if you've clicked on this video chances are you're a high performer hi hello welcome let's be friends
I completely understand how your brain works and how you function daily you like getting things
done as quickly as possible you want it all and you want it yesterday in my Pursuit of Happiness
success Etc I've always been fascinated by the habits and the routines of millionaires Geniuses
innovators like did you know Einstein used to refuse to wear socks Nikola Tesla would curl
his toes a hundred times per foot before going to bed he said he believed it boosted his brain
cells Da Vinci was a polyphasic sleeper meaning rather than a seven to eight hour sleep all at
once he'd take 20 minute naps throughout the day a lot of geniuses Trends were about sleep routines
naps walking Darwin even took three 45 minute walks in a day so in studying these Geniuses
learning about modern day biohacking neuroscience and habit stacking I've also come to find some of
my own quirky habits that keep me in momentum that I'm going to share with you number one
I have an alarm clock that makes no noise and has no snooze button there's some truth to you
snooze you lose first of all the snooze button is bad for your heart having multiple alarms can
activate an artificial fight or flight response we know how awful that feels it's stressful to
your cardiovascular system because it spikes your blood pressure and releases cortisol which is the
stress hormone which is already the highest in the morning and you're not actually getting any
more restorative sleep by sleeping more after your first alarm goes off so it actually extends your
sleep inertia meaning you'll just be tired for longer secondly when you hit the snooze button
you're conditioning your brain to believe that it's okay to put off your commitments for me
the time I set them in a wake up is the first commitment I made for the day and there's no
better way to earn your own self-respect than by following through with your own commitments
you made to yourself if I don't follow through with this one how many other important things
in my life am I willing to hit the snooze button on so when my alarm goes off which I have this
bracelet that vibrates to wake me up and does not have a snooze button and I don't even give
myself the option to snooze because even if it might temporarily feel good in the present to
catch a few more Z's I'm thinking of my future self and how much I want her to succeed I think
a lot about how my environment is always stronger than my willpower so I want to create structures
around me that in a way force my growth it's kind of like how there are some fish that will grow to
the size of their enclosure when Steven built our studio he talked about how this was an environment
that would force him to grow it became a container that was almost intimidating like in a good way to
grow into a whole new level of opportunity and potential so all that to say my alarm clock with
no snooze button is the first Domino of the day that pushes me into an environment for growth
I've tried a few different morning routines Andrew huberman says to get walking outside and to get a
few minutes of sunlight into your eyes in the first 30 minutes after getting out of bed and
actual sunlight not just through a window because the glass filters out the UV light that assists in
stimulating your circadian rhythm it triggers a neural circuit that controls the timing of your
hormones cortisol and melatonin Robin Sharma has a routine which he calls the 20 20 rule which I
really like the first 20 minutes of your day in exercise the second 20 minutes reviewing your
goals and your daily plan and the last 20 minutes reading something inspiring or listening to
audiobooks you outperform who you were yesterday Julia Cameron's morning routine is what I found to
be the number one tip for Creative unblocking it's called morning Pages morning pages are
three pages of long hand stream of Consciousness morning writing about anything and for your eyes
only done as quickly upon waking as possible and these Pages don't have to be good writing there's
no right or wrong way to do morning pages and I actually like this a lot I feel like it gets my
creativity flowing and I can tell how different I feel on the days that I don't do it that I begin
to Crave it morning Pages was originally for artists to break through creative blocks but it
also injects Clarity and focus and Direction into your personal life she says that although they do
take time about 30 or 40 minutes they actually make more time than they take because we move
more efficiently throughout our day so those three routines are typically what I alternate between I
either start by getting outside and walking doing the 2020 rule or writing and then I like to just
get right into deep work early before the rest of the world wakes up okay ready for my second
quirky habit I track every working minute of my day I heard this phrase from Peter Drucker he said
tell me what you value and I might believe you but show me your calendar and your bank statement and
I'll show you what you really value I think it's a really great exercise to observe what we say are
our priorities and then the reality of where we're really spending our time and money so as a result
I track every working minute of my day I have this app called time alert that's always running in the
background of my computer and my phone where I'm tracking every single minute that way I can look
back on my day and my week and see where do I need to maybe adjust where did I prioritize where can I
maybe delegate or make this into a job description for someone else the first time someone told me
about a Time study I thought it was crazy if I was inconvenient if I was annoying now I do it
constantly to kind of compete with myself and strengthen my get it done muscle to see how
intentionally productive I can be because what gets measured gets managed and what gets measured
can also turn into transparency for myself to see where I'm spending most of my time and assessing
if I'm really operating in my zono genius or where I'm constrained and feeling resistant so
I can either ask for help or be really honest about it to lean into to find a breakthrough
I'm so used to having time alert tracking in the background of everything I do and I want
it to be accurately tracking when I'm producing so that I can be intentional intentional when
I'm on and off I've heard of companies that only hire part-time employees to work four hour shifts
because they know that if they work for eight they really only get four to six real productive hours
so for me me I can look back at the end of my day and see what were actual productive hours
if I stopped for a break between calls to like get some food or scroll through Instagram that's not
tracked I'm kind of just competing with myself and strengthening that get it done muscle to see how
intentionally productive I can be so that when I'm not working I can also be super intentional
and all out in how I play and honestly this kind of accountability helps me stay really motivated
too or if I ever do feel a lack of motivation a writer's block or just flat out don't feel like
doing what I said I would do you know if you feel stuck just move your body your thoughts your mind
play the see what happens next game like if you don't want to work out put your gym clothes on
and put on a playlist and see what happens or if you have writer's block sit down on the computer
write one sentence even if it sucks just see what happens I'll also track progress and kpis
on certain projects and it seems obvious that we do this in business but I also like to do it on
personal things like writing I want to be a better writer and I made that an identity shift to step
into I committed on my calendar to get up at 5am be writing at 5 30 and I had a spread sheet where
I tracked my word count by the day and by the week so that I could feel the momentum and seeing those
numbers increase and know that I was really improving more than I was just getting my butt
in the chair and then within a couple of weeks I had bring them to all of my ideas my stories
of strategy and had almost 30 000 words down the action wasn't perfect there are days when it was
challenging to get the words out on paper or in this case keyboard to screen and if I showed you
the document where I wrote everything the content isn't in chronological order there's fragments and
sentences all over but it got things moving so if you feel stuck just move and my third quirky
habit is that I schedule my day by identity rather than by tasks when I first heard the phrase be do
have for the first time it really speaks to your identity when you're being that identity you will
more naturally do the behaviors that identity would naturally engage in and as a result have
the outcomes that that identity has I had this coach that demonstrated this for me once by asking
when you woke up today did you go buy a pack of cigarettes to which I responded no I did not why
because I'm not a smoker identifying as a non-smoker it would be completely outside of what
I naturally would wake up and do but holding on to the identity of an entrepreneur did I wake up this
morning get to work plan out and work on my goals yes I did because that's naturally my identity I
do this as well for New Year's resolutions instead of setting goals I set identities I want to step
into this year I want to be a writer I want to be an entrepreneur I want to be an athlete I want to
be an investor and instead of just saying I want to gain this amount of muscle I think of
what does an athlete naturally do to create that lifestyle and it becomes a lifestyle shift rather
than just a goal or a milestone or a Target to hit it becomes who you are I actually made an
entire video about how I plan my year by identity rather than by New Year's resolutions or goals I'm
going to link that below I'd love for you to check it out and I think it'd be really great
for you to consider anytime you're making goals whether it's a new year or not because you don't
need to wait until the new year or wait until Monday to step into that new identity I show
you how you can install some of that right now so click below and I'll see you there