Today I’m starting a new personal development program called Heroic Elite. It’s designed to help you become capable of achieving an incredibly inspiring goal in 101 days. I’m just starting it, but the program is grounded in daily disciplines that raise your standard and create the energetic and focused environment you need to be successful. 

On a daily basis, we’re tasked to fill out our daily performance in a journal they created called 'Carpe Diem'. As you probably know,  'Carpe Diem' means “Seize the day” in Latin. And while that’s the observable timeline we’re choosing to track in this program, the work goes one step further:

Carpe Punctum: Seize the moment.

A day with good outcomes is only made possible by a long sequence of positive moments. This means it’s upon us to show up moment to moment as the most focused, present, and aligned version of ourselves. Heroic calls this living with “arete”, which they translate to “expressing your best-self virtues moment to moment to moment.”

In modern language, I call this living with intentionality, which is the combination of having the awareness to know what the right choice is at any given moment, and the discipline to faithfully follow through on it despite the circumstances. 

Our days are fought and won in these moment by moment battles. Good vs Evil. Daimon vs Demon. As Mark Divine puts it - the Courage Wolf vs the Fear Wolf. The more consistently we make the right choices, the more moments we win and the more of the day we have seized.

So to live a ‘Carpe Punctum' life - with ‘arete’ and intentionality - you need to cultivate more awareness and discipline. Awareness to know what most serves you, what your options are, what’s most likely to come from the choices you make… And Discipline to overcome the feelings of laziness, doubt, resistance, and obstacles that get in the way of you and doing what most serves you.

And at the very least, if you lose that battle in any given moment, recommit to fighting in the next and understanding what it was about that moment that defeated you. Because then the next time your poised to fight it, it won’t have as much power over you.

The Heroic Elite 101 day program will be a great tool to accomplish exactly that. If you’re looking for something advanced that’ll hold you to a higher standard than you’ve ever achieved, then check it out!

Or if you’re looking for something more intermediate, that helps you establish the foundation you need to make the most of every moment and, every day, I run a 21 Day Super Habits Challenge that’s just for you!

Recently I heard a definition of guilt that I love. I’m pretty sure it comes from Alex Hormozi and it goes  “guilt is an emotion you feel when you act outside of your values.”

Think about the last time you felt guilty. Maybe you sold something on someone and it felt icky to you, you said you were going to an event and flaked, you disrespected a relationship, had a nasty thought, or took more than was your share.

No matter the scenario, the commonality is that you took an action that fell outside of your moral compass.

It’s helpful to be aware of times when you feel guilty. By examining the times when you feel guilty you get clearer on what your values are. Especially because personal values can be difficult to pinpoint, taking the time to reflect on your values when they’ve been violated can polish your clarity for what they are.  

In this way, guilt can be used as a feedback mechanism to remind you of what feels out of integrity with your best self.

But instead of just talking about it, let me show you how to operationalize it. The obvious example is if someone is unfaithful with their partner. They feel guilty because their actions violated their core values of loyalty and honesty. But, there are people who don’t value those things and therefore don’t feel guilty about unfaithful actions.

Or a personal example: It was my nephew’s birthday and I chose not to come into town to celebrate it. When I FaceTimed to say Happy Birthday, afterwards I felt guilty that I wasn't there in person. It brought to light one of my values, family, and my actions (or inaction) violated that.

But even though I felt 'guilty', I still feel like I made the right choice. Staying at home allowed me to focus on leading a fundraiser and live out other values of “impact” and “doing what I said I was going to do”. 

It’s a complex topic. Guilt doesn’t necessarily mean you did something wrong, it just means that you did something outside of your values. It’s helpful to know what that action was, and what that value is, so you can construct a life that is even more aligned with who you want to be in the world.

One of the great drives of improvement and innovation is feedback. In experiments we need to review what happened in order to make progress on our next attempt. In business we need feedback to understand what’s resonating with our clients, employees, and in the market to get a better sense for how to position ourselves.

Unsurprisingly, the same is true in our self-growth. We need to get feedback to help us figure out what’s working and what’s not in pursuit of our goals so that we can make positive adjustments and change course in beneficial ways. Yet, the majority of people in self-improvement don’t have good feedback systems in place. I believe this happens for two reasons: 

The first is that it hurts to look at the areas where we’re falling short. It’s easier to avoid what’s right in front of us. We pretend not to know because it’s more comfortable to act like our shortcomings don't exist than to face up to reality. Many of us have a tendency to be overly self-critical, and this is a defense mechanism against that.

The second is we just don’t know how. In the areas that we are open-minded to looking at, and dedicated to improving, what does getting feedback look like? And how do we take those insights and integrate them into meaningful improvement? We want to be better, more efficient, and more effective… And the process of optimizing our lives is a cycle of receiving feedback and changing approach on repeat. Finding a way to implement that is the challenge.

There’s a Socrates quote that goes “A life unexamined is not worth living.” While that takes an extreme position, the essence of it is that an ultimate purpose in life is continuous improvement. The world is evolving and we must evolve with it. Our seasons of life will change and we need to reimagine who we need to be to maximize ourselves within it.

It’s through a discipline of self-examination that we can better see the relationship between cause and effect, adjust our inputs, and create new outputs. In fact it’s invigorating and life-giving! But many people are missing the very basics of it.

As Tom Bilyeu puts it, you must be willing to stare “nakedly at your inadequacies” if you want to see what it really takes to maximize your potential in the world. In doing so you get the critical feedback you need to advance your life, your mission, and yourself.

If you want to make the most out of life and you’re feeling inspired to not just talk about it, but actually implement it... Click here to see how I do it!

Merriam Webster’s word of 2024 is “polarization”. It chooses the word of the year based on what people were actively searching to learn more about and using in conversation. Unfortunately, it’s representative of what we went through in the United States this year with a heated and divisive election.

Ironically, the one thing that people can agree on is how polarized the world is. There’s an undercurrent of people wanting to build bridges and better understand each other, but it lacks application. Media is pulling us further into our viewpoints and belief systems. Stances are being taken to their extremes rather than settling somewhere in the middle. And people are starting to distrust and lose faith in those who are different from them.

The opposite of polarization is “unity”. Imagine if that was the word of the year… That 2024 had a narrative of collaboration, putting our differences aside, and joining forces for a greater good. It’s undeniable what a better world this would be!

We can play our part in making unity a major part of 2025, and this is how:

First we need to listen to each other. Rather than trying to get our point in, we need to understand each other's perspective. The only way you do that is by allowing someone to share it, and genuinely listening to understand and not to respond. If you want to change someone's perspective you must be willing to change your own.

Second is accepting them for who they are. It’s okay for two people to disagree. Diversity is healthy and it breeds innovation. It’s because we see the world differently that we can begin to solve the world’s problems. In fact we need these differences to be as effective as possible.

And last is the idea of oneness. At the end of the day we all want the same things - to live a joyful, impactful, meaningful life shared with others. The way we get to that varies, but the foundation is the same. So knowing that we’re all on the same team anyway, and being abundant enough to know that my success doesn’t take from your success, we can collaborate in ways that bring more goodness to all.

Call me naive, but that’s the world I want to see. So that’s the world I’m going to play a part in creating. And I hope you’ll join me.

I was visiting my wife’s family in the mountains and the water is really cold this time of year! I have a personal policy to start every shower I take with cold water as my version of a cold exposure practice. I was standing there in a towel bugging my wife, procrastinating, and complaining about how I have to take a cold shower.

And then I realized… I don’t need to do it. No one is making me step into the cold water, it’s entirely my choice. If I didn’t want to do it, then I wouldn’t do it. And I realized it was so silly to complain about something that I’m choosing to do.

You can even extend this argument about if it’s worth complaining about anything. Let’s say you have a rude co-worker, a crack in your windshield, or you’re stuck in traffic and running late for a concert. They’re not ideal situations for sure, but nonetheless you’re choosing them over the alternatives.

A rude co-worker? No one is making you work with him. You can choose to stay and deal with it, or get a new job.

A crack in the windshield? You’re choosing to keep it there, and not invest the time and money to get it fixed. Your windshield doesn’t need to be cracked.

Stuck in traffic? You don’t have to go to the concert. You burn your ticket, leave your friend hanging, turn the car around and head home.

You’re choosing to endure the inconvenient thing because you want it more than the consequences of choosing the alternative. And when you see it from that perspective, you realize you have way less reason to complain. In fact it gives you reasons to be grateful.

The more Stoic-influenced perspective is acquiescence. To accept how things are. If you can’t do anything about what’s happening, then why let it occupy your mind? Your energy is better invested other places. And if there is something you can do about it, then be empowered to make changes.

The next time you catch yourself complaining, run through what the other options are. Allow yourself to go to the extremes. Recognize what’s in your control. And you’ll realize that there’s a lot more good in the current situation than you gave it credit for, or that there’s little value to complaining about it at all.

It’s really interesting, people have good intentions but have a really hard time following through on them.

Intentions to prioritize their health by getting consistent and routine with their exercise and eating choices, but struggle with it on a day to day basis. To be bolder and more focused as passionate contributors to their bigger mission, but then on most days show up with a fraction of the enthusiasm. To get stronger in the face of adversity and challenge, but give up sooner than they’d like to admit.

What’s getting in the way? What’s missing? There are two reasons why people are chronically falling short of their fullest potential: Fear and laziness.

We fear what other people might think if we try our best and we don’t succeed. We’re hesitant to take risks or bet on ourselves for fear that it doesn’t pan out. Instead of testing the edges of what’s possible, people are stuck contained in their comfort zone, keeping them from taking action on the things that make them feel most alive.

And people are lazy. We eat the more convenient food option, skip the most energy-demanding task, wait for others to figure it out for us, and talk ourselves out of following through on our commitments by convincing ourselves that we deserve a break.

Interestingly, fear and laziness come from the same root - our brain’s evolutionary hardwiring to keep us safe. Safety is the brain’s primary purpose. Fear is a mechanism for keeping us out of harm’s way, and laziness is a mechanism for preserving energy so that we’re prepared to flee from a threat should we need to.

In other words, pursuing our potential exists in opposition to what our brain is designed to do.

Fear and laziness are an unconscious, underlying script. They are always at play shaping our choices and actions in the subtlest ways. And it’s those who are best at limiting their influence that are most positioned to be successful. Those who are better at overcoming fear and laziness do what’s required to achieve their goals.

So my recommendation to you is to use fear and laziness as a trigger to ask yourself a very important question - “What do I want?” Listen to the answer your best self gives in response, and have the courage and discipline to take action on it.

The 21 Day New Year Challenge starts today and it’s not too late to join. If you’ve been struggling with consistency but you want to become more disciplined and intentional, and play a bigger game in 2025, this is a perfect fit. Don’t let your fear hold you back, fortune favors the bold, and you know what you need (even if it's just doing something different). Sign up at www.newyearforgood.com and we’ll get started!

From James Clear to Tom Bilyeu,  Mel Robbins to Darren Hardy, Marie Forleo to Alex Hormozi… Personal development experts across the world all agree that there’s one thing that will most transform your life. For anyone who is setting a goal, trying to get rid of a bad habit, or trying to make positive changes to their life, 9 times out of 10 this is going to be their first recommendation.

And the craziest thing about it is, I bet it’s something that you’re not doing right now: Behavior tracking.

There’s a psychological principle called the Hawthorne Effect that states your performance improves in an area simply by being observed. Literally documenting and reflecting on what you eat makes your diet healthier. Reporting your social media usage will cause you to spend less time on your phone. You’ll even smoke less cigarettes if at the end of the day you had to fess up to how many you had.

The reason tracking drives improvement so fast is because it creates awareness. Rather than going about your life in the old pattern you’ve always had, awareness gives you the opportunity to challenge those patterns and choose different ones. 

But just because it works doesn’t mean it’s easy. Maybe you’ve downloaded a habit app before, used it a few times, and then lost touch with it. Or you committed to start tracking your meals and it became too much work so you stopped. 

Tracking isn’t fun, but it works. Which begs the question - are you willing to do the things that will generate the results you want in life?

Fortunately, there are ways to make your tracking easier, better, and more consistent. Accountability makes it more difficult to ignore and skip. Gamification rewards you for completing it. Having clarity of what you’re looking to improve ensures that you only track what’s critical and don’t get overwhelmed trying to track it all.

Simply put, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. That’s what tracking offers you - a clear measurement of how things are going that you can compare to how you want them to be. 

The value of tracking is undisputed. And whether you know it or not, the most successful people in the world have their own tracking systems. So rather than trying to figure out how to effectively start tracking on your own, you can bypass a decade of trial and error and use my system.

In the 21 Day New Year Challenge I’m hosting that starts on Monday, you will implement the exact same performance tracking system I use on a daily basis. The Challenge gives you step-by-step instructions to create a new routine so that you can do it consistently, and gives you daily accountability from me so that you actually take it seriously.

Learn more about the Challenge, and incorporate tracking into your daily routine, at www.newyearforgood.com.

We know that the most successful, achieving, high-performing and impactful version of ourselves is the most disciplined version of ourselves. A person who is consistent, resilient, self-motivated, and does the things they are committed to. But that level of follow through isn’t easy. It’s energetically demanding and comes at a cost. 

Because it’s so demanding, it often leads to burnout. Willing yourself up early in the morning to get to the gym wears you down. Sticking to a strict diet requires effort and can be inconvenient. Hitting your minimum sales call number, or following through on your schedule of difficult tasks, takes a toll on you when you do it day in and day out. In many cases, discipline isn’t sustainable.

So where does that leave you when you want to hold yourself to a high standard, but doing so is unsustainable and stretches you beyond your capacity?

You need to fuel your discipline from a different source. Rather than using will-power, hustle, grit, and “mind over matter” to get yourself into action, you can use your environment to support you in sustaining high-quality consistency without it wearing you down. 

Things like accountability. Instead of forcing yourself into the gym, you have a gym buddy who’s counting on you to meet them there. Things like building systems. Where instead of toiling over who to call, you have a prepared list of your hottest prospects to run through. Things like having clarity. Instead of waffling about whether to have that slice of pie or not, you have a standard of not eating sweets after 9pm that you can more easily enforce.

Discipline becomes easier when you don’t have to do it and the environment does it for you. Yet many people don’t know how to create that kind of accountability and consistency on their own. And because of it, being the best, most-disciplined version of themselves is way harder than it needs to be.

If you want to start 2025 by taking the easier path to being at your best, that’s something I can help you with. Starting Monday, I’m leading a 21 Day New Year Challenge that walks you step by step through implementing a new life structure that makes self-discipline virtually automatic. I’ll be coaching you through it, so it’s not free, but every dollar of the program cost is being donated to charity so that you can start your 2025 with life change that lasts and makes a difference.

It’s called New Year, New You, For Good!