In one of my favorite videos of all-time, Admiral William McRaven’s iconic commencement speech at the University of Texas, McRaven shares the 10 life lessons he learned from basic Navy Seal training. Lesson 8 is, “if you want to change the world, you must be your very best in your darkest moments".

I see this as very related to our quote today because it also acknowledges the importance of performing at your best when the situation is not the best. To me, it’s a separation between the task at hand and the mentality you approach the task with. If you tell yourself something is hard, it is going to be even harder, and you give yourself an easy way out before it has even begun. But, the alternative is preparing your brain and body for action in those difficult times with a belief that your best will come out. This will help you live up to the challenge and even overcome it. Basically, if you can prime your brain to perform at it’s best in these trying moments, you will succeed more often.

The best way to prime your brain is through positivity, by seeing the opportunity in the situation, and being grateful for the challenge because we know that through challenges we experience growth. Approaching tasks with positivity will rewrite your reality and allows you to be more effective in whatever environment you find yourself in. So, in order to be at your strongest when you feel at your weakest, use a positive perspective to help you perform at your best.

This message comes from our next SISD guest Bex Bedford. Bex is leading the movement when it comes to body positivity and self-acceptance. She is a plus sized SSBBW, (super sized big beautiful woman), and as we’ll hear in her interview she has long history of hating herself and her body. She has grown immeasurably and is dedicating to sharing.

So for Bex, self-acceptance is about understanding yourself and the areas you may not love about yourself, take responsibility for those things and their presence in your life. View yourself as a whole and not fixate on those parts. She has a powerful message that affects people beyond the overweight community.

Full-disclosure, this might be biased because it fits into my personality type. I’m not going to motivate you with a speech or draw attention to areas that need to be better. In fact, when I was the captain on my college soccer team there was a running joke about me speaking in any kind of motivational way. I was self-conscious about it at the time, and took it personally, but with maturity I gained self-awareness and realized that wasn’t me. And that’s okay. Instead I lead by example, and guess what?There’s no one else my teammates would rather go to battle with. My actions motivated them to put more into the competition. I lead by example.

A prerequisite of leading by example is getting in the trenches and doing the dirty work. Your example demonstrates the importance of that type of work, and your team noticing that you do it with care and precision inspires them to do the same. It builds a layer of respect around the task and your capability as a practitioner.

Something I always love thinking about is the distinction between a boss and a leader. A boss is someone who directs people, and uses them to accomplish an objective. A leader shows people how to do it, and contributes in accomplishing the objective.  

So, the next time you find yourself in a leadership position lead by example, and lead from the front.

Recently, I asked myself a question I should have asked myself a long time ago. What is the difference between personal development and self improvement? Aren’t they interchangeable? I don’t think it’s that simple, and I wanted to take a moment to explore that.

First, the way I like to think of personal development is to focus narrowly on what development means.  In all areas of life, development usually speaks to something being in progress. And personal development is no different, it speaks more to the daily process we undergo that contributes to growth

Self improvement, on the other hand, is more outcome based. For something to improve, that means it needed to be in a certain state, and then become better into a new state. So, in that way, self improvement is more the deliverable of the process and the evidence of growth.

To tie those two things together, personal development is the process that leads to achieving self improvement. That’s not to say it takes a long time to experience self improvement, things can change for the better in a matter of minutes. The difference isn’t related to time, it’s about the lens by which you are evaluating the progress.  Personal development is the how, and self improvement is the what.

With this in mind, do I regret calling the podcast SID? No actually, because by investing the time in your personal development to listen to the podcast, you can experience self improvement every day. So, I think it’s quite fitting actually!

I have some big news to share, and I am super proud of it, because it’s the culmination of a lot of hard work. The podcast Self Improvement Daily has reached 1M downloads! It blows my mind, that is such a huge number, and it’s still hard for me to grasp.

The best part is, I didn’t even know what that meant! After having conversations with other podcasters about it, I learned how big of a milestone it is. It’s funny too because I wasn’t even watching for it. I did not check my overall play statistics in months but something compelled me to check, and wouldn’t you know it I was at 990,000.

I say this all because there is a huge lesson in it. When you achieve something, celebrate it! It doesn’t matter that it’s an impressive statistic in the scope of all podcasters. It means something to me and that’s something worth celebrating.  

Too often do we resort to comparison and relativity when it comes to assessing our accomplishments. If you think something is worth celebrating, then go for it, and enjoy your win and appreciate the work that it took to get there.

But honestly, I owe it to you. To each and every one of you who has shared an episode with a friend, came back to listen to me frequently, and allowed me to be a part of your life and routine. You have already given me way more than I can ask for, but I learned recently that the truest demonstration of humility is being able to ask for help, so here it goes.

I am going to break this quote up into pieces.  First, “Stop doubting yourself”.  The most influential limitations we experience are the limitations we impose on ourselves.  We believe that we are not capable or not worthy of whatever we want to achieve. If I had to guess I think it comes from the way our brain is hardwired to identify and fixate on negativity.  We see all of the errors and flaws in ourselves, and focus on the 10% bad rather than the 90% good.  We have to get over it and stop doubting ourselves.

Then the second part of the quote reads, “work hard and make it happen”.  The beautiful thing about life is how flexible it is. Even though things may appear one way doesn’t mean it will always be that way.  To work hard is to take action on something in a very focused way, and it is possible to bring about change if you truly dedicate to it.  

The thought that our condition is temporary, and that we are capable of creating change in our lives through hard work, is a beautiful thing. It empowers us to take our time and effort seriously because positive results are possible.  With this new-found optimism, it’s hard not to be grateful for the opportunity.  Choose the perspective of positivity, take control of the important elements of your life. Lastly, be sure to not doubt yourself while you’re doing it.

We know the value of working hard and being diligent to seize opportunity, but what do we do for the unpredictables?  A quote that I always try to keep in mind is, “you don’t know what you don’t know”.

In the face of that unpredictability, we can be proactive about introducing variation so that we can roll with the punches when the moment comes. This concept was presented to me by Kira Day, Founder of the Passion Centre.

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So, in order to microdose change you need to intentionally experiment. Let’s say your job requires you to be in at 6 am every morning instead of 9. You can proactively add variation to your wake up schedule to be more prepared to make that transition.  

This technique is best put into practice when your life is a bit in flux. Give yourself a brief exposure to something new might be the difference in you securing an amazing opportunity!

In the book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear, Clear talks about our genetic predispositions that we inherit. Someone who is 6’4 with a long torso is much more likely to be an olympic swimmer, not a runner. Why don’t we have the same realizations about ourselves?

The example Clear gave in the book describes this best. You warm water to a boil. You put a potato in and it turns soft. You put an egg in and it becomes hard. You cannot decide whether you are a potato or an egg, but you can decide what field you play in, and if that field is better suited for being hard or being soft.  

We all exist in different fields of competition and are subject to this same thought. There are certain things we are naturally better at, and often we are pushed in that way based on interest, validation, and intermediate successes. We must not be resistant to that push because that is where our natural aptitude lies, which often is the place of our unique purpose and ultimate contribution.

Having an understanding for where your skill-set lies requires self-awareness. Acknowledging that there is an element of genetic predisposition, paired with the environment that you exhibited those tendencies in, creates this beautiful formula that creates you and all of your uniqueness. That needs to be embraced if you want to be truly effective in your life with respect to impact, efficiency, and fulfillment.

When it comes down to it, everything that we are working on comes down to outcomes. It could be an outcome like getting a raise, which is very externally facing, or it could be to gain more self awareness, which is entirely intrinsic. And even for those like myself who believe that you need to find joy in the journey not the destination, I would still argue that joy itself would be the outcome you are seeking in the journey.

Okay, now the question becomes. How do we go about getting the outcomes we seek? Well, an outcome is often broad and abstract, and it needs to be broken down into actionable steps if we want to begin making progress on it. So, the logical answer would be to take action. But, taking action comes in many forms. We often take action in ways that are detrimental to the outcomes we want to achieve without even knowing it! We need to think about if the action is contributing to the larger mission, or is it doing more harm than good? To be on the positive side of that, focused action is key to earning a result or outcome, and I would call that form of action “intentional action”.

Okay, let’s take one more step. How can you make sure you’re taking intentional action? Well, your actions are dictated by your choices, whether you’re conscious of those choices or not. So, being clear and intentional on your choices is fundamental to taking the right form of action.  

Now, let’s see it come full circle. Outcomes are a result of your actions. Actions are a product of your choices. So, if you want to achieve a certain outcome, you need to make the right choices and set yourself up for success!