Alright, let’s get to the root of what personal development actually entails. And to do so I quickly want to tell you a story about my journey thus far in pursuit of becoming my best self.

For years I was caught up in the "information trap" - Listening to podcasts non-stop, reading the books, filling my down-time with videos, TedTalks, courses, anything I could get my hands on that I thought offered valuable perspective and information...

I felt motivated by it because I saw myself putting in the work, and it gave me enough of a reason to tell myself I was doing the right things to grow and pursue my potential. 

There was still a big problem with it, though - nothing was actually changing about my life.

I was still feeling disappointed that I wasn't performing at the level I knew I could... Still believing I was talented but wasn't getting the results to back it up... Still feeling held back and falling behind without being able to pinpoint why...

It was frustrating, deflating, and honestly made me question if I had what it takes to accomplish what I wanted to in life and reach my goals.

That is until I made one fundamental shift, and the day you make this shift for yourself, everything will start to click.

Our focus should not be to acquire more knowledge... It should be to find ways to apply and optimize the few, transformational things we already know!

The summary is - If you want to take your life to the next level, to be less distracted and more productive, to stop making excuses and start taking care of our mind and body, to have moments where time seems to stop because you’re so present with the people around you, you need to learn less and implement more.

And I was able to make that shift when I established a process to put the things I was learning into action. A tangible mechanism to define, measure and improve my habits. To reflect and grow my mindset. To uphold higher standards for who I know I can be.

This is hard for me to admit as an educator and content creator but it's the truth - What I have to say will only go so far. It’s the action you take from what you learn that will really generate growth.

Which is why I’m taking my responsibility one step further. Starting on Monday we’re beginning a 21 day Best Self Breakthrough Challenge. In this challenge you will do two things: 

1) You will implement a new system into your life that I call your Self Improvement Operating System. This is a real tangible tool and resource that will help you improve anything about your life - following through on good habits, living out your intentions to be the friend, family member, and co-worker you want to be, anything. And you’ll get in the routine of using this resource over the course of 2 days because it’s only valuable if you use it. 

Then 2) You will install what I call your “Best Self Reflex”. This helps you increase your self-discipline by upgrading your mindset. We do this intentionally through a subconscious priming audio program called Discipline On Demand and it will literally change the conversation in your mind so that you reflexively make the positive, empowering, healthy choice without making excuses or negotiating with yourself about it.

In any case, whether you’ve been following my content for a long time or you’re brand new to it, early on in your self-growth or very experienced, even if you’ve registered for the challenge before but didn't’ follow through on doing it - This is your invitation level up. You read because you want to improve your life and I’m telling you, you’re plateauing if you don't take actionable next steps. 

Register for the 21 Day Best Self Breakthrough Challenge and that’s exactly what you get - You’ll pick up so much momentum in your life that you’ll breakthrough into new tiers of performance and self-belief that represent what you’re truly capable of!

I hope this positivity quote provides you with hope, belief, and expectancy so that, as Jason Mraz puts it, “the best of your todays are the worst of your tomorrows.”

We have a tendency to have a bleak outlook on life - To rule things out before they even start, or count all of the reasons why something won’t work out instead of focus on the reasons why it might. One of those lines of thought might tell you that you’re too late, you missed your opportunity, and it’s all your fault. 

That’s where I’d like to inject this George Eliot quote - "It's never too late to be the person you could have been."

The inspiring, motivating, and real truth to is that no matter what you do you’ll never be the person you know you could have been. That person is an elusive holograph that you’ll never become and frankly, you were never meant to become. 

Relating this to what Matthew McConaughey said in his Oscar Acceptance Speech, his hero is always himself in 10 years, a moving target that he’ll never reach. But if you were to pursue that ideal imagine who you become along the way! 

Now back to the quote - Do you know why it's never too late to be the person you could have been? Because it doesn’t matter if you started chasing that version of yourself 10 years ago or 10 minutes ago, it plays the same role in your life. 

You haven’t missed your opportunity to let that influence pull you into becoming a better version of yourself. The difference though is now you have different experiences, beliefs, and worldviews that affect how willing you are to answer the call.

And here it comes a-ringing. The best version of yourself is on the other side of becoming more consistent, accountable, organized, and intentional about your growth. If you want to taste what that’s like, and get a glimpse of what you’re capable of achieving and who you’re capable of becoming, then register for the Best Self Breakthrough Challenge. The next group starts on Monday and while there’s an unbelievable amount of growth opportunity in stepping up to this challenge, it’s not that challenging. All it takes is for you to stay consistent with two keystone habits, that I will walk you through slowly, which take 5 minutes a day to do, for 21 days. 

If you want to show up with more enthusiasm and quality for the work, people, and moments that matter most to you, register for the challenge now so you can generate unstoppable momentum in your life that carries you to being your very best, in 21 days!

When it comes to being the person you want to be, investing your time doing the things that are most fulfilling, most inspiring, and most effective, there’s a lot to think about. My coach and mentor Jim Bunch taught me a framework that helped me make sense of things and I thought I’d pass the lesson along to you!

There’s a clear distinction between goals, strategies, and tactics. Sometimes they’re used interchangeably and that’s because they’re so interconnected. Let’s take some time to understand exactly how they connect so that you can put your energy and focus into the right things.

First are goals. I prefer to use the word desired outcomes. These are the results we want to achieve. They can be concrete and definitive or broad. In either case they are designed to give you a target to aim for that’s inspiring and gets you into the next layers of action.

Then there are strategies. These are the paths you can take to make progress toward a goal. There are an infinite amount of ways you can approach obtaining a certain result, and what’s most important about strategies is that you have one. This then provides a filter through which you determine the actions you’ll be taking, which leads us to…

Tactics. This is the real mechanism of making progress. You need to take action in key ways to achieve key results. This means that the tactics need to align with specific strategies that serve as paths to our desired outcomes and goals. 

So in order to make sure that you’re creating the right results, you need to work from the top down to then arrive at the right tactics. You are always generating results in your life, and without the extra consideration you might be receiving results that aren’t what you want.

You have accountability at each of the 3 levels of goals, strategy, and tactics. You can make adjustments to each of the 3 levels as well, but know that any adjustment you make at one level impacts everything that happens under it.

So if your goal is to become the best version of yourself, you need to define the strategy. Maybe you’ve been pursuing that by listening to podcasts and reading books... Has that been impacting your life how you wanted to? Do you feel like anything tangible is improving? Do you feel like every day you’re sprinting toward being the most energized, fulfilled, productive, inspiring version of yourself?

If not, then maybe it’s time to try a new strategy. And I have one that works better than anything else I’ve ever seen. It’s to install a Self Improvement Operating System. This is the process that helps you become more disciplined to your best-self habits and accountable to living in alignment with your best self.

And if you want to take action on it and implement this strategy for yourself, all you have to do is register for the 21 Day Super Habits Challenge. If you commit to this new strategy you will reach levels of daily productivity and fulfillment that you didn’t know were possible!

Of course I’m here to support you regardless, but beyond the content if you really want me to help you, this challenge is the best way I know how! So take your dreams to be a better version of yourself seriously and register for the challenge, we go live on Monday.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it takes for people to show up at their very best, every moment of every day. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again - A good life is made up of good years, good months, good weeks, good days, good hours, good minutes, and good moments. The only thing we truly have control over is the present moment, so we must place our focus in the present to have a more meaningful life.

Living in the moment is mindfulness. It’s being fully aware of the environments around you and self-aware of how they’re affecting you, and how that makes you feel. The more you can direct your attention toward the present moment, and not reliving the past or forecasting the future, the more mindful you’re being.

Now as it relates to what we do in those moments, we’re best suited to draw inspiration from the vision of the life we want to live - The values we embody, the standards we uphold, the boundaries we enforce, and the activities that deliver the most benefit to our lives. This is accountability.

Now here’s the important connection, the marriage of the two - When you live a fully accountable life (taking ownership of everything that you do and happens to you) and you’re doing so with full awareness and mindfulness in the moment, now you’re living with intentionality.

To live intentionally is to have a purpose behind everything you do. It’s to realize you always have a choice and you’re accountable to making the right choice, having fully evaluated the implications of each decision. It requires mindfulness to honestly quantify those tradeoffs so that you can make the decisions that cause you to live with more alignment.

The North Star in my personal development is to live with as much intentionality as possible. Having the idea is one thing and following through on it is another, which is why I’ve created an intentional living process that I call my Self Improvement Operating System. It is incredibly powerful in how it holds me accountable to making the right decisions consistently throughout the day, helping me to experience life with more peace, excitement, discipline, and consistency.

Of course I am a work in progress, and so is this system, but if you want to incorporate the exact process I use to improve every aspect of my life, which has been fine-tuned for almost a decade now, that’s exactly what we’ll do together in the 21 day Best Self Breakthrough Challenge.

At the end of the day, this challenge will help you to show up as the best version of yourself in every moment of every day. Want to maximize your potential and the mark you’re capable of leaving on this world? These next 21 days could be the kickstart you needed to live your best life.

I just started reading my buddy Case Kenny’s new book titled “That’s Bold Of You”, which inspired today’s reflection.

Do you feel like there’s any part of you that people don’t get to see enough? Interests that you’re embarrassed to practice, wisdom that you’re keeping yourself from sharing, or ambitions that you aren’t pursuing? If even the smallest part of you feels like that might be true, I want to tell you you’re not alone.

Many people struggle with an unconscious bias called social conformity. This is hardwired into us through evolution as a way to keep us safe. As cave-dwelling homo sapiens, if we fit in with the other people in our tribe then that meant we’d be taken care of, ensuring our best chance for survival. 

A bit more relatable - The evolutionary root of this bias is also responsible for our fundamental need to belong. The modern version of this is we want to be liked, appreciated, and a part of something. We don’t want to be viewed as weird, draw negative attention to ourselves, or put ourselves in situations where we could fail. It’s all centered around how we’re perceived by others and it connects to a very human need - to belong.

But what’s the cost of this? It means that you’re only allowing yourself to live at a fraction of your fullest potential. You slow down your pace to match other people. You delay your dreams because they seem too ‘out there’ or unachievable right now. You tolerate living at a level lower than what you know you’re capable of because other people are resistant to your transformation and project their own securities onto you, knocking you down.

To water yourself down is like putting water in a juice. The taste is sharp, sweet, and tangy… So much so that you need to dilute the flavor so that it’s more manageable to drink. But unfortunately this is exactly what happens to us as we relate with our dreams, our truths, and our missions. And that’s unacceptable.

If you were to give advice to a friend that you knew wasn’t showing up as the person they could be, what would you tell them? You’d tell them to go for it, to get on the road and never look back. Now the tough question is, are you willing to give yourself the same permission?

If you’re ready to step into the best, most energized, most productive, most ambitious and achieving version of yourself, I’d like to invite you to something. On Monday March 6th I am starting a live, 21 day challenge called the Best Self Breakthrough Challenge. In the challenge you will install the 2 habits that most rapidly and radically accelerate your growth. And the best part is, it only takes 5 minutes a day to add these habits to your life.

If you’re feeling inspired to step up to the challenge, click here to learn more about the Best Self Breakthrough Challenge!

Arnold Palmer, one of the world’s most successful golfers, was quoted saying “It’s a strange thing, the more I practice the luckier I get.” I don’t think he’s alone in that sentiment, luck is more predictable than it might seem, and you can leverage it for yourself when you start thinking about it the right way.

You’ve probably heard the expression that “luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” I really like this definition, and when you dissect it you’ll see there’s actually a formula to getting lucky. 

It’s within your power to prepare. It’s the extra reps you put in to feel more confident with a presentation. It’s the craft you’re perfecting and continuously improving. More preparation is simply more practice, which involves you allocating more time to focus on developing in a specific area.

Then there’s opportunity. We often think of opportunity as something that spontaneously landed in your lap, but that’s a disservice to the real mechanism. You can create more opportunities with strategy. All it involves is you planting more seeds and putting yourself in more positions for things to materialize into something beneficial to you.

The more people you tell about something you want, the more likely it is that an opportunity will pop up that’s in perfect alignment. Why is that? You’re giving the universe more pathways to deliver, allowing it to come to you through more channels.

Whether it be through the lens of preparation or opportunity, you can create your own luck. So instead of resigning yourself to accept whatever comes your way, you can be empowered to create the results you want.

The manner in which they come may seem like a “lucky break” or “being in the right place at the right time”, but isn’t that somewhat earned? Isn’t that a skill to be in the right place for you to capitalize on an opportunity to get what you want?

My encouragement to you is to stop hoping and wishing that something will be and instead play an active role in its becoming. It will arrive to you sooner than you expected, so much so that it might even catch you off guard and feel like luck when it happens.

On your personal development journey, you need to be sure you have the right foundation in place. Discover the 7 Fundamentals To Self Improvement and instantly accelerate your growth! (Who knows what you might be overlooking and how it’s holding you back…)

As we pursue becoming the best version of ourselves, it’s very important that we think about the habits that we are building. Simply put - Habits are just a routine way of doing things. It’s the brain's shortcut to executing a certain task without your awareness so that you can reserve your energy for more meaningful things.

Habits are more operating more broadly and diversely than you might realize. Sure, habits are about getting consistent doing certain things like meditating, exercising, or making your bed, but some habits are more subtle and less observable, like your patterned way of thinking (aka your mindset). You can be in the habit of seeing the best in a situation, or the habit of receiving failure as a lesson and an opportunity for growth.

So with all of that in mind, and to share today’s positivity quote - “Make it a habit to brighten someone’s day.” 

All that means is you consistently and naturally make an effort to play a supportive role in other people’s lives. I do this very intentionally. As part of my morning routine I send a voice note of gratitude and encouragement to someone in my life. It makes me feel really good to receive these messages, so I figure if I can take 30 seconds to make someone else feel good, it’s always worth it.

What’s really impactful about this simple, intentional habit is the way that is has shifted my psychology. Over time, making the choice every day to brighten someone's day has shifted my identity. While the morning routine is very conscious and deliberate, this energy of genuine encouragement and appreciation carries into my other interactions. 

This has instilled within me a habit of appreciating and acknowledging the good in people. This has become so natural to me and now it's a normal part of my personality, which is in alignment with who I’ve determined is the best version of myself and how I want to show up for others.

As a side note - The exact same thing happened with gratitude. The deliberate action of daily gratitude journaling shifted my mindset so significantly that I naturally default to seeing the good in the world.

I share my own experience about this with the hopes that a tangible example will help you commit to doing the core behaviors that will transform your mindset and life. And it all starts with one action, one step, right now. So send this article to someone you care about, tell them you’re thinking about them and that you want the best for them.

On your personal development journey, you need to be sure you have the right foundation in place. Discover the 7 Fundamentals To Self Improvement and instantly accelerate your growth! (Who knows what you might be overlooking and how it’s holding you back…)

I was introduced to this topic through the work of a man named Justin Welsh, a thought leader I’ve been following a little closer lately. In today’s overstimulated world, we easily fall into the trap of “Shiny Object Syndrome” where we jump to new ideas or projects really quickly because it looks appealing. It has this fresh, new shine on it that is attractive and fun. So we commit to it without much intention and find ourselves overwhelmed with having too much on our plate, none of which are really advancing to a level that is concrete or valuable.

Welsh says that we have a similar tendency to chase “Shiny Outcome Syndrome”. Instead of having clarity on the few results we want to get, that we know are the most meaningful to achieve, we add on new milestones and objectives simply because we can and we’re kind of already doing it.

The trouble here is that it distracts you from your point of optimization. If you’re trying to fine-tune a process so that it gets better results, you need to have a clear metric for that result that you’re optimizing around. If new key results pop up and become the short-term focus, you’ll constantly be undoing and redoing your work. Obviously this is extremely inefficient but it’s a natural inclination we all have.

This concept parallels what Greg McKeown calls the Clarity Paradox. He says that once someone gets clarity on something, they start to get positive outcomes because they can be more effective about concentrating their efforts. Then once you have a little success, a whole new wave of opportunities comes to you and causes you to get distracted. And if you succumb to these new opportunities and distractions, you lose the clarity that made you successful in the first place and regress back to underperforming.

That’s why in the intentional living coaching I do, I have people determine their optimization quotient - the single metric that is most representative of how they want to feel and experience life. You can try new things and observe how that data point changes, but ultimately all the effort is centered around one key objective.

The antidote to Shiny Object Syndrome and Shiny Outcome Syndrome is clarity. It’s the disciplined pursuit of less but better, and the more you can resist the urge to diversify, the faster and further you’ll go.