EntreLeadership - How to Build and Maintain Habits for Success with Mark Batterson

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Most of our lives are made up of our habits—conscious or unconscious. We wake up at the same time, drive to work on the same route, and listen to the same radio station. The problem is that some of our habits may not lead to our dreams. So, the question is: How do we get rid of old habits and start the right new habits? In this episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, we interview the lead pastor of National Community Church, Mark Batterson. He walks us through why new habits are so hard to start and how we can use the power of habits to accomplish our goals and dreams. Then George Kamel chats with Ramsey Solutions Senior Technology Officer Brendan Wovchko. Brendan goes into how we can use mental and emotional leverage to create habits that last.   The EntreLeadership Podcast Mark Batterson's website Do It for a Day by Mark Batterson Read Duke University's study on habits. Ben Franklin: The Thirteen Necessary Virtues Download the free guide 5 Habits That Kill Team Unity. Schedule a call with Tim, our producer.   Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: EntreLeadership Summit | EntreLeadership Master Series   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: Elite | Advisory Groups | Executive Coaching | Workshops | Weekly Report Tool   Learn more about the offers from our EntreLeadership Partners: BELAY | Gravy | Hite Digital | NetSuite Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers at Duke University found that habits account for 40% of our behaviors. So your life today is essentially the sum of your habits, whether good or bad. But if you want to reach your goals, you have to create the right habits on purpose. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, George Camel, and today's episode is all about habits, which connects to our business driver of personal. Our first guest is Mark Batterson. He's the lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C., and New York Times bestselling author of 22 books. In our conversation, we unpack some key principles from his latest book, Do It for a Day,

How to Make or Break Any Habit in 30 Days, where he walks through the process of creating habits to reach our goals and dreams. In our second conversation, I talk with Ramsey leader Brendan Wojko about how to create mental and emotional leverage so that you can create the change you desire. At first, we've got our conversation with Mark Batterson. Mark, it's great to have you on the Entra Leadership Podcast. Well, it's good to be on. Thanks, George. So we are talking about habits today and how those habits can help us reach our big goals, our big dreams, our vision. I don't want to know as we get started here. What was the hardest habit that you've had to break?

Oh, wow. Just let's get... I just want to just be vulnerable with us, Mark. Yep. You a nail biter? You know, it's funny. in junior high, I was a nail biter. And it's crazy how many kids are. So I did wear that nail polish that makes you sick to your stomach if you bite your nails. So I had some early experience. Can I go big

picture for a second? Yeah. I think, you know, early on in life, the world revolves around you. The world revolves around babies, George. Everybody loves babies. But at some point, you need a Copernican revolution. You need to realize that the world does not. revolve around you and somehow you have to break that pride streak and come to the realization it's not about you and i think that's a lifelong endeavor but so we just went from nail biting to a pretty macro scale right there in about 30 seconds that's impressive that's very impressive so let's talk about this idea obviously this book is how to make or break a habit in 30 days and i want to talk about what your life was like before you develop these constructive habits in your life. What was it like?

Well, let me say this up front. I mean, show me your habits. I'll show you your future. Destiny is not a mystery. Destiny is daily habits. You know, I think there are a lot of people that there's a lack of consistency and then they wonder, why don't I accomplish more? Why aren't my goals becoming? Why aren't my dreams becoming, you know? And so I think at the end of the day, whether you're trying to get out of debt or you're trying to get into shape, it is about those habits. I will say this. I'm kind of wired this way. You know, I played basketball in college, and so you're talking to someone who practice certain skills about two hours a day, every day for about 10 years. And no, I did not make it to the NBA, two torn ACLs kind of derailed whatever future career I might have. But I learned

at an early age. You know, I read 3,000 books before I wrote one. I mean, that, whether it's physical, relational, financial, emotional, I think it's about making and breaking the habits that'll make or break you. And I think that I learned that probably at a pretty early age. Yeah, athletes have that background where they have to be disciplined in order to do what they do. And a lot of the business owners listening, they may have got to where they are today with certain habits, but they're kind of going, hey, I've been successful. I don't know that I need to make any sweeping changes here, Mark. So what were some of those daily habits for you that maybe that you formed through that evaluation process as you went, all right, I'm not where I need to be.

Some things need to change. What were those habits that needed to change? Well, you know, 45, according to a Duke University study, 45% of behavior is automatic. We do it without thinking about it. it becomes second nature. You don't give it a second thought. My argument is like you need to deconstruct and reconstruct those habits every once in a while. You know, that's just good old fashioned stewardship right there.

And so I think it's easy to sort of learn how and forget why. And that's true. Even if I have my pastor hat on, people might think that these daily habits called spiritual disciplines come naturally. Newsflash, they do not. I need a daily Bible reading plan like everybody else. Otherwise, I can't work the plan. That habit in particular has been a game changer for me.

But whether it's a gratitude journal or it's doing your age and sit-ups or push-ups, it's about finding that thing. You have to take the goal, reverse engineer it into those daily habits. Then and only then are you on this trajectory to accomplish what you want to. Yeah, I love that idea of reverse engineering it to get to where you want to go. So we're talking about habits, and it's one of those things we've all heard about habits, we've read about habits, but I want to talk about why they're hard to start. What have you found to be the main reason that we just can't find that traction when it comes to a new habit or breaking one? Well, I mean, it's probably the second law of thermodynamics.

It's entropy, the things, you know, trend towards chaos, things trend towards atrophy. So you have to be so intentional. A couple of years ago, I ran a marathon. And I won't share the full backstory. But I actually had severe asthma for 40 years and experienced a miracle, actually. And I haven't touched an inhaler in 1,974 days. I actually keep track of it. And so to celebrate, I decided I'm going to run a marathon.

Well, George, I didn't go out and run 20,000. 6.2 miles the next day I would have pulled a hamstring in a hurry. I downloaded a training plan, six months, 72 training runs. It was 475 miles. Then and only then was I ready to actually run that marathon. So I think it takes this mindset. And the good news is, you know, we're talking with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs have this mindset. I mean, you need the business plan. You need the Gant chart. You need the timelines and deadlines in order to accomplish things. And it's really about just applying those things to some of these habits in our lives. Yeah, that's incredible. Well, congrats on the marathon. That's an impressive feat unto itself. Thank you. I didn't win,

but I did finish. So there you go. It's not, it's the only competition with yourself. I've never run one. I've no desire to. So I just have a deep respect for anyone willing to do the work and and make it happen. Oh, that's awesome. I love it. So what do you recommend to make it easier to put these new habits into practice? Because we know it's hard. We know we need to be intentionable. We know we need to find that progress, find that traction. Is there any kind of like hacks to create those habits? Yeah. I mean, I like to think of it as 3M. You have to make it measurable, meaningful, and maintainable by measurable. Getting out of debt, getting into shape, those are hopes, not habits. You have to identify what it is that you're trying to accomplish and then really

break it down and make it measurable. You have to map miles. You have to count calories. You have to budget dollars. But by meaningful, you know, I think sometimes we think about habits as these extrinsic skills that we cultivate. And that's part of it. If you're a musician, it might be playing scales if you're an athlete it might be going to the batting cage whatever but really i think the habit has to become your identity george in other words don't just run think of yourself as a runner like you've got to kind of take on the persona and it has to be meaningful to you otherwise i think we uh we quit when it gets tough and then finally you have to make it maintainable um you know we overestimate what we can do in a year or two but we underestimate what god can do

and 10 or 20. It's about the consistency and really practicing it one day at a time. And that is kind of the genius, whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. It's going to happen one day at a time. And so the question is, can you do it for a day? And the irony is I've never had anybody say no to that question. Anybody can do anything for a day. It's just about breaking it down and kind of having that, that mindset of one day at a time. Yeah, it's that big vision and then backtracking it into those tiny steps consistency over time. That's hard to do to bridge that gap. But once you do it, magic happens there. Yep, no doubt. So in your book, you study habit formation and some of the most incredible leaders of our time, Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, and others.

What was the big takeaway? Was there a thread between them when it came to habit formation and goals? Well, it seems like all of them, they accomplished incredible things, but there were certain disciplines. You know, you could argue that Franklin, for example, you know, identified these 13 virtues and maybe, you know, created the first habit journal, so to speak, where he literally would grade himself on these virtues. And that's half the battle. It's just self-awareness. You know, at the base of the brain stem, there's this cluster of nerve cells called the reticular activating system, and it determines what you notice and what goes unnoticed. The genius of goal setting or even a prayer journal or just, you know, having something that you put on paper is that it creates a category. Your brain now recognizes and notices anything and everything related to that goal. And so, you know, I think Franklin with his 13 virtues did that.

And I think Teddy Roosevelt's kind of an interesting example, too, that he had these habits. A lot of them actually physical in nature. He actually had asthma as a child, didn't have the same access to medicine that I had as a kid. But he overcame it with some physical exercise. Oh, and by the way, he did read 500 books a year as president. And I'm thinking of myself, what did you do in your free time? So, you know, you look at successful people, you hack their habits and what you discover is they're just incredibly disciplined with their time.

And just so that this doesn't sound ethereal, I mean, George, the average person spends 142 minutes on social media. That's two hours and 22 minutes. That represents 15% of our waking hours. And so, you know, you may say, well, I don't have time for this. I don't have time for that, but it's interesting to me, we make time for a lot of other things that may not be on that priority list. And so a lot of it is that time management piece and just having an awareness of what you're spending your time on. Yeah. And for that business owner who's,

they've got a thousand things going on, they're putting out fires, they're trying to care for their team, they're trying to be with their family. It can be hard to put the focus on yourself and go, what do I need to do? What are my personal habits that are going to affect the team and affect my family and affect my business? Yeah, but we all know leadership starts with self-leadership. And if I don't lead myself well, I'm not good to anybody. And so I've got to make sure that I'm taking care of myself physically so that I have the kind of energy that I need to bring to the things that I do. I need to take care of myself emotionally. Otherwise, I don't know. I don't don't know about anybody else. You know, we have a team of 50 on our staff. And I wish I could say that I don't

ever get irritated, that I don't ever get frustrated, but that's just not reality. You can't work with people who have nine different numbers on the enneagram or 16 different combinations on the Myers-Briggs or any combination on the Strengths Finder and not have some measure of conflict or frustration. And so I I've got to make sure that I'm in a good place physically, emotionally, spiritually, and even intellectually so that I'm bringing my A game to the table every day because, you know, at the end of the day, the hardest person to lead is the person that looks back at me in the mirror every single morning. Oh, yeah. It starts with you. That's for sure. So we've got, we're heading into this new year. And this is when people start to really start thinking about their personal goals,

or goals for their business this year. And you say in your book that goal setting is not enough and that, quote, you are one habit away from any goal you set. What do you mean by that? And how can that help us accomplish those goals? Yeah, you won't accomplish 100% of the goals you don't set. So I'm big on goal setting. I have 100 life goals.

But you do have to reverse engineer those into the habits that are going to produce those goals. And so when I was 22, George, I felt I felt called to write. The irony is that I was in grad school. I'd just taken one of those aptitude assessments. And it showed a low aptitude for writing. In other words, whatever you do, don't write books.

Don't inflict that on the world. And so I knew it wasn't a natural gifting. And so I read 3,000 books before I wrote one because I knew that writers are readers And I needed to reverse engineer some of those books so that I was able to, you know, produce that kind of content. And so I think there's this theory of compensation that Alfred Adler came up with around the turn of the 20th century. And he said that what we perceive as disadvantages often actually prove to be advantages because they force us to cultivate a different set of strengths that might have lain dormant in other. circumstances. And in fact, he found that a lot of composers had degenerative conditions in their hearing, which is strange, that a lot of artists had optical anomalies. And yet there was something

about that that helped them maybe approach their art and their music slightly differently. This is fascinating. Have you heard this study that 35% of entrepreneurs are dyslexic? Whoa, didn't know that. hold on a second here what's happening and the idea to kind of play off of the theory of compensation is that if you have dyslexia you're at a disadvantage academically it's really hard to read well that also means that you're going to have to cultivate more of a work ethic than your classmates to like learn to read it's going to be harder or you might have to cultivate verbal skills or social skills or other things. And so it's crazy, George, but the argument is that

in some strange way, that perceived disadvantage can actually help some of these entrepreneurs cultivate a different set of skills that maybe they would not have had if reading had easier. And so the way I like to think of it is we've got a strong hand, you know, 90% of us right handed. And it symbolizes strengths and gifts that God's given to us. Praise God for that. But then there's this week hand, which for most of us is the left hand. And it symbolizes the things that don't come naturally. Be careful not to dismiss the weekend. Because in some ways, in my experience, God sometimes has a way of using those weaknesses. In fact, the last time I checked, his power was made perfect and weakness.

And so I think it's about cultivating really both of those hands. And from that original question, I don't know how we got here, but I hope that's a little bit of an encouragement to entrepreneurs and maybe even, you know, what were some of the obstacles that you overcame that really helped you become who you are? I bet it wasn't because it was easier for you than everybody else. You probably had to work a little bit harder, and that work ethic might be one reason why you'll experience more success. Yeah, and as you shared that stat about the dyslexia, I harkened back to one of our recent Entree leadership events where we had a spelling bee. That was just for fun during lunch, and we got these business owners up there. These are very successful people running multi-million dollar businesses, and they were the worst spellers I've ever encountered.

And I was just like, how are they successful business owners? But you just proved why. And they have an amazing work ethic. They've overcome incredible adversity. And as I talk to them and hear their stories about what they've overcome, I'm just so inspired by them. And I think to your point, it's amazing what they accomplish in spite of and because of those disadvantages. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you and I both know, well, spelling is not a reflection of IQ,

intelligence quotient. So I better say that up front. But the reality is, you know, Daniel Goldman talks about EQ emotional intelligence, really being 80% of the factors that lead to success, that that really is going to get you

a lot further than your intellectual capacity, so to speak. And it's a little bit of all of the above, but fascinating. Pretty fun to hear about that spelling bee. Yeah. So, Mark, I want to get into this portion of your book because it's fascinating.

You outline seven habits that we should apply to our lives. Can you go through those real quick as they apply to habit formation? Yeah, absolutely. So habit number one, flip the script. If you want to change your life, you have to change your story. And I think it was John Quincy Adams who said, whoever tells the best story wins. And that starts with the stories that we tell ourselves. So habit formation, it starts with a mindset.

You've got to flip the script. Habit number two, kiss the wave. I'm pulling from a Charles Spurgeon quote. He said, I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages. It's this idea that the obstacle is not the enemy. The obstacle is the way. When you encounter a tough situation, my wife recently walked through a bout with cancer, and she came across this little piece of poetry that posed a question.

And it was this, what have you come to teach me? It's about having a growth mindset, a learning mindset, and really learning from whatever life is throwing at you. Three is eat the frog. And of course, this is a Mark Twainism. If you ever have to eat a live frog, do it first thing in the morning because then you'll know that the hardest thing is behind you. And so there you go.

Absolutely ridiculous, but pretty true. start with the hard thing first. Fly the kite. If you do little things like they're big things, in my experience, God has a way of doing big things like they're little things. Cut the rope. Playing it safe is risky. The greatest risk is taking no risk.

Elijah Otis, the inventor of the elevator, literally cut a rope and his elevator break caught the elevator and one of the greatest sales pitches ever. And then wind the clock, life is measured in minutes, time is measured in minutes, life is measured in minutes, life is measured in moments. And then finally, see the clouds. You got to sew today, what you want to see tomorrow. And so that's the short version, George. Those seven habits are key to kind of cultivating the sort of life that I think we want to have as entrepreneurs. Yeah, man, there's some catchy stuff in there. I love the stories behind it and the heart behind it as well. Super powerful. Well, Mark, I'm real excited about this book, and you've clearly mastered this. You've studied it, clearly a very intellectual guy. I appreciate you putting the cookies on the bottom shelf for all of us listening today. So as we wrap here, what are some of the habits that you recommend to anyone that are just great practices, regardless of the goals we have? What are those ones that have really been formative for you? Yeah. Let me just throw one out. I think gratitude is one of our four family values. humility, gratitude, generosity, and courage. I can turn anybody who's a complainer into someone who's

grateful. If they're willing to simply keep a gratitude journal, you write down three gratitudes a day and it will flip a switch. You know, we don't see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. And so we all know those people, George, who can find something to complain about no matter how good it is. And then there are people who can find something to be thankful for no matter how bad it is. And I think in the world that we live in, in this cultural moment, I think gratitude is a lost art. And so it's one of those habits that I think, you know, joy isn't getting what you want. It's appreciating what you have. And so let's get a little bit better at counting our blessings. And so that would be one of those habits that I talk about in the book and just share some practical examples of

how you can cultivate that habit. Well, Mark, this has been an awesome conversation. A lot of mic drop moments in here. I'm going to go back and take some notes after we're done. Any last wisdom and encouragement for these business owners as they head into the new year? Yeah, I might just share kind of the simple working theory of the book. Almost anyone can accomplish almost anything if they work at it long enough, hard enough, and smart enough.

I believe that. If you're 5-7 and you want to play in the NBA, yes, the odds are against you. This feels like a personal attack, Mark. Hey, George, don't take it personally. Listen, let's finish the story. Spud Webb played 12 years in the NBA and did win the 1986 NBA Dunk Contest, and he was 5-7. So just a word of encouragement is probably going to take longer than you want.

It might be harder than you think. but almost anyone can accomplish almost anything if they work at it long enough, hard enough, and smart enough. Good stuff, Mark. Well, I'm super pumped for the new book. Really appreciate you coming on the podcast today. Thanks, George. Big thanks to Mark Batterson for an awesome conversation.

If you want to grab a copy of his new book, do it for a day, how to make or break any habit in 30 days. Just click the link in the show notes. As we talked about, habits can be such a mind game. So how do you get past the mental and emotional hurdles of the way? starting and maintaining those habits. We'll have a conversation about that right after this. All right, in our second conversation, I sit down with Brendan Wochko, who's our senior technology officer here at Ramsey's Solutions.

And he shares how you can create mental and emotional leverage to get the results that you want. Brendan, welcome back to the Entree Leadership podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me. So we are talking today about habits and about creating the change that you desire. And you've got an interesting take on this and a framework to have. help our listeners actually reach their goals through these habits. Right. So what are some of the first things that come to your mind when you think of the word

habits? Well, I think when I think about habits, it's really nothing more than just behavior change, right? And I think if you're going to be a great leader in any capacity, like behavior change is really something that you have to master for yourself, right? So just, you know, over my leadership journey, it's something I've really invested a lot in. and I really think like 90% of leadership is just habits, right? Like, it's the stuff that you do on the regular, right? Muscle memory. When I think about habits, I think about two things.

I think about routine habits and I think about reactionary habits, right? Like routine habits are the things that, like, are kind of baked into your every day, doing one-on-ones, things like that, right? You know, both kinds of habits are important and they're hard, right? But I can actually hire somebody to help me with the routine habits. what I can't do is hire somebody to help me with the reactionary habits, right? And what I mean by reactionary habits is like when the pressure is on in the moment and something happens, what habits have you personally developed to make sure that you can kind of respond to things with courage?

You know, you can actually let your kind of emotion come through and really deal with things in the moment versus sort of avoiding things. So as a business owner, this is kind of that gut instinct that you hear about, that wisdom, that discernment where you know how to make that decision quickly and make the effective decision that's wise. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, I'm a very gut-oriented person, but that can go one of two ways. Like my gut can tell me to retreat or my gut can tell me to charge, you know, and when I think about habits, when I think about behavior change, I think about creating the set of conditions within myself that I am predisposed to charge, because

retreating and leadership will get you in a lot of trouble. Yeah. So it's more than just, a feeling of what you should do. It's training yourself to know this is the right thing to do. Yeah, absolutely. It's getting into a pattern of like personal conditioning. What do I do when the pressure is on? So talk about a couple of habits that you've developed that have maybe helped you in your leadership. Yeah. So, you know, again, when you talk about those reactionary habits, not the routine, you know, the things that I try to make sure that I bake in when I have real life situations with people is like, how do I make sure that I anticipate the needs? You know, the things. of the people that are around me, particularly the, you know, the leaders that I serve.

You know, how do I share the urgency of situations? You know, when the person that I report to and the person that I'm here to serve, you know, whatever is important to him is important to me, you know. A lot of those things that kind of happen in the day-to-day, you know, are really easy to kind of pass by if you're not cognizant of them and develop habits about how you respond to people, right? So probably, you know, I could list off probably 20, you know, little, little, habits. But I think probably the most important one to me is developing the habit of overreacting to avoidance. So when I'm in a moment with somebody an uncomfortable conversation or something that is

difficult, you know, where I have that, you know, tendency to retreat, I've created the habit, or I'd like to think that I've created the habit of if it's something that I want to avoid, it has to become a must. That to me, I think, is probably the most important habit I've developed. over the years, which is if it scares me, if it's something that I want to retreat from, if it's something that I don't want to do, makes my skin crawl. I've had to condition with myself the prioritization habit of saying, if it's something that I want to avoid, it has to become the next thing I do. It goes from the back of the line to the front of the line.

And I think really of all the habits I've worked on over the years, that's the one that has absolutely served me the best. So when you say overreacting, you're saying, hey, put it to the front of the line. Right. in a sense to get it to where it's the first thing you've got to do. It's your A1 now. Right. When I emotionally feel a sense to avoid, I massively overreact to that compulsion to avoid things. And I take things from the back of the line and put them right up to the front. And the goal of these habits is, like you mentioned, behavior change.

Right. And that behavior change creates some maybe success in your goals. It creates that desired future that we talk about on this show. Mm-hmm. Interesting. So let's get into this. you have this idea of mental and emotional leverage. And habits can definitely be a mind game. It's tricking your brain to doing some new things to where that becomes the new normal. So how have you gotten past that mental and emotional hurdle that comes with starting and maintaining habits? Yeah, I think you have to pay attention to the patterns that are working for you versus the patterns that aren't working for you. And every time with myself and other leaders that I've observed, the pattern that doesn't work is willpower.

if you just try to leverage your own focus and leverage your own energy and swear to yourself that it's going to be different this time and without really anything deeper than simply trying to will it, the likelihood that that change is going to happen is really, really low. At least it is for me. So what I've really had to do is I've had to figure out, you know, how do I go beyond willpower? And I think probably a lot of people, you know, hearing this would be like, yeah, you're right. willpower works a pretty low percentage of the time. The challenge for me is figuring out, okay, well, if I know that doesn't work, what do I replace it with? When I think about that, what I really think about is, you know, any problem that you want to try to solve, you've really got

to find a way to get leverage on the problem. And when it comes to behavior change, I think that leverage is hard to get. Like, what is the thing that will ultimately create leverage? It's probably different for a lot of people. But I think particularly for entrepreneurial personalities, the thing that works really well, works well for me, is just inviting emotion into the equation. If I can create the right kind of emotion internally, it will create the kind of leverage that I need in order to create change, right? So what do I mean by that, right? So if I've got some sort of challenge that I'm trying to work through and I need to get to a point where I'm really kind of feeling what the consequences are of the problem, I got to do a couple things. I got to get real

clear on the problem, right? Like, let's say that I'm avoiding uncomfortable conversations with people, right? Well, once I'm clear on the problem, I get to get really clear about what the consequences are for the problem. Like, what relationships am I going to damage because I'm unwilling to have uncomfortable conversations? How am I going to hold people back from growing their lives and in their careers if I'm not willing to have uncomfortable conversations with them? What great opportunities am I going to miss out on in terms of my own growth because I'm unwilling to, you know, confront some things that make me uncomfortable. You know, there's all these things. But those are a few that are, like, pragmatic and surface level. But the truth is, if you get, you know, emotionally honest with

yourself and you start going down deeper levels, that's when you really start to tap in to the real emotion, right? Like, and those questions sound something like, who am I going to hurt? Who am I going to neglect? What relationships are, am I going to lose? who is not going to be in my life because of my lack of courage, right? If you get down below the surface level down to some harder questions, that has a way of like really disrupting your own psychology, right? And the pattern that I've learned is if you can get down and ask those deeper level of questions, that is one factor.

And then there's a second factor that you got to introduce to yourself, and that is time. So, you know, if I get to a place where I can start to rapid fire in my head some of these questions like who am I going to hurt who am I going to neglect what am I going to miss out on who's not going to be in my life I really try to activate my imagination and say okay what's that going to look like in a year and I let my imagination kind of take off and let that stew for a little bit and then I say all right well what's that what's that going to look like in three years and in five years and in 15 years and in 20 years and you start asking yourself questions like if I don't learn how to courageously deal with

my tendency to avoid, who will I not happen my life in 20 years? What relationships will be broken? You know, well, I have the marriage that I want to have. Well, I have the relationship with my son that I want to have. You know, and you can get yourself to that authentic place of actually getting yourself to feel what that's going to be like in 20 years. You've now created a really potent equation for creating leverage for change, right? Because you can actually feel it and you can bring yourself back into those emotions when you're confronted for me, you know, when I'm in a situation where I'm confronted, you know, day to day with like a tendency to avoid, I have that almost like emotional map that I can go back to and be like, hey, this situation I'm dealing with in the moment is uncomfortable. But in comparison to the idea

of me not having the marriage I want or the relationship I want with my son 20 years from now, this thing in the moment actually became a whole lot easier. So, you know, if you don't have that leverage and you're stuck in the pattern of willpower, I don't think willpower works. Yeah, it's interesting. as you're talking about emotional leverage and inviting that in, I think of Dave Ramsey's baby steps. And 100%, I see it over and over. That happens where you've got to tap into that deeper why. You want to change your family tree. Right.

You want to lead a different life. You want to break a generational curse that's been in your family financially. And that really fuels the habit. Right. And it's not about willpower then. It's about a bigger, grander future that you have for yourself. And so I think that's so important to be grounded with that Y and create some stakes, something's got to be at stake to make things interesting and start dreaming about the future,

whether it's negative or positive, the negative positive effect of those habits, that really will fuel it. Right. Yeah. If you don't have any self-imposed consequences for inaction, you're going to be in a pattern of inaction, and you're not going to be able to break it. Yeah. So what was the most powerful way you were able to create that mental and emotional leverage to get the change that you want? Was there one thing that you'd say, this is it. Yeah, I mean, I think you have to find the thing in yourself that you really want more than anything else, you know, and, you know, I think for me that is having a strong, mature, developed relationship with my son when he's an adult, right? And I know that's a weird thing to talk about in a business podcast, but I think actually family is a big part of the reason a lot of people get into

entrepreneurism. We want a different kind of relationship with our families. We want to build a different kind of generational legacy than what we would be able to do if we weren't an entrepreneur, right? And so I think, you know, for me, that's my story. That is the thing that I want to do in my family. So what I try to do is I try to take the circumstances that I'm presented with day to day. and I try to ask myself, like, how will a lack of courage on my part negatively impact that desired future I've got out 20 years from now? And it's pretty surprising. It works because most of the decisions that I have to make in my job, although they're not like directly related to my family, a lot of those decisions that I make in my job are exercising the muscles of courage that allow me to have

similarly difficult conversations at home. And similar, you know, it teaches me a pattern of how to overcome my own resistance to doing the right thing, you know. So I think the real trick is, for you, you got to find the thing that you really desperately want, you know, and try to create the connective tissue between the circumstances you're dealing with and the thing that you really want. And the more that you do that and the more that you practice it, that connective tissue starts to become like a superhighway, right? At first, when you, when you do it, It's awkward and it's weird, and it's kind of a hard channel to push through your brain. But the more you do it over and over and over again, it becomes very easy to, like, access that and create a sense of consequence for inaction.

So as we wrap here, what advice would you give to the leaders listening who go, hey, Brendan, I've got my goals. And I know what habits I need to get there, but how do I start? What's the thing I can do this week to start to make some progress? Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty straightforward. You know, first, don't rely on willpower. you know willpower you know ultimately is just going to make you feel like a failure because it's not going to work and you know definition of insanity keep doing the thing that doesn't work over and over again right so stop using willpower just dispense of that i think your imagination is a really important

tool your ability to use the combination of your imagination and emotion and then time figuring out how to leverage those three things together and use that as a tool to look at what will the future you know look like about the things that I truly care about. And I think once you use those tools to create actual emotional leverage, those are the things that are going to unlock your ability to actually do this stuff daily. Daily is actually the hard part. You know, doing it once, not a big deal. Doing it four times a month, not a big deal. But when you got to do it daily or multiple times a day, you know, you really have to have a solid strategy for how it is that you're going to do that. Yeah, my advice just don't rely on willpower.

There's the key. Well, Brendan, thanks so much for coming back on the podcast and sharing some wisdom with our leaders listening out there. I know it's going to help them accomplish a lot of goals in the coming year. Awesome. Thanks, George. Thanks for having me. As Mark and Brendan talked about in today's episode, you have to root out the bad habits in your life personally and professionally. When it comes to your business,

there are some habits that can really kill the unity among your team. That's why we created a free resource called Five Habits that kill Team Unity. And once you recognize these Unity killers, you'll be better equipped to fight against them. To download that free resource, just click the link in the show notes. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the show.

If you did, please leave us a review and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. And we want to hear what you think of the show, what you like, what you don't like, and what we could do better. Give us your feedback by clicking the link in the show notes to schedule a call with Tim, our producer. If you want to keep up with us on social media,

you can follow us at Entree Lear. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison and Bob Worquez, and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like the Christy Wright Show. Hey, y'all, I'm Christy Wright. You know, it's so easy to feel stuck. You live life, just going through the motions, doing dishes, doing laundry, carpool lines,

and a whole list of commitments that bring you no joy. We say yes to what everyone expects of us, and we have no energy or time for what we want. And let's be honest, most of the time, we don't even know what we want. Why do we live like that? God certainly never called us to. You know, I believe that the life God has for us

is bigger and more amazing than any of us realize. That's why I want you to check out the Christy Wright Show. Every week, we will fire you up to break through what's holding you back, and inspire you to create a life you love and are proud of. Each episode will help you build confidence in yourself and the God that created you. To hear full episodes, just search Christy Wright wherever you listen to podcasts, or go to ramsysolutions.com slash shows.