Episode 54 - Level Up Your Life in 2025: Small Steps to Big Changes

summary

In this conversation, Jonathan Fodera and Keith Gause discuss effective strategies for starting the new year strong. They emphasize the importance of setting clear goals, planning, and building habits incrementally. The discussion also covers overcoming personal vices by understanding triggers and making conscious changes. The speakers share personal experiences and practical advice to help listeners achieve their goals and improve their lives in the new year.

takeaways

• Don't start the year with a lackadaisical attitude.
• Stack your calendar with work before the new year.
• Write down your goals in various life areas.
• Break down goals into manageable steps.
• Consistency is key to achieving goals.
• Focus on what you don't do to avoid overwhelm.
• Commit to realistic and achievable goals.
• Incremental changes lead to lasting habits.
• Understand your triggers to overcome vices.
• Share your journey and strategies with others.

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Transcript

0:02

Welcome and I hope you guys are ready to kick off the year the best way possible. We are going to give you a couple proven strategies on the integrated entrepreneur that are gonna help you do just that. I hope you guys had a very Merry Christmas. I hope you're ready to kick ass, take names in this new year. we're gonna talk about a couple things that have worked well for Keith and I. these are not things that we've read somewhere. These are things that we actually do and implement each and every year. We're just going to go rapid fire to give you these and show you how we implement them and how they've helped. With that being said, Keith, What do you got? I think the first one's the most common sense one is don't go into the year on that lackadaisical coming off vacation vibe in which people take the week to two weeks off at the end of the year. January 2nd is kind of like that day where we're just going to get back into the swing of things. And then January 15th here and half the month's gone. So one of the biggest things for me is not to avoid that is to ensure the last week of December that I have enough work stacked in my calendar. The first week of January is if nothing changed. that's the number one key don't treat it like a new year, new me thing. Treat it like another, just plain work week. but I haven't said that obviously there's goals and new things people want to do, That you need to work. into those days. So the thing is just making sure that you're stacked with work as if you had an old idea and then finding time to add in what you need to to hit these new year new you goals. So first off, it is weird how Christmas and New Year's fell, or are falling. having it back to back, middle of the weeks where you're gonna lose one, if not two days is tough. However, most entrepreneurs I know and myself, we already mapped out what 25 looks like. However, if you haven't, I think that's a great starting point. And what I would, what I challenge you to do is write down what your goals are in faith, family, fitness, finances, right? And finances are personal and business. If you own a business, right? I have, what does my business plan look like for 25? What do we need to execute on? And how does that impact and relate to what my personal goals are, right? How much do I need to earn? from integrated to do everything I'd like to do personally, right? And what's under that personal finances, that's investments, it's vacations, it might be a new car for my wife or a new truck for my wife, whatever that is, I'm mapping all of that out. And so what I would challenge you to do is make sure that you aren't just writing things down on a piece of paper. By the way, if you are writing it down on a piece of paper, you're already ahead of 90 % of the other people out there, all right? There's huge correlations to the the ability of people to write down goals, okay, and actually obtaining those goals. And I don't think writing them down is enough. I like to put a plan around them. So I'll give you a really easy example on a great way to chunk things down. And the math is just super easy here, I'm making it up. But let's say for my fitness goal, I wanted to lose roughly 50 pounds or 52 pounds, okay? That is not something that I need to do or I'm trying to do, but if I was, then I would want to chunk that down into what it looks like and what I have to hit each and every month, each quarter, and then each month, and then each week, and then if you want to get really crazy each day. Okay? And so if you think about it, you really just, 50 pounds in a year is losing a pound a week. You can break that out quarterly, monthly, but it's going to be a pound a week. So what actions do you have to do on a daily basis to lose a pound a week? Well, one is probably drinking a gallon of water. Two is probably working out for anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour. And then three is some type of, I don't want to say diet, but understanding what you're putting into your body, right? And making sure it aligns with your goals. And if you are doing that and that's how you work every single goal that you have and that you've set for yourself. then you know exactly what you have to do each and every day of the year. And there's no excuses. If you're hitting those minor tasks every day, you're going to hit that goal. Now, will there be setbacks? Yes. But when there's a setback, that's when you need to evaluate, hey, is this working and I just had a mistake? Or do I have to course correct and do this a different way and still make sure I achieve that goal? Right? So what could be a good example on that fitness one is, hey, I'm working out and then I just hurt my wrist. Right? Or I broke a boat. Well, if I broke something in my arm, I can still hit my goal. Right? No, no, I can still hit my goal, but I'm going to be doing a lot more walking, running, cardio to do that. All right. Same thing in business. All right. So that is one I would give you is make sure that you have your goals written down. You have a plan and then you break that plan down to the smallest possible steps that have actions associated with it. And if you can do that for each and every single goal and outline that for the year, you are ahead of 99.9 % of everybody else. All right. And what that looks like is maybe you, you sitting down a day with your family and coming up with those goals, and then you sitting down for a day or what we do is quarterlies with your team in business to run through these. And by the way, guys, if you are a real, really great operator, You might want to show your team how you're doing this because these are things that as you teach to your team and they implement, they appreciate and it goes a lot longer. It goes a much longer way than what most people realize. All right. So I would challenge each of you guys to do that. Keith, what are some other things that you do that other people may or may not do? Yeah, well think it was just the biggest, it's not what I do, it's what I don't do. What I don't do is stack a bunch of new shit on my plate expecting to be able to follow through with five new tasks a day on top of my current workload and commitments. I think that's, you see that predominantly like the people that fall off in the gym. They've decided to lose all this weight, we'll just use your example. And then they go in and they're like, I need to do this radical change overnight. And instead of going from no working out, no water to six gallons of water a day and four hours of working out after work and eating broccoli. You know, obviously that's exciting and all's well for about a week. and then the proverbial fall off happens where you skip the first day and then it's the next year and you're like new year to me let's try that again. So I think more importantly than what you start to do is what you don't allow yourself to get overwhelmed with. and setting parameters so that you have the ability to successfully track and make moves in whatever it is you are, whether it's personal or business. But I think that's the biggest, if you can focus on not overwhelming yourself and just pick one thing. One, right? And don't say that this one thing has to be the new way of life. And I think a lot of, from a psychological perspective, we put the word diet into play. and we fail because it's a restriction. And we're too tempted with everything we see to violate this restriction, right? So like the reality is like, as you're setting that stage for the goals, if it is a diet, Hey, I'm eliminating this one component. I'm not going to go fucking full vegan. not going to go full whatever keto cause that's setting up for failure for 99 % of people. There are those who can say it and do it and never fucking fault, right? But it's not a reality. So I think that's the component to focus on is verbally commit to the one thing and just focus on one thing, right? And add a thing later when this one thing becomes normal. So compared to a car payment, house payment, right? Holy shit, my mortgage is going up by $3,000. Well, four months in, you don't even feel that adjustment anymore. It's the same concept. Add one thing, give it a month, add another thing. So let me spit this back to you. So in the example I gave for fitness, right? Let's say I had three goals on their fitness. Okay. You're saying work on one, focus on one first and one for each category, but make sure, I would say make sure they're aligned. And as long as you hit that one, then you can focus on what's the secondary and the third goal or the fourth goal. Yeah. let's use yours, right? Gallon water a day, working out for an hour a day, and diet. Those are the three main components to becoming healthier, right? And you can add in supplements and all that shit too, right? From a diet perspective. Well, the hardest by far is going to be committing to an hour a day of exercise. A, you need to find the time and B, you have to tell yourself that you're going to be out of breath and go exert yourself, right? So. Instead of doing that, maybe it's 30 minutes a day in a gallon of water. Maybe you just start with a gallon of water if you are not a healthy son of a bitch at all and you've never worked out. Because the reality is if you went from not drinking a gallon of water to drinking a gallon of water, you're going to lose weight. And that may just be the sign you need to give you the juice for the next thing. And the next thing could be adding 30 minutes of walking or the hour or whatever. So instead of failing, saying I gotta go work out today, drink my water, read my book, do my thing, take the cold shower, write this, talk to the strangers, you phase it in. And I think that would lead to more, from an entrepreneur side, business owner side, with kids and wife, some people don't have an hour. Unless they're getting up like me. If I don't work out at 4.30, 5.00 in the morning, it ain't happening. So I had to find that time, but. I think if you can focus on just a component of the thing, if it's a bigger one, break it down to those bite-sized components and then feed yourself accordingly. Right? What I would say to you guys too, and what Keith's kind of playing devil's advocate here in my mind is saying, don't take on too much because if you take on too much and you stop it once, what's going to happen is you're going to beat yourself up. You're not going to be consistent in approaching your goal. And when you tackle, let's say a full plate and you fail even a little bit, it's enough to throw out everything, which I have seen time and time again, some people are all nothing. They are very, very rare. I actually happen to be one of those all or nothing people. know I'm wired that way. I, yeah. Now I do know that I like, consistency is going to be the key no matter what, right? So if you want to gradually stair-step your daily activities to reaching your goal until you do it, let's say, start off at 30 minutes and half a gallon, then slowly work your way up. I do think for the people that have trouble or get easily intimidated by making these massive changes, I do think that that is the absolute best way to do it. For me, I enjoy a complete and utter shock to the system because It makes me feel like I'm making progress every day that I do that and much more progress than I normally would have been making. So I'll give you like what I do every single year since 75 Hard came out is I start the year doing 75 Hard and I go straight through to phase one and then I get my 30 day break. That has been a complete game changer. I've done it every year for the last five years or when... or four years since whenever 75 Hard came out. Okay, I've done it every single year. Yeah. And listen, I'm doing it again this January. And here's why I do that. I know that it clears the deck for any and all other bullshit. Meaning if I'm doing 75 Hard, the only things I have time for, okay, is my team at work, my family, right? And all the things that are near and dear to me. So when I do 75 hard, because I'm adding so much, it actually makes me and forces me to cut out any and all distractions. And I can show you repeatedly that my highest earning periods have coincided with when I'm on the program. Always. And I know that, and it's not just because I do it Q1 of every quarter, guys. Actually, My business in Q1, that is not its high point. It's good, but high point is usually Q3, Q4. Okay, so I have done 75 hard multiple times throughout the course of the year and you can actually track the earnings, which if you think about it is totally counter-intuitive to what anyone would think. You're adding all these daily activities. How are you going to find time for work? How are you going to find time for your family? And what I will tell you is that when you're on program, it teaches you to be much better with your time. It forces you to be a better person overall, if you're really doing it right. And it's given me so much momentum at any time I've done it that I actually hate being off program like I've been right now. And I actually am looking forward to starting this again, because I know what it does. It actually makes me, I'm happier when I'm. on the program. know it sounds crazy, but I am. I feel like I'm getting way more done. I feel like everything's way more accomplished and I feel better mentally. I feel better physically. I feel better. There's nothing else. If you wanted one cheat code, I would tell you go and start your year off with 75 hard. The reason I don't do that is because there is an absolute downside to not going through with it. There is Keith. What's up? If you don't go through it, it can mentally be draining. If you fail, it's mentally draining. However, if you've gone through it once, you know you can do it again. And I personally love it and highly recommend that. What else you got, Keith? You're a psychopath. That's alright. Listen, I don't think there's a ton to it. I think the reality is that people go into the new year thinking there's a radical shift happening in their world and they get to day three and their friend hits them up and hey, let's go to the bar and that's the end of it. So, you know, for, me, the only time that I've had success going to new year, new me with bigger goals was to have it to where it was a huge annual goal broken down into those bite-sized daily chunks. Every time you do it, it's, you know, commit to reading it every day and putting it everywhere that you can look at, right? Law of attraction happens and you end up hitting the goal. Or you sat on audacious school and you end up doing 20 % more than you would have ever done anyway. You may go shy of the goal, but hit a target. So I think just the biggest concept is you're going to commit, commit, think, you know, commit to something that's realistic. A lot of people fail to do. But also think to like those guys like you and I who are a hundred percent, it's all in and all out. I'm either interested or I couldn't give a shit less about it and we'll never do it. We sabotage ourselves too because there's been plenty of times where I'm like all in on this idea, spend a shit ton of money, three weeks goes by and I'm like, eh, lost flavor, eh, yep, next. And then, you know, your wife, they're like, what the fuck are you doing, idiot? I told you. that's why I haven't closed on the boat yet. I keep flip-flopping. That's too much of a price tag for me to buy something and be like, fuck this. Yeah. fucking rack. Yeah, I mean, so I think internal reflection is in, you got to understand your ability to commit first and then tie that to the goal. If it's physical, be cautious, right? It's easier to add more shit to your plate than it is to take away shit because the reality is you take something away, you end up putting all of it. I love that you said that. Here's what I would challenge listeners, guys. If you are going to do that and everybody has a system that's going to work for them, wherever, I get that 75 heart isn't for everybody, right? I feel like everyone should go through it once in their life to understand because it'll make you a better person. However, if you know that's not for you, right? Think about adapting to this type of strategy. What is a habit or how? quickly can you implement a habit or make something a habit, right? If it's four weeks, then what I would suggest that you do, and I might actually just mess around and do this myself. I've never needed to do this because I just do 75 hard and those are all the habits I wanted, right? So I've already picked them up and I did some of them anyway. But if you're someone that's sitting there, hey, what can I do this year if I'm not going to do something like 75 hard to kick it off? but I want to be a completely different person by the end of the year. Maybe it's every single month you adapt a different habit, right? Or you create a different positive habit, or you eliminate a shit habit. Give you a example, right? Maybe right now you're not up to date on things or you feel like you wanna just come off as a little bit more intelligent. You wanna make better decisions. Maybe it's you reading every single night, whether that's 10 or 20 pages. And if you do that for a month straight, now it's a habit. All right. Month two. Let's say you're someone like I was, I used to love those little nicotine pouches and I, I hated fucking doing them in public. Now everyone does them in public. But when I started, I thought it was weird as fuck and I still think it's weird. I'm just being real with you. I'm not going to, the pouches, the pouches, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right? And I stopped that cold, I stopped the cold turkey and nicotine was a mother. Like, so that's something like month two, stop nicotine, right? Maybe month three, instead of drinking three nights a week, you cut it down to one or you cut one every other. There's ways to make these little improvements or make these things habits. And if you can systemize anything like that, right? What you're going to see is that every area of your life is going to get better. It might not happen all at once. You're going to make these slow and incremental changes. The point is, one, making sure that you're making them and making sure they stick and that you're consistent with them. And if you can do that, what you're then doing is you're constantly building and building and building a foundation that is ever evolving and getting better. And that foundation is actually yourself. All right. And now, after six months or after nine months, you don't even recognize yourself. You have the ability to make more money. right. Your family, okay, is starting to look at you differently, starting to treat you differently. All right. You're starting to see the relationships in your life become a lot more positive. All right. And are starting to see their private parts for the first time in a while because they're losing their gut. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, you could see yourself and not in a mirror. You don't have to look for it anymore. up. I couldn't let that pass. No, that's funny. I'm happy you didn't, actually. Yeah, but the reality is man like, you know, lot of people there's Bite-sized entry is great Doing something that is a little better than the thing prior to is a trap. So let me challenge that The drinking one night a week is the three nights a week. The drinking itself is the fucking common denominator to poor decisions on diet. Right? So like, then I've heard people say, well, you know, if, you know, if you're craving a Coke, get a diet Coke instead of a real Coke, cause it's a little better than a diet Coke or a normal Coke. And maybe it is in some caloric, you know, offset, but. It's still bad, right? And so here's the other component of that. If you're going to stair step your way off of it and cigarettes to zens, zen to nothing, you got to make sure you complete the last step. Go from the zen to the nothing. Go from the diet cokes to the nothing or to something better than the diet coke and then something better than that thing. Bro, am so, that is awesome. I love that you said that, cause I'm gonna just be real. And I haven't said this to anyone. We've never talked about this. The one thing that would keep me going back to some sort of nicotine is always that one time I have that cigar, right? It's always that, all right, I'm just gonna do this one thing. And then it's up, fuck, back. Now I got the Zin packs and now I got to wean off the Zin again and now I'm going to be a miserable motherfucker for the next two or three days around my house and I'm going to snap. Right? Like you force yourself back in there and I will tell you this, the process of me stopping the nicotine that has happened five or six times where I went to a cigar, back to the pouches, back to nothing. I'm at the stage right now where I can go on and off with a cigar without doing that. That was just me getting tired of going back to the pouches and just saying, you know what? I'm just going to say, fuck it. I'm just going to do it. I'm going to do it. Because the pouches actually made it harder than anything because the pouches, can do it anytime. Okay. And so a lot of these, I actually think it's an evil, evil thought from a lot of these vices, right? Like nicotine or booze. is they make it so readily accessible and that you can do it out in public and it's normal, right? That it makes it so much harder to quit because it's just so easy and so common. Yeah. All right. And so watch that stuff, guys. Like, I'm not perfect. have done, I have a lot of vices. I've just worked on myself for a very long time and this shit ain't easy. Like nobody enjoys anything that we're talking about. If you do, give you a round of applause. And I know how hard it is that you went through that. So, dude, but it's so worth it on that other side of it, right? I love not carrying around one or two of those cans with me at all times. Okay. worked shit for, I don't know, forever. And then I quit in 2000. 11, 12, 13, somewhere around there. But like, I see a can of Copenhagen wintergreen and I'm like, ooh, that would be delicious. But I know as soon as it touches the lip, I'll be at the gas station, try to blow it up, and then my wife will kill me. Yeah, you know, I think I quit after like my kid drank the second spit cup or some shit. I just threw up a little bit. I will, that's so nasty. But everyone's been there, right? Also, here's one thing I will tell you. I don't have a license, okay, for this, but here's something that has helped me in each one of my vices. Whatever vice that you have, understand what your triggers are for that vice. All right. And I'm going to, I'll walk you through this real quick and real easy, and hopefully it'll help you because if you understand what triggers the cravings, you can also break that cycle. All right. And this, this took me a very, very long time. All right. But think about when I was smoking my triggers, okay. Where if I was in the car. All right. I would want one. If I just after eating always. Okay. And anytime I was drinking, right? So those three things, if I knew I was going to be in those situations, that's when it's going to be the toughest point. That's when I'm going to get the craving, right? There are things that you can do to kind of shut that craving. Like when you feel that craving coming on. And this I actually got from one of the guys that was trying to help me quit nicotine is do something physical, right? If you get that urge to go grab a cigarette or a cigar, crank out a hundred pushups. If you still have that urge, then you probably, you you got to fight it. But that would help me eliminate that is do something super physical. And any one of those trigger points like drinking for me, okay, drinking any type of social setting where it was two plus people, right? Anything to do with business. I was going for that drink. 75 hard stop that. But it also allowed me to understand what was triggering me wanting to get a drink. Where was I? And then it's figuring out what can you do in lieu of that. Because if you're at a business function and you want to have a drink, you're not going to drop and do 100 pushups in the middle of the floor or the bar where everybody is. Okay. I get that. So understand what you can do instead. You can order club soda with a lime. All right. And a lot of times just physically holding that drink will take away that urge. Okay. work your son. Like there was some, I'll tell you this with the cigars, there's a company called Fume. It's the dumbest thing ever, but it works. They have something that looks about the size of a cigar or cigarette. You could pull through it and it's just flavored air. And all it's doing is satisfying two of those three physical things. And it's not actually giving you the nicotine and that holds it off. So why am I telling you this? Because I want you guys to be better. And if any of the things that have actually helped me stop these things or help me be better or help Keith be better helps. That's why we're sharing it with you. So hope that helped. I hope you guys absolutely fucking crushed 25. All right. Now I gave you a lot of personal shit here. Share this with two people. That's all I'm asking. That's it. Crush it guys. Appreciate it.