8 Tiny Habits That Made Me Rich

These eight habits quickly transform my life. And if you try them for just seven days, they'll transform yours too. I went from an ADHD mess to someone who can run several multi-million dollar companies while still having time for my family, travel, and my hobbies. I'm going to show you how to build habits that will start your day clear and prepared. Build energy and stay consistent. Set up your environment so progress feels automatic and many more improvements that will make your life feel easier and better every week. Welcome to the Martell Method. I went from rehab at 17 to building a hundred million dollar empire and being a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life and business you don't grow to hate. My bestselling book, Buy Back Your Time, is out now. Grab a copy at BuyBackYourTime.com or at any of your preferred online retailers. All starting with winning tomorrow, today. Your tomorrow is one or last the night before. You essentially can't have a productive morning if you have a week night routine. Because bedtime for me, it's the real productivity hack and most people freaking ignore it. The metaphor I like to think about is like, my battle for my day is actually fought in yesterday's battlefield. And there's a few things you need to do every night before bed. First, plan tomorrow to night. My day is dialed the night before. My whole week is dialed in the Sunday before the week. And I'll actually touch on how you do that in a little bit. Then set a bedtime alarm. Most people set a time to wake up. I have a alarm that goes off the time they go to bed. Because if I don't, I know my morning is rude. Next, dump all your open loops into a list before you go to sleep. Most people can't sleep well, so they wake up tired because they've been tossing in turn, which if they needed to write down and forget about, but instead, they're like, "Sat there and thought about it and didn't sleep and then I can't sleep, so maybe I should watch a show and then I watch a show and then I can't see any sleep." Dump it out in a book. Have something to write on next year bed. And finally, put any unfinished task in your calendar to tackle it tomorrow. At the end of my workday, I have a Google doc where I dump all the unfinished tasks and it's linked to my calendar for the next day to review. So that way, I have a ramp down period so that I don't have any open projects or tasks that can't wait for the next morning. Now you set yourself up for success the night before. You need to look at the habits that will quickly transform your life from the moment you wake up. Habit number two, protect your morning. Your body is an on switch for your brain. Starting your day on the right foot sets the tone and your mood for the rest of the day. If you follow me on Instagram, you will definitely see me post, exhaust the body, tame the mind. Why? See, when I was diagnosed with ADHD at 11 and struggled on medication for 20 plus years, being somebody that I wasn't, it occurred to me that the harder I worked out, the more ability I had to control my thoughts, control my focus, control my output. And that morning time is so important to get that right that I don't leave it up to chance. So to do this, block the first 60 minutes of every day and do these three steps. Number one, input fasting. Avoid the news, motherfucker. It's all the worst things happening in the world. And everybody's like, "But I need to know what's going on." Trust me, the other people watching news will tell you, social feeds, same thing. You're like, "I'm just going to check my messages." Burt! Two hours later, you're still laying in bed, you haven't even done anything. Or your inbox of other people's priorities on your time, and you just let it take over your brain. Put a fasting ritual in place and don't let other people distract you. Two, move your body and break a sweat. Simple, put a weighted vest on and go for a walk. Or go to the gym and go see how heavy you can live. I don't care what it is. But if you struggle with consistency, get a workout partner. I don't care what you do, just make sure you wake up and break a sweat. And three, drink a full bottle of water as soon as you wake up. Like, you literally lay there for seven or eight hours. Your body's dehydrated. That's why you weigh less in the morning than you do when you go to bed. And you just like wake up and get into stuff and you think your brain's going to work when you don't have enough liquids in it. Don't do that. Drink that electrolyte to water. Hydrate and watch your brain provide itself. I promise you, if you start doing these things first thing in the morning, you'll see your whole life transform. Like that. And look, I know a lot of you are business owners or CEOs who wake up reactive. Inbox, slack, fires. That's why your weeks disappear. That's why the first thing I do with every coaching client is install the five daily non-negotiables that help them operate from momentum instead of chaos. I've helped thousands of very high-level entrepreneurs transform their businesses and their lives. So if you're a business owner, you're trying to cross seven figures and becoming the leader you need to be. Find me on Instagram, DMRTL, and DM me the word YouTube Coach, and I'll see if I can help. Okay, now that you've prepared your body on a daily basis, if you really want to transform your life, you need to prep your mind. Habit number three, mindful journaling. You get in life what you focus on. And if you don't learn that you are not your thoughts, that you won't actually create this separation, the learning. See, when you can write out your goals, write out your strategies, write out your desires, that act takes it out of here, which is a bad place to keep things and gets it out of your head. And the cool part is it only takes five minutes. Like, I'm not asking you to sit there and journal for an hour, and it's not about writing a book other people are going to read. It's just about getting your thoughts out of your mind. When I was in my mid-twenties, I remember I was dealing with a massive issue at work. And one of my mentors gave me a simple suggestion. Hey, man, wake up tomorrow, write everything that's on your mind down, and finish it with some gratitude. See, my problem is I was spiraling in my head, and as soon as I put it on paper, I can look at it, I can process it. That act of doing that writing every morning is what got me through it. And this is why I follow the 123 method, and here's how you do it. First, do the one big brain dump on anything that's on your mind that is just like open loops or challenges or conversations you should have or concerns you have, just dump it out on paper. Then, set two priorities for the day. Like, today I want to accomplish these two things. Most people want to do three or five or seven or ten. Look, if you just got two meaningful projects completed for that day, you can take that momentum if you want into three, four, five, up to ten. It doesn't matter. I always write down two. And finally, three things you're grateful for. But here's the trick. One of those has to be the most mundane thing ever. When I was going through that really tough time in my business, one of my gratitude items was my coffee cup, because I'll tell you, I was so grateful for the coffee in my cup. And I wrote that down for six months. That might be the reason I got through it. This will get all the clutter that mess that's in your mind and get it on paper so you can organize it in a way that allows you to attack it. So now that your mind is clear and you've prepped things, you've organized things. We need to transform your life by training your mind. Before we get back to the episode, if you want to jumpstart your week with my top stories and tactics, be sure to subscribe to the Martell Method newsletter. It's where you'll elevate your mindset, fitness, and business in less than five minutes a week. Find it at martell method dot com. Habit number four, learn daily. This one is a non-negotiable. I don't care if I have three minutes. I'm feedin my brain because here's what my billionaire mentor said to me a long time ago. He said, if you already knew everything you needed to know to be successful, you'd be successful. So by the fact that you're not, you don't. See, school was never meant to teach you what to learn. School was meant to teach you how to learn. And most people forgot that. I wish somebody would have said that to me. It's not about reading a book. It's about studying a book. For $30, I can buy the blueprint of somebody who's accomplished a thing that I'm trying to do. Spent 30 years of mastery on that one topic that I've never done before. And I can study and learn from that person in six to eight hours. Come on. When I look back on my life and I think of these moments that changed everything for me, when I'm 17 and I'm in rehab and I discover this yellow book on Java programming and that passion that I discovered in that moment around writing code, reading literally saved my life and it can do it for you too. Today, I think I've read over 1600 books. I buy courses on things weekly and I have an unlimited budget for my mind. Why? Every reader may not be a leader, but every leader is definitely a reader. When you look at Elon, you look at Oprah, they've all attributed their success to reading. So here are four tips on how to efficiently learn every day. One, read at least 10 pages of a book every morning. Now, if you want to cheat, just bump the font up on your Kindle. My wife makes fun of me all the time as you think some blind. Because then those 10 pages are a lot quicker to get through. But I've been doing this for 18 years almost religiously. Right after I free my mind from journaling, I go into feeding in by reading. And number two, make sure you choose just in time books, not just in case. See, school taught you just in case. Hey, here's some stuff you could use just in case you needed. I read books that I need to learn to actually solve problems today. When you find out about a book and somebody said, "That's a great read," don't read it unless that's what you need to read today. And if you're starting a book and it doesn't give you value or you feel it's relevant to you today, drop it fast if it's not useful. Number three is soon as you find a golden negative knowledge, apply it immediately. J-F-D-I. Okay, that is my philosophy. If I feel that passage and it inspires me to do something, go do something. And to go even further and to really lock it in, step four, teach it to someone else. Share that insight to a friend. My favorite way is actually screenshot the book passage, highlight it, and then tell people on my social media why I like it. The social post on a daily basis, that accountability is a really great way to add value to your followers and also hold you accountable to always reading. So we made sure your mind, your body, are fed and they're growing. But if we want to quickly transform your life, this next habit is crucial. Habit number five, environment engineering. Let me tell you what I mean by that. Few things will influence your life more than your environment. If you think about it, you can have the best mindset, positive, excited. But if I take you and I put you in a commercial grade freezer, you're going to be cold. If you're like, "But I'm warm, I'm warm, I'm thinking about being warm." No, you're going to fucking freeze to death. If I take you out of the freezer and I put you on a beach and it's sunny outside, guess what? You will get warm. You are the byproduct of where you spend the most time. The people you talk to, the way you structure your environment, is it clean? The things you look at, you are a sensory adapter to the world around you. Most people underestimate or don't even consider designing that. And I always break that down into two parts, the people and the place. People, those rays or lower your standards by the expectation they have on your life. We'll dig into that. The places define your energy and your focus. You ever walk into a room and you're like, "I feel the vibe of this place." The way I like to frame it is people are either pulling you up or they're pushing you down. Three, they're supporting your dreams or telling you why you should stay small. And here's what I know. Gone has a way bigger plan for you than being a big fish and a really small pond. So make sure you're in the right pond. So here's how you can design your life and transform it forever. The first thing is we have to learn how to design our environment. See, most people make it hard on themselves to win. I always ensure that the right action that I want to take in my life, the right habit, is the easiest action. So for example, I don't keep it in my house that I know I would go crazy on. Like boxes of peanut butter and chocolate rinsed. I mean, they don't even make those, but if they did, I would eat the whole friggin box. Because I learned a long time ago, it's easier to avoid the dragon than to slay it. For example, there's a certain type of protein bar that I treat like a chocolate bar. So I had to tell my team, "Hide them in the office." Don't tell me where they're at. And guess what? I'm so sneaky that I watch one of them go get me one one day. And I found where they hit it in the bottom drawer in the back cabinet. And I fucking grabbed the box. Now, I told them all I was doing it. We had to change the spot. I'm also human. And I'm always designing my environment to make the right decision the easiest one. Number two, surround yourself with killers. The people around you and their expectations of you will set the tone for your life. Like even a culture at our office, if you walked in and looked at it, but you'd be like, "Is this a fitness business?" Because they're all jacked. We have a fridge that says Martel macros because we pay for everybody's meal prep. And most people that join that are not into that, they get inspired by it. I mean, Jenna, my team literally went from her beginning weight to deciding to drop 40 pounds and hit the best physique she's ever had in her life on her own, through the exposure of surrounding herself by where she decided to work with fucking killers. Okay, with everything we just talked about, we sent ourselves up for success. But now we need to keep track of growth every day. Before we get back to this episode, if you prefer to watch your content, then go find me on YouTube. I have this episode on YouTube. I'm Dan Martell on YouTube. Just subscribe to the channel. Turn on the notification bell because then you'll get notified in real time. It'll tell YouTube to tell you you got a new episode. So you'll never miss anything. Now let's get back to the episode. Which takes us to habit number six. Measure what matters. You can improve what you don't measure. The other day a friend of mine looked at me and he said, "Hey man, how fat were you in that picture?" And I said, "The truth was, I don't know because I refuse to step on a scale then." He goes, "Oh, that makes sense. Why do you think I was fat?" Because I didn't measure. I didn't want to know. And what I've learned in business and in life is anything that's important to me. The more I measure it and more frequently I am with it, the more honest I'll be about it. See, numbers just reveal the truth. They give you the foundation for you to actually push against to make change. If you don't track, how can you make a better decision to improve the situation? So for example, Jen, who I mentioned earlier, the one thing you'll notice about her and how she accomplished her fitness journey, is she started off by getting a dexascans. She wanted to know what her body composition was. Then she measured every day, every macro, every calorie. And my favorite part is then she talked about it with other people. See, in talking about it, she created accountability. I call that a forcing function. But if you don't measure, how can you be accountable to something you don't know about? To make this super simple for you, I'm going to give you only two steps you need to measure your success. First, you need to find your North Star metric. It's the one number that moves the needle the most. So every goal that you want to accomplish has one of them. You just got to figure out what it is. So for example, if it's getting in shape, then the North Star metric could be just your macros. Like, what are you measuring per day? The macronutrients that you're intaking, which will add up to your calories. And the whole point is to be in a clerk deficit. Just know that whatever your goal is, there's probably one number that if you could figure out, it's like a leading indicator to you achieving your goal. Just measure it every day. Once you got that figured out, and if you're still confused, just ask AI. It'll tell you. Then we need to create a scorecard around that metric. The key is, is I want you to log it. I want you to like look it up and write it down so that you can create an emotional connection to that number and update it daily. Every week, maybe it's on Sunday, you sit down and you look at your progress. So those two things, the metric and the measurement will change everything. But here's the thing. Now that you're able to see the progress on a daily basis, you need to build the habits to keep those numbers growing. Habit number seven, fight for momentum. Momentum, you know when you're in it, it feels good. You're like, you've got momentum. There's consistency. There's productivity. You feel good about yourself. It's like, you're in flow. Positive momentum, when you're in it, compounds faster because everybody else sees it. And they're like, what are they doing different? How do I support them? You just act differently. So my whole thing is you're either spiraling up or you're spiraling down. If you woke up today and your 10 pounds heavier, there was a day in the past where you woke up and you might have made a simple decision to skip the gym. But that one day turned into six days, turned into 30 days, and all of a sudden now you get on 10 pounds. If you start to spiral down, you want to catch it quick. What's funny is that's the natural state. Like most people, when they start to win, they almost feel guilty about it and then they kind of lose the momentum. Look at your habits, look at your mindset. Whatever worked, keep doing it. Fight to stay in it. Don't let other people convince you. Like if you look at the difference between winners and losers, is that winners have bad moments, but losers have bad days. How do you actually stay in momentum? How do you protect yourself? There's only three things you got to keep in mind. One, done is better than perfect. If you know you should go to the gym, just get up and get outside and go for a run. Like, don't over-complicate it. Just do anything. Write those tiny little wins will add up. Just get it done even if it's just sloppy. Number two, kill negative momentum immediately. Anytime you feel somebody or something, people are placed, kind of get in your way from being in momentum, you have to be honest with yourself and just say, I got to create some space. I get to not expose myself to that. I get to not read those comments, because those little decisions add up. So for example, I made a commitment that I never missed the gym two days in a row. One day, totally cool. If it's an early morning flight, I can't get to the gym. That's okay. Never two days in a row. Think of it this way. I like this language. Don't let a slip turn into a slide. And the last one, number three, celebrate big wins. One of the worst habits I've seen from really high performing people is they don't celebrate their wins. So if you're one, it's like, I don't like celebrating because I don't feel like I got there. Stop that. That's exactly the habit that's going to keep you from building momentum. Before we get back to the episode, if you actually want to know what my real life looks like and see the people and the businesses and the companies I buy and my family and just like how I make it all work, go follow me on Instagram. Dan Martell, two Elz and Martell on Instagram. It's where I show the behind the scenes, the real deal, real time. I'd love to see you there. Have an amazing day. Now, before we move on to the last habit, let me warn you. It may not be what you want to hear. But if you actually want to transform your life, it might be the most important habit of them all. Habit number eight. Choose hard always. I believe pain is the perfect teacher. People that look at winners think they're special. Winners lost more than losers because they decided to make tough choices. Because when you make those easy choices, you end up living a hard life. Think about it. If I just lay in bed, that's easy. Guess what? I'm going to have a hard life. When you make the hard choices, you end up living an easier life. And it's crazy because there's always going to be stress on you. Okay? The difference is there's U-stress. Stress that you chose. U-chose ago to jam. You put stress on your muscles. That is self-imposed. And then there's distress. That is stress from the world imposing the pressure on you. Because you're reacting to making easy decisions. Because they weren't hard decisions. U-stress builds your identity. Distress appears when you avoid hard choices. It's like when I was training for my Iron Man. I was training three weeks before the race. And a van cut me off while I was in aero position going 25 miles an hour. It destroyed my bike. It almost dislocated my hip. And when I started talking to my friends, they were also training with me for the Iron Man and Family members. They all said to me, maybe you should sit this out. And I remember thinking, I could and nobody else would hold it against me. In many ways, they were encouraging me to do it. But then I realized a quote I heard a long time ago. Is sometimes life is getting you ready to receive what you've been asking for. And I knew in that moment, I could choose easy and not race. Or I can go work my way to find another bike, train on the bike, rehab myself and show up to the starting line. And I will tell you that full distance Iron Man that I started on a bike I hardly trained on in the heat we were running in. If I didn't go through that, the mental preparation to deal with that level of heart, I'm telling you I had to go into a pain cave. I didn't want to enter. But because I went through that, it got me ready. It was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever done in my life to that point. And in the same breath, when I finished, I got crazy emotional because I knew I'd earned that. And if I didn't go through it, I wouldn't have grown through it to become the person who could have kept pushing. So if life is hard, good. Because winners push past the point where everybody else said stopping was justified. So if you want to prioritize choosing hard to transform your life, do this. First, pick one challenge that scares you. I don't care if it's the ever-sting challenge, 75 hard, running your first 10k, literally deciding to drop 10 pounds. Just pick something that you know you have a hard time doing and decide to use it to shape you. Two, tell people about your commitment. Activate it. Activate the outcome. Tell people because it'll create accountability. I call it positive peer pressure. Go on social media and tell everybody, this is what I'm going to do by this day. Hold me accountable. Three, when you hit the wall and you will say good. When you can reprogram your mind and go, man, I don't want to do that. Good. Oh my gosh, this is hard. Good. Why? Because if it was easy, everybody would have it. And the point of having it isn't to have it. It's to become the person who can get it. This is why I shoot these videos. This is why I'm here for you. I want to show you that there's nothing special about what I've done. I just chose hard. I decided to get up and say, look, I don't want to just retire. I don't want to rest on my past accomplishments. I don't want to be okay. I want to see what's possible. And for stack everything with your previous habits. See, as you work through these, you build a winning streak. You build momentum through consistency. And if you can build a habit to choose hard by default, so few people do that, that it will separate you from everybody else and transform your life. With all that being said, I want to end on this. Your life is the byproduct of your habits. And I know you've probably tried things in the past and it didn't work and you reset and you're like, you're beating yourself up for it. I want you to know this. That dream life you want is so close. I actually think if you knew how close it was, it would scare you. It's a few days away from being a little bit better, a little bit more consistent, a little bit more disciplined, that over time it stacks and it snowballs and all of a sudden you wake up one day and you're like, how is this my life? And it's not a decade. It literally could be six months. But the key is you got to start with one. And you got to dial it in. And then you got to stack the next. And the whole philosophy that I like to think to myself is, can I be one percent better every day? I'm not competing against anybody else in the world. Not my brother, not my friends, not the internet. I'm here to compete against me from yesterday. You from yesterday and you can wake up right now. You can start right now and decide to get on that journey and watch your whole life transform in front of you. And remember, if you're a business owner and you're looking to grow both in your business and your life, just find me on Instagram and message me YouTube coach and I'll see if I can help. Thanks for listening to Martel Method. If you like this episode, could you do me a huge favor and go leave a review this helps us get the podcast more ears and helps more people get unstuck reclaim their freedom and build their empire.