Marc's Blog

Content Writing and Marketing Services

Mindset

4 Step Formula To Always Living Your Ideal Day

by 4 Comments

4 Step Formula To Always Living Your Ideal Day
Anything is possible.

Prepare to get surprised. Living your ideal day each day is not as difficult as it sounds. It all starts with a decision to be a better you and then knowing and implementing the rest of the steps (don’t worry if you don’t know what those steps are. That’s what this blog post is all about).

Living your ideal day every day comes down to a four step formula that gets easier to implement over time. The best part about this four step formula is that you can always utilize it to live a more ideal day even when you reach your goal of the ideal day.

 

#1: Craft It

You can’t reach your destination if you don’t know where you are going. The first step of this formula is to simply identify what your ideal day is. For some people, this involves thinking outside of the box. Imagine if there was just one day when you didn’t have to do any work except for the work that you chose to do.

If you choose an ideal day filled with no work whatsoever and a day filled with watching TV, then this blog post isn’t for you. However, if you choose an ideal day where you are only addressing your most important work, then this blog post is for you.

My ideal day has slight variations based on my business’ path. Here are the main things I would like to do every day:

  • Write some blog posts
  • Do some videos for my Udemy courses
  • Do some videos for my YouTube channel
  • Play the piano
  • Run
  • Engage with my social media followers
  • Do one Periscope broadcast

Some of these activities get split up and I manage to do them every other day. However, this is a general idea of what type of work I am doing on my ideal day. What does this mean?

Everything else is a distraction.

Bold, italics, and underlined—the whole package. I’ve never done that on my blog before, but I made an exception because this is such an important point. That brings us into the second step.

 

#2: Outsource Anything That Doesn’t Fit

Just a few months ago, scheduling tweets and following people on Twitter would have been on that list.

No longer. They were distractions that I outsourced a few weeks ago. Although they are important for the growth of my Twitter account, they were distractions nevertheless. Now my Twitter audience grows like normal, but I get a few hours back every week.

That’s how Udemy course creation found its way on the list. I also have more time to expand my audience on Pinterest and sending pins every day. My bad. I meant to say I outsource all of that Pinterest activity. If I had to spend hours growing my Pinterest audience and sending dozens of pins each day, I wouldn’t have as much time to live my ideal day.

So I’m outsourcing a lot of my activity to other people. Does that make me a lazy entrepreneur? It makes me lazy in the same sense as a billionaire. My guess is that most billionaires have outsourced 99% of their businesses. Billionaires still do a lot for their businesses, but no billionaire is a solopreneur of any kind. Their employees do most of the work.

It is easy to perceive someone who outsources most of his/her business as a lazy entrepreneur, but it’s quite the opposite. Many of these people are more productive than anyone else with their time.

Remember, your ideal day is super important. Anything that stands in the way is an obstacle that stands in the way of your ideal day.

 

#3: Turn Each Activity In Your Ideal Day Into A Habit

I can write blog posts with my eyes closed (but I don’t. That’s no fun). Writing thousands of blog posts across numerous blogs and writing over a dozen books allowed me to memorize the entire keyboard.

That’s what happens when you do the same activity every day for a long period of time.

One activity I listed in my ideal day that may shock people was playing the piano. It’s something I started recently, so I haven’t had much time to talk about it in my blog posts. According to science, it takes a little more than two months to turn something into a habit.

After playing the piano for over two months, it has now become a habit. I never go to bed now unless I play the piano (on vacations, I make an exception). On some days, I am only playing the piano for five minutes. On other days, I am playing on the piano for well over two hours.

What inspired me to play the piano was a reawakening of my passion for music. What inspired me to play it every day was a powerful case study of a girl who dances for 365 days straight. If you haven’t watched the video yet, leave this blog and watch it now. You’ll be glad you did, and the content will still be here.

 

#4: Always Anticipate Having Less Time

No matter how much I outsource my business, I always feel as if I have less time than I need. No, I’m not spoiled or unproductive with me time. Rather, this feeling makes me more productive. There are two types of people in the world:

Person #1: “I have all of the time in the world.”

Person #2: “I am running out of time. It’s literally like sand slipping through my fingers.”

Person #1 has no urgency to act and achieve. Person #2 on the other hand has a larger incentive. If I believe it will take me six hours to accomplish one of my goals, I only give myself four hours to accomplish that same goal. More action is taken, and I discover ways to streamline the process much quicker than if I were to have those extra two hours.

The less time you have, the more urgent something becomes. Urgency creates effective action.

 

In Conclusion

Living your ideal day is important. We know that, but living the ideal day every day is not a fantasy. It is quite possible with a mix of direction and effort. This four step formula is the direction you need. Now it’s just a matter of putting in the work.

Right now, I want to hear from you. Which step in this formula do you think is the most important? How do you see this four step formula happening in your life? How close are you to living your ideal day? Sound off in the comments section below!

How To Change Any Habit

by 4 Comments

Get Rid Of Bad Habits

Habits are a central part of our lives. They dictate what we do and how we do it. They are patterns in our lives that impact our overall performance. While some of these patterns get noticed by everyone, there are other behind the scenes patterns that go unnoticed. Some of these behind the scenes patterns are benefactors while others are malefactors.

The bad habits are the ones that we want to break such as unproductively or an addiction. Many people try to fight the habits they want to break. Most people just try to eliminate these habits all together, but these people are fighting themselves. You can’t expect to fight the established system, your particular habit, by trying to eliminate it all together. Regardless of whether the habit is good or bad, it is the established system.

If you are unproductive, you can’t fight it by declaring you will be productive. The declaration is a start, but it’s not good enough. Instead of trying to eliminate a habit all together, you need to modify it. Modifying a habit requires knowledge of how habits work.

Modifying a habit requires knowledge of how habits work.[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1H38H0L”]Modifying a habit requires knowledge of how habits work.[/tweetthis]

In The Power Of Habit, Charles Duhigg identifies a habit as a three step process. The first step is the cue. This cue triggers an action to occur. For people who surf their Facebook feeds, seeing the Facebook app or logo is the cue. The cue leads to the routine. The routine is what you do after the cue gets received. The routine in the Facebook app example is to click on the app to get on Facebook. The routine then leads to the reward. The reward in this scenario is surfing Facebook. You may view surfing Facebook as a waste of time, and you may think that reward is the wrong word to use. However, when you are in the moment, it feels like a reward. It feels like a way to kick back and relax. Maybe at the time, surfing Facebook is a way to get out of work or find cool stuff on the web. It may not feel as rewarding when you stop surfing Facebook, but at the moment, it feels rewarding.

These habits and similar ones are the habits that we all want to change. Now that we know how habits are formed, we can change any habit with these three methods:

  1. Remove the cue. I used to have 10 cookies every day. I knew I would burn them all off after a nice run, but I also know those cookies made me slower. Removing the cookies from my house removed the cue.
  2. Change the routine. Some cues are impossible to remove. You will still encounter them. Chances are you will still use Facebook and still see the Facebook app on your smartphone. Each time you see the app, and you know you shouldn’t surf Facebook, turn off your smartphone and flip it upside down. If you think of using your desktop to access Facebook, and you know you shouldn’t, remove your access to Facebook or the WiFi all together. Mindful Browsing is a website that allows you to block any website on Safari. After you get the cue of visiting Facebook, turn Mindful Browsing (or your browser’s equivalent) into the routine. The reward will be you not surfing Facebook and getting your work done instead.
  3. Change the reward. Instead of surfing Facebook, use it to learn more about your niche. Look for niche-related articles on Facebook to get good blog post ideas. Moreover, if you suddenly see a reward as punishing in the moment, you may get lured away from the routine that makes the habit possible.

Many people insist on fighting habits and thinking of the whole process as a battle of epic proportions. However, most people fight habits without knowing how habits are formed. The cue, routine, and reward are the three steps that allow habits to occur. Interfering with any of these three parts of the habit allows you to interfere with the habit as a whole.

I am presenting you with the key to properly changing any habit you come across. You have the power to implement this knowledge into the habits you wish to change. Don’t think of habit changing as a fight of epic proportions. Think of it as a small change. Think of how easier it is to implement small change compared to engaging in a fight of epic proportions. The way we think of things determines how and if we get them accomplished. It takes about 66 days for a change to turn into an effortless habit. You may initially get tempted to return to old ways, but think of a 66 day countdown gradually getting closer to the 66th day. If you return to your old habit, the 66 day countdown resets itself. However, if you stay strong and don’t go back to old ways, you only have to keep it up for 66 days. Then, it will turn into a habit, and keeping it up at that point will become effortless. Changing the cue, routine, or reward to your favor will make the implementation process much easier.

What are your thoughts on changing habits? Have you recently changed one of your habits? Please share your thoughts and experiences below.

The 7 Step Process To Stay Calm Through The Chaos Of Being An Entrepreneur And Take Action

by Leave a Comment

Process To Stay Calm As An Entrepreneur

When you become an entrepreneur, you sign an oath, and one of the things on that oath is to accept that there will be chaos in the journey. The chaos people experience varies by the individual. Steve Jobs’ version of chaos was getting fired from Apple, and Richard Branson founded Virgin Vodka, which failed. Then are the bloggers who experience many problems throughout their journey such as the blog not displaying properly, an error page instead of a landing page, and plugins with a negative impact on the blog.

If you continue with the journey as an entrepreneur, you will have to go through chaotic times to reach the end goal. That is why the beauty of success is not in the success itself, but in the struggle. However, getting through the chaos is just as challenging as reaching success. The key to getting through the chaos is by staying calm. Here are seven ways to stay calm through the chaos of being an entrepreneur.

 

#1: Think About How The Chaos Struck

One of the main reasons chaos is despised is because chaos represents uncertainty. If there is a problem on your blog (maybe it suddenly decides to redirect to the homepage every five seconds. That happened to me once), the uncertainty is the cause of the problem. When chaos strikes, ask yourself what you did prior to the chaos that could have created the chaos in the first place. When something happens to my blog, I ask myself which plugin I activated recently.

For some people, it may be more difficult to pinpoint the root cause(s) of the chaos since some chaotic moments in an entrepreneur’s career are based on events that happened weeks, months, or even years ago. However, I encourage you to spend as much time trying to identify the root cause(s). Identifying those root cause(s) will bring back a sense of certainty into the chaos.

The more uncertain chaos is, the stronger it becomes. By bringing back certainty, not only do you weaken chaos, but you also get closer to approaching the solution. You can’t fix a problem without knowing what caused the problem in the first place. Other tips in this blog post will go into detail about how you can get out of the chaos, but before that, you need to have the right mindset. The second and third tips are designed to strengthen your confidence so you can attack chaos with the right attitude. Having an optimistic attitude is essential towards getting out of any type of chaos that you encounter.

 

#2: Think Of What You Have Already Done

Many times, entrepreneurs feel bogged down about where they are and desperate to get out of the chaos. It is at this point when entrepreneurs need to take a step out of the chaos and look at the good things they have accomplished. In It’s A Wonderful Life, George Bailey finds himself trapped in so much chaos that it affects the way he acts and thinks about himself. Then, George’s guardian angel fulfills his wish of never wanting to be born.

In the classic movie, George quickly realizes all of the things he has accomplished, and how the lives of people he knew fell apart since he was never born. He saved his brother’s life, the drug dealer from getting arrested, and he married his wife. Since George was never born, the drug dealer accidentally killed a customer, George’s brother died at a young age, George’s mom was a wreck, his wife was unmarried and worked at the library, and his kids were never born.

When Clarence gave George his life back, George embraced the chaos and gleefully said he was going to jail. Not everyone has a transformation like that, but thinking about what you have already done as an entrepreneur and a person can weaken the chaos and make it look less frightening.

 

#3: Think Of The Stepping Stones You Have Taken To Reach Your Destination

Part of looking back at you have already done is looking at what steps you have taken to get closer to your goals. Instead of looking at goals that seem so far away, look at the progress you have already made to get to where you are. This will ignite the motivation you need to continue making progress.

 

#4: Think About Where You Want To Be

After you weaken the chaos by thinking about what you have already done, think about where you want to be. When you think of where you want to be, have an optimistic attitude that you will reach this destination.

 

#5: Identify The Next Stepping Stones You Need To Take

Once you know where you want to head, identify the stepping stones that will allow you to reach your goal. Identifying the stepping stones allows you to see where you are heading instead of you trying to go all in with blindfolds. Stepping stones further establish that sense of certainty that is essential towards wiping out chaos.

 

#6: Take Those Stepping Stones

Once you identify the stepping stones, the only way to move forward is by taking those stepping stones. You have to put in the work to get the results you want to achieve.

 

#7: Repeat

Throughout your journey as an entrepreneur, chaos will come up multiple times. There is no magic bullet journey that avoids chaos, but there are entrepreneurial journeys that effectively cut through the chaos. You can constantly use these steps to get through any chaos you have in your business or life for that matter.

 

In Conclusion

Chaos thrives on uncertainty. The less we know about what we are dealing with, the easier it is for us to get overwhelmed and belittle all of our accomplishments in life. It is an unfortunate truth that people fall so far down into chaos that they become their own prey, and their own predator. People become predators when they think badly about themselves, and they become prey since they are being surrounded by self-induced negative thoughts.

Instead of being the predator of your own actions and the prey of your predator side, champion around yourself, your accomplishments, and where you want to go.

What are your thoughts on this seven step process? Do you have any additional tips for getting through the chaos? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

“It Takes So Much Time”

by 6 Comments

It takes so much time

To get thousands of blog visitors every day.

To make a full-time income from YouTube.

To become a bestselling author.

To get 100,000 Twitter followers.

To make it on the web.

To make a six figure income on the web.

To make millions of dollars on the web.

To work for someone else.

To make a full-time income when working for someone else.

To find a job.

To wait for someone to choose you.

To go from job to job until you find the one that brings in a good income.

To go from job to job until you find the job you love that brings in a good income.

To drive in the middle of 9 to 5 traffic every day.

No matter which option you choose, it is going to take a lot of time. Which one have you chosen? Which one is worth it?

3 Easy Ways To Wake Up Very Motivated Every Day

by Leave a Comment

Wake Up Earlier

Zig Ziglar was onto something when he said that motivation and bathing don’t last which is why they need to be practiced daily. Just because you are motivated today does not mean you are going to be motivated tomorrow. We have all had the sequence when we feel incredibly happy on one day and then horrified on the other day, or the opposite. That is because many people do not see the reason to practice motivation every day. As a result, this motivation does not last.

In an earlier blog post, I mentioned how the first hour you wake up controls the rest of your day. This means on a typical day if you motivate yourself early in the day, you will remain motivated for the rest of that day. Then, you have to repeat the process again tomorrow. Instead of going through day by day trying to motivate yourself, you need to set up a plan for yourself so you start the day right and stay motivated every day. Here are the three ways to get motivated early so you stay motivated for the rest of the day.

  1. Realize that you are a miracle. There are some days when the journey gets rough, and these are the points when we look for a miracle. We look for quadruple the sales in 1 month or a way to get hundreds of thousands of followers in a short amount of time. What discourages people from putting in the work is that many of these miracles take a long period of time to pull off. Few people realize that getting born is a miracle. The way microscopic parts of the body work is that there are millions of possibilities, but you were the possibility that was brought forth to the world. Your birth was a miracle, and that means you are hear for a reason. To make a difference.
  2. Write down 1-3 motivational quote and read it/them when you wake up. Few people think of writing motivational quotes down, and when people write motivational quotes down, they write too many. In this case, less is better because you will have a stronger appreciation of the motivational quotes you have in front of you. I use angel cards to determine what motivational quotes I get. One of them says “Think Global.” I got this card when I had a little under 30,000 Twitter followers and a mediocre strategy to gain a targeted following. The second card is a motivational quote that I read daily that says, “Keep charing ahead, and don’t take no for an answer. Expect miraculous solutions to appear.” It may be easy to imagine how reading that type of motivational quote can charge someone up every day.
  3. Just get out of bed. We all know that sleeping too little is bad for our health and causes symptoms like depression and anxiety. Plot twist: sleeping too much causes the same symptoms. Depending on what time I get to bed, I sleep between 6.5 to 8 hours. I never sleep for more than 8.5 hours at anytime simply because the human body does not need as much sleep as advertised. The people at Buffer have a lot of data on the amount of sleep we really need. Most of the time, I only sleep for 7.5 hours on a given day. The next question you may be wondering is how I always get out of bed at that time. I’ll say that I do not have an internal alarm clock, and I use a devious trick with the alarm clock that wakes me up every day. For some, the trick may be too devious to even attempt, but it is definitely worth it, and it will get you out of bed for sure

Motivation does not last daily which is why it is important to constantly practice these three motivational tips so you have an empowering day. What were your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional advice on having a motivating day? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

Expectations Will Happen If You Think About Them Long Enough

by 2 Comments

Mindset

Any expectation, good or bad, will happen if you think about it long enough, have a strong belief that it will happen (in order words, you aren’t just saying something will happen for the sake of it happening), and you put in the work. If you have a strong belief in your ability to make a strong income, and you put in the work to make it happen, that expectation will come to pass.

With this power in our hands, many people choose to use it poorly. Many people put their expectations low or expect themselves to be worse off than they are already. Those kinds of negative expectations also come to pass if you think of them for a long period of time.

Live your life with optimistic thoughts and put in the work that will allow you to turn an optimistic thought into a reality. No goal is too big. What will you do? It’s your choice.