Start With A Win - Building Hustle Daily

Episode Date: June 1, 2018

Welcome to the Start with a Win podcast! We are so glad that you have found your way here and we hope that you find ideas in each episode that you can integrate into your own life.On this inaugural episode of the podcast, Adam discusses the ways that he integrates the ideas of building hustle daily and being intentional about making a difference into his daily routine. Preparations for the day begin the night before, when he sets out his clothes for the next morning and drinks a protein-rich green drink to help his body burn fat during the night. Adam’s day starts bright and early (before it is actually bright outside) at about 4:30am, when he gets up right away, without pressing the “snooze” button. He sees this as his first action of intentionality of the day, getting his mind right and taking charge of the day first thing, usually by watching the daily edition of Darren Daily. Then, he and his wife usually spend an hour at the gym, which still leaves them plenty of time to get ready before heading to work. Studies have shown that people who wake up later experience lower job satisfaction and lower salaries overall, and Adam is committed to gaining momentum by being motivated, choosing positivity, and practicing gratitude. He says that “how you do anything is how you do everything”, so pay it forward by passing along all of the encouragement and positivity than you can.Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/adamcontosREMAXCEO/https://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/

Atop of the 12th floor of the RE-MAX World Headquarters, you're listening to Start With A Win with CEO Adam Kantos. Hello everybody, Adam Kantos here at RE-MAX Headquarters with Start With A Win. Talking about what gets you going. And we're here on the 12th floor of our world headquarters overlooking the beautiful Denver skyline. And with me here in studio, I've got producer Mark. How's it going, man? Hey, man. How are you doing? Good. I'm super stoked for the show.

Episode one, baby. Episode one. Here we go. That's it. Yeah. We're committed now, right? That's right. This is it. This is happening. No turning back now. But I'm super excited about this because we have all these conversations so often about what causes success to happen. What do you do each day in order to start with a win, really? And how does that kind of translate throughout the day through business, life, your personal

habits, things like that? And it's stuff that I get asked about all the time, and I love to share it. Nice. So what's our topic today? What are we talking about today? So today, we're going to talk about building hustle daily. So basically, tips for winning the day. And we'll start from the moment the alarm goes off, or even before that, in order to

build some momentum. You just got to look at it like it's not just another day. It's the day to make a difference. And that's the key component here. You got to hit the ground running and you have to be intentional about it because it's your life. It's your business. It's your relationships. How do you make a difference in these things? It truly translates throughout the day and really starting with a win makes all the difference in the world. That's awesome. So what are some things like you, cause you, I heard you just say that it's something before you wake up.

Everything really starts the day before. There are a lot of different things that you can do to build up to that day to be successful. So for instance, I'll just kind of walk you through a little bit of what I do. So I'm home from work, have some dinner. When I go to bed, I have a certain routine that I go through. And I don't deviate from that routine because routines turn into habits. Habits create success. The right habits, of course. I'm not kind of hanging out on the back porch smoking a pack of camels or something like that.

I'm going through the things that will help me have a successful day the next day. And a big part of that is my preparation. Everything from I have a green drink and some protein before I go to bed. So my body has something to help me burn fat overnight and help me sleep better. Because your body's burning calories at night. You got to give it something to do. But I also lay out my clothing that I need for the next day. So when that alarm goes off in the morning, which by the way happens about 425 in the morning for me, do not, do not hit that snooze button. Okay. Are you a snooze button guy? You know, not after talking with you. I'm not. You know, it's funny when I get up, I have a, I have a 16-year-old daughter. She's going to kill me for mentioning her on here.

But I'm in the kitchen in the morning after I'm up having my cup of coffee and things like that. And I hear her alarm going, meh, meh, meh, meh. You can hear it kind of raining down through the house. And it was funny. My wife came in. We go to the gym at the same time in the morning. She's like, what is that sound like that's that's the alarm upstairs and uh so she eventually calls upstairs and says are you gonna wake up to that uh yeah eventually was going to the majority of people

out there like to hit that snooze button i don't get that it doesn't process in my head because you're you're just kind of putting off the inevitable. Right. Yeah. And I feel like sometimes too, when I hit the snooze button and then I fall back asleep, it's even harder to get up when that, like that 10 minutes, like you fall back into a deep sleep and then it's hard to kind of re-motivate yourself to get out of bed. Oh, totally. And then you're scrambling last minute, scrambling to try to like get ready to get out the door and get to work on time or whatever it is. Yeah.

Isn't that one of the worst feelings in the world? Yeah. It sucks. But anyhow, so get up, feet hit the floor, grab my phone and go get dressed, brush my teeth, things like that. And then I go back into the kitchen, have a little bit of breakfast, like a cup of yogurt. I have another one of those green drinks, some more protein. Double green drink. Yeah. Double green drink, baby but uh grab my stuff and get ready to head to the gym there's one thing i do that's monday through friday i i pull up my darren daily which is nice yeah so shout out to darren hardy shout out to darren baby yeah he uh great

guy but he he has a a piece that you can sign up for, DarrenDaily.com, that you just, you go there, sign up, and every day, Monday through Friday, you'll get a little, probably,

I don't know, three to six minute video that kind of gets you a great concept of, you know, building a better you, starting a better day, things like that. So,

listen to my Darren Daily. Kind of put your mind in the right head space. That's it. Nice. That's right. And then, you know, I head out the door,

hit the gym, get an hour workout in, which I got to thank my wife for this. We're on like three leg days a week right now, which, brutal. It's hard to walk up the stairs. Oh my gosh. You actually kind of get used to it after about two or three weeks.

Nice. Those first two to three weeks are terrible. But, you know, so thanks thanks kelly um little shout out yeah you know leg day yeah leg day every day what's up you know today was leg day it's friday here so nice but uh yeah yeah so get out the gym get home shower up get get the work clothes on and head off to work so uh and i even have a routine for doing that. So that's Monday through Friday? Yeah, Saturday is sleep-in day, so we don't get up until about 6.

Oh, wow. Yeah. How generous. Exactly. Well, you know, Kelly goes, we have to sleep in one of these days. So sleep in. 6 o'clock. Yeah, 6 o'clock.

Why not? It's a compromise, right? Well, and if you deviate too far from that then monday is going to be painful trying to get back into that 425 routine you got it yeah it makes sense you got it but and i you know i travel for a living as well so a lot of that has to do with um you know where you're at in the world and you know what's funny is getting up early is only relative to the time zone you're in. So when you think about it, we're on mountain time zone here. You go to California, it's actually 525 in the morning.

So you're gaining an hour to work. You can go work out at 330 instead of 430. And then East Coast, East Coast, man, brutal. Two-hour time difference for me. But for those people, I mean, that's the way to go. You live on the East Coast, you can go anywhere. What was that study you were telling me about when we were off air? Was that about the snooze, right?

Yeah, yeah. So Sleep Junkie did this study that's got all sorts of really cool stats in it. And hitting the snooze button no bueno no bueno at all so on on being satisfied with relationships with life things like that they actually found they surveyed like a thousand people they found that the more times you hit the snooze button the less satisfied you are with stuff really so i it's that's amazing it's weird like three or more times and you're you're miserable oh yeah yeah so so once i think you can get by with it and what does steve jobs set that at like eight or nine minutes or something like that yeah something like that so uh you know but you're only

gaining like eight minutes you can't even get back to sleep in how much time yeah but uh but you hit it three or more times sorry you've got like rock bottom in your relationships and things like that. I guess that's a good baseline. Where are you at in life? How many times are you hitting snooze? But you know what's funny is a lot of this is how you, what goals you set for yourself, how you score yourself. How many days a week are you going to go work out?

How many points do you score when you do something whatever it might be but ultimately you you you're scoring your way through life because that's how we measure things we we have to benchmark and compare and if if your goal is okay i'm just gonna hit the snooze button once you know how how many other times are you letting yourself get away with something once and i I look at it as, that's my first win. That is my first win for the day is, all right, I beat you, snooze button. Darn you. Yeah, dominated the snooze button. Boom. Win. Yeah, exactly. So are you going to let that thing make your decisions for you? No. No, they're yours. You own them. And then are you going to go to the gym? And I'll tell you,

getting up that early sucks. It's no fun. I'm glad you just said that because, you know, there was a part of me that was thinking, there's got to be something wrong with this guy. There's nobody. You're human still. Yeah. There's nobody gets out of bed at like 4.30 and goes, woohoo, it's 4.30. High five. But it's, yeah, you look at it and go, oh, it's 4.30. But, you know, it's a win or it's not a win. It's a win or not a win. You know, just like that dude

jumped on the gas here going up the highway. He's winning. He's winning. He's winning, totally. But anyhow, so first win. First win. Do not hit that snooze button. Boom. Okay?

No way. And you know what's also funny? Time you wake up. The study, they benchmarked two things, or actually three things together. So the time that you wake up, and then they benchmarked salary, and then they also benchmarked job satisfaction. Ah, interesting. benchmarked job satisfaction. So when you look at salary, job satisfaction, and what time they wake up, the later they woke up, the lower salary and lower job satisfaction they had. So what do you

want to start with? Do you get up and get out of bed and go, win, number one, done. Or do you stay in bed and go, eh, okay, I'm good otherwise. So it's funny when I talk to people about this. They're like, all right, I'll try it. And they get up earlier. They go to the gym or whatever it is. And I love going and working out. I'm not a meathead. But I think you need to be healthy. And I love going and working out. I'm not a meathead, you know. Right.

But I think you need to be healthy. And, you know, obviously that's a big win in life. The healthier you are, typically the longer you live, the more satisfaction you gain out of, you know, your relationships, things like that. So it's a good thing to do. And I'm not saying you've got to be like Mr. Iron Man, but at least exercise, right? Get the blood flowing.

Yeah. Yeah. Blood flows through the brain. You think. You smile. Whatever. Some wins. So it's kind of cool.

All of this stuff builds one thing, and that's momentum. Right. Builds momentum in your day and gets you having a better day. And really, what do you have to lose right i mean my thought is is like what a great experiment someone could do is say all right for the next 30 days i'm going to challenge myself to wake up early work out if you can't afford a gym membership or whatever you can do push-ups and sit-ups and go for a run yep you know and then you know take on my day so well yeah i. Go for a walk, for crying out loud.

Right. If we don't end up going to the gym, we try to get to the gym as much as we can. If we don't end up going to the gym, we leash up the dogs and head out the door. Go out and get a little fresh air, whether or not it's to the park, if you live in the city or whatever.

We live kind of in the mountain area, so we go out and hike around in the woods with the dogs, and they enjoy it. Better for them. So, yeah, you've got to do something. You've got to be active. Get out of bed. Get some health going.

Get your mind right, my darn daily. Kind of get me focused. A little gratitude. Yeah. Because in all reality, you can't have gratitude and disappointment at the same time. That's true. You can't smile and frown at the same time. You got true. You can't smile and frown at the same time. You got it. Try it. It just, right. Yeah. So yeah. Pick an emotion and go after it.

And I want, I want a happy winning emotion. Yeah. It helps. It helps with, uh, you get to the office or dealing with a client or something like that changes everything. Yeah, it totally does. When I even remember getting in the elevator with people, it seems like the majority of people are negative, that you interact with, right? Oh, it's Monday. It's too cold. It's too hot.

It's too windy. It's whatever. But if you go in the elevator and are excited and like, Mondays are great because it allows me to get started and get this week going on a positive foot, it kind of changes your mindset. It changes the way you think about stuff. And then impacts the people around you too in a positive way as well. Yeah. It's funny you say that because I have this goal. This is the weirdest little thing. But I have this goal when I'm driving to the office after I've gone through the get out of bed go to the gym you know get ready

for work darren daly whatever it is when i'm driving to the office i have to wave thank you to three people while i'm on my way to the office really yeah like just little hand out the window like thanks for letting me in kind of thing you know the you know hey and i'm not talking about like the one finger wave it's you know you know, you put on your turn signal, you change in their lane and you wave to them. And half the time you see these people go, what was that? Right. Like, why are you waving at me? Yeah.

It's the sharing of gratitude. Right. It is a win. And it's a positive mentality thing. But it's hilarious when you do it because you're just waving to all these people and going, who is this guy? Are you from here? Yeah.

That's awesome. And we have some pretty nice drivers here in Colorado. Super friendly. It's like we talked about getting in the elevator. Saying hi to people in the elevator, try that in some cities. They're like, who's this guy? They're dialing 911 on their phone. That's a win, man. All of these things. It's not just the fact that you're trying to engage people. This is momentum. And you're getting that big flywheel in life going. A flywheel is a big weighted wheel. Like Jim Rohn, Jim Collins, those guys always talk about the flywheel concept.

You get this wheel of success going. And the more it's spinning, the more success you continue to generate. And then now let's take, you've created these successes through the day. And now you have a difficult call with a client or you're trying to gain a new client or something like that. And you know you're going to face rejection. But you got so much tailwind going. I mean, you're winning today. You're on it. You're scoring points. You're smiling. You're demonstrating gratitude and sharing your feelings and things like that. And it's so much harder for somebody to take you off of that than if you just

started from nowhere, from no wins. So it's really creates a better day. And then it leads into the next day. So, so well, so that's, that's what it's all about. It's about winning all the time, every day, knowing you're going to have failures in there. And we're going to talk about that on another podcast, but knowing you have failures in there that are going to slow down your momentum a little bit, but you've got so much of it going. That's how you win the day. Here's a good quote for you. How you do anything is how you do everything.

I like that. So do you want to try and make this a win? Because if you're hitting the snooze button, no matter what it is, if you're hitting the snooze button on your business, I don't want to make that phone call. I don't want to talk to that person, whatever it is. How are you doing everything? If you let yourself get away with that, then you're letting yourself, you're just giving yourself permission to get away with so much more and you're okay not having wins, but you got to make that conscious decision. I'm not okay with

not having wins. I got to start the day with wins. I'm not okay with not having wins. I got to start the day with wins. I got to end the day with wins. Translates into my family. I have to tell my family I love them so many times a day. I love it. It just, it is fantastic. And it's so cool because you start to see people around you acting that way.

Like my kids. I don't see my kids ever hang up the phone without saying I love you to each other, to my wife or I, things like that. It becomes habitual to create those wins. That is something that is giving to yourself and giving to those around you. And it just continues to build that kind of life that you most likely want, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's when people see you coming after you have demonstrated this gratitude, and really what you're doing is you're sharing your wins.

Passing gratitude and respect, those are relationship wins. Those just translate into so much social currency in life. And that's not what you're trying to get, but that's the result of being a good person. So you look at people and you go, here comes mean Mike. Whatever it is, and mean Mike has got a reputation for not having gratitude, not having wins, things like that.

I mean, do you want to do business with that? No, you don't. So it's a reciprocity factor. It's a factor of influence. Start with a win, man. Start with a win. Well, cool. I think that this has been an awesome conversation.

I think that we've got a lot of stuff that we can take home and work on. So thank you. What do we got coming up in the next episodes? So Mark, I mentioned failure a little bit. Let me ask you something. Do you fear failure? I mean, does it really stop you from trying something? Or do you look at a challenge and say, I can't do that.

Why should I try? So many people do. They look at it and they just let the thought stop them from growing themselves, changing physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, things like that. They don't get into the conversation of discussing that. Next time, we're going to talk about getting over failure. We won't want to miss it. That's right.

And I've got a quote for you that has to do with this momentum and getting out of bed. Aristotle said, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Boom. I love that. Let's make it a habit, man. Thank you so much for joining us today. Make sure to head over to startwithawin.com to get more great content.

Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Adam on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And remember, start with a win.