Well, happy new year 2025.
Welcome to the Inside BS show.
This is your daily dose of Dave on
the Inside BS channel, and today is the
first day of 2025, and I'm glad that
you're with me.
Thanks for joining me.
We're actually on a walk with my big
dog Andy right now, and the reason that
you're with me on a walk with my
big dog is because I've made a commitment
to 2025.
Well, actually, the commitment is to myself.
It's not to the year, but the commitment
is that I'm going to create content on
this channel every day in 2025, and the
reason that I'm doing that is because my
mission is to add as much value to
the lives of entrepreneurs as possible.
That means that I want you to have
the best entrepreneurial journey you possibly can.
For some of you, that means creating wealth.
For some of you, that means developing a
business that enables your lifestyle.
For some of you, that means taking your
business that you currently have that's already financially
successful and making it an investment that can
run without you that you can pass on
to family and friends or that you could
sell for a windfall that will create generational
wealth for you and those that come after
you.
This show is always going to be about
Nicola, Nikki G, and I helping you take
your business, take your life to the next
level.
Every Wednesday on the show will be the
Inside BS show with The Godfather and Nikki
G, and all the other days will be
content like this where I'm helping you start
your day efficiently and effectively.
You'll get a show like this every single
day, 6 a.m. East Coast time, so
you can start your day with me.
Sometimes the shows will be 15 minutes.
Sometimes the shows will be longer.
Sometimes I'll bring on a guest to talk
to them.
Sometimes it'll just be you and me walking
my dog like it is right now with
a giant school bus picking up a kid
next to us.
Today, I want to talk to you about
how to get your year off to the
best start possible.
I want to talk to you about how
to get your year off to the fastest
start possible.
This is based on what I've learned, of
course, over my 35 years of business experience,
over my 56 years on planet earth, but
it's also based on some habits that I've
created that have made me more successful just
in the last 12 months.
That's the theme of today's show.
If you want to make 2025, if you
want to make the next 365 days the
best 365 days of your life, the best
habits that produce results that compound so that
your success is put on autopilot.
I'll be candid with you because that's what
this show is all about, me sharing a
conversation with you every day.
I'll be candid with you and I'll tell
you that I just rediscovered this and it
just clicked for me in the last 12
months.
My journey the last year, my journey in
2024 is one that has shown me how
I can have more success in 12 months
than I've had in 25 years.
And it's all about creating habits and in
business systems and processes that enable success.
Let me give you a couple of examples.
In 2025, I decided that I wanted to
make permanent changes to my health.
I was on a blood pressure medication because
my blood pressure had been high ever since
the first time that I had COVID.
But honestly, it wasn't COVID.
COVID was a contributing factor.
It was being overweight that had caused my
blood pressure to be consistently elevated.
Also, I had been on a statin cholesterol
medication for years and my cholesterol, even on
the cholesterol medication, was always pushing the upper
limits.
It was within the normal range, but it
was always pushing the upper limits.
So I had measurable outcomes that I could
look at and I could set goals based
upon.
So I wanted to normalize my blood pressure
below 120 over 80.
And I wanted to normalize my cholesterol and
reduce the medication that I was taking.
The other thing that I wanted to do
is I wanted to improve my productivity.
I wanted to get more done on a
daily basis.
I don't believe in measuring productivity over the
course of months or years.
I believe in measuring productivity over the course
of days.
So I set for myself three things that
I want to accomplish every day.
And at the end of the day, I
look and I say, did I accomplish the
three things I set out to do this
morning?
At the end of the week, I have
21 things I want to accomplish over the
course of the week.
And I look at my notebook where I
track things and I say at the end
of the week, did I get the 21
things done that I had set out to
do this week?
And for me, more often than not, I
was getting 15 things of the 21 in
a good week.
I wasn't getting the full 21 things done
in the course of the week.
So I wanted to figure out how I
could improve my productivity on a weekly basis.
So those were two things that I wanted
to do.
And by the time we had gotten to
May of 2024, I was frustrated because my
health outcomes weren't improving and my productivity was
actually getting worse because I was distracted.
I was scattered.
I was putting out fires left and right.
So I wanted to figure out what was
wrong.
And I looked at all different types of
productivity systems.
And I looked at change management.
I took online courses.
And what I started to realize was that
I was looking at the picture from too
far out.
I was looking at the picture from 30
,000 feet when I should have been looking
at the picture from six inches away.
And what that means is the choices we
make from minute to minute during the course
of each day have an impact on the
overall outcome of that day.
Or even more importantly, the choices we make
for each minute have an impact on the
outcome of that hour.
And the outcome of that hour has an
impact on the overall day.
What does that mean?
Well, let's take productivity, for example.
If you sleep eight hours, or for the
average adult, between seven and nine hours, if
you sleep between seven and nine hours each
night, you're going to be able to think
more clearly.
You're going to be able to accomplish more
during the course of the day.
We think, oh, well, I'll cheat myself on
sleep.
I'll sleep four or five hours and I'll
get more done during the course of the
day.
And that's actually not true.
It actually hurts your productivity when you do
that.
So I said to myself, what choice can
I make in the moment that will impact
my sleep?
And you would think, okay, I'll get up
later is the choice you make.
But we can't control that.
You stop sleeping when you stop sleeping.
What you can control is when you go
to bed.
So the first choice that I made was
I made a commitment to myself that 10
o'clock every night, seven days a week,
I would be in bed with my head
on the pillow trying to sleep.
Now, for the first, I don't know, seven
to ten days, if you're used to going
to bed at midnight, it's a stretch.
You're laying in bed awake and not able
to sleep.
But eventually you adjust and you've developed a
habit now of going to bed at 10
p.m. every night.
And if you go to bed at 10,
you can wake up at five or six
and be fully refreshed and ready to go
the next morning.
So the choice, the habit of going to
bed at a consistent time every night reprogrammed
my entire sleep cycle, which made me more
productive.
And that led to me thinking, what other
changes can I make that will improve my
outcomes that I'm looking to drive?
On Father's Day, 2024, I made the decision
that I was no longer going to drink
alcohol.
And my rationale for that was productivity.
For whatever reason, I am not a two
glass of wine guy.
I'm more like a two bottle of wine
guy.
And so the choice to drink alcohol was
one that would kill my productivity the next
day.
So my focus had to be on stopping
that behavior.
Now, there was some concerns that I had
with this.
What will people's perception of me be?
Will I be able to interact in a
social situation without the reduced inhibition that alcohol
provides?
Is this going to be something that I
can keep doing for the long term?
So in order to make this happen, I
knew that I had to change my thinking
from what I was going to be missing
out on to what I was going to
gain by making this change.
And the way to do that is to
use the modern tools that are available to
all of us.
So what I did was I started Googling
what happens to your brain six weeks after
you stop drinking alcohol?
What happens to your brain six months after
you stop drinking alcohol?
What happens to your blood pressure six days
after you stop drinking alcohol?
What happens to your blood pressure six weeks,
six months after you stop drinking alcohol?
And I started doing research that confirmed what
I thought, what I suspected would be true
all along, that there is no benefit from
a health and productivity standpoint to drinking.
There's only detriment.
And the benefits come.
The better outcomes come when you stop this
behavior.
So rationally, in my mind, it made complete
sense.
And once I made that decision, I never
turned back.
And before I went to social situations, at
least in the first three or four months,
and now occasionally I still do this, before
I go into social situations, I will watch
those videos about the benefits of not drinking.
And I will make a list on paper
with a pen of the reasons why I've
decided not to do this behavior.
I review the list, and I have no
desire to drink.
So once I've started with these two habits,
going to bed at a consistent time, giving
up drinking alcohol, I thought to myself, how
else can I improve my health outcomes?
And I thought, eating.
My eating habits have to change.
So I did some research on foods and
groups of foods and types of foods.
I consulted with my doctor.
I actually have a friend who's a nutritionist.
I checked with her.
And I began making lists of foods that
I liked that would contribute to the outcomes
I was looking to achieve.
High fiber foods were the result.
A reduction in red meat.
A reduction in calories.
And I created an eating plan with enough
variety to keep me satisfied.
So my idea of variety may be different
than yours, but I created an eating plan
that followed that pattern with a specific amount
of calories every day that I knew I
could burn that would result in the loss
of about a pound a week.
And I thought to myself, hey, if I
lose 20, 25 pounds, my health outcomes will
be better.
And a pound a week doesn't seem like
that much.
And I began on this journey.
And I purposely began shopping for my own
food.
And this is a critical habit that I
have to tell you made all the difference
to me.
I make the choice of what to buy
in the supermarket.
I make the choice of how to prepare
it.
And I make the choice of putting it
in my mouth.
I own those choices.
And when you realize that you own all
of those choices all along the way, you
realize that you can have an impact on
the outcome.
So for me, those habits, shopping in the
supermarket myself three to four days a week.
And by the way, the frequency of going
to the supermarket is an important part of
the habit.
Shopping in the supermarket three or four days
a week for the food, doing the work
that was going to make me healthier, preparing
the food, doing the work that was going
to make me healthier, those habits at the
same time every day, that contributed to the
weight loss of 40 pounds in six months,
blood work that is completely and totally within
normal guidelines, unmedicated.
I was able to go off blood pressure
medication.
I was able to cut my statin in
half.
And we're going to attempt to eliminate it
completely.
And then the final piece of this puzzle
from a health perspective was exercise.
And I know you're thinking, oh, Dave, you
know, just make time to go to the
gym every day.
Well, you know, my life is busy, but
I don't have time.
And I thought I don't have time to
go to the gym.
But I do have time to walk my
dogs every day.
Each of my dogs, I walk them separately.
I walk every day.
And I thought to myself, okay, here's what
I'm going to do.
I'm going to incorporate the dog walking into
a routine where I walk the dogs each
a mile in the morning.
So that's two miles in the morning, each
a mile in the evening.
That's two miles in the evening.
And to incorporate it into my schedule, my
phone calls that need to be, that I
need to take, I will take some of
those phone calls while I'm walking the dog.
This is what I'm doing today.
I'm recording this podcast with you right now
with a ridiculous goofy looking headset as I
walk around my neighborhood with my dogs.
But I'm getting the habit done.
I promised you and I promised myself that
I would do a podcast show every day
today because of my schedule.
The way I will fit it in is
by recording this episode while walking my dog
around my neighborhood.
It is more important to me to reinforce
the habit than it is to have fantastically
clean audio quality on the show.
So striving for progress and not perfection is
another lesson here.
So the point to take away as we
go into 2025 is that your habits will
determine your outcomes in this year and every
year that follows.
So I want you to make a list
today of your outcomes, five outcomes that you
want for 2025.
And then I want you to reverse engineer
those outcomes.
And your mission for the next 365 days
is to think about the habits that will
lead to those outcomes.
And here's the thing about habits.
If your current habits aren't working for you,
you change the habits.
And you can change during the course of
the year at any point.
My weight loss journey is a great example.
When I first started, my weight loss journey
on my list were protein bars and chicken
breast.
And what I found is that chicken breast
takes a longer time to prepare than, say,
salmon or eating sardines out of a can.
So there are days when I don't have
time to prepare the chicken breast.
So what I do is I just eat
salmon out of the can.
It takes no preparation time.
I pull the lid off.
I'm sorry, sardines out of the can, not
salmon.
I pull the lid off the sardines and
I eat them and I've achieved my protein
goal for the day.
I like the taste of them.
Some people don't, but I do.
I achieve my protein goal for the day.
I get my essential oils and my vitamin
D through the sardines.
And it's all done in about 10 minutes
rather than half hour that I don't have
to prepare the chicken.
So you adjust your habits if you're not
getting the outcomes that you want.
Am I going to record a podcast on
my walk with my dog every day?
Most likely no.
Will it happen one day a week if
that's what fits into my schedule?
Sure, absolutely.
Will I be recording these shows from an
airport?
Absolutely.
I'm probably going to have to record some
of these from an airport.
It's just where I'm going to be when
I'm going to do it.
And if I'm going to get an episode
out every day, if I'm going to be
able to create this content every day, it
has to fit into my schedule.
It has to fit into my work life.
Is this content less valuable for you because
I'm creating it while I'm walking my dog?
No, but I'm not creating it for you.
I am creating it for you, but I'm
also creating it for myself.
So the fact that I'm going to be
able to look back on this in 365
days and say, man, when I started this,
it was really profound that I was able
to work it into my routine.
I'm willing to bet that in six months,
I have a time schedule every day to
do this.
And I have a time schedule to produce
it with better quality.
And this is the final point on this
subject.
The first 30 days of doing anything always
suck.
The first 30 days of doing anything are
always the hardest.
The first 30 days are when you're developing
the habits.
And it's not only about the physical execution
of the habits.
It's about creating the neural pathways in your
brain that make it a habit in the
first place.
Walking the dog and recording a podcast is
the beginning of creating a neural pathway that
will result in content that is valuable and
impactful for you and a habit that is
valuable and impactful for me.
This is The Daily Dose of Dave here
on the InsideBS channel.
I thank you for joining me today.
We'll talk to you tomorrow.
Take care.