The Unstoppable Power of Positive Habits

The fortress is your habits. You are building a strong foundation by your positive habits. The strength of those habits ensures against all the arrows and the lightning strikes of the negative range of emotions. I have moments where it bubbles over. I feel the lightning strike, but the lightning strike doesn't kill me. It strikes right next to me, says, hey, pay attention right now. Protect yourself, get back to the fortress. The fortress? What does this mean, the fortress? Did you know the strength that you are built upon? That you are building a foundation of strength in life? And it is your job to be the builder of that foundation of strength. And it's our job to to be the gatekeeper of that fortress. So let me talk about a few of these concepts. See, for me, when stress and overwhelm bad situations, difficult days, they hit me. And trust me, they hit me a lot. When you run this many companies, this many team, these many events, it's like for some of you, this is your first event. This last year we passed 100 four day events. Yeah, four day events. You can imagine with that, with audiences from all around the globe how difficult things can be. Attracting the people, serving the people, taking care of the people over four days, feeding the people, having all the team to manage and run that in different cities, on the road, away from home, all this stuff. There's so much that can come at you and everyone's like, doesn't that freak you out? I'm like, I have moments where it bubbles over. I feel the lightning strike, but the lightning strike doesn't kill me. The lightning strike doesn't kill me. Like kill me. It strikes right next to me, says, hey, pay attention right now. Protect yourself. Get back to the fortress. So let me talk about the fortress. The fortress is your habits. You are building a strong foundation by your. Write this down. Positive habits. The more consistent and strong your positive habits. I often call them high performance habits. You might have a whole other set that aren't included in this. You might call them your wellness habits, your joy habits, your life habits, whatever you want to call them, the strength of those habits ensures against all the arrows and the lightning strikes of the negative range of emotions. Now, a lot of people don't like when you say negative range of emotions, but they don't feel good, they feel negative. Why can't we call things what they are anymore? I literally got schooled the other day online by this therapist. Please stop saying negative emotions. People don't have negative emotions. I'm like, yeah. I remember one time I had so much anxiety, I threw up in the Bathroom before I got to the toilet. That wasn't positive, Ms. Nice. That was a negative experience. It's okay to say things suck. Can I get an amen on a weekday? Good lord. Don't label anything. Okay. What color are my shoes? You're wrong. Okay. I can build a case. You're wrong. The spectrum you're seeing isn't real. Your negative emotions aren't real. Well, they sure feel real. And it looks gray. Yo, you looking good. Thank you. So let's talk about the fortress. What are your top five habits that protect you against stress and overwhelm? What are they? Write them down. We don't come here just to listen. We come here to workshop, to learn. So at home, as you're listening, if you're in the grow with a app, take your note right now. Bust out a journal right now. What are your five habits that are your core habits that protect you and strengthen you from the ongoing nature of what can be stress, what can be overwhelm? I want you to know those as you're capturing those. After you write each one, score yourself on a scale of 1 to 10. How consistent and intense have you been with that habit in the last 90 days? 90 days began in November. So you think about your holidays. You think about your New Year's. Oh, gosh. Someone says, see, what people forget is they forget you're building these positive habits. It's a fortress that's strong, that's capable of enduring the weather. The weather doesn't knock me down because I have all these habits that have strengthened me against the weather. The fortress. So my habits of working out. My habits of eating well. My habits of prioritizing sleep. My habits of making sure I'm on my supplement game. My habits of of making sure I have clarity at the beginning of the week. My habits of spending Sunday looking at the week, removing the things that don't make sense. My habits of making sure I'm focusing on the things that move the needle versus doing lots of little things that don't move the needle. My habits of focus and discipline. My habits of love. My habits of connection. My habits of building my relationships. All your positive habits protect against the stress. Can I ask you a real quick question? Even before I give you one of my habits, how many of you in the five habits you just wrote down has a habit of generating love or positive relationship? Raise your hand. Look around the room. Look around the room. Isn't that kind of stunning? I don't know. You can't see this at home maybe, but it looks like maybe 40% of this room who are personal development people raise their hand. See, sometimes stress beats us up because we think we're in our fortress alone and we're not building the community that allows us to weather this storm. I have so many difficult days and because I coach so many people and I'm with you all in the DMs and the comments and on the road and in the airports and in the airplanes and all over with you all, I hear all the stories of what people are struggling with. And often we think we're going through that alone. And I always think how lucky I am that my whole life relationships were a priority. So when the storm does feel like it's knocking me over, I don't sit in the cave and scream in my fortress like, I got other people with me. They're building that strength. Your social relationships are an undermined tool for dealing with stress and overwhelm in life. You need that cathartic experience of calling a spouse and connecting with them, talking about the difficulties. You need that cathartic experience if you don't have a spouse, calling that friend, connecting with them, talking about the difficulties, talking to somebody who's a mentor, a coach, a therapist, somebody. As you learn to debrief life, it's almost like you're releasing stress as you go along the way. But see, that's just dealing with it, isn't it? What I'm here to encourage you to go from the browsing personal development person into the mastery personal. As you develop in that mastery, I want you to ask a different question. Not just how do you deal with it, but how do you rise up and build the habits that create so much joy and, and love in your life that a lot of that other stuff, the slings and the arrows of stress, the judgments of others, the difficult days, they just kind of ping off you a little bit, you know, when you're living in a good place, when you're living through love, when you're living through connection, when you do what we talk about in growth day, you seek out the aliveness and the meaningful pursuits you're actively growing. But remember, one of those pillars we always talk about in growth day is connection. We all want meaningful connections. I have found the greatest unlock in life of dealing with all stress and overwhelm is to have great relationships. Because your great relationships will help navigate you through. And your relationships aren't talking about the stress. I'll give you an example. This morning I could have text my wife, omg, I didn't do this, but I could have texted her this morning. Oh, my God, it's raining. We got so many people coming in who might not show up. I got all these people coming in who are VIPs. I really wanna see Em. I don't have any time. You know, I didn't know you were gonna be here so late this last couple days. I didn't sleep as much. There's so much tension going on. We're trying to build. We just hired, like, seven people this month. Like, oh, my. Ugh. No. This morning. I want you to know this. This is to my wife. I want you to know this. Maybe you already know because I tell you everything all the time. Sometimes twice. But even though today is my event day, I hope you know that every day I wake up, I reach over for you. I start my day reaching for you and thinking of you. I think of our life and our blessings and I thank God. I just think, thank you, God, for Denise and for my health and my mission and my life and our families. And I'm excited for today every day. And then I stumble for coffee or tea and a book. And I hope to collide with you somewhere. I love you, sunshine. Have a wonderful day. Can I tell you the most extraordinary story, though? That's just part of life, right? You're building relationships with people, and the more actively you build with relationships, it's like a fortress. I'm telling you, it's amazing. But I wanna tell you the better part of this story. So I come out and I'm getting ready for this morning. And some of you all know Mel Abraham, my buddy, does all my events with me. So, Mel, we're going to the elevator. We're about on our way over here. And he says, you know, there's all this stuff been going on at home for my wife, she's dealing with a lot of stuff. So this morning I went on some kind of app. I forgot what name of the app. I went on the app and I just had her favorite kind of coffee latte and her favorite kind of donut from this fancy store delivered to her this morning. Is that cool? So he's on the road, but he's filling the cup. You have a lot going on in your life, but I'm here to tell you the funny thing about building a real fortress is building your relationships up. Your relationships, if you actively build them, it's kind of a surprise how much. When stress hits you, it's not as much because you have your priorities clear. So what if I have a few projects falling off the rails. I got love. So what if a few projects are falling off the rails? I got health. So what if a few rumbles and tumbles and difficulties and people quitting or people getting angry or people doing. So what if there's a bigger game over here? If you are in a good place in your life because you've done your personal development and you prioritize the very habits you wrote down, not the ones I gave you, the ones you wrote down. You take those from a score of 1 to 10 where they're a 4 or 5, and you take those five and you dial those things up to a 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10. Watch what happens when the stuff hits you in your life. You're like, boom, I got this. Turn the person left, right, shake them and say, you got this. You got this. Sam.