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The poison is sneaky. A single 15 minute workout increases your brain's ability and efficiency to create neural networks required for learning. So that means what you were moving and working out your brain is actually more efficient and retaining information and programming your subconscious as compared to being dormant. Now think about that for a second. When you moved last, what were you listening to guns, drugs, be trash, like swear words, cuss words? Songs about scarcity. The world is happening to me songs. My life is miserable songs. Listening to the news of people, complaining about everything. Think about it.

When the last time you moved, walked, worked out, even drove just apply this to everywhere. What was the last thing that you were listening to see every moment of your day, you are absorbing information and training yourself on how you see. And how you show up in the world. It's not in the 20 minutes of reading or the 30 minutes of meditation, those help, but it's in the other 23 hours a day that the teachings are happening that they've have a compound effect three months, six months, nine months from now that an hour, a day can't un-train. As it's been said, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. I think that deserves an update. You're the average of the 24 hours of programming you allow into your world? 18 months ago, I made a rule that I wasn't allowed to listen to music with lyrics, unless it was from a shaman. Or it was just instrumentals. And then I took it one step further and said in any moment of my life, I only have the option to choose one of the following six things. Number one, silence, try it. Working out noise, canceling headphones with nothing, driving in silence. Number two. Audio books that I intentionally choose to either propel me forward, or I think it's fiction words that aren't real, that are good, positive stories. Number three Chemonics music, number four, instrumentals number five, incantations or affirmations. I E like guided meditations, positive affirmation tracks. Tony Robbins, that cart totally. Or even better. Affirmations that I record in my own voice. There's an amazing app out there called subliminal. And you can record your own affirmations in your own voice and listen to them, which gives your brain. It's like a fast-forward button because your brain recognizes your own voice. And so there's that one. And number six is musicians with positive messages and music. And so two musicians that I'm obsessed with lately are Will Evans and Sat Sang and they actually tour together. Travel hall is another one.

So I listened to music about presence and consciousness and forgiveness and growth and love and all those things. So if it has lyrics, I listened to it. India Arie is another one that I listened to. So I wonder if that has any impact on the fact that everything in my life has been a rocket ship, including my happiness. So my question is, are you aware of all the programs that you are installing in your computer every day and are those programs propelling you forward or are they holding you back? I wrote this post the first time a year ago, and then I updated it and then I really have had the chance lately to look back and see the positive effects of this decision in my life.

I don't watch television. We don't have cable, so I don't watch the news. I don't consume much social media. Outside of people that I'm supporting, like my mastermind, my students, or my friends, I try not to consume any agendized media. I try to make sure that anything I'm consuming, I'm controlling, I'm intentional with. And when I say that the poison is sneaky, I can literally see a direct correlation between what I've allowed in or what I've even allowed to touch me. And my success and my happiness. And so I don't think I can ever go back to just blatantly listening to the radio or watching the news or letting other people dictate what I do or consume. 

I have to stay intentionally consuming because it is literally me writing the programming of my super computer that runs me every single day. And yes, I still have sadness and anger and joy and trauma and all these different emotions that I experience, but I don't numb them out by disconnecting distraction.

I intentionally sit with them and then I'll listen to the right thing or I'll journal or I'll do something. But when I say the poison is sneaky, I realized that most of my career when I had success and lost, it was because I became victim to the noise of the outside world. I started to believe what I was hearing or comparing myself to others or listening to other people, complain or finding skepticism when I didn't have any before. And I've now very much realized the power of what I allow into my space and just to be clear, I still have FOMO sometimes. I still have fear of missing out like, Oh, what if I know? And I'll still catch a headline on social and want to go dive down the rabbit hole and Google it. But then I ask myself why is my life going to be any better knowing what happened in that scandal? Is my life going to be any better? Knowing what happened in that fraud. Am I going to be a better husband, a better father, a better human, a better business owner, a better entrepreneur. Am I going to help you listen to this more by reading about that? Probably not. And I still catch myself I'll find it, I'll catch myself reading it and I won't do it anymore. I'll stop the activity and I'll shift it. But the poison is sneaky and whether we like it or not, we are surrounded by negative programming. We are surrounded by scarcity by not good enough conversation.

But when we think about most marketing, a lot of it harps on pain. And a lot of it harps on us staying in pain. You think about that. And so when we know that we're surrounded by that televisions, drama, reality, televisions, controversy, headlines, more blah, like we're not sitting here watching the happy go lucky news. And for whatever we see reported on the inference of that, maybe that's not the right word, whatever you see your part on the other side of that, there's also positive stories to report on, but those don't get attention. Those don't get consumption, but we have to be really intentional about what we consume and what we allow in now.

so the poison is sneaky and I wrote this post around my workouts because for years I only worked out to music. And one of the hardest things that I did was I started working out in silence. Now I'm one of those interesting people when I would run, I would always like to run in silence and just listen to nature. But when I was in the gym, I always wanted to listen to music, the hard stuff or anything. And I started working out in silence and running was easy for me, but working out like lifting weights and moving a lot in silence. Was actually really difficult and most gyms play loud music. So I was just started using my noise, canceling headphones and keeping them on and may end where there's some interesting thoughts in there of self-doubt you can't do it.

Do one more like without any external fuel whatsoever, but it ended up being really powerful for me. And now what's really funny is when I work out with heavyweights. I actually listen to like lectures from philosophers or doctors or audio books or things like that. Like now I don't even listen to music when I work out. I just listened to good positive talks, but I wrote this post because I was going through that phase and it was really interesting because as my body's working on and moving. I have an increased ability in my brain to create neural networks for learning. And as I'm working out, I'm actually more absorbed full of all that stuff coming in.

And I worked out once or twice a day, and I was thinking about all that rap music that I listened to and things like that and what it was saying and what I wasn't even like consciously hearing, but with subconsciously programming my body. With subconsciously programming, the computer that would then go relate to my wife, relate to my customers, relate to my team and wondered why I was acting or behaving the way that I was, because I was a little disconnected from self and my values because something else had programmed it in.

so I wanted to talk about this because, as entrepreneurs. As business owners, as people that are listen, you're listening to this podcast, you're changing the world. The end. Thank you for doing the work that you do, but your job isn't to shine somebody else's light. Your job is to shine your light. Your light is what makes the difference, your light, signature the brightness of your life, your message, your product, your story, your offer, the way that you lead your team, the way that you lead your family, the way that you speak words into people, the way that you speak words in yourself, like every single thing that you do is your gift. And the more time that you have connected to you. And your intuition in that space, the brighter your light becomes. It's your message. Not somebody else's message that stuff. Isn't going to help your message. I need you to spend more time in relationship with you and your message or disseminating your message. Like instead of listen to the musical, make music, instead of listening, just go do a live video, make content, do something. 

You need to be intentional about every single thing that comes into your world. Every single thing that you hear that you watch, that you listened to, you have to be intentional about it, including the environments that you're in. if you're not consuming leave space so you can create. So if you go into the sauna to sit there and silence and watch what happens, you'll consume your own thoughts and you'll have the best clarity you've ever had. Go sit on the couch, look out the window and just stare at nothing and practice boredom for 30 minutes.

These are the seven book recommendations that I have. Book number one, I'm going to preface book number one. With a statement that I learned to love and understand more and more every single day. You are guaranteed to be in a relationship with one person for the rest of your life. And that is you. And it is a relationship shift that needs to be practiced and pursued no different than your significant, other than your kids, then your business partners. It has to be pursued. So book recommendation, number one, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It by Kamal Ravikant. 

So book number two is the wedge by Scott Carney. Now Scott Carney wrote another book. I think it's along the lines of what doesn't kill us. How cold exposure he studied. Wim Hoff. I got into cold therapy and breath work through Wim Hoff cold therapy is what helped me start to be. More proactive and less reactive to situations outside of myself. It was huge for my PTSD, my nightmares, the things that I struggle with. And so book number two is the wedge by Scott Carney. And basically my summary of this book is this book talks about and gives you ways to teach yourself on how to control your autonomic nervous system. So in the world happens when trauma happens, when your ad account gets shut down, that employee quits, when you lose money. That you are given a moment of awareness to pause and choose your response instead of reacting. And so it puts you in the driver's seat of awareness and it gives you tools to train yourself, to be able to hold what's coming in from the world. So you can respond versus react.

Book number three, the secret to life, the secret to life. The thing. That we don't appreciate until it's taken away and that most people wish they could have one more of. Breath. So the book is Breathe by James Nestor. Now I had done breath work and understood breath work and use breath work. But once I read this book, it changed my relationship and I realized how breathing is the secret weapon of success for entrepreneurs and human beings that utilize it? It's absolutely mind-blowing. I could not do this book justice. Breathe more, but breathe more now. And then after you finished that book brief by James Nestor. 

Book number four, in my opinion, is a manuscript, a manual of how you should live your life and how you should live in business. This book is a playbook. It is literally a playbook that guarantees your success both in life and in business. And this book is called the Go-Giver by Bob Burg. The Go-Giver by Bob Burg. It'll change everything. Guaranteed. If you use this book as a manual, there is zero way. And zero way that you can lose in life or in business. So book number four is the Go-Giver by Bob Burg. 

Now book number five is about toxic thinking and toxic thinking is something I didn't really understand and toxic thinking. When eliminated is just a simple choice in the way that we have an internal dialogue and the way that we relate to certain things, this book is by an author named Jamie smart. And this book is a really easy read or a really easy lesson. It is called the little book of clarity, the Little book of clarity by Jamie Smart. And let me give you the overview and the premise for me. So basically I lived, most of my entrepreneurial career of I'll do this when right. I'll buy that. When I will start working out. When I hit this number, I will hire this employee. When I get that, I will spend more time with my family when I hit that thing. Here's the truth is that thing never comes because the finish line. Always moves. And so toxic thinking is thinking just that there is any other moment, but now, and it gives a really simple tools and practices to shift that, thinking to create the results now, which actually amplify everything that you do. And so that book is absolutely amazing. 

Book number six, books. Number six is extreme ownership by Jocko Willink. Now I might have an affinity for this book because I was in the military and I really appreciate directness, but Jocko. I don't care if you've heard of him or not the way that he delivers the wisdom through his life experience. And what he has is mind blowing Jocko was a commander in the Navy seals. I believe, I don't remember his specific rank. He was in the Navy seals. For most of his career has seen stuff that most human beings should never wish. That another human being saw he has had experience with things that most people never experienced and the way that he delivers this, plus being a husband, a father, and a human being is just absolutely beautiful to me. And so I've never met Jocko personally. I consume a lot of his content. I love his books. I love a lot of his social posts. I love the example that he is, but this book is extreme ownership. Is really an important concept to understand as a human being, no one's coming to save us as a business owner as an entrepreneur. No, one's coming to save us. If you have low sales, nobody's going to come magically show up at your doorstep and bring you on a unicorn, a sales bucket. We have to find the solution. We have to empower somebody, inspire somebody, do it ourselves. Nobody's coming to fix that situation. Nobody's coming to have that hard conversation. Nobody's going to come lose the weight for us or make the money for us or change this for us only. We are. And back when I used to be in the personal development world, when I was going through trainings, they always used to say a hundred percent responsible, a hundred percent of the time. And it was this concept that I really didn't understand. And what took me a long time to understand it wasn't even, it wasn't even the fact that like I might be responsible. It's the fact that I look at every situation like I am responsible, which empowers me to always choose my next input. And so no one's coming to save us. Nobody's coming to save me. And so extreme ownership is a very amazing way and an amazing book that reminds me of that. And it gives me the tools required to put me in action. And then my final book is about perspective. 

And my final book is about deep perspective because I have a story in my life, I've experienced the life that I've utilized as a story. I have life experiences that most people, when I share them, give me sympathy or empathy. And I have a story that I've been able to hide behind before. Where my story has been my crutch. It's been my distraction. It's been my kind of excuse card, my get out of jail free card. Like I don't have to do the whole work side of the story. And I used to hide behind this story and my story was missing some perspective because I wasn't using my story for good all the time. I was using my story, but I didn't know better at the time. I was just afraid to feel and afraid to be really vulnerable with those close to me. But this book. Oh, man. I listened to this book like once every six months and this book just has a way, it has a way of like slapping reality. And to me, like slapping perspective into me where I was like, I would give anything to have my life again, a hundred times over from this book.

And though that book is man's search for meaning by Viktor Frankl, man's search for meaning by Viktor Frankl. I can't say anything else about that book. I won't even do it justice, if you have never read or listened to that book, do it. If you have listened to it again, and then consume a lot more of Victor Frankel's work, I found writings from him and things like that. It is absolutely mind blowing.