The School of Greatness - Avoid Burnout, Learn Faster, Improve Your Memory & Overcome Procrastination w/Thomas Frank EP 1205

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

Today’s guest is Thomas Frank! He’s a video creator and author with a focus on helping people become more capable of whatever they aspire to do. On his YouTube channel with over 2 million subscribers, he creates artistic and educational videos around productivity, habits, and "learning how to learn". In this episode we discuss how to better understand why we get burnt out and how to avoid it, the techniques Thomas uses to learn new things faster and improve your memory, how to actually master your time management, How to overcome procrastination and develop self-discipline and so much more!For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1205Kobe Bryant on Mamba Mentality, NBA Titles, and Oscars: https://link.chtbl.com/691-podKevin Hart Breaks Down His Secrets to Success: https://link.chtbl.com/956-podKatherine Schwarzenegger Pratt on the Power of Forgiveness: https://link.chtbl.com/925-pod 

This is episode number 1205 with Thomas Frank. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome back, my friend. Today's guest is Thomas Frank, and he is a video creator and author

with a focus on helping people become more capable of whatever they aspire to do. And on his YouTube channel with over 2 million subscribers, he creates artistic and educational videos around productivity habits and learning how to learn. And in this episode, we discuss how to better understand why we get burnt out and how to avoid this in our lives. The techniques Thomas uses to learn new things faster and improve memory, how to actually master your time management when you feel like there's too much on your plate, how to overcome procrastination and develop self-discipline, and so much more. I think you're really going to love this one, so make sure to share this with a friend that you think would be inspired by this message as well. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Thomas Frank.

Welcome back, everyone at the School of Green. I'm just very excited about my guest. Thomas Frank is in the house. My man. Strong, buff-looking dude. Are we going to arm wrestle now? You'll beat me. Maybe left-handed, but are you right-handed or left-handed?

Right-handed. Okay, maybe left-handed. I've got a strong left-hand as well, but you'll probably beat me. You're eight years younger. My secret. My left-hand is. My secret. Training. My left hand is stronger too.

Yeah. You've got an amazing story and amazing content. Millions of followers over on YouTube. I love the content about productivity, accelerated learning, how to learn faster, memory, all these things you talk about. And in a content consuming and creating world that we're in right now, especially I feel like in the last year and a half with the pandemic, more content has been created and consumed than ever. I'm feeling that more people are also having this sense of burnout more than ever. Like everyone just says, like, I'm overwhelmed.

I'm burnt out. Yes. I'm curious, how have you managed this personally with all of you going on personal life, fitness, getting up early, productivity, learning, creating new channels. How do you not feel burnt out and what's your process for teaching that to other people? That's my secret cap. I'm always burned out. No, this is a complex question with multiple answers. So I can't say that there's one simple thing you can do to avoid burnout. But I made a video on burnout in 2019. I heavily burned out then.

Did some soul searching, did some, you know, made some changes to my life. There are definitely things you can do. Why'd you get burned out in the first place? What happened? So it's, in my case, doing the same thing for too long. And there's something called the over justification effect. It's probably been said on the show before,

but it's when you allow external rewards to come into your life, it kills intrinsic motivation you had to do something. So when I was a kid, I made PowerPoint slideshows all the time just for fun. You know, you got a job making PowerPoint slideshows for somebody, now you're not going to do it in your free time. And there's a lot of research around it. It's more nuanced than that. And I think you can balance it.

You can be an artist for a living and you can reap the rewards while still enjoying it but there is a cost there and a trade off. And when you start making content purely for, maybe not even purely for but you just let your schedule get so overwhelming because there's all these opportunities, it can just sort of crush your spirit to do it. So biggest thing for me was realizing, okay, I don't need to be making this much content. We'll be be fine without it and i would rather put more time into making each piece better

so 2020 was actually amazing year for me artistically because we decided to go from four videos to two a week uh a month four one a week to one every other week yes because i want to take you to do one video before then? I mean, I guess it depends. And I think that was part of the burnout is I was like, I have one week and, you know, ideally three days because I have other things to make this video. So it's just got to be a listicle video and we'll throw in some stock footage and we'll make it like we did before. And at the time, I was watching people like Matt D'Avella make these Netflix documentary quality videos for YouTube. He was doing like one a month. One a month, right?

Because that's all it takes. But I'm watching it. I'm like, I want to make stuff like that. So we cut down, took a break as well. So I could sort of just rest. And I think it's a big thing that we miss in our lives is understanding that rest is actually part of productivity. It sort of disengages you and lets you step back

and get ideas again. And we started just focusing more on the quality. I was very interested in filmmaking at the time and like, okay, what lenses should I use? How can I get this kind of shot that I saw in a movie? My favorite thing we did in 2020 was this stupid video that was gonna be a response video to a video Matt made about checklists.

I'm like, this is a response video. I should shoot it in two hours and be done with it. And then I get this idea and I'm like, what if I recreate a scene from my favorite movie in the world, Scott Pilgrim versus the world, and just try to make it shot for shot like an homage. And this leads to me and my editor like standing out in random fields in the middle of like the mountains in Colorado and laying in snow fields and doing take after take and then learning how to do all these kind of editing things I'd never done before. But the result of that is my favorite piece of work that I've made, at least in terms of the visual fidelity, the editing, the music.

I learned so much in doing that. And I'm like, yeah, okay, I didn't make as much money, but that was fun. It was cool. That was amazing. You know, and I'm going to look back okay, I didn't make as much money, but that was fun. It was cool. That was amazing. And I'm going to look back on that as one of my favorite things that I made artistically. Right. I think what you said, rest is part of productivity, is so powerful because I think we've been conditioned to stack our days with our schedule full of doing things. And something I try to do in my schedule is have strategic messing around time.

Yes. try to do in my schedule is have strategic messing around time. Yes. Which is like an hour, 30 minutes, two hours, whatever you can, where you were like this time I'm scheduling this so that I'm not stacking with something else, but I'm scheduling time for just brainstorming, play, walking, throwing a Frisbee, whatever it is, playing a video game, something to like just clear your mind or just talking to a friend or just having space to do what you want yep and that has been so helpful for me I mean when I go to the gym I get my best ideas like last night I was working out I got a new idea for a channel and I was like this is amazingly just keep working out and getting this idea but if we're not moving our body or giving ourselves

space and time away from work I feel like it's hard to be as productive yes isn't there a video did, what's it called? Freiman, not Freiman, Ferryman? Feynman technique. Feynman technique. What is the Feynman technique? Does that have anything to do with this? So it doesn't have anything to do with rest, but we can get into it.

So the Feynman technique is... Feynman technique, right? Feynman technique, named after Richard Feynman, the physicist. I don't believe that he ever said, this is my technique and I bestow it upon the world. I think someone else just slapped his name on it. Very simple. If you teach something, it forces you to break down the information and it forces you to understand it well enough to break it down simply for someone else. So if you want to understand something well, try to teach it to somebody else. And my video on the Feynman technique acknowledged that you don't always

have a ready and willing participant who's gonna ask you those questions. So you can go through an exercise of acting as if maybe you're writing a blog post or writing a chapter of a book for somebody, write out the explanation and try to think to yourself, what would a kid ask me? What's the but why question? And then recently I did a follow-up video because I'm studying for a weightlifting certification, CSCS, and then there's another one called the PBC, there's two of them.

So I have to learn biomechanics, like what's this hinge joint here versus this joint here, that kind of thing. And me being a YouTuber for so long, I'm like, what if I just film a video going through what I learned? And then I'm like, what if I just take that video and throw it into my notes

and then watch it back and critique it? So that's my new version of the Feynman technique is try to explain it from memory to my camera, throw it up on YouTube unlisted, throw it in my notes and then watch it back and be like, that was wrong. Are you doing a video where you're actually watching the video and then actually that's the video, your video up on there and then what's it called?

Don't myself critiquing video of the video. That's like the Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter potter he's like painting a picture of himself painting a picture yes exactly that could be interesting right i mean it could work yeah uh i think it would add more labor into the process for sure but i mean get learning is labor so right maybe i've been uh i was telling you beforehand that i've been taking uh taking Spanish lessons three days a week for the last little over a year now. I'll tell you what, man, my brain hurts. My brain hurts learning this skill. And I want to start changing the language around this because I want to start conditioning myself to say this is fun and enjoyable as opposed to this hurts.

Because I think the more I say this is challenging and hard, it's going to be hard. the more I say this is challenging and hard, it's going to be hard. How do you, when you're trying to learn something new, how do you not let it overwhelm you and become like emotionally and mentally painful? When it's this new subject, you have no clue what you're doing, or is there no way around that?

I don't know if there's a way around it. It's painful. It is painful. Why is it so painful learning something new? It's like building a muscle, you know? And so we always used to say like, your muscles are growing because you're damaging them and then the repair process makes them stronger.

From what I've read recently, that's not quite how it works. It's more of like tension on the muscle just tells your body, hey, this muscle needs to grow. But it's still like you need to put tension on the muscle. You need to stress everything to make it grow. My biggest philosophy in life is use it or lose it. Like pretty much everything we have, You need to put tension on the muscle. You need to stress everything to make it grow. My biggest philosophy in life is use it or lose it. Like pretty much everything we have,

relationships, your brain, your muscle, your body, your bones, if you don't use them, you lose them. Astronauts go into space and if they stay too long, they come back with debilitating bone mineral density degradation. That's the main reason why they have to do those exercise routines, because there's no gravity. And my favorite thing like the nun study right so there's these nuns they work their whole life into their 80s 90s and there's the study they did where they did autopsies on the

nuns after they died and found at least in one case this lady who was sharp as a tack whole life 80s working teaching and they found tons of alz Alzheimer's legions in her brain. Really? Just wires around it. So it's like, you know, we don't, I don't purport to say too much around this because I'm not a scientist, but I believe if we use things, we keep them. We're like anti-fragile beings. If we lose them or if we don't use them, we lose them. Right, right. What is the skill that you've learned that's been the hardest to learn?

Oh, that's a good question. It's between figure skating and singing. Figure skating? Yeah. Why figure skating? So I had a friend in Iowa back when I lived in Des Moines. And he's like, dude, I want to learn how to play hockey, but I can't skate. So I signed up for this class.

And it's all like eight-year-old girls and me. Will you join this with me just so it's like not just them and me. And I'm like, okay, sure. And I go into a hockey shop. And this is Iowa. So there's not like a ton of skating culture and everything. But I'm like, all right. I asked the dude at the counter.

I have never skated before. I remember renting skates when I was a kid. And my ankles were flopping all over the place. What should I start with? Hockey skates or figure skates? And the dude's like, you should get figure skates. Because they're not as wobbly I guess uh so I drove up to Minnesota to get my pair of figure skates because if you're a dude buying men's figure skates is not easy and I just

ended up liking it and I never wanted to play hockey don't really want to get my teeth knocked out I'm on camera a lot but you like figures but i like it and i've always liked like skateboarding and rollerblading and skiing and just like graceful extreme kind of sports and figure skating is a lot like that in fact i found that figure skating made me an incredibly better skier really there's a ton of skill transfer there so i tried that but i found that was much more difficult than like wrestling or football or any sport i've ever done in the past. It's just so technique based. And in my opinion, you need a coach because you can watch even yourself and you can watch the pros and you're just like, I can't really tell the difference between what I'm doing, what they're doing. How many skills do you feel like you've learned? Oh, that's a good question.

I like to dabble in a lot of skills. My friends always make fun of me for getting into obsessions and then dropping them. I'm that kind of person. So there's been a lot of that. You're three, two, three months obsessed and you're like, okay, on to the next thing. Yeah. So that will probably mean I will never be the greatest in the world at anything, but I'm kind of okay with that. Yeah. Like I want to learn new things and it's just fun.

Yeah, I'm similar. I like to learn new things as well. But there are some things I want to master, which is like Spanish is one of them. But salsa dancing was something that I got into 16 years ago. And I've been doing it consistently for 16 years. It's been a great gift. So I think figure skating, if that's your thing,

that could be a great gift as well for a long time. So if someone wants to learn and master a skill in twice the time, what do they need to do to really say, okay, I'm going to learn figure skating. It's not going to take me six months. It's going to take me three months. What do they need to think about

in order to learn a skill, language, anything in twice the speed? All right, so there's a few things we can go through here. First one I want to talk about is the three types of progress because a lot of people get tripped up with this. So three types, gear acquisition, a conceptual learning phase, and then the deliberate practice phase. The thing about these phases is they each offer a different level of perceived jump

for the effort invested. So what's the first one? Gear acquisition. So buying the things you need. I want to be a YouTuber. I buy a camera. I buy a lens. I buy lights.

You feel like you've made this quantum leap, and in a sense you have, because you now have the tools you need to do the thing, but they have gotten you no closer to actually doing. You haven't done anything. You just have it sitting there, and it might sit there for years until you do something. So there was like this study that is sadly the,

I guess sadly is not the word, but there's a study done a few years ago, victim of the replication crisis. I don't know if you've heard of that, but there was but there's a study done a few years ago, victim of the replication crisis. I don't know if you've heard of that, but there was this whole thing that came out a few years ago. It's like all these psychology studies, we've tried to replicate them and we don't get the same results. So maybe half of psychology is bunk.

But it had a concept that I found interesting called a social reality where you come up and say, I'm going to run a marathon to your friends. And they're like, that's really cool. And you gain this sense of satisfaction just hearing your friends tell you that you're really cool, that you're going to do it. And then you don't do the thing. I don't know how true it is. When you feel bad about yourself, yeah. I don't think you feel bad about yourself. You've gained a little bit of the satisfaction you would have derived from practicing and actually accomplishing it. So maybe that makes you a little less incentivized to go do the thing. You're just like, oh, I already feel good because my

friends now see me as a potential marathon runner. Interesting. So. Is it good to talk about the goal then, the skill you want to learn? That's the question, right? Because they can't replicate the study. So do we actually know? I'm not sure. My gut feeling is if you have friends who will actually hold your feet to the fire on stuff, yes.

If you have friends who are just sort of like, they'll just be like, yeah, that's going to be great. You know, pat you on the back. I don't know if that's actually a good idea because if it demotivates you to actually put the work in. Right. You know, if you derive the satisfaction just from having them say, that's good. Good for you. Maybe not. The thing that I've seen work, and I don't know if this is proven or scientific or something,

but I've seen when people say, I'm going to start working out and start losing the weight. Right. Let's just give that example. If they say that to someone, I see maybe half the time time they do it half the time they drop after a few weeks but the people that i see that actually fall through is when they say i want to do this for whatever 30 60 90 days i'm going to post about it every day and i'm going to commit to myself by posting about it every day on a journey i think when i've seen that people are more likely to show up for themselves

when they know they have to post about something or if they have a coach. I know you've got a coach with lifting right now. It's like if you know someone is going to be there to watch you or you have to film it for that person on a daily basis, you're more likely to do it. And if you're spending money for that coach, you're probably more likely to do it as well.

Yes. I absolutely believe that. So gear acquisition is the first type of progress. And what's the second type? Second type is conceptual learning. So sit down, take a course, read a book, have a teacher. And what I'll say here. You're trying to learn figure skating.

So that would mean like go online and watch videos of figure skating tutorials. Gotcha. Watch a tutorial or get a coach. And the biggest thing here is you read like Josh Kaufman's book on skill acquisition or Tim Ferriss's. You wanna break down the skill into the subsets you wanna acquire now.

Hopefully have somebody who can tell you, here's the sequencing you should probably go through and then try to focus on learning the skills or subsets you wanna learn right now. So in the case of figure skating, I do not wanna start with a triple axel. I don't even want to start with any kind of jump whatsoever, especially any kind of jump with a rotation,

because first I need to understand how to rotate. So there's a move called a three turn. This is one of the first things you learn, the first thing you learn is literally just how to go. But one of the first techniques you're going to learn is called a three turn. It literally is just, you're on one foot, you go one, two, three, and you sort of create this counter rotation with your shoulders

and your torso that makes your hips rotate and you go from going forwards to going backwards yeah super basic technique half term that's like one of the first things you're going to learn and then you need to drill that for a long time before you go and start trying to figure out the technique for like a toe loop or something yeah Yeah, because you've got to feel comfortable transferring from going forward or going backward and balance yourself and not crack your skull open. Yep. Okay. So a little bit of conceptual learning.

And then the biggest part, which yields the lowest perceived feeling of progress for each hour you put in, is the deliberate practice. And that is just honing in on, here's the thing I need to learn. Now I'm going to go out and specifically learn that. And my video with Charles sort of breaks down the mindset that you wanna go into a session of deliberate practice with, but the biggest part of it is try to understand

what you wanna accomplish by the end of the session. You might not get there, but if you have a vision of what you're trying to accomplish, you have direction in the practice session. This is a big problem for musicians, because a lot of practice is sitting down and noodling around. If you're like, I want to play this section of this periphery song and I'm currently able to play it at halftime, I'm going to use a metronome and I'm going to keep increasing the time by 10 beats per minute until I can play it cleanly. That's deliberate practice. Who coined that term?

that's deliberate practice. Who coined that term? Is that from the Talent Code? What was that book? I'm not sure. Yeah. For some reason, Patrick Coyle. I'm not sure if that's the name or not.

But anyways, deliberate practice. That's why I heard that from a book. I think it was a Talent Code. So that's conceptual learning. Is that correct still? Is that still on it? That was deliberate practice. That's deliberate practice. The third one.

Yeah. And I mean, you know, they're kind of, there's a sort of spectrum between those two because conceptual learning and deliberate practice, you can say like, I could get the same, both at the same time. Right, right. But it's, I guess where you can put the divide is, I'm observing someone teaching me or I'm reading something and now I'm going and trying it for myself. Got it.

And is that the way, so how do we learn, so this is how we're going to learn something, how do we learn it faster? There's more deliberate practice. Those are the ways we learn it faster? There's more deliberate practice. Those are the ways to learn it faster. So in terms of skill development, that's definitely part of it. And then there are other things like interleaving,

where you spend a little bit of time working on one subset of a skill and then you go move to something else deliberately. And that sort of lets your brain be relaxed from the practice on one aspect and get into something else and then it combines them later on. Right, it's called interweaving? Interleaving. Leaving. Yeah, there's a great book by

Barbara Oakley called A Mind for Numbers. Okay. And the title makes you think it's about learning math. The book is entirely about learning how to learn. Learning how to learn. Yeah. What's been the biggest challenge for you then in learning how to learn faster? Wanting to do too many things. I've got 10 hobbies that I'm trying to master right now. Yes. One of my favorite stories, it's probably apocryphal,

but there's a story about Warren Buffett's pilot who was talking to Warren Buffett and says, I have 25 different skills I want to learn and what should I do? And he's like, okay, go home and write down all the things you want to learn. All right, comes back and he's like, here's my list, I've got it. And then he said, all right, now go write down all the things you want to learn. All right, comes back and he's like, here's my list. I've got it.

And then he said, all right, now go home and circle the top five you care about. So he goes home, circles the top five that he cares about, comes back, says, I think I understand now. These are the ones I need to focus on the most and I should only work on these ones in my free time. And then Warren Buffett supposedly says, no, the other 20 are your not to do list because these are what will currently distract you from putting in the actual time and focus on the things you wanna do.

And I get a lot of people emailing me like, I've heard that story before and I don't like it because I wanna do these other things. And my response is, your life is long. And the problem that we face right now is not that, oh, I'm gonna spend a year on this and then what if I don't have another year for that? The problem is, it probably takes us like 20, 30 minutes

to get into a good rhythm with whatever we're doing. And a lot of us are just like, I'm gonna put five minutes into this and then get distracted and five minutes into that. So the real goal here is, can you cull what you're trying to do, cut certain things out to the point where you're able to put a good 30 minutes

of practice into something? Yes. I know personally that is harder said than, or harder done than said. That's really hard to do So how many things are you trying to learn right now like on a consistent monthly basis? How many skills? That's a good question. I mean right my life is like weightlifting trying to buy a house and work at the moment. Yes Got you. So I guess it's like, you know honing my squat form until I can hit my weight goal

So weightlifting is kind of like the main skill you're trying to master, get to a certain level and then you maintain it essentially, right? That's the goal. Yeah, that's what I want to do because I don't want to be one of those giant power lifters. My dad is one. There is a video circulating somewhere around the internet in the depths of like old school internet

where he's in a competition, literally bench pressing 600 pounds and his femur breaks. Wow. On video. It was just funny, my coach didn't know that my dad was that guy and I went to his house to film a video and he's like, hang on a second, I've seen that video of your dad. So you're not one of those guys who's just lying

about your dad benching 600. Like your dad actually did bench 600 pounds. And I was having a conversation with my dad a few years ago about that and about just the the toll that powerlifting takes on your body and he's like you know if you don't want to be competitive there's a certain weight range you get up to where those weights are legitimately hurting your joints yeah long term right so I want to get to like 500 deadlift 400 squat my bench is kind of where I want it And then go back to like rock climbing and, you know, versatility. Versatility and the ability to do anything athletic I want to do for

as long as possible is my main goal. That's cool. Yeah. Staying healthy. That's the key. What about when you're trying to learn these skills for yourself? Do you know that like, okay, with a skill like weightlifting, it's just going to take me a certain amount of time in order to get to those goals. Is that something you go into it with? Or you say, ah, what if I can do it faster? What if I can bench and lift? Or are you just like, physically, it won't let me until I reach six, 12 months of getting to that goal? I think it's kind of that. So one thing I'll say here, and this is a little bit tangential, but I used to look at people who are stronger than me and be like,

oh, man, that guy's way stronger than me. Weightlifting, especially working with my coach and seeing the progress that my consistent effort brings, I now look at somebody and I'm like, that guy's six weeks ahead of me. And that's just a really encouraging mindset. That's cool. To look at somebody and not be like, oh, they're better than me and they're going to be where I am or I'm never going to get to that level.

It's just they have a little bit of a head start. And if I'm consistent in my work, I'm going to get there. But with weightlifting specifically, I think we have this thought that we can accelerate anything. And publishing and the online content industry has definitely disseminated this idea that you can hack anything. You can kind of hack weightlifting, but especially for a beginner and an intermediate lifter, we know the programming progression. We know what it is.

And if you're going way too fast, you're either taking exhaustion as testosterone or you are going to hurt yourself some way. And one thing that I constantly get reminded of is my tendons and ligaments will not grow as fast as my muscles. They don't get the blood flow. They just don't grow that way. So even if the musculature is able to be accelerated, I might be injuring myself in another way.

So for me, I don't ego lift. I do it because it's satisfying. I do it because I want to stay strong and healthy, but I also do not want to injure myself. Yeah, that's smart. I want to be able to like, you I also do not want to injure myself. Yeah, that's smart. I want to be able to like, you know, do monkey bars or something. Yeah, that's smart, man.

What about like memory? You know, when you're doing so much in your business and personal life, how do you remember the skill? How do you remember these things that you're learning better? I feel like we've lost the art and the ability to remember things. I think so to a degree.

There's probably stuff you do for Spanish that helps you a lot. The biggest thing is use. And this is not said enough. There's a lot of people who are like, here's how you hack your memory by building a mind palace from Sherlock Holmes. And we're going to use this system where you identify objects in your living room and then you create a numbering system. I've tried all that kind of stuff.

It can work. It's a lot of work. And it's a lot of work that doesn't necessarily feel meaningful a lot of the time. I think if you have a project that requires it, like going through organic chemistry. Or to go to a language learning example, I was learning Japanese in 2013. So there was this... Are you fluent? I'm not fluent.

I actually remember almost nothing. Wow, really? So that's one point that I'm gonna get to here is I went through this program. It was a web app called WaniKani, and it's just amazingly created SRS app. So space repetition, the whole principle is if you can try to make your brain recall something nearest to the point it would forget it, then it's like lifting a heavy weight, right? You get the best bang for your buck. That does actually work.

So that app uses that, it uses these fun mnemonics, and it creates like these crazy stories, and that does help you remember things. But with this use, it goes away. So when I was actually using it, I found that I was able to memorize the kanji and the other, the kana more easily and faster, but because I haven't been speaking Japanese for years, I forgot all of them. So you've got to use it consistently. You got to use it. That's how you remember. I think if I were to pick up wani kani tomorrow and start using it again, it would come back faster. But the biggest component to memory

is interest. Your brain has to care about it. Being interested. Yeah. So the biggest thing I say is like, can you find a way to get your brain more interested in the thing? Whether it's exposing yourself to a story that makes what you're learning a lot more interesting. Like I want to go to Italy now because I played Assassin's Creed 2. I'm a gamer. I literally got to run around 14th century Italy, and I'm like, this is super cool, and now I want to go there, and I want to see that stuff in real life. A lot of it still exists, whereas before I didn't have a huge interest. So the biggest thing is just going out and discovering things,

exposing yourself to new things, and that makes you more interested a lot of the time. What about, you talk about procrastination as well. Why do you think we procrastinate so much and how do we overcome procrastination so we can get more done? So there's internal and external factors. The biggest thing comes down to the resistance we feel to engaging in a task. And when we have resistance, we're kind of like electricity and we want to go to something else that's less resistant. So when we have a cell phone sitting on our table that has access to twitter

facebook instagram tick tock all these little dopamine hits just like well you know i could try to write this paragraph here but that's hard let me just check twitter really quick so the biggest thing is how can you tailor your environment so that there is no path of lesser resistance uh there is a great story by this guy, David Shankman. And I mean, this is like from a carbon perspective, a little wasteful, but he bought a $5,000 ticket to Tokyo from New Jersey, business class, wrote half of his book on the plane,

gets off the plane, has a coffee, gets back on the plane, goes back to New Jersey, writes the rest of his book. Wow. No, there's no Wi-Fi. There's just this computer. This is before this was like 20 before wifi or 2012 now there's movies and wi-fi and internet all the place that's

true a lot of people used to swear by the plane being like their one sanctuary and now it's like uh-oh so there are also things like you know the writers retreats i've seen one it's like a cabin in the middle of georgia in the woods you could just go out there and there's no phone no service no nothing just write um you don't have to do anything that drastic though. You know, just turn your phone off. And maybe if you have the ability, set up an area in your home or at the office, if you have an office like this, that doesn't have access to all that stuff. So I'll like literally turn my internet off on my laptop if I need to write sometimes. And you just focus.

Yeah. Cause I want to increase the resistance it would take to go to do something else. There's a principle called the 20 second rule. I think Shawn Achor came up with this. And 20 seconds is not a scientific number here, but the principle is what is the activation energy required to do anything? So if it's something you want to do less, increase the activation energy.

I remember when I was a kid, my mom would take the power cord for our PlayStation and we'd have to ask her for it because my brother and i were getting a little bit too obsessed with video games so you know that's a little bit of like you have to ask her but also it just makes it harder to go play the playstation and then if you want to do something more decrease the activation energy so i want to play guitar more guitar is not in the case it's on the stand somewhere where I walk by every day. So I can just pick it up and play. Yeah, make it easier for you to play it than it being in the closet or something like that.

Yeah. What about managing our time? I know you've done a lot of studies with, I think, Elon and Benjamin Franklin about, like, how they manage their time and being more productive. What have you learned from, I guess, these great individuals who have created amazing things on time management. So learn stuff from them, learn stuff from my own experimentation. There are some different ways of doing it. So like the Ben Franklin method is like,

time box your whole day. And that works for some people. It hasn't stuck for me. So I've presented it in a few videos. What do you do? Basically just like actually create a schedule for yourself. Yeah. And then Cal Newbert has an actual, I think, a better version of this where he says,

list out your schedule on the left side of a piece of paper. And you're trying to make estimations of how long things are going to take. And then as the day goes on, kind of recreate your schedule because it's always going to be different than you thought. Yes. So a huge reason for this is something called the segmentation effect, where when we predict how long something will take, if I give you the whole, we think it'll take way less time than if I give you all the different parts. So how long will it take for me to do my Lewis house interview? I think three hours. How long will it take for me to get dressed, get showered, drive to LA, find the parking spot, get to the office,

get the coffee, actually start recording. I think we did that maybe 15 minutes after we planned. It's gonna take a little bit longer. That is also combined with the fact that we basically conflate best case with average case. So when I'm like, how long does it take to get to work? I think, what's the best time I've ever had to get to work? That's how long it just takes in my head.

So I actually love this little feature. I use Fantastical. I don't know if you've ever used it. Fantastical. Fantastical. I wish they would make a Windows app or a web app. It's only for Mac and iPhone. But they have a thing where you can say,

when's my event? And then it will tell you when to leave based on the estimated drive time plus a window. I was surprised. It took me less time to get here this morning than it would have in the middle of the afternoon yesterday. But it was like estimated 44 minute drive

and then I can say, all right, add 15 minutes to that. That's when it pings me. Wow. So that's nice. That's cool. Where are you staying? I was like, where are you staying? I'm staying in Malibu.

Okay. A friend of mine just recently moved out there. So I was just like, hey, I've got a bedroom. It's a drive out there for sure. That PCH though. I know, man. It just like, hey, I've got a bedroom. It's a drive out there for sure. That PCH, though. I know, man. It's a beautiful view. I've never driven it before, and I've always wanted to.

Oh, man. And I'm like, this is amazing. Oh, no, it's worth a drive if you're mountains, the ocean. Being in Idaho? I'm in Denver. Iowa and Denver, yeah. It's a different vibe, that's for sure. You've got the nice mountains down in Denver, though.

We do, yeah. Driving the 70 in the mountains is incredible yeah and what so what did Elon do then to master his time management and from the article I read it was the same thing really just time boxing time box so it's just estimating your schedule and I don't want to harp too much on time boxing because a lot of people try it and just doesn't stick so what i think is more effective is just having a habit of planning your day out i would often do it on a whiteboard i do it in a little sticky note area of notion now that i have and it's just knowing okay what's on my schedule what are the gaps of time i have between those scheduled items and what can i realistically get

done if I have an hour, I know I'm not writing an article because it's going to take me way too long to get into the flow of writing. I need two hours, three hours. And then planning out what you want to accomplish during the day that isn't a scheduled thing. And then trying to keep that limited. You know, I still struggle with this. I'll be like, I can get six or seven things done today. You really get like one good thing done or like maybe two, three max, right? It's like... Yep. My friend Tiago recently tweeted, when I was 25, I would drink coffee and feel like I could do You really get like one good thing done or like maybe two, three max, right? Yep.

My friend Tiago recently tweeted, when I was 25, I would drink coffee and feel like I could do everything. At 30, I would drink coffee and I feel like I could do anything. Now I drink it and I feel like I could do something. Maybe I could do something today, yeah. What about the habits of the most highly organized people? What do they do differently than most people don't do? What are their habits? Well, we're talking about organization.

Are we talking about morning routines? I'm thinking about the most productive people. What are the habits of the most productive people? Well, I guess we need to know what the specific habit we're talking about is. So if you said most organized people, right? They have a system. And I think about my favorite example is Library of Congress. 39 million books, 865 miles of shelves. Imagine if there was no organizational system for that.

You would take, I did the math on this, and it was like 17 months of, I estimated like, you could look at two books a second. It's like 17 months to see every single one of those if you never took a bathroom break. And with the Library of Congress classification system, you can find a book in seconds. It's just a treat. I know how to get to it. So people who are organized have a system for the inputs that come into their lives. They know where they should go. And they realize that this might take a little bit longer in the moment, but it makes you easily

able to find whatever you need. And that makes you a lot more effective. What systems should we be implementing in our life to be more organized and optimized? So just a few, and I don't want to like overwhelm people, but you know, where are you putting your tasks? Where do you capture ideas? And how do you organize your living space? Can you easily find the things that you need to find? And does your space feel so cluttered that you can't focus? How important is living space to becoming more productive and organized in your career and in your life? It depends. It's more important for people who are less obsessed.

It's more important for people who are less obsessed. So yeah, like if you're absolutely obsessed about something, it doesn't matter if your workspace is messy. I've seen people, personally, I've been like absolutely obsessed. You're just zoned in on things. You don't care. Like, ah, yeah. But we go through periods of fluctuation in our lives where we are more or less obsessed with something that we should still be putting effort into to build. And when we're in that more chill period of our lives, I think the organizational systems

matter more. Basically, is the brain hyper-accessed about something? Are we super intense about it? Okay, cool. A lot of this productivity stuff goes out the window. You're just going to make it work. I honestly believe that. And that's why a lot of people are like, all these productivity steps are stupid. That's because they're obsessed.

They're like, I'm just getting it done. It doesn't matter. They don't need it. And they're not watching productivity content. If you're watching my videos, it's probably because you're not that obsessed right now. And so if you're not that obsessed right now, there are things you can do to make yourself more effective or sort of push your brain over that hump of

resistance. Why don't people just become obsessed? That's the question, right? Why are people not obsessed with the thing they're doing? I mean, that's a good question. I wish I knew. I wish I could make myself obsessed about things. I remember being 15 years old and not caring about anything in the world except for the Final Fantasy game I was playing. I remember being 15 years old and not caring about anything in the world except for the Final Fantasy game I was playing. I remember being 19 and not caring about anything in the world except for I want to make this tweak to my homepage on my blog. I'm going to learn PHP until I can do it. I care about nothing else. And then there are just times in your life where you don't have that and it's like this elusive thing. So, I don't know, the biggest things that help me are if I'm feeling overwhelmed, try to take a break.

Every time I try to take a break, it's like at the beginning, trying to convince myself, take the break, take the vacation, or just take a day off. No, I have to get things done. And then at the end of the break, I'm like, hang on a second. I'm getting ideas that I would never have considered or they wouldn't have come to me. Because you took a break. Because I took a break. Yes. So, rest is probably a piece of that.

or they wouldn't have come to me. Because you took a break. Because I took a break. Yes. So rest is probably a piece of that. You know, that cycle of work and rest is probably very pertinent to our discussion of how do we get obsessed with things. It's probably we need some time to rest.

And I feel like it kind of goes in with self-discipline a little bit as well. Like if you're obsessed, you're disciplined. I feel like if you're not obsessed, you're kind of like, what's the point of this? And you're kind of lazier. How do we get to a place of more self-discipline? Or is that not the right thing we should be thinking about?

I think we should. Yeah. And my favorite thing here is accountability. So how can we get accountability? I made a video recently called the five levels of self-discipline. And the model here is different types of accountability that can augment your own self-discipline. So as a baseline, I do believe we can become more disciplined individuals internally through practice. If you start, and this is a terrible example for me

because I hate it, but if you start meditating, you can maybe do three minutes today, next week you can go for five minutes. That's an increase of self-discipline and an increase in your ability to hold your focus on one object. But can you add accountability, or maybe a better word for this is duty,

into the mix and augment your own internal self-discipline? I want to go research this more, but I read once that prisoners who were given dogs became much better caretakers of themselves too. There's some accountability and duty there. I've been in a prison and done a talk in prisons, and I went to a prison here in Lancaster near L.A. and done a talk in prisons. And I went to a prison here in Lancaster near LA where there was a program where they were training dogs, rehabilitating and training dogs. And then they would go out into the outside of the prison

for special care individuals who needed dogs. And they were so self-disciplined. They were great, they were loving, they were caretaking. These dogs got to sleep in the cell with them so they could train them overnight. And so I watched this, I witnessed this one time and it was cool to see that they were taking care of themselves as they were taking care of the animals as well

which is cool to see. So I mean that's really cool to see and I'm glad to get a little bit of confirmation on that. I want to do more research on it but it kind of goes back to something I've often thought which is that duty is one of the most important things we have for our will to live, our will to do things, our motivation.

And I almost worry that like modern society sort of gets rid of the duty-bound obligations we have to each other in our immediate relationships, because it's no longer like, now I have to do something for my village, I just gotta work for this company. And it's just much more abstracted. When I feel that I have a duty to somebody else,

I don't have any trouble getting myself to do it. When I'm just like, I want to work out for me, then it's only if I'm obsessed. If I'm like, I really care about it because I just love this thing, I'll do it. But if it's like, I should do this because I should do this for me, there's no motivation there. So I think the self-discipline is, yes. So five levels, duty to yourself.

Duty to self. Which is augmented by external commitment devices. So this could be as simple as a habit tracker. I check it off every day and I see it in a physical manifestation that I've done it. Level two, accountability partners. This one is where people get tripped up. I have seen a lot of people be like, well, it's each other's accountability partners. And if you don't write your thing, you've got to pay me

50 bucks. And if I don't write my thing, I'll pay you 50 bucks. I did this once. We both didn't write our thing. And we both just kept the money. Pretend that we swapped. So I did one that was much more successful where I told my best friend, hey, I'm going to read, what was it, 25 minutes of nonfiction every day. And here's a spreadsheet where I will be logging my pages. I'll pay you $100 if I don't do even one day. And so he kept me to it. Now, I had two friends who were like. Did you miss a day or no? I did not miss a day.

There were days where I was like, it was 1155 in the basement, like two roommates. The one is just like, yep, I'll hold you accountable. And I don't want your filthy money if you fail. So don't fail.

And I, the other one was just like, well, I can't, I'd be the person who gets the spreadsheet and I'm going to try to sabotage you. I want the a hundred bucks. So I think it matters. Like number one,

what's the system you have in place and number two is that person the type of person who wants the best for you will they actually hold your feet to the fire will they not try to sabotage you do they want you to succeed and do what you want gotcha so wait did you go with the guy who didn't want to take your money uh yes that's my friend martin uh he now works with me he's like my ceo so is it better me. Got you. He's like my COO at this point. So is it better to have that or someone who's like, I want you to do it, but if you don't, you still got to pay me? I mean, well, I mean, he would have taken my money.

Okay, got you. He just didn't. He didn't want you to take it. My other friend was like, oh, I'm going to sabotage this. Ah, got you, got you. Just like, get your money. So if you have those kinds of people around you, you want people who want the best for you, right? Of course. So he's got to check in on you. Hey, you haven't logged in today.

And he would text me. He's like, where's my pages? Of course. So he's got to check in on you. Hey, you haven't logged in today. And he would text me. He's like, where's my pages? That's cool. I'm going to take your hundred bucks. So accountability is crucial for self-discipline. I think so. I think if we have accountability, you know, things are much better.

Three is the professionalized version of this. Coaches, teachers, people you hire. And they have the advantage of often, you know, hopefully if they're qualified, often having knowledge of the skill itself. people get higher and they have the advantage of often, hopefully if they're qualified, often having knowledge of the skill itself so they can provide guidance and sequencing and help you to steer clear from the wrong directions,

give you feedback. So yeah, I don't want my best friend to be my lifting coach because he is not certified for biomechanical and all that kind of stuff. My coach can be like, yeah, your squat form is going to lead to an injury if you don't fix this, this, and this. So he also is my accountability burner, but he's also my professional coach.

Right. Okay. And then four and five, accountability to a team. Accountability to a team. So, you know, you've got accountability to your staff and vice versa. They know that if they don't do something, it's not just that you're going to say, I'm disappointed in you. It's that I have now lost something because you didn't do what you said you'd do.

That's more important, or that's more powerful. And then five is leadership. So that's just kind of like 4.5, but when you're the leader, you're at the top, and that I don't think is an accountability hack, because that's a lot of responsibility to take on, so you sort of need to earn that, but I think it's part of the model

because it is the highest level of accountability. And if you don't show up and be accountable to yourself and to the team or to the community, you're going to not be in that position anymore. Yes. Right. So it's like you've got to continue to be disciplined in order to stay in that position if you want to

and set the example of discipline. And you realize that if you're a leader and you fail, the people who are looking to follow you, you hurt them. And if you're on a team, you hurt them, you can probably hurt somebody as well. But if you're the leader, you have the most potential to hurt people if you don't follow through.

Absolutely. Which is a lot of pressure. They're relying on you, your skills, the money you might bring in to be paying them, whatever it is. So I'm sure that keeps you awake at night. It keeps me awake at night. My team relies on me more than anybody else on the team.

Where do you struggle with the most when it comes to self-discipline? That's a good question. What part of your life do you struggle with the most? It's probably sticking to things that don't have a tight deadline. It's like a made up deadline. Like, I want to do this by now,

but my publisher doesn't need this. My team doesn't need this. It's like, I mean, I want this. That's what it is. It's like me even wanting to write my book for the last year and a half, but I wanted to self-publish it this time. And I'm like, well, there's no publisher forcing me, which is, those deadlines are so crucial,

I feel like. And I feel like there are things that used to really motivate me that don't anymore. So I used to use this website called Beeminder, where you could literally bet money that you would do things. And I still think it's pretty useful. You can hook it up to any API. So it's like, you can hook it up to RunKeeper to make sure you ran enough or whatever. And there's pretty useful. You can hook it up to any API, so it's like you can hook it up to RunKeeper to make sure you ran enough or whatever.

And there's a graph, just make sure you go up enough. And when I was building my business five, six years ago, that was incredibly effective. I set a book goal, I set a blogging goal, and without fail for three years, it was blog posts every week, YouTube video every week, podcast every week. I set a goal to write 500 words a day for my book and i got my book done in two months wow but now like i've tried it again and again and again it doesn't seem to work as

much anymore so i feel like what was the site it's called b minder like with a like a b with a stinger um i also used habitica which is a habit tracker that is video game based. So you get a character and you get experience points and gear and stuff. And that was also super motivating for me. But now it's not. At this point, it's become like I need to hire a coach or somebody to actually yell at me. Yes, I hear you. I mean, it's like when you're well, you weren't really starting out, but you were kind of in the, I guess, the earlier part of your journey, right? Yes. At that phase.

And I think when you're at that phase, it's easier to get motivated because you haven't created something yet. So you're like, let me get this out there. Let me start building it. It's like, if I want to have a bigger channel, I got to do this every week or every month and be consistent. Now that you've reached these kind of goals at a bigger stage, it's like, well, is getting another million followers really gonna like, you know, impact something or creating more content gonna impact this?

It's like, you've already done these things that were hard to do. Yeah, exactly. It's like, I've already written a number of books. It's like, okay, I need a deeper level of discipline, of service to a community. Like, well, how can I serve? Now I'm doing a disservice by not putting this out there.

I'm hurting people by not doing this if I have a knowledge base or something I can share with people. So it's like making that my discipline. And that's hard to do. Like, there's a little voice in my head that's like, you shouldn't care if you don't care about the next million followers

because this is important information. You should put it out there. But if it doesn't make the brain actually take it seriously, then it's not a good argument. There's gotta be something else that's put in there. It's gonna be something meaningful for you too, right? It's like, okay, what am I gonna gain from this? Yep.

Otherwise it's just like, okay, I'm creating the create. There's gotta be some reward, right? I think so, yeah. Well, it's internal, external, right? Yes, yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there. It's either some kind of internal reward or an external reward, some kind of thing. Yeah, so you struggle with what specifically?

With the fake deadlines. What's the deadlines you're wanting to create? Yeah, so like with my YouTube channel, it's like the actual deadline is like the end of the month. To launch the channel? No, for like a YouTube video. Like, oh, a sponsor's like, we need this video to go live. Okay, the last day of the month. So it's like, okay. And often it's not like I'm goofing around until the last day of the month, but it's like, I could probably make this video in a week and I kind of want to do this other

thing over here. Or it'll be like, okay, I've got two full weeks. I'm going to make the ultimate guide to focus. This is going to be the greatest YouTube video ever. And then you wait until the last minute. Or I don't, or I'm just working on it and I'm like, okay, well, N plus one rule. Why don't I go find one more study just to make this that much more thorough

and then I get to four days before publishing and I realize I've written a 30 minute video that's like 15 minutes of me just blabbing statistics and no one cares about it. What's the N plus one rule? Well, I think I just made that up right now. It's sort of like just that, well, I could go get one more study result and it would be

that much more thorough. And I guess this sort of is more generally known in hobby communities, the N plus one rule in mountain biking is, well, the number of bikes you should own is N plus one, where N is the number of bikes you own right now. There's always another bike to buy. I have a downhill bike, but I don't have an Enduro bike, or I don't have a fat bike, so I better buy that one too.

And this is- An electric bike, it is, yeah. Yeah, there's always something to get, right? Or same with camera lenses. N plus one rule is like notorious in the camera community. Really? So getting more lenses as opposed to

what actually just doing the shooting. Or just being okay with having your current collection. There's always another one. I'll just use this, right? Interesting. Yeah. So it's kind of like an author, it's like always looking for more research and more data to add to the book.

Yeah, and I think the extra bit with the M plus one rule with authors is we know that the really hard work is crafting the story and cutting things down and making it polished. Going out and finding research is by comparison much easier. Much easier. So much easier. I can go and take notes on research all day. But like figuring out how to make a compelling story around that, that's difficult. Yes, man. You talk about you do videos on the morning routine and the importance of them.

You've also shot videos on how you used to do it and now you do things differently now. How important has the morning routine been for you in staying disciplined and setting good habits and actually accomplishing your goals? How important has it been for you? staying disciplined and setting good habits and actually accomplishing your goals how important has it been for you i think it is important i think the specific habits are important to your current goals at the time so if i'm like i really want to learn japanese i do believe that me getting up and learning japanese in the morning was actually the most important thing for me to do because again going back to the accountability angle here i have a limited amount of energy during the day if i have thing for me to do. Because again, going back to the accountability angle here, I have a limited amount of energy during the day.

If I have something I need to do that requires me to pull on my own self-discipline, I should put that first, so I can then use external self-discipline and accountability to power through the rest of the day. It's interesting you say that because the first eight months I was learning Spanish, I was doing it at the end of the day

around like five, six o'clock. And I was literally falling asleep on the screen because it's so, like, it was so hard on my brain. Like memorizing these simple, you know, not simple, for me it was challenging, but I was like, I've already used a lot of my energy for the day to like focus, and now I'm asking myself to be so focused on something that's extremely hard.

And I'd just be like falling asleep. I said, I need to do this first thing in the morning so now I do 8 a.m. it's still hard working better it's working way better nice it's working back because now I'm waking myself up in the process but it's way better because I have energy through the rest of the day yes which is what's easier for me as opposed to like I don't have any energy to focus on this at the end of the day mm-hmm so that's interesting that you were doing it in the morning as well I'm'm trying to move my workouts in the morning too. Because then it's done and you feel like I accomplished this and I don't have to wait at six o'clock and I had this

meeting and this thing came up and this article took longer. Yep. I want to keep going and then it's nine o'clock and you work out. It's a lot harder. Plus the big thing for me is so I do not have any trouble getting my workouts done for the most part because I have my coach. What I have trouble is getting the workout done in a reasonable amount of time. Because I lift a lot of big weights, man. So I could take five minutes rest, get on my phone. And in the morning, I feel like I need to get to work. So I've noticed going in in the morning, like my coach will tell me this. He's like, dude, when I go to work out, like my warmup sets, I do them immediately. There's no rest between warm-ups and i do three minute rest between my sets and i think i rest about three minutes and i time it and like this workout had five exercises three of

which are little accessories in a loop and yet it took me two hours how is that possible okay i was on my phone way more than three minutes between sets so in the morning there's that pressure and i'm like cool i will wait three minutes and no more between squat sets i don't care if i fail a rep and then he tells me that he's like yeah well i don't care if you fail a rep because if you're waiting like a day between sets like you're not really getting the right tension you need right so yeah why not just leave your phone at home i should do that i mean turn your wi-fi off or turn the wi-fi off i absolutely should do that cell service yeah the one thing i don't like about weightlifting is even three minutes between sets is like just, okay, what am I doing? Right.

Sitting around waiting. You should breathe, meditate, focus on the reps. I'm going to go hard on this next one. Yeah. Definitely get like the mind muscle connection in the set, but then in the rest periods, I'm like, I need something to do. Yeah. I hear you, man. For me, I have to film my sets too, so.

Turn the Wi-Fi off, you know? I could absolutely turn the Wi-Fi off. Airplane mode. Or just get a camera, you know. But I think, you know, the morning actually solves it. Yes. Like even if I do check Twitter between sets, like I know, okay, I really want to be working

in like the next hour, so let's just get it done. So what else in the morning routine have you seen as crucial for people? This is simple, but water, sunlight, movement. People feel so groggy when they wake up and these three things help more than anything else to make you feel awake and to hopefully not hit the snooze button.

So I have an iPad downstairs with an alarm that goes off three minutes after my main one. This sucks every single morning. You've got to get up. Because I hear my regular alarm. I'm like, okay, I really want to hit snooze. And I'll start negotiating. Well, I could have snooze for two minutes. That's enough.

And I realize, okay, no, that's not enough. I better just get up. And then my cat wants food too. So I get up. But then it's like I'm groggy. If I at least look out the window, drink a glass of water, and get just a little bit of walking. That's great.

Like, I feel much better. And then I try to go for a walk, like 10 minutes, 20 minutes. It's not that fun right now because I live in the suburbs, which is why I'm trying to move back into Denver downtown because I will go for a walk every single day and be stoked about it down there. Right. Yeah, it's hard in the suburbs. Just looking around. You just realize there's nothing else to look like. It's just other houses.

There's nowhere to go. People walking their dogs maybe or something. Dude, this is a big thing. And I realize everyone has their own opinion on this, but purposeful movement is something that

we don't get a lot of. If we live out in the suburbs, it's like you have to convince yourself to move your body. Otherwise, you stay inside. Especially if we work at home, it's like I have my house.

I walk from the bedroom to my home office and I do my work. And if I want to work out, I have to convince myself to do it for the sake of working out. It's just so much better when you're like, okay, I'm going to go for a walk because I need to go to the store. But I'm going to get like a mile of walking in. It's just so much. I don't know. I love it. And I want to live my life that way. Yeah. I love it, man. I want to talk about habits

again. If someone is trying to, I guess, build a new habit, what do you think are a few important things they can do to make that habit stick? Okay. Stay with them. There's definitely a few things we can do. I love that level one of accountability. In the beginning, can you get an external system? And this not only adds a little bit of augmentation to your self-discipline, but it also allows you to create a record of that habit. So in the beginning, the habit isn't a habit. It's a self-discipline-driven behavior that is new to your life.

And you may have some novelty driving it in the beginning, but eventually, great book by Seth Godin, you get this dip thing. The dip, we probably talked about the dip. One of my all-time recommendations for people to read, especially if you're starting a business. You hit that part where the novelty's worn off, now it's hard, and you just need to slog through. And it's not a habit yet so if you have

something that is sort of giving you a bit of accountability and if you have something that is helping you track it so you see a record of your streak that's incredibly powerful 20 second rule is also very good as well how can you decrease the activation energy to make it easy to do so what does that mean i'm going to do this for 20 seconds so no 20 second rule again is a it's not it's i didn't explain the 20 seconds part of the 20 second rule again is a, it's not, it's, I didn't explain the 20 seconds part of the 20 second rule. So in the book, the happiness advantage, he talks about how, if you want to do something more often, uh, make it take less than 20 seconds to start doing it. If you want to do it less often, make it take more than 20 seconds. So take the power cord out of

your Xbox and throw it in the drawer or put the guitar on the stand. So if it's a new habit, what can you do to make it easier for yourself to get into it? Uh, if it's a new habit, what can you do to make it easier for yourself to get into it? If it's like working out, can I build a home gym? Like my gym is out in my garage now. It's super easy to go on to. I skip workouts less. I'm moving to a house where I won't be able to have that. But I've got a friend who's like, I will meet you at this gym every day. So there's the accountability part.

So, you know, make it easier to do or make it more, I guess, make somebody have you accountable. Yeah. What would you say are some weird habits that you've seen successful people do differently that I guess normal people don't do? Weird habits. That's attributed to their success. It's like, oh, I don't get up early and walk and drink water, but I do this other thing. Have you heard any of these things or have you tried something? Well, I'll go on the early thing.

So many people think you have to get up early. And I don't know what it is, but if you're just like, here's my epic morning routine, or here's why I wake up at four in the morning, people latch onto that stuff. And I don't know, there must just be something in the basal ganglia that's like, if I have the same morning as a successful person,

then I will be just as successful as they are in my real life. And that's not true necessarily. But also there are plenty of people who are super successful going to bed at like 2 a.m. and waking up at noon. So the biggest thing is realize everyone has a different chronotype, which is your propensity to go to sleep and wake up at different times. How does the sun and sunset affect your circadian rhythms? It's different for everyone.

Some people just sleep later and go to bed later. My fiance is a great example. She will stay up until like 2 a.m. without me telling her to go to bed. But then she's like writing a book at 2 a.m. and me, like, nope, it's got to be the morning for me. So figure out like when do you it's got to be the morning for me. Really? So figure out, like, when do you have the most energy? And then ask yourself, am I getting enough sleep?

That's so much more important than waking up at 5 a.m. Yeah, and structure your life around that. When you have the most energy and are you getting enough sleep? Because sleep is important, in my opinion. Yeah, I'm not sure I have, like, an interesting, weird habit off the top of my head. Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure I have like an interesting weird habit off the top of my head. If someone's struggling with being a perfectionist, like they're not launching their thing, they're not doing the thing they want to do because it's got to be perfect beforehand, I guess,

or they're just not able to finish a project, what would you say to that about perfectionism? So I do have a video on perfectionism if people want more on this, but my favorite thing for overcoming perfectionism is what I call the 1% rule. Okay. This is why I am a YouTuber with a successful channel instead of a dead channel with like three videos. So put yourself on a schedule. Could be once a week, could be once a month,

depends on the scope of what you're trying to do, but try to put yourself on a schedule and with each piece of work that you create, try to identify one area where you want to get 1% better. Give me an example. So I want to make a video and I think my audio sucks. This video, I'm going to figure out how do I position my microphone and add some sound treatment to my space to make the sound better. Or there's one where I actually made a tweet thread documenting this process. This guy on YouTube, Mondo Bytes, has this amazing cinema-like quality of his A-roll.

It just looks so good. And I'm like, I'm going to recreate that. I want to figure out how to make my A-roll way better. Right now, I look like a dude sitting in a bedroom with the overhead light on. Mondo Bytes is his name? Mondo Bytes is his channel, I believe. His name is in a bedroom with the overhead light on. Mondo Bytes is his name? Mondo Bytes is his channel, I believe. His name is Armando. I forget his last name.

I don't want to butcher the pronunciation. So he's got the colored light behind me, and I've got a key light here, and I've got this cool grid thing on the fill light and a hair light. Oh, so I've got to add a hair light. And I'm not thinking about a million other things. It's just I want to have the best A-roll possible

for this video. And I get it on schedule. And the next video, I've now ingrained the techniques I learned from that one. And I can either have it automated, like that A-roll I could just leave set up always. Or it's just gonna become much easier to do in the future. So the biggest thing to realize is,

if you're on the schedule and you're improving a little bit every time, 365 videos down the road, you're like, I've made 365 improvements and I've been able to use maybe not all of them, but a lot of them in every video since. And you realize that there was stuff you would have never even known to do in the beginning that you are now able to do. So like the biggest realization of a perfectionist is you cannot make perfect work because you haven't done enough work yet to understand what perfect would even mean

to you in five years. Right. And what's perfect now is not gonna look perfect in five years. Exactly. Martin Scorsese probably has a vision of what perfect is in his head and he can't make it. He can't make it.

You know? Yeah, and I look back at my previous books and I'm like, people are still buying them and loving them, but I'm like, ah, but when I say it that way now, when I do it this way, ah, this was a little off. It's like you look at it differently with more time and space. Yeah, but something that, I mean, you probably realize this as well, that should make you feel better about your work is you look back on it and you're like, okay, there's a better way I could have done that, but I was still proud of it when I put it out. Absolutely. And people are benefiting from it. it absolutely and that's the key why do you think we judge

ourselves so frequently or so worried about the opinions of other people that that holds us back so much what do you think I'm not sure why but I mean I definitely feel it you feel personally too yeah I feel like less than other people like I don't look back on my old work and cringe. I have people who are like, I never watch a video after I make it or I'll go back and watch my old videos and I think they're terrible. I don't. I'll go back and see a video from five years ago. And I'm like, that was a pretty good video. Like there was definitely some stuff I could have done better. But and I'll remember little things I had done. Again, going back to the intrinsic, motivated, artistic stuff. I'm like, yeah, I remember that little stupid Spider-Man joke.

That's a lot of fun. So I don't cringe about my stuff. And I realize. I'm like, yeah, I remember that little stupid Spider-Man joke I threw in. That's a lot of fun. So I don't cringe about my stuff, and I realize I'm trying to teach people who are just a few steps behind me. And that was me a few steps behind where I am now. I was proud of the work. Yeah, and how do you manage your day-to-day right now? Do you have a big team?

Is it a small team? Are you still doing a lot of the work yourself? What are you doing to accelerate your growth? Small team right now. So I got my editor, Tony, and my COO, Martin, who are the main guys. I just hired a personal assistant. Actually, very, very good decision. I've learned that every time I've delegated, it's been like this painful process, like pulling a tooth.

But then I end up making more money and having a better life and the only trade-off is i now have a team to worry about and that does you know make me think more seriously about planning out war chest like when i was by myself i could just drop everything and work at mcdonald's if i had to if everything went to hell but now you're like okay we got to have money in six months in a year you can for people? Which goes back to level five of your self-discipline, which is leadership. So it's forcing you to level up your personal leadership skills. Absolutely. And start strategizing, thinking the future as opposed to, well, if I wake up tomorrow and no money's coming in, I can get by on a couch or something.

Yep. I remember your story about sleeping on your sister's couch. A year and a half, man. And here's the thing. She gave me great accountability because after a year and a half of living for free, rent free, eating her food,

just kind of like feeling like a bum, I was still obsessively learning and trying to master skills during that time, but I wasn't forced to make money, right? I wasn't forced to yet because I had a free place to stay. I wanted it, but I wasn't forced to. She gave me a great gift where she said, okay, Louis, you've been here a year and a half.

It's time you either move out or start paying rent. Yeah. And so I said, okay, I'm moving out and I'm moving here with my brother. I asked my, I went to like the next thing, okay, hey bro, can I stay here for a few months for free? And he said, my wife wants you to pay. So maybe they coordinated and say, you gotta pay somehow.

So he only charged me 250 bucks a month for a room, which I was like, okay, I gotta start strategizing the future. I gotta start planning, taking action, taking risks, putting myself out there in an uncomfortable way. And that was a great accountability for me. It was like, okay, I've got to pay something. I got to learn how to make some money. And it forced me to move forward. So yeah, it was powerful. I actually want to ask you. Go ahead. So I'm in a period of my life now

where I'm buying this new house and there is definitely this idea in the entrepreneurship community that you should spend lavishly to force yourself to make more money. And then there's the other side where it's just like, no, you should live Spartan and save as much as possible and you shouldn't need, like there's definitely like I'm going to pay more for this house. And I don't think that's my motivation. My motivation is I really don't want to be in the suburbs. But there's a part of me that's like, maybe this is also good for this house. And I don't think that's my motivation. My motivation is I really don't want to be in the suburbs. But there's a part of me that's like,

maybe this is also good for my motivation. And maybe I should go get a big office too. I think it's, yeah, I'll tell you my personal experience. I went from living for free to then paying $250 a month. And then after, I think it was six months there, I was like, okay, I need to get out of this place. And my sister-in-law was pregnant and I was just like, they had their own family. And I was like, I got to be in a grown man. I'm like 25 at this point, 26. And I was like, I got to get my own space. So I found the cheapest apartment I could find in Columbus, Ohio. I didn't

have a car at the time. And I was like, I need to be able to walk and it was downtown So $495 a month and I remember thinking how am I gonna pay $500 a month? I didn't have the money, right? And I signed up I was like maybe I've got three months to be able to pay for this But I don't know what I'm gonna do after that by right when I signed like the lease For the year my brain just started thinking differently And I remember a year and a half, two years later, I moved to New York City and I was paying $2,700 for one month of an Airbnb. I was thinking, this is like six months of rent in Ohio. What am I doing? This is insane, right? I was like, this is insanity. And within the first week, it was only maybe in the first couple of days,

I remember walking out just feeling abundant and saying, I'm in this environment, in this city, there's people around, people have opportunities, money, I just need to go meet them and go create something. Then I started paying $3,700 a month in New York City the next month for the next year and a half. And my income exponentially grew. Then I moved to LA and I started paying more than that for a place for six years and thinking, this is like crazy, I can't believe I'm spending this much money. My income grew.

Then I moved a couple years ago to Waymoore, thinking to myself, this is nuts, I don't even own this, I'm just paying rent. You're just thinking, okay, every year I'm spending how much money that's just going out the door. But my, and I got an office space and I'm paying more money. Opportunities grew.

I started to think differently. So for me, I have been a fan of like, if I feel stuck, it's not like I wanna splurge and just spend a lot of money because I don't do that in my normal life. I'm not out here like buying watches and cars. I don't do that. I'm pretty frugal with the rest of my money, but I know the environment, my living space, when I level up, I start to think and actively in my business as well.

Yeah. That's been my experience. But again, my friends know, like I don't wear watches and jewelry and, you know, I don't buy cars. I don't, I don't do anything. I don't like, I, I, you know, I get a lot of travel for free. It's like, I'm not really spending a lot. I'm investing in my business. And so if you were spending a lot everywhere else, I'd say, don't do that. But if you're not, I would say invest in a great environment that's going to make you think, oh, what do I need to do

to leverage more, to hire more people, to really grow this thing? Unless you're just happy with where you're at, and that's cool too. I'm not. So that makes me feel a lot better. And if you're not like, but you've got a great base and you're making great money

and you've got this following. Yes. But you're not like pushed to really go bigger yet, like faster, right? It's like, so for me, that's what's worked for me. Every time I do that, I'm like, this is really uncomfortable. Am I really about to invest in this?

Yep. And then I have this incredible view and this space and I'm like, okay, let me go. It's worth the investment. Okay. That makes me feel a lot better. For me. You know, I'll put this out there for the people listening.

I definitely do not like where I live and neither does my fiance. It feels like ungrateful to say because it's a nice house, but just the environment is not conducive to creativity. And I've been driving to where my new house is and just walking around. You feel inspired. I feel something different here. And I offered on the house and I have a giant spreadsheet, right?

So like, I'm not like, okay, I can't afford this house. Let me just offer on it and make it work. Like I can afford it. It's just definitely more than double. You're going to double your revenue. From the moment you move in there, so the next 12 months, you're going to double your revenue.

Minimum. Okay. In my opinion. I mean, I believe it too. Because I do have ideas that weren't coming to me before. But I made this offer and then I'm like, I can do this and this. And I think I need to make these 58 videos.

I mean, that's not even an exaggeration. I literally listed 58 videos on the plane here that I need to make. And I kind of see it clearly and before I didn't. Because you didn't have a reason to. Yeah. Except for maybe an intrinsic reason, but you don't have that as much anymore because you had that seven, eight years ago. Right. When you were trying to make something of yourself.

But now you're like, well, I made something, so what do I need to grow bigger? For me, I focus on service. I focus on how can I impact more people? If I were to die, I kind of go morbid. If I were to die tomorrow, would I be happy with the level of service I've created in the world? I'm eight years older than you. I wasn't thinking that eight years ago.

I just started thinking that around 30. It was more like, how can I make enough money to survive and grow and just have financial I wasn't thinking that eight years ago. I just started thinking that around 30. Okay. It was more like, how can I make enough money to survive and grow and just have financial freedom? Right. And accomplish some things. But then once you have it, it's like, okay, do I just want more money? What's the point of that? For me, it's been, how do I serve more people? How do I use my skills, my talents to then create information, content, and pack them away to help more people?

And so that's what's kind of an intrinsic value. It's like I'm getting up because my mission's to help 100 million people weekly. And we're not there yet, we're not even close. So if I died tomorrow, would I be happy? Yes, I'd be happy, but what I've known I could have given more in this space as well. Yeah. So I think about it from that point of view.

And the financial commitment helps me think creatively around finances because finances are going to help me bring in a team which is going to help reach that mission. Gotcha. Because I can't do it on my own. Yeah, exactly. So that's the way I think.

It's reassuring. Because you read like Art of War is like the back against the wall principle and people fight like cornered animals and you know people will take that and they'll say you should go do X Y & Z because of this and It's it's hard to know like is that foolhardy or not because I can see the positives and I can see the potential Disastrous consequences going too far in that direction if you've got you know runway for the next six to twelve months And I think you're fine. Okay, then I think you're fine, obviously.

I mean, you're a smart guy. You know how to create something from nothing. If you lost everything right now, I bet you could make a million dollars in a year. I think so. If you lost your channel, if you lost all your social media, if you lost your whole following,

you could, if your life depended on it, could you make a million dollars in a year? Yes. Could you make two million, maybe? That's a good question. If your life depended on it. If your life depended on it. If my life depended on it, then yeah, absolutely. Okay, so then what's holding me back now?

Yeah, I guess maybe not my life on the line. So we need something bigger inside of us. So I need to put like a thing on my neck, like in those movies, right? No, but I think it's just like, what's gonna make it meaningful to you when I create and why are you doing this? Yes. I go back to like why am I, we were talking beforehand about, you know, I'm almost 1,200 episodes in.

It's like we're doing three episodes a week, four YouTube videos a week. Why? Yeah. Because there's a deeper mission to serve 100 million people and help them improve their life. That's why. That's why we do it. I could stop right now and our content, your content would still reach a lot of people for years.

But I just wanna be fully satisfied. I'd be happy with my life, but I don't think I'd be satisfied with my calling. And so I'm just led by that. You know what I mean? Yeah, and I feel like you have this too, because everything, like this, everything is free. Everything I do, I wanna make it free.

Yeah, you to help people i constantly come up with ideas and i'm like all right well this is the idea that's going to be the business driver finally and then the next week i'm like guys let's just give it away what if we made it free i outlined this whole crazy thing i was going to sell for notion templates and then i was like okay but what if i made it free and then the thing i'm already selling like what if i make a whole tutorial on how to build it for free? And so it's like, yeah, how do I monetize it? How do I, what's the actual economic engine here?

Because you could say YouTube AdSense, but to grow that, it's like you have to grow views. You gotta get a lot of views. And that is, I mean, you can do it, but it's tough. You gotta get a lot of views. And it's not necessarily what I always wanna do. Yeah, so you have a portion that, hey, this is free and you make money from AdSense so it's still monetizing

and then you sell other things. Yep. So it's like, hey, if you can't afford this, we have all this amazing free content. That's what I say too. Yeah, that's true. We've got thousands of videos.

If you want my coaching, I pretty much give it away for free. If you want my coaching in a more small group format, then you invest in it. Just like you said, it's like if you're ready for the next level, then invest in that. Yeah. So I said it's like if you're ready for the next level then invest

In that yeah, so I think it's wise what you're doing man. You're a smart guy. I think you know what you're Capable of creating and you've built it over the last ten years. So I Think it's a smart move to move in there And I would think personally if you get this house and then you find a creative office space within a five-minute walk, you're going to explode even more. You think so? I think so. And it's like, okay, you try it for a year or two, and if it doesn't work, I just know what you're doing. This is compelling advice because I literally toured one.

I think if you put a, yeah, even just a, if you could get a one-year lease or, you know, even take over a sublease for a year and a half or two years so you don't have to do a five-year thing or a three-year thing, you know, start there. You're going to realize like, oh, this is amazing to have like separation. You're going to be married in June. He said, I think it's like, maybe your wife wants to have some like downtime at home where you can just go to work and then come back and have some space for your cats and, you know, your life.

I don't know, man. But I think we're going to, we're not going gonna get the separation because she also wants some office space, so we might share it. Well, at least the separation from home. That and that I think will be very nice to have. And when I did that, things started to shift.

My relationship, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like just the relationship with myself became better because I could kind of relax when I got home. Yeah. I feel like when my studio was in my home, I was always working. You're always going to be thinking anyways. It's not going to shut down in your brain. You're always going to come up with a video idea, but I feel like you can just go home

and be like, okay, I don't have a camera here to record something. So I'll write it down on my notes and this, but then I'll put it aside and I'll do it tomorrow. And you're the second person I recently asked about this. So I asked our CEO at Standard when he had moved from his apartment office to a real office, I said, what did that do to your productivity? And he's like, insane.

Yeah, and the next week I'm sure you'll hear it from one more person. Probably will. Okay, third time you hear it, it's like, all right, I should probably try that. I'm gonna start believing in the secret. Exactly. No, yeah, I'm going to text

you in a couple of weeks and see if you found any spaces, but I think you just keep looking at them. Look at the spaces, creative spaces, think of a dream of what you would want it to be. Yeah. And if you find it, get it. Don't force it. But if you find it, explore it. See what makes sense. What do you think is holding you back from 10X-ing your productivity, your results, your impact right now? I mean, well, so I was going to say fear because I thought you were saying what's holding you back from getting that office space. And maybe that's part of it is just...

What are you afraid of? You know, I know I can afford this right now, but what if something bad happens? Or what if I overextend? And, you know, it's... Fear of what? I often think it's fear of something that I don't quite understand. I just need to sit down and understand better. When I talked about the burnout before,

the reason we went down from four to two per month when we were on that super cinematic kick was, I was afraid, afraid, afraid, afraid, burned out, looked at my spreadsheet, realized, if I change this number to two videos per month, we are still in the green. Oh, okay. Now the fear is so much less. I can actually do it.

So I think it's just sitting down and understanding here are the realities and the factors of the situation that I have not actually gotten to know yet. Right, right. And so what's the fear that holds you back in this point? I think it's just that leap, right?

It's like this is so much more money per month. That's a huge leap. It seems irresponsible. Irresponsible to who? Right? That's like something that as an entrepreneur, I've had to. To who? Like some parents out there that would say this to their kids, maybe?

Yep. And I think that's what it is. It's like growing up, having people say, be frugal. My mom's just like, you're paying an awful lot of money for that place. And it just lodges in my brain. I'm all for being extremely frugal with your money and not blowing it on material things that are meaningless to you in order to impress other people. For me, I buy the same $40 shirts. You wear t-shirts all the time.

You're not this extravagant spender on things. You probably get healthy food, you have coaches to help you improve your life, and you invest in people on your team to help you grow. Yes. Some travel here and there, but it's like you travel with a backpack, you're staying at a friend's place,

you're not like getting these lavish five-star hotels and renting Bugattis every weekend, right? It's not what you're doing. You're trying to optimize your life in intrinsic ways. Yes. And so I feel like if you're creating an investment in an environment and people that will support you in helping more people, that's always going to be a great investment. If you're investing in things to look cool, that may not satisfy you in the long term.

And it may be not as wise. If you're doing it because you enjoy that, then cool. But if you're doing it to impress or something and to feel good about yourself, then maybe that's not the wisest way to spend money. That's my opinion. But if you've got the money, what are you using it for? Just sitting around to wait until you die?

I mean, it's like investing it to help you grow. So do you pay your coach? My coach? Your fitness coach? I actually don't pay him. Okay. So I pay him in promotion. help you grow. So do you pay your coach? My coach? Your fitness coach? I actually don't pay him. So I pay him in promotion. There you go. There's payment there.

There's time and energy. When he came up to me, he's just like, I want to coach you for free for a while and see how you like it. And it hasn't changed. Though I did pay him to coach my fiance. Well, there you go. There you go.

I don't know, man. You could try it out and you could say, oh, this isn't working for me. And you can always pull back and have a small operation from your home and just live that way the rest of your life. I don't know man try it out and you can say oh this isn't working for me and you can always pull back and you know have a small operation from your home and just live that way

the rest of your life and I guess like what do I have to lose I think they offered me a six month lease and it's like three grand a month so okay

I lose 18 grand I can make that I can make I know I can make that I can work extra hard for a month and make that exactly

so that's what I have to lose then it's worth trying it out you could always come back and say i didn't like this for six months i'd rather work from home cool yep but i think you'll be amazed of what you expand into when you step into that personally so i guess when i think forward and i think like what would i regret not having done like 10 years from now or when I'm 80 years old that's one of those things I would regret not having tried there you go so when do you move in

it probably could be next week that'd be amazing man and that would actually help my house move too really because my house is a tv studio basically my agent's in there and he's like this house is really cool man but i don't know if people are going to be able to come down here and picture themselves living in this basement when you have like a ton of cameras and lighting and everything if you moved all that stuff into the office it might actually help my house somewhere interesting yeah it might Which would get you back into closer downtown, which would help you transition. Yeah, that's interesting.

Maybe this is the push I needed. Maybe this is like, I'm going to call the dude and be like, all right, let's try it. Six months, I'll do it. Yeah. Did you love the space? I did as long as I can.

You have no noise going on here. They had a track, so I need to see if I can mitigate against that. Yeah, you could probably turn it down or something, but yeah. There's a couple others I looked at. There I can like mitigate against that yeah you could probably turn it down or something but yeah there's a couple

other guys I looked at there's another one that they were they offered me like this basement space that's totally perfect for filming but it's in like

a basement yeah it's not as inspiring it's not as firing but it's like it would be kind of a perfect filming room if I just picture

this just in a basement keep taking keep looking around you know tell them to show you some more places but I think yeah in the next month

or two if you did it I think it'd be powerful, man. Explore it. See what your heart says. I love this, man. I'm excited for this. You've got some amazing content over on YouTube. Thomas Frank over there. ThomasJFrank.com.

We're all over social media, obviously. Tom Frankly on Twitter. Is that right? Yes. Tom Frankly on Instagram as well. So how can we be of the best support to you in this moment besides subscribing, checking out your content? What can we do to support you? I mean, man, you just supported me a huge amount right here.

Both with this push that you gave me, I'm seriously gonna take that. That's cool, man. And yeah, the plug's already, so thank you. Awesome, man, yeah, of course. Do you know Ali Abdaal? Do you know him? Yeah, we're good friends.

Yeah, he came on a month ago, a month and a half ago. And I asked him the same thing. What's holding you back? Or what's your challenge? And he's like, well, I'm still doing this like, you know, I think it was like two or four hours a week of being a doctor, right? He's like, I'm still holding on to this, although I make all my money over here. And I go, why are you holding on to this thing?

He's like, well, the fear of like, it I make all my money over here. And I go, why are you holding onto this thing? He's like, well, the fear of like, it should be, I should stick with this as a backup plan. I go, dude, if you lose all your business, do you think you could recreate it and make a million dollars in a year? And he goes, yeah. And I go, then why don't you just go all in on it? Go on in your investment of what's working,

not holding onto something that was an old identity that got you started and won't get you to the next level. So, and then I go think about it. And the next week he texts me and goes, I'm quitting. I'm quitting like the doctor thing. So he quit his practice or whatever for the hospital or whatever. And now he's all in full time and he's like hiring people and building it even more. Oh, that's awesome.

So I'm assuming it's going to exponentially grow. I think so. I've been talking to some of his team because I'm going to do a guest workshop for his YouTube course. There. Oh, that's awesome. So I'm assuming it's going to exponentially grow. I think so. I've been talking to some of his team because I'm going to do a guest workshop for his YouTube course. There you go. That's cool. He seems like he's, I mean, he went and got an office recently. Exactly.

I wonder if you're the guy who pushes people to go get an office. He just put out a video. It's like a big, huge life update. Everything's changing. And he got an office and he's hiring all these people. There you go. There you go. Yeah. So let's see it, man. It's just the impetus to grow.

I want to see it, man. This is a question I ask everyone at the end of our interviews called the three truths. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on earth. Many years away from now, you get to live as long as you want to live and accomplish all your goals, but it's the last day. And for whatever reason, you got to take all of your content with you. So all your YouTube videos, your courses, everything that's got to go somewhere else. We don't have access to

it. Okay. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three things that you know to be true from your experiences that you would share with us as your final piece of content. What would those three truths be? Oh man, all my content's going away. I got to leave people with details of like IRAs. It's three lessons, three things that you think could be powerful for people. Okay, seriously, use it or lose it. And this applies to your body.

This applies to your brain. This applies to skills. This applies to relationships. 1% rule, don't let perfectionism stop you. Put yourself on a schedule of creating the work or doing the thing, and then try to get 1% better each time you build over time. And then the other thing, a lot of people in my

area of personal development, they always say like, you're the product of the five people you spend the most time with. And I think there's some truth to that. But don't forget the people who need you to be one of those five people. A lot of people, especially when I was younger, I'd have people in my circles and people emailing me like, my friends aren't very productive. Should I stop being friends with them? No, because you're the positive influence for them and they care about you and you're going to help them be the best version of themselves. So, you know, you need to go get exposure to people who inspire you and who will push you. Like literally this 10 minute diatribe we had about the office space is probably going to push me and help me make a million more dollars but i'm not gonna stop being friends with my friends who

like to chill because they need me and i'm friends with them so i like that those are good i kind of like that that approach to that five people closest to you that's cool man um yeah there's there's always friends that just uh want to hang and play video games or play some sports that maybe aren't on your path that could use you to keep inspiring them along the way. Yeah, and the best version of their path is probably one where you're encouraging them. Yeah. Even if they're not going to be a millionaire entrepreneur or something. Yeah, that's cool.

I like that, Thomas. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Thomas, for being a stand for, you're 30 years old, right? Yes. 30 years old. I feel like a lot of 30 year olds aren't as committed to you, to personal growth, to skill acquisition, to just showing up to try to be better every single day. So I really acknowledge you for doing that in your personal life, but also creating content, showing people how you're doing it and teaching what you're learning along the way for people a few steps behind, like you said. So I think it's inspiring, man. And I'm really grateful to connect with you. And I want to see, I'm going to come to Denver one day, hopefully when you have this massive

creative space separate from your back garage. And hopefully we can create some content out there one day when you, if you do that. So, And if you don't, then it's all good too. But congrats, man. Keep it going. Thank you. And let's do it. Yeah, it'll be fun. Final question for you.

What's your definition of greatness? What is my definition of greatness? Well, that's a very tough question. I didn't prepare anything. You know, being able to do the things you want to do, making an impact for the people who are in your life, keeping those personal relationships going. And yeah, I mean, defining a mission and at least accomplishing it or getting close to it. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys. So share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.