Self Improvement Daily Podcast

I’m a huge believer in environmental design. I agree with people like Benjamin Hardy (who wrote “Willpower Doesn’t Work” and Darren Hardy (who wrote “The Compound Effect”) and the way they attribute behavior to the influencing forces around you. As adaptive beings, we were designed to be highly responsive to the things around us because it maximized our ability to survive changing times and manage threats to our safety.

Environmental design is the concept where you can change the forces that influence you such that they support the life you want to live. By default, our environment creates resistance and aims to keep secure in the comforts of how things are now. But if we want to achieve and experience beyond our present level, we need to take new actions, and environmental design supports that.

When it comes to following through on an action there are two things to keep in mind, which also serve as the two functions of your environment. The first is that it makes taking action easier. Rather than facing opposition, you can adjust your environment so that it does some of the work for you. Getting a membership for a gym that’s closer to home reduces friction toward working out. Business development gets way more consistent when you have an accountability partner. The action becomes easier to do when your environment favors doing it more than it used to.

The second function of an environment is to prompt your awareness to take action. If these things were going to happen automatically, then they already would by now. It’s critical you leverage your environment to remind you of what’s important and what you plan to do. Having a to-do list or daily schedule is a system of awareness where when you reference it, you remember what you need to do. You can move objects into obvious places so that they disrupt your unconscious pattern, you perceive them, and can choose to act. Awareness is consciousness, and you can use your environment to cue you to pay attention to things.

Because environmental design is so effective, when it comes to changing my life it’s the first place I go. When I have a new intention to be a better husband or eat healthier or more consistently follow up with people in my network… I default to thinking about how I can change my environment or build systems that make doing it more consistent. It makes the action easier and reminds me to do it in the first place, which are two very important criteria to follow through. New actions create new realities. Change your environment and you’ll change your life!

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So many of us have so many good ideas for ways we can change our lives. That’s certainly the case for me! I’d love to incorporate AI into my business better, revamp some systems I have, get serious about training for a marathon, take a trip to Peru or South Korea in this small window before I start a family. But that’s where it all ends.

And that’s perfectly fine! You’re not meant to take action on every good idea you have. If you did then you’d feel the consequences of an unbalanced life where you’re neglecting other responsibilities and impacted in unexpected ways. We have a finite capacity and we need to make sure that what we actually commit to doing is worthwhile with our limited resources.

When the idea is good, valuable, and you’re ready to take action on it… Then it escalates to an intention. Setting an intention is the equivalent of making a commitment to do something. What was once a possibility now becomes a probability where there’s a certain likelihood for if you end up doing it or not.

Helping people turn intentions into action is my personal mission statement because it’s the source of so much wasted potential. Every time, someone who has the intention to do something doesn’t do it, their confidence erode. It’s a slippery slope that leads to more shortcomings because they’ve taught themselves that they don’t take their commitments very seriously. Taking action is already hard enough, but if your own mindset is getting in your own way and makes things even harder, you’re going to be set up for disappointment. 

To make good on your good intentions, here’s what needs to happen: First you need to make a plan. Preparation before action is responsible for so much of its success. Following through is easier when you have clarity beforehand. It’s one ways that your environment does some of the work for you. Then when it’s time to take action, make sure you’re in the right state of mind. You’re in a good mood, have energy, and feel motivated to take action. You’re way less likely to make excuses that way. Do those two things and you know what you need to do and you have the capacity to do it.

Keep having good ideas! They’re the life-blood of your personal evolution. But don’t expect them to materialize into anything unless you commit to the idea, set an intention, and create the right conditions for following through on it. You are more capable of changing your life than you realize, you just need to start meaning it that much more.

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I’m curious if this resonates for you as much as it does for me. My whole life I’ve known that I was born differently. I’ve always had this belief that I’m capable of truly exceptional things, and that I’m meant to be a leader that operates at the highest levels of business and philanthropy. I know there are a lot of great people out there, but I’ve always felt like I have something most people don’t possess and have a conviction that I’m going to do great things. If you’re ambitious, hard-working, and deeply invested in your self-improvement, you know what I’m talking about. 

If what I’m describing is something you’ve always felt but never had the words to describe, let me give them to you: You have uncommon potential. You have the intelligence, talents, and great ideas that could truly shake the world. You have an ‘it factor’ most people don’t where you can open doors and make things happen that most can’t. The ceiling for the impact, influence, and income you can have is tiers above what most people can dream to achieve. You have a gift and were born to be the exception. You are special.

And it can be confusing when you whole-heartedly know what you’re capable of yet you’re still not as far along as you thought you would be by now. I personally know this feeling well. Although I’ve made a lot of progress, I still feel like there’s a gap between where I am and where I know in my heart I belong. That I have everything I need to become a top 1% changemaker, playing in the big leagues with the big hitters, but I’m still not there yet. 

When there’s a disconnect like this, there are only two things you can do:

1) You can choose to live an average life. There’s nothing wrong with that if that’s what you want. There’s so much goodness, beauty, and simplicity in it that so many people enjoy. And it doesn’t make them any worse or inferior to those who achieve more. But I just don’t think I could be happy that way. I have such a big vision for the life I want to live, and feeling like I’ve settled for anything less would consume me.

2) You can recommit to bridging the gap. Rather than letting the call of your greater potential become a whisper, you step in and prove it right. You get more uncomfortable and play a bigger game. Whether it materializes into anything or not, you know that at the end of your life you’ll have fewer regrets because you tried your best.

I’ve chosen the second option for myself. I know that I’m capable of so much more, that I possess an uncommon potential that can change the world in ways most can’t, and I’m committed to seeing it through. You don’t need to already have results to choose this path… You just need to honor the inner-knowing that greatness has been planted inside your heart.

I don’t have it all figured out, but I have my own process that I use to hold myself to a higher standard, that brings out my very best and creates the conditions for my uncommon potential to come out and be built upon. And if you want to stop feeling like you’re falling behind where you know you could be and instead start impacting the world in a way that very few can… Check out the process I use to accelerate my growth - It just might be just what you need too. 

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Something that has gotten a bad reputation is the ego. We’ve made the ego out to be responsible for our selfish, greedy, arrogant, defensive, and vain nature. And it is. The ego works by creating a sense of separation and independence from others. It is woven into evolutionary biology because beings that don’t have a sense of self will have no motivation to look out for themselves. 

But is ego the enemy? I don’t think so. Our ego is designed to protect us, and I have a hard time believing that something that has good intentions and seeks to be in our best interest is inherently evil. 

Stoic philosopher and author Ryan Holiday wrote a book called “The Ego Is The Enemy” and despite the decisive positioning of the title, he agrees. The ego itself isn’t the enemy, it’s the way that it has the tendency to control us in ways that pull us to act out of integrity. The enemy itself is our separation from reality, and an unchecked ego is a driving force behind that.

Here’s what it means to be separated from reality: You get so in your head and act emotionally that you can’t see things objectively and make thoughtful, rational decisions. You perceive the world in a way that is biased and self-serving, not a way that represents what is true. You attribute successes and failures as your own doing and not the delicate dance between your actions and the conditions those actions occur within.

Your ego serves a purpose to keep you safe and surface relevant context for you to consider. But when it’s untamed it’s like a toddler running your life, acting on every impulse and creating a wake of moral destruction. 

Working with the ego is a life-long pursuit, and I’m very much in progress with it, but there are some things I’ve found to be helpful in living with more integrity. One thing is to create space and slow down. The ego is embedded in your unconscious decision making and will surface if you don’t choose consciously. The second is environmental design. When you improve the conditions you're operating within, the inputs and stimuli that come from your environment trigger your ego in a more manageable way. And last, for me, is to pray. I believe God settles my life when I ask Him to, but if that’s not for you then consider it a moment of meditation where you connect to a higher consciousness. 

There’s a version of yourself that exists under the way you feel. It’s your spirit, intuition, and essence. When you are aware of the lens that your ego adds on top of your perception but make decisions from a more grounded place, you’ll find that your decisions more closely map to what you want… And not what your ego is poking you about. 

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Every day we make so many choices and in each choice we’re quantifying the tradeoff. If I do this thing then I can’t do that thing, or it will make me feel this way, or it will affect this person this way, or it will interact with my values in this way. Aligning your choices around what you want holistically, and not narrowly to achieve a single end, is what I call living intentionally and it’s the North Star of my life. 

Embedded in the idea of making choices and calculating tradeoffs is the cost of something. Understanding how much money, energy, or time is needed and estimating the payoff of it. We all want the best bang for our buck, literally and metaphorically.

And that’s the crux of the question… How do we know when something is worth it? Here’s the way that I think about it: Something only costs too much when you don’t receive enough value in return.

What’s interesting about this perspective is that it makes you quantify value as a relationship between what you give and what you get. So many of us focus on how steep the price is relative to other things we’ve invested our time, money, and energy into. But what’s much more important is the proportion between what we give and what we get.

It’s a mechanism that keeps itself in check. When you have less to give and the price of doing so is high, then you assume a greater cost. This means that to justify the cost, the thing you get back must be of even greater value to you.

What’s valuable to you connects to what you want. What problems do you want support with and in what ways do you want your life to elevate? Given where you’re at, you need to determine the currency that’s most valuable to you. And not simply based on your short-term needs and impulses, but from a grander view. Do you want more peace and less stress? Do you want more adventure or more alignment? When you invest in the things that connect more closely to what you want, you experience a greater return and the cost isn’t so much to bear. 

Having said that, I believe we’re not supposed to see life completely through this transactional lens. Especially when it benefits others we should give generously. But to use the same argument, there’s an inherent value to you in being the type of person that helps others and wants to be generous.

That’s why intentionality is everything. It helps you align your choices around what genuinely matters, and helps you make choices that follow suit.

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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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