Achieve Any GOAL with These 7 Simple Steps | Ed Mylett

23:38And then I started riding. I didn't know the difference between a bridle and a halter. I didn't know how to lunge a horse. I didn't know what posting was. I didn't know about hooves. I didn't know about, you know, the veterinary things, the chiropractic stuff with horses. I didn't understand the reining aspects, using your legs as pressure, all these different things. But I became pretty obsessed with horses and riding horses. And although I'm not a great rider, I'm probably in the top 5%. Why? Because 90 % of people don't know anything, right? So I've eliminated them right off the top. And then just the fact that, you know, I've gotten okay at riding there, I'm not ever going to be a roper or a jockey or any of those other kinds of things.

24:17Those are the top 1 % or 2%. I'm not going to get to that. But you know what? If I were 18 years old or 15 years old, maybe I could have got to the top 1 % or 2%. But you can get to the top 5 at about anything with obsessive focus. I mean, if you know nothing right now, nothing at all about playing chess, never played in your life, but you came obsessed with playing chess, the rules of the game, you played it over and over again. You read the books. You studied the pros. You may never be the grand champion, but you can get better than 95 % of the people at it. And so don't underestimate total immersion in something and how great you could get at whatever it is, fitness, exercise, reading, podcasting, writing a book, starting a business, getting into any industry.

24:58I believe you could get into any industry as long as it takes advantage of some of your talents and giftedness. And if you become obsessed in that industry, you get the right mentor. You get specific on your goals. You eliminate the distractions. You have the catalyst habits in your life. You have the right depth perception. I believe you can get to the top 5 % of that industry. Let me say that to you again. You could choose any new career. This is my opinion with rare exception as long as you have some giftedness towards that craft or proclivity for it and start from scratch. And in a year or two, if you're obsessed with learning and growing and trying and doing all the things we're talking about here, I believe you can get to the top 5 % of that industry.

25:35I believe the data suggests this. It may take a year or two, but you start to eliminate all the unfocused people. First off, you eliminate all the people not in that industry, then all the people who quit, then all the people who can't deal with a failure, then this, then that, and you start getting pretty darn good. I think you get to the top 5%. And then from there, it's a dogfight to who the best in the world is at anything. That requires hard work, refining of the game, good fortune, blessing, momentum. But top 5%, you can get there. And I think you ought to walk in with that type of confidence.

26:04I'm going to get into real estate. You know what? In a year or two, I think I can get to the top 5%. I'm going to get into finance. I'm going to get into writing books, whatever it might be. I think you get to the top 5 % if you do these things. I can't promise you that, but the data suggests just about anything. Something as goofy as riding horses part-time, you get to the top 5%. You eliminate all the people who don't do it, who aren't even trying, who've quit, and you slowly move your way up the ranks. Number six, where performance is measured, Third, performance improves. Now that you've got your goals and you've got some of these habits that you're reinforcing, you have to measure it.

26:41You have to measure your performance or that of other people, but let's just take you. You've got to measure regularly if you're changing that way. You've got to weigh in regularly. You've got to do your body fat regularly. You've got to diagnose your workouts. Are you getting stronger? Are you getting weaker? What body parts are getting better? If you're starting to write a book, you've got to measure the progress of writing the book. If you should be having written 30 % of the book by now. It needs to be measured over that period of time. If you're going to make$100 ,000 this year, you should be at XYZ through the year.

27:08If you're going to save a million dollars in your lifetime, you're measuring the amount of savings you have. If you're not measuring a performance regularly, it will not improve. But when you do measure something regularly, typically it improves. Go back to investing in that company. You want that company to be reporting to you if you've invested in it over time of how they're doing. Because if If they don't, it's unlikely they're going to improve. Human beings, when they are measured, they improve. So whether you lead people or are leading yourself, one of the greatest gifts you could give yourself is by challenging yourself to have your performance measured.

27:45The numbers matter. The leader's board matter. The scoreboard matters. You've got to have the courage to look at the scoreboard of your life. Look at the scoreboard of your weight loss. Look at the scoreboard of your new business. Look at the scoreboard of your wealth. The scoreboard of your relationship. where it's measured, it improves. When you hide from measuring it, it's not going to improve. So you got to measure it. And lastly, seven, you have to have an appropriate celebration and recognition when you do achieve a goal along the way. See, listen, your brain needs to be rewarded appropriately when you achieve something.

28:21So if you, a lot of people, I did this when I was young, I would just achieve and go, okay, on to the next one, on to the next one, on to the next one. That's a formula for burnout. Because your brain eventually goes, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm not getting anything out of it. I'm getting no dopamine out of this. If I don't get any dopamine, I don't want to do it again. So you've got to give yourself appropriate celebrations and recognition. If you're leading other people, appropriate celebration, appropriate recognition for their achievements. And I'll talk about appropriate lastly in a minute.

28:49But what has to happen is your brain has to say, I got a reward. I got my dopamine hit. The good news is all the data tells us that we get more dopamine as we approach the finish line towards a goal as we actually get when we get there. So just the pursuit of greatness can give you the dopamine that you're looking for. But when you get there, for most people, it falls off the charts. It's like a crash. It wasn't what I thought it would be. I'm on to the next one. I'll celebrate the next time. And you're training yourself to not really want to keep doing it over and over again. So you've got to have appropriate celebration, and you've got to do recognition of yourself.

29:23Now, on the other side of that, I've seen people with completely over-the-top celebration. They hit their best month ever in sales, and they go to vacation for two weeks just when they've got momentum going. That's insane to me. You just created momentum. What you're doing is destroying your success, sabotaging it, so that when you get back, you're back to ground zero again. So most people's problem is not that they don't appropriately celebrate a little bit. It's that they overly celebrate. They celebrate too much. They flinch. They recognize. Because as they approach their finish line, they didn't set up a new goal and a new outcome that stretches them out even further.

30:00This is a major mistake. I got there and I just didn't know. No. As you're approaching the finish line, get there. Don't move it. Don't move the finish line because if you move the finish line, you never get there. You never get the dopamine, the celebration. Get there, celebrate, and move it forward. What's the next thing? What's the next number? Where are we going next? And again, it's got to be specific. We've got to eliminate distractions. We need a catalyst habit. We need these other things. But please appropriately celebrate. 20 % of you won't celebrate at all, and you're eventually going to burn out and train yourself not to go for it.

30:33The other ones over-celebrate. They take too much time in between, right? They sabotage the very results they got. Usually, most winners, real achievers, don't celebrate enough. And people that are always going to struggle in their life, man, I remember this just coming up in business. So you just had your best month ever and you took four days off? Or you just had your best quarter ever and you stopped doing all the things that created that quarter. Like you think you're done. Like you think it's all going to work out now. That you're over the hump. That you don't have to work like that anymore.

31:08Successful people do what they did to get there and more the next time. Unsuccessful people stop doing what it required for them to get there in the first place and they do less. I never understood that. Let me say that to you again. I want you to evaluate. You just hit your sales goal. You just hit your financial goal. What did you do to get there? And what you did to get there, do it again and more to produce the higher result. It's going to require more. But what most people think is they think, oh, I got there. I don't have to do that anymore. I've got momentum. I'm in a different position now.

31:40Things are okay. I'm past the scary phase. I don't think so. So you've got to do more than what it required. And that's why you'll see great athletes. I think of like the Kobe Bryants and their work ethic of the 3 a.m. workout. Everybody on the team went to practice. He'd do that 3 a.m. workout, then go to the team practice, then come back after lunch, then again. And that's after winning championships. That's after the titles. That's after the recognition. And that's why he was Kobe Bryant and other very talented players, names we don't remember. Sure, they won a championship or they got to the NBA, but for some reason they overly celebrated and they didn't re-up their game.

32:19Here's what the great ones know. That the habits that got me there will keep me here and I'll have to create new habits and better habits to get me to the next level. The people that lose abandon the very habits that got them there in the first place. Is that crazy? Think about that again. if habits are what are delivering on it, you finally got your habits right, you finally produced the results and you stop the habit, you somehow think that it's just going to keep going? This is the delusion that's happening to people. And this is why most people are successful for a while. And then they're not.

32:56And the reason they're not long-term is they stop doing what got them there. Really successful people say, these are the habits that got me here. What's the new, even better improved habit that would get me higher and better. And so that's how you got to look at it. Upgrading your habits to get to the next level, not stop doing the things that got you there. And then the last thing I just want to kind of give you the, maybe the warning of, of someone who's a little bit further down the road, something that happens to us insidiously when we achieve or when we get better. Ironically, getting better can actually cause us to be very hard on ourselves.

33:35Most people will never tell you this. Because what happens is when you grow and get better as a person, you begin to look back at the former version of yourself and judge it and judge them and decisions or choices you made. Because now you've acquired more wisdom and information and maturity, maybe experience. We have a tendency to judge other people or judge ourselves unfavorably. When in fact, us three or four or five years ago didn't have this level of experience, didn't have that level of wisdom, didn't have the information or the maturity. So to judge yourself for lack of success in the past or failures in the past isn't fair to you because you didn't have all that wisdom.

34:15You didn't have the information. You hadn't been down the road. And also to judge other people who have not acquired your level of wisdom yet or information or experience isn't a healthy thing either. Because someday if they go down the road you've gone down, they'll acquire that as well. So just be guarded against judgment of your former self or judgment of other people so that you can keep that mindset. Yeah, I've been saying this lately so much. There's this great Gandhi quote that says, I will not allow you to walk through my mind with your dirty feet. And one of the things that have the dirtiest feet in life is judgment and assessment of ourselves or other people.

34:52It's one of the worst things you can do for your mindset. And so sometimes when we begin to achieve, we become more judgmental of other people because they're not where we are or friends of ours that haven't come along the same journey or we become judgmental of our former self. And none of that judgment is healthy nor justified and does not serve you. And so make sure you protect yourself from judgment as well. So imagine it's midnight, you're on the couch, you're scrolling through this new website, hitting the add to cart button, and you decide to check out, but you remember that your wallet or your credit card is in the other room and you don't want to get off the couch.

35:28That's okay. You don't need to because there's that big, iconic, purple shop button. You know the one. With that shop button, that's Shopify. And there's a reason that so many businesses sell with it because it makes everything easier from checkout to creating your own storefront. Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10 % of all e-commerce in the U.S., from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands that are just getting started. Shopify will give you a leg up from the beginning with beautiful ready-to-go templates to express your brand. And you don't need to know how to code. You can handle everything in one place from inventory to payments to analytics.

36:05And they've got built-in marketing and email tools and that iconic purple ShopPay button used by millions of businesses around the world. If you want to see less carts being abandoned, it's time for you to head over to Shopify. Sign up for your one month,$1 per month trial period and start selling today at Shopify.com slash Paula. Go to Shopify.com slash Paula. Shopify.com slash Paula.

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37:10How do you create this new habit? But what's brilliant is he's leveraging how your brain already is wired to work. And so what do we change? Do we change the cue? I know the answer, but do we change the cue to create a new habit? Do we change the routine? Do we change the reward? Do we keep two of the three? Do we keep one of the three? How do we create a new habit? So this is known as the golden rule of habit. Yes, right? So good. And what it says is, look, at first you can use willpower, right? You could white knuckle your way past eating that lemon bar. You could white knuckle your way to go into the gym in the morning.

37:43And sometimes you have to. But inevitably what happens is there's a setback, right? Your mother-in-law comes into town and you're really stressed out. And so you go eat like a whole plate of lemon bars or you're just tired and you wake up and you don't feel like working out. And so your willpower is weak because willpower is like a muscle. It gets tired, it gets weakened and you stop doing it. So what's the right way to create the habit? Because the habit lets us do things without having to use willpower. Well, the key is, first of all, you have to diagnose the cue and the reward, right? So let's take your lemon bar.

38:16Let's take a more serious habit. What other habits do you have that you've tried to change? Smoking cigars. Okay. Okay. So what's the cue when you start feeling that craving to smoke a cigar? What's the cue, do you think? Well, one, there's a visual cue. When I see them or anybody around me is smoking them, I think is one. And I've, I think stress, I think that when stress hits me, the cue for me is for some reason, if I touch that cigar, and I put it in my mouth, I'm in chill out mode with my dudes, even though even though the dudes may not even be there anymore. But some of the happiest times of my life have been when that cigars in my hand or my mouth with my buddies on a golf course, or just sitting around talking smack.

39:04So stress causes me to want to chill and relax. I think the cue is stress most of the time. And the reward you think is that you sort of feel that relaxation. It's like, this is a signal to yourself, like, now it's time to put work away. Now I can relax. I can stop obsessing about the thing that's making me stressed. Well, Charles, you just said something that's so profound. I've got to be honest with you. I've been smoking more and more cigars lately as I've been working more and more. It's almost my one cue to break my work cycle. Wow. I didn't think about it until you just said it. Okay, so let's figure out how do we change this habit, right?

39:38Because you know the cue and you know the reward. And what we want to find is we want to find a new behavior, a new routine that corresponds to that old cue and that delivers something similar to that old reward. so the cue i think doesn't have to change right you still need a break from work like you still need to get to the end of the day and say okay finished like that's now i'm gonna put it away so let's keep the same cue and the reward we want is something that makes you feel like you have permission to relax what else in your life do you do that gives you permission gives you just a sense of sitting there and saying like all right like this is this is the time when I kick up my heels and I feel okay.

40:18We're cheating on this little bit because I have been working on it based on the foundation of your work on this one thing. But I will tell you, the other time that I find myself in non-work chill mode is when I drink coffee. I know that sounds odd, but I consider coffee still to be healthy for me, the way that I drink it. So for me, the other time I'm like unplugged is usually in the morning or a billion of a lot. I'll even drink coffee in the afternoon is when I unplug and relax. So I have been using the same cue with the same reward, but the routine has been having a cup of coffee. For some reason, that just puts me in peaceful state, disconnects me.

40:51And so I've been using coffee as that replaced routine, keeping the cue and the reward the same. You know what else I'm going to do it? And oftentimes cues are pretty easy to figure out, right? Rewards can be tricky. So sometimes we need to run these experiments because like a reward could be like one of 10 things. We've got only does that cigar bring up the memory of kind of like good friends relaxation but because coffee is doing something similar my guess is and this is pretty typical is that part of the reward there is stimulation like literally like biochemical stimulation i think in both that coffee it gives you a burst of energy makes you feel good that cigar nicotine we know does the exact same thing it gives us a burst of energy makes it that's why people smoked for years right because they actually liked it.

41:37And so my guess is that now it sounds like coffee is a great replacement habit for you. It's providing the same thing, but let's say we're now at like six or seven in the evening, you're getting home from work. You can't have a cup of coffee. Now the question is like, could you use decaf or maybe it's like, all you need is like an Oreo cookie, like not enough sugar to throw off your diet. Right. Maybe it's, it's not going to like totally mess up unless you're, unless you're going to hardcore keto, it's not going to totally mess up what's going on, but maybe that small bit of sugar is just enough to give you the stimulation that a cigar and coffee was providing.

42:11And the question is, you just test it. You try, you know, today when you get home at seven and you're craving a cigar and it's too late for coffee, you try a cup of decaf tomorrow, you try a cookie and you just sort of run through these hypotheses until you figure out the thing. And there's going to be something that your brain's going to say, oh, you know what? It's just as good. It's, it's the old cue and the old reward. I don't mind having a cookie instead of a cigar. Yeah, I got to tell everybody, Charles and I have never talked about this, okay? So, you know, we didn't even know we were going to talk about this today.

42:38And I'm going to tell you how this has grown into such a habit that served me. Like, bro, you're brilliant. You just, I love brilliant people. So what I did is I like the taste of coffee. Like, I like coffee ice cream. I like coffee anything. And so I did do this. Number one, I either go with a decaf of protein coffee flavored powder in my coffee. But here's the other thing. this is like where it's just like completely flipped into a positive habit. I drink a coffee shake about 730 every single night. That's a protein shake that's delicious to me. So I literally went from moving this thing from my I don't have a cigar anymore.

43:13I do have cigar when I smoke on the golf course or something like that. But I went from I've distilled it. Sometimes habits aren't eliminating something. It's reducing the frequency of something, right? Absolutely. I'm having control over and I've gone all the way so that the cup of coffee earlier in the day and the coffee shake, which is a protein shake. And I got to get my protein in because I do lift weights at that time. And it's exactly Charles's formula, though. The cue is the same, which is sort of a stressful thing or trying to get out of work. I've replaced that cigar to went to coffee to went to a protein shake now.

43:41And it gives me the same reward. Euphoria, I get the sugar high everything that you've said from my protein shake. That's just so brilliant. And that's what I love about this is that you're exactly right. Being in control of your habits doesn't mean you have to give up cigars. It just means you decide when to have a cigar, right? Rather than letting it happen to you. And because you now understand your own habits, because you understand the habit loop inside your own head, you can change anything. Like sometimes people ask me, so what's the difference between a good habit and a bad habit? You know, should the strategies differ?

44:11And the answer is your brain doesn't distinguish between good habits and bad habits. Your brain just says habits. You decide which one is a good one or a bad one. Your brain just wants to automate everything I can. And so there are often times when a cigar is not a bad habit when you're on the golf course, when you, when you want a cigar and it's time for a cigar and you're not doing it too much. And then there's other times when you like, it just feels like it's controlling you instead of you making the choice yourself. And that's what this gives you. It gives all of us these tools to say, this is something I want to keep in my life, but I want to tone it down.

44:45This is something I want to bring into my life. I want to start exercising and I haven't, How do I figure it out? Okay, I need to find a cue and a reward for that exercise. It gives us control. And that's what's so like deeply meaningful, right? Is to have control. There's no exaggeration that it changes your life because you really are your habits. So if I'm a person listening to this, let's, this is so good. If I'm a person listening to this, you say, I don't, how do I identify a cue? Like, here's all I know. I know that I find myself getting down or I find myself not wanting to get up and go to work.

45:16Or I, you know, I know that's not a habit that serves me or I, whatever it might be. I concluded I'm going to be better with my children and be more loving. And I find myself saying something I regret to them on a regular basis. How do we identify? Because there are, it could be a room, it could be a sound. How do you start to look at your habit and go, what is the cue here? Like the application that's not, what would you say to that? It's a great question. So, so there's a really easy method for this. Cause like I said, cues are pretty easy. So first of all, identify what the behavior is that you want to shift, right?

45:47Search, like, like saying like, be better with my kids. That's not really a habit, but when my kids, sometimes I snap at my kids. Right. Okay. So I know exactly what the behavior is. I want to stop snapping at my kids. Okay. So take an index card. And for the next three or four days, every time you feel the instinct to snap at your kids, every single time it either happens or you just want, you just feel like you're going to write down five things you're going to write down because all cues fall into these five categories for 95 % of the time, a certain time of day, a particular place, a certain emotion.

46:24presence of certain other people or a preceding behavior that has become ritualized. So you're at dinner. One of your kids is like screwing around. They won't sit down. You just write down those five things. Okay. So now the next morning you have that same instinct. Now suddenly you want to snap at the kids again and you write down those five things and you start to notice whenever I want to snap at my kids, it's because I'm feeling even before the kid does something, I'm feeling annoyed. Like I'm either rushed and I'm stressed or I'm having a tough conversation with my wife about like money stuff.

47:02I start to notice, okay, the cue seems to be I'm in a particular emotional place whenever I want to snap at my kid. And when I'm not in that emotional place, even if they're screwing around at the dinner table or doing whatever normally drives me crazy, if I'm calm and relaxed, I don't feel any need to snap at my kid. So now we know what the cue is. The cue for that is a particular emotion. Very good. And it might be it might be, you know, you mentioned that at 730, you have that protein drink. So for you, the protein drink might be a certain time of day. It might be that other people, whenever I get around gym, like for some reason, I like I get really like worked up.

47:40I get really anxious. So your cue is gym. Now, that doesn't mean that you're going to eradicate that cue from your life. You still got to be in meetings with gym. You still got to like you're still going to be annoyed sometimes at the dinner table. You're still going to be talking about tough things with your wife, but now you know what the cue is. And now part of you is a little bit on guard to say, normally, when I'm around this cue, I snap at my children. And probably the reward is that it gives me a sense of control, right? I'm feeling like overwhelmed. I'm feeling like I'm talking about money and it stresses me out.

48:13I'm feeling out of control. And I snap at my kid and now I feel in control. So now the question becomes, what else can give you that same feeling of control? So when you're feeling annoyed, when you're feeling weak, when you're feeling stressed and you know that you're likely to snap at someone because you want to feel in control, because that's a reward it delivers, what other behavior gives you that same feeling? And it might be something as simple as just saying, hey, you know what? I'm feeling annoyed right now. Jimmy, I see is crawling out of his chair and driving me nuts. Let's all just take a break.

48:44We're just going to control our breathing for 30 seconds. Really good. Right? And then suddenly you feel in control. You remind yourself you're in control. Very good. And you've substituted that old habit with a new one. So I'm asking you hard stuff because this is really good. I think it's this awareness level. It's investing the time and trying to uncover what you said, that index card strategy. Okay, what preceded this a couple times? Because that is truly what your cue is on a negative habit. Well, and the thing is that remember that in that experiment, the rat's brain sort of turned off as they're running through the maze, right?

49:16This is why habits are so powerful. is because our brain turns off in the grip of a habit. So things that could be obvious to our spouse, things that could be obvious if we were paying attention, they're not obvious to us because our brain's turned off. That's what it's supposed to do in the grip of a habit. And that's sometimes why if it's a regrettable habit, and not all habits are, that you later go, why did I, what was I thinking? You weren't thinking. That's exactly right. You were not thinking. You were in habit mode. That's 100%. So I'm golfing yesterday. I'm telling these guys, I'm interviewing this dude tomorrow that I wanted to talk to for a long time.

49:49Because the book made a massive, my work, I already talk a lot when I work with people, like with athletes and stuff on creating triggers, we create them, create a trigger to put you into a state, right? And then there's a reward. So I didn't have your terminology, but I've used triggers and stuff like that for many, many years with getting people to get into a peak state. So I'm telling these guys about you. And I said, anything you want me to ask them. And I never asked I never asked other people's questions on the show. But this question was so good from one of the dudes that I thought it was good.

50:17This is a person who owns a very prominent gym, like a lot of them, lot, lot, lot, one of the top gyms on the planet. He goes, look, a lot of people that come to our gym, want to work out right when they wake up. They have a hard time creating a habit of waking up and finding themselves working out prior to work every day, they feel like they'd get a better workout in the morning. But they just don't seem to get their mojo going in the morning. I I said, it's interesting because he has this thing that says, you know, you have a cue or trigger and then you have the routine you wish for. And then there's a reward.

50:47I said, I wonder if you could create, could the, I don't know the answer is why I'm going to ask you. Could the alarm going off become the cue that puts you into the routine of getting up, getting dressed, going to the gym? So the answer is, could the cue be something that simple? And then lastly, how do you create a reward for something like working out? So it's a good, well, okay. So let me ask you. So, so do you work out every day? I work out about five days a week. okay not about i work out five days a week and do you do it in the morning evenings what wins your tell me about i do it in the morning okay yeah and for you you do it right after you wake up pretty close to it within 30 minutes and have you got when you wake up that alarm goes off are your clothes your workout clothes you know exactly where they are my workout clothes are done i'm in i'm in i'm in habit i think i think that probably the reason i'm asking it this way is that my alarm is the cue.

51:38Okay. That puts me, I think it is. It could be putting the workout clothes on, but I have a sequence of things that I've done repeatedly that trigger this routine. And that's great. Cause like, you don't need just one, like it's fine. If you're trying to create this exercise habit, it's fine to create seven cues, right? Put your running shoes next to the bed. So you see them, put your layout, your workout clothes. So you got to do a slip them on, right? All of that stuff. Now, here's my question for you. When you first started working out, what was the reward? Because when you first started, it sucks, right?

52:11Exercise is terrible before you go to it. That's the part where I was challenging myself about the formula. To be honest with you, I don't recall the reward other than I do recall because I didn't like working out. I didn't like getting sore. I didn't like sweating. I didn't see immediate results. So what was the reward? I was thinking to myself. So I can only conclude that I felt good about myself, that I was doing something I had never done before. I remember consciously driving back early. This was like 30 years ago, but I drove to the gym back in those days. I do recall pretty early, like one of the first few workouts I did going, well, most people wouldn't do this, man.

52:47Good job. I remember telling myself that, like you're doing something most people wouldn't be willing to do right now. And I think that was probably a form of reward was pride. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure that's it. I mean, what's interesting is you you could have told yourself something else. You could have said like, OK, so like, thank goodness I got it done. Or, you know, me and like every other person I saw in the gym with me this morning. There's like literally tens of thousands of people who are working at the gym at the same time I am. Or you could have just said like, OK, check it off.

53:19Got that done. But instead, what you did is you gave yourself a reward. You consciously decided to reward yourself. Now, my guess is, and you probably weren't even aware of this, if we were to go back like time travel, watch you. My guess is also you did a couple other things. You probably also, without even realizing it, you might have let yourself eat a little bit better that day, right? Maybe have a smoothie after that workout because you think you deserve it. Take a little bit of a longer shower, right? Like let yourself really like kind of feel those endorphins. you were giving yourself rewards both consciously and unconsciously to make that exercise powerful now compare that to how so many people start to exercise you say tomorrow i'm going to go for a run and you wake up and you start you start looking for your workout clothes and you're thinking the whole time like i'm going to look like an idiot i don't even know like where to run like i'm going to look like i like i don't i don't have the right clothes you finally get the clothes on you go you run for a little bit you said like i'm going to do a mile you end up doing half a mile and you're like winded and you like come home and now you're running late.

54:18So you like jump in the shower as fast as you can. You like speed the kids to school and you're like, get out of the car, get out of the car. You like rush to your office. And now for the first time you can like sit down at your desk and catch your breath. And like you feel the sweat on your body and, and, and you realize you're like 10 minutes late to like the meeting. Most people punish themselves for exercising as they plan for the exercise. They don't plan for what happens after the exercise. They don't plan for that reward. You got in the habit of giving yourself a reward when you exercise.

54:46And part of it was deliberate and part of it was unconscious, but you gave yourself the space to have those rewards. And unless you do that, if you were super stressed, if you were rushing home from the gym that day because you got to get to some meeting and you hadn't planned for it, you wouldn't have thought, man, I did great today. I did the thing that nobody else is doing. You would have thought, God, I got to get home as fast as I can. You got to create that space for the reward in your life. Oh, everyone, you need to go back and listen to that again. That's it. That's the thing. That's the thing that causes people, I think, to not make this a habit.

55:20It's like, it's they don't plan this. Wow, that's so good. Plan the space for the reward in anything you want to create for yourself. I was kind of controversial early on in personal development where everyone's crying, crying, crying. I said, hey, look, I outwork everybody. But you have to give room for the reward to yourself, for the celebration. Or eventually your brain concludes, I don't want to do this. I'm getting no dopamine. I'm getting nothing out of this. So let me ask you now. Now that you exercise five times a week, it's like completely ingrained. What's the reward for you now? Like, what do you feel or do after that workout?

55:53Well, it's funny you said the shower thing. One of my favorite things in the world is how good I feel in the shower after I train. And that just sort of reflection of myself that, and now there's a pride thing where like, I've been doing this for 30 years. I think there's a reward. I get, I get multiple rewards. I get someone, you know, people telling you that you look great. That's a form of reward. I'm not giving it to myself, but it is a reward. It's someone saying, Hey, what are you asking me for advice on how to work out over the years? You know, at the gym, eventually there ended up being these stacks of rewards.

56:23I'd say the reward now is I feel physically strong. I remind myself that I'm physically strong. It's certainly being physical now become even past a habit to part of my identity. I feel like it's a part of my identity. It's been so ingrained into me that in the absence of it, I don't feel like myself anymore. So that it's become that deeply ingrained. but I do I am it's funny because I didn't know your work but I've always been pretty good at going hey man this is great what you're doing like consciously doing it I give myself other rewards though what you said earlier um even the lemon bar thing to be candid with you I give myself permission to eat a certain way sometimes and it's one of the rewards of having trained very hard is hey man I've burned a bunch of calories already I've done this this and this I deserve the damn lemon bar.

57:13Yeah. Right. And that doesn't mean it's going to be a daily thing. Right. Like I don't, I don't deserve lemon bar every single day, but when I feel that craving, it's okay to give into it. It's a, I'm making a reward for myself. Cause I know that like this lemon bar, like this is not going to impact me. This one lemon bar I've, I've banked away the self-discipline to allow myself this. And that's a form of reward and that's really powerful. And yet, you know, I, and I, I'm sure you see this all the time in your practice. America is a stoic nation. We are a nation that tries to bully ourselves into productivity, into success, into accomplishment.

57:51And the truth of the matter is some of that is good, right? It's a great nation because we are so disciplined and then we have so much willpower. But the way that you leverage that, the way that you take advantage of that is you give yourself time to enjoy the spoils of it. Yeah, and the truth is what you're saying, this is what I want to get everybody to hear. You're doing this anyway. you're already rewarding yourself possibly for routines that don't serve you so this is something you're going to do so you might as well acknowledge it what's great about what you're doing is you're leveraging the brain as it is already wired right that's why your work is so powerful you're already giving yourself rewards for behavior sometimes you're already having cues that don't serve you into routines that don't serve you so simply leveraging this is not it's not nearly as difficult as it might seem if you'll take an inventory or create cues, create a routine and have a reward.

58:41I also think some people are like, well, I should go to the gym. And like you said, everybody goes, this isn't something I should be patting myself on the back for. Not all rewards have to be a pat on the back. It could be that you just, there are days where I've had good workouts and I'll find myself even doing what we're doing. I'm sitting here going, I feel good. My back doesn't hurt today. My abs feel strong. That's a form of a reward. It makes that absolutely is so it's this reward feature and just so we're all clear on what charles has been saying if you want to change habit you can keep the same cue right you can keep the same reward and change the routine in the middle and that's a formula for change i want to ask you a question because i did a i did a i did one of your exercises okay but i want to walk the audience yeah let's do it because this book guys um you're gonna get it and you're gonna love it and you're gonna love it because it's actionable.

59:30I love actionable stuff. So there's a best self sort of, what do you call it exactly? What we're going to walk through right here. So, so best self is your authentic self. So best self is your truth. Your honest truth. Like my best self is a wizard who is a thousand years old. He's actually tattooed on me, right? Look at this on YouTube. If you're not watching this, guys, you're gonna have to go to YouTube to see this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not done. This guy, Nico Hurtado did the tattoo. He takes forever to get into. Beautiful though. I've been freaking waiting forever. I mean, the guy's so hard to get into.

59:59It's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. It's not done yet. So you've named him. You've named this Merlin. My best self is Merlin. It's a wizard that's a thousand years old when I walk into a meeting or when I present myself. That is me being my best self. It's like wisdom, honesty, truth, alignment, living in the moment, kindness, love. and I think our parents give us names but we can name ourselves whatever we want at our core and we can create I find that being able to create that character and that story it creates a safe place for our minds to go sit into and it's something that a kid can do or a teenager or an adult I want to go through yours I love it.

1:00:48So I want you to walk them through it as if I hadn't prepped it. I want to say everything to everybody because this is so huge, everyone. I've been talking for 20 years about at any time in your life, you can turn the page and become a new character in your life. Right. That we repeat these old stories about ourselves and our book of our life starts to look like one chapter that just kind of runs together. What a boring book to read if it was just one chapter about the same character. There should be evolutions, right? And I'm always talking about change the character, change the character. And then I read your book and I'm like, this is an actual technique to name and change the character that is you.

1:01:23Right. And identify it. So guys, this is so awesome the way you do this. So the first step is to do what? The first step is to write out a description. Okay. So, and how do we do that? You write out, you can look at times in your life when you felt like, wow, this is life. Yeah. Or you know that's the best part of yourself. Okay. It's not outcome driven. Yes. sometimes you get stuck on outcomes. And as you talk about, sometimes the outcomes happen 60 or 90 days down the road. Or two years down the road. So it can't just be, oh, that outcome. It's when you feel good about yourself. So it's sort of like adjectives to describe the best you?

1:01:59You got it. Adjectives to describe the best you. What did you write down? Well, I wrote a few down. I did this alone. I think it would have been cool to do with my family, but I did it alone. And I'll be honest with you. It was empowering when I'm my best, I'm these things. And it's like, I never, even me, and I coach people all the time, I never just take the time. What is the best adjectives to describe me when I'm the best me? Right. So I put peaceful, kind, patient, confident, prayerful, strong, decisive, relentless, non-judgmental, encouraging. I wrote leader. I wrote listener or listening.

1:02:41being focused, present in the moment, and funny. Those were the best things I like about me when I'm the good me. Got it. And so then you took that description, and you felt pretty good about this. This feels like you're in alignment, right? I love when I'm that guy. Yeah, that's you. Yes. At your core, that's you, right? That's me, yes. And so then you drew it. I drew it, and it's just what it is. You said it could be whatever it is. So he told me it could be whatever it is. It's kind of a Superman. Cool. And I even have my family have told me that I'm like a Superman when I'm the best version of me.

1:03:15And you also wanted me to name him. And it's Superman. That looks amazing. That's my guy, by the way. And that's as good as I can draw. I love the face. So the real me is a Superman. Yeah. And he's all these things. And I would encourage every single person listening to this or watching this to do exactly this exercise. We're not done yet either, everybody. But take an inventory. What are the adjectives that describe the best you? And then you want them to draw a picture of it. You draw it. You name it. Because it's a great way, too, to go, am I walking into the room as Superman? Yeah. Am I talking to my kid as Superman?

1:03:54Am I handling my relationship as Superman? Or Merlin. Or Merlin, right? And so that's really understanding authentically who you are. And that's how we kind of start off Best Self, the book, is figuring out who are you. like and let's name it and so and that's our starting point of the compass so the next part of the exercise is to figure out what is currently pressing into ourselves our own psyche that we know is not authentically who we are so it's that part of us that goes I shouldn't have said that I don't know why I feel this way why am I being myself up what am I saying to myself it's like the committee in the head that we can't shut off well what is it saying mm-hmm and And again, we want to write down the adjectives of what we call your anti-self.

1:04:41And so you did that, Ed. My anti-self is, you know what was kind of cool? I noticed something. Do you find most people have an easier time writing down the good or the bad? Bad. Bad. I would assume that too. One thing I kind of liked. Is you loved it. I had a better time. I actually had an easier time writing down the good things. That's great. I thought that's shown the work I've done on myself. Yeah. Because I would assume it's 80, 20, 90, 10. People are like, I can name you 80 negative things. People normally don't have this long of a list, although I think this is incredibly healthy to have a long list as being your best.

1:05:15Yeah, and I think everybody writing this, the vast majority of you are probably going to have a really easy list of the negative things. And I think the more that you repeat, you utilize this exercise and the techniques that I teach and that Mike teaches, I bet you over the long term, you're going to have an easier time writing the good ones. Yeah. And I think that's when you know you're being that best self more often. You got it. Because I think I live, I'm definitely this guy a lot, but I think I live with that guy. We love Superman. I mean, Superman Ed. This guy here is... Let's hear about the descriptions of your anti-self.

1:05:47Judgmental. Okay. Impatient. Scared. Angry. Indecisive. Anxious. Gossiper. Distant. Serious. Complainer. Self-centered. And now that I'm naming them, I could name some more, actually. But those are all the anti-me. Yeah. Yeah. And you drew the same exercise. I drew him. And he's a guy with, and I don't mean to use bad language, everybody, but he's a guy with a big old head and a hat with two phallic symbols coming out of the side of them. Yeah, is that a penis coming out? It is. Out of his head? There's two of them on each part of his hat. And his name is actually Richard Cabeza. which is dick and in spanish cabeza is head so you kind of get the name but we call him richard cabeza got it got it no this is great so we have superman we have superman and richard cabeza richard cabeza okay great no this and this is fantastic and so what we start off in in best self is we go okay who's your best self and who do we know is going to get in the way of you even finishing the book who's gonna get in and be like oh this is this is a bunch of bs and i don't have time for that and i'm good and you know just yes so we help identify those parts so that we can navigate the book and so um what what i find helpful once people do this is to figure out okay how do i get more of him yeah and what situation currently is bringing out the most of him When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter.

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1:08:18So for you, Ed, what would you say? currently Richard Cabeza when what situation do you feel like currently where you go oh this comes out anything anything that feels stressful to me Richard Cabeza likes to rear his head no pun intended anything stressful and I would say something specific with that would be if I'm gonna if I'm prepping for or driving to something I think I'm not prepared for. That guy comes out. That guy is super judgmental. He likes to gossip. He can get pretty anxious and scared and fearful. He doesn't pray. He isn't present. That guy likes to project into the future all the time what he should be worrying about.

1:09:07Right. So he can't be in the moment. Not in the moment. Okay. If I could And if I could identify one thing that causes most of those other adjectives to happen, it's pressure or stress, and I'm not present. Got it. And so, because when Superman comes flying through in those situations, you feel... I feel incredible. I feel strong. I feel peaceful. I feel like a leader. I feel like I'm doing what I'm called to do, what I was born to do. And I feel loving in that space. That's a word that should have been in there. Loving. And so in Best Self, what we do is then we take you through what's called the seven spheres, which is an acronym I created, which someone rates their social life.

1:09:52It's social life, personal, health, education, relationships, employment, and spiritual. And you just rate it from a one to ten, and it's full of exercises. And you go, okay, well, in all these areas of my life, how often do I feel like I'm being my best self? because usually what happens for us is once we put down on paper and walk through it, we can have a roadmap. Yes. And it doesn't become just theory. Yes. And so... Can I give you an example of that? Yeah. How powerful this is? Everybody who's listening is like, that seems pretty basic. Everyone, y 'all trust me, do it. Yeah. Just go through the exercise.

1:10:29Even Richard Cabezza now, I almost laugh at that guy now. It's why I gave him the name I gave him. He's hilarious to me. And I don't want him in my life. He's like a joke. right and so in my case I want to but if I'm gonna have shame I'm gonna shame that dude outside of me I'm not gonna carry it myself and so I gotta tell you though last night I did this last night yeah and I had fallen asleep perfect little example and you stack these things over life so you gave my family a gift last night unknowingly right okay and so what I did was I had fallen asleep and actually posted it my Lily was sleeping next to me I was extremely tired and I every night go in and kiss my daughter goodnight and say a quick prayer.

1:11:11And last night I was laying in bed and I was tired and I knew the lights were off in her room and I woke up tired and I went, I'll just do it tomorrow night, right? And immediately I thought about what would Superman do? Superman would get up, he'd go in, even if she's asleep and I'd kiss her and I'd pray with her even if she was asleep. I didn't want to get up, I was tired. and Richard Cabeza was taking over. And I literally thought about Superman and Richard Cabeza and I chose to be Superman. And I got up and I walked in and she was actually awake. And I said, hey boo, I love you. And I gave her a kiss and she gave me a hug and we said a quick prayer.

1:11:49And actually she had something she wanted to ask me. And had I not gone in there, she wouldn't have been able to ask me that question. And so if this did nothing other than that one thing the rest of my life, it was worth it. But I can already tell, even today, prepping for our interview and getting to know better, I'm like, I think I'm ready. And I'm like, well, what would Superman do? Superman would go another little extra inch here. Superman would be more relentless, more prepared, right? More present. And so it's affected even how we're doing this today. Yeah, and you're welcome. No, I'm grateful that you did this.

1:12:21It means a lot because you took it on your own initiative. I didn't ask you to, and you clearly dig in when you have people come on your show. And, you know, the thing about Richard Cabeza is when you, the interesting thing with the ego that I've found is when you build out the character. If you say to someone, okay, just don't be so angry. Ed, you know, like let's hear your wife say, Ed, don't be so angry. If she calls you Richard Cabeza, you may have a split second of like, and then you'll start to laugh. It's awesome. And it's not that serious because you don't even want to feel that way. That's awesome.

1:12:55And you get to get called out on your stuff in a way that's playful and not... What a great exercise to do even at work. Yes. Where your co-workers are like, hey, Richard Cabesa, cut it out. Yes. Right? Like, that's awesome. I love that. I love that. So you can do that in your family, workplace teams. Your family, your work life. Yeah. And you can do it with your kids and it becomes revealing of how they view themselves. Yeah. So good, brother. Thanks. So good. Thank you for that. Yeah, of course. Dude, I got to be honest with you. I love simple, actionable things that the audience can take with them and do.

1:13:27And guys, you'll be different after you do this. And your family will be different if you do it together. What a great gift, man. Thank you so much. Your work, Rose, is, I think I'd call it groundbreaking because I don't think anybody's really approached habits the way that you have. But let's back up a little bit just for a second because I think it's important for people to understand this concept you teach. that, you know, everyone's always talking about taking massive action. You take massive action towards what you want. And you're like, yeah, you should do that. But your concept of getting 1 % better is much more believable for most people.

1:14:01And so just address that for a second. Why, why 1 % better every day? And how does a habit do that? Sure. So first of all, I think there's no reason that you can't be really ambitious, right? Like I consider myself to be a very ambitious person. I think it's just that you're oscillating or switching between these two modes. You know, like when you're in planning mode, when you're in strategy mode, sure, you can be very ambitious and be very aggressive and, you know, stretching yourself and reaching. But when it comes time to take action and execute, you have to scale it down to something that you can achieve that day.

1:14:33You know, like the, in one sense, the biggest unit of time you could ever do something is about a single day, because then you got to go to sleep, you know, and then you have to wake up again and do it the next day. So unless you're playing, you know, at some point there's a limit, you can only stay up for 48 hours or 72 hours, like, you know, and then you break. So that's the largest possible unit that you could ever do a single thing in. And I think more realistically, most of the time, the truth is, you know, you got about an hour, maybe you got two hours to work on this and then got to go move on to something else.

1:15:00So we don't have big chunks of time available to us. We need to scale things down into pieces that we can actually work on and execute. So the way that I think about it is when making plans, think big when making progress, think small and getting 1 % better each day is a way to encourage that. The story that I like to tell, and this is something that I kind of kick atomic habits off with the story of the British cycling team. And, uh, you know, for many years, British cycling was very mediocre. They had never won a tour de France, which is the premier race in cycling. They had won a single gold medal over like a hundred year span.

1:15:35And they brought this new performance coach in named Dave Brailsford. And he had this concept that he called the aggregation of marginal gains, the aggregation of marginal gains. And the way that he described it was the 1 % improvement in nearly everything that we do related to cycling. So they started looking at a bunch of things you would expect a cycling team to focus on. Like they put slightly lighter tires on the bike, or they designed like an ergonomic seat for the riders. They had the riders wear a little feedback sensor, a little chip to see how each individual responded to training. Then they would adjust the practice schedule.

1:16:09But then they started doing like these little 1 % changes, these small improvements that nobody else was really thinking about. Like they hired a surgeon to come in and teach the riders how to wash their hands to reduce the risk of catching a cold or getting the flu. They have this big trailer, like a semi-trailer that carries a lot of bikes in it to major events. And they painted They have the inside of that truck trailer white so that they could spot little bits of dirt and dust that might get in the gears and degrade the performance of the bikes. They have two different types of fabrics. They've got like indoor racing suits and outdoor racing suits.

1:16:40And they tested those fabrics in a wind tunnel and they found out that the indoor fabric was lighter and more aerodynamic. So they asked all of their riders to wear that fabric. They even had all their different riders test, you know, like a bunch of like maybe a dozen different types of pillows. and then they see which one led to the best night's sleep for each person. And then once they figured that out, they brought that on the road with them to hotels for the Tour de France and so on. And Brailsford said something like, if we can actually do this, if we actually make all these 1 % improvements related to cycling, then I think we can win a Tour de France within five years.

1:17:14He ended up being wrong. They won the Tour de France in three years. And then they repeated again the fourth year with a different rider. And then after a one-year break, they won three more in a row. So after having never won for like 110 years, they win five of the next six. And I like to use that story as an introduction to this idea of getting a little bit better, making these 1 % improvements for a couple of reasons. The first is it shows you that excellence a lot of the time, maybe we can even say most of the time, is not actually about radical change. It's about a commitment to accruing small improvements day in and day out.

1:17:48Secondly, and I think this is also crucial, it encourages you to focus on trajectory rather than position, right? There's a lot of discussion about position in life. How much money is in the bank account? What is the number on the scale? What is the current stock price? What are the quarterly earnings? There's all this measurement around our current position. But what getting 1 % better each day encourages is to focus on your trajectory instead. Am I getting better? Is the arrow pointed up and to the right? Or have we flatlined? Am I getting 1 % better or 1 % worse? Because if you're on a good trajectory, all you need is time, right?

1:18:22If you have good habits, time becomes your ally. You just need to let time work for you. But if you have bad habits, time becomes your enemy. And every day that clicks by, you kind of dig the hole a little bit deeper. And so it's very much at the core, it's about encouraging you to focus on trajectory rather than position. How did you get to 37.78 times better? Like where'd that ratio number come from? Yeah, yeah, it's just math, right? So if you get 1 % better each day for a year, so 1.01 to the 365th power, then he gets 37 times better by the end of the year. If you get 1 % worse, 0.99 to the 365th power, then you drive yourself almost all the way down to zero.

1:19:00Now, look, real life is not exactly like a mathematical equation, right? Your habits are not exactly like this formula. But I do think that it highlights an important concept, which is the difference between making a choice that's 1 % better or 1 % worse on any given day is relatively insignificant. It's very easy to dismiss. And this is, I think, one of the things that makes it underappreciated or underestimated. You know, like, what is the difference between eating a burger and fries for lunch today or eating a salad or, you know, going to the gym for 30 minutes or not? Well, on any given day, not a whole lot.

1:19:37You know, your body looks the same in the mirror at the end of the night. Scale hasn't really changed. It's only two or five or 10 years later that you turn around, you're like, oh, you know, those daily choices really do add up. And I think you see this pattern again and again throughout life. Like take knowledge, for example, the person who always reads for an extra 10 minutes each day. Well, look, reading for 10 minutes a day does not make you a genius, right? It's very easy to dismiss. But the person who always does that over five or 10 or 20 years, yeah, really meaningful difference in wisdom and insight.

1:20:08Productivity is the same way, you know, like the person who gets one extra task done each day. Doing one extra thing does not make you an all-star, but again, over a 10 or 20 or 30 year career, that can be a really meaningful difference in output. So this pattern shows up again and again. What starts out small, relatively easy to dismiss compounds or turns into something much more significant over time. The biggest word, bro. I don't think most people take into account, you and I are both college baseball players, good ones, but neither one of us were, you know, surefire first round draft pick major league players.

1:20:39And I think most people don't take into account in their life the compound effect. I don't think they understand it in money. I don't think they understand it in their bodies, both positive and negative. And I don't think they understand their identity or in just in habits. The compound effect in life of allowing small things to stack up over time has a multiplier effect. And one of the things that I feel like in your work, and by the way, your work is, I'm all at work. We're a few minutes in here and I'm like, this is so good. And the reason is, is one, I believe most people believe they can get 1 % better every day.

1:21:10I don't think most people believe that they can completely transform everything in one big leap. I think there's a multiplier though. Do you agree that between doing the right things 1 % or just better habitually every single day, not only are you actually making deposits of doing things correctly or better, but there's a part of your identity that starts to change over time about how you view yourself that I am that guy who doesn't eat the hamburger and fries when he can choose to eat the other one. And you stack those choices and behaviors up over time and you start sort of believing maybe you deserve something that you didn't deserve prior.

1:21:41Isn't there a factor of that, don't you think, as well? This is a huge part of kind of my philosophy and book, this idea of what I call identity-based habits. But essentially, the concept is, and I think this is the real reason that habits matter. The surface level reason that habits matter is they help you be more productive, they help you make more money, they help you lose weight and get fit. And look, habits can do all those things, and that's great. But I think the deeper reason that they matter is that every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become. And so when you perform these small habits, when you take these little actions, you're casting votes for a certain aspect of your story or a certain element of your identity.

1:22:22In a sense, every time you perform a habit, that's how you embody that aspect of your identity. So when you make your bed in the morning, you embody the identity of someone who's clean and organized. Or if you write one sentence, you embody the identity of someone who is a writer. And this is why it can be valuable, you know, even to like do one pushup. It's like, no, that does not transform your body, but it does cast a vote for I'm the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. And eventually, as you build up evidence of that story, as you start to cast more votes for that identity, you have like actual proof to believe this, right?

1:22:57This is, I think is a little bit different than you'll often hear something like fake it till you make it. And I don't necessarily have anything wrong with fake it till you make it. It's asking you to believe something positive about yourself, but it's asking you to believe something positive without having evidence for it. And we have a word for beliefs that don't have evidence. We call that delusion, right? Like at some point, your brain doesn't like this mismatch between what you say you are and what you're actually doing. And so my argument is to let the behavior lead the way to start by meditating for one minute or doing one pushup or writing one sentence and letting that be undeniable proof that in that moment, you were a meditator or an athlete or a writer or whatever it is.

1:23:39And ultimately, I think this is the real value that habits provide, which is they reinforce your desired identity. Boy, it's just so good, brother. So good. I don't know why I'm just meeting you now, because our overall belief system about change is so very, very similar. and you know i want to we're going to talk about how to actually begin to establish habits but before we do that i want to talk about the concept of establishing one because you said something about the one push-up reading or listening to something you're talking about about the guy who would go to the gym for just five minutes and work out and you said something about this casting the vote for who you want to be or who you're going to be that was powerful right but you're saying before a habit can be and i don't want to quote you incorrectly but i want you to elaborate on it because this is profound to me.

1:24:25I mean, it's obvious, but if you don't step back and get away from it and look at it, you just really don't realize the truth of it. Before a habit can be improved, it has to actually be established. And I think what happens is you tell me what you think. Beginning of the year, I'm going to lose 50 pounds. I'm going to do this. I'm going to eat five minutes. I'm going to starve myself to 500 calories. So it's not a 1 % improvement or I want to get up earlier. I'm going to get up two hours earlier starting tomorrow instead of get up 15 minutes earlier, right? Get up a minute earlier. So talk about that for a minute, just the concept for everyone to just, they can take control of their life right now by just the establishment of a habit, right or right?

1:25:09Yeah, definitely right. So one of the concepts I talk about in the book is this, one of the strategies is this idea of what I call the two minute rule, where I encourage people to build a habit that takes two minutes or less to do. So you take whatever you're trying to do, read 30 books a year becomes read one page or do yoga four days a week becomes take out my yoga mat. And sometimes when I mentioned that idea, people resist a little bit because they're like, okay, buddy, you know, I know the real goal isn't just to take my yoga mat out. I know I'm actually trying to do the workout. So if this is some kind of mental trick, then like, why would I fall for it?

1:25:43Basically? Well, I tell the story of, of this guy, Mitch, that you mentioned this guy who I met, I talk about him in Atomic Habits. He went to the gym. He's lost over a hundred pounds, kept it off for more than a decade. And when he first started going to the gym, he wouldn't stay for five, longer than five minutes. He had this little rule. He had to leave after five minutes. So you get in the car, drive to the gym, get out, do half an exercise, get back in the car, drive home. And it sounds ridiculous, right? It sounds silly. You're like, obviously he's not going to get the guy the results that he wants.

1:26:13But if you take a step back, you realize that he was mastering the art of showing up, right? He was becoming the type of person that went to the gym four days a week, even if it was only for five minutes. And this gets us to that deeper truth about habits that you just mentioned, this idea that a habit must be established before it can be improved. It has to become the standard in your life before you can optimize it and scale it up into something more. And, you know, I don't know why we do this. Like we get very all or nothing about our habits. We're like, we're so focused on finding the perfect business idea or the best workout program or the ideal diet plan that we spend all our time theorizing and researching and looking for a better way.

1:26:54And instead, if we could just master the art of showing up, even if in the beginning, it was less than what you had hoped to do, you're establishing a foothold. You're building some small progress that you can advance off of. And it reminds me of Ed Lattimore has that great quote where he says, the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door. And man, there are a lot of things in life that like that. The hardest part is getting started. The hardest part is establishing the routine, even if it's a lower level baseline than what you ultimately hope to achieve. But the reality is, if you can't become the type of person who masters the art of showing up, even if it's just for five minutes, then it doesn't matter how good the plan is.

1:27:32It doesn't matter how great your theory is. And so I think the two-minute rule pushes back on that perfectionist tendency a little bit and just encourages you to master the art of showing up. So good. I'm right. Just finished writing a book called One More. And I get asked that sometimes, too. And one of the things that I wasn't thinking about it from this perspective when I wrote it, but you become the kind of person that says, look, I'm going to do it's my bench press. I'm going to do 10. You do one more, you do 11. I even say you're riding the treadmill for 45 minutes. You can build that habit of, OK, I'm going one more minute.

1:28:02I do 46. What's the difference in that minute? Well, you stack up that minute over a year. There's a difference. But also your identity begins to changes. and I'm not telling you to go through 45 minutes to three hours on a treadmill. So the practice I was doing is I wasn't thinking of it from this perspective. But now that I'm thinking about it, actually, our work is sort of converging, you know, almost in the exact same space.

1:28:39Bye.