Secrets to My Success and a $200 contest for my Readers

Today is May 1st. On May 30th I will be unemployed. Don’t feel sorry for myself because I hope to never been employed by somebody else again for the rest of my life.

I gave my employer a six week notice. Considering I am the Project Manager for two of the most important projects in our department, I thought it was the best thing to do instead of leaving them in a lurch by giving a two week notice.

Tony Robbins is known to say if you don’t like the way things are then ask better questions and you will get better results.

Most people when they leave a job don’t want to burn bridges. I refuse to accept this perspective and instead I have asked better questions.

My view is not one of “not burning bridges” but instead my view is “I don’t want to ever go back across that bridge.” This is a totally different perspective on the same issue and definitely leaves you with a much different feeling.

This morning before work I spent some time reflecting on how I was able to achieve this lifetime goal of mine.

I wrote down everything that I have done that I feel is responsible for my success. Let me share everything that I attribute as a secret to my success.

Morning Ritual

This is something that I started last year and it has made a significant impact on my life. I only started this because of direction from my coach. God bless him for introducing this to me.

I now wake up every weekday morning at 4:45 AM. From the moment my alarm goes off until 6:00 AM I follow the exact same routine. Here is my routine.

• The first thing I do is go to the kitchen and feed my cat, empty and fill up her water bottles and empty the cat litter
• I use the bathroom
• I make up my bed
• Pull out my yoga mat and turn on my yoga CD on my laptop and do 20 minutes of yoga
• As soon as yoga is over I lay down on my yoga mat and do my breathing exercises. I do 25 counts of about 5 second intervals of box breathing. That involves breathing in for 5 seconds, holding breath for 5 seconds, exhaling for 5 seconds, hold breath for 5 seconds. I repeat this process 25 times
• Next I reset the timer on my watch for 15 minutes and then I do meditation while still laying on my yoga mat
• The last step is to put away my yoga mat and then jump into the shower. I reset the timer on my watch from 15 minutes to 5 minutes because I take a 5 minute cold shower. Nothing but cold water. You will be amazed that I am able to accomplish more in a 5 minute cold shower than I can do in a 15 minute warm shower.
• When I get out of the shower it is almost spot on 6 AM on just a few minutes before or after

Why do I have a morning ritual? Well it that first 75 minutes of my day, I have calmed my mind with meditation, exercised my body with yoga and gotten my blood flowing with the cold shower.

Then from 6 AM to 7 AM I work on my online business. From 7 AM to 7:30 AM I get dry my hair, get dressed and drink my green smoothie for breakfast. My smoothie is one bunch of kale, 4 stalks of celery, 2 small cucumbers, 3 green apple, 1 lemon and 1 chuck of ginger.

By having a morning ritual I accomplish an amazing amount of work before actually leaving for my job. I am not hurried or rush. I have no stress. The other advantage is that I am moving with purpose and ready to take on the day after completing my morning ritual.

When I started this routine I use to cuss my coach out for recommending me getting up early in the morning. Now I do it without question.

Climbing the Stairs

My office is located on the 7th floor of an eleven story building. For the past year and a half I have refused to use the elevator.

Every morning when I come into work, I walk up 7 flights of stairs. When I go out for lunch I walk down 7 flights of stairs. When I come back from lunch I walk up 7 flights of stairs. When I leave at the end of the day I walk down 7 flights of stairs.

If I have to attend a meeting on the 3rd floor or 10th floor, I will walk to that floor.

The only time I have taken the elevator in the past 18 months is when I was pushing a huge cart of video equipment. You just can’t take that up the stairs so I use the elevator.

When I first started doing it I actually hated doing it. I would get to about the 3rd or 4th floor and I would be winded. Over time I started to get winded but it wasn’t until I got to the 5th floor. Now I can walk up 7 flights of stairs and not think about it.

Just by making this one change at work I am able to get some exercise in and get the blood flowing. It has greatly improved my ability at work because I am in a much better physical state when I start work every morning.

Journaling

We have a conscious and a sub-conscious area of our brains. Most of what we do – or don’t do – is driven by our sub-conscious. If you can make your sub-conscious believe something then your brain will literally make it happen.

Writing in a journal is another tactic that my coach introduced.

When there is something I want to accomplish, I write it in my journal. Every time I talk to my coach I write down everything he says in my journal.

If I want to see how I am progressing I just have to flip back several pages to see what I wrote down last month or three months ago.

Another part of journaling is to write down specifically what you want to accomplish. The motion of actually writing down what you want on paper allows this thought to enter your sub-conscious.

When I look at my goals for the year, I can tell you exactly what I want to accomplish. They are written in my journal. Every quarter I compare where I am in relation to meeting my goals. Sometimes I remove goals or add new goals to adapt to what is happening in my life.

Let me give you a first hand example of how writing something down gets into your sub-conscious. Last year I wrote down my goals for the year. Every quarter I review them. After 6 months I had accomplished many goals, was in the progress of completing other goals and there were goals that I had never started.

I remember going through why I had not started on some goals after half of the year had gone by in a call with my coach. I really didn’t have a valid reason. That evening I wrote down how I wanted to complete the un-started goals.

At the end of Q3 my coach and I did our review. I was amazed that I had managed to complete every goal that had not been started in the previous 3 months. I even completed them without mentally remembering that I was doing them. That writing of the goals in my journal for the second time was what made me focus on getting them done.

Here is my little journal. I absolutely love this journal because it has a nice cover design but also because every time I pick it up I read those words on the cover that say “Believe in Yourself”. Reading those words changes my mindset almost instantly.

Keeping Current on Ideas

I download Entrepreneur on Fire and Smart Passive Income podcasts to my original iPhone. Every morning during my 20 minute commute to work I listen to these podcasts.

My new car has a plugin for my iPhone and it plays it through my car’s speakers.

I can set iTunes on my my iPhone to play at 2x speed. This allows me to listen to one complete 35 minute Entrepreneur on Fire podcast on the way to work and another podcast on the way home from work.

By listening to what other successful entrepreneurs share I am able to see what is working for them and where they stumble. I have listened to over 400 podcasts in the past year.

It is amazing when I start working on something new and I remember someone talking about that on a podcast I had listened to. Or when a friend of mine says they are interested in doing something and I can share what I had heard from a podcast.

Success leaves clues. So don’t reinvent the wheel but instead let others show you the path to success. Keep your mind sharp by consuming content. I don’t care if you listen to podcasts, read blog articles or read books or all of these, just make sure you fill your mind with valuable information.

Mastermind

In January I joined a meetup of like-minded people that read the Live Your Legend blog. These are people that want to live life on their own terms.

Some of these people have already quit their jobs and are running their own business, some are working toward that goal and some attend because they want to have their own business but haven’t started yet.

I knew none of these people when I went to the first meeting. Regardless it was a great experience to be in the company of  people that are all striving for the same goal.

These people “get” what I am trying to accomplish whereas people in my family don’t really comprehend my desire to quit the rat race. I draw an incredible amount of energy from these people that keeps me going.

You may not want to start your own business. You may just want to learn how to run your first marathon, do a summer abroad program, or learn a new language. Regardless of your goal surround yourself with people that have already done that.

It is impossible for me to measure the amount of value you get from masterminding with like-minded people. The only thing I can say is just do it.

 

Contest for my Readers

I want to give back to my loyal readers during my countdown to escaping from the rat race. I am running a contest where I will be giving away a total of $200 in prizes.

There are 5 contests total.

For the first four contests all you have to do is enter your guess for the answer to the question.  The winner will get a $25 gift certificate from Amazon.

The last contest only requires you to Facebook like this post and/or tweet about this post. Everyone who Facebook likes and everyone that tweets will get one entry into a drawing. The winner of that drawing will win a $100 Amazon gift card.

First let me explain the rules.

The contest rules

• You can only enter once.
• If there are multiple correct answers then I will use a random number generator to select the winner.
• Everyone who likes this post on Facebook will be given an entry into the drawing for the winner of contest #5. A random number generator will be used to select the winner from all entries.
• My family is not allowed to win because they already know the answer to all of the questions so everyone else is allowed to win.
• The deadline to submit answers for each contest and to Facebook like this page is May 7th at 11:59 PM EST. The winners will be selected only from those that submit entries prior to the deadline.
• You must leave a comment with your answer to be eligible to win. If you want to enter more than one contest then leave your answer in a single comment and just put a number before your answer so that I know which contest to which it corresponds.
• Only one entry per contest except for contest #5 where you can get two entries by Facebook liking this post and tweeting a link to this post.
• If you live in a country where you cannot order from Amazon, then I will instead send $20 to your PayPal account.
• When you put in your comment below, be sure to fill out the email address field. I will contact winners using the email address that you provide. If you fail to provide an email address then you cannot win.

 

Here is the Contest

You must submit your entry by posting in the comments blow. Enter your guess for the answer to each of these four questions.

1) What is the square foot of my penthouse condo? (Hint: I moved from a 2,250 sq ft house to my condo)

2) My condo is the penthouse. What floor is it on?
3) How many A’s did I earn in 4 years of college. (Hint: I took a total of 38 courses in college.)
4) How old is my cat?

For the final contest, everyone gets an entry if you Facebook like and/or Twitter tweet this blog post.
5) Random drawing from everyone that likes or tweets this page. You get one entry for Facebook like and one entry for tweeting a link to this page. If you do both then you get two entries into the drawing.

Remember the deadline to enter the contest is May 7th at 11:59 PM EST.

I am looking forward to giving back to my readers with this contest. I am enjoying doing the contest and I hope you enjoy it as well. Leave your entry into the contest in the comments below.

Thanks for sharing in my journey to escape from the rat race.