To get more out of life, you must get more out of yourself. You must take personal responsibility for your thoughts and emotions. You must stop blaming the system. The days of looking outside of yourself for answers are gone!

Now, imagine you believe that the world is abundant. The world is one of endless resources and unlimited potential. What you do matters. Your choices matter. You matter. Each day is a new day full of infinite possibilities. How would you act if you knew that anything you wanted to do was possible? Would you live differently if you believed that you were abundant and full of potential?

Treat yourself like a treasured and trusted friend.

Negative thoughts are usually lies.

Am I choosing, in this moment, to be the type of person I want to become?

Who am I really living for?

“The only easy day was yesterday.” [Navy SEAL motto.]

Imagine your consciousness is the judge or jury, or parent or friend that you must persuade. You want your conscious mind to believe in you. Framing is how your mind perceives whatever situation you are in. Framing is how you choose to think about, and thus perceive, a challenge in your life.

“What you focus on is what you feel.”

Gorilla Mindset Shift: Reframe the issues. Choose to focus on how the difficulty you’re facing will make you stronger, more intelligent, more emotionally complex, or more resourceful.

Instead of calling something a “problem,” reframe it as a “challenge.” That seems cliché, but it really works.

Adopting a growth mindset is bittersweet. The bitterness comes from the pain accompanying growth. “No pain, no gain” is true. The sweetness comes from growth. Nothing feels as good as winning.

Even if you didn’t embrace the pain of growth, life would bring pain to you eventually. You cannot choose whether the pain is coming.

The challenges you face today will give you the resources you need to succeed tomorrow. You fell down a lot as an infant before you learned to walk. You tripped when learning to run. At some point, you were clueless and made mistakes, yet those mistakes eventually led to your success and mastery.

Mindfulness is freedom from anxiety or fear. Mindfulness is perception, not judgment. Mindfulness is getting out of your head and into your body. Mindfulness is checking in to the present moment. Mindfulness is being in the zone or in flow state. Mindfulness is being present and engaged. Mindfulness is being, rather than doing.

When you feel distracted during a conversation, you can help yourself check in by using these two powerful mantras. I use them regularly, especially when there’s a lull in conversation. There’s no place else I’d rather be.

There’s no one else I’d rather see.

For example, my default state is a bit stoic. I don’t feel much at all. I accept life. While Stoicism is helpful when facing adversity, Stoics miss out on a major part of the human experience. The weakness of my state is that I often lack excitement and enthusiasm. I can also appear passive and uncaring to others. Sometimes my default “go with the flow” state makes me seem weak, when the truth is, I simply don’t care about most of the stuff others find important.

Examples of default state: Optimistic: You are enthusiastic (some might say overly so) about life, like a puppy dog. Negative: You always see the downside of life and the worst in people. You constantly watch your back and call everything a scam. In-between: You feel moved by the good and the bad. You tend to accept whatever “life” gives you. Resourceful: You feel empowered to solve whatever problems come your way.

Remember, How You Feel is Your Choice: Remind yourself that you have the power to choose how you feel. Tell yourself, “How I feel is a choice I make in the present moment.” Do not passively accept whatever emotional state happens to affect your body.

You will not master anything, let alone your emotions, after reading a few pages in a book. You must apply what you read and practice consistently.

Focus on what is essential. Of course, the non-essential details still matter, but treat them as what they are — non-essential.

Tony Robbins says, “What you focus on is what you feel.” If you focus on what is lacking (scarcity mindset) rather than what you have (abundance mindset), you will feel frenzied, frustrated, and angry.

Arnold was focusing on his upcoming bodybuilding contest, Mr. Olympia. During the interview, Arnold was asked how he maintains his focus for the competition. How would he handle stress? Arnold told the interviewer, “If someone steals my car outside right now, I don’t care. I can’t be bothered with that. All I can do is call the insurance agency and they’ll laugh about it. I trained myself for that and not to let things go into my mind.”

Most of us would be angry if we went outside to see our car gone. What if we allowed our emotions to overtake us? That would add stress to our lives and be physically and emotionally draining. Is it worth it? Is losing vital emotional, physical, and life-force energy worth it? Is losing our temper worth it? Arnold refused to let any distraction get in the way of his goals and, as a result, he has lived the life other men dream of. It’s easy to become distracted and feel angry. You can overcome this is by checking in consistently, engaging in empowering and helpful self-talk, and returning your focus to what really matters. Use self-talk to keep yourself accountable.

Warren Buffett is the second richest man in the world. He goes to his office from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and he doesn’t answer email. In fact, you can’t claim to be free if you’re accessible 24/7. The more plugged in you are, the less importance you’re placing on yourself. Being plugged in and connected does not signal importance. It shows that you are a slave to others. Take charge. Disconnect. Focus.

We are the sum of our activities and the people we surround ourselves with. Yet we often give people a “friends and family pass” when they engage in nonsense. Because of this, our friends and family are really “friends” and “family” who see us as people to exploit. But your life belongs to you, not them. If people want to associate with you, it must be on your terms. Those who do not want to meet your terms are free to leave. The same is true of other people. If you live a self-indulgent life where you always seek to use others for your own benefit, don’t cry when you find yourself alone.

What do you want less of? If you want to feel less angry, why do you read news sites or watch TV? Television and media primarily exist to instill fear, shock, and outrage within you. Should you be focusing your attention on negative outcomes?

Focusing on What You Want in Life Is Not Selfish: As you develop more focus in your life, you may notice people calling you selfish. People who accuse you of being selfish are twice as selfish as they claim you are. I’m a pretty low-key guy. I rarely ask anyone for anything. Usually it’s people trying to get at me to sell me something, to guilt me into helping them, or con me into giving them something. When I say no, they act like it’s immoral on my part. “Mike is so selfish!” By saying no, I am not compelling anyone to do anything. I am not imposing my will on anyone. I am simply asking to be left alone. When people insist that you do what they want, they are attempting to control your life. They are the ones being selfish.

When you develop ruthless focus, you may learn that many of your friends and family members aren’t friends at all. They are people who use you for their own ends and become deeply offended when you start living your own life.

True friends want to see you succeed. They want what is best for you. If your friends and family can’t “chill” while you do you for a while, good riddance. Developing ruthless focus will leave you with a stronger circle of friends while ridding your life of the dead weight.

Focus Is Finite: Our human willpower and ability to focus is limited. (That topic is covered in the next chapter.) Avoid depleting your ability to focus by wasting it on negativity or toxic people. Organize your life to maximize your focus.

Turn Off Your Cell Phone When Playing with Your Children: They are the most important people in your life. Mindlessly checking email and being distracted is something they will notice and remember. Turn the phone off.

Do Not Eat in Front of the Television: When you eat, you should focus on your food. Studies have shown people tend to eat 25-50% more calories when eating in front of the television. Because we aren’t focused on eating while watching television (or surfing the web), we lose track of how much we’ve actually eaten.

If the only message you took away from Gorilla Mindset were to cut out toxic people from your life, then I’d consider this book a massive success.

Avoid negative situations and draining people, instead choose to engage in life-affirming activities with positive, helpful people.

Cut Off Contact with Negative People, Even Family Members

Say No to Everything: Chances are, you are already too busy. You need time to work on yourself. You don’t have time to allow others to impose their demands and ego upon you. For the next four weeks, say no to everything someone asks you to do. If you do insist on saying yes to some requests, heed this rule: “Never make a promise when you’re in a good mood.” We are more likely to overcommit ourselves when in a good mood.

Sleep as Much as You Can: Sleep as much as you need to. Yes, life is busy and we all have reasons to lose sleep. I’m not going to lecture you on the need for enough sleep, as that’s a choice only you can make.

There is nothing cool about “powering through” sleep deprivation

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Therefore, try to juggle too many tasks in a day and you’re bound to let one slip. Fortunately, also like a muscle, self-control gets stronger after repeated exertion and rest.

Your lifestyle is the sum total of how you spend your time. This includes the activities you engage in and the people you associate with, whether at work, home, or online. To improve your lifestyle, improve the quality of people you socialize with as well as the activities you participate in.

Eliminate negative people from your life by following the Ruthless Focus exercise.

The “Ruthless Focus” exercise could have been placed in lifestyle, as your lifestyle will be influenced by your focus. If you focus on negative activities and people, your lifestyle will suffer. If you focus on positive activities and inspiring people, your lifestyle will soar.

Could mental illness be caused by toxins that your liver is unable to eliminate from the body due to glutathione deficiency? It’s not so far-fetched, in fact, the cutting-edge of mental health research is looking at the role toxins and oxidative stress play in mental illness. In The efficacy of adjunctive N-acetylcysteine in major depressive disorder: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial “This data implicates the pathways influenced by NAC in depression pathogenesis, principally oxidative and inflammatory stress and glutamate, although definitive confirmation remains necessary.” See also, The Glutathione System: A New Drug Target in Neuroimmune Disorders “Glutathione depletion and concomitant increase in oxidative and neurological stress and mitochondrial dysfunctions play a role in the pathophysiology of diverse neuroimmune disorders, including depression, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and Parkinson’s disease, suggesting that depleted GSH is an integral part of these diseases.”

When it comes to money, it’s not what you make. It’s what you make and what you save.

A pair of Beats by Dre cost more than the above superior headphones and yet the company Beats is worth more than each of those companies. People purchase Beats for the status. It’s not about the audio quality; it’s about the logo and message it sends– “I can afford expensive headphones so I’m hip and cool.”

Perhaps you are using money as a drug to self-medicate and fill a void of an unfulfilling job or home life. Perhaps your consumerism acts as an opiate for a life void of meaning. Is money the real opiate of the masses?

It’s a limiting belief that you have nothing of value to share. People turn to you for answers because you have them. Start getting paid for your guidance.

We’ve been taught that only certain people are authorities. You need a white lab coat or a degree. That’s nonsense. It’s a social construct created to make you sheep rather than wolves. Many of you blindly trust the authorities rather than become an authority yourself.

Be transparent. Even when people catch you making a mistake, embrace it. Thank them. Remember the reframing techniques, “I am so transparent because this is how we all grow together.”

Find ways to choose yourself in your own life. Ask yourself, are you waiting for others to recognize and appreciate you? Take action. Become your own hype man and marketing and PR department. If you have a goal or desire, stop waiting around for others to give you the chance. Seize the opportunity by choosing yourself.

If you can’t afford to buy it, don’t buy it.