The Good, Bad & Ugly: How to Stack Habits & Be the Best Versions of Ourselves

What's up there? Business freedom podcast listeners. Hey, another good, bad, ugly edition of the podcast for you. And this is really where I just sort of bring as much value as I can with something that's current and timely and real. And I just think there's a lot of authenticity lacking in our industry. And I've done a lot of things right and I've done a lot of things wrong.

And.

And so today I want to chat about something I've been doing. This is probably. I'm pulling up the app on my phone to see how long I've been doing it.

Can't quite tell.

It's this process of stacking habits. And there's an app on my phone. I'm a big app Guy Streaks is what it's called. And basically I have six habits that I've focused on for the last, probably.

The last year or so.

And I've taken on these 66 day challenges around six habits right now. So number one is to read the Bible every morning. So that's the first thing I do. And I'm in the Bible365 app. I am open my Bible app. I am.

Let me see where I am. Bear with me. I am.

I want to say I am plans. I am like 300 days in 312. So today was 312 days into the 365. And that is one of my habits.

I am focusing on.

The next is whole foods. So if I go a whole day eating real food, no sugar, no sort of processed anything, I'll give myself a check on that one.

Water.

At least 96 ounces of clear water consumed in a day journal. So I journal every day. I'm actually doing a journal for my wife and I journal a little positive.

Thing about my wife every day. And that's been a challenge I've taken on.

Meditate has probably been my toughest challenge. And working out for 30 minutes. And these are so daily habits that.

I want to focus on.

And I thought it was worth kind.

Of going through the process.

That I follow and some of the areas that.

You know, that I would consider worth.

Focusing on just to get started. So.

This is what, like I said, just like the screen says, if you're watching this, good, bad, ugly, a building real estate team and some of the things that you as the team leader, the team builder, the business owner, you need to bring the best version of yourself to the team. So I kind of go a little overboard on these things. This was one of the challenges I took, which I ended up Actually deciding that I wasn't going to continue with this one. This was the wake up at 5am 66 day challenge. And what I decided was it should be called the 8pm challenge because you need to go to bed at 8pm to get enough sleep to be able to operate at a high level the next day. And so I was still getting up at 5, but I was going to sleep at 10:30 or 11. And so, but I made this huge poster, I still have it over in my room here. And I put a lot of energy and momentum around this one 66 day challenge. And there are just some basics that you need to bring to your business that I feel like everyone can benefit from. Number one is to get more sleep. I actually track my sleep. If you're watching this, you can see this little thing here is called the Oura Ring O U R A and it tracks my body temperature, my motion, my movement, my heart rate. And by virtue of the motion and the heart rate, it can tell when you're, when you're sleeping. Deep sleep, light sleep, REM sleep, which is pretty cool. So it is hard to operate at less than seven hours of sleep every night. That's me personally. Seven and a half to eight is sort of my sweet spot. If I go more than three nights out of a seven day period at six and a half, seven hours, I will feel it. I mean like I will feel it. I won't be clear the next day, I won't be productive the next day. So consider some of these. You could do 66 day challenges and then stack the habits. A lot of times I find that it's hard to stack more than one habit at a time or to focus on changing one habit at a time. And if you're a hard charging sort of business person, you may want to throw all these up in the air and not really get any one of them at the habit level where you're changing your behavior around it. So number one is sleep. Look at your sleep minimum seven hours, ideally eight hours. Some of us need as much as nine hours of sleep. Number two is what I call eat whole foods. And really a subset of that is just eat more vegetables. You know, technically like steak is a whole food. You don't want to eat too much red meat, right? Depending on the source of the chicken you eat. And pork, you definitely don't want to consume a lot of that. But more vegetables, more hearty grains, those types of things, nuts and that sort of thing. I do a intermittent fasting, which the reason I like it is. So basically I eat between 12 and 7pm, 121 o' clock to 7pm I eat a couple meals during that time. I start my day with bulletproof coffee. It's just, it's not low in calories so it gives you sustenance. It sort of gives you the fat you need to keep clear. But it's not weighing your belly down with a bunch of crappy carbs. And it works really, really well. For me. If you go to YouTube and you just Google Dave Asprey bulletproof coffee or intermittent fasting, probably Dave Asprey A S P R E Y bulletproof coffee. And you can get sort of the. And I do it seven days a week. It works really well for me. I just, I don't find that it's. When I follow it, I'm super, super clear and I get a ton done. Chronic dehydration, that is number three. So number two was eat whole food. Number three is drink more water and at least 96 ounces. You need about half your body weight in ounces. But Really, I mean 5, 6 liters depending on if you're 175 to 200 pounds you could definitely do 5 or 6 liters. At 96 ounces you'll be good to go. But really, just how much water have you been drinking? Ask yourself that this one change will bring you more energy, get you more clarity, keep you more focused. A lot of times when you're hungry, it's just that you're thirsty. So before you eat a snack, a mid afternoon snack, or load up on coffee, try to drink like a 16 ounce glass of water and just see how you feel. Number four is to move your body. So for me this is 30 minutes a day of I'll either do elliptical with a weight vest on, I'll do. I have the P90X3 yoga that I'll do. If the weather is nice, I'll do a walk or a run, those kinds of things. I do a class at the gym which is like kind of a high intensity interval training type deal. It doesn't matter what it is. It could be I started with a walk, getting back into the habit of it. For my 66 day challenge around my physical body. It was a 30 minute walk every day and I did that and I turned it into a run, then I turned into three miles and now it's just 30 minutes. And my goal is to do it at least five days a week. And it's been working pretty good. You could do a 66 day challenge around gratitude. So if you haven't heard of the five minute Journal, there's a paper version of it and there is an app for it as well. It has a little five on it and it's super cool. You can log an image of the day and basically so the morning entry, you start the day, I'm grateful for these three things.

And then you say, what will I.

Do to make today great? These three things. And then you can have a daily affirmation and then at night you say, three amazing things that happened today. How could I have made today even better? So it really is this. You really learn how to get this psychology of gratitude and contentment. And if you take on a 66 day challenge around just the five minute journal and that app, I don't think it costs anything and maybe 99 cents or $5, you take a challenge around it, you'll be unstoppable. Just this attitude of gratitude. So that could be a 66 day challenge. That's probably my favorite. I feel like the sleep and the water and the exercise are. Those are if you want to succeed in life at a high level. I feel like those are just baseline, got to do it. This one on top of those three will take it to the next level for you. You'll be a different person at the end of 66 days. Take a two parts here. So let me explain what a Clarity Break is. Number one is meditation. So I've struggled with it and I still am committed to doing it because I know the benefits of meditation. 10 minutes a day for 66 days. There are a bunch of apps that are really good.

Like.

Let me see, Simple Habit is one. Muse is actually pretty cool. And Abide is another one. Muse. It's a piece of technology. It's a little. It's a band you wear around your head that senses if you're relaxing your mind or not. Abide is a Christian meditation app. And then Simple Habit is just a meditation app. Pretty cool. And then a Clarity break. So once a week you could take a challenge around 10 weeks in a row of a 90 minute clarity break. Clarity break is just when you take away, take time away from your normal every day to focus on just looking at what your business looks like, what your life looks like, what areas of your life you need to focus on and make different, what relationships professionally and personally are lacking. You know, where your physical body is at, where your spiritual body is at. Have you been sleeping? Have you been like all the things that you know are going to lead to chances that you have better success professionally. You just get away from everything and think about that for 60, 90 minutes. And that is called a clarity break. You are not with any technology, you are with a journal. It is an appointment, repeating appointment every week. I would never do it in the office. I would just get away from the grind of things. So those are some ideas for 66 day challenges. And it is not rocket science. Success isn't complicated either for me. And these are just simple habits. I'm reading my bible, I'm eating whole foods, I'm drinking water, I'm journaling about my spouse, meditating and I'm working out. And then my business has sort of a normal cadence and weekly measurables and projects which we call rocks that we achieve every quarter and all of those things. So my two businesses sort of have their own sort of operating systems and success criteria and I've delegated and elevated out of the things in those businesses that I can't add a lot of value. So this is sort of above and beyond those sorts of things. But it's pretty basic, right? It's sleep, your diet, water, moving your body, just gratitude, meditation, clarity breaks. I would pick one of those and take the 66 day challenge around it. And then this has just been a guiding quote of mine, Thomas Jefferson. And it really is true. Like if you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done, right? If you want something you've never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done. And that is my sort of to leave that with you today is what are you going to do differently? To have a different level of success moving forward in any area of your life that is important. If it's your relationships with your spouse or your relationships with which relationship? With your children or your creator, or if your business isn't operating the way that it should, what are some commitments you could make to improve those areas of your life and then just set a habit in motion to change that area and look at it long term. If it's two months, let's just say it's 66 days to change a habit. That means in a year you have six habits that you can make part of the way you operate. So for me, you know, I'm stacking more, but it's those six, it's water, meditation, working out, eating right, you know, feeding my mind with the Bible365 and then journaling about my spouse. And what are they for you? What areas of your life do you want to show up differently, then just don't do. What I've usually done is that I'll say I'll weigh 225 pounds and I'll say I want to lose 40 pounds in four weeks. And then I go after this crazy extreme workout schedule and diet regime and you know, maybe I hit it, maybe I don't. No matter what, it's not sustainable. So do something that is. You could just stack these 66 days or 60 days, whatever your cadence is and you can stack these habits and a couple years from now in the long game of business and life, it may take you two years to shift 10 habits that will change everything for the 20 years that follow, right? So as I say to every one of our real estate Peace School members, a lot of love and respect. So I say much love, much respect for fighting a good fight, doing this work and just getting after it every day. We'll talk to you on the next podcast. See ya.