89. How Monk Mode Fueled our Record-Breaking Month at Collective Shift (Personal Update)

Hang on a minute. Your priorities are all up. You set this as a priority. You promise the people you're going to do it and you can't even do it. Fix your life. And that was really eye opening for me too.

You had some good realizations coming back from that trip. I remember you came back in like, why am I thinking this way?

This is, I'm not in that position anymore. But I still have some of those thoughts. And I remember it was a specific thing. I'm like, why are you doing that? Like that amount of money is not important to you at this point in your life. What is important is getting the firewood, going back and starting a fire and being with your family. That time with your family is so important. And that sounds like a good realization, but it really, really upset me.

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 me as Bergs, your favorite MBA and COO of Collective Shift, Australia's leading crypto portfolio insights company providing professional analysis and portfolio strategies for crypto investors. Like you, we are a unique blend of the established and the self made and we're here to break down crypto business and personal growth. But we're not here just to talk shit. We give you the insights that you need to make better investments, build successful businesses and level up your life. And four weeks ago, ish, we did a podcast on Monk Mode. So this idea of no distractions, no bullshit, hyper focused, working on yourself and whatever you're working on at that point in time, for a period of time for us it was going to be a three week period and we spoke about that podcast and we'll link it in the description below. When we spoke about the start and now this is the review period. So Berg's going to share how he went and we spoke about goals that we were trying to achieve and some sort of key metric or KPIs I guess we were trying to hit personally. And Berg is going to share how he went on that three or four week journey and then I'm going to share mine. So Bergs, how it go man?

Mate, it went pretty well. So what I promised myself I was going to do was to journal every morning, meditate, work out for at least an hour a day and walk every single day. And that's what I wanted to achieve and I did most of this. So I started let's kick off with meditating. Have done that just solidly every single day or also read for an hour a day. I've read for an hour a day, at least every single day. Great. Tick that journal every morning. So I started doing this and I started journaling and I said I was only gonna do 15 minutes and like half an hour goes by, 45 minutes goes by. Wow. And it's really getting all of those thoughts out. And then like, I'm like, oh, I've written all this. I have to think about it. And it's not conscious streaming where I'm just writing. It's like things that are actually there that I want to solve. So instead of journaling every day, it was every couple of days or every three days where I would write an extended session and. And the thing that's been bothering me would now be on the page. Then I could tackle it. I could write it down in my daily manifest and then start tackling those goals, which is being revolutionary for me. So that was really, really eye opening.

So you. So you don't do the conscious stream. You're. You're tackling problems in the, in your journaling?

Yes, I want to conscious stream, but as soon as I get into it, I'm like, whoa, hang on a minute, let me just unpick this. Because the big thing comes to the forefront and I'm like, this is the beans. This is the high roi. This is what I'm going to do. And my other things were walk every day, haven't walked every single day, and then work out every day for an hour. I've probably only done a third or half of the time of that. That's for various reasons. Did catch a bug off a little one, have been getting my injections. But the reality is I've not prioritized it. And it's taught me a lot about my mood and the priorities in my life and what I need to prioritize. So just by going through these. Exercise. This exercise and trying to do it and not succeeding, I'm like, hang on a minute. Your priorities are all fucked up. You set this as a priority. You promise the people you're going to do it and you can't even do it. Fix your fucking life. And that was really eye opening for me too.

Okay, so overall, positive, negative impact, huge positive impact.

So it's uncomfortable. Positive impact. So it's positive because I've been reading, I've been meditating, I'm feeling a lot more calm. Journaling has helped me mediate the thoughts in my head and write down and focus my goals. And then uncomfortable because those thoughts come to the Surface. I now have to tackle those problems and I realize how stupid I've been and little loops of stories I've been telling myself in my head that I now need to until myself if I want to get to that next level. So it's been really positive but really uncomfortable. But that's what growth is.

And how are you thinking about this moving forward? Are you thinking that you're now out of monk mode and you'll go back in at a particular time or are you taking some of the things that you did like journaling and now it's going to be remain consistent monk mode, staying mate.

So and I'm going to increase the working out. I want to get to an hour every day and walking every single day. And the meditating is going great, the reading's going great. And the journaling I'll probably keep to every two to three days because that's working for me.

Okay, awesome. Any other learnings, like anything that you take out that you, you you know or people that are looking to do their own monk mode that you'd advice.

You'D give, I would say just do it. Set yourself the challenge and start doing it. It's not about whether you succeed or fail. It's trying to do that activity. You'll either do it and you'll feel something or you won't do it. And then you'll be like, well, why am I not doing it? And even within that, I'm pretty sure I had a one week holiday down south as well. And I went then I'm like, I want to come back with my goals. What I came back with was something completely different. It was very uncomfortable. And I started to realize about my mindset, particularly around finances and a few other things, how my upbringing and just little loops I have in my head of when I'm carrying out activities, why do I still do that? I'm not in that position anymore. You know, why am I driving extra to save $5 when I could spend more time with my family? Or just little things that really upfront, you're like, hang on a minute, I need to change this. So I went in with one goal and they came out with something completely different.

You had some good realizations coming back from that trip. I remember you came back in like, why am I thinking this way? Like, this is just bullshit.

Well, this is the thing. When you grow up with not much money and your parents don't have much money, it's like everything that you have, you need to maximize, you need to optimize so if you want to buy something nice, you want to get the cheapest price. If something's $5 cheaper, you'll drive an extra 10 minutes because you're using your time, not your money. When you're out, you don't buy drinks because they're expensive, things like that. Right. But I'm not in that position anymore. But I still have some of those thoughts. And I remember it was a specific thing where we're having a fire and I'm at the petrol station and I'm going to buy some firewood and it's like 20 bucks a bag and it's going to be $50 a night to run a fire. And I'm like, oh, okay, well, there's a hardware store that's like five minutes away that's probably going to be $10 a bag cheaper. I can just drive there, get some and come back. And I was almost in the car and I stopped myself. I'm like, why are you doing that? Like that amount of money is not important to you at this point in your life. What is important is getting the firewood, going back and starting a fire and being with your family. That time with your family is so important. And that sounds like a good realization, but it really, really upset me because I realized how much I've been doing that in my life. And I thought I was in a certain place, but I just wasn't. And it was a realization that I have a lot of work to do. And now it's the good part where I actually get to work on it. And I realize a bit at the time, for a good week, week and a half, that may be very uncomfortable and feel awkward because I thought I was a certain way, but I completely wasn't.

I think that's what journaling does as well. Gives you that real self awareness and you can really review and reflect on yourself.

Absolutely, mate. That's, that's why you want to unlock those thoughts, look at those experiences, debug your brain, and that's how you get to the next place. That's how you change.

Brilliant man. Okay, mate, what, what about you? So, and, and just quickly, team, I just found that episode. So it was episode 78. So we'll link that below. That was when we spoke about monk mode. So mine was really interesting. So my focus was 30. Sorry. Mine was to have meditate twice a day for 20 minutes, exercise six days a week.

No alcohol, daily, gratitude, ice bath and sauna five days a week. Want to do it for three weeks. And then I also Was combined that with being in Bali. So I had my goals that I wrote down on my way to Bali. So I was in Bali and I sort of optimized. So I let myself have one drinking night over the three weeks. I wanted to meditate twice a day. I just read the book the Silent Warrior. So just wanted to maintain that discipline. And for me it's just like. Just not wasting time. No phone after 9:30 trying to read in read most days, get good sleep, go for a weekend away just so. And have no phone for a couple of days.

Go to my book instead of my phone of an evening. And then I had a few business stuff I wanted to get to and the results are really interesting. So it was three weeks and I felt so much focus and energy. I remember if anyone follows me on Twitter, like, during my time in Bali, I was just. I just. I was fucking pretty fired up. I was. You were on, mate. I was. I was sort of, you know, tweeting my thoughts and I was really focused. This. This feeling of nearly obsessiveness. I had so much energy. So. So the results were I was going. I went to the gym. I changed my. From my pt. I went to four days a week to six days a week. So I was going to the gym Monday to Saturday. I was journaling twice a day, morning and night, pretty much every day. I was reading my book. I went. I finished my book. I went a weekend away in Ubud and turn my phone on airplane mode for two days, which was really, really nice, very calming. And did. Did a lot of my vision and my thinking of where I wanted to be in the next few years and what I got out of it was from a business perspective, we had our best month ever. So our net revenue for July was up 23% and our new customers was up 94%. Now, I don't take all those results and. And for me personally, like, it was a massive team effort and we've all come together and also it's been a long time coming that July, but it was fascinating that it overlapped. And I feel as though the. The input I was able to develop while I was over in Bali doing Monk Mode was literally no distractions. There's no fucking around. It was like get up and just grind every day. It was. It was really powerful.

The downside is I was fucked. Afterwards, I came back to Melbourne and I was so tired. Like, I went really hard for three weeks. It. And I. And I thought of it as a sprint. Like, if we think about, like, you Know, you know, dev work or, you know, if you work in startups or whatever, you know, you go hard for a little while and then you need a break. And that's why, that's the way I tried to think about it. But I think one of the biggest things that made it easier was just being in Bali and the ability to focus. Being back in Melbourne right now, I actually find it very. It's like sensory overload. Like I, I haven't kind of experienced that comparison before. Where in Bali there is. You're in nature, you're out in the open air, you're able to just get in and get it done, go home, relax, whatever. No tv. There's like, there's nothing really to distract you in Melbourne. It's just like, there's just distractions everywhere, whether it be the footy, the pub, friends, coffees, you know, people, you know, dating, like all this. It's just like, it's just full on here. There's a lot of stuff to be distracted with. And I think it'd be very hard for me to do Monk Mode here in Melbourne. Actually. I think it'd be near impossible for me to do it here in Melbourne to the point where I was journaling yesterday and I actually really felt a physical sort of push to like to, to get out of Melbourne again. I'm like, you know, I love Melbourne, but I actually don't feel like being here right now. I actually feel like being back overseas where I can really focus and, you know, to do what I need to do. Not that I'm not doing what I need to do here, but the, the efficiency and productivity levels overseas for me is far beyond what I can do here in Melbourne.

This is interesting. So do you think. So Monk Mode seems to have taught you a lot. Do you think you're going to use Monk Mode as a tool every now and then as a sprint, or you're going to incorporate some of these things to your daily life? How are you going to utilize it?

That's a good question. I've definitely integrated more into my daily life. Like, you know, meditate. I'm getting. I've got that 20 minute afternoon meditation back in which I love.

But the things I struggle to, I struggle to read here. Then find time to read. There's no walks on the beach, there's no weekend away with no tech.

It's very little. No phone after 9:30 because I'm usually like busy and then I'm at a dinner or whatever and that's sort of late.

All the gym six days a week and meditating. That's all, that's all sort of locked in. But now, man, I'm like, I. I see this now as a sprint. So when I go. I'm going back to Bali in October. That's gonna be my next mug mode. And I'm gonna dial in and then cut it, cut everything out again.

I think this is, this is a good lesson. So a sprint that helps you to focus and learn more about yourself. And then after those three to four weeks, implement those lessons. This is like when people are working out, they get bored of a hit a plateau. They'll go to a five by five. They'll do that for two, two months, something like that, just to get back into it. And then they'll learn about, you know, their strengths, their weaknesses, whatever they want to achieve, and then go back into more advanced program.

Yeah, I, I think that's the way I think about it. The discipline definitely comes through for the monk mode. So, like, you know, I'm doing, you know, I'm not doing sauna, but I'm doing ice baths, you know, four to six times a week here in Melbourne. And then. And then gym six times a week. Like, I wasn't doing that before I went to Bali. And really feeling the physical benefits of that. Like, I feel a lot better for that.

But yeah, man, it's amazing. It's. It's definitely like. And honestly, like, living back in the city, it's kind of like I'm not, you know, like, you, what you wake up to 7:00am These, the construction workers are allowed. So basically, like on a weekend, you know, Saturday morning, you've got a angle grinder and you know, you know, 4am, you got guys at the front, you know, yelling and screaming. Like, drunk people, like, wake up most nights to it. So it's like, it's one of those things I'm like, I actually used to love being in the city, and now I'm like, kind of just like, it's kind of shit now, mate.

There's a huge theme here of disconnecting and focusing on yourself. And you did that when you went to Ubud. You almost disconnected from your community when you went to Bali and you're working over there. I disconnected when I went to my holiday and now I disconnect on the weekends. I physically unplug my computer and put my laptop away and make sure I go do an activity. Like this weekend, we went to a wildlife park before we go for walks in the bush.

How do you think about that. What did that time in Ubud do for you? Turning your phone off and being by yourself in another area just with your.

Thoughts, it made you, it made me so present. I was just like there, you know, and I know that sounds kind of like wacko, but it's like, no, like you're not living in this, you know, virtual world and, and concerned about, you know, who's trolling you on Twitter and how many messages you're getting and like who's calling you and all this sort of, it was just like completely disconnected. And your ability just to be calm in your own thoughts. Like I wrote out my five year vision over three or four hours of a morning over a couple cups of coffee at a cafe and I'd just never been able to do that. And I think it just is a really calming. But being in the Nate, being in nature as well really helps. Like being amongst the forest, the trees and psychologically, you know, that does, it does do that to you with that sort of calmness versus amongst concrete buildings and screaming people. Like, it's very difficult to do that. So I have a lot of empathy for people that live in the city or live in, you know, New York and can't get, get that if that makes sense.

That's a key part with calm spaces because just a physical reaction you have when you hear people walking by, cars beeping, angle grinders going, coffee being made, like people doing work, it hypes you up and it makes you want to do those things or feel you're missing out or focus you on things that are not the things that are in your head. And you can only get to that state if you're actually calm, you're by yourself and you're doing the work.

Yeah, it's, it's fascinating, but I like this idea of a sprint, you know, like constantly busy and working, but like you kind of build up to it, you know, and, and for anyone that wants to give it a shot, like lessons for me was like, write out your goals on the way. Like I was on the plane riding out what I want to do, what are my core things I want to achieve this. I had some business objectives as well that I wanted to achieve. And then just getting this really disciplined mode. It's like, you know, I physically think like mentally in my head, like hoodie on, tie it up. You know, you've got like the blinkers. I like horse racing, the blinkers on. And just like you just focus on yourself like everyone else. And, and that's the way I think about it, mate.

We should do Monk Mode quarterly and we should do it before we go into our quarterly strategic sessions for our planning sessions.

Yeah.

So we could do it for our lives and it will be in that mind frame as well.

I like it. I like it. Yeah, man.

Let's do it.

Okay.

I reckon overall, this was very successful and 100% worthwhile doing successful test listeners.

Have you done this before? Have you found any different results? Are you going to give it a shot? We'd love to hear from you. As always, we're trying to upgrade our personal life and business life in ways we can be more productive, efficient, and improve our overall mood. So if you've got any lessons or feedback, we'd love to hear from you. You can tweet at us Abbybackburg for bergs and ensimpsonau. And we've also got our podcast, Twitter, which you can tweet us at us Benndbergs on Twitter. We'd love to hear from you. And as always, if you've got a friend or family member or someone that you know that you think would find value in this, we'd love for you to share it with them because it's the way we grow the podc. And we're pushing towards the hundredth episode burks. We've got a cracking special coming up for the 100th episode, don't we?

I can't wait. It's going to be so much fun. It's going to be amazing.

We are going to go back in time and we're going to be reviewing our first few podcasts. And I listened to a little bit of our first one this morning. Holy moly.

They're not the prettiest, are they? Ben? I got through about half a minute. I just went, who are these two blokes?

You know when you get that, like, that sort of sickening, you know, feeling in your stomach of. I'm not gonna say shame, but it's like.

It's like, wow, what have I done?

What have I done?

What were you thinking?

What? But, I mean, you know, it's. It's fun. We're growing. The feedback's been great. Thank you, everyone, for listening. We love going this journey with you as we come up into the Harvey next year. It's gonna be exciting time.

Absolutely love it. Thanks so much for listening, champions.

Thanks, guys.