Self Improvement Daily Podcast

We live in a culture and society that is constantly pushing us to do, be, and have more. This unspoken but ever-present pressure causes us to work faster, multi-task, and never miss a moment.

Being busy has become a status symbol that signals importance externally, but adds stress internally.

After taking James Wedmore's advice for just one morning to invite more silence and space into our lives, I experienced a real shift and a new awareness.

I noticed a tendency to be less present in my morning routine, rushing to get to my next thing…

I noticed that unconsciously I wanted to put on something educational during my workout to make the most of the time…

I almost didn’t answer a phone call from a friend because it pulled me off schedule for my day…

But instead, with the intention to create more space for myself - I took my time in my morning routine and added some grounding in nature. I worked out in silence. I answered the phone when my friend called and chatted for 20 minutes.

After, and all day, I felt lighter. I felt more connected, less anxious and overstretched, and more present with everything else I chose to do.

While the outside world is responsible for a lot of the chaos and distraction we experience, we are personally responsible for a lot of it too. We’re the ones who try to pack too much into a single day. We’re the ones trying to make every moment highly productive. We’re the ones choosing to deprioritize what we value most.

We are the ones that are causing our own overstimulation. And if you feel like you’re too busy, stretched, or overcommitted to create space in your life, know that you’re the one creating that.

And, let’s say you are doing all the things you want to do, overbusy to accommodate your career goals, personal responsibilities, and everything else… Then accept that you've chosen that. Your life is full, and that’s perfectly fine, but don’t criticize what’s in your control.

My simple recommendation is this: Just for a day, choose to not overstimulate yourself. Eat food and workout without technology. Add an extra 10 minutes to a self-care routine. Be with what’s around you, there’s already enough to hold your attention.

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Hey self improver, a better world starts with a better you and YES YOU CAN! So let's take another step toward your best self today.

For the last few weeks, I’ve had a thought that I can’t shake out of my mind:

If you could snap your fingers and be wherever you wanted to be, doing exactly what you wanted to do… What if you still felt exactly as you do now?

Think about that. 

What if reaching the levels of success you imagined for yourself didn’t actually bring you more fulfillment? What if incredible progress and hard-earned achievements were celebrated externally but you still feel the same internally?

If I’m being honest, the reason this has been so top of mind is because I’ve noticed a creeping dissatisfaction about my life recently. And I fear that rather than it being temporary discomfort, it’s a more permanent reflection that will be present no matter what I do.

We’ve heard it before… The destination isn’t as good as you thought it would be. The climb didn’t offer the view you expected. Putting all of our joy and fulfillment into something that will just be underwhelming when we get it is a formula for disappointment.

You, me, everyone - No matter where we go, you always take ‘you’ with you. In other words, however you see the world today is exactly how you’ll see it at the mountain top. Your belief system acts as a filter that colors everything in your life. Put on a pair of red glasses and everything you look at appears red. The same goes for the way we see our accomplishments.

So if today you view yourself as successful, like you’re making a difference in the world, and you enjoy your life - fantastic! But if you don’t, then don’t expect a change in external circumstances to transform your self-perception of how successful you are. 

But, if you see yourself through a chronically underachieving lens, that perspective isn’t permanent. You can work to change your belief system so that you change the way you see things from inside out.

The two central beliefs to this shift are having a growth mindset, and having a positive outlook on life. If you want to work on that, and start giving yourself credit for how amazing you’re already doing rather than feeling disappointed that you’re falling behind, click the link in the description and rewire your mindset with the 21 Day Super Habits Challenge.

Hey self improver, a better world starts with a better you and YES YOU CAN! So let's take another step toward your best self today.

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One of the biggest fears we all share is that we're afraid to look stupid. 

We think that if we go after a big goal and fail, other people will think less of us, or worse we’ll have to accept that we aren’t as good as we thought we were… 

We think that if we try our best but make a mistake, other people will think that we’re incapable and can’t be relied upon, or worse, we’ll destroy our own self-confidence…

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If you’re not living as big or as bold as you know your goals require of you, here are two things to think about: 

1) The more cowardly thing to do is to hide in your comfort zone than to be seen with your imperfections.

2) Not only do you earn others respect when you try and fail, but you believe in yourself more because you proved that you’re willing to do hard and scary things.

In every moment when we fall short of expectations, miss a goal, or don’t live up to our personal standards, we can either become wiser or wounded. 

‘Failure’ is a fertile soil for growth. Losing will teach you more than winning ever could because it offers you more feedback. But that’s only when you allow yourself to see your shortcomings as an opportunity for improvement with a growth mindset. That’s getting wiser.

Or, you can be wounded by poor performance. You see it as a reflection that you’re not good enough. That you’re wasting your time and never had it in you in the first place. Failure reinforces limiting beliefs, suggesting they’re more true than they are, which acts to hold you back out of protection.

The mantra to use, that epitomizes a growth mindset, goes: “Either I win or I learn, and learning is winning, so either I win or I win so long as I learn.”

It’s natural to feel disappointed when you fall short. It means you care. But in that moment, you get to choose what the long term implication of that instance is going to be: Either you become wiser or you become wounded.

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We’re predisposed toward self-preservation. Our unconscious mind chooses ‘wounded’. But we can overrule that and choose ‘wiser’. But first, you’ve got to put yourself out there and give yourself a chance to fail.

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Hey self improver, a better world starts with a better you and YES YOU CAN! So let's take another step toward your best self today.

Last week I was on an expert session call featuring Chris Hetherington. Chris has an illustrious career as a professional football player, hedge fund manager, business leader, and now CEO. When asked about how he successfully transitioned from one thing to the next, his answer was simple: 

He had to reinvent himself every single time.

He had to show up as a different type of person at events to expand his network in the right ways, he developed new skillsets to take on new responsibilities, and when he entered uncharted territory he had to make up for inexperience with rapid learning.

A lot of us feel resistant to becoming a new version of ourselves, and I think it’s because we misunderstand what it actually means to reinvent. 

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Any invention builds off of previously established understanding. Something new is born from what came before, with a new innovative approach. Every new technology is enabled by what already exists. So similarly, reinventing ourselves isn’t about starting completely from scratch… But taking what we already have and retooling it into its next, more advanced form.

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When you put it that way, reinventing ourselves is a natural evolution. By the very nature of life we are always growing and changing. The difference is, when you reinvent yourself you’re being intentional about shaping your growth so that it outputs into exactly who you need to become to take on the next challenge.

It might feel like a wild reinvention of yourself when you transition from being a corporate leader into an entrepreneur… But it’s just a small change in direction. You have all the same relationships and skills that are now being applied toward a new end.

And it might feel like you need to reinvent yourself when you’ve become a parent and your self-care has gone out the window for a year or two… But you have the same baseline knowledge and creativity that you direct to solve a specific problem.

Reinventing yourself isn’t as disruptive as you think it is. It’s part of the process. And the more you can embrace it, the more it will work for you.

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Hey self improver, a better world starts with a better you! So let's take another step toward your best self today. This is your weekend recap, now let’s review.

On Monday, you read how you can be the surgeon in the room. A surgeon only does what no one else can do. They have a team preparing every step of the process for them so they can focus on their expertise. While most of us don’t have the means to live like that, we can find our own ways to get support so that we stay in our own genius more often.

Tuesday, I shared one of the greatest frustrations of my life - how I was learning so much but my life wasn’t changing. And that’s because knowledge is just potential power, and it’s by putting what you learn into practice that you actually convert its potential into real life change. For me, a daily performance tracking routine and ecosystem of life systems helped me breakthrough my plateau. 

Then, Wednesday I wrote about the problems that come with having an -all or nothing- mindset, and that the only lasting path forward is one that’s more flexible. Rather than straining ourselves to maintain a certain standard, and then falling all the way off when life disrupts things, we can slowly build our foundation up one brick at a time. And that happens by showing up, and never quitting. As long as you stay in the game, you earn the right to take another swing.

Thursday I introduced you to an instant, completely free gift you can give to yourself that takes only 60 seconds. And that’s to do nothing but breathe. It’s incredibly expansive, grounding, and emotionally resetting to exit the world for just a few moments to be with yourself. It’s so good to do, we just forget to do it.

And finally, on Friday I wrote about the complexity that comes with the expression “what got you here won’t get you there.” On one hand, growth comes from doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Yet at times we need to change course because what we’ve been doing, that has worked in the past, is no longer producing the extent of results we want to see. Observing the rate of change, tapping into your intuition, and revisiting your vision will help you decide which path to take.  

I'm Brian Ford and if you’re new to the blog, welcome a way to commit to being better every day! I’ve put together a resource for you that pulls some of the best episodes from the past and summarizes the 7 fundamentals to self improvement. Click the link in the description if you want to accelerate your growth! You grew today, Iet's do it again tomorrow on SID.

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Cal Newport wrote a best-selling book called “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”. The main concept is pretty self-explanatory - If you want to achieve a new level of result you need a new approach. Our actions and tactics are perfectly calibrated to create the level of results we’re currently getting. You need to chance the input in order to create a new output.

What’s more difficult to understand though, is when and how to put that into practice. Not only is there an unconscious resistance to doing things differently, but there’s a logical argument too. Once you’ve put so much time and effort into something, and it produced for you, it’s hard to admit that it’s become the exact thing that’s now holding you back.

In your health, maybe it’s someone who lost 20 pounds and can’t get the last 10 off. They need to experiment with new diet and exercise plans to reach their goal, even though what they’ve been doing has been effective for them. In business, maybe someone doubled revenue last quarter but it didn’t increase in the next. They need to explore new strategies that build on the growth they’ve experienced.

The really tricky thing is - If someone wants to improve the recommendation usually is to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. It’s the 80/20 rule, 80% of the outcomes come from 20% of the activity. Double down on what’s producing results and that will continue to drive growth. 

With that in mind, the question becomes… How do you know when results have plateaued and it’s time to make a change, and when it’s time to stay the course?

I don’t think there’s a straight answer to that, but here are a few influencing factors to consider:

- What’s the current rate of change?

If things are still improving but only slowly and incrementally, especially when compared to how it used to be, that suggests that the opportunity is saturated.

-What’s your honest intuition about it? Do you feel like there’s still genuine upside, or has the opportunity been squeezed?

Don’t underestimate your own impression on where things are at.

-How radically different is your vision for where you’re headed compared to where you’re at now?

The bigger the gap, the more reason to consider changing course. I understand that growth is a progression, and that you need to hit intermediate milestones on your way to something bigger. But also mind the gap and always be curious to explore if there’s a better way.

When you’re in a season of maintenance, keep doing the same things. But when it’s time to grow, that involves doing things differently. And that’s what will ‘get you there’ where you’ve imagined in your mind.

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All day, every day, we are so consumed with what we’re doing - juggling tasks at work, running errands, making time for people, making plans… And it occupies all of our attention.

Yet amid all of that, there’s something we’re doing the entire time that we’re not even aware of, and when we give this one thing more attention, it changes your life. Every single time. What is that thing? Breathing.

Throughout the day, our breathing is so constricted. We’re so uptight and tense that it causes us to not breathe as deeply or effectively as we could, which then promotes a stress response that further restricts our breathing. But when we bring conscious awareness to our breath, when we choose to slow it down and breathe deeper, it offsets all of that in a matter of moments.

But don’t take my word for it, let’s take literally one minute, together to breathe deeply. Don’t go on your phone or get distracted by something else; give yourself the gift of inner peace right now in just 60 seconds with a few long breaths. I’m setting a timer… 3, 2, 1, go. Just breathe.

It’s impossible not to feel better after 60 short seconds of breathing. And this gift is something you always have access to, whenever you want it, and it costs you nothing.

I encourage you to find moments throughout the day to practice a minute of breathing to reset and recenter yourself in preparation for whatever comes next - and give your best to all the ways the world needs you. 

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Many people who are ambitious or growth-oriented have an ‘all or nothing’ mindset. When things are on, they’re on and it generates an unstoppable force forward. But the second that momentum is lost, or something bumps them off trajectory, it all falls apart. They completely fall off their commitment. And it’s unfortunate because this means progress is never sustained, it’s constantly being undone and redone in a way that’s high effort and low pay off. 

The ‘all or nothing’ mindset is based on a misunderstanding of what it means to be “all in”. What it’s not is being fully committed to taking action at all costs. That approach sets people up for failure. Life is too unpredictable for everything to always work out exactly how you want it to. Our action is often the byproduct of our environment, which is too variable to rely on.

What’s far more practical is staying fully committed to showing up at all costs. And that’s because showing up means different things within different conditions. In one setting it could be the effortful approach to follow through and do the hard thing. But in another it could be re-engaging with the commitment after life happened, and getting back on track when you get knocked off.

That’s not to say that being ‘all in’ on something is easy. It’s painful to look at the instances where you didn’t meet expectations. And it’s precisely that pain that causes people to stay disengaged. The embarrassment and shame is a big hit to their self-esteem, and they unconsciously avoid accepting any shortcomings because of what it might mean about them. But by having the commitment to show up, look at their weaknesses, and be honest with themselves, they can work through it and get back to doing their best. 

To put it simply, to be ‘all in’ means that you’re committed to never quitting. That no matter how bad things get or how far you fall behind, you’re still in the game. That you refuse to let setbacks get in the way of creating what you see for yourself.

Our growth process isn’t going to be perfect. We can’t expect it to be. Which is why we need to stay in the game, accept that there are going to be ups and downs along the way, but never lose sight of what we’re building towards. 

Being ‘all in’ is a spectrum of showing up in the way that you need to, whatever action that might be, as your next step forward. And as long as you never stop showing up, you’ll always be right where you need to be - giving yourself another opportunity to grow.

If you're ready to start being more consistent and dedicated to being your best on a daily basis (rather than just when you feel like it), click here to sign up for the 21 Day Super Habits Challenge.

For years I was in a vicious and discouraging cycle. I was trapped thinking that I was growing and improving because I was spending so much time on it listening to podcasts, reading books, going through content. I’d put hours every day into my self-growth yet my life wasn’t changing, and I stayed stuck at the same level while I saw everyone around me succeeding.

I call this being a “personal development junkie”, and this was my problem. I felt like I deserved to improve, was “doing all the right things”, and was frustrated it wasn’t happening for me. And it’s only by working through it that I can see I was missing the most important ingredients.

Knowledge isn’t power, it’s potential power, and in most cases our fastest path to improvement is to apply what we already know.

It might feel productive to learn new things, but really it’s distracting you from making the most of what you already know by putting it into practice. And since I know this problem so personally, I want to offer my perspective on it and suggest a way to support you with it.

First, make sure your learning has a purpose. For some people, listening to a podcast while you prepare dinner is entertaining and motivating. It’s perfectly fine to learn for those reasons, but call it what it is and don’t convince yourself it’s anything else.

Second, if there is a knowledge gap, put your time into the right resources that will bridge it. This is the action step to take when you don’t have the right ideas or understanding you need to pursue forward. And when that’s the case find the knowledge source that does, consume it intentionally to get your questions answered, and move quickly into implementation.

Pat Flynn makes the distinction between ‘Just In Time’ information, which is exactly what you need to know when you need to know it, and ‘Just In Case’ information which isn’t immediately actionable or applicable to your current situation.

But again, more often than not, someone’s limited success isn’t a matter of not knowing what to do. It’s about helping them follow through. It’s not enough to read “Atomic Habits” and expect to have good habits… You need to put the knowledge into practice. Your learning works when you work it, and that’s what causes your life to change.

I was able to initiate that shift for myself when I started my night time performance tracking routine. I knew feedback was important, but I didn’t have a system to receiving it. I knew having a daily schedule was important, but I hadn’t gotten in the habit of it. I knew gratitude journaling was life-changing, but I hadn’t gotten consistent with it.

But once I did, I started becoming the resilient, disciplined, productive, and happy person I wanted to be. And if you want to see the process I’ve used and perfected over the course of a decade, and for me to teach you how to implement it for yourself, watch this video where I go through the whole thing step by step.

It was at a Mastermind with high-level entrepreneurs who have a ton of responsibilities, commitments, ambitions, and roles. This is at work, at home, and within themselves. And like anyone else, the way to maximize your ability to handle it all is by being more efficient and optimizing your life.

It’s within that context that the metaphor of being the “surgeon in the room” was presented. What does that mean? In a hospital setting, a surgeon does only the thing that they’re uniquely qualified to do. They ensure that their time goes exclusively into the highest leverage activities and processes. 

There’s an orchestra of things that need to happen, yet they’re not involved in any of it:

The Charge Nurse makes sure the room is set up correctly...

A nurse practitioner consults the patient beforehand...

A Scrub Tech double-checks that they have all of the right equipment...

The billing department works with the patient’s insurance to process billing...

Everything else facilitates the surgeon’s role - to safely complete the surgical procedure.

As you think about your growth trajectory, how can you be the surgeon in the room? What can you delegate within your work so that you’re not bogged down in menial tasks? What chores and errands do you have on your plate that could be outsourced as a service or to support staff? 

And then, what parts of your life require you and only you? In what ways are you impossible to replace, or you refuse to be replaced because it’s so fundamental to who you want to be or how you want to show up? The argument is, everything else should be set up in such a way that you’re enabled to do that at the highest level possible.

Taking a practical approach, not all of us have the means to get help in all non-essential areas of our lives. Finances, knowledge, and others needs act as constraints. And if that’s the case, my encouragement would be to become clear on what the first opportunity would be. This is your first step toward redesigning your life so that it’s more supportive in creating what you envision for yourself. 

Serious life change is mistaken for being massive, sweeping, and disruptive. But more often than not it’s iterative and an evolution over time. You have the ability to guide the direction of that growth, and that happens by removing one constraint at a time.