Daily Thought for Change

I never imagined that checking my phone before writing would cost me my whole day.

We create our routines and our routines create our future. Have you heard this before?

Some mornings, my writing gets pushed back. And I don't like it. I feel it - my thoughts get scattered, more reactive.

Writing, for me, isn’t about producing a masterpiece at sunrise. It’s about organizing my mind. It sharpens my attention for the rest of the day. I notice my thoughts more. I choose my words better. I lead with intention.

So when does my writing get a push back?

Usually, when I open my phone.

One “quick check” of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, email and suddenly I have a dozen “urgent” things I must respond to… right now.
And yet, I’ve never had one single instance where replying an hour later made any difference.

When I do my writing first, everything else becomes easier:
Focus.
Priorities.
Momentum.

The simple fix? Not willpower - airplane mode.
No notifications.
No screen until 9AM.

(I’m even considering going old-school, buying a clock.)

In behavioral science, every habit is shaped by pressures:
Promoting pressures (like notifications or visual triggers, things that make doing the thing easier)
and
Inhibiting pressures (like airplane mode or phone in a drawer, friction we put in the way).

Your daily actions are the outcome of these forces. Shift them, and you shift your behavior. Shift your behavior, and you shift your identity and your life.

Want to become someone focused, creative, consistent?

Change the environment before you try to change yourself.

Change the pressures → Change the behavior → Change YOUR future.
One page at a time.

What “promoting pressures” are pulling YOU out of your priorities, and how can you dial them down?
What’s one “inhibiting pressure” you can install to protect what matters most?

PS: If you need an extra nudge to lock away your distractions, here’s a quirky little invention you might get for yourself, deep work for your office, or for more quality time with friends and family.

What focus is tripping YOU up?

I was listening to Alex Hormozi's podcast and something he said snapped into place.

In his experience (with hundreds of business owners), the thing that keeps most entrepreneurs stuck isn’t a lack of ambition.

It’s too much ambition spread too thin.

I thought it might be true for you too.

Too many offers.
Too many customer types.
Too many marketing channels.
Too many habits to fix all at once?

Alex recommends,
1 offer. 1 customer. 1 marketing channel.

Wouldn’t that limit my options?
Yes AND it will double, triple, quadruple... your efforts, which will make you succeed.

You know why when you build one habit at a time you are almost guaranteed to succeed and when you try to build a bunch you are almost guaranteed to fail? Or at the very least take a lot longer to nail it?

Because when you stop sprinkling your energy and start firehosing it, things move.

So maybe limitations can be your winning edge, your leverage instead?

If you’re feeling stuck, unclear, or spread too thin, maybe the issue isn’t just a momentary distraction or how you use your phone.

Maybe it's macro focus one? You need to do less to get more?

Where am I leaking energy by trying to do too much?

Great questions that I’m using for my weekly reflection and strategy exercise today.

PS Tomorrow we’ll troubleshoot the process of focus. We’ll talk about HOW to actually do it from a behavioral science perspective. Because "just focus more" isn’t a strategy. But designing your environment, your cues, and your choices is.

Too optimistic for your own good?

“You know, my blind spot might be being too optimistic,” a client, an accomplished business owner, told me recently.
“And I’m not sure it’s always working out well for me.”

"Should I invite more critical feedback from my team? Ask them to voice doubts more often?

Maybe.

Actually, something else might work better,

A premortem.

“A premortem is a risk management practice where a team imagines a project has already failed and then works backward to identify the reasons for that failure. This proactive approach helps teams surface hidden risks and develop strategies to avoid them, saving the business from potential big losses”

Not postmortem. Pre.

A client was happy and was ready to move on with the insight.

But insight isn’t action. Many people get all the insights and ... nothing changes in the way their life or business go.

As a coach, I’ve seen this before, insight without a system to follow through: no cue, no clear process, no reflection loop - nothing changes.

I always remind myself, when staring at multiple to-do items to work on to make progress towards complex goals – resistance is often a lack of clarity.

This is the process I use now, incorporating different coaching, habit and behavioral psychology schools of thought - to ensure our aspirations become our better futures.

From “I should” to “I did”

The 8-Step Practice Loop

1. Define the behavior that’s not working anymore (Not just I want to be less optimistic, how does it look? If I were to videotape it, what would I see?).

2. Define the starting point and your winning state.

3. Identify the system that’s currently producing the problem (Every system is optimized to get the results it's getting now).

4. Choose the practice that bridges the gap between now and the win.

5. Design systems that support the practice, and block what’s not working.

6. Set up a way to track whether it’s working.

7. Schedule regular reflection and adjustment.

8. Win🏆

When I find myself staring at a pile of “messy work” delaying action - proposals, strategy, outlines - it’s not laziness. It’s lack of clarity.

Once I reset my North Star (why this matters), define the next step, and choose how to proceed today step-by-step, motivation replaces inaction.

So yes, I’ll hand over a premortem process draft to my client soon.
But more importantly, we’ll build the system to turn insight into our future.

Now over to you.

Think of one area of personal growth, one habit, one attribute, are you using a process like this?
And what’s one adjustment you can make this week to improve it?

PS Would love to hear your thoughts if you have them. Comment below.

“You cannot change your life until you change something you do every day.” – John Maxwell

You can’t change your business.

Not your fitness. Not your relationships. Not your future.

Anything you want is on the other side of a behavior change. (Even changing the world)

Success depends on two things:

1. Knowing what behavior needs to change.

2. Designing your "pressures", the circumstances around you, so that change becomes inevitable, consistent, repeatable, measurable, and adjustable.

Yesterday, I started a course on applied behavioral science. One of the first lessons included this graphic below, and it hit the core of what I'm selling to companies who want to win the future,

Every goal, every product launch, every cultural shift, every strategy, requires behavior change.

Behavior change from customers.
From employees.
From leadership.
From partners and suppliers.

But behavior doesn’t change by itself.

As systems thinking teaches us: every system is perfectly designed to produce the results it's currently getting.
If you eat poorly and haven't worked out in months, there's a system behind that.
Your fridge. Your routine. The way you shop. What feels easier after a long day.

Same with business.
Culture.
Innovation.
AI adoption.
Even parenting.

Behavioral science helps you redesign the system so that the behavior you want becomes the path of least resistance.

Want innovation? You don’t just preach creativity, you make experimentation safe.
Want health? You don’t just read labels, or decide to go keto, you make better food the easiest choice.
Want execution? You make progress visible, rewarding and satisfying.

And when you want to scale that behavior, organization or world-wide - you build in tech, processes, and rituals.
Maybe even AI.
Not more willpower. Better architecture.

After 17 years coaching, I learned this is where most people and teams go wrong,

• They don’t clearly define which behaviors lead to the result they want.

• They don’t ask: “Am I truly willing to do that work?” (Am I willing to pay the price)

• And they skip evaluating, “What is currently making me do the opposite and how do I shift that system?”

Same applies to you and me.
To multinationals and app developers.
To toddlers refusing broccoli.

So…
Where could you use this knowledge today?
Where is your current system winning at producing the wrong result?

Why don’t we do the right thing even when we want to?

When I work with clients on nutrition, the first thing I try to understand deeply isn't what they should be doing, but what they’re doing now. What makes their current choices the easiest, most automatic, most preferred?

Because most people, when given the opportunity, will actually do the right thing.

My job is simply to help them see and create more of those opportunities.

We often assume change means adding more - more knowledge, more recipes, more motivation.
But often, the faster way forward is subtraction, removing what's in the way:
What’s in the way of doing the right thing already?

Why isn’t the right choice the easiest one?

Usually, it comes down to small "design flaws" in your daily routines.
Where do you already get your food?
What’s the default at your coffee shop, your fridge and supermarket, your calendar?

So many times clients would say, "Yeah, I want to eat healthier but I end up eating ice-cream each night."

My question is then, "What does that ice-cream do in your fridge to begin with?"

We all spend time, attention, and energy every day somewhere.

We all do things.

The problem isn’t that we aren’t acting. It’s that our environment is nudging us toward actions that don’t align with what we actually want.

Better health, stronger relationships, deeper focus - these aren’t always about doing more.
They’re often just about designing your life so that the better choice becomes the easiest one.

Motivation is a great spark.
But if you want to sustain a change, consistency comes from design.

And so the most transformational question often is,
What if the right choice became the only available option?

Would you read a restaurant menu if you weren’t hungry?

That’s the question I keep coming back to when I think about attention - mine, yours, our audience's.

When I scroll through my email I notice - I won't open it unless it speaks to THIS exact need I have at THIS exact moment. (Reminds me - don't be clever, be clear - the end of a fluffy email title)

Your audience isn’t ignoring you.

They're just not hungry for what you’re offering at that moment. They aren't willing to spend their "cognitive capital" on what you have to say.

This idea comes from Matt Wallaert's book Start at the End. He talks about “cognitive budget” - how people, consciously or not, allocate their mental energy during the day. That budget is tight. People don’t spend it lightly. The brain is VERY stingy with energy. Now more than ever.

Take me, for example. I’ve got an absurd capacity to obsess over the design of behavior change programs, tech for transformation, or why most change fails when it does. Also: niche podcasts and HBR book launches. Any Tim Ferriss, Andrew Huberman, Finding mastery fans? A Trekkie? Performance data. Learning methods. And, weirdly, chocolate.

(Did you know there’s an “elite” cacao bean called Criollo that makes up only 0.01% of all cacao? Tastes like heaven. I tried making it in a chocolate business once.)

But most things?

I don’t care.

I don’t spend my cognitive budget on car brands, new phones, the latest shows, celebrity gossip, or what anyone wore, or makeup. If you're trying to sell me on any of that, I’ll skim, scroll, or delete. Doesn't matter what great copy you have!

If you try to pitch me a five-course food journey at some prime Michelin restaurant with poetic descriptions and food from every corner of the world... I'd rather you just tell me, “It’s healthy. You’ll feel good after.” Or: “You’ll need to eat again later.”

Because I don’t care.

But if I do?

Oh, then I want all the detail, the full breakdown, the nerdy rabbit hole.

Relevance is the gatekeeper to attention. Timing is the key.

What are you willing to obsess about no matter how much time it takes?

If you're a creator, entrepreneur, or leader trying to get someone to open your email, buy your offer, attend your event - ask yourself,

• Do they care about this at all?

• Do they care about it right now?

• How much cognitive capital are they willing to spend on it?

You don’t just need the right message.

You need the right message, the right moment, delivered in the right dose, with the right depth, to the right people. Not after my workout when all I care is food. Not when I'm rushed to finish the day. And not EVER for politics or what's latest on Netflix.

In today’s noisy world, “cognitive budget” is tighter than ever. Context is everything. Knowing who you are speaking to is essential.

Are you speaking to someone who's ready to listen?

One word: habits.

One habit at a time.

You might be juggling a full-time job, running a business, raising a family, and still trying to squeeze in fitness, reading, or learning AI.

Ambitious?

Yes.

Overwhelming?

It doesn’t have to be.

Your brain has a built-in shortcut, fine-tuned by evolution - it's called habits.

"automatic behaviors resulting from the strengthening of neural pathways in the brain, particularly within the basal ganglia, through repeated actions and reinforcement. These behaviors are triggered by specific cues and executed with minimal conscious thought, becoming increasingly ingrained with repetition. Habits develop as the brain shifts from relying on conscious decision-making to relying on established routines."

They're the original "automation software." No Zapier required.

This is why you can cook, brush your teeth, drive, or scroll Instagram without much thought. These actions are low-friction. They feel like “no work” because they’ve become habits, no-thinking automatic behaviors.

Want to pursue multiple goals at once?

Build systems to build habit loops. Not just a denser, multi-colored calendar.
Each automated habit needs a cue → behavior → reward structure. That’s the wiring diagram for your 🧠 brain’s automation system.

Let’s say you want to lose weight. Stop thinking - start automating.

• Set your rule: Three meals per day.

• Design a simple structure: Half a plate veg, ¼ carbs, ¼ protein.

• Adjust the habit wherever you are at home, in the airport lounge, or grocery shopping.

Want to learn AI?

• Decide on a 30-minute daily block.

• Set up your environment: reminders, course plan, clear “start” cue (something you'll actually notice).

• Track your progress through a system that works for you.

• Keep it boringly consistent. That’s what builds neural automation.

Habit Amplifiers:

Want to go pro? Add these 3 science-backed boosters:

1. Implementation Intentions (If–Then Plans)
   “When I finish dinner, I’ll do 30 minutes of AI learning.”
   Write them like recipes. Follow them like rituals.

2. WOOP Method (Wish–Outcome–Obstacle–Plan) - for when life's schedule changes
   “I want to learn AI to future-proof my career.
   When I get home late or miss dinner, I’ll study right after I shower.”
   Anticipate resistance. Pre-plan your response.

3. Habits on Fire (aka Dopamine Loop)
   Celebrate right after you complete the habit.
   Acknowledge the win.
   Feel the pride.
   That releases dopamine and locks in the habit faster.

Then install systems that don’t require thinking. One habit per goal. Stack them slowly. Make the cues automatic, repeated and visible. Make the friction low. Make the wins felt every time.

That’s how transformation becomes your automation.

Have you tried this? What’s the habit you’re installing this month?

Everyone talks about the magic moment -

When you find your calling.
When your work finally aligns with your purpose.
When you wake up energized, inspired, alive.

And then you do.

And somehow, you’re still bored on Wednesday.

No one warns you about that part.

The long hours of dull admin.
The endless tweaks.
The content that flops.
The pitch that goes nowhere.
The days when you question if it’s even worth it.
When you aren't lost… just tired of doing the reps.

What I’ve learned from watching remarkable entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, even monks,

Even purpose gets boring.

What separates those who grow, those who build something meaningful, from those who give up?

It’s not clarity. Or talent. Or even passion.

It’s,

They have a plan for the boring days.

They understand that mastery isn’t built on motivation.
It’s built on repetition.

Not the thrilling days.
But the Thursday afternoons when no one’s watching.
When your brain says, “Why does this even matter?”
And you do the work anyway. Even when no one is paying you to show up.

That’s when it starts to count.

That’s when something deeper starts to grow, not just the skill, but the self who’s becoming resilient, consistent, grounded, not giving a damn about others' opinion and measuring sticks.

The reps shape the result.
But they also shape... you.

So, what’s your plan for the boring days? How do you show up when excitement is gone? 

And how do you train your mind for that?

“What would I do today if motivation wasn’t part of the equation?”

And then do just that. One thing.
Show up. Just for the rep. Not for the grand meaning.

Because the joy, the purpose, the momentum?
They often come after the reps, not before.

I recently took a Generative AI course from Allie K. Miller, one of the clearest, boldest voices in AI right now.

She opened not with tech talk, but with James Clear.
Yes, the “habits guy.”

Because before you master prompts, tools, or strategies, you have to train your mindset to receive, absorb and learn.

It reminded me of this Brendon Burchard quote,

“You haven’t lost your motivation. What you’ve lost is the practice of looking at things that matter to you on a consistent basis and reminding yourself of them.”

Mindset isn't a mystery. It's a stack of invisible mental habits,

• The questions you ask yourself

• The thoughts you let stick around

• The stories you rehearse in your head

• The lens you choose to see through

At first, it's a choice. Then it's automatic, it's a habit.
And that’s where either magic (or mediocrity) happens.

Your mindset, AI-first or AI-last, isn’t neutral.
It will shape how you show up, what you notice, what you build, and what you... miss.
And unfortunately but true, the people who show up late to the AI bus won't get the best seats.

This world isn’t slowing down.
Opportunities are multiplying.
But how many of them you see, and seize, depends on your mental habits.

So pause and ask,
What are your current AI-mindset habits?
Are they designed for thriving and getting ahead, taking some good seats, or falling behind in an AI-first world?

P.S. The course is free on LinkedIn. Take it.

Maybe you're better than me, more disciplined, less curious about everything, less likely to sign up for every newsletter, webinar, masterclass, and tool you might want to explore if time was infinite.

Or maybe, like me, your inbox is a graveyard of good intentions and unbounded curiosities. A reminder that there are more options than hours. More noise than capacity. There's a whole river of water and I can only drink 2L a day.

That is where the saving grace of my hand-written goal list for this month, and my checklist for what makes a good day become very obvious. Like a compass in a content storm.

I routinely ask myself, looking at it,

• Who do I want to become in 3–5 years?

• What do I want to build?

• What projects are moving me toward that?

The rest?
It can wait.
Maybe forever.

At some point, I created a simple internal test,

Will I be okay if I never do this?

If the answer is yes, I delete, unsubscribe, decline. Sometimes joyfully. Sometimes with a little FOMO. But I move on.

Because in a world of infinite choices, most of them good (really good), the challenge isn’t choosing between what you want and what you don’t.

It’s choosing between what you want… and what you want most.

That’s not easy. Not for a curious, ambitious, full-of-ideas, afraid to lose and miss out human.
But it’s necessary.

So what’s YOUR filter to sift through the stream?

So that you end up with the right stuff, not just a bunch of stuff.