So train yourself to feel good. It is said that about 95% of our decisions are based on emotions, and as somebody who owns a marketing agency, this is something we leverage all the time. But how often through your day are you making decisions, conscious or unconsciously, based on your emotions? Well, if that’s statistic is correct, that’s 95% of the time. That only leaves a little 5% of the time that you’re using your rational mind to actually make a decision.

Now, how does this work? Well, the psychology really is, is that we use rational thought to justify the emotional decision that we make. So if 95% of our decisions, throughout life, through our day, are based on emotions, how often are you feeling good? How often are your emotions positive or empowering emotions? And so, what I wanna talk to you about is a methodology, or a way, that you can go through your day to ensure that you’re training yourself to feel more the good emotions.

And so, a lot of this is just self-discovery. So what I want you to do is grab your journal. Grab your journal right now, ’cause we’re gonna do some exercises here. And so, in the first part of your journal I want you to write the number one, and then I want you to write the empowering emotions, or the positive emotions, that you want to experience. Go ahead and make a list right now. All right, great, you have your list, you’ve written them down. Love, happiness, gratefulness, joy, these are the emotions you wanna feel on a regular basis, and I’m gonna show you how you can train yourself to do it.

Now we’re gonna talk about the triad, and this is something I got from Tony Robbins. And so, the triad talks about, picture yourself in the state, in the state where you have that positive emotion. Maybe it’s confidence for you, and I’ll use that in this example, ’cause I know a lot of people, especially the business owners I work with, they want more confidence. Now, they’re confident people, but they want more, they wanna experience it throughout their day. So let’s look at the triad.

So what is the triad? The triad talks about your physiology; how are you standing, how are you, what is that physiology? When you’re the most confident you’ve ever been, how do you stand? For most of us it’s chest up, heart up, lifted to the world, head up. We stand up tall, we feel great, our feet are grounded in there. So number one is physiology.

Number two is patterns of focus, so what are you focusing on in that moment. So the second part of that triad is, what are you focusing on? So when you’re confident, what are you focusing on? For a lot of people, when we teach confidence, we want them to focus on a success that they’ve had in the past, so something more recent, but really just a success they’ve had. So go ahead and try that. So we’re starting with physiology, stand up tall and straight, belly button in, chests out, our shoulders back, looking good, feet grounded, and then focus on a success that you’ve had recently, some time when you just knocked it out of the park. You feel like you’re on top of the world, you could bench press the world, you’re just super strong.

Part three of that triad is patterns of language and meaning, so that means, what did you make it mean in that moment, right? So you’re standing that physiology, you have that success, and now what did you make that success mean? What did you make that environment mean? Did you make it mean like, “Yes, I got the deal, I closed it. That means I am a great businessman,” or a businesswoman, or whatever it is for you. What did you make that mean?

So we look at that triad, I want you to draw a triangle, and so on each side we have physiology, we have patterns of focus, and then we have to mean. So that’s your triad, what’d you make that mean. So write down a few examples for each of those that you listed in part one. So write down love; so what is your physiology to feel love? Like, when you felt the most love, what does your body look like? How do you stand, how do you feel, how do you move when you’re feeling love? Then also, what are you focusing on when you’re feeling love? Are you focusing on yourself, kind of the spotlight effect? Are you focusing on giving back to other people? What is it you’re focusing on. And the third part of that triad, remember, is what does it mean? What did you make that mean to feel love? Does it mean that you know, “I did something really well, and therefore I’m worthy of love,” or does that mean just, “Love flows through me,” what does it mean for you? So that’s the third part of the triad.

Now the next step, when you write in a journal, I want you to think about those things, those … So one is the feelings, two is the triad, so with each of those feelings you’ve written these down. So go ahead and put this on pause if you need to, and on the next step what I want you to do is, how can you intensify those feelings? How can you really amplify them? So maybe picturing this event, this feeling of confidence, how can you ramp it up? So maybe you’ve closed a deal, and that makes you confident, and this deal was a $10,000 sale. I’m just making this up obviously. Now I want you to amplify it. What if that was a $100,000 sale, how would you feel then? Like, what kind of confidence would you have in yourself as a businesswoman? What would you really feel in that moment? Amplify that.

Now, I want you to write that down for each section, how can you amplify that feeling. The feelings of joy, the feelings of happiness, the feelings of love, the feelings of confidence, those feelings that you wrote down in step number one. And you can always expand upon this. So this is the next step in this progression.

Now, the next thing I want you to do, is to do the exact same pattern, so those three things I just asked you to do, but now I want you to do them for your disempowering beliefs, right? So when you’re feeling sad, when you’re feeling not worthy, “I’m not enough, I’m not lovable,” what are those things, you know, “I’m not good looking enough,” whatever it is for you. I want you to through that same process and recognize it.

So if you’re watching this in the video, you know, what does this look like? I’m standing up tall, if you’re listening to this, my shoulders are back and down; do I look confident, do I look happy, do I look assertive? And if you can imagine this as if you’re working out right now, assume that posture. Now, what about someone who’s sad, what’s the physiology of somebody who’s sad or depressed, right? Shoulders are slumped, the head is down, they’re looking, they’re talking slower, they may be swaying back and forth a little bit, their tonality has changed. That is just their physiology, you can recognize that.

Now, by just changing that physiology you can actually change the states, and if you go through the whole triad of what you’re focusing on and what it means, along with the physiology, that allows you to experience those emotions more, and that gives you the advantage of taking that 95%, so those patterns of feeling, and emphasizing more on the patterns that you want to feel, the feelings of success. And so I want you to go into those states as often as possible. So this could be, you know, driving in your car. You can remember this exercise and go into the pattern, so you are using repetition to experience it more.

Think of this as a record, right? If I play a song over, and over, and over again, even if you don’t like that song, I can guarantee you’re gonna start singing it. Over time it, just subconsciously, these patterns get within us. They embody us. And so what this is allowing you to do is two things. One, recognize those patterns and the ways of being that you don’t want, so when you’re in them you can change, right? You can make a shift, and you can use the five-second rule or something else that works for you.

The second thing this is gonna allow you to do, is practice being in those patterns that you wanna be in. Practice makes perfect, and when you’re practicing them you may feel stupid, right? You may feel like, “I’m just laughing ’cause I wanna experience more joy, and really what is there to laugh about Doug? I don’t get it.” But if you’re practicing on a day to day basis, a moment by moment basis, driving in your car, in the bathroom while you’re taking a shower, or just walking, or sitting in a line, if you’re practicing these things, they become habitual, they become just part of you, they become part of what you’re doing.

You know, people ask me sometimes, “Why are you so confident? Like, [inaudible 00:08:36] able to start these businesses?” Or, “Why are you happy?” Because I’ve trained myself to be, it’s not because I was just born this way, and I’ve gone through high school, and all the trials and tribulations that everybody else goes through in life, and they just didn’t affect me. No, no, it’s the opposite, right? They did affect me, and I tried to figure out ways to grow. And I hired mentors and coaches throughout my life to help me better myself, and I’ve learned this way of being, and I’m practicing the patterns that make me successful. I’m practicing the patterns to allow me to be the author of my own story, as I’ve written it. And I want you to do the same. So my patterns are gonna be different than yours, the experiences I wanna experience are gonna be slightly different as well, but this gives you control and the opportunity to step into the author of your own story lifestyle.

Now, I know this is a longer Daily Growth Hack than I normally do, and it’s much more tactical, but I wanted to give you this opportunity. We go into a lot more depth in the Author of Your Own Story University, and as you can imagine, this is a full hour, an in-depth exercise that we typically would go through, and do repeated patterns of correction. So what I want you to do is, just try this out yourself. Get your journal and do it. Remember, you have to do the work, listening to this just isn’t enough. Go over to AuthorOfYourOwnStory.com, make sure you get on that newsletter, make sure you’re staying up to date with these tools, tricks, and techniques on a regular basis. We’re also gonna give you exclusive information over there, and I want you to have that advantage. I want you to have that one percent advantage over everybody else, just because you can be the author of your own story. Now, this isn’t a competitive thing, when I say one percent above everybody else, but that’s one percent better, that means you are improving incrementally, just so you can uplift 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!