1 Mindset Shift That Will Help You Take Action More Quickly (2029)

A simple hack to make yourself more consistent . I was reading reset and in reset he was talking about dan heath was talking about where'd chip heath go ? No , no love for chip in the second book got booted I don't know , man , I think so dan and chip heath , I believe are brothers I would make that assumption . Based on this they have the same last name .

Isn't it wild how you're going to have a book before who knows , at this rate , who knows I was listening to reset and a very simple but pro profound thought .

There are two different kinds of things , and they don't say this in the book this is my label but there are concrete actions and there are styrofoam actions and in this thought process , a concrete action is like that's like having a kid . That is a concrete action is like that's like having a kid .

That is a concrete action that will change your life forever , no matter what happens . That is concrete . There's not a lot you can do to reverse that . A styrofoam action is sending an email to someone and being afraid of rejection . Concrete means it is something that is deeply meaningful , deeply impactful and it is extremely important .

In the grand scheme of things , a styrofoam thing is something that is deeply meaningful , deeply impactful and it is extremely important . In the grand scheme of things , A styrofoam thing is something that is most likely not going to matter tomorrow , hypothetically . And then there is a scale in between . Right , Not everything is concrete , not everything is styrofoam .

There are in-betweens . But how many of the things that we are procrastinating from , that we are running from , are based on the fact that we are treating them like they're concrete and they're the end of the world if they go wrong . And again , I understand that it's easier said than done because a lot of this is just highly emotional , is just highly emotional .

But worst case scenario if you were to record a podcast episode and put it out there , absolute worst case scenario is it goes viral and everybody hates you . But the odds of that happening are so I don't want to say insignificantly small . They're so small that this is a styrofoam action .

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I was like wait , I think we already did that what's worse , the fact that you did it wrong . I didn't even notice well , if there was , if there wasn't , a better episode to mess up on , and this is the best . Up it's again that styrofoam doesn't matter . It really does .

It's not that big of a deal all things considered , it's not that big of a deal did we plan that unconscious absolutely not . So yeah , this is actually episode number 2029 . One mindset shift that'll help you take action more quickly welcome nice , nice .

to amy . Okay , so the reason I'm telling the story is because kevin and I if we were too scared to give that speech at that speech we met amy . Amy , lenny she's speaking at next level live with us . Next level live already happened when this is done , so hopefully that went well . But amy's now a huge part of this company .

I one courageous action can change your life and on the other end of that coin , one courageous action also can wither away to nothing . You plant certain seeds and they grow into something , and then other seeds they just don't , and it's very hard to know in advance which ones will grow into something , which ones won't .

I remember you and I almost didn't give that speech . I'm very grateful we did because we met so many people One of my clients showed it to Christy . I have so many people that I now have in my life in a meaningful way that I never would have met had it , had it not been for that one day . But we've done a lot of things that did work .

It didn't work at that level .

I think the one that jumps off the page is there was a girl that I was crushing on back in the day at our , our old gym , and one day , every time I saw her , I was like I'm gonna go say hi to her . I'm gonna go say I never did . And every time I left the gym I was like I'm going to go say hi to her .

I'm going to go say hi , and I never did .

I wasn't a weirdo and that was

like .

So that was super helpful for me . And all the times I got rejected early in business , that is super helpful . Now , I mean , I think the one of the times early on one of the biggest shifts ever for me I felt like I had so much imposter syndrome .

I had just started coaching people and I was like somebody eventually is going to find me out and figure out I'm a fraud . And eventually somebody DM'd me on Instagram and they said , hey , I don't mean anything negative by this , but what gives you the right to be a coach ? And I was like , oh shit , it's happening . I am found out . This is the end .

At this point , I've recorded I don't know 200 podcast episodes all about self-improvement . I've interviewed some of the most successful people on the planet . Somehow . I don't know how that , how we got to that point , but that that's happening .

. I listed all those things out and I sent them and the person said , alright , cool , yeah , seems legit . And I remember after that it was like , oh my goodness , I just had to prove to somebody else something that I was not able to prove to myself yet and that was such an important lesson for me . But that's something that's kind of that's not concrete .

If somebody reaches out and and doubts what you're doing , it's not concrete . But I do think the mindset dictates whether it's concrete or styrofoam , way more than maybe the action or the behavior or the feedback does you remember way back next Next Level , live 2020 ? Do you remember when I had a slide up of a kitten looking into a puddle ?

That was 2022 , I believe . Seriously it feels like so long ago . 2024 was at Groton , 2023 was the second one in Worcester . I think it was 2022 . That was the one where you were talking about . Everybody was a Redwood right , yeah .

I have a client who is rating from 0 to 10 kitten or tiger and we talked about how do you tie your identity , and I have an article that I wrote called Quantum Goal , setting way back , and if anyone wants it , I'll actually put the link in the show notes . If you want to check it out , it's on my LinkedIn .

No , it's okay , I interrupted you 8,000 times . We're good . So the point that I'm making , though , is there's all these different types of goals .

What this client was doing is waiting to get the results before they felt like the tiger , but the paradox there is until you treat yourself of value in advance , you actually won't get those results , and so that's the paradox we all have to work through .

It's how do you hold the identity of who you are , who you used to be , who you are now and who you need to be , who you aspire to be , and how do you sort of merge those and the different types of goals in quantum goal setting ? Let me see if I can get this . There's results goals , character goals , mastery goals , process goals .

Let me go through each and give an example , because otherwise it won't land Okay . Results goals is what I think most people tie their self-esteem to . Once I get the car , once I get the house , once I get the girl or the guy , once I get the body , then I'll be confident . It doesn't work like that .

You're not going to get the body until you're confident first . If you're not confident enough to go to the gym , you're never going to get the results that are a byproduct of going to the gym . So you have to have other goals that work in tandem with the results goal . That's the point of the article .

Hello , hello , hello . Nlu listener . Thank you , as always , for listening to Next Level University . Real quick , I just want to jump in and let you know about the Next Level Dreamliner . This is a journal that I use every single day . Achieve your dreams 90 days at a time . It breaks down your dreams into goals , milestones and daily habits .

We hope you enjoy it . The link will be in the show notes and so I'll go through these one by one . So results goals is what most people think they want . That's the start of the growth journey . So results goals is what most people think they want . That's the start of the growth journey . So for me , when I was younger , I really wanted to .

Brad Pitt and Troy went 2004 . I remember thinking like , if I could look like that , that would help me not be overlooked by every female . Okay , so that's a result goal , but you can't just wait until you're 42 . You've got to do some stuff first . Okay , so the next would be character goals . Okay , character is internal . Who do you want to be as a man ?

Who do you want to be as a woman ? Who do you want to be as a husband or a wife , or as a father or a mother , or as a podcaster , as a person , what do you want to stand for ? Internal ? Then next is mastery goals skills . What do you want to get really good at ?

Basketball , snowboarding , video games , weight training , podcasting , coaching , training , whatever it is Lights going nuts again . Okay . So now you've got results goals , mastery goals and character goals . I did the wrong order . After that's process , process goals . So this person is doing two YouTube videos a week long form . That's a process . Can you do that ?

Okay , and then three . So for us it was one episode , then two episodes , then three episodes . Now it's seven . Then there's contribution goals . What's the impact you want to have ? What do you want to serve the world in what way ? You used to mention a dog shelter all the time Back in the day ?

I think there's seven , and I think the last one is I wrote this article a long time ago Hold on , hold on Philanthropic goals . No , no , although that would be a good addition if I would have picked another one . Results character , mastery , process , inner circle , contribution , probably growth goals , personal development goals . I don't know what the last one is .

I can look it up while you talk .

I think it's a little hypocritical of me to say look at how easy it is to have something that is styrofoam end up seeming concrete , or vice versa . But that would be the challenge If I had just started a podcast today and I made the mistake

I made . Maybe that's a different game , right ? Maybe it's not apples to apples .

Tomorrow we'll get back up on the horse and try it again the episode we did earlier today , but this would be Saturday's episode , so yesterday's episode .

In that one I talked about my stepdad and my you know that and I just realized , okay , okay , I was a little bit wounded in that one . That's okay . I don't think I went too bad or off the rails or anything , but I had that moment and I want to share with everyone watching or listening .

If you ever do want to podcast or speak , you're going to get triggered in the middle of speaking . I mean , I talked about it was yesterday's episode .

I said verbatim something along the lines of this everyone out there watching or listening , you can think of someone who is not taking care of themselves , who it hurts you to see them not taking care of themselves , cause you know , they may not be here for the long run because of that .

And I realized after the episode was done I was , wow , I'm hurt a little like that was that ? Was that hurt , like that triggered me , and I think after that I probably got more passionate . That tends to be what I do , because what am I going to do ? Shut down the middle of the episode .

But there's something there , too , of we need to remember how , how hard this was in the beginning , even though we've done it so many times , so I appreciate that you mentioned that . I also figured out that it was mentor goals , by the way mentor goals so who do you want for mentors ? And the link to the article will be in the show notes .

I do believe that this framework will help you . If you're someone out there who's waiting for the result to feel good enough or to feel confident , this will help tremendously .

The unfortunate piece of it is , oftentimes it's the stuff that isn't the deepest , closest and most meaningful to us . It's the stuff that we I don't want to say are forced to do .

But I think a lot of the fears that we overcome , a lot of the discomforts that we work through , a lot of the resistance that we push through , is because it's a necessity to pay the bills as opposed to improve as a person . How many fears did I have to overcome when I was doing the job that required all that travel ?

Would I ever have done that if it wasn't attached to a paycheck ? Who knows who knows . So there was a lot of extra necessity there , but there wasn't necessity to grow . Kevin , that was all a result of me having to do that in order to get the goal of making more money , and I think that's something interesting .

You're probably way better at this than you think . In certain arenas you just don't give yourself credit for it . I'm willing to bet . Or if you have kids , if you have kids and you have , if you have kids and they come home and they're losing their mind because they have a book , what the hell is it a ?

book report something like that and you're like it's , it's kevin's hated book reports . Man , same same , it's gonna be fine . It's not that big of a deal . I remember when I was in , like I don't know , fourth grade , maybe fifth grade , we had to make a menu from a restaurant that didn't exist but we thought would be cool . Mine was Roadkill Cafe .

That was my restaurant . Jeez man . Yeah , man there actually is one of those . I think that's where I got it from . I think I got like a C or something . I thought this was golden . I thought this was the creme de la creme , so to speak . Not , it wasn't . Also , I don't know if I've ever told this podcast . How much time do we have ?

Okay , in high school we had a Spanish teacher who , unfortunately , I was a dick in Spanish class . I was an asshole . I was in that class .

It was me , andrew Dustin , I think , and Chris and we made a Spanish jackass and one of the things I was running backwards on a treadmill and then somebody threw a big exercise ball and I did a header and landed on my head . My arm got stuck . I still have a scar on my wrist to this day .

My arm got stuck under myself on the treadmill and it just kept going . It burned my skin off . We just did a bunch of random stuff and we tried to speak Spanish in it . I thought it was going to be the biggest hit . I'm pretty sure we failed . I think we failed that , all things considered , it doesn't matter that much .

That's the point I'm trying to make . There are some things in life that matter way more than you give credit for your health drinking enough water , getting enough enough sleep , that type of stuff . That's super important . We don't give enough credit to that . Those are concrete , those are more concrete things for sure .

That's my , that's my next level lesson in this . I think we're all really good in an arena at this , especially when we're giving advice to other people .

I know Missing one day of exercise is actually a big deal when it comes to the compound effect , but it's not a big deal either and it's very hard to articulate this in a powerful way . So everyone think of probably the best way we can go is everyone think of a time in the past one decision that made a big difference . I'll give you .

So I'm going to go through my four best decisions I've ever made . The first one was going to WPI . Best decision I ever made Engineering college . I got around some of the smartest people on earth and it changed my freaking life . It also was wildly , alarmingly difficult . Computer engineering was fucking brutal .

Number two I left my ex-girlfriend Best choice ever of all time . Second best . Third best choice was DMing Emilia Smith . Fourth one would be going on my own after corporate and starting .

I hope you're thinking about a couple choices that you made that changed everything . Maybe it was where to live . Maybe it was to DM somebody . If I had never DM'd Emilia , dude , my whole world would be different .

So here's the truth If you get rejected when you invite someone to an event , or you invite someone on your podcast , or you send that DM , or you invite someone on your podcast or you send that DM , it's not the end of the world .

However , you not doing those things , the opportunity cost to the point of the last episode might be massive , but I never would have known any different If I had never met Emilia . I would never have known any different because I'd never experienced anything like this before , because I'd never experienced anything like this before .

So that's why it's so important for you to take the courageous next step , the courage to take that next step . It took courage to DM Emilia when I thought she had a boyfriend because her Facebook said she did . It took courage , and if I didn't have that courage I would not be the man I am today . So just courageous , massive , messy action .

I know you don't like the massive thing , but courageous next move . What's the courageous next move ? I know we got to jump .

I'm not saying it's ever not going to be that , but the familiarity of chaos is a good thing if the chaos is constructive . That's what I will end with . Okay , april 15th 2025 . Next level podcast accelerator . So if you are a podcaster who is looking to level up yourself , level up your podcast and level up your business , or start a business from your podcast .

That is the direction our group coaching is going . Excuse me , tickets . My goodness , I'm all over the place today . With the discount code . It ends up being $96.60 per month and you get four calls per month . That's like $24.80 per call . That is a bargain at twice the price .

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