The Bossticks - 7 Life Changing Habits Every High Performer Needs To Succeed, Stay Focused, Fulfilled, & Clear On What Matters

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

#864: Join Michael Bosstick as he sits down to share the 7 key habits that changed his life & elevated his mindset. From morning rituals & productivity to mental clarity & relationships, these high-impact habits are designed to help high performers live a more focused, fulfilling life. In this episode, Michael breaks down the power of diverse perspectives & critical thinking, investing in yourself, prioritizing what truly matters, his detailed morning routine - including supplements he cannot live without, the importance of daily movement, & the value of asking yourself the hard questions.   To Watch the Show click HERE   For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM   To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE   Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE   Head to our ShopMy page HERE and LTK page HERE to find all of the products mentioned in each episode.   Get your burning questions featured on the show! Leave the Him & Her Show a voicemail at [phone].   This episode is sponsored by The Skinny Confidential Your daily routine done better – with The Skinny Confidential Caffeinated Sunscreen. Subscribe today at https://shopskinnyconfidential.com/products/sunscreen and get it delivered right to your door – because great skin doesn't take days off!   This episode is sponsored by Taylor Farms Learn more at http://TaylorFarms.com.   This episode is sponsored by Opill Opill is birth control in your control, and you can use code SKINNY for 25% off your first month of Opill at http://Opill.com.    This episode is sponsored by Chime Open your account in 2 minutes at http://chime.com/SKINNY.   This episode is sponsored by Momentous Use code SKINNY at http://livemomentous.com for up to 35% off your first order.   This episode is sponsored by Fatty15 Fatty15 is on a mission to replenish your C15 levels and restore your long-term health. You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit by going to http://fatty15.com/SKINNY and using code SKINNY at checkout.   This episode is sponsored by Fay Nutrition Listeners of The Skinny Confidential Him &Her Show can qualify to see a registered dietitian for as little as $0 by visiting http://FayNutrition.com/SKINNY.   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 am big on optimization. I'm big on processes. I'm big on creating systems. for success. I'm a little bit more analytical than I would say my wife, we offer this kind of of yin-yang where she was really more of the creative, more of the passion, more of the like kind of big picture around some of the aesthetics and the vision and the design and some of the presentation. And I really kind of am analytical. And I've been that way my whole life, right? Like I'm good with numbers. I'm good at process. I'm not so good sometimes at being in the moment. I really need

to like plan things out. And so with that in mind, I've had to create these structures and these habits so that I can optimize my life, be productive, be a human being, not be just, you know, one of these, you know, logistics numbers guys that gets stuck in the mud and all that. And so I thought some of these habits and thought processes that I've put around my life and in my life would help some of you. It's not going to be the basic stuff like get up and drink lemon water, although that is part of one of the things I say in here. There's real tactics here. And forgive me, I have notes on this episode because while I get into these habits, there are some detailed notes that I wanted to add and include into the episodes, specifics around either supplements or books

or things that I'm doing and that I don't want to forget because I've taken some time to put this episode together. So these are seven habits that I'm currently implementing in my life day to day that I think can enhance anyone's life. They're all cost effective. They're all free to do. They're all things that you can implement today right away or, you know, over time. You can implement one of them. You can implement all seven of them.

But they have helped me in my life and I'm hoping that they'll help you as well. So I've broken them down into, you know, different kinds of habits, some around mental clarity, some around physical habits, productivity, accountability, relationships, clarity, vision. and I've gotten detailed with how they kind of work. I put them in order that I think make the most sense in order of importance or in order that you might want to implement them into your own life. And before I kick it off, I just want to talk about something that Lauren and I have been discussing a lot privately lately.

So we're at a stage in our life now where we've been together since we were both 20. I'm almost 40 now, so close to 20 years. We've known each other since we were 12. There's this phenomenon called compounding, which I'm sure many of you know about in the world of finance, where if you invest the earlier and the more often that you invest, the greater the amount becomes over time, right? You start little amounts in the first two or three years, and then in 10 years, it starts to get really big. In 20, 30 years, it becomes huge. And what I've been talking to

Lauren about is that that phenomenon of compounding doesn't only work in finance. It works in every area of life. It works in your relationships. It works in parenting. It works when you're building a business. It really works in any area. The earlier you start doing something, and the early you start shipping away at that thing, whether it be a relationship, whether it be a business, whether it be, you know, something like this podcast, whether it be creating, you know, social content, whatever it may be. It feels slow in the beginning. It feels like you're making very little progress, but then over time, these things start to exponentially grow. Lauren and I were talking about that in regards to our relationship, right? We've been together for so long now, and blink of an eye, all of a sudden,

we look back and we've got these businesses and this life and these three children. And it's just interesting to observe because what feels like something that started kind of very slow and organically over time has just compounded in this snowbow where there's a lot of things going on in our personal lives. And, you know, I as a man think I really focused on being with one woman and focusing on one relationship for a long time. And now I'm, you know, bearing the fruits of that labor and having a lot of amazing things happen. Some of my friends are still out there dating. And there's nothing wrong with that. But when they come to me for relationship that I say, hey, you know, I want to get to, you know, where you're at or I want to have a relationship like you and

And I mentioned to them this idea of compounding, which is like, you got to start and you got to put in the time for a while. And that goes with business. It goes with this podcast. And I think as I'm talking right now, we're on what Carson episode 850 or 900, something like that. And to me, it feels like a blink of an eye. But we've been doing it for close to a decade now. And it's become what it's become by putting that consistent time in. So I say this because these habits can help you start your compounding, whether that's in your relationship, whether that's your journey as a parent, whether that's with your side hustle, your business. If that's happens to be investing even, you know, that's great as well. But anyways, the point is start the compounding process, start putting these habits in place. With that, let's get to the first habit that I think will change everyone's life. What I do every single morning is I follow a specific routine. So the first habit would be implement a wake routine. We talk about these nighttime routines. We talk about these, you know, productivity habits and all these different things. But you, but what I think is it's so important to start the day off right. So for me, you know, I'm not hung up big on waking up at a specific time. I don't have to get up at 5 a.m. You don't have to get at 4.30.

Whatever time makes the most sense. I tend to typically rise between 6 and 6.30. Lauren and the kids are typically up around 7. 7.30. 6 even better for me. But what I've done is I've fully optimized my wake routine. So every single morning, I wake up, I go downstairs. And the first thing I do is I create this hydration drink that I take every single morning. And there are specifics around it. It's not just, you know, water and salt and lemon, even though that's in it. But I actually built a concoction specifically for me after looking at my blood work and figuring out what I need best and also figuring out, you know, kind of my way of being, right? Like I'm somebody that starts the day a little bit slower, sometimes, dare say, Lauren would back this up, maybe a little

grumpy. I need a little bit of a moment to kick into gear and to kind of get right in the day. I don't know if that's relatable to any of you out there, but I'm not one of those people's that jumps up and starts seeing flowers and rainbows and happy thoughts. I really need to kind of get in the process. So what I realize is that I've got the slow quarters all rise that I need to have in the morning. And so the drink that I've created, again, waking up between 6 and 630 is, and I've written it down is, I typically take 16 ounces of water. And then I use Paul Saladino's lineage nose to tail collagen. Collagen is so incredible to start the morning.

It is going to help your skin. It's going to help your joints. It's going to help your hair, your nails. And it's going to give you that little bit of that collagen protein to get you going. I take a little bit of sea salt and then a little bit of. a lemon and then I take very specific supplements that I think are widely applicable. They're very safe. Anyone can take them. The first one is I take L-tyrosine and I take this every other day because you don't want your body to get used to it. And this is a dopamine precursor. It's going

to boost motivation. It's going to boost your alertness, your mood, especially if you're someone who runs stressed, which I tend to do. If you're one of those people like me, I would highly suggest trying to get into some L-tyrosine. I like the one by Momentus. They're one of our favorite products and supplement companies, they have code skinny. And so that tyrosine would take that every other day so you don't get used to it. And that's just going to help with your mood, your motivation. I put that in the water. Then I also take Acidyl-L. carnitine.

I hope I'm saying that, right? This is for mitochondrial energy, mental clarity. As you can see, a lot of what I do in the morning is getting my mind, right, right? I'm sitting there. I'm hydrating. I'm looking into the sun as often as I can as soon as the light comes out, and which we've talked about before, and I'm hydrating slowly. I'm not just chugging this water.

And then I'm getting these supplements in which is going to help with my mood, my energy, my focus. I also take NAC. Again, these are all safe to take on an empty stomach. It's a precursor to glutathione, which is a master antioxidant. And it's going to support detoxification, brain health in the sick seasons. This has also been said to help your immune system and help get rid of things that are, you know, viral or causing infection that are, you know, making you sick. Especially if you have young kids like we do going back to school, maybe double dose the NAC during that time. So if you take this hydration drink with the al-tyracine, the acetyl-al al-cartatine, and the NAC, you're going to just feel on fire.

I take this and immediately start to feel better. I also have been taking fatty 15, which we've talked about on this podcast. Like we have code skinny. Check that out. And this is going to help with your inflammation and longevity. So those four supplements and then, you know, swapping in the L-tyrosine every other day, just so I can get in the habit every morning. I know I'm waking up. I'm hydrating.

so many of us run dehydrated. We jump straight into coffee. This is a huge mistake. You don't want to do that first thing. You want to hydrate slowly. Get the right supplements in. Get that collagen. Get that lemon. Get that sea salt so you can have the electrolytes and those minerals. And then I slowly start to figure out what my intention is for the day. Maybe I'll pick up the Wall Street Journal. Maybe I'll look at the New York Times. Maybe I'll pick up a book. Really, I'm taking this time every single morning for the first hour before my kids wake up to make sure that my intention is right, that I'm calm, that my mood is in the right place, that I'm learning something. I stay off my phone during this whole period of time. You know, I've had to work on that. I know it's not, for me, I'm somebody who lives in my,

you know, and works off of my phone. I'm not on the computer as often as the phone. And so I've had to work on that habit. My wife, Lauren, has helped me with that. I've got to give her credit because she's going to listen to this and beat me up about it. But I leave that in the room and I take this first hour to do all these things. This is going to set the intention for the day. It's going to give you mental clarity. It's so important to have a routine that you look forward to. And more importantly, this gives you a reason to look forward to waking up. You know that after doing this routine every single morning, you're going to feel great. Then after I've done this 60 to 90 minutes later, and I learned this from Andrew Huberman,

you can go into your caffeinated beverage, whether that's your coffee or your match or whatever, but you want to wait at least that 60 to 90 minutes. Don't just dive straight into the caffeine. That's going to shock your adrenals and cause all sorts of issues. Ever since I switch to that, I typically only need one to two coffees a day and I stop drinking coffee by like, you know, 9 a.m. and I'm done, and then I sleep perfectly. So that's the first one is, you know, create a morning, wake routine, which is going to set your mental clarity, develop intention for the day, and it's just going to set you off on the right path. Next, and this should be no surprise for your second habit is no matter what, we need to develop a daily movement pattern.

We need to develop daily movement habits. We need to move every single day, no matter how uncomfortable. I know some people are in cold areas, hot areas, but it's so important to do something. Here's the reason why. It's not just for the physical benefits. It's holding yourself accountable. It's doing something hard. So many of us seek comfort in our life.

You know, people want to work, work, work, work to one day be able to retire and be comfortable. I never got this because comfort is where you go to die. It's where you go to be complacent. It's not that you have to be uncomfortable all the time, but the human body needs some kind of challenge to challenge our mind, to challenge our body, to stay active, to make ourselves feel good, to hold ourselves accountable, to be confident. So for me, that could be, you know, I got really into tennis lately. Maybe I'll book a tennis session or strength training.

that three to four days a week, likely with a trainer. Shout up Sandy and Brent. Also, you know, if you want to do some kind of stretching routine, some zone two cardio, pick one thing, ideally carve out one hour if that means you have to wake up a little bit earlier. So be it. I know it's not the easiest. But over time, you're going to get to place where you have more confidence, you feel better. I think, you know, even if you can only do something for 15 to 30 minutes, we just, you know, Dear Media made this announcement that we acquired Obey Fitness. That's a great at-home fitness application. If you could check that out, it's downloaded on your phone. They have all sorts of different classes and trainers on there. You could do something straight from the house or if you

want to go somewhere. So, you know, for me, like, it's waking up with intention and then jumping right into something hard that's typically some kind of physical activity. One thing that's also great if you have young children is maybe this is a great time for the family to take a walk, leave the phone at home, talk to them about their day, what they're going to do, talk to your wife or your husband, talk about their day, their intention. Again, this is going to bring everybody closer. And more importantly, this is going to get your mind firing on the right cylinders and on the right pathways. You know, I've said on this podcast before that I believe a lot of depression and a lot of the anxiety that we go through as individuals can be solved with physical activity.

I get pushback on this sometimes, but anyone that is in the fitness community, anyone that moves their body every day knows that when you move your body and you get active and you get out of yourself and your mind, most importantly, this is where you start to feel better. You boost confidence. You boost mood. Like, you know, hopefully you're doing this maybe outside at points. You're getting that vitamin D. And again, it's, if you notice here, these habits have nothing to do with anything but getting your mind and your body right first thing in the morning. So two very basic things in the, in the morning. One, you know, with a little bit more detail around that drink and those supplements and the second around movement. These are very basic. Everyone should be doing these. I cover them

because if you don't have these habits, the others are really hard to follow. Now we're going to get into habits that I've, you know, I think are a little bit more niche, a little bit more specifically tailored to how I've set my habits up and maybe a little bit counter in some cases to some of the things you've heard. So one of the things that I'm personally huge on is getting rid of to-do lists and focusing on essential lists. Now, it may sound like the same thing, but there's huge difference here. In my personal opinion, people, especially people that consider themselves productive, waste so much time with these tedious to-do lists that have a bunch of garbage, a bunch of small tasks, a bunch of things that aren't going to move the needle. We do this because people like to feel

good when they check things off a list. They like to feel like they're accomplishing things, getting things done. But the question is, why do some individuals get so much more done than others with the same amount of time? And it's likely because they're focused on the essentials that actually move the needle and have the greatest impact. Why do some people make a billion dollars and some people make minimum wage. This is not a commentary on fairness or the economy. It's just how does that happen? It's likely because that person that makes the billion has figured out a way to be extremely productive and create something that is extremely useful for society. Again, not a commentary, but it's just a fact. And so the way that these individuals are able to do this, and dare I say,

sometimes I'm able to be productive as well, is because I think high performers focus on the essentials and not the to-do lists. I get in trouble a lot in my house. and with my wife because I sometimes let the small things fall. You know, I'm maybe not the best guy to make the bed or pick up the towel or, you know, go and clean up the kids' toys in the room or stuff like that. It's not that I don't think these tasks are important. It's that my brain has been trained over years to focus on the essential things that I think are going to move the needle the most.

So, for example, let's say you have 100 emails in your inbox on Monday and you wake up. Is it really necessary to respond to all 100 of those emails? I would argue, is it even really necessary to open all 100 of those emails? I'm notorious for going through my inbox and slashing sometimes 40 to 50% of the emails that are in there. It's not that I don't value the correspondence. I just know that with everything on my plate, it's impossible for me to be productive if I'm answering things that I know aren't going to move the needle or aren't going to be productive or things that I can't pay attention to. You know, sometimes there's an auto responder. Sometimes I will just forward it to somebody.

sometimes I will just outright delete it. But again, many of us have been trained through school or whatever, or maybe some kind of OCD that we have to answer every single text. We have to answer every single email. We have to get to every single message. And this is a mistake. So what I do is I wake up. I scan that inbox. I figure out what are the 10 most important things that I need to get to. And those are the things that you know, I ignore the rest. You could do this as well. Like say that each night before bed, you go and you look at your do-do list, you know, and there's 15 things on there. I would say, cut 13 of those, 12 to 13 of them, and just focus on the three, and likely focus on the three things that you've been dreading the most, the things are to the hardest, the essentials. You know, the first half of this year for me consisted of a lot of things, and I'll just be, you know, personal and vulnerable here. We had our third child on the way. I was in the middle of an acquisition for this company that Dear Media acquired called Obey, which I just mentioned earlier, which, you know, is a huge process. We were batching the majority of this show. Lauren and I, you know, our show comes out two to three times a week.

A lot of people forget that this is, you know, technically my side hustle. I run Dear Media Day Today. And so we were doing, you know, multiple episodes daily and weekly to get ahead and to make sure that we had episodes for her maternity leave. I was purchasing a property for a real estate asset and I was doing it without a broker and all of these things. And I say this all to mention that, you know, all of this was going on additionally to also running Dear Media Day to Day to day as CEO. And so the way I was able to get all this done without going crazy was by every night, I would go to, before I would go to bed, I would create this list, my to-do list. And then I would go through that list and say, what are the absolute essentials? And then I would disregard all the things that weren't essential.

And here's what happened. All of those things got done because there was my complete focus on the most important things. And all the stuff that wasn't so important either kind of took care of itself or was not necessary or I was able to go and accomplish later. And here's the thing, when you focus on the essentials and you get rid of all the minuscule tasks that don't matter, what you do is you're training your brain to tackle the hardest things and the most important things. And what happens over time is you're able to start to be more productive because you realize, okay, if all you do all the time is train your brain to look for the most important thing, then that's what happens over time.

You're just going to start focusing on and on the most important things. And you're going to be able to get rid of the stuff that doesn't matter. Again, we distract ourselves with these to-do lists by focusing on things that really don't move the needle that aren't important. And we do it because we want that dopamine hit of just feeling like we're getting things done. So if you're somebody that wakes up every day and you have a to-do list of 15 things, really ask yourself, are all of these 15 things that important? Or should I just be focusing on one or two things that move the needle the most? Again, so that's really for productivity. It's get rid of to do list. Focus on essential list. This is going to completely change your life.

One thing I do not mess around with, that is my bowl of meat. I do it every day. I do the ancestral blend. It's so good. And I love adding a crunch. And the crunch that I add is Taylor Farms chop salad kits. I like this because there's no chopping. There's no slicing. There's no leaving half a cabbage in your fridge that goes bad. It's just fresh greens. It's ready to go. They have a yummy dressing, toppings, everything. You just mix it up and give yourself a round of applause. I like to make a burger bowl. I do this all the time. And what I'll do is I'll do Thousand Island with meat. I'll do a little bit of the Mediterranean Crunch Taylor Farms Chop Salad kit. I will do some cheese. I really like like a raw cheddar cheese. And then I'll do

white onion, jalapeno, tomato from the farmer's market. It is so delicious. I cannot even tell you. My kids love it. You could also do like a fiesta bowl. You could do a bowl with their sweet kale. You could do a Caesar bowl. You could do an avocado and ranch. Or you could just bring a Taylor Farms Chop Salad kit to work and add some chicken. It's so easy. Like I said, there's no chopping so you don't have to do all this work just to prepare all of the lettuce. Sweet kale, Caesar, avocado ranch, Mediterranean Crunch, those are my favorites. You're going to feel like you have your life together. Let me tell you. Grab a Taylor Farms Chop Salad Kit and get your salad together. This episode is brought to you by Opil, the first over-the-counter, a daily birth control pill

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chime, chime, checking account required. All right, the fourth habit that I've implemented over time is to start asking myself the hardest questions and treating myself as if I was an investor going to invest in my life. This sounds really strange. But over the course of the last 10 years, running Dear Media, I have been in and out of conversations with different investors, different banks, different kinds of people in the world of finance. And I've learned a lot. Again, this was the first company that I ever went and really raised outside capital, private equity capital. And I learned a lot through that process.

But one of the things that I really learned was that what makes the greatest investors, or this is one of the things that make some of the greatest investors, are some of the questions that they ask in their underwriting process. And what I realize is the smartest investors are, you know, listen, they're excited about the vision and they're excited about the founder and they're excited about the future, but they're poking holes into the infrastructure and into the individual. And, you know, and they're looking for that individual to come up with the answers to, you know, kind of combat some of those concerns that they have or answer to some of those concerns that they may be thinking about. And what I realize is that this can also be applied to our own lives. So many of us go through life with our own perspective and we feel like, like we're doing so great and we write these, you know, manifestation journals and these dream journals and all these things and we give ourselves this pat on the back. And listen, that's all important and confidence and self-love is part of that. I'm not going to, you know, be the expert on that. And there's plenty of people that talk about that all the time. But what I realize is that

exercise is useful. But what I actually think is more useful and not cynical, but really productive in a different kind of way, is underwriting your own life as if you were investing in your life. So some of the questions that I've written down that you could be asking yourself are, you know, am I being smart with my money? You could write that prompt down and you could literally write it as if you were not yourself as if you were objectively answering it. So if you write, you know, every day I'm going out and I'm living paycheck to paycheck and I'm out at the bars every night and I'm buying things I don't need. Then the question is probably not. And what it does is it forces you to get in the mindset of like if you are out to answer for yourself with a third party,

again, taking you out of your own mind in a different perspective, then by asking the smart question, you're able to come up with a smart answer on how to combat maybe the way that you shouldn't be living. So if you're answering and you're not investing your money and you're not saving it and you're struggling, maybe this question will start to inform you how you could get better. Another question is, am I showing up the way I should in my relationship? You know, many of us project what we want our partners to do and we project how we want the relationship to be. But if you ask yourself this question, am I showing up in the relationship? right way in my relationship and you actually honestly answer it objectively, it'll give you the answers

of where you can improve. Another question is, am I being a good father? You know, like if you, if you answer that and said, hey, you know, maybe I'm not spending as much time with the kids as I should be. Maybe I'm not, you know, listening to them. Maybe I'm being distracted. Like, again, asking yourself these questions underwriting yourself as if you were investing as an investable asset into yourself, these are going to come up with the answers that you're looking for instead of just writing manifestations and dreams. You know, a lot of what I do in life is try to figure a ways to hold myself accountable in more ways. And a lot of times that requires uncomfortable introspection. It requires sometimes uncomfortable conversations with others. If not, you could start to live in a

little bit of like a self-fulfilling way where you just, you know, you think you're doing everything right and everyone else is doing everything wrong. This is a way to really hold yourself accountable. Another great question is, am I holding myself accountable to my health? Again, honestly answering that, You know, are you going to, am I going to the gym? Am I eating right? Am I being disciplined? Am I eating junk food? Am I drinking too much alcohol? All of these things. You know, are these decisions I'm making going to be smart decisions in five years? You know, are you doing things right now that are going to have that compounding effect that I talked about earlier, right? Are you, you know, are you slowly pushing a boulder up a hill and, you know, creating that kind of tumbleweed effect that's going to

happen down the hill or are you just staying in the same place? I've learned this being in business, the smartest capital partners. They ask these kind of hard. questions and what they're doing is they're looking for an answer or they're looking for that sliver of an idea that's going to combat for that vulnerability in the business. You can do this again with your life as well. You know, so many times we create these gratitude journals and these dream journals, which are great, there's nothing wrong with it. But if you then don't follow it up with action items to go after those dreams or manifest those visions or whatever it may be or get that relationship you want or be the dad or mom you want to be, it becomes really hard. And that's why

some people look back and they, you know, they look at these lists and they're in the same. place five years or not because they don't create the action steps. These questions are going to help you create the action steps. So I guess the key here is, you know, pretend you're underwriting your own life. You just pitched yourself to yourself. And, you know, with these answers that you come up with, would you invest in your life as it is? Or would you go and make the changes? So again, ask yourself the hard questions. This habit is going to be game changing. I think it's something anyone can do right now. I like to break it down in different areas of my life. You could take it down to a relationship, parenting, business, health, finance, and really go through.

You can even go to chat GPT and say, hey, can you help me come up with questions to hold myself accountable and then create a prompt for it? There's a million ways to do it. But the most important thing is you need to get to the right answers, which are going to lead to the right action steps. Next, and this is something that I continue to have to learn the hard way. It's basically ask instead of assume. I'm somebody that's in a long-term relationship.

I now have three children. I manage an organization with, you know, close to 70 to 100 different people at any given time. And, you know, it would be very easy for me to go and assume that what I'm thinking is how everybody else is feeling. So taking the time to go to your wife and really just ask them, like, you know, most tensions in a relationship come because of assumptions. And assuming that she's okay, assuming that she's happy with the way things are going, assuming that I'm being a good husband, assuming that you're being a good wife, assuming that you're being a good boyfriend or girlfriend, just because things are good on your side, that's not necessarily the best way. Just assuming that you work with someone that is happy in the role that they're in,

or that they're happy in the way that you're interacting with them, this is also problematic. So actually taking the time to ask, and even if that question is difficult, but what you're doing is you're starting each conversation without an assumption, but with an ask. How are you doing? How do you feel about the way I'm doing this? How do you feel about the way that I'm managing this? How do you feel about the way that I responded to this? What do you need that I'm not giving you?

All of these questions when you lead in with asks instead of assumptions. And you can do this in any area of your life. You could do it like I said in a relationship, in your business. You could do this for children. You could sit down with your children and say, how do you feel something stupid? How do you feel about the way daddy read that nighttime story to you? Was it too fast? Was it too slow?

Did you like it? Do you want a different one? You'll be surprised at the answers you get if you invite people to share with you in a non-judgmental way how they feel and about how they're interacting. And what this is going to do is it's going to open up opportunity for you to not only, you know, form habits that are going to fix those relationships and improve them, but it's going to create a bond of trust between you and your coworker, your employee, your wife, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your kids, because they're going to realize that you're putting their needs

and their wants at the forefront of the conversation. And so, again, like, a lot of the things that I'm talking about here is getting out of your own perspective and making sure that the people around you are feeling valued, that they, that they're seeing the world the way you're seeing it, or maybe they're not, if they're seeing it in a different way, maybe adjusting your thought process. But again, these slow habits of, you know, starting to look at the world in a different way other than your own are so important. The sixth habit is probably one of my favorite.

favorite habits on this list because I think it is so important, and that is pick something to learn about every week that you have no clue about. I could go on and on. I could do a whole podcast on how I feel about the world, how I feel about people's thought processes, why I think we're in so much trouble. Maybe I'll do a little bit of a tangent. I think we live in a society now where we are really good at digging into our own biases, our own corners of the world, our own corners of society, Algorithms now are all interest-based algorithms. So if you're interested in a specific thought process or a specific type of content, that's what you're going to see the majority of your time.

These companies are really good at giving you more of what it thinks you want and less of what it doesn't think you want. And here's the problem with that is when you live in a bias and you live in the same thought process and everyone surrounding you is cheering the same way or thinking the same way and not challenging the way that you think or you see the world, this becomes very limiting. It becomes a very limited view of the world. Imagine trying to build a business or develop a world perspective and all you can see is a sliver of the pie, a sliver of the equation. That's what many of us do. You know, Lauren and I get a ton of pushback on this show whenever we have somebody who people deem to be on the right or whenever we have somebody who people deem to be on the left or whether we have somebody that has one health perspective or a different

health perspective, you know, these, these, this tribalism is real and it's something that, you know, doing this show for close to a decade now, we kind of sit back and laugh because there's certain buttons you can push with society where you know, you can predict the response you're going to get. I know if we have one kind of person, what response is going to get if you have another. And it would be very easy to turn those dials all the time. But one thing that we do on this show is we try to bring on a diverse set of ideas and topics, not just because we think it's more interesting, but because it challenges Lauren and I to think in a different kind of way. So if you're somebody who finds yourself constantly watching the same

kind of news or reading the same kind of books, and listen, this could even be fiction. Like maybe you're sci-fi or fantasy, you know, enthusiasts and you just read the same kind of book over and over. Or, you know, maybe you're, you know, into biographies and you're just constantly reading the same kind of genres. There's nothing wrong with that. It's great to learn. It's great to read. It's great to do these different things. But it's challenging when all you do is focus on a very narrow sliver of thought process. And so what I think is going to completely enhance people's lives, and I know it's enhanced mine, is to try to learn something different and new from a wide variety of topics every single week. What this could look like is, you know, maybe one week

you're reading the news from the New York Times, and the next week you're reading the Wall Street Journal, and maybe one day you're watching Fox News, and maybe one day you're watching CNN, and maybe one day you're listening to a podcast on history, and one day you're listening to a podcast on the future. I give these examples because the point is, is you want to broaden your perspective and you want to listen to different people. This whole thing when why, you know, we had such a difficult time with this whole idea of cancel culture is there was a segment of society that thought the best way to move forward was to literally turn certain people off so that you didn't hear their ideas of the perspectives. And that's just not a realistic

way to live because those people don't go away. Those ideas don't just die. They're still well and out there. It's kind of like a little kid going like la la la la and closing their ears. Like it's not, it's not realistic. You have to understand what's going around you so that you can combat it or engage with it or at least understand what's happening. So, you know, I just, I wrote some book recommendations to kind of give you guys an example of some of the things that I've been learning about. And, you know, there's different, my sister, Mimi or Laurence's from Mimi, I guess she's my sister now. Hi, Mimi. Said that like Kindle does these reading challenges. I'm sure you could go to AI for this kind of stuff. But, you know, there's ways to build diverse sets

of, you know, content or reading materials or whatever it is. And some of the things I've been reading lately, just for specific, I know people like book recommendations is. First, I read Confederacy of Dunces, which is a fiction book based in New Orleans. You know, I don't really know so much about that area. It was a great book. Won the Pulitzer Prize at one point written a while ago, but it's hilarious. I just read Barry Diller's new book called Who New? Great book. A lot of parallels to what, you know, many of us are doing now in media and on the internet. Funny enough, Mimi wants me to do a whole episode on this. I don't know, I don't even know how I stumbled with this. I read Rebecca Yaros book, The Fourth Wing. Carson, have you read the fourth wing?

I think it's like, I thought it was like a young adults novel, but it's about these dragons. And then like, these people are like shooting fire and lightning and having sex all over the place. It's kind of, it's kind of weird. But anyways, I read that. I wouldn't think I was the audience for that, but I read it. And I do these because like, again, like, I don't think that I would be the audience for some of these things, but I read it. I actually like the book. It was good. Some of the romantic stuff was a little bit. Kind of made me tired, but it was good. Then I read T.J. English book. It's called Havana Nocturn. This is about the mafia in Cuba and the Cuban Revolution and how Cuba developed over time and

the history of the mafia. Again, very different. All these books are so different. I read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote because I wanted a classic. I never read that book before. It's a great book still holds up. And then I read a science fiction book called Lebiathan Wakes by James Corey. I know a lot of people like that series.

I think Amazon did a series on them called The Expans. I think it's a show. But I like that. And then there's a book called The Courage to Be Disliked, which I've recommended before. Anyways, I say all this because reading in this diverse way and picking these different books and different topics, oh, I also forgot Keith McAlly's book. That's a great book. I love Valthazar.

I regret almost everything is the title of that book. He's in the restaurant business. But anyways, reading in this kind of way and getting into the perspective and heads of so many different authors and diverse opinions and diverse thought processes, it challenges your brain. It helps you expand your mindset. It helps you see different perspectives. As somebody who's a business person, this is a.

huge advantage. You know, it's, it's such a disadvantage in people in business when all they do was looked into myopic point of view and perspective and they, they only see the world from one point of view. You know, this is going to broaden that. So again, I think if you want to get into one great habit, it's pick something new to learn about every single week that you know nothing about. That could be through books. That could be through podcasts. That could be through AI. That could be through TV. It could be, you know, through journalism. It could be whatever it may be. But go find something that stretches your thought process because it's going to open your mind and likely it's going to create new ideas, new vision, new businesses, new ways to live your life. It's going to give you empathy for people and it's going to make you a better person.

Let's take a quick break to talk about momentous. We talk a lot about performance on this show. We're interviewing experts and thought leaders all the time on which supplements to take, how to take them, when to take them. But which brands can you trust? This is the harder question. and there are so many supplement brands out there that fly under the radar that are not doing the right things that are not protecting the consumer. This is why Lauren and I love Momentus so much because we know that we can trust them. They have high quality single formula supplements as well as ingredients and labels that you can trust.

Every single product on their site is NSF certified for sport, which is clean, safe, and elite level trusted. So many collegiate teams and professional athletes take this supplement and you know that they're tested at the highest standards to make sure that there's no nefarious ingredients in their product. Every single night before bed, I take the Momentus Sleep Pack. This is going to have magnesium L3a, some Thienin, and Apigenin. If you want a great night's sleep, this is an absolute must starter pack with Momentus. Check them out. They just come in these individualized packets. You can take them when you travel.

You can take them at home. I also think they have some of the best foundational supplements, whether it's their vitamin D3, their zinc, their omega, because they have the right dosage. This is also so important. Sometimes we're just gobbling down these supplements, and we don't know what the dosage is. With Momentus, you can measure it accurately. there's not a bunch of other ingredients or other supplements thrown into it. You know exactly what you're getting. If you take the zinc, it's zinc. If you take the vitamin D3, it's D3. If you take the

omega's, it's the omega's. This is so important. Use code skinny at livemomentus.com for up to 35% off your first order. That's a massive offer at live momentus.com for up to 35% off your first order. Quick break to talk about Fatty 15. A little while back, we had Dr. Stephanie Van Van Watson on this show, and we were blown away because she shared with us the discovery that she made, which is C-15, which is the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in 90 years, we were blown away because she found this essential fatty acid studying, get this, dolphins in the U.S. Navy. Stick with me or check out that episode with her. But here's the thing. It's actually pretty simple. Essential nutrients keep ourselves healthy, which keeps us healthy.

If you want to get sciencey about it, studies show that C-15 works by strengthening ourselves, improving our mitochondrial function, and protecting us against damaging free radicals. The result, better long-term metabolic liver and hard health, which is going to help. us age more gracefully. It ends up that many of us are deficient in C-15, which results in weaker cells that make less energy and quit working earlier than they should. All of that makes us age faster, sleep poorly, feel sluggish. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. Who wants to age faster? Nobody. Fatty 15 is a science-backed award-winning, vegan-friendly, and pure C-15 supplement that does so much for a long-term health. Fatty-15 has three times more cellular benefits than

omega-3s or fish oils, and fatty-15 is made from a patented pure and oxidation-resistant C-15 derived from plants. It's vegan friendly, free of flavors, allergens, preservatives, and C-15 is the only ingredient in Fadi-15. It is 100% pure. So check it out. Fatty 15 is on a mission to replenish your C-15 levels and restore your long-term health. You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com slash skinny and using code skinny at checkout. I find this fascinating. Say nutrition. It connects you direct with registered dietitians. These are real food and nutrition experts, and they literally build you a personalized nutrition counseling situation tailored specifically to you. And here is the best part of this,

which is like amazing. Faye takes insurance, so 95% of people pay $0 for their session. I also just like working if I'm going to work with a nutritionist out of the comfort of my home. Dietitians on Faye specialize in over 30 areas, including weight loss, sports nutrition, women's health like PCOS, postpartum, gut health, eating disorders, and more. They have helped, and I just found this out, over 100,000 people to improve their lives through improved nutrition and lifestyle. If you feel like you want an expert nutritionist counseling session, then this is available. It's simple. It's easy to find a dietitian who fits your needs, and they instantly check your insurance coverage before signing up. Having a personalized nutritionist used to cost big bucks,

but not anymore with Fay. Listeners of him and her show can qualify to see a registered dietitian for as little as $0 by visiting Faynutrition.com slash skinny. That's feignutrition.com backslash skinny. One last time, that's faynutrition.com slash skinny. And make sure you use the URL so you know we sent you. This sunscreen, it's caffeinated, it's mineral and it does not pile under makeup. I applied it today with a damp beauty blender before I got my glam done and it lays so nicely under like a foundation or a concealer. But here's the thing that I like the most about it. So when I'm off work and when I don't have to do podcasts or Instagrams or content, or I just can just be comfortable, I can wear this caffeinated sunscreen and I still

get a really nice tint and a protection. And it looks like my skin is all one even tone, which is nice without all the makeup. It's not like a foundation. It's like the caffeine tightens your skin. It gives you a nice, even tone, and it just gives you a little bit of color. So what I like about this sunscreen is the versatility. So you can wear it when you're off and you're running around and you're running errands and wear it with nothing over it. Or you can wear it like I'm wearing today right now with foundation and concealer over it. So it works both ways. I will wear this when I'm going to the gym in the morning and just wear it throughout the day with nothing else. Or I will wear it with a full look. I created the sunscreen because I couldn't find a mineral-based sunscreen

with caffeine in it. Caffeine tightens the skin. It shrinks the pores. And I just like how it lays on the skin. And I mixed it with a mineral sunscreen. And then we made it SPF 40. So it's a real treat. I think that you guys will absolutely love it. It just comes out in a pump, fits in your handbag, and it can go through the airport. You can shop this at shop skinny confidential.com, and it's the caffeinated SPF. Also, if you're like me and you go through sunscreen quickly, you can subscribe. And the sunscreen will get delivered straight to your door so you don't have to worry about it. That's shop skinny confidential.com. The last habit, and I think that this is been a thing, theme of this podcast, and I think it's one of the most important things that you can do as a

habit development and as a person in the world that we live in, is to develop a perspective of the world outside of your own. There's this viral clip going around, and I don't know how to cite it, and I don't know where it is, but it's from a, I think it's a former spy. I don't know if you've seen this, Carson. And this spy was saying one of the most important things that you can do as a by or as a person is to stop viewing the world from your own perspective all the time and to start viewing it from the perspective of those around you. It is such a blind spot in life when we go through and we're constantly saying like, I feel this way. I think. I know. I, I, I, I, I. And it's because what that's doing is it's, it's pointing out that your view of what's

going around you, your view of the world, your view of your company, your view of your relationship is based only on the perspective that you have. And the reality is, is that the people around you, while they live in the same world, may be viewing the world in a completely different way. They may be viewing the problem in a completely different way. They may be reviewing, you know, you might think something's a good deal in business and they're looking at it as a bad deal. And so getting into the habit of starting to think, okay, I see the world in this particular way, but the person I'm engaging with right now doesn't see it that way. And again, this goes to questions. If you constantly find yourself in a fight in your relationship and you're saying,

I can't believe this is going this way. I don't know why this person doesn't see it. It's likely because they're seeing the world from a completely different perspective. So the best thing you can do is to get into their head by asking questions, figuring out how they see things. If you're on, if you're trying to make a deal in business and you can't figure out why the deal can't get done, it's likely because you're only seeing what you want out of that deal. Again, how do you switch it and start thinking from the perspective of the other person so that you can start seeing it from their perspective. If you're struggling with your children and you can't break through to them and maybe they're struggling in school or struggling with friends and you're giving them this advice

over and over and over and they just don't get it, you know, maybe again, get in their head and ask yourself, why do they see this differently than I do? All of us have that friend that constantly struggles in a relationship and you give them advice and they can't seem to take it is because all they can do is see the relationship from their perspective. They can't see it from the partners. They can't see it from the world outside of them. So what I try to do personally, and I'm definitely not perfect at it is anytime I get into a situation or an interaction, the first thing I try to do is set aside my thoughts and feelings and ask myself, what does this person think of this moment? What does this person think of the way that I'm handling this? What does this person see that I don't

see? What does this person want that I might not be aware of? And if I can start answering those questions, then I can start to alter my behavior or alter some of the decisions I'm making based on that perspective and typically we come to a better outcome. So again, it's so important to get out of your own head and into the perspective of others. This is a habit that takes probably a lifetime to develop. I'm working on it constantly. Again, I'm not perfect at it. But where I see trouble time and again with either people that I mentor, people in my life, people that I have personal relationships with, the people that struggle the most are the ones that only see the world from their perspective. It's almost like those people that are shocked when they get broken up with or shocked when a business deal

goes bad or shocked when they get fired. It's because they're only looking at the world from their perspective. And so again, getting in the habit of looking at other perspectives is so important. Again, to recap, the first one is to create a wake routine and develop something that you look forward to each morning that's going to set your mental clarity and your mind right for the day. Then it's to develop some kind of habit too, so develop some kind of movement that you're going to do and hold yourself accountable daily. That could be a walk. That could be tennis. That could be strength training. It could be Pilates, whatever it may be. That's going to get. your physical and mental well-being right there as well. Then it's going to be your third on those

habits list, which is to create a essential list and not a to-do list, really get out of the habit of just having these long to-do lists and focus on the absolute essentials that are going to move the needle most. Then it's to ask yourself the hard questions, habit four, underwrite your life as if you were investing in your own life and ask yourself, would you invest in your life at this stage based on the ways that you're behaving? The fifth one is to ask instead of assume how people feel around you, what people think of you, what people need from you. Again, getting in that habit of making sure that you're just, you're not constantly barreling down, assuming what people want. And then the sixth one is pick something to learn about that's different than what you already

know every single week. Take the time to get out of your own thought process into somebody else's, broaden your mind, broaden your worldview. And then the last one is to get out of your own head and into others. Again, in every interaction, ask yourself, what are they thinking? What are they feeling? Not how am I thinking, how am I feeling? This is going to get you better deals, better relationships, better interactions, you know, better relationships, all of those things. So these seven habits have changed my life. I think they will change yours. You know, there's plenty of things that you can do to enhance these. There's plenty of different tactics that you can take. You can add more in. You can add less than. You can take one of these. If even one of them helps, I, you know, I've done my job here.

And I think that, you know, these will be game changing, especially for high performers, for people that want to live productive life, happier life, and for people that are willing to ask themselves the hard questions. With that, I hope you like this episode. I will be doing a couple more solos before Lauren comes back. And if there's any specific things that you want me to cover in business and relationships and finance and whatever it may be, right into the TSC podcast or go to our site, www.tcpodcast.com. We have a contact form there and I will see what I can do. Also, if there's any guests that you want me to have on before Lauren gets back, let me know as well. And be sure to check out our YouTube channel.

We're doing a lot there, a lot of shorts, a lot of clips, and full link video episodes. So check it out.