131. Our New 10-Minute Morning Routine that Changed Our Lives

The most life changing thing I have ever done. And it takes 10 minutes and you're done. You would not believe how this takes your mood from 0 to 10. It creates joy and it just wakes you up. Man, the juices were flowing.

Welcome back to another episode of the Ben and Bergs podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of collective shift, alongside Ms. Burgs, your favorite MBA and CEO of Collective Shift. Join us as we bring you world class crypto research and strategies to help you dominate this crypto bull market. As well as a behind the scenes view of us scaling a fully remote subscription crypto business here in Australia. And if you'd like listening to the podcast, we'd love for you to follow us on the podcasting app that you're listening to. Or if you're over on YouTube, give us a subscribe. It helps us massively grow the podcast and bring you new content every week. And today we thought we'd touch on how do we get the most out of our day. And I think for personal development junkies like us, you can probably resonate with, you know, looking at different tactics, different routines, different things you might do to wake up better, feel more physically fit, mentally fit, you know, how to get better sleep. We both wear whoops to track our sleep. We're both constantly trying new things and we share with each other new ideas and things that we learn along the way. And you know, there's been a few things that we've added recently. Burgess, I think have been really cool and a couple of things you showed me that I want to touch on today. But yeah, I don't know, man, it's one of those things. It's like when you, when you're in a startup, when you're building a business, it's just like, how can I get the most out of my day? How can I feel happier? How can I feel more energetic? You know, how can you squeeze that extra time in the day? And for me it's just like, how do I stay not tired for as long as possible?

That's it, man. And even just life, like if you're, you're working a job, you know, you've got a family, you've got partner kids, whatever it may be. Life's exhausting, right? And if you, if you're listening to this pod, you're probably a, a high achiever. You know, there are the kind of things that we talk about and you want to get the most out of your life. And mate, we've done a Lot of stuff. We tried a lot of stuff. A lot of it's just hokey nonsense that lasts for like three seconds. But I think there are some things that stick around that really do change your life. And since we did get whoops, it's actually objective data. This works for you. As well as an anecdotal. Hey, I feel better from doing this and I think maybe we'll start with our morning routines because that's changed for me quite a lot. I know you've tried a lot of stuff. What, what's your current morning routine? That's working for you? Yes.

So as of two days ago, you've added another thing into my morning that. But before that it was get up and meditate for sort of anywhere between 10 and 20 minutes and then, and then journal and then go to the gym. But what I'm trialing at the moment is actually doing gym of an evening. And I've only been doing this for a couple of, a couple of days now. But the reason I'm trialing gym in the evening is because I have more time in the morning to have a slower start. And I love a slower start to the day where I can sit down. I've gone to a coffee shop the last two days and journaled. So I've gotten up, I've meditated and then I go and grab a coffee at a coffee shop for 10, 20 minutes and just journal. And I feel as though I have way more time of doing that sort of that 8 o' clock time range I'm at, I'm at a, I'm at a cafe, I'm journaling, I'm writing out what I need to do. I'm looking at my to do list and then I'm into work by like, you know, 8, 8:30 versus if I go to the gym, I might not get back from the gym until 8:39. I'm hungry, I need to go get food. And then I'm not sort of starting work till you know, 9, 9:30, sometimes a little bit later. But the benefit of doing the gym in the morning is it's done like at the end of the day. Last night I finished work at 7:30. I'm like going to the gym, man. Like I don't, you know, I just want to go watch Netflix.

This is the thing where if you postpone the gym, you always have that argument with yourself at the end of the day and you're having that argument with your weakest self. You're tired, you're beat down, mentally done yeah, and that's the thing. Like if I used to work out.

In the afternoon or at night all the time, but I would always have that fight, even when I was feeling good, I'd still have that fight. Like what I want to do is I just want to sit down, everyone's watching tv or I have to cook dinner or I have to do something else. And it's about getting it done and removing those barriers and not having that fight.

Because it's so easy to just go, ah, now I'll go tomorrow. And then what I find if I don't go to the gym, it really affects my sleep. Like I don't get a good sleep. Like if I go and work out, I get a good sleep. So at the moment I'm, I'm staying up later too, which is kind of a problem. Like I haven't been going to bed until like 11:30 12. I think I'm still sort of transitioning from Vietnam. There's four hour time difference. You know, when I was, I was not going to bed to like 2 or 3am when I got back because that was like 10 or 11 in Vietnam time. So I feel as though like, because I'm sleeping into like 7, 7:30, where I'd usually get up at 6. If I was up at 6, I'll be like, okay, let's go to the gym, you know, and, and get that done. But because I'm waking up at 7, 7:30, I, I, I don't want to go to the gym. I just want to get into work. I'm kind of excited about work. But that mental game at the end of the day, man, I'm like going to the gym. Like I don't want to go.

I like, I like a slow morning too. But then I put off exercise and I'll get like be sitting in a chair. I'm all tired, I'm in pain and that's the thing I need to work on. So my previous morning routine would be something like wake up, have 15 panic attacks.

Go and have a coffee, sit around.

What would you be pet? Like, would this be over?

Dream of a better life.

You know. You've got the podcast with me. Yeah.

So, okay, it's, it was like that all the time. It's like when heavy things are happening in my life. Like my mum's very sick, she's going through chemo, all that kind of stuff.

Lots of other things going on just with family and plus like, you know, work's quite heavy and.

It'S all of those Things that really add up. And it's, it's weird because I think it's, it's something that I've almost trained myself to do. You and I spoke about this like off air where you're, you're a high achiever, you're an idiot, you put too much into work. You want to do everything. You're sprinting marathons and you go like, you're constantly in that state. And no matter what you do, oh, I have, I have to be efficient. I have to go and water the plans, then go and exercise, then do the next thing. Then you just keep doing and doing and doing. And as soon as you wake up, that's what your body does. You've trained it to be like, well, I've trained it to be like, hey, what are the things that are happening in the next week? What do you need to get done right now? How can you stop, like, you know, events from happening or too much happening or spreading yourself too thin? Like it just, you know how you were saying, like when you were on holidays, you felt a similar thing.

Yeah, I, I, I, I get that. I still get that now. Like if I'm okay, let's say even today. Right. 30 minutes before this podcast, we started the podcast at 12:30 and it was 12:00'.

Clock.

I'm like, I've got half an hour. But most of the jobs I had to do today were longer than half an hour. So I get anxious that I'm not using that time to do something because I don't know what to do because I'm not going to have enough time to complete something. And because I'm like, hey, so adhd, I have to complete something before I can go to the next thing. Like, I can't leave a task.

Yeah.

So, you know, I've tried to find a couple of smaller things, but that feeling of like anxiety based on if you're not using like 20 minutes to the best of your ability is like, it's bad, man.

The free floating anxiety. I'm reading a book called Radical Acceptance. It explains through all of this. I'll do a pot on it when I've finished it. But that's exactly what it is. And you want, you've got the task focus and task completion as well. And it's like if you, we attach our sense of worth and achievement to completing those tasks and how much we've done, when in reality we're completely fine the way we are.

It's, it's so. Okay, let's go a little bit Deeper on that because you and I have been speaking about. You got me on to watching a video of Tony. Tony Robbins recently with his, with his interview with Theo von.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Comedian Theo Legend. Yeah.

Great episode. I've never really been into Tony Robbins. Not from. Because I watched his content and decided that I didn't like it. It was more like I just thought he was this woo woo guy that was just talking about mumbo jumbo. Yeah, right. I watched this episode and I'm like, okay, fine, I get the hype. This guy, this guy, like he's legit. He's very legit. And was talking a lot about framing and this, this priming thing that, you know, you've got me under the morning, which I'm sure we'll talk about a second. But this idea of reframing situations throughout the day and certain triggers has been such, like a, like a mind opening exercise.

Was this when he talked about someone's waiting for dinner. That clip.

Oh, so, so okay, so this is what he does. He's talking to Theo and he says, someone goes out to dinner and they're waiting for their partner and it's seven o' clock, dinner. They arrive at seven o', clock, they're not there.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.

So they get to choose right away. They're not there at 7 o' clock or they're just late or where are they? Something's happened. They're dead. Or they stood me up. How dare they do that? It's the same situation, but you choose how you react to it. And then it comes 7:30 and you're like, oh, they're still not here. I'll just order a drink, you know, they'll be here in time or oh my God, they're definitely dead, they're in the hospital. Or that bastard stood me up and then it's like 8:30 and it's like, oh well, I'll just eat my meal, you know, something's happened. I'll figure out later. I other person, I'll give him a phone call. Oh my God, I have to run around and find them. Or I ate my meal, I'm not waiting for that bastard, you know, that, that kind of thing. And it's the exact same situation, but people choose how they react to it.

That, that was like so eye opening to me because in so many different scenarios, especially in my like personal relationships, like you know, romantic relationships, I get super anxious over like if I haven't heard from them from a long time, I'm like, oh, God, they've ghosted me. Like, that's like, you know, that's just a fear of mine, right? And in previous times and even recently, like, I've been in that frame of mind of like, oh, I haven't heard from them from a little while. I get, I get angry. What are they doing? They ignoring me, all this sort of stuff. But then they'll reply and it's, it's absolutely fine. There's been, Nothing's happened. They're just, you know, the person I'm saying at the moment doesn't even use a phone, right? It's just like, like, but, but you get so worked up in your head about absolutely nothing. And now this reframing thing is like reframing it to like, who cares? It doesn't matter. They don't use their phone, like, and everything's gonna be okay.

And this happens in work a lot because we don't see things as they are. We see them as we are. And especially in work, when you're working in big teams, blended teams, multiple teams, and you haven't talked to them like over the weekend or for a week, you're like, oh, what's. And it's a very like, innate human thing. What's my status in the group? What's my status with this person? Where am I hierarchically? Is everything okay? So they haven't talked to me. Does that mean something's wrong? In reality, they're just living their own lives and that's us internalizing it and framing it in a certain way. So we applied this a lot in our business. We'll get to that. But let's apply it to my morning. And when I'd wake up, I would have these types of thoughts, like, what's happening? What's the team doing? Because you guys are three hours ahead of me. Do I. What do I need to do today? What have I forgotten? Because I'm just tired and a bit worn out. So I started doing Tony Robbins priming routine, right? Like, I've tried lots of stuff in the morning and this is by far the most life changing thing I have ever done. And it takes 10 minutes and you're done. And I've coupled it with a few other things. So we'll drop the link in the show notes. It's like completely, no cost to like download his video and the little PDF. And basically, man, you sit in a chair, it's. The whole thing takes 10 minutes and you do breathing three sets of 30 seconds. And it seems like the hokiest thing but, man, it works. So I either lie in bed and it's hard for me to get out of bed, and I've usually got, like, a bit of pain in my back and I'm tired, and that starts to breed, like, anxious thoughts. Then instead of just noting the thoughts with like, hey, this is a feeling or thinking and a direction of it, I actually feed into it and it creates a spiral. So to do that as soon. So to get rid of that as soon as I wake up, I'll go on prime. So this is what you do. You sit in a chair and you hyperventilate for 30 seconds. It seems so weird, right? But you basically go in and out through your nose, and you're reaching up with your hands, and as you breathe in and as you pull down, you breathe out through your nose. So it looks something like this.

For like 30 seconds with your eyes closed. Right. Then you wait 30 seconds, and then you'd repeat that twice more. So altogether it's three minutes. And you would not believe how this takes your mood from 0 to 10 and it just wakes you up instantly. And I'm moving my body and my back doesn't hurt anymore. And it just. Just. That part is amazing. Then after that, you put your hand on your heart because your heart will be beating fast because you're hyperventilating. And you just feel and you just breathe for the 30 seconds. So that stops me worrying about the future and everything else. It just connects me to the present. Then to combat anxiety, what do you use? Use gratitude. So you think of three things from the past, present, or in the future. And you are grateful for those things, and you really need to think about them for one minute age. So for me, it might be like, we just got a puppy. So I'm very grateful we've got our puppy. These are the things I like. I really sit with that feeling and let it consume my body and then move to the next one.

So I just wanted to jump in here because one thing that really triggered something in my mind when.

Tony was talking about this is like, if you have the feelings of fear or worry or you're scared, the way to defeat those feelings is to feel the opposite feeling. You can't feel both at once. You can't have fear and gratitude at the same time.

Yeah.

So you combat those feelings with the opposite feeling. And I'm like, that's so simple, but makes so much sense. So the opposite of fear is gratitude. So, like, if you're fearing something, you are scared of something. Let's say in a personal relationship, you're, you're, you're fearing something, they're going to leave you, they're replying, whatever. You combat that with gratitude. You think about all the great times you had together, the time you went, you know, on a trip together, or you know, you were a. There's moments that you're like, oh my God, life's amazing.

Yeah, we don't look back on the things that are amazing or the things where we're grateful for and that just immediately again. So what are you doing? You're hyperventilating, moving your arms. It just creates joy and it just wakes you up. And then you're getting back to the present by putting your hand on your heart. You're then got three things that you're grateful for. Then the next thing you do is just a visualization. So imagine a colored light calming down feel, filling your entire body, healing anything that needs to be healed, solving any problem that you have, and it's strengthening the best parts of you. And the light comes down, goes in and comes out again. And what you're doing again is just thinking of the positive things, positive feelings, recognizing your body, scanning and being present again. And then the next one, I've actually skipped this one. I didn't realize it was in there. Send all the healing and strengthening energy you've received to out to the people you love. So I guess that's the part where it goes out. So, and again, what are you doing? You're thinking about your body, you're scanning down and you're feeling amazing. It's solving all the problems that you have and then you're sending it out to the people that you love. So you connecting with other people and thinking about them, you're actively thinking about the good things in your life, which is incredible. And the final thing is one by one, think about three outcomes or goals you want most and imagine that they are complete and celebrate the feeling of that. So I'm going from I don't want to wake up, I'm in pain, I'm feeling anxious about stuff, to oh, I'm moving my body, I feel great. I'm present in the moment with my hand on my heart, I'm grateful for a bunch of things I'm sending out. I'm healing my body and sending love to everyone else. And then I'm focusing on the goals that I want. And that's the feeling. So it completely primes you for the day. This is the most amazing thing. And I've coupled it with Two other things. Two other things are a cold shower afterwards, because it just puts me in a good mood. And I've got a book by Ryan. I think it's Ryan Holiday or Halliday, the Daily Stoic. And it's literally one page with a stoic quote from someone like Marcus Aurelius, and it explains it underneath. And after that, I'm good to go. Now, the one thing I'm struggling with is I to have the perfect morning, I need to couple that with exercise. So at the moment, I've got no problem going out and going for a walk or a jog or getting on my bike, whatever it may be. But I want to build a specific gym habit. So the next step is as soon as I've done that, I go straight to the gym. And that will be just amazing, even if I only go for 20 minutes. Ben, it doesn't matter. Just go to the gym. It's only down the road. Do something and come back because it gets me out of the house. It gets me seeing other stuff, other people exercise and gets rid of any residual anxiety.

I love it, mate. I love it. I love the priming stuff. I cocked it up this morning as well, but still felt great. And that visualization I love, like, you know, how good is it? Done it before, but, like, not to the. Not on, like a daily level when you, like, you're visualizing things being ticked off and you celebrating that win. Like, I was just so fired up. I was like, let's fucking go. It's time to go. Like, I was like, jumped out of.

Bed at that point, bro. I've actually been doing this wrong where I've just been thinking about the things I want and the feeling I have, like, towards it. Not actually, like, what would it be like if I was very fit and my body wasn't in pain? Like, that's like one of my goals. And then my other ones are, like, to do with relationships and self. And I'm like, what would I feel like if they were done? So, mate, tomorrow is going to be lit. I can't wait for that.

Well, mine was way more like, okay, like, I'm going to complete this, you know, webinar tomorrow night, and I'm going to crush it and everyone's going to love it and there's going to be so much value. And then, you know, people are going to join us at collective shift. And then others were like, we're going to achieve our revenue goal. And then, like, what that's going to feel like? And then how that's going to change the people and lives around us and like our staff and our members and like. And then you think about what life is like at that point in time when you achieve that and you look around it, it's like, it's pretty motivating.

Absolutely. And for me as well, the thing that really works is putting myself first. So I'm doing something for myself because I'm the kind of guy that will do everything for my family, for work, for friends, and then leave myself in a heap. And I know as well as anyone else when you're in a plane, you put the oxygen mask on yourself first. But I'm very, very poor at like self care and looking after myself. It always comes last. So this, I put myself first, nothing happens until I've primed, had a shower, read that book and now gone to the gym. And that pretty much takes care of all the majority, like 90% of my needs for the day, for my body and my mind.

It's fascinating. And you know that you can compare. Well, I can compare when I don't do those things, those solid things in the morning, how I find it far more difficult to, to manage the stress and anxiety of the day. Yeah, Like I'm just less. I just, I just sort of, you know, I'm, I'm less. What's the word? Not confident, but like resilient. Yeah. Emotional resilience to deal with that.

Yeah. And I also think like when, when I do that and it's out of the way, I feel like the day's already done, I've already achieved everything else is cream on top. Whereas if I have to exercise at the end of the day, I start to feel guilty and I have these negative kind of talks where I have to guilt myself into exercising when all my body wants to do is rest. And I'm like, well, I should listen to my body. I'm like, yeah, but I should push myself hard and like, you know, goggins stay hard kind of thing. And it just comes into this weird thing. But we've also coupled this in our business as well, where, you know, everyone tells you about hustle culture and you have to get after it and you have to work 47 hours a day and do all this crap. The reality is if we structure our days, have the mornings for ourselves and don't have meetings before, let's say 10 o', clock, that's absolutely fine. We can structure our business that way and we'll be much more efficient and effective and we won't burn out. We'll have long term resilience.

Yeah, because you can, you can book in those deeper work sessions first. And you should be doing that like, you know, getting in and doing the hard things first. And then, you know, what I've tried to do is then book most of my. It's a bit harder because you're in Perth and we're all on the eastern side, but like being able to book in those meetings at end of the day, you know. So like this morning for example, I was able to do an hour and a half of content, I was able to do some of the deeper work and then I got into sales calls, podcasts. Then I've got like B2B meetings this afternoon. You know, by that stage you're less creative and it's more, you know, you just sort of ticking the boxes by the afternoon. But being able to structure your days so you can get into that deeper work, I found super important. And another little hackbergs that you and I have picked up on recently is phone call meetings. How good, how good are phone call meetings?

They're the best, man. Like usually we'll just sit in front of a computer, go through a notion doc, talk through stuff. You sit in a chair, you're not moving around, your back's hurting. It's just the way worst. Everyone knows what I'm talking about. You'd be sitting in those meetings with a bunch of people you don't care about, hashing over a bunch of bullshit. And you're not really creative, you're not solving new problems. It is just terrible stuff. And yesterday we, we've actually separated out our meetings. We used to have a big meeting, then a couple of smaller ones, and now we're like, no, because we're chopping and changing. We're trying to use our brains across too many contextual environments. Like, no, let's have, you know, we swapped it out. Like let's have a B2B meetings, have a BNB strategy meeting. Let's have, you know, a sales meeting. And so that way we know what we're going into and we only talk about that thing and future things we have. We don't have to be at each other and be like, oh, what about this? We can, we know there's a space next week to take it to that meeting. So Ben, you gave me a phone call and man, the juices were flying. I don't know about you, but I had my, got my new little wireless headphones or pixel buds. I got the white whiteboard behind me And I'm just whiteboarding away with all the ideas we had. And it was phenomenal.

It was creative, man. You're not creative as creative. Sitting down, chewing through a list of 408 things that you've got to do. It becomes more of a chore where like the meetings we had on B2B stuff and even the better Boost podcast session we had last night, that was awesome. We spoke for 45 minutes on just like a bunch of different cool stuff we want to bring you all. So.

Yeah, yeah. And I needed to get out of the house and so I went down to the river and yeah, just walked around there and I was just thinking like, you know, what could life be like if we really reached for the stars with Ben and Bergs and you had some cracking ideas? And it was just so good to get all of that out of my head and onto paper and focus on some strategy for it.

Yeah, no, I agree. So I think the walking, walking meetings has been a winner. And just finally, like, I. I've really, really noticed a huge. I've been journaling for about a year now, but really like love the idea of like just freehand journaling. Whatever I'm thinking, I just find it. So I've really, for any of you that, you know, have a busy mind, whether it be, you know, before bed or in the morning, just you're thinking about a lot, like journaling. I find for me work sometimes better than meditating in a sense of like getting all those thoughts out on a page. It just allows me to cool everything down, think through things, be more self aware, more focus, and can just really help with those overthinking thoughts. So having a little book and a pen and just cracking into in the morning has been a big help.

Absolutely, man. So, and the thing is, like, if you're overthinking, write in your journal. If you're underthinking, read a book. If you're not sure, meditate. Yeah. And the other thing I do as well is I still do the daily manifest. So I still plan my days the night before, I take five minutes, write down my 90 day goals. My 30 day goals is only three each. And then three tasks to help achieve those goals. I write those in first, then I write all the other stuff I need to do, like any business stuff, whatever else, it may be.

Brilliant, man.

I like it. And hey, I've got two more tips. So I watched the Stutz documentary again with Jonah Hill and his psychologist and was speaking about gratitude and he does this visualization where he says, imagine all this energy just flowing into your body and it kind of stops, like at the top of your head and you're thinking about something you're grateful for. It might be that I have an ability to wake up and have a morning coffee and it just stays there, stays. And then you let it in and then you sit with that feeling and then you do another one, another one. And then he's like, don't think of something, but just have that grateful feeling and just let it sit there and then let it in. So you can kind of bring that into your body at any point during the day, which was amazing. That was. That's really helpful for me. And another one was, oh, sending energy and love. So I thought this was hokey, but I tried it and I'll try to do the explanation. But he was saying.

Especially if you've got conflict with someone. So, like, imagine you're at work and you're butting heads with someone in another department that doesn't want to do something. Like, why are they like this? They're annoying. They take up all the energy. You know, you've had a barney with someone. And he said, just kind of sit there and think about. I think it was all these sons just kind of smiling at you and all the energy just flowing into your body and you're feeling better and better and better. And he goes through these steps and then think of that person that you have a problem with and send all the love that their way. And it's phenomenal because you go from, I hate this person, why they like that, to oh, it doesn't matter too much. They're just a person and now they're happy. And really all you're doing is the situation is the same, but you're changing your framing towards that situation. Yeah, absolutely phenomenal. Now, now, mate, I have to ask you, are you still doing any of your other things? Like, you used to wake up, have 47 ice baths, do all this kind of stuff. Are you still doing any of that? Mate? What are you doing?

So since I've gone back from Bali, I haven't been doing the ice bars from a. From a perspective that I this. It's very inconvenient. I don't have a place to get an ice bath. It was so easy in, in. In Bali. It was all there and easy. A little bit harder in Melbourne. But I went and visited some places last week to, to look at memberships and we're even looking at installing one at our place. So on an ice bath so if we get that happening, mate, I'll be back into them. But yeah, there's just super un.

For me, mate. You know me, like, if it's not easy and just it doesn't fit in the schedule, well, it just doesn't happen. Like I just. It's just such a fuck around to try and go to the gym and then go to another place and they're only open at 10am and then you got to book these credits online. It's just like. It's just all too hard.

All too hard.

Yeah, absolutely. I'll be bringing it back in because I love doing them. But just for now, it just hasn't happened.

Yeah, mate, just those few little things that don't take very long to do really set you up for success. Let's actually couple things we haven't talked about. So we've talked about kind of the mindfulness, framing, gratitude. We've talked about exercise, we haven't talked about sleep and diet. So there are two massive changes for me. So since the start of the year, people tend to go. And I've been caught in this trap. We're like, oh, I'm not going to eat like sugar ever again and I'm not going to drink and that's, that's going to be my life. But we all know that's not sustainable. So I was like, look, I just want to cut down the amount of like sweets I ate. Sweets for me is like dessert and stuff, like that amount of processed food and amount of alcohol. So I probably only had. I was on holiday, so that was twice. Three times. I've had like maybe half a bottle of wine in January.

Just with dinner, which is fine, and then eating dessert, I've just basically cut that out. So the problem was nighttime. Aaron, he's a real. See you next Tuesday. He's cranky. It's nine o', clock, he's sitting in front of the tv, his stomach's rumbling, he's bored and he's a big emotional eater, so he'll just go eat a bunch of bullshit.

He.

He's. He's the worst mate. He should not be making food decisions. So I f'd him off, he's gone. And he can't make any food decisions at night. So at nighttime I'll just eat my normal food. I've done a bunch of meal prep with just chicken and vegetables, steak and vegetables. So it's just there. I'll eat that. Great. And then after dinner, if I'm hungry, I can either eat more chicken and Vegetables. Or instead of having some dessert or plugging my boredom, I'd literally just have a cup of peppermint tea or ginger and lemon tea. And if I still want more after that, I either get to eat chicken or drink more tea. And I'll probably drink one more cup and I'll be like, that's enough. I'm bored. This isn't working. I'm full. And I go to bed and guess what? I don't wake up hungry. I don't do any of that crap. And just from doing that in January, including my holiday where I did a bit of bingeing, I've already lost four kilos.

Nice, man.

Just that one little change from nighttime Aaron, because he's the worst.

It's crazy how when you look and you start looking at how many calories, like sweets and processed stuff has, like, it's, it's madness. The calories end up super quick.

It does. Even booze as well. And then the stuff you eat after that, the dehydration and then all the processed stuff that you eat, how it affects your sleep. So I would say about 90 of my sleeps in January have been a 95 or above score on whoops.

Which is just phenomenal. Right?

That's huge.

Yeah. And that's been life changing for me. Like, I actually wake up really refreshed and I actually, like the last two days I haven't woken up in an anxious state because I've reframed my. So this is what Tony Robbins goes on about. He's big about neuro linguistic programming and the thoughts and patterns we have in our brain. And those ones that don't serve you, you need to replace them with something better. And that's what I'm doing. Through priming, those thoughts serve me better. I get a better response from it. And I'm slowly replacing all those old patterns in my brain and those old habits are going away and it's like, it's amazing when, when you think about it, it's phenomenal.

Life changing.

How's your eating going, mate? Like you used to, used to love going to Bali because all your food and everything was kind of prepped. Are you. Do you do a meal prep service? What are you doing in that area?

Yeah, so worked on this a fair bit as well. I was, when I was traveling around in Melbourne and I was living in hotels and Airbnbs, it was super hard. So I was just, I was eating Subway, I was eating takeout, I was going Guzman.

Gomez, you had that GYG app on Lock mate.

And I still smash Grandman Gomez. But I've gotten, I get pre made meals now. So I get the, the, the microwave meals. There's a place down in, where I live in Pran, just down the road that is like a storefront shop. You can go in and get the ready made meals.

Oh, awesome.

And, and they have like protein shakes. So at the moment, yeah, I am not eating breakfast. I am basically getting up, having a coffee and then I'll have a pre made meal around 11, 11:30, just trying to look for anything with protein. Then I'll have a protein shake and then that'll usually last me through to dinner where I either have Guzman and Gomez or I'll have another ready made meal. Have been getting into the barbecue shapes lately.

That's so good. But I need to, I need to cut that back. My housemate's just got so many. I usually don't have snacks in the house or my housemate's got a shitload of snacks. I'm like. Because they're just looking at me, man.

I hear a much away. You hear that sound? You're like, oh, give me that. That's. You mentioned a key thing about protein and that's been a huge diet change for me. It's simply like cut out sweets as much as you can. You know, if you want ice cream, have the ice cream, but just don't do it every day. The second thing is eat like cleaner food. Like don't eat pre made food or fast food or eat at restaurants all the time or take away. Just like, just cook your food. Just do, do like 80% of your meals. Meal prep at least.

Yeah, yeah.

And then seek out. Protein was the big one.

Yeah.

So I'd get hungry, I'd bake like a sandwich or have heaps of carbs or do something stupid because I was so hungry. So I'm eating before I'm hungry. And because I'm eating so much protein, I'm satiated. So I'm not actually hungry. But it's time to eat, so I have to eat.

Yeah.

And just those few things are just phenomenal. I actually don't get hungry anymore.

That protein is a big one. That's what Jordy, our PT got us onto was just like, you just need to eat pro. If you just eat protein every meal and you cut down carbs and you try and eat less calories than you burn, you're winning.

Oh, and eat an appropriate amount. So I think like daily dietary guidelines are something like 40 or 60 grams. You're gonna wither away. If you eat that, it's usually like, you know, 2 grams per kilo. So for me it's like 200 grams of protein, easy.

Yeah.

And if you're eating that, you will be full.

Yeah, totally agree. And that helps with sleep too. So I. And I've also really cut back on alcohol. So I had, I basically, yeah, I hadn't drank in about four weeks.

You went on your Vietnam trip and you didn't even drink, mate. That is unbelievable. Where the beers are like 20 cents or something. Like they're really cheap, mate.

I didn't, it was my first holiday that I had, I hadn't drank on for. Yeah, so about two and a bit weeks. Didn't drink. And you know what? Got to a point where I just, you know, and, and still. And, and you recognize that even like late last year when he came over, like, I just, I just don't feel like drinking. You know, it's just, it's just not a. I don't know, it doesn't make me feel good. I get anxious the next day. I get a shit sleep. Like I just don't feel great when I drink. So I'm just not. You're just not excited about the idea anymore.

You're right. Like when do you build a habit? Way to make it stick is you change your identity. Like, I don't do that anymore. It's like I don't binge sweets every single night. Like, I don't get shit faced when I go out with someone else. I'll have like one or two drinks and that's it. Like I just don't do that anymore. And that's how it really sticks where your identity no longer aligns with that activity you were doing.

Yes, yes. So, but I'm also not saying like, I don't drink alcohol, but be like yourself. Like, if I want to have a drink, I'll have a drink. I want to be like locked into this like mental corner where I'm like, no, I'm never having a drink again. It's like, well, you know, if I want to drink off, I can have a drink, but I just don't feel like it.

Life doesn't work in absolutes. And humans are imperfect. We need to accept we're imperfect. Right. Like there's extremes. Like if you have, you know, dysfunction, you're alcoholic. Yeah. Okay, don't drink. But if, if you just want to cut back every now and then is okay. Just monitor where you're at and do it with balance.

Yeah, totally. Agreement.

And what about your sleep mate? Are you doing any like, cold room? You got a big eight sleep? You got anything like that or. So what are you doing these days? Because you've moved house recently. So what's your setup like now?

So, yeah, I always get my. So the, the room aircon in the room. Read a, read a research piece that 19 degrees Celsius is the optimal sleeping temperatures have my econ at 19 degrees. I started using a sleep mask which has been great. It's just like complete darkness just over your eyes. Over my eyes. So yeah, I cut. There's complete darkness. That's really helped. Reading before bed with a low dim light. No phone. So when I go and watch TV or something in the night, I put my phone in another room. So I don't look at my phone or socials or notifications because I find that just. I end up watching podcasts at like 12:30am on like, you know, something airdrop. I'm like, I can't be looking at this. I'm too excited now.

Yeah.

So I put my phone away. Yeah. Read before bed and then, yeah, mate, clock out. It's been, it's been good. I try and get. Sometimes I try and drink tea and sometimes I take melatonin tablets which I find I found. Increase my sleeping score.

Yeah.

But I feel drowsy every morning when.

I think so, yeah, side effects. So my sleep is relatively the same. Like I don't even know what temperature it is. As long as I don't get too hot, it's okay. I'll read before bed if I'm not just passing out. And yeah, that'll just put me straight to sleep and I'm just out. Now, quickly, before we wrap up, let's talk about phones. So I saw this clip by Simon Sinek and he's just like, he's like this, right? So he's just got his phone and like Ben, imagine like I've just got my phone in my hand and I'm like talking to you. And people walk around with their phone all the time. They're like this, you know, blah, blah, blah. You're signaling to someone that this is the most important thing.

Yeah, well, not important conversation.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Or they're looking at their phone while they're talking. Or they take it out and they'll put it on. Look at that, the nice one, the table sticker, mate. They'll take it out and they'll put it on the table. Right. Or if they're really polite, they'll Put it face down on the table, Ben. But they're still signaling. This is here. This is more important than you. And he started to say, if you're thinking about your phone and your messages, you've got a problem. If you have to take it everywhere with you, you can't leave it in another room for half an hour or an hour, you've got a problem. If you go out to a restaurant, just take one phone with you, let the people know where you're going, and you can call that person, leave it in, you know, your partner's handbag or you put it in your shorts or whatever and people can still reach you. It's okay. But we've developed these attachments to our phones and I've completely deleted every single app off my phone. And it is just joy. And guess what, Ben? I don't miss any of it. And my life is so much better. I left my phone for like six hours in the other room. If someone calls me, I'll hear it. That's great. If they're not calling me, it's async.

They can wait.

And I wanted to know, how's your. Because you went really deep with your phone and changed a lot of your behaviors, but you also do a lot of social media stuff. So where's your phone use at now and how do you think it affects you?

Yeah, I've decreased a lot. I think what I'm really focusing on now, I've tried a lot of different things. I'm just focusing on not scrolling socials. You know, I think that's where like consuming too much content, that's where I sort of got caught out. And then also in the, in the transition periods throughout my day, toilet, coffee, train, whatever. I've tried to replace those periods of time where I pull out my phone to look at something with something else. So for example, today I went down and grabbed grab a protein shake while I was waiting for it, usually pull out my phone and check what's going on. There's a basketball hoop in the courtyard. So just played basketball or like today on the train. Rather than scrolling socials. I made a couple of phone calls. So my EA organized some things. I'm trying to use the time to be more productive or just rest versus pull out and consume more content.

That's awesome because your life just gets sucked away. And this is how you get to a better place. You replace one habit with another with just a better habit. That's all you do.

Yeah, that's what I found. You've got to. You've got to replace it with something. Same with me trying to cut down on my no, no sugar coke. Like, I had to replace it with something. Like I'm drinking probiotic drinks and like, water or tea or something, you know, versus. Or protein shake versus, you know, just cutting it out altogether and not having a replacement.

Yeah, just move to a better position. That's all it is, mate. Constant iteration.

Okay. Epic, mate. Great episode. I really enjoyed that.

That was fantastic. I'll listen back to this one. Man. We covered a lot of ground. We'll put a link to the Tony Robbins stuff. Download the video. It's 10 minutes. Give it a crack. It might change your life. It might change your mood. Yeah, and hit us back as well. So nowadays people can hit us up on Spotify so they can do comments and everything. We'll see those. We'll reply. Same with YouTube. Hit us up on Twitter. Let us know what your morning routine is. Anything you think we should try from what we've said, that will really benefit us. I'd love to hear it.

Yeah, let us know, guys. Thank you so much for listening. And if. Yeah, if you've got your own personal routine or something we missed, we'd love to hear from you. We're always trying to improve and innovate, and we love hearing from all of you. So hit us up on Spotify or you can hit us up on Twitter. Enbergs on Twitter. And please give us a follow on the. On the podcasting app you're on. We. It really helps us out and helps us grow the channel. And if you're on YouTube, please hit subscribe. It does help us out a heap. Thank you so much, Seaburgs on the next episode.

See you, mate. Thanks, champions.