Borrowing belief from others.
😀 Plus: Planning for joy in advance, the magic of measurement, and why force doesn't work.
Welcome to the 147th consecutive edition of the newsletter.
Each week I share ideas worth stealing to help you create profound personal, physical and professional transformation.
Here are five I uncovered this week.
Please steal shamelessly
*****
On a personal note…
I’m still in Sudbury. I have been working on helping my dad set up systems that will make his life easier.
For example, he uses notebooks to track appointments. This is problematic however, because it still requires him to remember when those appointments are.
And constantly having to remember anything is stressful.
So I am teaching him how to use Google Calendar.
I have set up the default settings in his calendar so every time he adds an appointment, it will send my him an email reminder the day before the scheduled event.
In other words, once it is in Google Calendar he never has to think about it again until he gets that email.
Google Calendar isn’t the most intuitive app ever made, so it has been a bit overwhelming for my dad to use.
What I told him was to think of the app like playing the guitar. Both require deliberate daily practice to start getting good at them.
And to the credit of my 82 year old father, that’s exactly how he is approaching it. Last night I caught him putting in fake vacation dates just to get used to using the app and its different features, including how to delete said fake vacations.
There’s a lesson here for you as well. Change, in any area of life, is really hard in the beginning.
Most quit when they experience that initial resistance.
But if you could just resolve to show up everyday and keep practicing, that resistance wanes as progress begins to get made.
In my father’s case, he’s starting to feel comfortable using Google Calendar and as a result, his mind will be at peace knowing he will never miss another appointment.
Peace of mind is priceless.
Get 5 new ideas every Sunday that will help you transform yourself and your life.
1/ Jeff Bezos wisdom.
This quote makes me think about something I learned on my weight loss journey. I was very good at using force to create short-term weight loss. But it took me 53 years to realize that force does not scale long-term — in any area of our life. Want to know what does scale long-term? Love! Finding ways to fall in love with everything and everyone we decide to invest in is the key to long-term success and happiness.
🧠 Idea worth stealing → Force doesn't scale long-term. But love does. 2/ Question to ponder.
This question was inspired by something I found out about my father last night.
Turns out that before he falls asleep, he says a “prayer” for all the people he loves. Apparently, he has been doing this for decades.
I had no idea he had this practice.
I don’t do this. I’m not sure many others do it either.
This makes my dad unique and that uniqueness manifests itself in positive ways.
That got me thinking about me. What do I do that makes me unique?
There are a few things I can choose from, but something I have started doing recently is planning for joy in advance.
Each morning I write down 5 things that will spark joy for the day that is about to unfold.
In this way, I’m deliberately scheduling joy into my day before it happens. Then I make sure to extract it when those moments arrive.
Here are some things I decided would spark great joy today.
Exercising great eating discipline.
Putting out the best newsletter I can.
Going for a trail walk with daddio.
Training for the 1444th consecutive day.
Watching Rickie Fowler win the Rocket Mortgage Golf Tournament. (HE WON!!!)
🧠 Idea worth stealing → When we do things no one else is doing, we create outcomes no one else is having. 3/ Edward Thorp wisdom.
Like Ed, I have found that weighing myself every day is the ESSENTIAL HABIT that has had the greatest impact on my weight loss success. That measurement is powerful because it creates awareness. And once we are aware, the odds of taking action to fix a problem are skewed heavily in our favour.
🧠 Idea worth stealing → Measurement creates awareness. Awareness attracts action. 4/ Steven Pressfield wisdom.
Here is what I know to be true about belief. It’s contagious. This is what I tell my weight loss clients I coach. When we start, most don’t believe they will succeed at yet another attempt to lose weight. I tell them they don’t have to believe in themselves. They just need to believe that I believe they will succeed. And over time my belief rubs off on them until one day they hit a tipping point and begin to believe they will succeed.
🧠 Idea worth stealing → Belief is contagious. Find a way to catch it from those who have the belief you seek.5/ Joseph Campbell wisdom.
I find this beautiful quote helpful when dealing with skeptics and critics. They are not on my path, so they can’t see what I see. Therefore 99% of the feedback they have is not relevant to my journey, so I don’t need to accept it. I can let it go, like a balloon.
🧠 Idea worth stealing → More often than not, people judge us based on the path they are on, not the path we are on. That is all for today.
See you next Sunday my friend.
And hey — keep being awesome.
Dean 🇨🇦
*****
1 MORE WAY I CAN HELP YOU!
1:1 Coaching: Weekly 1-on-1 coaching is available to help you build your version of a highly successful body. Click that link to arrange a free call. 🏅