SUCCESS BEGINS IN THE MIND (DON’T SKIP THIS CHAPTER!)
Are you ready to experience the life-changing, fat-burning, health-boosting results of Always Eat After 7 PM? I’m sure you are, and I’m excited for you! But before you’re able to truly do that, we must cover some prerequisites to ensure your long-term success.
Up to now, we’ve focused on the science that explains why the diet works, because when things make sense logically, you’re much more likely to get excited and actually start (because you believe it will work). You’re also likely to stick with the program much longer than if you were blindly going through the motions without fully understanding how everything you are doing is contributing to your ultimate success.
Even more important to your success than addressing the why of the program, however, is taking time to prepare your mind for the journey that you’re about to embark on. So, before we get into the how of the program, I want to share some principles to help get you in the mind-set to succeed. Simply put, as with everything worth pursuing and accomplishing, there will be plenty of challenges and obstacles and setbacks along the way. And if you’re not mentally prepared and relentlessly tough from the neck up, you’ll have a hard time achieving anything great in life, including long-term weight loss on this program.
The advice in this chapter is drawn from both my fitness and entrepreneurial background. It outlines the principles that helped me achieve my personal transformation and also the many lessons learned while building one of the largest nutritional supplement companies in the United States. Additionally, through my podcast Born to Impact (which you can find on iTunes), I’ve had the pleasure to sit down with many of the world’s elite coaches, athletes, and business leaders, learning the secrets they’ve used to build a life worth remembering; I’ll share some of their stories here as well.
I believe these to be the 10 most essential mind-set strategies relating to your success on this program, and even more, your life as a whole. Let’s get started.
1. Believe you can, and lose the excuses.
Here’s the deal: if you aren’t one thousand percent sure that you are going to achieve your goals, somehow, some way, then you might as well quit right now. It may sound harsh, but it’s the truth. As my good friend Ed Mylett teaches, before starting, you absolutely must make the commitment that there is no plan B. Ed is a super-successful entrepreneur who’s become an author, speaker, philanthropist, and coach. He describes a mind-set that’s critically important: you have to say that no matter what, you aren’t going to stop moving toward the life you want to live, and that your will to win will never be for sale.
If you don’t do this, you’re all but guaranteed to sell out on your will to win at some point—probably sooner rather than later. An obstacle comes, results don’t occur as quickly or as easily as you had anticipated, or you have a physical or emotional setback—a “life interruption,” as recovery coach Tim Storey calls it—and next thing you know, you’re coming up with reason after reason why abandoning your goals is justified.
You know what those reasons are called? Excuses.
There is no person who inspired me to drop any and all excuses more than my friend Nick Santonastasso, who’s a competitive bodybuilder and an international motivational speaker.
At birth, Nick was brought into this world with an extremely rare genetic condition that caused three out of four of his limbs to never develop. He has no legs and only one arm, and attached to that arm is an underdeveloped hand with one finger. And yes, you read that last paragraph right: he is a competitive bodybuilder.
You see, Nick had every reason to feel sorry for himself, to play the “bad genetics” card (which in his case would have been completely justified), to live a life of mediocrity, to never pursue anything great in life. But today, he thrives. He’s an athlete. He speaks all over the world, inspiring crowds of thousands. If you want to be inspired to drop every excuse for the rest of your life and achieve greatness no matter what you’re up against, check out episode 5 of the Born to Impact podcast, “No Legs, One Arm, ZERO Limits.” Your life will never be the same.
Bottom line: you may be starting with more obstacles in front of you than someone else is, but you probably aren’t up against anything close to the magnitude of Nick’s obstacles. If he’s making it happen, so can you. But you have to believe it. Deep down in your core, you have to know you will achieve your goals and dreams, and there is no plan B. It may be a little bit harder than you thought, it may take a little bit longer than you’d like, but if you keep going, you know (and you should know) that you will get there.
2. Excommunicate negative people from your life.
Once you’ve laid the foundation—you completely believe in yourself and have made up your mind that quitting is not an option—your next step is to get rid of people who don’t support that belief.
But what if they are close friends or family members? Listen, I’m not saying to completely drop people who have been a significant part of much of your life, but I am saying to severely limit your contact with them when it comes to anything and everything related to your dreams, goals, and ambitions.
Simply put, people who don’t support you will drain you, and you have to protect your dreams, ambitions, and goals. My longtime friend Bedros Keuilian, who founded the ultra-successful fitness franchise Fit Body Boot Camp, calls these people crabs: people with a negative, scarcity mind-set who will constantly try to drag you back down to their level. The true issue at hand is that they don’t believe in themselves.
Maybe you have a friend who isn’t overly negative about you, per se, but instead is exceptionally negative about everything. Sour grapes every time you talk to them. Nothing good ever happens to them. Complaint after complaint after complaint. Is that person helping you in any way? No. And the reality is that you aren’t going to bring that person up; they are only going to bring you down.
My point is this: you have to protect your future self and guard your dreams from negative people who will steal your zeal, deflate your ambition, and take the wind out of the sails of your drive to succeed. Your dreams are too important. Don’t open them up to anyone who is less than 100 percent on board with not only your pursuit of them but also your achievement of them.
3. Live in the present.
To quote the pastor, futurist, and designer Erwin McManus from his book The Way of the Warrior, “We will never know peace if we lose the present because we are trapped in the past and paralyzed by the future. This is in no small part why we live in a culture crippled by depression and anxiety. Depression is rooted in your past; anxiety is rooted in your future . . . The path to freedom from your past and freedom to your future is the connectedness that comes from living in the moment, fully present.”
How incredibly true and relevant is this? So many people fail to achieve their goals and their dreams because they are riddled with self-doubt related to their past: who they were. And because of this past, they experience intense anxiety about the future, because they believe that who they were is who they will continue to be.
The past is the past; it’s over, and there’s nothing you can do to change it. The only thing you do have control over is the future, and the only moment that is relevant for creating the narrative that you desire for your future is the present moment.
Bottom line: stop living in the past and allowing your past experiences, past mistakes, and past failures to play a role in how you view your future. Beyond that, there’s no point in worrying and experiencing anxiety about your future (anxiety that is anchored in your past) when the only moment you truly control is the now. Embrace the present, live in the moment, and make the choice to progress further toward the person you want to become, today.
For more on this topic and a ton more, listen to my whole conversation with Erwin McManus in episode 21 of Born to Impact, “Worry, Fear, & the True Path to Inner Peace.”
4. Redefine who you are.
As my friend James Clear, entrepreneur author of the New York Times best-selling book Atomic Habits, states, “True behavior change is identity change.”
Here’s the thing: unless you do the deep work to change who you are, achieving a goal will be nothing more than a momentary change, instead of the lasting change that you desire. For example, if you focus on losing 20 pounds, you might, but how long will you actually keep those 20 pounds “lost”? Statistics show that less than 6 percent of people continue to keep the weight off.
Why does this happen? It happens because the change is outcome based, not identity based—and once you achieve the outcome of losing 20 pounds, you have no real motivation to continue making healthy choices. The goal is the motivator. You hit the goal. You are no longer motivated.
But what if the goal is not to lose 20 pounds but rather to become a healthy person? What if you ask yourself before making exercise and nutrition choices, “What would a healthy person do?” And then what if you take it a step further and say, “I am a healthy person. What would a healthy person like me choose?” Then you make that choice.
Before long, you’ll have more than enough evidence—every positive choice you’ve made—to show that you are in fact a healthy person.
You see, when you focus on becoming the person you want to become, and do the work to change your identity so that you are that type of person, you will be much more successful with creating change that lasts. I can’t tell you how much this helped me. Fact is, I was notorious for setting a goal, crushing it, and then falling back into old habits. Why? Because the goal was the motivator, and I didn’t do the deep work.
Since then, I’ve taken huge steps to change my overall identity as it relates to my goals. If you want to dive deeper into this topic and successful goal achievement, check out episode 13 of Born to Impact with James Clear, “Why Goals Suck.”
5. Start!
Nothing happens without action, period. You can buy the book, read the book, buy the supplements, and do your grocery shopping, but if you don’t actually start putting one foot in front of the other on the actual execution of the game plan, you will never, ever achieve success.
As a business coach and life coach, I am amazed at the number of people who will spend top dollar on education and coaching but never actually do anything with it. Do you want to think about success, or do you actually want to experience it? The latter only comes with action.
And here’s another phrase that you need to eliminate: “I’ll start when . . .”
“I’ll start when my kids start school again.”
“I’ll start when I get back from my vacation at the end of next month.”
“I’ll start when life calms down a bit.”
“I’ll start when I can afford to buy organic.”
“I’ll start when everything is perfect and the stars align and God audibly speaks to me, telling me to begin.”
“I’ll start when . . .” Stop! Change that immediately to “I’ll start today.” Then figure the rest out. Here’s another great quote from my friend Ed Mylett: “Turn your ‘one day’ into ‘day one.’” And start today. There will never be a perfect time, so stop waiting for it.
6. Develop a simple morning routine.
My friends Tim Ferriss (the author of The 4-Hour Body), Lewis Howes (the author of The School of Greatness), and Jim Kwik (a celebrity brain coach) are all huge proponents of morning routines. Why? Because often, as our morning goes, so the rest of our day follows. As Jim says, “Getting up and adhering to a success-driven morning routine creates positive momentum and vision for the rest of your day to also be successful.”
Here are some of my favorite aspects of Jim’s morning routine:
A.Make the bed. Making the bed is a success habit, and how you do anything is how you do everything. Even more, when you return to your bed in the evening, you’re guaranteed to end your day with success.
B.Take a premium probiotic to feed your gut, like BioTrust Pro-X10™. Your gut is your second brain, and there is an incredible number of nerve cells in your gut, so make sure they are fed.
C.Meditate and practice deep breathing for 10 to 15 minutes. Breathing techniques oxygenate your body and meditation clears your mind as you enter the day. Jim recommends the Wim Hof method for breathing at www.wimhofmethod.com and the Headspace app for guided meditation.
D.Move. Two minutes of morning exercise is all that is needed to get your heart rate up and to significantly increase your level of alertness. Try jumping jacks, push-ups, and/or bodyweight squats for simplicity and efficacy.
E.Journal with pen and paper. The act of writing stimulates your brain to a much higher degree than typing, and nothing beats gratitude journaling to start off your day with positivity.
F.Fuel your brain. My favorite way to do this is with any of the drinks in my 3-Minute Fat-Burning Morning Ritual (explained in detail on pages 19–23), particularly BioTrust MetaboGreens 45X. Its antioxidants, energy, fiber, digestive enzymes, and super greens will make a huge difference in the way you feel. For an even more pronounced boost in brain health and function, try BioTrust Brain Bright™, washed down with one of the beverages from the 3-Minute Fat-Burning Morning Ritual. (I’ll cover the how and why of using supplements in chapter ten.)
7. Allow yourself bad moments, not bad days.
Ever had a bad morning that caused you to be miserable for the rest of the day? Or maybe a temporary diet mistake that caused you to write off the rest of the day and continue to make bad diet decision after bad diet decision? We all have. But author Levi Lusko tells readers in his book I Declare War, “No matter how much of the day has been spent, it’s not too late to change course—not tomorrow, but right now.”
Simply put, a bad morning doesn’t have to turn into a bad day. A bad diet decision at lunch doesn’t have to turn into a completely catastrophic evening of bingeing. No, that’s self-sabotage at its best, and the fact is, you can change the course of the day at any moment—as Levi says, “not tomorrow, but right now.”
Listen, we all have bad moments, but the key is not allowing a bad moment to negatively affect the entire day. Rein it in, get back in control, and begin moving forward again.
If you don’t? That bad morning could turn into a string of bad days. That momentary 500-calorie diet slip-up could turn into tens of thousands of calories you weren’t supposed to eat. And guess what? Now you’ve gained weight instead of moving toward your goals.
One doughnut isn’t going to be the difference between losing weight one week and not, but a doughnut-turned-binge will be. Regain control. We all make mistakes. Don’t let a single mistake turn into anything more than that. For more on this and so much more, tune in to episode 11 of Born to Impact with Levi Lusko, “Declaring War on Your Thoughts.”
8. Recognize failure as a teacher, not a final destination.
As my longtime friend Lewis Howes notes, “Failure is feedback.” Lewis is a former pro football player who’s now an entrepreneur, athlete, author, and podcaster—yet he’s had his share of setbacks and obstacles to overcome. Here’s reality: no one gets it right the first time. We fail, and either we quit or we look at the feedback (why the failure occurred), course-correct, and try again. The latter is how any “successful” person actually achieves success.
If you make a mistake, if you screw up, if you don’t achieve the desired outcome, analyze why it happened and how you can avoid the cause next time. For example, maybe you get swamped at work and wind up working late. When you finally leave, you’re starving, and you head to the fast-food place on the other side of the parking lot and order some fries. Yes, you “failed” on adhering to your diet plan, but let’s look at why this happened and figure out how it could have been prevented.
Cause: no healthy food or snack options were available at work, causing you to be overly hungry when finally leaving the office, and ultimately you made a poor food choice while you were hungry.
Solution: always have some healthy food or snack options in your purse, backpack, or desk.
You see, if you learn from the failure, you won’t find yourself at the fast-food joint in the parking lot chowing down on fries ever again because you’re overhungry. Instead, you’ll satisfy your hunger with a smart snack choice and then enjoy your next scheduled healthy meal at home.
When things don’t go as planned, don’t get discouraged—get analytical. Figure out the cause, and plan to avoid it in the future. Failure is feedback; listen to it.
9. Own your results.
Your place in life is a direct reflection and culmination of your decisions, period. Maybe you faced some difficulties that certain other people did not, but you chose how to react to those difficulties—either to allow them to define your future or to adamantly find a way to overcome them. Another great quote from my friend Erwin McManus: “Even if it’s not your fault, it’s still your responsibility.”
You see, when you blame someone or something else, you abdicate responsibility for your own life. But more important, not only do you abdicate responsibility, but you also abdicate your power. After all, if someone or something else is responsible for your situation, they are the only one who can fix it, and you become dependent on them to change it for you. Essentially, you become powerless.
As the ex–Navy SEAL Jocko Willink writes in his book Extreme Ownership, “Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.”
Are you powerful or powerless? Are you the leader of your life? If you aren’t powerless, and if you are indeed the leader of your life, then you must take responsibility for every failure or shortcoming, taking control to turn each of them around. Whatever the reason why you didn’t achieve the desired outcome, take steps to fix it. Own it, fix it. It really is that simple; it has to be that simple.
10. Briefly celebrate success, then move on.
There’s nothing worse you can do after hitting a goal than to ease off the gas. Keep moving.
My friend Tim Grover is known around the world for his work training three of the greatest basketball players of all time, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Dwayne Wade. Tim teaches even these elite athletes that after they hit a milestone—it could be something as major as winning a world championship—they should say, “Done. Next.”
Tim truly is the master of mental toughness, and his best-selling book Relentless really epitomizes everything this chapter is all about: being mentally prepared for every battle to ensure that in the end, you are successful. If you want to take your mental toughness to an entire new level, be sure to check out Born to Impact episode 9, “Becoming Mentally Unstoppable,” where I talk with Tim Grover for more than two hours.
To close, am I saying that you can never celebrate or recognize an accomplishment? No, but make it brief, and then get right back to business.
THIS CHAPTER WILL EITHER MAKE OR BREAK ALL THE OTHERS
Honestly, you just read the most important chapter of the book. It’s the prerequisite to achieving anything and everything with all the other information included from here on out. I recommend returning to this chapter from time to time and taking notes on what is resonating with you (perhaps as part of the morning journaling Jim Kwik recommends). When you’ve really internalized these mind-set principles, then it’s time to get started.