Kind: captions
Language: en
the real key is you've got to learn to
compartmentalize create a list getting
good at prioritizing is an art form and
as you begin to break things down you
can tell yourself this is what i should
be working on right now i'm focused on
this one thing right now
okay now that the blinds are opening we
can actually see something so i keep my
clothes right there next to my bed
keep headphones right next to my bed
that way i am ready to rock and roll as
soon as i get out first thing i do is
put my headphones on
uh i start listening to a book or a
youtube video
then i would come in i would brush my
teeth
again i did all of this earlier because
i didn't want to wake up lisa
but just by way of recreation that's it
so i would come in brush my teeth then i
snatch up the dogs
feed them
then as of right now anyway it would be
off to the gym
[Music]
the key part of any morning routine is
the order in which you do things so
for me depending on what's going on in
my life i may prioritize the gym or i
may prioritize meditation but one of
those two things is almost always going
to come first it's going to be pretty
rare that i don't do that now as the
time that we're recording this we're
going into the summer so right now i'm
really prioritizing the gym also coming
off of the quarantine where i was maybe
a little bit more relaxed hyper focused
on the business
the gym was something that came a little
bit later in the day the problem is
depending on what your priorities are
and mine is definitely marriage first
then business then physique
that if something crazy is going on in
the business and you know i'm trying to
get things done there then whatever i
haven't done first thing in the morning
it's possible that it just doesn't
happen so um right now because i'm
really focused on the gym even though my
ultimate priority list hasn't changed
the reason i'm recording this now is
because as you guys know i wake up so
early that there was nobody to film me
doing this stuff but the way that i
think about the gym right now it's the
first thing i do so i wake up i put my
gym clothes on i immediately beeline
to the kitchen if i'm completely honest
i feed the dogs and then i
uh we'll drink a bit of water and then i
head straight to the gym
i do a pretty simple workout routine i
do a push pull legs and abs so
push meaning i'm doing chest and
actually i do it in a different order i
do pull
then i do push then i do legs and abs
then i repeat the cycle so typically on
a monday i'm going to start with my back
and my biceps which are the pull motions
and i do that because historically i
have had a my back has been weaker than
the rest of my body so i'm prone to
getting injured if i don't really take
care of focusing on my back and my core
when i do that then i can avoid injury
when i don't then i run into problems
and this is one of those guys from a
health theory perspective you're going
to have injuries like let's take the
lower back
and you're going to think that well i
couldn't work out or i couldn't deadlift
because i have lower back pain now you
need to seek somebody that can actually
walk you through how to do this safely
because deadlifts in particular can be a
risky thing but i promise you that if
you haven't at least explored that
getting strong is the answer to your
pain that working out even though it
seems like the riskiest thing you could
do is actually the thing that's going to
solve your problem then you haven't even
begun to explore potential remedies so
many of the problems that people have
are not from working out they are from
working out in a way that creates
muscular imbalances or where you're just
not working out enough to get strong
i have a hypothesis it's a hypothesis i
could be wrong but man in my own life i
am so arrogant about the following
thought
if you have lower back pain
it is for exactly two reasons
reason number one your diet it's an
inflammation problem change your diet
and suddenly back pain reduces so
dramatically this from experience
number two
you're just not dead lifting enough
you've got to get your legs your glutes
and your lower back strong and of course
there's the echo so then your abs better
be strong so you've got to get that
whole chain of things strong
every time my back is hurt one of two
things or both have been true my diet
has been off point so let's say it's the
holiday season i'm going a little bit
crazy all of a sudden i'll notice whoa i
have pain in my lower back but it feels
like nerve pain so i'm like what is
going on and then number two i haven't
been dead lifting when i am religious
about my diet and i am religious about
dead lifting my lower back pain is
exactly zero
so as somebody who has experienced lower
back pain that doesn't feel diet related
it doesn't feel related to working out
in fact it feels dangerous to bend over
and pick things up so i'm like whoa
what's going on maybe i'm just getting
older whatever and the punch line every
single time to unwind that has been
get my diet on point low inflammation
meaning i'm eating whole foods which
we'll cover in the diet section and then
to dead lift consistently now personally
i deadlift brace yourselves five days a
week
it's going to be way controversial so
let me tell you how i do it and why i do
it so first of all i'm dead lifting
lightweight high rep always i never i
used to focus on low rep heavy and it
felt awesome it was so cool i don't do
it anymore i'm worried about just from a
longevity standpoint that just could be
because i'm not doing it well i'm super
open to that reality but now what i've
realized works extraordinarily well for
me is low weight high rep
and
i do
a single set
three days a week and i do
two days a week where i do multiple
three to four sets
so that i found works incredibly well
and when i reduce that to say three days
a week which i've tried i just find
every now and then i'll feel a little
twinge in my lower back something to
explore okay so let's finish going
through the
pull push legs abs so
on the pull day i'm doing things for my
back i'm doing things for my biceps
anything that's a pull now i separate my
legs so you could certainly say that
your hamstrings are a pull because they
are
but i isolate that to leg day just to
make sure that i give my back proper
time i do
four
exercises to one back to buy so i do a
lot of back exercises because i found if
i'm trying to strengthen my buys which
look cool
but if i'm focused on that i end up
hurting my traps or my scalenes so by
focusing on my back my back my back
especially my mid back
keeping that strong
then i can work out my biceps but if i
just focus on my biceps i end up getting
injured or just really tight really
uncomfortable so that's really important
then on push days i'm doing chest i'm
doing triceps i'm doing shoulders and
by grouping those up you're taking
advantage of the compound movements so
when you're working your back you're
also working your biceps when you're
working your chest you're also working
your triceps and your shoulders so by
grouping those up you're hitting them
really comprehensively on that day and
then legs obviously speak for themselves
so i'm doing quads i'm doing hamstrings
i'm doing calves i'm doing abs on that
day
not everybody groups them like that but
that's been very easy for me
to remember sort of where i'm at my
cycle to make sure that i'm hitting
everything and of course within those
days i will vary the exercises that i do
from day to day but you know so for the
back you have you know a dozen or
whatever different exercises that you're
going to rock through same for my push
day same for my leg day although if i'm
honest i'm far less varied on my leg day
keep that pretty basic
but by doing that you're making sure
that you're hitting all the different
little muscles in different ways so that
you don't get prone to a muscular
imbalance which i've struggled with uh
pretty profoundly partly just out of
laziness because i like to do very
simple things over and over and over so
i don't have to reinvent the wheel every
day
but yeah that's my workout routine i've
stayed on that routine which explains
why i don't look like a bodybuilder but
i've been on that routine now for
10 years
now i will say that is not optimal i'm
just saying for my lifestyle where that
falls lower in my priority list that's
been a great way to make sure that i
maintain i show up i put in the work
and i'm consistent and as they say the
workout that you do
even if it's a little wonky is better
than the perfect workout that you don't
do so that is my gym routine
meditation is one of the most important
things that i've added to my daily
routine i'm not joking when i say that
i always say it saved my life that's
probably a bit of hyperbole but whoa did
it keep me from getting myself into real
emotional trouble in the hardest periods
of my life and the most stressful where
there was the most on the line
it was so comforting to know that i was
never more than 45 minutes away from
total equanimity and the only way for me
to achieve that is through meditation so
meditation is a critical part of my
daily practice it is really simple so i
do what's called just breathe meditation
so i'm going to take my shoes off here
any couch will do anything that's
comfortable any chair wherever you're
going to be comfy and i sit just in a
nice simple
cross-legged style in a position that i
think i can maintain usually i can
maintain sitting like this for about 20
to 30 minutes
before my feet start going numb
and i
found for whatever reason that when i
touch my hands together
that it creates this sense of like the
the energy looping i don't know that
feels so silly to say but it was one
where i started out doing this and then
i just found myself wanting to do this
to rest my hands not interlaced or
anything just really simply
in my lap i sit comfortably i don't over
try to you know
have like really strict posture i
actually find the more i sit up the
harder it is to breathe from my
diaphragm so i have a slight curve to my
spine
i sit super comfortably
and
then i just breathe now
the key thing for me is these bad boys
so i'm not sponsored by a headphone
company but
having the headphones over my ears that
really blocks everything out i listen to
the sounds of nature so i'll either do
if it's a rainy day outside i'll do a
thunderstorm if it's a nice day outside
i'll do the sound of waves crashing if
it's really early and so i sort of get a
pick what kind of day i'll usually do a
thunderstorm there's something about the
thunderstorm that i find
really locks me in i think it's because
the actual sound of the thunder comes at
random intervals and so that reminds me
to be really present with my breath to
not let my mind wander or start thinking
about things you're really just trying
to breathe
i do a simple four part cycle that i
learned from mark devine
i do it differently than he does
what he does is a four equal parts
breath so you do an inhale an inhale
hold
an exhale and an exhale hold and i found
that by trying to make those four equal
parts which is known as box breathing
that i felt a little out of breath which
was not making me relax
and so finally i just said what if i
tried to maximize the pleasure of each
part of the cycle so i would hold the
inhale hold for instance for only as
long as it felt good i would exhale in a
way that felt good so for me it's just a
release i don't try to time it or
prolong it
and then i found for whatever reason the
exhale hold was actually the most
pleasurable part of the cycle so on the
inhale i might only hold
i don't know four seconds three or four
seconds it's really quite brief
but on the exhale i found myself holding
for 10 15 seconds
and
again i would just start breathing again
the moment it stopped being pleasurable
to hold that exhale and by doing that
and so the the length of time may vary
as i'm doing the meditation but by doing
that and really being conscious to
maximize the pleasure of each part of
the breath cycle then i'm not my mind
isn't wandering i'm there with my breath
i'm there with the pleasure of just
breathing
and by doing that um sometimes if my
mind is really going crazy it might take
me you know five or ten minutes to get
into a zone when i first started and my
life was incredibly stressful like i
said it could take up to 45 minutes for
me to finally get lost in my breath
but the fact that i knew that if i just
sat there long enough
doing that just bringing my thoughts
back to the breath every time they would
wander back to the breath back to the
breath nothing complicated about it um
that i was good
and
that
has been transformative and is a big
part of why
i meditate
every day five days a week let me not
lie
i'd only meditate on the weekends if i
was really in a stressful situation
[Music]
but it's really a game changer so i put
the headphones on i use calm the app
again i'm not sponsored or anything by
them it's just what i use
and
i make my selection and then i meditate
and so i'll let you guys see what a
quick cycle looks like and we'll take it
from there
[Music]
all right everybody one of the most
important things that you were ever
going to do
in your routine is to get your diet
right
i think that this
outside of having a loving relationship
with my wife i think my diet is the most
important thing that i do
and focusing on
loving relationships
diet and sleep like those are going to
be your top three things so getting your
food right is critically important
because
[Music]
this is the easiest way for me to anchor
people around why diet is so important
so first of all you literally are what
you eat literally at a cellular level
you are made of the things you consume
so every cell in your body is from
something that you ate so let that one
sink in
um and then on top of that the largest
nerve in your body known as the vagus
nerve 85 of the signals traveling on
that nerve are from your body to your
brain not your brain to your body so we
all have this illusion that we are this
consciousness that controls everything
when in reality the two work in concert
and that the vast majority of the
signaling
is coming from the body so your
microbiome is a huge thing and when you
disregulate your microbiome by eating
things that cause disruption
then
you're now getting all these signals
that your brain is forced to interpret
okay this is one of the read lisa
feldman barrett's book how emotions are
made all of the things that you feel
whether it's happiness sad
um anger frustration hopelessness all of
that stuff is your brain interpreting
the signals that it's getting from your
body from the outside world and once you
understand that emotions come from the
body first and then your brain goes hey
the last time that i got these
sensations from all over my body what
did that mean and then your body a sorry
your brain excuse me assigns
a story
to that feeling and now all of a sudden
when you have a dysregulated microbiome
and the microbiome is crying out for
this that or the other all of a sudden
your brain adds a story and i'll give
you an easy one anxiety in my own life i
will tell you that i've struggled
profoundly with anxiety only to at first
think this is entirely in my head and
then finally to realize no no this is
largely how largely
this is again a hypothesis but i have a
god instinct that this is
anxiety is probably
90 percent your diet
and then
what you're thinking about meaning
what you think about is stepping on the
gas but if there's no gas in the gas
tank then you're not going to go
anywhere and by disregulating your
microbiome through the things you eat
you put gas in the gas tank of anxiety
and then your thoughts step on it boom
there's plenty of gas and now you're off
to the races so i'm not saying that your
thoughts aren't important or what's
going on in your life isn't important to
triggering anxiety i'm saying it won't
escalate the way that it does if you
are eating a diet that keeps your gut
flora
nice and happy so that's something i
think a lot about
now we're filming this at just before 9
a.m
and i'm still in a fasted state so
that's a really important part for me in
terms of how i live my life is i
intermittent fast every day seven days a
week 365 days a year even on christmas
i'm going to intermittent fast that's
the one thing that for me i've found is
so profoundly impactful it's one of
those that oh my god would there have to
be some compelling science that would
make me move away from how it makes me
feel how it allows me to maintain my
body composition and how like i actually
discovered how profoundly impactful
intermittent fasting is during christmas
because i found that if i woke up
because during christmas i can eat
whatever the hell i want i'd let myself
totally go crazy and i found that i
would get an upset stomach if i didn't
leave big gaps in between when i ate but
if i left big gaps i could actually get
away with eating
cake
cookies ice cream
chips literally whatever i wanted but i
had to leave say 18 hours gap between
my feeding wind or i you know eating in
a what would that be a six hour feeding
window so as long as i left 18 hour gaps
between when i was eating
then i was a-ok and it was
absolutely wonderful so i average
probably about 17 and a half hours a day
seven days a week
between my feeding windows i might
shorten that a little bit on the
weekends but you're still looking at
something north of 14 or 15 hours on the
weekend so that truly that lets you know
that some days i'm doing 19 20 hour
windows
so that over the week it averages out to
about 17 and a half hours and that's
year round
that's really impactful now my diet
itself
i.e in fact let's see if we can just
take a peek into the
yeah this will give you a pretty good
idea of exactly uh what things look like
so
irony of ironies
i won't i won't put them on blast but i
used to drink
a lot of
diet sodas and what i found was that
that was i can literally correlate that
to my anxiety so even though i have some
in the fridge i might have
five in a year so very very rarely do i
have that my main stay is eggs i eat a
lot a lot of eggs i eat a lot of um
butcher box so those full disclosure are
i am sponsored by butcher box but let me
tell you i've had a relationship with
those guys for a long time because of
the grass-fed
grass-finished nature of their meats um
i would not have believed that that
matters
10 years ago until lisa went through
what she went through with her dysbiosis
which ended up putting our lives on hold
for a year it was absolute insanity
and so seeing how all the things we had
to learn and do to get her back on track
i realized that what your food ate
really does matter so you have to be
really thoughtful about that so i eat a
lot of eggs that's definitely my
mainstay i eat a lot of beef but all
grass fed grass finished
wild caught salmon i eat a lot of
sardines
that is
that's my mainstay from a meat
perspective and then i'm eating a lot of
green leafy vegetables kale bok choy is
a personal favorite colored greens
green beans asparagus
if i'm out i'll do broccoli but i almost
never cook broccoli for myself even i'm
not sure why
but
that is oh and carrots i eat a lot of
carrots whether that's good or bad i'm
actually not sure but i will say that
it it
cures my sweet tooth
so my big thesis with food is whole food
only so monday through friday
i don't eat anything that i can't
recognize from its natural state
so i'm eating my eggs i'm eating my meat
i'm eating my vegetables
all in like their
actual vegetable state so my bok choy
still looks like bok choy it's like all
bunched together i literally rinse it
off i cut that and then i put it
into a frying pan with a little bit of
extra virgin olive oil
and
then on the weekends i'll be a little
bit more lenient and i'll have some
things that are processed foods that are
hyper palatable ultra delicious but i
have to be careful because i don't want
to disregulate my microbiome because it
then propels my anxiety and as somebody
that struggled with anxiety and now
realizing how much of a diet connection
there is i find that by eating whole
foods as much as not humanly possible
because of course i could be on a pure
whole food diet
but i find that on the weekends it's fun
to be a little more flexible
but yeah during the week i don't have
anything that i don't recognize but even
like something like a nut
i won't have much of that during the
week now it may just be that i have a
particular sensitivity to nuts
it may be that over the years because of
all the different
diet things that i did when i was
younger and didn't know anything didn't
even know the microbiome existed and
then taking antibiotics that i just
created enough dysregulation in my
microbiome that i am now sensitive to
them but i find that
that's not perfect um if i'm absolutely
dying during the week for like a quick
little snack i might have a handful of
almonds which seem to be the thing that
i can get away with the most
but for the most part it is just
literally meat eggs vegetables and that
is the sum total of my diet oh my god i
eat a lot of avocados
a lot of avocados i keep my fruit intake
to a minimum i do have some fruit during
the week and some berries especially on
the weekends
that's sort of my big treat
the reason i do that even though there's
fiber intake and all that i wore a
continuous glucose monitor for about six
months and fruit even though it has
the fiber in it it still does spike my
glucose not crazy like candy would but
it does spike it and it spikes it pretty
significantly so
for the most part i save that for when
i'm
what i call cheating
so i know that people are going to get
up in arms about me calling fruit
cheating but i would just say if body
composition is something that you're
thinking about if managing your glucose
levels is something that you think about
um if not spiking insulin because you
might still even be able to regulate
your blood sugar but you could be
spiking your insulin more
than is necessary uh if that's something
that you care about then i would be very
thoughtful about your fruit intake
everybody is different
so i would highly encourage you guys to
wear a continuous glucose monitor so you
can see what affects you in what way
all right that's my diet when i break
fast which i will probably do about 9 30
today because i eat my last meal this is
going to freak some people out i eat my
last meal at 1 30 p.m
so my window today will be from about 9
30 to 1 30 and then i'd eat literally
nothing
except water is the only thing that i
will intake in fact we should talk about
caffeine what is up my friend tom bilyu
here and i have a big question to ask
you how would you rate your level of
personal discipline on a scale of one to
ten if your answer is anything less than
a ten i've got something cool for you
and let me tell you right now discipline
by its very nature means compelling
yourself to do difficult things that are
stressful boring which is what kills
most people or possibly scary or even
painful now here is the thing achieving
huge goals and stretching to reach your
potential requires you to do those
challenging stressful things and to
stick with them even when it gets boring
and it will get boring building your
levels of personal discipline is not
easy but let me tell you it pays off in
fact i will tell you you're never going
to achieve anything meaningful unless
you develop discipline right i've just
released a class from impact theory
university called how to build ironclad
discipline that teaches you the process
of building yourself up in this area so
that you can push yourself to do the
hard things that greatness is going to
require of you right click the link on
the screen register for this class right
now and let's get to work i will see you
inside this workshop from impact theory
university and tell them my friends be
legendary peace out
you guys ready for the way that i
approach drinking because this is going
to be something that i think a lot of
people are tripped out by um so
i eat in that narrow window
i have my last meal at 1 30 so i'm i'm
hard to invite to dinner uh
and then i stop drinking caffeine at 1
pm and i stop drinking water in any
meaningful quantity at 2pm
now i find if i do that i sleep through
the night
if i drink later than that then in any
sort of meaningful amount then i'll wake
up in the middle of the night need to
pee and then once i'm awake it's much
harder for me to fall back asleep so
that's something that i use to manage my
sleep i drink mostly carbonated water i
find that it fills me up
i won't be too surprised if somebody
comes out with a study at some point
though that that's problematic
so i'm just sort of holding my breath
waiting for that but as of right now i
feel good
when i drink it i don't experience any
problems that i recognize how about that
so that and then i have i do have a
little bit of caffeine so
um
what i do
is i mix this is really going to trip
people out
i mix these two things again i'm not
sponsored by any any of these people
that's just what i do so uh
nitro coffee caveman coffee
it's i think three espresso shots in one
can so what i do is i
save
another can so that i always have two
cans going and i pour out a third
into an empty can and then i pour a
third out i know but i pour a third out
so in each can i only have a single shot
and because coffee can mold i don't want
to
leave it too long because it'll take me
a day to a day and a half to drink one
of the espresso shots because i mix it
with sparkling water now at first it was
weird now i'm so used to it when my
coffee doesn't sparkle i am sort of
taken aback
and yeah that's it and so as i sip on
this i'll add water back in
until i've probably diluted about one
and a half cans of water
to
the uh one espresso shot
and i just nurse it throughout the day
and again i stop i don't intake caffeine
after one pm after one from one to two
then i'm going just on the sparkling
water
um
and that's it
that that is my beverage routine i don't
drink alcohol unless it's like a special
occasion
just because it's so pro-inflammatory
and not even like pro-inflammatory in an
abstract way like it makes my joints
hurt
so as much fun as it is i really limit
my alcohol intake to probably four or
five times a year
and and that's it so
water a little bit of caffeine and we
out
okay any routine whether it's morning
your full day it all starts the night
before getting a good night's sleep i
cannot stress this enough as somebody
who absolutely resents
needing to sleep it's still the number
one thing that i prioritize so
that is critical that you prep for that
so number one i start wearing blue
blocking glasses at least three hours
before bedtime i actually use a little
device that zaps me but i'll save that
for another video since i'm on the board
the advisory board of that company um
but i do everything that i can to make
sure that i sleep optimally including
cooling the room down
to very chilly so we sleep with our room
at 68 degrees
and that way you can snuggle up in your
blankies and there's something about
when your body temperature drops that
triggers you to get sleepy
so getting the room nice and cool is
another big tip i go to bed at 9 00 pm
every night like it is a religion i
should say sunday through thursday night
i go to bed at 9 00 pm i allow a little
bit later bedtime on friday a little bit
later bedtime on saturday but other than
that 9 p.m and i don't
set an alarm
ever unless i have like a super early
flight or something like that um and
i've been doing that for like 17 years
now or something like that so i built
multiple successful companies without
setting an alarm so trust me it is
possible now the reason i do it is so
that i'm optimizing my cognition get as
much sleep as i need
so for me that's about
seven and a half hours probably on
average i sleep with headphones right
next to my bed in fact as you can see
they are right here
and i do that because
i oftentimes wake up in the middle of
the night
put these bad boys in
and i can fall right back to sleep and
listen to a book very very low volume
so that just so that if i put a tiny bit
of pressure on my ear
that i can hear it and then that way as
i roll around
it will come ever so slightly out and
then i just fall asleep and i forget
that the book is there so that was a
game changer for me i don't know if
that'll be as useful for anybody else
but i usually lie in bed for hours
in the middle of the night trying to
fall back asleep
this
has been a game changer
and that's it i sleep in nice loose
clothing um mouth type
oh
yes so here it is i'm so glad
that you reminded me of that this is why
my wife is here filming it i tape my
mouth closed every night uh i did an
episode with james nester you should
check that episode out he talks about
um
breathing through your nose and how
important it is so i literally taped my
mouth closed that also
significantly improved my sleep so i
wouldn't believe that until i tried it
so now literally every night
i kiss my wife i tell her i love her and
then
i put tape over my lips first of all
procrastination certainly can be a habit
but it's probably more than likely it is
just the natural friction that exists
when you take a species and you give
them two competing impulses impulse
number one be active
work hard go dominate your environment
right go hunt gather protect all of that
good stuff and then the other one is the
brain is so calorically demanding and
the odds of you being without food at
some point are so high that we have to
make sure that as a species
you don't just constantly want to spend
energy that you find yourself in a
position of like i don't know when i'm
going to get my next meal so i'm i'm
constantly wanting to go do my thing but
also at the same time i want to relax so
when that's in a natural environment and
we're on the plains of africa and we've
got hunger pushing us in there really
are you know lions coming into the camp
there's no time to procrastinate it's
like that stuff is here it's got to be
dealt with i'm hungry and so
procrastinating doesn't even occur to me
and so
the like chill lay back thing is when i
have all the things that i need problem
is in a modern context we often have all
of those basic needs already met
and on top of that so not only do i you
know i have shelter uh i've got food um
i am not worried about where my next
meal is going to come from i don't have
to worry about a tiger coming into my
house
and on top of that you add the friction
of anxiety or stress or fear of failure
all of that that's where this then
really becomes problematic but i think
it first starts with just understanding
that you have this impulse as a human
having a
you know human experience you've got the
dual impulses to go out and do something
and to hang back so once i understood oh
okay
evolution has given me
this imperative
to relax
to chill
now i know
it's also given me the imperative to go
work hard
to do things meaning and purpose and so
what i need to do is given in a modern
context that i won't have literal hunger
to propel me
forward then the thing that's going to
propel me forward is a focus on meaning
and purpose or a goal that i'm just
super excited about achieving
or
bright lines where we just tell
ourselves we're going to do this and we
don't violate our bright lines
okay so putting it in that context now
we understand how do you pattern
interrupt that more quickly one i think
instead of worrying about the pattern
interrupt and waiting until it's
actually already a problem you use these
bright lines to say like for instance
what i say to myself monday through
friday if i'm awake i'm either working
or working out
now i know if i'm chilling
on a monday at 1pm i know i have a
problem i'm outside of the bright lines
that i have drawn for myself which is
monday through friday if i'm awake i'm
either working or working out so now it
is very easy to know if i'm acting in
accordance with what i said i was going
to do or not and since congruence is
this huge driver we want to be congruent
with the things we said we were going to
do and what we do so for me i have a
goal i'm obsessed with that goal i want
it i'm really excited about it chasing
it is like the great joy of my life
outside of my marriage and so
i actually want that thing like i
actually want to not only have the end
state but i want to pursue it i want the
act of going for it and so because i
want both the end state and the act of
pursuing it it becomes very easy to then
put those bright lines in place and then
actually go after it so i don't need the
pattern interrupt i need the rules in my
life that make sure that i conform to
the behaviors that will be necessary for
me to go after what i want now since
you're asking specifically about anxiety
i will assume that you have that extra
layer of friction and so making sure
that you're getting past that extra
layer of friction is going to be
incredibly important and the way that
you're going to get past it is by having
those bright lines is by understanding
that you should only be pursuing things
you're really excited about that get you
really amped about the future and so you
want them badly enough to push through
that extra pushback that you're getting
on that and because you know that you're
prone to procrastinating you'll put
those rules in place
you'll focus on how much you want the
thing and then that's going to allow you
to move forward and then of course
there's just actually dealing with the
anxiety what that's caused by whether
it's you worrying about what other
people think or whatever the case may be
so address that and that will take more
of that pressure off
all right next what steps can i take to
bring my focus to the one thing i'm
working on while blocking out all else
all right so
the real key is you've got to learn to
compartmentalize so what i do to begin
my compartmentalization is i create a
list of all the important things that i
should be working on
i put that list in order this is very
important
getting good at prioritizing is an art
form it is critically important that you
get good at that art form and as you
begin to break things down and put them
in order now you can tell yourself hey
this is what i should be working on
right now so rather than trying to
digest all the different things that
have to be done it's i'm focused on this
one thing right now and my only job
right now is to focus on that thing and
so by not letting your mind wander and
this meditation is very good at bringing
your focus back to the breath which
teaches you to bring your focus back to
whatever so i've got a lot of things
many things competing for my attention
but i know what my important things are
i'm working on the number one thing
right now let's say and so ah this is my
entire world and if i find myself
wandering i bring myself back now part
of the reason that i can invest so
heavily in that is because i have the
belief that that's the most effective
way to work so
since behaviors follow beliefs you want
to make sure that you put that belief in
place which is true by the way that you
can do
everything that you want to do just not
all of it at once so everything has to
be done sequentially you can't do
everything at the same time and this is
why you have to prioritize things out so
if we know
that multitasking is actually a myth and
that you can put people in brain
scanners and what you're seeing people
who seem like they can multitask what
they're doing is called rapid switching
so they don't have what i have which is
high switching costs when i get in a
flow man i can go and go and go but
if i try to bounce back and forth
between things then i pay this high
price and inefficiency between the
switching costs of moving from switching
from that task to this task so i focus i
stay on one thing i have them in order i
know what i'm working on i remind myself
that i only have one job in that moment
that is to work on that thing i know
that that's the most efficient way to
work and i know that i'm good at
prioritizing things so it becomes very
easy boom boom boom and then you just
hold yourself accountable to actually
doing that
practice makes perfect you might have a
difficult time in the beginning start
meditating if you need to to train
yourself to come back to the breath over
and over and over and then you can just
apply that to whatever you're working on
come back to the project
all right
i'm currently working on three awesome
projects right now i'm struggling with
shifting from one to the next my urge is
to work until i drop and then crash my
world and health start to fall apart
when i do that any suggestions on steps
that i can take to manage my hectic
workload
okay so first of all you're going to
need some rules so we don't want to work
until we crash that doesn't make sense
so we're going to take that off the
table because that's like
running a marathon and saying i'm going
to run the first mile at a four minute
mile pace and
then whatever the rest will take care of
itself that doesn't make any sense
you're going to end up burning out and
odds are that you're not going to end up
finishing so you want to be very
thoughtful about okay i've got this big
project it's going to take i mean
most projects take a very long time the
shorter projects merely are feeding into
a bigger project so assuming that this
is going to take weeks months or years
it doesn't make sense for us to just go
go go go go ignore all the signs that
we're reaching a tipping point go oh god
crash and burn right so we need to
understand what are the signs is it that
you stop having fun
is it that you start losing sleep is it
that you no longer want to eat what are
the signs of the
early
overstressed where we're now going into
a point where it's not stress that like
keeps us in the fight and going it's
beginning to deteriorate us okay when we
get that signal and maybe we measure it
in hours per week
in fact that might be a very easy way
for you to tackle it like i know that
for me
93 hours a week is a rate that i can
sustain for the rest of my productive
life i don't know if that's 40 years 50
years whatever but i've been doing it
now for 20 years it's very easy for me
to hit that pace when i'm doing it
towards something that i love and care
about okay so if i know hey i'm working
100 hours 110 hours i know i have a
problem i know i'm now in sprint
territory and i know that i need to be
consciously working to dial that back
because working that much is going to be
deleterious to my health which means it
will be deleterious to my cognition
which means now instead of working 93
hours and getting 93 hours of
productivity i'm working 110 hours and i
might be getting 70 hours of
productivity that is a very bad trade so
you want to be super thoughtful about
just the realities of your cognition and
what's happening on a biological level
when you make those kind of choices to
just push yourself beyond reason so i
would start making you know rules is
like lisa has rules about what time she
stops during the day so unlike me who if
i'm awake i'm other working or working
out monday through friday lisa has
earlier times that she's going to quit
now she still works an obscene amount
but she knows if she doesn't quit a few
hours before going to bed she's going to
have trouble sleeping
so then remember
doing less
is always
an option now i'm the go hardcore the
push push push guy i love hustle porn
all of that but i'm telling you nothing
matters more than fulfillment and joy
and if you're burning yourself out in
your stress and you're crashing that's
not joyful there's no fun to be had way
better
to back off
remember that doing less is always an
option meaning you shouldn't feel bad if
you're doing it less you shouldn't be
beating yourself up or kicking yourself
just be honest i'm doing less and i'm
doing it for this reason and as long as
you're being honest with yourself hey
i'm doing less because i don't want to
crash and burn which wouldn't make any
sense because the punch line of life is
not success
it's joint fulfillment that really is
success
so once you
really wrap your head around that then
it should become very easy to feel good
about yourself when you're sincerely
moving towards your goal but being
respectful
of enjoying the ride since getting there
cannot be guaranteed but the struggle is
guaranteed what we're trying to optimize
for is struggling well
and part of struggling well is knowing
when to back off
so
check yourself if you think that you
might be
not pushing hard because you're
just being a little lazy you want to
procrastinate you have to be honest with
yourself about that but
once you recognize the difference
between you know what i just need the
day off i'm feeling burned out
and
i'm just lazy and i don't want to work
any days like as you begin to figure
that out within yourself
then you'll get to a point where you'll
completely trust yourself when you know
you know what today i need to go easy
because you leave it all out on the
field on all the other days it's very
easy to let yourself off the hook so
earn your credibility with yourself do
what you say you're going to do
prioritize for fulfillment enjoy not for
hours worked not for hustle porn none of
that
optimize for fulfillment and joy
okay
i can never find a way to stay
disciplined and commit to my plans of
action for the day or week or month so
i'm always playing catch up rather than
staying ahead and being proactive how
can someone who has spent their whole
life with poor time management and
discipline develop and commit to
developing time management skills okay
so one self-awareness that's huge looks
like you already have that you
understand that the way that you're
doing things is delivering a sub-optimal
result once you understand that you're
getting a sub-optimal result then we
should be looking according to the
physics of progress for a new thing to
try that new thing that we're going to
try is discipline now we're not doing
discipline because our parents tell us
to we're doing discipline as a test to
see if it work to get us towards our
goal now if you have historically
struggled with putting discipline in
place in your life right now you're
going to say but tom i can't stick to
discipline so why would this work this
time that's when we realize one
fundamental truth
this is a desire problem masquerading as
a discipline problem
once you want your goal
the way that a drowning man wants his
next breath
you will find discipline very easy to
stick to
and so learning to build your desire for
the goal that you have set for yourself
that becomes the incredibly important
part and the way to dial that desire up
is to do a loop and it goes like this
you're going to tell yourself you're
very excited about this goal
you're going to tell other people that
you're very excited about this goal
and then you're going to embody
the feeling the amplitude that you want
to feel when you think about that goal
now there's a mechanism in the human
mind where it will justify the way that
you act no matter what i won't waste
time explaining some of the studies but
they are utterly fascinating about how
even people with damaged areas of the
brain will end up making up random ass
stories because the brain abhors a lack
of reason so the the brain will always
and forever make up some story about why
you're doing what you're doing and so if
you're responding hugely to something oh
my god i'm so excited about doing this
thing like i'm really amped up about it
and you're saying that to yourself and
you're saying it to other people and
you're saying it just like that
then the brain goes
there must really be something here
we've got this elevated level of emotion
amazing let's leverage that
and the brain doesn't say let's leverage
that but the brain will say okay we've
got this elevated level you're going to
leverage the fact that the brain says
that
to repeat it to reinforce and over time
you actually just will feel that
heightened level of emotion it's the way
the brain works what you repeat you
become
neurons that fire together wire together
things you do frequently including
embodying that amplitude of emotion
right lisa feldman barrett's book
how emotions are made talks about how it
starts with the body and then the brain
applies meaning to it so if you're
getting amped up you're excited the body
is saying to the brain yo like we're
amped we're excited we're doing these
things and the brain goes oh amazing it
must be because this really matters and
once you get the brain saying hey
we're this excited because it matters
you're firing those neurons together
the excitement around this thing so the
excitement and the pursuit of that thing
begin to mesh
and now we just over time have a an
actual desire to pull this off once we
have the actual desire to pull this off
then all of a sudden putting that
discipline in place becomes very easy
and that's the name of the game
you want to make it
such that you want it badly enough that
the discipline becomes easy to stick to
because it's going to move you towards
that thing that you really want but
you've got to learn
you've got to learn to want that thing
now
i'll give my typical disclaimer
this trick works incredibly well now it
only works on things you actually have a
legitimate interest in you couldn't
get yourself excited about something
that you truly just find stupid but
something where you actually do get a
natural response you actually are
naturally into that thing all we're
doing is dialing it up right so if it's
already a dial tone there's nothing you
can do to change the amplitude but if
the amplitude is already there and you
get this reaction we can really
exaggerate that reaction and build that
desire to get where we're going now
since that is the case you need to be
very careful what you apply this to
because you can end up really wanting
some stupid
i know from experience i dialed the dial
on my desire for money i cranked that
to a 20
and then spent eight and a half years
pursuing money only to come out
completely miserable so
don't waste your time dialing that up on
something that isn't
exciting and honorable meaning again
honorable
it elevates you and other people not
just you
all right
be careful what you decide to want but
know that it's very powerful
all right
how do you structure the conversation
about scheduled time with your partner
so that they understand that what you're
doing is important and that you need to
manage your time
this is a hot button issue so
this is we could spend a whole episode
of relationship theory on this which by
the way if you guys aren't yet watching
relationship theory make sure you head
over check it out we've got a whole
youtube show called relationship theory
where we cover topics like this lisa and
i do it together okay so
first you're going to have to come up
with a value system that the two of you
share that's critically important
once you have the value system that you
guys share then in the conversation
about schedule time we're either going
to know that the schedule time is a
shared value or it's not because part of
the discrepancy i could see is that if
you guys disagree on how time should be
allocated if one of you feels like hey
the marriage is just so much more
important or the relationship is so much
more important whatever you're
scheduling your time for that hey when
these two collide don't bring me
something about you need to schedule
more time for this other stuff it's like
this is isn't a little more important
it's 100 times more important so if they
even slightly collide then schedule time
goes away
because that's how people end up talking
past each other they have not
established what their value system is
you must establish a value system
there's no right or wrong answer to your
values there's only things that either
move you towards your goal or move you
away from your goal so get that
established well so in lisa and i's
marriage while i feel very strongly
about my ambition and all the things
that i'm trying to do meaning and
purpose all of that
my marriage is my number one priority
now we've talked through it and so
there's
excuse me there's a lot of leeway
to where i can work and schedule time
and all of that but there's also lisa's
carte blanche to be able to say hey this
is now damaging the marriage or is in
danger of damaging the marriage we need
time and attention to connect and we
have just learned that by personality
she's the right canary in the coal mine
she will feel it sooner than i and so if
we wait until i feel it we might really
be in trouble so she'll speak up and i
will universally say cool
i will now set aside whatever it is that
i was going to do within the business
and she's very respectful about if
there's a once in a lifetime opportunity
or something like that she's going to
create a little bit of extra space but
at the same time you could have a string
of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities at
some point one or more of them are going
to have to go away if your relationship
really is your highest priority like it
is for us lisa has that card she's very
thoughtful about when she plays it she
makes sure to play it soon enough that
we don't damage the relationship but she
makes sure that she doesn't play it so
often that i can't do the things that i
want to do from pursuing my ambitions
and quite frankly her as well so that
became this really important thing for
us to define what those values are
to rank order the values marriage first
ambition second for
example and the reason that they're in
that order by the way is i'm optimizing
for fulfillment and joy and nothing has
brought me more of those two things than
my marriage business is amazing
but nothing has brought me that level of
just like deep meaning purpose
connection that i'm working hard for
something that serves something bigger
than myself you know my relationship my
marriage my family it's
incredibly potent in a way that nothing
else is and so really putting that first
and prioritizing that is critically
important for us and so we've got those
value systems laid out in order and our
roles in terms of navigating that so
come to an agreement on what scheduled
time means make sure that the other
person feels super empowered to play a
card if they think that it's now getting
out of hand and beginning to
damage the relationship or get to a
point where it's untenable for them you
need to be incredibly respectful of that
right because you want this relationship
to work you don't want the ambition to
just steamroll over
that human connection which is so
important for all of us in our lives all
right that's the key
get to the real issue get to the base
assumptions get to the values what do
each of you believe say it out loud how
things should be come to an agreement on
that and everything else will get easy
hi tom i'm danielle i'm from sunny
orlando florida and i'm a sales
professional with a side hustle
my question for you is about side
business personal working habits my
husband and i are growing a side
business that we have apart from our
professional careers and i've recently
taken on a new role writing blogs about
specific topics that the company is all
about my husband already has his
personal working habits in place since
he's been working on the business for
years i however i'm finding it hard to
work this new role into my current daily
habits and routine not because i don't
enjoy working on the business it's just
hard for me to get started and stay
productive so what advice do you have
for me when it comes to getting started
and building personal working habits
that will last and ultimately change my
life
all right so the thing that i love is
that you're using the word build because
that's exactly what we're going to be
doing here you're going to construct
what you want your life to be you're
going to break it up into different
hours and segments so you know when it's
go time and then you're going to build
rules into your life that mandate that
you show up during those times so i have
a whole host of rules in my life they
can be small simple rules like i get out
of bed in 10 minutes or less
they can be more profound and impactful
goals or excuse me rules and i have a
rule in my life where
monday through friday if i'm awake i'm
either working or working out so if i
were doing something like you in this
situation i would say okay these two day
two hours or five hours however much
time it is that you want to allocate to
the business you say i am working on the
business during these times i'm going to
tell myself i'm going to tell other
people that way there's accountability
then i'm going to score myself at the
end of that session did i show up did i
start when i said i was going to start
did i go hard the whole time and i'm
just going to give myself a rating every
day depending on where i'm going how i
did that day was i distracted did i have
flow was it a great day a bad day and by
doing that i'm going to hold myself
accountable so i can see over time did i
show up when i said i was going to show
up
what was the score that i gave myself
for staying focused staying on task and
getting things done and then the third
thing to really make this stick
you've got to find a way to be excited
about what you're doing
and oftentimes when people come and they
say that they're having trouble making a
new habit stick the reality is they just
don't want it badly enough and
when you realize that that's not an
indictment on you as a person that's a
simple statement about the fact that
desire is a process so you don't there's
very few things in your life that you
just sort of automatically are excited
about most of things if you really want
to kick ass at something you've got to
build a ton of energy into getting
excited about that thing now that comes
in a couple different forms number one
is your why why are you doing this so it
might be hey my husband and i were
really excited about this this is going
to be our path to freedom and building
something with him like this means
everything to me and i couldn't be more
excited more honored to be working side
by side with my husband to build
something to show each other what we're
capable of to take care of each other to
you know give ourselves what we need to
build a family whatever you're going to
make that why you're going to say it
you're going to say it with enthusiasm
it's what i call embodying what you want
to feel so if you want to be excited
when you're telling other people when
you're even talking to yourself when
you're talking to your husband you're
actually going to let yourself get hyped
up there's a mechanism in the brain that
says whoa hey we're all hyped up about
this it must actually be worth being
hyped up about
and it becomes a self-reinforcing loop
so we've got our why and then we want to
make sure that we're putting the
identity into it that we want to get out
so if we want to be the kind of person
that shows up and works hard then we say
i'm the type of person that shows up and
works hard and you're going to lean into
that and the why that you have with your
husband you guys are building something
you're excited about it you're telling
other people you're embodying it and now
you've got the identity statement of i'm
the type of person that does this i see
this through and you repeat that
cocktail over and over over and over and
following it up with that score and all
of a sudden over time and it will take
time because it is a process but over
time you're going to stick to it because
it means something to you and your
husband you've got the rule about
showing up you're rating yourself on how
you did that day you're feeling good on
the days that you killed it and you're
reminding yourself to dig a little
deeper on the days where you don't and i
promise if you just work that process
over and over and over
two weeks a month into this it's just
going to be second nature you're going
to be showing up you're going to be
excited you're going to see it through
and that's it just work the process
all right who's up next hi tom i'm nima
i'm a business strategist and a mindset
coach my question today is about cold
showers
i know that you're a big fan of cold
showers i am as well
i want to understand the exact process
that you do it do you start with a cold
shower right away when you step into
your shower do you do it in the middle
or do you finish off with a cold shower
how many minutes do you usually go for
and do you think that you use
purely willpower to do it on a daily
basis or does it actually become a habit
and in a sense easier to do so i
personally think that it doesn't really
physically become easier to do it but
mentally one can gain the strength to do
it on a daily basis hence as a habit i
would like to really hear your thoughts
on the topic and thank you very much for
your great show
all right so first of all i just want to
talk about the notion of doing hard
things so doing hard things is
critically important in terms of earning
self-respect
building those calluses on your mind as
david goggins calls them to have the
ability to stick with something when it
gets difficult it is such an incredibly
powerful skill set and the only way
you're going to get it is if you do hard
things
now i want to be clear that i don't love
cold showers i hate cold showers cold
showers never got easier in fact i would
say over time it really began to chip
away at my soul so i did cold showers
every day for
one year and three months i promised
myself i would do it for a month so in
ending up doing it for 15 months i was
pretty stoked now i don't do cold
showers anymore and i'll go back and
explain
the process i was using when i was doing
cold showers now what i'm doing is water
submersion so cold water submersion that
i find is
way more powerful it is much more
difficult but in a weird way it's
more enjoyable so when i was doing the
cold showers and went like this i would
get in stand
bucket naked
dry shower and just will myself to crank
that on because there was nothing worse
than standing dry knowing that that cold
water is going to hit you that was by
far the worst is that anticipation of
like do you stop and take a couple
breaths do you just get in there and
crank it on like without hesitation it
was so
powerful to have to face that down
day after day after day it really was
pretty incredible uh so
that made it more difficult i did not
find it hard if i was taking a warm
shower so um
wim hof the iceman recommends that you
do a warm shower like normal but then
you end on he suggests to start with 30
seconds you end cold i actually didn't
find that that hard and so because that
wasn't hard i wanted to do it the
hardest way possible by starting just
dry and going straight for the cold so
that was how i did it the whole time
i would though end on warm
most of the time every now and then if
it was a hot day or something i might uh
do cold warm cold
it just depended so there is something
about a entirely cold shower that's
quite powerful but i found it very
difficult to warm up after
and so that can slow the rhythm of a day
down and i just didn't want to give that
much time to it okay so i do that for 15
months i end up growing this resentment
towards my shower i didn't like the way
that felt i wanted to get back to
actually enjoying my shower and i
thought you know i have
always had a lingering notion in my mind
that it would be far better on a
physiological level to get the
response that you're looking for at a
cellular level from true submersion
and since i have a swimming pool that
for most of the year it's not heated i
thought well just start going in the
pool during the winter months
pool gets down to about 58 degrees
that's plenty cold let me tell you
and
it is
so
much more intense than a cold shower
because there is no part of your body
that isn't getting the life force sucked
out of it by the cold and so one you
feel like a total badass doing it and
you get that self-confidence you get
that yeah like i'm here i'm doing hard
things i'm pushing through so that gave
me a lot of confidence that it was
having the kind of physiological effect
that i was hoping it was have
so
if you can do submersion i highly
recommend it
i would stay in the pool water again it
was about 58 degrees i would stay in
that the longest i did was 22 degrees at
22 minutes excuse me and by the time i
got out i was moving so slowly and my
teeth like i was so afraid i was gonna
bite my tongue because my teeth were
chattering so hard um and so i thought
okay that's a little too extreme so i
started backing it off
uh and then the important part is to
warm up naturally so i wouldn't end up
taking a warm shower until say 45
minutes later
to give my body
the command that it had to warm up on
its own
that was
i think more powerful than the the cold
shower so now i'm more focused on
submersion
word
next up hey tom i just wanted to take a
second to thank you and your team for
all the positive impact you've had on my
life
i'm euros from athenia
and i'm currently studying physiotherapy
i'm also an inspiring personal trainer
and my question is
i have these ups and downs a really good
productive
work and then something happens and i
get down to this baseline which isn't
terrible but i just know that i can do
more and
i just want to find out how do i keep
that habit of always producing good
quality work with minimal to no
downfalls
yeah that's it thank you
okay so
this is very straightforward but there
are a lot of different pieces that are
going to go into it so the first thing
you need to do whenever somebody wants
something they know what they want
they've got a clear goal they're
prepared to do the work but they just
find there's pretty radical
inconsistencies as they're trying to
move along that path to really get
something going
number one is that you need to
really get amped up about why that goal
matters to you because once you know why
the goal matters that's going to be that
thing that gives you meaning and purpose
that turns into a passion that allows
you to show up and keep doing it when
you're bored
because boredom kills more dreams than
failure i just promise you you just get
to the point where it's such a grind and
you've got to do it day after day month
after month year after year it's just
like it really drags on it's like that
old outcast song forever forever ever
forever ever it's like it's easy to do
something once maybe you can do it for a
week but when you have to just keep at
the grind then you really have to have a
strong why so figuring out why is it
that you care enough about this because
by the way if you don't care enough
about it to do all this go find
something that you do care enough about
to go after because you can do anything
you want in life
just
not
everything
now if you're as angered by that notion
as i am you realize whatever it is
you're going to give yourself over to
and do all the way it needs to be
something that you are really on fire
about now
getting on fire about something you're
not born with that you cultivate that
fire so you're going to pick something
starts as an interest you're going to
pick it engage with it fan the flames of
that fire by talking about it to
yourself to your friends to your family
to anybody who will listen about why it
matters to you and then you go hard on
that so like for me i'm trying to build
the next disney but why why am i trying
to build the next disney because i've
worked with so many people in the inner
cities that were extraordinary far
smarter than i am and they're doing
nothing with their life why because they
don't have the right frame of reference
their mindset
is so limited that even though they have
all of this natural skill that they
could build upon and turn into something
absolutely extraordinary they're not
doing it because they're not thinking
about themselves and the world in the
right way okay i'm not prepared to live
in that world right now in america the
number one predictor of your future
success is your zip code okay i want to
introduce you to a word maybe you know
it maybe don't called an animus
something that that pisses you off
enough that it animates you to take
action now you want to find something a
spark of something and really turn that
into this raging inferno of i am not
prepared to live in a world where that's
true and now i'm going to show up every
day and i'm going to fight make sure you
focus it
get it specific to a person don't let it
be abstract who's someone you know and
love that's struggling with that thing
that you want to put an end to do you
have a mom that's struggling with
depression a brother that has massive
anxiety whatever the case may be
there's something
out there that animates you that you
want to fix
and you attach that to a person that you
love and care for why so that on a
friday at 2am when you're exhausted and
you're bored and you know you need to
show up and have the discipline to see
this through
you don't want to be thinking in the
abstract you want to be thinking very
concretely about a person who is
struggling with that thing and then you
can fight for them i always said at
quest i was trying to end metabolic
disease because my mom and my sister
were morbidly obese and i didn't want
them to die so a friday on a 2 a.m i
wasn't showing up thinking about protein
bars i showed up thinking about them and
suddenly when you're fighting for
somebody like that and it's personal
you'll have the energy that you need to
see it through
word
next
hi my name is aisha i live in boston
massachusetts and i'm a financial
consultant so for my job we are required
to pass certain certification in order
to be promoted
as i was struggling finding time to
study i was advised to wake up couple
hours early and study before work as my
brain will be fresh and and more focused
and i notice on days when i'm truly
motivated i can get up even before my
alarm goes on and put in the number of
hours i want
but on days when i don't feel motivated
i will keep on snoozing my alarm until
my usual wake up time and my and try to
rationalize my excuses in my head
i'm usually pretty hard on myself and i
notice that my brain has found the trick
to rationalize my excuses when i don't
feel motivated
i know that discipline will be the
solution but what is what would be
the process to actually implement
prohibit slash discipline to just do it
without thinking when i'm lacking
motivation
thank you
all right
here we go i'm going to give you the
three steps to this magic formula and if
you do these
it will work every time so number one
like we've mentioned multiple times
already in this episode
motivation you have to want it it has to
be something that you were on fire for
literally as you were describing it i
was like oh my god i would study so much
i would ace this exam you have no idea i
would absolutely kill this
because that's my identity
so why is it that you want to do this is
it that you want to be the best is it
just the promotion if it's the promotion
and this is just about money what does
that mean why does it matter what are
you gonna do with the money are you the
first person in your family to be
promoted that far are you setting an
example for your son or your daughter
like when you attach it to something
that really matters like for me it's
like i'm gonna dominate wherever you put
me i'm gonna dominate that's just my
thing
my identity is so wrapped up in
outworking everybody else
i love it so i love going hard learning
putting more time and energy my thing is
part of my identity you ready for the
secret
part of my identity is like i will work
so hard at something that people will
just assume i'm naturally gifted at that
thing because the alternative to believe
that i'm spending
40 hours a week
40 hours a week on top of my full-time
job to study for that thing people they
won't believe that i would put that kind
of energy and effort into something
but i will
and so to them it just looks like magic
now i love that so much that it
becomes very easy for me to use identity
statements
okay so we've got motivation
we're getting amped about it it matters
to us for some reason now we've got
identity statements i'm the type of
person that i'm the type of person that
works so hard people assume it's magic
i'm the type of person that works so
hard at something that people just
assume i'm naturally talented okay i
love that i love saying that about
myself i love knowing that it's true i
love knowing that i can trust myself to
put in the time and the energy to own it
because
i'm the type of person that knows
information is really power and that if
i go in and i work and i get better at
this thing then i'm going to be able to
outperform other people right skills
have utility and then the third thing
that you're going to do to absolutely
dominate is you're going to set rules in
your life
i don't care if you've got motivation i
don't care if i have motivation i get
out of bed in 10 minutes or less every
day no matter what no excuses but tom
your leg has snapped off at the knee i
don't care i'm getting out of bed in 10
minutes or less but tom you only got 45
minutes of sleep i don't care i'm
getting out of bed in 10 minutes or less
i have a hard and fast rule it's what i
call a bright line there are bright
lines in my life there is no excuse to
lay in bed there is no rationalization
nothing matters it does not matter
has it been 10 minutes since you woke up
then you got to get your ass out of bed
it's that simple and every day if i miss
and when i miss i miss by seconds but if
i miss i confess to my wife if i miss
i'll even confess on camera and let
people know hey i didn't get out of bed
in 10 minutes or less now keep in mind
it was probably 10 minutes and one
second but even then if the clock is
ticked over to the 11th minute i gotta
wrap myself out because i don't tolerate
that in myself i have that hard and fast
rule it is a bright line and i act in
accordance now the reason that i had to
use bright lines is i used to in my
mid-20s i used to lay in bed for four
and five hours a day every day if i
could get away with it
so
hard and fast rules and then just as a
bonus thing i will say this don't set an
alarm
go to bed earlier
go to bed however early you need to go
to bed in order to wake up so that you
have a couple of hours then your mind
really will be fresh then you don't need
to hit the snooze alarm i built a
billion dollar business
without setting an alarm
impact theory has grown by 400 in the
last two years alone i've done all that
without setting an alarm there you do
not need to set alarms i'm telling you
you just need to go to bed earlier and
this is where a lot of people mess up is
they're living in this chronic state of
fatigue wondering why they can't see
things through so i forget the coach
that said it but this is so powerful
they said the quote is fatigue makes
cowards of us all don't allow yourself
to be tired it is a unique ring of hell
to walk through life tired so get the
sleep you need
set the rules make sure you've got the
motivation know why you're doing what
you're doing and then
rinse and repeat just get after it
growing up i didn't show any early signs
of promise a little embarrassing to put
these photos up i wish these photos were
atypical but in reality that is what i
look like pretty much all the time
i always had some sort of clown hat on i
actually wore my pajamas out and about
on the streets that's san francisco
um
yeah that was really where i started and
wanting to do something with my life i
had this unending ease that i could do
more i could be more i just didn't know
how and i felt trapped but i didn't know
what i was trapped by and my own mother
who's always been my biggest cheerleader
who all but kicked me out of the house
when i was panicking and didn't want to
leave the state for college
i was actually the only person in my
graduating class to leave the state
wasn't something that people from tacoma
washington did you stayed you went to a
state school my mom still lives less
than three miles from the house that she
grew up in
so this is not a place where people go
off and explore but my mom always felt
like if i didn't do that that i would
have a lot of the same regrets that she
had that i wouldn't see the world that i
wouldn't discover myself and that one
day i would look back and say what if i
had only tried now what she didn't tell
me at the time but she has since
confessed is that she just assumed i was
going to fail
now my mom is hilarious she's not jewish
but you would think she is because her
whole life since kicking me out of the
nest she's been desperately trying to
claw me back
and so one day i finally asked i said
what is with that like literally you
forced me to leave and go to college so
why have you worked so hard to get me
back and that's when she said with
nothing but love in her heart
i just always thought you would fail
and that was a gift it was really a gift
because at that moment i realized that
the things that i've accomplished in my
life had nothing to do with being given
something at birth now i felt this
unease that i was talking about that i
could do more but i was stuck and i
didn't know what i was trapped in in
1999 a movie came out called the matrix
that movie ended up giving me the
intellectual framework to think about
what was happening in my life because
there was something limiting me there
was something that made me feel adrift
and this gave me the vernacular to think
about what it was and in the movie they
talk about taking the red pill the red
pill its only promise
its only promise
is the truth
that's it it's not saying that it's
going to make things better it's simply
going to reveal the way that the world
really is and that for me was incredibly
intoxicating and i took the red pill
intellectually and what i began to
realize
is that the mind
is the matrix in and of itself now
there's people that'll debate whether we
actually live inside the matrix whether
we're actually in a simulation and it's
a fun conversation but i honestly don't
care about the answer because i can tell
you right now today in this moment i
promise you
the matrix has you
if you guys know david foster wallace's
concept of this is water to a fish water
is so ubiquitous it ceases to exist
now we all have that same thing and it's
playing on us and it's keeping us from
becoming who we want to become
and that thing is our mindset it's our
belief system it is so ever-present it
is so ingrained into the fabric of who
you are in the way that you process data
you don't even notice it you don't even
know that it's real and this is the
thing that impacts your life it is your
inability to see that your mindset
controls everything that it is water in
and of itself now when i heard this from
shakespeare i realized that once you
become aware of the water you can change
everything
that you can go from a scared lost kid
in tacoma
to whomever you want to be
and in understanding that things began
to become possible there's nothing
either good or bad but thinking makes it
so and if that's true then belief itself
is a construct and if belief
is a construct belief
if belief is a construct then like any
other construct it can be manipulated
and changed
and at any moment this is so important
at any moment you can choose to believe
something new about yourself now the
weird thing about belief is as soon as
you change that belief it becomes true
why that is i will never quite
understand what weird quirk of human
evolution has left us in a space where
simply believing it makes it true if you
think you're dumb guess what you're dumb
truly and you will act in accordance
with that belief and that should scare
the out of you because it scared
the life out of me and i saw myself
heading down a path that i did not want
to be on because i believed that i was
dumb i had a fixed mindset i used to
only apply for jobs where i knew i'd be
smarter than the person interviewing me
because i did not want to feel badly
about myself but you can imagine the
types of jobs that i got
i once lovingly referred to myself as
the king of remedial jobs
and i actually had pride in that because
what i built my sense of pride around
was getting the job was always being
smart was being right and none of those
things were moving me towards my goals
now if you don't know this quote live by
it one can have no smaller or greater
mastery than mastery over oneself that's
da vinci da vinci did amazing things
with his life i wanted to do equally
amazing things with mine and if that's
the game that we're playing if i can
construct my belief system if i can
choose at any moment
to believe something that's more
empowering
than i was believing the moment before
and that that will actually find its way
into my actions
allow me to do things that i couldn't do
the moment before
then it's like that moment in the matrix
where nia realizes he knows kung fu
and that's like as funny as that is
that's how i think about life to me the
very fundamental purpose of life
is to find out how many skills
i can acquire
that have utility
and then put that utility to the test
in service
of something greater than myself
how many skills can i acquire that have
utility put that utility to the test in
service of something greater than myself
that is for me the purpose of life now i
don't actually want to know kung fu that
is not the mission that i'm here to live
but i knew that i had to identify my
mission so what was going to be my
mission
mother teresa has an amazing quote
nobody will act for the many
but people will act for the one
and that really struck me
because i realized they were right i was
looking at this global pandemic of ill
health
and i wasn't
moving into action
but thinking about my mom and my sister
or the uncle i had who ate himself to
death when i was 12 years old
that made me want to act
now at the time i began thinking about
what my mission was my partners and i
were running a technology company that
technology company was not mission based
it was designed to make a lot of money
and we were making money and we were
winning awards and we were standing in
this beautiful conference room
overlooking the pacific ocean and i
turned to them and i said i'm completely
miserable
and there i was living the cliche of
money camp by happiness which is pretty
ironic because i'm a guy that actually
understands the power of money money is
the great facilitator
money can make things happen it's
powerful it has true utility
so how then as it's going through my
fingers am i not able to find
fulfillment
and the reason is that fulfillment
exists outside of all of that
fulfillment has to do with the last part
of what i believe the purpose of life is
and that is to exist doing something in
service of something greater than
yourself and if you're not able to tap
into that then you're never going to get
that fulfillment that you want in your
life
this
is the central tenet by which i believe
everyone should live
you can create yourself
in fact no one else is going to create
you but if you forget that you're in
water if you forget that the matrix has
you if you don't realize that everything
you believe is a choice
everything you believe is a choice if
you forget any of that stuff then you
will not be able to make yourself in the
person that you want to be man cannot
remake himself without suffering for he
is both the marble and the sculptor that
is it gives me the chills even now to
think about that to know that if i want
to become the person that i want to
become i am going to pay a price
and to me the question that we all have
to ask is who do i want to be
what do i want to become
and how high of a price am i willing to
pay to get there
and i will pose to you that the people
that you most admire the people that
have achieved at a level that you want
to achieve they are no different than
you
they simply know
what they want to become
and they're paying the price to get
there
that's it
right now between me and the person i
want to be between you and the person
you want to be there is a gap of skill
set
and that's it
but once you know your mission and once
you believe
that you can accomplish anything you set
your mind to
then you can do the extraordinary now
for me getting out of that space of
being lost of not knowing what i wanted
to do with my life it all came down to
needing to earn credibility with myself
in very small incremental ways
this is me 60 pounds ago
and i knew if i was going to accomplish
anything in my life i was gonna have to
get control of my mind
now ironically there's two ways to get
control of your mind way number one is
directly going to the mind which can be
very scary can be very daunting very
ethereal it's ephemeral it's hard to
grab onto it's hard to touch
but way number two is through the body
and so i decided that my kung fu
was going to be to get very good at
developing my body and in that process i
was going to learn about nutrition which
would allow me to help my mom and my
sister in that process i was going to
earn credibility with myself and earning
credibility with yourself is so
important
do it in microwaves for me just showing
up to the gym every day was a micro
victory i said i was going to do it and
i did it now you have to understand i
hate working out so for all of you crazy
people that get an endorphin rush from
running
i hate you all
running for me is like being stuffed
into a meat grinder there is absolutely
nothing pleasurable about it whatsoever
so whatever neurological thing you guys
get that you've been blessed with i have
not been blessed with that so for me
showing up in the gym sucks eating a
bowl of ice cream is awesome and so
getting to
getting to a better place for me
was a totally different journey
thank you
and what that was it was just showing up
every day and putting in the work it was
reading about human metabolism and
understanding how what i eat impacts my
body it was earning a little bit of
discipline every day knowing that well i
did it yesterday i can do it again today
it was not eating something that i
wanted to eat and most importantly and
if you're taking notes write this down
it was about changing my identity
because at the end of the day
identity and values drive behavior
preach
identity and values drive behavior so if
you want to make a change you have to
change your vision of who you are
you have to begin telling yourself a
different narrative and the narrative
you tell yourself about yourself is
everything and if you tell yourself that
you're a scared under-educated kid from
tacoma whose family has never
accomplished anything let me tell you
what you will become
a scared undereducated kid from tacoma
who never accomplishes anything because
that's what you believe
you tell yourself that story enough and
it will become real
but on the flip side you could tell
yourself a story of you're a learner
you learn faster than most people you're
willing to put in more work than most
people you're willing to read more books
than most people you're willing to spend
an inhuman amount of time every day
improving your mind simply by getting
new ideas into the system and that you
will admit that you're wrong faster than
anybody else that you won't let your ego
get in the way and you tell yourself
that story over and over and over so
when somebody comes and tells you how
stupid you are that you're just a dumb
kid from tacoma you go you're right
that's amazing thank you for pointing
out that flaw because now that i'm aware
of it i can improve it because i'm the
learner
and once i switched my narrative to
being the learner it didn't matter where
i started it only mattered where i was
trying to go and as long as i had that
clarity then i could execute because i
believed i could do anything i set my
mind to without limitation
all right there are very concrete habits
that you can use that i have used once
you get your mind in the right place
once you believe that it can happen
this is what i did i worked out why
because it helped me gain control of my
mind one it was micro credibility with
myself every day i said i was going to
do something i did it two when you're
suffering and you're willing to fight
through it you tell yourself a story
that you're willing to pay the price to
become what you want to become and also
and this may be the most important
reason each and every one of you should
start working out and it has nothing to
do with living longer because we could
get hit by a meteorite who knows so i'm
not even worried about that but i am
worried about this
when you watch your body transform you
get the loudest signal from your
subconscious that you can change that
you can change anything you want that
you can change your bicep your tricep
your quad whatever it is you want
something that you literally could not
do the day before you can do today
and your mind sees that that's true
your mind sees that something you
couldn't pick up yesterday you can pick
up today
and it begins to ask itself well if
that's possible then what else is
possible
now for me finding my center was also a
very important thing so i work out first
the next thing i do without fail is
meditate
i do a just breathe meditation where i'm
simply trying to calm my mind
then i do what i call thinkitating
during meditating i get into an alpha
wave state brain pattern which enhances
creativity and unique connections i'm
not worried about whether i'll ever
think a unique thought i am simply
interested in the unique connections
that i will make that no one else before
me or after me will ever make because
their circumstances are different than
mine and that to me is what makes each
of us a beautiful snowflake
is we're all going to make connections
that other people might not make and so
during thinkitating i take advantage of
a problem i'm trying to solve i smash it
together with my alpha wave state and i
see what comes out of it i read i read
obsessively
because i believe in one simple math
equation ideas in equal ideas out and
then i keep a list of the most important
things i'm trying to accomplish if
you're trying to become something you
need to know what that something is
and then this is the most important
piece i execute
only
execution matters
burn that into your nervous system get a
tattoo do whatever you need to do to
remind yourself
only execution matters
thinking about it feeling good about it
those are awesome but if you have a
vision of something you're trying to do
become whatever and you don't execute
against it and i don't need you to want
to build a big business if you tell me
you want to be the greatest parent of
all time then i'm going to ask you what
are you doing to execute on that goal
what are you doing how do you define it
what are your deliverables what are the
metrics by which you're judging yourself
and by the way if you don't want a grand
goal you don't need one but then say
what i'm trying to do is get centered
i'm trying to experience happiness even
that you can begin to look at ways that
you can improve that
now i very much subscribe to the theory
that the human animal is an active
species meaning it will forever be
moving forward i think that's a good
thing it's one of the most exciting
things in my life and i have three fears
one brain damage that freaks me out two
losing my wife because
damn that woman's cool and then three i
don't ever wanna feel like i've hit the
end of what i can do i always wanna feel
like there's something more that i can
learn and grow into
so keeping in mind execution is how you
get there no matter what your path is
all right it always starts with having
very very clear goals
from there
this is the secret sauce to executing
this is the thing that you need to do
with your mind there's an entire talk
that i give on this one slide alone so
i'm going to go fast we've already
talked about
values and identity drive behavior ego
is a must and i know when we talk about
meditating we talk about transcending
the ego and maybe it's possible and
maybe i just haven't been able to do it
but let me tell you how i've leveraged
the ego that i have i believe people
commit suicide when they no longer
believe that they will ever feel good
about themselves again
now here's the scary part i think that's
a reasonable reaction
the only problem is it's a lie
and if you know the buddhist teaching
there is an amazing phrase this too
shall pass
whatever you're feeling whether you're
feeling great
or whether you're feeling terribly
it's going to pass
but if truly you could never feel good
about yourself ever again why would you
want to go on
even serving other people you do it in
part because of how beautiful it feels
so helping people understand that that
will pass that there will be something
beautiful again waiting for them
but that
what you build your self-esteem around
what that ego is tied to is absolutely
critical because if you tie it to being
right if you tie it to being good if you
tie it to being pious if you tie it to
anything that is fragile or tenuous it
can go away and then your ego is damaged
and then the psychological immune system
kicks in and then you start making
really weird choices so build your ego
around something positive build your ego
around something that is truly
anti-fragile
something that's anti-fragile is not
something that's resilient resilient
things are still defined by their
breaking point their breaking point just
happens to be far away
anti-fragile is the more it's attacked
the stronger it gets i used to pride
myself on being right i used to pride
myself on being smart bad news is i'm
really not that bright and i was wrong
all the time
really
and the thing lisa nichols are you here
oh god that woman's in this place
somewhere she gave me some of the most
powerful words i have ever heard and
they have stuck with me you do not get
to make me extraordinary as an excuse
not to succeed
when she said that i was like
i really wanted to though lisa you're
special there's something you have that
i don't and when she said that i thought
that's so true whenever you look at
somebody that's been successful do not
allow yourself to make them
extraordinary at your expense you're
capable of whatever it is that they're
capable of but it comes down to the
mental constructs that you're going to
have to build and leverage in your own
mind in order to do something great so i
switched my self-esteem from being right
and being smart to being the learner who
was always willing to admit that he was
wrong identify the right answer give
credit to the person who thought of it
and put more energy behind it than
anyone else
and that became my driver now what did i
do with that driver
i turned that change in attitude along
with my co-founders at quest nutrition
in the building as vishen said the
second fastest growing company in north
america
valued at over a billion dollars every
financial dream i'd ever had in my life
come true
but at the end of the day the only thing
that mattered had nothing to do with the
money
and it had everything to do with we set
out to build a business around value
creation we set out to actively ask one
question what would we do and love every
day even if we were failing
and that for three very different
reasons ended up being attacking the
pandemic of the body
trying to help people live a more
beautiful life and there were times
where putting that value first meant
that we did things that were less
profitable there were times where we put
that value first and it was outright
stressful to the company but that was
the driver and that was the thing that
actually allowed us to grow because
people could feel that this company was
different they could feel that we
weren't after the sale they could feel
what we wanted was to help
and in today's world
leading with that as you guys know if
you're at this conference
can have tremendous
rewards
the original title of my speech
was
helping the world is big business or
saving the world i think saving the
world is big business
but after meeting you guys i realized we
needed to talk about something
completely differently because you guys
know more than most it's not about the
money so what is it about
it has nothing to do with who you are
today don't worry about that i'm not
very interested in the person that i am
today
i am a far cry from the person that i
can imagine and the person i promised
myself that i will continue to work to
become
so it's not about who you are
it's about who you want to become
and the price you're willing to pay to
get there
i never intended to tell anybody because
i went from getting up on time and
waking up on time to shaking up my
entire life because when you understand
the power of a five-second decision and
you understand that you always have a
choice to go from autopilot to decision
maker
everything in your life will change