Daily Thought for Change

Most people plan their weeks. Very few plan good days.

I was listening to Alex Hormozi's podcast and he told a story about how he wrote his “good day formula” on a piece of paper and taped it to his office wall:

• Eat with people he likes

• Work with people he likes

• Write

• Don’t rush

Simple. Honest. Personal.

It made me ask myself, Do I know what makes a day feel good no matter what else happens?

Most people don’t reflect on that.
And then they wonder why they’re overwhelmed, exhausted, or lost in the noise of daily life. Never feeling like they are enjoying it.

But if you don't know what makes a good day for you, how can you create more of them?

Here’s what I found when I looked at my own, my good day formula,

• Not rushing. When I try to squeeze every second of my day, chasing maximum output, I miss the quality.

• Walking, twice a day. Starting my day with sunlight and movement is non-negotiable. Even if it's a walk somewhere.

• Exercise. Doesn’t have to be long but it has to happen.

• Sleep. Do I really need to explain? Your daily mood meter starts at negative when sleep deprived.

• Work with meaning. Serving others. Being challenged.

• Reading and writing. Always learning.

• Time with like-minded people. People I love, people who inspire me. No energy-drainers.

That’s my formula. If I live like this I can go forever.
I feel aligned, alive, and like I’m living my best life, even when things are hard.

What about you?
Have you taken time to figure yours out? (Reflection time)
And more importantly, does your calendar reflect it?

Your room is talking to you, is it saying what you need to hear?

Everywhere I go, I bring my quotes, goals, thoughts.
A photo of Elon Musk. One of Richard Branson. A photo from "The Pursuit of Happyness" with a quote from Will Smith.
And a roll of scotch tape.

I stick them up on the walls around me to remind myself where I’m going, what I stand for, what I believe in.

We often think influence is loud. That it comes from big moments, dramatic events, or the people we talk to most.
But what really shapes us is quieter.

It’s the "soil" we sit in every day. The walls we stare at. The colors, the energy, the little cues all around us.

I read this line from Leila Hormozi recently,
“You didn’t have a bad day. You had a bad 15 minutes and you indulged it.”

The ability to indulge in the right kind of vibe depends a lot on what you see at the key moments of mood shifts.

When your environment is built to lift you up, your space, the visuals, the words in your sight, it gets easier to shift out of the funk.
You don’t need to wait for willpower. Your environment pulls you out.

Of course, you can’t always move houses or cities.
But you can shift small things - how your space looks, feels, what you put on your walls.

Most days, you won’t even notice the difference. But your brain will.
It’s like having a raincoat. You won’t need it daily, but when you do, you’ll be glad it’s there.

This is just your gentle reminder,
You have more control than you think.
Start with your space. Start with one thing.

What’s one visual cue you could add to your room today that might change how your day begins tomorrow?

PS Where do you spend most of your time? Do those spaces include “state up-tuners”?
Visual cues that ground you, lift you, remind you of who you are becoming, even when the world gets noisy or gloomy?

You know that moment when you’re short on time and need to get something done, and the easiest answer is, “I'll just do it myself”?

Even if it’s not your job.
Even if you’re not the best person to do it.
Even if it’s the fifth time this week.

It feels faster in the moment. But then the same task comes back. Again. And again. And you’re still the one doing it.
Still behind on the thing you actually should be doing.
Still not getting better at what you’re here to do.

When I waste time looking for a file, I rarely stop and think,
"Let me take 15 minutes now to fix this so it doesn’t keep happening."
Because I don’t have 15 minutes right now.
So I keep wasting 3… then 5… then 10.

And that’s how time scarcity makes you time poor. Forever. Busy get busier. Poor get poorer.

Welcome to the tunnel

In the book “Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives,” the authors call this mental state tunneling.

When you don’t have enough of something, like time or money, your mind narrows in on what’s urgent. You go into the tunnel. You’re focused on getting through the next task, the next hour, the next email.

You stop thinking about:

• Delegating

• Automating

• Fixing the root problem

• Building a better system for next week

Because you’re barely surviving this one.

It’s a trap.
And it doesn’t just affect people with limited resources, it affects everyone under pressure.

The mind is like a jar

Imagine your mind is a jar. And each thing you need to remember or fix is a pebble.

Look for a file → pebble.
Re-send that email someone lost → pebble.
Fix someone else’s mistake → pebble.
Figure out what’s for dinner → pebble.

The more pebbles, the less room for the big stuff - strategy, creativity, vision, solving the real problem. They call this brain's working memory limit.

And that’s the cruel part about scarcity,
When you’re short on time (or money), your brain can’t access the space it needs to solve your time (or money) problem. It’s just busy solving tasks.

The loop that keeps on looping

In the book, they talk about how financial scarcity makes people take out bad loans, not because they’re stupid, but because they’re under pressure and don’t have the cognitive room to think long-term. They’re not optimizing. They’re surviving.

Time scarcity works the same way.

Too busy to build a better way.
Too overloaded to delegate properly.
Too overwhelmed to stop and think, “Why does this problem keep happening in the first place?”

And so the same stuff keeps coming back.
And the tunnel deepens.
And the fire never stops.

Breaking the loop

There’s no magic. But there is a choice.

The only way out.

Put time on your calendar to fix the system before the system eats your time forever.

Even when it feels impossible.
Even when it feels like you have no space, no time.

Because if you don’t, you’ll be in the tunnel forever.

No work - No tomatoes

When you decide to grow a garden, or even just a tomato plant or basil on your windowsill, you kind of know: before you get anything useful, you’ve got to care for the soil. Add nutrients. Water it. Give it time and attention.

You wait. No guarantees. Just your belief, or someone else’s experience, knowledge, that it’ll eventually grow and give something back.

Somehow, we forget that this is how the whole life works too.

You invest first. Time. Energy. Care. You don’t get results before the effort, you get them because of it.

But as we’ve made life more convenient, our tolerance for that natural order has dropped.

Many of my clients want more from life, more fulfillment in their business or career, better health, stronger relationships, more with less time and more demands pulling at them from every direction.

The solution isn’t finding more time. We’ve all got the same 24-hour cap.

The solution is building better systems. Systems that buy back your time.

Systems that let you do more of what matters and less of what drains you.

The tricky part: the law of life still applies.

Before you can get more out, you’ve got to put more in, time, energy, often money, with returns that only show up after the fact.

Getting healthier? - time for workouts, money for nourishing food, almost zero additional rewards.

Want more growth in your business or career?

You might have to delegate. Hire an assistant. Cut projects that aren’t moving you forward.

You’ll have to spend money to get help, spend time onboarding, have hard conversations with a lot of NOs. You’ll probably have to give up something, pride, control, status, short-term income. Your business will spend more before it earns you more.

Before you get the upgrade: more impact, more freedom, more income, more profits, fewer distractions.

Even something as small as hiring someone to clean your home so you can spend more time on what matters - family, more fulfilling career, quiet time with yourself - it takes effort. Finding the right person. Training them. Adapting. At first, it costs more time that you already don't have!

But it creates space for your future.

That’s also why AI adoption is slower than it could be.

The upfront cost, learning, setup, shifting habits, become a newbie, losing status, asking for help, not being as efficient - all this cost comes before the return.

So next time you feel buried in tasks, overwhelmed by clutter, constantly searching for files, or cleaning up messes that steal your peace, ask yourself:

Am I suffering because there’s truly no other way?

Or am I just avoiding the upfront work of building better systems, sacrificing my future potential for short-term comfort?

PS Check out essential books to give you tools and inspire better upstream thinking - "Buy back your time", "Come up for air"

Cape Town - Dubai flight. Pieter was sitting next to me.

He’s recently retired and was heading to Abu Dhabi to explore new career opportunities outside of South Africa.

“I can do pretty much what I want now,” he told me, smiling.

He was genuinely excited to start a new chapter. No drama. No fear. Just curiosity and movement forward.

Pieter became my inspiration that day, a living reminder of how to meet change, life transitions… and yes, even all the AI… with excitement for what's to come.

I asked him what he thought of AI and all the disruption it’s causing.

“Are you afraid it’s going to replace us all?”

“Not really,” he shrugged.
“It’s just another tool that helps me do my job better.”

That resonated with me.

It reminded me of two things:

1. Change is constant, whether you’re 25 or 65, whether it’s AI or something else, there will always be transitions.

2. Health is your true power source, if your body and brain are in good shape, you can always write a new chapter. And it gets more exciting as you walk forward.

Bonus reminder: Attitude is everything.

It made me think of my dad. He’s approaching retirement too, but he’s scared, I feel. Not of being old, but of being lost. He doesn’t see the next step, so he clings to the job, the known, the structure.

I get it. Nobody likes uncertainty and not knowing where you'll end up going. Especially if you don't feel like you have too many options, or that you belong in the new times.

But the truth is, There’s never a clear path forward. There never was.

It’s always some version of walking through fog.
One small step, then the next.
That’s how you create your path. 25, or 65, or anything in between.

AI made this clear for all of us,

We don’t know what’s coming.
But we can move forward anyway.

🕹️Pushing your own buttons

“Oh, I like that, pushing your own buttons. It makes it sound like someone else has control over you, and instead you can learn how to control yourself.”

That’s what Yu-Kai said to me during our podcast on gamification and how to make ourselves do hard things. Not just do them, but want to do them, AND have fun doing it.

We hear it all the time, “Motivation isn’t reliable. You need discipline.”
But I’d argue, and Yu-Kai, world's top gamification guru, agrees, nothing happens without motivation.

Even discipline runs on fuel. And that fuel? It’s motivation. More specifically, the core drivers that move you into action.

Pushing your own buttons means knowing which drivers work best for you, and then designing your life to activate them.

When Yu-Kai needed to finish writing a book while juggling client work and family, he didn’t rely on willpower. He used social pressure. He told people at an upcoming workshop they’d be getting his book. The fear of losing face worked better than any calendar reminder, or discipline. He wrote. He delivered.

That’s what pushing your own buttons looks like.

Here are the 8 Core Drivers Yu-Kai uses to help companies design engaging products that customers can't stop using, or environments where employees do their absolute best without anyone pushing them, and that you can use to design your own motivation system to create the life you want:

1. Epic Meaning & Calling
   You’re part of something bigger than yourself. Purpose beyond the task.

2. Development & Accomplishment
   Progress. Mastery. The win you earn.

3. Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback
   Make choices. Express yourself. See impact.

4. Ownership & Possession
   You care more when it’s yours.

5. Social Influence & Relatedness
   Recognition. Connection. Status. Community.

6. Scarcity & Impatience
   The ticking clock. The exclusive spot. The “almost gone.”

7. Unpredictability & Curiosity
   Surprises. Mystery. What’s next?

8. Loss & Avoidance
   The pain you don’t want. The risk you won’t take.

Which ones spark action in YOU? Which ones get you to follow through even when it’s hard?

Your long-term goals won’t be accomplished by discipline. They’ll be accomplished by knowing what drives you, and pushing the right button at the right time to activate one of the core drivers.

PS Can you imagine Elon Musk waking up every morning saying, “I have to be disciplined today to build a rocket and send it to space”?

The more I dive into behavior design, the more convinced I become,
It’s the best way to create change.

Change who you are.
Change how your life turns out.
Change what you consistently do - and you become someone else entirely.

Change of habits is change of self.

One of the best ways I know to shift habits, to actually stick with them?
Two simple tools, Implementation Intention + Positive Emotion.

BJ Fogg, one of the leading researchers in habit science created “habit recipe cards” to make it easier.

What’s the habit you want to build that could shape the future-you?

More gratitude?
Daily business follow-ups?
Practicing sales calls?
Eating fruit for breakfast instead of croissants?

Start clear.
Start small.
Think one call, one apple, one push-up.

Then build your recipe.

“After I get in the shower in the morning, I’ll do one push-up, and then do a little dance.”

Anchor habit (shower) + New habit (push-up) + Positive emotion (dance/seal it with dopamine) × Repeat = A stronger, fitter, more focused Future-You.

What behaviors do you need to wire in to grow your better self?

Use this proven formula.
Grow it one rep at a time.

Every Sunday I spend some time reflecting on the week that just passed.
I write down what worked and why.
What didn’t work and why.
What I need to do more of to build momentum toward my goals.
What I need to put in place to prevent future setbacks.

I also look at what strengths, call them superpowers, I already have that can help me move forward.
And I ask, what patterns or character traits do I need to watch out for, and how can I build systems around them to stop tripping over my own feet.

One thing though.

None of that really matters unless it’s part of a bigger story. Your bigger why and where.

What’s it all for?

All the building, striving, optimizing, toward what, exactly?

As Lewis Carroll said:

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

So I make sure to check in with the bigger picture as well.
Is what I’m doing, today, this week, leading to something I actually care about?
Am I climbing a ladder leaned against the right wall?

That bigger picture isn’t just motivational.
It’s practical.
It helps me say no.

You can’t say yes to everything you want.
Time is limited.
Demands on your time? Not so much.

When the overwhelm starts creeping in, when everything feels urgent and important and endless, I know it's time I go back to one tool that always helps me clear the fog and unload my plate, clear the space for the right stuff: Horizon Planning.

From David Allen’s Getting Things Done:

“Horizon planning, within the context of David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, is a framework for thinking about your work and life at different levels of perspective. It helps you prioritize your actions by focusing on the most important things first, aligning your goals and even discarding less important commitments. Essentially, it's about seeing the bigger picture while also managing your daily tasks effectively.”

It’s a zoom-out.
A wide-angle lens for your life and work.
It helps me realign my to-do list with what's meaningful and fulfilling, before it all becomes just a long list of noise.

I created a worksheet for my own Horizon Planning process, based on David Allen’s work.
You can make a copy and use it anytime your plate gets too full, and you’re not sure it’s full of the right stuff.

You can feel the feeling, you can do the thing

“You can feel something negative – you can feel demotivated or defeated or depressed – and still act in the service of your long-term goals.”
~ Scott Barry Kaufman, Rise Above

Dr. Scott is one of the most prolific psychologists in the world studying human potential. He founded the Center for Human Potential. He’s also a coach. His work resonates deeply with me.

In Rise Above, his latest book, he talks about divorcing the various expressions of our inner victimhood - trauma, emotions, cognitive distortions, low self-worth, the compulsive need to please.

These things are real. They are part of being us, humans. But they don’t have to run the show.

We have agency.

When you set a meaningful goal, tough moments are guaranteed. You’ll feel overwhelmed, pulled in too many directions, like you’re already carrying too much. You’ll doubt yourself. You might think, Who am I to want this? You’ll worry you’re letting people down just by daring to want more.

That’s not weakness. That’s being human.

But here’s what the most fulfilled people know and act on:
You don’t have to change your goals because of those feelings.
And you don’t have to wait until you feel different to begin.

In fact, feelings are byproducts of doing. So start, and you'll have a different feeling.

You can feel lazy and still show up for your workout.
You can feel like an imposter and still stand up to speak.
You can feel like life gave you a rough hand - a bumpy runway instead of a launchpad - and still build a life you love. Daring greatly, achieving great things, some part of you thought were impossible.

The beauty of being human is this: we get through things.
We adapt. We grow. We thrive.

If we choose to.

This isn’t about willpower. It’s about learning how to have better conversations inside your own head.
And that’s where Scott’s book is a great place to start.
Pick it up - join my reading.

I watched a lecture yesterday on the science of motivating young people.

What stuck with me wasn’t the brain scans showing what lights up motivation centers, and what you need to do more of to get people moving. It was the idea that you can design environments, conversations, even simple phrases, in a way that gets people hooked on trying harder, learning better, and growing into their best selves.

Of course, this same science can be misused, like hooking people into endless scrolling or buying things they don’t need. But when it’s used to help someone rise, stretch, become more of who they’re capable of being?

That feels like a noble pursuit that can change the human race!

I was fascinated with the precision of designing for motivation wired in a teenage brain.

Even more so I loved the idea on how communicating and behaving in a specific way, with a “mentor mindset”, makes such a huge difference for motivating people do their best at hard things VS fearing failure and staying in their comfort zone VS zone of growth, swinging at bigger things voluntarily, doing more hard work to get better, to make things better - all without a stick or a carrot!

This mentor mindset technique works equally well for adults and it’s super simple to grasp.

Act, talk, teach in a way that speaks “high demand, high support”. Which can be nicely summarized in a nice phrase by David Yeager and his colleagues,

“I’m giving you these comments because I have high standards for you and I believe you can meet them (and I’ll support you all the way through”

If you got this on EVERY challenge, if you felt that kind of push and support, wouldn’t you swing at more things?

Let’s demand more from each other, and also, let’s give each other matching support. That’s how we unlock more potential. That’s how we change the world.