The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett XX
[0] Did you know that the DariVosio now has its own channel exclusively on Samsung TV Plus?
[1] And I'm excited to say that we've partnered with Samsung TV to bring this to life, and the channel is available in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.
[2] Samsung TV Plus is a free streaming service available to all owners of Samsung Smart TVs and Galaxy mobiles and tablets.
[3] And along with the Dyeravisio channel, you'll find hundreds of more channels with entertainment for everyone all for free on Samsung TV plus.
[4] So if you own a Samsung TV, tune in now and watch the Dyer of a Cio channel.
[5] right now.
[6] You describe these, the 3Ms of a really good morning routine.
[7] What are those 3Ms of a good morning routine?
[8] What can I do today?
[9] How long is it going to take me?
[10] And what do you believe a good morning routine contains?
[11] Yeah.
[12] It's a big picture of you here.
[13] I have a bias towards morning routines because I have found in my own life, they've really, really helped me. So let me just talk about stress for a moment because this really plays into why I think morning routines are so much.
[14] important.
[15] I've got this concept of micro stress doses and stress thresholds.
[16] So every one of us have got our own unique personal stress threshold, right?
[17] That depends on your life, how you deal with things and what's going on.
[18] And what we get to that threshold, that's when things start to go wrong.
[19] That's when we snap at someone.
[20] We have a fight with our partner.
[21] Our neck goes or our back goes into spasm.
[22] Right.
[23] That's when you're at your threshold.
[24] Right.
[25] So, I'm saying to people, and I've really found this to be true for pretty much everyone, let's say you wake up and you are far away from your threshold.
[26] You've had a good night's sleep, right?
[27] So you're feeling good.
[28] What's the average morning for a lot of people these days?
[29] Okay, let's say the alarm goes off at 6 .30, right?
[30] So they're in a deep sleep.
[31] Alarm goes off, jolts them out of that sleep.
[32] They have to get it.
[33] Okay, that's micro -stress dose or MS.
[34] number one.
[35] Okay, pick up the phone.
[36] Oh, man, I'm just going to put it on snooze.
[37] You know, I need a bit more.
[38] Snooze, put it back.
[39] Six minutes later, it goes on again.
[40] MSD number two.
[41] You need at your phone.
[42] You go, I'm just quickly going to check email.
[43] Oh, man, there were these three emails.
[44] I didn't get back to yesterday.
[45] Oh, man, I need to do that.
[46] MSD number three.
[47] Have a quick look on Instagram.
[48] Someone's left you a snarky comment.
[49] MSD number four.
[50] Then you realize, oh, man, I've been in bed for 10 minutes.
[51] I had to get up, get ready.
[52] I've got a guest coming to shoot a podcast with.
[53] I'm not talking about your life.
[54] I'm just saying anyone's life.
[55] You are talking about my...
[56] Right?
[57] And so here's the point.
[58] At me, Ronan.
[59] Each one of those things, right, is a micro -stress dose.
[60] And each one of those is getting you closer and closer to that stress threshold.
[61] The mistake we make is that when something happens at 3 o 'clock in the afternoon, right?
[62] When that email from your colleague frustrates you, you think it was that email.
[63] But it wasn't the email.
[64] It was the fact that you've already...
[65] acquired 20 micro stress doses, you're right at your threshold, you've got no capacity to deal with it, so that email now bothers you.
[66] So what I suggest to people is many people leave the house in the morning, having already accumulated about 15 micro stress doses.
[67] So they're already a lot closer to their threshold than they would have otherwise mean, which means they've got less resilience.
[68] They won't take much for them to get triggered, right?
[69] So why I think morning routines can be so valuable, is they can reduce how many micro -stress doses you're exposed to first thing in the morning.
[70] So you are going into your day with much more headroom and much more resilience.
[71] But I think they're also useful.
[72] If you're feeling quite stressed when you wake up and anxious, I think they help almost undo the damage of micro -stressis and bring you back to baseline.
[73] Was that clear?
[74] Perfectly clear.
[75] So that's my kind of overarching view on why they're so important.
[76] So for me, I know if I do that morning routine, yes, it gives me perspective on my life.
[77] It allows me to reflect.
[78] But it also feeds the control leg of the core happiness stool.
[79] But it also means that I'm not exposing myself to micro stress doses.
[80] In fact, I'm getting back to baseline or I'm going into negative.
[81] I'm actually giving myself a lot more resilience and capability to face the day.
[82] So I was trying to simplify things to people.
[83] So I think a complete morning routine for me has got these three M's.
[84] Mindfulness, movement, mindset.
[85] And that's how I orientate my own morning routine.
[86] So I started with mindfulness.
[87] Now, I've been doing this for a few years, right?
[88] And currently my morning routine is about 30 minutes.
[89] But that's because I've created a life where I can do that and it works for me. And I get up silly early.
[90] That's also because my kids have always.
[91] always been early risers.
[92] And I know if I don't get that time to myself, I'm just not as good a dad and I'm not as good as a husband.
[93] So my bedtime has got earlier and earlier so I can get up earlier and earlier before my kids do.
[94] Right.
[95] So I start off with mindfulness, which at the moment is a practice of breathwork and then meditation.
[96] Then what I do, I go to my kitchen and I put coffee on.
[97] Now very particular with how I do my coffee, I weigh out 15 grams in the French breast.
[98] I pour 250 grams of water in and I put a time.
[99] I put a time.
[100] I put a time.
[101] I put a on for five minutes.
[102] Why is that important?
[103] It's not.
[104] It's the way I like my coffee, but the point is I know for five minutes my coffee's going to brew.
[105] So in those five minutes, I don't go on Instagram.
[106] I don't check my email.
[107] I do a workout in my kitchen in my pajamas.
[108] Right, I'm in my pajamas.
[109] I'm not to put on any fancy gear.
[110] I might do a body weight workout.
[111] I might have a kettlebell kicking around, whatever I feel like I will do.
[112] And then I get the gorgeous rewards of a hot, fresh cup of organic coffee that I like.
[113] And I sit there and I'll read something positive.
[114] Like I've got a few books kicking around in my living room.
[115] I'll just pick one that I'm drawn to.
[116] I'd probably read for about 10 minutes while sipping coffee.
[117] Something that's not negative that's uplifting.
[118] Right.
[119] So that's what it looks like for me. Now, sometimes my daughter who's currently nine, she's got a six sense that daddy's up and she creeps in with me. If she gets in with me, what two things I want to say about that, the old wrong -in from a few years ago would have got frustrated.
[120] Man, I kind of needs, I want my own space, you know, why, you know, I should have got up earlier.
[121] I don't do that anymore.
[122] I'm a lot more compassionate to myself.
[123] I use that.
[124] I go, okay, great.
[125] Okay, great.
[126] She's here.
[127] Okay, okay, darling, just sit here.
[128] Daddy's just finishing off my meditation.
[129] And she sits at her and I think, okay, this is cool.
[130] Like, I don't need to look at it as a problem.
[131] This is life, right?
[132] If we think life is going to be great when everything goes our way, we're going to be waiting a long time.
[133] So I embrace it now.
[134] Oh, fantastic.
[135] And then I also think as a dad, well, she's also now seeing Daddy prioritizes his health.
[136] He thinks it's important to look after his mental well -being every day.
[137] I'm hoping that she also absorbs some of these ideas as she grows up.
[138] But the mindset piece, I don't sit there and read if my daughter's there.
[139] We instead do affirmations together.
[140] So there's really good research on affirmations in terms of what they do for us.
[141] Just short, positive, powerful statement.
[142] So the one we do together is we just say, I'm happy, I'm calm, I'm stress -free.
[143] Right?
[144] So the two of us sit there, we hold hands and we say that for a minute.
[145] At the end, if I feel brilliant, she feels amazing.
[146] Now, I get it.
[147] Some people hear that.
[148] Okay, that is cheesy as anything.
[149] And maybe it is.
[150] But you know what?
[151] There's good research on it.
[152] Undergraduate students who did affirmations before their exam perform better, right?
[153] You know, how you program your mind matters.
[154] So that's what mine looks like, right?
[155] It used to be about five, ten minutes.
[156] Now, yeah, I can do half an hour, right?
[157] But I've also become aligned.
[158] I've now, I go to bed earlier, right?
[159] And let's not forget, Stephen, you're at a different stage in life to me, right?
[160] I'm in my early 40s.
[161] I'm happily married.
[162] I've got two young kids, right?
[163] You're in your late 20s, right?
[164] Was I doing morning routines when I was 29?
[165] No, I wasn't.
[166] Slight clue that I texted you at 2 a .m. last night, isn't it?
[167] Yeah, I woke up to, like, oh man, like I'm getting up to do my routine and see him's just gone to bed.
[168] But, but let me tell you about a patient who I saw many years ago.
[169] I can't remember how old she was, she'd probably around 42, really bad skin.
[170] And I strongly felt that stress was exacerbating and really aggravating her skin.
[171] And she said, Dr. Chatsy, I don't have time for any of this stuff, right?
[172] I'm busy.
[173] I've got two kids.
[174] I've got to get out to work.
[175] And we try and various things, but I managed to persuade her and inspire her to try a five -minute routine.
[176] And this is what she did.
[177] She did the three M's in five minutes.
[178] It's just one minute of what I call three, four, five breathing.
[179] Right.
[180] So you breathe in for three, you hold for four, and you breathe out for 5.
[181] Anytime you're out breath is longer than you're in breath, you help to lower your body's stress response and activate its relaxation response.
[182] Okay, there's many ways you can do that, but I like this breath that I call the 3, 4, 5 breath.
[183] So she did one minute of 3, 4, 5 breathing.
[184] She did 2 minutes of yoga, right?
[185] She had some of the favorite sequence, she had 2 minutes of yoga, and then she did 2 minutes of affirmations.
[186] That's it, and she got on with a day.
[187] she came to see me a few weeks later and she thought, Dr. Chachi, I just feel so much better and her skin complaints had gone down by over 50 % and over the course of the next few months she was hardly getting any flare -ups at all because it was a ripple effect.
[188] It wasn't just that.
[189] But by doing that and giving her that little bubble of resilience first thing in the morning, she would then go out for a walk at lunchtime instead of just sitting in the canteen on her phone.
[190] She'd go, I'm going to go for a 10 -minute walk around the block.
[191] You know, so for me, it's just you showing yourself right at the start of the day.
[192] You know what?
[193] I'm worth it.
[194] I'm worth spending a bit of time on today.
[195] And for me, I'm a, I've got a bias it because if I don't do stuff like that in the morning, I don't do it.
[196] Once the day starts, forget it.
[197] And it's something that might have value for your audience, Stephen, Stephen Bartlett, successful businessman, loads of entrepreneurs listening, thinking about, you know, business and stuff.
[198] And I'm, you know, I kind of want to help people.
[199] And let's zoom into the middle M movement.
[200] Why is it that I'm able to do a five -minute workout every day?
[201] Like, I've rarely missed a day for three years.
[202] That's not because I've got more motivation than anyone else.
[203] It's because I understand the science of behavior change.
[204] Right.
[205] I think it's going to, I hope it's going to have value for people.
[206] there's two big rules that I've learned about human behavior.
[207] Number one is, if you make something easy, you will do it.
[208] So what's that got to do with my morning routine?
[209] Well, I made it so easy for me to do, right?
[210] I don't need to buy any equipment.
[211] Everything's there.
[212] I don't need to get change.
[213] I don't need to look up a workout.
[214] I don't need to do it.
[215] It literally happens because I don't have to think.
[216] I've made it really easy.
[217] And so Zoom, this out to business for a moment, it's reported that when Amazon went to one -click ordering, it's reported their profits went up by $300 million a year.
[218] Right?
[219] So let's rewind 10 years when they didn't have it.
[220] What did you have to do?
[221] Put in your order, go to the next screen, you know, type in your card deals, go to the next screen, confirm audit, right?
[222] Every single step is a reason to procrastinate, pull out and not make the purchase.
[223] So what do they do?
[224] One -click ordering, boom, before you blinked, something's coming that evening.
[225] Right?
[226] So they're doing.
[227] what I think they should do for their business.
[228] Why did Netflix roll one video or one show into the next one?
[229] It's not out of the goodness of their own hearts to go, oh, you know, let's help people.
[230] They're using the science of human behavior.
[231] Before you realize it's 1230 at night, I need to go to bed.
[232] I've got to get it for work.
[233] You are straight into another episode.
[234] You don't stop.
[235] That's why YouTube roll into the next video.
[236] Right.
[237] So these guys understand human behavior.
[238] when we, as humans, trying to apply it to our own health, we throw it out the window.
[239] We think, it's got to be hard.
[240] It's got to be really tough.
[241] I've got to go running one hour four times a week.
[242] And we, again, first two weeks in January, we managed to do it.
[243] Then we fall off the wagon.
[244] Because we think motivation is going to last forever.
[245] And it doesn't.
[246] In the science, it's called the motivation wave.
[247] Motivation comes up.
[248] Motivation goes down.
[249] Plan your behaviors for when your motivation is down, not when it's up.
[250] Then you will still do it.
[251] So number one is you make it easy.
[252] I've made it easy.
[253] Number two, which is just as important is where are you going to put this behavior?
[254] You can't just think about it.
[255] Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to meditate.
[256] I'm going to move.
[257] No, you need to be very intentional.
[258] Now, every single behavior we do needs a trigger, right?
[259] So a trigger could be, oh, I remember to do it.
[260] Sure, that works.
[261] It's just the most unreliable trigger that exists.
[262] The next best trigger is like a notification.
[263] Like, you know, oh, you've got to be here to record a podcast with Stephen.
[264] Okay, great.
[265] I know I've got to do that.
[266] Or you put a post -it note on your fridge.
[267] That's great.
[268] But the very best trigger, as evidenced by the research, and a lot of this comes from Professor BJ Fogg at Stanford.
[269] Instagram was literally invented in his class as an assignment, essentially.
[270] He has shown that But if you stick on your new behavior onto an existing habit, it's much more likely to happen.
[271] Like the coffee?
[272] Like the coffee?
[273] I don't need my PA to phone me at 5 in the morning, say, hey, Rangan, listen, you must remember to make your coffee.
[274] I don't need my Google calendar, notification to pop to say, hey, wrong, don't forget to make your coffee.
[275] I'm going to do that.
[276] It's locked in as a habit.
[277] I don't have to give it any conscious thought.
[278] It's going to happen.
[279] So therefore, if I stick my workout on there, I vastly increase the likelihood than it's going to happen.
[280] Add on to the fact that I keep kettlebells and dumbbells in my kitchen, my wife used to say, can we not just put these away in the cupboard?
[281] And I said, listen, babe, here's the thing.
[282] And I've seen this with patience.
[283] If you put this stuff out of the way so that the kitchen looks nice, right?
[284] I'm never going to lift up that weight.
[285] Out of sight, out of mind.
[286] We need to constantly trigger.
[287] So the kitchen's not a mess.
[288] it's just in the corner, there's a kettlebar.
[289] So as I'm making the coffee, I can see it.
[290] It's looking at me. Even if all I do is pick it up to move it, I've picked it up.
[291] And what it does, Stephen, is that on a very, on a very base primal level, it shows me each morning that I have value, that I'm worth treating with respect.
[292] You know, chapter three of the book is all about treat yourself with respect.
[293] Many of us, as I've done for much of my life, don't.
[294] We struggle with compassion for ourselves.
[295] We struggle to be kind to ourselves, right?
[296] But the research is really clear.
[297] People who are more compassionate to themselves, they're healthier, they're more successful at work.
[298] We think we've got to beat ourselves up inside to do stuff, right?
[299] It's a myth.
[300] It's a short -term win.
[301] It's a long -term fail.
[302] And there are simple things that we can do.
[303] Did you know that the Dariovoste now has its own channel exclusively on Samsung TV Plus?
[304] And I'm excited to say that we've partnered with Samsung TV to bring this to life, and the channel is available in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria.
[305] Samsung TV Plus is a free streaming service available to all owners of Samsung Smart TVs and Galaxy mobiles and tablets, and along with the Dyer of a CO channel, you'll find hundreds of more channels with entertainment for everyone all for free on Samsung TV Plus.
[306] So if you own a Samsung TV, tune in now and watch the Dyer of a CEO channel right now.