the 5 minute exercise that changed how I show up every day

Summary

this is one of the simplest, most under-the-radar exercises I run. takes five minutes. I call it the Building Superman exercise.

here’s how it works. pick a role you play. business owner. dad. husband. coach. anything. now imagine you’ve been told the perfect replacement for you in that role is showing up tomorrow. write down what that person looks like. how they think. what their standards are. what they do daily. how they treat the people around them.

what you’ve just written is a job description for yourself. not a fantasy. a target. the gap between who you wrote down and who you are right now is exactly where the work is.

I use it across every role I’m playing. and the key, and this is where people miss it, is keeping the standards high enough to pull you forward without being so unrealistic they become stress fuel. it’s ambition with discipline, not delusion.

run it once. then run it on your hardest role. the version of you on that piece of paper is who you’re trying to become.

Transcript

the building superman exercise

Hell on earth would be to meet the man you could have been that’s the quote that rattles around in my brain each and every single day Who could you be now today?

I’m gonna give you a five minute exercise that helps you answer that question Who could you be helps you set a standard so you can show up better for your family your friends your business and even yourself So if you’re anything like me I’m alone quite a bit and the reason I’m alone quite a bit. Even though I have three kids.

I’m married I have business partners colleagues friends I have all of those things like most people do but at the end of the day I am alone quite a bit because I wake up early.

I train alone and When I’m working, I’m in my home office and I’m home alone And this has not always been the case for me when I was in the military I was around other people quite a bit I was around a lot of high achievers and I really enjoyed that because when I’m around other people Who want to get better who want to really improve themselves who want to try hard?

how the exercise works

It’s a better environment overall. It pushes me we push each other, you know iron sharpens iron that whole approach I love that. I love having mentors and coaches who can also guide me down that path.

But at the end of the day you’re gonna be alone and it’s just you and you have to hold yourself to some sort of standard and I hope a lot of entrepreneurs walk through this process of how do we set a standard for ourselves that we can hold ourselves accountable to and That’s what I’ve been doing for the last several years is what is my standard and it’s very hard to set a standard for yourself You’ve never done it before So what we’re gonna do in this exercise It takes about five minutes and I want to see if you really put pen to paper and think it through is what I call The building Superman exercise so you can take any area of your life.

It really does not matter if you want to do this you know for your role as a father or your role as a friend as a CEO as an entrepreneur as a business owner as a business partner as a husband as a wife It doesn’t matter you can do this for any role and I highly recommend doing it for multiple roles Maybe the ones that’s the most important to you right now But what I’ve found is we’re really good at holding other people to a standard Like if you hire an employee or if you were to hire a CEO in your place You’d have a lot of standards.

You have a lot of expectations for that person. You’d want them to do certain things Bad employee you would fire after a certain amount of time, right? So if you are a business owner like Would you fire yourself? Would you keep letting you work in your business or you scattered? You don’t really have a plan You’re not a leader You really have to dive deep into the self-assessment to do the building Superman exercise.

writing your own job description

So here’s what you do. It’s quite simple if you were to die tomorrow and You get to pick a person to replace you and It doesn’t have to be an actual person like Oh Joe over here would replace me or John would replace me It’s not like that. You get to build this person. It’s a fictitious person. That’s why it’s called building Superman You get to build this person, what would they do? What’s the standard now?

They’re only gonna live up to the standards that you set so if you wanted to do this for You as a business owner say you’re the CEO you the you the person in charge in your business and you had to be replaced tomorrow Write down all the standards for that person. What would they do? How would they lead? How would they guide the team?

How ambitious would they be would they be more on the operational side or more on the visionary side? What would you want for them? What time would they show up for work? When would they end work? Would they have a good work-life balance or would they be only work? How would you want that person to show up who would you want to replace you Now that’s the easy one.

The harder one is if you’re like me, you’re a husband You’ve got kids if I had to pick or build the person to replace me as a father What does that look like How do I want them to love my kids, how do I want them to show up for my kids?

What do I want from them? That’s a much harder thing to work through But if you can go through and do this exercise for five minutes build Superman build this person What is the standard they have how do they show up?

ambition vs. unrealistic standards

You what you’re gonna do when you go through this process is you’re gonna realize Wow, I have a lot of expectations of this person who would replace me in business of this person who would replace me You know as a father as a husband you would have these really big audacious goals and all you’re really doing because this is never going to come fruition you don’t get to pick who replaces you if you are to be replaced and You can only have the standard set so high before it becomes completely unachievable So you’ll land somewhere in the middle of having actual standards.

You can hold yourself to so if you have your standard set out as a husband or father of How they would show up how much time they would spend with them you’re now just writing standards for what you should be doing and Once you write this down.

This is your job description for yourself As business owners were really good like I said at holding other people to a standard writing the job description Hey, you need to do this you need to live up to this standard or you’re gone But we’re not as good about doing that for ourselves So I highly encourage you to go through this exercise in as many areas of your life as you can Now the goal is not to set all these standards and then be depressed because you’re not perfect You’re never going to be perfect But you should have a standard that you are trying to achieve and here’s the deal if you feel like you have set Standards that are unachievable.

They just can’t be done Maybe cut yourself some slack Lower the standard if you have to if you’re actually shooting for perfection each and every single day in your role as a parent or Business owner you’re shooting for perfection and you’re missing and it’s causing you stress Lower the standard now.

I very rarely ever tell anyone to lower a standard to try less hard That’s not what I’m here to say because most people are doing the opposite But I do know a lot of people type a high achievers incredibly ambitious they are secretly and unknowingly trying to achieve perfection and they’re falling short of Perfection causes them stress and anxiety So I don’t want that for you either.

running it on your hardest role

So this can be very eye-opening either way It can either show you your shortcomings of like man I just need to do a couple more things and I’ll be More of the father that I want to be more of the husband I want to be more of the Business owner entrepreneur that I want to be if I just check some of these boxes if I become a better leader if I spend More time here if I quit working at this point, I’ll be a little bit further.

I’ll be closer to the standard I set for myself in these areas or on the flip side be like wow, I have unrealistic unachievable standards So what’s the actual standard? What can I live up to?

This would be a very eye-opening exercise for most people and I highly recommend you do it doesn’t take a lot of time. It takes five minutes probably five minutes per area So you get out a sheet of paper start the clock?

write the roll at the top of the paper whether that’s CEO of your business father husband doesn’t matter and Then you just start listing off all the standards your expectations of this person as many things as you can fit in a five minute running clock when the timer stops You have your description your job description you have your standards that you should start holding yourself to and Now you can start setting goals on a weekly quarterly monthly basis of how you want to improve and become a better human better in these roles It’s not all about the next marketing strategy or tactic.

It’s really not a lot of times It’s just about you being who you need to be to get to the next level and to do that You need to try harder so you can live You