SUMMARY 

• IPA stands for Identity, Productivity and Antifragility. Mastering IPA is the number one thing you need to do to be more successful in life.
• I = Identity –  Start with identity. Behavior follows who you think you are. You cannot  become a better version of yourself if you continue being the person you’ve always been.
• P = Productivity –  You must optimize yourself for action. You must have 80/20 focus. What’s the 20% of things that you could do for 80% of the results?
• A = Antifragility – Reframe stress; so that the more stress, hardship or difficulty you experience, the stronger you become. 
• Stress Can Be Helpful – It is not something that you should seek to run away from, stress is positive, if viewed from the correct point of view.
  
  TRANSCRIPT

If you drink lots of beer, you’re going to be way more successful in life. But it needs to be IPA. Nothing else. Well, not exactly, but IPA, not in the sense of beer, but in the acronym, identity productivity and antifragility, IPA. If you master IPA in this way, it is literally the number one thing you need to do to be more successful in life. And today I’m going to teach you exactly what to do in each of these three fronts, identity, productivity, and antifragility, so that you can be a lot more successful in whatever it is that you’re doing.

Hi, my name is Eric Partaker. And as a peak performance expert and award-winning entrepreneur, I’m on a mission to help people become all that they’re capable of being. So, let me tell you about this IPA acronym and how it can lead to you becoming the best version of you. So it starts with Identity. And the reason we start with Identity is because behavior follows who we think we are. And we can’t become a better version of ourselves, going forward, if we’re going to continue being the person we’ve always been. But here’s the secret, we get to choose who we want to be. We almost can choose the superhero version of ourselves, if you will. And when you start by choosing who you want to be, you can then define: How does that version of me show up in the world? What are the values that that version of me operates on?

I do this across three different domains in my life. So I do this on the health front, on the wealth front, and on the home front. So on the health front, I think of myself as a world fitness champion, even though I’m not, because that’s the identity that powers me to go to the gym in the morning. On the wealth front, I think of myself as the world’s best coach, because it reminds me: how do I need to show up to be the person I need to be for the entrepreneurs and the leaders that I am helping in this world? And then on the home front, I think of myself as the world’s best husband and father, because it prompts the question: how would the world’s best husband and father react, or act, or behave with his family right now?

So by choosing what my best version looks like and giving it a name in each of these three domains, I’m more likely to behave in accordance with that. Or I’m more likely to hit the target, if you will, and operate at my best. And on a daily basis, what I do with regard to each of these three things is I pick one thing. Which, if I did it on the health front, if I did that on the wealth front, if I did that on the relationship front, one thing whereby doing it in the context of the day would help evidence or prove that I’m being that best version of me.

So that’s the identity front, you becoming more successful in life starts with choosing who you want to be, defining that in terms of values: How does that version of you behave? And choosing just one thing that each of those versions of you at your best could do on the health, wealth and home, or relationship, fronts, if you will.

Then we have productivity, the productivity part of the IPA acronym … which isn’t the beer, as you know, by now. So productivity, why do we talk about productivity? Well, because it’s no good choosing to define what best looks like for us if we’re not going to also optimize ourselves for action. Knowledge isn’t where the game is played anymore, we have to continually take action. We have to fight procrastination. We need to focus on what matters most. And productivity really takes off when you break it into two components, one is planning and the other is execution.

So on the planning side, what I recommend that you do is think about your days in terms of: I want to have, I want to create an Olympic day. And think about: what is the ideal evening routine to have? What’s the ideal morning routine? And how do you want to go about your work? And what I would encourage you to do is prioritize your sleep. So make sure it’s part of your evening routine. You’re setting yourself up in the evening, such that you can get a good night of eight hours of sleep, because it will make you super productive.

And then, on the morning routine, start your day off in the right way. Start it off being creative, not reactive. Start off with some exercise, spike your energy and your mood for the day that follows. And then divide up your day, structure your day in a way that makes sense. For example, have your morning maker time, when you’re going to be focused on the activities that matter most to you, that will advance and progress you in your career, or your calling, or whatever it is that you’re doing, the activities that will matter most. Have them be done in the morning during your maker time and save your afternoons for meeting with others. That’s your manager time, interacting with other people can be in the afternoons.

And then on the execution side of things. When it comes to productivity, we need to have 80/20 focus. What’s the 20% of things that I could do for 80% of the results? Rather than focus on absolutely everything. And as we’re working through those things in the course of the day, we need to remember to single task. So rather than jump around from one thing to the next, work on one thing at a time. And if you do this, in general, productivity-wise, make sure you’re planning your days while making sure you’re executing with 80/20 focus and single-tasking while you do it, you’ll notice your productivity will go through the roof.

And then the A within the IPA acronym stands for antifragility. And why do we talk about that? Well, because we can decide what best looks like from an identity point of view, we can also optimize ourselves for action from a productivity point of view, and things still won’t go to plan. But rather than be derailed by that or upset by that, we want to reframe stress; so that the more stress we experience, the more hardship or difficulty we experience, the stronger we become. And that, by the way, is the definition of anti-fragility. The more hits you take, the more stress you experience, the stronger you become.

Just like your body does, you go to the gym, you stress a muscle, it causes it to grow. And we need to get that kind of thinking up in your head. Stress is not something that you should seek to run away from, that you should seek to avoid; rather stress is something positive, if viewed from the correct point of view. That if you embrace and complete the repetition, so to speak, you will strengthen your body, your mind, your soul; however you want to think about it.

So we need to expect the unexpected, but embrace it as an opportunity for growth. So that’s what I meant by IPA, so not the beer at all. But I do believe IPA is your secret for becoming as successful as possible. Really master your identity, who is it that you want to be? across the areas of life that matter most on the health front, on the wealth, on the relationship front. Optimize yourself for productivity, it’s about taking action. Knowledge isn’t where the game is played. And think about planning things out well, and then having that 80/20 single tasking focus when it comes to execution. And seek to embrace stress as something that can strengthen you, as part of your quest to develop antifragile courage and confidence. Whereby the more unexpected things that happen to you, the more stress that happens to you, the stronger you become.

So I hope you’ve enjoyed that. And if you head over to my website at ericpartaker.com, you can also subscribe to my weekly Peak Performance Insights newsletter.