Latest / Harder Than Life / 165: The Dark Side of Discipline, When Hustle Destroys Your Life

Transcript

165: The Dark Side of Discipline, When Hustle Destroys Your Life · Harder Than Life

• 0:07
  I'm Kelly Siegel, and this is Harder Than Life, a podcast about self-love, self-awareness, business, and health. We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple, practical advice you can start using today. Let's get living.
• 0:24
  Welcome back to the Heart of the Life show. Today's guest is the living embodiment of effortless discipline. Dubbed the most disciplined man in the world, Craig Ballantyne, challenges everything we've been taught about hustle culture and relentless self-punishment. As the author of The Perfect Day Formula, Unstoppable, and his groundbreaking new book, The Dark Side of Discipline, Craig helps high performers transform by subtracting distractions, raising standards, and aligning actions with identity. Welcome back to the Heart of the Life show.
• 0:53
  Founder of early to rise.com and creator of the effortless discipline system. Craig has guided countless leaders to lasting success, less suffering and deeper fulfillment. Prepare to shift how you think about discipline and unlock real sustainable productivity with Craig Ballantyne. Welcome my brother. This is going to be so much fun. Thank you. As I said, before we hit record and for those of them that are watching Craig and I have become friends and he's gifted me these three beautiful books and I've been
• 1:22
  And then this amazing, beautiful box set. And I went down the rabbit hole, hook, line, and sinker, and was texting him the entire time going, I'm rethinking my entire life. So I hope that this podcast gives you a synopsis and makes you guys as hungry to improve your life as I am. So I'm going to get it started off with, there is a point in Unstoppable, right?
• 1:48
  where you say you wanna write three books, and forgive me if I'm wrong, because I've read them all three, back to back to back. Three books, a wife, and two kids. Yeah. It was very specific. What inspired that exact dream? And I know you've already achieved it now, so when was that exactly written? That was written in 2018, so about seven years ago. And what I want people to take away from is the specificity
• 2:15
  there because if somebody says they want to be successful, gosh, you could do a lot of things to be successful. But if you want to write three books and be married with two kids, you got to take a lot of specific actions. And then that will actually make it easier for you to overcome the inertia of getting started on anything.
• 2:32
  I was blown away. So just so you also know, the way that I read books, and everybody knows this, but I want to share with you, is I open my phone, and as I get a mind bender, I write it down. So I took all of these notes that are going to come from, and I would just...
• 2:47
  The books were phenomenal. Guys, run out and get dark side of this one, the unstoppable and the perfect week formula. The funniest thing about it is I opened this beautiful package and I see there's another book in there. So I'm going to read that one. That's the first one. I didn't read it yet. Or so I would have read that one. I would have said I'm the most disciplined man in the world until I read what you do. And I'm like, wow, what's the one productivity hack or trend you secretly rolled your eyes at every time you hear about it?
• 3:14
  Oh man, the long morning routines, this morning miracle book really, there's two types of people in this world, people who like the morning miracle and people who like my perfect day formula. And I'm a get up and go to work guy. And when I hear about people doing 19 things before breakfast, it just, it bothers me because I know how hard it is for people to do things as the day goes on. And you have the greatest discipline, willpower and intention first thing in the morning. And so the things in that book and the things in...
• 3:43
  you know, the idea of the long morning things. A lot of them are good things, but they get in the way of the great things. And that bothers me. So I was reading that yesterday. As a matter of fact, I had, I was dying laughing. I had about a hundred pages left to read and realized that I thought our podcast was Thursday, but it was Tuesday. I'm like, all right, let's finish the book. First of all,
• 4:02
  You should be a, I mean, literally, I know you're the most productive man, but I think you're the best writer because it was so easily digestible for someone like me. I could whip through these. I read each one in less than a week, probably a few days. And I was reading it yesterday and it literally said that. And you were saying, this is what my morning routine looks like. And then I realized about three lines into it that you're joking. So there is a lot of.
• 4:27
  of funniness. This was in the perfect week formula because I read them in the order you asked me to read them. So I do listen, Craig. And when I was messaging him like, oh, I got to rethink my whole life. So the morning routine is one of the weird things. And we're going to go by book, by book, by book. But I also heard a rumor that you quit the infamous cold plunge. Did you finally realize warm showers are just better or is there a deeper reason? I've always been a fan of the warm.
• 4:54
  bath. I've never been a fan of the cold plunge. I think it's a bit of a parlor trick because I will do, I will go out on date days with my wife. I live in Vancouver here and there's a couple of places around here where you can go and you do like a little day pass and you go from sauna to cold plunge and back and forth and
• 5:10
  You know, we'll do it from time to time for fun. And I can sit, I can sit in the coldest tub for three minutes and I don't need any practice at it because it's all just like a mind trick to sit there. And so I don't think that it's necessarily super valuable. I think it's a waste of time for a lot of people.
• 5:27
  There may be health benefits to it, but if you take a look at all the people that have currently lived to 100 years old, none of them did cold plunges, so it's not necessary nor sufficient. And so, yeah, I rip on cold plunges all the time because I think it's actually very anti-productive for a lot of people.
• 5:43
  So forgive me, I just dove right in. And there probably is going to be a few people that don't know who you are. So you haven't always been the most disciplined man in the world. Tell us the back story. How you guys, it's all in the books. I just got done reading them. You give us a summary and everyone give the audience of the heart of the life listeners a quick synopsis, how this all started. Yeah, I probably can recite it word for word, but please tell them in your words.
• 6:10
  Yeah. So I grew up not too far from, from Kelly. I grew up in Ontario, Canada, about maybe a few hundred miles away. And I grew up in a small town in small towns in Canada, you drink beer and play hockey or you play hockey and drink beer. It doesn't matter which order you do it in. That's what you do. And so that was very pivotal for me because it really influenced, you know, up until I was about 30 years old because I was a binge drinker because of that background. My father was an alcoholic as well.
• 6:36
  you know, he drank probably 10, 12 beers a day for 30 years. It killed him early. He never went to the doctor. He, he fortunately, fortunately it was just verbally abusive and, and, and nothing worse, but you know, that kind of left, you know, it gave me a lot of little tea trauma that built up and, and kind of hurt me in some ways and kept me emotionally stunted for a long time. I went on to be a binge drinker in college and after college and,
• 6:59
  Yeah. But I was also in the fitness space. So I was misaligned, right? I was a good boy, personal trainer, six days a week. And then Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning, I was drunk and.
• 7:09
  That led, that contributed partly to some anxiety attacks that I had in my late 20s. And I was, I'm also kind of introverted by nature. So that contributed to the anxiety. I started writing for Men's Health Magazine in 2000. So again, so like binge drinker writing for Men's Health Magazine, but a lot of, you'd be surprised how many young men in the fitness industry are those binge drinkers on the weekend, unfortunately.
• 7:32
  And then eventually I got myself together. I've built a business, a good-sized business in the online fitness world called Turbulence Training that helps people get their short workouts done at home. I eventually sold that business and started writing because people were like, man, you got a lot going on and you get so much done. So you're productive, therefore you must be disciplined. And I started writing work.
• 7:52
  my books, The Perfect Day Formula, the one you haven't read is the first one. Then I wrote The Unstoppable One, which is about overcoming anxiety and overcoming the binge drinking. Then I wrote The Perfect Week Formula, which is the best time management book. And by then we had a very big coaching business, so that kept me busy.
• 8:08
  during the pandemic. And then in the last couple of years, I just saw people going way too overboard with some of these discipline challenges, which are beneficial in a way, but to a point, at a point, get detrimental and in your way. And I saw one of my friends just go overboard with it. And he was spending so much time doing all of these discipline tasks that his wife walked out on him with the kids. And it inspired me to write The Dark Side of Discipline, which is really about knowing what matters and sticking to it. And so that's my story.
• 8:38
  Loved these books because I, like you said, you grew up a couple hours north of me. Yeah. But it was like we grew up the same way that I called it hang anxiety when I used to drink and party on the weekends and wake up on Monday, even though I didn't drink on Sundays, I'd wake up with hang anxiety. Like, what should I have been doing?
• 8:56
  And even to this day, I just kept finding little things like this weekend. I did nothing but read. I didn't, I didn't work Saturday. I didn't work Sunday and I did not work Monday. All I did was read. I literally implemented immediately two things, which was putting time on my calendar to do the non-urgent but important.
• 9:17
  And that's what people miss out on in life. NUI. If I show you my calendar right now, NUI tests from 8 to 8.30 in the morning now, four days a week. And I'm going to work on my podcast creation and my next book.
• 9:32
  So those are the two long, because I would just squeeze them in anywhere. That's the number one thing that I added. Number two thing was I determined my magic time. Do you want to tell the listeners what magic time is? Yeah, magic time is the time of day when you're more creative, productive, and energetic than any other time of day. And you're only going to identify this through a little bit of self-reflection and introspection. It's where you're sitting there going, man, I'm in the flow right now, or I wish I could just keep working on this. That's the time of day, and it tends to be the same time of day every day for people.
• 10:01
  Now, it doesn't tend to be the same time for every person. So mine is early in the morning. Another person might be seven o'clock at night. Someone else might be nine o'clock in the morning. But there's a time of day when you really get in that flow. And if you're an entrepreneur, or if you're a creative type of person, or if you have to produce output, it's best that you protect that magic time
• 10:23
  Because you can get three times as much done in that 90-minute or two-hour block than you could doing the same work at a time of day when you're tired. And when you line those things up, your hardest work inside that magic time, you really are more productive at the important things and you'll get ahead in life. So people don't waste magic time for...
• 10:42
  non-revenue generating tasks. Right, it's, you know, people get it through the emails and the meetings and all types of things they let get in the way of it. This is what I was fascinated with, by the way, is you outline in the perfect week formula, you end the calendar with all the work stuff.
• 11:01
  we got it backwards and it made so much sense. I'm skipping around, but how did you even come up with that? Like, because most people think, oh, of course I got to work first. Well, I mean, it's just experience of talking to so many entrepreneurs who are never getting around to doing the stuff that really matters.
• 11:17
  And, you know, I, I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who are faith-based and, you know, they're like, man, I, you know, I'm just so busy. I can't, I'm, I'm missing my Bible study. Well, how long do you want to do Bible study for? Like 10 minutes. You can't do your, your, your calendar is so out of whack. You can't do 10 minutes of Bible study or, or you can't do your workouts. Let's put those things on the calendar first. And then it's kind of like, you know, I've recently had a kid and you have a kid and
• 11:41
  And when you have a child as an entrepreneur or a busy person at all, when you have a child, it gives these boundaries and it forces you to become more productive. And so when you put, you know, your workouts on the calendar and you put your family time on the calendar and that goes on first, cause it is the most important stuff. Now you've compressed the amount of time you can actually work. And if you compress the amount of time you can actually work, well, you got to get rid of the fluff. Yeah.
• 12:07
  Because most people's days are so full of 20, 30, 40% fluff that if you just got rid of the fluff, they could work less and have a much more enjoyable life, but also a more effective business or career. With age comes wisdom. And smart people learn from their mistakes. Wise people learn from other people's mistakes. Craig just turned 50. I know it's surprising. I'll be 50 this year. Let me tell you a misnomer that people don't realize. It's not working harder.
• 12:35
  It is working on the things that light you up. So when he talks about my workouts, like if I don't work out,
• 12:41
  You don't want to be around me. So Craig's like, do, he calls it eat the frog first. So you do the hardest things first, then when you're in flow, hit those things, and then everything else comes to fruition. So for instance, I don't check email anymore, ever. I don't do email, I get three emails a day, and my assistant does the rest. Nice. The things that absolutely drain me, I don't do.
• 13:08
  So by subtracting the things that drain me, I am actually doing addition through subtraction. And you talk about that a lot, but let's get into what I would argue probably is the best book because it's the newest book and you learn to experience and you say discipline can can destroy you. How does chasing discipline sometimes become harmful instead of helpful? So it becomes harmful when you.
• 13:37
  put the good in the way of the great. So for example, my friend was doing all these discipline challenges and working out and reading a book a week and doing ice baths, all of those things are technically good, but.
• 13:51
  But he was missing out on spending time with his family. He was not having the conversations with his wife. He was not leaving the office to go upstairs so he could eat dinner with the family. And that was destroying it. Now, he was doing good things. Working is good. But he was letting the good get in the way of the great.
• 14:09
  And therefore, his pursuit of discipline actually destroyed his dreams. And that's what I find so concerning in this day and age where when you and I grew up, Kelly, people are always saying, oh, you know, they're keeping up with the Joneses. And back then it meant buying a bigger car, buying a bigger house, et cetera. Today, it means business.
• 14:30
  Doing all the things that we see other people doing on social media. Oh, this person's in this challenge. I got to go and do it. I got to keep up with the Joneses by taking on more stuff. But those things don't matter. And it ends up causing us to neglect what does. And that's where discipline can destroy you.
• 14:48
  When I text you, holy cow, you got me rethinking my entire life. You message me back. That's what happens. It was right at this point where I started thinking, why am I working out 500 times? Why? So when I, before I read the entire book and what my takeaway is, the intense discipline isn't good if you're neglecting everything else. If you're doing both.
• 15:12
  I think it can be good. That's my opinion. I'm not the expert of you. But so that's what had me thinking, all right, I'm not not having the conversations with my girlfriend. I'm not not having dinner with my daughter. The beauty part about this is as much as I was rethinking and it was also reaffirming like, oh, my God.
• 15:29
  I do have breakfast and dinner with my daughter every day. I do make it to the gym. I do these crazy workouts. I do my crazy morning routine, but I'm also filling my cup up. The one takeaway, and I'll share this with you, and it's very important.
• 15:44
  Very vulnerable, guys, is I have literally forgotten how to have fun. I don't do anything that is just, let's just let my hair down and have fun. I'm sure that there's other listeners for that. So I have been dying to ask you if that's the case. And I'm sure you run up against it with the big shots that you coach. Because fun to me is reading, like binging on these books. Like, bro, you just made me a million dollars and sending me these books.
• 16:11
  A million guaranteed. That's fun to me, but true. Unadulterated, you know, hair blowing in the wind fun. I don't know what that is anymore.
• 16:25
  It's a great point. And I see this a lot. And when I coach entrepreneurs, I do have to coach a lot of entrepreneurs on putting enjoyment back on their calendar, right? Because we do get very structured and I have been this way too, where it's like very rigid in the routine. You've got to work out every day and we got to run the business and
• 16:46
  Yeah, we want to do our personal development. And those things are fun to us, right? They're a different level of fun, but they're not going on a roller coaster level of fun. And so there's some people listening to this who are like, oh my God, these guys got a planned fun. Listen, you've got a gift that you're a spontaneous person. Awesome.
• 17:05
  Some of us aren't. And some of us, I like staying home. I think that's fun. But my wife likes to go and do fun things. So fortunately, I married into some fun. But even before I married into fun, I put down, as much as I didn't want to do it, I put down, I got to go out with this buddy. He's fun. We're going to go to a concert. So it's simply a matter of identifying those things that
• 17:33
  are really living and then putting them on the calendar. And again, this is like so counterintuitive to those people who are naturally fine. Like, Hey, listen, you know, I gotta, I gotta force myself to work a little bit more because I always want to be at a concert. But then there's other people who are listening. You're like, yeah, you know, I'm,
• 17:49
  I've cleaned up my life. I've gotten pretty serious, but maybe I'm a little too serious now and I'm missing out on some of those things. So you write down the things that bring you joy and you put them on the calendar very much like how we, how we were talking about the perfect week formula, you put your workouts on the calendar, you put your family time on the calendar, you do have to block out every month. I would recommend like, you know, get together with that friend who's fun, not, not in a toxic way, like, you know, not getting drunk or anything, but
• 18:16
  Somebody who's really going to bring out the kid in you and make sure that you spend some time with those people. Bring out the kid in you, man. That's just great. I was thinking about that, you know, because we grew up in such a different time where you just literally went out and played in the streets and you drank from the frickin garden hose and you were on your BMX without a frickin helmet. And we came home when the streetlights were on it. It was such much a simpler time. And we were okay. Okay.
• 18:44
  Yeah, that's exactly, you just described my life. I remember riding in the front seat of my mom's giant car with no seatbelt on in like 1979. With the straight seat too, right? Yeah, man. I lived in the country. So to get to my baseball games, it was three miles away. And my mom said, if you want to go to baseball, you got to ride your bike there. And this was...
• 19:05
  You know, I was like eight years old riding three miles on a no gear BMX bike to get to my baseball games. And then I'd get home when it was like getting dark in the summertime, you know, like 930 at 10 o'clock at night. But, you know, she was like, I'm working out in the garden. If you want to go to baseball, go on your own. She'd be thrown in jail if she did that today. There's something about that that probably is why we're sitting on a podcast talking to each other about discipline.
• 19:28
  I think the kids today, everything's just too soft. You need hardship in this. It's what builds everything. It's how you build muscles. You don't go on and put no weight on the bar and lift and get bigger. You need friction. You need friction to be able to stand up. You know, I'm a big AI guy, but that's one of my worries about, you know, the chat GBTs and the Groks of the world where kids don't even try to go out and –
• 19:55
  research or do any work they just go in and type it create this for me and boom it does it yeah it is pretty wild and so i think that you need to have this controlled challenging you know this controlled resilience and my friend bedros goulian does a really great job with this he runs a program called the squire program for young men and and it's a day where young men go in with their fathers and
• 20:16
  They do everything from bear crawling a mile to cold plunging. And then at the end of the day, they have all this barbed wire and stuff on the ground. And the son is blindfolded and the father walks them through this obstacle course. And at the end of the day, and they pull them apart and they do journaling and
• 20:37
  personal development, it's really a tremendous thing. You and I went through hardships that nobody really should go through, but there's a way to put controlled hardship, like a controlled demolition on somebody that builds them up and builds their resiliency. And there is still people out there doing that. There's many programs out there like that because a lot of the other stuff
• 21:01
  that, I mean, nobody, nobody, when you and I went to school did any work in high school anyways, you know, but now high schoolers, they had so much pressure on them and now they have all these tools, but they have all these distractions and they have all this social media causing so much anxiety in them. Um, you know, it's such a different time. And I can't even imagine what it's going to be like in 10 years from now, because like this, the AI stuff and the robotics is accelerating at such a level. Like, you know, in five years from now, I'm probably going to have
• 21:28
  And, you know, a robot in my house all day long, like the vacuum cleaner I have doing all the chores and stuff. And so we're really going into an unprecedented time. But for everybody that has kids is you can you can step out of that accelerating world and take them back into a simpler time by spending time with them and in the real world. And that will grow them to make smarter choices in this kind of artificial world.
• 21:54
  Now, Craig, you're such a you're such a treat. So you brought up Bradros's name and, you know, I've messaged a couple of times I've had his Bryce on the show. Yeah. Super. Bryce is awesome. Bryce is from Lansing, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And a very strong story around alcohol. So for sure, it's perfect. Bryce, Bedros, you and in some respect, me have show effortless discipline. Can you define what that means? And isn't discipline supposed to be hard?
• 22:23
  Yeah. So listen, when everybody thinks of discipline, you think of somebody like Kelly, but with a giant beard and tattoos across his chest, rising out of an ice bath with an axe in your hand. But that's the willpower discipline that you think of. Doing hard physical tasks doesn't necessarily make you disciplined in every area of your life.
• 22:42
  In terms of effortless discipline, it's all about systems. Because if you are relying on willpower and discipline alone for everything you do in your life, from how you interact with your spouse to how you interact with your kids when they're misbehaving, to how you interact with people, to how you interact when you're in traffic and it's raining and it's pouring and all this sort of stuff.
• 23:02
  Like you're gonna run out of discipline and willpower. You have to have systems, you know, so that you get to bed on time. So you get up on time. So you keep the commitments that you make. So you go to the gym for people that aren't, you know, like you and I obsessed with going to the gym. You need these systems and systems are in place, you know, basically the effortless discipline systems who we talk about have three stages, elimination, preparation, and connection. So elimination, if you have a bad habit, what you wanna do is you wanna set up systems that make it as hard as possible to do the bad habit.
• 23:31
  So when I was a binge drinker, I eliminated alcohol from my house. I eliminated myself from what I call boozy environment. So, you know, I stopped going to Blue Jay games on Saturday afternoon with my drinking buddies. And I eliminated the toxic people whose only purpose in life was to drag me down into drinking. So by eliminating those three things, it made it much harder for me to fall into a bad habit. Yep.
• 23:53
  Now on the flip side, I needed to plan and prepare better. Planning and preparation is the genius behind success. Whether you're talking about a movie, whether you're talking about your favorite band, they don't just go up there and wing it. Everything's run on a script. Everything's practiced over and over again. And that's why it's award winning. And it's the same that goes for your life. If you want to be successful in any area, you have to plan and prepare better. You have to plan and prepare better for your meetings. Yeah.
• 24:21
  Plan and prepare better for your workouts and your nutrition. And when you plan and prepare better and you grease the groove and you make the path to the right habit easier, you'll follow through. And then finally, the third component of the effortless discipline systems is connection. And connection can be two ways. One, accountability to a single individual that you deeply do not want to disappoint. An individual that you deeply do not want to disappoint. And when you tell that person that you're going to go and do something, you will move mountains in your life to make it happen.
• 24:50
  And likewise, if you're in a group of like-minded, positive people in a community, and you stand up and you're a person of integrity and you say to the community, I'm not going to drink for the next 30 days, your brain will figure out how to do that because you're a person of integrity and you don't want to be a hypocrite and let them down. And so when you have elimination of the bad, preparation for the good, and connection to follow through on things...
• 25:15
  It doesn't require that grit your teeth willpower and discipline. It's simply a set of systems that make the right decisions nearly automatic for you. Guys, go back and rewind that. He just gave you just bombs. Truth bomb after truth bomb.
• 25:31
  Whether you like it or not, we all have systems. Some of them are negative systems. So if you, we follow the same habits every single day. He's just giving you the positive systems. He breaks them down in all these books. Remember, system stands for save yourself time, energy, and money. Exactly. And then another one is fail to plan, plan to fail. So these are just little simple life hacks that work. I use them and they're beautiful. You talked about the doom loop.
• 25:59
  Tell us what that is and why people get trapped in it. And what's your best tip to escape? This is where I see in all my coaching programs is people stuck in this. So educate us. So a doom loop is something like what I was in as an, as a binge drinker, right? So,
• 26:16
  Saturday, my friends were getting together and they were drinking and laughing about the last week. And if I was good, you know, that was my social circle. So if I want to do anything, I had to go with that social circle into an environment that would cause me to get into a bad behavior. And I just went through this every weekend. You know, so I'm in this cycle. I can't get out of it. I can't get out of it because everything revolves around it.
• 26:37
  And for some people, it's pornography when they go home at night. For some people, it's binge watching television or binge eating. And you just find yourself going through this cycle over and over again. And the more you do a bad behavior, the more it becomes ingrained in your nervous system. So this phrase that we see in movies where it's like, I just got to get it out of my system. Oh.
• 26:57
  When you get something out of your system, when you do a bad behavior, you don't get it out of your system. You put it deeper into your system. And so what you need is a circuit breaker, right? You need something to stop this loop from continuing. And in most cases, it is planning and preparation.
• 27:15
  So if you're a binge eater and you go home, it's like, man, every single day I go home, I'm stressed from work. I'm tired because I got to bed late last night because I stayed up late drinking wine and eating chips. And oh, man, I'm tired. I'm going to go sit in front of the TV. And sure enough, the chips and wine come back out. And it's just this loop you can't escape. So what you need to do is you need to say, OK, I'm going to plan and prepare for tomorrow so this doesn't happen again. Yeah.
• 27:37
  I'm going to use my reverse alarm to get to bed on time. I'm going to throw all the alcohol out in the house. I'm going to make sure there's no chips in the house. I'm going to pick up something from the grocery store. I'm going to plan and prepare to have a meal prepared or something, or I'm going to plan and prepare to get out of that environment. So I escape that environment that leads me to bad behaviors. And it's that planning and preparation that has to be done that allows you to have all of a sudden, like just a change in the pace of.
• 28:02
  or a pattern interrupt that we need because otherwise we repeat the pattern. So everybody listening to this, there's something that you're doing on repeat that is not literally part of your nervous system, but your nervous system expects it. And the reason why I discovered this is that years ago,
• 28:22
  When my father was alive, he survived on beer and junk food. So from when I was eight years old to when I was 18 years old, every single day, I would go up to his room after school and I would see what my dad had left in his candy, what I called his candy store, because there was licorice and stuff up there. And then when he passed away, I went to my mom's house where, you know, he and my mom had lived together still.
• 28:48
  And my childhood home for months after to help with all the affairs of his passing and selling the farm and stuff like that. And for months after he had passed away, the first thing I did when I went in the house was I automatically walked up to their bedroom to look to see what candy was there. Like that's how deeply ingrained this loop was in my nervous system.
• 29:11
  because I had done it so many times. And therefore, the more times you do a behavior, the more likely you are to do it, unless you have that circuit breaker, that planning and preparation that sets you free. Everybody who's listening to this knows that they have some doom loop. And for some people, it might be picking their phone up first thing in the morning, or it might be the binge eating. You have to make sure, you have to go through, like, how can I eliminate that? How can I plan and prepare to make a better habit easier to do?
• 29:38
  And who can I get accountability from so I follow through? The reason why I like you is because success leaves clues. And it's not like Craig is redefining it. This is how he just puts it as easily digestible, easily understandable, easily read manners. I use it's life's merry-go-round. And when you go on life's merry-go-round so many times, what happens? You puke.
• 30:03
  And you wanna get off. But all too often people are just so used to it, you just keep going around, around, around, around, around. And it's like, oh, I was there and I hated it. What I think we were beating around the bush to get to was standards. Really, that's the easiest way. So you wrote standards eat discipline for breakfast. It was so profound and intriguing to me. Even though I've heard it before, but coming from you,
• 30:29
  What's the fundamental difference between standards and discipline? Discipline is going to require the willpower.
• 30:35
  It's going to require you to make a very hard decision. You're going to have to do mental gymnastics. It's going to take a lot of brain power to do this and energy, and it's going to fatigue you, and it's going to stop you from focusing on other things. Standards is simply like having an operating system on your computer or your phone. This is how it works all the time. When you click on a certain icon, when you click on the...
• 31:00
  The Google Chrome icon, Google Chrome opens all the time. It's not like sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't, or sometimes something else comes up. It's all the time it works. And so a standard is a behavior that you always do.
• 31:16
  For example, I used to be a social drinker. So I went from binge drinker to social drinker to once in a while drinker. Like, you know, I would have one or two drinks once a month. And then I realized like, even that, I was just tired the next day. There was no point to it. And I read this quote, it's better to be 100% out than 99% out. I thought that's so true. So I'm just gonna become a never drinker. I just don't drink. So now I have a standard.
• 31:43
  Because when it was social drinker or once in a while drinker, there was a level of discipline or willpower involved in there to not have too much or to not do it too frequently. But now as a person who simply does not consume alcohol, it takes zero brainpower for me to sit in a bar and think about whether or not I'm going to have a drink. There's no option. It's not an option to have a drink because my standard is I don't drink.
• 32:11
  And so therefore, there's no temptation. The person who is like, I don't really want to drink, but man, it looks pretty good. And the other person beside me is giving me the peer pressure, but oh gosh, I got that 7 a.m. flight tomorrow. That is an exhausting way to live. And so when you put the standards in place, you eliminate the exhaustion and you just increase your opportunity for success. Beautiful choice of words, my friend. I am a person that do not consume alcohol. Not...
• 32:40
  I am a not drinker. I don't drink. I'm a person who doesn't consume alcohol. I like that. That's a standard. Well said. It's just a neuro-linguistic programming. It doesn't need to have any kind of definition on it. I just...
• 32:56
  I need more of you in my life. I adore the way you put things. I'm a big, big fan of reframing your brain. So reframing your brain, for example, people say they have a problem. Well, do you have a problem or do you have a puzzle to solve? It's much better if you have a puzzle to solve or a challenge because those things can excite you. A problem will depress you.
• 33:19
  So if you think, listen, I've got a challenge here. You know, I'm $10,000 in credit card debt. This is an interesting problem. I'm going to figure out how to solve it. Versus, woe is me. I'm $10,000 worth of credit card debt. You know, my life is over. Like it's a simple reframe in your brain. And it's also very helpful when, this is almost like a Jedi mind trick, to get other people around you to reframe their brain around things. So that, you know, their problem is...
• 33:48
  If they're blaming you for something, you reframe it in a way that they're a little bit more helpful to you so that they're not instead saying, hey, listen, there's something wrong with you, but instead that they can help you with do something. But however you can reframe things in your brain to make them more positive, it's an easier way to live. It's a simpler way to live. It's a more effective way to live. All it is is a matter of just using different language in your mind.
• 34:12
  Beautiful. Craig, I'm going to feed your ego. I know you don't have one. So after reading all these books and going deep diving down and preparing for the podcast, I take in a lot of information. I read at least a book a week. I go down rabbit holes. I am.
• 34:28
  I am a learn it all. Do you realize how many massive influencers and coaches parrot your information? I can, I'm not going to name names, but people that you know, literally I've gone to courses that when I read this, I'm like, Hmm.
• 34:44
  I know where they got all that. The entire course was in your books. And I'm not hating it. They put their spin on it, but I could see. And I can name some massive names. And some of what you just said, I've heard from dear friends of ours. But you are like the Kevin Bacon of the coaching. You know, it's how we can get back to Kevin Bacon. And I just want you to know that
• 35:08
  that what you're doing is beautiful. I'd never heard of you, never met you. Our mutual friend introduced us and we're going to be friends forever because this is my life and I don't know how we've never met. So thank you. And there's two quotes that just stuck out. I wrote them down and I want to run them by you. If more information were the answer, we'd all have six pack abs and billions. Okay.
• 35:32
  Why do we continually mistake information for transformation? Because you had me thinking on that one. And then I'll tell you the second quote after. Well, the first one is that without follow through, there's, you know, there's nothing. And so since they invented libraries...
• 35:47
  The information for success has been available to us, but it's always been, as one of my mentors taught me, it's always been, there's always this percentage of people are successful. This percentage of people are slightly above average. Then there's this percentage of people are average. And there's always this percentage of people that are below average. It's always been this way from time, eternity. And so it's just the human condition. The people that are successful take that information and follow through.
• 36:14
  And if you are listening to this and you are like, man, I really want to get to that next level, you need that accountability. It's the accountability. There's only a certain amount of information you need, and then you have enough. And now it's just a matter of action. And how do you take more action? You get somebody you deeply do not want to disappoint. You tell them that you're going to do something, and that will force you to go and do it. And then all of a sudden, your life will change for the better.
• 36:38
  That's paralysis through analysis. And you had me, you were all up in my head this weekend because I do take in a lot of information. I wonder if it's a crutch. So I unpacked that over the weekend and I realized I was still looking for permission from my abusive stepfather to just be me.
• 36:54
  It was there was a deep down unconscious, still little thing going on. If I just knew more, if I just knew more. And you know me and the world knows me. I do. I am doing. But I have a governor on me. And since reading these books, you're going to see a different harder than life Kelly Siegel.
• 37:13
  And so tell us more about that. Tell us more about like, what's that, what's that going to change? Because I mean, we didn't know each other until recently, but I saw your videos all over the place because you had a very powerful message and you delivered it in a great way. So what's going to be different going forward?
• 37:30
  Well, I think a lot of it was coming from still a little bit of scarcity and fear. And oh my goodness, I've built this persona that is really who I am, but I don't want to alienate anybody. And I realized there's going to be people that don't like discipline. There's going to be people like I get abused like your friend Bredros does. And I reached out. That's what made him reach out to him because he posted –
• 37:56
  a picture of him before he TRT and then after. And he said, here's the difference. I reached a level of an age where my workouts weren't working. So I took this, he said, mostly won't even do the work. So it was, it was the same thing, taking him more information, but then he took massive action. So I get abused by that.
• 38:14
  It was nothing more than just me going back to my inner child and just realizing that it's okay to be me. And I don't need to know more. I know a lot. It's a lot like the karate kid in Mr. Miyagi. He all of a sudden shows him how to freaking – he says, show me sand the floor. Show me wax car. And he realizes he knows karate. I get in rooms with individuals like you, and it's like, oh, I know all this stuff. And it was just that my stepdad always telling me I was –
• 38:43
  I was stupid and I would never amount to nothing and that I was useless and everything I did was wrong, that here I am, I wanna consume. You're gonna see me just push through by adding those couple of little magic time. And so what I'm gonna fill my
• 39:04
  not urgent, but important time with is perfecting all of my keynotes. I'm going to write, I'm already going to write my third book, which is healthier than life, happier than life. They'll be out soon. It's done. It's behind me, but I'm going to start writing on this and I'm going to perfect my keynotes because I have not been putting myself in these rooms going, Hey, Craig, the next event that you have, I want to speak at it.
• 39:28
  You know, that's what I just been saying. Oh, let me sit back. So that's what you're going to see differently. I'm going to be myself and align with people that are just like me, which is you. Now, people that don't want to be disciplined, they're not going to like me. That's okay. And for some reason, I didn't want to upset them. Kind of like not wanting to upset my drunken stepfather.
• 39:50
  Yeah. Who cares? You're a drinker and you're using that as a crutch. You're probably not going to like me. But if you're getting to the point where you're done drinking, then come see me and Craig. But this next quote got me. Did you want to add anything to that? No, that's perfect. That's great and very, very helpful. And I think that's a huge lesson for everybody. I see a lot of entrepreneurs who don't start because of fear of criticism.
• 40:13
  Listen, somebody's criticizing you right now. As you listen to this, they're talking behind your back. Could be your best friend, could be your family members. You know, it's just human nature. You're already getting criticized. So you may as well do something worth getting criticized for, which is, you know, stepping up and playing bigger.
• 40:30
  helping people paying it forward, which is what you're all of your, your content is doing. By the way, I just, I can't open social media now without getting bombarded with your stuff. Your marketing team is brilliant. I need to spend time with you, but this one got me all the things I did. This one got me. Life's easy when you live it the hard way. Share a powerful moment in your life that embodies this principle.
• 40:55
  My wife and I have three kids under the age of three, and I spend a lot of time up in the middle of the night with kids, making sure that they're taken care of, teething kids, kids that need a bottle, kids that want to go pee-pee in the nighttime.
• 41:11
  I, it's hard for me, uh, earlier in the night, like I sleep really deeply early in the night. I can get up early in the morning, but, um, you know, when I'm, when I'm woken up at 1030 in the night, it's hard for me to get out of bed, but that's a sacrifice that I'm going to make for my children so that our relationship is strong so that, you know, and I'm going to do this through all the phases of life so that I'm doing everything I possibly can to,
• 41:35
  you know, you're a great inspiration in how you've raised your daughter. You know, there's a book called Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. I'm following that playbook so that I do everything I possibly can. And, you know, obviously every, every teenage daughter is going to bring you challenges, but we're going to work as hard as we possibly can because our children are the most important things in our life. And my wife and I are going to make those sacrifices so that, you know, life won't be easy with any teenager, but
• 42:01
  you know, it will be a lot better than people that didn't spend the time with their kids or whatever. You know, I just got a message today from a guy whose 18 year old son will talk to him because, you know, he, he worked too much when he was raising him and he's getting a second chance now with another kid and he's not going to waste it. But imagine that, imagine the love you have, you know, for anybody that has like a kid under the age of six who, you know, or even under the age of 10, who just adores the heck out of you because, you know,
• 42:28
  You're the only thing that they really know. And to imagine that in, you know, 10 years time, that kid isn't even going to talk to you. Oh my God. Like there's, there's not many things worse in life than, than that type of, uh, destruction of relationship. And so life is easy, you know, quote unquote, when you live things, when you live the hard way. And that's the same with our health. Like,
• 42:55
  You can go and drink and eat and follow all your vices. And, you know, that's an easy way to live, but you're going to pay a painful price when you hit 50, 55, 60 years old, or you can go to the gym. You can choose a green smoothie over, you know, a margarita. And yeah, it's a bit of a sacrifice now, but you're going to live a good long life. So that's what you have to do.
• 43:18
  This won't be applicable to any of the 1001 Nation listeners, but I'm going to give you an outtake, people, for you to forward to your friends. I'm going to flip that in its head.
• 43:28
  And life is hard when you live it the easy way. There's a lot of people out there living life the easy way, just living their best life, or I'm just figuring it out. No, that's why you have all the hardship, because you're living it easy. Do not live easy. I didn't call it easier than life. I called it harder than life for a reason. This is why you and I resonate so much. Exactly. Exactly.
• 43:53
  Another tidbit I took away this, now we're moving on to the perfect week formula is, and you're no surprise, I do most of these things, but you gave me little itty bitty tweaks. This is what life is about. When you've done as much work on yourself and life as we've done, it's about little tweaks. You advocate planning your week on Sunday morning instead of usual Sunday night.
• 44:19
  I love that idea because you nailed it. I do mine 15 to 30 minutes. I do it at Sunday night, but I find myself thinking about it all day Sunday. So you said, what was the psychology, what's the, what's the psychology behind doing it in the morning? And again, for 15 minutes,
• 44:37
  to 30 minutes. Really, it only takes me 15 minutes. I just write down, I go through my entire week, and I look and make sure that I'm working towards the big, important needle movers, the big rocks, so to speak.
• 44:51
  Yeah. And so if you do it early in the morning, it's kind of like this beautiful planning session. And, you know, most people on a Sunday morning, you know, no longer dealing with hangovers and stuff like that. We're waking up nice and fresh on a Sunday morning. You know, hopefully the birds are singing and you have your coffee and you have a bit of peace.
• 45:07
  And you can create some art in your week. Whereas if you leave it till the end of the day, you know, Sundays are a great day for family and activities and all types of stuff. And the next thing you know, it might be, oh my gosh, I forgot to plan my week. And now you're rushing through it. And it's not done as art. It's almost done as an afterthought. And it's not done as well. And it's not done with the creativity and the insight. And so it's just not as effective. So I would encourage people to give that a try of just making that shift.
• 45:36
  And doing it, and it could also be done on a Saturday morning as well. But I think that would be much better done in a time of peace rather than a time of being rushed.
• 45:45
  Anybody listens to me, they hear me plan your winning week on Sunday, man. It's, it's non-negotiable. You also threw it at, I'm not going to give you any time to talk about this one, but did you also said, if you're really, really passionate about something, work on it a little bit Saturday mornings, you're right. I, I went through a time where I worked on Saturdays, but I make, I call them seagull sacred Saturdays. And I, I need to recharge as hard as I go. And I just Saturdays are for me, man. But.
• 46:13
  You're right. Waking up on a Saturday morning, there was a little blurb about that. Like, if you have something you're passionate about, jump up early morning on a Saturday and start working on it, even if it's just for a quick hour. That was a little hack. So I know I'm sounding like a freaking crazy fan, but there was so much good. And when you digest these over one after another, it's wild. Well, you know, it comes from talking to a lot of people over the last 25 years, like thousands of people and just seeing.
• 46:42
  man, like 80% of people do this. So it works. And just distilling that into, you know, some fairly entertaining stories and instructions in the book. So, you know, it all comes from people that are doing it.
• 46:56
  This stuff does work, guys. I hope that this isn't the case for other people, but just to be an equal opportunity conversator with you is, I picked up another thing in the books that said, you don't listen to podcasts, even the ones that you appear on. Why do you avoid them? Because...
• 47:16
  Right now, I listen to Ed Milet, and that's it. Because he's the grand poobah. We share producers. I listen to how he forms questions just to get a little better. But why don't you inform me? Because I want everybody to understand. Sometimes it's not the greatest thing.
• 47:32
  When I'm looking for information, I'm looking for an answer, right? Like the only reason you should be listening to podcasts are really for answers. Right. And so I wonder if in some cases is the podcaster good enough to get the answers out in an efficient way, or am I better off going and reading the book? Or am I better off on getting the person on my own podcast and just asking them the questions or am I better off?
• 47:58
  you know, hiring the person for a coaching call or am I better off getting their course or like, what's the best way to get the answer, the solution for what I'm looking for? And again, in most cases, we have a lot of information. Are we acting on the information that we have? If we're trying to achieve something,
• 48:15
  and we'd be better off spending that hour pushing forward on the project rather than listening to a podcast. I know most people take the easy way out and take the path of least resistance and we'll get more inputs and less outputs. So, you know, I know this is ridiculous to say on a podcast that I want people to listen to, but you got to question everything. You got to question what your habits and routines are and when you have enough information to move forward and get the job done.
• 48:42
  Let me tell you what the spin that I just put on that as I just heard your explanation. And I thought about not putting it on there, but it wouldn't be authentic. So what I heard is don't listen to podcasts for entertainment purposes.
• 48:54
  And literally, I don't listen to, I don't do anything for entertainment. That's my problem again. Everything is to learn and get better and increase my shadow, my presence, my energy. I literally, to steal an edism again, winning is more fun than fun is fun and growing and learning and expanding my mind.
• 49:19
  means that I'm going to have more fun and I'm going to win more. And that's what I love doing. So I'm listening to something. It's to make this podcast people gonna listen to because you got about 45 gems one after another and get out and read these books. And by the way, he's available for coaching. He's got multiple coaches. We're gonna have all that in the show notes. But this dark side of discipline, I assure you is not a reason not to have a morning routine, but make sure it's for the right reasons.
• 49:47
  That's amazing. I really, really appreciate that. It means a lot. The single biggest myth about discipline you consistently see on social media, what is it? Well, it's that you have to do all these hard things that other people are doing. And if they don't serve you, chasing another person's definition of discipline is the least disciplined thing that you can do.
• 50:07
  The only way that you know what really matters and what is worth your time and worth your discipline is by you stepping back and doing the hardest thing of all, which is thinking. Most people will not stop the podcast and stop the audio books and sit there in silence and think about what really matters for their life. But that's the most important thing for you to do first so you get the right orientation. And when you have the right orientation, then you can choose the right methodology to get you
• 50:31
  to your big goals and dreams. And that's why things are actually simpler than what most people make it out to be. It's not about doing 19 things. It's actually about doing three things savagely well. And when you do those three things savagely well, you'll be very, very effective, very, very efficient, very, very successful, very, very happy, very, very fulfilled. And that's what we're looking to show people.
• 50:52
  and not get caught up in the, well, oh, I saw this guy doing this, and this guy doing this, and this lady doing this, and this lady doing this, and now I guess I got to go and do all those things. Otherwise, you'll drive yourself mad because of what you see on social media. Oh, man. Comparison is the thief of joy, man.
• 51:13
  I tell you, that's something else. So let's have a little fun. A couple final questions. Absolutely. I don't even know how to say this, but it made me laugh. What's Craigifis? Craigie? Craigifis. Craigifis. And is it something that happens often in your daily life? So Sisyphus is punished by the gods and he has to roll the rock up the hill. And so rolling the rock up the hill is the hard way of doing things.
• 51:39
  And I like to make things, so if you use systems, you create systems. Craig, Craig a fist, the God of systems makes everything in life easier so that you can roll the rock down the hill. So that's what, uh, that's a little stick in that book. And again, effortless discipline systems of elimination, preparation, and connection should completely destroy every, every reader's concept of like discipline should totally be a brain reframe like, oh, discipline isn't something I should fix.
• 52:04
  fear and is a feeling I don't like, but creating these systems is going to make my life a whole lot easier. And if people think I'm disciplined because of it, great, but I'm really just creating systems. So that's what I'm aiming to get, get people there. Was that answering the question? Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, it's just so easy to read these books. I highly recommend them all. And I'm biased. I sound like I got a man crush, but, um,
• 52:29
  Let's ask a couple more funny ones. If you had one completely unproductive day without guilt, how would you spend it? Oh man. Um, you know, so I just got back from Cabo with the family and, you know, there was a lot of unproductive time there. And so I love, I love going out for brunch. So I'd wake up, um,
• 52:48
  I go for brunch with the kids and my wife, I'd go to the ocean. We live in Vancouver. So go to the beach or somewhere, you know, hang out with grandma and grandpa at lunchtime and, uh, and then go from a coffee date with my wife and then
• 53:06
  you know, somewhere in, am I allowed to go to the gym? I'd like to, if not, I'd go for a big, long walk. I love to walk around and just look at stuff. And so that would be my day. And maybe, I don't know, I don't really watch TV or movies or anything like that, but maybe I let my kids pick something and that'd be my day. It's really just my family, man. And just, uh, because I'm, you know, the kids are getting to funny toddler age. So, you know, we're laughing every single
• 53:35
  Yeah, it's good times. It sounds like a beautiful way to spend your 50th, my friend. It was really great. So let me tell you something. Here's an amazing thing. So maybe your girlfriend listening to this will do this. Because my wife got, I don't think there's probably like 20 people in the video. But she did this behind my back. I didn't know this was happening. But she got 20 people, my best friends, some of my family members. And they all made like a...
• 54:01
  30 second to a minute long video. And she made this compilation and, you know, played it for me at breakfast one day and, you know, brought tears to my eyes. People that have been coaching clients and, and good friends of mine all just saying nice things. And man, it was the best gift I've ever received in my entire life.
• 54:17
  You know, I was on a high all day from it and it was just amazing. And so anybody out there, if you have a friend who has everything and you're like, oh my gosh, what am I going to buy this person? You know, a video of how they've helped you and what they mean to you is worth more than, you know, the nicest Rolex that anybody could get in my opinion.
• 54:36
  Buddy, we are cut from the same cloth. It literally, mine is the thoughtful gift. It isn't the expensive gift, it's the thoughtful gift. I saw that and I literally wanted to cry because it would be the end of me. I would be, because since I made this heart and life transformation, I just, I'm grateful for everything in my life. Everything. I don't have down days. I have down moments, but not days and not even hours.
• 54:59
  So if you do half of the things or one quarter of the things that we taught you today, you'll live this life. And it is not difficult. Guys, if you read one book, I would bet you the perfect week formula is so simple. And the beauty thing about what this I forgot to say is how you cite.
• 55:18
  Every single source that you found all the data on. That's very rare. I've seen some massive influence say data suggests and then there's no. So yours is all cited. So everything that we talked about today, he has the sources and it's you're authentic is the day is long. But I will say that my girlfriend, I took her to Kabul for her birthday and she's like, well, mine is a big birthday this year. I'm going to be 50. And she's like, where do you want to go?
• 55:45
  And it goes back to that thing where it's like, I don't know what fun is anymore. So I don't know, and we can go anywhere. She's like, let's go to Greece, let's go. You know, we're buying a house in Fort Lauderdale, and I just said, you know, I just, I kinda just wanna be with a couple of the people that I adore at our house. And that's all I can think of, that's fun. And it's like that, your video. You give me the video, and her and my daughter,
• 56:13
  this is what the funny thing about it is as you grow and you look, life gets simpler. It just does. So follow these. It gets simpler. It gets easier. And the things that make you happy are even fricking less. A good meal. Peace. A good workout. I'm good.
• 56:30
  So we just got – you were in Cabo, but let's say you were stranded on an island. What's the one productivity principle or tool you'd absolutely need to have with you and why? Well, I don't actually use any tools. So, I mean, the most important thing is that I would get up early in the morning and I'd go right to –
• 56:48
  building my life raft to get off it, I guess, if I was stranded on a desert island. But for me, it's just the tool is getting up and going to work. Because even though my father was an alcoholic, you know, we grew up on a farm and he got up at 530 in the morning and he went right to work because, you know, cows don't take a day off eating. And I learned that from a young age, you know, you just got to get up and get the get the thing done. So I would, I would use the sun. And when the sun got up, I would get up and get whatever I had to do done.
• 57:18
  What was that? But that's a bonus. Thank you for ending it with that, by the way. What was that? The farm? Farm boy morning routine. Farm boy morning routine. That made me change. So I have a bad habit. I do my meditations right after I first wake up. And I think I'm going to move that a little later. But I do a meditation right when I wake up. And I do a guided meditation on my phone. How long is it? I grab my phone first thing.
• 57:42
  I don't look at it, but it's still in my hand. And the temptation is there. So I switched that up after reading all this today. So I am going to do, I'm going to wake up and actually do my journal first. So it's the most important because I keep missing that. So one of the most important things, I just, you had me rethinking everything in my life, which I'm very productive, but we can always get better.
• 58:10
  Yeah, I would definitely do the journaling first thing. I think that's a great idea. Get the thoughts out of your ex. I think you're going to capture some magic there. And then you can use the meditation later on in the day to reignite some magic in your mind and get a second burst.
• 58:26
  So we hopped all over the place. What's the one, if they can't remember anything that we said, what's the one takeaway that you want the Heart of Life listeners to know? I want people to get to bed on time. Because if you get to bed on time, you're going to knock down all the good dominoes the next day. If you get to bed late, you're going to wake up late. You're going to over-caffeinate. You're going to get behind. You're going to get stressed out. You're going to get stressed out.
• 58:45
  And you're not going to have the discipline and willpower to have that day go well. And so I know we didn't exactly talk about it, but build a system so you get to bed on time because after talking to thousands of entrepreneurs and successful people over the last 25 years.
• 59:00
  When things are going well, people are getting to bed on time. When people are struggling, it's because they're going to bed late because they're traveling or at conferences or going out for dinners and stuff like that. And it really messes up their productivity and their day-to-day routines. It really just is a keystone habit. And obviously kicking booze and TV to the curb are going to be super helpful because if you can just get to bed on time, it really doubles and triples your chance of success.
• 59:25
  All right, we're going to go a minute over time, and I'm going to be selfish for a second. I sleep seven hours. That's my magic number. I have to sleep seven hours. I can't sleep much longer. I wish I could get eight. I know you say to get eight. I get seven. If I get six, I'm a zombie. Seven is perfect. Now that you're of a certain age like I am, do you find yourself waking up to go to the bathroom at night? And if so, did you do anything about it? Or do you just...
• 59:50
  Be lining. I try really hard not to drink too much liquid after noon. So I drink a lot of water first thing in the morning and over the course of the morning. And last night I had, I don't know if you ever had one of these poppy sodas that they sell. I drank one of those at like 3.30 in the afternoon. And sure enough, last night I was up. So I just have to control my intake. I was told by a longevity health doctor who was a customer of mine.
• 1:00:20
  And he said, as long as you get up and go do your business, come right back and go right to sleep and there's no distraction. And it almost like the body doesn't even register that you were up. And since he told me that, because I get up once a night, sometimes two times a night. And no matter when I don't drink, I have tried everything. The only thing next I'm going to because me and my hacks is I'm doing a fasting exercise.
• 1:00:45
  mimicking diet here starting Thursday because I've read that there could be something in my digestive tract that is causing that. But I sleep seven hours. I slept six last night because my girlfriend was here and up a little bit later than I should have been. And I know it, man. Every...
• 1:01:03
  We are brothers from another mother. We're going to be in touch forever. I want to be a part of whatever you're doing next. I want to help. And then how can people work with you? And where do they get this beautiful box set of the Perfect Day Formula? Yeah, absolutely. So perfectdayformula.com for that box set. That will help people bring their vision to life and get their transformation started.
• 1:01:25
  Then the rest of my books are on Amazon, including The Dark Side of Discipline. And you can also go to darksideofdiscipline.com. And then anybody can contact me, follow up questions or learn about our business coaching on Instagram at Real Craig Valentine.
• 1:01:41
  I mean, I know you coach a couple of people, but do you coach an average Joe if they reach out anymore or do you not have any more space? We don't really have coaching programs for people that are not business owners, but we have coaching programs for people that are beginner business owners. We have courses, like we have an effortless discipline video course, and we have a mentorship community that's a low investment every month for people that want to be more productive and successful. So we have...
• 1:02:08
  Kind of group coaching and stuff like that for anybody who's just simply interested in improving their life. Guys, listen to this again and go back and deep dive into him because what he's not telling you is listen to this massive coaching program that he has. He was a personal trainer that got drunk and hammered on the weekends, checked himself in to the hospital because he was convinced he was having a heart attack.
• 1:02:32
  And it was anxiety. And I've been there. And he had it for six weeks and just kept going through it. And now look at him. Live in the life of his dreams by using these habits and rituals and tactics and systems that he has shared with all of you. And the best part about it is what are these, 15 bucks a piece? Best money ever spent. I'm holding a million dollars in my hand right here. Go out, follow Craig, work with Craig, and thank me later. Until next week, be harder than life.
• 1:03:02
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.