If you like these daily growth hacks, it would mean the world to us if you would take a moment to subscribe and review us on iTunes!
If you like these daily growth hacks, it would mean the world to us if you would take a moment to subscribe and review us on iTunes!
In today’s episode you are going to see and hear the first volume of the BEST daily growth hacks from this past year. We want to bring you a compacted version of the best tips, tricks, and insights. Be sure to sign up for a newsletter to stay on top of our new season of Daily Growth Hacks with a completely new format.
Now, self-appreciation is also called self-love, and this is oftentimes in working with a client something that I see missing. Now we all think, yeah, yeah, I love myself, I like myself, that’s all good, Doug. Well I can tell you right now, I have clients that pay me a lot of money to help them break through barriers and up level their lives. The reason this works is I’m able to look past them and see the love or missing elements inside themselves.
You see, people aren’t gonna see you as something different than you see yourself. If you have yourself at a certain level, it’s hard to up level that level unless you can rise above that. What I mean is, if you see yourself as not being good enough, you certainly can’t expect anybody else to see you as good enough.
Categories of improvement is just another way of talking about how to categorize your life and look at where you want it to go. So, we have personal, and then we have business. The people around them get scared. They get scared because they realize that they’re not doing those things that they should be doing in their lives, and so they are not up leveling, and so what they tend to do is get scared in looking at the things that are happening in their lives, which causes fear, and it causes them to pull somebody back down.
It’s also another analogy to use with a crab is there’s two ways to have the tallest building in the world. One is to burn everybody’s else building down. Second one is to build it up as high as you possibly can.
Patterns are just certain things that we see coming up in our lives over and over again. My guess is each relationship that you’ve had has a very specific pattern that we could break down together. Balance is just critically important to human nature, we all know it. But oftentimes, we’re just out of balance. Now, I want you to shade those in. Now, go ahead and shade that in for each of the wedge all the way down to the zero. What you’re gonna notice is unless you have all 10s or all fives or all the same number across all five of your key areas, your wheel’s gonna be out of balance. If you were to put that wheel on your car, for most of us, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. This is not what we’re looking for.
Am I avoiding something? Or am I here because I want to be? Am I avoiding something? Or am I here because I want to be? After about the fifth time, you’ll start to peel back that layers of your life and actually see what’s really going on.
I want to talk to you entrepreneurs that are out there. So, if you’re an entrepreneur, or maybe you’re currently in a job but you have an entrepreneurial flair, oftentimes we jump to what’s called shiny new object syndrome. It’s when you have one project and you’re working on it, and all of a sudden you have that light bulb go off and you have another idea and you jump to that project. Soon you feel like you’re juggling plates and you have all kinds of things going on.
I didn’t work out this morning because I stayed up late. Now, what I’m gonna suggest you take that work because and replace it the word and. I didn’t work out this morning and I stayed up late last night. They’re two separate clauses. They’re not really related. They’re one and another. These are two separate facts. You’re gonna find that when you use the word because and you replace it with and, it totally takes out the emotion and gives you a different viewpoint on the situation. It also helps eliminate excuses. You need to fill your own cup first. If you don’t fill your own cup and you’re filling somebody else’s cup, your cup remains empty.
Now, when we think about being the author of your own story, part of that is just having freedom, and that freedom to me means freedom to do what you want, when you want, within reason. The premise of a 90 minute hour is very simple. It’s how can you leverage each hour of the day to get the most out of it, and a lot of this is multitasking.
Now, the 90 minute hour is again, it’s cramming things in to place where you don’t normally have time to do stuff. I believe that if you have a solid why, there are no roadblocks. You figure out a way to go over, under, around, through, whatever you have to do, that roadblock just doesn’t exist anymore. Just an opportunity to pivot and go a different direction.
Knowing your why is critical. Whatever your goals may be, small or large, knowing your why will help you get there and will help you when you face adversity. I can set aside a few hours of dedicated, focused time to know exactly where I left off and not have to go back and re-check those items to make sure that I’m progressing fast enough.
You see, when we have to go back and look and see, hey, where did I leave off? We’re taking mental energy when we do that, and we’re also wasting time. Having an actual system or project where you’re making sure you’re appreciating yourself.
Upon waking up, drink a solid glass of water, eight ounces or more, first thing in the morning. Imperfect action is gonna beat perfect inaction every time, and this is the time to change.
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I don’t know about you, but for me what’s true is I constantly am making commitments. Commitments to myself, commitments to others. Now the commitments I make to myself are actually the most important. The reason that is, is these commitments are commitments of truth and honor that I’m doing to myself.
Oftentimes, we lie to ourselves more than we lie to somebody else. It’s also easier to break commitments we make to ourselves than it is to break commitments to others. That’s why I’ll say the possibility that making a commitment to yourself is more important. Throughout time I’ve made a lot of commitments that I just haven’t hit, for some reason they fell through. Something that I found is really helpful for me, and maybe you can try this on, and maybe it’ll be helpful for you, is listing out those commitments that I’ve made, that I haven’t been able to keep. Once you’ve listed those out, what I want you to do is look at it and see are you still committed? Why didn’t you hit that goal?
You could be like me and I wanted to really finish a whole Spanish program for example, I wanted to learn the Spanish language so I could communicate fully. This came really to the forefront when I was down in Colombia and I was in the Amazon jungle working with some shaman down there. When I came back I thought “You know what? I want to learn Spanish, and really know it.” I mean, I took five years of Spanish, I should be able to speak fluently. I also thought I was going to be going back leading a group of people down there, which I will be, but not as soon as I thought. I started studying, I studied every single day, in fact, I even hired a tutor. I was in.
Then, all of a sudden, I was out. What I mean by that is all of a sudden I stopped. I stopped listening to the audiobooks, I stopped doing the homework, I stopped meeting with my coach. There were a number of things going on, we had our first child, a beautiful boy. I was spending time with him, and taking care of our businesses, and then taking care of my lovely wife. Now, I could’ve easily still done this, it would’ve been pushing the realms quite a bit actually, but I could’ve done it. But I lost that commitment, I lost that focus. When I looked at my why, the reason I was doing it, I knew I wasn’t going back to Colombia any time soon. Here I had this precious child and a family to raise, I also have a loving wife who I couldn’t just leave alone at this stage.
It kind of windowed, windowed out. When I look to that, and I wrote it down, my why wasn’t there anymore. That’s okay. I gave myself a pass on that commitment. There are other commitments I’ve made that I still want to go after, one of which I’m making public right here is 10% body fat. I really want to hit that number. Just because it’s been a goal of mine for a long time and even being an athlete in college, I never hit it. I hit 11% that was recorded, but I never hit that 10% level. But there is one commitment I’ve made to myself that I have kept, and I want to celebrate here with you right now.
Before I tell you about that, what I want you to do is grab your journal, write out your five to thrive. Your mind, your body, your soul, your relationships, and your business. List out all the commitments you’ve made. All the commitments you’ve made in the past five years. Bonus points if you want to go longer, just free flow all the commitments you’ve made in your mind. Books you’ve read, things you’ve learned, things that you’ve really pushed forward. In your body, what have you done? Have you done a marathon? Have you just eaten cleanly? Have you tried the paleo diet? Keto? Vegan? Whatever it is for you. What about your soul? Have you tried meditation? I honor you for those things.
Now, what I want you to do is put a smiley face around all those commitments that you’ve actually made and finished, that’s great, we want to celebrate those, really want to celebrate those achievements. Now, ones you haven’t hit for some reason or another, what I want you to do is look at the why, why didn’t you hit those? Be honest with yourself and be raw. This is one of those daily growth hacks that really requires you to do the work. It’s going to take some time to go through this and do them properly.
Now, what I want you to do is if you no longer want to achieve that goal, simply cross it out. Grab your marker and just put a big line through it. That’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with that. But the ones that you still want to achieve, I want you to really write down that why. Why do you want to achieve them? Why is it that it’s so important for you to actually hit this goal? Bonus points if you go ahead and message me if you’re on the newsletter you have my personal email. If you aren’t in the Author of Your Own Story newsletter, just go to authorofyourownstory.com and you can get on that newsletter. You can opt out at any time, but you’ll have access to my personal email.
What I’ve asked you to do is email me back those commitments. I’ll be your accountability partner right here and right now to look at those accountabilities. You can also post them in the Author of Your Own Story group. Now, once you have those down, we want to make sure that why fits into your goals. Do these, in your five to thrive, fit in? That’s something we want to journal about on a regular basis. That’s something I’ll do a deeper dive into for another daily growth hack when we start doing the deep dives, which are coming soon. Now, time for celebration. I want to celebrate with you. One year ago today, I said publicly, that I was going to film a daily growth hack for one year. 365 of them. Today is episode 365. I want to thank you for being on this journey with me, whether you’ve listened to one, or you’ve listened to all 365. Thank you so much. It really means a lot to me.
The reason why, my why, was to share my gifts. I’ve been studying business and personal development for over 20 years now. I’ve been coaching clients at the highest levels possible. I wanted to share this with everybody else. I never liked the way I sounded or looked on video, I was thought about it “How can I help more people?” Well, producing videos or something that just teaches people what I’m learning. When I’ve had the benefits to learn from teachers, mentors, classes in my journey in order to help a few people out there. Many of you have shared with me what these daily growth hacks have meant to you. From people that were in the brink of suicide and have come back and just heard a voice that resonated with them to others who have tried new things that have brought them closer in their relationships, and those of you that have grown your business significantly by simply applying a few of these growth hacks.
I want to honor you, thank you so much. We are here at that date. I also want to send a special thanks to a couple people. A special thanks to Billy and Ken, who’s behind the scene works makes this possible. Also, I want to thank Darcy Curry, who does an amazing job, she’s my queen of operations, and without her it’d be a struggle. Victor, Carol and Lili. The team behind the scenes at Author of Your Own Story is an amazing team. Unfortunately, you don’t get to see them as much as you’d like. Also, Smile. Hi,Smile. These are great people and you’ll see them in the Author of Your Own Story community. There are admins, and they’re always out there to help other people.
Again, I want to thank you. If this has made any impact, even the slightest inkling, I encourage you to share with three other people. We have a year of this. Three other people, so you can have conversations that matter. My goal is to help you on your journey to being author of your own story and help you make that framework. As such, what we are going to do is totally change the format of the Author of Your Own Story Daily Growth Hacks. Coming in two weeks, right? Two weeks, we are going to then, after two weeks, eliminate and take back all these old daily growth hacks. We’re going to be taking them offline, so make sure you download them all now. After watching these, make sure you save them so you can come back to them in a later date, because we’re going to take them down.
The new format is going to include daily growth hacks just like these, but it’s also going to include deep dives, where we share inspirational stories from people living the Author of Your Own Story lifestyle, as well as deep dives with the relationship experts and experts in other areas of the five to thrive. I’m very, very excited to have you on this journey. Your call to action today is do the work, do the journaling we just talked to you about, your commitments, then share this with three people. Simple, easy, share with three people that you think will enjoy a conversation like this.
Last thing, if you haven’t already, make sure you get on the Author of Your Own Story newsletter so you are up to date on all of these changes. This is us giving back to the world, giving to you. I want to make sure you get them. Of course you can unsubscribe for some reason you don’t see the value, but I’m sure you will. I’d like to know if you don’t, so we can make it better. That’s it for me today, thank you so much for being on this journey with me. I look forward to the next iteration of the Daily Growth Hacks, and make sure you go out today and live your life to inspire other people and be the author of your own story.
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Recently I started watching a few of the episodes on YouTube of the Cobra Kai series. If you’re not familiar with it, this is kind of the remake or mock of the old Karate Kid show, where they bring back Daniel LaRusso and his archrival. Back when they’re in their 40s, and its actually pretty funny and I like it. But one of the things that the Cobra Kai teach is one, Cobra Kai never die. The second one is not to be fearful. In other words, to face your fears, right? To come at it with a sense of gusto, whatever life brings to you.
And it reminds me. It reminds me of a time when I was traveling through Tibet. Now, I traveled through China, through Tibet, and I landed in Nepal. I say landed, we actually took a jeep through the whole Himalayan mountains and we ended up in Nepal. I’m walking around the market in Nepal, and there was a snake charmer sitting there just like you would see in the movies with a basket. There were a couple guys sitting around, and they had a little flute. He wasn’t playing it at the time. He opened the basket, and out came a cobra. A king cobra with a gigantic mane. And I walked over and I looked at him. We couldn’t speak and we’re looking at him, and I walked over, and he pet the cobra on its mane. I went over there right away, and instinctively I reached my hand out and I slowly caressed this animal. This animal typically I’d be fearful, but for some reason, I wasn’t afraid. It was absolutely amazing.
Now, stupid? Perhaps. But a calculated risk in the sense that I had actually assumed that nothing was going to happen. I was also in my early 20s and traveling around the world I’ve experienced things like this many, many times. Now, what does that have to do with you? Well, here’s the lesson that I learned. Oftentimes when I’m facing something, whether it be going into a boardroom meeting that’s kind of like a shark-tank type environment or it’s coaching a high-level CEO of a big business, or it’s doing something else in life. Maybe it’s something that’s daring: a hike, swimming with sharks, which I did last year.
Whatever it may be when I have fear overcome me. Fear overcomes me, whether it be large or small, I remember that cobra snake. I remember the feel of his mane as I caressed him. I remember the look, looking right into his eyes as close as you can imagine. Only a couple inches away. Now, he could have struck me and probably incapacitated me and maybe even killed me, but the fear. The fear is the flip-side of excitement, right? They’re two sides of the same coin. On one side we have fear, and we flip it over, we have excitement. What’s the difference? Well, it’s breath. It’s taking a breath and going into it, right?
And so, what I invite you to do is grab your journal. Write out your five to thrive. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of in the area of your mind? I’ve spoken about a client of mine who had a story that he wasn’t smart enough. And he was actually one of the smarter people I’ve ever met. But his story wasn’t smart enough, so he was afraid to read in front of people. He was afraid to present on subjects, when he actually was an expert. What is your fear? Overcoming his fear allowed him to step into his light and help so many other people, grow his business, establish a firm relationship with his baby’s mom, and also grow his friendships way beyond what he had, where he thought was possible. Simply because he faced his fear. He pet the cobra. I invite you to do the same.
Where are those fears lying in your life? Where can you face the cobra and actually step into the fear rather than hiding from it and actually crouching down? Remember, the Cobra Kai never die. That’s it from me today. Remember to share this with at least three other people that you know that you want to have conversations that matter. And if you’re somebody that got sent this by somebody? Hey. You have somebody who cares about you and wants to have conversations to help grow their journey and yours. That’s what the Author of Your Own Story lifestyle is all about. Here I am in my adventure van, traveling right now, and I wanted to get this out to you. Have an amazing day. Remember, go out and be the author of your own story. I’ll see you later.
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Now you have to understand I was born and raised and grew up in Southern California. There was never snow on the ground unless we drove to it which we did often, so now I’m living in a beautiful house in the mountains and it’s finally time to de-winterize our sprinkler system. See we paid a landscaping company that comes in and they winterize the whole system and I never even thought about it. It’s actually, to be honest with you, it’s all automatic. I don’t even think about watering the plants. We have beautiful trees, beautiful flowers and a beautiful grass are for our child to play, but now it’s time to de-winterize and I thought, heck it doesn’t look that difficult. I can do it myself. So I spent about 20 minutes on YouTube watching YouTube tutorials and then I grabbed my tools and went outside and I went outside head held high, chest out, feeling like a man. I was ready to go de-winterize.
Now I know most of you are probably laughing if you’ve ever done this yourself because you know how easy it is, right? Well, it wasn’t easy for me. I went out there and I saw that the valves were turned the wrong way. They were in the shut-off position, so I quickly maneuver them to the correct position to get them lined up with the pipes just right so the water would flow. I also checked the close value, the air valve, to make sure they were good. Got it. I did everything the videos had said. Now I walked back in, turned the sprinkler system on to show my amazement of the water spraying everywhere, flooding our yard, only to have nothing happen.
Frustrated, I went back in. I read another tutorial, then went back outside, looked at the system for probably 20 minutes, trying to figure out what could be different with this particular system. What was different with this sprinkler system than the ones that I saw on YouTube? Over the course of two hours I spent trying to problem solve what was going on, trying to figure out the nuances, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, then I marched over to the electric system that waters our whole yard. Right, the whole thing comes in and it’s a really average system. Nothing grand but it’s an electric system I have timed zones and such. And so I grabbed the manual and I started flipping through that. Now over this time, I’ve spent probably about three hours and still no water. My wife turned to me and she said, “You know what, you know it’s gonna be one little valve. One little thing that was just off a little bit and that’s what’s gonna be the difference.” I said, “Geez. You know what, you’re totally right.” And the funny thing is, this is not my area of expertise. This is why I hire coaches. This is why I have mentors.
I have people who have already done the due diligence specialist in their areas because that’s what they’re great at and it’s better for me not to be a jack of all trades. You see as a business consultant when I come into a company, I’m getting paid upwards of $3,000 an hour to work on their cases and most of them rehire me because the value was there. Now here I was saving $50 and really just my ego trying to fix the sprinkler system and I started to think about it, right? What else am I doing in this area? Where are my five to thrive, my mind, my body, my soul, my relationships, my business? Am I sacrificing myself and my growth for the opportunity costs that are there?
So in other words when I look at things like coaching a client, I had a client who was doing a six-month sprint in their business. Now three months into that sprint, they had called me and hired me as their coach cause they wanted to really accelerate their progress. The problem was is they were working 15 hour days seven days a week and by the time I caught onto the board to help them out, they had already run themselves ragged, they had already run themselves into the hospital with medical bills going through the roof and missing actual key appointments that actually had set them back over a year. You see they didn’t factor in the opportunity costs of hiring somebody else in and spending the time that they needed to do in their zone of genius and healing themselves, taking time off.
Now I’ve seen this in a lot of areas, right? In the area of relationships, I was actually in a business meeting with high-level business owners from all over and all different aspects and somebody came up and they were a family lawyer and if you’re not familiar with family law, it’s divorce law, right? And he stood up in closing and he said, “Hey everyone, thanks it was a great meeting. I just want to say one thing. John wasn’t here today because he and his wife are going through a divorce.” Now I was a guest in this group. I was a guest speaker and so it kind of took me aback that he would say something like this and he said, “Look, what is the price of flowers every single week and a simple I love you? It’s way less expensive than divorce.” So what he was really trying to say is what are the opportunity costs of things that we neglect, right? The things that we put off, our time, where is that? Where is that in our life, in our area of relationships, now he was relating this to John who I had never met, but really what he was saying was what is it that John was spending time doing something else, right? He wasn’t taking care of his family. He wasn’t taking care of his wife in this case and where are we in our five to thrive not taking care of ourselves or where are we sacrificing time for something else, the opportunity cost?
What is the opportunity cost of you watching TV two, three hours a day? What else could you be doing, the fun you could be having, the fulfillment in your relationships? Now a lot of you reached out to me because you subscribe to the author of your own story newsletter and there are two questions I ask everybody and I love your responses and a lot of times in our conversations back and forth, a lot of you are telling me, Hey Doug, I just don’t have the time. You know, I love what you’re doing, the lifestyle, being able to travel anywhere with your family, spend any time you want with your family and enjoy it, but I just don’t have the time to build something like that. And the answer is it’s all opportunity cost. What is the time that you’re spending doing other things costing you? You see in John, what was he doing? He could have sent flowers and just sat down with his wife. Now he’s going through a divorce. The cost is not only financial, but it’s emotional.
With me, you know spending over three hours and probably a lot more if I think about it, trying to save $50 and my ego to fix a sprinkler, I could have spent that time with my one-year-old child, precious time that I can never get back, right? And where else are we doing this in this five to thrive? So grab your journal. Write our your five to thrive, your mind, your body, your soul, your relationships, and your business and I’ll give you bonus points if you do the other three that I talk about periodically in these and that’s wealth, growth, and fun. Now, where are you not having enough time? Where do you look at these things when you look at your goals in these areas … so write your goals down. Write, what do you want? What do you truly want in the deep parts of your heart? What do you want in each of these areas? Once you’ve identified that, look at them and be honest in why aren’t you hitting them and if you’re honest with yourself, how many of these are, you don’t have enough time, right and just be honest.
You know for me when I do this exercise, often times it’s three or four of them, right? It’s quite a few. I just didn’t have enough time to do all the things I wanted to do but in reality, when we look back at our schedule, when we look at our calendar and remember I always say, show me your calendar and I’ll show you your priorities. How much time are we spending doing things that we just don’t care about? Binging on Netflix? Watching movies? Going to sporting events? Maybe going to happy hour at a bar with people we don’t really care about too much, right? Where are we doing that? And now what I want you to do is recognize that and replace it with your priorities. The opportunity cost is too high for you not to continue this journey to the author of your own story lifestyle.
I want you to have it all and so much more. That’s it for me today. As always go over to authorofyourownstory.com where you can get the latest tips, tricks, and techniques delivered right to your inbox and share this with just three people. That’s all. One, two, and three, three people that you want to have conversations that matter with and look if somebody shared this with you, they think highly of you so congratulations. That’s a great thing in your day and make sure you’re sharing this so you continue growing your tribe. I’ll see you tomorrow. Remember to go out and be the author of your own story.
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Today I’m going to talk about a health topic, one that relates to your body called intermittent fasting. Now, there’s a lot of information about intermittent fasting on the internet and my background in the wellness field goes over 20 years. So, something that I practice is intermittent fasting, in my daily life. So, intermittent fasting is simply fasting intermittently. And the way that most people do it is they stop eating at a certain time and then don’t eat until another one. For example, usual intermittent fasting times or fasting phases, are 12 to 16 hours. Yet, there’s no hard data on the exact time you need to fast for. So, for example, what I personally do is I stop eating by 7 p.m. and then I don’t actually have another meal until 10 a.m. the next day.
Now, there’s some controversy with that and some people add bulletproof coffee or just coffee to their diet, while others say anything but water doesn’t count as fasting. Now, the debate’s out there but I can tell you from my own practice, adding coffee and eventually a bulletproof style coffee, really works for me. It keeps my energy, really helps me feel good and allows my body to digest the food from the previous day. Now, I still eat a very healthy meal, a healthy lifestyle. So, adding the basics of lots of vegetables, a protein to each meal, really keeping that going.
Now, common questions I get from intermittent fasting or about intermittent fasting is one, how do I start? Well, that’s simple right? Now, you can just simply start by setting a time when you’re going to have your last meal and then looking ahead 12 to 16 hours of when your next meal will start. At first, this is going to be really weird, right? It’s really weird for most reasons. One, is we habitually eat breakfast right when we wake up, maybe for you, it’s coffee and a croissant, or maybe for you, it’s cereal in the morning with your family, I don’t know. But, for most people, it takes about a week to get out of that weird feeling of missing out. You have a few hunger pangs you know, going oh geez I’m hungry. And that’s where bulletproof coffee or something like that can really come in handy.
But, for most people, it’s really just the habit of eating in the morning that comes in. And after about a week, you don’t even notice that you’re not eating. Yeah, you know when you go into with other people in social situations and for myself with my family, and we travel a lot, and we’re always hanging out with great people, so when we go out to breakfast with them, me just having a coffee can seem weird. And sometimes I skip in and out of it. It really depends on what I want to do. Remember, I’m the author of my own story. But, 90 plus percent of the time I am practicing intermittent fasting. And one thing that really helped me out was getting the intermittent fasting journal by Brian Grynn. Now, I love this journal, and frankly, to be transparent, Brian is a client of mine, a coaching client so I work with him. But, his journal helped me for the first 21 days pushing past the barrier of the fluctuation. And since then, what I’ve noticed from intermittent fasting is an increased amount of energy, fat loss and also more focus in the morning.
And it really surprised me, it surprised me at how culturally conditioned I was to eat at specific times. And coming with the wellness background, I was always told to gain muscle, you know the science says that you need to have branch chain amino acids in your bloodstream every two hours, right? And so, that meant that you needed to eat. So now what I do in order to maintain muscle mass, is I supplement with branch chain amino acids, or BCAAs in the morning when I don’t eat. Now, this isn’t going to have an insulin spike and it’s against traditional fasting protocols, right. But, I also do this in the evening. Now, this helps me maintain muscle mass, reducing body fat, increasing energy.
Now some of the things that I’ve been taught about intermittent fasting, is it also helps switch from glucose energy, so this is when your body is actually using your sugar stores, right to burn calories to fat burning mode. It usually takes about 12 hours for all this to kick in. And that’s where intermittent fasting really comes in handy. Now, if you’re eating more of a ketogenic type diet, and you’re really focusing on fat burning, this is a great way to kick-start that. Also, what I’ve also been told is that cells, especially cancer cells, it actually stops them or prevents them from growing quickly because they are not able to get the glucose they need or sugar in their body to actually form and thrive.
Now, this is just what I’ve been told, I’m not a doctor so don’t take that as gospel from me but, just what I’ve heard and read quite a bit about from people that I personally respect. So today’s tip, what I’d like you to try, if you’re interested, is intermittent fasting. And you can try this in a different way. Skip one meal for one week and see how you feel. The thing that I thought was the most eye-opening for me is how culturally conditioned I personally was and somebody who thinks they are very aware of themselves to when I was supposed to eat. I’ve been conditioned so much that it took me about a week to get off it and I actually realized I felt a lot better. That’s it from me today, I’d love to hear your experience with intermittent fasting. Please go over to our Facebook group, it’s private author of your own story, and then we can also make sure that you sign up for our newsletters so you can get the latest tips, tricks and techniques delivered right to your inbox. That’s it for me today, have an amazing day, and remember, go out and be the author of your own story.
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Just the other day, I had the great benefit of connecting with a friend I hadn’t seen in probably about three years. Now, we connected on social media and actually scheduled a time to get on a video. Now, circumstances had kept us apart. I’ve been busy traveling the world with my family and just really haven’t heard from him. It was great that he reached out to me and I got really excited.
Then we jumped on a video and right away I recognized that he had aged about 10 or 15 years. His hair was scraggly and gray. It’s thinning out. His face was long. He’d gained at least 20 pounds since last time I talked to him and he just looked frumpy and depressed. I reached out to him and said, “Hey, look. I don’t mean to say this but what’s going on? You used to be this vibrant, healthy athlete. We played sports together. You are always one of those guys that was leading the pack.” He said, “Yeah.” Just over the years, the last couple of years, he and his wife, and I won’t say her name, but they’ve been struggling with some marital issues. I was like, “Wow, I’m so sorry to hear that. It’s really common and I hope things are better.” He said, “Yeah, they are better.”
I was like, “Great.” I’m like, “What did you do? Did you go to marital counseling? Did you hire a coach? What was your secret sauce?” I love to learn how other people overcome relationship hurdles, so I can apply them to my clients and just see if I can help out. What he said to me wasn’t really surprising. What he said to me was, “Doug, really, I just lowered my expectations. I realized she’s not going to change. I realized I’m not going to get what I want. I realized I’m not going to do anything different, so I just lowered the expectations.” I said, “Wow, how is that working for you?” He just stared at me for a little bit and you could see tears forming in his eyes and almost a distance or deadness is how I would describe it. He said, “Well, it’s working.”
Then we talked a little bit more. Obviously, I just don’t try to coach friends, but I do try to lead them in a path because obviously when people reach out, usually they want a little bit of help and I just care about people and I want them to have the best of their lives. I want them to be the authors of their own story and be on their journey.
I said, “How is business going? You had two thriving businesses just a couple years ago. How is that going?” He said, “Well, I let go of one business. We started to lose a profit and the other business, yeah, we’re getting by. We’re a little in debt. We’re in the red but I’m able to pay rent and so I can’t complain too much.” You could see that he had lowered his expectations and settled in all areas of his life as we went down the list. I started asking him about other areas. How are you getting outside? Are you running like you used to? He used to be an amazing trail runner. He used to love the environment. He was like, “No, I actually haven’t been outside in probably a year or so doing any trail running or anything like that.” He’d been outside but not really in the wilderness, not in nature. You could see how this happened through his Five to Thrive and actually we call it the Core Eight. He’d actually been through the whole thing with fun, growth and wealth as well.
I ask you today, I ask you in your Five to Thrive, write it down, where are you settling? Where are you lowering your expectations to fit in with something you’re settling with? What is the cost of settling for you? My friend, he had aged and looks at least 10 to 15 years and my guess based on my experience is his health internally had aged at least the same. He had settled and the marrow of his life had been sucked out of him and it was obvious. Now, I hope he gets on the right path and he listens to these daily growth hacks. I’m happy to help you if you’re listening to this now.
What I want for you though, you the listener, if you’re sharing this time with me is I want you to learn and heed the warning that my friend went down. Do not settle and do not lower your expectations. The cost of settling is too great. Keep your expectations and your standards high. You deserve it. This is the author of your own story, and your story should be one that’s epic, one that you want to read, an epic page turner and that starts with keeping your standards high.
Grab your journal. Write out your Five to Thrive. What are your standards in each five categories, your mind, your body, your soul, your relationships and your business? Then where are you settling, if anywhere? Then I encourage you to pick one of those. Right here in this moment, take a stand and raise the bar.
That’s it for me today. Please share this with at least three other people so you can build your tribe. Have conversations that matter and remember do the work. If you’re not doing the work, it’s not helping. I’ll see you tomorrow. As always, go out, inspire somebody else by simply being the author of your own story.
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Now, I just walked in from a trail run. A beautiful trail run along a gorgeous, pristine river. I mean, just absolutely gorgeous. 75 degrees out, as I’m running, the wind is going against me, I can hear the rushing water alongside me, and this is just a short, maybe 5 to 10-minute drive from my home, yet no one else around, except for the birds and beautiful nature.
Now, I wouldn’t have done this trail run, because I had so many things that I wanted to do. We’re relaunching part of the Author Of Your Own Story University, I’ve also got several other things in the mix. As many of you know, I’m an owner of six different companies, and living the Author Of Your Own Story lifestyle. The funny thing is is I have a coach, and my coach posed a question to me.
She said, “Doug, what are you doing to fill your own cup?” The reason she posed this question is she happens to be a relationship coach, and it’s a coach my wife and I hired together, as we’re always trying to up level, and do better in our personal relationships, as well as we do with our businesses. We want to always continue growing, and so she said, “Doug, what are you doing to fill your cup today?”
I looked at her and said,, “Well, as soon as we’re off this call, I have one more business call where I’m actually helping a business owner. It’s not really for business, I’m just helping out, nice guy, and I really think he can do well. And then after that, my wife and my son are going to get back. They’re actually down at the beach right now playing, and I want to see them when they come in. I want to be a good husband, so I’m going to help her take care of the house, and take him over. It’s definitely very important for me to be not only a provider and a great father, so I only have about three to four hours of quality time after this call that I can spend with my child.”
As I’m telling her this, I’m also listening to what’s coming out of my mouth. I know where this is going. This is exactly how I would coach a client, and she just listened to me very patiently. I said, “Look, I know. I know. I’m putting everybody else before myself, and I’ve been doing this for far too long.” I keep putting off what I want to do, filling my cup, so I can go out and fill everybody else’s out. I fell into an old pattern. Does this sound familiar to you?
This is an old pattern many of us go through, especially for us that are high achievers, that are going out there to really change the world. I want to be the best husband possible, the best father possible, the best friend possible, the best business owner to each and every one of my clients and best boss to my staff. I want to be that to be everybody.
What I used to do was put everybody first, and I’ve been burnt out, worn out. Friday night in my early 20s even, would come down, and I’d be like, “I’m just going to stay in. I’m going to work and I’ll hone my craft a little bit here and there, but I’m just burnt out. I’ve been giving to everybody.” It took me a long time to figure out that when I started filling my own cup, making my schedule a priority, I was then able to come in and fill everybody else’s.
I actually got to a point where really people didn’t want to hang out with me. I wasn’t fun. I was always so drained. I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll just do it.” I would resent them for that, right? What was interesting was I was falling back into this pattern. I was putting everybody else’s schedule first. I gave access to my personal calendar, to five different people.
“Look, just schedule a meeting, this’ll be easier for me. You just schedule it whenever you want to.” Then the week comes up and I have meetings all over the place, and as always, your calendar will get as filled as you allow people to fill it. It just happens to me each and every time. This is a repeating pattern that I keep having to remind myself to get back into, but this time, luckily we had a coach, and a coach that was designed and hired to bring my wife and I even closer.
Now, we have an amazing relationship and I’m so blessed and so lucky to have her, but we want it even better. If better is possible, that’s what we want. Let’s go. Let’s go full bore, and that’s what she and I are both about. When she looked at this and asked me, “Hey Doug, what are you doing to fill yourself up?” There was nothing on my calendar that didn’t involve me filling somebody else up, which in return, made me feel good about myself, and it was really interesting.
You’re getting this daily growth hack right after a trail run that was spurred by this one remembrance, right? It’s not something I learned new, it’s just something that reminded me of who’s calendar goes first. If you feel this is normal for you, I want you to look at your calendar. Look at your calendar and whose calendar and whose priorities are you putting before your own?
Are you putting your kids, your spouse, your boyfriend, girlfriend, your significant other? Is it coworkers, your boss? Is it family? Are you putting their needs or their wants, desires, ahead of yours? It’s so often when I’m coaching somebody, whether it be a business owner or not, they’re talking about, they’re just like, “I’m just so busy. I’m too busy and I want to get out, I’m stuck, I’m frustrated.” One of the first things I ask them is to look at their calendar.
“Show me your calendar and I’ll show you your priorities.” Well, I can tell you what, I once again, was putting everybody else’s priorities ahead of myself. I know better, and I shouldn’t do it, and it took somebody else, a coach, a mentor, to help me look behind the curtain and see what was going on. That wasn’t even really her normal intent, but she knew what I knew, that if we don’t fill our own cups, we don’t fill our own souls, we don’t fill ourself up first, we can’t pour over and really be in a quality relationship with anybody else.
Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to grab your journal, of course, write out your Five to Thrive as we always do, but we’re going to add an extra one, and this is one of the ones I had with my coaching clients. I actually go over eight, but we talk about the Five to Thrive, but one of the other ones is fun. Where is fun on your calendar? I want you to see, is it specifically in any of those categories? In your mind, in your body, in your soul, relationships, business? And then let’s add fun. Where is it in your calendar?
Now, if you don’t see it actually calendared out, I want you to look at what your priorities are and be honest with yourself. I had to be today. I’m actually, if you’re watching this, you’re lucky that there’s not Smell-O-Vision here, because I smell a little bit, because I’ve been running hard, I’ve been playing, having a great time. And right now I’m so excited when I’m done hitting this, done hitting record, giving you this message, this learning of something that I learned, that I’m going to go play with my family and fill them up even more, and I want that for you.
Now, this is part of the Author Of Your Own Story journey. I was able to build my lifestyle anyway that I want, and I started filling it up with somebody else’s priorities. I got away from that, off track. That’s why coaches and mentors are so, so important. I always say that, and I really, really mean it. I want you to be your own coach here. You have to do the work, and I love hearing from you.
After you’ve done this work, shoot me an email. Let me know. If you’re on the newsletter, you have my private email. Just hit reply to the newsletter, and let me know what comes up for this. Let me know how you’re having fun. I want to know. You’re going to inspire me and it’s going to be great. You’re listening to me, we have almost 7000 people that download these daily growth hacks, and I want to know more from you. I want this to be a two-way conversation. Talk to me, let me know what’s going on for you, and I’ll do the same.
Also, share this with at least three people. Let them have the insights that you’re getting and that way you can also have conversations that matter. That’s three people. It’s going to take you maybe 30 seconds to forward it onto them, and go ahead and let them know.
You’re also going to let them know that somebody cares about them, and in this day and age, that’s huge. For you, I want you to have conversations that matter and look, if you’re somebody that got this forwarded to you, somebody loves you and somebody cares about you. So hats off to you. Make sure that they’re having fun, and make sure that you’re having fun, too. In fact, have fun together.
That’s it for me today. I will see you tomorrow. Have an epic day, and remember, go out and be the Author Of Your Own Story.
If you like these daily growth hacks, it would mean the world to us if you would take a moment to subscribe and review us on iTunes!
