I used to think success was all about internal drive.

Hard work. Discipline. Consistency.

But I was missing half the equation.

The rich keep getting richer because they optimize their ENVIRONMENT.

Your eyes and ears are gates to your soul. What you see daily, hear daily, who's around you daily - these aren't small things. They either multiply your intelligence or kill it.

Princeton Neuroscience Institute proved it: Physical clutter in your environment creates chaos in your subconscious. You can literally become more or less intelligent based on what your room looks like.

Ever wonder why doctors work in clean white rooms? Because excellence in environment = excellence in work.

Why rich neighborhoods are always clean? Because they know: Excellence in environment = Excellence in thinking.

Here's what the most successful people do:

Ernest Hemingway - Wrote standing at a tall desk for energy and focus.

Maya Angelou - Rented hotel rooms and removed EVERYTHING except table, bed, notepad. She understood: Things create noise.

Bill Gates - "Think weeks" twice a year. Isolates in a lakeside cabin with only books and papers.

Bryan Burford - Hedge fund manager. Office deliberately FAR from Wall Street to reduce noise.

Thomas Edison - His Menlo Park lab produced the phonograph, light bulb, and 400+ patents because he handpicked every person, controlled lighting, controlled acoustics. He optimized everything.

Today's mental model: Never move from higher concentration to lower concentration.

When your environment gets noisy, shut it down. When your phone gets noisy, shut it down. When notifications invade, shut it down.

Your body is a kingdom. Protect it from external invasion.

As you get more productive, your "NO" becomes more important than your "YES." Many things will come - opportunities, exciting things, "productive" Instagram before bed. You have to say NO.

Your focus is more important than all external invaders.

Start 2026 by optimizing:

- Your physical space (clean your room)

- Your visual environment (remove clutter)

- Your social environment (curate who's around you)

- Your digital environment (control notifications)

Your environment is either making you smarter or making you dumber. There's no in-between.

What's ONE thing you'll remove from your environment this week?