The 6 Steps to Lifelong Success

Guess what? As you've always heard, discipline gives you freedom. The more disciplined you are about the blocks of time in which meaningful processes, meaningful pursuits must happen, you protect those, you organize your mind and your day around those things and you move towards them. I promise you it will give you a different result. I promise you that will be a different result. There's a hundred different performance variables in the literature that has been shown to lead to long term success, but only six of them lead to long term success and well being, which means life satisfaction, if you will, happiness and positive relationships over the long term. Meaning you and I both know some people have success and then they're jerks to everybody around them and they're miserable inside or they have success but they burned themselves out completely without realizing. You can have success, but real success means you achieve your long term goals. And while achieving your long term goals, you maintain health and wellbeing and you maintain positive relationship and community. That's high performance. That's what we academically mean by the study of high performance habits. So the way that I do it here is like, you want to know my famous battleboard technique? Here's how I think of winning the month. Winning the day, the hour, the year, okay? Everything begins for me on the 1st of the month. The 1st of the month has always been my growth day. So that's why we started calling this growth day, right? The first of the month. Every first of the month, always, since I was 19 years old, gets probably about two hours of real deep reflection and personal development. That means for me, journaling and planning, journaling to capture where am I at in my life? How do I feel about all these major areas of my life, My health, my relationships, my wealth, my career, my lifestyle, my adventure, my family, my friends. So I do what's called the whole life assessment in the High Performance Planner. For those who have that, I basically journal on the High Performance Planner. The whole life Assessment. I do that every the first of the month and I've been in that for years. And then I also look out at the month and I ask myself some simple questions about this upcoming month. I ask what are my five major moves this month? Meaning what are the five major activities or initiatives, you might call them projects that I'm working towards and I'm moving forward. Those gotta be on the board. I gotta know that each month, right? We call them the five moves. So I know my five moves for the month. So I start with that second plan, which is, okay, what's my five major moves? Then I Break down my five major moves. So an activity, let's say one of the major moves is write book, right? That could be a major move. Well, what are the moves under that? What are the activities below that? You know, contact agent, write three chapters, do this type of research, and you know, do these interviews. Okay, cool. Then I make sure that whatever I just wrote down has, listen, block time. Block time, meaning whatever those five major moves I gotta do that month. There's block time in the month. A block of time. A block of time, meaning there is an hour dedicated to those subtasks of the activity. It's blocked in the calendar. It's protected at the beginning of the month. It's locked in that calendar. Nothing moves. The five major moves, y' all hear me though? I set those like anchors in the month. Everything else rotates around those, is rescheduled around those. Those things are going to happen. It doesn't matter. Those things are going to happen. So now I've taken major things I should be working on, I've broken it down and it lands in the calendar. Now sit down with your spouse or sit down with your executive team or sit down with that right hand gal or guy that you have and go through the calendar. I can guarantee your success based on how much you communicate your calendar. Let me say it again. I can guarantee your success based on how much you communicate your calendar. If no one knows what you are trying to do, no one can be along for the ride or support you. If no one knows the time in which you're trying to protect, they can't be your block and tackle person with you. So if you are striving alone in the dark all the time and not speaking to anybody, which is the lone genius metaphor that still exists in pop culture but is completely antithetical to any real research in high performance, then you got to realize, oh, I got to tell my spouse, my partner, this is what I am trying to do this month. Here are the major blocks. If you need to protect the time, these are what those blocks are so that both. Listen, I am assessing where my life is. I'm planning the month ahead and I'm communicating the month ahead. You do that on the first of the month. It's a shift. It's a huge shift. Especially if you're not currently doing that with discipline. Then my next growth day, if you will, My next growth day, if you will, is on Sundays. Sundays, I do a very similar process. It's shorter, but I also look out on that calendar and that's where I share with Jen. I might reshuffle things or change things. So I'm really focused on making sure that. And by the way, I want you to all know I suck at planning. And I do this so that I still achieve my dreams. As you heard me share earlier, I have very free mornings for me. I really protect my mornings. But still on Sunday, I evaluate where I'm going. Is this what I want? Okay. Is that where I'm going? Great. Okay, cool. On the daily, every day. Let's talk about that. Every single day I have my morning routine. You got to have your morning routine. For me, I get up for 20 minutes. Basically I do 60 hour. I'm sorry, a 60 minute morning routine. And I built my life to be able to do that. And so it usually has this combination of these things. 20 minutes of movement, 20 minutes of reading, personal development or leadership or history. 20 minutes read with that high performance planner, planning out the day, setting the intention, prioritizing and visualizing the day's activities. Here's what I mean by that. So when I write out my planner for the day and I have a meeting or a presentation or a work effort in the morning, I already know that block of time. I close my eyes, I imagine that block of time. I go, how would I do that with excellence? How would I do that with excellence? How would I do that with joy? What might trip me up or stress me out? And how would my highest self deal with that situation? So I look at every major thing I have to do that day and I just close my eyes and I visualize it and think about those questions. In other words, that's what a pro would call mental rehearsal visualization. Good old fashioned personal development. Imagine it before you do it and you'll do it better. Especially if you heard what I just shared. What might trip me up, what might stress me out. So as an example, today I thought, you know what might stress me out? Trip me up. If I don't eat enough, I better make sure I've got food, I've got water, I've got everything handled. Okay, great. Because when I don't do that, problems after this many hours. Okay, cool. Got to make sure I do the self care. So I imagine that this morning. Okay. God, that gets that mental visualization preparation every day. Every day. So that might sound like a lot, but it's not. Other secret growth day members, you know this Friday finishers. A Friday finisher. What does that mean you should have next to your computer or on a wall somewhere, a Friday finisher. Is your task list for the week. It means these things might be, you might call it your deliverables, your tasks. It means these items are finished by end of day Friday. Friday finishers. They're non negotiables as well. Like, I gotta finish these by the end of the week. And by knowing my Friday finishers, I get to go in the weekend free. I hate. I don't know about you, but I hate getting to a Saturday afternoon and going, oh, I forgot I was supposed to do that thing. How much stress we have. Oh, I forgot I was supposed to do that thing. It could have taken 20 minutes of planning. And so I know that sounds like a lot. And some of you go, boy, Brendan's a control freak. No, remember? I'm wandering around like an idiot half the morning. I'm not a control freak. Guess what? As you've always heard, discipline gives you freedom. The more disciplined you are about the blocks of time in which meaningful processes, meaningful pursuits must happen. You protect those. You organize your mind and your day around those things and you move towards them. I promise you, it will give you a different result. I promise you that will be a different result. Sam.