transform your life, self development basics

Summary

self-development is roughly 80 to 90% mindset. the other 10 to 20% is action. most people get stuck in the mindset half forever and never compound.

quick history. the self-development industry started during the Great Depression. Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich.” both still hold up. the foundational layer from the 1930s through the 1990s is mostly what you need to read: Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, Stephen Covey. the modern stuff is fine but most of it is just rephrasing what those guys already said.

then the framework I run on top of the reading. five daily habits:

1. learn. read, listen, take in inputs that stretch you. non-negotiable, daily.
2. move. physical movement isn’t separate from mindset, it is mindset.
3. practice. apply what you’re learning. skill reps, not just consumption.
4. create. produce something. writing, content, code, a workout, anything. consumption without creation is empty.
5. teach. the strongest learning loop in existence. teach what you just learned, even if it’s to your kids.

mindset is the foundation. but if you live in the mindset layer with no action layer, you’re not developing. you’re just reading. five habits, every day.

Transcript

why self development is 80 percent mindset

This episode is about getting better. I have three kids and should I die before I’m able to teach them? I hope this episode finds them. I hope that you can get something from it as well. So in a nutshell, today I’m gonna be talking about self-development. It’s a journey I’ve been on for years, but when I started I didn’t know what to do.

I just knew I wanted to improve and so I ended up downloading this audiobook and buying the hard copy of a book called Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot. This is not a book I recommend people start with. It was about improving your memory, but for me that book was a milestone in my own journey because it was me taking the step that was just, hey, I want to get better.

I want to improve and that’s the first step anyone can take is do you want to do this? It is well worth it. I can tell you every ounce of success that I have had has had to do with the fact that I want to improve myself.

It’s improving your relationships, it’s improving your fitness, it’s improving your mindset, it’s improving everything so you can be better and when you’re better everything else around you can be better as well. Your business being one of those small things. What I want to explain about self-development is that self-improvement, self-development, it’s 80 to 90 percent mindset and I’m not saying that from this cliche, you know, just improve your mind and everything else gets better.

That’s actually where most of the literature revolves around is improving your mindset. Now there are a lot of high-level entrepreneurs and even athletes who maybe due to their upbringing or whatever else they don’t have to work on things like, you know, maybe I did or maybe you might have to.

They might already have some of those great mindset capabilities and they don’t realize it so when they’re like, oh, I never focus on doing x, y, or z, that doesn’t mean that they don’t need it.

It just means that their upbringing maybe hardened them or maybe they got to a place where they already had beliefs in their self but a lot of times the first step in getting better and self-improvement is working on the mindset and what like this is a hundred percent proven through the history of self-development which I’m going to quickly go over and I’m going to try and make this not a boring history lesson but I’m going to give you the resources that you can pick up.

the foundational reading list

Kind of the key foundational literature, books, audio programs, everything that you could be listening to that kind of will walk you down this path. I highly recommend most every single one that I’m going to mention. So real quick the history lesson is this all started with the Great Depression. That is really what fired the self-development, the self-improvement industry.

Coming off the Great Depression people were very scarcity mindset like they had huge scarcity mindset and the reason being is because of just how the state of the economy and how the economy had been for such a long time.

It was hard to get people ramped up believing that they could do something again, that they could actually you know build something and make something of themselves and I think people, entrepreneurs and people in the self-development space and where it was getting created kind of realized that people just needed a kind of a kick in the butt to get going again and that’s exactly what happened.

So it all stemmed from the Great Depression and from the Great Depression came two very big names in the 1930s who you should know which is Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill. So Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill are very instrumental to kicking off the self-development space. So Dale Carnegie you probably are familiar with the book he wrote the book How to Win Friends and Influence People. Very popular book.

I highly recommend that on anyone’s self-development and self-improvement journey. Another one came out by Napoleon Hill 1937 Think and Grow Rich. Most every entrepreneur knows that book. He’s sold tens of millions of copies and it’s very instrumental to most everyone’s self-development journey. It’s about mindset, right? That’s a big part of it. Now 1948 another big one comes along called The Magic of Believing.

So The Magic of Believing is by journalist Claude M Bristol and it’s teaching an unwavering belief in one’s goals and it’s a magic force that generates success. This is another one that I think people have really gravitated towards in the self-development journey and another one I think is really good is just believing in what you’re doing and making progress there. Now the 50s were a big standout year.

So the 50s came with The Power of Positive Thinking which is a very popular book. So The Power of Positive Thinking is by Reverend Norman Vincent Peale and it encourages readers to overcome defeatist attitudes through faith and affirmations. Another one is The Strangest Secret. So The Strangest Secret is actually an audio program. It’s a 30-minute audio lesson explaining how we become what we think about.

the trap of staying in the mindset loop

He initially made this for his insurance sales team but the recording gains immense popularity and it became the first spoken word to record gold to go gold and it ultimately led to Nightingale to co-found Nightingale Conant which is a very popular in the audiobook space for self-development programs and you can listen to that one for free on YouTube.

And then another one not The Magic of Believing but The Magic of Thinking Big came out in the 50s as well. So The Magic of Thinking Big is by David J. Schwartz. It’s offering a practical think big strategy for setting high goals and believing in oneself. So now we’re up to the 50s.

Now I’m going to kind of in through the 60s in the 1960s to 1980s because the three big names that you need to know from this category is not one singular book. It’s Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, and Tony Robbins. Myself, I’m not a huge Tony Robbins fan. A lot of people are. Of these three names, Jim Rohn is my top guy. I love all of his content, all of his books, everything that he ever created.

I’m very much in alignment with. He provided a lot of great information, has a ton of great audiobooks.

If you only could listen to one set of work from somebody and everything I’ve gone over so far, it would absolutely be Jim Rohn. Now Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, I think this is more of what flavor are you interested in? But these three guys right here from the 60s to the 80s, Tony Robbins didn’t kick off until the late 80s. But from the 60s to the 80s and through the 80s and 90s, Tony Robbins still going today. They kind of dominated the space and they created so much great stuff that has helped so many people. So if you’re interested, check out those three people. It’s a great start to your self-development, self-improvement journey.

And then I have to mention kind of at the end of the 80s, Stephen Covey comes out with The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, probably one of the most popular self-development books out there. So this has kind of been the journey of self-development. But the reason I’m stopping in the 80s coming up to 1990s is because that’s when it really explodes. Recent estimates say that the self-development industry is worth over 13 billion dollars or that was in 2022.

Today, who knows, maybe it’s at 15, 20 billion. But it’s kind of all over the place and super scattered. And me personally, I like to go back to the historical context of building up your belief. And if you go through all of this, like I said, all of this focuses on your mindset. This is not tactical stuff on how to get better. Jim Rohn gets into a little bit of stuff with journaling and setting programs for yourself and all that kind of stuff. But it’s all about tackling your mindset. And once you have your mindset mastered, now it just gets really boring.

the five daily habits

Becoming better and improving yourself just becomes really boring. So let’s talk about what the daily habits look like to continue to get better for a lifetime. So if you want to continue to get better each and every single day, it’s not going to be reading Jim Rohn over and over again or Zig Ziglar or Tony Robbins or Dale Carnegie. It’s not going to be any of that.

It’s not going to be reading, thinking, grow rich over and over again and just thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking. You know, I think after you have that kind of box checked, which I think is the biggest hurdle, you’re like, hey, the mindset is good. I believe in myself. I believe in my plan. I am capable. I can do this. You have that kind of going for you.

Like I said, a lot of people already do, so they don’t need all that work in the beginning. If you already have that going for you, then it’s just the daily habits that you need to focus on. And I can break those down into five different categories. One, always be learning. Okay, that’s it. You need to be learning, always learning something new. Stay curious.

Always be expanding your mind. You have to be learning. If you are learning focused, you’ll be surprised at how many people are done learning once they’re done with school. Even in the professional capacity, some of them don’t chase continuing education unless it’s forced. They don’t have any real interest. They don’t want to learn much more.

If you can always stay hungry and always learning something new, that’s going to serve you for the rest of your life. The second thing is going to be move. You need to move your body. I talk about this all the time. Getting 15 to 20,000 steps per day is a really high-end goal. 10,000 steps per day. Training, having a training program, something you’re specifically training for is very helpful. But exercise fitness is a very key point and part of self-development, not just becoming better so you can have bigger biceps or six-pack abs or anything like that.

It actually helps your brain, and it helps you stay motivated, and it helps you stay in the game for longer. So moving and having a high level of fitness is going to be a challenge for everyone always, but it’s well worth it and something that you have to do. The third thing is practice. What is your practice?

why teaching is the strongest learning loop

I firmly believe that if you’re chasing mastery in any given subject or domain, you are going to be more fulfilled throughout your life. You just have to decide what that is. This is not the same as learning. Pursuing mastery involves learning, but it’s deciding to go deep on a specific topic and owning that and deciding that you want to get really good at that specific thing. For me personally, it’s changed back and forth over the years.

At one point in time, I just wanted to be the best possible strength conditioning coach. I wanted to pursue mastery in that, and I did for a very long time. It’s not that I’m not interested in that anymore, but I feel like mastering business to a really high level is something that is always challenging me. Entrepreneurship is continually challenging me. Anytime I think I have something figured out, I don’t. It always involves me getting better.

Every time we scale, something breaks. I just always have to be on the tip of my game. I just have to be on point all the time to be good at this thing. It’s where I want to pursue mastery. So where are you pursuing mastery that involves practice, that it involves that deliberate practice of getting better each and every single day?

If you have that, it’s going to keep you in the game again for a long time, just like fitness will. It’ll keep you in just engaged in actually pursuing something that you want. All right, the fourth thing is going to be create. I don’t care what you create. Sometimes when I tell people this, they think that I’m talking about art or they need to be a writer or whatever the case is.

That’s not what I mean by create. If you’re a coder, what code are you creating? If you are a physical therapist, what methods are you creating for your own practice? If you are a writer, what are you writing? What are you putting into the world? Not just writing in your own notebook. Don’t just journal for yourself. Put it out. Create something.

Because when you have all of these good inputs, you’re exercising, you’re learning, you’re pursuing mastery, you’ll be surprised what can come out of your brain. If you’re creating something for the world, they will enjoy it too and they’ll get a lot of use out of it. I think creating something is a great practice to have. Whatever it is, whatever your art, whatever you are practicing and pursuing mastering in, create something from that of value.

putting it all together

Now the last thing is to teach.

You don’t have to do this each and every single day, but at some point in your life, you’re going to accumulate so many skills that other people are going to want to learn. So if you’re learning each and every single day of your life, you’re moving, you’re getting better at exercise, you’re becoming fitter, you have a practice, you’re pursuing mastery, and hey, let’s say you master that craft and you’re creating things in the process. It’s time to start teaching other people to do it. That’s really what we’re here for. We’re here to help other people.

Now you don’t need to teach as soon as you’re learning. You can wait. But when you teach something, a few things happen. One, you are helping other people and I think that’s huge. You absolutely should help other people, shortcut the process for them, teach them, help them. I think that’s a huge part. Don’t be selfish all the time. Be selfless more often and teach. But another thing teaching does that I’ve learned and that most people have ever been in any kind of teaching capacity is that it helps you understand all of these things to a much higher level.

Because when you have to actually teach somebody something, you realize, wow, I think I know this, but I can’t explain it very well. And being able to explain it in more simple terms helps you master the subject even more. So not only are you helping people, you’re helping yourself when you go to teach because you are solidifying the concepts in your brain to very easy and digestible formats.

So teaching is the last and final practice that you should implement if you want to get better. So that’s it. If you want to get better, you have to start with your mind. There’s a whole slew of information that’s out there. I wouldn’t go new age in this capacity. I wouldn’t learn from anybody in all honesty who’s out there right now. First, that’s not where I would start. I would start with all of the historical references I mentioned from the Great Depression up into the 90s.

Consume some of that content and learn the very basics of what it means to get better, what self-improvement means, what self-development means. Then after that, maybe you can consume more mindset content, but don’t get stuck in the I need to improve my mindset hamster wheel because you might have a great mindset at some point, and now it’s just time to do the daily boring things that are going to make you better and keep you better for the rest of your life, which are learn, move, practice, create, teach. To do all that, you’re going to have to try harder.