Self Improvement Daily Podcast

Something I really pride myself on is that I hold myself to a high standard. It’s something a lot of people talk about but many fail to do because they don't have all the pieces they need in place to fulfill it.

First, holding yourself to a higher standard requires clarity on what that standard is. You can’t expect to hit a target if you don’t know what to aim for. Second is you need to be disciplined - to reject distractions, vices, and impulses that try to pull you off track. And last, you need to reflect and measure your performance so you can compare how you did against the intention. It’s a process I go through daily in my Self Improvement Scorecard, and it’s changed my life.

But standards aren’t meant to be as rigid as they appear to be. I have an issue with the idea of things being ‘non-negotiable’ because that always reaches some breaking point where what you committed to does more harm than good, and it doesn't actually serve you. And if that’s the case at the furthest level, isn’t it also true on a smaller level?

So this is my approach to it. I have two clearly defined standards for myself: A ‘High Standard’ that represents my ideal performance in an area of my life, and a ‘Minimum Standard’ that represents the smallest meaningful commitment I want to be held accountable to.

From there, with those two in place, every day I set my intention for the day. Life happens, there are situations that call for changes in plan, and rather than being set up for failure I can adjust my approach.

For example, the ‘High Standard’ I have for my fitness is to exercise every single day to a sweat for at least 30 minutes, including at least 10 minutes of cardio. My minimum standard is that I complete 15 minutes of dedicated movement, could be a walk, bodyweight workout, or time at the gym.

Now what if a day calls for something else and I can’t dedicate the 30 minutes to hitting my high standard? Does that mean I just have to accept that I’m going to fall short for a day?

What I choose to do is, given everything on my plate for that day, set an intention for what my ideal ‘exercise plan’ is and hold myself accountable to executing that. Could be a day I have a cross country flight and I’m up at 4 am. … I commit to only doing a 15 minute walk. Or on a day when I’m recovering from being sick, I choose to take a rest day.

When I do that, my intention becomes my standard for the day, and I use my pre-defined standards as a reference point to determine how I want to show up. In my opinion, when you forecast your day and make a ‘meaningful exception’ to the rule, that’s not making an excuse… It’s being intentional about knowing what you want to do in advance.

These aren’t just words. This is a process I complete daily in my Self Improvement Scorecard. And if you want to check it out, watch the video I made showing you how it works.

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With Thanksgiving later this week, I wanted to share a reflection (and a few ideas) you could incorporate into your time with loved ones. The intention is that you can take something you learn here to make this Thanksgiving the most thankful yet!

Gratitude is one of the most abundant things in the world. It’s a gift to everyone involved - the giver gets to reflect positively on the positive impact someone has made on them, and the recipient gets to receive a genuine reminder that they’re loved, seen, appreciated, and valued.

It’s such a powerful force that every day I play a game I call ‘Gratitude Roulette’ where I go in my contacts list, flick my finger to pull up a random set of names, and pick one person in that set to reach out to and let them know I was thinking about them, and recognize them for the good I see them bringing to the world.

Thanksgiving is among my favorite holidays because it normalizes gratitude, and serves as a gateway to more of it. So this Thanksgiving, challenge yourself to be one step more intentional about how you integrate thankfulness into your day. And here are some ideas that I’ll be doing to make this Thanksgiving my most thankful yet. 

First, you can send out dozens of messages. Even if you copy and paste it, sending out messages that say “Happy Thanksgiving! I’m grateful for you and having you in my life.” makes people feel warm because you were thinking about them. Extra points to personalize it with a short reason why, or making it a voice note so that they know you put the time in specifically for them.

Another thing you can do with the people that you’re visiting is tell them directly that you’re thankful for them. As people are mixing, chatting, and preparing the meal, you can put more substance into the conversations you have. More than just catching up, but genuinely acknowledging someone for what they’ve brought to your life. It doesn’t need to be overly sappy, but a quick moment of real connection goes a really long way.

And last, especially for those who will be at a huge feast, is to be grateful for the abundance you live with. To literally look at counters full of food and realize there are so many people who hardly have enough to survive, and you get to enjoy more than you could ever need. Put up a short prayer or meditation reflecting on that and you’ll feel how full your life is. 

Those are just some ideas! I know that some of these things might feel uncomfortable, but they’re well worth it. A grateful life is an amazing life, and I hope you get to feel and share all of the blessings you have this Thanksgiving.

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Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Cindra Kamphoff, who spoke from stage about mental performance. She works with professional athletes and executives to help them be more resilient, specifically helping them quickly disrupt negative thought patterns that would affect their performance. 

She taught her powerful 3-part process, a quick exercise anyone can do at any moment to realign and refocus, and I wanted to share it with you.

The process is: Learn, Burn, Return.

First, in the face of underperformance, Dr. Cindra encourages you to take a quick look at it. There’s probably something you need to learn - a pattern that you need to be aware of, environmental factors you need to keep in consideration, or some other insight that’s relevant to the next attempt. Don’t dwell, it’s meant to be a quick audit.

Then, you burn it. Forget it ever happened. Move on emotionally, removing any attachment to the poor result. You integrated what caused it and keeping it in your memory no longer serves you. Confidence is built by having an overwhelming number of positive instances that prove your capabilities. Don’t let one bad move spoil everything else. Dr. Cindra recommends you have a ritual you physically do to shake it off.

And last, you return. You go right back into being fully focused on the present, undistracted by what just happened - whether that’s a game, a presentation, or something else that demands your best. The truth is, you can only do your best when you give your best.

In one case, one of her athletes, Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Adam Thielen dropped a big pass. He ran off the field (processing the mistake and learning from it), when he got to the sideline he made a hand gesture flushing it down the toilet (burning the memory), and dialed right back into the game (return). 

His next opportunity, he made a big play that won the game. And it was only possible because he used the ‘Learn, Burn, Return’ process to restore his high-performance.

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What if life, growth, and improvement were as simple as completing a two step process? What if everything you’ve ever wanted, and the version of yourself you’ve always wanted to become, was on the other side of consistently engaging in just two things?

My mentor Jim Bunch originally taught me a 3 part framework for transformation that has become central to my understanding for behavior change:  Awareness, action, and accountability. 

-Awareness is critical because positive change lacks direction if you don’t have clarity for what you want, or where you want to go… 

-Action is the world’s only mechanism for creating change, and the extent of that impact is only as strong as the quality of the action and your ability to execute it…

-And accountability adds follow through because without doing something, all you have is another idea for how you could change your life.

You have those elements in place and you create alignment that serves as a powerful force forward.

However, dissecting this further, I’m realizing that the process is even simpler than that, and that this 3-step process is actually just a never-ending cycle of awareness and action.

And that’s because accountability is awareness. True accountability is an honest observation of if you did or didn’t do what you intended to. It’s a feedback loop that informs you on how things went, brings consciousness to weaknesses or influencing circumstances, and prepares you to do better next time.

This means that the 3-step process just became a cycle: Awareness <-> Action.

As long as we are always seeking feedback and refining what we want, we are always cultivating more awareness. Then in order to materialize that awareness into reality you need to take action, in the best way you know how.

It’s a cycle that mirrors Jon Assaraf’s ‘Think-Plan-Do-Review’ and Tom Bilyeu’s ‘Goal-Hypothesis-Test-Evaluate’ that he calls the “Physics Of Progress”’

But seeing both of those through this new perspective, both of those are just two parts awareness (what you want + feedback) and two parts action (planning + follow through), connected in a never-ending cycle. 

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Humans are hard-wired to be hyper-responsive to our environments. Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, argues that ‘the most adaptable survive’. This means that it’s highly advantageous to process what’s around us and reposition ourselves to fit better within it.

For that reason, the biggest lever we can pull to positively change our lives is to redesign our environment. Like a stick in a river, we unconsciously go wherever the river’s current is taking us. When we change the direction of the current in our favor, we go in a more favorable direction.

That’s why, one of the best things we can do for our personal development is take on a challenge. A challenge creates a certain environment that causes us to show up, take action, and make decisions differently. A challenge’s influence temporarily pulls us into a higher level of performance, and when done right, makes that newly discovered higher standard permanent.

Why is a challenge such a powerful fixture and tool for environmental design?

First, a challenge is time-bound. With a definite timeline, your mind can quantify the effort needed to fulfill the expectations you’ve set. So rather than rationalizing that a new habit or routine isn’t sustainable, you can get yourself to do it because your mind sees it as temporary.

Second, when you take on a challenge, it often involves some form of commitment. This makes us more willing to do things that are hard or inconvenient. We can rise above our emotions and act with more discipline. Making a commitment puts your integrity on the line and if you don’t make good on it, it suggests things about yourself that are painful to admit. So you follow through to prove those things wrongs.

Which leads well into the final element - A challenge welcomes competition. Competing brings out your most resilient, dedicated, persevering self. You’re less willing to make excuses and more consistent with getting the job done. This becomes even more powerful when there are leaderboards or gamification introduced into the challenge, because then you get to see your performance relative to others, which is motivating.

People show up differently in a challenge because the environment of a challenge brings it out of them. It creates the right conditions for real life-change and success.

And this is what I’ve seen from people taking over 1000 people through the 21 Day Super Habits Challenge. It’s a perfect storm of commitment, clarity, and competition that all come together to help you hold yourself to a higher standard for 21 days. It proves to you what’s possible when you really apply yourself, while building the foundation for a healthier, more focused, more productive life. 

If you know that you have so much more to give, and that you have so much more potential but you’re too inconsistent to make good on it, check out the 21 Day Super Habits Challenge. It’s the jumpstart you need to reach your next level.

I was at the grocery store and was exposed to something I’d always known to be true but never thought deeply about the implications of it.

I was in the produce section grabbing some salad kits and a woman was kneeling in one of the refrigerators. She was being supervised by another employee and being trained. As she was pulling out bag after bag of romaine lettuce, I overheard her ask a question:

“Wait, so what happens to all of this expired food? This is so sad.”

She’s right. It is sad. Yet, when we have the great privilege of going into a store and picking out whatever we want, it doesn’t make us sad. We hardly think about what happens to all of the food that goes bad. Maybe it’s something you keep in mind when you shop, maybe not. But in either case we’ve learned to accept that’s just the way it is.

Because this woman was in training and throwing away the food herself, she had a new perspective on it. Rather than being desensitized to the reality of the waste, she confronted it. And she allowed herself to feel it.

There are things throughout life that we just learn to tolerate over time. Things that aren’t ideal and violate our values, yet we don’t worry about them or do anything about them. What was impossible to understand becomes commonplace, and what we used to feel passionately opposed to becomes normal.

Some people create businesses and movements to address the problems they can’t stand to see in the world, but most of us don’t. Most of us just live our lives and forget about it. And that’s not a knock on you or me, but a reality of the human condition. Over time, we acclimate to our surroundings. We desensitize to issues and experience things less intensely because they become less novel.

My recommendation today is more challenging, but necessarily so. I don’t want you to grieve, but I do want you to allow yourself to feel more. Admit that some things are unfair, unjust, and unsustainable. Have a problem with the systems society operates within. Because when you do, you become a brighter advocate for what you want to see in the world, and in the smallest of ways, play a bigger role in fixing the problems you can’t stand for.

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I was on a group call with Stanford Professor and author Jeremy Utley, and he offered a really interesting perspective. 

As an entrepreneurial advisor, when starting a business, he notices that people often get ahead of themselves. They think about the business´viability (if something has a sustainable business model) and feasibility (if they have the skillset to develop a product or service at the level they need to) to evaluate the opportunity.

What Jeremy recommends, though, is that those evaluations hold no bearing if they don’t have a validated foundation of desirability. In other words, if people don’t actually want what you have to offer, then everything else is useless. And it’s for that exact reason that he recommends any entrepreneur does rapid ‘desirability testing’ before starting any venture, to make sure there’s real market need.

While that’s a great business lesson, there’s a fitting corollary into personal development as well. In our self-growth and pursuit of positive change, many people are approaching things in the wrong order.

Here are a few examples: 

Say someone wants to be more disciplined and mentally tough so they buy an ice bath at home. But then they’re not in it consistently because the only time they can use it is in the morning, and it prevents them from getting a workout in.

Or say someone wants to start a side business so they pay a designer to create a logo and build a website for them. But then, when it’s time to work on it, they realize they don’t have as much free-time as they thought, and it causes unintended consequences at home with their family.

In both cases, the person in question thought they knew what they wanted, but they didn’t see the full picture. And before making big moves on it, they could have tried it lightly. 

Instead of buying an ice bath, they could have hopped in the community pool for a few weeks and see if it’s a routine that works for them… 

Or before investing so much in starting their business, they could have gotten their first client to see what it was like.

The lesson is, what you think you want in your head could be very different in practice. So be intentional about allowing yourself to taste it, and validate its desirability before investing more time and energy into its viability and feasibility.

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Hey self improver, a better world starts with a better you and YES YOU CAN! So let's take another step toward your best self today.

You’ve probably read before that 95%+ of the things we do on a daily basis are done unconsciously. The way we feel and the way we act is determined by our own internal beliefs. Like a pre-written script and without even thinking about it, we live out our lives according to some predetermined narrative.

Nothing plays a bigger role in what happens unconsciously than the one thing that our unconscious mind was designed to do. Generations of human evolution revolved around this thing, and to this day it’s the core operating system running the show:

The human mind’s sole purpose is to keep us alive.

We often miss that because our modern environment is so much about everything else. But when you look at the natural inclinations humanity has toward certain things, it all comes back to creating more safety for ourselves.

First, let’s talk about money. The reason people are so motivated to make money is because it gives us buying power to ensure our survival. We can pay for the food we need, live in nicer areas, and solve catastrophic problems when we have lots of money.

Second is power. People naturally want more power because it’s an expression of status. When you’re high-status within a group, it means that more people are going to invest in supporting you. If there are a limited amount of resources to go around, the most powerful get the first pick at them. 

Similarly, we want other people to like us. Why? Because if we’re incapable of supporting ourselves, we need to rely on the help of others to provide for us. High quality relationships leads to more altruistic behavior, which gives you a better opportunity to survive personal difficulty.

And of course, it explains why we tend to avoid situations that put us in harm’s way. We naturally avoid things that seem dangerous or risky for fear that we’ll injure ourselves. Interestingly, this risk-aversion translates beyond physical danger and also applies for psychological harm.

The reason I write all of this is because it’s good awareness to know what’s happening behind the scenes. All feelings around wanting money, power, to be liked, and to be safe are all hardwired into us evolutionary. This means that if we determine it doesn’t serve us to feel that way, we can understand why we do and make an alternative choice. 

And that’s why it’s so important to constantly seek to increase your consciousness - it allows you to live more consciously and aligned with what you want, and not blindly follow whatever old path is laid out in front of you.

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