Episode 271： How to Multitask & Automate New Habits
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Summary
Is it possible to do multiple things at the same time? In this episode, we'll talk about the benefits of doing one thing at a time and why you should only focus on one task. We'll use the analogy of a basketball game and see if you can do it.
Transcript
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30 seconds. One time for the underdog. Ignition sequence start. Let me see you put them up. Reach the sky, touch the stars up above. Cause it's one time for the underdog. One time for the underdog.
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I'm Patrick Bede, your host of Entertainment, and today we're going to talk about a topic that can be debatable. Can you multitask? Is it possible? We'll talk about that today.
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So there's two groups of people when it comes down to the subject of multitasking, and you'll know which one you are. There's the part that says, I'm a great multitasker. You ever heard people say, I am very good at multitasking. I can do a lot of different things at the same time, and I'm effective. And then there's another side that says, there's no way in the world you can multitask. I do one thing, but I do one thing very, very good. Don't multitask.
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And this is a great question to be asking yourself, but to me, what I like to do with a subject like this is to try to get as much clarity as possible.
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So today's goal is to help get clear about the subject of multitasking or doing one thing at a time.
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So prior to getting into that, the first thing we ought to ask ourselves is, so in order to do multitasking, that means we are doing multiple different things at the same time.
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So that means there are habits that are being formed to do multitasking, right? You need habits to be formed.
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And one of the best things I read about in this book called The Power of Habit is scientists have done studies to find out why the brain likes to create habits.
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And the answer to me was unbelievable. I shared on a conference call this morning, it totally made me look at habit in a completely different way.
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The reason why our brain creates new habits is because the brain likes to be lazy and take a break to do the things that really matter the most.
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So the brain creates new habits to become automatic so it doesn't think about it anymore.
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It does it automatically without having to use up any energy for small tasks.
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So what does it mean to you and I, right? What does it mean to you and I?
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Okay, walking, when you walk, you don't think about walking. It's a habit that was formed.
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Breathing, it's an automatic. Your brain doesn't think about breathing anymore, right?
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If you think about brushing your teeth, nobody needs to tell you about brushing your teeth anymore, but there was a formula on why you and I brush our teeth today.
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Exercising, if you have that habit, there was a way that it created that habit of you and I exercise.
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Good or bad habits, there's a formula on how you and I picked up the good and the bad habit.
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And so if you can figure out as an entrepreneur, one of the things about an entrepreneur running an organization,
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it is very, very important to identify what those good and the bad habits are,
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and what new good habits you want to create to make the brain become automatic.
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And prior to me getting into the message, I'm going to talk about how to create new habits.
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I'm going to talk about how to create new habits in your entire organization,
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how to drop bad habits, as well as the willpower to create new habits.
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I want to give you an example about multitasking and doing one thing at a time.
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Let me show everybody here on what we're doing here.
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I'm going to explain multitasking and doing one task at a time with the analogy of basketball.
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And say I'm the point guard and I have the ball and Mario's the defender
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and I'm playing a full court game with four other teammates
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and how many different activities I have to be thinking about.
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Three, I have to look at his foot to see if I go left.
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Four, I have to watch out for the push-off he's putting me here, right?
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Five, I have to look for my player that's coming for a screen.
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And if I go left, he's going to come defend me.
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Yeah, I have to look at my coach that's signaling me, telling me what play to run.
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The fan that's saying bad things to me and cursing me out.
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The guy that's, you know, I have to pay attention to so many different things.
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He could do a Dell of a Dova, if you know what I'm talking about.
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When I go for the shot, I can shoot the shot, but he's still going to try to block it, right?
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So, this is an example of playing the game and having to multitask in order to compete at this level.
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If I don't know how to multitask at all, I am not ever going to be in the NBA because I need to learn how to multitask.
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So, if I shoot that field goal, the chances of me making it is relatively 45% to 50%, okay?
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But, free throw shooter, I'm only doing one task at a time.
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Elbow, aims, wrist, look at the back of the rim, ball goes in, 80% chance, free throw, 45% field goal.
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So, the efficiency on free throw will always be higher than a multitasker shooting.
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But, to make it at the highest levels and compete at the highest level, you got to learn how to multitask where the footwork, the screen, the eyes, everything becomes automatic because your brain is no longer thinking about it because you've already created that habit.
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And, you need to work to be efficient with that one task in hand because if you want to make it at a highest level as an entrepreneur, you got to be both good at multitasking and being efficient at one effective activity.
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So, now the question becomes, how do I create a new habit?
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So, if that's the example of multitasking and doing one task at a time, the player versus the free throw shooter, you got to know when you're running a business and you're having a complaint and you have somebody that's doing this and somebody that's doing that and you have your family calling you, you know, kids are this, you got to drop this person off, you got to have commitment here, payment, car payment, and so on.
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How do you manage being that so you don't have an explosion taking place?
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And, on the other side, you also need to be extremely quiet at times and get away and turn off the music, turn off the phones, and be silent and ask the question when there's no movement, nothing else to worry about, no phones, no music, no nothing.
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When there's nothing else going on, we think better.
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But if you only try to create this as a lifestyle and only keeping everything quiet, the real world of running an entrepreneur and running a business and all the millions of things that could take place, you're going to be overwhelmed here.
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This is why players mentally and emotionally, you got to be prepared when they played in the big leagues and everybody's watching, it's a lot more movement.
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And it always goes back to being mentally, emotionally strong when those moments come and it typically goes back to the habits that you put into your mind that's become automatic.
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So now the question becomes, okay, so how do we create new habits?
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The formula is actually very simple on how to create new habits for your business, for life, for whatever, maybe.
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But right now, for the example we're using is, say, business.
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Some things that you do on a daily basis that we don't think about anymore.
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When you brush your teeth, is there somebody that tells you to brush your teeth?
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And if you brush your teeth, are you going to be given a gift or anything like that?
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But there's a formula that our parents used on us to brush our teeth that we've been using for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years and we don't even know about it.
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We have all these great habits that we have in our lives that was taught many years ago, good and bad sometimes.
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And we don't even know about it, but it was programming many, many years ago.
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So let's use brushing your teeth as an example.
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Step number two is the actual habit, the routine.
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I want my son, my 18-month-old son, to learn how to brush his teeth.
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When we go take a bath together, son, he knows the next step is brushing your teeth, the routine.
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The reward, he gets to watch one episode of Thomas and Friends, hypothetically.
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A motivational recording is set to go off at 5 o'clock in the morning.
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You want to watch an episode of a show you follow or Mad Men or House of Cards or whatever
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Or you're going to make yourself a blueberry yogurt, whatever you make.
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For your cheat in the morning to have your carbs.
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That's the programming on how to create habits.
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This works in for you to create new habits for yourself, for your staff, for your agents,
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for your employees, for your kids, for your family.
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It's the formula that works effectively on how to create new habits.
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Now, with that being said, let's talk about bad habits.
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So, what's the good news and the bad news about bad habits?
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So, a lot of times we think a bad habit can be dropped permanently.
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Hey, honey, we're going to get married and none of my bad habits are ever going to show up.
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That sounds very, very good in a perfect world.
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Unfortunately, we're not living in a perfect world.
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And so, bad habits are almost like a bankruptcy you had nine and a half years ago.
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It's going to show up when you apply for an executive job, right?
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You've been good for nine and a half years, but it's still going to show up.
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A bad habit is like three late fees you had on a car payment six years ago.
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You've been good for six years, but it's still going to show up on your credit score.
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A bad habit could be, you know, a bad habit could be something you did many, many years
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ago that is still in the back of your mind and you have to fight it off, right?
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Bad habits, to be able to fight it off, it just gets easier and easier and easier if
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you've created new habits to replace bad habits.
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But a bad habit is not like Control-Alt-Delete.
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What was that movie with Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith?
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What was it, that thing that they put in your face and then you forget about what happened?
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So, you can't get rid of it from your mind, but you can replace it and reprogram it with
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So, this exercise helps with replacing that new habit in your mind that we just talked about
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Now, let's talk about organization because a lot of times, if you look at the organization,
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okay, when somebody asks and says, hey, come and look at my office and see how I'm doing
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or come and look at my business and assess my business and see how I'm doing and find
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out what we're doing over here in our organization, in our office, whatever.
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The best way I like to do it is, I don't want to talk to them because we all know how to
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You're going to talk to somebody and they give you the right answers and they say, hypothetically,
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that, yeah, we're supposed to do this and we work this and we do this and we do that.
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Sounds great because we know the right answers.
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Now, what we know and answer and what we do are completely different.
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So, the best way to gauge an organization is to talk to the people in that organization.
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So, when I go and talk to a group and I see the bad habits that the group has, if it's
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10, 15, 20 people that have that bad habit, it comes from the top, okay?
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So, if the bad habit is that none of them like to go out there and sell and get on the phones,
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well, that fear from the phones comes from the top.
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If I assess an organization and none of them like to go out there and sell on the field,
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If you look at the organization and none of them work that hard, it comes from the top.
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If they're very effective, it comes from the top.
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If they're very respectful, it comes from the top.
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No matter what it is, generally, the good and the bad habits are coming from the top
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So, when a leader at the top decides to create new habits in an organization to tell you
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the results of that are positively, compoundingly incredible, I can't even describe it to you.
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You know, we, in our organization, we decided to make reading books an absolute obsession
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And to tell you the consequences that's brought to our organization, I can't even put a word
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It's infinitely grown with the level of thinking because it's a new habit.
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And there's many new habits that we constantly work on adding to the organization.
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So, how do you create new habits in your organization?
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What are the good habits of your office, your business, your organization?
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It's a good exercise because you realize many of the good habits will come to you.
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And then, some of the good habits are leaders on your organization, your company, that have
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their own identities because they're better than you in that area.
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It's good because that's a good habit that can rub off on other people and learn if you
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can allow that person to share those good habits with everybody else.
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But the bad habits are areas that you'll see a lot of it will come to you and you've got
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Then you write down what new habits I want to instill in my organization.
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What are some new habits I want to instill in my organization?
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I want to instill people staying late without even being asked to do because they want to
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do it because they're in love with the company and they're in love with the cause.
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I want to have their teamwork in my environment.
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I want to create a habit of going out there and listening to CDs.
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I want to create a habit of people no longer listening to the radio in the car.
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I want to create a habit of not drinking coffee or drinking coffee, whatever it may be the
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Okay, I want to create the habit of our leaders exercising a lot more because if they exercise,
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If they're sharper, they feel better about themselves, they do better business.
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What can I do to get that habit of exercising in that organization?
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One, how do you create good new habits in your organization?
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One, figure out which small habits, which habits lead to small wins, okay?
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So what habit can I instill that leads to a small win, a small victory for that individual?
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So it's not putting something very big together.
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Okay, so once you link a habit to a small victory, it's not a very difficult task to do that everybody can slowly but surely do one.
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Next thing you know, you're seeing growth and a new good habit being instilled for that one.
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Now, you got to stay on it because if you don't stay on it, nothing happens.
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So step number two is you actually staying on it.
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Not doing it one time and you think it's going to change everything.
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People think you just got excited about something, you're trying something new, and you got off of it.
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One month, two months, three months, I always say it takes 90 to 180 days to create a new culture or a new habit in an organization.
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Okay, then those small wins that they have themselves create a relatively minimal award but lead to a chain reaction of much larger rewards.
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Now, organization sees, most of the people, by the way, come out with a new initiative for your organization, know this.
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80% are not going to do it because they don't take you seriously.
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But the 20% that do it, they notice the 20% getting results.
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Most people follow and they wait for somebody else doing it until they say, I'm going to try it again.
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I'm going to try it myself as well because it's working so good for Bobby.
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And Bobby, you know, has grown his business last month.
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He's doing, so I'm going to take up that new habit as well and I'll try it.
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But don't expect everybody to do it right off the bat.
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Generally, a new habit being, and still this is what it looks like.
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Then they notice there is no instant results within two weeks, four weeks, six weeks.
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So they drop doing it because they don't believe it works.
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So those people that drop off, these guys have a lead on them in a major way.
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Then when they notice that they're separating, they don't like that.
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And some of these guys will make this a permanent habit that they will not even stop doing it.
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So then you have a separation because this guy took it seriously and this guy didn't, right?
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Now, if the guy at the top that took the new habit, he falls off, the habit drops, this guy passes him up.
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The challenge is to create a new habit and stay on that habit for as long as possible that becomes automatic.
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Reading a book is a prompt, boom, music in the morning, 10 minutes, boom, I'm going to the gym.
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They're automatic, defense, shot clock, screen, shooter, elbow, block, you know, foul.
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And last but not least, cultivating positive habits can completely transform an organization.
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If you do it and if you stay on it, that can completely change an entire organization.
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In order to do that, in order to stay on a habit, there is one last thing in order to stay on a habit.
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The one last thing to stay on a habit is, you know, we hear it all the time.
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The last one to create a new habit is willpower.
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And willpower is something that it comes from you, the leader.
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It comes from the individual that wants to create the new habit.
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It comes from you, the entrepreneur, that wants to create a new habit, a new culture.
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And the great thing about willpower, again, scientists have been in a study.
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A lot of times people used to say, willpower is a, you know, characteristic.
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And it's part of a human being in the way they are.
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Willpower, I was a very, very lazy kid when I was younger.
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I was not the hardest working kid when I was 14 years old.
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You couldn't get me to finish a chapter of a book, let alone read an entire book.
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So nobody would have said I had strong willpower.
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As I joined the army and I got out and became an entrepreneur, I wanted to win big as an
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entrepreneur, that willpower was a muscle that I developed.
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You know, just like bodybuilding, I was 6'1", 135 at 14 years old.
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Willpower is also a muscle to develop that you as a leader can develop.
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And then from there, you start developing within your teammates.
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You ever catch yourself doing a lot of things throughout the day and it's nonsense things
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All of that takes away from your willpower because every day we have a dosage of willpower.
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And if you allow nonsense activity to use up your willpower, then you barely have any
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willpower to use when you need it for bigger things.
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So it's very, very important to look at your willpower as a gas tank.
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Every day, you have a certain amount of willpower in your mind.
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If you waste it on tedious activities, the big activities, when it requires a big willpower
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You're mentally exhausted because you've wasted your willpower in all small little habits that
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are irrelevant instead of the habits that create you money.
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So you've got to also be very, very, pay very close attention to where you're using
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your willpower to waste the stuff instead of the bigger items that you want to do.
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And eventually, you know, great thing about a willpower, the more and more you do it,
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the more repeated you're doing it, eventually it becomes automated.
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It no longer needs you to think about what you need to be doing.
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You know, I'm going to have a salad 30 days and automatically, every time you go, your
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waiter already knows, I'm having the same barbecue chicken salad, double chicken, you
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I'll have an iced tea or I'll have a water, iced lemon on the side and this, this, this.
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And you're used to ordering the, you know, Da Vinci pasta or the chicken piccata with the
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At the Cheesecake Factory or you're going to go and go get that garlic chicken noodles with
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Well, when you go to the salad, once, twice, three times, four, 15, 20, 30 days, 40 days,
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your willpower can handle it, smells everything else, it's over it and you stay on it, it becomes
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Then all of a sudden, a month later, two months later, three months later, you start
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touching your abs, you start feeling your shoulders, your legs, you say, man, I'm getting
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I feel like I'm that athlete, that point guard.
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Because your energy also helps you have stronger willpower to get new habits and stay consistent
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on your habits as long as you're constantly rewarding yourself.
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Many times people want to create new habits, but they don't want to reward themselves.
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Your brain's got to know that I get something good by doing something.
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I'm willing to do something as long as you give me a reward at the end.
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When I was 24, 25, I don't know how, when did we get a Harley, Mario?
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I told myself, if I have a certain amount of savings at that time, it was a quarter million
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I'd never in my life ridden a motorcycle before.
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And I had a friend of mine, Jim, God bless his soul.
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And that night is when I learned how to ride a motorcycle.
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But it was my brain knowing that if you create new habits and new routines and this constant
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So if you don't have the reward, it actually backfires on you.
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Because your brain gets annoyed with you that you're making it doing things without the
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So I know in your mind, you're thinking, what do I do?
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But I want to tell you this, you know, it's so many people want to build a big business.
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So many people want to build a big empire that they're proud of.
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And there are so many articles that we try to say, maybe I need to do this.
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Generally, those who build a big empire, they become very good at the fundamentals.
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A good basketball player has fundamental footwork, fundamental defense, fundamental screens, fundamental
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John Wooden, one more than anybody else, sticking to the fundamentals.
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And if you can learn how to improve your own fundamentals and become a better teacher of
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fundamentals, it's going to help you tremendously in your business out.
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So here's a few things I want to encourage you to do.
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I know I covered a lot, but watch the video one more time and take out a paper and pen
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and actually take notes on areas that we covered.
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Pause it, write it down, pause it, write it down.
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And prepare not only for yourself, but also teaching it to your team, your organization,
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Two, make a list of the new habits that you want to actually instill and start creating
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the way that I'm talking about the cue, the routine, and the reward.
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Add those habits, don't add a lot of them, because if you create too many of them at a
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Don't get more than new habits you want to add.
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And in your company, the less habits you want to instill, the better it is.
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I suggest three is a sweet spot right in the middle.
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Share this video with your teammates and have them see it as well, so there's going to be
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If you're watching this and you're an executive, somebody shared this with you, actually be
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the student and learn this, because this can do a lot for you once you learn how to develop
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new habits for yourself, because it can help you become very, very competitive.
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And then, last but not least, become a master of teaching people how to develop new habits.
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If you become a master of teaching people how to develop new habits, night and day, what
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So, the book I recommend is The Power of Habits by an author called Charles Duhigg, Power of
00:26:00.800
There's a lot of good books to read on this subject.
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This is by far the best book I've read on habits, and I know a lot of people ask, what
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First, read this book, then I'll recommend some other ones once you finish it.
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If you actually go out and create these new habits, I want to hear about how it
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So, we'd love to hear your commentary on the results you've gotten ever since instilling
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new habits into yourself and your organization.
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And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.
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And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,
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And I actually do respond back when you snap me or send me a message on Instagram.