This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 307 Five simple questions that'll make you five times more successful. Part 2 by Marc Sharon off of marketingangel.com get ready to maximize your potential with Optimal Living Daily, the podcast that brings you the best in personal development and productivity every day of the week. Your optimal life awaits. Now here's your host, Justin Mollick.
Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to Optimal Living Daily. Happy Thursday. If you're listening in real time, I'm Justin Moloch.
This is the podcast where I read you from amazing bloggers like the minimalist Ramit Sethi, Leo Bowdof, Zan Hattitz, Steve Pavlina, and Derek Servers on topics like personal developments, productivity, minimalism, happiness and more. And today's a part two from yesterday. I started reading a post from the super popular personal development bloggers and couple Mark and Angel. That was yesterday, so if you want today's show to make a lot more sense, you'll probably want to hear that episode first.
That's episode 306 and I'll be giving away their book to someone random this weekend. By the way, all you have to do to participate is send a special tweet tomorrow, which I'll tell you more about at the end of this episode. So for now, let's hear the rest of their posts as we optimize your life. Five simple questions that'll make you five times more successful Part 2 by Mark Chernoff of MarkAndAngel.com Number 3 what meaning am I assigning to my challenges?
Even when we're being positive, we all have challenges. There's no escaping that. But how you feel about your life has little to do with the events in it or what has or hasn't happened to you. The meaning you assign to these things controls the quality of your life.
Most of the time. However, you may be unaware of the effect of your unconscious mind in assigning meaning to life's events. So check in with yourself when something happens that disrupts your life. An illness, an injury, a job loss, etc.
Do you tend to think that this is the end or the beginning? If someone confronts you, is that person insulting you, coaching you, or trying to take care for you? Does a big problem mean that God is punishing you or challenging you? Or is it possible that this problem isn't really a problem at all, but an opportunity?
Bottom line, when something negative happens, give the circumstances a chance to learn something you didn't know. Don't wish it never happened. Don't try to step Back in time. Take the lessons learned and step forward.
You have to tell yourself, it's okay. I'm doing okay. You need to know that it's better to cross new lines and suffer the consequences of a lesson learned from time to time than to just stare the lines for the rest of your life and always wonder. Also keep in mind that the past, even when troubled, is invaluable to your present.
It provides a solid foundation for everything you're doing now. Learn from it, the mistakes and the successes, and then let it go. This process might seem easier said than done, but it depends on your focus. The past is just training.
It doesn't define you. In this moment, think about what went wrong, but only in terms of how it will help you make things right. When we shift our habitual focus and meanings, there's no limit on what life can become. A change of focus and a shift in meaning can literally alter our biochemistry and the trajectory of our lives in a couple minutes flat.
Read Awaken the Giant Within. So take control and always remember, meaning equals emotion and emotion equals power. Choose wisely. Find an empowering meaning in any event, and best will always be yours for the taking.
And that leads right into the next question. Number four what will I do next to progress? While everyone else is talking about it, successful people are quietly doing it. I've said it before and I'll say it again.
It doesn't matter if you have a genius IQ and a PhD in quantum physics. You can't change anything or make any sort of real world progress without taking action. There's a huge difference between knowing how to do something and actually doing it. Knowledge and intelligence are both useless without action.
It's as simple as that. Successful people know that a good plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed someday. They don't wait for the right time or the right day or the right impossible circumstances because they know these reactions are based on fear and nothing more. They take action here and now, today, because that's where real progress happens.
Angel and I discuss this in detail in the Goals and success chapter of 1000 Little Things. Happy, successful people do differently. Number five what tangible reminders do I need to see to stay motivated? You want to lose weight, but when you're tired, it's easy to rationalize that you start exercising and eating right tomorrow.
You want to build a more profitable business, but when you're caught up in the daily grind, it's easy to just do what's familiar instead of what's required for growth. You want to nurture your closest relationships. But when you're busy, it's easy to rationalize that you really need to work on that client's proposal instead. Few good things come easy, and when going gets tough, we often take the easy way out, even though the easy way takes us the wrong way.
To combat this, successful people create tangible reminders that pull them back from the brink of their weak impulses. A friend of ours who has paid off almost $100,000 of debt in the past five years has a copy of his credit card balance taped to his computer monitor. It serves as a constant reminder of the debt he wants to pay off. Another friend keeps a photo of herself when she was 90 pounds heavier on her refrigerator as a reminder of the person she never wants to be again.
And another fills his desk with family photos, both because he loves looking at them and because when work gets really tough, these photos remind him of the people he's ultimately working for. Think of moments when you're most likely given to impulses that take you farther away from your ultimate goals. Then use tangible reminders of those goals to interrupt the impulse and keep you on track. Afterthoughts now that you're aware of the power of these five questions and their subsequent decisions, start looking for role models for experiencing what you want out of life.
When we observe someone we want to learn from and we have a crystal clear idea of what we want to create for ourselves, it unlocks a tremendous amount of motivation. Human beings are socially inclined, and when we get the idea that we want to join some elite circle up above us, that is what really motivates us to achieve greatness. Look, they did it. I can do it too.
And yes, you can do it too. It may sound overly simplistic, but when you spend enough days asking yourself the right questions and you spend enough evenings studying people who have been where you want to go, you'll gradually clear a pathway to create the positive change you desire in life. You just listened to Part 2 of the post titled 5 Simple Questions that'll Make youe 5 Times More Successful by Mark Sharonov of MarketingAngel.com I'm constantly thinking about how to optimize my health. What supplements to take hours of sleep, what my diet should focus on.
Superpower finally takes the guessing out of it. One simple lab test covers over 100 biomarkers, and our app gives you a complete picture of your heart, liver, hormones, metabolism, even environmental toxins. Plus, it usually costs $499. Right now it's just $199 and head to superpower.com and use code old at checkout for an additional $20 off your membership.
And their book was mentioned in that post and it's a big book. I got 10 of them to give away to you. And I'll be doing the first giveaway this weekend to a random person who helps me out and and actually helps all the listeners of the show out by tweeting me and Tim Ferriss in the same tweet, asking Tim for permission to have his blog read here on this podcast. He's incredibly difficult to get hold of.
I've tried and I really just want a response, even if it's a no, because his content is a great fit for the show and I think we'd all benefit if I read it to you. So tomorrow afternoon or evening Pacific time, I'm trying to get people to tweet at him and tag me in it, asking him for permission and maybe he'll get his attention. I really don't think a lot of people will do this, but it'd be awesome if he can help again. As incentive, I'll be giving away a copy of Marking Angel's book to a random person who does this, but also a copy of Tim's super popular book, the Four Hour Workweek, which is my personal copy, by the way.
So two books up for grabs, and if you want a really good chance to win, just Tweet TFerriss with two Rs and two Ss and also include me in that tweet, which is oltpodcast, and and ask him if I can read his blog on the podcast. Simple as that. But if that's complicated or you won't remember, the best thing to do is join my mailing list, because I'll email instructions tomorrow morning. You can [email protected], just send your email address there or text the word optimal to the number 44222 for a faster way to join.
So please help out. We can get Tim's attention, I know we can if we get enough people to do this. So, yeah, thanks in advance. And I hope we get some kind of response from him tomorrow or sometime after.
And that wraps up today's episode. Thank you so much for listening through all the way to the end. And I'll see you tomorrow, same time and same place where your optimal life awaits. Hey, this is Dan from the Optimal Finance Daily podcast, which is a lot like this show, except more focused on personal finance.
Justin handpicks the best posts he can find from blogs and authors like Ramit Sethi, Mr. Money Mustache, and more, and I read them to you five days a week. So if you enjoy this podcast, come on over and subscribe to Optimal Finance Daily too, and together we'll optimize your financial life. You've been listening to Optimal Living Daily.
Be sure to hit the subscribe button to stay up to date on each new episode. And head to oldpodcast.com that's oldpodcast.com for a free gift as well as more actionable tips and resources to help you maximize your potential. Thanks for joining us. And remember, your Optimal life awaits.