The Breakthrough Formula with David Nurse

Finding Your Breakthrough

• A breakthrough is an abstract idea, yet it’s something we’re all searching for.
• But a breakthrough actually ends up being happy accidents that happen to us.
• Those are difficult to recreate.
• There’s a lot of focus on terms like self-help and self-development when it comes to breakthroughs.
• But it’s not about the self.
• You can’t find breakthroughs on your own.
• David created a formula for breakthroughs that he’s used with NBA players and other high performers.
• There are four points to the formula.
• If you live these four points, you’ll unlock more breakthroughs.
• This formula is seamless and easy to do. You won’t have to add 3 hours to your morning routine.

Discover Your Confidence

• The first point in the breakthrough formula is confidence.
• Most people think of their stats when they think about confidence.
• This isn’t about your resume, or your social media likes—that’s not what confidence is about.
• True confidence is about finding your true self-awareness.
• What do you stand for? What about you is more than the identity people see on you?
• Find out why you’re here on this earth.
• David has actionable tools for each step because he wants you to succeed long-term.
• The why’s are important, but he wants to give you actionable how’s.
• For confidence, one important factor is to embrace imposter syndrome.
• Everyone feels imposter syndrome, but it means you’re doing something great.
• You’re actually on the verge of a breakthrough when you feel this.
• If you don’t know what imposter syndrome is, it’s when you feel like you don’t belong.
• Whether you feel like you don’t deserve to be in a room with certain people, or achieving things, imposter syndrome is a sign that you’re doing great things.
• The action to overcome imposter syndrome is something David calls the “foggy mirror”.
• At some point in your morning, you’re going to walk by a mirror.
• Imagine the mirror is covered with fog.
• The fog is self-doubt.
• You have the choice to either walk by the mirror and live in that self-doubt, to stay in that ‘I’m not good enough’ mentality.
• Or you can simply stand there, take your hand, and wipe away the fog.
• It’s similar to a power stance, where you stand in a powerful stance and feel more confident.
• Wiping away the fog is the same thing.
• You’re telling yourself at the start of your day that you won’t live in self-doubt. You’re going to live in the self-aware confidence of who you are.
• It doesn’t matter what the rest of the world says about you, or what your identity is. You know who you are.
• Self-awareness is the foundation.

Assemble Your Team

• Once you find that self-awareness, you have to accept that you can’t do it alone—you need a team.
• And don’t choose the same type of people because everyone has different strengths.
• Far too often, people are told you are your weaknesses and that you have to increase your weakness.
• You hear things like, “This is a weakness to work on.”
• But weaknesses are actually a compliment wish list.
• Understand your weaknesses and find people who have them as their strengths.
• The recipe for an amazing team is putting together individual, unique, strong ingredients.
• Look at the 1998 Chicago Bulls: they had Jordan for the best score, Pippin for the best wingman, Steve Kerr as the best shooter, Rodman for the best rebounds.
• You put together individual talents and strengths where you all cooperate at the highest level.
• When you have your team, don’t forget your fundamentals.
• The basics and the fundamentals are essential to success.
• Even at the highest levels of performance, you have to always come back to the fundamentals.
• Kobe Bryant worked on his footwork for hours and hours.
• The great performers understand that even though fundamentals aren’t fun, they’re necessary to build and sustain your foundation.
• You have to have a strong foundation in order to build a castle.
• Fundamentals can be things like meditation or journaling, movement and exercise, reading every day, going to get groceries, loving your kids.
• There’s an action for cooperation and teamwork.
• One of David’s favorite stats that they keep in the NBA is high-fives given.
• They have so many analytics, but they track how many high-fives each player gives per game.
• The player that has always led the NBA in high-fives given is Steve Nash.
• He averaged 239 high-fives per game.
• This is important and made him the best teammate because he was encouraging, he was picking people up.
• The best leaders support, but they also challenge.
• Make sure your team supports and challenges every player.
• You don’t gain anything by surrounding yourself with ‘yes men’.
• When you want to perform at the highest level, you want to be taught. You want to be challenged and supported.
• You can encourage this behavior by high-fiving—even if it’s a zoom high-five, just saying high-five verbally, or physically giving someone a high-five.
• You want energy, excitement, encouragement. And you can create that daily through the action of giving high-fives.

Give Back

• Now that you have your confidence and your team, you have to figure out why you’re working towards your breakthrough.
• If you’re only doing it for the Instagram likes, the bank account, the fame—you’ll never be fulfilled, or find contentment or joy.
• It’s never happened before, so why is it going to happen to you?
• You can discover both your purpose and your sense of fulfilment through the third piece of the formula: service.
• Until you understand that until you are fully selfless, you will always be selfish.
• The action David uses to get into service mode is to look at your hands.
• Before you enter a room or open a door, look at your hands and say the word serve.
• This automatically kicks your mind into service mode.
• When you say this before you enter a room, you know that you’re serving the people in that room and that it isn’t about you.
• It’s not about what you can get out of it, but what you can give to the situation.
• When you live in this service mode, that’s when everything starts coming back to you.
• Back when David was coaching the Brooklyn Nets in Dallas, he would always try to be the first person on the court.
• It’s how he gets into the mindset for the day, his time on the floor every day.
• One day, he wasn’t the first one on the court.
• There was an older man in raggedy jeans and old shoes, shooting shots and missing a lot of them.
• As David walked by to go to the other side, this guy turned to him and said, “the older you get, the legs go.”
• And David knows as a shooting coach, that wasn’t really true.
• David’s gift is teaching people how to shoot a basketball. But he didn’t want to get into a 15-20 minute lesson.
• He just wanted that time to himself.
• But a few weeks earlier, a friend had challenged him to use his gift more, even if it interfered with or messed up his schedule.
• He decided to show that guy a few things like how to get more range and consistency.
• This guy starts making more shots and he’s getting really excited. But then the players came out to warm up, so they had to leave the court.
• David offered to help the guy more, so he hands David his business card.
• He had been helping Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, harness his inner power for something he was very passionate about.
• By living in service mode, David now has a powerful contact.

Be Relentless

• Before we go over the final piece of the breakthrough formula, it’s important to remember the action that goes with each one.
• For confidence, you have the foggy mirror self-awareness action.
• To encourage cooperation and support, you give high-fives.
• Every time you open a door, you look at your hands and say, “serve”.
• They all have a physicality to them and in each one, your hand is the trigger.
• Whether you wipe away the fog, give a high-five, or look at your hands to serve, it’s using your hands.
• And no matter what, the one thing you always have with you are your hands.
• Actions are important because you can get a lot of good information but having an action to go with that information compels you to act.
• You tie everything together through action.
• Which brings us to our fourth piece in the breakthrough formula, which is relentless consistency.
• It’s going beyond the why you are doing what you’re doing, but committing to do it day after day after day.
• If you live in self-aware confidence for one day, that’s great for that day, but it isn’t going to do you any good.
• It’s only going to matter if you live there every day.
• Be obsessed with your passion.
• You were given a gift, so become obsessed with it.
• The greatest gratitude you can express for having that gift is to go all in with it.
• Make it not just your job, not just your career, but your life’s mission.
• Being obsessed doesn’t mean that’s all you do 24/7 is work, work, work.
• You’re obsessed with your mission and the people you love, but you’re open and available for the opportunities that come your way.
• The enemy of great is not bad. It’s good.
• When you know what your why is—your purpose—and you do it with relentless consistency, not only will opportunities come, but you’ll be ready for them.
• The action for this one is again looking at your hands, but this time look at your palms and see the calluses.
• See how much work your hands have done, how much they’ve been through.
• Everything they’ve been through, you’ve been through too.
• You’ve gotten through so many challenges, and you’re going to get through the next one.
• Remember: think like a person of action but act like a person of thought.
• Be sure to check out the unedited, extended episode on YouTube, here.

Share With Us

• Take a screenshot and tag us on social media (@DavidNurseNBA & @JimKwik) and do the foggy mirror self-aware confidence challenge.
• Show us you doing the action of wiping away the foggy mirror.
• I’ll repost my favorites and gift a copy of David’s new book, Breakthrough: A Sure-Fire Guide to Realizing Your Potential, Pushing Through Limitations, and Achieving Things You Didn’t Know Were Possible, to one lucky listener.
• Get your copy, here.
• Be sure to also check out David’s first book, Pivot and Go: The 29-Day Blueprint to Redefine and Achieve YOUR Success, here.
• For more information, visit www.davidnurse.com, or listen to his podcast, here.