Hi ,

I'm so pumped you're here!

The Huge was a blast last week, and I can't wait to roll out some cool gifts and discounts for you.

So, let's get straight to that. My upcoming book (Win Your Next Hour) is set to print in October. You'll get an exclusive discount when the time comes, but in the meantime, here is the Introduction.

This is a unreleased rough draft - enjoy!

Oh! Last thing - reply to this email and let me know what you think about it.

Be great,

Danny Lehr

Win Your Next Hour

Introduction

It was beyond miserable. Water gushed out of my shoe laces as I made the bunny-ears. The necessary double-knots required to keep the wet boots secured over my wet socks worked as a press, wringing out even more water. And as uncomfortable as wet shoes over wet socks are, nothing prepares you for putting on damp, cold underwear at 4:30 a.m. in a tent. But there I was, on top of a mountain in Alaska, sporting dirty, wet Ralph Lauren boxer briefs.

The nearest community of Ketchikan receives an average of 175 inches of rain each year, and it felt like my clothing had absorbed 174 of them during the hike in. I was with my friend Jeff, an Alaskan resident and outdoors writer, on a four-day summer trip to the top of a remote mountain that required a boat to access. We had not seen a single human soul during those four days. Probably fewer than thirty people summit the trailless mountain each year, and the reason why was becoming clear.

As the rain continued its assault, fog decided to join the party. And because nothing draws a crowd like a crowd, cold ocean air started creeping up the side of the mountain to see what all the fuss was about. I found myself neck deep in one of the most demanding experiences of my life, and I hated it. My mind was reeling.

This is stupid. I’m never doing this again.

That kind of self-talk is the fast lane to feeling sorry for yourself, which would make the experience even worse and possibly endanger Jeff and I. It was clear I had to change my internal narrative.

I’m not afraid of a challenge. Throughout my life I’ve made a hobby of biting off more than I can chew, and then just chewing it anyway. I love being outside in the wilderness and the adventure of things most people will never see or experience. And most of all, I have become much more than a flippant acquaintance with physically demanding tasks.

As a six-year-old, chubby blond kid, my first backpacking trip was a thirty mile stretch of the John Muir Trail through Yosemite National Park. I remember going up switchbacks near 10,000 feet in elevation and wanting to stop. But we couldn’t. We couldn’t just camp in the middle of the trail. The only way out was to take some breaks and push through until we were over the pass. These kinds of physically and mentally challenging experiences kept coming my way, and I eventually developed my own strategy for dealing with them.

The first day of high school soccer conditioning, I wanted to quit more than ever before. And that was the first time I remember using my trick, which became a superpower. I lied to myself.

If I just get through today, I can quit tomorrow. Just finish today. Just win this next hour.

Spoiler: I didn’t quit after that day. Or the next day, when I made the same empty promise to myself.

I didn’t quit during my freshman year of high school when I started wrestling, a sport that required high levels of technique and even higher levels of suffering, and discovered the unfortunate reality of my athletic prowess. Suffering is what I’m best at. This became my reality as I excelled in wrestling and later Olympic style weightlifting, which required me to train heavy squats nine sessions a week.

Over the last fifteen years, I’ve seen the power in winning your next hour. Through my experiences in business and athletics, I’ve met and become friends with founders of Fortune 500 companies, Olympians, and people who have found their version of success in many different ways. I’ve experienced and witnessed what it takes to go from the sidelines to success.

Dreams, goals, aspirations: they are all overwhelming when you’re thinking about the final product. If you’ve never had a million dollars, the idea of starting a company that grows to over $10 million seems like an impossible task. If you’ve never been able to keep off the fifteen pounds you lost on a crash diet, how can you possibly lose one hundred pounds? If you’ve never run two miles without walking, how can you run a marathon?

I’m going to provide you with the tools you need in order to win. The tips and tricks that equip you with the discipline you need to get unstuck. To change jobs, start a business, lose fifty lbs, move states, or take on the Appalachean trail . The intimidation of beginning a new challenge is replaced by self-doubt and procrastination when the going gets tough. So, how do you achieve on days when you lack motivation? Why will waiting until you’re “good enough” only lead to failure? How can you structure your days and weeks so you have the time to begin? What is the superpower of friends and other people can play in your success? You’ll learn a goal setting plan that takes you from “I don’t know where to start” to clarity on “the things I didn’t even know that I didn’t know.”

If you are happy and comfortable in your current life and have no further aspirations, this book is not for you. However, if you want to take your life to the next chapter, next level, or next step, then you need to commit to winning your next hour. This is for you if you ever get stuck. Stuck with the boss you hate, in the neighborhood you don’t feel safe in or in the body that makes you cringe when you look in the mirror.

Life is too short for regrets. Stop waiting and wishing and calling it living.

That morning in Alaska in the rainy, cold and foggy pre-dawn hours, I started again. Just win the next hour. You can do this for one more hour, then maybe the rain will stop. Maybe the fog will lift. Maybe Jeff will slow the hell down.

As the morning progressed, my body heat slowly warmed the inside of my cold rain gear. We had stopped a few times to glass for deer. The fog lifted and I could see hundreds of miles out into the beautiful inside passage, a maze of ocean and island mountains. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I had won my last hour and was ready for the challenge of the next hour, and the next three days.

A few hours later the sun was out and I was drying my socks off on a warm rock. And that’s when my next hour of battling gnats began.

Most people see the finish line or finished product. They see the fully functioning business they’re trying to grow, or the gap between their current skill level and the top level of competition. They think in order to succeed in business or athletics they have to know how to get to the finish line. But that’s not true.

You need to start. You need to find one step that will lead to the next. You need to win your next hour.