Self Improvement Daily Podcast

The human body is amazing in so many ways. We can’t even begin to fathom everything it is doing in a single moment to keep us alive. It happens independently with its own consciousness. The body knows when you have a cut and it works to stop the leak. It knows when you’ve ingested something toxic and filters it out. It knows when you’re in danger and prepares you to respond. It’s truly remarkable.

Our body is designed so intricately and with so much complexity that it’s truly a miracle. And while it’s not perfect, like any system it's perfectly designed and calibrated for the results it produces. 

I feel like someone needs to hear this: If it hurts, it’s not normal. Things aren’t meant to hurt. That’s not the way the body was designed to be. If you get bloated and have pain after eating a certain type of food, that’s not normal. If it’s painful to use the bathroom, it’s not supposed to be. If sexual intimacy hurts, that’s abnormal. It might be more convenient or comfortable to act like that’s just the way things are, but pain is your body’s way of indicating that something isn’t working right. It’s a sign that you should pay serious attention to and do something about. 

There are two things that may cause pain, which introduces two points of intervention. The first is what you put into the system. Whether it’s something you consume, a movement you initiate, or anything else that you choose to do, if it hurts it’s very possible that it’s not compatible with your body. Pain is your body’s way of saying that whatever just happened is bad for you.

The second is there could be some form of dysfunction. This is when the body is incapable of performing a certain process as it normally does. Identifying the root cause of a dysfunction is the work of doctors and medical workers, but if something is painful and you don’t know why, it’s likely because something isn’t working properly.

Our body is our vehicle that we get to explore the world with and experience life within. If you want to make the most of it, you need to make sure you’re taking care of it. Any form of pain isn’t normal and should prompt you to think about what you need to do differently, what doesn’t belong, or what underlying problem might be present.   

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There’s a certain status associated with being a morning person. As a society we’ve collectively decided that it’s a more virtuous thing to do. It suggests you were responsible the night before, have the character and self-control that will lead to more success, and take yourself that much seriously by getting a fast start to the day.

Many people say they want to be a morning person because they want to be more like that. They think they’d be more proud of themselves, self-confident, and achieve more if that were the case. But in many ways it’s virtue signaling and way too narrow of a commitment to actually be best for a person.

I know this because I had this problem. For years I set my alarm for 5:59 AM because then I could tell myself I was up before 6:00. It stroked my ego and made me feel like a high performer. But was it actually best for me?

At the time I didn’t know why I was easily distracted and had midday brain fog, not looking back at it today it’s obvious: I wasn’t sleeping enough. I was waking up early to feel good about myself but doing it was actually making me sick. 

What’s more important than being a morning person is being the type of person who absolutely crushes their day. Who’s to say that the day needs to start early for that to be true? In fact for many, it does the opposite because it pulls people out of their conditions for success.

So here’s the punchline: Make commitments based on what actually serves you and not what seems to be the best. The things you’ve decided to be ‘right’ might not be, and keeping a healthy curiosity and detachment from those beliefs will help you figure out what really works for you.

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I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how I’m not as far along as I thought I would be by now. Given how smart I am, how hard I work, and the thousands of hours I had spent in my personal development, I just wasn’t getting the results I knew I was capable of. I felt like I had what it took to be a highly influential, highly impactful leader, but it just wasn’t materializing into my reality. And if you’ve ever felt the same way, here’s the real reason why:

You’re not following through on the bigger and bolder actions that create the bigger and bolder vision you have for your life. 

It’s as simple as that. If you were to have consistently taken those actions, your reality would look a lot different. Your life is perfectly calibrated to the level of action you’ve been taking. 

Bridging this gap and operating at the level of influence, impact, and financial success you’ve been envisioning involves improving your action in two ways. First you need to know what it is that you need to do, leveraging strategies and tactics that are proven to work… And second you need to actually do those things consistently. That’s it. When you elevate the way you do both you will elevate your results. 

But here’s a very important detail most people overlook. Small and inconsistent action is only a symptom of the real problem. The root cause is your environment. The conditions you’re operating within are highly responsible for what you do or don’t do.

A prominent feature in your environment are your systems. There’s an underlying system for absolutely everything that is perfectly designed for the level of output it produces. Your current actions are the byproduct of your current system. This means that the real point of intervention isn’t to will your way into taking more action but to improve the design of your environment by upgrading your systems.

Your goals are unique to you, but they’re made possible by having a better foundation to build upon. When I implemented what I call the Baseline Follow Through Operating System, which is a handful of system upgrades that made it easier to hold myself to a higher standard, that’s when everything started to change. I no longer felt like I was falling behind and instead started opening doors and making moves at the levels I always knew were possible. 

What’s happening right now is proof of it. Tomorrow I’m going to meet James Clear, the author of ‘Atomic Habits’, and that never would have been possible if I continued to do things how I used to do them. But I upgraded my systems, which improved the leverage and consistency of my actions, and look where it took me. When you change the roots you change the fruits.

If you want to start making good on your higher potential, it starts with upgrading your systems, and the best way I know to help you with that is by incorporating the Baseline Follow Through Operating System for yourself. For years I’ve been fine-tuning a process that walks you through it step by step. If you’re ready to reach your next level, click there to start implementing it for yourself.

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Here’s a lesson that I’ve personally experienced and seen to be true for other people. We assume that the people who get the most help, who lead teams and have a big support staff, were able to afford that kind of help after they became financially successful. We also think that being able to afford resources compounds growth and offers an unfair advantage that makes the rich richer.

But what I’ve found to be true is that the people who run big businesses and live a big life… They invested in help before they could reasonably afford it and that’s what catapulted them to the next level. 

We have the order backwards: You get help first and then that facilitates your success. You don’t get successful by waiting to get help. Getting help isn’t a luxury for the rich, it’s a strategy for increasing your capacity.

When you have help you’re no longer limited by the confines of yourself. Someone who has better ideas can help you operate with more leverage. Someone who has a different skill set can take work off of your plate. More of your vision can materialize into reality when there are more people actively working on building it. With help, your personal efforts multiply and your work gets done by others.

The challenge is taking the leap and going for it. It’s scary to invest in yourself for the first time. It feels irresponsible to spend money on something with faith that it will free you up to do more valuable things. That’s what I experienced, joining Masterminds, hiring coaches, and building my team. I am freed up to do higher leverage and higher value things.

And here’s the tough love and hard truth of it: You will keep falling behind where you could be. Now that I’ve gotten help, I wish I would’ve done it sooner. Things would’ve happened so much faster. I can’t change the past but I can use the lesson to inform my future. That’s the lesson I’m passing forward to you so that you start making the progress you know you’re capable of.

If you know you want to play a bigger game but things seem to just stay stuck, in your health or career, I’d love to help. Here’s where to get started.

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One of the primary needs of the ego is to create a sense of independence and separation from others. Our ego evolved to help us understand our ranking within a tribe, and that can only be done through comparison. In an effort to increase our status in a group, we have a natural pull to want to prove ourselves to others.

This is a powerful force that offers good motivation, but the problem is it can motivate the wrong things. It leads you to do something because of what it signals to others, not because it’s what you want to do or who you want to be. That’s why it’s important to understand our ego and its needs.

Recently I’ve subscribed to the Fios Brothers daily newsletter and I’ve been really enjoying it. Last week they featured this quote that struck me:

“Stop trying to prove yourself. Start trying to improve yourself. One keeps you stuck performing for other people. The other keeps you growing for yourself.”

Improvement flips the focus of your efforts inward, and invites you to compare your present self with your past self. That’s all improvement is… Measuring how things were, measuring how things are now, and noticing the difference. If things in your life are now closer to where you wanted to be, then improvement occurred. 

The secret to genuine improvement is that you conduct this self-comparison without criticism. Rather than feeling worse about yourself when things aren’t improving, you use it as feedback. Our ego wants to use our shortcomings to place us in the hierarchy, and when the results are disappointing it then deflects responsibility out of self-preservation. But that prevents us from learning from our mistakes and keeps us from doing better next time. The more you can sit with things and understand what caused it, the more awareness you have to create improvement in your next attempt.

That’s why I swear by completing a Daily Check In every day. It’s a moment to measure my performance, reflect on what got in the way, and accelerate my growth. Click here to check out a video where I show my System for that.

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A few days ago I was boarding an early flight. The airline boards in groups so I waited for my group to line up. Many people had already moved ahead of me and instead of going to the back I cut the line and slid into the lineup about 3/4 of the way back. And it wasn’t until I was actually in the jetway getting on the plan that I realized what I had done. 

It baffled me. I’m the type of person that cares about living with integrity. I notice when other people cut line in front of me and believe that it’s the wrong thing to do. Yet that’s exactly what I did. I’ll take responsibility for the choice, but also want to shed light on how that happened.

The choices we make are either conscious, unconscious, or semi-conscious. Semi-conscious decisions involve both conscious and unconscious elements. On one hand you are aware of the choice you make when you do it, it doesn’t happen on its own. And on the other there are many unconscious elements that influence what happened.

Here’s what was happening in my mind. I semi-consciously reasoned that cutting the line was an acceptable thing to do. There were only 10 people who were going to be affected by it, and all of them were looking away and I didn’t think they’d notice or know any different. To get to the back of the line I had to take the long way around, so there was added friction on an already tired and early morning. And where I slid in there was a big gap in the line that I could easily fit into. All of those elements had me semi-consciously rationalize that cutting the line was an acceptable thing to do.

We’re being influenced by factors like this at all times and they steer our decision making in ways we’re not fully present to. In this case it caused me to act outside of my values. The more we know it’s happening and the more we can probe into how it happens, the better we can control it and make decisions we’re proud of, and ultimately live the lives we want to live.

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As times evolve, so too must we update our mental models. For many years of human history acquiring knowledge has been an incredibly valuable pursuit. Those who could read had access to information that developed a more robust perspective and understanding for how things work. That knowledge could then be applied to create, innovate, and advance in society.

But knowledge is no longer the moat to prospering. With the internet and AI, just about anyone can access the information they need to succeed. New ideas, best practices, step-by-step processes, and so much else is available at our fingertips. In fact there’s so much information that it’s hard to know what’s most helpful and even what’s true.

Given the unique time we’re in, I want to outline the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is what you know or have learned, wisdom is what you’ve learned through experience. Wisdom carries a much more prestigious connotation and rightfully so - it is earned and validated through your own stories, trials, and errors.

Knowledge is theory and wisdom is practice.

I think a lot about this distinction because it’s the problem I’ve dedicated my life to: Why do people know what they need to do but they still don’t do it? Helping people follow through on their best ideas and intentions, to change their life and change the world, is my personal mission. Bob Proctor called this the “Knowing Doing Gap”. I’m obsessed with understanding all the factors that play a part in translating intention into action, and filling that gap.

Who are you more likely to take advice from… The person that read the book or the person that wrote the book? 

Who do you think has a better understanding for how things work… The person that heard someone talk about it or the person who lived through it? 

Knowing used to be enough to stand out from the crowd but that’s no longer the case any more. If you want to be successful, impactful, and contribute something truly meaningful to the world, knowledge isn’t enough. You need to go out and do it.

If there’s something you know you should be doing but you can’t bring yourself to doing it - Whether it’s because you’re scared to fail or look stupid, you don’t feel ready, you’re not motivated, or you’re telling yourself you’re too busy… Check out this video that explains what’s holding you back and what to do about it.

If not now, then when? And if not you, then who? We’re counting on you to be at your very best. And I’m proud of you for being on the path.

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I recently came across a popular stress management model that I wanted to share with you. Life will keep on happening to you and there’s only so many things you can do in response to it. In fact, there are only 3 and it’s called the CIA model.

The C stands for ‘Control’. The one thing that you are entirely in control of are the things that you do internally. You can control what you think, what plans you make, or how to respond to a situation. Just because something can be controlled doesn’t mean it’s easy to control, but ultimately you have the power within you to fully decide what happens. 

When people talk about controlling the controllables, this is what they’re referring to. It helps to manage stress when you realize that something is beyond your control and there are factors outside of you that are causing something to be a certain way. 

The I stands for ‘Influence’. You play your part and contribute to how most things go. Moments are co-created among people and their interactions with systems, institutions, and the environment. You are one of many contributing forces to a given mechanism. While it might seem like there’s nothing you can do to change a situation, do not neglect to believe that you can influence it. What you can’t do is expect a certain outcome from something that you’ve invested yourself into. 

You can’t guarantee your favorite candidate wins an election, but you can influence the count by advocating and voting. You can’t guarantee that you’ll lose weight, but you can influence what happens by making good choices and setting better boundaries. There’s a connection between cause and effect that you get to be a part of. There are forces that determine how things transpire and you can contribute some version of raw inputs that get incorporated into the calculation.

The A stands for ‘Accept’. This is the hardest one to do because it suggests that there’s nothing you can do to change what happens. These things are beyond your sphere of influence. If you can influence the inputs then you must accept the outputs. Acceptance isn’t a point of weakness or a concession in any way. It’s a sign of strength that you have the discernment to invest your time and energy in the things you can actually do something about. Preoccupation, worry, or disappointment in something that you can’t control or influence is energy wasted.

The Serenity Prayer embodies this CIA Model to stress management: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” It lists it out plainly: Control, influence, accept.

Now given these 3 perspectives, know that they don’t exist completely independently. There are elements of each embedded in everything we do. The goal is to apply the right ones in the right ways so that you can create more peace in your life.

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