10 SECRETS to Seize Opportunities!

If you're looking for ways to have a good morning routine, learn to outsource, and seize opportunities, then this video is for you.

So here's why having a morning and evening routine can help you be more focused, less stressed, and more successful. You know, you hear the advice like, "Follow your passion," which I guess is okay advice, but you know, I have a passion for like eating pancakes. That's not gonna to put food on the table. So yeah, find ways, play areas in your life where maybe there's someone else that could do this better than I could.

Need motivation? Watch a top 10 with Believe Nation. What's up, it's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe in that amazing gift you have inside you that I wanna see come out. So let's get your motivation to a 10 and get you believing in you. Grab a snack and chew on today's message from a man who grew up in a suburb of Oklahoma City and started the Art of Manliness website as something fun to do in his spare time to inspiring millions of men around the world to become better men through his website, podcast, books, and YouTube channel. He's Brett McKay, and here's my take on his top 10 rules of success. Enjoy! Alright, so coming up first, rule number 1 is create for yourself.

So I actually started the blog back in 2008 when I was a second-year law student, and it was just for fun, really. I had no intentions of this becoming my, my living. I was gonna be an attorney doing oil and gas, probably. And the reason I started it is I was tired of all the other content being put out there for men. You know, I subscribed to Men's Health, read Esquire, and I was getting tired of— oh, with Men's Health particularly, it was like every month it was the exact same thing. I knew there was gonna be an article about six-pack abs, you know, uh, biceps, biceps, of course, there's always biceps, sex position tips, you know. And then the other men's lifestyle stuff out there, it was, you know, selling a lifestyle the average guy couldn't afford. And then the bottom line, it just didn't resonate with me. It's like this isn't manly, right? No, um, it's popular culture. It's popular culture. And look, and even as a guy, like, I was a law student, grew up in the suburbs, I knew I wasn't incredibly manly. I look at my men like my grandfather, great-grandfathers, they were like game wardens, you know, Forest Service guys can go out in the mountains with nothing but a pack horse for 3 weeks and survive and come back. And that just— what they were putting out there didn't resonate with me. So I decided, you know what, If they're not gonna create the kind of stuff that I want to read, like, I'll create the stuff that I want to read. I'd create— I wanted to create the men's magazine that I wanted to read. And this is entrepreneurship at its finest. Exactly. You see a problem. There's a problem. Here's a product I want. Yeah. It's not being offered to me for sale, so I'll create it.

How they ended it summarized how so many businesses are created. There's a problem, you go out and you solve it yourself. Why did I do the top 10s? Because I wanted to be around great thinkers, legendary entrepreneurs on a daily basis. So I made it for myself. Instead of complaining that nobody else was making it, I made it and I shared it with you guys and everybody wins. Create for yourself. Let's move on to rule number 2, do it yourself.

During this time when I started blogging, I knew nothing about like web design. I knew nothing about HTML. I knew nothing about PHP. I knew nothing about servers. Graphic design, I knew, I mean, I was a humanities major in college and I went to law school. So this whole geek stuff, just, I didn't know anything about. But I didn't have the money to buy an expensive web designer, have a nice design, I didn't have the money to, you know, do a lot of nice things that you can do with a website. So I had to learn everything and do it myself. So I had to invest a lot of sweat equity. So with The Frugal Law Student, I learned how to do Photoshop But I didn't use Photoshop. I used the poor man's Photoshop, which is GIMP. That's what I did to do my graphic design. I went to W3Schools to learn how to do HTML and CSS. I would, you know, search the WordPress, you know, forms that are free there to figure out, you know, "Okay, I want to do this cool thing, but I can't do it. How do you do this with PHP?" And I learned how to do that there. So, yeah, I really cut my teeth on how to create a blog and run it and make it look nice.

So here's another message that comes up over and over and over again. Instead of looking to complain about how you can't do this, you don't have those skills, or that talent, or that gear, that equipment, you just find a way. You start small, you do it yourself, you struggle your way through it, you learn enough to get it out, and as you grow and as you scale, then you can bring people on to help you do the things you don't want to do. At the start of my YouTube channel, I did everything myself, everything. And then the first person I hired was an editor as soon as I could afford it, to allow me to go from a video a week to a video a day and eliminate that from my work process. But at the beginning, you do it yourself. You do what you can with what you have. Let's move to rule number 3: Have a good morning and evening routine.

So here's why having a morning and evening routine can help you be more focused, less stressed, and more successful. First, it ensures the really important things get done. While we generally can't control what goes on in the middle of the day, we can usually control how we begin and end our day. So take advantage of this fact by incorporating your most important tasks, actions, and behaviors into your morning and evening routines. So, for example, I know many businessmen who refuse to check email first thing in the morning. Instead, their morning routine consists of waking up, getting dressed, and spending an hour working on their most important task of the day, even before they get into the office. This ensures they accomplish their task before the chaos and interruptions of the workday get in the way. Now, for me, if I don't exercise first thing in the morning, I won't exercise that day. I just don't have time for it. So daily exercise is part of my morning routine. Journal writing is another important thing for me, and if I don't set aside a specific time just for journaling, it just doesn't get done. Thus, journal writing is part of my evening routine.

I love that he talks about having a morning and evening routine because when you can get into the habit of doing the things that consistently set you up for success, it eliminates the variability. It eliminates you having a great day being motivated, and then you fall back down to earth and the rest of your week kind of sucks. You want every day to set yourself up for success. And so instead of waking up like an accident every single day, you wake up and do the things that are triggers for you, habits for you to allow you to have an amazing day, whatever that requires for you. Let's go to rule number 4: plan your week.

Are there any specific productivity pieces or anything that has like really added to your life? You know, I'm one of those guys who like toys around with different productivity systems. And what's frustrating, I know it's not like one system is better than the other, it's just a matter of sticking with it. So one thing that I found that helps me a lot is just planning out my week, sitting down, Sundays are usually a good day for that, looking at the week ahead, planning out the big important things, the things that, you know, are non-negotiable, non-negotiable, and scheduling those out and then scheduling around everything else around those big big rocks. That's one of the things that's helped me out a lot. And then also every day just reviewing your calendar and your to-do list, you know, at the end of the day, see what you got done, see what needs to be done the next. That's helped out a lot.

First off, it's great to see Antonio Centeno in this video. He has an amazing YouTube channel called Real Men Real Style that I recommend you checking out. I met up with him earlier this year in Los Angeles area, and he's a great dude on top of being a great YouTuber. In terms of planning your week, I totally agree. I think you only have so much capacity every day to wake up and think about what you're gonna do. If you're waking up every morning and thinking what you're gonna do that day, then you've already lost. You need to wake up and do, right? You need to spend 90% of your time doing and 10% of your time thinking. So you spend time once a week trying to figure out what's gonna happen this next week. Does this calendar serve my higher ambitions? Am I doing the thing that's gonna allow me to reach my goals? And then every day you wake up and you just go out and do the plan. Execute the plan and stop getting in your own way with your thinking. Let's go to rule number 5: seize opportunities.

You know, you hear the advice like, "Follow your passion," which I guess is okay advice, but, you know, I have a passion for like eating pancakes. That's not gonna put food on the table. I think, you know, the more— most successful entrepreneurs or content producers, they see a need and they fill it. Like, before I started this, I wasn't particularly passionate about manliness, like I wanted to be a better man. I wasn't obsessing about it, but I saw that there was a need, an opening for something that I wanted, what I saw was missing, and so I did it.

I think you need to combine both. If you want to have a successful business, it's got to be something that you love doing and there's a market for. It has to be both. And if you watch the first clip again, I think you'll see some quality passion coming out for why he wanted to start this business. Let's jump to rule number 6: improve your physical fitness.

I just did an interview with this guy. You watch Band of Brothers? I've seen— you've seen parts of the— parts of the miniseries. Well, there's a guy in there, Dick Winters. He was one of the commanders in Easy Company during the— during the Band of Brothers. And the guy I talked to, he helped Dick Winters write his memoirs before he died. And I thought this really interesting. Dick Winters, the guy was just phenomenal. He was just phenomenal leader, but he really hit on the point that physical fitness, physical strength was the basis of being a good leader, right? Because it carries over to other aspects. And what was crazy was, you know, even when he's at training camp, he would run 2 extra miles, right? Because he didn't have to, but he wanted to do that. Even during— he was in the battle, and he wanted his men to know, see that, right? Exactly. And even during when he was in battle over in Europe, he still found time to take a 2-mile hike, maybe a 2-mile jog in the morning before the battle started, just to keep that discipline going. Because he felt that physical fitness, physical strength was the basis of, you know, just good discipline. And that carried over into other— into the battle, helped him be a more effective soldier and warrior.

So that's an interesting perspective that physical fitness allows you to be a more effective leader. I gotta think more on that. I could think of a lot of leaders who are great leaders who are not really physically fit. But does that mean that they could be a better leader if they were more physically fit? I'd love to know what you guys think, and if you have any research to share, let me know in the comments. Let's go to rule number 7: learn to outsource.

You've got some guy out there and he is working 100 hours a week. He has 2 kids. He's just trying to figure out how to, you know, how to, how to balance this better. One thing is learn to outsource. That's one thing I— another thing I've done is like, if there's things that someone else could do better, better than you, let that person do it. Like if you need an accountant, instead of handling the books yourself— So you're not just talking, you're not talking going to India? No, no, no, no, I'm talking like, you know, an accountant, if you have someone, if you're doing your own books, getting an accountant was one of the best things I ever did, one of the best decisions I made, 'cause like keeping the books took so much time, taxes took forever, 'cause when you have a business that your taxes become so much more complicated. So it's nice having a professional. No, I mean, my accountant more than pays for herself. Yeah. Because she finds things I would never. Exactly. The tax code is not logical. No, it's not. So yeah, they save you money at tax time too. But just saving you time on the bookkeeping is one thing. So yeah, find ways, areas in your life where, you know, maybe there's someone else that could do this better than I could, and I can spend my time on what I'm good at. So that's one, another thing I would recommend doing for sure.

I think this rule pairs really well with rule number 2, which was do it yourself. It's like, well, how does that make sense? Do it yourself and outsource? At the beginning, you do everything yourself. You have to learn how to do the bookkeeping, you have to learn how to do Photoshop, you have to learn everything you need to know to get your business off the ground so you start making money. But as soon as you start making some money that's coming in, then you need to start delegating and outsourcing so you can focus on what you have Michael Jordan-level talent at and go all in on that and give everything else to the other people on your team. Alright, it's time for rule number 8: Develop good habits.

Good habits allow us to make real progress in our lives. Instead of choosing the right thing being something we find endlessly difficult and frustrating, positive behaviors become automatic and what we gain is secure to us. Aristotle said that virtue, something that we've talked a lot about on the site, was essentially the habit of right doing. At the same time, bad habits can be a huge millstone that prevents us from becoming the men we want to be. They can keep us seemingly locked into a pattern of automatic behavior that keeps our goals ever out of reach. And here's an interesting thing about our brains. Once a bad habit becomes etched in our brains, they never really disappear, but we can override them with the good habit. To change your habits, you first need to understand how they function. The habit loop is a 3-step process described by Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit. It's a book I highly recommend you go and pick up. First, there's a cue. This is a trigger that sets off your automatic behavior. This can be a physical location, a smell, other people, or an emotional state. The cue sets off a routine or a set of behaviors, and the routine leads to a reward. So cue, routine, reward. So, for example, let's say every afternoon you get up from your desk and grab a Diet Mountain Dew and then you chug it. The cue is how you feel in the afternoon. The routine is getting up and drinking the dew. And the reward is how you feel afterward. But we'll cover more about that in a minute. You see, the reward is what keeps you repeating the loop until it becomes a firmly entrenched habit and you barely think about what you're doing anymore. As we encounter this 3-part habit loop over and over again, the process slowly becomes more and more automatic and firmly entrenched in our minds. Research has shown that by becoming aware of the habit loop in our lives and making simple tweaks to it, we can change bad habits to good ones. To change a habit, you must simply follow the golden rule of habit change: keep the cue and reward, change the routine. That's it. It sounds simple, but if you're deliberate about it, it can really work. Here's a step-by-step guide that Charles Duhigg suggests using to hack your habit loop. Step 1: Identify the routine. The first step is to identify the routine you want to change in your life. For example, do you want to stop checking your email incessantly? You want to stop watching porn every night? How about quitting your caffeine habit? Or maybe you want to quit playing video games all weekend and start working out? This is the part of the habit loop that we'll be tweaking in order to change our undesirable habits. Step 2: Identify the reward. It may seem easy to identify the rewards of our habits. Could be like nachos, orgasm, distraction. But what you're actually craving may be different, and it may be possible to satisfy that deeper craving in a more positive way. Step 3: Identify the cue. Once you identify the reward, it's time to identify the cue. It's that thing that triggers the craving. Remember, cues can be things like location, a time, an emotional state, other people, or some immediate preceding action. Whenever you get the urge for a Mountain Dew, write down answers that correspond to the 5 possible cue categories. Do this for an entire week. After a while, you should be noticing a recurring cue. For example, you may find that you get a craving for Mountain Dew whenever you started feeling sleepy in the afternoon. Step 4: Create a plan. After you identify the cue and reward, you can start making plans to change your routine by creating what's called an implementation intention. An implementation intention is an if-then phrase that links a situational cue to a specific action. For example, to kick your Mountain Dew habit, you could create an implementation like this: When I feel tired at 2 PM, "PM, I will get up and walk around outside for 15 minutes." You'll need to be methodical about actually implementing your implementation intention. Depending on how entrenched your bad habit was, overriding it with your new good habit could take a few weeks. Be patient, stick to your implementation intention, and change will come. A final ingredient necessary for lasting habit change is to believe that change is possible. Researchers have found that the best way to foster that belief in yourself is to surround yourself with a supportive group of people. If you can, find an accountability partner that you can check in with about your progress.

So I really love this point. Habit change is something that's really current for me, what I'm thinking about, how to really hack my habits. I have the same book. I actually just started reading it. So you can see, here's my bookmark. I've actually just started reading it. So that was an awesome overview that I'm now looking to dive deep in on the actual book. But for now, let's keep it going to rule number 9. Get feedback.

Instead of seeing criticism as humiliating or embarrassing, view it as an opportunity to improve yourself. Winston Churchill had this to say about criticism: Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. Now, instead of avoiding criticism, seek for opportunities to receive constructive feedback from others. You'll find that getting feedback from an outside source will strengthen your talents and abilities.

I think as long as you can use feedback as a kick forward and not a kick down, when you get criticism, you use that to make yourself better instead of feeling sorry for to kick forward, not to kick down. Super important to get in effective feedback to help grow yourself and your business. It's time for rule number 10 before we get to the bonuses. Harness your inner lumberjack.

Lumberjacks are a manly bunch. All that axe swinging and heavy log lifting has put them in peak physical condition. To harness your inner lumberjack, we've put together a workout program inspired by these men of the woods. So put on your flannel shirt and boots, grab your axe, and head outside. It's time to do the Woodsman Workout. Deep breathing. Begin your woodsman workout with some deep breathing exercises to clear the mind and oxygenate your blood for the vigorous activity you're about to take part in. Take 20 deep breaths. Focus on the sound of your breath and the bubbling brook beside you.

Hiking.

Hiking serves as the foundation of the woodsman workout. In between the various exercises, we're constantly moving because we're constantly hiking. Keep a brisk pace while you hike, but make sure to take some breaks to really Soak in the scenery. Perform each of the exercises below whenever nature moves you to do so, and as soon as you finish an exercise, start hiking again immediately. Front Log Squat. As you're hiking and taking in the view, be on the lookout for logs for hefting and hoisting. Squats are a great way to develop the lower body strength needed for powering through long hikes and putting unruly moose in leg locks. Hoist the log from the ground and into your arms. The log should be resting as high up on your arms as it can, then squat to parallel. Do 3 sets of 8 reps. Overhead Log Press. Shoulder presses are great exercises, and they're even awesomer when performed with a giant tree log. The log's girth makes the lift a bit more difficult because you have to activate different muscles to maintain— hold the log during the lift. Perform 3 sets of 8. Bear Crawl. Harness the power of your animal spirit guide, the noble bear, by performing bear crawls through the woods. Just get down on all fours and crawl like a bear. Perform the bear crawl in 1-minute sprints whenever you feel like it during your hike. Boulder tossing. You've probably seen people tossing medicine balls in the gym. The equivalent of that in the Woodsman Workout is boulder tossing. Tossing heavy boulders is a full-body workout. You work your back, chest, legs, and arms, shoulders, and core. Best of all, it's fun to throw heavy things around in the woods. The lumberjack press. The lumberjack press is a great shoulder exercise. It also activates your core muscles in order to keep the log straight and balanced during the lift. Complete 2 sets of 5. Wood splitting. A woodsman workout wouldn't be complete without a session of wood splitting. Splitting a stack of wood is a tremendous workout. You work your arms, back, and core swinging them all around. It also is a great high-intensity cardio workout. Well, there you go, the woodsman workout. Now go refuel your body with a big stack of flapjacks. Until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

I love this video. I don't know if I'm gonna go harness my inner lumberjack just quite yet, but I think it just speaks to when you are yourself and when you you bring a different vibe, your own flavor to your videos, it can really help make a difference. It can really help connect with people. And so stop being boring and stop being corporate and stop being professional and start being you. So thank you guys so much for watching. I think I would say rule number 8 is my personal favorite, the one about habits, because again, I'm reading the book and I'm all in on the habit zone right now. I'd love to know from you, was rule number 8 your favorite or is there a better one that had a more immediate impact on you? Leave it in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. I also want to thank Liam Bass for recommending that we do this video. Thank you so much, Liam. And if you guys watching have a request for a future top 10 video, check out the link in the description and you can go and cast your vote on the request line video. And finally, I want to give a quick shout out to Tyrone Voss. Tyrone, thank you so much for buying one of my shirts, this shirt, the Entrepreneur Rebel shirt, and posting it on the Twitter. I really appreciate it, man. Thank you so much for your support, and wear your shirt proudly. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.

One of the things with running The Art of Manliness and being the owner of it, um, I think a lot of people have this expectation like I'm like this expert on manliness, and I've tried not to put myself out there as an expert on what it means to be a man. Really, I'm trying to figure this whole thing out along with everyone else. All I do is I'll research it and learn about it, and then I just share what I learned with other, with other guys. I get those emails too, like, I can't wait to meet you in person. And I'm always afraid I'm going to disappoint them when they actually meet me. Like, look, oh man, Brett's just like a regular guy like anybody else. And it's like, well, I am a regular guy like anybody else. You just have to be the best you can be when you're— when you present yourself, be the best you you can be. Nothing more, nothing less. And don't worry if someone else has this inflated expectation of you. You know, that's, that's on them, right? That's not your concern. You just got to do the best that you can with yourself. The best thing about what we do is getting the emails and the letters from people saying, you know, your site changed my life. That's, those are the most, like, that's why you do it. You know, that makes up for all the trolls and people who come on your site saying, "This is the stupidest thing in the world. Why would you read a blog about how to be a man?" But when you get those guys who are like, "Man, I was in a bad place in my life, but your articles inspired me to get off my butt and do something more." That's the best part of what we do. Raise your standard. Apple, at the core, its core values is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better. Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me. I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to see my all-time favorite top 10 rules of success, I have a very special secret video for you. These are the individual clips that I have personally learned the most from and applied to my my life and my business. Check the link in the description for details.