Darcy Curry, Author at Author of Your Own Story

Imperfect action vs perfect inaction

Today’s topic is imperfect action beats perfect inaction every time.

Now, about two years ago I came up with the Author of Your Own Story concept, and the reason I came up with this is I really wanted to make a bigger impact. I had people asking me how I was living the lifestyle that I was living, and how I was able to develop the businesses that I had and do all those things that I was doing. It seemed impossible to them and I knew it wasn’t. We can all do that. But what I also recognized is that by answering these questions every day, on a one-on-one basis, I really couldn’t affect as many people as I truly wanted to.

You see, it’s my mission to affect, positively, 1 million people across the world and I knew that the best methodology for doing this two years ago was simply video. Video and audio formats, as well as a website, that could produce the content and share it with the masses. Now, I also knew that I didn’t know anything about video and so I consulted with some of my clients, who are some of the top videographers and photographers in the world, and they gave me excellent advice. They told me which lights to buy, which cameras, and they actually offered to shoot some of the videos for me. You know what, I spent so much time trying to get it perfect, that took me two years to get here today, just to shoot the videos. The lighting wasn’t right, I wasn’t fit enough at the time, or I thought, maybe, you know next year will be better or next month will be better. Or I need a better microphone.

If you’re watching this via video, you can already tell that the lighting still isn’t right. It just isn’t, and I don’t even know how to do it. If you’re listening to this, you know, the audio isn’t perfect. None of it is perfect. In fact, the first video I shot for the daily grow hacks, I sent to a friend of mine as a professional photographer and videographer, he’s awesome and he gave me some really great feedback. He said, “Doug, your camera angle is wrong. I don’t like seeing the microphone. It’s too busy in the background. The lighting’s off, and it doesn’t make you look flattering.” Well, I went right back to my old thought process of how “I’ll fix all this, then I’ll shoot the videos.”

But then almost immediately, it clicked in me, and I said “You know what? Imperfect action is going to be perfect inaction every time. And this is the time to change.” Now, I look at this methodology across all my five to thrive: mind, body, soul, relationship, as well as my business. I look at areas that I’m stopping them because I’m waiting for it to be perfect.

I’m going to ask you to do the same thing. go ahead and write down in your journal or a piece of paper your five areas (or what I call your five to thrive). In each of those areas, I want you to write down two to three things right now that you’re holding off until it’s the right time until it’s the right moment. Maybe the economy needs to get better, maybe your relationship that has to be better, or maybe you need to get fitter. Whatever it is for you, we all make up these excuses. I still do it too. It’s just a matter of catching yourself.

Write those down in all of your five areas. Once you’ve got that, what I want you to do is list at least three action steps that you could take right now in those areas. So, for example, let’s say that I’m looking for a new relationship. Now, I’m not. I’m happily married, but I’ll use this as an example because I can think of a friend right now who talked about this with me. They’re looking for a new relationship, but you know they need to get in better shape. You know a little bit more income would help as well. It’s just not the right time, but they really want a partner. Now in this instance: What could they do? Well, they can write it down, they can go join a gym today. They can lace up their shoes, and go for a walk. They could join a dating site, or go to a community event a church, or go to meet-up and find things that they love to do. There are so many things that can be done right now rather than putting it off. Don’t do what I did. Do it today and make sure you’re becoming the author of your own story.

That’s it. I’d love to hear your comments in our community. Also remember go to www.authorofyourownstory.com we will get the latest tips, tricks, as well as an opportunity to take one of our courses. Or sign up to get the daily teachings delivered directly to your inbox. That’s it for today. I’ll see you tomorrow.

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Balance

Today’s topic is balance.

Throughout my life, my balance has been up, down, or all around, as it is for almost all of us. It’s a topic that is talked about in both personal development, self-help, business, and even religious courses. Balance is just critically important to human nature. We all know it, but often times we’re just out of balance. I certainly have been. There have been times in my life when I’ve been so focused on relationships that my business or personal goals have gone to the sidelines. Or I’ve been so focused on my health and fitness, that actually my relationships have suffered. Or perhaps my spirituality or my mental development. I know for me, as an athlete growing up, physical fitness was always extremely important. Now, this ended up helping my relationships but my spirituality actually suffered. That’s where I put on the wayside. So I was really out of balance and not really feeling fulfilled.

So something we talked about a lot in Author of Your Own Story is called the “Wheel of Balance.” And, so what I want you to do, and we talked about this a lot more in depth, if you’d like to go over to www.authorofyourownstory.com and check that out. It’s available in our free 7-day course on how to become the author of your own story. But real quick, I want to talk about just laying out that wheel about balance.

So, what I’d like you to do, if you have the time right now, is draw a large circle on a piece of paper, so make it about, you know, about six inches in diameter. Now, once you have that circle, I want you to divide it up into five equal pie pieces. So, you’re going to go ahead and make a line and divide it up into five equal parts, and then starting at the center of that circle, put a zero, and then make a hash mark on each line going from one to ten. So, the first hash mark going out of the center of the circle would be a number one, the second hash mark would be number 2, 3, etc. And that’s the final end of the circle where you actually drawn the circle. That last line, make that the number 10. Now, as you can imagine this wheel here so to speak is going to be like a wheel on a car. Now, imagine if that wheel’s rolling around and it’s full, and everything is great. You’re going to have a smooth ride through life and this is what we want for you.

But often times, this isn’t the case. So, what I want you to do in each of those five wedges that you have, I want you to write down a different word. So, the first one I want you to write the word “mind,” then the second wedge, go ahead, and put “body” then the third, put “soul,” for the fourth, we’re going to put “relationships,” and for the fifth you’re going to put “business.”

Now, if you’re not involved in business or don’t have one, go ahead and put goal to something in your life that’s really driving you or you’re striving towards. I should say now that in each of those areas, I want you to think about it so in the area of mind, “How are you progressing right now how balanced are you with your mind with that what does that mean to you? Are you reading every day? Are you developing your mind? Are you strengthening your skills?” For a lot of people, let’s say that’s maybe it’s a six. Maybe you’ve kind of neglected it since school. You haven’t really done your own educational program. Maybe, the daily grow hack is bringing you up, so maybe it’s a seven or eight. Go ahead and make a line right on that hashtag from seven and connect it to the other seven. So, again, if you have a wedge coming through there, that seven is going to connect.

If you’re listening to this on audio, again, just go over to www,authorofyourownstory.com and you can find that wheel balance on there. You can see exactly what I’m talking about. Again, you’re going to do this for the next one. So, go ahead and do this for “body.” Now, the body is obviously health. Are you working out? Are you having a green smoothie every morning like I recommended? Are you drinking a glass of water when you wake up? Are you taking care of your health and fitness? Maybe it’s a 10 and that’s fantastic. Maybe it’s a 2. Maybe you’re just starting this journey. I don’t know, whatever it is for you, that’s okay. But go ahead and connect those lines connect those hashtags.

Now, we’re going to move on to the soul. Where are you with your spirituality? Whatever that means to you, maybe it’s meditation, maybe it’s going to church or maybe synagogue. whatever it is to you, go ahead and rate yourself on a scale of one to ten on where you are with that.

Then, of course, relationships now. This could be relationships with a significant other, a partner, friends, family. We’re going to take relationships as a whole. Again, we’re going to rate that from a scale one to ten. Go ahead and connect those hash marks.

And then, we’re going to go on lastly for number five, which is going to be your business. Again, if you’re maybe a student, your business is being a student. So, how are you going towards the goal or achieving that goal that you really set yourself for? If you’re not a student and you’re not in business, maybe it’s something else that you want. If you want to buy a house, whatever it is, for you pick that major goal, and mark there. How balanced are you? Are you actually working towards that? Is your business thriving? Are you getting A’s in school? What is your focus there? Go ahead and connect that dot as well.

So, now you should have this big circle with the five wedges that almost look like pizza wedges and then lines connecting the wedges together. They’re all going to be all over the place. of course right? So, the three connects to the other three or etc. If that’s in there, 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, and what you’re going to notice is unless you have all tens or all fives or all the same number across all five of your key areas, your wheels going to be out of balance. If you put that wheel on your car, for most of us, it’s going to be a bumpy ride, and this is not what we’re looking for. So, now that you have this goal here. How can you up level in each of these areas where you can actually have solid balance? So, for example, if your business is a 10 but your relationships are 3, and every other area may be is an 8, You obviously know which area you need to get more balanced in. That’s going to be relationships, in this example, and this is going to be critical.

We’ll talk about this a little bit more in future episodes but start with this wheel of balance. What I’d like you to do is go over to the Author of Your Own Story community and let us know what your numbers are. There’s no judgment here. We’re all here to help each other grow. I’d like to know where you are in your mind, your body, your soul, relationships, and business. Simply, just give us the number. So, mine are three body, six whatever they are. For you and that way we can chat about it and get you more balance in your life. I know this exercise has helped me tremendously, and it’s something that I do regularly. I hope it helps you. That’s it for today.

Just as a reminder go over to authorofyourownstory.com where you’re going to find tips, tricks, as well as deeper dives, and an opportunity to take some of our courses. Also, get our daily teachings get them delivered right to your mailbox every day.

Have a great day. I’ll see you tomorrow.

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Know Your Top 50

Today’s topic is: Know Your Top 50

Now, what do I mean by “know your top 50”. Simply, I remember as a kid being in a classroom, sitting down on the right-hand side of the board, right along the wall that I was at, the teacher had crafted this type of paper mache. I’m not exactly sure what you call this cutout cardboard, but they have the phrase “Birds of a feather flock together, so choose your friends wisely.” I’ve also had mentors over the years tell me, “Doug, the rising tide lifts all boats.” I’ve also heard that “You are the equivalent of the top five people you spend the most time with.” You probably heard that as well. I think attributed to Jim Rohn. All these phrases have one thing in common. What they say is “The people that you’re spending the most time with, tend to be the people that you’re most like.” You’re spending time with very financially savvy people, you tend to be more financially savvy. If you’re spending time with people who are extremely fit and active, you tend to be more fit and active.

I found this to be very true in my life across all five of the core areas, whether it be spirituality hanging out with people who are extremely spiritual, whether it be a particular denomination of religion, meditation, or something else that they found. Or even if it’s people that have amazing marriages. My wife and I have really worked hard about surrounding ourselves with people we feel have solid relationships because we knew that would carry over into our own relationship. So what I did is I sat down with intention and wrote down my top 50 people in my personal life who I felt really raised the tide for me. They lifted the bar, but not only that, these are people that I thought I could contribute to and they also contributed to me in a loving heartfelt way. I don’t mean they contributed me financially or anything else. I just meant that when I was around them, I felt fulfilled, I felt like they weren’t draining me. I also felt like they were raising their standards higher. I look upon the standards that I wanted to live by and as I look at the list, I think about these people: each one of them holds a special place in my heart.

Now, if you’re like me, it was really hard to get your list down to just 50 people, but it’s also really important in this modern day where we have all the social media. We have our cell phones. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, or whatever it may be. Hundreds of emails coming in a day and if you’re an entrepreneur like me, maybe thousands in a day. It’s really hard to pay attention to the people that we care about the most. They just tend to fall by the wayside. They’re all over the world and sometimes it’s hard to stay in contact, so I intentionally put together my top 50 list with this in mind.

These are the top 50 people that I want to stay in contact with and what I’ve done is I’ve broken down this top 50 list into the five categories: mind, body, soul, relationship, business. So, I have their name on column A on the left and then in each column, I have the separate category. Now, I’ve done this so I can relate to what level they are in each of these five areas. Most of these people I know, so I actually know exactly what their numbers are because I simply ask them or I know them so intimately that I have a pretty good idea. Now, I say most of these people because whenever I make my top 50 list and I do edit it regularly I always add a few people that I don’t know.

People that I want to get to know on my list, for example, there’s one person that I don’t know personally. And that’s Tony Robbins. I’ve been to all of his events I think he’s an amazing person he’s a great speaker. He’s entertaining, he’s engaging, and he’s on a very similar mission that I am. I’m on a mission to uplevel the world by helping one person at a time really better their personal lives, as well as their business. I think Tony would be a great fit in my top 50 list. Now, you may be going, “Doug I just did a CTRL ALT DELETE on my life, and I’m starting from scratch. I got two people, what do I do with that?” Well, it’s very similar. You take those two people, you put them the top of your list, and you hold them tightly. Those are people you love. Then, you really want to stay close to them.

Now, think of the other 48 people for you. In this example, people that would up-level your life and help it make better. So, what are your goals with your outcome to the people that are going to contribute to you and not drain you? We don’t want any emotional vampires on this list. We want people that are actually going to really work on up-leveling you in your life and those are the people could be the Dali Lama. It could be the guy at the convenience store down the street. You walk in to get groceries, and every time he’s just got a smile and says hello. Let’s think of people that light my life up. It’s little things that they do to add them to your list. it’s not hard to come up with 50. Narrowing it down is the tough part.

Now, I want you to make a separate list very similar, so you’re still going to have the names and then each of the five categories. With business now, who are the people in your business or with your business that can significantly move the needle for you? This could be current clients. This could be potential clients, maybe you don’t own your own business, that’s fine. Somebody within an organization that can help you. This could be the CFO, CEO, a manager, or somebody else in a business profession. Or maybe you have a business idea and you need somebody that can help you. Maybe it’s somebody that’s going to get them a factory or knows more about this. Or maybe you have no business ideas, you’re working a dead-end job, you want out, you just want to get out.

Come up with 50 people that have made it, that have been successful at getting out who will have a mobile free lifestyle, if that’s what you want. Doesn’t matter, the key is to have your top 50 people on this list. Go ahead and list them down. Again, you want to rank them in one of the key five areas, so that is mind, body, soul, relationship, business. Where do you think they fit into that? Now, if you don’t know them, you’re not going to know where they rank exactly in that list. Let me give you a real-life example from my situation. So, I had somebody on my top 50 on the business side, and we started communicating.

Now, I knew by doing my due diligence by looking at social media and profiles whether they happened to be a golfer or not. A lot of their pictures were about golf. I also knew by looking at their profiles that they were severely overweight, and they didn’t look overly happy in a lot of their pictures. I know from my fitness background that somebody who’s in shape is going to become a better golfer. Now, of course, we know that somebody who is getting in good shape is an exercise routine that is going to be better at everything in life. You just are. But I also know from golf that they’re actually going to have a better rotation on their swing, and they’re going to enjoy their golfing experience more. So in this exchange of top communication with them, I happen to mention golfing and actually gave him an article with a couple fitness golf tips. I’m gonna call this person Tom. It’s not their name, but I was like “Hey Tom, I noticed that you really like golfing and so I found this article I thought I’d share it with you.” This actually spurred a communication about their fitness and wellness journey, which was totally off topic from the business, which we were going to discuss. Or I was hoping we were going to discuss business. This established a relationship between us sprouted from my fitness background, so it’s very easy for me to talk about fitness and wellness.

You could do the same even if you don’t have a fitness background. It is very easy to find information online. What this did was allow us to establish a relationship and even though we may or may not do business together in the future, this person and I have a real relationship that we can move forward with. I can note this in my top 50. What tends to happen for me is business relationships and personal relationships become intertwined. I generally become really good friends and very close with the people I tend to do business with. You may find the same thing for yourself.

So, my action step for you today is when you get a chance, sit down, (now this could be on a piece of paper or you can do excel like i did) make a list of your top 50 people that fill you up in your personal life. If you don’t have 50, that’s okay. Who are those other people you can fill those slots that once you get to meet them? Like Tony Robbins, in my example, you can add them to your lesson. You can keep up-leveling in business too. Who are those 50 people that can significantly move the needle towards your goals go ahead and make your list or make your ratings? Let me know how it goes.

That’s it for today, as always to www.authorofyourownstory.com for these show notes, as well as additional tips, tricks, and insights. Of course, we have a separate email that goes out called Our Daily Teachings that goes right to your inbox every single day with another tip to help you up-level your life. That’s it for me. Have a great day!

Of course, we have a separate email that goes out called Our Daily Teachings that goes right to your inbox every single day with another tip to help you up-level your life. That’s it for me. Have a great day!

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!

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Relationship with me

Today’s topic: What is it like to be in a relationship with me.

You’re listening to the Author of Your Own Story Show Daily Growth Hacks. Each day we provide you with a tip, trick, or insight to help you become a better person in what we call the five to thrive – that’s mind, body, soul, relationships, and business.

Now let’s get to today’s topic. So what is it like to be in a relationship with me? That’s kind of an odd question, but it’s the question I sent to five key people in my life.

To give you an idea, I sent it to my wife, my brothers, and one of my co-workers as well as two friends. Now, I sent an email and I also followed up with each person just so they knew where I was coming from. In the email, I started off with “hey I have a question for you, because I’m on a path of personal growth and I really would like you to take a few moments to answer this question – what is it like to be in a relationship with me?”.

Now, I also told them “please be transparent and honest. I’m not gonna hold any of this against you, this is for my growth and actually the more open and honest you are with me the better this is going to be for me”. Now the results that I got back, frankly, actually surprised me.

They surprised me in a couple different ways.

One is that I was really taken back by all the great things people had to say about me. For some reason I was really focused on the negative and I was thinking of all the things that it could be like to be in a relationship with me. I run multiple businesses, I’m a little spastic, I’ve got things going around all the time, I’m juggling plates everywhere, I’m always wearing different hats, but the results that I got we’re really heartwarming.

You know people said often the comment about my integrity, my loyalty, that I had their back. People told me that that I love them and would always look out for them before myself and they knew I would always be there for them and have their best interests in mind. That really touched me, because that’s the way that I want to live, but you know you don’t always know if people see that.

But, I also got some criticism and some in really cool ways, and it wasn’t really shocking because I know this about myself and the biggest critique for me was my moodiness. I run multiple businesses and so sometimes I’m up late at night just thinking about ideas or what have you and I don’t sleep that well and I get into the stress of the day and I don’t manage it as well as I could and tend to take it out on those people that are closest to me.

Does that sound familiar to you?

A lot of us do that and it’s something I’ve been working on, which was also cool because my wife told me “hey, this is where you were when I met you and now here’s where you are” so, “this is what it was like to be in relationship with you at this time of our relationship and this is what it’s like to be a relationship with you now”, the good and bad and that was really eye-opening for me as well and it was really heartwarming that she took the time to actually write that out there.

So what I’m going to ask you to do today, your call to action is to do the same thing.

Pick five people that you’re close to in your life – family, friends, co-workers, that’s up to you, but pick at least five people and ask them that question. What is it like to be a relationship with me?

Now, of course, that’s you in this case, but that’s the question you’re going to ask. Now, it’s really important to give them that disclaimer and let them know that you’re not going to hold any of this against them. You’re going to take this and you want them to be transparent and open and honest with you. That is going to be critical.

Now if you’re the kind of person in the past that has held things against people, you’re going to have to open yourself up. This isn’t only the time for you to change, but also a time for you to explain to them that you are changing. This is for your own personal growth and the more honest people are with you, the more you’re actually going to see your actions and be able to pivot and make a change where you want to. Now, of course, you’re perfect just the way you are.

You don’t have to make any changes, but you also can make those micro adjustments where you see fit, just like I’m going to. Now, what I want you to do is ask these five people, follow up with a phone call, a text, do whatever way you want to make sure you get back from them what you’re looking – for which is their open and honest feedback.

Then open up your journal and I want you to write out what they say. You know, I don’t want you to be judgmental about it, but we’re going to categorize these into good or things that you can change so to speak. I want to know what you think about these.

How does it make you feel?
Do you find this to be the way that you want them to be in a relationship with you?
Are you making them feel or are you allowing them to feel your heart, your soul, are they filled up by you?
Is this the path you want to take and should you just be continuing?
Or do you want to pivot turn and make some micro changes?

That’s up to you, but the key is to actually write those down.

There’s something about journaling that really opens us up and really allows us to free flow and develop and grow. So, go ahead and journal that and then what I want you to do is head over to authorofyourowntory.com and make sure you register for our newsletter where you’re going to get daily teachings above and beyond this each day delivered to your inbox.

If you like the show, I’m really going to ask that you do a solid and send this to a friend. Our mission is to make the world a better place through personal development and growth and we’re asking for your help so send this to a friend you think might enjoy it and help us expand our community together, and if you want the show notes for this or the audio or video version to go ahead and head over to authorofyourownstory.com/relationship-with-me That’s it for today – I’ll see you guys tomorrow!

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Categories of Improvement

Today’s topic is: categories of improvement.

So, what are categories of improvement? 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’re going to break your life down into two main sections.

We’re calling them containers here. We have personal and then we have business.

What I want you to do is take out two separate sheets of paper. On the top of one, write personal and then I want you to list all the roles that you play. So, I think it’s Stephen Covey who does this from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I got this from Tony Robbins, this exact exercise, and modified it in my own way.

So, for personal what I want you to think about are all those roles you serve personally. Whether it be as a father, mother, son, husband, wife, friend, whatever it may be. Look at all those areas: areas of finance, for example. I like looking at the 5 to thrive right away, it’s quick and it’s easy. Again, that’s mind, body, soul, relationships, business and what other categories you personally might have. Again, maybe it’s a father as well.

Then, we’re also going to take on the next sheet of paper, once you wrote those down, and do the same thing with our business.

What are areas of improvement within your business?

Now that could be obviously in every area of business you have – marketing, finance, logistics, or operations. What are the things that you need to be in your business, or whatever business you’re pursuing, even if you’re a student? If you’re currently in between positions, think about what are those areas that you’ll need to develop consistently to get where you want to go.

So let me give you an example of what mine are to hopefully help you a little bit. First, we’re going to have what that list is and then next to that list we’re going to write down what the ultimate goal or vision is. So, for each actual container and each category of improvement, let’s say it’s in the area of finance in my personal life, I’m going to write down what the ultimate goal and vision is for that. Something that’s going to be motivational for me.

Now, don’t write the word finance, write something that’s going to motivate you. This is something that’s supposed to pump you up a little bit. So if you’ve written down husband, like I did, I took out the word husband, erased it, and wrote down “world’s best husband”. So do something that actually lights you up.

Here’s mine:

In my personal area I have financial wizard and master of leverage.

What’s my ultimate goal and vision there?

I don’t have to worry about money, I can buy my wife anything that she wants, we can give gifts to people with reckless abandon and cost is just never an issue.

In my personal category, next one down I have: emotional athlete.

What’s my ultimate goal and vision there?

I’m able to dive deep into my emotional states, get real, get raw, and also control my state at any time powerfully. I’m fully in control of my emotions.

Another category, i’m just going to list them down without using the ultimate goal and vision because I think you get the point there.

Relationship god

World-class health and fitness

Renaissance man

Bestselling Author of My Own Story

Soulful Guide

Community leader

World’s best husband

Complete spiritual connectedness

Authentic friendships

Moving down to the business container I’ve wrote:

Gladiator leadership

Network extraordinaire

Empowering others

World-class entrepreneur

Creator of profit

Marketing and PR maven

Internationally known connector of leaders

Director of my own state

Wealth creator

Those are mine, and i’ll share those in the community with you. I’d love to hear what yours are. what are those categories that you’ve actually selected for improvement? Now, these are categories of improvement you’re going to keep improving rest of your life.

I’d love to hear what yours are. So again you’re going to have them in personal as well as in business.

if you’re watching the video on youtube or somewhere else I’ll go ahead and share some examples on there. If you’re listening to this on the audio version, go ahead and head over to authorofyourownstory.com where you can always get each episode’s show notes as well as other tips and tricks and, of course, our daily teachings newsletter delivered right to your email inbox.

That’s it for me today. Have a great day and remember….

Be the Author of Your Own Story

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Are you avoiding something?

Are you here just because you’re lonely?

This is your daily growth hack where I give you a tip, trick, or daily insight to help you better yourself and become the Author of Your Own Story.

So, I was talking to a client today and they were telling me why they were doing something and I don’t want to give their name out because they’re actually pretty well known. So what they were doing is they were repeating the same process going to the same place over and over and over again but we’re really just depressed.

So what I ended up asking them was “hey, are you doing this just because you’re lonely?” Typically as a coach, I don’t ask that question right out but I had a lot of rapport with this client and have been working with them for a while now. The answer came up with “crap I think I do.”

So I’m going to give them an exercise and a very simple exercise that I’m going to ask you to do. This exercise has a couple parts. First part is set an alarm on your phone for five times throughout the day. Now if you have a typical work day, so let’s say eight hours or so, what you want you to do is put that increments throughout that time period. Then what I want you to put is “Am i avoiding something?” Then what I want you do is when that alarm goes off, just very calmly turn the alarm off walk down to the bathroom, set your phone down, stare in the mirror and ask yourself five times the same question. “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 the layers of your life and actually see what’s really going on.

Now, for this individual what they found out is they were actually doing the same thing over and over again because really they were lonely and bored. What this was really doing was hurting them. It was holding them back from living their true destiny in the true life and it was really sad. This person is extremely dynamic and they haven’t quite hit their goals in their life and haven’t quite hit their stride because they were doing something to avoid the important and avoid being lonely.

Now fast-forward through this exercise and I’ve seen many clients who’ve done that just over a course of a week, push back and stop doing things because they were lonely although painful to recognize and then started doing things because they wanted to. They were able to push through those barriers and actually achieve far greater and find out that love was within themselves.

So I ask you this question – are you doing things to avoid the important? Or are you doing things because you’re lonely? Or are you doing them because you actually enjoy them?

So I encourage you today to set an alarm on your phone five times and ask the question while looking into your own eyes in the mirror. That’s the hard part because when you look in your own eyes it’s hard to hide. You know they say the eyes are the windows to the soul and that’s so true, but especially with your own eyes. It’s very hard to lie to yourself.

So, go ahead and look in the mirror and ask yourself that same question five times. I encourage you to do this for a week. If you’re at a job, go ahead and do it and apply it to the job you’re at. You may find out that you’re at a dead-end job and you’re really there just for security. Maybe you actually love it. Maybe it’s your passion. Maybe you’ve been complaining about this job for no reason at all.

That’s the key is to find out what the truth is for you.

That’s it for me today, make sure you go over to authorofyourownstory.com and sign up for our daily tips and tricks and get them delivered right to your mailbox!

Have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow!

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Lemon Water

Today’s topic is when life gives you lemons – put it in your water

Now, back in middle school I started reading fitness magazines and health magazines that my dad had lying around and I used to cut these articles out and one of the things that I read about was upon waking up, drink a solid glass of water (eight ounces or more) first thing in the morning.

Back then even, I started adding that to my routine and saw big benefits. I saw that when I hydrated myself I just felt better throughout the day. Now, then I didn’t know why and it wasn’t until college studying physiology that I actually understood the health benefits of it. That’s also when I started adding lemon to my water in the morning, mainly for the benefit of alkalizing my blood levels.

So lemon, actually, has a lot of benefits in your water and even with Ayurvedic medicine they talk about this, but one of them is aiding digestion, like I said alkalizing the blood, as well as cleansing the liver.

So just by simply getting up in the morning, grabbing a glass of water in whatever it is, maybe you’re a nalgene drinker I personally like big mason jars, that’s what my wife and I drink out of, and adding a squeeze of lemon.

I personally add a whole lemon in there and use a lemon squeezer, and sometimes just my hand, to get that juice in there. Now, I’ve read some studies recently that say “well maybe the lemon itself isn’t as helpful as just the water”. That’s fine, it certainly makes it taste better!

So I’m going to challenge you for this – if you’re not already drinking a big glass of water upon waking up I’m going to challenge you to do this for a week and write down how you’re feeling.

So each morning, you get up, fill up a glass of water or you can fill it up the night before, you want this to be room temperature, then add a squeeze of lemon in there. Fresh lemon is what I always recommend. Add that lemon in there, drink the water even before you have your cup of coffee tea or get out the door. This should be done first thing in the morning and write down how you’re feeling throughout the day. My guess is you’re going to have more energy, you’re going to feel more clear-headed and you’re just going to enjoy the day better.

I’d love to know what you think – please join us in the Author of Your Own Story community and let me know how that goes for you. Of course, today’s show notes can be found over at authorofyourownstory.com/lemon-water and just as a reminder we’ll be updating the website daily so you can get tips and tricks over there and also delivered directly to your inbox through our Author of Your Own Story daily teachings newsletter.

Have a great day!

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The 90 minute hour

Today’s topic is the 90-minute hour.

This is your daily growth hack, where each day we give you a tip, trick, or insight so you can uplevel your life in what we call the five to thrive: mind, body, soul, relationships, and business.

So what is a 90-minute hour?

I mean that’s an oxymoron, isn’t it?

I mean 90 minutes is 90 minutes in an hour is 60 minutes. The 90-minute hour is actually a book I read back in high school. I went to the library and for some reason, I was just thirsty for personal growth and I wanted to be successful. The library, I knew, was one place I could start. I found this book called the 90-minute hour. Now, I didn’t realize it back then, but this was the author that ended up writing all these guerilla marketing books that became famous. You can pick up the 90-minute hour, I just checked on amazon, for as little as nineteen cents. I mean, it’s an older book but this book had a significant impact on me as a young man and it does today as well.

The premise of the 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 so it flies in the face of most mindfulness teachings that are out there right now or the mindfulness movement. So I will give you that fair warning, but I still find this to be extremely helpful for the way that I live my life and being an entrepreneur as well as someone who is location independent.

It allows me to get more done in a day than most people get done in a week. so what is it? Now, the 90-minute hour is cramming things into places where you don’t normally have time to do stuff. So, part of this could be, for me anyway is, automobile university. So automobile university is simply having a book in your car at all times. So when i’m driving in my car, driving to the gym, for example, something that I would do every day is have an audio book or a podcast ready that I can listen to in that time.

So, during that 15-minute commute one way, so it’s 30 minutes every day , I get 30 minutes in of audio in during that time. As Tony Robbins calls it, he calls it NET time “No Extra Time” in the day.

So now, just by driving to the gym and listening to an audiobook, I’m getting in 30 minutes a day. Or if you think about it, if I’m going six days a week, I’m getting in three hours every week of an audiobook or podcast to feed my mind. Now, I happen to listen to audiobooks at 2x speed so two-times speed. I’m used to it, and it works for me. In fact, when I listen to an audio at one time speed, is just too slow and that’s probably why I talk so fast.

So what I’m doing is that at two times speed, now during that commute which I would normally… or most people would normally… listen to the radio or the news or talk or what have you. Now, I’m getting in six hours of a book in one week just by driving my commute and doing nothing else.

Of course I’m a fanatic, a little bit of a freak, so I take that further. What I do is I’ll batch my tasks. So, helping out around the house , doing the dishes, doing the laundry, I take out the trash, I try to schedule those so I can do them all at once. I put on my headphones, get my podcast for my audiobooks cued up and I go about my business. So while I’m doing my daily tasks to help out my family around the house, I’m also feeding my brain and coming up with new ideas.

It allows me to digest a marketing book, a philosophy book and maybe some health podcasts all in one week. It gives me new thoughts and new ideas at all times. This is how you do a 90 minute hour.

How else can it be done?

Well, sometimes when I’m on conference calls, or if I’m on a webinar, I’ll also be working out. I happen to have a row machine in this huge office that I have right here. We call it the better human lab, because it’s got tons of fitness equipment, testing equipment, personal development library, you name it it’s here. So, often times, because I’m location independent I’ll be working with clients, whether it be coaching clients or be business clients all over the world remotely and sometimes that involves me being in a meeting and just listening and not really participating as actively.

So then, I can be on my rowing machine and I could be doing exercises while i’m actually on that call. It doesn’t affect my performance on the call, in fact I feel it helps me to actually really be in that zone. It uses my whole body. So during this time when I typically be sitting in a desk, I’m actually able to get two things done at once. That’s the concept behind the 90-minute hour.

You can apply this in all areas of your life, the only one that I don’t apply it in is actually spirituality. I find that spirituality has to be a little closer, but I will apply this in relationships. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling people this, but I do apply it in relationships and that might be by getting people that I want to spend time with but doing something that’s active at the same time. It’s something I’m passionate about and most of the people that I’m close to are also passionate about it.

It also allows me a chance to stretch my legs or get a quick workout in. So these are all just basic concepts on how I apply the 90-minute hour to my daily life. I could go on and on with examples.

My challenge to you or your call to action is go ahead and list those times those NET times (no extra time). So, those times in your day where you’re really just sitting there or not doing things as effectively or not using your brain, is what I would say. So anything that requires just rode action, taking out the trash, maybe its data entry, maybe it’s surfing the net, shopping, maybe it’s going for a walk, going to the store, or going to the grocery store.

Can you put headphones in? Can you listen to a book? Where can you up-level your life?

That’s where I fit in those extra 30 minutes, or actually extra hours, in my week. Where can you do it in yours? Start by journaling down every time you’re doing things throughout the day and really track your time. How far is your commute? Do you go for walks? What do you do for your lunch breaks? Are these times that you can actually throw in headphones or do something else to better yourself? Apply the 90 minute our principle to your life and let me how it goes!

Join me in the community on Facebook. Of course to get the show notes just go to authorofyourownstory.com, also make sure you sign up for our daily newsletter where you get additional teachings delivered to your email inbox for free every day.

That’s it for me today have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow remember –

Be the Author of Your Own Story

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Boxing Gloves

Today’s topic – boxing gloves.

This is your daily growth hack where each day we bring you a tip, trick, or insight to help you uplevel your life and what we call the five to thrive. That’s mind-body-soul-relationships and business.

So, what do I mean by boxing gloves? Well, many of us are walking around with boxing gloves on all day and I know what you’re thinking you’re thinking “What the heck are you talking about? I’m an accountant, I work in an office, what have you, I don’t wear boxing gloves you may be at the gym”.

I invite you to rethink about that. My guess is you probably do. Now, I know for me this was a big struggle shedding the boxing gloves. I started really noticing that my inner dialogue with myself and the things that I was actually telling myself were super negative. As if I was in the ring boxing myself and constantly throwing right hooks left jabs and really trying to take myself out.

Often the comments that I would say is I would talk about “Oh Doug you know you’re not getting enough done”, “You you’re not making enough money compared to all the work you’re doing”, “Your business isn’t as successful as it should be”, “You’re not this”, “You’re not that”. Really it comes down to not being good enough and then broken down even further it talks about or what it really comes down to is loving yourself.

This is a journey that took me many years and I invite you to consider the same thing. Are you walking around wearing boxing gloves beating yourself up all day long?

If you are you need to shed them.

So one thing I invite you to do is think about your inner dialogue, what is it you’re constantly telling yourself? Is it that you’re too fat, too lazy, not smart enough, not rich enough? What is it that you feel that you’re not enough and you keep telling yourself over and over again? See what I found with myself and also with clients is that you live in to that story. Now here we call ourselves Author of Your Own Story and we do that with intent. We want you to live your best life and live your own story and that starts with what you’re telling yourself.

You see people aren’t going to see you as something different than you see yourself. If you have yourself at a certain level it’s hard to uplevel 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.

It’s impossible for them to see it for a long period of time. Here’s what I invite you to do today – your call to action is to write down your inner dialogue. Any time you say you’re not enough in any way shape or form to yourself, I want you to write that down. Next, take each of those statements and write three reasons it’s actually not correct. Then, take another, take that same statement and write three more times something that’s more positive.

So for example, I might say I’m not fit enough. Well fit enough for what? Let’s write three reasons that’s not right.

Well it’s not right because

I go running every day
I lift weights
I’m turning 40 and I’m still in good, good shape.

Well what’s different in that? Well, I can rewrite that going

I’m thankful that I actually have the power and energy to go for runs.
I’m thankful that i’m actually still athletic and able to compete with people half my age.
I’m thankful that I’m actually taking care of my health.

These positive statements allow you to live into it and eventually over time these become your habits and become who you are and this becomes your story.

I love to hear your feedback on this in the comments section of our forum – look forward to hearing that and of course to get the show notes for this in all episodes, as well as additional tips and tricks, go over to authorofyourownstory.com right now

That’s it for me today, I will see you tomorrow!

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Sleep or productivity?

Today’s topic is sleep versus productivity.

Now, for years I’ve been an entrepreneur, actually for decades, and one of the things that I keep seeing over in the personal development of business development field is getting up early and the value.

We’ve heard the old axiom “the early bird gets the worm”. But what cost is that? Now, during my career I’ve really focused on getting up early, whether it be for the fitness industry when I owned a gym or for just the entrepreneurial lifestyle – owning a business and wanting to get up before everyone else did so I could be as productive and get ahead of the curve.

What I started doing is getting up at 6am, then it became 530, then 5am, next thing you know I was getting up at 4am in order to get all the things I wanted to do done in the day. This was great for a very short period of time. What I found was I was extremely productive before any of my staff got in or before anybody else woke up that I was doing business with, I had already gotten done two to three hours worth of work and I felt way ahead of the curve.

This was awesome until it wasn’t. Now what I found and you may find yourself is throughout the day, I found myself getting more and more tired. I was a little bit more irritable throughout the day, I was having mood swings, I wasn’t really fun to be around. You know after about my first or second pot of coffee, just to keep myself going and possibly a nap here or there I really started to know that my health and well-being was going by the wayside. Sure, business was on a huge upward trajectory. I was doing all these things before 5am but really as a sacrifice of my relationships.

So one of the things I started to do is in my daily journal I started to write down my bedtime. When I actually went to bed, not necessarily fall asleep, but when I was lying in bed with the anticipation of sleeping, and then when I woke up. And that was great but the key differential that I did was I put what was my rest factor. So for me, I do want to scale from one to five because I find one to ten just is too broad no one seems to pick the the two three four five and six it’s always another, so 1-5 was good for me.

I started recording how I was feeling and also at the end of day was recording my productivity. How productive did I feel I was in the five key areas or the five to thrive? So that’s mind, body soul, relationships, and business as well. And what I found was is when I actually slept in more, so I actually went to bed about the same time but actually slept in, I was actually a lot more productive. Now, I didn’t get as many to dos done on my to-do list but I found that the actual output I was getting was at a much higher level. I was also able to relate to the people around me and just in general enjoyed my days more.

So what I’m going to ask you to do, your call to action today for your daily growth hack, is start writing down in your journal your times when you’re going to bed, when you’re waking up, and more importantly, how are you feeling. If you’re like me and you’re reading these books you know getting up by 5am and there’s you know 5am groups all over facebook and the internet and that’s fantastic if that’s working for you. Something that I found in this stage of my life is actually sleeping in and making sure I’m getting enough rest is the right thing for me. I’ve made a lifestyle for myself that allows me not to have a schedule that’s that tight and maybe you have to get up early and I totally respect that. But really honor your rest and make sure that your rest is serving you in your five key areas.

Love to hear about it in our community, I love to hear your thoughts and how it’s working for you. And of course you can get today’s show notes over at author of your own story.com/sleep or productivity and just as a reminder there’s always going to be new updates on the website, so go over there. You can get our seven-day course on how to be the Author of Your Own Story, totally free as well as our newsletter and all kinds of other goodies.

That’s it for today – I’ll see you tomorrow!

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Imperfect action vs perfect inaction

Today’s topic is imperfect action beats perfect inaction every time.

Balance

Today’s topic is balance.

Know Your Top 50

Today’s topic is: Know Your Top 50

Relationship with me

Today’s topic: What is it like to be in a relationship with me.

Categories of Improvement

Today’s topic is: categories of improvement.

Are you avoiding something?

Are you here just because you’re lonely?

Lemon Water

Today’s topic is when life gives you lemons – put it in your water

The 90 minute hour

Today’s topic is the 90-minute hour.

Boxing Gloves

Today’s topic – boxing gloves.

Sleep or productivity?

Today’s topic is sleep versus productivity.

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What If You Could Transform Your Life For The Better In Just 90 Days?