So protect your time. One of the things that commonly happens is you get more and more successful, as you become more and more the author of your own story and are actually out there producing results and people are watching this happen, you’re living your life. What happens is people want more of your time. They want more of you. They want more of what you have. These are the demands upon your time are gonna become greater than ever. If you’re a business owner, this is very, very true, because people not only want your lifestyle they always want to know how to do your business. And so your demands are gonna be great, not only from your staff and your team but also the people around you. So, that can be friends but acquaintances, I mean, I get messages all the time and I’m not popular by any means.

So, by being your author of your own story, this is gonna happen to you too. And what I want to do is, you want to make sure you have a sacred time, a sacred hour. I call it the hour of power that I got from Tony Robbins and I just call it that now, it’s totally different. But, having that sacred time and I’ve actually expanded my sacred time quite a bit. So as of this recording I actually don’t communicate with people via chat or email any time before 10 a.m. or any time after 4 p.m. and I’ve condensed that with my team from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. is when they can bring issues to me. Now, of course, emergencies are totally different. They all have access to get emergencies. I’ve gone another step where I’ve actually put on my iPhone, and I’m sure you can do this Android, the do not disturb. So I have the do not disturb setting set to do not disturb me before 10 a.m. or after 4 p.m.

Now, the reason I did this is I wanted to get away. I was having Facebook on one screen. LinkedIn on another screen. I had HootSuite, which is monitoring all my social profiles. I had email messages streaming in. Text messages. Phone calls. This was taking up my whole day. I estimate that I was spending about 90% of my working day putting out fires for other people and at the end of that time, then at the end of the day I had time to myself to focus on me. And even worse than that I was burned out and then I’d go see my family and it just didn’t work for me. So I put this protection in place and my energy is abundant, my focus is abundant. Now, I work before 10 a.m., I get up at 5 in the morning. I love what I do. I love producing. So, I work but I have focus time now. I take my hour.

So, a dedicated hour. This is where I’m gonna ask you to start with. Just an hour. Carve it out. Wake up an hour earlier. You can do it, all you have to do is go to bed an hour earlier, it’s not that difficult. I heard this all the time as an excuse in the fitness field but it really isn’t hard to do. So, wake up an hour earlier and set aside that time. That is your sacred time.

Now, what I will also want you to do is communicate this with the people around. So if you have a partner, you’re in a relationship, your family, let them know you’re doing this and just say, “Hey. This is something I’m testing out for myself.” And I’m not asking you to stick to this but test it out. What I say, just make sure it works for you and that’s what I always do when I get advice or opinions from experts, is I test it out. Some things work for me and some things don’t and that’s great. But, test it out for yourself and I think you’re gonna find that this hour of sacred time, an hour of power, or whatever you want to call it.

Your protected hour is an hour where you’re gonna get massive clarity on things that have been circling in your head. You got time to meditate. Now, and if you don’t meditate just take time in silence to think or time just to sit and be still. You can do a walking meditation, which is something I’m often doing and read something, listen to a book. This is a great time to get the daily growth hack out that we’re talking about and your journal. So you can write down the thoughts you have, what those action steps are, and take action. Stop being one of those people that just listens and listens and takes in information but never acts. You know, there’s too many of those out there and I used to be one of them. So, I’m asking you to take massive action and part of this today is take that hour.

Take that hour and put things in that hour that fill your soul up. Fill you up. That can be going outside, that can be meditating, it could be exercising. I try to keep my exercise outside of my hour for power because I think it’s so important but also exercise gives me so much more and that hour of sacred time gives me that focus that I can’t really do while exercising. You know, it’s just a different kind of focus. I can’t produce or write while I’m working out. If I could that would be a pretty lame workout, but you get the idea. So set aside that sacred time, that sacred time for you and communicate with everybody. Communicate with your loved ones and let them know you’re not setting them aside you’re simply set aside an hour for yourself so you can come back better and fill them better.

I can tell you, my staff, my coworkers, my friends, my wife, they can all tell you that I’ve expanded this hour of power or this sacred time to multiple hours and when I talk to them or when I help them, I am able to pour into them at such a greater level. I’m able to be present. I have ideas. I’m able to sort through their problems quickly and it’s also trained them to figure out their problems on their own. You see, what happened is my messages from me got cut down. People that knew I was setting aside this sacred time all of a sudden stopped messaging me. At 10 o’clock, I got on at 10 and I expected a hundred questions to come my way immediately and they didn’t. You know why? ‘Cause they had to power themselves. They were empowered by me not being available to solve their problems to solve them themselves and took care of them. And guess what, my team is way smarter than I am and so the things that they were taken care of just became better. They weren’t just my ideas or my solutions to issues.

So, in your own life, you could be the manager of your family. Same thing. What are the other solutions they can solve by you taking time for your sacred time?

That’s it for me today. Have a great day and remember to go out and be the author of your own story.

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Earlier today, I asked my right-hand woman, the woman who helps me run all of my businesses, I said, “What are my three biggest complaints? What are the three things you hear me complain about the most?” Now, I had an idea of what she would answer, and two of the three were spot-on. The third one actually surprised me a little bit, and when I actually looked at it, I started writing it down, and I looked at these three complaints as I journaled, and I thought, “Wow, where am I living within these three complaints? Am I actually living my life like these things?”

And the answer was yes, and it wasn’t because I was doing anything wrong or bad, or any of those ideas, but when I looked at what I was complaining about the most, the three key areas, these have been things I’ve been complaining about not for weeks, not for months, but for years. And the reason that it was significant was I hadn’t made a big, big change in any of these three areas. Small glimpses, but no big, big change. So this shows me that there is a major pattern here, a pattern that needs to be interrupted and changed, and more importantly, that I’m living into this story.

Now, yes, you’ve heard me talk about the “author of your own story” concept, and this is something I’ve been very, very fortunate to live. But here I am with three complaints. Now, we’re always going to have complaints and things that we go through, and I define a complaint as something that you complain about, yet don’t provide a solution, and don’t take immediate action upon that solution if you have control. So in looking at these complaints, what I looked at, one is — you’ve heard me talk about this in the Daily Growth Hacks — is always complaining about being tired. Right? It’s been a complaint most of my adult life, and I’ve suffered from sleeping issues, and I’ve done everything that you eventually could think about. Recently, I’ve actually tackled that by just really going to bed earlier, and really getting into good sleep hygiene.

Now, when I look at this, though, through the history of my journaling and everything else that I’ve been going through, this lack of sleep has really caused a lot of issues in all areas of my Five to Thrive: in my mind, in my body, in my soul, in my relationships, and in my business. And then I started going through the other complaints and said, “Jeez, where does this complaint that I’m complaining about fall in line with my Five to Thrive?” And I looked at it again, I said, “Where in my mind, in my body, in my soul, in my relationships, in my business, am I still falling into this complaint? Am I using this complaint as a crutch, or is this complaint actually stopping me, stalling me from actually the growth that I desire, the growth that I deserve?” And I found out each time, the answer was yes, even with this third complaint that I didn’t even know I was saying. It was actually amazing.

So, here’s what I’m going to encourage you to do. If any of this resonates with you, write out your Five to Thrive, and then ask five people, right? I’ve already sent this out to another four people, and sadly, a lot of the complaints that are coming back are the same, but that’s not surprising, either. Ask five people, “Hey” — that you spend time with — “what are the top three things that I complain about the most, that you just hear me complain about? Could be the weather, could be my spouse, it could be anything.” And let them know that it’s safe conversation to have, right? My team and the people around me know that they can pretty much tell me anything, and it’s safe conversation. So, making sure that they feel safe, as you’re going to get better answers, you’re going to get clearer answers.

Now, you may know these, and so after you ask them, I want you to write down what you think your top three complaints are, and what you can do about those, and just make sure you have those listed and indexed. Now, once you’ve got your top five, look it for patterns, and what you’re going to see is that one, two, maybe even all three complaints come over and over again. Maybe different verbiage, maybe it’s not “tired,” maybe it’s “exhausted,” or maybe it’s just “not feeling well,” or something along those lines as a common complaint, as it was and is for me.

Then what I want you to look at is say, “Where in my Five to Thrive am I living into this complaint?” Right? “Where in my Five to Thrive is this complaint … Am I living into it? Am I actually proliferating this complaint? Am I actually living in, ‘Oh, I’m just tired’?” If I say it all the time, of course, I get tired. Now, also, “Where is this affecting me?” Right? “Where is this holding me back or hindering me from the growth that I deserve?”

Now, once you’ve identified that, I think you’re going to be very shocked to see that these complaints penetrate through all your Five to Thrive. It’s always interesting to me when someone hires me as a business coach, I know for a fact that a lot of our sessions are going to be talking about their personal lives, yet most business owners don’t think they need help in these areas until we actually dive deep. And once you clean up your personal life, your business thrives, and vice versa: Clean up your business, your personal life thrives. It’s all so interconnected, and that’s why we have the Five to Thrive.

So look at your list and see where it’s penetrating for you, and I’d love to hear from you. In fact, go over to the Author of Your Own Story community and let me know how this works for you. Of course, you can find me on social media and shoot me a private message; I’m happy for you to do that. Also, share this with at least three people that you know. Hey, you’re asking five people right now what your top three complaints are; you might as well send them this episode so they know what you’re talking about, and then do the same for them if they request it, but only if they request it. And then, last but not least, go out and inspire someone simply by being the author of your own story. I will see you tomorrow. I’m off to the gym. Have a great day.

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I sent an email to my team. I said, “Hey, make sure you watch those videos and take copious notes because I want to make sure you apply them to our project.” Now the next day, I came back expecting to see copious notes from my team about exactly what we should be doing with one of our projects only to see jokes coming through. Now I have a great relationship with all of my team. And they said, “Doug, first of all what videos and which projects? We’re running six different companies as a whole team here, and each of those companies has multiple projects going on at any given time.” It was actually really funny. Now what I didn’t do was really be specific about which videos I wanted them to watch and which projects to apply them to. We all got a chuckle out of it, luckily, but what we really lost was a day’s worth of work. I expected to come into the office, when I came in, and have a list of actionable items that I could task out and delegate to my team.

Now fast forward to today, and I actually had one of my business partners left me a voice note. He was complaining because he said, “Hey Doug, one of our staff members, I asked them to do a task and they didn’t do it.” I thought, “Wow, that’s unusual for them.” I said, “Well, shoot me over the email, and I’ll meet with them, and I can take care of it,” I said, “I have little more experience with this. You calm down, you’re a little hotheaded, and I’ll take care of it.”

When I read the email, I couldn’t do anything but chuckle because I had done the same thing, right? I had done it. So what he said is, “Hey, go over to LinkedIn, I want you to modify my profile so it speaks more to our ideal client.” Now we have three ideal clients within our avatar list for this particular business model. What was funny was the person who was asking had no idea what he was talking about. Yet he got upset. He wanted a specific verbiage to be on his LinkedIn profile to speak to somebody, yet never communicated exactly how he wanted to say it or what he wanted to say. Now I started laughing because one, I have done it. Two is how many other times in my life have I miscommunicated or not gotten clarity to somebody, given them clarity? Now this also applies to other areas of my life as it often does because where we do one thing, we do all things, right?

So where else in my five to thrive was I not getting clarity? Was I got getting clarity about a goal that I had? A purpose, a vision, or an outcome? And now not only was I not communicating this to other people, but in other areas what I was noticing was maybe I wasn’t getting enough clarity for myself. You know, for example, as somebody that’s been in the fitness industry for over 20 years, a lot of times you see people say, “Hey, I just want to lose weight,” and they never quite hit their goal because there is no goal called lose weight. You can’t actually look at it, establishing a solid number, something you could look at and argue, “Did you do it? Or didn’t you?” Adds clarity, and that clarity adds focus, and that focus gets you to your goal quicker because it gives you more continuity.

Now it’s the same thing with communication, right? In the area of relationships and business, we can apply this. I don’t know about you, but I know for me the more clear I am, the more time I take to make sure that my message lands to whoever I’m communicating, with the better. So here are a couple of things you can do just in the area of communication.

One is when you’re communicating with someone, ask them to repeat back what they heard and understood. I think you’ll be surprised at how often that people hear from their own lenses is not exactly what we intend. And this miscommunication can cause of a lot of problems in relationships and in the area of business. Step one is ask them just like, “Hey, can you just simply repeat back what you heard? I want to make sure that we’re on the right page.” I do this with my team often. Now sometimes in emails, I don’t do it as well as I should, but I do do it often. What it does is really gets us on the same page, gets clarity in the communication. Over time, a lot of my staff can just read my mind because they know what I’m thinking when we communicate because we’ve gone back and forth so often.

Another thing you can do is grab your journal and look at your goals. Write out your goals for your five to thrive. Sometimes I include fun, wealth, and growth, so there’s actually eight when I do a deep dive with a client. And then look at your goals. Now is there clarity around them? In other words, what I mean by that is, “Are there any questions around the goal?” Like the goal, like lose weight. What does lose weight mean, right? If you were to gain some muscle mass but lose body fat, would you be happy? And most people would say, “Yeah, Doug, I would be happy.” Well, then lose weight isn’t your goal, right? Be very clear, crystal clear. I often say, “So clear that a 10-year-old could look at that and understand exactly what it is.” This will give you clarity and, again, project you into your future and on the path to being the author of your own story, and that’s what this is all about.

You know, so often I hear from so many of you, telling me reasons or struggles—and I appreciate that—and reasons that you’re author of your own story, your journey, it is stopped or it’s hindered for some reason particular reason. Well, oftentimes clarity can help you, right? Clarity can even help you kind of sift through the BS and actually look at really what you want out of life and go for it, go for it with gusto. And I want to help you do that.

The first step to doing that, also, is making sure you’re on the Author of Your Own Story newsletter. Make sure you get it. Of course, you could always unsubscribe if you’re not getting the value that I think you’ll get from it. Second step, make sure you’re going over to our Author of Your Own Story private community and introducing yourself and sharing what’s going on for you. And the third step is sharing this with a few people that you know, that you think would enjoy having conversations like this that matter.

That’s it for me today. I will see you tomorrow. As always, go out and inspire someone simply by being 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!