Brian Gubernick explains the ceiling and floor framework: your ceiling is the ideal daily habit (90-minute workout, 100 sales calls, $1,000 saved), your floor is the minimum when life gets in the way (5 minutes walking, 10 calls, a few dollars). Doing the floor keeps momentum alive.
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 will be a quick hitter, something I've been thinking about. Somebody had said this to me just a couple weeks ago, and it's been on my mind. I thought I'd share it with you. So in business, in life, in health and wealth, in all these areas that we talk so much about here at No Days Off, it is incredibly important that we build great habits and that we continue to stack these habits on our way to greater success. In order to create these habits, in order to stack these habits, we've got to build momentum. What is momentum? Momentum to me is just stacking small wins or creating small wins each and every day and doing it over a period of time such that the energy changes, improves, that things become easier, that you're more motivated. Momentum is critical. What I want to share with you today, again, is something I heard just a few weeks ago that's been on my mind. But this idea of ceilings and floors, highs and lows, best case and worst case. Each day, for example, you probably have, you know, if you're thinking about your health, you probably have an idea around what the perfect workout would look like. I want to work out 90 minutes. I want to lift weights for 45 of those minutes. I want to do cardio for the other 45 minutes. I'm going to do this exact activity. I'm going to, you know, experience this sort of heart rate. Then, I'm going to, you know, finish the workout and I'm going to go stretch and I'm going to practice gratitude or whatever it may be. You have an idea around what your perfect workout would look like. But sometimes, You look at your schedule, or maybe you just simply get up in the morning and you don't feel that you can go about running this perfect schedule. Well, here's the thing. That's the ceiling, right? The perfect schedule, the perfect workout, I should say, the perfect start your day, that's the ceiling. But some days we don't have ceilings in us, we just have floors. So I may not be able to get in the 90-minute workout But maybe I can get 5 minutes of fast walking outside or 2 minutes of push-ups or 5 minutes of air squats. I don't care what it is, but I do something. That would be the floor. I do something. And why do I do something? Because doing that something is better than skipping the workout altogether, breaking the habit, breaking the momentum. In work, If I'm in sales and I go into the office, I envision making calls to prospects for 2 hours. I'm gonna make, you know, 100 calls and I'm gonna talk with 30 people and that's my perfect ideal day. And then shit happens. And before I could even start that, I feel like, God, I can't, I can't go, I can't get that perfect, I'm not gonna go do it. And I'm going to challenge you and say no. Go in there and do the best you can. Maybe you can't get those 30 conversations. Maybe you can't make those 100+ calls. But you go in and make 10 calls. You could spend 20 minutes making calls. You can at least get in there and, and write out your script. You can do something. Again, why? Because this keeps the momentum. Money. You want to save, you know, $1,000 a month. That's your best case, but maybe you can't get there. Well, you don't save zero. Save something. Save a dollar, save $10, save $20. Why? Because you're building the muscle. You're keeping the momentum. Every night you want to work on your growth. You want to read an hour, but maybe the world doesn't present that to you that day. Instead of saying, I can't read an hour, so I'm not going to do it. Read a page, read 5 pages, ceiling and floor, ceiling and floor. The idea here is, again, we all shoot for perfection. We all would like to have those, those, those perfect moments in our health and our wealth and our, in our, our, our money and our growth and all these areas I'm talking around. We want to have those perfect experiences and we should aspire to have them, but there's going to be many a time where you're just not up for it or your world, your schedule doesn't permit it, that doesn't give you the excuse to just not do something. What I'm trying to challenge you to do today is do something. A minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, a half hour, even if it's minimal, even if it's not anywhere close, do it. Because you will have accomplished something, you would have kept the streak alive, you would be building a habit, and ultimately you're maintaining that momentum. So today, and really over the next week or month, I want you to remember this message because it's going to come up, it's going to come up for you. You're going to have this perfect vision for attacking something, and perfect's not going to be possible. And you may think, well, screw it, I just won't do it. And I want you to remember this, this conversation we're having today, and I want you to say, hey, I can't get the perfect day in, I can't get the ceiling I'm gonna go get the floor. I'm gonna go make 10 calls. I'm gonna work out for 5 minutes. I'm gonna save a dollar. I'm gonna read 3 pages. I don't care what it is, just keep the streak alive. That's all I have for you today, 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.
Ep 755 | Mack Newton's Words of Wisdom - "You Are Only as Big as Your Self-Concept" (REPLAY)
