Intelligence is available to us all, you just have to added 1 year laterListentune to that channel. Once you tune to that channel, never go off of it. Let God show you the Way in all things.