I heard this from Price Pritchett on Lewis Howes podcast, which I found to be an interesting framework about the 5 Cs of Negative Thinking. The 5 Cs are complaining, criticizing, concern, commiserating, and catastrophizing. With even a baseline understanding of these words, you can see how they can lead to cycles of misguided negative thinking. And what’s interesting is each has a slightly different version that is healthy and helpful. Let’s dive into each!

First is complaining. Complaining is more than just expressing dissatisfaction, it's getting stuck in a loop of focusing on problems without seeking solutions. It feels good to complain because it separates you from what’s happening, but it becomes a habit that hinders growth and progress. It’s like a relief valve that feels good the moment it opens up, but when it closes it just fills back up with the same problems.

Next is criticizing. At first, pointing out flaws might seem like a way to improve things, but truthfully criticism dulls the shine of achievements and stifles creativity. That’s because criticizing isn’t done with the intention to improve, but rather the intention to bring something down. Shifting from criticism to constructive feedback ignites growth and fosters a more collaborative environment.

Then we have concern. While having concerns are helpful to serve as warnings, and could be positive when coming from a place of caring, it can easily be overdone and turn into worry. We gravitate toward worry because we need a way to express the uncertainty, which evolves into overthinking about things out of our control and is draining.

Next we have commiserating. Gathering with friends to share experiences and woes can feel therapeutic initially. But when these discussions get repetitive and stuck in sharing grievances, it can make feeling bad for yourself more acceptable. Ultimately the version of this you’d like to incorporate comes from a place of sympathy for others and acceptance for yourself, so that you can reroute your behavior to something more constructive.

And the last C is for catastrophizing. This is when things are blown out of proportion and you picture the worst case scenario. It makes you feel powerless because you’ve made the obstacle out to be so much bigger than it is, and it paralyzes you from feeling like you can take any meaningful action against it. 

So if you want to delete negative thoughts when they come up, try to label them with one of these 5 terms and transition your way away from them. The most important conversation you’ll ever have is the one constantly happening in your head!

For Thanksgiving this year I wanted to highlight what exists at the heart of the holiday - To give thanks to the blessing we have in our life. It’s a time to be grateful for time with loved ones, an abundance of food and comfort, and personal growth as an annual timestamp.

It’s beautiful that we can practice giving thanks for a day so that we can taste what it’d be like if we chose to live with gratitude in every moment of every day. And the reason that’s important is best stated in this quote - "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.”

Ultimately we use gratitude to completely reframe and shift the way we see our lives. There is so much meaning in everything and layers of depth to visit should we want to. Gratitude pushes us to explore those layers so that we can see how rich, how great, how full our lives actually are. It’s a truth that is always hiding in plain sight until we intentionally bring our attention to it.

It’s almost the opposite of the expression “ignorance is bliss”. Sometimes, not knowing about something negative going is the best thing for us because then it doesn’t impact our perception. But often we’re hyper-focused on the negative and ignorant of the good and positive. 

In our pursuit to unlock the fullness of life, we don’t want to just fill it with nonsense so that it’s full. We want to be full with rich experiences, meaningful relationships, and stories of how we’ve grown and overcome obstacles. And when we choose to be grateful, we see how packed our lives are with incredible treasures. 

So as a Thanksgiving gratitude practice, I’d love for you to answer these 3 questions:

1) What are you deeply grateful for in your life that you don’t give enough credit to?

2) How has a specific major setback positively shaped you into who you’ve become?

3) Who has supported you in ways that have been transformative for you, and what can you do to acknowledge them?

I imagine you care about your future. A wish we all share is we want a life filled with meaning, good health, quality experiences, and strong relationships. And we’re willing to make sacrifices today in order to have it in the future.

But I want to present a perspective shift about our future. Often we think about what our lives will look like years down the road and see that as the future we’re preparing for and investing in. But what if I told you that next week, tomorrow, and an hour from now are equally that very future you’ve been thinking so much about?

With that in mind, I want to bring up one of Brendon Burchard’s philosophies called the 72 Hour Rule. He says that how we feel in the present moment is dictated by what we’ve chosen to do in the last 72 hours. These are the health choices we’ve made in our diet, exercise, and sleep. The strain and stress we’ve experienced from work and life. The pride we feel from how we’ve been showing up for ourselves and our loved ones.

How we feel is so important because it dictates what we have to offer the present moment. Good and energized days lead to higher quality encounters and more productive work. Low energy, lazy, lethargic days create resistance that makes it hard to pick up momentum.

But whether you’re thinking about the distant future a decade from now or the immediate future a day from today, the only thing we have control over is the present moment. So it’s important that we consider how our choices right now are setting us up for the future we want to have.

72 hours is 3 full days, and I’d think that all of us have something going on in the next 3 days that we’d like to be our very best for. What that means is that we can’t cut corners in the present because then it compromises our ability to have everything we need for the near future. 

That’s where having good habits, self-discipline, and a healthy lifestyle all come in. The more consistently we can make healthy choices, the better we can set ourselves up for success.

So I’d challenge you to think about this - What’s the one thing you know you should be doing that you’re struggling to do consistently? Because if you revamp that, you’ve found a high-leverage way to increase your energy and quality of life.

Should you feel inspired to implement this new ‘best you’ lifestyle in 21 days, click here!

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A few weeks ago I experienced an interesting situation with an ending I’m proud of. In preparation for Halloween, my fiance Irene put out a big bowl of candy. It sat on the kitchen counter for weeks before and after the holiday came and went. 

Having an extra focus on my health recently and making good nutritional choices, this big orange bowl caught my attention every time I walked into the kitchen. The allure of a piece of candy was always there, all ready to go and prepared in a bite-sized serving, but not even once did I feel even the slightest urge to have any candy and I’d like to share the reasons why.

First, when Irene put the candy out, I told her right away “I’m not going to have a single piece of it.” This served as a pre-commitment and decision that I had already made. So any time that voice came to mind convincing  me to have a  sugary snack, my answer was easy and it quieted quickly. Robert Cialdini, the author of “Influence” would say that I leveraged ‘commitment and consistency’ to unconsciously drive healthy behavior.

On top of that, I had undeniable accountability to my decision and intention. Every single evening I fill out my Self Improvement Scorecard and complete my high-performance tracking routine. With eating less sugar being one of the focuses of my personal development right now, this means that every day I reflect on my choices. Knowing that I’d have to answer to myself if I did choose to indulge and have a piece of candy, it created a real consequence that kept me from even considering it.

And last, also through my nightly Scorecard routine and otherwise, I’ve cultivated a mindset of being self-disciplined. This allows me to be above my impulses so that I can consistently make the decision that is in alignment with my best self. And since it’s identity driven, rejecting sweets doesn’t require will-power because my subconscious mind has been trained to prefer practicing self-discipline over giving into temptation.

I share all of this to give you a real example of how the concepts we talk about actually play out in real life, and how effective they can be when you implement them for yourself. If you want to create more self-discipline, and a reflex to make the right choices more consistently, I’d love to help you install the exact same accountability systems and structure I use to become the best version of myself.

If I can do it you can too, and instead of it taking you a decade like it did for me we can get things really working for you in just 21 days.

Something I’ve noticed that I want more in my life is intensity. But I also think that living an intense life is a bit misunderstood. It’s not being high strung, on-edge, and dominating in an environment. It’s more a matter of having more pointed focus in what I do, creating more presence and quality.

I want to listen more intensely in conversations. I want to meditate and reflect more intensely. I want to experience life’s moments more intensely. I want to work more intensely.

There are two definitions for intense: The first is “of extreme force, degree, or strength”, which is more along the lines of what I desire. But this gets mixed up with the second definition, which is “having or showing strong feelings or opinions; extremely earnest or serious”. 

Even when I say the word ‘intense’ it has a certain feel to it.

To me, intensity is a unique way to combine the concepts of passion, enthusiasm, focus, and determination. It’s to turn things up a notch beyond what’s normal or expected. Other people feel when you’re so locked in that it influences them to lock in and meet you there. In that way, it means that you determine the pace for how things go rather than letting your environment determine it for you.

Now what am I doing to shift this for myself?

In conversations I’m trying to put my phone away and practice active listening more often. In my meditation I’m holding myself to a higher standard and setting an intention to be extra present before I begin. In life I’m challenging myself to treat the everyday things that happen as “the best things ever”, hunting in every line of a book for a deeper lesson, and thinking more about every choice I’m making in my diet.

I desire more intensity because I desire more quality. I don’t want to plateau at a level of fulfillment and life experience that is less than I feel like it can be, and leave so much of life’s richness on the table. If you feel like you’ve been going through the motions lately, or have been so busy that your day to day quality has been deprioritized just to get through, you don’t need to settle for 'okay'. 

We can get started working together and in just 21 days your days will become unrecognizable, bringing a new level of energy, focus, and purpose to everything you do in your life. All you need to do is install the Super Habits System, the single daily process that holds you to a higher standard.

I’d say a lot of people in this world, myself included, desire more happiness in their life. They want to be more enthusiastic, to have a more positive outlook on life, and to have more fun in what they do. But being happy is so much easier said than done. We have busy schedules, responsibilities, unfortunate happenings, and unpredicted setbacks that steer us off of a happy course. 

That’s why so many people choose to postpone their happiness for another day. They figure, I just need to get through this and then I’ll be happy, almost giving themselves permission to suck it up and accept that they’re not as happy as they want to be.

I call this being “happy when”. I’ll be happy when I get a raise and that promotion. I’ll be happy when I settle into a romantic relationship. I’ll be happy when I get a break and go on that trip. 

But that’s just simply not the case, and I didn’t understand this for myself until I heard Tom Bilyeu’s mindset on it, but substituting the idea of feeling successful for being happy.

Bilyeu says “Success doesn’t change your insecurities. Most people look at somebody who’s successful with this admiration and they think that when I’m successful I’ll look at myself with the same admiration. All you have is this moment, success is not something in the future where you cross the finish line and feel forever the way you’ve wanted to feel. Success will feel exactly like this moment.”

That’s happiness too.

If you’re not finding ways to be happy right now with what you have, you’re not going to feel all that different when your circumstances change. What this means is that we treat happiness as if it’s determined externally when in reality it is completely an inner game.

So instead of being “happy when”, what can you do to start being “happy now”? How can you set an intention, adjust your attitude, or otherwise change your mindset?

Another personal development luminary, Tony Robbins, says “happiness is progress”. If we have something that we’re improving at, it gives us something to be excited about, something to look forward to, and something to find purpose in. And as someone who listens to personal development podcasts I’m sure you get that.

So let me make a recommendation. If you’re waiting to be happy when things change outside of you, and you know that you’ll be happy when something changes inside of you, and you know that one of the most potent ways of creating happiness is to be in the process of making progress… Let’s dive into your next level of inspiring, fulfilling self-improvement. That shift you’re looking for can be complete in just 21 days when you install the Super Habits System and begin and establish a fresh, new, productive, energized, purpose-driven lifestyle.

A quality that many people admire in others is persistence. We’re always rooting for the person that gets knocked down and keeps getting up, presses on in the face of failure and adversity, and never quits. Perhaps we’d like to see more of that quality in ourselves. And while that’s a great target to have, perhaps presenting a more realistic perspective will help us in improving in this area.

Let me introduce you to the idea of selective persistence. It’s the exact same concept but instead of being relentlessly persistent, what if we saved our persistence for when it matters most?

This isn’t a cop out for not having mental toughness, this is a ‘smarter not harder’ strategy to reserve your strong-willed mindset for when you need it most.

It’s similar to the idea of having will-power. We’ve come to find that will-power is a finite resource. With that understanding, it’s almost irresponsible to rely on it to get stuff done because it can limit your ability to use it later in the day. That’s why there’s so much value in changing your environment and making pre-commitments, because it allows you to tap into different sources of self-discipline.

The same goes for your persistence.

So how can we be smarter about how we use our persistence? There are a few indicators:

If you start to get frustrated, that could be a sign to pause and reset.

If something is complicated, maybe that means it’s time to redesign it so that it’s easier.

If you’re trying to improve things but the micro adjustments you make don’t lead to sizable improvements that are congruent with the amount of effort you’re putting in.

That way, when you do encounter that thing that you absolutely need to get done and work through, you’ve got a reservoir to tap into so that you can meet the task and move beyond it. 

If you want to remove resistance from your life so that it’s easier to be self-disciplined, you start crushing your daily task list, and you take on challenges with more enthusiasm and confidence than you used to, it all becomes way easier when you take 21 days to install the Super Habits System. It will get you absolutely buzzing - hitting your goals and living your best-lifestyle.

Sometimes we encounter things in life that are too good to be true. It’s a promotion at work or a new job you’re excited about. It’s an opportunity to travel or experience something really special. Especially when we get excited about something we can get all caught up in it.

What I’m about to suggest isn’t that you shouldn’t trust your intuition or that you should tone down the excitement in your life… I believe you feel that emotion for a reason. What I’m proposing instead is that you understand the big picture so that you can be extra intentional about what you’re actually getting versus assuming the highlights of what could be.

This is where I want you to have this question in your back pocket - If there were a tradeoff, what would it be? This question is neutral, soft, and fair. It doesn’t claim that there are any consequences to the path ahead but makes you reflect on the possibilities of what those consequences might be.

For example, a promotion at work might mean that you’ll feel pressure to spend more time working, which then compromises your personal time and health habits. An opportunity to travel the world means that you might miss birthdays, holidays, and events that are important to you.

It’s by forecasting the tradeoff that we really get to genuinely choose the path we want to take. Rather than being surprised or naive to the new normal that’ll come from a new environment, you give yourself your best chance to make the most of it by being more prepared.

In summary - If you feel like the stars are aligning and you’re beginning to grasp at something you genuinely want but are missing, go for it! But go for it with intention so that you’re fully aware of the implications of the decision, and the potential tradeoffs you might experience.