THE CURE TO LAZINESS & BURNOUT (This Could Change Your Life!) | Tom Bilyeu

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. I start listening to a book or a YouTube video. Then I would come in. 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. 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 lax, hyper-focused on the business. Um 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, um 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 that we're 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, will drink a bit of water, and then I head straight to the gym. Um, 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 can 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 deadlifting 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 has 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 deadlifting. When I am religious about my diet and I am religious about deadlifting, 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 punchline 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 deadlift 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 deadlifting 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. Uh 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. Um and I do a single set 3 days a week and I do 2 days a week where I do multiple three to four sets. Um so that I have found works incredibly well. And when I reduce that to say 3 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 that you could certainly say that your hamstrings are a pull because they are. Uh but I isolate that to leg day just to make sure that I get my back proper time. I do four exercises to one back to bi. So I do a lot of back exercises cuz I found if I'm trying to strengthen my bis, 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, doing hamstrings, I'm doing calves, and I'm doing abs on that day. Uh not everybody groups them like that, but that's been very easy for me to remember sort of where I'm at in 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. Um 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. Um 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, um 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 would 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, in 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. Uh 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 interlace or anything, just really simply in my lap. I sit comfortably. I don't over try to, you know, um 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, uh 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 to pick what kind of day. I'll usually do a thunderstorm. There's something about the thunderstorm that I find really locks me in. And 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. Um I do a simple four-part cycle that I learned from Mark Divine. Uh Um, 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, um, 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 a release. I don't try to time it or prolong it. Um, 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, 4 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, 5 or 10 minutes to get into a zone. When I first started and my my life was incredibly stressful, like I said, it could take up to 45 minutes for me to finally get lost in my breath. Um, but the fact that I knew that if I just sat there long enough, uh, 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 uh I meditate every day, 5 days a week. Let me not lie. Uh I'd only meditate on the weekends if I was really in a stressful situation. Um 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 uh we'll take it from there. 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 um 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 dysregulate 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 assign or 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, no, this is largely, how largely?" This is again a hypothesis, but I have a gut instinct that this is anxiety is probably 90% your diet and then 10% 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 dysregulating your microbiome through the things that you eat, you put gas in the gas tank of anxiety and then your thoughts step on it, then 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 9:00 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, 7 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 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 window or I, you know, eating in a what would that be, a 6-hour feeding window. So, as long as I left 18-hour gaps between when I was eating, then I was a-okay and it was absolutely wonderful. So, I average probably about 17 and 1/2 hours a day, 7 days a week uh 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 um 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 1/2 hours and that's year-round. That's really impactful. Now, my diet itself I eat 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 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 mainstay is eggs. I eat a lot, a lot of eggs. I eat a lot of um ButcherBox. So, those full disclosure I am sponsored by ButcherBox. 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. Um 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, um wild-caught salmon. I eat a lot of sardines. Um 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, collard greens, um 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 meats, 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 dysregulate my microbiome because it then propels my anxiety. And as somebody that's 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 cuz 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. 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. Um 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. Uh the reason I do that, even though there's fiber intake and all that, I wore a continuous glucose monitor for about 6 months, and fruit, even though it has um 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, um for the most part, I save that for when I'm um what I call cheating. Uh 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 cuz you might still even be able to regulate your blood sugar, but you could be spiking your insulin more um 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, uh 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 eat literally nothing except water is the only thing that I will intake. I wish I talked about caffeine. What is up, my friend? Tom Bilyeu here, and I have a big question to ask you. How would you rate your level of personal discipline on a scale of 1 to 10? If your answer is anything less than a 10, 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. All 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. All 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 at Impact Theory University. Until then, my friends, be legendary. Peace out. You guys ready for the way that I approach drinking? Cuz 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 1:00 p.m. and I stop drinking water in any meaningful quantity at 2:00 p.m. 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 and need to pee. And then, once I'm awake, it's much harder for me to fall back asleep. So, um that's something that I use to manage uh my sleep. I drink mostly carbonated water. I find that it fills me up. Um I won't be too surprised if somebody comes out with a study at some point though that that's problematic. Um, so I'm just sort of holding my breath waiting for that. But as of right now, I feel good. Um, when I drink it I don't uh 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. Uh, this is 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 um, leave it too long cuz 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. Um, and yeah, that's it. And so, as I sip on this I'll add water back in um, 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 1:00 p.m. After one From 1:00 to 2:00, 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 um, just because it's so pro-inflammatory. And not even like pro-inflammatory in an abstract way. Like, it makes my joints hurt. Um so, as much fun as it is, I really limit my alcohol intake to probably four or five times a year. Um and and that's it. So, water, 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 3 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 of the advisory board at that company. Um but, I do everything that I can to make sure that I sleep optimally, including cooling the room down um to very chilly. So, we sleep with our room at 68° 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. Um so, getting the room nice and cool is another big tip. I go to bed at 9:00 p.m. every night like it is a religion. I should say Sunday through Thursday night I go to bed at 9:00 p.m. I allow a little bit later bedtime on Friday, a little bit later bedtime on Saturday. But, other than that, 9:00 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. Um so, for me, that's about I don't know, 7 and 1/2 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. I 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 used to 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 tape. 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 Nestor. You should check that episode out. He talks about, um, breathing through your nose and how important it is. So, I literally tape my mouth closed. That also significantly improved my sleep. So, I wouldn't have believed it 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 and 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 1:00 p.m., 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, they get you really amped about the future and so that 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, up, 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, um, running a marathon and saying, "I'm going to run the first mile at a 4-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 um over-stressed 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, um 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. It's like Lisa has rules about what time she stops during the day. So, unlike me, who if I'm awake, I'm either 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 is 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 and you're stressing 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 any 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 punchline of life is not success. It's joy and 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 need 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 burnt out." And uh 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 and joy, 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'll 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 that 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 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 that 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 the 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 um 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 8 and 1/2 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. Woo-wee! 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 than 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 a hundred 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 your 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 a 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 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 uh damage the relationship or get to a point where it's untenable for them. You need to be incredibly respectful of that, right? Cuz 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. 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, am 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. Uh they can be small, simple rules like I get out of bed in 10 minutes or less. Uh 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 need to 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 often times 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 cuz 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, 2 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. Uh 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 uh 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, um 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. Uh Um, now I want to be clear that I don't love cold showers. I hate cold showers. Cold showers never got easier. Uh, in fact, I would say over time it really began to chip away at my soul. So, I did cold showers every day for 1 year and 3 months. I'd promised myself I would do it for a month. So, in ending up doing it for 15 months, I was pretty stoked. Uh, now I don't do cold showers anymore. And I'll go back and explain um, 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 uh, more enjoyable. So, when I was doing the cold showers, it went like this. I would get in, stand butt 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 Ice Man, recommends that you do a warm shower like normal, but then you end on he suggests 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. Um, 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. Um, 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. Um, 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 the, um, 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, I'll just start going in the pool, um, during the winter months. Um, pool gets down to about 58°. That's plenty cold, let me tell you. And, um, 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. Um, so, if you can do submersion, I highly recommend it. Um, I would stay in the pool water, again, it was about 58°. I would stay in that, the longest I did was 22°, uh, 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 going to 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, um, to give my body uh, 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, just wanted to take a second to thank you and your team for all the positive impact you had on my life. I'm yours from Lithuania and I'm currently studying physical therapy. I'm also an aspiring personal trainer. And my question is I have these ups and downs of 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'll 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 you don't, called an animus. Something that that pisses you off enough that it animates you to take action. And 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 2:00 a.m. 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 2:00 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 noticed 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 noticed that my brain has found a trick to rationalize my excuses when I don't feel motivated. I know that discipline will be the solution, but what is what will be the process to actually implement the habit {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 a promotion? If it's the promotion and this is just about money, what does that mean? Why does it matter? What are you going to 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 going to dominate. Wherever you put me, I'm going to 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 But becomes very easy for me 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 that 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." And keep in mind, it was probably 10 minutes and 1 second, but even then if the clock has ticked over to the 11th minute, I got to rat 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 4 and 5 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 2 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. Uh 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, was actually the only person in my graduating class to leave the state Uh wasn't something that people from Tacoma, Washington did. You stayed, you went to a state school. My mom still lives less than 3 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, "Well, 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 will 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 Neo 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 cliché of money can't buy 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 tenant 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 so 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 lbs ago. And I knew if I was going to accomplish anything in my life, I was going to 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 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 micro ways. 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 have been blessed with, I have not been blessed with that. So, for me, showing up at 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 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. Amen. 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, under-educated 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, cuz 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 that 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 want to feel like I've hit the end of what I can do. I always want to 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's 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 into building, as Vision 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, cuz 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 5-second decision, and you understand that you always have a choice to go from autopilot to decision maker, everything in your life will change.