Doing the List of 75 Hard 5 Things
Jul 26, 2021
Show notes
Doing a list of five simple things is easy for one or two days. Doing it 75 days in a row is how you get things done… but it’s hard.
75 Hard is a life program developed by Andy Frisella. I learned about it on his podcast now called The Real AF.
I’ve now done a bunch of them and keep going because they made me better.
I originally started this blog and podcast to chronicle my journey. But I noticed that as a grew as a person through this program it made my kid and wife want to be better. And they worked to get better. Since I was already a podcaster at Modern Self Protection I kept going because I think we can change the world with this program.
I get better and share my journey and how I did it with you. You go on your own journey, improve, and the people around you will improve. If everyone in the world became a better person, we could make the world a better place.
The program as written: Do these 5 things for 75 days in a row, no break, no missing, and no cheats.
Read 10 pages a day out of a self-help or business book
Work out twice a day: At least one outside and both 45 minutes each
Stay on a perfect diet that includes no alcohol
Drink 1 gallon of water a day
Take a progress picture everyday.
I did the program in 2018 when it first came out. It was excruciatingly hard. In fact, it was as hard for me as Marine Corps boot camp was. In some ways harder. And it shaped me almost as much as boot camp. It changed me.
Now three years later, I haven’t achieved everything I want, but I’m getting there and enjoying life. My relationships with my friends and family are better than ever, I’m working on getting back in shape, I’m starting to look at things on my bucket list and plan them with my family, my career is on a way better track with an opportunity for exponential growth.
This program is teaching me the resilience and self-discipline that I want but cannot muster by myself.
Resilence and self-discipline are things you have to practice to be good at. This is how you do it. The 75 Hard Program.
This round, today is day 14 and I continue. It started painfully and by sheer force of will (I white-knuckled it). Now I’m cruising. That will change as soon as something hard happens in my life. And that is the secret of this program. In 75 days, life will happen to you. You’ll have something at work happen, there will be a vacation, you will have an emergency, something will happen. Do you stop or keep going?
Keep going is how you learn the discipline and grit that will help you in life.
This round I’m doing five things but cut the list by half a thing. I’m only working out once a day.
I might have been able to do the entire program as written (with 2 workouts), I was just scared I couldn’t do it with the new job that I’m trying to get spun up. So I’m doing a modified version and only working out once a day, but still drinking a gallon of water, reading, taking progress pics, and staying on a diet.
This program is hard but gives you lots of latitudes. You git to pick your diet, what workouts you do when, and what books you read. All of this is designed to make you better. And that’s what I want. I just want to be better. Better at everything: my relationships, my business and job, my fitness, and just life.
Check out the beginner’s guide I put together here if you need a hand getting started. But like Nike says, just do it.
Getting Started can be the Hardest Part: 75 Hard Day 3
Jul 15, 2021
Show notes
Do you ever have problems starting something in life?
Do you need to make it easy to start, or impossible to stay where you are?
Do you set yourself up for success or just white-knuckle it?
This is my fifth or sixth 75 Hard Challenge and I’m just finishing day 3. Normally I’m really excited in the beginning and takes a couple of weeks before I feel burned out or tired.
This time around, I didn’t even what to start. I know it’s good for me but I avoid it… or tried to.
Do you avoid things you know are good for you? Why?
I don’t know either.
I’ve studied all the self-help information on the topic and I can only find two things that might be the reason. I haven’t figured out which one it actually is, or if either holds true. Are you afraid of winning? or having the responsibility of winning? Or did you hit your upper limit?
Are you afraid of winning and/or the responsibility winning brings? If you do something, have a win in your life, or accomplish something big, you have to do it again. Can you do it again? Can you live up to people expecting more of you? Can you earn it every single day?
I’m reading “Winning” by Tim Grover and it is all about chasing the win, and about how winning doesn’t care about anything except the winner and the loser. And here we are, worrying about the problems of being a winner before we can even get into the game.
I know this was on my mind when I started this challenge. Can I really do it again? Lately, I’ve been lazy and eating badly. I’ve blamed it on a new, but that isn’t the reason, it’s the excuse.
Instead of dwelling on all that, I just started. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I’m moving forward. “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”
The other likely reason, the upper limit challenge, I first heard from Dan Miller of 48Days.com. He writes books, does podcasts, and training about life coaching. The theory is everyone has an upper limit of what they think they can achieve or deserve down deep in their being. Lots of people surpass that limit, but all of them stay there. When people pass that upper limit of what they believe they should have or achieve they do something that seems to wreck their lives and bring them back below that level of their belief.
I’ve seen this a lot in friends. You can see it in professional athletes that come out of poverty and then end up doing something stupid to lose their careers and all their money.
Give most homeless people a brand new car and in a couple of months, it will have broken windows, dents, and look like it belongs to a homeless person. That person’s upper limit was breached with the new car and they don’t know how to act.
Does either of these things ring true to you? Do you see any problems in your life that could be attributed to fear of winning or of getting more than you think you deserve?
Honor, Courage, Commitment; The Greatest is Commitment
Jun 20, 2021
Show notes
Honor, Courage, Commitment was the core values of the US Marine Corps while I was in. The greatest of these is the commitment to continue, to push forward, to win, and to complete anything.
The commitment to continue doing what you need to do to win, day in and day out without any visible sign of change, is how you change your life for the best.
Most people want one great thing, or one big push to become great in life. They are looking to score that last point in the final game for the big victory where people will carry them off on their shoulders and that will continue for the rest of their lives.
I know you are different. You are better. You want to be better or you wouldn’t be reading this article.
It is the commitment to doing the little things day in and day out that will make you great at what you want to do and be in life. No one thing will change you. It’s the refinement that commitment brings that makes you better.
If you want to be more physically fit, it’s going to the gym every training day and doing your best for weeks or months until you see a difference.
If you are trying to lose weight, it’s about doing that diet for a month before there is any change. And then continuing to do that diet just to stay where you are.
If you want to be great at business, it’s about reading lots of books and learning lots of things. When one starts making you money, do it again and again until it doesn’t work anymore. Then go find something new and do it again and again and again.
There aren’t very many secrets in life. Most things are simple, just not easy. If you want to be rich, investing a percentage of your income and doing it, again and again, is how Warren Buffet become one of the richest people in the world and manages more money than the wealth of some countries.
Very simple, just not easy. It takes work. Day in and day out. It takes commitment to continue doing that one thing when it seems like the entire world is on fire. You just have to keep doing it.
The 75 Hard challenge is here to help you gain that commitment by doing five things every day for 75 days. It will teach you to be committed to doing something. If you finish it, you will be better. If you fail, you will be worse. It’s simple, but it isn’t easy.
Ben Branam
P.S. I’m starting a 75 Hard Challenge Monday, July 12th. What to succeed with me? Download the beginner’s guide and prep yourself to do the work to gain self-disciple to win in life. Send me an email and let me know you are in. Go to here and sign up!
Success is a matter of working hard and effectively at the right thing. Simple. Just not easy… like most things in life.
Over the last couple of years I’ve started studying books, not just readying or listening to them. And then doing what the book says. It’s how and why I started 75 Hard.
Do you actually do what you read and hear? Me neither… most of the time.
Lately I’ve started doing those things. I’ve also started taking notes and going through the books multiple times. I want to do the things the author says.
I ready the book so that I could gain the wisdom of the author. I, like you, could probably figure it out on your own. But how long would it take you? It takes me forever to earn things the hard way. I’m trying to learn things the easy way.
The easy way to learn is from someone else’s mistakes. I hope that is why you are reading this. You can learn the easy way from all the things I’ve been learning the hard way.
What I have learned the last couple years is to do what the author says in their book. Some things suck. I tried tracking everything I did in 15 minute time blocks for a month. I still have the spread sheet. The only thing I learned is that I don’t get as much intimate time with my wife as I would like. Everything else was a waste of time for me.
Now I’m studying Tom Hopkins, The Official Guide to Success and really enjoying a lot of it. I listened to the book, read the book, and took notes, and now going over the notes to do what Tom says will make me successful.
I study to succeed. I’ve given up 15 to 30 minutes five times a week at lunch to do it and will continue doing it. It is making me better and more motivated to get other things done in my life.
Could you give up 15 to 30 minutes of your life (or just lunch) five times a week to make yourself better?
I guess there is the real problem. Will you take the time to put in the work to be successful? Most people won’t and it is why most people are not successful. I’m working to change that.
Now that you know, will you get after it?
Ben Branam
P.S. I’m starting a 75 Hard Challenge Monday, July 12th. What to succeed with me? Download the beginner’s guide and prep yourself to do the work to gain self-disciple to win in life. Send me an email and let me know you are in.
How to be More Disciplined in Your Life
May 23, 2021
Show notes
How to be more disciplined in your life by forgetting about discipline and just doing what needs to be done.
I spent 10 years in the United States Marine Corps and got to learn a lot about discipline the hard way. It was a way of life, but it wasn’t the kind of discipline most of you want in your life. But it is the kind we think about all the time. From first hand experience, it is the kind of discipline that sucks.
How to be more disciplined isn’t what you are really looking for. It’s more self discipline. If you just want more discipline in your life, hire a Marine NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) to stand there and yell at you all day. It isn’t a fun life. But, as Marines we did that kind of discipline so that we could do other things. I was in the infantry. Our job was “To locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, and to repel the enemy’s assault by fire and close combat.” We got the horrible discipline so that we could complete that horrible mission. And it worked. In combat in 2003 mine and my Marines discipline allowed us to overcome amazing odds and bring all of us back alive.
Even in the Marine Corps, we do discipline so we can accomplish other things. You need more discipline in your life to accomplish other things.
Here are the steps on how to get more disciplined in your life:
So stop focussing on the part that sucks. Don’t worry about getting more discipline.
Figure out what the little things you can do everyday to meet a life goal.
Make it easy to do that little thing every day.
See yourself as the person you want to be.
Stop Focusing on How to Be More Disciplined
When all you focus on the discipline, that is all you will get. Do you want to practice doing the practice to get what you want? Or do you want to do the things that will get you what you want?
When you focus on being more disciplined, that is practicing to practice.
I love the Simpsons. In one of my favorite episodes Bart is failing in school. He trades time with the smartest kid in school, Martin, to help him study and succeed. Martin spends all this time setting up an area to study in, making Bart sit there and just stair at the wall and his book. Not really studying, but practicing to study. All Bart wanted to do was be out doing what little boys do. Bart showed Martin how to do all the cool guy stuff in grade school. Once Martin did the pranks, ran with the other kids, and did kid stuff (way overblown in the episode because it’s the Simpsons), Martin had no other need for Bart or to help him. And Martin left.
Bart tries to study but doesn’t quite make it. It’s the little prodding by his sister when school was snowed out, that instead of going outside to play, he should be studying because it is what he prayed for. That’s when he finally hit the books. And he passes with great fanfare and craziness in the end.
Why are you focused on getting the discipline to sit there and do what you are suppose to do? Why are you practicing studying when you could be actually studying? Why are you thinking and stressing about being more disciplined when you could simply do it?
Stop focussing on the how to be more disciplined and focus on what you want to do to accomplish what you want.
What Little Thing Can you Do Every Day to Get What You Want?
No matter what you want in life, there is something that you could do every day to get closer to it. Most of the time it is the small things added up over time that make a big difference. There isn’t one big thing that gets us across the finish line. It’s that movie montage moment.
The hero of the story sits down to do the work. In Rocky he runs, works out, and eventually does the best ending ever by running up the steps and holding his hands up.
If you hit your goal, what would the montage look like to get there? That is what you should be focusing on.
Make it Easy
Make it easy to do the things in your montage every day.
Next week I’m changing my workouts again. I’m going to do an easy hike in the morning before work to get more exercise in, burn more calories, and get in some walking shape for a trip I’m doing in a couple months to Yosemite National Park.
So I turned back my alarm a half hour to get up to make sure I can get the time in. I set all my clothes next to the bed and my shoes next to the door. That way when I get up in the morning, I’m ready to go.
Making things as easy as possible to do every day is how you get your montage done. And by the end, you are the person running up the stairs and holding your hands up (figuratively of course).
See Yourself as That Person
The last thing is what you should be doing all the time. See yourself as the person that has already finished your montage. You are a worrier, an athlete, a professional at what ever you have chosen to do.
You become the person you want to be by telling yourself again and again you are that person. You want to be the best sales person in your office, set the goal and do those little things everyday to make it happen. Tell yourself constantly that you are the best sales person in the office.
You trick yourself into becoming that person by telling yourself you are that person. It’s simple psychology. How it works is to remind you of what you are to become constantly so you do the things you want to become that person.
If you always tell yourself you are the best sales person in the office and you’ve decided (like me) that you need to make 10 cold calls a day to sell your goal, you will make those 10 calls. Every time you think about not doing what you are suppose to, there will be a little voice asking you, is that what the best sales person in the office would do?
This always works to get me back on track.
Conclusion
What thing do you want to get more discipline in your life to accomplish? What are those little things you have to do to accomplish them? How can you make it easy for yourself to do those things? Can you see yourself as the person that accomplishes that goal?
Now write down that goal, skip being more disciplined, write down the little thing you most do every day to accomplish that goal, make it easy for yourself to do that thing, and see yourself as the person that accomplishes that goal.
Are You Riding the Wave of Success or Failure?
May 16, 2021
Show notes
Which wave are you riding?
Success and failure come in waves. You are either riding one or the other. You just can’t stay where you are. And it would be better to catch a wave in the direction you are headed.
The problem is tons of people catch the failure wave in lots of things they do in life. Are you on this wave? It starts with your mindset. Just like everything else in life, whether you think you can or you can’t, you are right.
For me, that mindset starts with focusing on the negativity of what I’m doing. I start thinking the worst in people around me, the institutions around me, and then myself. It’s a complete wave of crap that comes over me and to get off takes more effort to get off than on.
Once I’m on the negative wave I ride it down, down, down. And my life sucks because of it.
To go the other way, we have to start with positive thinking. You can do it. You see the best in people. And you enjoy being around them.
Simple right? Just not easy.
Start with thankfulness and saying good things about the people around you. Then move onto institutions, like your work. Say good things about them. There is always something good to say about them or you wouldn’t be there.
Then start doing the things you know will get you where you want to go.
Identify that location, and do the little things everyday. Again, simple, but not easy.
You can do it. Just get up and get after it.
If you aren’t dead, you can still achieve things you want in life.
Slipping: How to Get Back on Track
May 11, 2021
Show notes
I’m slipping, falling off the horse and need to get back up and try again.
At this point in my life, I’m not sure if it is easier or harder that I know I have done it in the past.
In the past, I’ve been in great shape. In the past, I’ve gone from obese to 18% or less body fat multiple times. In the past, I’ve been as strong as an ox. In the past, I could have accomplished anything physically.
So I know I can do it… or could have done it?
I’m not sure…
But here I am. The three fitness factors I look at aren’t getting much better. Or at least as fast as I want.
I’m putting on weight… which pisses me off.
I’m riding my bike at a slow pace with my friend and very, very slowly getting faster again.
I’m getting stronger in the gym… but very, very, very slowly. And painfully.
I don’t remember it taking that long before?
The question is what to do about it? When you hit platoes, which is the nice way to say no longer moving forward what do you do?
Do you give up and just go backwards? Do you double down on what you are doing now? Do you hire someone to fix what you can? Do you get a coach?
The answer is change. Something has to change or you will continue to get what you have gotten in the past.
You have to let the past go. What you could have done doesn’t matter to the here and now. What matters now, is what you can do and what you can grow into.
Live in the present. The past just shows us what has, hasn’t, and is working. What I’m doing right now isn’t working the way I want so I’m changing.
I’m back on a diet I can stick to. It is not great, but better then it was. I’m doubling down on my workouts and changing them. I’m going to the gym four times this week and going for at least one long ride this weekend. But at the gym I’m adding 10 to 15 minutes on the stationary bike. And working into intervals in another week.
All this should help me lose weight, get stronger, and ride faster.
What is the one area in your life that you really want to make better? Break it down into the two or three measurable things you can quantify. I want to lose weight. So I step on the scale everyday. I also want to get stronger and that is all about getting more weight on the bar for four big lifts (bench, squat, dead life, and press). I also am watching the pace of my one hour rides. I’m trying to get that average MPH to go up.
Find those measurable verables and then track them. Write it down and review it. If you are moving in the right direction, smile and keep going. If things are going in the wrong direction, change what you are doing.
You are the only one that can change you. I’m old, fat, and out of shape. I can fix two out of three of those.
How to be Successful in Life
May 02, 2021
Show notes
Do you know how to be successful in life?
Success is what you make of it and what you decide it is.
You define what success is. My kid keeps telling me we should be billionaires. I’m not going to be that successful. It’s not what I’m shooting for. Maybe I just don’t have an imagination.
I am trying to be and become more successful in many areas of my life.
Last week I started reading “The Official Guide to Success” by Tom Hopkins. It’s an oldie but a goody. The first chapter gives the secret I’m working on right now.
It’s very simple. Decide how you want to be successful in life and then trick your mind into doing the things that will bring that about. It’s about changing your identity in your mind towards that thing so you will do the things to become that in your mind.
One of the areas I’m working on in my life is being more physically fit. It want to be in fighting shape again. To do that, I must become an athlete again.
I’m tricking myself into thinking I’m an athlete so I do what athletes do. Athletes don’t miss workouts. They don’t eat food that is bad for them, and they are always being active. These things will get me back into fighting shape.
To trick yourself into a different Identity you have to tell yourself every day, multiple times a day, that you are that thing. And as that thing, you do these things and not those.
Tom Hopkins says to make flashcards and carry them around with you. I’ve been doing this and it feels like it is working.
My diet has been better this week and I haven’t missed a workout.
Many gurus and self-help people have said this for years. Zig Ziglar had a self-talk card that you can still get from his organization. It didn’t work for me because most of what he defines on the card, I either already do, or don’t care about.
Tom Hopkin says make 10 to 20 cards of things you want to accomplish. Then every morning, at lunch, and before you go to bed review them.
Make the cards so they are in your voice and have you with the identity that you want already. Talk about how it will feel, what you will do, and do not do as that person that has accomplished that thing.
My Athlete card says “I am an athlete. I work out and eat like one to lift more weight in the gym and ride my bike faster.” Right now bike riding and gym time are what I’m doing. When I change workouts, I’ll change my card.
The card-making me write this post says “I am a podcaster and record multiple per week to grow an audience and help more people.” It’s part of my plan to make the world a better place… Just help people be better, and they will help the people around them be better, and sooner or later, the world will be a better place.
So what will you put on your cards? What do you want to be? What do you want to be good at? What do you want to be better at? Say “I am blank, because I do this, this and this. By being good at blank, I will have/feel/get/help this.”
Make yourself 10 to 20 of these cards. Write it down, no computer crap. Something about writing it on paper and then seeing it in your own writing makes it more real.
Then get about doing it. If you review these every day, three or four times, you will find it hard to lie to yourself and you will change for the better.
F*ck Google and Anything Else that Gets in Your Way
Apr 08, 2021
Show notes
There will always be something that gets in your way. Go around, through, over, or destroy it to meet your objective.
Over the last two weeks, I’ve been letting a stupid ruling by Google stop me from writing on this blog.
I was actually making a little more money on Google Adsense than it costs me to run this blog. It wasn’t big money, but it was nice to have. I was profiting about $50 a month. Enough for a nice dinner.
Then Google again said there was a problem with my ads and they demonetized me. There is no reason or appeal. Then a month later it would come back.
I delinked my other blog (on shooting) thinking that was what was getting me into trouble. It worked a little. I was able to run ads again. But then when I started making money on it. I was going to have a good month of $200 of revenue. My best month ever with Google. I got the problem sign from them again. This time it said something about driving “bad” traffic to my site.
I don’t advertise. I don’t post this blog anywhere. I just do a little google-fu for search traffic. I just use highly searched terms in the title, first sentence, and images.
So I don’t know what they are talking about.
And I gave up… actually let that be my excuse not to write. Life got busy and I let laziness get in the way of helping you.
So I got angry. Hence the title of the post.
I learned over 20 years ago in Boot Camp to become a U.S. Marine. To get through impossible things get jumping up and down excited about what you were doing, or get angry at something and let that rage burn into something that pushes you forward.
So here I am, F*CK GOOGLE and anything else that will get in my way.
You should have the same attitude: F*CK anything that will get in your way of doing something great and becoming great.
We all slip and slide from time to time. It is about getting back up and breaking through any and all challenges. And to do that I get angry sometimes and push through.
Try it the next time you are facing something that seems impossible. Get really excited about doing it. Like jumping up and down you are about to win the Super Bowl excited. Or get angry that something is trying to take your greatness from you.
Sometimes burning the boats is how to get things done.
Getting productive things done is always the challenge of every person that wants to be great.
But what is productive? And how do we get them done?
I’m reading The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco and had an epiphany. It’s a good book if you want to be rich. And it is helping me get motivated to get things done.
My epiphany was on what to get done, and how to measure what is productive.
I’ve been working on “side-hustles” on the web for about a decade now with a little success… sort of. It is springing me into a good life doing other things. And has helped me get jobs to make a living for about half that time.
But while reading the book section about getting things done and playing chess instead of checkers, MJ DeMarco said let the market decide, “Put your executed ideas and concepts out into the world and let it tell you.”
It’s about beginning with the end in mind. What do you want? Then putting an executed idea out and try it. Measure your success or failure, and iterate. That’s it.
You want to be more physically fit. Find a way to measure that. Want to lose weight, step on the scale, try something for a week, and then step on the scale again. If the weight goes down, keep doing what you are doing. If it goes up, do something else.
You want more money. Try something to make money. If it works, do more of that. If it doesn’t work, do something else.
Life is about doing something and seeing if it works. Then do more or less of that.
You can shortcut it a little by reading and listening to people that have come before you and doing what they have done. That’s why I read books, listen to the podcast, ask questions of people that have more success than me, and do this website.
This is all about motivating you to make you better. And as you get better, the people around you get better. And the people around them. Pretty soon, we can make the world a better place by simply making ourselves better.
If you want to learn or practice grit and determination. Do the 75 Hard Challenge. If you need a little motivation, just sign up for the emails to get new content every week.
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