The 3 C's Of The Perfect Day Formula With Craig Ballantyne - I Love Marketing Episode #245

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and this is the I love marketing podcast.

Hey, everybody, it's Dean Jackson and Joe Polish.

And welcome to a very special episode of I Love Marketing. And the reason I say this is going to be a special episode is because we're going to talk about something that every human being that is listening to this and every human being who is not listening to this on the planet actually experiences every day, which is a day.

A day.

Everyone has a day.

We're all on equal playing field, right?

And so that day could either be awesome or it could suck. Or even better yet, it could be the perfect day. And so we have a very special guest who's not only a great marketer and we could, you know, probably touch on marketing, but really, I want to not talk about marketing. I actually want to talk about a formula that he has which is called what would. What could you imagine a perfect day being called and then tying in a formula to that.

Dean, what would call that?

Guess you know what would be like perfect is if you called it the perfect day formula.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly what he called it.

Yeah.

We've got our friend Craig Ballantyne on the line and I'll do a bio of who he is in just a second. But Craig, how are you?

Very good, Joe, thank you.

Awesome. Great to have you here and what I'm going to do. Dean, before we just launch into talking about this, let me. For the listeners who may not have any background on who he is, let me, let me give the Craig.

Recognize him from a hotel room episode.

That's true, that's true. Because we did do.

How long ago was that?

Yeah, three years ago.

Yeah. Yeah.

So here we go. Alright, so who's Craig Valentine? He's the author of the perfect day formula, how to own the day and control your life. He's been a fitness expert to Men's health magazine since 2000 and he's co owner of the success newsletter early to rise.com which is very awesome. Where you will find his daily essays on success, productivity, time management, fitness and self improvement. Since 2001, Craig has helped over 1.5 million people with his Turbulence training and home workout Revolution exercise programs and videos. His online success led him to create a coaching program to show other experts how to take their ideas and help thousands of people all over the world. It hasn't always been easy. Craig has had to overcome many obstacles on the way. His toughest battle was spending six months suffering crippling anxiety attacks until he finally discovered how to beat them with his five pillars of transformation. And so today, Craig shows people how to use those five pillars to lose 10 to 50 pounds, make more money, find the love of your life, beat bad habits, and overcome any obstacles in the way of your success. So that is the official bio of who Craig Ballantyne is. And so, Craig, for people who may not know you, how do you describe who you are and what you do? And let's just launch into it.

You know, when I'm going through customs, I tell them that I'm Canada's Tony Horton. And that actually just works really well.

Because.

I go through customs a lot coming from Toronto down to Denver where our office is. And that's just the quickest way to say what I do. So it also gives great conversations with customs agents as they tell you about their workouts and stuff.

So that is hysterical.

And here's the funny thing is I'm actually in Toronto right now and Craig's in Denver, so we're passing. It's so funny.

I get back and you're gone, right?

Wow. Wow. So, Craig, you were just out here last week. You even gave a great talk to the Genius Network group. And I have not only read your newest book, the Perfect Day Formula, I've also listened to it on audio. And you have like a lot of other tools and thinking tools and how to basically think about your life, how to create rituals and habits, and it's just really, really awesome. I mean, there are so many. This is a real game changer. And so I think this episode will be a game changer for a lot of people.

I think we want to set the stage too, because it's kind of downplaying it to call it a book because it arrives as a kit. And that in itself shows how Craig's committed to people taking action from it. So I'd love to hear about that, how you developed the. The formula and the kit.

Well, yeah, and let's not even think of it for people listening, even as a book or a kid or any of that, it's really just a methodology. And he happens to lay it out in a book and he has, you know, all kinds of just great tools and things that go along with it. So.

Yeah.

How and why did you develop the Perfect Day formula? I mean, how did you even come up with this whole concept?

Well, you know, most importantly, I needed it because this is, you know, readers, they discover all the stuff that I've learned over my, I guess, you know, going on like 20 plus years of self improvement journey from high school, when I was, you know, starting to read the books that a lot of people have read, and implementing and formulating my systems to get more done and be, you know, do well in college and then, you know, start my own business and do all that sort of stuff. And over the years, I found that there's really just three components to it. I realized that if I created Rules for Success and then I implemented these five pillars that I learned from my weight loss clients and then finally learned how to create and live the perfect vision for my life, that things would really, really come together. And those are the three parts of the system that allow people to have really, really great days, which are, you know, when people think of a perfect day formula. I mean, we're not talking about, you know, sitting in the hammock and drinking cocktails all day. That's a good day, but it's not something you'd want to replicate again and again and again. You get tired of that. So what we're really talking about is a day where at the end of the day, instead of you sitting there and thinking, going, oh, my gosh, where.

Did the day go?

I didn't get anything done. You sit there and you go, oh, my gosh, look at all the stuff I got done today. This is like the best day ever. Here at work, we moved ahead and on projects and, you know, it's still early and I still get to go home on time for dinner and spend time with my family. So that's what it's all about, you.

Know, And I mentioned in the bio, the only part of this that I read where you had six months of suffering crippling anxiety attacks, and there's always a seed of how something ends up starting. And you talked about how you created this for yourself. As everyone that I've ever met that has some sort of great methodology or strategy or process or formula, insight, innovation, whatever, they were trying to overcome something, figure something out for themselves or other people. So I think when people are converts of their own system, they have a much better understanding of the methodology versus someone that just writes a book on whatever prioritization or time management or productivity just because they're trying to sell a book. So talk about where kind of like your before and after and where you were, because that's really the business that you're in. You're in the before and after. Not only have you ran transformation contests through all of the stuff that you've done with many, many people with fitness, but also in success and in writing and all of the different endeavors, it's before and after. So let's hear your version of this and how this thing that we're going to talk about, the perfect day formula, will end up working for other people. Yeah.

So what I did was I was not living perfect days, obviously back when I had the anxiety issues. And so it's burning candles at both ends. I was getting up really early in the morning to train people at 6 o'. Clock. And then I was living in the big city and going out a lot, late into the evenings. And so thinking that I was 20 years old, I was not able to keep that up when I was 30 years old. And so eventually one morning I woke up with this sense of impending doom. It was really bizarre. I had this strange dream and I woke up and it was just like, something's not right here. And it just got worse and worse and worse over the day. And it even. You know, there was a fire alarm in my building. So I'm sitting out in the sunshine on a really great spring day and I couldn't breathe and I just couldn't catch my breath and. And I didn't know what was going on. It got worse and worse and worse over the rest of the day. Started tingling from top of my head down to my fingertips. And it stayed like that for about six months. And I was trying everything to get rid of it. I went and started qigong, which is like a standing meditation. I started listening to classical music. I did everything. I went and bought a dog because I read that petting a dog would decrease your stress and anxiety. So, I mean, it wasn't the only reason I bought a dog, but it was like the, the, the last reason that that made me go and buy a dog. And so eventually, by implementing the system that I put in place in the book, I was able to overcome the anxiety, put better habits into my life, get control of my life again, get control of my schedule, and actually in. In addition to that, become much more successful in almost every area of my life. So that was my before and after, and it wasn't a very pleasant one to go through, but it certainly taught me the lessons that I've been able to apply and share with the readers.

Yeah, gotcha. Gotcha. Dean, I'm just going to keep rolling. Unless you just want to jump on in at any point in time, just interrupt me.

I will.

No, this is great. I mean, the whole. I'm anxious to hear some of the early experiments and talk about some of the specifics.

Okay, cool. Where do People go wrong and get stuck when it comes to achieving success or taking any sort of action. And that could be success, not only in business, but personally taking care of their body, making a change. I mean, you've obviously have done a lot of stuff, and you write about it in early to rise. You write about it in the book. I mean, it's kind of like your world is getting people unstuck and first having to figure out how to get yourself unstuck. So where do people initially go wrong?

Yeah, so people that are struggling are reactive, and successful people are proactive. So the reactive person is staying up late to watch Game of Thrones, and then they get up late and they hit the snooze button three or four times. And then they're always playing catch up. They're late to work. As soon as they get to work, they're in their email inbox responding to fires. And that type of life leads to no progress on big goals and dreams. And, you know, the research on employee motivation shows that if they don't see progress, even if it's a little bit of progress, then morale plummets. And, you know, like somebody who's working at Yahoo right now must, you know, there must be, like, no morale. I mean, you probably walk on the morale. It's so low. And so it's because they aren't seeing progress in life. Now. The successful people, again, they're proactive. They plan, they prepare, and they take action. And so, Joe, back in 2007, you introduced me to the cacic credos. And his. His 44th cacic credo says, if you don't act beyond your feelings, and if you take the path of least resistance, resistance, then you give in to laziness, make bad decisions, and no longer control your life. And that's where most people are who struggle. You know, they just are always reacting. But he also says that empire builders spend hours on mental work. And whether that's making connections like you do, Joe, or whether that's writing great marketing like Dean does, or even, you know, like my clients planning out their meals and workouts very specifically, that's how people get success. Because it's all about taking control of your life and being proactive.

That's a very damn good answer. I mean, there's a lot to this, too, and it's. It's real easy to hear that and overlook it. You know, the greatest thing that I have gotten out of reading your book, and as you know already, I mean, we're all students of personal development and Wanting to get an edge. And you know, we're learners and we meet with very bright people and talk with very bright people and we're all helping, you know, we're all teachers in one way, shape or form. And part of this is just a reminder of getting back on track. And when I read Craig's book, it reminded me of just how many areas of my life I get into a reactive mode. And if you do not have a practice and rules, which I'm going to ask you about your rules because I think it's a great model that everyone listening can learn from to create their own. If you don't have those in place, it's real easy to get sucked in to all of the distractions that are out there.

That reactive mindset really fit with the my 50 minute focus finder videos that the whole the idea of being able to focus at any given time is to remove those reactive activators from my path. You know, and I've identified them as when you're trying to focus on something, the reactive activators are something like getting a phone call or checking your email, which can send you off in a reactive tail spin or the Internet can react you off into something and people. So try and kind of removing myself from all of those things allows you to be proactive. But what you often bring into it is that you can't insulate yourself from your reactive thoughts. And the way to remove yourself from those reactive thoughts is just like you're mentioning Craig, is be being specific about what it is that you're trying to accomplish in that time and knowing that you've already thought through that this is the thing that you should be focusing on.

So it's pretty cool how they sell. I think that these days so many entrepreneurs put, you know, it's like a badge of honor for them to say, oh, I'm add. And it's like, well, congratulations, that's not something to be proud of because that's not going to help you be successful. You should be proud of saying, you know, I'm focused. And like Dean said, you get rid of all those temptations around you. You know, Eben Pagan taught me the first. First taught me about OCD loops and it nailed it for me because I was espn, my stats for my website, email and then maybe some other website. What's so funny?

Eben? And I actually named it that OCD loop.

That was.

Yeah.

In our conversations together, that was what you end up happening is. And by the time you get to the end of one loop it's been long enough that you go back and check the first one again.

Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's the. You just have to find ways to snap yourself out of that and get back on track.

Well, I'm going to ask you in a second to explain your 3C's formula that you have. Just since we mentioned Eben. Both you and Eben are introverts is what. Yeah, okay.

Well yeah.

And you Dean, you.

Let's.

But I'm not talking about it.

You here. Nope. Kidding.

Do you guys notice a different way that extroverts and introverts react to the. In say your terminology Dean, the reactive activators. I mean and you Craig, I mean how do you, how do you experience the world versus how you see people that aren't per se. Introverts experiencing and reacting to stimuli like emails and electronics.

Craig, do you know, are you an intj?

I believe I am an intj. Intj or one. It's definitely int and I can't remember if it's J or something else at the end.

J or P. And by the way.

You need to clarify what that even means. So you're not talking in a foreign language.

You know, I mean Craig's crystal clear that he's an introvert, as am I. And there's one of the most useful things like along the Colby is a great useful tool for entrepreneurs and the Myers Briggs type indicator MBTI is a really great useful tool for understanding yourself. And so introverts, you know Eben and I are both INTPs. So it's introverted, intuitive thinking perceivers and yeah, even just in read.

Yeah, you're a J. I was just.

Gonna say because when we start to talk about your rules, I'm gonna, I'll talk about that. But you're the prototype of the get it done entrepreneur. You're, you're. If you could design the perfect, you know that type of entrepreneur. You're. You fit, you're perfect like that. There's a big difference between that J and the. And the P being a perceiver or a judger. And so I would totally encourage everybody to look into that and see what you are for yourself. But your J judger means that you are your preference and that's really what they are. Your preference is to have rules and to have things settled and to have things black and white versus a perceivers option. A choice of having preference of having options and open ended things. Interesting.

Well I'll just, I'll just say that there's definitely flaws to the rules. And there are way, fortunately, there are ways to overcoming that mindset. And then. And we can talk about that in a bit, Dean. But also with the introvert thing, I think it's important to clarify that I don't think that that is a reason for someone to use that as a crutch or an excuse. So you can actually, you know, if anybody's listening, you know, it's not an excuse to not go and talk to people or learn anything. You can break out of it, but.

It'S misinterpret that it's really about where you get energy, that you're. You can do that and I can do that. We're socially, you know, evolved that we can interact with people and have that kind of thing, but it's draining. And when we need to recharge, introverts just need time alone to recharge and regain energy. That's really where, what it comes down to.

Right. We need to unite together alone in our rooms. Right, Exactly.

All right, well, let's talk about the thing I was mentioning. What is your 3C formula and how does it work? Because it's pretty cool. Yeah.

So this comes from the ancient Stoic philosopher Epictetus. And he taught us that we control what we can cope with what we can, and concentrate on what counts. And then I, after reading his stuff a lot, I thought, well, we can apply that to the three parts of the day. In the morning, we can control. In the afternoon, we cope with things, and in the evening, we concentrate on what counts. And then from there, I put together three little success steps that apply to each one of those parts. So we control the morning with our rules, and then we cope in the afternoon with what the world throws at us, with the five pillars of success. And then we concentrate in the evening on the vision for our life, which is really, you know, the people and the experiences that we work so hard to enjoy. And so that was how I came up with that 3C formula, applied it to a perfect day.

Okay, so, well, same again. What the three Cs are.

Control what you can, then you cope with what you can't, and you concentrate on what counts. And what he's teaching us there in his writings is that really you can't control your boss. You can't control whether it's raining. You can't control whether or not there's traffic. But you only can control your thoughts, words and deeds. Really, you can control if you're going to get angry in response to your boss asking you to stay 30 minutes or you're just going to focus your energy and getting the work done and maybe get done in 20 minutes and out the door. I mean, if you have to stay, you have to stay. There's no point in being angry at it. And so that's what he's teaching us there. And it's really all about controlling our mindset and adapting our behaviors to the situation.

Great, great. You know, the interesting thing too about control and cope, I mean, you mention it briefly in the book the twelve Step Group, you know, the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And as many people that listen to my podcast here and in other places where I talk a lot about addiction, you know, because addiction has always been a struggle for not only my life, but also for millions of people, the world. And it's, you know, addiction is a, is a basic coping mechanism with trauma, dealing with trauma. And there's a lot of things that people try to control that they really don't have control over. But there's a lot of stuff where people feel out of control and someone probably feels out of control because they are out of control, that they have way much more powerful power and are more powerful than they believe. And so it's interesting in the, you know, say the 12 step community, where emitting powerlessness over a certain chemical, drink, drug behavior, et cetera. And then there's the personal development world of you are more powerful and creating leadership and things that you can control. And it really confuses a lot of people, especially if they're dealing with mental disorders. What I wanted to ask you, which will lead into the next question, is what you found and discovered and lay out in the perfect day formula is that the way to have freedom is to actually create structure, which sounds counterintuitive to most people. And with that structure and with that process, you rely less on willpower and more on like the structure that helps you become more focused and a much better person and deal with, you know, self destructive, you know, habits and whatnot. So what is the importance of structure in creating a perfect day?

Well, you know, people don't, won't believe me. Hopefully they'll believe a more famous author. So there's a quote from a guy named Paulo Coelho who wrote the Alchemists, which is a very, very popular book around the world. And he said that discipline and freedom are not mutually exclusive, but mutually dependent because otherwise you'd sink into Chaos. And if you look at the world around us, I mean, everybody that drove to work today, what did you do? You stopped at red lights because there's structure in how the road operates. Imagine there's no red lights. I mean, it'd be absolute chaos. It'd be dangerous. No one would get to work. Everyone would be dead. And so we need structure in areas of our life. Another simple example, if you are a paleo eater, you have very, very structured rules about how you operate in terms of nutrition. It's not like, as you said, Joe, that there's much less need for discipline and willpower when you have these structured rules in place. So a paleo guy can go to a pizza party and if he's trying to stick on his program, he's not going to have any guilt or need any willpower to not eat the pizza. Because, hey, I'm a paleo guy, I don't eat wheat. And it's really easy. Now somebody else is going there and thinking, well, I'm trying to lose ten pounds, I don't want to eat too much pizza. They're going to be relying on willpower and discipline and it's not going to work, especially if they've depleted that willpower and discipline over the course of the day, which most people, most people do because they're reactive and not planning ahead. And as you know, you guys have probably talked about many times before that, you know, there's lots of research now that shows that willpower is a depletable resource. And so if you use all up and you're trying to rely on that to make the right decisions, eventually you're going to make the wrong decision somewhere and your day is going to go down the tubes.

How's willpower different than a rule, Craig?

Well, willpower is really like especially you relying on making the choice in the moment, whereas the rule is you have this self belief and you know, if you go back to like psycho cybernetics with Maxwell Maltz's book, you know, those people went and got their nose done and they didn't end up feeling any happier. It wasn't until they changed something in their mind about, you know, I'm the type of person who is confident. I don't care what my nose looks like, I don't care if I have hair or not. I'm a good, confident person. And that is a rule that they have in their head or even a different mindset and operating system. And that can totally change somebody. And that's the same sort of thing with you know, the rules that I recommend people put in place in their life or, you know, other people can call them personal philosophies or whatever you want to call them, you know, for a slightly less harsh word than rule, but that's the difference. It's either being proactive with your rules and your operating system or being reactive with willpower.

Yeah, it's funny, we had an episode a while ago where we were talking about. Because I kind of talked a little bit and discovered the difference between the two meanings of discipline. Discipline as a verb, which is exercising your willpower, just like you're describing, and discipline as a noun, where you've thought ahead of time, kind of like what you're saying there. The rule is a noun, and it's something that you've thought about ahead of time and committed to, I guess. So if you're looking at those things, it's funny how when you think about some things we follow as rules that don't require discipline. Like, we don't. We don't require any discipline to not drink windshield wiper fluid, for instance. But Mountain Dew is a different kind of thing. You know, it's like, why, if you put them side by side, there's no chance that we're gonna drink the windshield wiper fluid.

You know, you'd be surprised, Dean. There's. There's probably niches of people that are compelled to drink, and I say that.

Jokingly, but our rule of we don't.

Kill ourselves is stronger than our. Our desire for yummy beverages or whatever, you know?

Right.

Well, you know, the thing, too, with these rules, and so I'm going to ask you about here in just a second, is this will. This will make everyone a better. Whatever it is they want to be better in. If you want to be a better marketer, if you want to get things done, if you want to have. You know, if you want to rid yourself of chaos and insanity, there is a process for doing, and that's what this process is. So, Craig, you have these great 12 rules that you live by. So I'd like to have you describe what are the 12 rules that you live by, and how should people go about developing their own rules and philosophies? Because when you talk about these, you're very clear about these are just mine. It's your life. You can create your own, but you can listen to mine and utilize it as a model if you so choose. So I'd love to have you kind of go through either all or some of them.

Yeah, I won't go through all of them. But I'll say that the simplest and most important rules for me are for structured around going to bed and getting up at the same time every day. And I think that's something that everybody should have in their life. Because when I finally listened to my mentor Mark Ford, who wrote about this for years, and I ignored him for years, it was the single greatest thing that I'd ever done to increase my all day energy was going to bed, getting up and getting up at the same time every day, seven days a week, as closely as possible. If you're only going to stick to one of them, it should be the getting up at the same time every day. So I mean, obviously everyone's going to go out a little bit late some night on the weekend, but try and get up at the same time and it really makes a huge difference. And then there's going to be rules for my behavior. You know, I have a rule that I don't swear, that I act polite and courteous all the time. And that helps me make the right decisions in my interactions with people. You know, if you show up to a hotel and they don't have your room ready, some people will get upset. But if I've got that rule in my mind, doesn't matter if I just went through, you know, the worst airplane flight and taxi ride to the hotel, I'm not going to take any of that, you know, tension out on the person who really has no control over the room. So that is, helps me act proper. And then also I think most people should have a rule for how they, you know, do the most important project in their life. You know, so it's if people think in terms of, you know, let's take a look at Michael Phelps. So Michael Phelps I know just moved to Arizona. So that's why he's in my mind, Joey. He's, you know, training out there now as he prepares for the Olympics. Everybody wants the gold medals that Michael Phelps has, but no one wants to do the work and follow the rules that Michael Phelps was following training all that time and just so much discipline. But if we scale that down a bit, if you want to succeed in any area of life, you want to write a book, or if you want to write a sales letter, or if you want to learn how to do Facebook advertising, you eventually have to buckle down and get in front and do the work. For me, I'm a writer. First thing I do every morning, write for 60 minutes and that's a rule. And just having that Rule written down always keeps me on track. So if I want to go and do something else first, because I think it's, you know, in the urgent but not important category, as Stephen Covey would label it, it doesn't matter, because what matters is important, but not necessarily urgent is my writing. And so I always do my writing first thing in the morning. And that's how I'm actually able to make the big steps and progress in my life. So people can read the rules in my book or on our website. They can just look up Craig Valentine's 12 rules and see how specific I get there. But there's also some stuff in there that isn't where people think, oh, this guy's so boring. But another one is, I always keep the child alive within me alive. And that's a quote from Ted Nicholas from one of his books. And there's a couple quotes from Ted there in my rules. The other one being, I will always write with honesty and feeling. And those are just the rules that I have. And it's just a reminder that it's not just about being structured and getting more done. It's about living the life that you want to live, being the person you want to be. And you just write these down, these personal boundaries to help you think, okay, I want to emulate this type of person or this character and live this type of life, you know, honorable, virtuous life is what I'm aiming to do. And so I've created my structure like that.

Let me ask you about one of your rules where you said you, you know, you don't curse, which, of course, is definitely not one of my rules. But you, you know, you don't. How did you word it? And it's in your book here. I could open it up because I got your book right in front of me. But the thing about not. But, you know, if you. The example, use going to the front desk person at a hotel, and you've had, like, a really crappy experience and you don't.

Oh, you're talking about the confrontation one. Yeah, yeah.

Where you actually. You do not. Well, not just confrontation, but even what you call acting proper. You don't fly off the handle. You don't want to create this sort of tension. What caused you to create that rule? Were you a person that was, you know, really angry and you would really complain? Or is it more that you have found this just keeps you in a more of a harmonious, you know, state of mind? Obviously it probably does. But what was the genesis of that?

I was terribly angry as a young man, embarrassingly so. So when I played or when I was in high school, I played soccer at a pretty elite level and I was, I was the guy who would yell at the teammates when somebody screwed up. And I mean, just the thing, I mean, those guys were my best friends and, and for some reason that I would fly off the handle and think that was okay. And then obviously I was an immature kid back then. And so over the years I, you know, knocked that down. But still, even as a business owner there, you know, you know, the website's down. So I'd email the web guy and say, why is the website down? I mean, this is ridiculous, but I mean, he can't control that. I mean, if the Internet goes down in the world, you know, sometimes the Internet goes down and, and sending emails like that off really just made me look bad in front of team members and in front of my business partners. And again, it was a lack of maturity. And so for whatever reason, I struggled in that area. And then I realized that in addition to all the steps that I could take to stop doing that, one thing that simply really helped was writing down this is what I want to do. And if I write it down, say this is a rule and I share it with people, then it really looks bad because you're a super hypocrite when you go and break one of your rules about treating people better. And so, you know, it's accountability, which is one of the pillars of transformation. It's so important to have accountability from people who are not going to let you get away with anything. And that's essentially what the rules serve as. You're showing, you know, if you share them with anybody, they're going to say, okay, well this is how you behave. And if you don't behave this way, then I'm going to call you on it and it helps you again, be more like the person that you want to become.

Yeah, that's, that's great.

You know, it reminds me of this. I think it was in 2009 I invited Tim Ferriss onto a nine day trip to Bali, or actually no, Vietnam. Vietnam. I've done so many damn trips. And John Butcher, our buddy John Butcher was the one hosting the trip and we were there with a few of our friends. So Tim came with Matt Mullenwig, who's the founder of WordPress. Matt's like just a great guy. While we were out there, something went down on WordPress. Now I think something like 25% of every website is now powered by WordPress. Last time I interviewed Matt, however long ago that was a few years ago, I think it was maybe like 13% of every website in the world. It keeps increasing, increasing. There was like the WordPress sites or some parts of them had gone down. I mean, God knows how many it could have been in the millions. And just Matt was so calm about it. I mean, just such a level headed person and it really demonstra. Whenever I'm thinking, oh, in my world, you know, things are flipping out. But then you see someone like that and he just, you know, he just knows that, well, you know, I can flip out about this and I can throw a temper tantrum or I can just, you know, handle it and not lose my. You know, I almost don't want to use profanity here because you said I don't care. So I'll keep this as just in honor of Craig's rules.

That's a rule you have, you honor other people's rules.

Yeah, well, you know, first off, he was, you know, here last week, we were here at Genius Network and we had a whole discussion about that. But well, you know, he did, he kept his rules. I did not. But here on this podcast today we will.

So.

But the point is like when you watch people that really handle themselves well, it just. And when I mean, well, well means the way that they want to handle themselves, they function, they function. And when you look at people that are just kind of like losing shows up in every area of life. So that's great that you identified that and changed that around because most people really don't change that much. When I look out at people, you know, you see someone today, 10 years from now, they're going to be a 10 year old, 10 year old. A 10 year version of their current existing habits and things. And so just see you have transformed yourself is a great example that you can transform a lot of different areas of your life and you've pretty much laid out the recipe on how to do it. So one of the things that you talk about and write about are the five pillars for success. So what are the five pillars that are part of the Perfect day formula? And can you walk us through a couple of examples of the five pillars in action so people really grasp this because I think this is one of the most powerful parts of what you're, what you're teaching?

Yeah, so I discovered these from the people that do the before and after contest, you know, the, you know, where you do you lose weight over a course of 12 weeks and what I Found was every time somebody won, they would write this essay and, and I would read it and they had all these five in place. And for people that came in second or third, they would only have three or four in place. And then people that would drop out after two weeks, I'd look and say, I wonder why these guys are no longer in the program. And I realized they might have only one or two of the pillars. And so the pillars are better planning and preparation, professional accountability, which is having a coach, positive social support, which is different from accountability in that it's really your cheerleaders, the people that aren't going to be able to give you expert advice or really hold you accountable. They're just always going to be positive and on your side. And then the fourth one is a meaningful incentive. That one's changed over time. I thought it was just an incentive. I thought, you know, like people in my contest, they were just doing it for money. But the more and more I read, you know, their essays, they were, they said, you know, after a couple of weeks and how I, how I changed and how I felt, I was no longer interested in the money. I didn't care if I, you know, I won. It was just these changes that were going on within me that really, really mattered to me. And so it was really the meaningful incentive that gets you through the hump and through the tough days and dark dips in the road. And then the fifth one is the big deadline. And the big deadline, I always capitalize it because if you have all five in place, this is the one that's going to have the greatest impact because, you know, the deadline is the greatest thing. It spurs us to action. I mean, spurs us, that, spurs our customers to action. Because if you, you know, you guys have run deadlines in your programs and I am still amazed at how many people wait until the final six hours to buy something in a three day or five day promotion. I mean, I'm seeing 25 to 30% of the orders for the entire promotion come in in those final six hours. And it's just amazing. It's this human nature, you know, stupid human trick that we have that we are just inspired by deadlines. And so when you're doing a personal transformation of any kind and you have that deadline, it serves as a couple of things. One, it's the light at the end of the tunnel. You know, you can, anybody can go and say, yeah, I'm going to go and do this for 30 days or 60 days or 90 days. It's not too Unreasonable, because if you back it out over a 75 year lifespan, a 12 week program is only 0.03% of your life. And so if you say to somebody, hey, can you give me 0.03% of your life? You know, just to change, make a big change, people are going to say, yeah, totally. It's not even a percent of my life, not even half a percent of my life. So of course I can do it. And then as you get into it and you know, halfway through, that's when you're finally on the home stretch and people that are on the verge of giving up realize that, hey, I've made it halfway through, I can make it the rest of the way. And then it's like, you know, the last mile on the marathon, you just somehow find that extra gear and you kick it up. And so that's why that fifth pillar, the big deadline, is the most important one, has the biggest impact. So those are the five pillars there. And you can really make anything work, any goal with these five pillars.

So, like the deadline thing. I always love the conversation I had with my buddy Vern Harnish years ago when I first interviewed him. I've interviewed him several times now. But Vern, he wrote the book Scaling up the Rockefeller Habits. Founder of eo, does a lot of cool stuff and he works with all kinds of high level entrepreneurs. And, and he talks about there's this myth that entrepreneurs work well under pressure. He's like, it's not that they work well under pressure, it's just under pressure they just work. And I just think it's the funniest thing ever because a lot of people, they disguise getting things done or doing something, they confuse activity with accomplishment. But then you hit them with a deadline and all of a sudden, for some reason, it just seems to come all together right at that point in time.

Graphic of how projects get that. It's like a horizontal line and on the left end is the project assigned, and then at the very end is the deadline. And then it's divided into 95% of the time. And then the last 5% at the end. And the 95% is described as goofing off, and the 5% is described as all the work done while crying.

That's pretty much, oh, that's funny.

That's pretty much how deadlines work, right? It's like as we learn it, even as students, right, we have a deadline that the paper is due or the finals or the midterms are due and we goof off, goof off, goof off, and then cram everything in right at the very end. And that's where we develop that kind of habit.

Right. Here's why I want to bring that up and why I think it's such an important point is my belief. And again, I'm not sitting there staring over your shoulder, Craig, and how your whole life works just based on going back to what you said in the beginning, being reactive versus proactive. I seriously doubt you run into anywhere near the level of crunch time. Oh, I'm goofing off, goofing off. And then I'm going to get some work done. As most people, because of the system that you have developed and that we're talking about now. I mean, how much of your time has, like when you're going back to when you were having crippling anxiety, you were probably constantly under pressure because you just didn't have really good rules and boundaries. And now that you have this, I mean, how often are you finding yourself like, you know, in a chaotic state?

Well, I was never the type of person to do the all nighter in college. I've never stayed up all night to study or anything because I always did plan well enough in advance. But back when I was struggling with the anxiety and things that, you know, there's too much freedom in my life and I needed more structure. I actually had a business. My first business coach back then, Tom Venuto, who wrote the book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. So he was helping me with my business and it just happened to be that while I was going through all this anxiety, he and I were planning for me to launch my first product. So we had this deadline date of when we were going to launch the product and I would get on all these calls with them and I would be sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, just don't panic, don't have a heart attack. Because I really thought I was having a heart attack for six months straight. And I was just thinking I was going to freak out on every call with Tom. But over time, it's just putting yourself into that deadline situation. You're able to get the work done no matter what other pressures around you. So. So I do operate pretty well with that, the deadline. I do kind of get a lot done up towards the deadline like most people do. It's just maybe not as extreme as that. But, you know, that was how it applied to the anxiety issue. Like, I just eventually got to the point where I had done all these things to get rid of the anxiety and I realized I was just like, I'm too busy for this anxiety. And that was one of the things that helped me overcome it, because I had that deadline of the product launch, and I wanted to be feeling really well when we got that done or when that day came. And that's why I was working so hard and going out and trying all these alternative therapies to get to overcome the anxiety. And so eventually it clicked and it worked, and I was able to free myself from it.

Yeah, that's great. Well, so you talked about creating a North Star that. That drives your perfect life. So what. What does it mean to have a North Star and perfect vision?

Well, you know. You know, you don't go on a family holiday without a destination in mind. You know, where you're going, and then that dictates the directions you're going to follow and the road you'll take. And so I learned some strategies from Cameron Herald in his book Double Double, about creating a vision for your business. And then there's another guy named Ari Weinswig who owns Zuckerman's Deli in Michigan, and he wrote an article for Inc. Magazine back in 2011. And they both basically walked you through this process of creating a vision for mostly your business. And then I took it and kind of adjusted it for a lot more personal stuff. And I came up with my own vision exercise in the book and in the kit, where it just walks people through exactly how to create where they want to be in their life. And it's like creating a movie script for your life. Like, you know, in three years from now, I want to be living in this house on this street, you know, my wife and, you know, these kids, and, you know, the kids are going to be doing this, this, and this, and I'm going to be doing this. And here's the car in the garage, and here's what we do on Sundays for dinner, and here's what we do for volunteer work. And, you know, very, very specific. And when you know that's exactly where you want to get to, you're going to make the right decisions every day to move towards that big goal. And so I use this as an extreme example. So imagine there's a young guy who's like 30 years old listening to this call, and he's engaged to a really great girl. He knows that in a couple years, he wants to have established his business and, you know, have a family with this girl. But then all of a sudden, six of his buddies come along and say, hey, we're going to Puerto Rico this weekend for a bachelor party. And these are the guys that he partied with for a long time. And he's really tempted. Now, if he doesn't have anything but, you know, willpower and discipline to guide his decisions, what's he going to do? Well, he's probably going to go and he's probably going to try and stay out of trouble, but he's probably going to come back having done something stupid and maybe just completely ruined his life. But if he operates on his vision, knowing exactly where he wants to go in life, he's going to say to them, listen, guys, I appreciate it, but I know where I want to go to in life. And, you know, at this stage in my life, in this season of my life, it's all about family and I'm not going to go. And he makes the right decisions. And so every time I explain, like, the power of rules and being proactive, I always think of that movie, American Beauty. Remember that? With Kevin Spacey.

Oh, yeah. It's one of my favorite movies.

Yeah, Right. So, you know, he's got, like, the house and the white picket fence and. And on the outside, they have everything going for them, but because they. They don't have any of the systems in place, they're making bad decisions. You know, she's cheating on him, he's getting involved with his daughter's friend, and in the end, it all turns to tragedy. And you hear about this all the time. I mean, every couple of years, someone from Mothers Against Drunk Driving who works for them gets arrested for drunk driving. Like, how insane is that? And it's because they don't have these systems in place that they're just operating on human nature. And human nature is so weak that you have to have more of these systems in place. And so if you have that North Star in place, you know, the vision for your life, and it's very, very crystal clear. And a lot of. I think a lot of people listening to this will know if they've read any Yannick stuff or Cameron Herald stuff. They probably have done this for their business. And, you know, they probably have something like, I want to help a million people by 2020. That's a popular one that people have out there. Maybe they've even put together a plan for that. But have they done it for their own life? Have they done it to think about, you know, because that's what really matters. Have they done it for their family? Have they done it for, you know, what they want their kids to turn out to be in life. And if they've only got it for their business and haven't really paid any mind to it in their personal life, then things are going to go sour eventually. Maybe the kids are going to get mixed up in something that's not good for them, or maybe that the relationship breaks down with the spouse. It really is holistic. When you have this vision in mind, it just takes care of so much stuff. That's why I teach people to be as detailed as possible. And I encourage people to read the one that I have in the book that I've written for myself. You know, it's a couple pages long. It's very specific about where I want to be in three years from now, what we do each day and on the weekends, what organizations were involved with, how we interact with community, our family rituals. You know, essentially, again, you're creating the script, a movie script for your life, because it guides your everyday actions, and that way you don't get off track.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. That's great. So when you say concentrate on what counts, which you do quite a bit in the book, how does someone even know what counts? I mean, I think this is such a big dilemma for people of, you know, what's important to me, what I want to do when I grow up, you know, what really matters to me. And so how does someone even know what counts? And how does someone create a vision for their life?

Well, you need to answer a bunch of questions. And when I was doing the ones from Cameron and from Ari, they were just showing you exactly the way to think about your future. And so you kind of like, prioritize. Well, you know, is health. The most important thing to me right now is wealth building. And most entrepreneurs listening to this are, you know, they probably think about wealth building almost all the time or, you know, making more sales. But you can't just focus on that. You have to incorporate all aspects of what your perfect life is going to be about. And so it's those questions in the book that help people work through that. And a friend of mine, Luciano Del Monte, introduced this way of thinking to me that everybody's in a season of life, so you might be in a season of health. Maybe you're 55 years old, your kids are gone to college, empty nest, your relationship with your wife is good, but you're 40 pounds overweight because you spent the last 10 years in the season of wealth building, or the last 10 or 15 years in the season of family, where it was all about raising the kids. And now you Got to take care of yourself. So now you have to go and realize that this is what matters and that that's what you're going to prioritize your day around and your energies around is improving your health. Or maybe you're in good health, you're young, you got family situations settled down, but in order for everything to be good in your life, you need to make more money so that you can go and have your first kid. So you're going to be in a season of wealth building and you just need to identify what season of life are you in, and then that'll help you apply exactly what steps you're going to take and action steps that are going to move you towards that big vision that you have for your future.

Great, great. And Dean, do you have any input?

Interesting, because I know you're a Stoic fan and I was just reading Seneca and one of the things that Seneca said, you know, you said how entrepreneurs constantly thinking about wealth building. And one of the things Seneca said on money was the, you know, the two most important things to know is how much is necessary. And the second most important is how much is enough. And that's really an interesting thing as you're kind of, you know, just to put it in perspective is these guys you're talking about, you know, the Stoics are around like Seneca was, you know, 4 B.C. to 65 A.D. which is like, you know, you think about how relevant the things that they were talking about are even in today's society. You know, I really do like that idea of seasons and how long something actually is going to be. You know, makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. Ryan Holiday is another Stoic philosophy fan. It just shows you that most of the things we needed to learn, we learned from those guys 4,000 years ago.

Let me mention something about this too, because I was having this. I won't go into details, naming names. You know, when Tucker Max was out here for Genius Network a couple months ago, we had dinner and we were having a conversation about Stoism and I love the art of living Seneca. And I said, I go, you know what's so weird though? I go, and this is definitely not you at all, Craig. There are people that I know that are famous, that are big Stoic philosopher fans, that are the biggest jerks, that are total takers, and they're always quoting Stoicism. And I'm like, what in the hell is the link between. Like, why is. Because, because there's a. There's just a lot of. I mean, do you have. Do you have any perspective on that since you're such a. I mean, you're so well read in that area? I don't know if you experience.

No, but I don't know. I mean, do that. It's just be so hypocritical. And that's kind of like what stoicism to me is to not be a hypocrite at all. And so to truly understand it and to live it is to keep things relatively simple and just enjoy life and its pleasures, but also to treat people well. So I'm not sure what's really driving them.

Yeah, that's one of the things I'm.

Trying to figure out.

Stoism was literally created during times of, and maybe I'm wrong here, of literally coping with and going through slavery. For many of the stoic philosophers.

Well, some of them, you know, Epictetus rose from being a slave, but then he was in like the later stages of Rome where, you know, I think a lot of the stoicism was about, you know, the excess in life and not being sucked into it. We could go back and forth on amazing, interesting quotes from these guys all day long. But that's how I understand it, really. Just this coping mechanism for life and boiling it down to having the life that's right for you. I believe it's. One of my clients once described his brother. So I used to train really wealthy guys in Toronto and one of them had a lawyer friend, a lawyer brother, who worked that down on Toronto's version of Wall Street. And his brother was, you know, high powered lawyer, but he would ride his bike with a bike helmet, you know, down from the rich neighborhood up where you're staying, Dean. All the way down to Toronto's version of Wall Street. And he didn't care because he was comfortable in his own skin. And I think that's really what stoicism allows you to do because that's what you need to be in order to be really happy, is comfortable in your own skin. Know when enough is enough, know what you are going to do and what you're never going to do, and then use all of that to just simply make the right decisions for your right life right now. And most people, they just don't know what the right life is. But if they know what the right life is, then it's easy to make the right decisions for it in all moments.

And what books do you recommend? Like, I love the Art of Living. I mean, I just think it's an amazing book.

That's the Place to start for me.

Okay.

I mean, it's not. It's. That's like a really simplified version, and I buy it for people all the time. And I say one page a day. Just go through one page a day. It's one lesson a day. It's like the Dowda Ching. You know, it's very.

Letters from a stoic, just, you know, one letter a day kind of thing. Very. It's amazing how when you take it that way and just kind of meditate on what that. That thought for the day was, it's. It is amazing how relevant these kind of things are to today. And they're just kind of thinking tools for. For getting your. Thinking about your own situation.

Yeah, absolutely. Timeless principles.

Yeah.

Well, let me ask you, because, you know, thinking about everything that you've learned, what are a few. To use maybe the word secrets to success and keys to happiness that you've discovered that most people overlook or never realize.

Well, you know, hopefully we've kept the people on here long enough who thought that I'm just an insane individual. But, you know, the whole purpose of this Perfect Day formula is not to turn yourself into a productivity monster. That's not what the book is about at all. It's not, you know, the goal of the Perfect Day formula. The goal is to give you more freedom in your life so that you are the person who's at the park with your kid, not looking at the cell phone. I was just in a park here in Denver the other week, watching a dad and the son kicking the ball back and forth. And, you know, the kid would kick it as hard as he could, and it would go off to the side, and the father would not be looking at him at the kid. He'd be looking at his phone. And then he would turn and walk towards the ball with his eyes on the phone, kick it back in the general direction of the kid, and then just keep looking at his phone like he never looked up. And you could just see with every kick, there was less and less enjoyment and happiness in the kid. And it was just. That's just terrible. I mean, my father, when we played catch or whatever, it was me and him playing catch. Now, there wasn't cell phones back then, but he wouldn't have had one with them anyways. It was just, you know, present in the moment. You know, it's a classic Jim Rohn quote. Wherever you are, be there. That simple. And so that's really what the goal of the book is about. So that you go to work and you Work at work. So you leave, you get home on time for dinner and you focus on what really matters in your life, which, you know, I shared this at the 25k group that the two things that are most important, you know, for happiness and for a life well lived, I think are the people that you spend your time with and the experiences that you have with those people. And our friend Bedros says money is simply a vehicle for freedom and lifestyle. And, you know, money's always, you know, I grew up poor and so I didn't. I've always been working, you know, to grow the income. But when, you know, Bedros wrote that down, I read a lot of his stuff all the time and it's just like that's exactly what it is. And so all that combined now there's.

So much like depth to that kind of exploration, even just thinking about it, you know, like. Because I think about that kind of stuff a lot. And what you really, truly realize is that money is really a construct, you know, it's really about a feeling that you have in the day. Because on a day to day basis, there's not really much that money.

Makes.

A difference in the experience of your daily life. But what it does is if you're coming and experiencing today with a sense of certainty about tomorrow that influences.

The.

Way that you experience today. Whereas if you don't, a lack of money is also created the experience that you have today. So it's kind of, you know, when you.

That was a thought that I had.

After bookending those thoughts of, of Seneca on what's necessary and how much is enough. And I think being on either side.

Of those is.

Often kind of destructive, you know.

Yeah.

And you know, once you get some success and it's so easy to see it's really just about adding value. I mean, the way that Joe has just inspired me to get to know more people and help more people and connect more people and just grow the pie, as Kekich says, you know, don't worry about taking your slice of the pie and worrying about other people getting a slice of the pie. You don't have to get a bigger slice, you just make a bigger pie and you add more value to the world by doing all these things. And so, so again, it's a little bit easier to say it when you're on this side of things. But if I, if I could have taught myself that 15 years ago, I would have been much more successful and less stressed for the early stages of my career. Just knowing that it's not About a specific amount of money. It's about what you're doing to earn the money and to grow the people around you. Yeah, totally.

Well, you know what?

You know, it's great.

In the last couple of weeks, I have been referring to several of my close friends and some genius network members who were here that all got a.

Copy of your.

Perfect day formula box, which. Because in addition to your book, you have a perfect formula. Perfect day formula box. And so I'm going to ask you about to describe all that in a minute. I think this book is for people that are listening to this, that feel overwhelmed, out of control, under massive time pressure, don't have time to read a book, don't have time to do all that. You know, if you're even in that state, it's kind of like if you're too busy to meditate, you really have to meditate. And this book is a game changer. And it's a simple book, it's a short book, but it's not just a book. It's literally a formula. And from the people that have reported back to me that have read it in the last few days, everyone's like.

Shit, this is fantastic.

So I'm a huge fan of it. And what I had mentioned before, I've not only read the book, I've listened to the audio version, and I'm literally going through and doing the things that are in the book. I mean, you've got a gratitude journal, you have a quick start guide, you have all these, I mean, a lot of things to where you just figure out what you want your business and your life in all areas to look like. So in addition to the book, you have this. What's inside the perfect formula box, and what is the importance of each item inside the box so that they know what this thing is and then let's tell people where they can go to get it. And I'm recommending this not because we have an affiliate thing. You guys buy it or not, that are listening. I don't make a penny off of this. I just think it's something that everybody should definitely read and utilize. And I know it will be a game changer for a lot of people. So if you could kind of describe what you've put together here, Craig, that'd be great.

Sure. So, I mean, the kit is really the closest thing to having me at your kitchen table sitting down with you and walking you through this, the three steps to success, which is creating your personal commandments or your rules, whatever you want to call them so that you have those boundaries in place to really structure your morning and get ahead on. And then set up the five pillars for success so that you have that incredible foundation in place for your, for your business and your personal life and then finally crafting the perfect vision for your life and your family and your success. And as you mentioned, Joe, there's a couple other goodies in there, like our ETR Gratitude journal, which as an angry young man has helped, you know, transform me from that into someone that just is so grateful for everything that goes on in my life these days. And then we also have a unique goal setting worksheet. So learning some stuff from Mark Ford allowed me to become a better goal setter. And so I show everybody how to do that with a fold out poster. And then there's an important set of daily scripting pads, which actually is one of my favorite parts of the kit because it allows me to take care of a few essential items that most people don't think to do each day, which is like a daily brain dump. I encourage people to do that every day at the end of their workday so they separate work from home so they can really go home with a clear mind and be present for their family. And then also something to get the most out of what I call the magic time in somebody's day, which is a time of day where you are most energetic and creative and you can actually get three times as much work done than you could at almost any other time of day. So we show you how to protect and leverage that. And then also on that page, you script out your perfect day. And by being proactive, that's how you succeed. So if people would like to see me unbox, do an unbox video of the kit, they can go to perfectdayformula.com and check that out. And I'll just again, in a little bit more detail, walk people through exactly what they get. And I think you should make your own unboxing video, Joe.

Well, I would, I would have to like fake it because I've already unboxed this thing a couple weeks ago and have been going through it. But I could probably, I could probably do that. And by the way, I'm. I'm getting one of these for all of our Genius Network members. So if someone is a Genius Network member, you can go buy it, but I'm going to buy one for you. It's really great. And I think that everybody that is listening that this resonates with the website is perfectdayformula.com and get it. If you just want to read the book, you can read the book too. But I'd get the whole kit because it's kind of got a whole process together. And I'd love to have our listeners give us your feedback on what you thought of not only this interview on ilovemarketing.com but also if you read the book and go through the kit and start utilizing it, keep us in the loop. You also write early to Rise. Talk about anything else where people can go deeper with the subject matter that we talked about here or learn more about you and what you're doing.

Yeah. So earlytorise.com, we bought that business from Mark Ford, who wrote all his books under the name Michael Masterson. We bought that back in 2011. That was actually my dream. I didn't get a chance to tell this story, so I'll tell it quickly. Joe. I told it at 25K. But in 2006, when I hired my first business coach, he asked me what do I want my business to look like in five years. And I said, I want to have something like early to Rise because I love the website. And then I joined some mastermind groups and I started writing and coaching and I met a bunch of good people. And then five years, three months and 17 days after I told my first business coach that I want to have a business like early to Rise, I was able to buy early to Rise because of the connections that I made. So it's my little personal secret moment. You know, I call it the law of Action. Attraction. Not the law of Attraction, but I was able to take the right actions and attract my exact dream into my life. So that's. That was another thing that really was a catalyst for me to create a book. Yeah.

Which is awesome. You know, and the thing is, you know, it's clear that you are very much a person that invests time, money and energy into constant improving yourself. As I've always been a big fan of that. I have a guy that I meet with weekly that I pay 75 grand a year for. And it's not about paying the money to him. It's about the investment in my own future. I've been a strategic coach for many, many years. Dan Sullivan is one of my dearest friends. I obviously run Genius Network. I do a lot of stuff. You're a big believer. You've mentioned it many times. Your mentors. What I love about you also is you're always acknowledging people. You're such a great acknowledger and edifier of Others, and I very much respect that because a lot of people, they don't do that. They somehow think it diminishes their speeches or their writings if they give credit to someone else. And you're always giving credit to other people that you've learned from, which I always admire that about you. And when people do that, speak to the importance of coaches and reading and investing in yourself. Because the biggest thing that I see, every successful person that I know, and I'm sure there are people that are, you know, that don't, you know, get coaches or go to seminars or read books that are successful, I just don't happen to know those people very well because it seems the commonality between most people is they're willing to cut checks in order to make their life better. And if they don't have any money in the beginning, like all of us, we're all kind of like rags to riches stories in our own ways. I mean, we learn by getting books for free at libraries until we could apply the strategies and turn it into money. But I'd love to have you speak for a minute or so about why you do that and why it's so important to you.

Yeah, I mean, it was the biggest mistake that I ever made in my career was not getting a mentor soon enough. I mean, I'm just naturally cheap. And so I, as a young man, I just didn't invest in a mentor. And when I finally did, it was like a hockey stick, exponential increase in my business. And so if I had done that three years earlier, when I could have afforded it but was too cheap to do it, I don't know, I would have had this book out years ago and we would have been doing this call a long time ago and helping more people. So. So people, once they can only get to a point so far on their own, and then they have to go and get somebody who's been there and done that. And so you need to go and find somebody who you look up to both in success and morally. And you go and you find a way to get involved in their world, whether it's you going and working as an intern or apprentice for them. If you're a young person with no money or you join their coaching program or find a way just to spend some time with them, because it really is almost impossible to succeed as much as most people want without the mentor in place. And so that's the power of having those other people and just leveraging their knowledge.

Yep.

Absolutely. Great. Well, thank you, Dean. Any famous last words for You.

That's great. Thanks so much for the, the box and just putting everything together. I mean, even just like you said, sitting at the kitchen table with you, you know, going through the, all the individual booklets in the, in the box is fantastic. So you've done a great thing and you can't do it. You know, there's an example that you can't do that. There's no way to kind of cram it and do it all at once. That took the disciplined effort over a long period of time to put something like this together, but totally worth it. Yeah.

And here's what I would say, too, for people that are listening, and I shouldn't say people for that individual name, John or Judy that's listening to this right now. What I would recommend, if you were in a position where you tried to do New Year's resolutions, which I think are kind of funny, I can offer pros and cons. Hardly anyone ever sticks with any New Year's resolutions. I like the whole concept. And Craig kind of speaks to this where tomorrow could be the day that you decide to do something next week, whatever. If you were to get his Perfect Day Formula Kit, take a couple of days and take a couple of hours during a couple of days and just say, okay, over a weekend. Or I'm going to just go, I'm going to read the book and I'm going to go through the Perfect Day Formula Kit. It will literally set a whole new starting point for you to just do better in your life. And if you're already kicking ass, it's just going to add more fuel to damn it. I used the word kicking ass and damn it at the same time. That's terrible. But it will really be a starting point for you. And if you have anyone that is stuck in life, like, I don't know what I want to do. I don't know where I want to go. If you have, you know, a brother, a sister, a child, a family member, a friend, get them the Perfect Day Formula Kit. I can assure you it will be a really, really valuable thing. And I know that once our listeners read it and give us feedback, that they'll be singing the praises.

So.

Theperfectdayformula.com early to rise. Craig Ballantyne is spelled B A L L A N T Y N E. And Craig, any final things from you?

That was great, Joe. Thank you so much. And you've been a great inspiration to me just in showing a great example of how to be a giver and connector and just to add value to the world and how it comes back and makes your life pretty darn great.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. And until next time, to all of our listeners, you can subscribe on itunes. Share this episode with anyone that you feel needs to hear it. Give us our feedback and I will put links on ilovemarketing.com to all of Craig's material and then keep us posted. Please give us your feedback and have yourself a perfect day. Sam.