9 success habits to outwork your competition

Summary

almost half of your day runs on autopilot. that’s habits. if the habits are bad, the day is bad. nine I run on purpose.

1. nutrition: the 350 micro plan. 3 meals, 50 grams of protein per meal, micronutrients from fruits and vegetables. simple to repeat.

2. fitness: the 300 challenge. 300 workouts a year, 300 minutes a week, 300 calories burned per session. no makeups.

3. mindset: a non-negotiable mindset block daily. reading, journaling, meditation, prayer. pick one and keep it.

4. learning: book in progress at all times. 30 minutes minimum.

5. finances: weekly money review. cash position, expenses, runway. no surprises.

6. movement: not the same as fitness. walking, mobility, just not sitting for 9 hours straight.

7. sleep: a fixed bedtime is more valuable than a fixed wake time. anchor the night.

8. hydration: half your body weight in ounces of water minimum. boring. effective.

9. tracking: a simple daily report. you cannot improve what you do not measure.

none of these are special. all of them compound. that’s the only edge.

Transcript

introduction to the importance of daily habits

Did you know that 40% of your day runs on habits? That’s according to research from Duke University. That means nearly half your life is on frickin autopilot. So you better make sure your autopilot is damn good. Getting people to start and stick to habits was a big reason I wrote the book Killing Comfort.

I’ve also used all these habits to succeed as a military officer, to be a dad, to be a husband, and to run multiple 7 figure businesses. So if you want to outperform the competition, you need to be doing these habits. If you can just pick up a few of these, you will outperform everyone else around you.

I can guarantee it. So let’s dive right in. All right. The first habit I call 350 micro. So I know a lot about nutrition. I studied food nutrition science in college. I was a strength and conditioning coach for better part of a decade. I have forgotten more about nutrition than most people will ever know.

350 micro: nutritional habits

And I have simplified the heck out of this. And this is what I follow to this day. It’s called 350 micro. So the first thing, the three, only three meals per day, no snacks. That’s it. And what this does, it keeps your metabolism healthy and it makes sure that your blood sugar isn’t jumping all over the place.

So making sure that you only have three meals and there is no snacking. The second thing, 50 grams of protein per meal. Now you can go up and down based off of your muscle mass or body weight, but 50 grams is a great start. So if you need to go up to 60 or down to 40, you absolutely can do that. Lastly, micro.

So most micronutrients are found in fruits and vegetables for most people. There are micronutrients in meat, but you need to also focus on the micros just as much as you do the macros that’ll keep you healthy. So if you’re getting your micros, that’s going to be from fruits and veggie veggies. So if you follow the micro portion of this, that means most of your meals are going to be high in protein.

You’re only going to eat three times, which will regulate your blood sugar. And you’ll be eating some fruits and vegetables with every meal. This is an absolute game changer habit, not just in getting healthy, but also having the mental acuity to be a really good entrepreneur, good father, good husband, good, anything that you’re after.

the 300 challenge: consistency in physical training

All right. The second habit is what I call the 300 challenge. I challenge people to do this every single year. I honestly think it’s one of the hardest things for people to do, but once you get the hang of it, it will make you a beast. You will be so consistent. No one will be able to touch you. So the 300 challenge consists of three things.

The first, you’re going to shoot for 300 training sessions or workouts every single calendar year. It’s going to average out to being about six days per week. The next thing you’re going to do is making sure that you’re hitting 300 minutes per week of training. And then the last thing is making sure that you have 300 calories per training session.

This will make sure that you’re not slacking. So you’ve got the consistency in the year, you’ve got the consistency in the week, and you’ve got the consistency down in the training session level. By burning a minimum of 300 calories, you can wear a heart rate monitor to make sure that you’re hitting that.

But ultimately, this will make sure that you’re incredibly consistent and also still seeing results because sometimes consistency isn’t going to be the only thing you need. Sometimes you need the intensity and you need the time. So making sure that you do all three of these things will be an absolute game changer for you.

developing a robust mindset daily

The third habit has to do with your mindset. So what are you doing on a daily basis to develop your mindset? You need to train it daily, just like you would fitness, just like you would nutrition. Most people don’t do this. So if you read, you journal, you meditate, you do affirmations, whatever you need to sharpen your mind and build your mental toughness, you need to be doing it habitually, not once a month or when you think about it, it needs to happen every single day.

Me personally, I do this in the mornings. My morning routine has nothing to do with what I need to get done. It helps me keep my mindset in check so I can continue to attack life how I want to. All right. The fourth habit on the list is deep learning. It’s pretty damn easy to outwork the competition when the competition is pretty damn lazy.

Nobody’s doing this. Nobody’s trying to learn at a deep level. In all honesty, people are relying more and more on AI. Their attention spans are getting smaller, which might sound like a bad thing. But for you watching this and for me, people willing to put in the work, it’s awesome because everyone’s so easy to beat now because they’re so damn lazy.

So let’s get into what is deep learning. Well, the first thing that you have to do is just decide what you want to learn. Maybe you want to learn more about email marketing. Maybe you want to learn about fitness. Maybe you want to learn about nutrition, whatever it is. What do you want to go deep on?

You just have to decide that first. Next thing you’re going to do, you will utilize AI, but not to actually learn just to speed up some of the process. So the second step is you’re going to ask AI what the top three books are for the subject that you are trying to tackle. So maybe you want to get better at selling something or just sales in general.

Deep learning strategies

You would ask AI, hey, what are the top three books of all time on sales? And it’s going to give you those books. And now you have a list that you can start to conquer. The next thing you’re going to do, you’re going to continue to utilize AI, but you are going to have AI write a summary of the first book.

So say it gives you a book recommendation, you’re immediately going to say, okay, great. Thanks for the recommendation. Summarize that book for me. And what you’re doing here is not trying to get the book summary. You’re trying to see if this book is worth your time because you know where your strengths and weaknesses are.

And so when you go to AI and you say, hey, give me the summary, you read the summary real quick. And then you’re like, yeah, okay, this book is worth it. This is what I need to learn. This is what I need to dive into. Now step four, you are going to drop the AI. We’re done with AI. We’re going full on human here.

You are going to passively listen to this book. This is all about time commitment. So if you’re running, working out, driving your car, cutting the grass, doing the dishes, whatever, you’re going to have this book on in the background. Okay. That means you’re not fully focused, but you’re picking up on nuggets here and there and you are listening to the book.

You’re passively listening, trying to find out what this book is really about. And it’s also helping you assess if it truly is the book you need to become a master in the subject that you are trying to learn. If you finish, if you finish reading this book and you’re like, yes, this was the book, you’re going to move on to step five and you are going to read this book.

financial vigilance

You’re going to actually buy the hard copy or paperback version of this book. You’re going to read it while listening to the audio book at the same time. And then you’re going to take notes on anything that you find important. So this is where we’re really getting deep. You will have only done this.

If you listen to the book once and you’re like, yes, this book is absolutely awesome. You’d move on to step five. Now you’re starting to really put that into your memory, your subconscious, and you’re going to have a deeper understanding of a subject that most people never will, especially in today’s day and age.

Now the last thing you need to do is write chapter summary. So every time you finish a chapter in this book, press pause, close the book, write a summary in your own words of what that was about and what your biggest takeaway is. And here’s the thing. What is your action step? Learning only matters so much.

You can become an expert on something, but how are you going to take action? Now when you understand something at this level, you understand it so deeply that you could actually teach it. You could become an expert in this field and this is what no one is doing. If you do it, you will be light years ahead of any of your competition.

All right. Habit five has to do with your finances. So you are going to log in and check your bank account daily. I’m assuming you have some sort of goal. You want to save a certain amount of money. You want to pay off a certain amount of debt. You have financial goals. If you don’t, you absolutely should.

importance of physical activity

But the only way to know if you’re moving in the right direction is to check your bank account daily. How much money has come in and maybe more importantly for some of you, how much has come out? Because if you are spending way too much, that’s a problem. You don’t want to notice that 30 days later.

You want to notice that as fast as possible so you can stop the bleed. Also when you see the money coming in, you know you are moving things in the right direction. So don’t check your bank account once per month, once per quarter or whenever. Like do it every single day so you know you’re moving in the direction you want to.

Number six is a step goal. So yes, we want to get a certain amount of movement in each and every single day, but we’re not talking about the typical 10,000 steps here. I think you should be getting 15 to 20,000, preferably 20,000 steps per day. This is something that I implemented over the last six months and it has absolutely changed the game for me.

You know, I would average just from living life 10, 11, 12,000 steps per day. Once I actively started trying to get 20,000 steps per day, everything changed. Like my mind is so much sharper. I feel so much better. If you’re doing three meals per day, you’re not on that blood sugar roller coaster. I started to lean out.

It’s a phenomenal habit. Walking is an amazing thing. Get more movement in, but don’t shoot for these low 8,000, 10,000. That’s not going to move the needle for you. You need to do something that’s actually going to make an impact, 15 to 20,000 steps per day. All right, the seventh habit, I feel like we don’t even need to talk about it.

sleep and hydration

It’s sleep. How much sleep should you be getting? Seven plus hours of sleep. Look, you know, you’ve heard about it, but if you want to stay mentally sharp, seven plus hours every single night, track it, wear a garment, wear a whoop, whatever you have to sleep in a cold room, make sure it’s blacked out.

Make sure you’re not consuming caffeine too late in the day and then also not consuming too much content at the end of the day. If that affects your sleep, ultimately sleep is a superpower in your health and your performance. Do not skip this one. The eighth habit has to do with your hydration. Again, just like sleep.

If you want to be mentally on point, you want to be feeling good. You want to have the best possible day you can. You need to get one half of your body weight in ounces in water per day. So 50% of your body weight, if you weigh 200 pounds, that’s 100 ounces of water per day. That’s the minimum. That’s what you should be shooting for, especially if you’re doing everything else I’m talking about with training 300 times in a year, getting all these additional steps in, you’re going to want half your body weight in ounces each and every single day.

All right. The ninth and final habit is tracking. If you haven’t noticed from everything we’ve been talking about, you need to track shit. You have to track shit. If you want to make progress, you need to be tracking. So we’re going to gamify life. That’s one thing that tracking does, but also numbers don’t lie.

You can’t think that you got seven or eight hours of sleep. You can track it. You don’t think you get 15,000 steps. You track it. You don’t think you have a certain amount of money in the bank account. You actually look at it each and every single day. If you want to be successful, if you want to outperform the competition, track everything, gamify your life and look at the numbers because they will not lie.

the value of tracking and conclusion

Look, there’s nothing easy about developing new habits, but 40% of what you do each and every single day is either good or bad habit that you’ve already developed. So it’s time to break the bad habits, start some new good habits and change who you are. Become a better human. So try harder.