069: the Enemy of Greatness Podcast

#069: The Enemy of Greatness

October 20, 2014 ______Introduction

● The 5 am Miracle - Episode #069: The Enemy of Greatness [Intro Song]

● Good morning and welcome to the 69th episode of The 5 AM Miracle. ● I am Jeff Sanders and this is THE podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast. ● Every Monday morning my goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy. ● Here on The 5 AM Miracle Podcast we discuss early mornings, but we also dive much deeper into topics like healthy habits, personal development, and rockin’ productivity! ● This week I discuss the enemy of greatness -- that strong force holding you back from living to the fullest. ● But first, if you consider yourself a productivity junkie, then I think you’re going to love my new ebook, 10 Miracles. ● 10 Miracles is a short eBook that highlights my Top 10 Tools for Productivity Junkies. ● I personally use and LOVE all of these tools and I think you will too. ● To get your free copy of the eBook and audiobook, visit 10Miracles.com. ● Now, let’s begin with the Tip of the Week! [Fade Music Up and Out]

● Now, this week’s Tip is to schedule your hardest daily activities (the mentally challenging ones) immediately after your daily workout.

● "Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain" by John Ratey, MD.

● Study found that students who exercised early in the day did best in their classes immediately after the workout, compared to students in the same classes who did not exercise.

● My Ideal Week schedules my hardest work for the day right after my morning workout.

● The key here is to workout every morning, especially aerobic activity that elevates your heart rate, and plan to do mentally challenging work soon after the workout. [World Music Interlude]

● Today’s discussion is about greatness and the obstacles to achieving greatness.

● I will define greatness today as the active pursuit of your potential. ● Greatness is not a finite position, or end goal. ● It is a process.

● You achieve greatness by becoming the highest and best version of yourself on a daily basis. ● This is not about the perception others have of you -- but of how you decide to live your life every day. ● This is how Earl Nightingale defined success, as the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. ● In other words, if you actively and consistently work towards inspiring and challenging goals, you are successful and you are living a great life.

● The enemy of greatness is comfort. ● I argued before, in episode #53, that FOCUS is the #1 most important skill in the 21st century and that distractions were the greatest enemy to focus. ● Well, comfort is a distraction. ● Comfort causes you to lose focus. ● Your brain’s natural desire is comfort, tradition, and sameness -- which is why habits can become so powerful and automatic. ● It takes real work to overcome your natural tendencies and avoid comfort, which ultimately holds you back from growth. ● Comfort does not assist in your growth, it actively works against you. ● Examples of comfort include . .

○ 1. Physical: eating fatty foods, drinking alcohol, etc. etc.

○ 2. Financial: borrowing money to buy something when you could have saved for it instead.

○ 3. Mental: watching TV and playing games on your phone, instead of challenging your brain to think.

○ 4. Emotional: staying home instead of going to be a party or conference in order to avoid the awkwardness of meeting new people.

● A powerful ally of greatness, or the opposing force to comfort, is masochism. ● Masochism is “the enjoyment of what appears to be painful or tiresome.” ● You enjoy the pain, at least to a degree. ● You overcome the tendency to lean towards comfort by training your masochism muscles and, in effect, enjoy the likely painful process of growing into the higher and better version of yourself. ● You literally grow into and become a new person and that process can certainly be painful, challenging, and difficult as you stretch and grow while you gain new skills, insights, and knowledge. ● In order to attract the kind of success and achievement you’re looking for, you will have to become a new person.

● The process of training your masochism muscles is a series of habits. ● It is a habitual process to do small things every day in many areas of life, which eventually lead to significant growth in the long run. ● What hurts today, may not hurt at all in the future because your muscles will have grown strong and powerful.

● I’m NOT arguing that you will actually become the kind of person who enjoys pain, but I am arguing that you can strengthen your ability and resolve to push through when times get tough, instead of backing off or giving up altogether. ● Here are 4 examples of how to train your masochism muscles, in different areas of life, in order to actively repel comfort and achieve greatness:

○ 1. Physical: story of my running after Prague -- built up my pain threshold and enjoyed it

○ 2. Financial: saving money and saying no to stuff you want right now -- training yourself to delay gratification

○ 3. Mental: persevering through an all-nighter -- training yourself to study harder and focus longer

○ 4. Emotional: open up share your thoughts, feelings, and ideas with others -- training yourself be vulnerable, which creates deeper relationships Masochism and Productivity How masochism makes you more productive: ● You will get more done if you have stronger muscles and can repel the distraction of comfort. ● You can be more productive if train yourself to build the energy, systems, and muscles to do the hard work every day. Action Step:

● Here is ONE thing you could do right away to begin repelling comfort and training your masochism muscles. ○ Get up right away when your alarm goes off in the morning. ○ It’s comfortable to stay in bed. ○ But, getting out of bed is the first step in your day to becoming the newer and better you. [Opening Night Music]

● I want to announce our NEW Patron of The 5 AM Miracle Podcast: Sharon Caughman. ● Sharon began supporting this podcast through my campaign on a service called Patreon. ● With Patreon you can specify a donation amount for the show AND receive a cool gift in return. ● If that sounds like something you would want to do, you can learn much more about this at JeffSanders.com/patron. ● That’s JeffSanders.com/p-a-t-r-o-n. [Fade In Music] ● If you have been looking for a way to connect with other ambitious early risers, I think you would love The 5 AM Miracle Community group on Facebook. ● This community group is unique because everyone is highly motivated to help everyone else achieve their goals. ● Don’t worry, you don’t have to wake up at sunrise to join this group. ● Just visit JeffSanders.com/community and I will approve your request to join within 24 hours. ● Once again, that’s JeffSanders.com/community.

● Also, when you join The 5 AM Club at 5amMiracle.com, I will send you a free copy of the 10 Miracles eBook and audiobook, as well as a free copy of The 5 AM Miracle eBook and audiobook, PLUS you will get the show notes of every episode emailed to you every Monday morning. ● Visit 5amMiracle.com to join The 5 AM Club today!

● And if you have become a fan of this podcast and would like to spread the love, nothing would help me more than a great rating and review in iTunes. ● Every week I see amazing new comments from fans all over the world and it helps this show so much when people just like you review the podcast. ● Visit JeffSanders.com/itunes to leave your review right now.

● As always, if you would like to see the complete list of the links I mentioned in this episode, please visit the show notes page at JeffSanders.com/69, as in Episode 69.

● Finally, next week on the podcast I will be interviewing Warren Benedetto, the developer of StayFocusd, a Chrome Browser Extension that blocks time-wasting websites like Facebook, Reddit, or the New York Times. ● Warren and I will be discussing why so many people can benefit from blocking key websites that distract them every single day.

● If you have a question about staying focused, or any other question that you’d love me to answer here on the podcast, please leave me a voicemail message at JeffSanders.com/podcastquestion.

● Well, that's it for this episode of The 5 AM Miracle Podcast. ● Until next time remember, you have the power to change your life, and the fun begins bright and early. [Fade Out Music]