This is a dense topic but stick with me, I think it’ll be really insightful for you. I was listening to a podcast episode between Ed Mylett and Dr. Benjamin Hardy, an organizational psychologist and prolific author, who introduced a new idea called “psychological flexibility”. 

Basically ‘psychological flexibility’ is all about having the ability to control the way your mind relates with different topics. When you’re psychologically flexible it means that you can choose the perspective you use to see a certain events and ultimately, shape it’s meaning.

For example: My friend Dominic Fusco is a high-level endurance athlete, regularly runs marathons, and in a training session he went into cardiac arrest. Fortunately he was saved from death but it has really impacted his lifestyle for these past two months since it happened, and will continue to affect him for a while.

Dom practiced psychological flexibility. The facts of the matter are that he had cardiac arrest. What he chose to believe about that is that he’s lucky to be alive, and that this is actually, genuinely a gift because he will never see life the same and can add a perspective to things that very few people at his age can do.

Alternatively, he could have chosen to be scared, confused, and frustrated about his body failing him. But he practiced psychological flexibility and has adopted the story that serves him.

But this concept goes an extra layer deeper, relating the events of the present and the past. We often think that you can’t change the past, and while it’s true that you can’t change the literal events of the past, in every given moment we are choosing the way we relate with it in the present. 

The etymology of the word ‘remember’ is “to bring to mind again”. This suggests that our experience of the past is a present activity. To put it another way, the lens of the current moment determines the meaning of the past.

So if something didn’t go according to plan - you made a mistake, things didn’t go well, you had a bad result - how do you want to relate with it? What would be the most positive way to choose to relate with it? Because that’s the gift of the present moment, and when you express psychological flexibility to see things differently than you used to, you change the energetic impact that past event has on you.

Practically, what does that mean? It’s an opportunity for you to change your belief and perspective. Pick a moment from the past that negatively impacts you and ask yourself “How might this be a great thing to have happened to me?” The response to it just might be the new empowering story you can tell about the event.

If you feel like you’re leaving potential on the table and not achieving the levels of personal health, success, productivity, and contribution you’re capable of… And you know that more consistency and structure is your ticket to reaching your goals… Then this is for you! 

In 5 minutes a day for 21 days you can install the ⁠Super Habits System⁠ to become ridiculously consistent, take your daily output to elite levels, and live a life that other people have a hard time keeping up with!

Our bodies have an incredible ability to preserve our safety, health, and well-being. Simply reflect on anyone who has scraped their knee, how the body sends blood cells to patch the wound with a scab, and over time skin grows under the scab until it falls off.

Another mechanism the body has is something called scar tissue. The purpose of scar tissue is to keep things stuck in place so that they don’t damage the rest of the body. So what happens is the body produces scar tissue to fill gaps in the body because that empty space could be problematic and lead to complications.

Interestingly, I believe this same concept happens in our mind as well. When we experience something that is painful or causes damage, we produce psychological scar tissue. Rather than keeping things physically in place, this scar tissue is put in to maintain things how they are. The restriction makes it harder to try new things, do things differently, and consider alternatives.

But similarly, using the analogy of physical scar tissue, it also prevents us from growing.

We do not control our body and mind’s ability to make scar tissue, It is an automatic, evolutionary process that is in place to protect us. But just like we need to be proactive about mobilizing a joint after surgery to prevent scar tissue from building up, we can do certain things psychologically to support us in overcoming the way that things are.

This psychological movement happens through action. It’s doing new things that are scary and painful to break up the tissue. It’s choosing to structure your thinking and change the conversation going on in your mind to tell a new story about what happened.

In both cases, we need to choose to take action. Our natural state is to preserve, protect, and not resist the scar forming process. So in order to make sure your life doesn’t get stuck and fixated repeating the same loops and patterns, you need to take an active approach in taking new actions that disrupt the way things are.

The scar tissue is there for a reason, it’s there to protect us. But it’s also an automatic response that doesn’t know the full context around what we’re hoping to accomplish, and sometimes we need to be mindful of how we can work with it so that this amazing process serves us when we need it but doesn’t restrict us when we don’t.

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If you feel like you’re leaving potential on the table and not achieving the levels of personal health, success, productivity, and contribution you’re capable of… And you know that more focus and structure is your ticket to reaching your goals… Then this is for you! 

In 5 minutes a day for 21 days you can install the Super Habits System to become ridiculously consistent, take your daily output to elite levels, and live a life that other people have a hard time keeping up with!

As someone who is incredibly self-disciplined and teaches a lot about it, I found this nuance about self-discipline very insightful. When we think of self-discipline we often think about will-power, and that to be discipline we must impose our will on the circumstances. This is a no excuses, non-negotiable, whatever it takes mentality.

While it’s very useful to have, it's not a sustainable source of action-taking fuel. When it runs out, it will lead to an unfortunate crash and recovery.

Taking the previous approach is something that the stoics and Ryan Holiday call “Iron Will”, meaning that there’s a strong and enforcing material to it.

The type of will and self-discipline that is built to last, that’s still strong but a bit more practical is what they call “Adaptable Will”.

‘Adaptable will’ gives you the space to read the circumstances in every instance and make the right decision for that environment. Iron will tells you to enforce the decision you already made no matter what, which might not always be the right decision.

What if you’re sick and you’ve committed to working out hard every day? Maybe you consider a lighter workout, or give yourself time to rest. What if you have early travel plans but you also have a non-negotiable morning routine? Do you wake up an extra hour early and compromise your sleep do the full routine? Or do you do a version of it and choose to prioritize sleep.

Adaptable will gives you the opportunity to make a moment by moment choice. Oftentimes the right choice is to do the difficult, uncomfortable, challenging thing. But instead of doing it without any regard to what’s happening, you choose to do it.

Similarly when it’s not the right thing to do, instead of feeling like you lack discipline, you can have confidence that you made the right intentional choice. With the adaptability comes flexibility, and it helps you to keep momentum going even on the days you don’t take action on something because with the best of intentions you’re choosing not to.

To make this actionable, the best thing you can do for your daily disciplines is prepare. Make sure you have them prioritized in your schedule. But also, know what a fractional version of the full activity would be so that you can elect to do that when that’s the right decision to make.

Do you see your time as your most valuable asset? It’s the one thing that you can’t buy more of, that you can’t get back, and that is limited in our lifetimes. But when it comes to where we spend our time I’ve found that many people are missing something critical about it.

If you want to improve your health, there’s a cost to it. Increasing exercise and allocating more time to shop for and prepare healthy meals takes up hours of the day, leaving less time for things like work and being social. Or at least that’s what you’d logically think…

That’s why I want to present to you the Time Pie Analogy.

Imagine that your day is shaped like a pie, and the time you spend doing different things make up different slices of the pie. Per the previous example, investing more time in health-related activities would take up a larger slice of pie, leaving less available for other things like work or time with people.

This suggests that you need to accept a tradeoff and understand that adding to one thing means you need to take from another. And while it's true that you have less literal minutes in a single day, that's not the full truth.

What happens when you invest in healthy, self-caring, soul-lifting experiences, is you create a bigger pie. The introduces a very important nuance to time which is quality. The value of the time you spend is a combination of quantity and quality.

What this means is that while investing more time in exercising or healthy meal-prepping does take up a larger percentage of the pie, the full pie grows bigger because of those activities. What that means is it gives you the energy, focus, presence, and momentum you need to improve the quality of everything else you do.

While the percentage slice of your work might be smaller, the amount of pie you get overall is larger because it’s a slightly smaller slice of a much larger pie!

When people talk about creating balance or harmony in life, this is what they mean. This is why taking one hour out of your work day to exercise allows you to actually get more done overall. This is how you can live a big life and do it all without making compromises. Spending more time on your health activities isn’t a tradeoff but rather a catalyst for everything else.

It’s a matter of doing the things that help you add more quality to the things you do, and have a life with a bigger pie where every slice has more to it!

If you're ready to expand your capacity and start doing everything better (across all ares of your life), this is for you!

Last weekend I went on a great hike along a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail. This trail follows the top of the ridge line that spans the entire western United States, and what was interesting to observe along this ridge was that a lot of the trees had their tops blown off by the gusts that whip up over the ridge. 

These trees, who started as seeds and grew to over 50 feet tall, had no say in where they were planted. And they have even less of an influence on what kinds of winds they’re exposed to.

I immediately related this to our human experience. We don’t choose what circumstances we’re born into, our genetics, or the elements around us. Like these trees, where we start is out of our control and some people are handed a more challenging life that they must manage. 

But what are we to do about it? There’s nothing we can do about it other than do our best with whatever we’re facing. We don’t choose the hand we’re dealt but we do get to choose how we play it. You can feel victimized by your circumstances and restricted by your hardship, or you can use it as fuel to propel you forward in ways that others can’t.

I don’t mean to belittle the difficulties and unfairness that is the lottery of life, but I do believe that our paths are perfectly crafted and that we’re placed exactly where we’re supposed to be. Whether that reason is to learn a lesson, be able to relate with and understand a certain type of person, or something else, it’s our responsibility to squeeze the juice out of the life we’re given (should we choose to accept it).

Like the trees with their tops blown off at the top of the ridge, resiliently putting their energy into growing taller without bitterness or resentment, we too can accept our circumstances for what they are and with that awareness decide what we want to do next.

It’s pretty remarkable what a change of scenery can do for you. This weekend I was disconnected, enjoying time with family and nature. But without neglecting what’s really important to me I wanted to prioritize staying consistent with my morning routine and exercise while away, or at least a version of it. 

One of the things I do every morning is read my core values and my goals. What was fascinating this time was how I saw a very familiar process with completely new eyes. Reading my goals in this new environment, I realized that one of the biggest goals I have isn’t on the list! It was silly to me that I had overlooked something so obvious so many times, yet here I was.

And on top of that, since I was out of my normal way of doing things and could reflect on it rather than being so caught up in it, I saw how possible it was to reach a next level that I’d always desired and wanted. It was something I always pictured as part of how I’d operate in the future but for whatever reason never incorporated it. 

This all reinforced the value of getting out of your normal environment and getting a change of scenery. In our environment we have associations and connections that shape our experience. So even if we’re goal setting or brainstorming, being in that same environment will pull you to think in the same ways you’re accustomed to thinking.

So my recommendation is that when you do monthly goal setting, a quarterly review, or even some personal soul-searching, do it in a new place. Somewhere that is inspiring and empowering so that you aren’t limited by your perception of how things are and tapping into how things could be. In my case it helped me see what I’d been overlooking for so long, and with that awareness I can get more targeted in my approach to being the best version of myself.

Think back to your days in school. When you were taking a test, to prevent anyone from cheating, do you remember what the teacher would say?

“Keep your eyes on your own paper.”

With everything that’s going on in the world and how easy it is to compare ourselves to others, this advice still rings true today. We are in a crisis where our successes and livelihood has never been more available for other people to see. And equally their success has never been easier for us to see.

But as you’ve heard before, what we see from others doesn’t represent the full truth and it leads to an incomplete understanding of how people are living. It's the comparison to that which makes us feel worse about our own.

Whether you've ever cheated on a test before or not doesn’t matter in understanding this concept. To look at someone else’s paper in this day and age means to desire exactly what someone else desires, do exactly what someone else is doing, and achieve exactly what someone else has achieved. That was the purpose of cheating on a test - Not to use their answers as a way to help you understand but to blatantly copy it.

And this influence is broader than you realize. It’s not just your favorite thought leader that influences you. It’s your friends, family, and co-workers. You hear about what they’re up to, or are impacted by what they want from you, and it causes you to shape your life for them and not for you.

But as you know, there’s no ‘right answer’ for life and certainly not one way to do it. But the best way is your way.

Let’s go back to the analogy. What’s a better, more ethical way to get a good test result without copying someone else’s answers (and that’ll serve you in the long run)?

To study.

Don’t just blindly copy what other people are doing but observe it, learn it, and understand it so that it informs you in how you want to make your own decisions.

In this test that is life, keep your eyes on your own paper, but also find the smartest people in the class and use their knowledge to give you your best chance at succeeding!