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In today’s episode, Allan welcomes Aurimas Juodka “AJ” who is an international expert in human optimization and high-performance. AJ discusses the 4 pillars of high-performance; biology, leadership, efficiency, and mindset. Each of these key factors can be optimized by using the Minimal Effective Dose method. AJ gives a great overview of simple daily hacks using minimal inputs, resulting in maximum outputs.
Follow AJ on Instagram at human.optimized or at https://www.humanoptimized.co/
Allan has started and grown several multi million dollar businesses, his mission is to help you do the same. Welcome to the Business Growth Pod, building the future one entrepreneur at a time.
So when it comes to life in general, right, we master our jobs, our careers, master the way of making money, and then what? We don’t take enough time to master ourselves. So I identified four main areas that we really need to take care of, to become really optimized human. So that is biology, leadership, efficiency, and mindset. What’s between our ears?
Hey, everyone, welcome to the show. I’m Allan. I’m a family man and attorney and an entrepreneur. Each week, we provide resources and advice to help build your business. Are you ready? Then let’s go.
Hey, everyone, welcome to the show today. I’m excited because today we have our first quote unquote international expert that’s going to share his know how with us, his name Aurimas. He goes by AJ, he’s gonna have to help me with his last name, but he’s a human optimization, and certified high performance expert to public speaker, educator and certified nutrition coach. Welcome to the show, AJ,
thank you. Thank you for having me, Allan.
Just for my listeners. Go ahead and pronounce your your full name for me real quick.
Yeah, so it’s Aurimas Juodka. That’s my full name.
Awesome. I love it, and I just wanted them to hear it so that they knew that. Like I wasn’t copping out on some easy to pronounce name.
right. So that’s fair. That’s good.
I love it. All right. Well, hey, I’m stoked to have you. I think you’re unlike any of our other guests because of your focus on the physique. I’m excited to see where this takes us, especially in the context of high performance and in achievement. Will you do me a favor and just kind of tell us a little bit about your background, where you were born, where you grew up, things like that?
Absolutely out. So first of all, I was in a little town of about 20,000 people, and just not a lot of growth, quite frankly, there. And long story short, I got an opportunity to study in the United States, I joined the military, I wanted to go to Afghanistan got convinced to not and join a military school, military officer school instead. And through there, I had an opportunity to move to the US. And you see, when I was a child, I suffered a lot from chronic diseases, chronic conditions, and all that stuff carried over naturally to my adulthood. I started figuring things out, how do I actually reverse these conditions? How do I fix myself. And once I moved to the US, I wasn’t the Coast Guard Academy there. And oh, once I started figuring things out, first entry point was fitness. Because you know, all of us think that if you look good, you’re gonna feel good. So that’s where my whole optimization journey started. It’s been over a decade at this point of me just researching and spending time in the trenches period, figuring things out what works and what doesn’t, when it comes to human optimization.
I love that. And so what do you mean? Can you define human optimization for us a little bit? What does that mean? Kind of on a practical level?
Absolutely. So when it comes to life in general, right, we master our jobs, our careers, master the way of making money, and then what we don’t take enough time to master ourselves. So I identified four main areas that we really need to take care of to become really optimized human. So that is biology, leadership, efficiency, and mindset. What’s between our ears, biology as well has a bit, a few sub bullet points. So that’d be sleep, nutrition, stress management, movements, and environment. And then leadership, how do we lead ourselves and others, one of the most important skills in life really, is how we show up how we impact and influence others, our children, the loved ones, our teams, executives, then efficiency, we want to do that in a structured, efficient manner. Like we don’t want to waste our time. Like there’s a huge difference between being effective, where you’re able to get stuff done and then efficient, where you get that stuff done in a timely manner. And then your mindset. So from meditation to being responsive, rather than reactive and actually developing that inner talk that is going to be conducive for your
mental and physical health. You mentioned biology. And I think that’s such an interesting concept, right? I know that there’s, there’s so many successful entrepreneurs, so many successful businessmen that their lives have been shortened, because they go all in on their businesses, especially with tech startups or high pressure cells or businesses where so much time is required up front to get the ball rolling, but they sacrifice years of, you know, we think of people like Steve Jobs, there’s somebody kind of more of a regional billionaire. And magnate he was the owner of the Utah Jazz, a guy named Larry Miller died fairly young. And he talks in his biography a lot about he talks a lot about his failed nutrition we never worked out, he ended up becoming diabetic and things like that. And so what would you say to a business owner guy that starting a company that’s like, you know, what, AJ, I
don’t I just don’t have the time to workout man. I don’t have the time to eat, right? What do you say to him? That’s the thing.
When it comes to eating and moving, and taking care of your sleep and all those things, they actually make you more time than they consume. So there might be as as in everything else. In the beginning, there might be some friction, there might be some just challenges that you face once you get going. But once it becomes, that’s the thing, and that’s what I really do is just make those things effortless. Because the easier they are that minimal effective dose approach, especially for people who are in this because I’m, I’m an entrepreneur, first, I’m a business owner first, and all the other stuff. Second, like I’m writing a book, I’m consulting, dealing with three companies as like, it’s, I don’t have time, quote, unquote, you know, to work out. But that’s the thing, it’s just you make that time in order to be a more effective human being. So what I’m saying is that, I don’t agree, there’s no such thing as not having time, that is just
not making time. I love that. And just to clarify, I’m 100% on board with you a lot of the reasons why I work out. Now, I definitely don’t look like you without my shirt on. That’s for sure. But I tried to have a routine where I work out five or six times a week. And it’s not all physical, for me a lot of it. And actually, the reason why I started working out I started working out about five or six years ago, seriously, I’ve always been involved in sports and things like that, but just for recreation, but I started about six months into my first company, and I did it. Because I needed to go somewhere to clear my head, I needed something where I could go take out my frustration, go go get my head, right, you know, for an hour, hour and a half, before I get back into work. Is there some truth to that these kind of mental, absolute mental benefits of working out and exercising?
Absolutely. Because you see, when we’re building a business, a lot of willpower is required. When you think about it, it’s just one of those human conditions, we’re the only ones who can actually use that willpower. Most animals are not capable of doing that, you know. So it does take a lot. And we have another thing that I have that is unique to us is emotions. And we tend to suppress a lot of emotion, especially as entrepreneurs, business people, then that grind is really embraced in our culture. But at the same time, all those emotions, they don’t just leave your body they get stored. So yeah, through exercise, releasing all that stuff is incredibly valuable. And biology in general man, it’s like it’s our meat to it’s the easiest thing to take care of. And that there are only about 25 habits that are necessary in order for us to optimize our biology. So it’s it really isn’t that hard. If you’re at the worst place possible right now. You can turn it around in less than a year.
That’s awesome. You love hearing about, you know what’s possible, because I think for especially for business owners and entrepreneurs, just kind of seeing or imagining what’s possible is the first step right. Some of these guys that are listening right now they think I don’t have time to work out, man. I’ve got 50 employees and I don’t have the time my business will fail without me. You know, they need to take that first step. So AJ, what’s that first step? Right? So I have a, I have somebody that’s listening right now I can feel it right? And they’re saying, Man, I already don’t have enough time. What’s the first step? Do they start small? Do they start with a walk around the neighborhood? What What is it?
So I am a bit of a different animal when it comes to that. So I really do a lot of research before I dive into something. However, I still start something small Well, before I actually dive into something all in so with anything that you can do, as I say Say it’s exercises are supplement and movement is our food. So if you just simply stand up and go for a walk every 45 minutes or so, and go on walking meetings in running a business, one of the most efficient ways, if you will, that I found to take my business calls, is while taking a walk, I actually have a little walking treadmill station built in. I’m taking a walk while I’m taking my voice and video calls. So that’s something that Oh, hack there. And just simply stepping away, stepping away and doing some movement, that’s the lowest hanging fruit. That’s the easiest place to start. Now, if you want to dive in to go to the gym, and you want to optimize your physique and take it to the next level. Well, that really takes someone who knows what they’re doing. Obviously, you probably don’t have time to research all that stuff. I remember spending about half a year researching stuff before I really started seeing results because I was going to the gym as you were saying it’s like six days a week, and I wasn’t seeing any results. And then started researching, starting started understanding the human body. And then I ended up putting on a boat, that was my transformation, if you will, I put on by 50 pounds of muscle in six months, I love to share that picture of transformation. It’s just like, day and night. So it’s all about actually hacking your biology and understanding how our human bodies work in order to actually tackle it in the most efficient manner. Because to be honest, man, I don’t like the gym, and I I’m gonna do the bare minimum. So maintain what I’ve got. That’s interesting,
you know that you talk about how you have these meetings while you walk Steve Jobs, he was notorious for that. Any of his tough conversations, he would just have somebody come over to his house and go for a walk up behind his house and all over whenever, whenever he had a conversation, want to chat with somebody. It wasn’t in a boardroom. I always thought that was interesting. He would go on walks, what is it man? What is it about moving your body, that you know a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of guys that have a lot of stress in their life, they like about that movement while they’re having those tough discussions,
you’re actually the interesting thing is that your brain is operating more efficiently while you’re walking. Because when you’re sitting down, we’re kind of in this stagnant position that is not really biologically optimal for us. So think about our ancestors, they didn’t really spend any time in this 90 degree angle position at all, ever. They were either squatting, laying down or standing up those three positions. So from the human just evolution standpoint, it’s not an optimal position. So walking is one of those things. I’m not sure who said this, but I keep remembering it when your body’s moving your brain is grooming and this could not be more true.
Yeah, I love that. And I know that Tony Robbins said something about how if you want to change your life, you have to change your body, like you have to move. And a lot of people they think that Tony Robbins is kind of weird, because he’s always doing like the rah rah stuff, like jump up out of your chair, and he’s clapping a lot. And he’s yelling, and he’s running up and down the
aisles, just changing the state man, it all starts with our meeting. And also with our biology, like think about a prime example. Actually, let’s do this together. If you’re actually slumping, right now, if you are if you’re moving your shoulders forward, and kinda raising them to your ears, and then leaning forward, just to see how we feel, and kind of your chin is a little bit up to see how we feel. At least me, I’m kind of getting into that unpleasant, almost depressed state. Now, if you lower your shoulders away from yours, sit back a little bit, your chest out your chin up, man, that’s a completely different feeling. It’s not simple.
It definitely is. And I just kind of followed along. And I have this natural tendency to kind of hunched my shoulders just like you were describing, and kind of hunched over. But then I moved my shoulders back. First of all, it makes my back feel better. Like it takes some pressure off my lower back. But then it kind of makes me feel like I’m in the Superman pose. Right? Like I’m
right. Yeah.
This position of strength almost
exactly.
Right before we jumped on, I actually, I got a text from my buddy. And he’s right in the middle of a tech startup, very, very intelligent programmer. He spent years at Adobe. It’s got some really exciting things he’s working on. And in addition to his tech startup, he runs a hedge fund, just a bright, motivated guy. And he shoots me a text. I’m talking like, three minutes before we started recording. And he’s like, hey, Alan, man, I’m kind of in a rut. He asked me for a recommendation for a book or a podcast. He’s like, what should I listen to? What can I do to get motivated a little bit and now that you and I are having this conversation, I need to text him back once once we’re done and say go for a walk. Man, go for a run, move your body. Right? Is that something you would say, Jay,
that’s one of the things. Another thing that I have is really what I call a morning formula. Every morning that I wake up, I kind of remind myself of my vision, I remind myself on the direction that I’m taking. Because sometimes you see, we we just get so close to other things that we would just get. So in it, as we say, you can read the label it when you’re inside of the bottle, you know, so you need someone to read that out loud, are you creating the ability to step away from this being in to actually being outside and having that objective view of what you’re doing? So every morning, I reevaluate myself, if you will, and kind of repeat that vision for myself? Why am I doing what I’m doing? Because motivation is really intrinsic. And if you’re attaching to the outside, it’s not ever going to gonna last. So creating that why and actually, reminding yourself of that is incredibly powerful. That would be another thing that I’ll go with. That’s interesting. So
do you mind telling me a little bit about the specifics of your morning routine? I read a book recently, I think it was how Enron a Miracle Morning. Exactly. Yeah, I think that’s what it was. I think it was the milk Miracle Morning, how Enron or something, something like that. But I read that years ago, and since then, I’ve I have my morning routine. I’d like to hear about yours. AJ, do you mind sharing some specifics with us?
Oh, absolutely. I have a little bulletproof one. So first of all, first things first, right when I get out of bed, hydration, we lose so much water through respiration throughout the night. So just chug a bunch of water, actually, you see water supply in the United States is not great. So if you have a nice structured water filter, or mineral Iser, that’s, that’s ideal, if not just add some high quality sea salt. Celtic sea salt is my favorite, or there’s this in the US there’s this Redmond, Redmond, Utah, or youth or Redmond salt, something along those lines, and mix that with primo totara or squeeze Oh, lime or lemon and you have a hydration cocktail first thing in the morning. So I drink about anywhere from 16 to 32 ounces of water right away? Then I step outside. You guys in Arizona have this opportunity for most part of the year, I guess. Yeah, I mean, Bali, it’s a bit it’s a bit easier because it’s all year round. So I step outside and get some sun, even if the sun is not shining, or just that natural light. So naturally wake up your body. Because we’re still animals, we’re still human, but human animals in our human bodies actually work with the cycles of nature. So stepping outside, getting some natural light, and then moving your body I usually like do some jump rope or simply jumping around. Because that clears our limp, all the debris that you know has been accumulated, our body actually gets to clear it. And for lymph you need you need some extra extra support. Some people like rebounders and stuff like that. How long are we talking? Are
we talking, you know, jump rope or you move your body for a couple of minutes? Are we talking 15 to
30 minutes, no, just want two minutes really just to get the blood flowing. Or you should do a little bit more stretching. It’s called foundation training. You can look it up on YouTube, I would go through that routine. That would take about 10 minutes. But now I’m just I’m literally hydrating, stepping outside getting some natural light jumping around to get the juices flowing. And then I go to my meditative practice. First of all, I do the mindset practice where I anchor myself to my vision, remind myself of my why and simply empower myself so I can get back to that feeling. in case something goes down throughout the day, you know, and then I meditate meditation practice, something that I’ve done in 2020, I’ve spent over 500 hours in meditation that has exponentially grown my business that the clarity, the level of clarity that I’ve got from spending that much time in silence has been absolutely incredible. That’s crazy. AJ,
over 500 hours in 2020. And I that’s part of what I do every morning. Part of my routine is to spend a certain amount of time in meditation. Man, I wish I had that dedication, that level of you know, control over your mind, because I get into it 1015 minutes, and I just start thinking about all the stuff that I’m not doing that I need to get done for the day, you know.
And that’s that yeah, that’s the problem. You know, most people are like that. I actually actually appreciate that you share that because this is one of those things that happens when people meditate. One of the quotes phrases that one of my mentors and colleagues and friends David Hans Barker Use this is that our mind is like a dog. If you don’t train it, it shoots everywhere. Like It is that simple. So interestingly enough, as being okay with our mind bouncing back and forth, and us being able to still stay present, it’s a it’s a muscle. And what helped me to actually develop that muscle was extended sits, that’s actually where I’m taking over two hours in meditation. And, again, I’m exposed to this environment. And that’s something that my colleagues are doing that actually bringing meditation online, and helping people. Because of that are obviously so many so many modalities, but the real one, in my opinion is, which helps you to see things more clearly see things as they are not as you want them to be. That’s something that I’ve been striving for for the past few years. It’s like, how do I come closer to the truth to reality and not hypnotize myself into the things that what am i pretending not to know, type of thing. So simply dedicating the time out those 500 hours, obviously, they didn’t just happen like that. That’s one thing about is almost two hours a day in average, but I took some chunks of time. So it took 210 day, retreats last year, where I spent 10 days in silence meditating for 12 plus hours a day. And that has been an absolute game changer. And I could not recommended more,
holy cow, my mind is just blown right now. And I know that they’re, you know, I’ve heard of people, especially Eastern folks that you know, with different religions and stuff that take that amount of time, but I didn’t know that an entrepreneur such as yourself, you know, there are people that do that, that’s, that’s amazing. What did that do for you, man, tell me about some of the things that that did for you and kind of enhancing, you know, your personal life, what you’re trying to accomplish. And it just opening your mind to the importance of having that type of control over your mental state.
That’s the thing that gave me so much clarity, I kind of got addicted to it, because I saw how powerful being with myself is, is at the end of the day, if you’re comfortable being with yourself, if you’re comfortable processing all the emotions and traumas and everything that’s within you on your own. I mean, you’ll never be alone, you’re equipped for the rest of your life, that’s a skill that can be repeated. And that’s the beauty of it. And once I saw the benefits of it, and how clear I was in terms of business in terms of seeing these inefficient because again, one of my gifts is seeing inefficiencies in humans and businesses and then fixing them. But meditation took that to the next level, I’m now able to see things so much more clearly than I did before. And that’s the thing, I’m not that much of an avid meditator when it comes to so for example, the reason why I got into this passion of meditation, this, this is what it’s called. And watching means seeing things clearly. And as I mentioned, my colleagues are actually I would like to share a resource with your audience is called with passion online.com, super passionate spell VIP ASS A na online.com. And they are actually providing people with free meditation every month from the London so 22nd. And you can pick you can pick to be like a spiritual hustler, where you’re still working, and you can only invest in two hours a day, just those two, if you just start with those two hours a day or just listening to the discourses on a daily basis, you’re already going to benefit tremendously, just understanding your why and how it works. That’s already a massive, massive, massive, massive skill to have. It really translates directly. That’s it’s just one of those techniques that is a spiritual technique that actually translates and transfers directly into our lives. And as I mentioned, I started because my mentor, he actually was pretty much a monk at the age of 25. He was considering to become a monk. But then he realized, hey, what’s the point of me sitting on this mountain pretty much if I can’t help anyone else, and I want to actually test this technique if it’s transferable to the real world. And then he went from literally zero to just living out of his backpack, having one backpack with some peanut butter in it, you know, and being the happiest camper out there. He went back to the real world. And in less than two years, he became a multimillionaire, because he has so much clarity and so much just he was able to harness his mind to the extent where Okay, that’s it.
Yeah, I love chatting about this. And I mean, meditation for me is probably within the last three ish years where I’ve started to realize some of the value I made a completely different level than you It sounds like. And for my listeners that have never meditated before, and for some of us in the West, some people in in the United States is kind of weird, right? We think of it like fubu, or something. And I had to overcome that myself. It was not based on any type of science or information or anything, just kind of, I don’t think that’s for me type of thing. For my listeners that have never made it meditated before, right, but they’re starting to hear different types of people talk about it, they need to decrease some of the stress in their life, they need to get their head right before they start their day. How do they baby step this? How do they just get dip a toe in the water?
Beautiful question. You see, that’s, that’s one of those things is like, if you were to tell me that I should meditate and spend hours on end in silence, I would have told you to get out of my face again, because my background is like I grew up in Eastern Europe. That’s something that just if you talked about meditation, you would have been beat up probably no. So it was quite a transition for myself as well. And discovering that I started with simple mindfulness practice, where just closing your eyes, closing your eyes, and just being aware of everything that comes the biggest mistake that people do is they’re trying to clear the thoughts that come, instead of doing that just big, this triangular area, above your upper lip, all the way up to the base of your notes. So this big triangle area and just focus there. Because once you actually focus on one area, you’re able to start out all the distractions, all the other thoughts that are in the background. So that’s the easiest place to start. Some people get into like mantra based meditation. So I took the transcendental meditation or tm course, five years ago, and it is good. But again, you’re repeating something, it’s called contemplation technique. So you’re repeating something again, and again, again, that and also, same thing, once you’re focusing on one thing, everything else kind of just gets starved out. So it is it has some value. But as I said, for me, if I was just starting out, finding someone who’s doing it already, and as I said, that amazing resource, and understanding why it is so powerful, just going assigning up with for one of those courses, and just sitting for a little bit every single day, and actually connecting with yourself, just allowing things to pass rather than trying to suppress them. Starting with that.
I love it. And you know, there are a lot of tools available, I use an app, because I’m I’m a complete rookie with this, this type of thing. And so I use an app that kind of coaches me through different types of meditations, different types of focuses, whether it’s right now I’m I’m going through a course that’s just specifically about reducing stress in my life. And so those things have worked a lot for me, just because I’m such a beginner. let’s shift gears a little bit. AJ, let’s talk a little bit about you mentioned before, this concept of minimal effective dose. Can you kind of tell me what that is? And and explain that?
Absolutely. So that’s one of my favorite things to geek out on actually. Because one of my friends actually says, who’s an entrepreneur, he you optimize for lazy? And I absolutely love it. Yeah, you can see that I’m not really optimizing for lazy and I’m optimizing for optimal, right. So I don’t want those is ultimately, you finding the waste to create minimal inputs that are going to create your desired outcomes, minimal inputs for maximum outputs, so you don’t have to do more than you actually need. For exercise, for example, I just said like, I don’t like go to the gym, six times a week sounds like an absolute nightmare. So I thought, How do I do this in less than three hours a week, and then just started researching, started figuring things out different body’s energy systems. And then we don’t really actually need to workout that much to create the growth hormone response to create that mitochondrial health response and then improve our heart health, the things that we all need, there are easier ways of doing it. Because most of us do the same thing. Again, and again, again, do some walking on the treadmill on a cardio machine is Stairmaster, heavy, and then lift some weights, and that’s it. But if you’re purposefully targeting different energy systems on that, that’s the response from your body is completely different. So that’s an exercise response. Then when it comes to sleep, that’s another another thing, supplementation, same thing, just everything out. How do I make this easier for myself? Because behavior change is hard, you know that you’re experienced that.
So basically, you’re saying that there’s this set of rules or there’s this dog In that that says, hey, if if you change the way you’re doing things, you can do less and get the same results.
Exactly, precisely. And that’s something that I’m obsessed with that efficiency. Once again, I want to go back to that topic where we can be effective. We can, for example, if you’re just starting to completely transform your life, like you want to get healthy, and then you go to the gym for 15 hours a week. And, yeah, well, you can, you’re definitely going to transform your life. But that’s not sustainable once you fall off the wagon, and you’re not able to invest that much time into Jim going. Well, that’s it, you’re done. So what’s the point, really, because now, if you’re over 25, for that matter, you are thinking long term, you’re thinking of longevity, you’re thinking sustainability, I would hope so at least, rather than these immediate gratification and temporary results, because they’re pointless.
Earlier, you were talking about kind of the four central areas that you focus on in your life. Can you talk to me a little bit about each area and maybe a hack for each one of those areas, or something that you’ve learned when it comes to minimum minimal effective dose, specifically for each one of those categories? Absolutely.
Okay, so first one is biology. And I’m gonna give a little hack from every area. So first of all, sleep optimization, the easiest thing that you can do is actually set up bedtime alarm, most of us have wake up alarms, very few of us have a go to bed alarm. So that would be a great trigger for you to start winding down, set that up. What I do, for example, my alarm goes off, I put on my blue light blocking glasses, which are red, so I don’t have any more artificial light, that is preventing the production of melatonin, which is necessary homeowner first. Firstly, I drink some tea, take a shower, lay down on my acupressure mat, turn off my all my electronics, flip those into airplane mode and start reading go to bed. That’s it. So that’s for sleep, and nutrition, just sticking to Whole Foods as close to the natural state as possible, unrefined and process. So if it doesn’t have to shout at you, you know, on the packaging that it’s organic, non GMO, like just grab a piece of real food. So as much as possible, then when it comes to stress management yet, spend time and silence spend time with yourself, that’s the best time that you’re going to invest in yourself, that’s for sure. Then movement move every 45 minutes, at least. So if you’re sitting on your desk, there’s an amazing app, stretch Li that you can download and install on your computer. And it drives great, it drives people crazy in the beginning, because it blocks your computer screen. And you have to wait until the timer goes out, it goes out you know, so I have it set up for every 45 minutes. So I have to step away from my computer screen and stretch, rest my eyes, rest my body, and then your environment. That’s something that we don’t really think that much optimizing your clean environment. And one of the lowest hanging fruits is when it comes to personal care products. You see our skin is the most absorbent organ of our body. So making sure that you’re using the products that are completely natural, have no heavy metals are additives, that’s going also going to be a pretty big game changer. Now moving on to leadership, as I just consider on a daily basis, who are you serving? Why are you doing the things that you’re doing? How are you showing up for yourself and others? What kind of leader Are you having a clear plan and understanding? How do you want to show how do you want to lead that, again, requires a lot of introspection, and usually coaching. But we all want to be good, an impactful leaders efficiency, but how can I do things more efficiently, plan out your days before they begin, find out your weeks, set goals for your quarters for your years, see where you are and see where you want to be and measure things, measure as many things as you possibly can. And the things that you’re actually going to take action on and change because that’s in your power. And then last one mindset. I’m going to go back to meditation, I’m going to go back to morning formula, anchoring yourself to the state, which you want to reproduce again and again and again. Again, motivation is intrinsic. And one of the he’s not a mentor in real life. He’s a mentor through his book and he said he Jay Cunningham amazing businessman, and I would definitely read his book The Road Less stupid when the most powerful reads I’ve had and he said yeah, motivation is for amateurs. Pros don’t need motivating. And what he means by that is it’s all intrinsic. We are in charge of creating that motivation with us. So that’s that’ll be a quick rundown. I
love it. As I’m kind of getting to know you a little bit and as I’m listening to you A couple of words are coming. To my mind. First of all, it’s clear to me that you have this relationship with good habits that few people do. It sounds like your habits and your routine just basically are the guideposts in your life and you’re really good at sticking to them,
I want to correct you that they’re actually I’m not that good of sticking to them, I’m actually good at knowing how to create them and making them last. Because those are different things biggest sticking, sticking to them requires my willpower, I make sure that willpower is not involved in the equation, because I know how limited and how much of a finite resource that is. So just integration, I’m good at integration, I’m not really good at just powering through this stuff. Yeah, I
love that. And actually, what I was just about to say, was that you’re really good at clearing the path, right? Making it, like use the example of that app on your desktop that shut your computer down. Right, it creates this environment where you don’t have to make a decision, that decision was made back when you installed the app and programmed it to shut down every 45 minutes. precise. Right. And, and I think some people I love what you said about willpower. I think some people think that people that that have this ability to stick with something, they think that it’s you know, whether it’s a exercise routine, whether it’s a how much you’re reading, whether it’s some you know, working on your relationships, whatever it is going to the gym, they think that, you know, it’s 100% willpower, but the people that are the most effective the most successful with those things, they have systems in place that remove a lot of the willpower. And in some cases, all of it, you know, from them, if you don’t have a house full of Oreos, and you know, sugar cereal, you’re not going to eat it, because it’s not there. You don’t need that willpower. Because it’s just not an option. You know, for me going to the gym, when I wake up, I put them very first thing I do is I put on my gym clothes, I don’t go to the gym for another couple of hours. But that decision was already made, I wake up, I put on my gym clothes. And so that I know, hey, in my mind, whatever time you know, I go, it varies between, you know, an hour or two in the late morning, that decision was made when I put my gym clothes on, I don’t have to I don’t have to cloud my mind with making that decision. Again, I don’t have to bog it down.
Yes, that’s, that’s a beautiful example of a trigger. So and removing, removing all the friction possible, that is in your way. So the more friction you remove in the beginning of making a behavioral change, the easier is going to be for it to actually create momentum behind it and to stick to it. So that’s Yeah, that’s a beautiful example of that kind of a trigger.
So as you were talking to other words came to mind. One was how present you are. It sounds like in your day to day, your present in what you’re doing. You talked about leadership, and you talked about focusing on how you’re going to lead people you almost you envision as and that’s something that I’ve been working on, because that’s, you know, an area where I really need to strengthen in my life. And that is with those that I lead, I need better empathy, and I need better, I need more patience with understanding where they’re coming from some of the things that they’re struggling with. And so I’ve been taking a step back. And I’ve been going through this process of visualizing what my conversation is going to be like when I have to approach somebody about something. And so I love that I love that you that you’re present. The second thing, the second word that came to mind was how deliberate you are. We talk about these things that I think you mentioned, trigger. And then you mentioned another word, but these things that we set up before we get there, right. So it’s not like when you’re you know, you’re working at your desk, and you don’t have to remind yourself every 45 minutes, but you do that ahead of time, you have to set that up ahead of time. And it probably is a situation where I know this would be the case with me that in my throughout my day I just be grinding and all of a sudden that pops up and I totally forgot about it. Right? How important are those things in terms of number one, being present. Number two, being deliberate, and being proactive about setting up these things that help you remove some of that willpower, that willpower requirement to help you do these things.
And first of all, I appreciate those are really kind words and actually, you know, presence is such a it’s an amazing compliment. So appreciate that, first of all, but Allan, when it comes to just our minds and our as humans, most of the things are done unconsciously. our subconscious is running the game. So whether it’s the traumas that we experience in our childhood and our subconscious mind was not able to process them. So they got trapped within us. And why do we, for example, some people attract the same partner, right? Because there is a cycle that has not completed itself. And our subconscious mind is trying to create those opportunities to actually complete that cycle. Same thing with everything else, if we actually establish the path that is of least resistance to our subconscious mind, and actually train our subconscious mind to, for example, with certain things to become default mode, which is healthy eating movements, exercise meditation, if that’s frictionless, and if you’re, if you feel like you’re getting rewarded for it, it makes everything so much easier. So they’re incredibly, incredibly important, because over 90%, of the show is run by our subconscious mind. And as I mentioned before, our willpower is a finite resource. So we cannot rely on our willpower, and just setting up your environment, the people that you surround us, or surrounding yourself with the access that you have just deliberately creating that, just think about it, like what is it that I want to create, and then backwards engineer, and that’s something that I’ve done with pretty much every area of my life.
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