What Can I Do to Strengthen My Mindset? Winning Mindset Hacks That Work

Have you ever felt like life is just moving too fast? You're stressed out, you're not able to keep up, you're not achieving your goals, and you're just not as happy as you want to be. I've been there, I've done that. And in today's video, I'm going to share the mindset hacks that I've used that are science-backed and proven both with myself and among many others to help you to lead a more productive and happy life. And I'm really excited to share this because this is how I stay happy. This is how I stay productive. This is how I run multiple companies, how I stay being a present husband and father, how I prioritize my faith, and how I generally just live every day with a smile on my face. And so let's go ahead and dive right in. So, I love this term. I actually just heard this as I was preparing this presentation for my team. It's be a lighthouse, not a tugboat. So, what I want to do, and this aligns very well with my values, is that I want to lead by example. I want to be a lighthouse. I want to lead a healthy, fit, happy life and not just tell other people what to do, not beg them to do these things. I want to show them and lead by example. And I think that's a great— idea for all of us is not to just sit and talk about the things that we want to do, but to do them. And so in this conversation, what I'm going to do is I'm going to outline some of the problems that all of us face as human beings, and then some of the solutions that I have for overcoming this in my own life. I don't want to say I'm by no means perfect, and I by no means do I execute on this every single time I'm having a challenge. But when I do, it works. And so I want to keep it top of mind for me and for you. So, what are some problems we face in life? You have probably experienced some of this, some overwhelm, some lack of focus, competing priorities. I know it's a constant for me. I have a ton of things going on in my life. And so, one thing I learned about 20 years ago that has stuck with me ever since and is something that I think about every single day is the acronym WIN. It came from Lou Holtz, who was a former football coach at the University of Notre Dame and the University of South Carolina. Go Cox, what's important now? So, he would tell his players to ask themselves this question 35 times per day. So, if you do the math on that, you're awake anywhere from 16 to 18 hours a day. And so, if you ask yourself this question twice an hour on average, it's going to help you to refocus and recalibrate on what is important right now. It could be as simple as you're driving and you need to put your hands on the wheel at 10 and 2. You're in a meeting and you're looking at your phone and you need to be concentrating on the topic at hand. It could be that you're involved in something where your mind is just wandering. It is the single most important thing that you can do is remind yourself multiple times per day what's important now. And what does this do for us? Well, it helps us to increase our focus. It reduces stress. It's going to improve your performance more than anything. If you're doing this at work throughout the day, you will find yourself constantly slipping, constantly deprioritizing, constantly checking boxes on things that are just not important when you should be focused on what's important that will ultimately drive your long-term success. Next set of problems that I experience, because I'm a human being much like you, is the lack of control, excuses, blame. Now, this was big for me when I was growing up. I grew up relatively poor. I always felt like I was a victim of my circumstances. I always struggled with, hey, look, people like me was kind of the narrative that went through my head a lot. People like me don't achieve these things. People like me don't get these opportunities. People like me will never experience these types of things. And I always just blamed my circumstances. I blamed my family. I blamed where I was born, who I was born around. And ultimately, one day I came across this acronym, and I promise they're not all acronyms, all right? But, uh, this one is critical. If you're going to take anything away from this, this one is probably the most important. E R O. Event Event plus response equals outcome. So if I have an event happen to me in my life, so when I was young, my mother was killed. My response was to drown my sorrows in drugs and alcohol and to make a ton of bad decisions and to do things that were not good and kind to others and to ultimately just not be the type of human that I should have been to respond to that. I was not mentally strong enough and the outcomes were broken relationships, you know, a broken body, a broken mind, a broken spirit, just a sense of entitlement, blame, unhappiness, all the things you'd expect, right? Because of my responses. Ultimately, I started to understand that how I react, how I respond to events that happen in my life dictate the outcomes. I just went through this conversation with my son the other day. Event: Hey, you need to clean your room. Your response can be one of two things. You can mope around, do it slowly, you know, fuss about it, uh, you know, play when you're supposed to be cleaning, and then your outcome is going to be lost time. You're going to get fussed at again, and then you're going to still have to clean your room, and you're going to be upset the whole time. You could have a response of clean it quickly, be diligent, do it well, and do it right the first time, and your outcome will be moving on with your day and going ahead and doing whatever you want because you got your big task done the day. And so, our response to events dictate our outcomes. Sometimes it's easier to see it in our children than in ourselves because— or just in others, right? I love my small group leader at church. Always when he'll ask a question, he'll say, "What are some things you guys do in your life that do X?" And then he'll say, "Well, maybe not you, maybe other people," which gets us all to kind of drop our guard and talk about some things that we do and we think about it in the framing of other people. So, just understand that you control the outcome by your response and life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react. I see far too many people blaming circumstances, not being accountable for their own responses, and ultimately ending up with the results and the outcomes that come from that. And I've been there. So again, not trying to point fingers there, but problems. What are some problems we face? Stress, anxiety, lack of clarity. Again, the human condition. These things occur all the time. For me, lack of clarity was always a big one and always can be a problem in the moment. So when we look at breathing as a solution in the short term, in the moment, we can use breathing both to prepare for a circumstance and to handle a circumstance in the moment. And so, for me, there's a couple different breathing techniques I like to use. First of all, the easiest one is just breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth when you start to feel stressed. Just that big breath in, big breath out through your mouth. That will recalibrate you. That will calm you down. It is science-backed proven to do so. Now, if you want to do a deep sigh, that just involves doing an extra little breath at the top of that inhale. So, you breathe all the way in through your nose and and then just a quick one more as you're in, and then big exhale. And that's called a deep sigh. And that's something that, again, is going to calm your mind, is going to give you some clarity. Now, one that is far more impactful and something that if you're really in a moment, you know, we watched a video a couple of weeks ago of Novak Djokovic, I think his name is, tennis player. And the interviewer was asking him like, how do you stay so calm in those big moments? You're always so calm and cool and collected, and you're at your best when things are the hardest. And he said, look, that is, I am terrified up there. My heart is pounding out of my chest. He's like, I have just learned and conditioned myself to control my breathing. Everything starts and ends with the breathing, and that calms the mind, and that helps me. It's like, it doesn't completely make things go away, but it helps me to get in the moment, get clear, and ultimately to win. And so, Navy SEALs, among many others, use a technique called box breathing. Box breathing is breathing in for 4 seconds, Hold for 4 seconds, breathe out for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds. Now, this not only will calm you down, we teach this to pitchers who are on the mound in baseball. In big moments, you're going to step back anytime. If you ever watch a baseball game and you watch like a playoff game, we're sitting here in September, soon to be playoffs, you'll notice that they step off the mound and breathe a lot. A guy in the batter's box will step out of the batter's box, find a point on his bat that he'll stare at, and he'll take a deep breath. That's just to recalibrate. That is just to get their mind right and get refocused on what they're doing. Now, another bonus is that box breathing, Navy SEALs use this to fall asleep. So if you've ever had a, a circumstance where you're having trouble getting to sleep, this is a fantastic way to do so. Once you get to about the third or fourth cycle, you're likely gonna be conked out. I used it recently at a camp where I was sleeping on a mattress about 2 inches thick and didn't have all my normal accompaniments of home that helped me to get to sleep. And I used the box breathing technique and I was passed out. Very quickly. So, breathing and then, of course, we can get into meditation to prepare for things, right? So, breathing and visualization are a great combination. We're going to talk more about visualization here in a moment. And that's another way that we not only regulate stress in the moment, but we improve performance by connecting our mind, our body, and our breath as we're preparing for any type of performance-related activity, whether it be work or physical. Alright, other problems that I face as a human being. I Deal with negativity, doubt, lack of motivation. These are things that creep up for all of us. And what's the best way that I handle this? Well, positive self-talk and affirmations, believing in myself and making sure that I know that first and foremost. If I don't believe in myself, who else is going to? I want all my affirmations to be positive, present, and personal. And I'm gonna give you an example here in just a moment. What I mean by present is that I'm stating that I am doing the thing, not that I want to do the thing or I wish to do or be the thing. And so that's a big part of it. Let's use an example here. And this is exposing my soul a little bit in that these are actually from my daily affirmation, which I wrote a long time ago from the book, The Success Principles by Jack Canfield, which I can't recommend enough. I've recommended it in other videos. This book changed my life. And I think, you know, the affirmations, the visualization, a lot of the things that I do on a daily basis to help me stay grounded, help me stay focused, I learned and practiced from that book, and I reread that book every single year. It's sitting right here in front of me as I record this video. So example affirmation: My purpose is to use my enthusiasm and creativity to inspire and teach others to consistently believe in themselves and improve themselves while being grateful for what they have. I am— see how I am— a big thinker and believer. I am a positive person and leader who has a positive impact on those around me and my community. This is part of about 3 or 4 more paragraphs I have in addition to this that I read every single morning on my way in. I have it in a Google Doc. I pull it up on my phone. I put it in front of the dash where I keep my eyes on the road. I've obviously got most of it memorized at this point, but I just need to glance at it, get those prompts, and it helps me to get centered, to remember who I am, what I'm about, and to help me stay calibrated. And this, this came up recently, right? So if you're anything like me, you're a sucker for late-night junk food. I'm a sucker for late-night junk food. I got into a habit of a couple nights in a row eating some just absolute garbage, and I eat so much sugar when I do it. And the next night, the third or fourth night, I stopped and I did what I normally do, which is drink a protein shake at 9:30 at night because I try to hit my daily protein allowance. But in that moment, I told myself, that's not who you are. This is who you are. You are this guy. You eat healthy every day. You made a mistake, but that's not who you are. Forgive myself, moved on, and kept going with understanding who I am and what I am about. And when you're in the moment, it's also, you know, I like to say I coach a lot of sports and I say, talk to the team a lot about evidence breeds confidence. Remember the times that you've done something that created victory, success for you in the past, and come back to that when needed. All right, what are some other problems we face? Well, self-doubt, fear, imposter syndrome— these are big challenges, especially when you're doing new things. And if you really want to expand and grow as a human, you're going to need to do new things. You're going to need to get uncomfortable. You're going to need to try new stuff. For me, I've learned about the alter ego or the persona. And so some of our, you know, more obvious ones are Clark Kent and Superman. He's not Superman until he goes in and he puts on his his, uh, uniform, if you will, and then he goes out and he does his thing. I learned a few years back that Sasha Fierce is Beyoncé's stage name. This is who she becomes, her persona, when she's on stage so she can act the way she needs to act to do all that crazy dancing and entertainment that she does to rile the fans up. And it's just not natural, right? We all need to understand that, like, while it might seem natural because somebody like Beyoncé's so great at it, it's not her normal state. And Kobe became the Black Mamba after hitting an inflection point in his career where he just needed to mentally get stronger, block out all the noise, and become someone and something that was going to be unstoppable. And that's when he became the Black Mamba. And so we try all the time again with, with athletes to, to make sure that we discuss like, hey, what's your stage character? What's your— who are you when you're on the field versus when you're, you know, not on the field? And we used to do this when I was in college. I used to be a bartender, and I remember the guy who I worked with had been like a career bartender. He told me, hey, look, when you're up here, you're on stage. You got to be different than you are when you're out there. And like, you got to, you know, not put on a show per se, but you got to have a little bit different persona. And that always stuck with me, kind of the persona of the person who's on the stage. And so this is the one place that I use it more than anything is when I'm speaking. I have a different persona that I go into that grounds me, that allows me to be more free and open than I would normally be, that gives me gives me the courage and the ability to step up and do things that I might not otherwise feel comfortable doing. And it removes some of those inhibitions, removes some of those pressures, because I know this isn't the guy I am all day, but the guy who's on stage is different. And I do— I need to be that guy right now. All right, so got a couple more here. Lack of focus, fear of failure, unclear goals. Again, the focus, the unclear goals, always a challenge for me. No matter how much time I spend clarifying, no matter how much time I spend documenting, I still lack clarity at times. And so a vision board has been a paramount thing for me in my life. Again, kind of took this from Success Principles. Watch the other video if you want to get clear on some vision stuff. There are 7 areas of your life that you want to have a clear vision around. For me, I want to make sure that, you know, I'm vacationing with my wife. I've got literally the address of my dream home that I want to own one day. I have a picture of us doing adventurous things, ziplining in Costa Rica to remind me like, hey, be adventurous, do cool stuff. I have a picture of me volunteering, a group of people volunteering to remind me to keep volunteering and service first and high in my life. Picture of what our ideal office looks like. My children together, making sure that, you know, I'm helping to build a strong bond between them and a strong bond with our family. A reminder to be the best dad ever, to think bigger, the body I want, all the stuff I want. I want to be able to see it and move closer towards it. And ever since I've created this, I have moved closer towards it every single day, if not accomplished. These things. And without a clear vision, it's impossible to achieve your goals. That one is absolutely critical for me, is visualization. And it's something you can use in the moment too. I remember reading once that Tiger Woods, before he stepped up to every tee, would visualize every single shot he ever hit. And so don't just visualize, you know, your life. Visualize your day. Visualize the meeting. Visualize how when things go wrong, how are you going to react? So that's another thing that I practice a lot is if something were to go wrong, How am I going to react in this situation? How would some other people that I look up to react in that situation? And what can I do to set myself up for success in moments of weakness? All right. Next up, speaking of weakness, lack of confidence, weak presence, poor communication. These are struggles for all of us, especially in a professional setting. There's always a bigger room is what I like to say, right? So you might feel confident in your current room, might feel strong in your current room. You might communicate well in your current room. Well, guess what? The next room up is going to require something different. So you have to constantly be upping your game. And so for me, body language is a huge part of this. If you haven't listened to the TED Talk on YouTube about body language from— I do not know her name, but she's got sort of the Superwoman pose here. This is a proven pose to help you to get confident immediately. Do this pose for 30 seconds in a mirror, you will immediately get more confident right then and there. I tend to do a lot of mirroring. So this was an old sales technique that has just stuck with me, that gets me and the person across from me more comfortable when we're having a conversation is if we mirror each other's body language. If he's relaxed, she's relaxed, I'm gonna be relaxed. If she's leaned in, I'm gonna lean in. If she's got her legs crossed and is chilling, I'm gonna chill. I also have a tendency to default to power pose. It's just more comfortable for me. Uh, the president pose is a big one for me. The team kind of laughed. We did this presentation in our team meeting earlier this week, and they said, oh, that looks like you right there on the left. And, and yeah, that is a pretty common pose for me, just purely out of comfort. But That is what gives me comfort. And then I am more effective in thinking and confident in what I'm doing. So now you have an opportunity. The event is you made it to the end of this video. You watched several mindset hacks that are going to help you to be a more productive, more happy, more calm, more intelligent human being. Your response can be to wave it off as woo-woo, garbage, nothing, and your outcome will be the same that you currently have, or your response can be different and you can get some different outcomes. I hope that this video is helpful to you. If it was, please message me somewhere. Let me know that if this had a positive impact on your life, because that's a big part of my vision. It's creating positive impact in other lives. I appreciate you. Have a blessed day.