Want To 10x Your Results, Apply These Habits & Rituals Into Your Life! | Joe Polish

Because we know that whatever you're believing is what's produced your, you know, created your actions. And now your results are the other fruit on the tree, if you will. And so recognizing that and then in the process, this is really important, is letting go, is being able to learn the process of letting go.

As soon as you touch your feet on the floor in the morning, before you get out of bed, say, it's going to be a great day. Those seven words. And it's the only habit in the entire book that I prescribe. There's only one habit that I say you should do, and it's that one.

So if you're listening to this, if you're taking notes, or you want to walk away with this as a strategy, it's simply, I am committed to blank. Whatever your ideal outcome is, I'm committed to blank. Or your ideal effort, I'm committed to blank no matter what. There is no other outcome option. The second part of the affirmation strategy for me is why is that deeply meaningful? So I had bullet points. So I am committed to beating cancer and living to be 100 plus years old alongside my family, no matter what. There's no other option. Because step two, the why I'm committed to be. And I had an affirmation for every member of my family and the world and myself. It said, I'm committed to beating cancer for my wife, for Ursula, because I promised her forever and a day. I'm committed to beating cancer for Halston, my son, because he needs my love, leadership and guidance.

So let's talk about you sing, you dance, you've been on Broadway, you're a parent, you're involved, you're an advisor, you have your own company. How do you manage your time?

Gosh, okay.

And you do burpees too.

I do.

I love. It's so efficient and you can do them anywhere. But I love things that are efficient. So it's funny, I have a bit of a personal mantra. Work, life, balance just doesn't exist. I'm sorry, it doesn't exist. Nothing I've ever done that I'm proud of have I done when I was being balanced. So my mantra is work, sleep, family, friends, fitness. Pick three. And you get a different three every day.

Say those again. I want people to write them down.

Work, sleep, family, friends, fitness. Pick three. You cannot pick all five of those and do them all well, every single day, every day. And every day when I wake up tomorrow, I can pick a different three and the next day a different three. And the hope is that it balances out over the long run. But you just, you cannot accomplish anything of value if you try to do all five of those things in one day. So I think, you know, for me, when I started to give myself permission to be lopsided, I guess instead of being balanced, that was when just really things started unlocking for me an incredible way in business.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, what I think about with sharing things in Genius Network is I believe, really accomplished entrepreneurs can come up with better ideas sitting by themselves with a napkin or a notepad than going to most seminars. So if I'm going to share ideas with some of the greatest thinkers, I want to share elegant ideas. And not just how do you solve a problem, but what's one thing that if you solve this one thing, solves 100 other problems. Like, for instance, sleep is an example. If you're sleep deprived. If you fix sleep, there's like dozens, if not hundreds of other things in your life that will improve. What are some rituals or things that you have done or involved yourself in that just. You get so much bang for the buck. Like, is the juice worth the squeeze? You know, that sort of thing. Like, what are some things that just move the dial?

Oh, my gosh. So one thing that I started doing a few years ago was I started taking the month of either March or April and trying to dedicate the entire month to putting myself in an uncomfortable situation that I had never done before. Now again, that's a very. You know, I have the luxury of doing that because I work for myself, because I've made enough money in the past that I can do that. But a few years ago, I started off this by going and living in Tokyo for a month.

Wow.

And. Cause I was like, I just want to immerse myself somewhere that I've never been, do something uncomfortable. Three years ago, I joined the cast of a Broadway show for a month. That was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. It was the scariest experience, hands down, of my entire life. But I got cast in one of the leading roles in Rock of Ages, an 80s rock musical on Broadway. And just walking a mile in someone else's shoes like that gave me such a deeper appreciation when I went back to my own business and I did that. So I just, I try to think of, you know, what's, what is uncomfortable, what's scary, and just try to go do that.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, it's like even doing this event is nerve wracking for me. It's incredibly fulfilling because you care, you know? Yeah. It's funny you say that, because I think when a speaker gets to the point where they don't get, like, a little nervous, I don't get like, oh, my God, I can't speak in front of an audience. Although there was a time where it was I would literally sweat profusely. I mean, it was so uncomfortable. But I heard this saying years ago that that which you fear and don't face controls you. But that which you fear and you take steps to face, you can control it or at least get a lot better with it. So I do put myself into situations that challenge me. The question is, when you do it to where it's so stressful, like, there's a difference between. Hugh Downs was a friend of mine, and I interviewed him when he was 87 years old, and. And he said the difference between stress and distress. Stress will actually build you up and make you better, like working out and stuff. But if you overdo it and you get into a state of distress. And so a lot of entrepreneurs like you talked about the five things they're trying to do so much.

They never choose sleep or they never choose fitness. And that's not good for anyone either, Right?

Exactly. So for fear, I think the entrepreneurial mind is willing to take risks that non entrepreneurs do not take. How does one increase that stamina? If you have any suggestions for it, and sometimes it might be not trying to push yourself. Sometimes it's just pull back. I mean, I love the idea of go living. I'm sitting there thinking, maybe I should move to Tokyo for a month. That would be like a freak show.

It was amazing. And I lived in an area where it was, like, not touristy at all, so. So no one looked like me. It was fabulous. I loved it. It was just such a different, open mindset. But I think back to your question. How do we build our tolerance for that is getting used to failing. For me, I feel so lucky that I did so much theater as a young girl, because I got rejected. When you do theater, you get rejected for 10 roles for every role you get cast in. And so even though my mom used to say to me, like, hey, honey, I hope you're not gonna do this with your life, she. She'd be like, you know what? I think it is so awesome that you are doing theater, because at 8 years old, if you could get rejected from a part, pick yourself back up and still have enough faith in yourself to audition for that next one, you can handle anything that business throws at you.

Totally that's great.

So I think for me, when I went into business and entrepreneurship, I already knew how to fail. Like, I already knew I had it in me to pick myself off the floor and still think I was the best person for that part. And I think that's half of what entrepreneurship and risk taking is about.

I mean, there's that cliche which is, what would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? I've had that on computers. I have this little metal thing that has it etched in there. It says, what would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? And of course, the way my brain works is business deals. Who would I ask out on a date, what sort of all that sort of stuff. And it's interesting how much fear for things that most people are capable of doing, but they don't do because of, like, rejection or what other. And so how do you deal with criticism? How do you deal with rejection? As public as you are, you've heard everything under the sun, so everything.

I mean, and also, I can't tell you how many brainstorms I sit in where people withhold their best ideas because they're so, so afraid of even the three other people sitting in the room saying that's not a good idea or squashing it. And so that's why, I mean, that's why I love the hackathons that we did at Facebook, because people who felt afraid during the day and guarded of their ideas, suddenly that created a safe space to have wild and crazy ideas. And I think creating those spaces in our lives and in our businesses are really important for me. I mean, gosh, the first project that I took on after I left Facebook and started my own company, NBC asked me to do a show on Bravo, a documentary about Silicon Valley startups, follow six entrepreneurs. And it got a ton of hype. It was really buzzed about and all the tech and media press. And then the show just didn't do well. After the second episode, it got moved to a 3am time slot, and then it was a marathon at the same time as the Super Bowl. So that's where a show goes to die. And I thought, oh, my gosh, how am I going to pick myself up off the floor from that? That is the first project that I did after leaving Facebook. How am I ever going to have any credibility ever again? And it took me a while to kind of get myself off the floor for that one. But two years later, when I put out my children's book.it was that same, same Executive who called me on the phone and said, you know what? Our first show didn't work, but I liked working with you, and I have a feeling this next one will. And now dot is in 30 countries, 100 episodes of our animated show. And that wouldn't have happened without that failure.

No, see, that's the thing. What Dan calls it is a strategic byproduct that if you start pursuing something, things that happen off to the side end up, in many cases, being more valuable than the original thing you're pursuing. Like, if you sign up to run a marathon, what ends up happening is, yeah, your goal is to run a marathon, but all these other life changes happen off to the side. Like, maybe you start eating better, you start sleeping better, you start getting in better physical shape.

You plan your time better.

Exactly.

And then all these little things happen. And so my pursuit in life is the strategic byproducts that come out of it. I mean, this group Genius Network is really. I want the strategic byproducts of it. You know, for me, I want to change the. And we've talked about this on our podcast interview. One of my projects is changing the global conversation about how people view and treat addicts with compassion instead of judgment. And I know that I will figure out the best ways to go about doing that within Genius Networks. So the strategic byproduct is I can do all this other stuff in the addiction field.

I think another thing, though, that you're so good at in so many so is you have to be willing to have people give you advice and then reject it. Like, you have to really be able to stay true to who you are. Because I know from When I was 2 years old, my biggest dream in life was to sing on Broadway. Like, I just knew it from the first moment I could create memories. And when I got to Silicon Valley, all my mentors who I respected told me, like, randy, stop singing. Don't do anything that is distracting from working here because you already have it harder than the men. As a woman, people already want to say that you don't deserve it, so don't do anything that's gonna distract from that. And so for 10 years, I didn't sing a note. I didn't perform. I buried something that was in my soul basically to fit in. And I. You know, a few years ago, when I ended up getting cast in the Broadway show after all, it was like, you know, like a Pandora's box of my soul opened up, and I realized, like, what was I doing listening to bad advice all those years to, like, be less interesting, you know, to not. I mean that actually it has been one of my biggest advantages in business is the theatrical knowledge that I have in that work. So I think also you have to be willing to kind of look great people in the eye who think they're giving you great advice, but aren't.

Yeah.

And also, and just even asking, you know, whose life is it anyway? I mean, what am I really trying to do? So many people, even if they get like, again, a Dan Sullivan saying is success traps are harder to get out of than failure traps, you know, and when you've reached a certain level of success and you're making a lot of money and you have a big company and you may hate it, you may. You may be miserable. It's like we talked about on the podcast. I told the story of this crazy guy I learned marketing from where he had a guy come to one of his seminars that had 56 hardware stores that he owned, and he had not talked to his children in a couple years. He was 60 pounds overweight. He was drinking heavily. His cholesterol was through the roof, and his number one goal was to open up his floor 57th hardware store. You know, and it's kind of like, at what point do you know that?

At what point is enough enough, like, focus on yourself?

Exactly. How do you. How do you follow what is so damn important to Randy and drop? I mean, because you're in situations where you get. Because of who you are, you get thrown opportunities that are amazing all the time. So. But you have so many amazing opportunities. You, you know, you got opportunity in digestion, you know, so that's a good.

I like that.

Yeah.

I mean, and I think a lot of people in this room, that's one of their biggest challenges is not, you know, I need an opportunity. No, I like, I need less of them. I'm buried in opportunities. Which ones do we say yes to? Which ones do we say no to?

I think, I mean, I think that's the hardest thing of all of us because as entrepreneurs, we always have our eyes open for that next thing, that next opportunity. You know, we are in a mindset to create our own luck rather than let luck happen to us. So. But it can be so distracting if you're constantly having shiny objects dangled in front of you and you want to say yes to everything. So I think for me, I just often just have to clench my teeth and remind myself of my ruthless priorities. What are the three things that I want to do this year? And that doesn't mean that you should close down to outside opportunities because you might find that that amazing thing out there, that that is worth latching onto. But I have found that when I create things, when I create IP or create business, and then people come to you, they slot into what you're doing, whereas if you just kind of go on coffee meetings or lunch meetings or phone calls, people don't really understand. And that's when you're at the risk of distraction.

Right.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video and I want to let you know that I've a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

But having that list, it's great because then you can go back to it and you have it right there and it's not like, oh yeah, I was supposed to do a million things and then life happens and you do none of it.

Right, right.

Great.

So you also have another program called Light Camera Expert. What does it teach in terms of getting booked on tv, radio, podcasts, magazines, et cetera, and becoming a well known expert, which is the whole goal of it?

Yes. Well, because so many people through the years have asked me, how do I get on tv? How do I get on tv? I teamed up with a woman who I had actually booked years ago. She worked for Martha Stewart Radio and also for her magazine. She was an editor and I booked her as a guest. And so she knows the, the magazine world and I know the TV and radio world. And so we came together, we put this course together to really help experts understand what is the media looking for. How do you pitch them something that they really want and then how do you get asked back again and again? Because a lot of people have the issue of, oh, I was picked once, I got asked once, someone found me or they found my book and then they asked me some questions. I was on local TV and I never got asked back.

And I'm like, you know why you.

Never got asked back? Because you never communicated with that person again. You never pitched, oh, well, I wouldn't know what to pitch. So those are the types of things that I teach to be able to show. How do you consistently get media and what will you do with it when you get it?

You know, I don't know. On all the different media channels you would know, maybe Kevin would Know, one of the things that I've actually, and this sounds crazy, I taught thousands of service businesses how to use marketing. And so we would, and I would have press releases where they would like send press releases on things that we, that I created for them. You know, for carpet cleaning. No one cares about how to hire a carpet cleaner. What they care about is the carpet cleaner who's going to come into the home and use bait and switch advertising is going to take advantage of your whole family and is going to kill everyone.

Right.

And so. And how to beware of these unscrupulous like business owners. But I would use that as a hook to get the media to do a story and then teach them how to actually hire a professional cleaner. Right? Because they want the scandalous sort of story. And so people, a lot of my clients, they would get featured in like the newspaper or they would get, you know, a little blurb on a radio thing and then it would generate business for them. And they're like, you know, how do I do it again? And I'm like, why don't you call the local paper and see if you can run the article as an ad? And they would run the same story as an ad and it would then continue to work for them. And so I think a lot of the value of media is not once you get it, it's what you do with it after you've gotten it. Just like when you said if you look at a person who's gotten no media and someone who has, the person who has gotten a lot looks more credible, more of an expert. So where's the real value in going on tv?

Yeah, it is visibility, right? I mean, that's part of it. But then it's also offering information being that go to source and media begets more media. So the second you're on one media outlet, then other people find you, you don't know how it's going to get picked up. I had a client that I was working with who could care less about doing media, doing tv. He only wanted to be in some blogs and some trade publications. And so he was interviewed for this blog about being a small business owner and something about insurance or something. Insurance for your employees. And so he gave a quote or whatever. Well, CNBC picked it up for their website from that small blog. CNN saw it, called him and said, hey, could you come on? We're doing a piece on small businesses and we really liked what you said, would you come on? He said, sure. And so it's like this guy who could Care less about being on tv. Got this media spot that was, I mean, unbelievable. That's how it happens. It goes from place to place to place.

I got a great example too, because you're so right. So back in 1999, Internet's relatively new. Google didn't exist, at least I don't think so. And so I had been getting these bait and switch stories on teaching people how to avoid getting ripped off by bait and switch carpet cleaners because I became the most well known person in the world in the carpet and upholstery cleaning industry.

That's specific. That's perfect. I would know what to do with you.

Yeah. Now, it never got me dates or anything, but it was like. But it was really great for selling marketing. So I kept hitting up like media. And so I get on. We first do a filming for ABC's 2020 and we don't get the footage we want. We can't capture it in the right way. But I stay in touch with them and I get them to reshoot it. They only had a certain budget to do this, but I got them and agreed. So we went to St. Louis for take number two. I mean, I'm like all day, I'm dressed up. You can watch this on YouTube, by the way. It was like in 1999, I'm on ABC's 2020 with Barbara Walters and at the time, the investigative reporter Arnold Diaz. And I'm dressed up like an old man. The guy that did my makeup did the makeup for the movie Boogie Nights. Remember that movie with. That was a crazy movie. And so I had a ponytail which we had to hide inside of a hat. And the only hat that we could buy at 7am in the morning was at Kmart, which was open. So it said, Pope John Paul ii comes to St. Louis and I'm wearing this hat with my ponytail makeup. And then like they didn't have technology like iPhones back then. So we're having a camera that's running through these glasses with a camera in the middle of it. So I'm trying to act like this old man with a flannel shirt and everything. And so we end up getting this story. It's viewed by over 20 million people. They get over 200,000 hits to the ABC 2020 website. So what happens is the IICRC, which is this organization called the Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration certification, they had $175,000 a year PR budget that they had spent for 10 years. So if you do the math, they spent $1,750,000. That one segment that I did got them more phone calls than they had gotten in the entire decade of their $1,750,000 budget. And as soon as I do that, who wants to do a story then Dateline, because they compete with them, and then it does that. So the thing is, if you watch these trends that are going on and you see someone get a story and you go to their competitor and say, this story was just done over here. I can do a better one. And all of a sudden you now have them pitting against each other.

That's great. Yes, it works. But when you do pitch it to another outlet, it's great to say, hey, look, CNN did it, or ABC or whatever. But the new outlet that you're pitching is going to say, I don't want to do the same story as them. They just did it. Why would I want to do that? So you have to be ready with some sort of pitch to say, hey, we could do this. This would be really great if we could do this other thing. Or here's something else that would be really interesting. But media begets more media.

Absolutely.

Perfect.

Cool. So if an entrepreneur wants to become a high performer, what are the essentials?

Habits?

Well, list making, of course, as you.

Know, God knows, you would be a loser without listing.

I mean, you can't even. Right. I don't know how you would get through your day. But also I would say, you know, connection. Obviously, you guys are all here in a room of wonderful people who are, you know, all have goals and supporting each other. But it's the same thing for, you know, getting media attention, just having a group of people or anybody who knows how to do this, who has done it, because a lot of times producers, I mean, we all talk to each other. So if I have a really great expert and somebody will say in a newsroom, oh, do you have somebody who can talk about financial this or this or that? Oh, yeah, I have somebody. So having that network of people to be able to say that you're a great expert is really helpful.

Well, you know, one thing, having. It's one thing in the beginning, because I think of as a marketer, as a business, business owner, you have to manufacture credibility, especially if someone doesn't know who you are. One of the reasons to go out and pursue media is just to establish expertise.

Absolutely.

And so once you've created some believability, because I actually, people may take this out of context, but believability is more important than credibility because there's some very non credible people that make a lot of money and some very credible people that are broke. So part of it is not only having credibility but being able to use it in a way that makes you money and that builds and grows your business. And the thing with creating credibility is it's one thing to have people say great things about you, but when you can get great people to say great things about you. You talked about it earlier, I want to go a little deeper on it. How can people ultimately get clear on what they really want in life? And you have six steps for getting clarity. So can you kind of go through some of them?

Yeah, I mean, to me the first piece of clarity and it's a really big deal is again this process of unbelieving, of looking at your life and examining why you believe what you believe, where your beliefs come from, basically. So it's an awareness of where your beliefs come from, examining a little bit about why that is and then making a conscious choice whether to continue to believe those things or not believe those things. Because we know that whatever you're believing is what's produced your, you know, created your actions and now your results are the other fruit on the tree, if you will. And so recognizing that and then in the process, this is really important is letting go, is being able to learn the process of letting go. So I mean, I love when I'm teaching to refer people to books because books are great. It's a great way to learn in your own environment, right? My environment's usually like a hot tub. And one of the books I love is the Sedona Method. Hal Dwoskin and he's part of the Transformational Leadership Council.

I went through Sedona Method in the early 90s.

Amazing, right? It's incredible. And when you use, you realize that you can release stuff and you release shit and shit thoughts and all the stuff that comes out of that, you're like, so you have so much more clarity to be able to create a vision, which is the next thing, it's the next step is when you have a clearer view of what you believe or what you want to believe even and why you believe what you have believed. And you make a choice to maybe not believe some or unbelieve some of those things. You get to create a new vision for your life. And you know, any, any CEO, anybody that's managing or running teams knows that you have to have a big vision, right, that other people can, can be excited about, you know, but that starts with you. You're not going to enroll anybody else in your vision until you know what your vision is.

Exactly. And you got to have one. And I mean, it doesn't need to be perfect. But there's, you know, the fact is there's so many people. If you don't create your own value system, then you spend your life adopting other people's. And a lot of times.

Could you repeat that?

Yeah. If you don't develop your own value, you know, human happiness comes from developing your own value system, not adopting someone else's. Because if you. And most people, they'll read a book and they'll try to take that author's stuff and make it their own versus taking it and applying it and developing their own value system with it. And it's. You're not ever you. If you don't develop your own philosophy, if you don't apply it to your own life, your own situations, your own desires, and then you end up, you know, living someone else's life. Yeah. So it's. Yeah, develop your own value system.

I think that's powerful.

Yeah, it is. It's worked well for me. I think about it all the time. What are some of the results you see, seen people achieve after utilizing the tools that you basically teach and pivot?

That's really the coolest part of this, is that we've seen people that have created massive money success in business and things. And that's usually what people say they want. It's the first question kind of what would your life be like if you had no worries about money? And then all of a sudden they're happy, they're healthy, they have great, great relationships, you know, that kind of thing. So they're after the money and there's nothing wrong with that. But what I've seen is that in addition to people producing wealth, what they've really been able to produce is a more peaceful life, a happier life, a more on purpose life. The kind of a life we don't worry about money at all anyway. And it's not because you don't care about it. It's because money flows, is a result that flows, flows out of the way. You're showing up differently when you're a purpose driven person. When your intention is to serve, not to take. Money is, you know, money is a fruit that hangs on that tree, the root, you know, it's the roots that create the fruits and it's the root of that intention to serve and to help others and make the world better, to relieve pain or whatever it is that you know you're going to be able to use your special gifts to add value.

Right.

That just produces a fruit. That's called fulfillment, you know and I love where Tony Robbins, early on when I started to read and listen to him, he'd say, you know, success without fulfillment feels like failure.

Right.

And I've, you know, that was me, he was talking directly to me when I was a lawyer and I'm going, holy shit. So I've got plenty of money, you know, I've got power, know, authority and all that kind of stuff. And yet I'm fucking miserable. Why am I so unhappy? Yeah, well, because the key to happiness was missing from the equation.

Right?

Right.

So the, the one of the great results that come from people reading a book like hopefully like Pivot, but coming to a training and being in a space, a heart centered, you know, heart centered space for their own personal development is that they're going to, they're going to discover the truths about themselves and some of those truths will shock, you know, they'll be shocking. It would be shocking to them when they discover what they really, really want in life. And more often than not, it's not really a money driven thing.

You know what's funny is when I was dead broke, carpet cleaner, living off credit cards and I would read Think and Grow Rich and the Power of Poverty, positive thinking and many of the classic personal development books, it wasn't until I learned marketing and some strategies where I was able to actually make money. And I became a millionaire by the time I was 30. And I still, at the time I was thinking, man, if I just have the money, that will solve so much of the shit. Not realizing that money actually allows you to buy some pretty bad vices.

Money's a magnifier. I heard somebody once say, isn't it true?

It is true.

If you're a shit, more money can make you even a bigger shit.

Oh yeah, yeah. I've seen it happen at so many levels. And so what's interesting though, and again, I am never a person to poo poo money. I mean if you don't have money, you don't have food, you can't get medical care. I mean, when people say money can't buy happiness, I think they're crazy because there's a lot of things that make me happy that I can buy with money. However, like Jim Rohn says, you can't hire someone to do your push ups for you. Money's not going to buy you true peace of mind or relationships. It'll give you access to things, but how you interact with it is a really important thing. So I'm never a person to poo poo money. Money's really valuable in a certain context. Taken in the wrong way though, it could lead to a lot of self destruction. That's what you see happen with lottery winners. You know, they two years within winning the lottery, they're usually in worse debt than they were before they ever won it.

Exactly. And here's one little addition to that or plus to that, which is that we dive in our training, we dive into why you want money to begin with. Because if you do truly want a lot more money, often that simple shift in that 5 degree change in your direction has to do with your motivation for money.

Right.

So if, when you're, you know, you brought up Jim Rohn, so he's got a great quote on this, which is the bigger the why, the easier the how. Yeah, you know the how the dreaded houses Mike Dooley would call them. Right. That's the problem that stops people because they're not really, they're not solid on their why. Yeah, that's one little thing. But it's a major shift for folks.

And see the reason it's useful. From my experience, and I can only speak from my experience, people say to me all the time, why do you still go to seminars? Why do you read all these books? Because I've read over a thousand business books. I've got an incredible library. I've been to more events and things than most people that I know. The reason that I do it is not because there's something I haven't yet learned. It's just the whole process to me is kind of like working out. I mean, you don't just go and have a great workout and you're healthy or you eat one healthy meal and all of a sudden it's handled. It's just part of life. It's just something that I do and it keeps me in an engaged state. To me, it's just part of a process and you live that way. And when I live that way, life works better. It just does. So it's one of those things that I do. And the thing about money, money is when someone is broke and they don't have their financial needs, like they literally can't pay their rent, as an example, or they're deeply in debt, it's very hard for them to say, hey, you're going to get the peace of mind, you're going to do this, you're going to do that. I'll tell you when I learned from Dan Sullivan that there's five different ways you get paid for something. I used to read all these books in the beginning of my career of how much is my time worth worth per hour am I spending my time making broken down to the minute, how much you want to make? I would always beat myself up because I would find myself focusing on activities that didn't always bring in the highest level of money. And some didn't bring in any money, but they were just interesting to me. But I would always layer this compared to the stuff that I was reading about. Every minute of your working day needs to be focused on, on the return. And it wasn't until my friend Dan Sullivan shared with me this thing called an opportunity filter where there's five ways you get paid. The first way is reward. You get paid with money. The second is appreciation. Another way you get paid is utilization. People utilize you. Another way you get paid is people refer you. And another way you get paid is people. It enhances you as a person. And until I actually realize that, for me, whenever I'm working with a person person on a project, it has to, my number one criteria is, does it enhance me? Second, do people utilize me? I mean, I do not like giving advice, especially proven business strategies to someone that says they want them, could transform their business with them, and they don't use it.

Don't throw your pearls to swine.

Exactly. It's the Emerson quote. You know, you ask for a new idea when you haven't used the first one that I gave you. So when people don't utilize it, the. The third is people appreciate me. The fourth do they refer me. And fifth, do they pay me? So I like getting paid. I do want money, however, that's only one way of getting rewarded. And so I go into my life now saying, okay, is this person going to. Is this person elf easy, lucrative and fun, or are they half hard, annoying, lame and frustrating? So you can have an elf business or a half business. And I really think about stuff that way. And I'll tell you, operating that way brings me a hell of a lot of peace of mind. And it keeps me out of a lot of success traps. Because when people get successful, success traps are harder to get out of than failure traps. Because when you're down and out and all you have to do is go up, I mean, you literally could try anything. Exactly. But when you have built a business or a career, let's say, where you're good at it and you're Making money, but it's draining the life force out of you. It's actually hard to give that shit up. I mean, you're not even aware of it. So that's why. Getting perspectives from the outside. That's why I'm always saying, read a book, read this book. It will change your perspective. It will give you strategies. The more that you're into personal development, love it or hate it, and certainly there's a lot of shit out there. There's a ton of people that are pontificating nonsense.

This imposes.

For sure.

Yeah. You know, however, you know, the more you do this, the more, you know, this works for me, and this doesn't. Because some things work for some people and don't work for others. But the point is, it is. It is a journey. So let me ask you. I'm rambling here.

I just don't think there's any limit to it. So like you said, I'm a lifelong learner and constantly reading. And it really is because there's a. I believe that to be a great teacher. Teacher, which, as we said, to learn something is to teach something. So here's the circular nature of this, right? In order to be a great teacher, you must be a great student. And the day you stop being a great student, you stop being a great teacher. So then you stop learning what's the essential tools to keep evolving. So you just basically kind of shrivel up and die at that point or something.

Or you start to suck more than you were. Like, there's a lot of authors that I know and a lot of speakers. Speakers that when they were hungry and they were first starting out, I think were far better than they are. Once they got the ego, once they've got the fame, once they got the notoriety. The ones that I admire the most, I've done a whole podcast episode with Dan Kennedy, who I've worked with for many, many years, the grumpy marketer. And Dan, we would talk about when you're first starting out in your career, you get paid for what you do. And hopefully your what is good. Like, whatever you put out into the world, it creates value for other people. It's good. And if you do a really good job at what you put out there, then you become a who, and then you start getting paid for who you are. So a lot of people that become famous, they spend more time who ing than they do what ing when you become a who. But your what that you're putting out there is still incredibly valuable or proud, preferably keeps getting Better and better and better. That's why a guy like my friend Tony Robbins, I mean, we're both friends with Tony. I mean, he has had incredible longevity because that freaking guy just works his ass off. He puts really good stuff out there.

He's tireless.

And so, you know, I mean, he's just, you know, he's Tony. And so the thing is, part of it is I really look at who's the what and then who's the who. And if you actually get to the point where you start resting on your laurels because you've gotten some waves on wind in your favor, that's the time to actually even look at. Okay, let's make sure I'm doubling up here. Because I actually think life is. You're on track, and then you get thrown off track, and then you kind of move yourself back on track. But some people, they've got momentum, and then they just like. Because I'll look at a lot of my clients when their business was really working well and they were kicking ass and taking names, and then they'll start getting into some messes. And if you simply ask them some questions, kind of like you said earlier, I mean, Socratic selling is way more valuable than layering on all kinds of benefits. Simply ask people questions. If you actually inquire into people, well, what were you doing when life was working well for you? And they'll tell you, and what do you do? What are you not doing that you used to. What I've learned being in. In this business is a lot of times we're just a glorified reminder service.

No kidding.

You just. You just have to remind. There's some humility right there. Just remind people you used to do this and you stopped and, you know.

There are no gurus. I don't even. I don't know. It's not offensive to me, but I just. The word is just an interesting word to me.

Oh, yeah, I don't like the. Because I can't imagine, like, me, you know, even thinking of myself that way.

No, because it's almost like, there you go. I know something. I know that. And I think that's at least one nail in the coffin when you think you know something.

Exactly.

Exactly. So let me ask you this. Why is it so important?

You know what? I couldn't wait for you to ask that, actually. Because to me, this is the way you start. You brought it up. So I just love how it organically flows out of that. You really can't get anywhere in your life until you get leverage over yourself. So this is the way I get leverage over myself. I start my day with three steps. So the first step is I wake up.

That is a good one.

Isn't that a good one? And it's funny, because I'll ask people in an audience, I say, how many of you woke up today? And then you get. People raise their hand. And then people haven't woken up yet or didn't raise their hand. I'm like, so just think about that first second. You know, we're in a process of waking up. And on a deeper level to me, why I do what I do now versus being, you know, in the business of law, is that I get to help people to wake up, wake themselves up to their true self. So it's physical, but there's also a metaphor involved. So I say, you woke up, and is that a good thing? And people say, yeah, of course it's a good thing. Well, let me ask you this. Take a deep breath right now. So take a deep breath and let it, you know, release it, right? You go. At this very moment, as you took that conscious breath, you intentionally took a deep breath. Are there not people all around this beautiful planet of ours taking their very last breath? And so there's no question that you being alive in this moment, regardless of whether you're, you know, today's the day you go to court for your divorce, or today's the day you get your bankruptcy degree, or today's the greatest day of your life, it's a blessing no matter what.

I like the bankruptcy degree.

Yeah.

You know, whatever that thing is, you might be thinking is great or you might be judging is not great. Your life is a blessing. So what does that sound like to you? And people go, you know, it sounds like gratitude. I said, yeah, so that's it. So the first step is you check your pulse. Right. Make sure you're awake.

Good.

You're awake. That's great. Great. It leads into that next natural, you know, the domino falling over is now gratitude. So what are you grateful for? And it could just be that you are grateful to be alive. You know, doesn't really need to go any further than that, you know, or be any more grandiose than that. That's as big as it gets. But it could be, you know, I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful for my friends. I'm grateful for my business. I'm grateful for, you know, any number of things. I once met a man in Japan who's a billionaire, and I said, well, you know, what's your secret to, you know or what's. I didn't say your secret, but what's like a ritual that, you know, that you have. And he says, I say thank you a thousand times every day.

Wow.

And I've told a lot of people, this guy, you know, says thank you a thousand times. So I'll ask, you know. You know, he says thank you because he's a billionaire, right? And everybody goes, yeah, that's why he says thank you. He's a billionaire. I said, is he a billionaire because he says thank you, or does he say thank you because he's a billionaire? Which one is it?

Right.

Because to me, the fact that that's his ritual is the reason why he's so prosperous. So you can get the billionaire status just by starting with a few thank yous in the morning.

The point is, even if he isn't, it's still a very smart thing to do.

There's no losing it.

Right?

Right.

Exactly. No downside.

So then the third piece of this thing is you put your feet on the floor. And that's a blessing for many that not everybody gets to do that. Put your feet on the floor and stand up and say these words. Say, I love my life. I love my life. Declare it to the universe. Say it out loud or think it. But right then and there, you get to set the most powerful intention you'll ever set, which is that your life is something that you love. And what's interesting about our conditioned mind, you know, this medulla, that this reptilian brain of ours, it's constantly. Its main function is to keep us safe. Protection. And the way it keeps us safe and it protects us is by being right. Because if it's wrong, we die. If it misassesses the danger, we end up getting eaten by the dinosaur. We get hit by the bus or whatever it is. So it wants to be right. And why I love it is really what you said earlier about leverage. Because I know that about myself, I love that about myself, that I want to be right all the time. So when I say I love my life, what happens unconsciously throughout the day is that I look for ways to be right about it. I look for ways to prove that that's, in fact, true. And so when I put my head on the pillow at night to go to sleep and I do my evening ritual, which is all about forgiveness, is a separate thing. The last thought I have is that I really do love my life. And when I started this practice, it was right around the time when I was really unhappy, miserable in my law practice and I wanted to shift something. So this was the first pivot, this is the first small change in direction which I could do and anybody could do starting tomorrow morning. And what the book does is it gives people a 21 day ritual, 21 day practice to create new rituals and new habits that become habits in your life. And that's the first one that's wake up in the morning, give thanks, put your feet on the floor, say I love my life, and watch how a few things start to just domino.

Yeah, that's great. And I imagine in the beginning, like with anything new, it's a little weird.

It's totally weird.

It will. But again, and you won't believe it. Yeah. If most people look at the rituals in their life that work and they look at the very first time they started them, they're like, well, you're unfamiliar with it, but if you just stay. It is the consistency thing. So that's great. Iow, I see the high motivation is good, but how does that help you get the habit created? How does that fit the important emotion?

Yeah, okay, this is a good question, but there's a lot of aspects to this. Ideally, you pick a habit. If we go back to this, if we're talking about a habit, and the way I write up habit is this with this arrow. So this is my notation for habit. Ideally, you pick a habit that you already want. Okay. So if you don't want to meditate, don't pick meditation as your habit. Pick something else that will serve the purpose. So, and then you make it super simple and you make sure there's a prompt. So that's part of designing the habit. And the chapters we'll read coming up, we'll walk you through all of those. The emotion piece is not part of the behavior model because behavior models for every behavior. So when you get down to this, then this is where the emotion matters and it's the emotional experience you have. And in Tiny Habits I have, people focus on the feeling of success. There's a variety of emotions that can wire in habits, and one of them is the feeling of relief. The lifting of anxiety can wire in a habit, but that's very hard to hack. What you can hack is your feeling of success. And so the Tiny Habits method, through a technique called Celebration, you cause yourself to feel successful. And I named that emotion Shine. And that's what hacks your brain chemistry to make the behavior more automatic. So yes, there's the behavior model, but then when we're designing for habits. You've got to wire it in to make it automatic. You've got to be really fast. You deliberately hack your emotions and cause yourself to feel an emotion. Now some new habits will. The emotion will come right with it. Let's say there's an app that just makes you so happy, and the first time you use it, it makes you so happy. Well, then you don't have to hack your emotion to happen naturally. And many products and services that you love, the first time you tried it, it gave you a feeling of success. And that's why that product became. That's why you became engaged with that company or that product. And so in the boot camp, so this is written to everyday people to help change their behaviors. But then there's a boot camp I do for professionals creating products and services. And I have a model for engagement, like what creates engagement. And one of the keys is the first time somebody uses your product or service, they got to feel successful. They got to feel like you've given them a superpower that matches to every example I can think of a product or service that has engaged people. I mean, there's a pattern to it, but the feeling of success, especially in the first use, is really, really important.

You know what? I got to mention this one, B.J. because Babs wrote, how many people here practice Maui Habit this morning with a heart? And then Alinka, and then Stefan Spencer, Julie, Laura, Darina, Brian, Sweet Marcus every morning. Bob me there. And so Babs wrote nine so far, including me. Who else started to practice the Maui Habit this morning? Since that's such a simple one. And why don't you just for anyone that's not read it, explain what you do first thing, this alone is a good example of just something so simple that takes like instantaneously almost.

Yeah. And I gave a TED talk talking about the origin and why I named it the habit. But the way it goes is as soon as you touch your feet on the floor in the morning before you get out of bed, say, it's going to be a great day. Those seven words. And it's the only habit in the entire book that I prescribe. There's only one habit that I say you should do, and it's that one after that, the book's about creating anything you want.

And.

If now some of you will just naturally gravitate to it and we'll just click on the other end of the spectrum, some of you are going to be super skeptical. And the main thing I can do is just Say just try it. Just try it and see how it works for you. One of the, I think I mentioned this in the book. I know I talk about it in the TED Talk. One of the subtleties, even when I don't feel like it's going to be a good day or don't feel like it, I still say it like, the end of the day yesterday was kind of tough in my life. And so that affected my sleep a little bit. And then I get up and I put my feet on the floor and I still say, even though I'm like, I mean, I was looking forward to this for sure, but still, you know, I was not in the best of states, but I still said, it's going to be a great day. And I just, like this morning, just, I imagine it in my mind. This is my own practice. Like, if I really am resisting that, it's going to be a great day. I just imagine a little crack of the door opening. It's not quite a door, it's just some little glimmer of light that comes through and it's like, yeah, yeah, okay. Even though it's mostly doesn't feel like it's going to be a great day, I see the possibility for it. So that's how I do it. Even on the days when I don't feel like saying it or I don't feel like it's really gonna be a great day, like, oh, it's gonna be a hard day. And then sometimes I'll say it just like, it's gonna be a great day. Somehow, like totally skeptically, but that actually works. So give it a shot. Give it a shot. And then more and more, some days I'll just sit on the edge of the bed and think about, oh, here are all the great things I get to do. Day, bam, bam, bam, bam. So I don't have to, but there's sometimes when I will take 10 or 20 seconds to kind of think through some of the awesome things or what I want to have happen in the day, you know, how I can help and serve people.

Anna, you've had your own experiences and of course you know the Miracle Morning methodology and use it, as do I, inside and out. So what are your questions? Thoughts?

Anything?

Okay, well, two things.

First of all, what you guys were.

Saying reminded me so much of that David Hawkins quote.

And I know Joe loves David Hawkins.

Hawkins too, I think, went to his funeral.

But it's.

We get what we want when we stop insisting on it. So it's like we want, but the Energy we put towards this has to.

Happen is what keeps it away.

So it's the balance of wanting and.

Not trying to control.

But what I was thinking as you.

Were talking, Hal, and I'm wondering if.

People must have asked you this before.

For somebody who says, I can't commit to the whole miracle morning routine, is there one thing that you would extract.

And say it can help give you.

That faith or that hellness that you have?

100%. Yeah. The miracle morning is made up of. And Anna, it's great to see you, by the way. Always way better to see you than Joe and Dean. No offense, but so. Yeah, so for me. So the miracle morning, for those that don't know, it's made of six practices organized under an acronym, savers. S for silence, A for affirmations, V for visualization, E for exercise, R for reading, and the final S is for scribing. And so six practices that you do in the morning from anywhere from 6 minutes, 1 minute each to 60 minutes, or anywhere in between. Anna, when I get asked, like, is there. You know, is one of the savers better than the other? Do you have a favorite? Like, the politically correct answer would be, they're all equally important, right? But that, in my mind, that's not true. Everybody has their own that they lean toward. For me, it's affirmations. If I could pick one of the sabers that I did every morning, that would be a miracle morning in and of itself. It's affirmations. And I'll speak on this because I think affirmations are very misunderstood and they've been mistaught, which is why they're misunderstood by a lot of people. We're either taught one of two faulty ways to approach affirmations, and number one is lie to yourself. Essentially, like, just tell yourself that something is true that you want to be true until you trick yourself into believing that it's true, right? So if you're struggling financially, just say, I am wealthy. I am wealthy. I am a millionaire, right? But if the truth will always prevail, so lying to yourself is never the optimum strategy. Or if, you know, if you want to be thin and you're overweight, you go, I am thin. I am thin. And you look in the mirror and you're not thin. Again, the truth will always prevail. So lying to yourself is not the strategy you want to approach with. The second problem is using this flowery passive language in the form of an affirmation that promises a magical result despite your effort. So, for example, We've all heard something like this. I am a money magnet. Money flows to me effortlessly and in abundance. Right? Now, the reason that people like that affirmation is if you're struggling financially, well, that gives you temporary relief from your money woes, right? You just sit back and go, yes. Oh, this feels good. Imagining that money is going to magically flow, flow into my life. Ah, the savior is on its way, right? But anybody that's built a fortune, you know, or that's wealthy or financially secure knows that it's not through being a magnet and having it magically show up. So I'm not saying that there can't be benefits to those approaches, but I think that for me, affirmations need to be rooted in truth. They need to be practical and they need to be actionable so that they're results oriented. So for me, kind of the three step formula, if you will, for affirmations and what I use during my cancer journey, number one, affirm what you're committed to. So don't say, I am blank if that blank is not true. For you say, I am committed to becoming blank. I am committed to improving in blank area. I am committed to achieving blank result. So when I was going through cancer and I had fear every day, now I will say this, the fear, as time went on, it got less and less and less because I kept actively using these affirmations to replace fear with that unwavering faith. And so for me, my affirmation that I read every day, and Anna, this really answers your question directly. I am committed to beating cancer and living to be 100 plus years old alongside Ursula, Sophie and Halston, my wife and kids, no matter what. There is no other option. So if you're listening to this, if you're taking notes or you want to walk away with this as a strategy, it's simply, I am committed to blank. Whatever your ideal outcome is, I'm committed to blank. Or your ideal effort, I'm committed to blank no matter what. There is no other option. The second part of the affirmation strategy for me is why is that deeply meaningful? So I had bullet points. So I am committed to beating cancer and living to be 100 plus years old alongside my family, no matter what. There's no other option. Because step two, the why I am committed to be. And I had an affirmation for every member of my family and the world and myself. It said, I am committed to beating cancer for my wife, for Ursula, because I promised her forever and a day. I am committed to beating Cancer for Halston, my son, because he needs my love, leadership and guidance. I am committed to beating cancer for my daughter, Sophie, because she needs her daddy's love and affection and belief and support. I am committed to beating cancer for my dad because he gave up everything to save my life. I am committed to beating cancer for my mom because she doesn't deserve to lose another child. I am committed to being cancer for myself because I deserve to live a long, healthy life. And last but not least, I am committed to beating cancer for the rest of the people in the world, the countless people in the world who are themselves battling some form of physical or mental challenge and don't have the same resources that I do, and they desperately need my love, leadership and support. And if you look at that, the other day, I was interviewed by Dave Asprey, genius network member, and Dave Asprey. He paused me. He said, hal, I want you to note, he goes, I don't know if you're aware of this, but all of your whys, every single one of your whys, except for one, was for other people. And I had never made that distinction. But when you've got a list of compelling whys as to the reason, you're committed to do whatever it takes to achieve your result, to support the people in your life that matter the most, that fuels you to do whatever it takes. And then, last but not least, the third step is what specific actions will you take and win? So your affirmations should include all three of those, right? What you're committed to, why it's meaningful to you, why it's crucial, why it's important, why it's a must, however you want to word that. And then, number three, which specific actions you'll take and when. And now you're affirming something every day that aligns your subconscious mind, your conscious thinking, and your actual behaviors to be in alignment with committing the results that you're committed to in your life.

I'm going to talk to you a little bit about athletes because everybody in this room is, is an athlete in a certain way, shape or form within their business. You're a superstar. You're a rock star. You're the guy or the gal that's doing it and doing it in an interesting way and getting it done. Okay? Now I'm getting calls from major sports teams because that is the new advantage. You know, everybody heard about Moneyball, right, way back when, where they were looking at different ways to increase productivity through their ball players. Now it's becoming sleep. The Jets Actually, believe it or not, hired sleep specialists to work with their team. There are actually a lot of areas. I'm only going to go over three different areas today where we see a change based on athletes and their sleep. No sleep equals no learning. It's actually sleep after an event, a lesson or a game is the most important sleep that an athlete can get. Here's why. Because remember REM sleep. It solidifies that neuroscience. It actually makes those neurons work together in order for you to remember and learn from your training session. The same will hold true in every single one of your businesses. If you are having a training session, whether you're training people who are buying your products or you're training your staff, if they don't have a good night's rest afterwards, if you go way on into the night till 11:12, one o' clock in the morning, and they're not getting the sleep they need, they're not going to be able to make those memories, to learn from those mistakes, to be able to understand what the next thing is that they're supposed to do. It's pretty impressive. Solidifying knowledge requires both REM and deep sleep. It's not just about REM anymore, it's also about deep sleep. The first aspect which happens during deep sleep is basically a rehearsal. So during deep sleep, your mind is kind of going over what you've learned and stripping out some of the bad stuff. And then REM sleep is moving and information from your short term to your long term. And that's where it gets really effective. And that's where you can then organize your information and recall it in a way, shape and form that can be advantageous to you. Slower reaction time, that's kind of obvious, right? If I'm tired, I don't really react as well. Pretty interesting. When you take a look at people who've done an all nighter, their reaction time triples. Not in a good way, in a bad way. Okay. And so one of the things we're seeing with a lot of athletes is that in fact, the sleepier they are. So for example, if you're on a major league baseball team, okay, and you have, what is it, 162 games a year or something like that? These guys and gals, these guys rather on the road constantly, right? How are they sleeping? Where are they sleeping? How much sleep are they getting? Right. Another big factor when you're in a series. Right now we're in the middle of the World Series, right? So what's happening back to back to back to back games well, if somebody is playing in an area that isn't in their time zone. Now you compile jet lag on top of lack of sleep. And now you're trying to tell these people that they've got to perform at the top of their level at the most important game of the season. How is that going to work out for them? It's probably not going to work out as well as they would have imagined. Low testosterone comes from lack of sleep. So what does that mean? Just one week after sleeping five hours, a man's testosterone level drops as if he's aged 11 years.

11 years.

Okay, so if I'm going to get five hours of sleep a night, I'm 46 years old, I'm going to have the level of Testosterone of a 57 year old. Nothing against 57 year olds in here, but I'd like my testosterone to stay at at age 46 as long as I can keep it there. Okay, but testosterone has a massive factor when it comes to athletic performance, but it also has a very big factor in terms of aggression, in terms of connection, in terms of cognition. So when we're starting to think about where is our energy coming from? I know somebody was talking about energy before. Testosterone has a lot to do with it. And testosterone, by the way, is not just a male thing, it's also a female thing. Women have certain levels of testosterone as well. Believe it or not, estrogen is actually a bigger energy factor than testosterone. We can talk about that too. How does this affect performance in many, many different ways? Sleep deprivation and poor quality sleep affect muscle memory. It affects increase in metabolic process, actually causing an increase in energy expenditure. The amount of calories that you take in when you're sleep deprived, actually you burn through them in certain ways faster. Why is that bad for an athlete? They run out of fuel in the middle of a game, in the middle of whatever, because they're sleep deprived. Their whole metabolic system isn't working. Well, that's for the elite athlete. Well, we have a marathoner in the room, but I know we may have some other people in here who are interested in. I know Robin was saying he wants to become a better athlete. There's a lot of people in here who are athletes or interested in this type of thing who are interested in elite sports. Now let's talk about people who aren't. Let's talk about the metabolic process and what occurs during sleep deprivation. It's pretty amazing. So one of the things that happens is your cortisol level jacks up. That means your Appetite increases. Your metabolic process slows because it's trying to conserve the amount of resources that you have in your system. High appetite, low metabolism. Two other things happen that are very, very interesting. Your hormone levels change. Ghrelin, which is your go hormone that tells you to go eat, actually increases. Leptin, which is your satiety hormone, or the stop hormone, decreases. So when you're sleep deprived, you have a high appetite, you have high hunger, which those are two very different things. You have low satiety and you have low metabolism. It's a recipe for disaster. Food choice also changes, which is pretty amazing. People. When you're tired, what are the types of foods that you go for? What are the types of foods that you guys eat or gals eat?

Carbs.

Doritos.

Doritos. Carbs, sugar. What other stuff? Like, anybody? I'm a Lucky Charms guy. Cereal and milk is a big one for me when I'm like, really down. How about anybody else? Ice cream. Ice cream's a big one. And a late night snack ice cream too is another one. We can talk about that too, right? Here's what we know about those food choices. They're actually neurochemically driven. When you eat high carbohydrate, high fat foods, it produces serotonin, which is the antithesis of cortisol. Remember, your cortisol levels are high when you're sleep deprived. Your brain doesn't like it. It wants to calm down. So it actually makes you crave high fat, high carbohydrate foods to lower that cortisol level so that you can actually get some rest. It's not your fault that you want to have ice cream and cereal and all those good things in the middle of the night. Your brain is telling you that you're so sleep deprived, it's got to slow down. And that's how your brain does it. It craves those foods again. During REM sleep, the body reaches peak testosterone levels. Less REM equals less testosterone. REM sleep promotes protein synthesis, building muscle mass again for the athletes in the room. And sleep deprivation, low sleep quality and jet lag are some of the key, key factors to what happens to these people. Great story. A good friend of mine who's also a sleep specialist works with the Boston Bruins. Anybody in here a hockey fan? Okay, so we got some. Got a big hockey fan back there. All right, so really interesting situation. The night before. This was in 2011, the night before game seven. I'm sorry, the day before game seven of the 2011 Stanley Cup. He Got a call from the head trainer at the Bruins. And what was happening was the day of the game, day seven, they had a scheduled practice for 10:30. And what the sleep specialist said was, cancel the practice. He's like, are you kidding me? Cancel the practice? Like it's game seven of the Stanley Cup. Like, this is it. We've got to get there. He's like, uh, that's actually because they were playing in, I think it was Vancouver. So it was really interesting. That would have been a perfect napping time. They cancelled the practice. They let all the players sleep. Guess what happened? They won. Was it due to the sleep specialist and that advice? I can't put my finger on that, but here's what I can tell you. The next year, the Vancouver Canucks hired a sleep specialist. It might have had something to do.

With the fact that the city was.

Well, I'm not saying that there weren't external factors in there, but using this as an example, one of the things we know, especially with, like, elite athletes, I've worked with some Olympians before, and here's what we know. We're Talking about a 30% difference in performance at the elite level. You know what a 30% performance difference is at that level? That's being on the podium or to get nowhere near the podium. Okay. I mean, when you talk, I mean, that is absolutely the difference between a gold and not showing up.

Okay?

So when we're talking about sleep, it has massive, massive effects on athletic performance. But I want to talk about something that has to do with everybody in here, which is travel. So my guess is lots of people in here. Travel. Have a lot of different travel issues. Right. I was talking to somebody who said that they're going to Arkansas and then they're going to Dallas, and then they're going to be driving for three hours. Kevin over here. So how does that have an effect on people and what's going on? There are lots of different problems that have to do with travel and sleep. I'm only going to be able to address three in my talk today, but I want you to think about these three. Sleeping on an airplane, jet lag, and sleeping in a hotel. So sleeping in the air. How many people in here can sleep on an airplane? Okay, that's good. All right. Right. Well, first of all, you got to pick your seat appropriately. Now, granted, there might be a lot of people in here who are able to sit in the front of the plane, but I will tell you, there's a great website. It's called seatguru. Dot com. Okay. And it rocks. You can punch in your flight. It will tell you the type of plane that you're going to be flying on. It'll tell you what the best seats are on the plane and what the worst seats are on the plane as far as comfort is concerned. I found this site like 10 years ago and it has been my godsend because if you don't get upgraded or you haven't bought that first class ticket and you are in that part of the airplane, you want to know what seats are going to be good for you. I also have people bring an onboard sleep kit. What does that mean? Eye shades, earplugs, maybe some music or even a cervical pillow or some type of pillow is absolutely going to be helpful. The biggest deterrents for sleep are light and sound. Interestingly, if you actually stay in the middle of the fuselage, it's actually less turbulent than on the ends because where the wings are, the stability of the structure itself actually makes it a smoother area to fly in. What's that in the center? In the center? Right in the center, right around the wings. Although it can be the noisiest because that's where the engines are. That's where the earplugs come in. By the way, if you're going to get earplugs, you want them noise level rated at 32 or below, noise level rated NLR. The reason for that is it drowns out a tremendous amount of noise because. But you can still hear the smoke alarm in your house. So it's good. Fire and sleep don't mix. So one of the things we want. This is a tough crowd. I mean, my jokes are going nowhere. Holy cow. Is it 32 or 34? 32 or below or below? Yeah. Is what you're kind of looking for.

There or below is too low?

Well, I let people. I don't like people personally to go below 28, because then you're really not getting a whole lot out of the earplug itself. And most people don't know that, that you don't actually hear only through your ear. You actually hear through your ear, but also through your jaw, because sound is a matter wave. And so your ear is actually like a funnel. And the wave kind of comes in and then goes into the canal. But you also feel all of those waves across your jaw. And so your brain interprets that vibration in a very specific way. So by putting 32 earplugs in your ear, you will dampen the decibels, but you won't get rid of them altogether. There are some people out there who actually have a little strip that they'll put across their jaw and it will actually help deaden sound even more. So, for example, if you have a lot of. I know, it's crazy, isn't it? If you have a lot of noise in your bedroom or you're in a hotel or something like that, have an earplug. But then you can actually take a washcloth or something like that and put it right here across your face and it will actually make it sound quieter. I'm giving away all my tricks. Joe, this is seat Guru. And so here's what you do is you actually put in your airlines and it'll tell you, good seat, be aware, poor seat, where there's a power port, where's the galley, where's the lavatory, things like that. It's actually really critical information. I gave it to my admin and when she makes my flight arrangements, she always knows. Plug it into SeatGuru, see what's going on. It's a pretty great site. Jet lag, this can be a major issue, especially for international travel. The big thing to remember here is east is least and west is best. Okay? It's much easier to go from New York to LA because all I'm going to ask your body to do is stay up a little bit later. But if you're going from LA to New York and I tell you you got to go to bed at 7:00 tonight, that's not an easy task. So direction of travel has a lot to do with it. Flight scheduling has a lot to do with it. You can actually use melatonin and light therapy to reset or realign your biological clock very, very quickly. So I worked with a Saudi Arabian princess who was in LA and had to go to Saudi and she wanted to be able to get off of her plane and be able to attend the functions that she needed to be able to attend. So I actually created a jet lag schedule for her. This is what I do for a lot of my patients like Fortune 100 CEOs and people like that who come through the door and they're like, Michael, I got to go to China, I got to have three meetings, I got to get back on an airplane, I got to come to New York, I got to go do this there. So when you start to look at the advantages that you can have by being able to sleep appropriately in all of that 24 to 48 hour space, it becomes quite interesting. So with her sleep is in the purple and in the yellow, we used caffeine and light therapy. So what is light therapy? So remember, melatonin is the vampire hormone. It is not produced in the presence of light. It only comes out in darkness. So you can actually use light therapy, and you can go on Amazon. There's a light box called the Go light or the Go light by Phillips, and it has 10,000 lux of light in this itty bitty little thing. But here's what's interesting, is you no longer have to have the amount of lux of light that we once thought. There's been a discovery that there are actually sensors in the eye that actually will pick up on the 420 nanometer wavelength, which is blue light. So you've probably heard about blue light or blue blockers or things like that. That blue light is actually what triggers the pineal gland. So it hits your optic nerve, it bounces around and goes up into the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which tells the brain, hey, stop producing melatonin. So this light box is all blue light. It's literally like having five of those bullet coffees in a morning. For example, if you wake up and you're in a different time zone, or even if you wake up and you're in your current time zone and you're starting to feel sluggish and you're not feeling too good, go outside, get 15 minutes of sunlight, or get one of these light boxes, put it on your Desk, give yourself 20 minutes of exposure to it. It's literally like drinking two or three cups of coffee. It will wake you up and you will feel fantastic. It's called the golight G O L I T E. It's by Philips. I think they're like 150 bucks or so.

Can you use your iPad with an.

App to do better? Well, here's the problem is that these have actually very special LEDs. But an interesting question that I've been asked many times is, do iPads and do phones have an effect on people at night? And the thing is, now the answer is yes. We've now discovered that the light that's coming from these devices at night, going into the optic nerve, it tells your brain that it's morning, and that can be an issue. There's actually now something called a sleep shield that you can get. I think it's like six bucks that you can lay, and it's a filter that goes across the iPad, and it won't allow this to happen anymore. I actually work with a company now where I have light bulbs in my Bedroom that have filtered out the blue light and light bulbs in my bathroom that have only blue light. So I can read or I can do whatever I want to do at night and it won't affect my ability to produce melatonin and fall asleep. And then in the morning when I wake up, I can actually turn on these special lights in my bathroom and it helps wake me up.

So.

So with the princess, what we did, which was pretty interesting, was here was her flight. So I had her first flight. I had her actually taking melatonin. So on the top you'll see that it was 7pm her time in Germany, which was her first layover, it was 5:00am and in Saudi it was 6:00am okay, but in a whole the next day. So what we actually had her do was F1 is her first flight. Right? So this was her normal sleep schedule. I had her going to bed at midnight and getting up at around 6 and then having the light therapy with caffeine. Then she went a whole day and came back, went to bed at midnight, got up at 5. Because I'm starting to push her backwards towards what would be an appropriate sleep schedule. Light therapy, caffeine. Then I have her go take a nap on the airplane. We're going to talk about naps in a second with a little bit of melatonin. Then, if you notice, she sleeps for that three and a half to four hours. And then she is up from what would be midnight her time all the way to 2pm the next day. So I built up all the sleep deprivation in her over that course of time, so that when she hit Saudi, she took a melatonin. Her biological clock had already started to shift and she was off and running. What you can't see on this slide is at the very end there, when the 11 and 12pm LA time, which is really 9 and 10pm Saudi time, she was also using light therapy and caffeine again. So when I called her to say, how did it work? She said, I walked off the airplane, I went home, I went to bed, I woke up the next day and I had absolutely no jet lag. So it was pretty amazing when you see these types of situations now, obviously she had a little bit of a different situation because it was her airplane. So she could say when it took off and when it left and where it landed and things like that. But I work with people all the time to be able to develop these types of schedules. By the way, the appropriate dosage of melatonin is between a half and one milligram okay, yeah. 95% of the melatonin that's commercially available today is in an overdosage format. And I'm not a big fan of melatonin unless we're talking about jet lag. Melatonin is a hormone. Most people don't know that it's a hormone. You wouldn't go to the local health food store and buy testosterone or estrogen. But people are going to the local health food store or vitamins place and what are they doing? They're buying melatonin all the time. It's anywhere from three to six to 10 times the recommended dosage. Melatonin, by the way, is by prescription only in Europe, which is pretty interesting. And at high dosages, it's a contraceptive. Yes, at high dosages, melatonin is a contraceptive. So here's where the real problem comes in. When parents can't get their kids to sleep, they don't want to give them a sleeping pill. So what do they do? They go to the health food store and they give them melatonin. I can't think of anything worse for a young female reproductive system than adding a hormone that can be a contraceptive. We have no idea what the effects are going to be long term.

Is it only for girls?

Primarily for girls. But I would tell you, I wouldn't have melatonin used in anybody under the age of 18, period. I wouldn't give it to my son. I'll put it to you that way. How do you choose the right hotel when you get there? Pretty interesting. First of all, are you in the flight? If you're near the airport, are you in a flight path? What is the last flight in or out? Do they have a sleep program? I was fortunate enough to work with Crowne Plaza hotels and I created a sleep advantage program. So we actually had them do different things. We had housekeeping at certain hours, quiet zones. Is there a club or bar that makes noise? Do they have soundproofing? Do they have vacationers or family members around? Can you choose your room? Okay. You want to be able to have that opportunity to be able to choose your room. How do you choose the right room? Couple of things. Face the west because remember, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Avoid elevators, stairs, vending machines. Kind of obvious. Corner rooms are always more quiet. Always upgrade. Actually have them remove the mini bar. It's very tempting if you can't fall asleep to grab a couple of drinks and help put yourself to sleep or pass out. Really not a great idea. It doesn't affect sleep very well and you want to actually you can ask for a non smoking room with a double bed if you're staying in one of the older hotels. Most hotels don't switch out their mattresses very often. Double beds. The structural integrity of the mattress actually lasts longer because there's not as much of a dip. When you're lying in a king size bed, the structural integrity of the mattress itself starts to go because there's not any support. But with a double bed, you actually have better, you actually get a better night's rest on a double bed. What's the very best thing to do? Walk up to the desk clerk and say what is the best room in the hotel that is currently available? And hand them a $20 bill. You will instantly know exactly what room because they know, they know exactly what room in the hotel works best.

I like to create a solid reading habit with my 8 year old motivation to read low ability, medium high prompt me telling her to how could I get her to actually read on her own for her own pleasure so that she can read tiny habits on her.

Own soon what I would focus on first. So I'm, I've not solved this problem on my own life so but I'm looking at other patterns. To answer this and try to give you a good answer is certainly create a solid reading habit. Find you know the, the prompt or the anchor. Don't have it be like hey honey, let's read like find a spot in your day. What does it come after in the day that you and your child can rely on all the time? Like after we start the dishwasher, after lunch dishes or after we feed the dog, we will sit down and read one sentence in a book. Okay. It's not like even a page, it's like one sentence. Then if we want to go further, we can and if we don't, we just close the book and say good for us. That's our habit. All we do is read one sentence. So find something. And this is part of the challenge and opportunity. You're designing the habits into your life. It's a design challenge. So you got to figure out where does this fit naturally in my day for myself and my daughter. And you may have to experiment a few times and you might, depending on your daughter's disposition and your relationship, you might say hey, we gotta solve a mystery here. We, we need to figure out where does reading one sentence together of a book, not BJ's book, but a fun book for kids. Where does that fit? Let's think about it and let's try things and let's see if we can find the answer. So I would certainly start with a parent child reading habit, and then hopefully that translates to a lifelong love of reading habit for the child. So I'll stop. I'm only giving you a partial answer, but I feel confident about that. Going beyond that, I think would be outside of my area of expertise.

Well, every day with Joe is a perfect day. But what happens when we all go away? What happens when we go home and we're not here with this group? How do we keep having perfect days every day? Well, the answer is to base your days on your values. Because when you have complete clarity about what you want to achieve in life, then you can have complete clarity about what you need to do every day. But when you don't know your values and when you don't live your values, that's when you end up allowing other people to steal time from you. And when they steal time from you with long phone calls, too many meetings, projects that really don't meet your values, every one of those minutes stolen is stealing from your children, from your spouse, from your hobbies, from your health, and from you building your legacy. So what we need to do today is build your perfect day. And we're going to do that by using the formula. It all starts with having your pyramid of values. Now, in the pyramid of values, there's going to be four things. There's going to be family, health, wealth, and experiences. And those pyramid of values are going to drive you into making the right decisions with your time every single day so that time is not stolen from you. So we're going to go through some worksheets that I have for us, but I'm going to read you my answers first before we hand those out. So the one thing that I'm going to ask you is in 20 years from now, what would you regret not doing or achieving? And then you're going to answer that in relation to the four values. Family, health, wealth, and experiences. So for me, in 20 years from now, what would I regret having not achieved for my family? It's not having a family. And it would be to not have let my mother have a grandkid. So right now, she is a step grandson, but she doesn't have a grandson from my sister or for myself. And so that is something that I know I have to work on. That is my number one priority in life. And right now, My mother is 75 years old. She's got great energy, but in 10 years from now, when she starts to slow down a little bit, if she doesn't have that grandkid, she's not going to be able to give that energy that she has right now and today. And so that is something that I'm focusing on every day. For me, for my health, it's living long and vigorously. Now, some people might be getting back into health, some people might have more advanced health goals, might be marathon running or might be something like that, some type of competition. Your values are going to be your values. They're not going to be the same as mine, but that's my health value. For wealth, it's not a number for me, it's being debt free for being financially free. But for some people, it might be having a business that is sold for a certain dollar figure. It might be having a certain number in the bank. It is your value, whatever it is, you need to be as clear and concise as possible. And then finally, experiences. What are the experiences that you would regret not having achieved in 20 years from now? For me, when I was younger, I was lucky. I did a lot of these bucket list things and now they no longer bring me that fulfillment. For me, right now, it's to write three books. Three books that make a big impact. So I believe I've already written one, but I want to write two more. So those are my four value answers. And 20 years from now, I need to make sure that I have built my family, that I've lived and made the right habit choices so that I can live long and vigorously, that I always want to have that feeling of freedom with my wealth, and that I continue to focus my days on writing my three books. And so these four values make it really easy for me to design my day. And that's what I'm going to help you do now. So, Eunice, we can pass out the forms now and everyone is going to be able to work through these sheets with me as we go from our values down to designing your perfect day. Because what happens is first world problem. The biggest first world problem is comparison syndrome. So we see other people, we see other people doing things and we think, oh, look at them. They have more success than us. They must be doing something, something that's working for them. And so we go and we see the grass is greener on the other side and we chase these shiny objects. And when we do that, it actually brings a lot of stress into our lives because we're doing what other people value and it takes us away from our values and when we are away from our values, it brings a lot of stress into our life. And so what we're going to have at the end of going through this worksheet is an epiphany. We're going to have that epiphany moment that's going to allow us to make the decision so we're able to follow our perfect day and not be stressed and not want to do anything else. So we're going to open it up to page, page two and I want you to take a couple of minutes right now and answer in 20 years from now, what would you regret not doing or achieving for each of the four values in the pyramid? Family, health, wealth and experiences. And over on page three, you see my answers. I want you to be as clear and concise, as specific as possible.

It.

All right, now you know how your perfect day should look like, but there's some obstacles in the way, I'm sure. So on page five, we are going to destroy those obstacles. And the way to do that is to come up with two solutions for every obstacle in the way of you having a perfect morning, a perfect afternoon, a perfect evening, and a perfect bedtime. Because the philosophy that I have is for any obstacle in the way of your life. As long as you have a plan A and plan B, you'll be able to overcome those obstacles. So for example, on page six in the morning, classic obstacle hitting snooze and getting behind. Well, plan A could be that you place the alarm across the room or that you get one of those Phillips light alarms that naturally adds light to the room to wake you up. Or plan B, you could hire a personal trainer that you have to train with four days a week and pay for the sessions three months in advance. Now, nobody in here wants to waste the money and that will get you out of bed. So come up with the solutions to overcoming your obstacle in the morning, whether it is getting out the door on time or getting the kids out the door on time. In the afternoon, a classic obstacle is that the team member emergencies come to us, right? Everybody has deadlines and fires that we have to put put out for them. So how do we come up with plans to overcome those obstacles? Plan A is that you could have a chain of command. You could make them go through an assistant or a general manager before it reaches you. Or plan B, you could have do not disturb hours and open door hours so that you block off more of your time. In the evening, you're late for dinner. That's a big obstacle. So many entrepreneurs have. You could have plan A, public accountability. There's nothing more effective than public accountability telling your team members that, hey, I leave the office here at 5:30pm every day, and if they still see you sitting there at 6 o' clock at night, you're going to feel like a hypocrite. And the world does not like a hypocrite. And we don't like to feel like hypocrites. So public accountability is key to helping overcome any obstacle that you want to do. You can also take away your incentives, take away your rewards. So if you enjoy a glass of wine with dinner and you're late, you don't get home at 5:30, or you don't have dinner at 7:00', clock, then you don't get your glass of wine. So come up with the plan A and plan B to overcome all of your obstacles. And the final one there is bedtime. Most of us stay up later than we want to. What is it? What is it getting in the way? What are those obstacles? What are the solutions? So plan A. If you're staying up 30 minutes late every night, set the alarm before you go to bed. In fact, often the alarm at night is just as important as the alarm to get you out of bed. 60 minutes before bed, you set the alarm. That means turn off the electronics and start your bedtime routine and ritual to wind down. You could also have a cutoff time for your Netflix, for your electronics, for all of those things that allow you to get to bed at the hour you want to get to. So one obstacle for each time of day and then two solutions for each. And that's how you get ahead here. So let's have you fill that out right now on page five. All right, and now the best time, the best part of it all, we get to put all of that together and build out your perfect day. So if we skip to the Last page, page 8, taking into account my values, family is the most important thing to me. Living long and vigorously, making sure that I'm going to build in exercise and good nutrition into my day, and then the experiences. Writing the books is so important to me. And so that allows me to build this day. Yes, I wake up early, I start writing at 4 o', clock, I write my first 1500 words before 5 o'. Clock. Meditation, exercise, walk the dog, breakfast time, maybe a little bit more writing in. I've got this scheduled out time blocks, hour by hour. In the afternoon, I'm all written out and so that's when I do podcasts. Or videos. And then I end the day relatively early, around 4 o', clock, walk the dog again, family time, dinner time, and early bedtime. And that just falls in line with my value pyramid. So if people come along and say, craig, do you want to do this? Do you want to do this? I'm able to run that through my values pyramids. They know it just doesn't take me towards my big goals and dreams. So knowing yours, I want you to go and fill out what your perfect day should look like. That's going to allow you to have big accomplishments every single day and move you towards those big goals and dreams.

What does it mean?

Social support.

Social support. So on the side. Great question, Richard. So on the right hand side there we see the five pillars for success. Those are from the book. And you need better planning and preparation than ever before. You need professional accountability, which is like a coach or mentor. You need positive social support. And what I found, Richard, was this is from what I learned from my weight loss transformation clients that they need just be surrounded by good, positive people. So everybody in this room is your positive social support. They might not give you expert advice, but they'll pick you up when you're feeling down. Community is so powerful, and that's what we all need. So we need that third pillar. We need a meaningful incentive. We need to dig deep into our hearts and minds to figure out why we're making these changes. And then finally, fifth, big deadlines. You need deadlines in everything. So what do you need to get done every day at the end of that day and order it for it to be that perfect day? All right, so time is up. Did everybody come and build a nice perfect day? There something that was based on their values so that they're having a better day now than what they may have been following in the past where people were able to come and steal time from you? Because that's the one thing that I want to get across today, is that every minute that you allow to be stolen by newsletters, by Facebook, videos, by YouTube videos, is stealing from things far more important. From your children, from your family, and from your legacy. And with your values pyramid, you're able to build that perfect day so that you can have perfect days every day and build your perfect life.

Okay, I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead. You're over here.

Do it now.

Come on. Thank you. Watch them.