Now, this is a tip I got from Robin Sharma, now as leaders in our communities and leaders in business, we get hit by a barrage of information every day. You know right here, right now, I’m talking to you, I have three screens going. There’s information coming at us at all angles. We have chats going on, we have social media, we have messages from our friends and our family. And oftentimes, what happens if we lose focus.

Robin Sharma’s invented the 90-90-1 rule, and it’s really simple and it’s something that I apply to my daily life and hopefully, it’ll help you as well. Now, what is the 90-90-1 rule? Well, it’s picking that one thing. The one thing that will move the needle the most for you or your business, in your life. So that could be the one project that you’re working on, the one event, the one sales launch. Whatever it is for you. That one thing that moves the needle for you and your business to get to your author of your own story lifestyle.

Then what you’re going to do is you’re going to carve out 90 minutes. Now that’s 90 minutes first thing in the morning. Now I know some of you go to the gym first thing in the morning, but when you get back what are you doing? Or before you go to the gym, get up a little earlier. What is it you’re focused on during that 90 minutes? For most of us, that 90 minutes is that grace period, that first time in the day where we have the most energy and the most focus. So what you do is you set aside that 90 minutes for 90 days. So that’s 90 consecutive days that you have a 90-minute focused period to focus on that one project. That one thing that moves the needle significantly for you, in either your business or your personal life.

It’s a really simple project, and it really works. So here’s what I want you to do. Grab your journal. What’s the one thing that’s going to move you? One thing that’s going to move you from where you are today to where you want to be. That one project. That one task, that one goal. Now what I want you to do is calendar out. Go to your calendar right now, calendar out a 90-minute chunk. And let everybody know not to disturb you during this 90 minute period. What I do is I turn off all notifications, so I even turn off my cell phone, I turn off all chat functionality, and I just cut down all of my extra screens so I can focus on that one project. And then I set the timer, so I have 90 minutes.

Now it’s also a trick that whatever time you give yourself, whatever project or task is going to fill that time. Now if you give yourself three hours to work, let’s say it’s an email series, that’s something I’m working on for a client, it’s going to take that three hours. Now if you say, “I gotta get this done in 90 minutes”, somehow, someway we always do. So that’s what you want to do. Now you’re going to use your Sunday, or your Monday, as your planning time to plan out the week ahead for what you’re going to do during that 90-minute segment for that project that you’re working on. This 90-90-1 is going to give you that laser-like focus that allows you to take it to the next level.

What I want you to do also, is share this. Share this with three people you think will find value from this. Share it with three people that you want to continue having bigger conversations with. Conversations about what is their one project. What are they going to spend their 90 minutes focused on? This is how you build your tribe, and this is how you get conversations that matter going on with your life.

That’s it for me today, remember, go out and be the author of your own story.

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I actually heard this years ago from a friend Robert, and Robert actually was an entrepreneur along with myself. One of the things that he told me that really resonated with me and it still does today was that actually when you look at somebody who’s doing construction, they always put their tools away at the end of the day. No matter what they’re doing, they put their tools away in an organized fashion and close their day out.

Why don’t we as business owners? Well, this is was a great question and especially if you’re an entrepreneur. I always say I’m organized chaos. I have stuff all over the place and if you ever get a chance to go to my office or if you’re working with me remotely or even in my Sprinter van when I’m camping, I know where everything is, but if you’re an OCD person, you’re going to be going nuts in my office. I got stuff everywhere. One thing hat’s helped me a lot is actually cleaning up the night before. Look, at the end of the day, I’m the most tired. I have given my most to my business or to my family or whatever else is going on. By going through my office or wherever else, I also do this in the living room, my living space and cleaning up and tidying up the night before.

When I wake up, when I have the most energy, the most focus, I have a clean slate, a clean pallet with which to work. I’m going to suggest that you do this too, especially if you’re an entrepreneur. If you’re an entrepreneur, things are crazy. You are going full, full speed all the time, especially with the new business bringing a product to market. Having a clean slate starts from scratch, otherwise, your mind is just focused on so many little things. Here’s a trick, even more, that’ll help. If you have multiple businesses like I do, one of the things that I do is I actually clean my slate and then I have a folder that I put out on my desk the night before that actually has all of the information and stuff that I need for that project or business that I’m working on the next day in that folder.

I come, simply open it up, and then I have my organized chaos inside that folder, but the rest of my office is clean and natural. I still have glasses around that I brought in that morning, coffee for me, as well as water. Overall, it’s actually really organized and nice. This is a far cry from what it used to be 10, 15, maybe even five years ago where I would just have organized chaos, just piles around. I knew what was in those piles, but I didn’t start with a clean slate. When I do start with a clean slate, I am that much more productive. My brain space, the subconscious space, and this is talked about in several productivity books. Several productivity books talk about the way to organize your to-do list or task list that your subconscious brain is always taking in your environment.

Having a clean space and starting with a clean space each morning is going to give you more brain power, more creative juice, and energy to actually start and push through in your projects. Regardless if you’re a business owner or you’re working for somebody else or you’re a stay at home parent, cleaning your space is critical. I can almost guarantee that if you do this, you’re going to find just like making your bed, you’re going to find that actually not only do you feel better, but you actually have more energy and more space with which to create. That is a huge part of being the author of your own story. That’s it for me today. As always, remember to share this with three people that you want to start bigger conversations with, building your tribe.

Make sure to do that. Don’t hesitate, use your five-second rule, and do it now. Have a great day and remember to 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!

This question comes from Victor, and Victor says, “Doug I’ve got a question that might be a great highlight for the Daily Growth Hacks. What problems or questions deserve our attention? I mean, how do we distinguish which aspects of our life we should be paying attention to, and which ones are a waste of time, money and energy?”

Victor, this is a great question and thank you for submitting it. Now there’s a lot of follow-up questions I’d want to know, like how do you define the problem? Is this a problem that you’re having internally or something that you feel someone’s bringing on to you? And what kinds of problems are these? So there’s a variety of questions.

Whenever a problem occurs, you’ve got to remember to couple things. One, there’s always three solutions to a problem. There’s not just one, two, or you know, there’s always at least three to come to through it. Now how do you determine which ones deserve your attention? Well, obviously some problems are immediate, right, so some problems that come to you right away that could affect your health. Those are things that you want to address right away. But the filter that I would use when an issue comes up, is I would put it into one of four categories. This is something that’s urgent and important. This is something that’s urgent and not important. This is something that’s not urgent and important. This is something that’s not urgent and not important.

Now this four-segment quadrant I got from Stephen Covey and I still use it today. He wrote it in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Oftentimes what we do as humans are we work in the urgent and not important category. This is often answering emails, these are problems that come up with friends that might come up, the drama in their lives. What we want to be focusing on Victor, with these problems are, those things that are important but not urgent, so if we can stay in that category there’s a sense of calmness that comes through you, and a sense of being able to achieve your goals at a higher level and really working towards those bigger goals that you’ve set for yourself.

With that said, and you may be talking about problems and questions that come up in your life. Like what are those problems or questions that really deserve addressing? That’s a great question, that’s going to be very individualistic, so in other words, what I would like that for the filter is do these problems or solutions, one is are they immediate? In other words, are these fires that I have to put out right now? And what happens if I don’t do anything with it? Now if I don’t do anything with a problem and it still stays there, it doesn’t really affect me or my loved ones, I’m almost likely not deal with it. Not in the sense that I’m avoiding it, but in the sense that it’s not really a problem, right? It’s just something that I’m creating within inside myself.

Now if something comes up and it’s a problem that comes up into my life and it’s something that, it’s more of a philosophical question, kind of like a career question or what do I want to do, or things of this issue, or maybe it’s a relationship issue. What I’ll do is I’ll actually set aside, set time to think about this. So what I’ll do is I’ll grab a journal, I love journals because the act of writing it out, that physical act of writing something out, there’s a brain connection. A kinesthetic connection that helps you release some of this creative energy. It really just works. So writing out the question. What is the question? And then write out what’s really going on, like what really is happening here? Now relationship issues and problems with relationships, very rarely are actually the issue at hand. It’s something else, and often times it triggers something from the past. So that’s what I want to figure out. Get to the root of the problem. What’s really happening here? And what needs to be addressed?

What needs to be addressed right now in this moment? What, this actually is just drama you just need to get away from. That’s the first step I would take, is journaling that out. And then thinking, “Hey, does this problem, or issue or question, does this affect my life? Does this affect my life currently? Or does this affect my future life as being the author of my own story?” For example, I don’t have enough money to pay bills. That’s a problem. That’s an immediate problem only if, you know, your family’s going to get evicted, things are going to happen, just adverse effects to you. Now if you can’t pay your bills, there are also other solutions. You can reduce your expenses. You can negotiate with creditors. You can find alternatives to paying bills. You can work more, you can get another job. There’s all kinds of solutions that turn that problem into a situation or just something that you’re dealing with on your day to day basis.

Now again, Victor, without knowing exactly what problems and questions, because this is pretty vague, to answer for you, I’m trying to give you the best solution of how I would address that. Now we’ll do the same thing with questions. Now questions come up all the time, and I love thought-provoking questions. That’s why at the end of these Daily Growth Hacks I always recommend you sharing them with at least three people because then you’re having conversations that matter. In fact, I actually seek out questions in my life and question my own belief systems on a regular basis. And again, I do this through journaling. So what I would do is write out the question, and I would write out what it would mean to me. So if the question is, “Should I stay here in Bend, Oregon where I am and use this as my jump off spot for all the adventures my family and I go on?” Now, this is something I can write out and I want to look at a pros and cons list. I like traditional pros and cons. What are the pros of me staying here and using Bend, Oregon as my home base? And then what are the cons?

You know, with the Author of Your Own Story lifestyle, I can live anywhere in the world. I can travel anywhere in the world. I have the financial means, and I have the means to do it just with the lifestyle, so I’m very lucky and very grateful for that. However, it creates a weird set of problems, right? Where do I actually choose to live? And so what I do is a pros/cons list. What does that mean? What are the pros of living in Bend, Oregon? What are the cons? What are my other opportunities, right? Third choice. What are my other opportunities that are out there? Sure, we have this really nice adventure band and I’m actually, you know, between these Daily Growth Hacks I’m actually working on to go on our next trip. You know, we can just live in there. We could travel the United States. There are all kinds of options. What are the pros and cons with that? And I’ll start weighing those questions out.

I don’t think there are questions that aren’t worth having. I don’t think there are questions that you shouldn’t actually think about, or waste your time on. Obviously everything’s relative, you know, you don’t have to spend six solid days trying to figure out where you should live, or things of that nature. Decisions get to get made, and I like to make decisions very quickly. I like to be decisive. I think there’s, the first thing that comes to mind tends to be the best answer for me. And so I recommend you look at that for yourself as well. But there’s no area that I don’t think should be questioned personally.

Now, with that again, I like the journaling, because the journaling you can also go back to and let it sit with you. So ask the question before you go to bed, right? So you ask the question like, “Jesus, should I use Bend, Oregon as my jump off spot as my home base? For all these epic adventures my family and I do?” And then the next morning, subconsciously during the night, things are working, things are going on in my brain, and the next morning that’s when I will start to journal about it again, and actually re-visit that question.

So Victor, I don’t know if this exactly answers your question, again it’s a little vague. If not, clear it up, just shoot me an email. I’m happy to go over for you, but also I’d encourage you to throw it in the Author of Your Own Story group to get other people’s insights as well.

That’s it for me today. So, remember, share this out with three people you know, have conversations that matter. And like Victor, make sure you’re actually putting this out into the world and actually doing the work. So grab your journal, do the work, just like Victor did. How do you solve problems? How do you solve things that come to you? Questions? I’d love to hear from you in the Author of Your Own Story group, so I’ll see you there. That’s it for me today, go out and be the author of your own story.

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Today’s insight comes to a result of a phone call that I just got from a friend of mine. Now, I haven’t spoken to this friend in quite a while, and I’m outside in my adventure van getting things ready for a trip that my family and I are going on. We take these trips regularly, and this is actually what prompted this phone call because my friend found out. He called me to say, “Doug, it seems like you’re doing all these great things; however, it just seems like a lot of work. I really don’t want to put all the work into going on. I have a decent job, a decent family, a decent life, yet I feel like I’m stuck in a rut and it just seems like a lot of work. Taking care of my family, my health, my wealth, my relationships, and all these things that encompassed in my business. It just seems like taking things to the next level is just a pain in the butt. Do you have any secrets?”

This is a common thread that I hear often. First of all, I don’t have everything going on. I just choose to be the author of my own story, which is a process that I’ve gone over for decades and I just wanted to share that with people. That’s what that sparked this phone call, which is great because it always was the first time that he and I had talked in many, many years.

What I thought about was a quote. I dug it up, and so I want to share it with you. Here’s how this quote goes: “I bargained with Life for a penny, And Life would pay no more, however, I begged at evening when I counted my scanty score. For Life is just an employer, he gives you what you ask, but once you have set the wages, why, you must bear the task. I worked for a menial’s hire, only to learn, dismayed, That any wage I asked of Life, Life would have gladly paid.”

Now, what it’s saying here is something that I’ve found. Now, it’s just as easy to have lofty goals and dreams and aim high as it is to get stuck in a rut and aim low. In fact, I think it’s actually easier to have lofty goals and go for those because they’re more inspiring, they pull you forward, and they give you more energy than it is to stay at a low level. See, my friend that called me and was talking to me and was telling me that it seems too hard for him to balance all of these things in his life, and that’s really what he was talking about, but also to take it to a next level, to take care of his health. To him, it felt easier come home from work, have a couple cocktails, sits on the couch, and watch TV. That seemed easier to him, yet he was depressed. He was reaching out to me because he had a problem he wanted to solve and felt that I had the solution.

Now, what I wanted to tell him, and what I did tell him, is, “Look, if you set your goals high, what you really want in life, that’ll energize you. It’ll also impact those around you, and that’s critical as well.” See, he has a family. He has a wife and two beautiful children. By doing this, by actually going after these lofty goals, he’s not only up leveling himself, giving himself more energy, more joy, more love, more passion, all these things that we all want, and these are the things that people want to be around, right? You want to be around someone who’s going big. You want to be around someone who’s passionate about life. We all do. Now, so he was just moping and he was losing his energy. Plus, he’s a role model, right? He’s a role model for his kids to watch, so if he’s not going for his goals, why should his kids, right? Why should they try it?

What he was doing is he bargained with life for a penny and he wasn’t happy, he wasn’t fulfilled, and he was scared that it was going to take too much work to actually go for his dreams, to go for his goals. In our conversation really what I broke down with him fairly quickly … Obviously, it wasn’t a coaching call, and I don’t coach people unless they request it. If it’s a friend looking for advice, that’s all I give. But what I noticed, and I talked to him about it, I was like, “Hey, really what you’re talking about is fear. You’re afraid that if you have these lofty goals and visions, it’s not the work that it requires that holding you back. It’s the fear that you won’t hit them, and what will everybody think of you?” That’s just something we all have. It’s a natural thing. It’s not the fear of success or the fear of failure. People talk about that often. But it’s the fear that if you’re putting yourself out there, you’re putting your real you in front of people. You’re putting the real you in front of you. When you mess up in front of you, then you count yourself as a failure.

Now to me, not being the author of my own story would be a failure, not doing things in the way that I want to do them, not being able to go on adventures with my family, not being able to deliver this message to you right now. That would be a failure for me. I’m not looking to sit on the couch. There’s nothing wrong with that, with relaxing, but if you’re playing low and you’re aiming low, what I want you to do is start aiming high. What could you do to uplevel? Remember, I believe, and I’ve seen this with millionaires as well as people that are just starting out in their business careers, that playing low is harder. It’s more difficult than playing big than shooting for the stars. I think you should have reasonable goals, and I think that’s great, but I think you need to play big because that’s going to bring the passion out of you.

Here’s what I’m going to ask you to do: Grab your journal. Grab that journal, write out your Five to Thrive, your mind, body, soul, relationships, and your business. What I want to know is where are you playing small? Where are you playing small in each of those five areas? Where are you playing just at a level that you know you can compete? Maybe you have goals, aspirations, but you know you can hit those. Yeah, no problem. I can drop 10 pounds. Yeah, no problem. I can play on the varsity soccer team. Yeah, no problem. I can make an extra 10 grand a month on my business. That is playing small. What else can you do? What’s that stretch goal? Do you need more money? Well, why not make 15 grand a month so you can give that other five grand away? Give it away to charity.

One of the best things that I’ve ever done is give away money to charity, or give away resources. Our marketing company, Branded Innovation, developed a plan so we can help the hurricane victims. We decided as a team we’re going to do this. Every quarter we pick a new charity and we’re going to donate our services to this charity. This is just a great way of giving back, and it’s a way of playing bigger. Now, of course, it’s easier for us not to. It’s easier for us not to do that extra work. It’s easier for us just to make enough money so we can play more, but it’s not fulfilling. It’s not rewarding to myself, and it’s not rewarding to my team. I have an amazing team, and I’m very lucky, and they all play big. That’s what I want you to do too.

So grab your journal, write our your Five to Thrive. Simply just write out, “Hey, where am I playing? What level am I playing with?” And be raw and honest with yourself. If you know you can do better, then do better. You’ll feel better about it. You know this is true in your own life, and I want you to experience across your whole Five to Thrive on how you can do that.

Second thing I’m going to ask you to do is share this conversation with three people. This is exactly why my friend reached out to me. Somebody shared this Daily Growth Hack with him, and that opened up his eyes. He realized that what he was doing wasn’t fulfilling. Now, of course, he was worried it might be too hard, and you know it’s not. But somebody else sharing this conversation with him opened his eyes and realized that he had the opportunity to take that next step. I’m going to invite you to do that too. Share this with three people. Now, this is not only to help these three people out. We’re not here to fix other people, but these three people are people that are going to uplift you and build your tribe and community to allow you to become the author of your own story more readily. So two tasks for today, as always, but remember, absolutely if anything else, just remember, go out and be the author of your own story.

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What do I mean by identifying failures before they happen? Well, we talk so much about positivity. We talk about designing your goals, designing your ideal day, looking back and planning for the future. Often times, what we don’t talk about is failures. I mean, by design … How do you know when you fail?

A lot of times people say, “Well Doug, I don’t want to look at failures. I don’t want to look at the negativity. I don’t want to look at failures because, also, it’s painful. It’s painful to think about failures.” What’s more painful, is what by not thinking about it is to fail, what it means to fail to you, means you’re going around blind.

You’re going around blind because failures are painful. You don’t want to identify those painful. Then what happens is you wake up five, 10, 20 years later, and it’s too late to go back. You’ve been down the path of failure because you’ve been avoiding really looking at yourself clearly and looking at yourself from a point of view that you’re willing to look at the hard evidence.

What do you do? In your Five to Thrive, I love the Five to Thrive again, because it’s wholistic. It looks at your whole journey of you being this human existence wholistically. You have your mind, your body, your soul, your relationships, and your business. Now again, if you don’t own your own business or you don’t even work, use business as a goal, just a big goal, a BHAG- Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. What’s a big thing that you’re working on?

Then, how do you define failure? For me, what is a failure in my mind? Well failure for me is not being able to speak a second language. To me, that would be a failure, I’d be failing if I wasn’t able to do that. If I constantly wasn’t reading a new book … If I hadn’t read a new book within a month, that’s a failure.

What about my body? I’m just going to share mine with you. Body for me, a failure, for me, for the body would be to not be active. Not to be able to hike with my family, unless of course there was some kind of physical limitation that occurred. Life happens, and I get it.

I’ll tell you a short inspirational story that I always remember, is about feeling bad for myself, my physical activity, then turning on the TV, and then seeing a guy get out of the San Francisco Bay on a triathlon with no legs. I was like, “Okay, I’ve got to turn the TV off and get out there.” That’s how I define failure for me for my body.

What about my soul, what is a failure for my soul? Well, it’s feeling unfulfilled. It’s really feeling unfulfilled and not sharing my gifts with other people. That’s part of why I film these Daily Growth Hacks. They’re not easy to film these. They take a lot of my time. We edit it, we pay money to have this all done for you guys. I’m not saying woe is me, but I do this because it fills my soul to give back. The comments that I get from people really, really, really, fill me up, and that means a lot to me.

What about relationships? A failure in my relationships would be not having anybody that I love and that loves me, that kind of mutual standpoint. Not being able to pick up the phone and just call somebody and share my wins and my failures … We all need a support system, you know?

When I was in my younger years, I thought, oh I can just do this all by myself. I can be in a cave and all alone, and not a problem. I got this. I love myself and I’m fine. I found that’s just not the case. That’s not true. I was really running for other things in my life, that I was able to identify by doing the work, doing the work that you guys are doing.

Then business, what’s a failure for my business. For me, a failure for my business is not trying. It’s not just going out there and putting myself out there. It’s not really opening myself up and going big. It’s not shooting for the stars. Also, failing for me in business is not doing the right thing for a client. That really is something that I just never will do. I’ll always do the right thing for a client. I’ll always go the right path.

Even when we get who want to coach, one on one coaching and they’re not the right fit, I send them somewhere else. It’s just not worth it to me. Yet, it’s great money, it’s six figures. I’m almost stupid not to. But at the same time, the pain that it causes me internally, in my business, and also goes with my soul, it’s not who I am. It’s not with integrity, so I recommend they go somewhere else. I point them in the right direction. That’s mine.

What are yours? What are your definitions of failure in your Five to Thrive? Grab your journal right now, write down your Five to Thrive, and write out what failure is for you. What are these benchmarks in your life, that you know if you hit this road mark, that’s success? We do that all the time. If you had this other road mark, that failure.

This allows you to open up those blinders even wider and gives you more opportunity, more positivity, in my opinion, to see the breadcrumbs in the road. Hey, you want to know. If you come to a fork in the road and you start walking down to the left, and you realize that’s failure, that’s a path to failure, that’s okay. You can turn around and simply walk back the other way. Go down the other path of success.

But, if you haven’t identified failure, you’re going to walk down that road way too far, and maybe to a point where frankly it’s too difficult to turn back. I’ve seen this happen to more and more people. Especially as I get older, the people that I associate myself with, are a lot older as well. I have clients in their 70s. I’m also here to tell you, look, it’s never too late to turn back. I’ve seen people make dramatic pivots, even in their late 70s.

My oldest client is in his mid-70s right now, and he is making a 180. It is amazing to see how much vibrancy he has. Don’t let that hold you back. Don’t get yourself down a path too far that it’s harder for yourself to pull back. You have to do a lot more work.

This is analogous to the businessman who gains 200 pounds of body fat and now recognizes that this is a sign. Now has to go back and spend years are really working on his health just to get back to baseline. I don’t want that to happen to you. This goes with all areas of your life.

Write down your Five to Thrive. Write down in each category what failure is to you. Again, I’m going to tell you, build your tribe. I can’t emphasize this enough. Share this with three people you know right now. If you’re watching this on YouTube, or on Facebook, the video, just click the share button, send to three people. Then simply say, “Hey, what do you think about this?”

Now, if you listen, this is a podcast. You can share that too, right from your phone. Share from the podcast or if you’re reading this. You could be reading this. We give you three ways to digest this content. If you’re reading this, share it. Share it with three people you want in your tribe, three people you think you’ll feel accountable to.

If you’re just super shy or super nervous about sharing this kind of stuff with people, I understand. Share this with three people you don’t know very well. It’s an easy way of doing it. Share it with it online. People you don’t know that well. It doesn’t hurt you. Plenty of ways to do that.

By sharing, I can guarantee you, if you start sharing this with people, your conversations will increase. The conversations that matter that you’re having in your life will up-level and so will your lives and those around you.

That’s it for me today. 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!