Tony Francisco, Author at Outwork, LLC

Top 10 Books for a HPX Lifestyle

August 5, 2020 by Tony Francisco Leave a Comment

A high-performance lifestyle is built around purposeful action.

It’s Robert Greene’s concept of a life task at the forefront of what we do everyday.

It is what Angela Duckworth talks about when she describes passion and perseverance.

When Jocko demands discipline, it is for the singular purpose of becoming better in some way.

Our goal is to advance, to rise above, and to exceed the expectations we have placed on ourselves.

It is the pursuit of high-performance that propels us. When the chance to ease up comes along, when the path of least resistance is revealed, it is the vision of our best selves, it is our desire to become the best that keeps us moving forward. [Read more…]

Books of APR/MAY/JUN 2020

June 15, 2020 by Tony Francisco Leave a Comment

The sheer amount of information available to anyone nowadays is appalling.

Your primitive brain, equipped well for the trials of survival in nature, is at a disadvantage.

It cannot cope with the amount of stimulus. It doesn’t know how to respond. Your mind, the catalyst of your conscious self, can no longer keep up with the demand.

As a result, our distractions become the drivers of our lives.

Instead you must refocus. You must recommit to the principled idea of intense discipline. You must force yourself to behave in a way that will get you from where you are to where you want to be.

Behaviors are action and action is king. [Read more…]

Books of JAN/FEB/MAR 2020

March 29, 2020 by Tony Francisco Leave a Comment

What I enjoy most about reading and writing is seeing commonality across disciplines.

Navy SEALs, billionaires, and stoic practitioners all talk about the same things — albeit through a different lens.

They also produce the same result: success.

Success cannot always be copied but the enablers, what it takes to become successful, can be.

There is a connection between the mental and physical.

Elite military and professional athletes channel it to produce almost superhuman efforts. Billionaires use it to create empires and it shines through in the philosophies of stoic wisdom.

No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. – Socrates

[Read more…]

What it Takes to Have Grit

March 1, 2020 by Tony Francisco Leave a Comment

Grit, as defined by Angela Duckworth, in her bestselling book by the same name, is passion and perseverance.

Grit is forged by the combination of the two — a passion for something and the willingness to follow through on the process it takes to become good at that thing.

Here’s how Duckworth describes highly-successful people, based on her research:

1. They were resilient and hardworking.

2. They knew in a very, very deep way what it was they wanted.

If grit is the key to success, then determination and direction is the key to having grit. [Read more…]

How to Design a High-Performance Life (style)

February 1, 2020 by Tony Francisco Leave a Comment

What exactly is a high-performance lifestyle?

It comes from creating a life that enables sustained levels of high performance. It comes down to instilling habits, practices, mental and physical actions that promote sustained excellence. It means doing things well often. It means forgoing other things in order to focus fully on the things you want to excel at. When you decide to live a high-performance life, you are essentially committing to becoming better than most people. It is a decision to move past ordinary into the extraordinary. From common to uncommon. [Read more…]