Habits 2 Goals: The Habit Factor® Podcast With Martin Grunburg | Goal Achievement, Productivity & Success Simplified

"We tend to believe that in the future, we're much, much better." "You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." Henry Ford Habits2Goals kicks off its sixth season with a powerful Mind Bullet: Your Future Self.  A topic called "behavioral economics" was the catalyst for this mind bullet. In his book The Undoing Project, author Michael Lewis discussed the concept of behavioral economics—the idea that humans are not rational creatures. They're emotional. Sometimes they eat too much, sometimes they drink too much, etc. The concept of behavioral economics cropped up again in an NPR podcast featuring Richard Thaler, who won a Nobel Prize for behavioral economics and is the author of Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics. Thaler said something that resonated: "We are all better in our future self." Think about it: Our future self is amazing! We say things like, "I'm going to get her flowers next week." "When I get my raise, I'm going to save more money." I'm going to eat better, give more, sa

"Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives you a 1,000 percent Return on Energy!”. ~Brian Tracy "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. ~Dwight Eisenhower *** First, some great news! Season 6 of Habits2Goals officially kicks off next Monday, September 23, complete with our Mind Bullet Mondays, Interview Wednesdays, and Frequently Asked Fridays! Mark your calendars, make sure you're subscribed, and tell a friend! *** Today's Mind Bullet, Planning, tackles a subject that has huge implications on our lives, yet it's something so obvious that it gets overlooked, much to our detriment. You may know about planning. You may agree that it's important. But are you doing it? Do you have a plan for your life? We're good at things like planning a vacation. But we rarely take the time to pause, breathe, and ask ourselves the hard questions: Where do you want to be in 60 days? 90 days? A year? Three years? These are powerful questions because when we visualize ourselves hitting

"Synergy is what happens when one plus one equals 10 or 100 or even 1,000! It's the profound result when two or more respectful human beings determine to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge." ~Stephen R. Covey Today's Mind Bullet, Synergize, flows from last week's THEM, which discussed how significant relationships are to our lives and how important it is to take the "smooth handle" in our interactions. Any discussion of synergy has to include a recap of the great Stephen R. Covey book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Be Proactive: YOU! are responsible. Begin With the End in Mind: Have vision and Foresight Put First Things First: This is the kernel of The Habit Factor, where we intentionally craft habits in line with our goals to reach them more quickly. (These first three habits are about "personal victory," i.e., you. The next 3 habits move into "public victory," i.e., relationships) Think Win-Win: Your intention takes others into account. Seek First to Understand, Then

"Always take things by the smooth handle." ~Thomas Jefferson On the heels of the previous episodes "Nobody Cares," "Hypnotized," and "YOU," which all focused inwardly, this week's mind bullet shifts to look at THEM—other people.  Nobody Cares looked at the idea that we're all carrying burdening stories we needn't be lugging around; Hypnotized examined how we convince ourselves that certain self-defeating stories are true; and You emphasized that the best way to improve the world is to improve yourself.  While improving ourselves is always the first part of the equation, we can't do it alone. We have to understand how to work with others.  Thomas Jefferson once said, "Always take things by the smooth handle." This means that when dealing with other people, instead of trying to force your way and lobby for your cause, try to understand their point of view and work with them.  Benjamin Franklin was a great example of taking things by the smooth handle, as explained in Walter Isaacson's excellent biography. Ben w

"Nobody improves the world without first improving themselves." "Nothing will bring you peace; you must bring yourself to it." "Joy is not in things, it is in us." Today's Mind Bullet topic, YOU, builds off the past two episodes. In Nobody Cares, we examined the strange and often damaging beliefs we hold onto, and in Are You Hypnotized? we looked more deeply at the stories we tell ourselves that hold us back. The common denominator, of course, is YOU. Things don't change; you change. There is no "out there," there is only in here. If you want the world to change, changing yourself is the only way. Whatever the problem, "you" is the answer." Looking inward is the greatest gift you can give to yourself and the world. Listen in to hear more about taking 100 percent responsibility for your life by understanding YOU are in control of your own thoughts, words, views and intensions, and using concentration and energy to focus on your own life experience.  Enjoy the episode!  *** New listeners: By texting the word "H

"The greatest illusion you'll ever know is the 'reality' in which you believe." Today's Mind Bullet centers around a massive concept: How hypnotized are you?  We're all hypnotized, that is, we buy into beliefs about ourselves and the world around us—which isn't a bad thing. But if you're not experiencing your ideal life—if you're dissatisfied and unhappy—the first place to look is at those beliefs about yourself you hold so firmly.  The idea of being hypnotized by our beliefs was touched upon in last week's episode, "Nobody Cares," which discussed how we carry around stories about ourselves, both fearing and expecting reactions from others. These stories are our beliefs, and what we believe has a direct effect on our happiness and self-worth.  We believe our beliefs wholeheartedly; they touch upon everything in our lives — our self-worth, whether or not we're athletic, how and what we should eat, politics, attractiveness, etc. "I'm an introvert." "I'm destined to be overweight." "I'm not someone who takes on

"You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you knew how seldom they do." ~Eleanor Roosevelt Today's topic is unexpectedly enlightening: Nobody cares. Nobody cares — and that's a good thing. This subject was triggered by a book that was a joy to read called "Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life," by William Finnegan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker columnist who chronicles his surfing adventures. At one point, worried about people finding out he was a "dumb surfer," he eventually came to the conclusion that "apparently, nobody cared." Whether it's beliefs we carry around or perceptions of ourselves we strive to shape in the minds of others, the truth of the matter is, nobody really cares.  MG once wrote a book, "The Three C's of Success," under a pen name, thinking, "Who am I to be writing about success?" Ultimately, he shouldn't have bothered with the pen name—nobody was judging. Stephen King wrote a book under a pseudonym "Richard Bachman" because of a publisher's concern that he was being t

"Self-efficacy is your first step toward goal achievement and following PARR is the key to self-efficacy." Today's topic, efficacy, is especially relevant to new listeners and those starting out on their goal-achievement journey. Self-efficacy, in fact, is the ability to produce a desired result, as in a goal. When attempting a goal, we all have to bridge a gap between where we are (X) and what we want to accomplish (Y). Surprisingly, this has less to do with discipline or motivation than it does with self-efficacy.  How do we create the bridge from where we are to our desired destination? Self-efficacy is the key, and PARR (Plan, Act, Record, Reassess) is your golden ticket to self-efficacy. Say your goal is to lose 30 pounds. To get from +30 to -30, following the Habit Factor methodology, you download the tracking sheet or use the tracking tool in the app. You decide on the habits that will get you to your goal and start tracking them.  What does this have to do with self-efficacy? We've planned; now we're

"No man is free who cannot command himself."~Pythagoras You may be familiar with the old adage, "No pain, no gain." But on a dingy wall in a college apartment by the beach, MG and his roommates had a sign that read, "No pain, no pain." This phrase is even more enlightening in the context of these MBM episodes that have been focusing on challenge and change.  We often get the question, why do I need to challenge myself? Life is hard enough already. Yes, life is hard; therefore, giving ourselves challenges, often physical, helps us to create mental breakthroughs and personal growth. "No pain, no pain." Not challenging yourself, not putting yourself in a state of growth, is comfortable. There's no pain — TODAY. But this is static thinking. Because life is dynamic, you may end up paying for that comfort and pain-free existence later, with health issues or emotional roadblocks. We get too wrapped up in dichotomous thinking, but life is about balance. It's this AND that. Go fast AND slow. Life is short AND long. Yo

"If the first thing you do each morning is eat a live frog, you can go through the rest of your day knowing that was probably the very worst thing that will happen to you the rest of your day."~Brian Tracy Your “frog” is your biggest, ugliest, perhaps most difficult and often most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on and keep pushing out into an unspecified future. Chances as good that each and everyone of us are avoiding something; a doctor's appointment, paying a bill, making a phone call, etc., There is undoubtedly a brutal task starring you in the face and often the irony is we only make these tasks seem larger and more difficult by putting them off. "Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of the uncompleted task" goes an old saying. And Lao Tzu advised, "Do the difficult things while they are easy and the great things while they are small. For some of us the "Frog" is getting ourselves to the gym every other morning. So, the challenge for us is to stop thinking about

"The best way to predict the future is to create it." ~Drucker This week's topic has applications in all facets of life, from our daily routines to relationships and goals: foresight.   Foresight is the ability to predict what might happen or what may be needed in the future. Foresight can be a useful skill, a tool to sharpen, and can arm us with better preparation to be successful. Think about it: How many times during the day do you use foresight as a tool in your life? Say you're heading into a company meeting. You may imagine what the meeting will look like and sound like. What goals or aspirations do you have going into the meeting? How might you best achieve those goals? Your foresight will likely serve you well. Whether it’s a company meeting, relationship, financial or career goals, or any other objective, foresight is a tool unique to humans and one that should be sharpened!  This episode was recorded before MG's Rim2Rim2Rim Grand Canyon Hike (read about it here), and during the episode he discusses

"Give yourself physical challenges and they will create mental breakthroughs!"  Last week we introduced MG’s latest “challenge and change” experiment, merging the metaphorical and literal concepts of climbing and understanding the endurance and strength that climbing brings. In this episode, we recap his adventures conquering the R2R2R Challenge from June 30-July 1, sharing lessons learned along with a few tales from this experience alongside a group of Ironman/entrepreneurs. Concepts from The Pressure Paradox dominated this challenge, highlighting the importance of the 3 P’s: Plan, Prepare and Practice. After all, the higher the stakes, the greater the importance of planning, preparing and practicing -- and these stakes were high! Except sometimes we throw ourselves a curveball during a challenge: MG never foresaw the possibility that he’d be trail running at least the first half of each day, but that’s exactly what he decided to do when a small fraction of the group took off at 4:45 a.m. in the early dawn

"After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb." ~Nelson Mandela The Habit2Goal podcast's mission is particularly in line with today's subject: climbing. We're all climbing metaphorically through the challenges in our lives, but MG's latest physical challenge merged the metaphorical and literal, learning about the endurance and strength that comes from climbing.  If everything goes according to plan, as you listen to this episode MG will be headed back from the North rim of the Grand Canyon back to the South, after going the previous day from the South to the North. It's called the Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim (R2R2R) challenge, and preparation and training for the last three months has been fairly intense. Challenge and change is a common theme on Habits2Goals. We set new challenges because life is hard -- we can either sit around and settle into complacency or we can go out and test our mental and physical toughness. Since this latest challenge was quite literally about climbing,

"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration." ~Nikola Tesla "We cannot create or destroy energy, it simply transforms." ~Albert Einstein Today's Mind Bullet topic is a big one that ties into our fascination with ENERGY: entropy.  The first law of thermodynamics is the idea that the energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system. The second law of thermodynamics is entropy — within a system, disorder is always increasing.  We see entropy all around us in our chaotic, daily lives, as things break down, get rebuilt, and break down again. We see entropy in action as we age, watching our own bodies break down. In fact, perhaps nothing illuminates time itself as a forward motion better than entropy. You never see things un-break unless you are watching a film in reverse! Fighting entropy has spawned untold businesses. Think of the tidying up empire Marie Kondo has built based solely on reducing the chaos of clutter in our lives. Think of the succe

"You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile." ~Brian Tracy Today's Mind Bullet is as big as they get combining many essential components within The Habit Factor: the overarching concept of Success. What is success to you? What criteria would you ascribe to someone you deem to be successful? The great Brian Tracy, in his Psychology of Achievement, breaks down the criteria for success: 1. Peace of mind. 2. Health (energy, vibrancy). 3. Relationships (healthy, loving). 4. Financial freedom (free from money worry and stress). 5. The pursuit of worthy goals and ideas. This, of course, is what the Habit Factor process, awareness and methodology is all about! Goals and ideals, after all, are a byproduct of having a purpose and direction. 6. Self-actualization: the idea of becoming the most and best of what we can become -- and this only happens through the pursuits of worthy goals and ideas! It's worth noting that all these criteria have a

"Nobody improves the world without first improving themselves." "If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you." We've explored the subject of Challenge and Change twice before, once from the angle of MG's challenge journey and the perspective of "all life is an experiment," and once again to explore jumping into new challenges with a "now or never" attitude. There isn't a topic as critical to The Habit Factor's fiber as challenge and change; The Habit Factor methodology is designed to guide you through your transformation on your way to your goals. But the question still remains: Life is already hard enough. Why do we need to throw in a massive undertaking like an Ironman, a half-marathon, writing a book, or whatever monster goal you have hovering in the back of your mind? One answer: It's because life itself is challenging, and change is a great constant that challenging ourselves with goals makes us stronger and more resilient. Challenges will always be present so who do you think is going to fare b

"Chess is life in miniature. Chess is struggle, chess is battles. ~Garry Kasparov”  Last week we explored the topic of chess as a metaphor for the goal-achievement process, illustrating the strategic thinking, planning, defensive posturing and awareness you'll need on your goal achievement journey.  This week, we look at the lessons of chess that come into play when problem-solving.  At a Memorial Day barbecue, MG ran into an old friend with a complicated life -- running a business, handling a divorce, raising children and navigating a new relationship. When the topic turned to  his sailboat, on which he and his family loved to play games, MG asked, "How often do you play chess?" Without skipping a beat the friend responded, "'I'm playing chess every da."  Without hearing the prior Chess podcast episode, he intuitively equated the complex game to the logic, strategy, vulnerability assessment, small victories and sacrifices required to navigate the challenges of day-to-day life.  When facing problems in life,

"Life is a kind of Chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with.” ~Benjamin Franklin On this in-between-seasons Habits2Goals episode, we explore the fascinating Mind Bullet topic of chess. Chess is thousands of years old and encompasses infinite possibilities, confounding even the grand masters. Its strategies and complexities have dynamic applications to real life.  When you play the game, whether against a person or a computer, your "goal" is clear: Get the king. On the way to your goal there will be many battles. Some pieces will be strategically sacrificed to protect another piece. The entire way, you're forced to look at things logically from your end goal.  Chess has many benefits, from raising confidence and IQ in children to enhancing your ability to focus and recollect. Chess develops your skills of foresight and planning; you see the layers you must wade through to get to the end goal.  Chess is a phenomenal tool for strategic thinking and planning, u

"The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.” ~Solomon Ibn Gabirol  Today's in-between-seasons Mind Bullet Monday delves into the idea of going deep and what it means for true wisdom and how it can help your own personal goal achievement journey.  We've discussed wisdom in the past, and we know that mastery and learning come via repetition. In this vein, re-listening to a Brian Tracy podcast on relationships sparked a new gem of understanding.  around the concept of "going deep." In the quote above, Solomon Ibn Gabriel's fifth step in the acquisition of wisdom — teaching others — means that you've learned something so thoroughly and completely that you can convey its nuances others. You have gone deep on the subject. We all have some kind of remarkable and specific knowledge already — we've gone deep in those areas. But it's critical to stretch yourself and go deep in new areas, getting to know new subject mat

"Nobody improves the world without first improving themselves." On this in-between-seasons Mind Bullet Monday, we discuss a topic that helped spur the Habit Factor itself: challenge and change.  If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you. Today we're taking a look at CHALLENGE and CHANGE through the prism of a few examples. The goal is to inspire YOU to find/create a new, personal challenge! First, we reviewed MG's personal "burpee" challenge in a prior episode. Feeling the need to challenge and improve himself physically, he set a goal back in January to do 15 burpees a day for 30 days — a goal that quickly changed to 30 burpees (done within five minutes) for for thirty days straight. 98 days later... his streak ended doing 45 a day on the "off" days and 120 on "target" days. Following P.A.R.R. (Plan, Act, Record, Reassess) MG upped the challenge in each successive four week tracking period. By the time the streak ended on April 11, he was doing as many as 5 sets of 15 daily. Habitstrength kicked in!