The Bossticks - 5 Behaviors That Are Guaranteed To Improve Your Life & Create Pathways For Future Success

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

#611: On today's episode Lauryn and Michael are solo to discuss 5 essential behaviors anyone can implement to drasitcally improve their life. The couple go into detail on how some of the most successful people in life, not just in businesss, implement these behaviors to get the best results in their personal and professional lives. They describe why each behavior is critical for growth and success and why it's important to implement the behaviors in your own life if you are looking for positive change. The couple also discuss how to implement these behaviors into your own life and what will happen if you do so.    To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential. This episode is brought to you by Dreamland Baby Use code code SKINNY at checkout for 20% off all Dreamland Baby Co items at dreamlandbabyco.com This episode is brought to you by Cymbiotika Cymbiotika is a health supplement company, designing sophisticated organic formulations that are scientifically proven to increase vitality and longevity by filling nutritional gaps that result from our modern day diet. Receive 15% off at cymbiotika.com/SKINNY This episode is brought to you by LMNT LMNT is a tasty electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. It contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio: 1000mg sodium, 200mg potassium, and 60mg magnesium. Get a free sample pack with any purchase at drinkLMNT.com/SKINNY This episode is brought to you by Nutrafol Nutrafol is the #1 dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement, clinically shown to improve your hair growth, thickness, and visible scalp coverage. Go to nutrafol.com and use code SKINNYHAIR to save $10 off your first month's subscription, plus free shipping. This episode is brought to you by eBay Ensure your next purchase is the real deal with eBay Authenticity Guarantee. Everyone deserves real. Visit ebay.com for terms. This episode is brought to you by Beekeepers Naturals Beekeepers Naturals is female-founded and the products are clean and effective, third-party tested for all pesticides, and the brand is dedicated to sustainable beekeeping and helping save the bees. Get 20% off your first order at beekeepersnaturals.com and use code SKINNY at checkout. Produced by Dear Media  

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

I'm ready. I have my two hard-boiled eggs on the table. That's a behavior that's changed my life. Yeah, I've never seen anyone bring hard-boiled eggs to a podcast, but here we go. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the skinny confidential him and her show. Today we have a solo episode coming in for you, coming in hot. This episode is all about five behaviors and habits that will not only change your life. They will absolutely change your life for the better. What we've realized over the years doing over 600 episodes is it's really the basics that people

sometimes struggle the most with. I think doing so many of these podcasts and talking to so many of these high achievers, you hear a lot of things that what I would say are quote unquote high level. But what Lauren and I have deciphered over the years, it's the basics, it's the redundancy, it's the self-discipline, it's the things that they do consistently that are just these small little movements that they make in their life or these small little changes they make in their life that have the greatest impact. But for whatever reason, you know, we still get so many messages from so many people that seem to just struggle grasping the basics. So what we've done here is we've drummed down five behaviors and habits that we personally believe will absolutely have

a positive impact on your life or whoever's implementing this or these things into their lives. The one thing I would say here is this. 90% of the people that get this advice, unfortunately, fail to utilize the advice and they don't actually implement these things. I think... Why? I think it comes down to self-discipline. I think it comes down to motivation. I think it, I think sometimes you don't receive the message at the right time in life. What I will say is if you do actually implement these five things, it is impossible for your life not to drastically improve. But like I said, 90% of the people, and even 90% of the people listening to this will most likely not do these things. They're not necessarily easy things to do.

Prove him wrong. Everyone who's listening, prove him wrong. I would love it if 100% of the people prove me wrong. But I'm just saying statistically, you know, nine out of 10 people will hear this stuff. It'll go right over the head. They won't actually implement it. That being said, you don't have to have any kind of special quality. You don't have to have any resources. It requires no real money. Anybody that's listening to this can implement these five things and drastically change their life. The question is, do you have the willpower? Do you have the discipline? Do you have the drive to actually want to make the changes? Let's get into it. What's the first one? The first one, which I know, and listen, again, these are basics. So the way we've broken this down is we're going to give you the basics. We're going to tell you the why. We're going to tell you the how. And we're going to tell you what will happen. you actually implement these changes. So the first one is you have to build a strong fitness routine and you have to get in shape. When you're somebody that puts yourself out there and starts getting in shape right off the bat, you're going to feel a sense of accomplishment, which is, which you're going to

feel better about yourself. You're going to feel that implementing this kind of discipline in your life is going to empower you to implement other kinds of disciplines in your life. So many people just fail to have a basic fitness routine. I completely agree with you. Something that I do that has helped me so much is I have an accountability partner. So what I do is Michael and I work out together when we lift and then I hired a trainer to keep me accountable. If you can't do that, that's fine. I also meet a friend and I'll take a walk. I meet my friend Kim Kelly on Skype every Sunday and we work out together and it's in my calendar. So I make sure that I'm doing something with someone else. And this could mean a walk around the lake with a friend from high school. This could mean using my husband to keep me

accountable. This could mean hiring a trainer, whatever it is. I like having an accountability person in my life when it comes to working out. And what I'll do, because I'm a psycho with my calendar, is I'll send an invite. And I actually structure my calendar. I don't even know if Michael knows this. The foundation of the skeleton of my calendar is my workout. So everything else is built around my workout. And what that does is it makes the workout a non-negotiable in my calendar. So I send the invite to whoever my accountability person is, I'll put it in yellow. And I like to usually do it in the morning so it's out of the way. Yeah, Lauren jumped right to like, you know, how, but I want to talk a little bit more about the why as well. A lot of people listening to this are hearing us talking about

developing a fitness routine thinking it's just for aesthetics. It's really like aesthetics is part of it, but it's really not the main reason. I believe that if you have a strong fitness routine and you're busting your ass in the gym or in some kind of workout, you're going to get your endorphins flowing. If you're someone who struggles with anxiety or depression, this is going to help clear some of those feelings out of your system. When you're doing hard things and you're putting your body through exertion, you're exhausting yourself. You don't have time to feel some of these negative emotions because you're flushing your system with such positive movement. So really, it's not just about the aesthetics, which of course you'll get the benefit from. It's also about feeling good. You're also going to get better

ideas. Whenever I work out and I personally do it in the morning like Lauren, I get some of my best ideas. Sometimes I have to pause in the middle of the workout and go write something down just because my brain's flowing. So if you're in a stupor, you're stuck and you're wondering, you know, what's that next creative endeavor or what, you know, that next idea, just getting a strong fitness routine is going to be important. And like Lauren said, on the how, I think a lot of people struggle with this because they don't create a system of accountability. For Lauren and I, fortunately, we work out with with the trainer out here, Brent. That was obviously an investment. I know everybody can't make it. But maybe that's finding a friend or someone who also wants to get in shape.

Maybe that's, you know, telling your followers on social media, even, you know, if it's a small following that you're going to do this and you're creating this challenge and you're going to hold yourself accountable there. I think it's difficult when you just rely on your own self-discipline and you don't create some kind of accountability system to get yourself moving. And listen, you're not going to hit it every single day, but just having this system in place and creating a routine, which I'll talk about in a minute, is so critically important. I also want to share like a little, a little tangent story. So my trainer, Brent, he's amazing and Austin, told me that he has the opportunity to work out with a lot of different couples. And he has been a trainer for a long time,

like years and years and years. And he has seen a common denominator. So couples that work out together and hold each other accountable tend to do really well in their marriage. Meaning they stay together? They stay together. They have a strong foundation. It's fun for them. Like Michael and I make it like a hobby. Like we get in the car, we'll talk business, we'll talk about our kids. We also hold each other accountable. I'll grab his penis, whatever it is on the way to the gym. Like that's our time together. We'll listen to jazz. He'll try to change his channel to heavy metal. And then we'll get to the workout and we'll go workout together and we'll have this really incredible like fun workout. And listen, we're doing different things. And obviously we're not all

sometimes we're doing the same thing, but a lot of times we're doing different things, but in the same space. And then after the workout, we have another, you know, 20 minutes in the car together where we can strategize. Sometimes we'll go pick up our daughter together. We'll maybe like go to the market, whatever it is. We have that space and it's really nice. So anyways, back to Brent. He said that either couples, they work out together and they have this incredible like flow in their marriage or one person starts to work out, hold themselves accountable, drink less, eat better, et cetera, et cetera, and wants to transform their life. And the other one stays sort of flat and stagnant.

And they're still laying on the couch and they're not working out. And they're, you know, they're maybe eating the junk food. And what ends up happening, he told me, is they grow apart. And there's no surprise there. If you're in a relationship and the person that you're with doesn't want to level up with you, I personally don't want to drag you up. It's like, get going. Well, sometimes and this applies to other areas in life when you are in a relationship

that could be a friendship, you know, an intimate relationship, whatever it is. And you start to try to make positive changes in the other person that you're in that close relationship wants to stay in the same place. Sometimes there could be resentment built on both sides. And I think this is just part of human nature. So again, I think Lauren and I, to get specific about our strategy is we have obviously employed a trainer, which again, I know not everyone can do. It's an investment for us, which I'll talk about later.

We've sacrificed some other areas of our life that we no longer spend on in order to do this. and we hold each other accountable by going to the gym multiple times a week together. So if I'm not going one day, I have to have the conversation where, you know, she says, why aren't you going and vice versa? So it holds us accountable. And again, I think this is just super important. And I think the reason that we put this as number one, or I know the reason we put this as number one is if you get a solid workout in place and a solid foundation to continue working out and building your body, it eliminates so many of the other hardships in life. Like I said, if you're stressed, if you're anxious, if you're depressed, if you're depressed,

If you're not feeling confident, if you don't, if you don't feel good about your overall well-being, maybe you just don't feel well as a person. You don't feel healthy. Getting a basic fitness routine in place that you can be consistent with for years on end. And I'm not saying months. I'm saying years on end, just make it part of your like brushing your teeth. This is going to eliminate so many of the other hardships that you have in life. So again, I think I'm very passionate about this subject because I think it will help so many people if they just develop a routine, which we can touch on a little bit. When you show up for yourself with a workout every single day, you are building your confidence muscle. When you are showing up and you are putting in those reps and you are sweating and you are moving your body,

you are building confidence within yourself. I always like to sort of show a sliding door situation. There's two ways to wake up, right? You can wake up. You can grab your phone. You can stare at it. You can scroll through social media. you can lay in bed for 30 minutes looking at everyone else's life.

You can roll out of bed. You can grab coffee first thing and you can sit down at your computer and do emails. Or you can wake up. You can put your phone away. Make the bed. Get outside. Take a walk. Move.

Maybe work out. It's a totally different life between those two people in five years. And I also want to say that while this has obviously a personal effect, this also has an external effect. When people see you putting in that discipline and changing your life and developing a routine that's going to keep you in shape, they automatically take you more seriously as a person because they see the personal discipline you have. So if you're trying to go into a leadership position or if you just want, you know, you want to go on that next date or you want people to start taking them more seriously, when they see that you are somebody that has individual

personal discipline, you will start to be taken more seriously in all sorts of different circles, which is important. So to talk about routines, and I I think this is important to highlight because a lot of people are saying, well, what is the workout? What Lauren and I do personally every week is we do three to four days of strength training, which we've talked about on many other episodes. If you just search, you know, skinny confidential strength training or listen to the episode we just did with Peter Attia. I won't bore into the details here. But we do that three to four days a week. Three days a week, light cardio. This could be a walk zone two, enough to get your heartbeat moving, but nothing too exerting.

And then one day a week, it's kind of like an all-out cardio. The reason that muscle building is such a priority for us is I don't think a lot of people realize how important muscle is. And we've been talking about it again more on this show. But after the age of 30, you lose about 1% of your muscle mass every year. So without muscle, you're going to age faster. You're going to not, your structure is not going to be as strong. For men, your testosterone is going to drop. And if you have strong muscle mass, you're also going to burn more fat. So this is why we put a priority on muscle and then also implement the cardio. For me, I do four days a week of strength training, like Michael said. And then I work out with

Kim Kelly every Sunday on Skype and then I'll do Melissa Wood Health from home. So that's something that anyone can do in the comfort of their own home. And then I will go on those walks with Michael. I also make it a priority to walk my son every single morning. And I feel like that gets in like 3,000 steps. So just like getting it in where you can. And getting it in where you can, I know a lot of people are listening. And listen, again, if you're already making excuses, I'll go back to the beginning, you're probably part of that 90%. Everybody's stressed for time, but everybody has the same amount of hours in the day. So this may mean you need to wake up an hour and a half earlier. You might need to go to bed an hour and a half later. It might mean you need to stop scrolling as

much on social media. It might mean you have to cut out some social hours with friends. But if you make this a priority, it will change your life. And the effect that it'll have some of the things that'll just happen to you is you'll be able to take on more. You'll feel better. You'll have better ideas. Your anxiety and depression will diminish and you'll feel better about yourself. Not to mention, you'll just be healthy. So there's so many benefits, better sex, everything. So again, this is number one because I feel like if you get your fitness foundation in place, many of the other hardships that we face as humans will eliminate themselves. What's next? The second thing that we put on this list, which I just, you know, I feel is becoming a lost art. It's becoming a lost hobby.

People are, again, doing this less and less, but it's had such an impact on my life and so many people we've interviewed on this show is reading and reading every single day a lot more than you think you need to read. This is another activity that. I find I'm obsessed with doing with my husband. The reason I think Michael and I, well, for me, why I love my marriage is because, and I talked about this on another podcast, but it's like, I love my marriage because in my marriage, my husband lets me be independent and in my own space. And what I mean by that is Michael and I can be in the same room, be in silence doing our own thing. And one of those things that we do together and we do this every night is read.

and this has just become a habit. It's like when we get in bed, sometimes it's like 730 or 8, and we have like our red light on and we're winding down, we both will pull out our kindles. That is, it's just like a thing that we do. And it's something we do together and we compare notes on what we're reading. And it's become to me like a really nice way to wind down. It's a really nice way to connect. When I'm over connecting, I put my mouth tape on and say I can't speak. We'll read like the same books, Right now, we're both reading Elon Musk's book. And Michael's trying to tell me everything that's going to happen. And I'm like, shut up.

By Walter Isaacson. Really good book. But the point is, is like, we've made it an activity that's fun. So that's another way to sort of hold yourself accountable as a couple. Quick break to talk about symbiotica. It is true. My skin is absolutely glowing. Many of you have been writing to me personally saying that I look absolutely incredible.

And that is because my vitamin C levels are boosted out the ass because I take symbiotica's vitamin C, which is producing my collagen. I also take their vitamin D3, K2 and K2 and K-U-10, which I think is the best vitamin D3 formulation on the market. Yes, I said that, the best one, and their vitamin B-12. They have so many amazing supplements. Lorne and I have had the founder of Symbiotica, Cherveen, who many of you guys love on this show. I think he's leading the charge, maybe four or five interviews, the most times that we've had any guest on, because we could just talk to this guy about anything. And like I said, symbiotica is really paving the way and leading the charge when it comes to amazing formulations and supplements, all liposomal, which is supplementation

that you actually eat like food instead of a pill form. And I could just go on and on about this company. I think I may be one of their best customers, if not their best customer. I use my own code all the time. And they're a partner of this show. And it's because I believe they have some of the best products on the market. And I love that they're liposomal. So jokes aside, check out their vitamin C. I think it's one of the most powerful vitamin C formulas. Vitamin C is so important for so many functions in the body. And if you want to have that glowing skin like me, it's also great. They're consistently rolling out some of the highest quality supplements on the market. And Lauren and I could not be bigger fans.

Chervian, you got to come back on the show soon and talk about all the new stuff you guys are working on. So to check it out and get 15% offsitewide, visit symbiotica.com slash skinny for 15% offsite wide. Again, that is symbiotica.com slash skinny for 15% offsite wide. Quick break to talk about proper hydration. If you're somebody that's drinking bottles and bottles are liters and liters and liters of water, and you don't seem to be holding it, and it's all just coming out clear, and you don't feel hydrated, not to get too gross here, it's probably because you don't have the proper electrolyte ratio in your body. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Element, Element is a tasty electrolyte drink

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share it with a salty friend and they will give you your money back. No questions asked. You have nothing to lose. DrinkElement.com slash skinny. If you have a baby, I'm going to let you in on the best kept secret ever. A lightly weighted baby sleep sack. Oh, my God. This has helped so much. If you know me, you know I already love a weighted blanket myself, so does Michael. So when I found out that Dreamland baby has a lightly weighted sleep sack, I freaked out.

I have been using this sleep sack. Literally the whole time Towns has been alive. and it is an absolute game changer. In fact, the nights that he has not had it, which has been rare, maybe one or two, have been a nightmare. Let me just tell you, you've got to get a lightly weighted sleep sack. The one that I have is so cute. It's like white. It's simple.

It's plain. He loves it. He even associates it with sleep. So when he gets in bed, he knows that he's going to get his baby sleep sack. And it just helps him fall asleep faster. But here's the real thing it does. It helps him stay asleep longer. The founder is this amazing woman who noticed that her son,

when he was six months old, was waking up every hour and a half. And she was so tired and desperate for sleep. So she placed a heavy thrill blanket on him and noticed he calmed down. All right. So you're going to go to dreamland babyco.com and inner our code skinny at checkout. You receive 20% off sitewide and free shipping. This offer is for new and existing customers. to be honest, if you're going to a baby shower or you need to get your friend or a new mama gift,

this is it, guys. Use Code Skinny at checkout. That's Streamlinebabyco.com. Use code skinny. And for people out there that aren't fans of reading, let me try to convince you a little bit on the reasons why, let me try to convince you some of the reasons why you should start to read because I attribute the high, high majority of any success I've had in my life to reading. I've said on multiple times on the show, I was a terrible student. I could barely pay attention. I barely skimmed by. It was not my thing. Detention every Saturday. Detention every Saturday. Moaning the principal. Flicking the teachers off. Okay, but there nothing to do with my learning. That was just behavioral issues. But anyways. Time out. Was honestly can barely remember anything that I ever learned in school,

which is begs to say, well, how the hell has this guy gone on to create multiple companies and, you know, become successful in his life and have a successful marriage? Bragging a little bit about myself. But to be honest, it's things. And it's because the answers that I've found have been in books. It's been reading other people's lives, reading about mistakes they've made, reading a bunch of self-help and learning, picking out maybe one good idea a week. All of the things that have happened in my life that have been good have been because I've learned things in books. And here's the other thing. If you're on the dating scene, you just, and you want to be more interesting, like read because you're going to have more to talk about. By the way, even if you're not on the dating scene,

If you're looking for friends, like bring something interesting to the table. I'm married and I still will read stuff and like bring a fact to dinner. It's interesting to bring something interesting to the table that you've read. Also, if you're stuck in a rut and you're sitting there and you're thinking about your career and you're like, what's that next idea? What do I do next? You know, where should I go? The answer's in books. It takes basically one good idea.

So what I would recommend for people that are starting out and maybe don't have a developed reading habit is I would start in the genre of self-help. I know a lot of people like fiction and I know a lot of people like biographies, but I would start in the genre of self-help. Typically, these authors are writing in a way that's digestible and easy to understand. Typically, these books aren't as long so you can get through them rather quickly. And the whole idea here is just to start flushing your mind with one good idea every single week. So if you could set a target to say, I'm going to read one self-help book a week, your life will drastically change. I'm going to, sorry, Michael, disagree with you. I think you should start with biographies. I think that they're more digestible if you get the right one. Yeah, but the

problem is with biographies. I'm talking about changing your life for the positive. And there's a lot of great things in biographies. But if you're somebody who's just getting into reading and you're struggling, sometimes biographies are difficult to jump into. You're not going to read a self-help book and be like, man, that was terrible. You might just say, hey, that wasn't a good idea. Sometimes you read a biography and there's not a lot to apply. And so again, this goes down to like, I guess this falls into like the how category, a lot of people struggle to read because they don't make it a habit. So I promise you, and I've said this on other shows, if you all open your phone apps right now and you go to the setting where you can see how much time you spend per month and per week on apps,

I almost can promise you that most people listening will find the majority of their time on social media apps, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, podcast, YouTube. if you just took half of the hours that you spent scrolling aimlessly and applied that instead to reading, your life will be completely different in six months. I also think that you make time for what you want to make time for. If you're listening to a podcast all day long, you could put the podcast down and read. But not this one. But not this one.

If you are shopping online for an hour a day, you could put that down and read. You make time for what's important to you. And this is something else that I schedule in my calendar. I can't speak for Michael on this, but this is in my calendar. And if I wake up early and my kids aren't up and I get the opportunity to meditate, and I have time afterwards, I'll read. Like I just squeeze it in where I can. Michael brings his Kindle to doctor appointments.

Well, it also like this, there's a multiple added benefits of reading. One, it's a little bit of a meditative practice, at least for me. Two, instead of going to bed and watching a bunch of TV or binging Netflix or some streaming service, I read so I get better sleep. And if you get better sleep, there's going to be a whole host of things that you're going to benefit from. You know, one of the things in here should, you know, we should just say at the beginning, like sleep is number one most important. You got to figure that out. But I think all these things we're talking about will help with sleep. And two or three is that if you if you start to crowd your time with books, you're going to also get rid of a bunch of poor

behaviors like endless scrolling and wasted time on things that aren't serving you. So again, if you start to read, your life is just going to drastically change. I also want to just note, how from a really micro perspective, we get it in. I read at night every night. I read from, usually from eight to nine every single night. The reading sort of lulls me to sleep around nine. And I read on dark mode on a Kindle so the lights can be off. So literally after I put my mouth tape on, all I have to do is shut my eyes. So it's on dark mode. There's no lights on. Michael does the same thing. I read on an Oasis Kindle. I like the Oasis because you can click the buttons on the side as opposed to having to turn.

in the page. And I will say I am like reading is probably one of my favorite things to do since I was little. But my reading has grown by probably 10 times since I got a Kindle. So if you're looking to like really take it up a level, I like a Kindle. And what's cool about a Kindle is if you're not loving a book, you can switch to another book immediately with the press of a button. The other cool thing about the Kindle is if you have the Kindle, you can also get the Kindle app on your phone. So even if you forget your Kindle, you can open your phone and pull up books. I don't love the phone though because it's blue light in my face. Sure, but I'm saying if you're in a pinch and you just want to have it, if you're on a flight or whatever it is. So some of the things that I've really like, I want to talk about,

again, some of the things that reading will do for you. Anytime I felt depressed or down in my life, I will go read a story about somebody who's had it much worse. I know a lot of people's source books like Man Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel. If you ever start to feel bad about yourself and you read a book like that and see how hard people have had it. And some of the things people have had to go through. It helps give you perspective. I just got done reading a book called The Wager, which is all about this ship that took off in the 1740s and shipwreck and the things that these sailors had to go through. And you start to think, hey, my life is tough. Read a story like that. It'll give you some perspective. Also, anytime I'm stuck in my business or, you know, trying to figure something out, I go to these books and I mine for ideas that I can either pivot or find to fix whatever's going on in the business. You know, I don't think people realize all we have right at our fingertips for relatively next to no cost mistakes that the history of the world and people in this world have made in previous eras in previous time. Instead of learning the hard way yourself, open a book and see

what people have done to get through some of life's hardest things. So again, you're going to feel better. You're going to feel better about yourself. You're going to get perspective. You're going to have a different view of the world. You're probably going to end up being able to speak better, have better conversations. There's just no reason why you shouldn't be reading more. And again, you're going to crowd out bad behaviors like endlessly scrolling on useless social apps. I also want to share three books that we have read lately. I'll go first. I just finished this incredible series called Playing Doctor. There's three of them. I could not put them down. I highly recommend this series if you're interested in like hospital life. The writer is really funny and

cheeky, but he tells like all the stories that you want to know, but not in a gross way. I love. I loved those books. It's called Playing Doctor on Amazon. The other book that I just finished that I keep recommending to everyone is Johnny Carson's book. It's so good. It was like written by his lawyer and it's kind of like a tell-all. You get to see a really 360 approach of Johnny Carson. And then another one that I just read that I loved is The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. I think that's a really good one to keep going back to. It applies to so many different. circumstances in life. So those are the three books that I'm loving right now. If anyone's looking for book recommendations, I also on my blog, the skinny confidential.com, have like so many different kinds of genres and ideas of books to read if you're looking for more. Are my book posts filter? I think I've done some recommendations on your site. You have. Do you have three books that you can share? Well, I say right now I'm reading Walter Isaacson's book about Elon Musk and I know that's like a big book right now, but also I love him as an author. He wrote Ben Franklin's autobiography. He did

the one on Steve Jobs. He's just a phenomenal author. So I'm reading that in a self-help genre. I think Ryan Holiday also is doing books on the four cardinal rules, which we've got to have him back on and talk about that. And he has a book called Courage's Calling. I'm reading that. These books that I just read, is it Killers of the Flower Moon and the Wager? I always forget the guy's name because I just, I devoured these books. I'm going to find it because it's right on my Instagram. I mean, they're nonfiction historical books. One, one took place in this country, another in England. But anyways, phenomenal books, different, different genres. Ronro. His name is David Grand. Yeah, David Grant. Yeah, his books. I mean, everybody knows that they're like so reviewed on Amazon. It took me forever to get around to reading them. But they are phenomenal. I could see why they've done so well. So there's that. And then like Lauren said, she has recommendations that we've done on her blog and we'll do more. But anyways, reading will change your life for the better. There is no downside to reading. You will get smarter. You will get more successful. You will be more liked. You'll be more fun. And it's just there's just no downside whatsoever. Okay. And again,

Like I said, these are all very basic things, but people just fail to do them. They struggle. They sound like, okay, duh, but you'd be surprised how many people don't utilize these. Number three, cutting toxic people from your life. Controversy. This one sounds like a no-brainer, like you said. But sometimes I think there's a little bit of an addiction to toxic people. I think that there is an addiction to maybe the chaos of it all or an addiction to

wanting to help the chaos. I even find myself sometimes getting sucked into it, but I constantly am checking myself and bringing myself up to a balance. I think that if you have toxic people in your life, and Gary V says this, instead of eliminating them, you should limit your exposure to them. So maybe for you, that looks like talking to them every six months. Maybe for you, that looks like seeing them on Thanksgiving. I don't know what that is, but I think that this one is probably out of all five the most important. Well, people really struggle with this idea because the problem is, and this is where there's controversy, and this is where a lot of people are just going to have pushback on this one, some of these toxic people could be your parents. It could be your significant

other. It could be your spouse. It could be your girlfriend. It could be your best friend from childhood. But sometimes people grow apart, but we all know these people that we've had in our life. Some of you may still have them that they're never happy for you. There's always a problem. They're always complaining about something. They're dragging you down. You ever try to improve yourself or change for the better? They're not supportive of it.

They make fun of you sometimes about it. Passive aggressive. They're passive aggressive about it. And here's the thing. I made a little list of just some of the things that some of these toxic people can do to you. One, like I said, they're dragging you down. They're holding you back from success. If you think what's that five people rule, the five people you surround yourself,

but that's true, right? Other successful people that are around will not want to surround themselves with you if you're with toxic people. So you're just going to immediately alienate people that are positive and successful and want the best. And they don't, you know, they give you a negative outlook on the world. You're going through life with an outlook that's not real, right? Like, you get stuck with all these people that are constantly dreary thoughts and negative thoughts. And that's how you'll start to think as well. So this is really, really hard to do. This might be the hardest one on the list because it's personal, but it's something that if you want to change your life, you absolutely must do. I want to give a little bullet to this too. Cutting toxic people from your life does not

just mean your inner and outer circle. It also means cutting negative content out of your life. If you wake up and every single morning, you go on Twitter and you are looking at every single negative headline. And then you go on Instagram and you're looking at someone's content for five minutes that's just making you feel bad or you're looking at a friend from high school that's just pulling you down. Whatever it is, I would be very aware of the content that you're consuming to make sure that it's not toxic and negative because you're filling your brain with that all day. And that could even mean a podcast you're listening to, a book on tape, maybe even a book you're reading. I'm always like looking at what I'm consuming, not just from the people who are directly

in my life, but also from the content surrounds me. You know, I was watching this video the other day and it was a guy and I can't remember his name. It was I just got served to me randomly on YouTube. And he was talking about how back when he was drinking and using drugs, anytime he would share his party days, he would get all this praise from all these people online and all these people in his social circle. But as soon as he started turning his life around and sharing that he was having success, whether that was financially or maybe he moved into a new house or. you know, he's doing better in his job, people actually started to kind of be negative towards him and make fun of him and we're not supportive. And what he was saying about this is this is just such a, you know, this is a perfect example of, you know, the majority of people wanting to be

toxic and keeping people down. People are fine with you sharing when you don't feel good or when you're partying or when something bad has happened to you. And we all go around and commiserate, say, oh, that's okay. But as soon as you start to talk about, hey, things are going well for me, you get this pushback. You know, and I think this is exactly what I'm talking about. Imagine staying in that mindset all the time where people celebrate your losses and never celebrate your wins. We invite this kind of stuff into our personal life and the relationships we have with some of our friends, some of our family members, some of the people we choose to be in intimate relationships

with. And all it's doing is holding you back. So again, there's going to be some people that listen to this and they're going to have a real pushback and say, easy for you to say, I'm not cutting people out in my life. I have, you know, some people have this weird loyalty to people they've known for a long period of time. For me and Lauren, if you're not serving that kind of positive space and if you're trying to drag us down, we're moving in a different direction because we've learned over the years that if you don't help yourself, nobody else is going to help you. The coyotes howl and the

caravan keeps moving. Yep. And so some of the ways you can do this, like Lauren said, you can move away slowly. I've found the best way to do this so that you doesn't have to be a big cut is to start inviting other positive people into your life. So let's go back to working out. Maybe instead of going out on a Friday night and getting shit-faced, maybe you join a workout group and you crowd the, you crowd your space with positive people. And you can invite those, you know, if you wanted to try to bring those people up with you, you can invite some of these negative people along. Chances are they're going to be resistant to it and maybe even make fun of you for doing it. But what I found is instead of just pushing back and saying get out of my life, you start to

crowd them out with other positive people, other positive practices. And slowly over time, you can just back away if they don't back away themselves. And the ones that want to, come level up with you will come level up with you we were in san diego all summer and most of the summer and it was so amazing because brent our trainer came out to san diego and it was really fun because my sister-in-law jordan and my brother-in-law nico came to work out with us every single day and it was cool to like show up to a workout with them and put in the work with them every single day my dad same thing he showed up to the workout he was like game he was ready to go and that is that's it's fun be doing something that's healthy and wellnessy with, you know, your family. And I also think it,

like brings everyone joy. I think planning wellness things, like Michael said, does crowd out too much alcohol, too late nights. So crowd it out. And listen, your worst case scenario is you end up without a toxic person in your life and you free yourself up from that negative space and you're able to go on with your life in a more, you know, positive way. Your best case is those people see the actions you're taking and decide that they also want to change their lives and stop being negative and want to improve themselves. And so you really have no loss here. You either get rid of the negativity or you lead by example and bring other people up with you. But it's going to be extremely important for people to do. I'm telling you, being in business for as long as I have been

and having the partners I have and being in the relationships, nobody wants to be around negative people with loser mentality. No, everyone wants to be around solution oriented. What's next? Like, where's the positivity? Like, if you, if, This way isn't working. What way can we look? Like not talking about the problem all the time. Yeah. It's like everybody has that one friend where everyone's excited to go out and do the thing. And then you get that one EOR in the back that ruins the night. So again, you just got to move forward. You got to deploy some empathy, but you have to cut them out of your life. As harsh as it sounds, it's the only way you're going to move forward without having them dragging behind.

I also think there's this thing called empathy fatigue where you apply too much empathy to someone who's always complaining and you just get fatigued of it. Well, the problem with that is then you actually end up presenting the person to being angry, and that blows up in a different way. Right. Here's a hot tip. If you're around someone, there's two types of people. They're either a dementor and they're sucking the energy or they're bringing in good energy. And it's really easy to sort of separate the two people. The ones that are dementors are negative and probably toxic. So to recap here on these first three things, we've talked about developing a strong fitness routine so that you can have strong body that's going to enable. you have a strong mind. We've talked about implementing reading that's going to help expand your mind, give you a better vocabulary, make you a more well-rounded person, give you a little calm, hopefully make you sleep better. And now we've also talked about cleaning up your environment and maybe getting rid of some of these toxic people or toxic sources that are maybe holding you back

or dragging you down. The next thing that I really want to discuss that I know 100% will change people's lives and I know I need guys, I need an episode on this and now you're beating me up about it. but one source of many people's stress is their finances and money. And it's because people do not have a healthy relationship with money. And they most importantly do not have a healthy relationship with saving and investing. This is so important to do as a human being. I know some people care less about financials than others. But so many of us go through life so stressed with our backs against the wall,

feeling like we have very little options, living paycheck to paycheck, not knowing what to do next, feeling a pressure all the time because they have not developed a healthy relationship with money and saving, which Lauren, I know you're going to talk to me about right now. When the fuck are you going to do your finance episode? I'm going to do the finance episode. I'm going to talk all about making more. But here's the thing. It doesn't matter if I tell people how to make more money if they don't learn how to save and invest more money. What happens is most of the time when people start earning more, instead of saving more, they just increase their spending habits more. So you may go from making,

50,000 to 70,000 or 70,000 to 100,000. But if you don't figure out a discipline to start saving and investing your money, you're going to be the exact same place with bigger numbers. By the way, number four is learning to save and invest and stop spending on things you don't need. So you just wrap that in a bow. So I want to talk about this a little bit because I promise you there's people out there saying easy for you to say, listen, it is not lost on me that at this point in my career, I have financial stability. But it's because not, not, not, because of the success of all the businesses. Obviously, that plays into it in a large part. But I live with Lauren well below our means because I've learned a discipline on how to invest

and save. So if you're somebody right now that is living paycheck to paycheck and you have not figured out how to save, the first thing that I need to teach you how to do is I need to teach you how to set a certain amount of that income aside so that you can start a savings profile on an investment profile. Now, many of you listening may say, well, I need every single dollar right now to pay my bills. That's problem number one. Your bills are too high. You're living above your means and you're living a lifestyle that you can't afford if you can't save. So that may mean, and this is like I said, 90% of people will not do this. This is very hard, especially when it comes to savings. You may need to downgrade your lifestyle. You mean to get rid of that car with the

big payment. You may need to move into a smaller place. Hell, you may even need to move to a different state or a different city, right? Many people do that. You for sure, if you're not saving, need to stop buying things that you don't need and especially things that you're buying to impress other people. That also may mean that you need to stop going out and being social every night of the week. This is like a crunch period of time where you need to figure out, okay, get my finances in order and do whatever I can to start saving. This could be as little as five or 10 percent, but you need to figure out how you can pay yourself first, which means save a little first, no matter what those sacrifices may mean. And you need to slowly start saving and investing over time.

If you don't do this, even if you get a raise, even if you find a way to make more money, you're going to stay on the same hamster wheel the rest of your life. This is something that there's no sugar-coding this. There's no way for me. There's no how you feel about it. This is a cold, hard truth about saving and investing. You have to figure a way to start setting money aside for your future. I don't mean to brag, but my hair has never been thicker. And there's a couple reasons for that. And I am very serious about my supplementation. You know this.

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Visit ebay.com for terms. That's ebay.bay.com for terms. Quick break to talk about beekeepers natural's brain fuel. You guys have heard us talk about beekeepers naturals for years now. We've had Carly, the founder of beekeepers on this show before to talk about all the benefits of bee propolis and their throat spray, which is one of their early hero products. But one of our favorite products that Lauren and I use all the things. time, especially when we need to break from caffeine or when we're going to do a podcast or even

when I'm going to do reads like this and I just want to roll off the top of my head. We use the Royal Jelly Brain Fuel. This is like Adderall, but all natural. It helps combat fatigue and helps you find your flow. And you can use it, like I said, as a caffeine-free boost of energy to get you in the zone or beat that 3 p.m. slump when it's too late or you're thinking about having that other cup of coffee. You can use this instead.

We love the brain fuel and we definitely take it on days where we feel we need to focus or get into deep work. So if you have, you know, maybe it's a Monday and you really got to dive into it, take it then, or if you're doing a creative endeavor, we want to feel a little more creative, do it then. Lorne and I really use this Neutropic as a tool for when we really just got to focus and get into that flow. And of course, what we love about beekeepers naturals is it's clean and effective products that work. They're all third party tested for all pesticides. They're dedicated to sustainable beekeeping and helping save the bees and it's female founded. And of course, we have an offer today. Beekeepers naturals is offering you an exclusive offer.

go to beekeepers naturals.com and enter code skinny to get 20% off your order. That's B-E-E-K-E-E-P-E-R-S-N-A-T-U-R-A-L-S dot com and enter code skinny. Beekeepers Naturals products are also available at Target, Whole Foods, Amazon, CVS, and Walgreens. Bekeepers naturals.com promo code skinny. Michael is really, really savvy and smart when it comes to finances. I feel like that's something that he's taken interest in. And I know you read Tony Robbins' book, had changed his trajectory. I'll give you guys some book recommendations in a second.

Yeah. Do you have to give us some book recommendations? I have something to add about money that's maybe like not on this list. Ever since, you know, way, way back when I started working, I was not making a lot of money. I was making, you know, at the time, I guess it was decent money in a restaurant. I wasn't making a ton of money. But I always had an abundant mindset when it came to money. I will talk to a lot of my friends who have a lot of money.

And they're constantly coming from a scarcity mindset. And they're constantly telling me they can't do this because they don't have the money or they don't want to spend the money because they can't waste the money. I have always looked at money as a tool and I have looked at it that I can always go out and make more. So for me, everything with money has always been abundant, abundant, abundant. And listen, I have been at restaurants where my credit card declines for $100. I have many stories that we can go back on from when I had no money, but I always was like, I'm going to go out and make more. I'm going to go out and make more. I always wanted to make my own money. I always wanted to have an independence around my money. And I think it really matters what your mindset is around the money and what your relationship to that is with yourself in your head with money.

So listen to the way that you're speaking about money. Are you always saying you don't have enough? Your paycheck isn't enough? Are you always saying you can't afford that? Oh, I can't do that because I don't have money. Watch the way that you talk to yourself when it comes to money. I personally think that makes a huge difference. One thing I notice about Michael, like specifically all that, and I told him this this morning, is he's always, even if he has something, he's always looking for ways to do it differently, to do it better, to do it bigger. And a lot of people would say, oh, like, can't you just be happy with what

have, but Edmyslet calls it blissful, blissfully dissatisfied, calls it. And it basically means that Michael is blissful in the state he's in, but he's also dissatisfied. And what that does is it sort of, it ups the goal. It ups the Annie. And I think that that's a really great way to sort of build the building blocks of money. Well, I think, again, this is people, it's a shame that more financial literacy is not taught to people because you go through school and nobody sits you down and says, hey, this is how you save. This is how you invest. I did an episode on finances. If you just Google, Michael Bostic personal financials, like finances or finance episode, I think. It's one of the episodes, and I'll link it here. I want to do another one. But nobody teaches you

this stuff. And so what happens is you have people that are financially literate that have done well for themselves, try to give people advice. And what I see on the internet, which is a shame, is most of the time these people that are trying to give other people advice, the pushback is easy for you to say, I have bills. And it's like, all the information. gets disregarded. There was a time when both of us were not nearly as well off as we are now and had to figure these things out. So what I would say, and I talked about this little, is you have to start figuring a way to pay yourself first before your taxes, before your credit card bills. You have to figure a way to set something aside and you just have to get in the habit of it.

You have to start living below your means if you're stressed every month about your pay, about your bills and the income that's coming in. If every month your backs against the wall, you have to try to eliminate credit card debt. We live in a country where people glamorize, putting stuff on a credit card and bearing all this crazy interest. Again, this is mostly because we're buying things we don't need. If for a period of time, you need to grab a second job to just get this, to clear this debt and to increase your income, fine. But we need to start saving and investing. Ideally, you would have six months of savings in a savings account. I know that's a lot, but I think for a lot of people, I'll talk about why I think that's important. And then you'd

have some kind of brokerage account where you can go into index funds. There's plenty of people like Ramith, who's been on this show, he has a book called I'll teach you to be rich. You know, Tony Robbins book, Money Mash, of the Games, great too to teach people. But you have to get in this habit, right? And once you do that and you develop a savings habit, here's what's going to happen. You're going to have more comfort. You're not going to feel the stress all the time. You're going to have more flexibility in your life, whether that's applying for a different

job, staying in your current job. Your stress is going to go down because your back's not going to be against the wall. You're going to be able to relax when you make decisions. You're not going to have to do it because of a financial reason. you're going to do it because you want to do it. You're going to feel more confident. And most importantly, if you start investing, your money will grow more and more each year. If you're, if you're somebody in your youth right now and you start doing this, compounding will take effect. Search that in these books that I'm talking about. And you will, you will have money later in

life. It is such a shame. Lauren and I know so many people that did not save and invest in their younger years that are now starting to become older, that have no investments, no savings. and it's really difficult for them because it gets harder and harder to make money as you get older. You want to start replacing your income with your investment. So this is so critically important. I know I'm harping on this over and over. A lot of people, this is going to go right over the head. They're not going to do this.

You have to get your hand around finances. To end this, I will give you a couple books. Like I said, Tony Robbins, Money Master of the Game. It's a big book, but if you can get through it, it's very important to at least give you a basic understanding. Lauren talked about this earlier, the psychology of money, I think Morgan Housel, who, by the way, Morgan come on the show, is in a phenomenal book, just how to think about it, financial freedom and the simple path to wealth. And then obviously the richest man in Babylon, which is a classic. If people take that and apply that to your

reading habit, put those five books in the stack and become literate on money if you're not, and that will change your life. Michael is obviously an expert here. But one thing that's really, again, really helped me with my mindset is you can heal your life by Louise Hay. And she talks about how the way you talk to yourself in your head is actually how your life pans out. So if you're constantly saying, I suck at money, I'm poor. Everything sucks for me. I can't make money because my parents were poor. I'm never going to get to that level. That's what you're telling yourself on repeat all the time on your cassette. Can you imagine what that's going to do in 10 years if you constantly are telling yourself how much you suck and how

you are, that is not an abundant mindset. So that book has really helped me speak to myself in my head in a positive way. I tried to do. I've done this now with Lauren's sister Mimi from a young age. Unfortunately for me, I didn't learn all these habits until I was in my 30s. And so it's taken me or late 20. So I sacrifice a lot of years. But if you're a young person, you can start early again, the power of compounding is pretty phenomenal. And I think it's just getting in the habit. What I worry the most about people is this is not necessarily. even about increasing your income. If you're a young person and you're stressed about bills, that's normal.

Every young person's stressed about bills. But as you get older, if you don't start learning these habits early on, as you get wage increases or you get better jobs or you get higher pay, if you don't start doing this stuff now, all that's going to happen in your life is, again, you're going to get a bigger paycheck and you're going to do the same thing. You're going to spend all of it at the end of each month. So again, it's developing the saving and investing habit early on and understanding that a portion of the income you bring in needs to be set aside for future rainy days. This is going to do so much

to de-stress you and put your comforts at ease. So again, very important to do. Last one. Number five, learn to cut out or cut back drastically on substances that are hurting more than helping you. This is where we lost everybody. This is going to be the hardest one for most people. This one's hard. Listen, I love my margarita. I love my champagne on ice. Like, I love a glass of red wine. But I will tell you, since moving to Austin, I did something that has really made a big difference. I do not associate my home in Austin with alcohol. And let me tell you what I mean here. When I lived in L.A., I associated like Taco Tuesday at my house with margaritas. I associated Friday night, wine night. I associated Saturday as like beers with Weston.

Whatever it was, like I was making. Monday's month. Pascal Mule, Tuesday's tequila sunrise. Wednesday's Barney Beanery. Whatever it is. Like I was associating my house with alcohol. And I was like, you know, opening a bottle of wine. Like I just didn't do that with this house in Austin. I really have not used our house to have alcohol.

I know that sounds so weird. But when I come home at night, it's more to detox as opposed to retox. Like it's to calm my nervous system, not with alcohol. but like whether it's music or candles or a bath or reading, it's all about being calm in my home. And I think that that has made my brain not drink when I'm at home, which has really helped because now Michael and I really only drink when we're on vacation or if we're having a date night or like a friend comes into town to Austin. And let me reiterate and remind everybody the theme of this episode.

We were careful with what we put on this list because we wanted to make sure that 100% if you implement these things in your life, that your life will change for the better, for the positive. So, you know, you can't just say anything. Like, we know having a good fitness routine is going to drastically improve your life. We know that reading is going to do nothing but improve your life. We know that cutting toxic people out of your life is going to do nothing but improve your life. We know that saving and investing for your future is going to improve.

And we also know that if you cut many of these substances, whether it's alcohol and marijuana, whatever you're taking out of your life or diminish it as much as you can, it will have nothing but a positive effect. Here's the difficulty. I'm not sitting here on my high horse saying that we don't partake. We just got back from a trip in Italy with a bunch of our friends and we let the wheels fall off. We were after it.

We had some friends come in from out of town, Siff and Nish, and we went out the other night and we had a couple drinks. So Lauren and I are not saying you can't do these things, but what we think is that people could benefit from drastically decreasing the amount that they partake in substances. and not only the frequency, but in the amount. I started running my alcohol intake like I run my fitness. And what that means is I started looking at my week and being like, okay, when am I drinking this week?

Like this week we have a dinner and we have a cocktail on Saturday night. So I'm like, that's going to be my night that I'm drinking. Last week, like Michael said, we saw Siff and Nish and we decided to have a couple margaritas. So I'm looking at my week on Sunday seeing where I'm going to drink. so I can be thoughtful and have purpose around the alcohol intake. The other thing I want to point out, if you are drinking every single night, maybe you're having half a bottle of wine, maybe you're having a bottle of wine, you are not going to have a strong fitness routine, okay, which is going to make it harder to stay in shape.

Yep. You are going to have trouble cutting out toxic people because sometimes that brings toxic people around. You're not going to be able to read at the end of the night because you're going to be drunk and you're going to be spending more money with your finances. Why do you think I put it as number five, because again, this is like full circle. Yeah. So when people say, hey, Michael, how do you save? Well, one of the first things people can do is if you're out every night on the weekend,

spending a ton of money, listen, these drinks are so fucking expensive these days. If you can just cut that down to two nights a month as opposed to every single weekend, boom, take all that money, just put that into savings. Again, if you're too hungover to get up and go get a good workout, like Lauren said, this is completely diminishing that. If your brains all scramble because you're hung over, you're not going to want to read. And again, most likely the majority of people that you're doing these kind of behaviors with week and week out are not necessarily the greatest people.

They may be your friends. They may be your drinking buddies. But there could be some toxic behaviors going on that are putting you in compromised positions. Also, you know what? You know what? There is nothing fun, nothing fun about waking up after three or four margaritas with children. It is a special kind of torture to wake up to someone who's demanding food. They're hungry.

They need their diaper changed. They need this. They need their vitamin. Where's their probiotic? Please, can I have a cookie water? The list goes on and on and on and on and on. Their hair is not right. They want to wear this outfit.

There is nothing fun about waking up with children hungover. So for me, like, I'm like, okay, I'm going to have to wake up tomorrow at 7 in the morning and I just like, I'll work backwards. Do is this drink really worth it to be hung over? It's got to be really fucking worth it. For me, it's got to be a fuck yes to one, leave the house to go to dinner or a party. Or I have to be sometimes like if we go like to New York for a couple days or L.A. and I'm away from my children, that's another thing where I'm like, okay, I'll partake. And listen, we're not sitting here again thinking this is easy. There's a lot of people that struggle with alcohol and substances. But for the person who's, you know, the weekend

warrior doing this all the time, like Lauren and I were, or if you're drinking wine throughout the week and just constantly bombarding your system, again, going back to crowding things out, I think some of the best ways to start eliminating or limiting some of this behavior is to crowd it out with good behavior. So maybe instead of going out on a Friday night to the bar, maybe you're going and doing some kind of activity that requires you to be sober with somebody that also wants to do that with you. Like maybe maybe instead of hanging out with your drinking buddies, you're going out with your fitness buddies. Maybe, you know, instead of, you know, having that Sunday brunch, you're going to a workout. There's, there's things that you need to do to replace it. I think at the

end of the day, all we want is social connection. So a lot of people use alcohol and substances for that, but you can get those kind of social connections with, again, positive people that are also trying to hold themselves accountable. It's all about deciding the circles you're going to swim in. And here's the thing. As you get older, and I'm talking to the people that are sub 30, The hangovers are going to get worse. The effect's going to get worse. The dehydrated prune. Have you ever seen an old drunk, old alcoholic?

It doesn't, it's not a pretty picture. It also fucks with your sleep. It fucks with your mouth tape. It fucks with your sex. I mean, it fucks with your morning. It fucks with your Mondays. It fucks with your work. It fucks with your hormones.

And if you're somebody trying to lose weight. No, it also, it makes you gain weight. Like I don't, I have lost so much weight by cutting down to once a week or just on vacation. What always surprises me. And again, this is going to, clip's going to get pulled and people are going to be mad. Men and women who are trying to lose weight who drink multiple times a week and have a fitness routine thinking they're going to lose weight. You are running an uphill battle.

You're taking five step forward to take 10 steps back. It is not possible to drink that consistently and get the fitness results you want. So again, if you want to get in shape even and you're drinking all the time, it's just such an uphill battle. It's just, you know, you're not going to have anything but positive effect by either completely eliminating or really diminishing the amount of alcohol and substances that you have in your life. So that's it. Those are the five things. They will absolutely change your life. Develop a fitness routine, read, cut toxic people out of your life, develop a savings habit and investing habit and try to

limit the substances in your life. These five things, again, I'm talking to the 10% of you that I hope will do this. If you do it, your life will drastically improve. You will not recognize yourself in a year. You will be a completely different person. I also want to say something. Once we move to Austin, we are doing these five things, like Michael said. And the clarity that I have in my business has never been more clear. I call my business partner Weston all the time with all these different ideas. I feel more inspired. I feel more excited. When Monday comes around, it doesn't feel like such a drag. We're not perfect. Like Michael said, we mess up all the time. But like it's kind of 80-20. If you can do these five things at least 80% of the time,

hopefully toxic people, it's 100%. You're good. Everybody can do these things. And again, I would challenge anybody out there that is charging right into excuse mode to really ask yourself multiple times why you can't make some of these changes. Maybe your gut reaction is, well, I can't save right now because my bills. Well, are there anything you can do to lower your bills? Could you get a second job? Are there things you can do to increase income? Are there things you could cut out? Like these, I think ask yourself why five times before you chime in and say you can't. I think that's the biggest thing is people, they hear this kind of stuff. It's such basic information. It's what all the most successful people do, but then they give

themselves this personal resistance by either making excuses or giving themselves a reason why they can't. So what I would say is ask yourself five times why you can't make these changes. And if after that, then you can't, then you really can. But I think most people can. And I think if you do, it will absolutely change your life for the better. If you like these solo episodes, go check out a bunch that I've been doing lately. I think I have like three up. We're going to drag Michael's ass into the studio to do a finance episode. You can ask any questions for that episode on my latest post so I can collect them at Lauren Bostick.

Make sure you're following us on TikTok at TSC Podcast. And we just launched a new product called Lespoon and it is a body sculptor. It's made to sculpt contour tight and give you a little lymphatic drainage on your body. I'm obsessed with it. It's so good with a body oil. Go check it out. Thank you guys so much for listening and we will see you next time. and we will be doing so many more solo episodes, I promise.

Cheers.