How Your Daily Habits Determine Your Success

How you function will determine your success and your happiness in life, period. It's all about what we prioritize, right? People say, I don't have the time or I don't know what to do. And I think that's all bull. I think it all comes down to what we're choosing to prioritize in our life. That's it. We need personal operating procedures. We need to, you know, kind of have what we do on certain days at certain times to keep things running right? The fundamentals flow. Fundamentals. Fundamentals are what keep us on track, keep us focused, and keep it at our very best. Things that just help to get my mind right, not things that are sparking ideas of what I need to go do in my business, but just things to get my mind right, right? Because I know when my mind's right, the business stuff just flows. These are success routines. These are the things that I stack up. I was like, you know, what are the best things that I do? That if somebody were to take these and apply them, would literally shift your whole life, you know, Today we're gonna be talking about your personal success routines, which I feel is fundamental to your success in business. You know, I work with a lot of clients personally. I talk with a lot of people in the industry. And when the routines are off, when the stress levels are high, you know, when the hours are stacking up, we're not performing at our best, right? And I know you know this stuff, and I know you don't. I'm not. I'm not here to preach to you today on what you should be doing and what you shouldn't be doing. I'm here to remind you that, you know, when we are leaders, our first job, our first, you know, responsibility is to lead ourselves, right? And if we're not leading ourselves, we're not going to be able to do a great job of leading our team. You know, if we're not taking care of. You know, I look at it and I think, you know, as. As the owner of the business, as the leader of the business, I think about it like we're the. We're the prized racehorse, right? If, you know, if you raced horses and you had the prize racehorse that was always winning the Kentucky Derby, that was winning all the, you know, all the races, you would take really good care of that horse, right? You wouldn't, like, neglect the horse. That's the one that's making you the money. And in your business, if you really think about it, you're the one that's Making the money, right? Your team is helping you execute on your vision, on your strategy. But if you're not at your absolute best, that vision is going to be lower than it should be. The strategy is going to be scattered and all over the place, and your team's going to look at you and they're not going to follow you the way that you want them to follow you. So, you know, this is. This is a topic for me that. That is near and dear to my heart because I feel like it's what has allowed me over the years to sustain success over the long term and main my. Not only my sanity, but happiness along the way. We don't have to grind it out and make every day stressful. We can shift that. If we're intentional about how we approach our business and approach our life. You know, we're coming into season, and season is the time that, you know, I'm guilty of this too, and so many people I know are guilty of this that we kind of use the busyness and the chaos as an excuse to kind of throw other stuff out the window. Right. Everything else kind of goes on the back burner while we're just dealing with what's coming our way. And it's so important that, you know, you're here, you're in this group because you said, hey, I don't want to just be a reactive business owner. I want to step into this role of moving CEO and I want to be able to actually, you know, run my business, not have my business run me. Right. I want to be able to step outside and watch my business run. And as its own life form, really, that you're helping to direct and optimize along the way. And in order to do that, we've just got to be at our best. So I figured, you know what, Let me share what I'm sharing with private clients when they're struggling. A lot of times I'll speak to somebody on the phone or on one of our private client meetings and I'll hear some of the struggles that they're having. And I know they're referring to the things that are going on in business, but I know that if we optimize some of their own personal routines, that they'll be able to handle the business part of it. Right? They know what to do. They know what the challenge is. They're just, you know, burnt out, stressed out, overwhelmed, you know, not taking care of themselves, not taking care of their mind, not being intentional about the way they use their time. And I see the Dramatic change that happens when we sit down and we're like, okay, let's discuss your routine. Let's discuss what you've got going on. Let's optimize this. Like, let's give you a game plan for yourself so that you show up every day as your best self, and then I see the results that they are able to produce in their business after that. So I was like, you know what? Let me share this today. Let me talk about my routines, right? Just to spark the conversation. Not that you have to follow the things that I do, but I think it's a good starting point to open up the dialogue on, you know, personal success routines, Right? I mean, I think we all agree. Let me see if I had a raise of hands. Like, if we agree that we need processes to run our business, we need SOPs to run our business, right? Well, personally, it's not any different, right? We need personal operating procedures. We need to, you know, kind of have what we do on certain days at certain times to keep things running. Right? So that's what we're doing today. Let's jump into this. All right? We're gonna kind of start, right. Start right off here with, you know, again, these are, you know, not necessarily groundbreaking discoveries, but the fundamentals. Fundamentals. The fundamentals are what keep us on track, keep us focused, and keep us at our very best. So it really starts for me with the morning routine, right? The morning routine. I know you've probably heard this a million times. You've probably heard, you know, so many different variations of it. You need a morning routine. You got to do this, you've got to do that. And, you know, the reality is you need a morning routine. What it consists of varies based off, you know, where you're at in your life. You know, we all go through. To go through stages, and we have different things going on, Right. I just had a newborn in January. Well, you know, January through March looked very different than my Life the previous 12 months. Right? So we need to adjust and we need to adapt and change. And part of the reason that I'm also sharing this is not only the, you know, transformation I've seen with clients, but also, you know, some of my stuff went out the window. My routines, you know, baby comes and, you know, you might have good intentions of having your morning routine and your other routines on point, but it goes right out the window. And now that I've been back on them for a while, because I fought for it, I didn't just give up and say, oh, you Know it's busy, I'm not getting a lot of sleep. Let me just fall off, right? I fought to get it back where it needed to be because I knew I needed to be at my best for my son, my daughter, my wife, my family, my team, my clients, and just for myself, right? And so the morning routine, what does that look like? Let me just share mine right now and think about what yours is. But here's the important piece. The important piece is that you have some consistency in the morning, right? I think that starts with whatever time you want to wake up in the morning, okay? Whatever serves you to be able to do the things you want to do before you need to get going, keep it consistent, right? You can't have consistency in your day. If one day you're waking up at 5, one day you're waking up at 6:30, one day you're waking up At 7, it becomes stressful, right? If you ever have woken up in the morning and have felt like you're already stressed out, you're already feeling like you're late, you're running behind, you got so much to do. That's not the mindset and the energy we want to bring into our business because that starts to, you know, people watch you as a leader, right? They're watching how you hold yourself, they're watching how you carry yourself. And you really need to be intentional about that. So when I wake up in the morning, I get up at 5 o'. Clock, okay? I get up at 5 o' clock by choice because my morning routine is long. And I don't necessarily expect everybody to adopt a long, extended morning routine. But for me, it's started to get longer and longer. When I started to see the benefits of, oh, when I get my mind right in the morning, when I get my mind dialed in in the morning, I could get more done in less time with less stress. That took me from, you know what, my morning routine, going from an hour to three hours in the morning. And for that, I needed to wake up earlier to still be able to, you know, go about my day at a normal time. So whatever the time is for, you, just pick one. So I wake up, first thing I do, I literally get out of bed and I go and I drink some lemon water. I get like 20 ounces of water. I put some lemon in it. The reason I do that is for alkalinity. Okay? We have acid in our body and our acid levels determine a lot. You know, if you've ever had acid reflux or you've ever had, you know, honestly, any other stomach issues or other possible issues could come from your body being too acidic, right? And the lemon, believe it or not, actually helps neutralize the acid. So it's just a good way to start the morning. It's something easy that I do. Then from there I go right into, like a 20 minute stretching session. Stretching slash yoga, where I'm focusing on my breath. I've been doing this for, I don't know, 15 years maybe. You know, I've got some back issues. So in order for me to deal with those back issues, this is something I need to do. But I also feel opened up, I feel awake. It allows me to kind of start the morning without all the, you know, the aches and pains and just moving around. And so I do that, focus on my breath, stretch. Then what I'll do is I'll make some coffee. And the coffee that I make, I use. It's kind of like a fat bomb, right? When you think about exercise, when you think about nutrition, we need our fuel from somewhere, right? Our fuel. So the fuel that we get is really coming from sugar, carbohydrates, which comes from sugar or from healthy fats. So what we want to do is we really want to replace the sugars and we want to replace the refined carbohydrates and go with the healthy fats. So in my coffee, I actually blend it up with a couple tablespoons. I'm getting into detail here with you guys. Hopefully, you like this. You're not like, oh, Louis, who cares? But I put a couple of tablespoons of ghee butter. Ghee butter. And then a couple tablespoons of MCT oil. So MCT oil is, you know, highly. It's coconut oil, right? And what it does is it's just a really amazing source of energy, right? Clean energy, so that your body can burn clean energy. I mix those up in the blender with coffee and I drink it. It's like a cappuccino. I've been doing that probably, I don't know, seven years or so. And it kind of gives me that energy right away in the morning with that coffee. While I'm having that coffee, I read every morning, 20 to 30 minutes, I'm reading every single day. And, you know, over the years, I've read different things, right? So it's like I've gone back and forth with whatever I happen to be reading at the time. So maybe it's a business book, or maybe it's a, you know, a personal development book, or maybe It's a spiritual book or maybe it's a biography or some philosophy. And over the past couple years, I've started to refine that. And at that time in the morning now, I don't introduce any business books. I don't introduce, you know, know, any biographies necessarily. And I focus on really getting my spirit right and my soul dialed in where I feel good. So I'll read, you know, spiritual books. I'll read even personal development books or philosophy, things that just help to get my mind right, not things that are sparking ideas of what I need to go do in my business, but. But just things to get my mind right. Right. Because I know when my mind's right, the business stuff just flows from there. What I'll do is I'll then sit down to meditate. But before I do that, I do what I call daily deliberate intentions. So I'll literally set my timer for 10 minutes, and I will think about. I'll pull up my calendar on my phone, see what I have for that day, and I'll think about how I want to approach that day. How do I want to feel? Number one, right? Like, feeling guys, is everything, you know, we think so much about, like, what do we need to do? What do we need to do? What do we need to do? And, you know, I'm somebody that just buried my. Doesn't matter how I want to feel like for years. Doesn't matter. I got to do what I got to do, right? But if we're intentional about how we want to feel, even if we've got so much to do, we could do it with more enjoyment, right? More joy. And I think that that's really the missing piece for a lot of business owners is they're so focused on what needs to get done and not don't give themselves enough, really honor themselves enough to say, hey, let me also enjoy myself during this process. So I think about my whole day ahead of me, right? I'll think about my interactions because nobody's awake yet in the house, right? So I'll think about my interactions with my family and how I want that to be. How do I want to be with my wife? How do I want to be with my daughter, my son? You know, like, what are they going through right now that I could be there to support them? I'll think about any meetings I have. You know, today I'm thinking about, okay, how do I want to deliver this message to my moving CEOs, and, you know, what's the outcome look like? You know, what Am I hoping to have you guys take away from all of this? Right? And I'll think about my other meetings throughout the day. And basically, I'm just looking at it and thinking, okay, how could I serve the people that I'm with? How can I make it to where when I'm meeting with somebody, they walk away from that interaction feeling better than they did before the interaction, Right? There was a win, win situation there. And so I think about that for 10 minutes. You know, sometimes you could go through it in a few, but to just kind of sit there and allow yourself to feel what you want to feel like is. Is. Is key. Then I will meditate. Meditation, for me, since, I don't know, 2007, 2008, has just been, I mean, a superpower, if you will, you know, something that just allows me not only during the time of meditation. It's not so much like what happens during. It's how your mind is conditioned for later in the day. You know, how you're less stressed, less reactive. You know, things and problems that seem like they're flying at you and just seem so overwhelming really tend to kind of slow down to where you're able to go, okay, I could deal with this. Okay, I could deal with that. Right? It just kind of makes everything go at a. Even if it's flying at you, even if you got hectic schedule, cruise, you know, you show up at the office, there's no cruise there. You know, you got 10 trucks to put out, there's no cruise there. It still allows you to handle it with more calm. So what I'll do is I'll set my timer for 20 minutes. I use an app called Insight Timer. It's a meditation timer. You can just use the timer on your phone and for meditation, you know, there's a lot of ways to do it. I've studied a lot of different ways. And you know what I like to do is I like to just use it as an opportunity to let anything that's coming to my mind come to my mind and then kind of release it, right? Release it. Let it go as if it's floating away, all right? And it tries to come back, and then I let it go again, and it tries to come back, and I let it go again. And I just really. If you think about, you know, sometimes you feel like you're just, like, gripping everything in life, like you're just trying to hold on to everything. It's just a time to say, you know what? Just let's just let it go and Just kind of like clear the mind for 20 minutes, you know, and it might take me 18 minutes to get to two minutes of being clear. But the process of it just helps me to be more effective in everything that I do. Right. So I'd recommend that or I'd recommend. There's an app called Calm if you want to learn how to meditate. There's a good how to meditate on there, but it's huge. It's huge. From there, I'll work out, right? Then I work out. You know, in the past, like I said, you've got to be able to adapt and change your routines based upon where you're at in your life. New things come up, new obligations on your schedule, right. Every time I try me to do workouts in the afternoon, I'm like. And I'm like, oh, you know what? I'm going to skip the workouts in the morning. I'm going to start going in the afternoon. So I could get right to it. I don't do well personally, Right. And the afternoon comes, I don't want to do it. I'm not as fired up for the day. So I make sure I work out after the meditation, you know, and I'm really five, six days a week working out, you know, walking the other days during that time. So I'll do weights, I'll do cardio, run, walk, whatever it is during that time, I'll listen to a business book or I'll listen to a course on something that I'm trying to learn, right. So instead, so the morning time, I like to kind of read Calm with the coffee, feed my mind just to, you know, on how to. How to think about situations, right. My mindset. And then when I'm working out, I'm listening to again, an audio book or a course. Sometimes I do a podcast. I like to keep it more intentional, you know, on specific subjects that I'm looking to develop skills or learn about. So it's typically a book or course. And then after all that, I'll take my shower and I'll end with a cold shower, as cold as I could get it. That's really just like a mind thing, right? I know throughout the day, like all of you, there's gonna be things you don't wanna do, right? We get in this, like, place of comfort, right? I wanna take a nice warm shower, right? Like, that sounds nice to me, right? But I know throughout my day there's things that I'm not going to want to do if I, you know, I don't know about you guys, but I have this, like, this lazy, lazy Lou sitting on my shoulder here that sometimes if I just. If I let him win the conversation, it'll be like, nah, nah, we could do that later. We could do that tomorrow, right? So the cold shower is my way of telling him that I'm in charge, right? Like, so if I could do that, if I could sit there and take that uncomfortable action in the morning, I basically am telling myself that you're going to take whatever uncomfortable action you need to take during the day. Because as much as we try to set up our day to where it's pleasant, sometimes there's stuff we just have to do. We have to get it done, right? So that's the morning routine. Let me just kind of see if there's any questions there. Part of my meditation, too. There's some prayer in that as well. So I like to kind of combine those two, you know, more of a thank you, right? I like to kind of thank my creator for what I have and what is coming in my life as opposed to asking for anything. So that's the morning routine. Now let's talk about number these are success routines. These are the things that I stack up. I was like, you know, what are the best things that I do? That if somebody were to take these and apply them, would literally shift your whole life. The next one is exercise and nutrition, right? I know your guys like, oh, I know, Louis, I know, I know, right? And some of you are crushing it with this stuff, maybe even better than me, right? But this is so crucial. Remember, if you are the prize racehorse, if you're the prize racehorse, then you've got to take care of that prize racehorse, right? How you function will determine your success and your happiness in life, period. Period. You know, if you've ever had days like I used to have, all the time where you're working, you're doing it. I used to just kind of run off adrenaline, to be quite honest with you, until all of a sudden, I just hit a wall. I hit that wall, and it was just like, you know, but I wasn't taking care of my. My. My health. I wasn't taking care of my nutrition, I wasn't taking care of my body. And that stuff plays an important role, right? Not that you're professional athletes, but you want to border on the line of that, because when you're physically fit and sharp, your mind is sharp, your mind is fit, right? You're thinking quicker, you have more energy to go through the day and handle the Things that need to happen to where you could do more in less time. So how do I make sure that I'm taking care of that part? First thing is every morning I make a shake. That's my breakfast every morning. In that shake I do plant based protein, right? Plant based. All organic, by the way. All organic. I believe that plays a big part in your ability to burn clean fuel and give you good energy. So, you know, for me, I spend a lot of money. We spend a lot of money on food because, you know, we're cutting that whole paycheck at Whole Foods, right? Because for me, I know how important that is to me, being able to earn and do things that I want to do in life, right? So I do a plant based protein. I'm not a vegan as far as protein. I prefer that I do powdered greens, which is basically like a whole serving of vegetables and other amazing minerals. And it's put in powdered form. So that goes in there as well. I'll put some flaxseed or some chia seed in there. What else do I put? I'll put some almond butter. I'll put some avocado. I always put some avocado. Avocado and almond butter. Remember we were talking about the healthy fats. Those are really, really good healthy fats, especially avocado. There's a lot in there that helps. You put in a smoothie, you don't even taste it. I'll put some blueberries in there for the antioxidants and then a ton of frozen spinach as well. Blend that up. And that's my breakfast every day for. I don't know, I would say at least the last seven years or so. And I don't even think about it. That's the other thing is like, you know, I used to get up and what am I going to have? I'm going to make some eggs, Am I going to make some oatmeal? Maybe I'll just grab something along the way and all that brain power first thing in the morning. I don't want to end up with what they call decision fatigue. The more decisions you have to make about small little things, it pulls away from your ability to make the big decisions you need to make in your business, right? So my philosophy is, hey, I'll eat and drink the same thing and when I get sick of it, I'll change it up. But until I get sick of it, I don't need to change it up. Some people need more variety. So you could do different things. Each day. So I'll start my day with that. And that's basically what I have until lunch. I also do electrolytes at least once a day. You know, the water that we all drink, regardless if it's, you know, bottled water or reverse osmosis or whatever type of filtered water, it's really stripped of all the minerals, right? There's a lot of minerals that we need that come from the water, but if we drink it in its straight form, there's also chemicals and things that we don't want. So by adding electrolytes to there, it's helping you to stay hydrated and also give your body the vital minerals that it needs. Supplements, right? I'm big on supplements. What I do is I used to just kind of buy stuff that, you know, people suggested would be good. Now what I do is I go and I see a naturopath doctor that takes blood, urine, saliva, all these tests and identifies what's going on in my body, right? What do I need? Where am I? Where do I have deficiencies? Right? Where do I have certain hormones or neurotransmitters that might not be firing on all cylinders because there's a deficiency here or there's something that's happening there? So now what I do is I get these tests a few times a year and make sure that my supplements are basically the prescription for what is found in that. Right? Preventative. Preventative medicine. Right. Not only preventative, but also energy boosting. And for me, how did I start doing that? Why did I start doing that? Wasn't that I was sick necessarily, you know, like early on in my business, I was sick. When I first started, I was stressed out eating fast food three times a day. I had the full on rotation, right? It was like Wendy's, Carl's, Jr. Burger King, Arby's, like, whatever it was. I was having French fries at least twice a day. And, you know, I had ulcers in my stomach from all that. So, you know, I started to slowly clean that up. And then later on I was like, you know, I feel like I should have more energy than I do. And that's what started me down that path. Right? And so for me, it's like when you've got energy, like when you're. When you're like, and you don't want to do anything, there goes that hour, there goes that afternoon, there goes that week or month or whatever it might be. And. And, you know, I think that we all. I know we all have a limited time here, right? We want to make the most of it. So I'd highly recommend that for you guys to be able to, you know, really get your supplement regimen based upon what you really need. Personally, I'll eat clean six days a week. Okay, so for me, what does that mean? I'll eat, you know, I'll eat meat. I eat a lot of veggies. So I try to have protein, a good amount of veggies with each meal. And a fat, right, And a good healthy fat. Avocado, olives, at least some olive oil with every meal. I won't have any bread, I won't have any white pasta or white rice. I will have some, some brown rice. I will do some, some brown rice pastas, right? It's just a lower glycemic index which doesn't allow your blood sugar to spike, which causes a lot of issues, you know. And I come from an Italian family, so, like pasta is like a big deal, right? So, yeah, it's not the authentic, it's the brown rice. But you know what? It's keeping my blood sugar where it needs to be because I've also got diabetes in the family, right? There's things that, you know, I believe that we can take control, our genetic blueprint and we could shift it. That's my belief, by the actions we take and what we eat. So, you know, it's just more or less what's, what's, you know, what's not, what's not on the menu, right? What won't I eat? And you know, look, if there's an occasional time where there's, I'm at somebody's house and they're serving something and I'll look at it and say, you know what, have this now, right? And then I'll make up for it on another day. Because every, every week, Saturdays, my cheat day, right? You've got to have that, right? Otherwise it's so hard to just stay on track. It's so hard to just, you know, eat clean all the time. And there's people that will, there's people that will. But I've got foods that I love. I love pastas, I love chicken parm, I love pizza, I love cheeseburgers. Like, there's so much stuff that I love that doesn't fit into my normal six day a week diet that I need to look forward to that, right? If I see the temptation of it, I'm like, you know what? I'll have that Saturday. And then Saturday I allow myself to do whatever I want. And over time, I realize that I actually won't go as crazy as I used to just because then I feel like crap, right? So I'll eat the things, I'll reward myself. I'll have the pizza, I'll have the burgers, I'll have the pasta, and I'll enjoy it that day, right? I make a big deal out of it. I'll make sure I eat good from the good places that I like, and I'll enjoy it. I try to get seven to eight hours of sleep every single night, you know, which I know for high achievers like you guys, I mean, that might seem like, wow, that's crazy. Nobody's got seven, eight hours, Louis. Like, we're grinding. We gotta hustle, right? I get it, I get it. I used to feel the same way. But when you again, like, until you. I like that. I like to do what I call try things on, right? So you either try it on visually and be like, how would that feel if I did that? Or sometimes you can't imagine what something would feel like until you do it, you know? And if you've ever. I'm sure you have. Even if you're. You don't get much sleep, I'm sure you've had time where you got lots of sleep and you felt better. Well, you know, yes. If the rest of your day is unstructured, unorganized, and mostly reactive, then sleeping an extra couple hours isn't going to help you. But if your day is structured, your productivity's on point, you know what your big objectives are, right? And what you need to do, then what you need most is you don't need your physical body to show up at the office. You don't need your physical body to just be somewhere or to be working. You need your mind to be on. You need your mind to be sharp, right? And that's a major shift. That right there alone is a major shift for a lot of people just getting the sleep that you need. Like, so I wake up at five o'. Clock. Well, I'm trying to be in bed by nine, right? And so that's, you know, it shifts things, right? We go to bed at 11, you wake up at 7, whatever it is for you. But that's. I believe we need at least seven hours to be at our optimal mental capacity, right? And I know people will argue against that forever because I know people, they sleep five hours. Like, I'm good. I'm like, yeah, but you know what? You're missing some things, right? There's, you know, I know you, and I Know, you could be a little sharper than you are, right? And they're like, yeah, you know, when I do get sleep, I feel great. So I really invite you to, you know, rethink your sleep situation if you're not a sleeper, right? And it kind of all the morning routine, this is what really helped me with a lot of stuff, right? It helped me with, you know, I used to go out a few nights a week, right? Eating big dinners, drinking, hanging out, right? That was my. In my 20s, like, I was single. That was my. I was making money. That was my life, right? And what really shifted that was the dedication of my morning routine. Because when I started to see how good that made me feel, right? And how that was really bringing me the things that I really wanted in my life, right? Not just distractions and temporary pleasures, but the things that I really wanted in my life, I started to not go out as much or when I was out, not drink as much. And then eventually just really hardly drink, right? Except on occasion. And for me, that worked really well. No judgment. I'm not telling anybody, hey, cut out anything you've got going on. But when you have that morning and you start to. It's all about what we prioritize. People say, I don't have the time or I don't know what to do. And I think that's all bullshit. I think it all comes down to what we're choosing to priorit in our life. That's it, you know, what we choose to prioritize. And I'm not here again, I want to. I'm not here to preach to anybody. I'm just sharing what works for me. But, you know, you can know everything technically about the business, but if you're not operating at your best, it's not going to do you any good, right? So next point here is intentional inputs. Intentional inputs. What does that mean? That means what's going into my mind? We just talked about what's going into your body, right? So I'm really intentional about what goes into my body, Very intentional about what I allow in my mind. It's. You could either, you know, nurture your mind like a flourishing garden, or you could let it just, you know, be neglected and turn into, you know, dead grass and weeds. And, you know, that's really what happens. So we've got to be really intentional about what we allow in our mind. So I don't watch the news, right? And there's people around me like, that freak out, right? Like, my mom's like, I don't know how you don't watch the news once a week. I go on. I've got an app that I scroll through for important topics that will make a difference in my life, right? And what's happening for us, and I'll just read the headlines and I don't get sucked into the traps. If there's something I know that I need to really know about, not because I'm curious, then I'll dive a little bit further. I also have people in my life that I know are glued to the news, and I'm like, if this happens, this happens, or this happens, I need you to text me right away. Can we. Can we make that arrangement? Can we make that deal? They're like, yeah, absolutely. Right? So instead of just subjecting myself to the constant, you know, fear and chaos and the world's coming to an end and, you know, all of that, I look at it and I say, hey, is it something that I can control? Is there something I. Can I do something about it? Because if there's nothing I could do about it and I can't control it, then I just want to accept it and I don't want to think about it, right? So I want to be aware of what's happening in the world. But there's a, you know, our natural tendencies. So I'm not making anybody wrong here, right? This was an intentional discipline. But our natural tendencies are in order for us to feel a sense of control in the world, we feel like we have to know everything that's going on, right? We need. We need to know what's happening in Ukraine, what's happening with North Korea, What's. What's happening. We. What's. What. What. But at the end of the day, what really is impacting your life, right? And what we allow in our mind, I believe, for me, is true, dictates the quality of life that we have. So know, your mind's what you feed it, right? So you want. So I feed it. That's why in the mornings, I'm feeding it just good. Just stuff that just nurtures my mind and nurtures my soul and teaches me how to think about things in a way that, you know, where I'm like, hey, you know, everything that happens is either, you know, when something happens in your life, you could do two things. You could take action or acceptance, right? It's like, okay, like, that's. That's the type of thinking that I believe everybody should have. And there's conditioning over years and generations that make that really hard for people like that that's the complete opposite of the way I was brought up, the complete opposite of the way my mom is and family is. It's the complete opposite. Right? But it's when you finally have the realization, like, man, I'm in control of this stress. I'm in control of the things that I'm worried about and the things that are really causing me issues and start to dissect it. These are the things that come out of that. Right. I do very little social media. You might not believe that. I mean, everything that's posted is my words that you see online, but I'm not sitting there posting it. So if you've ever messaged me on social and I haven't got back to you, it's nothing personal. It's my decision. It's my decision on how to. How I want to choose to use my time and not get sucked into that. And the thing that I use as the filter is, does this input, whatever I'm putting in, does it make me feel better or does it make me feel worse? Does it bring out the best in me or does it bring out the worst in me? Does it boost my confidence or does it boost my worries and my fears? And that's it. I look through it through that lens. You know, music. You know, I choose music that. That's uplifting, that I. That I enjoy. You know, I grew up, you know, I was a teenager in the 90s. Like, I grew up on hip hop. Like, that was, you know, still to this day, like Jay Z's one of the, you know, for me, like, one of the best artists and even a mentor from afar in some ways. Right. But I've shifted over the years to. And I'm real conscious now of, like, what I'm listening to and what I'm putting in my mind. Is this nurturing my mind or is this bringing me lower in my level of consciousness, right? And so I want to. I want to listen to stuff that's uplifting. Same thing with, you know, when we talk about inputs, some of it is environmental, right? So we've got to build a Focus fortress. I call it the Focus Fortress. We've got to have a place where we could be focused, right? I've literally got two sets of AirPod pros here that I keep with me so that if I, you know, one gets runs out of charge, I got another one. If there's something going on in my environment and I need to close it out, I put the noise canceling in, I put some instrumental music on And I get to work on what I need to be doing without the demands of other people. Right. I make sure that I set up, you know, understandings with, with people in my office, people in my team, people at home, to be able to protect that focus. And I also avoid, as part of this, intentional inputs and avoid energy drainers, right? What's an energy drainer? An energy drainer is a person or a place that just drains your energy. You know, when you're at that place or you're around that person, do you feel like they drained your battery or do you feel like, you know, they hooked you up to, you know, to the battery charger and you feel recharged? And so, you know, whatever it is, like if there's places you go that after you're just like, ah, I just feel, like, drained after being there. Like, be conscious of that stuff, right? Because that's part of your inputs. All right, next one is progress blocks. Progress blocks or time blocks? These are time blocks. I like to call them progress blocks. It changes the association with it. Progress blocks. And what this is, when we think about our progress block, think about your calendar, right? Just pull out your, whatever calendar you use digitally. If you don't use one, you know, I use Gmail calendar, if you use Outlook, whatever it is. And this is when we're faced with the cold truth of we all have the same 24 hours in the day, right? We all have the same 24 hours in the day. And one of the things I hear most from most people is I don't have the time. I don't have the time to. Louis, I don't have the time for these routines. Louis, I don't have the time to meet with my team. Louis, I don't have the time to review my numbers. I don't have the time. I'm so busy. I'm like, okay, well, show me. Let me see your calendar. What do you. What do you. What. Let's. Let's see what you're so busy with. And the reality is it's a lot of firefighting. It's a lot of reaction, right? It's a lot of previous conditioning of, hey, I just need to be at the office and be available for my team. A lot of previous conditioning of, hey, if I don't respond back to my emails right away, people are going to think I'm not on top of it, right? That's my role. I've got to be able to do that. And I get it. I was conditioned early on. Like, I've Got to be at the office at 6:30 every morning to dispatch those trucks. And it took me a long time to break out of that conditioning. And so when we talk about progress blocks, think about your calendar. And you want to carve out blocks of time, whether it's a 30 minute block, an hour, two hours, four hour block that you're working on, the things that you need to work on, right? Think about like when you were in school, you had, you know, you had math class, you were in math class, right? Then you went to English, you were in English. Then you went to History, you were in History at lunch. You were at lunch. And if as business owners, as entrepreneurs, if we're not intentional about how we choose to use our time, we're going to get pulled in a million directions, right? There's always. You could show up every single day like I used to do. Show up every single day and guess what you'll feel like, man, I did a lot today, right? I did a lot, wow, what a day. But then you're like, is it really moving me towards what I really want or am I just kind of putting out fires and dealing with problems? And so this is, you know, again, I'm sharing the best of what I've got, that what works for me, right? The progress blocks are huge. And how I do it is I like to do a couple different, a variation of what I call the AM PM method, which is, you know, what I choose to do in the morning before lunch, what type of activities and what I choose to do in the afternoon after lunch. And that's really based on when and when you do your best work, right? And so for me, I want to do the stuff that requires my mind and my focus in the morning. Whereas I can respond to emails, I could meet and lead and manage my team, I could do all that in the afternoon. I don't need to be, you know, have my utmost focus to be able to do that type of stuff. So decide, like, what are you better doing in the morning? What are you better doing in the afternoon? This is you crafting your launch pad to that next level, right? Think about it like this. Remember, this is all about you getting the goals you want in life, right? In all seven areas of your life. Everything from your personal relationships to your money to your contribution to your health, to your business. All of it, the fun, the experiences you have, all of that is what you're doing here, right? Like if you're gonna program something, if you're gonna be able to decide in advance if you're gonna play chess and not checkers. It's done on your calendar, right? Checkers is done when you just show up every day, right. Chess. When you're strategically thinking about, okay, here's where I want to go. Okay, well, let me decide what my actions will be for this upcoming week. So I also do day themes where like, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Each day has a general theme of, you know, what types of things that I'll work on. So for you guys, like, you know, maybe you look at what's impactful, you look at all the things that you're like. I wish I had time to spend more time with my sales department. I wish I had time to have a meeting with my dispatcher. I wish I had time to look at the expenses and look at the profitability and go through the numbers. Okay, well, you know what, like, decide what day each of those things will happen. Here's the beauty about time blocks and progress blocks is that there's. You create a block on your weekly calendar. Sometimes you'll do things only monthly, but on your weekly calendar, you'll create a block for that thing, right? So if you're like, I need time to look at marketing, great. Figure out the best time for you to be able to carve out an hour. Or maybe if you need two for a specific thing, carve out two. Or you need time to review your reports. Well, do it at the same time on the same day every week, right? If you look at your calendar, which I would say, get it, get a, whatever calendar you use, just get a blank, you know, start a new calendar within your calendar so it's not mixed with your real appointments, right? And start to craft what would be your perfect week, right? Look, you'll always get thrown off. There'll always be something that'll happen, but you'll have a place to come back to. And what this does, when you've got. Everything has a spot on the calendar, right? You've got review time to review things, you've got reports, you've got think time, you've got meetings, you've got big chunks. You want to have big chunks on there for your objectives, right? Your big goals, your big 90 day goals that you're actively working towards. And also some free time as well on there. You know, you don't want to over schedule yourself. So when you've got any personal stuff, right. Time you want to spend with your kids, date night with your spouse, or date day, you know, sometimes my wife and I will say, you know, What? Let's do date day and do something during the day as opposed to at night. We'll change it up. Well, if you block that stuff out, it will happen, period. I don't care how busy you are or most people think they are. The reality is when you make a list of all the stuff you've got to do over here, pull up the calendar over here and just start playing with it. Where could I put that to where I could just. Every week, consistency, consistency, consistency, right? I've got it down to a point now that I only. I review stuff from my team once a week, right? Things they need approvals on. They know, hey, every Tuesday I'm approving stuff, so you better have it to me by Monday night, whatever you need me to approve. And I'm also reviewing numbers that same day so that can make changes on the week. You know, Mondays is all I'm with my private clients all day. Monday, you know, Wednesdays, I'll do these twice a month. And you know, by doing that, it just allows the mind to chill, right? Because you've got all these things that you know you need to do, right? But you have a place for them, right? You have a place for them. And you know, I'm down. Like email, unless you're direct, unless you have customer service or leads coming to your phone, which, if you've got anybody else on your team, get it going to them as soon as possible. Like, you shouldn't be on your email all day long, right? Once a day, when you process your email and you could kind of check it in the morning, maybe check it later in the day, I'm down to one day a week, I process my email and that's a. It took me a long time to get there. But I look at it every day, right? I see what's there and make sure there's nothing urgent. There's some urge and I jump on it right away. But just because someone emailed me, they chose to email me, I didn't ask them to email me, they chose to email me. Doesn't mean I owe them a response right away. And even if I do, it doesn't mean I have to do it today, right? Because my block time, my progress, when I could look like if we're working together, if I'm with a private client, I'm like, hey, let's look at your calendar. I should be able to see your progress being made week after week on there, right? So progress blocks. Next one is clear the mind. Clear mind. What does that mean? Well, we want to be able to do whatever we're doing and be in the present moment, right? You know, I'm sure you've heard that, like, you got to be present, you've got to be present. But it's so true. It's so true. Like everything that you do, you do better when you're present. You know, you're a better leader, you're a better strategist, you're a better visionary, you're a better mother, father, friend, student, teacher, all of it when you're present. You know, if I didn't do things to clear my mind, and part of that's having the block schedule, the progress blocks. But if I didn't do things to clear my mind, I couldn't be here and be present with you because I'd be thinking about so many other things, right? And so same thing, like you need to be working in your business maybe, or working on your business or leading your team or having meetings or sitting down and reviewing your numbers. You've got to be able to be present. So what do we do? First thing is you need to have an idea to completion process. Meaning when you have an idea of something you need to do, you need a way to capture that information right away and move on. I use an app called Asana. It doesn't matter what you use, it's just what I use, right? I have no affiliation with it, but if I think of something, I literally have it right there on my phone, right at the bottom. I click, let's see, one button, two buttons, write what I want to write in there, click one more button, put the phone down, and then I know it's there and my mind doesn't have to hold onto it and think about it and remember it. You know, you want to boost your memory, do memory games, right? Do a puzzle or something like, don't try to juggle and remember all the stuff you've got going on, right? You've got to be able to clear the mind so the mind can focus on the things that you're doing, right? So you need a process for capturing information and just forgetting about it till later, right? And the reason that you could do that is because you on your block time, right? Your progress blocks, you have dedicated time, whether it's daily or weekly or whatever it is that works for you, where you're going to. Then take that information and process it and decide what to do with it next. Another thing to clear your mind is journaling. Again, the whole concept here is get stuff out of your Head. Don't try to hold on to stuff, right? Don't try to hold on to stuff. Get it out of your head. So I journal in a few ways. One of them, I look at it, and I call it self coaching, right? I kind of present a question to myself of something I'm trying to figure out, and then I just allow myself to write what comes to me, right? You know, it's like, hey, how do we avoid doing this? Well, we could do that. Well, who could I get to do that? Like, it just. It opens up a chain of dialogue where it's like a personal brainstorming session where I'm looking for solutions, right? I'm not in. It's not a diary or I'm complaining about my day. I'm actively looking for solutions and coaching myself through situations. Guys, you'd be amazed how much you know that's in your mind, whether you know, conscious or subconscious about the things you need to do. The problem is when we try to orchestrate it all and figure it out in the mind, there's too much in there to do. We've got to get it out. We got to get it on paper or a note on your phone or an app on your phone, whatever it might be. We've got to be able to get it out. Another thing that I do for journaling is who's ever, like, just come home, you worked hard, you busted your ass, you've been going hard, but you just feel like you're not getting to where you want to be, and you just feel unsatisfied. I feel this often unsatisfied with your momentum or your progress of where you're at. Okay, well, what does that do? That starts to just beat your confidence down, right? You start. Oh, it's like, you know, the mind loves to just take control of a thought like that and take you down a negative spiral. So the best thing you could do, especially if you're not feeling like you made some progress or you had a great day, is I like to do what's called what went well, what worked well today. Right? I'll literally. I have a journaling app on my phone. It's called Day One. I use it. I like it. It's got the face recognition. Nobody could get in it. I could add tags, stuff, so that I could find things easily. Right. If I'm working on trying to think through a particular subject, I could always, you know, go look at the tag of all the notes, and I'll literally sit down for five minutes, like, after dinner and just, you know, sit down outside or somewhere and what worked well today? And all I do is just make a list, like, bullet points of everything that worked well. I don't start focusing on what didn't go well, even if so much stuff didn't go well, even if your truck. Somebody sent in a picture last week of their truck. I called it getting turned into a convertible. Happened to me many times. The guys went under the bridge. Shouldn't have went under that bridge with the truck. Whole top peeled off. I'm sure some of you have had that happen before. And, you know, even if the worst things happen, right? It's so easy to focus on that. But what that does is that puts us in a bad state. And so you just start making a list. And I'm like, okay. Woke up this morning. I ran my routine, right? Meaning that's, like, always my first thing. I ran my morning routine. That was good. I worked out, okay. I had a nice moment with my daughter where we really connected, right? And I started thinking, I'm going through the day, like, moment by moment. I'm like, ah, that was some bullshit. That was some bullshit. Like, you're thinking about it, right? But that wasn't what worked well. You're like, oh, you know what? That was a nice conversation I had with somebody on my team. And, you know, they're really making progress based on the direction I gave them that, you know what? I was gonna eat the burger for lunch, but I went with the, you know, with the rice bowl instead, right? And you just literally think about the things that actually worked well that day. And in five minutes or less, you've shifted your whole mindset. Now you're not going to bed, like, feeling like a failure or feeling like, you know, look, entrepreneurs, and this is me included, like, tend to be very hard on themselves, right? And the reason is, you know, look, when you started the business, if you weren't hard on yourself, you probably wouldn't have got over the hump, right? You probably wouldn't have done all the hard stuff at first if you weren't really pushing yourself and going, nah, that's not good enough. Come on, you got to do better. You got to do better. And I shouldn't. You know, I'm not saying you shouldn't still have those talks with yourself, right? I like to say, you know what? Don't beat yourself up, right? Don't beat yourself up. But sometimes you need to give yourself a kick in the ass, right? It's like, there's a difference. There's a difference between, you know, beating yourself up and saying, come on, let's go. You need to do better, right? So the journaling helps with that. Also clearing the mind, decisions to make, right? I keep a list in my phone of decisions that I need to make that, you know, look, sometimes you can't make them in the moment rapidly. You've got to think about it, you've got to gather some more facts. Maybe you need to talk to some people, right? Research something. But the more decisions we make, the more decisions that we don't make, right? They're floating around in our mind. The more overwhelmed we're going to feel, the more stress we're going to feel. So once a week on my block, time on my progress blocks, I've got a time specifically to go in, pull up that list of decisions and make those decisions. And if I can't make them, then there's a specific reason why I can't. Because I'm missing some data, I'm missing some information. I need to talk to somebody. I'm waiting on something, so I'll take what's the next action I could take to move that forward, to get that decision closed out. This helps clear the mind. A lot of times the things that we're thinking about in the overwhelm is just a lot of decisions that we just haven't made. I also keep another file on my phone. I keep all this in asana, by the way, and just different projects. I call it waiting for, right? So instead of me, you know, knowing I'm waiting for an email from somebody, I asked somebody for something, or I'm waiting for something in the mail that I need to make sure I get or, you know, I'm waiting to hear back from somebody. I literally go and I just make a list of all the things I'm waiting for. So this way I'm not just. I'm not forgetting about what's important to me. If I'm waiting for it, I need to know because I need to follow up. If I ask somebody for something and I needed it by Tuesday and by Tuesday it's not there, I need to follow up on that. So a waiting for list. I also do reminders in my phone. I do a lot of reminders in my phone and those change periodically. I'll set them at different times during the day, whenever I know it makes sense for me. But I'll do a lot of repeating daily timers that pop up at a specific time each day to just remind me what I want to be Focused on right then. And usually I keep them there for a few weeks until whatever I'm trying to remember becomes more of, like a habit, right? And it's just part of my routine, and I don't have to think about it or be reminded of it. And then there's. But there's always something. There's always something that we need to be reminded of, right? So use that as a tool. Use that as a tool in your phone. And then one of the other things I'll do to clear my mind, I call it shifting gears. Meditation. Right. You know, one of the things I struggle with is going from one type of. If I'm reviewing reports or doing a spreadsheet or, you know, writing some content or creating a lesson, and then I need to go into a meeting or then I need to go into something else. You know, you're completely shifting gears to what is needed in your mind, right. To operate the next one. So if I'm going to something that's drastically different, I kind of need to just access a different part of my focus. I'll sit, you know, I will sit over there in the chair in my office and just set the timer for five minutes. Sometimes I don't even go that long. I close my eyes and literally I kind of release the thing that I was thinking about that I just finished working on. I try to just let it go. I just picture it floating away, and it comes back, float away. And then I just think about the next thing that I need to do and kind of visualize doing it with excellence, right? So that's how you keep your mind clear. The last one is a weekly review. All right? This one, you know, when I'm doing this consistently, I'm on fire. When I don't, I'm stressed out, right? And I'm not moving things forward as quickly as I could. So the weekly review works like this, right? You pick a time. Once a week. I do mine on Sundays. You know, I've tried to do it different days. I always end up coming back to Sunday. You know, sometimes I'm like, no work on the weekends, absolutely nothing. But it's like, for me, there's just. There's there's like a peaceful energy on Sundays that just allows me to do this in more of a peaceful way, like, place, right? So I'll do like an hour or two, and literally I'll review my goals and my objectives, right? Like, what. What am I doing all this for? Like, what. What am I after? Right? Because if you don't have your, your. Your why of, you know, why you're here, why you're doing this, why you're looking to get to the next level, then you're never going to be pulled to do it, right? It's never going to. You're never going to have that fire to push you to get done. So I'll review the goals and objectives and, and review my progress on that plan, right? Like, here's what I'm after. What kind of progress did I make this week, right? I'll take a look at that. I'll review all my notes. So I'll review my journals, you know, where I keep my notes. I'll review, like, you know, my business journal that I write in. I've got a few of them, right? Like, I've got this one, you know, it's just literally, this is all moving business stuff, right? Everything about moving business. So I have other ones for other businesses and go through them and see if there's anything I need to take action on that maybe I forgot. I'll review. I'll take a look at my calendar from the week before and see if there was any meetings that I had that I'm like, oh, you know what? I forgot. I told them I need to get back to them about that. You know, usually it's in a note somewhere. You know, if there's an action item I need to take, I'll just literally, you know, I'll know that I need to do it. But sometimes I don't put it in the process to get it done. So in that review, I'll catch it, right? I'll make sure it gets done, and then I'll kind of look at my upcoming week's calendar, right? And of course I've got my block time, but that, you know, is just, you know, if they're like, I've got block time for outside meetings, right? Meetings with people outside of my core business. And so I'll schedule those meetings in those specific block times. But, you know, maybe I set something weeks ago or months ago that, you know, there's a lot of times people reach out or want to schedule a meeting. I'm like, look, I'm. I've got nothing for three months, right? People don't like to hear it, but it is what it is. I'm not going to rearrange my priorities on what I'm going after, you know, to hear what somebody else has to say or has to offer. And sometimes that week will come around and they might have been waiting for months and I'm like, you know what? I got other stuff that needs that slot this week, and I might rearrange it. I might have to cancel it or change it up. Then I'm like, okay, what? Based off my objectives, based off my goals, what needs to happen, right? What needs to happen this week? And then I go right to, who could do it? Who could do it, right? So when we think about, like, what are the outcomes I'm after, right? Then we think about, like, who can own that? Who can own that outcome so it doesn't feel, you know, start shifting from everything, being like, how do I do this? I need to do that. I need to do this, I need to do that to go, who could do this for me? Right? Who could do this for me? And this starts a powerful chain of opening up your time and your freedom and your ability to think bigger. When you stop feeling like you have to be the one to do it all. Because when you feel like you have to be the one to do it all, you get overwhelmed and you reduce your ambition. You reduce the stuff that you kind of need to get done, because it just feels like way too much for you. Hey, my friend, before you go, you've got to hurry and watch these next few videos over here. They will absolutely help you take your moving company to the next level. Go watch them now, and I'll see you over there.