Habits 101
Ben Austin
What I Learned From 1001 Days of Tracking My ...

If you're not amazed by how naive you were yesterday, you're standing still.

Over the last 1001 days I've transformed into a completely different person (several times) and the transformation continues at an exponential rate…

Each day I’ve recorded my progress by tracking how I spend my time and if I execute my daily “success habits”…

Keeping this daily record and analyzing my habits has taught me about the massive importance of measuring personal growth…

It’s forced me to be brutally honest with myself about what’s working, what isn’t and make changes when I fall off course…

Today, I'm going to share with you the top 6 things I've learned about personal growth from tracking my habits 1001 days…

Let’s dive in…

In this Article, You’ll learn:
-How to self-awareness leads to personal blasting through mental barriers.
-How to make your best performance today, your average performance.
-The true cost of all personal growth in any field.
-How tiny personal habits early in the day lead to colossal results later.

What I Learned From 1001 Days of Tracking My Habits: 6 Massive Lessons In Exponential Personal Growth
Habits 101, Peak Peformance
Ben Austin
The 4 Elements of Deliberate Practice -- The ...

As a kid, I remember practicing my jump shot in the driveway. I would imagine the clock ticking down -- "5", "4", "3", "2", "1" and releasing my jump shot, while yelling "Kobe!" --- Only to watch the ball clang off the rim. For some reason we thought that calling out the name of a prominent athlete (Jordan, Garnett, Iverson, etc) would somehow magically cause us to shoot a higher percentage. Perhaps it did.

This was at the age that all of my peers dreamed of becoming a professional athlete. We wanted to be the next Jordan, Pele, Elway or Agassi. We wanted to be superstars and somehow still live the lives of normal kids -- going to birthday parties, playing after school and learning to become productive members of society. We didn't understand the price they paid in order to achieve greatness in their sport.

Similarly, today many of my peers dream of becoming the next Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Malcolm Gladwell, Ramit Sethi, Richard Branson, Marc Cuban or Bill Gates. We want to be a superstar and still live the life of a normal working adult. We want to see our friends, hangout on the weekends, live a low stress lifestyle (no worries), and yet have all of the riches and freedom the life of a high-profile entrepreneur promises.

But, are we willing to pay the price?

The 4 Elements of Deliberate Practice -- The Source of Kobe's Greatness
Become A Leader
Ben Austin
You're A Badass: The Simple 5 "R" Framework To ...

Becoming the most badass version of yourself is hard work and can be exhausting. Sometimes you just don't have it and feel stuck or like you're not making any progress.

Because you are the driver of your own success, it's easy to stop when you get overwhelmed. No one has a gun to your head and is forcing you become more confident, increase your leadership skills, get fit or make more money. There's no due date. 

You have to be your own motivator, coach, manager, CEO and worker bee and it's easy to get lost in the mindless sea of to-do's, social media, sports, Netflix and societal pressure to conform. Falling off the path is the norm. 

Let's face it -- you will get lost and fall off the path. It's inevitable. What you must learn is: What to do when it happens... 

In this post I'm going to share 5 things that you can use to become the best version of yourself. 

I call it "The  5 "R" Framework of Becoming The Most Baddass Version of You".

In this post, you'll learn about (mostly through car metaphors):

  • How to deal with overwhelm and keep your focus on what matters.
  • A simple software tool you can use to create an awesome dream board (one of my favorite exercises).
  • The worst (and smallest) car in the world. 
  • Jim Rohn and Ronnie Coleman's personal development philosophies.
  • How to become the most badass version of you. 
You're A Badass: The Simple 5 "R" Framework To Become Your Best Self Even When You Feel Stuck
Habits 101, Featured
Ben Austin
The Consistency Formula I Discovered From ...

Everyone knows what they should be doing. That's easy. Doing it is the hard part. 


The other day a reader and friend told me his biggest struggle. He said: "My biggest struggle is that I can't maintain any sort of consistency with my habits. I know exactly what I should be doing, I just can't get myself to stick with it long enough to see results."

After analyzing 913 days of data from tracking my habits.... I've discovered that that are 5 things and only 5 things that help me to be consistent each day. When I follow this simple formula, I'm productive and make progress towards my big goals. 

I'm calling it The Consistency Formula!

The Consistency Formula I Discovered From Tracking My Habits For 913 Days
Peak Peformance, Habits 101
Ben Austin
The 4 Fundamentals Of Unstoppable Motivation

The other day, I was asked a question by a reader and friend.

She asked: "It’s hard for me to stay motivated and consistently make progress towards my goals. How do I get motivated and stay motivated?"

It's a good question, because when we are motivated, we stay consistent and we make progress. We'll stay up late, read all the books, put in the extra work, develop the skills, create the habits and do all the little things necessary to realize our goal.

It's that simple.

This got me thinking about the times where I was driven like an obsessive maniac to accomplish a goal, and the times I was unmotivated and failed. 

After searching through my stories, and re-reading the lessons of great leaders and peak performers, I noticed that there are 4 fundamentals to getting motivated and staying motivated.

When we understand and implement these fundamentals we create unstoppable motivation and achieve our goal. 

The 4 Fundamentals Of Unstoppable Motivation

Habits 101

Stop Wasting Willpower. Light A Fire Under Your Ass.

Stop Wasting Willpower. Light A Fire Under Your Ass.

Doing the right thing is exhausting. 

Going to the gym. Eating the right foods. Writing your first book. Being present with your partner. Developing your passion project. Putting in extra hours at work. Giving 100% all-out effort. Putting down the remote and reading a book. Moving to Africa to start a school. etc. etc. etc. 

Why is it that everything worth doing is hard? And everything unworthy of our time happens without effort or thought?

Thinking about these questions reminded me of the times I was able to push my comfort zone consistently. The times when I was able to do the right thing and enter periods of exponential personal growth. 

All of these times had one thing in common - I had a fire under my ass. 

Here's the story...

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"Billionaire" Reading Habits -- 11 Ways to Read 52 Books In 52 Weeks, 2X Your Reading Speed and Improve Your Comprehension By 500%.

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"Billionaire" Reading Habits -- 11 Ways to Read 52 Books In 52 Weeks, 2X Your Reading Speed and Improve Your Comprehension By 500%.

My 8th grade geography teacher used to say "leaders are readers". I was skeptical. It seemed like a clever phrase designed to trick us into reading, instead of watching another episode of The Simpson's. 

It's been a few years, but I'm finally starting to understand the depths of the phase. After reading the biographies of the world’s peak performing billionaire leaders, it's clear... They read. A lot.

Here's a few examples of "Billionaire Reading Habits":

  • Oprah Winfrey has one of the biggest and most popular book clubs.
  • Bill Gates reads 50+ books each year and takes vacation time each year devoted to reading.
  • Warren Buffet still reads 600-1000 pages each day and spends about 80% of his work day reading. 
  • Phil Knight was a reading fanatic and used the philosophies of great military and business leaders to build Nike into a multi-billion dollar shoe Goliath. 
  • Mark Cuban reads 3+ hours each day.
  • Elon Musk taught himself to operate 3 multi-billion dollar companies (in different industries) through reading.
  • Charlie Munger reads so much that his family refers to him as "a book with a couple of legs sticking out".

If you want to start your billionaire reading habit, below we'll outline a series of strategies that will help you to read at least 52 books a year. In part 1, we'll discuss the basics of starting a reading habit and in part 2 cover specific strategies to 2X your reading speed, improve your comprehension by 500% and build billionaire wisdom. 

What I Learned From 1001 Days of Tracking My Habits: 6 Massive Lessons In Exponential Personal Growth

What I Learned From 1001 Days of Tracking My Habits: 6 Massive Lessons In Exponential Personal Growth

If you're not amazed by how naive you were yesterday, you're standing still.

Over the last 1001 days I've transformed into a completely different person (several times) and the transformation continues at an exponential rate…

Each day I’ve recorded my progress by tracking how I spend my time and if I execute my daily “success habits”…

Keeping this daily record and analyzing my habits has taught me about the massive importance of measuring personal growth…

It’s forced me to be brutally honest with myself about what’s working, what isn’t and make changes when I fall off course…

Today, I'm going to share with you the top 6 things I've learned about personal growth from tracking my habits 1001 days…

Let’s dive in…

In this Article, You’ll learn:
-How to self-awareness leads to personal blasting through mental barriers.
-How to make your best performance today, your average performance.
-The true cost of all personal growth in any field.
-How tiny personal habits early in the day lead to colossal results later.

,

The 4 Elements of Deliberate Practice -- The Source of Kobe's Greatness

,
The 4 Elements of Deliberate Practice -- The Source of Kobe's Greatness

As a kid, I remember practicing my jump shot in the driveway. I would imagine the clock ticking down -- "5", "4", "3", "2", "1" and releasing my jump shot, while yelling "Kobe!" --- Only to watch the ball clang off the rim. For some reason we thought that calling out the name of a prominent athlete (Jordan, Garnett, Iverson, etc) would somehow magically cause us to shoot a higher percentage. Perhaps it did.

This was at the age that all of my peers dreamed of becoming a professional athlete. We wanted to be the next Jordan, Pele, Elway or Agassi. We wanted to be superstars and somehow still live the lives of normal kids -- going to birthday parties, playing after school and learning to become productive members of society. We didn't understand the price they paid in order to achieve greatness in their sport.

Similarly, today many of my peers dream of becoming the next Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Malcolm Gladwell, Ramit Sethi, Richard Branson, Marc Cuban or Bill Gates. We want to be a superstar and still live the life of a normal working adult. We want to see our friends, hangout on the weekends, live a low stress lifestyle (no worries), and yet have all of the riches and freedom the life of a high-profile entrepreneur promises.

But, are we willing to pay the price?

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You’ll “Sleep Like The Dead” If You Do These 9 Things After 9 PM

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You’ll “Sleep Like The Dead” If You Do These 9 Things After 9 PM

It's 4:59 AM and I'm waiting outside of Starbucks at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. A mob of exhausted travelers gathers near the entrance and waits impatiently for the barista to lift the gates. Each weary traveler scans the menu with their bloodshot eyes, anticipating the quick hit of caffeine and sugar before they head to their final destination. With their sunken eye sockets, drooping shoulders and outstretched arms, they look more like a group of zombies than a group of upper middle-class business travelers.

After getting my morning cup of coffee, I head to the bathroom and look in the mirror. An unrecognizable set of bloodshot and sunken eyes stares back at me in the mirror.

I am one of them.

As I return to my waiting area I'm reminded of the importance of a good night of sleep and a successful routine that always precedes a night of rejuvenating rest. In the last year, I found that you burn out fast when you aren't doing the little things that set you up for success. With that in mind, I've highlighted 9 things that I try to do each night before bed. I don't always complete each one, but when I do, I know tomorrow will be successful. It’s that simple.

9 things may seem like an awful lot, but you’re already doing 9+ things each night and what I'm going to describe isn't that crazy. Most of these ideas I've borrowed from top performers like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlie Munger, Dave Asprey, Napoleon Hill, Thomas Edison, Jim Rohn and my dad.

My intention with this is to give you a set of tools to help you maximize your nightly routine.

See what resonates with you. Try one. Maybe two. Test and see what happens.

Let's dive in.

7 Tips to Beat Fear from a Man who PURPOSELY Gets Rejected

7 Tips to Beat Fear from a Man who PURPOSELY Gets Rejected

It always helps to learn from the best. If you want to achieve something spectacular, wouldn't you want to learn from those who have hit it out of the park?

Some of the most successful people constantly do this. When Tony Robbins (whose businesses are worth over $6 billion) wanted to write a book about personal finance he interviewed and learned from the best in the finance industry like Paul Tudor Jones and Carl Icahn.

Tim Ferriss the NY Times best-selling author, TV show host, and entrepreneur has made a career off of interviewing and studying people who are the best at what they do.

You can do this too and I want to help. Interested?

I want to share a remarkable story about Jason Comely.

It's a true story of someone who suffered from crippling social anxiety and beat it by doing something someone with social anxiety would never even imagine doing.

Let me paint you a picture of Jason’s former life:

  • He would retreat back to his apartment that he felt was “a cage” on a Friday night because he had no friends
  • He would have to walk away from social situations because his body would feel numb and he’d be short of breath
  • He felt hopeless, frustrated and angry when he’d try to talk to people
  • Jason said he "was mad at himself, with God and the world"

This is Jason’s current life:

  • Let me put it to you this way, you’d never guess he used to struggle with social anxiety
  • He is an active part of his community and is working to help people beat their fear of rejection by a card game he created called Rejection Therapy
  • His story and card game landed him interviews on NPR, numerous blogs and Marie Claire Magazine!

So how’d he do it?

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Are You Too Busy Working To Be Productive? - Interview with Paul Minors

,

Do you go to bed angry because you didn’t get everything done?

Do you have too much to do and not enough time to do it?

Do you all of your projects sit in a constant state of “under construction”? 

My good friend Paul Minors has THE solution for you!

Recently, I got a chance to sit down with Paul and learn his productivity strategies, hacks and tactics.

In This Content Rich QA, You’ll Learn:

  • How to become a Jedi Master of productivity! (i’m not kidding)
  • Why everyone “feels” busy and yet hardly anyone gets anything done.
  • The one thing you can do to improve your focus.
  • The online course that gave Paul the confidence to start his first online business.
  • The best productivity apps for managing your tasks (you’ll love #1).
  • One amazing book that will cut your “to-do” list stress in half.
  • A simple strategy for getting things done, even when you are exhausted and don’t feel like doing anything.
  • Paul’s role model who taught him how to create passive income.

 

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The Consistency Formula I Discovered From Tracking My Habits For 913 Days

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The Consistency Formula I Discovered From Tracking My Habits For 913 Days

Everyone knows what they should be doing. That's easy. Doing it is the hard part. 


The other day a reader and friend told me his biggest struggle. He said: "My biggest struggle is that I can't maintain any sort of consistency with my habits. I know exactly what I should be doing, I just can't get myself to stick with it long enough to see results."

After analyzing 913 days of data from tracking my habits.... I've discovered that that are 5 things and only 5 things that help me to be consistent each day. When I follow this simple formula, I'm productive and make progress towards my big goals. 

I'm calling it The Consistency Formula!

,

The 7 Step Method To Achieve Any Goal

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The 7 Step Method To Achieve Any Goal

To all my peak performing and goal achieving friends out there (yes, that’s you!), let’s discuss the finest and most comprehensive goal setting process available. It’s called…

The 7 Step Method To Achieve Any Goal

Whatever YOUR top new year's goal is -- grow your business, get organized, lose weight, spend less, get fit, be happier, get promoted, fall in love, enjoy life more, you can use this ultra effective goal setting process to achieve your top new year’s goal.

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The 4 Fundamentals Of Unstoppable Motivation

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The 4 Fundamentals Of Unstoppable Motivation

The other day, I was asked a question by a reader and friend.

She asked: "It’s hard for me to stay motivated and consistently make progress towards my goals. How do I get motivated and stay motivated?"

It's a good question, because when we are motivated, we stay consistent and we make progress. We'll stay up late, read all the books, put in the extra work, develop the skills, create the habits and do all the little things necessary to realize our goal.

It's that simple.

This got me thinking about the times where I was driven like an obsessive maniac to accomplish a goal, and the times I was unmotivated and failed. 

After searching through my stories, and re-reading the lessons of great leaders and peak performers, I noticed that there are 4 fundamentals to getting motivated and staying motivated.

When we understand and implement these fundamentals we create unstoppable motivation and achieve our goal. 

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5 Crazy Things You Can Do To Overcome Your Fear Of Rejection

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5 Crazy Things You Can Do To Overcome Your Fear Of Rejection

 

This post is going to be very different than anything else I've put out. 

It's going to challenge you, push you, make you uncomfortable and hopefully inspire you. It starts with a story about dealing with success barriers and follows with 5 crazy things I did to overcome my fear of rejection. 

Some of them are obvious, others are downright silly and they all can help you (if you actually do them). 

My hope is that you can learn from my experience and complete at least one of the five challenges. If you do, I'd love to hear about your experience. You can either post in the comments section or send me a email.

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5 Simple Strategies For Becoming A Better Leader

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5 Simple Strategies For Becoming A Better Leader

Look at Kobe, Oprah, Musk, Schwarzenegger, Gates, Buffet and Mother Theresa - they don't try to be someone else. They understand where they have talent and where they are weak. They know exactly who they are. 

Kobe isn't a governor, Oprah and Musk don't play professional basketball, Schwarzenegger isn't a speech therapist, Gates and Buffet aren't bodybuilders, and Mother Theresa didn't start an electric car company. They play to their strengths and use their talents to create world class results.

If you want to replicate their success, you must know yourself. This article discusses 5 different strategies to know exactly who YOU are and grow the leader within you.

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8 Reasons Multitasking Is Bad For Your Brain

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8 Reasons Multitasking Is Bad For Your Brain

We couldn't focus.

We couldn't get things done.

We were tired.

Our minds were always racing.

We couldn't sleep.

We kept making mistakes. 

And our To-Do lists kept growing and growing and growing. 

We tried to fix it…. by adding more to our to-do’s and doing more things at the same time. This only made it worse. 

To make matters more confusing we blamed it on gluten, high fructose corn syrup, vaccines, mercury in our fish, fracking, and the depleting ozone layer. Mass media fed on our fears and convinced us that the problem was everywhere and there was nothing we could do. All of this noise confused us and led us away from the root cause of the problem. 

It was right under our nose the whole time. You’re probably holding it in your hand. 

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4 Books That Will Make You A Genius

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4 Books That Will Make You A Genius

Many books are written and released each year. Most of them are bad, some of them are good, a few are great, and the top .001% are exceptional. 

It’s rare that an author is a great writer AND has deep domain expertise. This is a list of books by authors who are both.

Who’s this book list for? The creative/visionary/big picture thinker who wants to awaken their inner genius.  

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3 Simple Steps To Create An Exercise Habit That Sticks!

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3 Simple Steps To Create An Exercise Habit That Sticks!

My friend Dave is disappointed with life.

His job sucks, his life lacks meaning, his income is low, and he’s not confident.

All of these issues stem from what he see’s in the mirror. He’s skinny. Like really skinny.

It may be a compliment to call a girl skinny, but It’s the kiss of death for a guy. It not only insults his general manliness, but makes him feel weak, feminine, and soft.

Because he hates the way he looks, he finds it hard to be happy, grateful and assertive in his daily life. You would think this would be enough to start lifting weights and pounding down protein shakes. It isn’t.

Like most of us, he has tried to start an exercise habit, but failed.

In this article, I'm going to show you how to create one that sticks. 

3 Steps To Turn Tiny Personal Habits Into HUGE Results

3 Steps To Turn Tiny Personal Habits Into HUGE Results

We live in a magic pill society.

  • Get rich in 30 days!
  • Lose 20 Lbs in 20 workouts!
  • Find the woman/man of your dreams in 7 easy steps!

After being exposed to so many different marketing messages, we start to believe that we’re special (it’s everyone else who needs to figure it out!).

Ramit Sethi calls this “Special Snowflake Syndrome”, Andre 3000 of OutKast calls it “thinking your shit don’t stink” and Charlie Munger calls it “delusional confidence”. These phrases all point back to same fundamental flaws of human psychology.

  1. We can’t see how our daily habits affect us in the long term.
  2. We think we’re going to become an overnight success.
  3. We think we’ll avoid the decades of hard work that typically goes into building a life worth living.
  4. We think we deserve it.

Unfortunately, you can’t avoid the truth.

How To 10x Your Productivity Before 8am

How To 10x Your Productivity Before 8am

Another day dawns. Typically, it goes something like this…

The alarm sounds on your smartphone. Ugh. You grab it, hit snooze, and… You awake to look at the clock and it’s been well over an hour. “WTF just happened!?” The day is now well underway. The detour has left you scrambling for time and running late for your work, without achieving anything you intended.

A wonderfully unproductive start.

The day then continues on a sidewards course. You still feel half asleep, you’re angry that you didn’t get to eat and exercise like you wanted, and you just can’t seem to get on top of things. It’s like you’re always one step behind...

Does this sound familiar? Sadly, it’s an all too regular occurrence, especially as your workload increases, your commitments heighten, and you try to cram more into each and every day. You seem to have more to do, and less time to do it.

How do you break this destructive cycle? What if there was a way to put yourself on the right foot as soon as the alarm sounds? What if, when you wake up, you’re able to create your most productive day ever and really kickstart your life into gear instead?

3 Ways To Hack Burnout, Anxiety And Fatigue

3 Ways To Hack Burnout, Anxiety And Fatigue

In our go-go-go society we rarely take the time to rest, rejuvenate and recover. And this won't be a lecture about "overdoing it" and I won’t bother telling you to avoid caffeine. Instead let’s focus on damage control in the moment and ways to keep you performing at a high level when you need it the most.

As the leader of your group, tribe or organization, you can't afford to break down. Your people need you. 

Who’s This For? This post is for the high performance investor-entrepreneur who loves work they do and won’t stop. It’s practical advise that you can implement in your daily habits to deal with burnout and stress and as they come along.

The Free StrengthsFinder That Actually Works

The Free StrengthsFinder That Actually Works

There a major problem with StrengthFinder Tests. They are meant for people who are unchanging and static. For the average Joe or Jane who watches 6 hours a TV everyday and goes to a job that they tolerate for 40+ years and then retires; they work fine.

These tests focus on who you are right now. Not who you want to be and what you want to do. They don’t integrate important factors such as your values and the environment you grew up in.

If you are a dynamic and constantly developing person, than you are going to need a different solution.

What follows below is a strengthsfinder for the dynamic, developing, multipotentialite who understands that who they are today and they person they will be in 10 years is massively different.

4 Steps for Immediately Breaking Bad Habits

4 Steps for Immediately Breaking Bad Habits

We all know what we should be doing, yet we have a hard time actually doing it. We are quick to judge others and slow to take action in our own lives.

Unsure of how our surrounding and environment affect us, we get mad at our lack of willpower, self control, lack of consistency and our inability to create habits that would ultimately get us ahead.

It’s time we understand what creates lasting change. It’s only after we understand this process that we can begin to make the changes that get us ahead of the competition and start doing the work that actually matters.

What follows is a process for understanding how to break bad habits and replace them with empowering ones. If you have bad habits that hold you back. This post is for you.

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