Self Improvement Daily Podcast

This is kind of an embarrassing story… But last week I went for a morning run and when I came back from it and stripped down for a shower, I realized my shirt was on inside out. I only noticed because as I took my shirt off, I reversed it back and then threw it in the hamper. 

For whatever reason, that stood out to me. How convenient would it be if that’s what happened every time? Instead of needing to reverse all my shirts after a load of laundry, I’d just be able to fold them right away. For the smallest glimpse of a moment I thought about wearing my shirts inside out all the time, but then I realized how absurd that would be. And it reminded me of a trap we fall into all the time:

People naturally seek efficiency. It’s literally wired into our evolutionary biology to want to do more with less… To conserve energy and take the path of least resistance. But that desire often misguides us and gets us really good at doing the wrong things:

We must first focus on being effective, then we can focus on being efficient.

It’s critical to validate that whatever we’re doing is generating the desired result. That a process is actually taking us in the right direction. Or else we get really good and streamlined at doing things that don’t do anything for us.

We shouldn’t put time into automating a program fulfillment workflow until we know that people want to buy it…

We shouldn’t get all of the best equipment for a triathlon before we’ve even started training…

Of course optimization and streamlining or efforts is important. It reduces waste, increases leverage, and lowers the amount of effort needed to sustain a certain result. But that optimization first must have direction - a tactic that is proven to be effective - before it becomes more efficient.

I’m a systems guy, and the way that I get into trouble with this is thinking through every detail of how something would ideally work before validating it’s something I need to do. Speed is more valuable at first. We have to start by running an experiment and get feedback so that we avoid overengineering something we’re never going to use.

And I encourage you to think through how this might be showing up in your life. Be effective before you’re efficient. Optimize with purpose. It’ll help you achieve what you’re actually after - doing more of what works, better. 

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As someone who is deeply invested in my self-improvement, I often felt discouraged along the way. I’d get frustrated that the hours of work, dedication, and doing my very best didn’t yield the results I expected. I was doing all of the right things, everything the world’s smartest and most successful people were saying I was supposed to do, and felt entitled to achieving the outcomes promised to come with them.

Looking back at it I have the awareness to know that wasn’t the case… I was only implementing the level of awareness I had at the time, which was limited, but nonetheless the felt experience was real. And I want to diagnose exactly what that was like and the extra implications of it I didn’t even realize.

Let’s look at the etymology of ‘discourage’:

‘Dis’ is a prefix that means apart from, or opposite of. It presents a major contrast against the root word.

‘Courage’, derived from the Latin word ‘cor’ meaning ‘heart’.

So when we’re ‘discouraged’ it means we’re ‘separated from doing things with heart.’

And that’s how I felt. I didn’t have the courage to play big because I was in an energetic space that was forcing me to think small. I wasn’t shooting my shot because I was remembering all of the times I missed instead of the times I hit. 

Your heart is the essence of you and your future. As long as it’s beating, you’ve got another shot. So removing yourself from your heart means that you don’t have hope for the future, and your feelings around it attract more of the same.

What worked for me is the old cliche - treating failure as feedback. Instead of judging myself for the times I fell short, I started to curiously explore what happened. I started treating things like an experiment and became less attached to the result and more interested in the process around it.

Everything operates on the law of cause and effect. This is useful because the more insight we have into how cause connects to effect, the more we can control our inputs to shape better outputs.

Now don’t get me wrong, this is all easier said than done, and it’s a slow transition out. But what helped me make that shift was: 

1) Having a coach who could remind me of the intention to be curious about my performance

2) Setting time aside to reflect less emotionally on the factors influencing my results

This helped me cultivate a Growth Mindset, and made me believe that things can get better when you work on them, which gave me hope for my future.

Now, I’m extremely enthusiastic and optimistic about what the future holds!

By the way, if you’ve been feeling discouraged, frustrated, stuck or like you’re not operating at your fullest potential lately, click here and I’ll show you my process for overcoming exactly that!

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There is great power in simplicity. Complexity leads to more vulnerabilities and has more potential failure points. The most elegant solution is often the least complicated.

But don’t mistake simplicity for ease… It often takes much more time, effort, and thought to arrive at a simple conclusion. It’s exactly this thought that inspired the quote “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”

This is where I want to introduce the idea of ‘First Principles Thinking’. There’s often a lot of nuance and context that goes into solving a complex problem. The problem is, those details are often extra noise that drown out the main signal. ‘First Principles Thinking’ focuses on finding out what’s true in the mess of everything so that you can rebuild from an indisputable foundation. In other words, you must take a critical lens to separate assumptions from truth.

I’ve had a hard time understanding this but found it helpful liken it to communication. Embedded in what we say are both facts and opinions and the issue arises when we treat something that’s actually an opinion as a fact. 

Let’s take a manager speaking to an underperforming employee as an example. The ‘fact’ may be that there was a deadline for a specific project yesterday, and the manager did not receive it. The ‘opinion’ comes in suggesting reasons why that may be the case - they are irresponsible, they had a family emergency, they have too much on their plate, or maybe the manager just wasn’t looking in the right place for it. 

First Principles Thinking is a humbling approach to strip a single incident from what appears to be related parts, but actually are just bolted on as layers of assumption. And getting to that point of unbiased observations often leads to challenging the status quo, innovation, and more direct problem solving.

It mirrors the idea of ‘figuring out something that works’. We all want to make sure we're investing our time and energy in things that are producing results. The hard part is - everything works or could work. 

What we’re really interested in is finding things that work really well. That invites us to explore the specifics around what makes something work more than something else… Which gets us closer to the fundamentals of what really matters.

The best solution to a problem is the simple solution, and one of the most reliable ways to get there is through First Principles Thinking.

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As of this recording, Daylight Savings Time was last week. This means we ‘Sprung Forward’ and when we woke up the clock was one hour ahead of our body. 

Now that’s problematic for getting an adequate amount of rest. If you go to bed at your normal time, and wake up at your normal time, you actually get one hour less of sleep. This is exactly what happened to me, and I felt it.

I woke up and brushed my teeth right away like usual, and while brushing processed the fact that it seemed dark out and that was because of Daylight Savings. It’s something I had forgotten about and didn’t plan for… So I had a decision to make: Execute my day as scheduled or get more sleep and adjust.

Thinking through what I had planned for the morning, and weighing that against my sleep standards, I chose to get another half hour of sleep.

Here’s the thing about the plans we make: They’re our best attempt at organizing our day given the level of awareness we had when we made it. And while forgetting about Daylight Savings Time is an obvious oversight, there are other things that come up every single day that disrupt your plans too.

Life is inherently unpredictable, we can’t foresee everything that will demand our attention and we can’t plan for it all, so here are two ways to accommodate for that.

First, you can try to hedge for unpredictability. Instead of planning yourself back to back all day, give in an hour of buffer. That way when things take longer than expected or new things come up, you have time set aside to catch the spillover. Fortunately, based on my gentle plans for that Daylight Savings Sunday, I had the space to afford an extra half hour of sleep without compromising other commitments.

Second, you can incorporate the new information into a new plan. Who’s to say you can’t make a new schedule when circumstances have changed? In fact, I think you should! Again, you can only make decisions from your present level of consciousness… So if you have more to consider then you should adjust your plan to reflect that.

It’s a classic example of living out my favorite quote of all time by Maya Angelou: “Do your best until you know better, then when you know better, do better.” 

So that’s what I did - Rather than starting my day behind schedule, I redid my schedule so that I could stay right on track with the new plan.

And I encourage you to do the same the next time you notice your day is getting away from you. Rather than letting it fall apart and resolving to try again tomorrow, you can still salvage the day and fill it with what’s most important moving forward.

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I’ve always tried to be a really intentional person but recently I’ve been ramping it up even further. I’ve been challenging myself to live more consciously, more aware of the moment to moment details, and holding myself to a higher standard of living in integrity with them.

This is what I’ve noticed showing up for me: How many soft commitments do we make socially just to be pleasant? 

Telling someone you want to make plans to catch up or do something… 

Letting someone know that you’ll follow up about a recommendation you have for them… 

Checking in on someone who mentioned they were struggling with something…

Speaking for myself, as I’ve been elevating my awareness I’m now seeing all of these little mentions I’m making that pass by without serious thought or follow through. 

And it’s got me thinking - What if I chose to honor my word that much more? What if I didn’t just say it in passing but I actually meant it?

Of course I’ve never had the intention of blatantly lying, mentioning something to someone with no intention to deliver on it. But I’m noticing that it hasn’t always translated to action. 

So now I’ve placed a major focus on following through on all of it. 

It starts with increased consciousness so that I’m more aware of what I’m committing to, I have a deliberate follow up system where I immediately document any and all microcommitments I make, and then I put those things I said I was going to do on my daily schedule so that when I have the time and space to do something about it, I can.

For example: I had conversations with a handful of people the week leading up to my trip to Nicaragua. They said “let me know how that goes” or “send me pictures” and I responded, “I absolutely will!”

I could let that commitment pass and hope I remembered to follow up about it… Or I could be intentional about ensuring I did. I’m prioritizing the latter.

So I immediately notated in my task-management system “Follow up with Alex and Derek about Nicaragua”. Then when I organized all my to-dos from the day, I set a deadline to follow up the day after I returned home. Then when it came to creating my schedule for the day, I was notified of that commitment, put 30 minutes in my calendar to do follow ups, and got it done.

Again it’s a deliberate system to make sure I’m not making soft commitments that I’m not delivering on.

Why?

Because how you do one thing is how you do everything. And if I train my mind to consistently do what I say I’m going to do, even the small things, then I take myself more seriously when I say I’m going to do big things.

It’s a matter of self-trust, and it’s earned every day.

 If you want to see some of the systems I use to hold myself to a higher standard, click here to check it out.

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Last week I had plans to go for a 8.5 mile morning run. As I got started with it I could tell my body felt a little off. My breathing was heavy, my legs felt a little achy, and I could tell right away that I wasn’t going to run as fast as I normally do.

Thinking through why that’s the case, I reasoned that maybe I was beginning to get sick. I’d had a long week after some serious travel, and remember feeling a little under the weather the night before.

I faced this dilemma: Do I suck it up and run the 8.5 miles like I said I would, or do what I felt like my body needed and take it a little easier.

I made the more disciplined choice and decided to cut my workout short.

‍Wait Brian… Aren't you disciplined when you do what you said you were going to do?

Often yes, but in this case - No. And here’s why:

Self-discipline is consistently following through on doing the thing that most serves you despite the circumstances. 

This is commonly misunderstood because very often doing the ‘thing that most serves you’ requires that you suck it up and take action even when you don’t feel like it… But it’s all in service of your highest self. 

In this moment the thing that most served me was to support my wellness. Before you can practice true self-discipline you must have clarity of what is best for you, and then you follow through on that.

This is the foundation of intentionality: Thinking carefully to make the choice that most serves you, and following through on it decisively. 

Forgive me as I continue to extend this explanation, but I’m doing so because it’s a critically important point… 

You might think that working out consistently is a disciplined thing to do, and it is because it’s what most serves you. But exercising for the sake of following through on the commitment you made isn’t reason enough. Especially when exercising actually does you more harm than good.

The challenging part is, it’s hard to know with full clarity ‘what most serves you’. It’s very complex and our awareness for how a choice will actually play out in reality is limited. So it’s upon us to accept that we can only do our best, and make our best choice, knowing that we’ll never be perfect. 

Take that spirit into your moment to moment decision making and you’ll find not only that you’ll be holding yourself to a higher standard, but you’ll get feedback on what you actually want, which informs your perspective for future decisions.

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Last week I was meditating as part of my morning routine but this time was a little different. I usually meditate before my wife is up and about for the day, but this time I went on a run with a friend and did my morning routine later in the morning after I had returned.

I’m about 3 minutes into my meditation and I hear the patter of some footsteps coming down the stairs heading into the kitchen. Then about 30 seconds later I hear the loud rumble of a blender.

Accustomed to quiet while I meditate, this was pretty disruptive. But I noticed my mind instantly assigned an empowering meaning to the blender. Unconsciously I naturally thought “How peaceful to have the white noise of a blender.”

This reminded me of an incredibly powerful truth to life: Our perception is not what we experience but the story we tell ourselves about it.

One of my favorite frameworks is Jack Canfield’s E + R = O. Event + Response = Outcome. What it suggests is that given any event (good, bad or otherwise), it’s our response to it that ultimately determines how we feel about it.

That’s what happened here. The event was - The silence of my meditation was disturbed by my wife making her breakfast in a blender. 

To that, there are many different responses. 

Everything from feeling like starting a blender during meditation is a really inconsiderate thing to do… To feeling neutral about it and accepting the circumstances… To actually using it as a trigger to find deeper layers of peace.

We are in control of our response, which means we can choose the meaning of any given event. The interpretation of this event happened unconsciously, but it encouraged me to consciously reframe events for the rest of my meditation. 

When the white noise of the blender stopped, I recited to myself “wow, the silence is so peaceful”. And when I heard more footsteps from my wife in the kitchen I recited to myself “How lucky am I to share a home and life with such an amazing person.”

When people talk about seeing life through a certain lens, this is what they’re talking about. We can influence the perspective we see the world through, consciously by being aware of the story we’re telling, and unconsciously by working on our mindset.

And my best recommendation for beginning to do that is 1) Cultivate a growth mindset by reflecting on your choices every day and understanding how you could have done better, and 2) Begin a practice of gratitude journaling to start shaping a more positive outlook on the world.

If you want my help doing both of those things, check this out!

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When you think about humanity and what has accelerated our species beyond anything we’ve ever known is our ability to communicate. Communication fosters high-level collaboration, which leads to compounded efforts, specialization, and fast innovation.

However, the way we communicate is far from perfect. There’s a lot of nuance and subtlety that impacts the meaning of what’s being said. The two I want to focus on today are timing and tone.

Timing matters because a message reaches someone in different emotional contexts. Someone who’s stressed will misinterpret a playful jab. A reflective statement may be misunderstood as a cry for help by someone who’s highly emotional. 

To accommodate for this, my wife and I have a practice to make sure our communication isn’t misunderstood. Once a week we have our Sunday Sync which is a meeting to coordinate schedules, but also space to share grievances and frustrations that came up about the other person. Rather than bringing it up in the moment, catching the other person off guard and causing them to get defensive, we can talk things through in an environment where we’re reminded that we’re on the same team.

Another important nuance to communication is tone. This is on clear display in the example of saying a sentence but changing the word that has emphasis:

‍I didn’t say that.

I didn’t say that.

I didn’t say that.

I didn’t say that

It’s the same words, in the same order, but with very different meanings. The tone carries the energy behind the words, which conveys a lot of information.

In terms of how we use this information… It’s a good reminder to make sure that you’re being empathetic. In your correspondence with others try to see their perspective, step into their shoes, and understand how they might interpret things. This can be done proactively before speaking or retroactively to diagnose miscommunication. 

Also, it’s a testament to the importance of keeping your own nervous system regulated. The last thing we want to do is speak out of turn without even realizing it, and that often happens because we’re so caught up in a stress response that we become irritable, foggy, and numb - therefore tone deaf. 

Mindfulness is a wonderful intervention for this. Create space, sit in silence, shut off the world, and allow yourself to calm down. It’s one of the best things you can do to be in control of what you’re communicating in the world.

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