Colton Swabb

Former-Mindvalley, Stealing Fire, Heroic PBC. Researching creativity for a book. I help effective people be more creative, driven, and fulfilled.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

From 2014-2019 I was part of the teams that:

- Launched a first-time author to a #1 NYT bestseller.

- Helped two other authors spark a movement and got featured in the NYT myself for it on accident.

- Ran the world’s longest ongoing study on meditation and altered states.

👇

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

When you're working toward something you don't really want, your brain gets confused.

It has no idea what to reward you for.

You end up watching motivational videos, psyching yourself up, using every ounce of willpower.

But when you do what you want? The process fuels you.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

Most of the time when someone struggles with goals, it's strategy or consistency.

But sometimes it's deeper: they're chasing goals they don't really want.

This is far more common and much more insidious.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

Focus doesn't add linearly. It compounds exponentially.

1+1=3 3+1=6 6+1=9 9+1=14 14+1=20 20+1=30

When you leverage this, you operate on an entirely different level.

It's like Amazon's decades of compounding focus. Impossible to catch.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

When focus compounds, you start getting insights in the shower.

You know where to pick up on your writing because it came to you on a drive.

It's not effort anymore. It's momentum.

Fear and procrastination get replaced by curiosity.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

Compounding focus is the most powerful force in creativity.

A person doing sales on Day 1 will be eaten alive by someone who's done it 30 days straight.

Same with writing, producing, teaching.

Focus builds momentum. You wake up with the wind at your back.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

People who value their time don't sit around responding to texts all day.

It can be hard to imagine getting thousands of messages daily, but once you see it, you realize why text communication doesn't work with these people.

Video cuts through the noise.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

Second best to being in the room: sending videos made specifically for them.

Third: voice messages.

Creating a video shows you cared enough to make content FOR them.

It gives them excitement and curiosity. Makes them actually want to listen.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

Early in my career, I flew to my clients anywhere in the world.

Australia. Malaysia. Back to the US from Australia. Dozens of times a year.

I began to dread flying, but it didn't matter.

When you're competing for mentors, you want to be the realest person in the room.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

The people you want to learn from won't show up on your doorstep.

Most often, the people they keep close are those already close to them.

You have to be willing to show up. In person. Again and again.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

When most people make decisions that pan out badly...

They stop trusting themselves to make big decisions. They doubt their entire process.

Because they don't realize how many decisions end in failure.

It's most of the process, in my experience.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

Learning to trust yourself is more about game theory than self-esteem.

Everyone is born trusting themselves. They just touch too many hot stoves and stop taking chances.

When you accept failure as statistical, not personal, you build self-trust that endures.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

Don't skip the basics just because you want to be different.

Everyone doing the same stuff is doing it because it works.

Do what they aren't doing ON TOP of that.

Add your unique spin.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

The people who make it were always unconventional.

Usually in ways that attracted adversity, even bullying.

They were mocked for being triangle pegs trying to fit into round holes.

Eventually, they stopped trying to fit.

And realized they could succeed in the blank spaces no one else sees.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

Just because 99% of people get rejected doesn't mean the other 1% don't.

That's literally what it means to "get ahead of 99% of people."

It starts with believing it's possible. In fact, it's the norm.

But most people count themselves out before they begin.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

The simplest way to become the exception:

Believe with your entire being, "If someone else has achieved this, I can too."

That's it.

Most people exclude themselves from possibility because they believe in statistics too much.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

When everyone is listening to the same advice, they become the average.

The people who actually break through aren't the most talented or connected.

They figured out that most advice is designed to keep you safely average.

Average is good for business. It keeps people stuck and buying solutions.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

Hawaiian mystics understood the subconscious, superconscious, and depth psychology thousands of years before Carl Jung.

Mastering Your Hidden Self reveals their practice of Huna.

It taught me more about psychology than university textbooks.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

Be Here Now by Ram Dass looks like it was made by someone on acid.

It basically was.

But it's one of the most profound books on present-moment awareness ever written.

Reading it sinks you into the now deeper than anything else.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

The Paradox of Intention: You'll get what you want easier if you aren't attached to getting it.

Think about it: you stutter with someone you're attracted to but are smooth with someone you're not interested in.

Detachment from outcome = easier time achieving it.

[Colton Swabb @coltonswabb]

Buckminster Fuller coined "Spaceship Earth.

It's the idea that we're all passengers, not citizens of competing nations.

His perspective changed how I see everything, even mathematics.

I got his Dymaxion Map tattooed at 19 because of this book.