In the past 5 years, I went from
- Broke
- Living on my Brother’s couch
- Reeling from a devastating breakup
- Thousands of dollars in debt
- Lost, alone, depressed, and suicidal
To:
- Building a 7-figure business
- Interviewing 400+ of my biggest role models on my podcast
- Getting into the relationship of my dreams
- Creating a life of purpose and passion
- Publishing 3 best-selling dating books
- Living in a penthouse apartment in downtown San Diego
- Transforming myself into a strong grounded man.
It wasn’t an easy journey and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t consider quitting more than once.
But it was worth it.
Here are the 10 success habits that helped me take my dreams and turn them into reality.
1. Read and Immediately Take Action
Knowledge is potential power. It’s only powerful when applied.
For
years, I read hundreds of books, went through dozens of expensive
courses, and worked with top coaches… Without seeing any results in my
life.
The reason? I wasn’t applying what I was learning.
When I realized this, I made a simple rule for myself.
For every one hour of education spend three hours in execution.
It’s that simple. Once I started taking daily action to apply what I was learning, my whole life changed.
If
you want to be successful, you MUST educate yourself. But you can’t
stop there. Apply what you learn immediately and spend more time in
action than education.
2. Sleep 8+ Hours a Night
You CANNOT perform at the highest levels when you’re sleep deprived.
Unless
you happen to be like Dwayne Johson and have exceptionally low sleep
requirements, you need to get, at a bare minimum, 7.5 hours of sleep per
night. Personally, I’d recommend 8–9.
I used to sleep 6 hours and try to power through my days.
It sucked and I never accomplished what I wanted to.
Eventually, I realized the importance of sleep and gave myself permission to get as much sleep as I needed.
When
I did this, even if I didn’t wake up until 10 a.m., my days were 2–3x
more productive than the days where I woke up early and suffered through
sleep deprivation.
Get your rest. Take care of your body and it will return the favor.
3. Strategically Take Time Off
You cannot succeed, in the long run, without intentionally taking time off to recharge your batteries and replenish your energy.
You need breaks, vacations, and time off so that your brain can process new information and think more clearly.
Time
off will give you unique insights into the problems you are facing and
the solutions to those problems. It will help you restore your energy,
motivation, and enthusiasm for your craft and prevent you from burning
out.
Take at least 2 days COMPLETELY off
every 7–10 days (I recommend doing a “digital detox” and removing all
electronics from your life on these days).
Take one week off every quarter and try to get a solid 2–3 week vacation in every year.
I promise, it will have a bigger positive impact than you can imagine.
4. Spend Time Around Badasses
Your network determines your networth.
If you want to be more successful, spend time around successful people.
It’s
that simple. Your brain has these things called “mirror neurons” which
basically cause you to adopt the habits, mindsets, and beliefs of the
people you associate with most often.
So level up your social circle and spend time around badasses.
I
don’t care if you have to scrub toilets for free to get in the circles
you want to be in. Just do what you need to do to associate with the
right people.
5. Set Clear Goals and Track Your Progress
Goal setting is good and most people do this already, but they miss one critical component.
Tracking.
Not just tracking the outcomes of your goals, but the processes behind them.
For
example, let’s say that you want to gain 20 lbs. of muscle and you pick
a random training program off the internet and start eating 3,000
calories a day.
After 2 months of training you notice that you haven’t gained any muscle but have actually put on some extra body fat.
By tracking your processes, you can more clearly determine what’s going wrong.
You
may notice that you aren’t progressively overloading your muscles or
getting stronger. You may notice that your program has no form of
cardio. You may realize that you’re simply eating too much.
Whatever
the case may be, the only way that you can achieve your goals is by
tracking your progress and measuring it against your ideal outcomes.
6. Stop Complaining
Plain and simple.
You
have NO reason to complain. None, nada, nill. Complaining signals to
your brain and the rest of the world that you are unappreciative and
that you are stuck in scarcity mode.
Awwww…
Poor you. You live in a wealthy developed country, have access to the
internet, but you’re angry because someone cut you off in traffic and
wasted 10 seconds of your day.
Complaining is poison to the soul.
So stop f*cking complaining.
7. Express Daily Gratitude and Forgiveness
Everyday take time to express daily gratitude and self-forgiveness.
Just
pull out a pen and a sheet of paper and spend 5 minutes writing about
the things you’re grateful for and really feeling the gratitude in your
soul.
Next, spend a few minutes consciously forgiving yourself for being an imperfect person.
Maybe you procrastinated on an important project, got angry at your spouse, skipped the gym, or some other “terrible” thing.
It’s ok, write it out and forgive yourself for it while committing to do better next time.
No one is perfect and it’s important that you keep this in mind and forgive yourself when you screw up.
8. Execute Ideas as Fast As You Can
Success loves speed.
You can spend 20 years thinking and trying to find the perfect idea without ever taking action.
Or you can try 20 different ideas, fail at 19 of them, and then succeed wildly with the last one.
Execute ideas as quickly as possible.
Just take fast imperfect action and pivot when you receive new information.
Money and success love speed. So give it to them.
9. Define Success for Yourself
There is no such thing as objective success.
To some people it’s a 10-digit bank account, a Bentley, and a mansion in Beverly Hills.
To others, it’s a tiny home in the back country of Tennessee where they can raise their children in peace.
For others, it’s a life of travel and adventure.
Whatever success is to you… It’s ok.
Define it, own it, and don’t let anyone tell you that you’re wrong.
Spend some time really thinking
about what you want out of life so that you don’t get trapped in
someone else’s version of success. But once you KNOW what success means
to you, go after it with everything you have and forget everything else.
10. Laugh and Relax (We’re all dead anyway)
Whether you’re broke or a billionaire, you’re going to die eventually.
At the end of the day the biggest success principle is to laugh more and not take yourself so damn seriously.
Nothing that we do really matters and at the end of the day, life is just a big game.
No matter how successful you are, we all go to the same place… 6′ under.
Maybe
there’s a life after death, maybe there isn’t. Either way, the only
thing we can know for sure is that this life will end one day. And when
it does, the only things that matter are the lives you impacted, the
people you helped, and the fun you had.
So enjoy this wild ride while you can!
Hope this helps