MBA1806 3 Habits That Will Change Your Business and Life

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Hey O welcome to the Hunter$MBA show where you become a better business builder every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started back in 2014 with my co founder. And in today's episode you will learn three habits that will change your business and your life. I know that may sound dramatic, but it's actually true. These are three habits that I have built and worked on over the last 10 years. Some were harder than others, but the combination of these three has helped me become a better entrepreneur, run a better business and enjoy the process. Along the way, they've allowed me to feel proud of who I am and who I've become. The best thing about these habits are they're simple. The hardest thing about it is just staying consistent. And I'll help you with that as well in today's lesson. The thing about good habits is that they create this compound interest effect. The more you do them, the the more you do them, the more consistently you do them. The longer you do them, the bigger the impact they have on your business and in your life. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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The good thing about habits is that once you form them, they're actually hard to shake. They actually become who you are because it's a big part of your life and you don't let them go, whether they're good or bad. But sometimes starting a new habit is really hard to pick up. So throughout today's lesson, I'm going to give you some tips on how to pick up this habit, how to make it a part of your life, how to stay consistent until it becomes one you just can't shake. There's a lot of research out there about habits. One of my favorite books is Charles Duhigg's book the Power of Habit. And there's a lot of studies about how long it takes to form a habit. You'll hear 30 days, you'll hear 20 days. But the studies I found that I really trust and what I actually found has worked for me or has actually been true to me is habits really get formed within 40 days. That means it's little over a month, just under six weeks. And if you think about it, if you do something for six weeks, it just becomes a part of your life. That's a pretty long time in terms of doing something consistently. Personally, I think that 20 days is kind of short. It's easy to kind of get out of habit between the 20 and 30 day mark. And of course, it all depends on how challenging creating or picking up this new habit is for you personally. So I like to use the rule of thumb of 40 days is that do this for 40 days and you will make it a part of your life. Do it for 40 days straight and you won't regret it. So let's start with the first habit that will change your business in life. And I know when you hear some of these, you're going to be like, really, Omar? Yes, and I will explain. So the first habit is waking up early. I know this sounds like you've heard it before and so many people say this and yeah, Omar, I read the Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod and I know that all the best achievers do this, but this is really hard. Well, there's a reason why you've heard it so many Times. There's a reason why, you know, all the best achievers who do it is because this actually works. This actually helps you in so many ways. Not only in terms of productivity, but in terms of mental health, in happiness and job satisfaction in so many ways. And I'll explain a little bit more in depth. And by the way, if something is hard, it doesn't mean it's not going to be effective. It actually means it's going to give you a competitive advantage. If other people are not doing it because it's hard and you do it, that makes you stand out from the crowd. So I want to admit that this was the hardest habit of the three for me to pick up. I like to sleep. I love a good night's sleep. I would be happy with eight. I'll be thrilled with nine hours if you let me. I can even sleep for 10 hours. But the point here is that getting up early was really difficult for me. Now, even though it was difficult, I used to have to get up early back when I was a teacher. If you guys know a little bit about me, my background, I was an educator for over 13 years in the classroom. I used to get up really early to get to 7:30 class, which was period one. I usually would get up around 5:30 or so, maybe six to make it to work on time. I dreaded it. I hated waking up early and something I resisted. A part of that is because I was going to a job that really I wasn't passionate about fully compared to what I do today as an entrepreneur. But even so, it was hard for me to pick up this habit. I was lucky enough to have Nicole, who's my partner in business, my partner in life, who really started this habit and really stuck to it and encouraged me to join her. And this has really been a game changer. And I'll tell you why. Let's define early. Well, I like to say early is at least three hours before your first thing on your calendar, first appointment, whatever it is the start of your workday. So for me, my tasks on my calendar begin at 8 o'. Clock. That means I need to wake up no later than 5am and I'll explain why. Some days I wake up 4:30, but if I'm going to average it out, 5 is my wake up time. Now what does this do? And I'll give you some examples not only from my experience, but Nicole's experience of waking up early. Waking up early allows you to start your day right. It actually allows you to do what you need to do to fulfill yourself as a person before you start answering other people's commitments, you know, your email, your clients, your team, all that stuff. This is actually your me time, which is, when you think about it, kind of motivating, kind of makes you want to get up early and get up in the morning because you're gonna have a chance to do things that you want. Some of the things that in those first three hours, you know, Nicole or I do, is have just a nice slow, pleasant breakfast, sip coffee, enjoy the sunrise. What a beautiful way to start the day. Journaling, reading your favorite book or books that you've been wanting to read. One of the things I do is I like to organize my to do's for the day on my legal pad. This allows me to feel less overwhelmed, allows me to have a clear path and a clear mission of what a win looks like today if I finish these tasks before I even open my computer. Nicole chooses to do her exercise during that three hour window. So she goes to her class for her exercise. The point here is that by the time you start your workday, you have done so much for yourself, for your own personal development and fulfillment. Even if the day ended then at 8 o', clock, it's a good day. You worked on yourself, which is very important because you're the leader of the company before you worked on anything else. And this is why waking up early is so powerful. It's going to make your days so much more productive. It's going to set the tone, it's going to allow you to get the most important stuff done for yourself. Done. My advice is to do what I did. I kicked it back a half hour every day. So for example, I was getting up at 7. So then I got up the next day 6:30, and then the next day 6, then next day 5:30, then next day 5. You get the point. Now this obviously means you're going to have to go to bed a little earlier. But guess what? Sleeping in the dark hours, in the hours where the sun is set, is the most useful sleep. It's actually the most nourishing sleep for your body. So a lot of health benefits to this as well. You can search all day long on that, but I'm just telling you it's going to be great for your business. It's going to be great for you as an entrepreneur. If you just get up early, give yourself three hours prior to your first appointment. Habit number two, I alluded to it earlier. Daily exercise. And when I say daily exercise, exercise can be many forms it can be going to the gym, it could be taking a class, it could be playing basketball with your friends, it could be gardening, it could be going for a walk. The point here is that you're increasing your heart rate in some way. You're doing some sort of physical movement for at least 20 minutes. And this is gonna allow you to sleep better, this is gonna allow you to eat better, it's gonna allow you to think clearly. Sometimes when you're foggy and, you know, you just feel frustrated, that's because your body is like, hey, I haven't gone out, I haven't moved my body. So even if you don't love going to the gym, you can do anything that you love doing. Put on your favorite album and dance for 20 minutes. Have a high intensity game of catch with your dog. The point here is that you're moving, okay? Your body needs to move. This is just part of who we are as human beings. And when we do that, that we allow ourselves to be balanced. And this does wonders for our mind, it does wonders for our spirit, it does wonders for stress levels, and it reminds us, hey, life is more than just our business. I like to mix it up. I like to go to the gym a few times a week. I like to play basketball the weekends with my friends. Even in the wintertime, I like to join a basketball league. So it kind of forces me to go to play basketball for a team that is counting on me to show up. And there's, you know, standings and we might make it to the playoffs and all that kind of stuff. You know, yourself, you might like organized classes, you might like yoga, you might like doing a jazz class. You might not like going to any of these things. So you prefer to do a home workout and do some online classes. Or maybe you just enjoy going for a walk, Feel weird about just walking to nowhere. Walk to a corner store and, you know, take the bags home in your hands and you're gonna feel, hey, I got my arms worked out a little bit and that's okay. This is who we are as human beings. We need that. And trust me, when you do it daily, I know this sounds like extreme, but there's different forms of exercise like I talked about, but daily it becomes a habit. You can't live your life without exercise. You enjoy it even when you're on vacation, you're going to go for a swim. When you need that exercise, it's going to help you tremendously. I know that when I don't exercise, I don't feel so good. At the end of the day, I don't feel like myself. I don't sleep that well. And it's a huge reminder that tomorrow I got to do that. I got to go get some exercise. This is going to allow you to make sharper decisions. This is going to allow you to make better products, better services, better hires, because you are in a better state of mind and physical health. And by the way, what are you building this business for if you're not going to live long enough to enjoy it? This is serious. If you are building a business and you're trying to build a lifestyle and be able to retire early and enjoy your life with your family and loved ones, it's not going to matter if you're struggling with your health and on medication or, God forbid, in and out of the hospital. You owe it to yourself to make sure you're physically ready and physically able to enjoy the benefits of being an entrepreneur. Habit number three, reading regularly. This one is a big one. This one changed my life. This one changed everything about me as an entrepreneur. As you know, I like to read a lot of books. I read approximately 50 books a year. I don't recommend that to most people. This is just something that I love to do. It's something I devour. I'm addicted to it. If you're not a reader, that's okay. You don't need to read that many. But I do think a good habit is to read one book a month. That means every month you're learning incredible amounts of information, new perspectives, new ideas. You're just going to get better. Here's the thing, just like nutrition, when you put junk in your body, it's going to affect your body. The same thing goes with your brain. If you put good stuff in your brain, you're going to get good outputs. You're going to get good ideas, you're going to get good results because you're feeding yourself with great information. Now, I consume books in many different forms. I have physical books like paperbacks and hardbacks. I have books on my Kindle, which is my preferred form of books. I love my Kindle, but I also have books on audible audio books. And again, when I go to the gym, when I exercise, when I go for walks, this is a great time for me to just listen to 20 minutes of my book that I'm listening to right now. And it doesn't have to be strictly business books, but it could be books that really give you a perspective. For example, right now I'm listening to the Autobiography of Mike Tyson. It's called the Undisputed Truth. And this is a very, very interesting book, and it's just an interesting perspective. And the reason why I'm listening to Mike Tyson's autobiograph is not that he has all these great insights in business, is that I really believe that if you have the opportunity to be in the presence of greatness, you need to study it and love him or hate him. Mike Tyson was great at what he did. He was a great boxer, one of the best of all time. And there are secrets, there's clues. Whether it's his work ethic or finding a great coach or his mindset or whatever it is, there's something I can extract and use for myself. One of my favorite alternative books are biographies, because they're just stories and I love them. Committing to reading a book a month is actually not that much. Many audiobooks are between 10 to 15 hours. So literally, if you work out for half an hour, let's say every day, even a long book will be consumed by the end of the month. And that's just if you're just doing audiobooks. I listen to audiobooks. I read my Kindle from time to time. So in combination, you're able to cover a lot of ground. But the point here is that this is going to feed your mind with incredible perspectives, with incredible understandings and ideas, and you're basically going to be surrounded with great people, people that have done some great things. What a gift. I think books are one of the most valuable things you could buy for such a low cost.

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To wrap up today's lesson, three habits that have changed my life and my business, and I want to pass it on to you. Waking up early three hours before your first appointment, your first thing on your calendar, daily exercise, whatever form exercise that we talked about, and reading regularly if you're going to read more, awesome. But think about what your life would look like. Just imagine for a moment. If you picked up these three habits for the next 40 days, who would you become after those 40 days? Who would you become after the first year of doing this? Two years? Three years? A decade? You can't help but look at that person in your head and say, I'm impressed. Right? This is what it means to live your best life or to level up inserting new habits that help you and your business. Thanks so much for listening to the Hunter ombied show. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I sure loved sharing these because I really feel they're small little things that really changed me big time, made big differences and I hope they do the same for you. If you love this podcast, don't forget to hit subscribe on whatever app you like to use to listen to podcasts so you get our next episodes automatically. Before I go, I want to leave you with this if you fall out of habit, okay? Say for example, you pick up one of these habits and you're doing great for five days straight. And on day six you don't exercise, for example, you wake up late. That's okay. Pick up where you left off. Start again. Don't get discouraged. It may take a few stumbles for you to make it a habit and hit that 40 day mark and feel like this is easy now. I'm so happy I made this choice. Thanks again and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. Freeride Friday. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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