What nobody told you about creating better habits. EP #222 - Den Lennie

G', day, guys. Dan here with episode 222 of the how to Scale a Video Business Podcast. And today we're talking about the power of habit and how hard it is to develop good habits and how easy it is to fall back into old habits that may not be serving you, that may be negatively impacting the outcomes in your business. So I want to anchor this in the fact that I've mentioned before, I've been getting fit and fitter this year. It's not something I've ever prioritized to the degree it should be. And this year, turning 50, I was like, right, that's it, I want to start getting healthier. But it wasn't easy.

And that's because this 50 year old body has been eating and drinking too much of the wrong stuff for the best part of 30 years.

But I noticed this morning something interesting happened at the gym. So first of all, at the end of our, it's like a kind of CrossFit type fusion fitness. It's not CrossFit, it's an evolution of that. But basically in each session we do probably 20 minutes of weight training for strength. And today that was like.

Weighted squats, weighted back squats, and then in what they call drop sets, which is the sets in between. So we're doing like five sets of five weighted squats. And then in between times we were doing RDLs, which are just to hold the weights and you sort of drop them down to your ankles and back up again. It strengthens your rear of your legs.

Session called metcon. Every session, which is like the kind of, I guess it's the.

Was what I'm looking for cardio part of the session. And.

Everyone was doing like 200 meter run and then some weighted back squats again. So do a lot of squats in this training actually. But that's by the by. So I can't run because I've got the injured ankle that I picked up back in 2001, so I've got arthritis. So I, I, for a long time I didn't train because I thought I couldn't, but actually I saw an Instagram ad pop up for training in your 40s. And I was like, okay, that's me, let's go. And I've just discovered that I've been going now for 15 weeks solid. And so I wanted to talk about the power of habits and some of the resistance you will feel when you try anything new. And this is tied so closely to business because so much in business takes you out of a Comfort zone. And you know, if you're a freelancer looking to build your business, then for the longest time all you're interested in doing is getting work, getting more clients, more work, more clients, more work, until you reach a point where you suddenly drown under the capacity of being able to do all the work. You know you're doing all the work yourself. You're winning work, you're getting paid, but you're doing all the work yourself. So you're exhausted. And I've seen this happen again and again and it's definitely a cycle you go through until you get to a point where you realize you cannot do it on your own. And you have to understand that you have to spend some of your profits to employ a team or contractors. And that's going to involve less profit initially, but it's going to increase your capacity long term so you can do more. And ultimately you will be more profitable without killing yourself. So anyway, back to the session today.

I was, you know, I've been, I've been away for the last week and a half. I did one session last week, we had our anniversary the week before, so had a bit of a break, Buffy breakfast, you know, eating and drinking all the nice stuff. Did a session last week, quite enjoyed it. But this is when I got back into it today. Now, two things. One, one is when you take a break from something, you start to lose your habit and you start to slide back into old ways. So it's just an awareness of that. The second thing is.

Your body actually retains a lot of muscle memory. So it doesn't actually take that long to get back up to speed. So I was in the session this morning and at the end of the session we were supposed to do this like it was a 200 meter run. And I think it was 15 sets of dumbbell weighted squats, back squats. So normally on the rower I double whatever people are doing on the run. So everyone's kind of finishing up this morning and I'm like, the coach comes over to me and goes, oh, you're doing 400 meter rows, you only need to 300. So what was interesting was I had convinced myself I had to do 400. So I did 1600 meters of rowing when actually I only had to do 1200. But what was, what was fascinating was I believed I had to do 1600. So that's what I did. If I told myself I had to do 1200, I would have done 1200, but I did 25% more output than I had to just because I Told my brain I had to. Now halfway through I got a bit tired but I'm like, I'm only halfway through and there's a girl next to me, Stacy, and she was finishing. I was like, why is she finishing? Well, never mind. You know, she's much fitter than me, so that's okay. Anyway, I kept pushing through. So on one hand there was an accountability because Stace was, was finishing before me and I was like, oh God, I need to work harder. So a bit of accountability there kept me pushing further and gave me the motivation to keep going. And then the coach was like, oh, you're doing like more than you need to. Good on you may as well do more. So. So what I learned from that was if we applied that to business and you said, well, my goal is to make, let's call it 10 grand a month for example, or 20 grand a month. Let's be ambitious. 20 grand a month if you're just starting out and you're currently making 10. So 20 means double. But what if you said I need to make it 30 so it feels like it's out of reach and you know, if you're doing 40, make it 60, if you're doing 60, make it 100. Just you know, apply the same knowledge, the same, same sort of process, which is what if you just made the number bigger? What if you focused your attention on getting to a bigger number? Do you think that would, that, what kind of impact would that have? Would you get there? Maybe, maybe not. But if you push for a bigger number, do you think you further than if you pushed for a smaller number? So let's say you're doing ten grand a month just now, just for argument's sake and you'd like to do 20. Well, what if you put the target at 25? Do you think there's any more work involved really in doing a 20 grands worth of business or 25? Do you think it's, it's that much more or do you think it's a mindset? I want to tell you it's a mindset. And now the key to all of this was.

I told myself I had to do 1600 meters and I did 1600 meters and I still had energy in the tank, although I was tired, but I could have done 1200, so I kind of could have shortchanged myself 25%. And I really believe that all of us have at least another 25% in the tank.

Now. The truth is you have a lot more than you realize. But, but it comes down to habits and building the habits around doing something consistently. So, you know, I, in, in 15 weeks, haven't dropped tons away and look radically different, but I'm stronger, I'm, I'm leaner. And when you consider there's like 30 years of, well, let's call it abuse, you know, eating what I want, drinking what I want, carrying extra weight, that's not going to disappear in six weeks. So understanding the journey is going to take longer than you think. But if you're disciplined and consistent then, and you have structure and accountability, then you're going to get to your goal faster than if you try to do it yourself. And here's something that I see a lot is people will say to me, oh, look, you know, I'll just do it myself, and they win a job or two. And then they go quiet and then they're like, oh, hey, Dan, I need some help. The people that I see having the greatest results, the people who are the most consistent, who tend to stay with us the longest in the vba, are those people who are doing big numbers, but they never, ever, ever take it for granted. And they're always looking for an edge. They're always looking to learn something new. And sometimes people will say to me, oh, look, you know.

You know, I could just like, you know, I think I've got enough to get on with. I need to go and implement it for a few months and I'll maybe come back. And I always say, no, this is not the process. The process is ongoing, continual improvement. It's like the Kaizen process from Japan. You can never, ever assume that you've got it figured out. I learned this from Sony as well. Working with Sony engineers on multiple projects is like, they never stop innovating. They never stop thinking we can do this better. They never stop asking the question, what else can we do? And I think that is a very, very powerful attitude to have in running a business, which is, what else could we be doing? What could we be doing better? Could we be doing something more efficiently? And. And that. That in itself is a really powerful process. Now.

The reason that habits are so important is because we have embedded bad habits, and it's very hard to change them. And changing anything is hard. It's uncomfortable. And whenever we're trying to change a behavior or a pattern of behavior or a mindset, our subconscious fights ferociously hard to avoid it. The brain wants comfort. It doesn't want stress. It doesn't want anxiety, doesn't want hardship. It wants easy. But Robin Sharma, who's a very inspirational author, sums it up beautifully. He says, change is hard at the beginning, change is messy in the middle, but change is beautiful at the end. And so I was talking to my coach this morning, just saying, you know, I was actually looking forward to coming to the gym. I was craving it. And that's because for 15 weeks now, I've been going three times a week solidly. And so I've built a habit where my body now I was in bed by 9 o' clock last night. I was awake at 4am I leave the house at 5am to go to the gym for 5:30. I'm recording this at 5, 5 to 8 in the morning. I've already done my workout and this podcast will be recorded normally. I'm weeks ahead. There was one gap where I hadn't filled it, so I'm doing it today. For that, we'll be going out on Thursday and, and I'm pumped. I'm like, I'm really motivated and I've got a bunch of things to do today, but I plan to, you know, to wrap things up early. In fact, I've got a. We've just, we just put a deposit down on a motorhome that we're going to turn into a production vehicle. So I'm going to sort that out today. So that's exciting. So I've got these other things to do.

But really what I want to talk about is, you know, you can't control time, but you can control energy. And what I find is by going to the gym first thing in the morning, I'm boosting my energy. So implementing a change in mindset and habits, it takes energy. So you've got to find that energy from somewhere. And I observe a lot of different people in the people I work with and the ones that I see are like, oh, you know, it's been a tough week and, you know, everything's so hard versus the people who are like, yeah, they show up to every call on time, they take notes, they implement, they come back the next week wanting more. There's a big difference between those that succeed and those that don't, and those that succeed and do exceptionally well and those that don't. And what's interesting is oftentimes they are on the same calls at the same time and in the same group. But why is it that 20% of the group always excel? Human nature. But it's all to do with habits and belief systems and implementing change. And I love this analogy of, you know, how hard, you know, it is to get things off the ground. So there's a space shuttle analogy when. And it goes something like this. When the space shuttle launched, it used 60% of its fuel in the first 90 seconds of flight just to get off the ground and push against gravity. It then used 30% of its fuel to push up into high orbit. So once it jettisoned the rocket boosters, but once it was in zero gravity, the remaining 10% of fuel was all that was required to run the entire mission. So the energy required to change a habit is willpower. Willpower. I will power through this. Think of willpower as a battery that depletes throughout the day. It has more charge first thing in the morning than it does at 9pm at night. And so you need to rest to recharge it. Now, we're taught some pretty dangerous shit at school, okay? And without awareness, some of that stuff stays with us for years. And it's only when you begin to read and study the mind that you realize just how damaging some of that early programming is to how you think.

Stories that we learn via school, family, as we're growing up. It forms the code that programs how you think and process information.

Now, I learned this from a mentor, Karen Ray, about three years ago, and Carwyn suffered three brain injuries. And so, as a result, has studied the mind in great depth. So. So think of the stories we're told about growing up around money. Do any of these sound familiar? Money is the root of all evil. Money doesn't grow on trees. You know, two of three marriages end in divorce because couples fight about money. So the stories running around in that little voice in our heads are coding our brain and directly affecting our subconscious performance. So think about this. If you put bad code into a computer, what happens? You get a virus and it starts to mess with the performance of the computer. It slows down. So if you're allowing negativity, bad news, gossip junk into your brain and subconscious, like social media junk, then what kind of impact is that having on your performance? You know, do you need to change the algorithm here? Do you need to change what you're consuming and how you're consuming? You may have been listening to the show for some time and you may be implementing some of it, but every single week, I invite you to come and have a call to discuss if we can do it faster. And I know that at least 80% of the listeners of this show never do that. Ask yourself, why? Are you scared I'm going to try and sell you something? Well, here's the thing. If I think I can help you, I will. But here's the thing also. That's, that's business. I will only offer to sell you something if I think it can help you. And I guarantee that if I think it can help you and you've got the means, that won't cost you a bean, because it will, it will return on your investment at least 10 times. Therefore, it's a no brainer. But fear stops us from doing a lot of different things. So what kind of impact are negative thoughts having on your brain? You know, the sooner you realize that what you feed your mind is directly related to the level of success in your business and life, then the quicker you will start to see higher levels of productivity and success. Now, admittedly I, I used to watch a lot of tv. I still enjoy Netflix, okay? It's my downtime now. I worked in the television industry for 20 odd years and so I justified my TV habits. I said to myself, I need to see what's going on in the industry, see who's doing what. And the truth is, I was a bit lazy. I knew that a better use of my time would be to read, but I had a lot of internal resistance. I was telling myself, I'm not a reader. And you've heard the phrase, poor people have big TVs, wealthy people have big libraries. Now Warren Buffett, who's one of the world's richest men, and look, I'm not saying that material wealth is the indicator of success, because it's not. But the modern world sees wealth as a kind of aspirational goal. But Warren Buffett is someone who is incredibly wealthy but lives a very frugal life. He loves the game of business, but he spends 80% of his time reading, learning and thinking. He says, I insist on a lot of time being spent almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and I think so. I do more reading and thinking and make less impulsive decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life. When Mark Zuckerberg was asked how he spends his time at Facebook, he answered, I spend much of my day thinking about how I can make Facebook better for its users. Elite athletes train to perform at the highest level, but they rarely do it without a coach. Elite performance in any field requires a conscious effort.

You know, society promotes healthy eating. Yeah. You are what you eat. Society promotes exercise. Yes. Walk every day, move your body, get your heart rate up for 20 to 30 minutes at least three times a week. Yet very little is made of looking after the mind. Let's say you have an F1 race car worth a million bucks. Would you race that car around at 200 miles an hour, 24 hours a day without stopping to let the engine cool down? Probably not, because if you run that engine at optimum levels, it needs to cool. It needs time to rest, to be lubricated and tuned. So if you want to hack your mindset and habits, the easiest way is to build habits around programming the mind with some mindfulness and some meditation. Now, I use an app called Headspace, or I used to. I'm much better at meditating now, kind of just on my own. But in essence.

Simple meditation, simple awareness and mindfulness is just breathing, closing your eyes and taking somewhere from five to 20 minutes out of your day and focusing on your mind. And if it feels weird, that's okay. But trust me and work through it. Remember, change is hard at first, messy in the middle while you figure it out and beautiful at the end. Once you get into meditation, you can literally meditate anywhere. And it's probably the, the single best habit you can build to prepare yourself for some of the steps you're going to experience as you grow a business.

So, you know, it's very simple. Get a map called Headspace. Get comfortable, close your eyes, breathe. It's really that simple. But it takes practice to quieten the mind. Um, and, and, and it used to be believed that, you know, you could change a habit in 21 days.

Um, but recently an article by James Clear, who's a photographer and writer, on topics around behavioral psychology and habit formation and performance improvement. He, he summed up some research that he found from a guy called Maxwell Waltz. Maxwell Maltz. He was a plastic surgeon in the 1950s and he, he started noticing a strange pattern amongst his patients. So this is a direct quote, When Dr. Waltz would perform an operation like a nose job for found that it would take the patient about 21 days to get used to seeing their new face. Similarly, when a patient had an arm or leg amputated, Malz noticed that the patient would sense a phantom limb for about 21 days before adjusting to the new situation. Now, these experiences prompted Malz to think about his own adjustment period to changes in new behaviours. And he noticed that it also took himself about 21 days to form a new habit. Maltz wrote about these experiences and said these and many other commonly observed phenomena tend to show that it requires a minimum of about 21 days for an old mental image to dissolve and grow a new one to gel. So in 1960, Maltz published that quote and his other thoughts on behavioral change in a book called Psycho Cybernetics. And the book's gone to become a massive blockbuster hit selling more than 30 million copies.

Now that's when the kind of real problem started. Because in the decades that followed, Maltz's work influenced nearly every major self help professional from Zig Ziglar to Brian Tracy to Tony Robbins. But here's the thing. It's kind of, kind of how long does it really take? The 21 days is.

It'S a little bit of a myth because actually it takes somewhere between 21 and 66 days to form a new habit.

And some research was done by Philip Lally, who's a health psychologist researcher at University College London. And this was published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. And they figured out how long does it actually take to build a habit? So they studied the habits of 96 people over a 12 week period. And each person chose one new habit for the 12 weeks and reported each day on whether or not the behavior did in fact become automatic. And when did it feel automatic? Some people just chose simple habits like drinking a bottle of water at lunch. Others chose more difficult tasks like running 15 minutes before dinner. And at the end of the 12 weeks, the researchers analyzed the data to determine how long it took each person to go from starting a new behavior to actually doing it. So do you want to know the answer? Well, on average, it takes more than two months before a new behavior becomes automatic. They claim. 66 days to be exact. Now, how long it takes to develop a new habit can vary wildly depending on the behavior of the person and the circumstances. So in Lally's study, it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days to be able to form that new habit. So the reason I'm sharing this is if you want to set your expectations appropriately, the truth is, it'll probably take you anywhere from two months to eight months to build a new behavior in your life, not 21 days. So interestingly, the researchers also found that missing one opportunity to perform the behavior did not materially affect the habit formation process. In fact, in other words, it doesn't matter if you mess up every now and again. Building better habits isn't an all or nothing process. And if I look at my 15 week gym process, you know, the last couple of weeks, I've done about three sessions in two weeks. Normally I do three sessions a week, but I got back into it today and I immediately was in the thing, because I've been doing it for 15 weeks.

So whatever habits you want to change, it's important that you're realistic about the time and effort required to change them effectively. And so when you look at your business, the thing that I see and observe the most in video businesses is it's like it's very hard to break the feast and famine. When things are going well, everyone tends to take their foot off the marketing gas and be like, hey, hey, everything's great. And then they go quiet and they start to panic. And so the conduit to that or the antidote to that rather, is to build a habit around your marketing effort, which means reaching out every day to 20 people on LinkedIn, you know, making sure you are consistent not just with your connections, but also your messaging. What kind of posts are you putting out? You'll notice that we put out two podcast episodes a week. We're on episode 222. That is a habit. We put them out every week. We do a charity on a Tuesday, we do a main episode on a Thursday, and we've done two. Over 200 episodes. 222 episodes. That is a consistent output. I record the podcast. My team do everything else. They post on social, they send out the emails, they send it to the copywriter who writes amazing show notes. And Calvin does an incredible job of summarizing each podcast and making it more interesting for you to read, to want, for you to listen to the episode. And so, you know, we have an incredible team that supports us to put this content out. But it's absolutely. We are deliberate in our consistency. We took a month off last August and it really affected our consumption. And clients would say to me, oh, where was the podcast? So we are committed to doing two episodes a week. So we keep this message front and center. And the other thing we like to do is maintain the same message, which is you cannot build your business alone. You need support. And if you want to operate at an optimal level, you have to invest in some kind of guidance so you're accountable and you feel that you are moving in the right direction and you can course correct along the way. And that's why we have our weekly coaching, so that every week there's a touch point. So, guys, I'll see you soon. Thank you for listening. Ask yourself this. Has owning your own video business been everything you dreamed it would be when you first got started? It might be hard to admit, but think about whether you're genuinely achieving everything you set out to when you made that decision to grab the camera and go it alone. Are you really working less? Are you really earning more? And are you really in control? The chances are you're bloody good at what you do, but you're having to work like a dog, 70 plus hours a week. Whether it's filming, editing, marketing, or any of the other jobs that come with being the big boss of your own video company. When you're managing projects, constantly searching out for new clients and worrying about cash flow, it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture or make real progress. Let's face it, that stress is the last thing you need when you're trying to run a profitable company that supports you and the people you care about. Truth is, a business that provides financial, professional and personal freedom really is achievable. But maybe you've got that nagging feeling that you're overworked, lacking stability, and struggling to get to where you really want to be right now. It could be that you just don't know how to make a positive change on your own. So I created the Video Business Accelerator Coaching programs to really supercharge your video business. With these unique coaching programs, you'll learn all the tools that you need to get complete confidence in the success of your video business. You can take the first step on your journey to a successful business that doesn't control your life. Let me show you how. Head over to denlani.com and click on Accelerator.