Back in 2019, I set the intention to connect with a person who has now become one of my foremost mentors, David Meltzer. I had heard him on a friend’s podcast and instantly felt attracted to his message of abundance, spirituality, and business influence. I started following him on Instagram and as the Algorithm Gods would have it, only a few weeks later I heard him announce that he was hosting a meet up in my city in just a few days. Seeing this as an opportunity, I changed my travel plans so that I could be at the meet up and connect with him in person.

I’m the type of person where if you give me an inch, I take a mile. So after meeting him in a group setting I hustled to walk with him to his next commitment and got to speak with him 1 on 1, quickly share a bit more about myself, and coordinated more time with him later that day. When we linked up then, and not so rushed, we had an exchange in our conversation that I’ll never forget.

I said “I really admire you, what you’ve built, and how you show up in the world.” And to that he responded “Don’t admire me, be inspired by me.”

He didn’t explain the difference, but he didn’t have to. When you admire someone, you see them as separate from you. That you couldn’t dream of achieving the same level of notoriety, success, or whatever it is you admire about them. It’s fawning over them that makes them feel untouchable, and it creates more distance between you and your dream. It keeps you from even trying because you feel like you’re so far from what you see in them.

But when you’re inspired by someone, you see their success as a model for your own. You take encouragement from their example and see that your dreams are possible because they made their dreams come true. Inspiration is uplifting and works as a much more actionable energy that drives you closer to what you want rather than pull you away.

This is exactly what David Meltzer wants. His personal mission is to inspire 1000 people to inspire 1000 people to inspire 1000 people to be happy. That way he plays a part in 1 billion people being happy. And every time I see him I tell him “I’m 1 of your 1000” because I feel the way he invests in me, and offers me advantages that I can use to further my mission and in turn his.

Admiration works kind of like jealousy - it gives you insight into what you care about and what you want. Otherwise you wouldn’t feel a certain way about it. But don’t let it end there and feel empty in your efforts to make your dreams come true, alchemize it into inspiration that drives you forward as you realize your mission in the world.

One of the things that makes life harder than it needs to be is stress. Finances, difficult situations, and our day to day demands pulling us beyond our capacity all add stress to our lives.

Originally, our body’s evolved to have a stress response so that we can escape from imminent danger. Stress is meant to be adaptive and advantageous. But in today’s world our stress response is activated in new ways that don’t actually threaten our safety. Our minds are misinterpreting the events of modern life and creating reasons to be stressed that don’t align with stress’ intended purpose. 

And it’s doing more harm than good. Not only does stress erode our health but it clouds our judgment and causes us to take action in ways that add on more to be stressed about rather than relieve us of it. That’s why I want to share 3 steps to move through feeling stressed and overwhelmed. 

1. Take 6 slow deep breaths.
   
   Physiologically, our stress response activates the sympathetic nervous system. This sends a rush of cortisol (also known as adrenaline) through our body preparing us for fight or flight. It’s in this state that the human mind goes into survival mode, making choices that are helpful in the moment but have long-term unintended consequences. But 6 slow deep breaths turns the sympathetic nervous system off, immediately makes us feel less stressed, and helps us move forward with a clear mind that isn’t being hijacked by panic and overwhelm.
   
   
2. Identify the sources of your stress.
   
   It’s within this more thoughtful, controlled headspace that you can start to examine what’s causing you stress. The road to feeling less emotional starts with knowing exactly what is causing the stress. Is it fear, uncertainty, sadness, strain, or something else? It doesn’t need to be this underlying chronic feeling… It can be something that’s understood as a response to something specific. Listen to how you feel and figure out what the source of it is.
   
   
3. Determine what’s within your control and what’s not.
   
   Once you’ve identified the source, now it’s time to figure out what you can do about it. The reality is your stress response was triggered by an event in your life. The way through that response is by changing the way you relate with that event, and the way you respond to it. There are some elements of the situation that are out of your control, and there are elements that you can do something about. By separating the two you can determine what’s worth your energy. It’s the Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference"”

Part of what makes things so stressful is they’re uncertain. You don’t know how things are going to resolve, and what that means for the well-being of yourself and your loved ones. It carries an energy of fear that the worst could happen. But when you know what you can do to impact the situation, you sprinkle in some hope.

That’s not to say that the stress goes away, but it starts to feel more manageable. You aren’t at the mercy of everything around you but you can influence what happens. And it’s with this sense of agency that you take productive actions that actually begin to make progress on the problem that’s causing you stress.

Be patient with yourself, know that it’s normal and it’s not the end of the world. Life might deal you difficult hand but you get to choose how you play it. All you can do your best - You got this!

When you think about someone who has really good habits, what comes to mind? Maybe it’s someone who does their morning routine every single day, which includes meditation, journaling, and some stretching. Or maybe it’s someone who completes their checklist, gets their email inbox to zero, and updates their to do list at the end of a work day. 

No matter the case, it’s likely that you see someone who has good habits as being really consistent on a daily basis. But why do habits need to be done daily? When we open our minds to seeing habits existing on different intervals, we realize how much more doable it is to stay consistent, and how many more opportunities there are to get into good habits.

What this suggests is that a habit doesn’t need to be done daily… It just needs to be done with reliable consistency. And consistency can exist on any interval of time. Yes you can do things daily, but you can also do them weekly, monthly, yearly, every other day, every other week, every 10 days, every 6 weeks, only on Mondays and Fridays, every 3 hours… The options are truly endless.

I have many good daily habits. I do some version of my morning routine, fill out my Self Improvement Scorecard every day, email my grandma, and do at least one session of Duolingo (among many other things) every day.

But I also have habits done consistently on different time intervals. I call my Dad on Fridays, have time on Tuesdays and Thursdays dedicated to follow ups for my business, I do a weekly relationship review with my wife, I do monthly strategic business planning and accounting, I go to the grocery store once a week to get fresh produce after a workout, and I use my standing desk when I take meetings throughout the day. All are good habits that contribute to my goals, and I do them all consistently but with different frequencies.

And while we're at it, here's another perspective - Consistency can even be situational and contextual. For example, I don’t really watch TV but can get caught up in it when I’m visiting my Mom, so I’m in the habit of leaving the room by 9 pm. Habits aren’t something you do all the time, but something you can count on doing when they need to get done.

At the end of the day, we want good habits for one reason - To get consistent doing the things that most generate the results we want in our lives. And those critical actions can be taken however much that you feel is most doable or most serves you.

It might be more natural for you to think about this through the lens of building good routines. Routines don’t need to be done daily, but they’re most useful when done with a reliable consistency. There’s a level of intentionality that goes into what the routine is for, what the action steps are, and how often you want to complete it. Habits benefit from the same level of thoughtfulness.

So try throwing away this bias that habits need to be done daily, that it can only be considered ‘consistent’ if it happens every day. Embrace the full spectrum that our actions take and cultivate the right habits, on the right intervals, that fuel your life. That’s not to say you can’t have daily habits, but know there’s a lot more to it, and oftentimes cultivating habits that exist on a different time interval is a good place to start.

It’s human nature to follow the crowd. We trust restaurants more people are sitting at, go down roads we see other people turn on, and make choices that don’t draw attention to ourselves. We have an unconscious bias toward it and in many ways, it steers our life.

But here’s something to consider: Just because something is common doesn’t mean it’s normal. And the difference is subtle…

If something is common, it means that it happens a lot. It’s the exposure to the many instances of this thing happening that makes it common. It’s common to get divorced, be overweight, get less than 7 hours of sleep, and not like what you do for work.

But that doesn’t mean it’s normal. When something is normal it means that it’s the way it’s intended to be. Normal doesn’t deviate too far from how things are supposed to go. Normal isn’t an outlier or noteworthy. 

And the problem is normal has become uncommon. A long and healthy marriage is now considered to be an exception to the rule. Many people are overweight but that’s not how the human body is intended to work. We’re not supposed to be unhappy and stressed in our work, it’s meant to be something we find meaning and purpose in.

These days, following the crowd gets us doing common things that lead to not normal results. And many people have no awareness to question it because they’ve chosen to accept the abnormal, unhealthy, poor lifestyle that comes with it. This thought is captured well in what Jiddu Krishnamurti says “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

To set yourself on the right path, be uncommon. Do things your way, the way you know they need to be done and not the way everyone else is doing it. Challenge the assumptions you have about the world to broaden your understanding.

When you live an uncommon life, not everyone is going to understand. They don’t see the harm in having a few bites of greasy appetizers or indulging in dessert, but you prioritizing your nutrition will help you keep your body fueled instead of fat. They might give you a hard time when you decline an invitation to something fun, but they aren’t thinking through the added pressure it puts on a relationship to be out of the house so often.

Question the common path because if you look around, you’ll see where it’s headed. And for many it’s a level of financial strain, unhealthiness, lack of deep relationships and lack of purpose that make many people less happy than they could be.

But not you, not us! Keep doing the work and you’ll be one of the few who feels inspired by how they’re maximizing their potential every day.

One of the things that I desire most in my life right now is to feel more alive. To feel the buzz, excitement, and thrill of stretching my capacity and experiencing new things. Bridget Hilton wrote a book called “Experiential Billionaire” and has a life mantra that goes “I’m on a living spree” and I’ve been enjoying leaning into that. 

It might be self-evident, but the basic idea is that instead of being on a ‘spending spree’ and buying a lot of things for yourself, you can be on a ‘living spree’ where you’re off finding more adventures and experiences that give you life. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why I’m going to be in Cancun, Scottsdale, Puerto Rico, Japan, South Korea, and Lake Tahoe for the better part of the next few months…

And while my travel plans will lead to big moments and experiences that are very meaningful, there’s also a spirit of everyday living that anyone can take into their life, at home or abroad. Things like trying new foods, exploring nature, a hard workout, striking up conversation with strangers, getting in some cold water, joining local meet ups, talking a bigger game, deeper connections with loved ones, being involved in initiatives that align with your passions… It all gives you a little taste of what more life feels like.

So many of us are focused on being really healthy so that we can add more years to our lives… But how about we also add more life to our years? More moments, more stories, more unrestrained freedom. We have daily practices that microdose wellness, why can’t we microdose moments that make us feel more alive?

The thing that keeps us from it is the status quo. The way we do things know is comfortable and psychologically safe. If we keep doing the same things then we don’t need to worry what people might think of us, what criticisms they might have, or what insecurities they might project onto us when we live a bolder life. And if we keep doing the same things then we won’t put ourselves in situations that make us afraid, or that might make us look stupid, or where we might fail.

But if you’re like me and you want to make the absolute most out of life… That’s something we cannot accept! At the end of the day the only person you need to worry about is you. And as amazing as friends, family, colleagues, and loved ones are, there’s a reason why the number 1 regret of the dying is that people “wish they had lived a life true to themselves, not the life others expected from them”. You coming fully alive threatens their decision to accept a life that’s just good enough.

We don’t want ordinary, we want extraordinary! And in my opinion, one of the surest paths to cultivating the spirit of living all out is to microdose things that make you feel more alive, in small ways, on a daily basis. 

It will help you build momentum and live in a way that you’re proud of, that’s authentic to you, and that you feel is the purest expression of yourself. So let me charge you with this - what’s one everyday moment that you can turn into a moment that makes you feel more alive? The next time you encounter it, show up with more life, and see if you like it.

One of the most common excuses people make is that they’ll “make it up tomorrow”.

You’re too tired to get a workout in now so you’ll make sure you do it tomorrow...

You’ve got some errands on your plate today but the day has already been pretty demanding and stressful, so you’ll circle back on doing those errands tomorrow...

You’ve got some difficult phone calls to make or tasks to complete at work, and there are other things that popped up and took your time so you’ll get around to making those calls and doing those tasks tomorrow...

In the moment, it seems like a perfectly reasonable plan. It’s going to be tough to get it done today so let’s get it done tomorrow. But the problem is, ‘tomorrow’ is going to have all the same demands, inconveniences, frustrations, and distractions. That perfect moment is never going to come and truly, by postponing a day you’re delaying the inevitable.

This rationalization of “I’ll make it up tomorrow” is a version of self-sabotage. Self-sabotage is your unconscious mind’s way of getting you to avoid taking actions that are uncomfortable. It uses things like distraction, self-doubt, procrastination, confusion, fear, and others to do so. In this case, the ‘rationalization’ convinces you that you’re making a good decision, where delaying action seems logical to you, but all that’s doing is keeping you from doing the uncomfortable thing you know you need to do.

The antidote to self-sabotage is self-discipline. Doing what you said you were going to do even when you don’t feel like it. When you’re self-disciplined and follow through on your commitments then you can overcome your mind’s sabotaging attempts to make you stop.

But… Easier said than done.

It’s scary to market yourself and be bold about growing your business. But self-discipline inspires you to be courageous.

You might feel like a fraud when someone invites you to be on their podcast, speak at their event, or ask for your advice. But self-discipline helps you take action even when you feel like an imposter.

You might want to make constant tweaks to that project before you finalize it like a perfectionist. But self-discipline keeps you accountable to meeting the deadline.

Cultivating a sense of self-discipline instills within you a sense of self-trust. It empowers you to make things work, be more consistent, and show up more for your life. It’ll inspire you to take action today and that you don’t need to put it off.

Because the reality is this, and I’m borrowing the words of Jim Rohn: “You could have done that anyway”. The workout and the bold action and the errands… Each day is a new opportunity to attack all of these things. And ‘making it up tomorrow’ is just an excuse that keeps you from stepping into your fullest potential today. 

So what are you waiting for? Tomorrow is a day that never comes. Live today. And if you want to start making the most out of life, and cultivating the self-discipline you need to show up consistently in every area of your life, then check this out!

Recently I’ve been hearing Alex Hormozi talk a lot about the importance of strategy, which he defines as “what you do with what you have”. There’s an infinite number of ways you can plan to make an improvement, solve a problem, maximize an opportunity, initiate a change, or optimize an output. Strategy is that lens of discernment where you choose how to best allocate your resources.  

First and foremost, your strategy is most limited by your clarity. If you are clear on what results you want to generate, then your strategy can directly align with that. But if the desired result is fuzzy, then even the best strategy isn’t going to work for you. So to start, investing time in knowing exactly what you want to happen is the best investment of time and resources. In other words, you need to set a clear goal.

It’s from that intention you can craft the right strategy and 'do the most with what you have'. This is your plan for how you are going to achieve your goal. The process of establishing a strategy starts with getting inspiration from what has worked for others who accomplished a similar goal, or even what has worked for you in the past. Ultimately you want to choose the path that you have the resources for and that you believe is most likely to perform for you. 

What’s refreshing about Hormozi’s approach is that it’s very practical. The effectiveness of a strategy isn’t a binary marker of ‘either it worked or it didn’t’. It’s more a measurement of how much it worked or how much it didn’t. Any strategy can work, it’s how much it works that most concerns you. And to improve your approach, you can use the feedback you get from your performance to inform your next decisions about how you can improve your strategy, or shift to a new strategy altogether.

This concept of having an underlying strategy will help you to achieve any goal. Let’s say you have the goal to double your business. Your strategy can be to do double the marketing volume, add a new product, or cut expenses to improve your profits. All are viable strategies, you pick the one that you think is most likely to work for you. Or you have the goal to lose 20 pounds. Your strategy can be to workout more, workout harder, eat less, eat more nutritiously, etc. All are strategies.

Or let’s say you have a goal to visit Paris. You can create a monthly savings plan to visit on vacation, finagle your way into a work event with expenses paid, or meet a cute “Frenchie” at your local bistro and elope in their home country. There are so many pathways available to you, and it's the reason why your process for picking the right strategy needs to come down to this: allocating your resources in such a way that you do the most with what you have.

When it comes to being the best, most inspired, most achieving version of myself, my strategy is to use a high performance tracking system that I call my Self Improvement Scorecard. And it doesn't just work for me, nearly 1000 people have used it too!

When it comes to behavior change, there are few things more effective than accountability. There’s something deeply powerful about knowing someone else is expecting something of you, that they’re counting on you, and it causes you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have the motivation to do yourself. The opportunity is to be intentional about how you leverage accountability in your life to help you be more consistent in doing the things that most serve you.

Perhaps a quick lesson on the psychology behind why accountability works will give you the understanding you need to incorporate it in your life.

Our brains are optimized to do one thing - keep us alive. This is an instinct we were all born with, passed down through generations as part of our evolution as a species. One of the components to staying alive, particularly in prehistoric days (which is largely what our brains are still designed for), is that it was safer for us as humans to live in groups. This offered protection, extra hands to raise young, an ability to share resources, and other survival advantages. 

Psychologically, this caused humans to develop a deep need of acceptance and belonging. Those who had that need were more likely to engage in collaborative, altruistic, prosocial behaviors that maintained their status of being a contributing member to the group. If you weren’t helping, then you were more likely to be outcasted and have to fend for yourself.

In today’s world we have this same psychological need to belong engrained into our brains. We are the modern product of our species’ evolutionary history. And that means, when someone is counting on you for something, you feel compelled to follow through on it so that you don’t let them down. You fear that you’ll be removed from the tribe.

Accountability is our way of hacking this evolutionary instinct to survive and using it for growth. Especially when it comes to the healthy, productive actions we know we should be taking to feel, perform and be at our best... The reason we don’t do these things naturally is because they’re not essential for our survival in the short-term, and therefore become deprioritized by the brain. 

But, when those behaviors become essential survival behaviors, because they’re connected to maintaining good standing within your group, then you feel a more natural motivation to do it. And it’s by having accountability that you establish this connection and get your brain to start working for you.

If you want to learn more about how to implement accountability, check out this past podcast episode about How To Make Accountability Work For You.