Mack Newton's five rules for simplifying life: say no to misaligned commitments, clear physical and mental clutter, distance yourself from negative people, take care of your body, and control your attitude. Brian Gubernick argues that life complexity signals you're breaking one of these rules.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Today we're going to continue Mac Newton week in honor of the interview that we did just a few days ago and in honor of the life of one of the greatest individuals to ever grace us here on Earth. Mack Newton talked during our interview of attitude and commitment. Mack's— one of Mack's favorite sayings, I mean, he literally had posters of this that he would— that, that were all over his gym. He would hand out flyers that said it: attitude is everything. Your attitude is everything. Attitude affects more of what goes on in your life than any other factor according to Mack. Equally as important, Mack would tell you that the simple things work. He would say things like, "Just do it," and he wasn't trying to quote Nike. Mack was probably saying "Just do it" before Nike put that tagline out. But Mack would aim to simplify lots of things. He would say again, "The simple things work," and he'd aim to simplify lots of things. And he'd aim to incorporate your attitude into all of those things. And he had a list. We didn't talk about it during the interview, but some of the things he shared in the interview kind of came from this list. So I thought it'd be great to cover today. Mack had a list of 5 rules to simplifying your life, because again, the simple things work. Rule number 1, learn to say no. If you want to simplify your life according to Mack Newton, Get really good, get great at saying no. No to demands on your schedule, no to social commitments that don't serve your goals, no to certain people, no to certain environments. Mack would say, if you want to simplify your life, learn to say no. And learning to say no comes back to your attitude. If you are committed to wherever it is you want to go. If you're committed to building a stronger relationship with a person, or build it, uh, committed to building a bigger business, or committed to influencing the lives of many others, you've got to say no to those things that may seem urgent but are not important. You've got to say no to those things that are not aligned. Number 1, learn to say no. Number 2, Clear the clutter. Max rules for simplifying your life. Clear the clutter. What he was really saying is get rid of all of that noise in your world, be it physical or mental clutter. Simplify. Now, clear the clutter doesn't just mean make sure you have a clean desk. It means make sure you have a clean and clear mind. We talked about forgiveness recently, and Mac's example of forgiving his father is one of those kind of clear the clutter scenarios where you— we have things in our mind that are, are taking over space but are not serving us. So if you want to simplify your life, you've got to clear the clutter. And clearing the clutter means eliminating all the noise internally and externally. To the greatest extent possible so that you are able to tap into your wisdom, so that you're able to fully focus, so that you're able to operate in the right mindset. Number 3, get rid of negative people. If you want to simplify your life, rule number 3, get rid of negative people. Mack would talk about this a lot, about your environment. I know that's certainly something we talk about here at No Days Off quite often. But if you want to make things simpler in your world, then get rid of those that are not aligned with your mission. I'm not saying use people by any stretch, but negative people, those that are pulling you back as, as opposed to encouraging you to move forward or supporting you in moving forward, are not serving the mission. And in terms of, in terms of simplification, I would say it does the opposite. Negative people or those not along for the journey are complicating life, not simplifying. Number 4, no surprise here, take care of your body. If you want to simplify your life, take care of your body. What does that mean to Mack? That means be physically fit. That means be strong, flexible. It means to eat properly so that you have energy. It means to sleep so that your mind is clear. I don't think any of us would argue with this one. We know that when we are our best physical version of ourselves, life feels a little simpler. And when our body is not doing well, when we're feeling sick or when our immune system is down, life is a lot more complicated. Rule number 4 of Max's is take care of your body. Number 5, And we kind of already touched on this because it's the foundation for all of these. Number 5, if you want to simplify your life, recognize that your attitude is everything. What you choose to do, how you choose to think, how you choose to behave— Mack would say you are the controller of that. You control your attitude. As a matter of fact, during that interview, you may recall I was, uh, asking Mac, you know, "What can you control?" And I was trying to push him a little bit in that I thought he was gonna say it was more than just attitude, but no, he said, "All you can control in life is your attitude. Your attitude is gonna impact your effort. Your attitude's gonna impact your habits. Your attitude's gonna impact all these things. Control your attitude. Your attitude is everything." So, in terms of simplifying your life, number one, Learn to say no. Number 2, clear the clutter. Number 3, get rid of negative people. Number 4, take care of your body. And number 5, recognize attitude is everything. Now, if you were to write these 5 out, maybe you're taking notes right now, so you've already done it. But if you haven't, maybe write those 5 things down. And if you were to hang them up in front of yourself today, as you get into the office, or you get into work mode, or whatever it is you're doing, My challenge for you today is to keep that list in front of you. And with each moment, each phone call or conversation, each email, you know, each step you take throughout your day, I want you to look at that list and I want to know, are you honoring these 5 rules or are you violating some of these rules? As you get into your day, you're saying yes to a few more things than you should. Are you dwelling on certain things that are holding you back? Are you in the wrong environment from time to time? Are you feeding yourself something that doesn't serve you? In other words, your food is off and therefore you're not taking care of your body. And lastly, are you showing up with the right attitude every second? Put that list up and audit yourself. That's the challenge. And if you want to honor Max's 5 rules of simplifying your life, you're going to do your damnedest. You're going to work as hard as possible to honor these 5 rules of simplifying. If you— maybe a different way to look at this, if you think to yourself, gosh, my life is awfully complicated, there's a really good chance that you're violating one, if not all, of these 5 rules. So on that note, we'll wrap it up. Thank you again to Mack Newton for the amazing content and for just being the guy that he was to so many of us. That's all I have for you today at the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
