Ashton Kutcher is right

When I met him he turned out to be much taller than I thought and Demi much shorter.

Ashton recognized me right away and extended his hand to shake mine.

So did Demi, but she didn’t know who I was so she said – “Hello, I’m Demi, nice to meet you” – and I replied with a shy smile on my face – “I think I know who you are.. hehe”

Then I melted like a starstruck ice-cream into the floor of that exclusive VIP room…

What was I doing – me, a low-earthling – mingling with two of the biggest Hollywood stars in recent history?

I was there because I took a gamble which paid off in spades. I took a risk, I worked hard and strategically. In essence, I got out of my comfort zone and I did something*…

Are you familiar with the concept of input/output?

In computers input/output is also known as I/O or IO. Something goes in, something comes out. A computer keyboard is an input device. A computer screen is an output device. Makes sense?

Most living organisms behave similarly. They have input devices and they have different mechanisms to produce various types of output.

Your mouth can do both! You can input food or air and it can output sounds/voice/songs or food (barfing).

Your eyes are for input only. They gather photons. You ears, sound waves.
Your body is the most advanced and amazing I/O system in the Universe as we know it!

Ok, so what?

Be patient my little “saltamontes” ← (grasshopper in Spanish)

I’m about to make a point that I hope changes your life for the better, so waiting a few more words to get to it has to be worth it.

Ok, here we go: The key to ALL of your potential success is 100% correlated to your OUTPUT”

Let that sink in for 5.0123124 seconds…..

Has it sunk in yet?

Good! those 5.0123124 seconds may be worth $1 zillion dollar each in an undetermined amount of time into your future.

Your future you can thank me whenever then is then.

It doesn’t matter how much information you take in, how much advice your receive, how many books you read, how many degrees or masters you earn…

None of if will help you achieve anything UNLESS you DO something with it.

Input without Output is worthless.

If you only input information and you do squat with it, you will become a living hard-drive.

Yes, you may be able to store a lot of information, but what good is that information for if it isn’t ever used to do anything meaningful with it?

Of course, both Input and Output are important.

The main issue is that many of us focus too much on Input.

On consuming tons of information (mostly useless information)

The key to moving forward in life, towards our goals, towards fulfillment in life, towards whatever you define as success is on finding the right balance between those two.

You need input to inform your actions. You will benefit from knowing what is the best banana bread recipe, the best way to swing a golf club, the best way to seduce a woman or man, the best way to do anything… but you’ll only get better at it when you DO it.. damn!

Get it? you want to succeed? less thinking and more doing, less complaining and more hustling, less theory and more action, less input and more OUTPUT!

Are you feeling unproductive?

do you feel you are falling behind? take a hard look at yourself and examine your day before going to bed and answer this: How many hours did you spend on input mode versus output mode?

I spent almost two years fantasizing how to start a company before I actually took some meaningful action. About 3 months after I really got into output mode I met Ashton Kutcher (and his former wife).

Turns out Nike was right all along – the key to success is “Just Do It”!

What’s the ideal I/O ratio?

I’m trying to figure out that myself. In fact, I wrote this because I’ve been feeling mine is still skewed towards the “I”.

If you figure it out let me know!

Until then.. peace, love and I/O cookies!

Miguel

P.S. If you want to learn what it lead to my Ashton/Demi moment you can learn all about it HERE.