How to master your inner game comes down to one shift: stop fighting the effect and go find the cause. Strategy and mindset coach Jeffrey Combs puts it bluntly. Procrastination is an effect, not a cause, and if you keep telling yourself you don’t know why you do what you do, you’ve got no ability to respond. Find the cause, simplify how you work and put your energy into skills instead of chasing success.
The first time I ever saw Jeffrey speak was out in San Diego. One thing that really stood out to me was that he was standing at the door, greeting each and every person who walked into the room before he jumped on stage. I highly respect that.
By his own count, Jeffrey has coached more than 9,000 clients and has been an entrepreneur for over 30 years. I remember that back in the late 90s he was a successful network marketer. He moved into speaking and then found his niche in coaching. He once said his real skill is helping people find the cause behind their effect, so I asked him how he pinpointed that.
Procrastination is an effect, not a cause
His answer started with his own life. “First of all, I’m a recovering addict and alcoholic,” he said. When we spoke, he had more than 26 years of sobriety with no relapses, after spending 14 years addicted to alcohol and drugs that, in his words, “allowed me to dull the pain.”
Getting clean didn’t fix everything. Jeffrey said he spent the first several years of his sobriety as “an angry, dry drunk, not really understanding why I couldn’t succeed.” He’d experience success, then sabotage it, or something would happen and it would all go away. That was the effect, and it kept leading him to the same disappointment.
What changed things was learning how cause and effect works in the brain. “If anyone listening has tendencies of procrastination, procrastination is an effect, it’s not a cause,” he said. “The causes that create our feelings are based on a series of events and, most importantly, how we perceive them.”
Once you understand the cause, he said, you can let go of the effects. “But if you continue to live in the effect and live in denial and tell yourself you don’t know why you do what you do, then there’s no ability to respond.”
That’s the inner game in one line. Most people attack the symptom. They download another productivity app, set another alarm and promise themselves Monday will be different. Jeffrey’s point is that the behavior is downstream. If the way you perceive events hasn’t changed, the effect keeps coming back. John Demartini comes at a related question from a different direction, on values, in why you’re not sabotaging yourself.
Where his cause-and-effect lens came from
I asked Jeffrey who put him on to neuroscience. Did he read a book, or did somebody coach him on it?
Nobody coached him. He started reading voraciously in the 80s as he got clean and sober. He also shared stages with Dr. Joe Dispenza early in Joe’s speaking career and booked him to speak at his own events, so he watched what Joe was doing and kept reading. Over time he pieced together the basics of what happens in the brain chemistry “that creates an emotional addiction that leads to an identity.”
We actually had Joe Dispenza on the Addicted2Success podcast and he was incredible. The knowledge he shared with us about the brain and the mindset showed what an unlimited world there is for us to discover.
Get off the practice shelf
We have a lot of entrepreneur listeners, and there’s so much information out there: podcasts, blogs, live events, video lessons. The biggest thing is finding the right information, so I asked Jeffrey how entrepreneurs cut through that noise.
He started with what people get wrong. “What many people do is they practice shelf,” he said, meaning their shelves are full of self-help books, podcast downloads and seminar notes. “They become seminar goers, but not active producers.”
He’s blunt about the money side, too. People rack up credit card debt on seminars and coaching and call it an asset. “It’s an asset when it’s applied. It’s a liability when it’s procrastinated on.”
Then he described the trap most people live in without noticing. “If you keep getting ready to get ready, waiting for that perfect mythical magical moment, you’ll never live your dreams,” he said. “You’ll just live in a wish, tiptoeing quietly through life, arriving at your grave safely, living the greatest pain, the pain of regret.”
His fix isn’t another book. It’s a business model you can run. If you’re not systemized, organized, methodical and detail conscious, he said, there’s a high probability you’ll be overwhelmed, procrastinate and end up disappointed. That’s the chain to break.
Inner knowing beats more know-how
To Jeffrey, the deeper problem is where people look for answers. “They never apply what they learn,” he said. “They keep looking for more technical know-how.”
He argued that school trains us to answer tests analytically and logically, and doesn’t reward creativity. Yet ideas, branding, intellectual property and the vision for a business don’t come from technical know-how. “It comes from your inner knowing, your being,” he said. “And that’s where so many people miss the mark.”
How to train your inner ear
I was listening to one of Jeffrey’s podcasts where he said people need to start focusing more on what’s meant and not said. So I asked him the best way to train your inner ear.
“You have to get out of your head,” he said. You have to stop living in the analytical, egoic mind, which is what he calls a human doing. “You have to learn to do less and be more.”
That doesn’t mean you stop setting goals. He wants you to learn how to “goal get”: how to achieve, produce, create results and live in the solution. The person still hunting for the next seminar speaker, the next event, the next rally is living in the problem. “It’s never out in front of you. It’s always within you.”
He also talked about attachment. When you’re attached to the outcome and overwhelmed by anxiety, he said, you’re separate from the result instead of one with it. I told him he was right. It’s good to separate yourself from the outcome and keep that anxiety out of your life.
Simplify or live in fight or flight
In one of his podcasts, Jeffrey talked about the power of simplicity. I think as entrepreneurs we tend to overcomplicate everything that comes our way, so I asked him for the steps every aspiring entrepreneur needs to take to simplify.
He laid it out as a chain. “If you’re complicated, you’re going to be unorganized. If you’re unorganized, you’re going to be overwhelmed. If you’re overwhelmed, your body’s in a constant state of fight or flight. There’s no joy. There’s no peace.”
The other side is simple work you can repeat. “If what you do is simple, you can duplicate it,” he said. Through repetition and experience, it becomes what you do and who you are. You build a reflex where you respond instead of react.
If you’re complicated, overwhelmed and not systematic, you’ll be winging it, and your brain never really relaxes. Dwell on the problem long enough, he warned, and you’ll create more of them to feed the craving. “You become addicted to disappointment.”
That’s a bad addiction to have, that’s for sure.
It’s also why simplifying is an inner-game move, not just an operations tweak. One clear offer and one checklist for the work that matters will do more for your head than a perfect plan you never touch.
Successful people focus on skills, not success
When I interviewed Joe Dispenza, he mentioned that most of the thoughts we have are the same ones we had the day before, and that we run mostly on autopilot from the unconscious. That’s where our habits come from. So I asked Jeffrey about the most common habits he sees in the successful people he’s coached.
“They do the same thing over and over with very little fanfare,” he said. “They can produce without recognition. They’re not seeking approval. They become very skilled.”
Then he made the distinction at the heart of this whole conversation. If he writes the word success on a whiteboard, that’s what most people want. If he writes skills, very few people focus on it. “The most successful people are highly skilled and they have great habits.”
Most people, he said, want instant gratification. They hit a little dip, look at their credit card statements and tell themselves, “I’m not where I should be,” without realizing they haven’t paid the price yet. “If you don’t master, number one, your emotional state and master the skills of the vocation, you’ll always be average.”
I told him we were going to have to change the website address to addictedtoskills.com.
Be patient while you’re productive
I asked Jeffrey about the biggest life lesson he’s learned. “Be patient,” he said. He got clean and sober at 31 and wanted 10 years of sobriety right away. Even with the drugs and alcohol put down, he stayed in an overwhelmed, addictive state.
“Patience isn’t something you do. Patience is what you become,” he said. “But you also have to be patient while you’re productive.” It’s the production while you’re patient, he explained, that creates the compounding effect. Focus only on reaping and you won’t master the skills to sow.
When I asked about the best advice he’d ever received from a mentor or someone he’d shared a stage with, he said the best advice he’s had is his own: listen to what he means, trust what he feels and don’t go against his own intuition.
I love it. Listen to yourself.
I can actually vouch for Jeffrey. I know a number of my friends have had amazing turnarounds and breakthroughs in their business and their life. His work lives at goldenmastermind.com.
I closed by asking what his last 30-second speech to the world would sound like. “Master the skills. Stay in the game long enough to master the skills. Be patient and focus on being a tortoise, not a hare,” he said. “Let go of trying to be the best and be your best, one day at a time, over a long career.”
How to master your inner game: 7 steps
- Name the effect you keep repeating, like procrastination, quitting or blowing up a good month.
- Ask what event and what perception sit underneath it. That’s the cause.
- Pick one book or course you’ve already bought and apply it this week before buying another.
- Strip one process down until it’s simple enough to repeat on a bad day.
- Write down a skill you’re building, not a result you’re chasing.
- Do the work, then let go of the outcome. Watching the pot won’t make it boil.
- Measure yourself against your best, not the best, one day at a time.
FAQ
What does it mean to master your inner game?
It means understanding the thoughts, perceptions and emotional patterns that drive your behavior, so you can change the cause instead of fighting the effects. Jeffrey Combs frames it as cause and effect.
Is procrastination a cause or an effect?
Jeffrey Combs calls procrastination an effect. He says the cause is a series of events and how you perceive them, often made worse by overwhelm and waiting for a perfect moment.
What is the practice shelf?
It’s Jeffrey Combs’ term for shelves full of self-help books, downloads and seminar notes that never get applied. He says knowledge is an asset when it’s applied and a liability when it’s procrastinated on.
How do you train your inner ear?
Get out of your head, do less and be more, and stay present. Jeffrey Combs says the answers aren’t in the next seminar. They come from your own inner knowing and trust.
Why focus on skills instead of success?
Because skills are what produce success. Jeffrey Combs says the most successful people are highly skilled, have great habits and do the same work over and over with very little fanfare.