Unlocking Success: The 12-Minute Daily Routine for Peak Performance with John Mitchell

Ever feel like you’re doing all the “right things” and still falling short of the life you imagined? We sit down with John Mitchell—author of The Living Secret and creator of the Think It Be It methodology—to unpack a bold idea with deep scientific roots: if 95% of your daily actions are unconscious, the fastest path to better results is reprogramming your autopilot. John shares how a painful season and a relentless study of Think and Grow Rich led him to a simple, repeatable routine that takes just 12 minutes a day and turns intention into reliable action.

We trace John’s journey from solid-but-stuck to a 25x income breakthrough, and we dig into what actually changed: radical clarity about who he wanted to be, what he aimed to achieve, and the exact steps that would get him there. He explains why the subconscious responds to repetition and emotion, how to write a concise daily script that touches career, health, and relationships, and why small wording shifts—like moving from “aware” to “evaluate”—instantly alter behavior. Leaders, founders, and athletes will appreciate the framework that links vision, systems, and people so the “right actions” start happening automatically by week three.

Expect practical examples, from health choices to attracting the right partner, and a clear breakdown of conscious versus subconscious roles. You’ll hear why this method lowers stress, boosts confidence, and creates a genuine sense of control as your brain gets the order it craves. If you’re ready to stop winging it and design the next five years with intention, this conversation gives you the tools to start today—no hacks, just mechanics that compound.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with someone who’s ready for a leap, and leave a quick review telling us which habit you’ll automate first. Your next chapter can start in 12 minutes a day.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

You have to walk the talk. You have to be authentic as a leader.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

If you're not doing it, they see that.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

It is entirely universal, just other people who are going through this.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

For me, a great leader needs to be able to marry three things vision, systems, and people.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Welcome to Leadership Moments. If this is your first time, and if you are returning, thank you for your support.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

This show is about leaders from all walks of life, leadership tips, and maybe even a little of what you wouldn't expect to help you in leadership.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

We would appreciate it if you tell someone else about our podcast as we strive to support all leaders that want to just be better.

Introducing John Mitchell

Hitting Fifty And Falling Short

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Let's get on with the show. So welcome back to leadership moments where we unpack the habits, the mindsets, and the stories behind extraordinary leaders. I'm your host, Tracy Ann Palmer, and today get ready for true transformation. I'm so excited for this because I'm going to call you and tell you I can't stand it. So my guest is someone who doesn't just talk about peak performance. He loves it. And as you know, that's one of my favorite subjects. Okay. John Mitchell is the author of The Living Secret and the founder of the revolutionary think it be it methodology used by top entrepreneurs and high achievers around the globe. In fact, this technique has been scientifically proven to rewire the brain for success. And here's the kicker. It's rooted in the very same principles used by 2% of high performers who generate 98% of the results. So today we're going deep into the science of success and how to program your thoughts to manage your greatest potential. Welcome, John.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Hey, Tracy, thank you for that. Great introduction. And I tell you, I think a lot of your audience is gonna find this interesting. But I'm gonna make a bold prediction. For the people that are ready to go to the next level, this conversation will likely be life-changing.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

That's what I'm hoping for. So Don and I have spent a little bit of time together already, and I will tell you you're all in for an amazing treat today. So I'm gonna kick us right off. You had a successful life. Okay. But something shifted at 50. And that changed everything for you. Tell us what happened and what then led you to create Think It Be It.

Discovering Think And Grow Rich

Cracking The Secret And 12 Minutes

From Business Wins To Teaching

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Okay. Well, when I turned 50, I just wasn't as successful as I thought I should be, Tracy. And I started out as a CPA, became an entrepreneur at 30, was in like seven different businesses in my 30s and 40s. And then I get to be 50. And again, just not as successful as I thought I should be. And Tracy, I had two goals in my life: to make enough money so I didn't have to work and to find the woman of my dreams. Well, I'm falling short on both of them. And and on the money at 50, I always did pretty well. I always made 200, 300 grand a year, basically from pure hard work. And but when I hit 50, as materialistic as this sounds, I realized I had to net over a million dollars a year to have the exceptional life I always dreamed of. Then on the girl at 50, I'd never been married. Although I got to say I did a lot of interviewing. But so at 50, I'm like, well, how am I going to change things? And I think it's probably three months after I turned 50, a pearl of wisdom comes to me. Find the top book of the world on success, and apply that book literally word for word to my life. And so I remember that night, I jump out of bed, I start doing the research, and I discover something amazing. There's one book that's been read by 150 million people, and it's the top book of the world on success by a factor of 10. And that book is Think and Grow Rich, which I bet you've you've read, right? Yes, that's right. And so I'm like, wow, this thing is setting up so perfect. Who knew? So the next day, Tracy, I was like a heat-seeking missile. I I go to the bookstore, buy the book, read the book. Then I discover the problem. Book says there's a secret for success, but the author only gives us half of the secret. It's on the reader to figure out the other half. So, Tracy, I'm bummed out. I mope around for like three weeks, and then one day I just get up and go, John, come on, man up, figure out the damn secret. And so I immerse myself in the book and probably read it, I don't know, 20 times over a couple of months, and ultimately figured out the full secret and a 12-minute-a-day technique to apply it. And so I start applying it to a new business I was starting in the reverse mortgage field. And suddenly my income starts doubling and doubling and doubling. And about four years later, I'm blessed to be making 25 times the 200 to 300 grand a year I'd been making the prior 20 years. And Tracy, of course, I felt so blessed. And what was cool, though, was I could see exactly why it was happening. I was just playing the game of life at a higher level. I could do things I could never do before. And I had this level of control over my life I'd never experienced before. And I just became fascinated by the fact that you could take two key scientific principles and apply them to your life and so materially impact your success. And so about 10 years ago, I finally had enough money so I didn't have to work. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to share this with the world. And so I don't know, I sell my company, and a month or two later, I meet the former chancellor and president here at the University of Texas. And he says, Hey, you got to teach this at the University of Texas, and why don't we teach it together? And then that led to him introducing me to the athletic director who said, Hey, I want to learn this 12-minute day technique. And that led to becoming the mental coach for the 18 head coaches. And so today I teach my methodology in a course called The Science of Success, The Science of Leveraging Yourself. Half my students are athletes, half of them are regular students, and I teach my methodology to adults through licensing the methodology to coaches and through my book. So that's my my story.

SPEAKER_03 7:15

Okay. So I hope the audience just heard that. There was so much packed in there. Okay. Packed, packed in there. But what I heard was I'm gonna go figure this out. So you go do that. And then you realize there there's really two scientific principles, and together, you know, I'm I'm I'm kind of envisioning one of those, you know, stories from the old where you where you stick the two pieces together and something big, big happens. You know the movies, right? But you took a personal frustration and you turned it into a method. You leveraged it, so you used yourself as a use case. You said, okay, I now want to give it back to others, I want to pay it forward, and I would now want others to benefit from this. That's really pretty cool. Yeah, and you should be. That's really and the fact is you're working with athletes, you're working with CEOs, you're working with elite performers who are now all leveraging it in their own life. Okay. Now, of course, everyone should want to know at this point in time what's the secret.

The Personal Catalyst: Mom’s Illness

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Well, I will I will tell them.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

And 12 minutes, 12 minutes. Anyone can do 12 minutes, is what I heard.

The Snow Night Epiphany

Envision, Emotion, Daily Repetition

Clarity, Confidence, Less Stress

Rewiring In 21 Days

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Right, right. Well, let me explain the secret. And and maybe the best way to do that is to share something highly personal with you and your audience. So there was a little bit more going on with me at 50 than just feeling the scarcity of time. My mom was dying of pancreatic cancer, and so every day after work, I'd go see her in the hospital and and love on her and and talk to her and hold her hand, and and then I would go in the cold dark hospital parking lot and cry my eyes out, like for 45 minutes, an hour before I could even drive home. And this is going on for like six to eight weeks, and it was gut-wrenching, Tracy. I've never experienced that level of emotional upheaval like that night after night. Now, obviously, I'm feeling the loss, the impending loss of my mom, but I knew there was something way deeper than that going on. And what I realized, maybe not at the time, but I realized subsequently that I felt like I was letting my mom down with my life because my mom and dad gave me everything. They invested in me, they believed in me. They sent me to Jesuit High School in Dallas when they really didn't have the money. They sent me to the University of Texas. I didn't have to pay for a thing. And so as my mom was leaving this world, I'm reflective about my life, and I see that I'm lettering her down with my life because at with all those advantages, all I had was the average life. And I hated the average life because I just knew I was capable of so much more. And and so as as this is going on, and and I realize this later, that feeling of letting my mom down was like rocket fuel and causing me to go deeper into the top book of the world on success than anybody else ever had. And that's why I believe I was able to figure out the secret. And and so let me sort of explain the secret now. So during this time, one particular night was life-changing because I went to see my mom, hold her hand, love on her, go in the hospital parking lot, and cry my eyes out for 45 minutes to an hour. Then I can drive home. And but Tracy, this night felt different because it was snowing in Dallas. And it doesn't snow very often in Dallas, as you know. And and so as I'm driving home, I see those big snowflakes hitting my windshield, and it just feels different. So I get home and I plop myself in my nice comfy chair, and I decide to read, like for the 20th time, thinking grow rich. And on this particular night, I read that your daily actions determine your success in each area of your life. The cumulative effect of your daily actions determine your success in your career, in your marriage, in your health. And I read that and I'm like, wow, I never thought about success in such simple terms, but I buy that. And then I read that 95% of your daily actions are unconscious. 95% of your daily actions are unconscious. I'm like, that is interesting. And so now I'm ready to go to bed, and and Tracy, I wash my face and brush my teeth, and I get in bed. And I cannot stop thinking about 95% of your daily actions being unconscious. And and as I'm thinking about it, I'm like, wow, I don't, I don't control the very thing that determines my success. And that was that like hit me like a bolt of lightning. I mean, I remember like like sitting up in bed and just being struck by it. And it's this surreal moment, Tracy. I'm looking out in my backyard and seeing the glistening snowflakes hitting the ground. And I'm like, wow, I don't control the very thing that is determining my success. And then I think, well, what does control my daily actions? Well, if 95% of them are unconscious, it's my subconscious mind, my autopilot. And the subconscious mind is only influenced by repetition. And all this time I've been controlling only my intentions with my conscious mind, not my actions controlled by my subconscious mind. And that's when it all clipped. I wasn't underperforming because I lacked intelligence or drive. Rather, I was underperforming because of a false belief that I had about success that I had held for like 50 years. And that false belief was that I controlled my daily actions. And I dare say that everybody listening to this has that same false belief today. And then the full secret of thinking grow rich comes to me. And here it is. What you envision in detail with emotion on a daily basis is what shows up in your life. Now let me say that again. What you envision in detail with emotion on a daily basis is what shows up in your life. And what that means is you create immense clarity about your life, exactly the person you want to be, exactly what you want to accomplish, and precisely how you're going to achieve your clearly defined goals. And then you put that clarity on a template I created, which basically organizes the clarity in each area of your life. And then you feed that clarity to yourself each day, and it takes 12 minutes a day. And then you'll see that three things essentially happen. First of all, you feel this immense sense of control over your life. Well, of course you would. You're feeding the succinct articulation of your desired life to yourself each day. Of course you'd feel control. Second thing you experience is this immense sense of confidence, which is a direct control of a direct result of the control you feel. And the other thing that is sort of going on is that you feel way less stress because the mind thrives on order, and by feeding the succinct articulation of your desired life, you're creating immense order in the mind, and stress essentially goes away. And then the third thing that happens is that the right actions start happening automatically after about 21 days, because it takes 21 days to rewire your autopilot. And once once the right actions start happening automatically, your life is never the same. So that's essentially how it works.

From Awareness To Evaluation

SPEAKER_03 16:14

Oh my gosh. I I really hope, I really hope that our audience was listening intently to that. Because I know I'm sitting there going, I want to put that on repeat. Okay. Because here's here's what I heard. Well, first of all, you said clarity. So that's one thing. But when we envision something with emotion, give it clarity, and we repeat that to ourselves every single day. We tell ourselves, you know, we we're we're envisioning it, we we're sort of, you know, dreaming it, living it, you know, visualizing it, whatever you want to you call it, and then you, you know, you're repeating it to yourself. I think I heard that. It takes 21 days, and then you'll start to see the fruition of what you have envisioned.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Right.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

And that's because what you said, if I if you said you were still living in the old life, and so you therefore couldn't move into uh this you know, living life to the highest level of what you know you can and could achieve because you were still living mentally in that old life.

Designing The Partner You Attract

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Right. Well, and keep in mind, Tracy, everybody has a vision of their life, it's just not very clear. And and everybody, versely, is just winging life. They don't actually have a way of doing life, they're just doing the best they can and hoping for the best. Well, why is that? Well, because nobody actually gave them an alternative way to do life, which is what I'm I'm doing. And and I'll give you an example of this so so the the audience understands the actions as an example. So, and this happened a couple of years ago. I have a friend of mine, a client of mine up in in Portland tells me he's gonna fly to San Antonio, where you are, and he says, Why don't you get the ginge to to meet meet you and let's go have dinner?

SPEAKER_03 18:22

Okay, everybody, the ginge is uh is John's beautiful wife, just so that you know, okay, keep going, John.

Conscious Vs Subconscious Mechanics

SPEAKER_00 18:28

And by the way, I met my beautiful wife about a year after I started doing, well, a year and a half after I was doing this methodology. So I'm like, I tell Wade, great, we'll do that. It's around Christmas. Ginger's out and about, I'm out and about, and I tell her, hey, babe, just meet me at Starbucks and we'll jump in my car, meet me there at two, and and all good. So I get there a little early, and again, it's Christmas, and I decided, yeah, I'm gonna have a brownie. Well, I start eating that brownie, and and it, and in my 12-minute day technique, I affirm to myself that I'm aware of everything I put in my mouth. Well, I'm aware that I'm eating that brownie, and I'm aware it doesn't taste very good, but that doesn't stop me from eating it. And so the ginger arrives, and we jump in the car, and I tell her, I go, babe, you know, I just don't feel very good. I've lost my appetite, and I just don't feel very good. We we get to San Antonio and we come back, and Tracy that night, I changed one word in my life GPS template from I'm aware of everything I put in my mouth to I evaluate everything I put in my mouth. And you're you're seeing the detail with which I'm affirming things. This happens to be on my health. Well, the next night we go out and have Mexican food with her son, and so I order tacos, and they're not very good, but now I'm evaluating everything I'm putting in my mouth, and I just slide those tacos away because they're just not very good. And that happens automatically. That's the key thing. That happens automatically. And I remember laying in bed that night thinking, boy, I tell you, this is not a superpower. I don't know what it what is if you can get yourself to do the right actions automatically without thinking.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

So, you know, it's really interesting we're having this conversation. Before I met my husband, I decided, I'm done. Okay, men are no good. You know, I haven't had any good relationships. And one day I write down, no joke, I write down, I think 30 things on a piece of paper of all the characteristics this person needed to have. I'm gonna tell you now, be married 25 years on the first of January. He had everything except one thing. I think I said blue eyes, and he has Hazel. How crazy is that?

Advice To Leaders: Stop Winging It

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Well, you know, that's exactly what happened with me. Uh in my life GPS template, I articulated here's all the attributes I want in the woman of my dreams, and here's the person I need to be to attract that person. Exactly what you did. And and of course, I'm feeding that to myself every day. And you can imagine if I'm articulating how I need to be, and I'm feeding that to myself every day after 21 days, that's who you become. And this is pivotal, this is really pivotal. My life changed radically once I understood how the human brain works, how the mind works. And and here's how it works: conscious mind versus subconscious mind. The conscious mind says your intentions and it's influenced by logic. Subconscious mind controls your daily actions, or 95% of them. And it's only influenced by repetition. And so the example that's that's easy to explain this with is say you want to lose weight. Conscious mind says your intention to lose weight based on the logic of the health benefits. But Tracy, as you would know, people are are failing to lose weight, not from lack of intention, but from lack of influencing the part of their brain that controls their actions, they're eating, they're exercising. And again, 95% of that is is unconscious. And so that's why you can sort of connect the dots. When you're feeding the succinct articulation of your desired life, which includes all the right actions in each area of your life, they start happening automatically without thinking, because that's the the repetition the subconscious mind needs to make them happen automatically without thinking.

The Epiphany You Must Have

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Fascinating. Fascinating. I've I've oh boy, I got so many questions right now. I just I I got so many questions. So for our show, you know, we've got leaders, visionaries, entrepreneurs, you know, who who listen to what you know to the show. What is your advice to them if they are sitting where you were, right, at whatever age, and they've now got to shift into uh your 12 minute uh routine. Because I I want to get some test cases on this now.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

I know I'm gonna be one of them, but I want to get not but and I want people on this in this podcast to become some test cases for us to really test this out because I believe uh just even from you know some of the stuff you and I have discussing the power of the brain, the power of the mind, all that kind of stuff, but I believe in what you're sharing. And so I want I want to really get some test cases on this.

A Grandfather’s Wake-Up Call

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Well, let's create an epiphany with with you and your audience. And so now that I have set the foundation, the the the epiphany is possible. And and this epiphany moment is for those people that truly want to go to the next level. And so to succinctly answer your question, I'd say to the people, stop winging life. And and and but here's the here's here's this idea of the the epiphany I want to create. So I look back on my life, and as a as an adult, I've had three times in my life where I've had an epiphany where everything changed. Everything changed. And I didn't have my first one until I was in my probably latter 40s. Here's the epiphany I got from Think and Grow Rich that 25x my income. 95% of my daily actions are unconscious. So if my daily actions determine my success in life, I absolutely have to gain control over my unconscious daily actions. Now, let me say that again, because I really want people to get this. So 95% of your daily actions are unconscious, meaning you're not consciously controlling your daily actions. And so if 95% of them are unconscious, you gotta get control of those unconscious daily actions. And so my question to you, Tracy, is do you believe that? Do you believe that 95% of your daily actions? Okay. So so what are you doing about it today?

SPEAKER_03 25:47

Well, it's interesting because this podcast is very timely for me. Over the last six months, you know, I've been studying this era of peak performance, and where where I have gotten to, and I'm not there yet, but I've gotten to how powerful the brain is relative to our ability to become a peak performer. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

So everything you are now, I would say, educating and teaching us on this podcast is sort of for me the the next step of where I've been trying to go, which is I want to change my life. And in order to do that, I now know that my subconscious has a lot to do with it.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Here's what's also interesting. For some people listening, boy, this is new information. They didn't know that 95% of your daily thoughts and actions are unconscious. And what is really going on is that 95% of the time you take an action unconsciously, and then a couple of milliseconds later, you become consciously aware of it. Just let that sink in.

Closing, Resources, And Thanks

SPEAKER_03 26:58

So on a practical level, John, how would someone go about doing that? Like I just want to understand, like on a practical level, if someone wanted to change their life.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

So the desired epiphany is 95% of your daily actions are unconscious. So if your daily actions determine your success, you absolutely positively have to gain control over those unconscious daily actions. And you do that by feeding the succinct articulation of your desired life to yourself each day, and it takes 12 minutes a day. That's how you do it.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

That is so powerful. So if this audience cannot take 12 minutes out of the day to change something in their life that is not working for them, right? Or something they want, right? And then you're just winging life, expect nothing to change, is what I'm hearing.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Maybe the final thing I want to share with you, you'd appreciate this. I I became a grandfather like three or four years ago. And so the day after our our grandbaby, our first grandbaby was born, the ginch and I go over to Hannah's house literally the day after. And we're over there, and there's a lot of ooing and awing about the baby. And for some reason, Tracy, they hand me the baby, and and then they walk away. And so I'm holding this precious one-day-old little girl, and I hold her close to my chest, and I feel the warmth of her body, and I start to cry. I mean, tears are flowing down my face because I realize, hey, she's gonna live for a hundred years, and the quality of her life will come down to the quality of the thoughts that are going through her head on an ongoing basis. And by God, I'm gonna impact that because that's gonna impact her enjoyment of life, her success, and just her overall life. And that brings me to your audience. Your life is precious, your life is precious. So tonight, when you put your head on the pillow, I want you to think about the next five years. Do you want the next five years of your life to look like the last five years? And if the answer is no, stop winging life. You now have a way to change it, to create the life you want. And it only takes 12 minutes a day.

SPEAKER_03 29:35

Yeah. Wow. Powerful. So powerful. John, you know, this has been a true gift, really. I I cannot thank you enough for sharing this, uh, coming on the podcast. And it's been it's been so wonderful because not only have you have you taught us a secret, but uh just you as a as a human being, you know, the vulnerability that you You've shown and just, you know, giving us a little bit of of you and and your stories is is really amazing. And so I want to thank you for that. I really want to I want to thank you for coming on the show, but also thank you for caring about other people. You could have kept this secret to yourself and you didn't.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Well, I see how blessed I am and the joy of my life is transforming people's lives. And the beauty about this is that it works on everybody. This is pure science. And my lesson in life, my journey has taught me that that you need something in life that gives you an edge, an advantage. And otherwise, you're going to get the average life. And this gave me an advantage and gives my clients an advantage in life.

Subscribe And Stay Connected

SPEAKER_03 30:48

Yeah, it's beautiful. It's amazing. Thank you so much for being on the show today. I strongly encourage you to please go and look at buy the book, The Missing Secret, go and look at the website, themissingsecret.org. Check out John Mitchell, and you've heard him live today. And keep on striving. Push the boundaries and let's go and be incredible leaders that impact lives. Thanks, everyone. Great to have you with us. Thanks, John. If you enjoyed the show, please go to LeadershipMomentspodcast.com to subscribe to the podcast or on your favorite player, as well as follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

You can also send us a message on what you like and don't like or what guest you want us to have on the show.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

So until next time.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

This is Stacy Caster, and what does it challenge you won't change you.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

And I'm Tracy Ann Palmer. Be the change you wish to see in the world.