What do you need to do today to thrive in three years’ time? If you are where you want to be today, it’s because of what you did three years ago. If you aren’t, it’s because of what you didn’t do. We can’t change our past, but we can totally create our future. Today isn’t just one day. It’s day one.

Here is the secret sauce of Champion Collaborators in a single sentence: Champion Collaborators help others succeed in a way that motivates others to invest more time and resources with them. So are you a Champion Collaborator? Do you help others get what they want in a way that makes them want to invest more time and resources with you? On a scale of 1-10, where 1= not-at-all and 10 = absolutely-yes, where are you? How do you know?

For the first time ever, we surveyed a representative sample of over 1800 Canadians to discern The Champion’s secret sauce. We wanted to understand the mental patterns and the value drivers that enable champions to excel. The results were absolutely fascinating and I’ll share them with you now.

Anyone who tells you that they are fearless is being disingenuous. The future is bright, bold and full of bogeymen. If you’re playing a big game for a big prize, it’s going to be hard. The competition is going to be amazing. The clients are going to be incredibly demanding. The standards are going to be unreasonably high. It’s going to take everything you have and then some.

Million Dollar Communication: it’s the process of using words, sounds, images, or gestures to exchange information or to express your ideas in such a way that others are inspired to take immediate action.

What is the one skill that the world’s most successful people practice more than any other? Anticipation. Anticipation means that you see things before they happen; you act before others have a chance to react and you preempt problems before they occur. You reap all the advantages that accrue to the first-mover.

One thing is for certain: 2016 is not for sissies. It will demand a colossal capacity to control one’s emotions and reassure others. The future belongs to those who can create their own internal realities, irrespective of circumstance. In fact, this capacity is most crucial when uncertainty is at its greatest – in other words, for the foreseeable future.

Often, the only difference between a Champion and an Also-ran is their belief about their own capacity. Our inner world forms our outer world. As we think, so we become. We are all the writers, directors and producers of our own reality show. It’s not the size of the person in the fight. It’s the size of the fight in the person.