Self Improvement Daily Podcast

I was listening to Chris Harder’s podcast and heard him say something that made a lot of sense to me: Math is the path.

If you want to improve anything about your life, you need to be able to measure its change over time. We all seek this vague idea of ‘improvement’, and we don’t have the insight to know if we’re achieving it without having numbers to calculate. 

For something to improve means that it produced a more desirable result. Your mile time improves when it takes you less time… Your income improves when you get a bigger check at the end of the month… Your diet improves when you reduce the grams of sugar or number of carbs you’re eating on a daily basis.

Each of these examples have the same thing in common - numbers. Math.

You can measure how things were, compare that to the measurement for how things are now, and if the current measurement is closer to what you want than the past measurement, then you can conclude that things improved.

I once heard Tom Bilyeu say “If it can be math, it should be math” and it’s for the same reason. Having objective data helps you directly compare two results. Otherwise, it’s a subjective comparison that isn’t standardized and therefore, vulnerable to bias and misunderstanding.

That’s not to say that improvement, progress, and growth are strictly a science. There’s a lot of art in it too. The factors that go into producing the numbers are complex. It’s often difficult to attribute one thing to causing change because it’s nearly impossible to isolate all variables but one. 

This is where interpretation comes in. You take what you know and what you’ve come to understand, and you apply that to create the reasons you think a result changed. 

You objectively ran a faster mile… Why? Was it a stricter diet, a better training plan, more energy on the day of?

Or your business objectively did more in revenue this month than last month. Why? Is it because of a better offer, a strong marketing campaign, or the fruits of something you did a while ago that’s finally paying off?

Every result we have in life must comply with the law of cause and effect. Certain things went in to produce a certain output. Improvement involves clearly understanding what that output is by having a standardized measurement. Interpretation comes in to figure out what is most responsible for creating that result.

This is exactly why the first step of the 21 Day Super Habits Challenge is to implement a foundational layer performance tracking in your life. You can’t improve what you don’t measure, and this gets you in the habit of consistently measuring how things are going so you can actually know if you’re improving, or not.

There are so many things in life that we’ve come to accept as normal and take for granted. Circumstances related to our well-being and safety, our health and wellness, our access to resources, our mental faculties… All blessings that we've come to know to be a part of our everyday life.

And we don’t realize that we’re taking these things for granted until we encounter a situation where we see the consequence of not having it. It takes a moment of awareness and perspective to realize how good we have it, and this comes in two different ways:

When something gets taken away from us, or when we see that someone else doesn’t have what we effortlessly enjoy.

We don’t realize how lucky we are to have a healthy family until someone in our family becomes unhealthy, or we hear about a health issue or tragedy in someone else’s family…

We don’t realize how lucky we are that we have the capacity to walk until we get injured and need to get around on crutches, someone near you gets injured and you see them debilitated, or you see someone on the street in a wheelchair with a permanent disability…

We take for granted a nice warm shower until our water is shut off for a day, or we visit a part of the world where they don’t have the infrastructure to take daily showers.

I remember coming back from my first time in Mexico for a house build impact project. I was so deeply grateful for my shower at home - something I’d never thought to appreciate.

We had showers where we stayed, but the water was dirty so you had to be careful to not open your mouth, and it only got to lukewarm temperature. Not to forget the family we were building the home for, they were living on dirt surrounded by flies and feces in very unsanitary conditions.

So many layers of gratitude which came from so many layers of awareness. 

We take it for granted until it’s being taken from us or we see it being taken away from someone else. It shifts perspective and makes us realize how good we have it. That’s why I’m such a huge proponent for gratitude journaling. Literally taking the time to pause and see the goodness in your life helps you realize how abundant it is, and how lucky you are to have it. 

I heard the legendary Seth Godin reframe 'Imposter Syndrome' in a way that completely shifted its meaning for me. As an ambitious person trying to do something big things, I feel 'Imposter Syndrome' all the time - and if you're like me you’ve probably felt it for yourself.

Maybe it was the last time you collaborated with a certain group of people that you felt were out of your league… Organized an event when you didn't really know what you were doing… Or delivered a speech where you felt no more qualified to speak on the topic than the people you were speaking to.

Normally ‘Imposter Syndrome’ brings up feelings of being out of place and mislabeled. It comes with a fear of being exposed and found out for who you are. It creates internal confusion that causes you to discredit yourself and your capabilities, thinking that you lucked into the opportunity rather than truly earning it.

Seth shares that it’s precisely this tension that we must use as an indicator. The fact that we feel ‘Imposter Syndrome’ in a situation should be positive reinforcement that we’re succeeding in doing something personally significant. Consciously we want to push ourselves beyond our comfort zone, knowing that’s where we grow, yet when we’re in that space we question if we belong.

The discomfort of ‘Imposter Syndrome’ is meant to be celebrated. It’s noble, courageous, and exactly how you’re supposed to feel anytime you push past your edge. It’s what Teddy Roosevelt articulated beautifully in his ‘Man In The Arena’ quote:

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming”

So the next time you feel out of place, like you’re in a room that’s beyond your level of success or experience level, honor that you chose to say “yes” to something new. Do it enough times and you’ll become someone new - someone who sees that they belonged all along.

We all invest time in our personal development for the same reason: We want to be the very best version of ourselves.

But if we're being honest it’s less about being that person and more about what that brings - an unmatched fulfillment that comes from having an incredible and impactful career… Having deep and loving relationships… Having good health and being in incredible shape…

Basically we want to have it all. And we figure the best way to have it all, is by doing it all.

Career success comes from reading books, improving skills, and building a network. Great relationships come from making dedicated time together with date nights, trips, and activities. Good health comes from being disciplined and making good choices.

It can be frustrating to have so many goals but not enough time or energy to deliver on them. Commitments in different areas of your life may seem to compete with each other because there’s only so much to go around. Which is why I want to present a different way to think about it:

If you want to have it all, which comes from doing it all, then you need to just worry about what to do next. 

You’ve probably heard the Bill Gates quote "Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in ten years"... and this is what it’s talking about. We feel like we have to do it all at once, when in truth when you do things one at a time, it comes together much faster than you’d expect.

This is why the concept I practice in my own self improvement is improving “brick by brick”. My core focus every month is to maintain all of the habits, routines, systems, and intentions that I currently have, and then I add focus to one new critical area. I do that for a month, incorporate it into my core maintenance systems, and then pick one new thing to focus on for the next month.

Trust me, I have a long list of things I want to improve in my business and life. But I recognize that if I tried to work on all of it, I’d end up succeeding with none of it. And with how fast time passes these days, a month passes quickly and you’re on to the next. One at a time, brick by brick, that’s how you do it all. You start by doing what’s next.

People talk a lot about work ethic. It’s having the character to work hard, apply yourself, and do what it takes to make progress in your life. People work hard in their career, in their health, for their family and loved ones, and it’s celebrated.

What’s equally important is an idea that doesn’t get as much air-time, which is ‘rest ethic’. It’s exactly what it sounds like - it’s holding yourself to a higher level of discipline and commitment to rest and recovery.

One of the most counterintuitive things I’ve ever encountered is: Often the most powerful expression of self-discipline is honoring an early bed time.

It’s critically important that we give our bodies and minds enough time to rest. And the biggest limiting factor to the amount of sleep is the time we go to bed. Our alarm goes off around the same time every morning, so when you go to sleep is the variable that matters most.

Yet, how easy is it to stay up past your bedtime and do “just one more thing”. Wrap up one last household chore… Watch one more show… Respond to one more email… It all happens virtually automatically, and it’s often motivated by a concept called “Revenge Bedtime Procrastination” where people stay up late because it’s an opportunity for unstructured ‘me time’ that they didn’t get throughout the day.

What takes effort is to not give in to that, wrap up your day, and begin to wind down so that you get an adequate amount of sleep. The mind will try to fight against you with all of the things it believes to be incomplete and all of the things it wants to do. But you’re in control and you can enforce bedtime for yourself.

One of the most important pieces to having a good rest ethic is awareness. You can’t make a good choice without knowing there’s a choice to be made. And that’s where I have a little trick for you:

Just like setting an alarm in the morning for when you want to wake up, set an alarm at night for when you want to start winding down for bed. The alarm interrupts whatever you’re doing to bring your attention to the fact that it’s time to go to sleep. At that point it’s your choice to do it, or not.

Getting into a more predictable sleep schedule by responding to a night-time alarm is one of the 9 Super Habits. When you do all 9 consistently, you completely transform the energy, focus, and mindset you bring to everything you do. It’s a gateway to your fullest potential, and if you want to learn what the 9 Super Habits are and how to follow through on them consistently, you an watch a mini video-series here. In all they take only 10 minutes a day to do, but they unlock the discipline, focus, healthy choices that make you feel and perform at your very best all day.

The Ben Franklin Effect is a psychological principle, used in persuasion, where someone becomes more likely to do what you asked them to do if you get them to do something smaller first. It’s a principle that is commonly messaged in a few different ways:

Dr. Robert Cialdini in the book “Influence” calls this ‘commitment and consistency’, claiming that someone is more likely to take action in a way that is aligned with a previous action…

The ‘foot in the door’ phenomenon takes the same approach where asking for something small makes someone more likely to say ‘yes’ to your next request…

And it parallels the famous expression “give them an inch and they’ll take it a mile.”

Given how powerfully this principle influences other people, isn’t it fair to say that it’d achieve the same effect when used on yourself?

When you take action on a small commitment to yourself, it often opens the door to you stepping up to a much larger commitment, one that feels too overwhelming to commit to from the start.

This is why James Clear in ‘Atomic Habits’ popularized the idea of ‘the 2 minute rule’ where your minimum standard is to take a desired action for just two minutes, and naturally the full behavior follows suit. It’s the reason why people are constantly encouraged to just get started, even imperfectly, because it creates momentum. 

It’s often explained as overcoming the ‘activation energy’ or inertia of an action such that there’s an upfront energetic demand. There's work that needs to get done to get over the initial hump but then it’s all downhill from there.

And this is what it looks like in practice. Need to get through a major backlog of email? Just commit to 5 emails. Don’t feel like doing cardio today? Get on the bike and go for just 5 minutes. Feeling resistance to making sales calls? Put your list together of the 10 people you want to follow up with.

The simple step of taking the first small action sets up the rest of the action to happen with way less resistance. Before you know it, you’re powering through emails, extending your cardio, and picking up the phone. 

Don’t underestimate the power of the unconscious mind. When you get it to start working for you and not against you, you become unstoppable. The mind is constantly making snapshot reflexes - and if you want to create a reflex where you quickly take initial action, which I call your best-self reflex, so that you to make the healthy, focused, productive choice unconsciously and by default… Check out the 21 Day Super Habits Challenge. It sets you up for success in ways you couldn’t imagine.

Something we probably agree on is that it generally isn’t good to gossip. And that’s because gossip has a certain connotation where you’re talking poorly about someone behind their back, in their business unnecessarily, often with the intention to criticize them. There’s certainly a time and place to talk about other people from a place of curiosity, with fairness and respect… That’s just not gossip.

And even though we know it’s not good to gossip, we find ourselves doing it anyway. Why is that? Why would we engage in something we clearly don’t want to do?

It’s because gossip is food for the ego, and on an unconscious level, we’re deeply attracted to it.

The ego’s purpose is to create separation. It’s to establish independence so that you’re inclined to act in ways that are self-serving and beneficial to you. This stems from a core need in evolutionary psychology for safety, and when we have a strong sense of self, we’re more likely to keep ourselves alive.

Gossip serves a purpose in that it makes you feel better about yourself. When you air out someone else’s problems and mistakes, it makes your own problems and mistakes seem not so serious. When you talk about someone else’s flaws and issues, you become morally superior to them which inflates your status within the tribe.

And again, unconsciously we’re hardwired to want that. It makes us more psychologically secure and positioned to be a more valuable asset to others. It serves us to pull other people down because it makes us appear to be higher.

But it’s misguided. Because while there’s a short-term payoff when you feed the ego with gossip, the long-term consequence is that it erodes our self-worth. We see ourselves as good not because we’re good, but because we’re better than bad. We learn to think highly of ourselves only when in comparison with others externally rather than arriving at that proudly internally.

And the hardest part is, it’s hard to control when it enters our lives. If you’re not the one starting it, others bring it to you. Which is why it’s critical to be vigilant about shutting it down. But that’s much easier said than done, especially because our unconscious mind and ego are hungry for it, which makes it a very important best-self practice.

When someone talks about getting into better habits, it often means that they want to get more consistent in making better choices. They want to prioritize their health and wellness by exercising consistently, preparing nutritious meals while resisting unhealthy foods, be more productive by having routines to plan their time and organize their tasks…

But what they really mean is they want to hold themselves to a higher standard. They know what’s best for them and they want to be more accountable to doing it more often. 

There’s a long list of things we know we should (or shouldn't) be doing, yet we often don’t do them. We make an excuse or exception, or somehow rationalize that it’s not what we want to do or what we need to do. Only for us to look back and regret the choice we made, making a decision that we don’t agree with.

That’s where the idea of having standards comes in. A standard is a personal expectation. It’s the level of performance or intention you want to hold yourself to regardless of outside conditions. The problem is many people have a hard time enforcing a higher standard for themselves because they haven’t clearly defined the expectation.

They want to eat healthier, but what does that mean? They want to get a workout in every day, non-negotiable, but does that include a long day spent walking around a theme park with their kids?

When there’s gray area, there’s room left for interpretation and the unconscious mind will shape it into whatever it wants. And by nature the unconscious mind wants us to be lazy, experience short-term pleasure, and do the ‘safe’ thing… Even though we know it comes with long-term consequences.

But when you clearly define your standards, and you make them more objective and easy to measure against, you remove the gray area. You set the expectation and clearly know if your choices are in integrity with it or not. Susan Peirce Thompson calls this ‘having bright lines’ because if you begin to cross the standard you set for yourself, you know without a doubt it’s happening.

My system for reviewing my day and knowing how I did against my standards is: I fill out my Self Improvement Scorecard. If you want to see how it works, I’ve created a video where I show off my self improvement system and explain how it works in detail.