9 Steps to a Better Life
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I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. Today, we're going to be talking about the nine things that you need to start doing in your life if you want to be more successful. Now, when we talk about successful, the word success is a relative term. You know, when I say success to some people, it could mean that you are worth $10 million. Success to some people could mean that you're an incredible parent. Success to another person could mean that you

Have a job that you make, you know, a good amount of money, but you're able to travel more than an average person because that's what you really want to do. But really what it comes down to is these nine different steps are going to help you be more successful, kind of get yourself together, get yourself back in line. And do you have to do every single one of them? No.

Is it required? No. Could you do none of these things and still create the life that you want to? Sure. But if you do these things, it will make you more likely to get the life that you want, but then also at the same time, it'll also make it easier. So shall we dive in? Let's do it. Number one.

They wake up early. Not every single successful person wakes up early, but I would say 85, 90% wake up earlier than they need to. And the reason why is because they work on themselves before they go out and they give themselves to other people or their business and their children. You know, if you look at people like Richard Branson, he wakes up at 5.30 in the morning. Tim Cook, who runs Apple, 4.30 in the morning. Howard Schultz, who runs...

was the founder and CEO of Starbucks, 4.30 in the morning. Really what it comes down to, and I think the overall attitude behind it that's important, is they wake up proactively and not reactively. And they decide, you know what, I'm going to wake up earlier so that I can get some time to myself, maybe get to work at it, maybe do some reading, whatever it is they want to do.

You know, if you have an hour to kill watching TV before bed, just take that hour, go to bed earlier and then wake up an hour earlier. So you go to bed earlier, you wake up earlier. The day is the same length. It's just if you're sleeping for six hours or if you're sleeping for seven hours, you're sleeping for nine hours, whatever it is, just shift the time that you go to bed.

You know, for me, I have less energy at night. Some people have more energy at night. So what is the right situation to create an environment where you can wake up earlier? You and your body are different than me and my body and everyone else's. But if it's something that you want to do, it is 100% possible. So ask yourself, do you wake up early enough for you time? That's the thing to think about.

The second thing that I found with the most successful people is they read almost every single day. It's really interesting. There was a study that was done like 10 years ago that found out that the average successful CEO reads about 60 books per year, which is more than one book per week. But 80% of the people in the United States, households in the United States, 80% didn't even buy a book.

So you could either not read and you're probably going to be more in the category of a normal average person, or you could read like crazy and start getting yourself more into the category of people who are more successful. If the average CEO reads more than a book per week on average, maybe you should just, as Tony Robbins says, success leaves clues. Maybe you should just follow the tips to success. It's also been found that reading every single day lowers your stress. It fends off neurodegenerative diseases like dementia.

So if you want a healthier brain and you also want to be more successful, why don't you just take 15, 20 minutes a day, build it into your schedule, probably build it into the extra hour that you're waking up earlier, and just see if you can read every single day. So ask yourself this question. How often are you actually reading and is it often enough? Cool. That's number two. Number three.

More often than not, they exercise consistently. And the reason why is because they understand that there is a mind-body connection. They understand that the better your body is, the better that your body is functioning, the better that your mind is going to be functioning. And your mind is the most important part to create the life that you want. And so essentially, you're going to most likely have a better life.

The body makes more energy when you work out more often. And so if you're sitting around and you're like, well, I don't have enough energy to work out. Your body adjusts. That's a beautiful thing. As you start working out more, your body makes adjustments and actually starts making more energy.

And so what you can do is start building in the practice of exercising every single day. It doesn't have to be like hardcore, intense weight training every single day, but can you get the actual movement that you need to every single day? It could be weightlifting, it could be stretching, it could be yoga, it could be going for a run.

whatever it is that you want to do, can you start to develop? Because it is true, if you don't use it, you lose it. You might be 30 years old right now, but I guarantee you, if you don't start using it, you're going to get to 60 and you're going to have a lot of problems. And so can you start exercising more using that mind-body connection so that your mind and your body function better throughout the day? So ask yourself, how often do you work it out? And how often do you want to work out?

Okay, number four is they write down their goals. There was a study and you've probably heard me say this many times in the 70s where Harvard did a study with their graduating class or people who were getting their MBA and they found out that 3% of their students wrote down their goals. They followed up with all of them.

And that was about 10 years later in the 80s. And they found out that those 3% that wrote down their goals were 10 times more financially successful than the other 97% combined. 3% were 10 times more successful than the other 97% combined. Why?

Well, because it's real. When you take your goals and you don't just think of your goals, but you put them down on paper, it makes them real. It makes them physical. It makes them physically exist in this universe now. And when it's on paper, as I always say, it can be planned. And then you can get more clear on your goals. And as you get more clear on your goals, you can start planning how to actually create the goals that you need to and planning and putting a to-do list around it. You can make a date of when you want to hit this goal by. And so they write down their goals. And I've said this multiple times in the podcast.

One of the most successful people that I know, he's an incredible human. He was worth about $100 million by the time he was 40 years old. I see him all the time. And every single time that I see him, he always has his planner with him under his arm as if he's going to class, you know, and he's 50 years old now. And he always has his planner with him. And on the very back page of his planner is all of his goals. And he reviews his goals every single day.

right? And so it's just about how do you become more aware of taking your goals from your brain, putting them down, and then having an actual plan of reviewing them as well. So ask yourself, how often do you review your goals? How often do you write down your goals? And we will be right back.

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Dial.

And now, back to the show.

Cool? So that's number four. Number five, and this one is super, super important, is they find mentors. The average millionaire has had seven mentors throughout the course of their life. And the reason why a mentor is important, whether it is a paid mentor or whether it is a free mentor, and I've done episodes on the difference between the two of those and the benefits and pros and cons of both of them. The reason why it's important to find a mentor is because mentors shorten your learning curve.

You can learn from all of their mistakes. And so they basically collapse time. You could get 20 years of knowledge in two years from somebody.

And so when you have somebody that's a paid mentor, they feel responsible for your success or your failure. So they have a little bit more skin in the game. They're more serious. If you have a free mentor, where I have many free mentors, just friends of mine who I look up to in many different ways, and I learn from them on how to be better in different categories of my life. We don't talk every single week. We don't hang out every single week. But when I do get around them, I learn from them. And so there's pros and cons to both. But really what it is, is like, how can you get around more people

who are in the energy of the life that you want to create. If you want to be an incredible parent, how can you get around more incredible parents? If you want to be a great business owner,

How can you get around other successful business owners? If you want to be a really great student, where are the great students on your campus hanging out? It's about getting yourself in the energy of that. And I think one of the things that's not really spoken about much with mentors, obviously you learn a lot from them. Obviously they teach you how to get to success quicker. But one of the things that I think is most important is as you start hanging out with more people who are more, once again, successful, whatever that means to you,

the more that that life that they have, that seems maybe a little bit out of reach for you and maybe a little bit out of grasp, the more that it seems like, you know what? I could do this. And it seems more attainable. It seems more natural. It seems like it's something that you're going to be able to do versus being like, oh shit, I don't know if I can make this happen.

And so you've got to really start to think about how are you going to find mentors? You've got to ask yourself, how will you find your next mentor? What is the next mountain that you want to climb? And then how can you go find those people? Cool. That's number five. Number six is the way that they speak to themselves. More positive self-talk. They speak to themselves positively, or at least they don't talk shit to themselves.

I want you to understand we're not born with speaking positively to ourselves. It's something that we have to be intentional about. And, you know, I did a video years ago and in the video I had a, you know, big old pot of water in my hand. And on the left side I had, um,

It was kind of like a flower bed, but there were no flowers in it yet. And on the right side, I had him on as well. And I said that the way that you want to think about this is that when you have these thoughts, your thoughts are energy and the energy is like pouring water into a flower bed. And over here on the right, I have a flower bed with flower seeds in it. And over here to the left, I have a flower bed that has just a whole bunch of weeds in it. When I take this water,

And I take my energy and I take my words and what I speak intentionally. If I speak intentionally to myself, it's like me going and pouring water. And if I speak well to myself and say, I'm proud of you, I love you. It's like me taking that water and pouring it over the flower bed so that I can water the seeds. When I talk trash to myself, it's like me taking the water and pouring it over all of the weeds. Whichever one I put the most energy into is going to grow.

And so if I put a lot of my time into watering the weeds, I'm going to create more weeds. That's just what my life is going to be. So if I talk negatively to myself all of the time, I'm going to only be surrounded with more negative self-talk. It's going to get worse.

It's going to seem like it's everywhere, but if I intentionally start watering the other flower bed where the flowers are and the flower seeds, then I'm going to get more positive in my life. So you got to start thinking that way. You'd never talk to someone the way that you like love the way that you talk to yourself sometimes.

So you've got to start to transition and start to think about how can I, I mean, life is hard. Success is hard. All of these things are hard. Why make it harder on yourself by being an asshole to yourself? Why not at least try to be making it a little bit easier and be a little bit of your number one fan? And so you got to ask yourself, what part of your self-talk needs improving? Cool?

Number seven is they don't worry about failure. In fact, what I have found with the most successful people that I know is that they embrace failure and they know that they are going to mess up over and over and over and over and over again. And so they don't try to avoid failure or they don't not do something and not start something because they're afraid of failing. They use it as a way to learn. They use it as a way to get better.

And they use it as like, hey, I'm going to get a lesson from this. But I know. And so it's kind of like this idea of,

I know that if I go and do this thing, I'm going to fail and I'm going to fail a lot. So instead of avoiding those failures, I want to get all of them out of the way as fast as possible. And that's one of the reasons why I see that successful people take like immediate action. Like they make very quick decisions. The reason why is because they're like, I'm going to fuck it up and figure it out. And I'm going to mess up and I know I'm going to fail. And as long as I just don't stop, I'll eventually get to where I need to be. So I want to get those failures out of the way as fast as possible.

And, you know, it's like like the thing that I find with people who are just so afraid of starting is that they're so afraid of failing. And I'm like, you can't there's no way to divorce the relationship of failure and success, success in order to get there. You're going to have to fail and fail and fail and fail and fail and fail and fail. And then eventually you figure out what works. You can't take the two apart. They're two sides of the same coin.

And so you really have to ask yourself, how can I get better with failure? How can I learn from all of my failures? Okay. Number eight, that kind of goes into what I was just talking about.

is they just don't stop. Do you want to know the real secret to success? Just outlast everyone else because most people are just going to give up because that's just what people do. Most people don't start, number one, and the few people who do start usually give up pretty soon. So if you just decide this is the thing that I want to get better at, this is the thing I want to be successful at, and you just don't stop, you will be better than 99.99% of people in the world. That's just the way that it goes.

That's the secret to success. That's really what it comes down to. Just stop stopping. That's really what it comes down to, right? So do you give up on your goals too early? Lots of people get excited to start and then they give up. And so you've got to ask yourself how often

I guess the better question would be, how different would your life be if you just didn't stop? Like if you said, this is the thing, I'm gonna do this and I'm absolutely 100% gonna do this and I'm just not gonna stop. Where would your life be in a year, in five years, in 10 years? So that's number eight. And number nine is that they take calculated risks. They don't take risks that are crazy. They usually go, you know what? I'm kind of thinking about starting a business here.

They think about starting that business and then they say, okay, what are all of the risks? And then they outweigh all of the risks with all of the pros and all the cons. And they start to see what their risks are. And so some of the most successful people, like I have a friend who I was talking with yesterday. He retired by the age of 37, him and his wife both retired. And he's worth, as an investor, which he's been investing now for about nine years, he's worth over $100 million. Different guy than the guy I was just talking about right now. And he is...

extremely, extremely calculated. He goes through investment opportunities. He's invested in over 200 companies. And when he goes through and he vets these, he is extremely calculated. Like he doesn't just go, oh, this company looks like they're going to do really well. He does a background on every single person who's the head of the company, which costs $1,500 per background check. And sometimes it's five or six for each company. He does all of this and he's very, very calculated with all of the risks that he takes.

Some people would see someone that's like an angel investor and be like, yeah, they just throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and hope that one of them takes off.

Sure, some of them might do that. But what I found with most successful people is they take risks, but they're very, very calculated risks. On the opposite side, the people I found who are the most unsuccessful are afraid of taking risks. They're afraid of getting out of their comfort zone. They're afraid of doing something different. They're afraid of doing something that is different that they've never done before that's outside of their comfort zone that makes them feel a little bit not safe.

If you want to go out and you want to create something that you've never created before, you're going to have to do things you've never done before. And if you don't risk anything, you risk everything in this life. And so ask yourself the question, how can you get better at taking more calculator risks? So those are the nine things that you need to do if you want to be successful.

If you love this podcast episode, please share it on Instagram stories and tag me in it. Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

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