The Challenge Manifesto

Welcome back everybody. Welcome back to Cymbal Athletica, the brand of the purpose driven. We stand for people that have made the decision to stand for something. And yes, we do have the audacity to believe that we can be driven towards a destiny of our own design. And we truly hope that you are bad-ass enough to be a part of our tribe. Well today's episode is an idea. It's happening in real time, spread the moment. And it's had what it feels like a great idea. So I'm sitting here, it's September already. It's just going by like a blur. And normally it's almost challenge time for me. Every year I have an annual personal challenge that I start in October. It started off as a body transformation challenge where I used to take 30 or 60 or 90 days and do the best that I possibly could at making the biggest change that I could. And that morphed over the years. I've done these now over a decade. So I've done more than almost two decades. I've probably done almost 20 of these. And it morphed into something way more comprehensive than just changing my waistline. Trying to get a six pack. It morphed into me trying to version upgrade myself. My body was a big piece of that. There's always an aspect of trying to get in shape during the best that I can. And usually I do the best that I can and I start in October with the intent of ending on January 1st. So ending at the end of the year. And I started doing this about a decade ago because it gave me a mental feeling of, just made me feel good, right? Because I was finishing my goals when most people around the country were just beginning theirs. It made me feel special. And it really does work. I highly encourage you to do this. You want to feel special. Try celebrating finishing your goal, especially if it's fitness or weight loss related. Finishing your goal at the end of the year. And on January 1, New Year's Day, you're celebrating finishing your goal while everybody else is just embarking on theirs. Most of which will quit theirs before mid February. So it makes you feel really good. It makes you feel really special. And I've been doing that now for more than a decade and a half. So I was thinking that it's almost time. And I always invite people to join me. On October 1st, I reach out on social media and friends and all the different things that I'm connected in. And I invite people to do their own version of this personal challenge, the challenge themselves. Doesn't matter what the goals are, doesn't matter what you're trying to accomplish, but that idea of focusing on something for 60, 30, 60 or 90 days with the intent of ending by the end of the year. I try to encourage many people to do that. And inevitably at the end of the year, I always get a ton of people reach out to me privately and say, man, you know, I wish I would have started that back when you started it. Because I'm just starting my now in January. So with that being said, I realized that it's coming up on challenge season for me. And I thought what I would do this year, something new. I thought I would give a best of an idea, mixtape, if you will, a mashup of some of the best ideas, concepts I have for being effective and successful in a personal challenge and a personal challenge. So I'm going to try to put some structure around the ideas and concepts I've come to adopt over the course of almost 20 years that give me the greatest chance in my opinion of being really successful as I can in my personal challenge given like given the fact that like everybody else, I'm extremely busy, extremely busy. But I still managed to pull these off. And the byproduct of my personal challenge has just been tremendous. Outside of the goals I set, many good things happen as a result of all the concentrated activity I put into play during this personal upgrade period of this other of the personal challenge. So the good news is it doesn't matter what you want to challenge yourself in, whether you're trying to lose five pounds, 10 pounds, 15 pounds, gain five pounds, get a new skill set, make a career path change, make a jump up the corporate ladder, start your own venture. It doesn't matter what your personal challenge is. What I'm going to try to do is give you the best stuff I know for being successful in whatever challenge you pick for yourself. So welcome to today's episode. I'm going to I'm going to call this the Challenge Manifesto. Get ready to go. All right, the Challenge Manifesto. So right off the bat I have good bad news and good news. Good news and bad news. I'm going to give you the bad news first. The bad news is I am literally going to do this in real time. I'm going to I'm organizing my thoughts as I share my thoughts with you. No notes. I'm not no pre-structure. So hopefully it's coherent and I can do a decent job of that. That's the bad news. The bad news is not pre-thought. So there I'm sure if I were to take the time to pre-think this and write down notes and some put some structure, I might possibly be able to do even more comprehensive job. That's the bad news. But here's the good news. The good news is because I'm doing it in real time. I'm going to have to only focus on things that I know really clearly. I deeply understand and they have become a part of my ethos, a part of my thinking and things that I find to be extremely valuable. So the good news is that you're going to get something or at least I'm trying to share something that I feel that I'm very, very clear on my understanding and my ability to share. So hopefully that bad news, good news thing works out in your favor. I highly encourage you to take some notes as we go along. There's a magical thing that happens when you put pin the paper quite often. It's not going to be what I say that you capture. It's going to be what you think of after I say what I say. That unique insight, that unique perspective, that you draw upon from your own life experience, that you definitely want to capture. You don't want to have that gift come to you and then float away because you tried to commit it to memory. A mentor once told me that the best memory, the best memory is not as good as the worst pencil. Makes a lot of sense, right? So take some notes if you can. You got a couple of minutes, grab crayons, whatever it is you write with. You creative types and just just jot some notes. I highly am trying to tell you things along the way that I think will foster you to get the best out of this out of this manifesto. It's not going to be that long. I don't know how long it's going to be because I haven't pre-thought it. So here we go and I'm not going to dissect if I probably won't. I don't think that I am. I don't intend to. Let's put it that way. I don't intend to give the background the origin of the idea and the concepts just because that would definitely take too long. But what I'm going to share is mostly a compilation of things that I've synthesized over the years of ideas and strategies and technologies given to me by people further down the road than I am. Things that I've been able to take in, understand, experiment with and apply in my life. See results, believe in the results and then share that process. So here we go. Starting the personal challenge manifesto. The challenge manifesto version one. CMS one. I like to give things names and abbreviations. It makes it feel more real for some reason to me and fun. And I like to have fun. But here we go. The first thing I'm going to ask you to do or encourage you to do. And some of these things just another my last little caveat/warning about how I operate and/or think. Some things may seem a little weird. Some things may not seem that meaningful at the time. But I still highly encourage you to just do it anyway. Just do it anyway. I'm going to leave it at that. So first thing. First thing first. First thing you need to do. I encourage you to write down where you come from. Where you come from. It's almost like an origin story. Now there's no rules to how you do this. You can make this as surface level as you want. The state you come from, the city, that type of thing. Your family is that type of thing. You can really think about it and make it as deep as you understand it to be. If you want to start with creation or the Big Bang, go for it. But I want you to as best as you can summarize where you come from. It's going to be vitally important. This is this is an origin story. We're we're putting to paper when we're forcing the neurons in your brain And those concepts you have floating around in your brain to make connections and to make salient ones that you can recognize and we gonna And you're defining what some of those things mean by just simply writing down your origin story So there's a five step homework assignment. I'm about to give you step and this is step one You can make this a short or as long as you want it I'm not I'm not encouraging you to spend you know days on these sections But I am encouraging you to spend more than five minutes of thought on each one of these five areas You know the more you put into this the more you will get out of it That's just a truism that I think stands stands universally across disciplines But the more you put into this the more you gonna get out of this So the first thing you're gonna do is write down where you come from as best you know as best you understand You're gonna write down the things that come to mind right because those those things that naturally come to mind are the things You want to make notations about on this where you come from the next thing Second thing we're on number two now number two. I want you to write down Where it is or what it is? You want to accomplish write that down in detail explain where it is you're trying to go explain who it is You're trying to become explain what it is you're trying to obtain you're gonna write this down in detail You're gonna write this down as much detail as you can right so spend some time creating that so number two Where it is you're going right? Number three, and I encourage you to do these exercises in the order that I'm presenting them In the order that I'm presenting them to you. So number three after you write down where it is You're going and what it is you're trying to do and slash and or become number three. I want you to write down Where are you now now? After doing those two exercises, that's gonna be a context of your thinking So now in the wake of that context, I want you to write down where you believe you to be right now And they scribe that as best you can put some details in there describe it as best you can where it is where are you now? That's number three number four number four Is I want you to imagine now that you have accomplished those things that you have written down that you want to accomplish You have done those things you have gone those places. You have become that person. So now I want you to write down What accomplishing those things will mean to you what will that mean to you? Write down what comes to mind what what will that mean to you now that's going to be very closely associated with How you feel if you can imagine that having having come to pass It's going to generate a feelings and emotion. So write all of that stuff down But on this one for exercise number four, I need you to write down what accomplishing your goals are Getting that that goal done becoming that person, you know having that goal come to pass What will it mean to you? That's number four Now number five Number five, I need you to write down Some some of the things some of the things you are willing to give up To give up to get those things that you did in number four Now I need you to think through that. I need you to write down some of the things that you are willing to give up To get those things whether they be feelings or whatever you wrote down there in number four What are you willing to give up out of your life right now? To to guarantee you having those things if it was guaranteed you could have those things But you had to give up some other things. What are you willing to give up? So write down your let's just call this the sacrifice list, right? What are you willing to sacrifice to get those things on Assignment four so now we have five things one we have your origin story where you come from Two we jumped ahead to where it is you're trying to go in detail three We came back to where are you now in the context of the past and the present right four Four what is your reward what what now what do you now know? To be your reward in the future for these things happening and Five, what are you willing to give up? These are that sure but you got to go this this is the most important part Doing this five step homework assignment So now I'm just going to give you some ideas and talk about some things of how you can do just by doing those you're going to be A thousand percent better off than an average person that's going to create a goal Hey, I'm going to lose five pounds because you know they're not going to do what they need to do What I'm giving you now is the structure in my opinion the things that are that when you go through this process You're you're the probability of you doing what you need to do Is greater the probability of you actually doing taking action. I think we'll be much much greater The fifth one is an odd one That's the fifth one the sacrifice thing is there's something most people do not do Which is why many people fail at creating lasting? Results acting lasting activity long enough for them to get results because most things take some time for the results to show up Even if you're doing the right thing the best way right there's some latency There's some time right there's some time involved in getting the reward or getting results from any activity and most people can't stay Consistent long enough to get results so they quit even though they may be doing 100 the things a hundred percent right and in the best way so When most people think of making a progress or Getting better than they are they think of it. It's an additive requirement What I mean by that it they think they need to add things into their life Oh, I want to lose five pounds or I want to lose weight this year So I need to add a diet that I don't currently have I need to add a gym membership I need to add into my life a Trainer right I need to add that and that's that's the most common default reflexive response people have when they think about Getting better getting better at anything their mind tends to go to things they need to add to get those things The challenge is everybody's days right now are completely full now They're not all full with productive and useful things, but there's no empty space or empty time All right, all right, so we're talking about sacrifice and how uncommon a Structured sacrifice is as a part of our personal strategic plan most people have an additive reflexive response So they think they need to add things into their life, but the problem is people Don't make the space in their life first To add in the things that they're gonna list out they need to add so most people I like to use weight losses Example just because it's such a common thing, but you know most people will list five things They need to add into their life to accomplish their weight loss goals. They need to add a diet They need to add a gym membership or a gym. They need to add a trainer They need to add, you know new training shoes. They need to add equipment whatever it is But what they don't do before they add those things is That exercise number five they don't Predetermined what they're willing to give up to get their reward so they don't make the space I like to you think about the time in your day as space that needs to be filled up with stuff the stuff You do fills up space. That's a good way to think about it So for you to add something into your day You need to make the space which means you need to take something out of your day now Of course this is This is philosophical right, but the but it's very practical most people even you can tell what most people do by their language Most people will tell you That they have they can't just they can't find time to work out They can't find time to go to the gym. They can't find time to learn that new skill They can't find time to launch their business and they're being pretty accurate Because they can't find time because there's no empty space There's no empty time space But if before hand if before they embarked on this mission before they launched this plan they said Okay Be in my quest to lose five pounds in my quest to launch my business and my quest to learn this new skill I'm gonna I'm willing to give up TV during the week So let's just imagine you counsel your cable or you make you you have discipline and you say you will not not cut on the TV Monday through Friday. I'm just using this as an example, right? So now for people that normally watch an hour, two, three, four, five, know you are out there, hours of day off television, you now have created the space for you to put those things in that you automatically know you need to add. So you no longer have the challenge of finding time to do the right thing. You find the time to do the right thing when you create the time on purpose in advance to do the right thing. So this idea of sacrifices fundamental to your planning, to your strategy. So make sure you have some things that you can think of. Don't just think of, don't just do what most people common approach will be. Don't do what's common. Don't do, I will just, I will make the time. I know I'm going to do this, my days are too crazy, you know, every day is different. But I will find the time, don't do that. Put some structure and identify some specific things. You're going to take away now. I've been real time, you know, life gets in the way and you have to make adjustments, to make adjustments. Still though, don't do the things that you said you would not do, still make the sacrifice. There's something real, there's something real and purposeful at your belief in yourself when you are willing to make a sacrifice to get something. Something happens, something happens when you give up something because you want something else. Athletes and entertainers and a lot of people that take these paths to greatness, right? They notice it innately, they give things up. You know, athletes, the the serious and good ones aren't hanging out, parting with their friends, they are a practice. Same with musicians and same with anybody dedicated to a craft. Minute when they, they give up, usually social fun, feel good things, to do something usually that's not so feel good like practice or like, you know, have meetings or whatever, whatever it is, learn something new, read, whatever it is. They have to, they have to have the mindset of giving, having the mindset, I can't tell you, I don't have the honor or the privilege to tell you what you have to do. But I will say though, that having the mindset where you sacrifice something to make space for something because it's something you want bad enough to make you willing to give this, have the sacrifice is powerful. That's a powerful thing, okay. So now we have some structures, some structures coming together, hopefully these are giving you some ideas and hopefully you take me up on this challenge to challenge yourself. Now, here's some things, here's how, here's some of the things I want you to do. So you've got the homework assignment done, you clearly know you've made the space, right? You can look on page five on homework section five and you see clearly now that you have created the space for whatever it is you're going to find you need to do to make your goals happen. The space part is not going to be a problem. Now, here's some, some things I've learned to be incredibly helpful, incredibly helpful. So I want you to look on section four, you know, section four was where you wrote down how you would feel having accomplished your goal, right? Having become that person, having done the thing. How do you feel having done that thing? What's the takeaway? What's the giveaway? What's the reward? So here's an idea that I find to be very powerful. I want you to assume, because let's just say, let's just assume these things, right? Let's assume that that feeling you have written down on page four, that's the whole point of you doing all the stuff you're willing to do, the sacrifice, everything. It's all just to get that page four. So let's assume that that's true, then let's just say, well, this is what we're going to do. When you start to detail, you need to structure your day. You need to structure your day. And this is in the activity where you're pursuing your goal, any outside activity. I'm talking about your entire day, but if you can look at your day, you want to find things you can do throughout the course of your day that gives you just a little bit of whatever you have on that page for, whatever that pay off is. You know? And let's just say, let's just say, what's a good example? Let's just say that somebody out there wants to launch their own business. And they realize that how they would feel having launched their own business, what they have on their page four, is that they will feel that they have, they will feel worthy. They will feel that they have proven themselves beyond what other people might have said they were. Right? They will feel worthy. Okay. So that's just an example. So knowing that what I'm suggesting you now do is think through this and be creative, activate your imagination and see, is there things you can do at the weekly basis or the daily basis right now before you even get your goal that gives you a little taste of that worthiness, if one of some of your payoff is you feel, it'll make you feel powerful. You know, it's going to be all over the board because everybody's different. The more honest you are, the better this stuff is. So if everybody's brutally honest with themselves, you're going to have a bunch of things on that, a few things on that page four, right? So let's just say that you want to feel powerful. Let's just say you come from a place of that, you know, historically you felt pretty powerless. And if you can accomplish the things you want to accomplish, you will feel powerful. That's one of the things you really want to feel powerful. So okay. So now what I'm suggesting you do is what can you do at the weekly basis or the daily basis that lets you feel just a little powerful, whatever that is? You need to be creative and think through it because there are some things you can do. Here's why we want to do this. So what we want to do is we want to take, let's just call page four of your primary drive. Let's just say that underneath it all, when you peel back the onion and you look at all the goals and all the rewards and all the, you know, sexy swimsuits and fancy cars and big houses and charity stuff that you're giving all the stuff away and traveling around the world. All of that, right? All of that stuff. But when you get below all of that great stuff, you know, what you want to do, what you want to do all those things because you want to feel a certain thing. So let's call that feel, that certain thing you want to feel, your primary driver or one of your primary driver because you're going to have multiple of them. So what I'm telling you to do is to hack the system, right? We're going to find a way to give you a little dose of your primary driver on this frequent of a basis that we can be creative to be. If you can think of something you can do at a monthly basis that makes you feel a little powerful. If that's one of your drivers, then do it. Then you're going to incorporate that or weekly basis or daily basis. The more you do it, the better you get at it. And then it becomes habit and you will find yourself doing a myriad of things that gives you just these little micro doses of your primary driver. But here's why we want to do this. So would we, that primary driver, that self-actualization, that feeling is going to kick off just a massive feel-good chain reaction in the chemistry lab of your body, of your biology, right? And darfins are going to flow. If you don't know what endorphins are, endorphins are feel-good drugs. They make you feel good. Different drugs like morphine and coke, you know, a lot of very addictive drugs. Very addictive drugs like heroin and all those things have, are darfins are chemically very similar to those. But here's the thing, your body manufactures these feel-good drugs on its own. That's a natural thing that your body creates in darfins. In fact, if you've ever heard of the term "redder's high," where runners kind of get to this point near absolute exhaustion, and all of a sudden, they get this flush of feel-good energy, and they can just go farther faster, and they just feel great, and they feel so good that they seek out that feeling. Okay, that, I just described why we want to build these little microdoses of your primary driver, because we want you to get addicted to that drug. We're going to use chemistry to help us, right? So imagine, okay, if you've ever seen a drug addict on TV or in a movie, hopefully not in your life experiences or your own, but you've seen some of the range, when I say drug addict, you clearly understand what I mean, and you know that a drug addict, just to feel the feeling of the world. that that drug gives them. Think about this for a second. What is that person willing to do just to get that feeling? Are they willing to be uncomfortable? Heck yeah, they are. Are they willing to do things that otherwise they might be embarrassed by? Oh, that's easy question, right? Are they willing to even do bad things that they would never normally do? Like, ah, cheese, cheese, hurt people. Actually, unfortunately, yes. My point is the answer to what will a drug addict do to get a drug? The answer is pretty much anything. So think about the power of that. So think about, you know, endorphins are some kind of, you know, a mini version of that, that, that feeling, right? That you, and it's addictive, that you get addicted to. So imagine now that your prime, you're getting addicted to the drug, you're getting addicted to the activity that gives you this hit, right? And you end this hit and the activity payoff is your primary driver than what we've done. And that's a powerful hack if you, if you're following along and thinking about it because basically we're using what's driving you towards the future to drive you now, to drive you through the day. That's a powerful idea. I hope that, I hope that you're playing with some of this in your mind, right? That's a very powerful idea. So that's the thing. So just to recap on this little, this little piece you want to look at page four and you want to understand what your primary drivers are, right? They're different for everybody. Be brutally honest. Even if they seem petty, if they seem petty, you probably are being very honest, write it down. This is, there's no judgment. There's no right or wrong. There's no, there's no real good or bad in this exercise. So, you know, if one of your reasons you want to, you want to be, you know, successful at your goal is that so you can sure your neighbors that you're as good as they are, then write that down. If that's truly what you feel, write it down. Here's something I learned. What I learned is that regardless of your initial goal, if it's true, regardless of what your initial goal is, if it's brutally true and honest, the act of attaining the goal always forces the necessary change in character. And that's a weird thing, you know, often does. It often does. So although you may start off with a petty goal, as long as that goal is really honest, you will actually become less petty along the way. A beautiful thing to see anyway. So, so if you have a, be honest, be honest and know what those drivers. If you, if you know something and you're afraid to put it down, you're not cheating anybody but yourself. Remember, you don't have to share any of these homework assignments, anything you write down with anybody else other than yourself. So, but I do encourage you to write them down and get it out of your head is a different thing that happens. Thinking you understand something and, and, and, and forcing your brain and your body and your biology to connect in such a way for you to write the word on a piece of paper forces something different in the brain to happen than just thinking of it. When you think of an apple, there are certain things that light up in your brain. When you think of an apple and write down the word apple or write down the word, I love apples. It changes what lights up in the brain, right? Because the brain has to light up in such a way to make all the neurons fired and make all the stuff happens to send the signals down your arm down to your fingers. They're, they're to control that dexterity for you to hold a pen and a pencil and to write the letters that mean apple on the page. Whole function does a completely different chain reaction. So, write those things down, okay? All right. For those of you that are taking up my challenge, my dare to you to give this manifesto approach, a, a try, this book, if you will, that you've creating this project that you're creating is going to be magical. So, now we're going to talk about a very, very critical piece to activate the magic in all of this. I like using the word magic, right? Because it feels good. But it is. It's the thing that's going to give you the, it's going to move the probability needle. All of a sudden, it's going to put all of this work you've done in putting this project together and your step one, step two, step three, step four. It's going to, it's like the catalyst to making all of this true and people act in their truth. So, people do not do things that are not true to them. So, this is usually, we're going to attack now that something that's usually the missing piece in most people's plans to do big things or to tell you and even not even big things, but just moderate things and modest things are goals. There's just a disconnect between what they are claiming they want to do and what they know to be true. So, here we go. Now, for the next step, we need to do is go back to step one, your origin story. You have it written down. But this time, not if you've done all the rest of this stuff from that context, from that place, you're in a different place now after you go through all those exercises. So, now I need you to go back to your origin story and I want you to go back and revisit where you said you come from. And now, what I want you to do is next to that, I'm in that right on a different page, you look at the places you come from and now you need to explain how that place has prepared you to get your goal. How that place you come from has been in preparation for you to get the goal you now claim. And this is a very incredible piece. So, the way I like to talk about it, I call this visiting Krypton. And it's a great way to look at it because it activates the imagination. It makes it less heavy, if you will, but it doesn't. It doesn't diminish the importance of doing so. So, the way I explain this, I call it the Kryptonian infinity. So, I talk about the powers of Superman. And I ask people, you know, have you ever stopped to think about why, specifically why Superman is so powerful as a character here on earth, right? The comic book character. And it's not because he can fly, he's bulletproof, he's super strong, has an X-ray vision, heat vision and all that stuff. He only has those things here on earth because he comes, because he comes from Krypton. It's only the fact that he comes from this other planet that gives him all these super powers here on earth. And the idea is this, when you look back at where you come from, as preparation for where you are headed, it becomes your past, becomes your Krypton, and it does bestow you with powers. When you look back, when you can formulate and understand for yourself, how your past has prepared you for what's next, then you become empowered in the moment. This is fundamentally different than most people's viewpoint of their past. Most people view their past as reasons why they have limitations, as reasons why they cannot do certain things or go certain places. So I'm telling you now to go back and re-understand now, re-understand how your origin story has prepared you for what is next. I need you to go visit Krypton, your Krypton. So that's a vital, vital piece and it's most, it's very effective when you do it in the order that we're doing these exercises. Because now you have the right context. You have the right context of thought and feelings to go back and you're purposeful in your redefining, your redefinition, your assigning. Remember how we went through what happens. We assign meanings to things and the meanings we assign to things, generating emotions and those emotions generate actual emotions in the real world, activity in the real world. So that's what we're applying now. So now you need to go back to the very. All right, so one last recap because this is really important. You're going to take, understand what your primary dervas are and you're going to find a way to get that primary driver pay off in a small way, in a small way, on some frequent base, on some earlier time than you obtained in your goal, like a monthly basis or a weekly basis or even a daily basis, on some way. And it only has to make sense to you. You know if it makes sense to you. If it makes sense to you, it's perfect, okay? If you make sense of this is to pay off, then that's exactly what you want to do. Now, the next thing we're going to talk about is what I call the practical sequence of control, the practical sequence of control. And it's something we hear a lot about and I think we hear a lot about it because it is very practical and it's timeless and it makes a lot of sense. And what I'm talking about is the phrase body, mind, spirit, body, mind, spirit. So here we go. I'm going to encourage you regardless of what your goal is. Let's say your goal is to make a career path change, a launch a new business and let's I say the business you want to launch as a restaurant or in technology or in art or whatever it is. I'm going to encourage you that as a piece of your plan, a piece of your goal to make it something physical and related to your body. I'm encouraging you to have a physical component. If you love your body, that's awesome. I still encourage you to do this. I'm still encourage you to have as a part of your bigger plan, you have a body part of that. Whether it be lose five pounds, gain five pounds, lose an inch, gain an inch, lower the time it takes for you to walk a mile, increase the amount of weight you can lift, increase the number of reps you can do on some machine, increase the amount of time you can do a certain thing, jump, whatever that is, to have a body physical component to this. Here's why. Here's why. So your body is a very complex system, maybe the most in the universe. I don't know, but it's up there I'm sure and your body is comprised of multiple systems. You have a cardiovascular system, endocrine system, muscular skeletal system, there's a system of metabolism, you have all these different systems that are connected and endocrine that you don't fully understand. You have some notions and you understand them to a degree, but it takes people spend their entire lives as understanding just one of the systems that comprises you and you are made up of hundreds of, if not thousands of systems. But here's what happens when you make a physical body goal. When you make a physical body goal for you to get a result, that means that you have to change your action in such a way that all of those connected systems produce, push out what you want, whether you understand how they work completely or not. And it's empirical and it's definitive and it's indisputable, right? If your goal is to lose five pounds, there's no excuse when you stand on a scale. It is what you see it that it is along with any other goal that you set for yourself. But here's the other reason why I highly encourage you to have a body piece and to make the body piece the first thing you focus on. Because the systems involved in your body are going to be way more complicated than the systems required for you to be successful and anything else you're trying to do. But it requires the same behavioral control and discipline. You have to put discipline around your behavior to get a physical change in your body. You have to make consistent about it. You have to fill up that space, that time space, to be consistent about it. So they very same activity required for you to make a physical change in your body is 90% of what you're going to have to do to make the changes in the other areas of your life. But the difference though is with your body, that you get quicker feedback. You get very visible physical feedback. You can look in the mirror or step on a scale or see how many reps you can do at the end of 30 days as compared to when you started. So you know for a fact that all this stuff is working. That gives you that magical thing called motivation to keep on working. Results make a motivate you. There are few things as motivating as actual results. Now is it easy? No. But guess what? It's not going to be easier to affect the changes in the other areas of your life either. But at least when you start with your body, and it's your body, you own it. You get to control all the elements of your behavior around it. It's the perfect and the easiest place for you to start in such a way that we need to feed your own belief and your ability to do what you set out to do because most people have a fractured view of that. Most people have a fractured self-esteem regarding their ability to get what they want by doing what they say they're going to do. Okay, so we are talking about the body part of body mind system and why focusing on the body first feeds your belief system in yourself. It's a short path that you understanding that you can't effect. You can start from a non-physical goal, an idea in your head, and you can insert yourself and end up with a changed physical reality in your world. In this case, it's going to be your body, your body in terms of composition or your bodies in terms of capability. You're going to affect that change to the degree that you set out to do it from your idea, from idea to reality. And that's going to feed your belief in you. Once you realize that you have this magical power to shift reality, to change to start with nothing, an idea for nothing and then have an idea fill that space and then have that idea turn into a physical reality, that's a very powerful state for you to be in. So that's why we want to start with body. Now that you've done that and you have belief in yourself, we're going to shift to mind. And by mind, we just means what your thoughts is, the combination of your thoughts and your thinking. So now you're going to apply the same methods that you apply to your changing your body. You're going to apply them, you're going to attempt to apply that same type of structure and discipline to your thinking. I'm going to force you to think about your thinking. So we're going to assume through the course of this personal challenge that thoughts matter, that what you think about matter. And here's a general summation as to why. When you think of something, whatever that is, what you think of has some type of, it means something to you. You should write down this little sequence and make it better, but this is going to be really helpful for some people that are stuck. When you have a thought, you assign a meaning to that thought. The meaning you assigned to that thought generates a feeling, an emotion. That emotion is what's going to push you into action. That emotion creates the motion in your body. You're going to take action based on that feeling, but that feeling came downstream from meaning of your thoughts or your images in your head. So let's keep that clear, you have a thought, generates an image of which you've assigned some meaning to, whatever that meaning is, generates a feeling, that feeling is what's going to make you move or not move or take some action or not take an action. Okay, so because of that sequence, we now need to control that, right? We're going to try to, in the beginning, artificially control that. So let's imagine that the science says, supports that we have something like 62,000 thoughts a day, right, everybody, so most people never think about their thinking. So most people, they go through 80% of the day, just letting whatever thoughts pop up in there, and then that's, now I'm imagining, remember, whether you put the thoughts there or they just pop up there, they, you've assigned meaning to what's there, that creates a feeling, the feeling creates an action, an action creates results in the real world, right? So, so we're going to, in the beginning, artificially try to control that. You're going to force yourself to think about things that serve you in the effort of your obtaining this goal, that are positive in the effort of attaining this goal. Now, how can, here's the only, the only reason why we're going to try to do this is because it's very practical to try. We almost have to try, the math almost dares us to try to control our thoughts, right? Here's why. You can't have two thoughts at the exact same time. So if you're thinking about an apple, you can't simultaneously think about an orange by You can't think about an apple by itself and think about an orange by itself, you can to think about an apple and then really quickly move to think about an orange or think about an apple in an orange and the same thing but you can't think have two simultaneously different thoughts at the same time which means if for the time it takes you that you're focused on something positive or something that serves you in your in your quest to get your goal you are not thinking about things that are negative or things that do not serve you right and it's just math if you want to have 60,000 thoughts and you know 20% of your day you can focus on something positive means that for 20% of your thinking time you didn't focus on any negative but it also means that for 20% of whatever the real time is in your world if you think about those positive things you've assigned meanings to those things that means pretty good feeling and you have actions as a result of those feelings for 20% more of your day if you followed that right then you would normally have just having a random day a day of random thoughts now how are we going to do this now here's where you can be creative and here's what I first exercise book is going to be so helpful to you because a lot of it you've already done you wrote down where it is you trying to do what it is you trying to accomplish right so even if you just review that list even if you just think about those things on that list remember you can only have one thought at a time so while you're thinking about those things you are not thinking about other things right and I encourage you to think about these things in a very very very positive way in a very positive way the easiest most positive way to think about the things on that list those that things of what you want that's as page two right is to think about or write about here's a even better way to do it if you write statements related to those things that really focuses your thinking down because now you got to do all that stuff where I said earlier it requires for you to write things right so if you that's why affirmations writing affirmations and writing gratitude statements and writing you know your daily plan every day and revisiting them halfway through the day and rewriting them that's why all these things might work right that's that's one of the reasons they might work on other than time management and things like that is thinking management when you think about it it's organizers is forcing you to organize your thinking in a way that serves you to think about positive things now in the beginning you're going to artificially do this you're going to make yourself do this when you have a negative thought you know think about the fact that you're having a negative thought think about the fact that you're stopping and think about the fact that you're now going to have a positive thought it's almost like you're trying to just balance the thought out right so oh my gosh I just went through I just thought some negative stuff for the last two minutes so let me take four minutes now and twice as long and think about some positive things because just just make up those type of games those math games right oh man I just that minute I just spent negative thoughts let me undo that real fast let me think about some really positive things now it sounds funny and it sounds kind of foo foo and it sounds like you know um come by y'all come by y'all and all that stuff until you do it until you try to do these things and then all of a sudden you realize the holy crap you know there's something to this and you're going to see that very very quickly so there you have it so so you're going to force you're going to body mind spirit right so you can put structure around control of your thinking you can do that you can do this in any order you can go mind body spirit if you want but I'm telling you that the empowered person that has demonstrated to themselves that they have the ability to control reality is going to be much more effective at controlling the unseen intangible which are thoughts the unseen and intangible you you want to fortify yourself before you go into that and it's something that most people have never done and there's no evidence of it working right away so you need to go in there fortified so that's why body mind spirit is the way we suggest this so finally we're going to talk about spirit and we don't mean spirit in a religious context let's just define spirit to be the your relationship with your world the unseen relationships with you have with your world that do affect you in this world so that's everything that's everything that you can't see or you can't be aware of in your world your space but that actually does have effect on you like gravity gravity is a scientific version of that but there are a lot of social things there are a lot of things that happen that are really happening and affect you that you have a hand in but you can't see the effect a lot of these are the result of being in a human network right we all in human networks and I don't mean social networks online like Facebook I actually mean human networks you know you you know John John knows and Ann knows Jim that's a human network that's a real thing that exists and we are in multitudes of them in fact everybody on a planet is in one big uber one and the science the math actually says that we are less than six people away from every other human connections away from any other human being on the planet that's the whole six degrees of separation actually comes from real science what do you say that and here's the funny thing about the way their math where it's counter intuitive the big of the population the less connections we are between everybody else it's not like you think like you know we go from six billion to eight billion well now on eight connections away from everybody know you go from six to now down to four connections from everybody so it's really weird how that works but the reason why I want to touch on this a little bit is because when you do those first two things when you empower yourself as being this is called an alchemist something that can change physical reality from nothing to physical reality change which is what happens when you say you're going to lose five pounds and actually do it right the idea was non-real the idea was intangible the result was real and physical okay and then you apply that as that person you apply yourself and control your thinking as best you can because you just you know the one thought thing we just talked through well it changes who you are as a person and who you are as a person changes how the world responds to you and how you interact with the people around you and how that goes it changes the mood you're in the mood you're in it can the mood that you are in and you know this but the mood that you are in is felt by people other than you you don't have to tell people when you're in a good mood or a bad mood even without words you parents notice can't walk into a room and without a word in a fraction of a second they can say what's wrong they feel it right so just know that there's a lot of more to you just to keep this really easy and light there's a lot more to you than the physical things you do the people you put your hand on and the people you talk to there is something to people lighting up a room when they're walking it there are people that right now you know you just don't like hanging around right and there's some people that you love to hang around whether you doing anything or not it doesn't make you feel good to be around yeah and there's something to the probability of a good result changes when your expectation changes so let's talk a little bit about that and I told you this was the manifesto so I'm putting a lot in here you can take from it what you want and throw the stuff that don't make sense or but I'm trying to try to give you the best mashup I can but what happens is a better way of describing what I mean when I say you do those first two things you change what I really mean that I'm realizing now I told you I'll be doing this in real time is that your expectations change when you change your expectation change when your demonstrated ability in who you are and what you can do changes your expectation changes and when your expectation changes believe it or not your perception changes along with it when you was the was so here's a here's a way I've I I like to say it to myself so that I can remember it it makes a lot of sense to me right if you say things enough and when I say say things that means out loud and to yourself if you say things enough you will come to believe them as the whole repetition because we we talked on why that is right because when you say things you're thinking about what you're saying you know you can say things often you say things often you're building a habit of saying that which means you're building a habit of thinking those same things but if you say things enough you come to believe them you come to believe them you come to expect them you look for what you expect to find and because of that you get exactly what you deserve because you shouldn't you should only be saying things that you want in the first place so hopefully you follow that I'll go back and listen to it again but if you say things enough you will come to believe them you come to believe them it'll change your expectations based on your expectations determine what you actually look for and your what you look for you will find so that's the way I remember it so and there are a lot of experiments that show it's very very very hard for people to see things in an environment that they do not expect to see or believe they should be able to see. able to see. In fact, there's some staggering experiments done on video where you see people that literally can't see a physical object in front of them just because of the mindset that they're in, just because of the mindset things become physically invisible. So I think the same thing happens to us. Now I'll go back to us playing out that six degrees of separation thing, right? So here's the here's I'm going to end on a positive note where I think you should be extremely jacked about this whole idea of personal challenge, especially if you get 10% of the things that I'm talking about because whatever it is on your, whatever it is on your goal is, right? On your list that you're trying to do accomplish or become, there's some people that can expect, that can, that can shortcut you getting there, right? Whatever it is, you know that, right? You know that there's some people that can base upon who they are, their connections, what they can do or who they know, they can jump you to the front of a long, long, long, long line, just like that, right? If they wanted to and they knew that, wanted to, I mean, it's possible. You know that. But you also now know that the math says that these people that can jump you to the front of whatever your line is are less than six people connected from you already today before you got on this podcast. You know somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody that can help you jump to the front of that line right now. And that's the worst case scenario. That's if it took all six connections. So in reality, it can probably take much less than that. But here's the question. So how do you, how do you get those odds to change to your favor? Well, that's what we ended up on. When you become, when you are, when you go through this process, this is my belief, right? But when my belief is when you go through this process of first, of what I'm calling personal challenge and you do it in a way that I just described and you control, you know, first you reaffirm or demonstrate if it's the first time or reaffirm your power, your ultimate power of change, nothing to something. And then you use that ultimate power to structure your thinking and structure it's thinking enough to shift that whole that, you know, the percentage of your day that that chain reaction that comes downstream from your thoughts or feelings and actions, that 20% or that 10% or 50% for some of you rock stars out there. Well, mean a huge difference in your life experience. And when you see that huge difference in your life experience, all that biochemical stuff, keep going, you're going to get addicted to that. You're better at doing that. You're going to want to do more of that. You're going to become this like machine, right? This creative machine of goodness, of stuff that you want. And you're going to be able to do more and more and more and more and do it more and more. But that's going to be the thing that resonates out through your that 60 degree of separation. So all of a sudden out of nowhere and a lot of people, this has already happened to because they've stumbled through the stuff I've talked about. And you're going to be at a coffee shop. And the very person you need to meet to do the things you most want to do, what just happened to be sitting next to you or the line in the grocery store or your friend will say, hey, we meeting for friends with a drink and a person they introduce you to. It's going to be that just the right person that can connect the dot to get you to the front of some line you're in right now already. That's and and and when that happens, when that happens, you're going to be like, wow, what were the odds of that? You're going to realize instinctively that you just broke some cosmic odds, millions of one against that very person needing to be there at that very time. But it's going to happen. And I believe that the reason you beat those cosmic odds is because you put things in you there was a massive chain of events in place that literally broke the odds. Because for most people, they would be in that exact same situation and not be aware of it, understand it, act on it and benefit from it. That's what I think. I think this is a decent place to kind of wrap this up. I was a lot, but I tried to give you the best that I know and try not to have it take forever, but also to give it to you in a way that you can do it in a logical way. This podcast is a little long compared to my other ones, but if you go through the exercises, you could do the exercises in less time than it takes you to listen to this podcast. Now, did you know what to do? And here's the last thing I'm going to share with you. And I do this every now and then I talk about this. So I'm going to invite you if this lights make some sense to you and tricks you or tugs at you in a certain way, I'm really going to invite you to share you finding this with somebody else. Now, let's be honest, when you hear me ask you to share that, most people believe my intention, my primary intention is to build awareness for the podcast, etc., etc. And that's a secondary intention. Obviously, that would be a great thing, right? Because we would give to more people, possibly help more people, but that is literally not the primary intention. The primary intention is I'm telling you to do something that feeds your belief in something. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. If you come across a restaurant that you love, you will tell your friends about it because you want them to experience it and know about it, same with the book of Jim, a product, whatever that is, same with bad stuff, you know, because it's a real concrete thing or an end or experience that is consistent in the realm of your reality. You're going to share that. You know what you don't share? You don't necessarily share that new diet that you're thinking about doing or doing with your friends because you know why you don't share some things? You don't share some things because it's kind of putting something in, it's bringing something in the real world that you might get asked about. And when they get, you get asked about it. If you like most people, you already fear not being on consistent to what it is you said you're going to do. And then you fear being judged by that. You fear being judged by your nonactivity. So the fact that you don't share some things that you claim to be excited about really is a statement to yourself of how fearful you are that you're not worthy of the very thing that you're saying that you're excited about personally. A little tough love for me right now. That's just my belief. You can take it and leave it. But that's when you know, think about it. You have your own life. You know what you've done and what you have not done. How many cool things have you thought about and how many times have you hesitated saying something about something because you don't want to be checked on it. You want them to say, oh yeah, yeah, how's that book coming you writing? You know, you don't want to constantly say, oh well, oh yeah, I didn't, you know, you know, how's a diet plan coming? Oh, you know, well, you know, yeah, you know, well, how's that business launch coming? Oh, you know, well, you know, life, life, and life, and life, and you know, blah, blah, blah. You know, woes me, woes me, woes me. So when I ask you to, you know, if you are going to do some version of this and I ask you to just share people about it because most people won't even remember that you told them about it anyway. They're not going to take action and go check it out. But some of them might, and if you do this and some of them come back to you and say, hey, how's it going? Whatever you answer as long as you're still in the game, that's serving you. That's you demonstrating to you that you are in the process, this ultimate process of creating something real. That's the big takeaway from sharing this. So I encourage you to do that. So my friends, that is my first attempt at giving you a personal challenge manifesto. CM one, I think I'm going to call that challenge manifesto number one, version one, because if I take some time and go back through this and write it down and do all that stuff, I can probably be really more clear and even more comprehensive. But I think there's something special about the organic sharing of this to me. I'm trying to, because I can only, I, there's no fluff, right? I only talk about the things that pop the mind in the moment of me on this very focused mission, trying to share with you a way to get ready, get ready to challenge yourself. So here's the thing, I have this challenge coming up in October, it's just September now. So you can do all this stuff to get ready for your October challenge if you want to do a 90 day challenge and sprint to the end of the year. And now you have the means and mechanism and method to put some structure around how you do that. And by the end of the year, you're going to be celebrating a lot of things. You're going to be celebrating that you are a powerful, a powerful alchemist. Ideas to reality. You can control the intangible and unseen, like your thoughts. And you can, on a, on a constant basis, be fed by your primary driver, which means you have an on, you have tapped into the most powerful energy source known to humans. That, my friends, would be a very powerful way to end a year and to start a new one. Hmm. Thank you for tuning in to Symbol Athletica. Please make sure you tell people that there's a conversation out here going on. You just never know, you just never know. They might just vibe with the spirit of this tribe. I will see you in the next episode. Well, I hope you have enjoyed the Challenge Man and Festo. One, CM one, first edition. I really do, I honestly believe it can be tremendously helpful in you organizing your personal plan. It's actually the result of a lot of research, a lot of study, a lot of practical application. And it finally, it gelled over the many, many, many years into a way that I could share it in that story format. The most important part is that homework assignment, that five part homework assignment. Most people are not going to even take the time to do that. So I'm going to share two things with you. This is bonus information. One is if you struggle with just even getting the homework assignment done because it's not a complicated homework assignment, then two things. One is you may struggle with where you're trying to go. You may have a destination struggle. You may not have decided what you would like to become or do or try to become. In that case, it's crazy as this suggestion sounds. I always tell people just to make something up. Just to make something up, that sounds good, feels good to you, and then get after it. What happens is in the effort of doing clarity emerges. So if you say, "Hey, this is what you pick something that's arbitrary." And as long as it's exciting to you, once you start applying effort, once you start going through the exercises, once you start taking action, along the way you will realize, "Oh, you know what, what I really want to do is this." It becomes clear along the way. The really good news is it doesn't change what's required to you for the most part. Most of what you need to do in terms in the case of personal adjustment is going to be the same across all shows and destinies. A good chunk of it will be. The second thing I will offer up is that a lot of people may struggle now because they're hyper-distracted and mentally just dressed right now, because it's so much going on, so much uncertainty, so much uncertainty in their lives and in an economy with what's going on with the COVID virus and all the change and all et cetera, et cetera. And you may be suffering from a depressed amount of mental energy. It's common, it's just chemical, right? And if that's the case, I highly recommend you look into jacking your mental energy if for nothing else for this exercise. And there are a lot of ways you can do that. If you have a nautropic of choice, if you want to try that, you can just go to sampleV.com, V as in victory. If you go to sampleV.com, that's a nautropic or brain reimagined by a company called Velavita. Very economical, very functional and very good stuff. If for nothing else, it's going to at least give you mental energy. And my suggestion would be, if you feel this might be something you struggle with, give that a try and get the product, get on it for a couple of days and then do the homework assignment and carry on and prosper. The other thing I'm going to challenge you to do, if you really want to take this to another level or take this serious, I want you to imagine that this challenge manifesto is a seminar. And it's a seminar that cost you $100,000 to take. That's a lot of money for anybody to take a seminar. And what I'd like you to do is to imagine, take a piece of paper and draw a little rectangle, you're going to draw a picture of a check. And you're going to make it look like a check. You remember what those things used to look like back in the day when you used the right check. So you're going to make a check and you're going to make a check. Make it out to me. And in the subject matter where you put what it's for, you're going to make the check out for $10,000. And you're going to put in the little, you know, what it's for, the memo section, put one of 10 installment payment of 10 grand. Then fill it out, write it out for $10,000 and sign it. Just go through the act of paying for this seminar, the first installment of this seminar. You will be amazed at how that little game, that little made up game I just explained, well, you will just be amazed at what will do to your ability to focus on and take this serious and treat it like it's real. You know, fortunately, unfortunately, we live in a world where we kind of know that we get what we pay for. And we often completely undervalue the free stuff. So this is a way that you can go through the motion and feel it. If you can imagine, you know, this not being free. Imagine that this challenge manifesto is a personal seminar between you and I. And the price tag for that seminar is $100,000 paid in 10 increments of 10 grand each. I want you to physically draw out that first check, write out that imaginary check of a $10,000 installment. And you will probably treat this game with a little bit more attentive focus. With that, my friends, I really do wish you the best. I hope that you get something from this idea. I think it's going to be tremendously useful going through the process might give you a better idea of your own. But have some structure and some have a work within a framework, work within the structure, work within a way that makes what you're trying to do real. Because I said it earlier in this manifesto that we all work within the confines of our own personal truths, whatever they may be. And most people never spend the time to evaluate what their personal truths even are. So if for nothing else, you are way better off already. Thanks, my friends. Good luck. Let me know. I would love to hear if you take me up and trying this. Send me back to testimony when it's done because I already know it's going to be amazing. Take care.