PERSONAL

KAIZEN
SMALLER CHANGES,
BIGGER RESULTS

MIKE GROGAN
 WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID
“A simple but comprehensive manual
that will make a profound difference
in your life.”
DAVID ALLEN, Bestselling Author,
‘Getting Things Done’

“Rarely does a book change my habits.

Personal Kaizen is a must-read.”
MIKE O’HAGAN, Founder of MiniMovers

“A framework for ‘how to change’ that is

practical and loaded with powerful
personal examples.”
DR. JOHN TOUSSAINT, Executive Chairman
of Catalysis Inc.

“This book makes the daunting idea of habit

change not only feel doable but inspires us
to start right away.”
EMILI KAMIYA WHITTAKER,
Manufacturing Engineer at Merck

“If there’s any piece of literature that can

push you to change your habits for the
better, this would be it.”
JEAN HENRI LHUILLIER, President and CEO
of PJ Lhuillier
 WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID
“What a fantastic book of pearls and gems!
Now we have no more excuses that change
is too hard.”
DR. CRIS ENRIQUEZ, CEO of Rapha Health

“Elegantly simple on the one hand;

amazingly impactful on the other.”
DAVID SILVERSTEIN, CEO & Founder of
The Lean Methods Group

“The book is written in such a style which

allows you to believe it has been written just
for you.”
LOUISE JONES, Head of Global Mobility at
DLA Piper

“The techniques in this realistic, tactical

guide will profoundly change your life for
the better.”
CHRIS BAILEY, Bestselling Author
‘A Life of Productivity’

“If only I could have convinced 18-year-old

me to pick up this book years ago.”
ADAM HILL, Staff Engineer at
Johnson and Johnson
 CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
THE MISSING PIECE ▸1

CHAPTER 1
THE MOST POWERFUL WAY TO INFLUENCE OTHERS ▸11

CHAPTER 2
WHY WE FAIL AT PERSONAL CHANGE ▸21

CHAPTER 3
THE POWER OF KAIZEN ▸31

CHAPTER 4
MORNING RITUALS ▸43

CHAPTER 5
KEYSTONE HABITS ▸69

CHAPTER 6
30-DAY CHALLENGE SUCCESS STORIES ▸87

MARK ▸91

REBECCA ▸114

ALEX ▸139
 CHAPTER 7
THE WISER WAY ▸161

CHAPTER 8
YOUR 30-DAY CHALLENGE ▸179

CHAPTER 9
IMPROVING YOUR PLAN ▸199

CHAPTER 10
YOUR SUCCESS PARTNER ▸203

CHAPTER 11
BEYOND MORNING RITUALS ▸215

CHAPTER 12
CONCLUSION ▸219

EPILOGUE
YOU WERE BORN FOR GREATNESS ▸225
Philippine Copyright © 2019 Mike Grogan

PERSONAL KAIZEN
Smaller Changes, Bigger Results

ISBN 978-109-1016-14-9

Author: Mike Grogan

Cover Design and Lay-out: Kray Cortez
Editors: Adrian Pantonial and Shiela Pantaleon

In the true spirit of Kaizen this book is an updated and improved

version of ‘The Messi Way’ and ‘Unlocking the Habit Code’ by
the same author.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

except for brief quotations, without the written permission from the
author.

www.kaizenleadership.ph
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Grogan is a Kaizen Expert and Management
Consultant who has helped dozens of companies in the
Philippines increase their output and efficiency.

His ability to speak Tagalog combined

with his experiences in working directly
with Filipino managers to create more
engaged and performance focused
teams, make Mike one of the most
sought-after Business Consultants in the
Philippines today.

Directly mentored by Toyota Senseis in Lean/TPS and

Certified as a Six Sigma Black Belt, Mike has helped
companies from multiple different industries implement
Kaizen in America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and
now the Philippines. Since 2014, Mike’s programs have
impacted over 100,000 Filipinos.

Outside of business, Irish native Mike is the author of

five books and the co-founder of ‘The Rise of the Pinoy’,
an advocacy with the mission of uplifting Filipinos to
reach their potential. As of March 2019, he has over
260,000 followers, and his online videos have more than
60 million views.

To learn more, visit: www.kaizenleadership.ph

In Partnership with: The Profiles Group

 DEDICATION
To the Filipino people: You are a gift
to the world. Living in your country
brings out the best in me.
Maraming salamat.
 PROLOGUE

THE MISSING PIECE

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is

true wisdom. Mastering others is strength;
Mastering yourself is true power.”
— Lao Tzu
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

It was the morning of January 1st. I was in the living room of

my parent’s house back in Ireland, and I had just completed
writing down my New Year’s resolutions: my plan for how I
was going to make the coming year my “best year ever.” But
instead of being optimistic, a part of me began to feel
depressed.

I asked myself, “What’s gonna be different this time, Mike?”

This was not the first time I had made New Year’s resolutions,
and my track record at following through was not good.

If I had the courage to look at what I had written one year

previous, instead of seeing massive progress, I would have
seen a long list of broken promises. In most cases, I
completely failed to get anywhere near the outcome I desired.

And even if I did get on the right track for a while, it wasn’t
long before I slipped back into my old bad habits, the
unproductive behaviors and routines that were keeping me
away from the personal and professional success that I deeply
longed for. I was Mr. Inconsistency, Mr. Mediocrity, and Mr.
Average. And I had enough.

I asked myself:
 Why am I always failing?
 Do I not have enough self-discipline and motivation?
 Am I being too ambitious?
 Is there something wrong with me?

2
 PROLOGUE

Hitting Rock Bottom

At that time I had just completed my first full year of being an
entrepreneur. I was proud of myself that I took the leap of
faith, left my comfort zone, and started my own business;
however, things were not going according to plan, and my
results were nowhere near where they need to be.
The truth was that I was struggling. My savings were
completely gone, and I was sinking deeper into debt. A part
of me felt like a total failure for letting down my family,
friends, mentors, and all of those who believed and supported
me.

Identifying the Core Problem

I knew that my core problem was not that I did not have the
desire to change or that I was not aware that I needed to
change. My core problem was that I did not know how to be
consistent enough with the changes I wanted to make in my
life.

As I found out later during my research for this book, I was

not the only one with this problem: most people’s track record
with change is depressing. We fail far more times than we
succeed.

 New Year’s resolutions give the most haunting

evidence of how bad we are, with around 80% of us
not making it past February.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

 In the business world, we are not much better either,

with around 70% of executives describing their
attempts at changing company culture as “failing to
meet expectations.”

We want to change. We know we must change. But we fail to

change. What’s wrong with us?

So that day, I made a promise to myself: That I was going to

take 100% responsibility for the situation I got myself in. That
I was not going to take the loser’s way out by blaming others
for my failure. And that I would figure out a way to solve my
change problem, and once I did, I would show others how to
do the same. I made a commitment to myself that I would not
make that year like every other year that went before it.

My Journey to the Ultimate Breakthrough

So I began my experimentations. First, I tried the law of

attraction, believing that with visualization, affirmations, and
positive thinking, I could just wish my goals into my life. That
didn’t work at all.

Then for a few months, I tried following the goal-setting

programs outlined in some of the books that my friends
recommended. Although I did start to feel a little progress at
the beginning, I still ended up slipping back into my old ways.
I did not experience the major breakthrough I was looking for.
Something was still missing.

Then it hit me. What if that thing I learned at work that was
taught to us by the Toyota consultants, which has created so
much positive change in the companies I worked for — what
if that could also be applied to my personal life as well?

4
 PROLOGUE

Will it give me the same great results with my personal goals

as it did in a business setting?

And that’s what I did. I applied it to myself. And guess what?

This time it worked. I finally got the breakthrough I was
looking for.

That thing was called Kaizen, and it has since become the
foundation of how I approach creating new habits and
achieving goals in every area of my life.

In the first year that I implemented Kaizen in my personal life,

I felt I was able to achieve more that year than I did in the
previous five years combined. It was only then that I realized
that my past failures at personal change weren’t because I had
not enough willpower or self-discipline. It’s because I was not
using the right method. No wonder I was struggling.

Finding the Right Method

As I will explain later in this book, Kaizen is not just a

Japanese business philosophy. It is not just a methodology for
how to turn around a company’s performance or transform a
work culture. It is much more than that.

The principles of Kaizen are applicable to every situation

where people are required to change behaviors, create new
habits, and achieve sustainable results. It is the science of how
to change that is directly aligned to our human psychology.

Before discovering Personal Kaizen, for years I was told that

I just needed to be more motivated and disciplined to achieve
my goals. And when I figured out that it wasn’t actually the
case, I was finally able to break away from the mediocrity of

5
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

being average and get the breakthrough results I desperately

needed.

The real problem? The school system has completely failed

us. In all our years of formal education, most of us were never
taught an effective course on goal-setting, habit creation, or
the science of achievement. This is not to criticize our past
teachers —they too were victims of a system that was created
in the nineteenth century primarily to create compliant factory
workers, not to help students self-actualize.

Instead, we were filled with information that has little to no

practical application in the real world. Most of us never
learned how to pick the right goals, how to be consistent with
the right habits, and how to get back on track when we slip
up.

The Missing Piece

But once I realized that Kaizen can also be applied to my

personal life, that’s when I really started to see massive
progress — physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
My business became profitable. I transformed my health. I
became closer to my family and friends. I wrote my first book.
I launched new training programs. I learned a new language.
I felt like I had become a productivity ninja. The truth is that
I have never been happier.

I am sharing this with you not to brag, but to share my truth—

that Kaizen was my missing piece. That it was by applying
Kaizen to my personal life that I was finally able to achieve
those goals that were escaping me for so long.

But it wasn’t just me.

6
 PROLOGUE

When I started sharing this discovery with my clients and

students, they too started to experience the same
breakthroughs — both in their professional and personal lives.
At the time of printing this book, my team and I have impacted
over 100,000 people with this message.

PS. Later in this book, you will read about the experiences
of three ordinary individuals who created extraordinary
changes in their life by applying Personal Kaizen. These
stories will not just talk about what that they did, but they
will also detail how they did it, including their honest
reflections on what they could have done differently.

The Hidden Benefits

Not only does Personal Kaizen help you optimize your day
and achieve your goals faster, but there are also so many
hidden benefits that I never thought of when I first started to
implement it. For example:

 If you’re low on cash, sure, Personal Kaizen will help

you make more money — but you’ll also get more
freedom to travel and take more vacations.

 If you are out of shape, sure, Personal Kaizen will

help you transform your health — but you’ll also win
the respect of others who desperately want to achieve
the same results as you.

 If you are single and lonely, sure, Personal Kaizen

will help you attract the right partner — but you’ll
also become so much more positive where others
cannot help but be infected by your energy.

7
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

But perhaps the greatest benefit of Personal Kaizen is the

fulfillment you will feel when you see how others have
followed your example and changed their life because of you.

Because you became the role model and showed others the
great results that you accomplished, you will be able to inspire
and empower them to reach goals that they previously thought
were impossible for them to achieve.

Now that is the kind of life worth living.

The Joy of Contribution

This is why I wrote this book. I believe that there is no greater

lasting joy in life than helping others succeed, that the secret
to living, really, is in giving.

That is why I want you to achieve the breakthrough changes

that others and I have experienced with Personal Kaizen. And
I want you to get even better results than us.

After all the pain and frustration that I have experienced with
bad habits and goal failure in the past, I want you to avoid the
mistakes that I have made. Thus, I feel that it is my moral
obligation to share this with you.

The Accidental Teacher

To be honest, I did not expect to write this book. It was never

my dream as a kid to be a corporate trainer or a so-called self-
help guru. In fact, I accidentally discovered that my passion
was teaching when, in one of my first jobs as a Chemical
Engineer, I was asked to create a training program that would

8
 PROLOGUE

explain a part of our work (Cleaning Validation) to non-

technical people in a user-friendly way.

Even though I am sure I did not give the best presentation in

the world, it lit a spark in me. It was then that I realized that I
really enjoyed the process of making something that appears
complex very simple. I got great satisfaction from seeing the
joy on the faces of the audience when they were finally able
to put it all together. Fifteen years later, the spark has become
a fire within me. I have become obsessed with becoming a
better teacher and trainer.

Your Greatest “Smallest” Discovery

That’s one of the reasons why it took me so long to write this

book. I have gone back and forth with dozens of reviewers,
manuscript after manuscript, revision after revision. But it
was totally worth it. I am committed to making your reading
experience as simple and profound for you as possible so that
you easily discover what you have been missing in the past,
and more importantly, you have everything you need to start
working towards that breakthrough you deserve.

My promise is that when you start to apply Personal Kaizen,

it will be one of the greatest “smallest” discoveries you will
ever make.

Personal Kaizen is something that will make reaching your

goals so much easier. It will help you change your habits faster
than anything that you have learned in the school system or
any of the traditional approaches to goal-setting or habit
creation.

9
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

The Better Future You Deserve

In only a few weeks’ time, you too can have your own
breakthrough.

Think of what it will feel like when you realize that you have
taken giant leaps closer towards the long-term success —
health, wealth, love, and happiness — that matters most to
you.

Just imagine what your life will be like when you can proudly
say to others how much you have achieved.

Think about it:

 If all this did was help you get rid of your biggest
frustration, would it be worth it?

 If all this did was help you achieve your #1 goal,

would it be worth it?

You know the answers.

This is what you have been missing in the past.

Your journey to a NEW you begins NOW.

10
 CHAPTER ONE

THE STARTING POINT

FOR EVERY CHANGE

“The hardest battle I ever faced was

changing myself.”
— Nelson Mandela
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

Before we dive into the details about how to apply Personal

Kaizen, I want to make sure that you and I are on the same
page when it comes to identifying the starting point for every
change.

Let me start by asking an open-ended question.

WHAT CHANGE DO
YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD?

Whenever I ask this question in my seminars and workshops,

I usually get very different answers. Below are a sample of
some of the answers I have received:

 A business owner wants his employees to become more

accountable and proactive.

 A parent wants her children to focus on their studies and

not get addicted to video games.

 A sports coach wants his players to become more

disciplined and organized.

 A pastor wants to help his church members abandon

destructive behaviors and practice righteous living.

 A manager wants her team to become more creative and

innovative.

 A teacher wants her students to become more

imaginative and insightful.

12
 THE STARTING POINT FOR EVERY CHANGE

 A public servant wants to change the way the general

public thinks and acts.

 An entrepreneur wants to change the way customers use

his product.

 A humanitarian wants to help the people she is trying to

empower break free from their false limiting beliefs.

Can you spot the one thing they all have in common? All their
initial answers are focused on other people making a change.
Is this a bad thing? Yes and no. The ability to see opportunities
for other people to improve is a great and much-needed skill.
However, if you only do this and cannot see the opportunities
to improve yourself, then your ability to influence others will
slowly disappear.

“You must be the change that you wish

to see in the world.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

WHY WE CANNOT CHANGE ANYONE

The reality is that we cannot change anyone. We can only

influence other people to change themselves. Real change,
especially the lasting behavioral change that we seek the most,
will always be the decision of the individual. We can only
change ourselves. The only way we can encourage and support
a change in others is through influence. And the most

13
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

powerful way we can do this is by showing them how we

ourselves deal with change.

“Example is not the main thing in

influencing others. It is the only thing.”
— Albert Schweitzer

Think of someone who has had a significant positive

influence on your life or a real-life hero you greatly admire.
They would have had absolutely no influence on you or on
others if they did not decide to change themselves at one point
in their lives.

The foundation of all greatness in both business and life is

personal mastery, becoming the living example of the change
you want to see in others. The most powerful leadership tool
we have is our own personal example.

“The world is changed by your

example, not by your opinion.”
— Paulo Coelho

Thus, to become a greater influence on others and to help

people change, we must first improve how we deal with
personal change.

14
 THE STARTING POINT FOR EVERY CHANGE

HOW TO GET MAXIMUM VALUE

FROM THIS BOOK

“The capacity to learn is a gift;

the ability to learn is a skill;
the willingness to learn is a choice.”
— Brian Herbert

Before we continue any further, I want to ensure that you are

set up to harness maximum value from this book. The truth is,
most people do not know how to read effectively. I don’t want
you to make that mistake. I want you to get a million times
more value from this book than its price suggests. You deserve
much more than value for money. This should be a purchase
that adds infinite value to your life both now and for many
years to come.

If you are to see the full transformational impact of this book,

I want you to follow the three steps below:

1. Read with a pen. I can’t emphasize enough the power

of note-taking when it comes to acquiring new
knowledge. I believe you will be far more likely to
remember what you read if you take notes as you go. For
me, taking notes of my thoughts has been like having a
second brain. If you look at any of the books I have read,
you will see pages and pages of underlines, side notes,
reflections, ideas, drawings, and commentary.

15
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

This is what I want you to do. You can write in the book
itself, in a notebook, or on your phone — whatever
works best for you. As an extra bonus, if you read with a
pen in your hand, you can use it to guide your eyes as you
read each line. This simple technique is used by some of
the smartest people in the world to increase their reading
speed by 20% to 30%.

2. Learn for two. Think of someone in your life you deeply

care about who is going through a difficult time right
now: a friend, a family member, or a work colleague.
Perhaps it is someone with huge potential but is feeling
stuck. I want you to share with them what you consider
to be the most powerful points from this book.
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned in life is that you
can’t make it on your own. The simple act of sharing a
story with someone could have a massive impact on how
they think. Also, every time you share, it will help you
understand more profoundly how you can apply the
lesson to your own life. Everyone wins. This is
especially relevant as you read each of the three stories.
At least one of the characters will remind you of
someone you deeply care about. Bysharing the story with
them could have a massive impact on their future
decisions.

“Life’s most persistent and

urgent question is
‘What are you doing for others?’”
— Martin Luther King Jr.

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 THE STARTING POINT FOR EVERY CHANGE

3. Do the 30-Day Challenge. At the end of this book, I

invite you to join me and your fellow readers in
completing a unique 30-Day Challenge. Yes, you heard
me correctly. If Personal Kaizen is going to change your
life, you must take action — this challenge is your
chance to do that.

My primary aim in writing this book was to support you

in successfully completing this 30-Day Challenge.
Remember, this is not a knowledge-focused book. This
is an application-focused book. Starting and then
completing this 30-Day Challenge will give you
infinitely more value from this book than just reading it
and walking away.

To be direct, I fail as an author if you read this book

without taking action. Knowing without doing is not
knowing. Learning without doing is not learning. Please
do not skip this. It is the most important action you must
take.

“Knowing is not enough;

we must apply. Willingness is
not enough; we must do.”
— Bruce Lee

17
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THIS BOOK

I have learned, mainly from my own experiments and failures,
that one of the most ineffective ways to teach others is by
dumping information on them.

I will not fall for the classic author trap of trying to impress
you with how smart I am by forcing you to read pages and
pages of irrelevant content.

You don’t need that. You don’t deserve that.

We need to read in the way that lights up our brain the most.
A way that makes us excited and curious about what we’re
learning. A way that helps us remember what we’re learning
so we can recall it with ease when we need it the most.

It is my belief that it’s through stories that you will best

connect with the message of Personal Kaizen.

“Words are how we think;

stories are how we link.”
— Christina Baldwin

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 THE STARTING POINT FOR EVERY CHANGE

That’s why about 30% of this book is focused on the stories of

three ordinary people who created extraordinary changes in
their life using the Personal Kaizen method outlined in this
book. You will read how:

- Mark, an overworked and overstressed entrepreneur,

revitalized his struggling business and showed the rest
of his team how to become more productive.

- Rebecca, a young working professional stuck in a job she

hates, finally took action to get closer to her dream job
and inspire her younger sister to follow her example.

- Alex, a first-time father and an amateur athlete, overcame

the failure of being dropped by his coach to have the
greatest comeback of his career and become a hero to his
team and family.

Let me emphasize that it was not through luck or fortunate

circumstances that they were able to make significant
progress towards their goals. It was not just because they were
more motivated or that they had more willpower or self-
discipline than you and me. These are the common
assumptions we make when we see others succeeding.

They were successful because they followed the formula for

Personal Kaizen outlined in this book. Soon you will easily be
able to deconstruct and unravel exactly how they did it. Even
after reading just two of the three stories, it will become
obvious to you how exactly the characters changed, and more
importantly, you will begin to see how you can start applying
these principles to your own life.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

Remember, it is not what the characters did in the stories that

is of most significance — it is how they did it. It is their real-
life testimonies of how they were able to master their version
of Personal Kaizen that I believe will be the most valuable
part of this book for you.

So now that your mind is ready and our expectations are clear,
let’s start smashing some of the false myths about personal
change by examining the top ten mistakes you and I make
when it comes to changing behavior.

Our past failures at change are not because we are bad people
or because we have poor self-discipline or willpower. It is
because we are continuously repeating the same 10 mistakes.

20
.

CHAPTER TWO

WHY WE FAIL AT
PERSONAL CHANGE

“You don’t learn from experience,

you learn from reflecting on experience.”
— John Dewey
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

RECALLING PAST FAILURES

The change problem: We want to change. We know we must
change. But yet, we fail to change.

Before we talk about solutions to the change problem, I want

us to first reflect on the ten most common mistakes we make
when it comes to personal change not just from a theoretical
perspective, but also from a personal perspective.

I want you to connect some of your own past goal failures

with the ten mistakes that you will soon read. In case you
needed a reminder, the table below is an example of goals that
most people fail at.

Lose weight Start a journal

Volunteer more Exercise more
Learn a new language Watch less TV
Drink more responsibly Save more money
More time with family Set up your own business
Read more Stop smoking
Get out of debt Meet new people
Travel more Less time on social media

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 WHY WE FAIL AT PERSONAL CHANGE

A NEW PERSPECTIVE
I expect that at times when you are reading this chapter, you
may start feeling a bit guilty as you reflect on your own failed
attempts at change in the past (or perhaps annoyed with me for
getting you to remember your past failings).

My intention is not to make you feel bad. For Personal Kaizen

to be of greatest value to you, you must first be able to see the
gaps in your old way of thinking. Thus, I don’t want you to
dwell on any negative feelings. Do not allow a part of your
brain to start telling you the story that you are a loser for not
being successful in your past attempts at change.

Remember, everything from your past has made you the

person you are today. So look at it from a new perspective. As
you read this book, you will obtain the clarity you need that
you did not have in the past.

“If you change the way you look at things,

the things you look at change.”
— Dr. Wayne Dyer

This time, you have the opportunity to begin again with the
wisdom of knowing what actually works when it comes to
making lasting change.

23
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

THE TOP 10 REASONS WHY WE FAIL AT

PERSONAL CHANGE
1. We attempt big leaps instead of small baby steps.

We want results fast, and we want results now, so we attempt

unsustainable big leaps. Our lack of patience and perspective
fails us. We focus on big abstract goals (like lose weight, save
money, be smarter) instead of small daily activities (go for a
ten-minute walk before breakfast, make my own lunch in the
morning, listen to inspiring podcasts on my way to work) that
are easy for us to understand and apply on a daily basis.

2. We don’t focus on creating the habits that give us the

biggest return on investment.

Not all habits are created equal. Some habits take more effort
than others. Some habits have a bigger impact than others.
However, there are a small number of habits — let’s call them
keystone habits — that have a positive impact exponentially
greater than the scope of the activity itself. These are the habits
that create a chain reaction in your life that gives you the
energy and confidence to do more, providing the foundation
upon which other positive habits can grow. (We will talk more
about these keystone habits in Chapter 5.)

3. We try to stop undesired behaviors instead of

replacing them.

Whether we are trying to stop a bad habit — smoking, eating

fast food, or biting our nails — we make a big mistake of
assuming that focusing our limited mental energy on resisting

24
 WHY WE FAIL AT PERSONAL CHANGE

will keep us on track. But this is not true. Studies show that it
is far more effective when we replace the undesired activity
with a new activity instead. (For example, instead of getting
angry, go outside for a five-minute walk. Instead of eating
chocolate, take a bite of a lemon. Instead of watching
pornography, take a cold shower.) Where our attention goes,
our energy flows.

4. We oversimplify our motivation.

We are lazy in the way we think about our motives for change.
We just fish on the surface of our thinking for a short time to
reach a simple conclusion about our motives (to be happy, to
earn more money, to be stronger). Accepting this blinds us to
another reservoir of insight and clarity that can fuel us on our
journey to transformation. There is always more than one
reason to change — especially when we stop focusing on
ourselves and reflect on the effects of our success or failure
on others, particularly on those we love. Each reason has a
different meaning to us. Motivation is far more complex and
deeper than we think. We must invest time in finding out what
gives us the most meaning — reasons that connect with both
our head and heart.

5. We try to do it on our own, assuming that willpower

and self-discipline are enough.

We glorify the idea of self-made men and women. We

romanticize the idea of the lone comic book superhero doing
it all by themselves. These superheroes may be fun and
exciting to watch, but as we mature, we begin to lose our
connection with them; we begin to realize that we cannot

25
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

relate to them holistically. They are not really human. They

are not real. They are fantasy. Their success is an illusion.
Because there is no such thing as a self-made man or woman,
no matter what TV or social media lead us to believe.

We all need help. What holds us back is our own minds. Our
ego and pride do not want us to admit we need help. Instead,
we assume we have enough inside us — our willpower and
self-discipline — to get us through. We are wrong.

6. We don’t leverage tools or technology that will help us

measure, study, and improve our progress.

Would a pilot fly a plane without a control panel? Would I

doctor subscribe medicine to a child without checking their
temperature? Would an athlete feel motivated to play their best
in a sports game if the score was not recorded? The answer to
these questions is, “Of course not.” There is value in
measurement. There are many areas of life in which we do not
even question the use of powerful tools, both digital and
manual, to help us make the process easier and guide us to our
destination. However, when it comes to changing ourselves,
there is a mental block: we don’t think we need the help. Once
again, our ego and pride get in the way.

7. We underestimate how our environment influences our

behaviors.

We can resist almost everything in life, except for temptation

of course. Tens of millions of people every year make plans to
get healthy, go on a diet, and lose weight. Yet most of them
fail because they fail to address the first place they must

26
 WHY WE FAIL AT PERSONAL CHANGE

improve. They fail to “diet their kitchens.” They fail to

remove all the unhealthy triggers in their environment that
sometimes the very presence of (or smell of) keeps them stuck
in their bad behaviors. How you design your environment can
have a massive influence on how you behave.

8. We underestimate how others influence our behaviors.

Under certain circumstances, and no matter how independent

we like to think we are, we can become like sheep. We
underestimate the power of mirroring. For example, if we see
enough people around us repeating a certain activity like
littering, texting while driving, or tipping a street musician,
our subconscious brain starts processing whether we too
should be doing that activity or not. The survival part of our
brain tells us, “Well, if enough people are doing it, then it must
be OK.” Many times we follow the exact activity that we see
modeled without any conscious consideration.

So whether we like it or not, the social behaviors of those

around us sometimes play a massive role in how we behave.
We may never want to do bad things, but history has proven
that if you put any person in the wrong place, at the wrong
time, in the wrong company, and in the wrong emotional state,
they are likely to fall.

9. We underestimate the power of incentives.

We know from childhood that in certain situations, the promise

of a reward can influence kids to do things they may not want
to do or perceive as difficult, such as doing their homework,
cleaning their room, eating their dinner. There are also other

27
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

situations where the threat of missing out on a reward, what

some people would define as punishment, can be just as
effective.

In both situations, parents and guardians are leveraging the

power of anticipation — with either good or bad
consequences — to drive behavioral change in their kids. As
adults, our pride and ego get in the way when we dismiss this
approach as something only for children. This is not true.
Science tells us that incentives — either rewards or
punishments — are fundamental elements of behavioral
change.

10. We do not create an expectation for unplanned

setbacks and a logical plan of how we are going to deal
with them.

We live in a world fascinated with predicting the future. We

tend to create the illusion in our heads that life and work are
simply about planning and executing. People who subscribe
to this belief are living in a fantasy world. The unexpected
happens every day, yet we remain obsessed with thinking
positively and expecting that our ruthless focus on the goal
is enough. This creates dangerous traps in our mind, and when
we meet setbacks, we become paralyzed. The stories we have
told ourselves do not prepare us for the unexpected turn of
events. So instead of logically assessing the situation, our
emotions take over, and we act irrationally. We get super
frustrated. We call ourselves failures. Worse, we quit
completely.

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 WHY WE FAIL AT PERSONAL CHANGE

ARE YOU STILL WITH ME?

I once read a shocking statement that said, “The majority of
people who start reading a book never get past the first two
chapters.”

Now that can be quite discouraging for an author to read, but

that’s OK! I did not write this book for those people who are
not ready to take control of their lives. So it is OK if some
people have stopped reading.

Because committing yourself to finish this book is your way to

prove to yourself that you are not a quitter. You are not like
everybody else. You are ready for this.

“You can’t give up! If you give up,

you’re like everybody else.”
— Chris Evert

So keep moving forward, my friend. This time, it’s different.

This time, you are different. Personal Kaizen is the solution
you have been waiting for.

29
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

30
 CHAPTER THREE

THE POWER OF KAIZEN

“When you improve a little each day, eventually big

things occur. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but
eventually a big gain is made. That’s the only way
it happens ,  and when it happens, it lasts.” 
— John Wooden
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

THE POWER OF KAIZEN

When I was first told by my boss in 2006, while working as a
Chemical Engineer in a large pharmaceutical company in the
UK, that our department was required to undergo training in
Kaizen, I was not sure exactly what it was or how it was going
to help me. Many years later, I can look back with certainty
that I never expected it to completely change my life in the
way that it has.

Although the word Kaizen itself is Japanese (and directly

translates into English as “small change for the better”), it is
not, as popular myth would have it, something that originated
in Japan. Kaizen is not a Japanese thing. It is a human thing!

Now I mean this with no disrespect to Japan or to those

readers who have always defined Kaizen as “a Japanese
business method of continuous improvement.” Japan indeed
has some of the best examples in the world of individuals and
organizations that are living examples of what Kaizen in
action looks like.

But so does your country. Perhaps even in your company,

there are already pockets of excellence where Kaizen is
happening every day. And even closer to that, perhaps there
is a part of your own life right now where Kaizen is happening
every day, and you may not even realize it.

I was lucky that early on in my career, my company back then

hired Toyota Consultants to directly teach us the true meaning
of Kaizen and how to apply it to the challenges we faced in
our business.

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 THE POWER OF KAIZEN

Kaizen in Business and the Story of Toyota

For the past thirty years, Kaizen has been trusted by

thousands of business owners and CEOs around the world
as the fastest, most efficient, and sustainable way to drive
high performance in an organization, independent of
industry, size, or location.

Kaizen is the primary reason why Toyota became the #1

motor company in the world, as it was one of the first
companies to fully incorporate Kaizen into its management
and leadership philosophy and practices.

Today, more books are written about Toyota’s remarkable

growth than any other company in the world, with the
majority of experts concluding that it is the consistent
application of Kaizen both in the manufacturing of their
cars and the development of their people that led to their
phenomenal success.

THE GROWTH MINDSET

The Toyota Consultants taught us that Kaizen is a growth
mindset, something that helps us bring out the best in our
humanity. It is not just something we apply in business to help
us become more efficient and effective.

“The Kaizen Philosophy assumes that

our way of life , be it our working life,
our social life, or our home life,
deserves to be constantly improved.”
— Masaaki Imai

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

They told us that Kaizen is a philosophy that believes that

everything can be made better — that no matter what the
current status quo is, there is always a next level to strive for.
With Kaizen, continuous improvement and innovation has no
endpoint. Perfection does not exist. We can only get closer to
perfection. One small step at a time.

1% BETTER EVERY DAY

So when it comes to achieving goals in your personal life,
the Kaizen methodology is a proven actionable strategy that
will show you a new way to achieve lasting results, faster,
without always relying on willpower or self-discipline.

Even if the impact of your small changes at the beginning

is so tiny that you can’t even measure it or feel the effect
straightaway, adopting the Kaizen mindset of 1% better
every day will eventually create a snowball effect where it
becomes easier for you to create the right habits.

“It does not matter how slowly

you go as long as you do not stop.”
— Confucius

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 THE POWER OF KAIZEN

THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IS FOUND

IN OUR DAILY HABITS
Before we explore how we can use Kaizen to help us create new
habits, let’s just briefly review why mastering habit creation is
so important for the goals we want to achieve and the type of
person we want to become.

Let’s take a few examples. Think about when you were

learning a new language or when you were a kid learning your
mother language. You did not just attend one class and
become fluent overnight. It was a process that took time. Just
one new word or short phrase a day until you could eventually
put a few sentences together. You created the right learning
habits.

Or the first time you brushed your teeth when you were a child.
It must have felt awkward and unusual when you did it for the
first time. However, with a little help from your family, and
because you repeated it so many times, it became easier. You
created the right hygiene habits.

Your habits, whether you like it or not, define the person you
become and how other people would describe you when you
are not in the room.

“You can trace every success (or failure)

in your life back to a habit. What you do
on a daily basis largely determines
what you’ll achieve in life.”
— Steve “SJ” Scott

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

The secret to your success and failure in life is found in your

daily habits. You will never master your life unless you are
able to master your habits. I can’t be more direct with you. No
exceptions. To get better results, you must become a better
you.

WILLPOWER IS NOT ENOUGH

So the big question is, “How can we master habit creation?”
How can we create habits in a way that is easy to understand
and, more importantly, easy to do?

One thing for sure: We cannot create habits by just thinking

about them. We can’t just force ourselves or others to make
positive changes. Willpower alone doesn’t work. Self-
discipline alone doesn’t work. Being motivated alone doesn’t
work.

We know more today about how the human brain works than
at any other time in history. What scientists refer to as
neuroplasticity, we now know that our brains have an
unlimited capacity to learn, remember new things, and adjust
to new experiences. We now have a deeper knowledge of how
the human brain changes its structure and function, especially
how the subconscious brain responds to behavioral change.
This has created the breakthrough understanding of what
works and does not work when it comes to creating new habits
and breaking old ones. We can choose the way we think and
act.

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 THE POWER OF KAIZEN

“One of the most significant findings

in psychology in the last years is that
individuals can choose
the way they think.”
Martin Seligman

THE SCIENCE OF HABIT CREATION

The science of neuroplasticity taught us that when you repeat
an activity enough times, your brain essentially rewires itself.
It moves the execution of the task from our conscious brain
(the part of the brain that you’re using now to read this page)
to your subconscious, or automatic, brain (the part of the
brain that tells your eyes when to blink).

Multiple studies have shown that somewhere between 40%

to 80% of the actions we perform every day are not actually
decisions we make with our conscious brain but with our
automatic brain.

If something becomes a habit, it “lives” in our automatic

brain — and as there is little or no resistance from the
conscious brain, it takes less emotional and mental energy to
complete; thus, the path to your goals become easier.

37
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

“All big changes come from the

tiny leaps we make every day.”
— Gregg Clunis

This explains why the Kaizen approach of “small steps every

day” is so effective. It minimizes the mental and emotional
resistance from our conscious brain, and at the same time, it
repeatedly sends a message to your subconscious brain to
“make this activity automatic.”

THE FIRST 30 DAYS

In addition to the best methods of habit creation, we also know
more about the time it takes for our minds to create new
habits, and it is far more complex than we think. The
duration will always depend on many different factors (time,
frequency, effort level, complexity, etc.). For some, it can
take just eighteen days. For others, it can take sixty-seven
days. There is no fixed number for everyone.

However, many studies show that for most of us, something

magical happens after the first thirty days. That if we repeat
an activity consistently for thirty days (without skipping a
day) using the right approach, there is a high likelihood that
the activity will become a habit. That is why starting and
finishing the 30-Day Challenge is the single most important
action you must take after reading this book.

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 THE POWER OF KAIZEN

WHY SOCIETY HAS FAILED

IN TEACHING THIS TO OTHERS
Yes, we have indeed learned so much about the science of
habit creation. However, we have greatly failed as a society in
teaching this to others. I’m guilty of being one of the teachers
who has failed my students.

“There is no such thing as

bad student, only bad teacher.”
— Mr. Miyagi

At the beginning of my career as a corporate trainer, I did not

understand how important habit creation was and how to
leverage it. I took my students through hours of painful,
ineffective traditional teaching (also known as death by
PowerPoint), with absolutely little to no impact on helping
them create new habits.

If new activities are not converted into new habits, then no

change will ever be sustainable. Misunderstanding this has
been one of my greatest failures as a teacher. Back then, even
though my intentions to help were noble, I was ignorant of
what really worked when it came to creating lasting change.

One of the biggest mistakes I made as a teacher was not

helping others to easily apply what they learned. I did not
provide a focal point for their change. So with all my good-
hearted intentions and limited resources, I ended up going one
mile wide and only one inch deep. Nothing sticks.

39
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

WHAT WE ARE GOING TO DO DIFFERENTLY

I know that if I stay too general in this book and not specific
and focused enough on where you are going to apply
Personal Kaizen, it is most likely that no extraordinary
change will occur. This book will end up becoming yet
another resource that may increase your knowledge but have
no impact on your daily behaviors or how you approach
achieving your goals.

I refuse to allow this book about change to be identical to the

vast majority of books out there on this topic.

So for you to achieve lasting change in the fastest possible

time, I passionately believe that focusing your efforts on
making small changes to the start of your day will be the most
effective way for you to do this.

We are intentionally going to go one inch wide and one mile

deep on this. This will be our defined focus area for how you
are going to implement Personal Kaizen in the next thirty
days. For some of you, it may feel like this book has taken a
massive twist. That I am leading you to do something that
you may have never done before.

“Improvement usually means doing

something that we have
never done before.”
Shigeo Shingo

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 THE POWER OF KAIZEN

But don’t worry. In the next chapter, you will understand why
focusing on creating habits at the beginning of your day is so
powerful. After you successfully completed the 30-Day
Challenge using the methodology we outline in this book, you
will be able to provide your own extraordinary testimony of
why this approach is so effective.

Until then, thank you for trusting me. And, yes, if you haven’t
figured out by now, this is not your average book. The lasting
change that you deserve is coming.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

42
 CHAPTER FOUR

MORNING RITUALS

“The way you begin each day

defines how you’ll live each day.”
— Robin Sharma
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

THE POWER OF MORNING RITUALS

If this was the last day of my life and you were to ask me for
one final piece of practical advice on the one thing you can do
to help you reach your potential and become a greater
influence on a greater number of people, this would be my
answer: “Create a world-class Morning Ritual.”

I know that may sound pretty dramatic, but with my hand on

my heart, I have yet to find anything else that is so practical
and easy to do that will have a greater impact on you and the
people you are trying to influence than a world-class Morning
Ritual.

A Morning Ritual is a dedicated time at the beginning of your

day during which you intentionally practice certain activities
that have a significant positive impact on your body, mind,
heart, and spirit.

“By simply changing the way

you wake up in the morning, you can
transform any area of your life, faster
than you ever thought possible.”
— Hal Elrod

With a simple search on Google, you will see millions of

testimonies of people around the world sharing how Morning
Rituals have changed their lives. They have been proven to
have an insanely high impact on one’s performance in every
area of life as if they are the secret blueprints to health, wealth,
and happiness.

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 MORNING RITUALS

Morning Rituals have been highlighted for a good reason, but

it is the Morning Rituals of the world’s most successful people
that I believe will be of most interest to you. It is from here
that our definition of world-class Morning Rituals comes
from.

Not all Morning Rituals are created equal. There are a certain
number of keystone habits (to be discussed in the next
chapter) that you can practice within your Morning Ritual that
provide an exponentially positive impact and give you the
best possible start to your day. This is what I mean when I say
world-class Morning Ritual.

MORNING ROUTINES VS.

MORNING RITUALS
In this book, I have defined Morning Rituals as being very
different from morning routines. Some people use these
words interchangeably. However, I believe there is a big
difference between them, and it is very important for us to
make the distinction. I define a morning routine as just going
through the motions once you wake up. It is completely
unintentional with respect to personal development and
growth. Most people have morning routines, and for most of
my life, I was one of them. I simply woke up, showered,
brushed my teeth, dressed, ate my normal breakfast, and then
went to work. Nothing remarkable, nothing special, and for
sure, I was doing nothing intentional that was helping me
improve.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

Once I discovered the value of Morning Rituals, my mornings

changed dramatically. Without hesitation, I can say that
practicing a world-class Morning Ritual has completely
transformed my life. It has created multiple breakthroughs in
so many different areas of my life. My level of performance
is now on a completely different level. It is the most important
daily activity that I undertake, and I feel it is the foundation
block of my success for both my short-term and long-term
goals.

Today, I am convinced that for the majority of people who are

reading this, practicing a world-class Morning Ritual is the
fastest way to realize the results of Kaizen in your life. Indeed,
if I could only write one book, I would still choose to write
about the incredible value of having a world-class Morning
Ritual.

There is nothing else I can think of that will have a more

profound impact on the quality of your life and the quality of
your influence on others.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO

GET EVERYTHING RIGHT
To be successful in both work and personal life, you don’t have
to get everything right. Success really comes down to a few
critical things you need to get right on a daily basis.

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 MORNING RITUALS

“What you do every day matters more

than what you do once in a while.”
— Gretchen Rubin

WHY A GOOD START IS SO IMPORTANT

Look at it from another perspective: think of all the areas of
life where getting off to a good start is so critical. When you
meet someone for the first time, that first impression will
have a massive impact on your decision to invest in a
friendship with them or not.

How a sports team starts a game, an athlete starts a race, or

a boxer starts a fight is critical. Bad starts can make it
extremely difficult (and sometimes impossible) for people to
get back on track, take back control, and come out
victorious. The same rationale applies to how we start our
days.

“I want to live my life in such a way that

when I get out of bed in the morning,
the devil says, “Aw, shit, he’s up!”
— Steve Maraboli

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

Having a world-class start to your day puts you in the best

possible position to continue that success throughout the rest
of the day. It will significantly improve your odds of winning
the day. Why make your day more difficult for yourself by
choosing to get off to a mediocre start?

To be direct, you are missing out if you decide not to have a

Morning Ritual. Even if you currently have a Morning Ritual,
you are also missing out if you decide not to improve it to a
world-class level. I believe that resistance now is something
that you will later regret. As you will soon read, every one of
the three people featured in this book who went from having
no Morning Ritual to now practicing a Morning Ritual,
hesitated at the beginning. However, each one now shares the
same reflection: they wish they had started this years ago. I
passionately believe that it is the one thing you can do to
transform your life faster and more powerfully than anything
else. Let me explain why.

THE TOP 5 REASONS

TO HAVE A MORNING RITUAL

1. You have more self-discipline in the morning

This might be hard for some people to believe, but if you get a
good quality night’s sleep, you will notice that you have more
energy in the morning than at any other time of the day.

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 MORNING RITUALS

Our willpower and self-discipline are greatest in the morning.

This is the time we can be more focused on doing the most
important things we need to do. This is the time we are less
likely to procrastinate.

2. It conserves creative energy

Once you create a Morning Ritual, it will not be too long

before your morning activities become habits. Once a new
activity becomes a habit, your brain begins to shift that task
into the automatic part of your brain, resulting in you spending
less time and effort thinking about the task. This has the
magical effect of conserving your limited daily creative
energy to use on other more mentally and emotionally
demanding tasks later in the day.

3. The psychology of early wins

The most underrated benefit of Morning Rituals is how they

impact our subconscious brain. Once you complete your
Morning Ritual, it sends a message to your subconscious brain
that you have won. The psychology of success tells us that
“Progress = Happiness.” There is no greater human motivator
than the feeling of progress. With this early victory, you carry
an empowering and satisfying mindset for the rest of your day.
You set your mind up to achieve even greater things that day.

4. We have most control in the mornings

As adults, we are the ones who decide what time we sleep and
what time we wake up. Above any other time of the day, it is
in the morning (especially when the rest of the house is still

49
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

in bed) when you have the least distractions and the most
control over how you spend your time.

5. Success leaves clues

You are not alone when practicing a Morning Ritual. Many

famous and successful people have done it before you. There
are now overwhelming testimonies from millions of high-
performing people around the world singling out Morning
Rituals as their most significant daily practice, a fundamental
element of their lives that helped them reach their personal
and professional goals.

LISTING BENEFITS IS NOT ENOUGH

So what do you think? Have I created a great case for having
a Morning Ritual? Shall I now expect everyone who reads this
to be convinced to start their own Morning Ritual? Wrong!

I expect that the five points I wrote will have little or no effect
on your decision to create a Morning Ritual. I promise that I
am not trying to insult you; I just want to show how
ineffective the approach I took in terms of convincing you or
anyone else to make a change.

You see what I did? Explaining the top five reasons to have a
Morning Ritual is a classic case of traditional teaching in
action. I became a victim of the curse of knowledge. I
exclusively focused on where I want you to be and why you
should be there. “What’s wrong with that?” you might ask.
The biggest disadvantage of that approach is that I risk

50
 MORNING RITUALS

missing out on the opportunity to truly connect with your

current level of thinking. I risk not meeting you where your
journey begins.

“The Curse of Knowledge:

When we are given knowledge,
it is almost impossible to imagine
what it’s like to lack that knowledge.”
— Chip Heath

This is a problem we all suffer when we try to influence

others. Even if we have been in their shoes in the past, we tend
to forget what it is like to have a different perspective. Because
of this, we fail to influence them to make positive changes.
How can we fix this? Instead of me trying to give the 5, 7, 12,
or 21 different reasons for having a Morning Ritual, let me ask
a different question.

WHY WOULD SOMEONE RESIST

HAVING A MORNING RITUAL?
So why would someone resist having a Morning Ritual? What
are the first things that come to their mind? What are the
arguments they would make to not even consider giving it a
try?

Let’s revisit this using a different approach wherein I respond

to the seven most common arguments people use against
having a Morning Ritual.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

Warning: I am going to be very direct in my response to these

seven arguments. I have decided that I am going to use some
tough love here. My intention is not to offend you. I do this
because we all need tough love sometimes. There are times
when we need someone to say it as it is, regardless of whether
we like it or not.

The number one thing holding us all back from our success
are the false beliefs that we hold on to that makes us resist
change. I don’t want this to happen to you. I want you to know
that from the bottom of my heart, I want the best for you. So
please read below with an open mind. I want you to explore
the real reasons why a part of you may be resisting this.

“Better to get hurt by the truth

than be comforted with a lie.”
— Khaled Hosseini

I know I am risking offending some readers in this chapter,

but it’s worth it. So in advance, I ask for your forgiveness.
Remember it is only the truth that will set you free. So get
ready for some truth.

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 MORNING RITUALS

THE 7 MOST COMMON ARGUMENTS PEOPLE

USE TO RESIST HAVING A MORNING RITUAL
Argument #1:
I am not a morning person. / I don’t have enough
energy in the morning. / I am too tired in the morning.
/ I am a night owl.

My Response:
This is the most common argument that people use to
resist creating a Morning Ritual. About 70% of the
people who now practice a Morning Ritual had the same
belief before they started. I am going to break this down
so that you see how ridiculous this argument is. Saying
that you are not a morning person is the same as saying
that you are not a human being.

Under natural conditions, both our bodies and minds are

designed to be most productive, disciplined, and creative
in the morning. This is on the condition that we have
obtained a quality night’s sleep. This can range from six
to ten hours, depending on the biology of the person. For
the majority of people, eight hours of quality sleep is the
ideal daily target.

It is only under unnatural conditions that we experience

low-quality sleep, which creates low energy, exhaustion,
and an unmotivated mindset once we wake up.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

As you read this book, you will learn more about the
unnatural things we put into our minds and bodies as
well as the unnatural environments we sleep in that may
cause us to think that we are not designed to be effective
in the mornings.

Remember that you are a human, not an owl. Don’t be

fooled by jumping to a false conclusion without studying
all the factors that influence your state of mind and body.

Argument #2:
I am not able to wake up early. / I am a snooze-a-holic.

My Response:
The belief that you somehow do not have the capability
to wake up at the time you promised yourself is an
extraordinarily dangerous false belief, and it is stopping
you from achieving so much success.

This is not something to boast about. It is a destructive

way of thinking that people find themselves in, and it is
a direct reflection of a mediocre mentality.

Not getting up at the time you promised yourself is you

resigning to break your first promise of the day. You are
losing your first battle. Yet there are so many times when
you know that you need to wake up at a certain time (to
catch a flight, an early bus, an important work meeting),
and you are able to do it successfully.

Technology has not helped us here. The snooze button

on our alarms is possibly the worst invention of all time.

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The total abuse of this button has created the false belief
that you are a snooze-a-holic. This is not true. As you
read the three stories, you will discover that thinking you
are a snooze-a-holic has very little to do with your self-
discipline and willpower. In most cases, it has everything
to do with how your environment is designed. It’s a
strategy problem, not a capability problem.

Think about it. Continuing to use a street map of Manila

when you are in London isn’t going to help you, right?
If you continue to use the wrong strategy, you will
continue to struggle waking up on time. However, if you
discover the right strategy, getting up every day at the
time you set for yourself will become easy.

In this book, you will learn practical, foolproof strategies

that others have used to wake up successfully on time
every day. Take courage. You are not the only one who
has faced this challenge. This will not stop you from
being successful.

Argument #3:
I have tried it before, and it did not work. / I’ve failed
before, so what’s the point of trying again?

My Response:
The feeling that you have no power to change your
situation (or what positive psychology calls learned
helplessness) is possibly the most paralyzing of all
human emotions.

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It impacts every human on the planet. It is possibly the

biggest reason for children underperforming in school.
This feeling of being powerless is born from a state of
hopelessness as a result of dwelling on particular
negative moments from your past.

You begin to create a story in your mind that prevents

you from thinking positively about a certain aspect of
your future.

Common examples include trying to learn a new

language and then giving up after a few days, declaring,
“I am not good at languages.” Or trying to learn how to
surf but after a few falls, you say, “I am not an ocean
person, so I’ll quit.” Or trying to teach a kid how to read,
but after struggling to keep them focused, you declare, “I
give up. I am not good with kids.”

I want you to see how ridiculous this thinking is. It is the

same as getting a bad haircut and then saying, “I am
never going to get a haircut again.” Or being
disappointed with a dessert in a restaurant, hence
concluding, “Right! For the rest of my life, I am never
ordering a dessert again.” We would not say these things,
right? But when it comes to personal change, this is
exactly the type of thinking that is holding us back.

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Argument #4:
I am just very busy in the mornings. / There are too many
distractions. / I don’t have the time. / Now is not the right
time for me.

My Response:
Be careful. Be very careful. Beware of the man or
woman who repeatedly tell others how busy they are.
They are just fooling themselves.

Whether they are aware of it or not, “being busy” is a

cover-up for the lack of clarity and organization in their
mind. I have seen this in thousands of people. But more
powerfully, I have seen this in myself.

For years, I would throw around the phrase “I’m busy”

as an easy answer to a difficult or undesirable question.
What helped me realize the lie I was living was when I
started to track my activities and critically study how I
was really spending my time every week. I was shocked
with what I discovered.

I said I was too busy to read, yet I would still find time
to watch hours of trash TV. I said my family was
important to me, yet weeks would go by and I would not
call or message my parents. I said I was too busy to take
on a new important assignment at work, yet I would
spend hours on tasks of less importance. When we say
we are busy, we are usually lying to ourselves.

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“Busy is a choice. Stress is

a choice. Joy is a choice.”
— Debbie Millman

Think about this.

 Is it right for a parent to insist that they are so

busy that they don’t have time to spend with
their kids?

 Is it right for a person to claim that they are so

busy that they don’t have time to look after their
health?

 Is it right for a business leader to say she is so

busy that she doesn’t have time to think
strategically?

It is absolutely twisted thinking. We all have time to

schedule the most important things in our life into our
calendar. The consequences of neglecting this and hiding
behind the excuse of “I’m busy” is possibly one of the
greatest regrets that people reflect on at the end of their
lives.

Don’t be that person. You are the only one who can look
after yourself (body, mind, heart, and spirit). It is no one
else’s responsibility. Continuously neglecting this reality
will be one of the biggest mistakes of your life.

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Argument #5:
I have kids to look after in the morning — I don’t have
time for this.

My Response:
This is directly related to Argument #4. However, I want
to give a special message to some parents out there who
are quick to use their kids as an argument for not
investing in their personal development. Remember,
what I am about to say comes from a place of love and
truth, and I believe that some parents need to hear this
message:

Stop using your kids as an excuse for not investing in

your personal development!

Having a Morning Ritual is not an act of selfishness. This

is a false limiting belief. There is a massive difference
between self-love and being selfish. A Morning Ritual is
one of the greatest examples of self-love that you can
practice every day.

If you can’t love yourself, how in the

hell are you going to be able to love
somebody else?”
— RuPaul Andre Charles

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Remember: Modeling is the greatest teacher. What you

do consistently is far more powerful than what you say.
Thus, practicing a Morning Ritual will empower you to
be of greater influence on your children as you are
leading by example.

Of course, helping your children in the morning is

important, and at the moment, it may feel that your
mornings are chaotic. However, many other parents in
far more stressful environments have managed to
successfully have a Morning Ritual, and so can you.
There is an answer.

As you will read in the three stories, there are many

different types of Morning Rituals that you can have.
You can customize it so that you can still serve your kids
in the morning. It is not a win-lose situation. Intelligent
planning can make it a big win-win for everyone
involved. I know of parents who have involved their kids
in their Morning Ritual: For example, they practice
gratitude while eating a healthy breakfast together.

So let go of those arguments that say that someone else

is stopping you from looking after yourself. When you
neglect yourself, others will eventually be forced to look
after you. Your level of success in life is directly related
to your level of personal development. It is the same for
you and your kids. Think long term. It could be one of
the best decisions you will ever make both for yourself
and the ones you love.

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Argument #6:
None of my friends practice a Morning Ritual. / There are
a lot of successful people who don’t have a Morning
Ritual.

My Response:
This is one of the most dangerous arguments that
someone can make. Comparing yourself with others is
an excuse that can cause you to be stuck for years. I’m
sure most of us can think of occasions in our childhood
when our elders told us, “If everyone else jumped off a
cliff, would you do it?”

Let’s go a bit deeper because, as adults, we need to

understand the real danger when we compare ourselves
with other people and reach an irrational conclusion that
somehow justifies our action or inaction. Fools do this. I
don’t want you to do the same.

The first thing I must say is this: “Never compare

yourself to someone else.” The only person you can
compare yourself with is your own potential self. You
can study other people to get inspiration and ideas, but
do not fall into the trap of trying to live someone else’s
life. The mindset of “no one else is doing it” is a follower
mentality. If everyone had this mentality, then the
human race would never have evolved and survived.
That is not you.

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“I do not try to dance better

Than anyone else. I only try
to dance better than myself.”
— Arianna Huffington

This book is written for people who have the power to

break free from this follower mentality. Today, most of
the world has a very twisted view of success. Even its
definition in dictionaries is very wrong. We live in a
world quick to label others as successful or unsuccessful.
What qualifies us to judge someone else?

 We may be quick to label a famous movie star

as successful, while knowing nothing about
their struggle with chronic depression.

 We are quick to label the richest man in the

country as successful, while knowing nothing
about the broken relationship he has with his
children, which causes him massive pain.

 We are quick to label a young manager as

successful because of his work performance,
while knowing nothing about how he secretly
hates his job and dreams of being a musician.

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It is impossible to holistically measure another person’s

success from afar. The only person you can measure is
yourself. Ask yourself questions like:

 Am I living every day with excitement and

drive?

 Am I happy with the status of my most important

relationships?

 Are all my ladders in life leaning against the

right walls?

There are millions of testimonies (written, audio, and

video) that will testify to the significant benefits of
having a Morning Ritual. So choosing to not even
experiment with Morning Rituals is the same as saying
that you are not willing to move outside your comfort
zone, blinding you to discovering a faster and more
sustainable way to get the results you desire most.

Argument #7:
I am happy with what I am achieving right now. / I don’t
need to make a change in my daily routine.

My Response:
Saying that everything is OK (or rating your current
Morning Ritual 10 out of 10) is the same as saying there
is no need for improvement.

This is extremely hazardous thinking, and it is the reason

why so many relationships break up, why so many

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successful teams fail to sustain their past success, and

why so many people are living a life far below their
potential. There is no such thing as perfect, whether it’s
your health, energy, relationship, or career. There is
always room for growth in every area of our lives. No
exceptions.

The same thinking applies to Morning Rituals. There is

no such thing as a perfect Morning Ritual. There is
always a next level. People who say that they are
satisfied with their status quo are missing out on another
extraordinary level of happiness and meaning that is
within their reach.

“Having no problems is
the biggest problem of all.”
— Taiichi Ohno

This is how average people think. Don’t think like

average people. Those who choose a life of greatness are
not average. Think about it.
 The average person spends more time planning
a vacation than planning their life.

 The average couple spends more time planning

their wedding day than planning the routines and
habits that will determine the real success of
their marriage.

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 The average professional spends more time

worrying about what other people think than
creating the dedicated time they need every day
to develop themselves to their full potential.
You are not average. Don’t follow the crowd.
You deserve better. Strive for greatness.

“Do not conform to the thinking

of this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind.”
— The Apostle Paul

THE ONE WORD AT THE HEART

OF ALL RESISTANCE
After reading this chapter, you may have concluded that there
is no truly valid argument against at least testing if a Morning
Ritual will work for you: the extraordinary potential benefits
far outweigh any supposed negatives.

Now, if you look back over the seven most common arguments
that people use to resist it, did you notice something they all
have in common? If you peel back the layers of excuses used
to resist a Morning Ritual (or any other significant change),
you will discover one word at the heart of all the resistance.

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FEAR!
Fear is the ultimate reason why most people will never reach
their full potential. Fear is the real driver behind people’s
decisions to stay in their comfort zone. We fear to leave others
behind, we fear the unknown, and we fear what others might
think of us. We become paralyzed against taking positive
action, and we hide behind a self-created story (inspired by
the norms of society) that somehow justifies our inaction. It is
the greatest human tragedy — a potential left unfulfilled, a
genius that never gets unleashed, a great story that never gets
told.

But it doesn’t have to be your story. You have a choice. You

can choose courage.

“You can choose courage,

or you can choose comfort.
But you cannot have both.
— Brenè Brown

Courage is the willingness to start something new, something

unknown, something outside of your comfort zone. It is not
just about being confident. Confidence comes from doing
something multiple times. Courage is more important than
confidence. Courage is about standing up to your fears.

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Fear is a natural human emotion, and it is necessary for our

survival. There is no such thing as a fearless person. People
who we consider courageous are those who are simply using
their own fear in a positive way.

I want you to accept that you will never completely remove

fear from your life. Instead, I want you to use fear to your
advantage.

 Be fearful of living a life in which you do not become

the best version of you.

 Be fearful of living a life that is not aligned with your

core values.

 Be fearful of living a life in which you do not

accomplish the great purpose that you were born to
achieve.

These are the ways that we can use fear to drive us towards
personal excellence.

“Your life should be dominated by only

one main fear: Not fully optimizing
today. That’s the healthiest fear
in the world.”
— Tai Lopez

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Every day when you wake up, you have the extraordinary
power within you to make your day great. You can make the
decision to start your morning with power and intention. If you
believe that you were born to achieve great things, then you
cannot afford to wake up in the morning like everyone else.
Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing
to do.

Having a world-class Morning Ritual is the answer you have

been waiting for. It will be the fastest way for you to realize
the benefits of Personal Kaizen.

Take the risk, my friend. You will not regret it.

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 CHAPTER FIVE

KEYSTONE HABITS

“Success is nothing more than

a few simple disciplines,
practiced everyday.”
— Jim Rohn
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

I want to introduce nine keystone habits of Personal Kaizen

that you can include in your Morning Ritual. These nine
keystone habits come from my extensive research of the
Morning Rituals of high-performing people.
They are also the same nine keystone habits that I now
practice during my Morning Ritual. However, I did not start
with all nine. In the beginning, I started with just three of
them. Over time, as I become more confident, I started to add
more and more.
After years of struggling with personal change, I can now say
confidently that using this step-by-step approach to building
my Morning Ritual was the most effective personal change
that I have made in my life.
However, as excited as I am to share these nine keystone
habits, I want to be sensitive to the fact that when studying
other people, you do not need to copy everything they do.
We are all created differently. So in this chapter, I am going
to share what has worked for me, but remember that it is your
testimony that matters most. Regardless of what I or anyone
else says, it is only through valid self-experimentation that
you will discover if these nine keystone habits are of any value
to you.

“All life is an experiment.

The more experiments
you make, the better.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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As you read through this list, I am not expecting you to

include all nine keystone habits in your Morning Ritual. Think
of them as items on the menu of a buffet. At a buffet, you are
not expected to eat everything on offer (even though some of
us try). We all have different tastes in food. If you don’t like
seafood, don’t eat the fish. If you are allergic to nuts, don’t
take the peanut sauce. If you don’t like spice, don’t add the
hot sauce. This makes total sense, right? Use that same
thinking as I present these nine keystone habits.

Finally, there are enough articles, books, and training

programs out there dedicated to each one of these keystone
habits. There is an ocean of free information for you to go
even deeper into each topic. Instead, I am going to give you a
brief overview of why these keystone habits are so powerful.
The three stories in the next chapter go into the details on how
you can apply these keystone habits to your own Morning
Ritual. To make it easier for you to remember, I have used the
acronym TRANSFORM to represent the nine keystone
habits:

T – THANKFULNESS

Being thankful, or having an attitude of gratitude, is where

you explore your life — past, present, and future — for the
people, places, and things that give you joy, peace, and love.

Without a conscious and intentional effort, our brain’s default

thinking is to focus on what is wrong or what is missing. If
we let this type of thinking dominate our thoughts, we end up
looking at the world with a scarcity mentality and with a very
pessimistic outlook on life. It crushes our enthusiasm. Being

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thankful is the opposite of this, and I passionately believe it is

the most powerful human emotion of all.

A daily gratitude practice is proven to help you feel more

connected to others. It strengthens your immune system,
creates less stress and more relaxation, gives you a better
night’s sleep, gives you more energy and confidence,
increases your creativity, and puts you in a better position to
bounce back from adversity.

If there ever was a title for “King of All Habits,” this is it. If
you do nothing else from this book but apply the daily
gratitude practice in your Morning Ritual, then this book will
have served its purpose of making you a better person.

“Showing gratitude is one of the

simplest and yet most powerful things
humans can do for each other.”
— Randy Pausch

However, it is important to share with you the number one

mistake people make when trying to make gratitude a habit.
A state of thankfulness cannot be created when you stay inside
your head. It cannot be approached logically. You need to find
that feeling in your heart. Once you have that feeling, it is
impossible for you to be consumed by fear, worry, or stress.
This is how you get the maximum value from this
extraordinary keystone habit.

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R – REST YOUR MIND

Whether you call it stillness, silence, meditation, or

mindfulness, resting your mind is like exercising the
“concentration muscle” in your brain. It is about significantly
slowing down your thought processes so that you spend more
time in the present moment.

The effect of not having a daily practice like this is like having
your mind switched on all the time, constantly thinking of
things you need to do or problems you need to solve and
dwelling on situations from your past or on possible situations
in your future. Like a phone that is being constantly charged,
this will eventually lead to a reduction in your daily
performance and, potentially, total burnout.

“You can learn more in an hour of silence

than you can in a year from books.”
— Matthew Kelly

For millions of people around the world, resting their minds

is a keystone habit that empowers them to be more focused
throughout the day on the tasks that matter most. Being
physically still is just one way to do this. Resting your mind
can also be done effectively by doing a repetitive physical
activity like walking, running, or even cleaning your house.

On a personal level, this is something that I resisted for a long

time. I could not understand how what I saw as “doing

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nothing” had any productive benefits. How wrong I was. My

perspective changed when a friend told me to type “successful
people who meditate” into Google. I found the names of many
people that I greatly respect swearing that the daily practice
of resting their mind had a profound impact on their success.
Once I dug deeper, I discovered that the majority of world-
class performers have some type of daily practice where they
rest their mind.

A – AFFIRMATIONS

Affirmations are personalized positive statements that you

repeat to yourself to help you overcome the false beliefs that
are preventing you from reaching your potential. Affirmations
are probably the most underrated and misunderstood practice
in the world of personal development. To explain why they
are so powerful, I first need you to see the connection between
what we believe and how we act. What we believe (even if it
is 100% false) is how we define our world and ourselves, thus,
impacting how we feel. It is how we feel that has the greatest
influence on how we act and react to the world around us.
Emotions drive motions. So our beliefs either empower or
disempower us.

“My success isn’t the result

of arrogance, it’s the result of belief.”
— Conor McGregor

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 KEYSTONE HABITS

Having personalized positive affirmations that we repeat to

ourselves every day can be one of our greatest
countermeasures to the self-sabotaging false beliefs that are
trying to overtake our minds and limit our potential.

There are so many ways to do this, but my biggest tip is to

first identify your top three false limiting beliefs and then
develop positive affirmations that say the opposite to them.
These statements, or different versions of these statements,
become your affirmations to be updated as often as you like.
Some people even go as far as recording their affirmations on
their phone and then playing them back to themselves while
exercising. There are so many ways to achieve the same
result.

N – NEW LEARNING

This keystone habit refers to the mental practice of feeding

your mind content that inspires or empowers you to become
better. Acquiring knowledge is the foundation for making
progress in every area of life. There is not one person from
history who achieved anything great without learning a vast
body of knowledge.

“I see life like one long

university education that I never
had; every day I’m learning
something new.”
— Richard Branson

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

We all have time for new learning every day, but sometimes,
we are ignorant to the ocean of opportunities available to learn
stuff that relates to our lives.

Years ago, I wanted to learn more about entrepreneurship, but

instead of doing something about it, I just used the “I don’t
have time” excuse. The truth is, of course, I had time. We all
have time for the most important things. What helped me
break free from that way of thinking was listening to
audiobooks (and later to podcasts) on my commute to work
instead of just listening to whatever was on the radio. This had
a massive impact on my personal growth especially when I
selected content that directly related to a significant problem
I was trying to solve or a goal I was pursuing.

Although the most common sources of new learning today are

books, podcasts, videos, and blogs, let me share with you one
practice in particular that still amazes me, yet one that they
don’t teach in schools. It is the daily keystone habit of
exercising your inner genius.

It is a very simple habit. Find some quiet time on your own

with a pen and paper, and brainstorm ten to fifteen ideas on a
particular topic or area that you want to improve. The primary
purpose is not to generate good ideas but to generate multiple
bad ideas that bring you closer to discovering great ideas. I
can’t count the number of great ideas that have come to me
using this simple process.

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 KEYSTONE HABITS

S – SWEAT
This keystone habit refers to any physical activity
(running/walking/swimming/stretching/lifting) that causes
you to sweat. Perhaps exercise is the last thing people want to
do first thing in the morning. However, for our body, heart,
and mind, physical activity is possibly the closest thing we
have to a miracle drug. No man-made medicine can ever give
us the extraordinary benefits that this keystone habit can give.

“Blood, sweat, and respect.

First two you give, last one you earn.”
— Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)

Our nomadic ancestors spent all their time moving around in

search of food and shelter. They traveled vast distances on a
daily basis. Thus, our bodies are designed and have evolved
to be regularly active. Sitting down all day at a desk or in front
of the TV has disastrous consequences if we don’t do
something to get our bodies moving.

One of the reasons that so many people are chronically sick

and die young is because they consistently neglect the
importance of this daily keystone habit. There are so many
different ways to exercise in the morning. You don’t need a
gym or a swimming pool, special clothes, special equipment,
a team, or an instructor to start. There are hundreds of
exercises and drills you can do by your bedside that will get
your body sweating.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

For those who struggle with the thought of exercise, think of

ways you can make the experience more enjoyable. There are
many ways to do it, from listening to podcasts, audiobooks,
or music to teaming up with a partner.

Moving your body is the fastest way to change how you feel.
As our emotional state has the greatest influence on how we
act and react, there is not one valid argument against some
form of daily exercise.

F – FUEL
This keystone habit refers to the food and drinks we put into
our mouths every morning. It is the most controversial
keystone habit on this list as it seems that everyone has a
different opinion on what is healthy and what is not. The truth
is, every time you eat or drink, you are either fighting disease
or feeding it. You are either giving life to your body or killing
it.

“Let food be thy medicine

and medicine be thy food.”
— Hippocrates

The fuel we put into our bodies has a lasting effect, greater
than the scope of the day. This is complicated and
controversial because the food and drink business is a global
multibillion-dollar industry. There are lots of people with
commercial interests in keeping you ignorant, so they keep

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you eating and drinking the garbage that they say is good for
you and your family.

I believe there is a big change coming to the food industry. I

believe that the real science of which foods are good and bad
will become so widely known and mainstream that, in the near
future, we all will look back with horror and say, “I can’t
believe we allowed our children to eat that.”

But why wait until everyone else gets it? We have the
information now! We really do. But we need to be proactive;
go discover it for ourselves and don’t wait for others to come
to us. Until you take that step of enlightening yourself, you
are losing out on becoming the best you. Rather than run the
risk of overwhelming you with the thought of totally changing
your eating and drinking habits, I want to challenge you to
focus on your most important meal of the day — your
breakfast.

Look at the ingredients of your breakfast, the quantities and

qualities of what you are eating and drinking every morning.
Research what world-class performers eat and drink every
morning and compare that to your daily breakfast. Ask
yourself, “Is this the best fuel I could be putting into my
body?”

You may be surprised by how a small change in what you eat

and drink in the morning can have such a powerful impact on
your energy levels for the rest of the day.

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O – OUTDOORS
This is a dedicated time every morning to go outside and get
sunshine and fresh air. There would be no life on earth without
the sun. Every living thing on earth depends on the sun.
Scientific studies show us that getting the right amount of
daily sunshine (not too much, not too little) and spending
enough time walking in nature are critical elements of healthy
living. In the morning, exposing your eyes to the sun (using
no glasses or contact lenses) has the powerful effect of setting
your circadian rhythm (optimizing your energy for the day).

“Sunshine is energy
and energy is life.”
— Chad Davis

Of all the nine keystone habits on this list, this is the one that
surprises most people. Why is it even on this list? It should be
so obvious that going outside every morning to get fresh air
and sunshine is a good thing to do.

However, because of the rapid urbanization of our planet and

because technology is such an integrated part of our daily
lifestyle, the majority of the world’s urban population does
not spend enough time outdoors every day. Our lifestyles are
designed to stay indoors in air-conditioned rooms, exposed to
man-made light (fake light) that has none of the healing and
energetic powers of our mighty sun.

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 KEYSTONE HABITS

As old-fashioned as it may sound, things like sunshine and

fresh air are hard to beat. Thus, if we are to get the best from
our day, we must find time every day to get outside and take
advantage of these free gifts that Mother Nature gives us.

R – REMIND YOURSELF

A daily practice of reminding yourself of your desired future

— your dreams, goals, and vision — is essential for peak
performance. At this moment in history, we have never been
more distracted than we are today. There are so many things
competing for our attention. Millions of people are addicted to
following whatever appears on their social media feed. Many
of us are drowning in a sea of information and are losing clarity
about what is most important for us. We easily forget our
reasons for changing. We forget about the future we want to
create, the great things we want to achieve, or the type of
person we want to become.

A dedicated time every morning spent visualizing a future

desired scenario has the extraordinarily powerful effect of
giving us the clarity, focus, and energy we need to continue to
move forward in the right direction. The future scenario can be
a goal we want to achieve later that day, later that week, or
even years from now.

“Champions aren’t made in the

gyms. Champions are made from
something they have deep inside
them, a desire, a dream, a vision.”
— Muhammad Ali

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

There are various ways to do this: Create a vision board, and

post it on your bedroom wall. Write down your goals on
paper, and put it in your wallet. Draw pictures of the future
you want to create in your journal. Of course, the simplest
way is to close your eyes and think about what that desired
future will both look and feel like in detail. It may only take
you a couple of minutes to do this, but the extraordinary effect
on your mind cannot be underestimated.

M – MAKE A PROMISE

This is an intentional moment in which you make a promise

to yourself about what specifically you are going to do to
make today great. This can include promises of things you can
do for yourself and for others or promises about how you are
going to behave or react to certain situations.

The purpose of this keystone habit is not just about creating a

to-do list for yourself or just about getting things done. This
keystone habit is really about increasing your integrity. Your
integrity increases when you successfully make and keep
small promises to yourself. Integrity is the opinion you have
of your own capability to make progress. It is the foundation
for your confidence in how you approach tasks and
challenges.

Our confidence in our own capability is like a muscle; we

need to exercise it daily to improve it. The reason this
keystone habit is so powerful is it gets you to focus on what
is in your control.

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 KEYSTONE HABITS

Think about it from a new perspective. Every morning is an

opportunity we are all given to make this day great. If we
pause and think of small things we can do for others, then we
realize that we have hundreds of opportunities every day to
make someone’s day. We have the freedom to choose. Why
not choose to do great things every day?

“Help others and give something back.

I guarantee, you will discover that
while public service improves the lives
and the world around you, its greatest
reward is the enrichment and new
meaning it will bring your own life.”
— Arnold Schwarzenegger

Writing down (or typing) three unique promises to yourself

about how you are going to make this day great reminds you
of how much power you have. It is such an empowering
keystone habit that only takes a minute or so to complete. Like
gratitude, it is something you can easily share with others,
especially over breakfast as you ask them what three things
they can do to make today great.

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THE KEYSTONE HABITS OF

PERSONAL KAIZEN
There you have it — the nine keystone habits of Personal
Kaizen you can practice in your Morning Ritual to help you
TRANSFORM.

THANKFULNESS
REST YOUR MIND
AFFIRMATIONS
NEW LEARNING
SWEAT
FUEL
OUTDOORS
REMIND YOURSELF
MAKE A PROMISE
Remember that the primary focus of this book is not
knowledge-focused. It is application-focused. In most cases,
you already know the habits you need in your life.

I believe that most of the nine keystone habits discussed here

have not surprised you. Our primary problem is not that we
don’t know what to do. It is that we don’t know how to
consistently do what we know we must do. This is the
problem I want to help you solve.

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 KEYSTONE HABITS

Let’s now take a look at the stories of three ordinary people

who made the decision to start their own Morning Ritual, who
then used the Personal Kaizen methodology outlined in this
book, and how it impacted their lives.

As I mentioned earlier, I believe that these three stories are

the most valuable part of the book. All the chapters you have
read so far have been leading up to this point.

So make sure that you have a pen in your hand. Take notes. If
these three ordinary people can create such an extraordinary
change, so can you.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

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 CHAPTER SIX

30-DAY CHALLENGE
SUCCESS STORIES

“Great stories teach you something. That’s one reason

I haven’t slipped into some sort of retirement:
I always feel like I’m learning something new.”
— Clint Eastwood
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO READ

ALL THREE STORIES
I want to make a very important disclaimer before you start
reading these three stories: You do not have to read all three
stories.

The purpose of this chapter is to prepare you to start your own

30-Day Challenge. At the time of printing this book, the
majority of people who have already successfully completed
the challenge have shared with me that reading just two of the
stories was enough to get them started on their own 30-Day
Challenge. So I want you to pick the two stories that you can
relate to the most, then start with them.

- Mark, an overworked and overstressed entrepreneur

who revitalized his struggling business and was able to
show the rest of his team how to become more
productive.

- Rebecca, a young working professional stuck in a job

she hates, who finally took action to get closer to her
dream job and inspire her younger sister to follow her
example.

- Alex, a first-time father and amateur athlete who

overcame the failure of being dropped by his coach to
have the greatest comeback of his career and become a
hero to his team and family.

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 30-DAY CHALLENGE SUCCESS STORIES

So which of the stories appeal to you the most? Soon, you will
read both what they did well and what they would have done
differently. Extract as much value as you can from these
stories. Sometimes you will learn more from their mistakes
than from their successes.

“It’s good to learn from

your mistakes. It’s better to learn
from other people’s mistakes.”
— Warren Buffett

After you have read two of your chosen stories, I want you to
jump straight to Chapter 7. You can read the remaining story
later if you wish, after you have started the 30-Day Challenge.
The most important thing is to get you started on this
challenge.

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Disclaimer: The three stories you are about to read are
inspired by real characters. I have changed the characters’
names and slightly modified some of the details of their
story to protect their identity. These three people have been
completely transparent about their experiences, both good
and bad, in doing this challenge. In doing so, they shared
some very personal information that they usually would not
have the willingness to share. At times, as with any such
frank and honest sharing, they will say things and share
beliefs that some readers will find offensive.

“Those who are easily shocked

should be shocked more often.”
— Mae West

So for those readers who are easily shocked and offended,

I am asking you to really exercise empathy as you read their
stories. I encourage you to hold off any quick and possibly
unfair negative judgments. Instead, I want you to focus
your attention on the principles that they are using and how
it can apply to your personal situation instead of focusing
on the tiny parts of their story that you find offensive. After
all, none of us are perfect.

“It’s not the critic who counts; not

the man who points out how the
strong man stumbles, or where the
doer of deeds could have done them
better. The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
 MARK

MARK
An overworked and overstressed entrepreneur who
revitalized his struggling business and was able to show the
rest of his team how to become more productive.

AN INTERVIEW WITH MARK BEFORE

HE STARTED THE 30-DAY CHALLENGE
1. What are the ten most important lessons you have
learned about yourself in the last twelve months?

1) I am a workaholic. I do not have enough balance in

my life. For the last two years, I have been an
entrepreneur, but the downside is that I now work
for the worst boss I have ever had: myself.

2) I don’t spend enough time with my parents. They are

getting older each year, and I feel that I need to
create more opportunities to connect with them
more frequently.

3) I am micromanaging my team too often. I’m

becoming the type of boss that I promised myself I
would never be. I need to be able to trust them more
and accept that at the beginning, they won’t be able
to do it as good as I do but knowing that if I don’t

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start delegating more, my business will never scale

to its potential.

4) I made the right decision two years ago when I quit

my job and started my own business. Even though I
have struggled to create some of the breakthroughs
I wished for, I know that I was born to do this. I will
never go back to the corporate world. I am proud of
myself, and I am going to prove to all my critics how
wrong they are about me.

5) I need to have more of the right mentors in my life.

Six months ago, I lost a massive contract. Looking
back, I made so many false assumptions that
completely backfired on me. I need to be humbler
and realize that I don’t know everything. I need to
invite the right mentors to review my business
strategy to ensure that I have no more false
assumptions in my plans.

6) I need to spend less time with my sister. As much as

I love my sister, her occasional sly remarks about
how I should get a “normal job” have been a great
source of pain for me. I don’t want to continue to
fight with her, so to protect my sanity, I am
intentionally going to spend less time with her in the
next few months. I am going to love her from a
distance. My massive success is how I am going to
show her how wrong she is and, hopefully, provide
her with the inspiration to stop judging others and
have the courage to fix her own life.

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 MARK

7) I need to forgive myself more. I beat myself up too

often for my past mistakes. I need to be kinder to
myself. I forget about all the good stuff I have done
and that the work I do every day really helps a lot of
people. I am a good man, and I need to remind
myself of this daily.

8) It’s OK to quit the wrong people. Looking back over

the last year, I am proud of my decision to spend
less time with “the boys” at the social club. None of
them has their own businesses, so none of them
really understand how difficult it is being an
entrepreneur. Even though they tried to guilt me
into joining them, I know that I made the right
decision in saying no to them.

9) I have neglected my physical health. I have let

myself slip here. I am nowhere near where I should
be. I need to fix this as it directly impacts my daily
energy levels and it’s putting me at risk of potential
diseases.

10) I spend too much time in the city — it is affecting

my mental health. I need to spend more time with
nature. I need to be more intentional and give
myself time at least once a month to get out of the
city.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

2. What is the #1 goal that you must achieve within

the next three months?

Get seven new clients for my business: two major

contracts, five minor contracts.

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 MARK
3. Why is achieving this goal so important to you?
THE PURPOSE MATRIX
Benefits, pleasures and rewards of achieving your #1 Goal
FOR ME
1. I will be able to pay my bills on
time. It will release so much
financial pressure that I have
been under in the last six
months.
2. I will be able to invest more in
new equipment, software, and
technology, allowing me to scale
the business and reach even
more clients.
3. I will finally get to go on vacation
for myself.
4. I will get to prove to my critics
(especially my sister) that they
were wrong about me. I will be
able to walk into the room with a
big smile on my face, “How do
you like me now?”
5. I will be able to buy new clothes,
new gadgets, and really impress
the ladies with my success.
FOR OTHERS
1. I will be able to impact more
people with my business and
do the work that I believe God
has sent me to do. I know that if
I do not do this work, no one
else will.
2. I will be able to hire more
people, providing them
employment and the
opportunity to do meaningful
work that really makes a
difference.
3. My mom will be so proud of
me. I will be able to help her
pay off her debts, treat her to a
vacation of a lifetime, and buy
her so many nice things; I want
to treat her like a queen.
4. I will be able to do more
nonprofit work — especially
supporting the education of
disadvantaged children. It
would make me so fulfilled to
be finally in a place where I can
help them.
5. I will make my mentors so
proud. They put so much faith
in me, and it would give them
so much joy to see how I have
repaid that faith.
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 PERSONAL KAIZEN
THE PURPOSE MATRIX
Pain, disappointments, and consequences of failing to
achieve your #1 Goal
FOR ME
1. I will have to ask or beg for
another loan from my friends
and family. I will feel like a total
failure.
2. My business and my dream will
die. I have to return to work in a
“normal job” that I will hate with
all my heart.
3. I will be depressed and feel that
I have disappointed all the
people that encouraged me and
put their trust in me over the last
two years.
4. I will have to give up my
apartment, move into a place
half the size or further outside of
town, adding ten hours to my
commute every week.
5. I will make it more difficult for me
to find the right partner; no
woman wants to have a loser as
a boyfriend.
96
FOR OTHERS
1. I will not have enough cash to
pay my team’s salaries, forcing
me to make them redundant. I
will break my promise to them.
2. I will disappoint my mom, after
all the encouragement and trust
she gave me. She will continue
to live a hard life because of my
laziness.
3. My competitors, enemies, those
guys who bullied me in high
school will be laughing and
celebrating my failure.
4. I will have disappointed God. He
created me for a great purpose
a great mission to make the
world a better place. He gave
me all this amazing potential
and opportunity, but I messed it
up.
5. I would lose the chance to
become a role model to kids
from the neighborhood that I
grew up in. I really want to
inspire these kids to dream. It
will be impossible for me to
influence them. They would just
look at me in disgust as another
loser who is all talk and no
action.
 MARK

4. How will a Morning Ritual help you achieve your #1

goal?

I have just started to realize that the majority of

successful entrepreneurs that I admire have a disciplined
Morning Ritual. So if it works for them, I believe that it
can also help me achieve my goals. I know now that I
need to change my daily routine, or else I am going to
continue to get the same results.

MARK’S NEW MORNING RITUAL

Wake Up Time: 6:45 a.m. (8:00 a.m. on Sundays)

ACTIVITY TIME
Drink one glass of lemon water 1 minute
Have a cold shower while 3 minutes
repeating to myself:
“‘Today is going to be a great day”

Make my bed 1 minute

Do my 5-minute journal 5 minutes
Do my stretching routine (while 5 minutes
listening to motivational videos)

Meditate on the sofa 10 minutes

Prepare my morning tea 2 minutes
Exercise my inner genius (10 5 minutes
ideas)
Number of Activities Total Time
8 32 minutes

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

5. How are you going to incentivize yourself to

ensure you successfully complete your Morning
Ritual and the 30-Day Challenge?

My daily reward for completing

my Morning Ritual

I will treat myself to a mid-morning coffee and cookie at

11:00 a.m.

My daily punishment for failing to complete

my Morning Ritual
I will not allow myself to check my favorite sports
website until after lunch. This will be a torture for me.

My big reward for successfully completing

the 30-Day Challenge
I am going to bring my parents on a weekend getaway
to one of their favorite parts of the country. I know that
this will be a complete surprise to them, and they will
absolutely love it.

My big punishment for failing to complete

the 30-Day Challenge

I will donate $200 USD to an anti-charity: a certain

extreme political party in my country that I hate. To
ensure I follow through on this, I will write a check in
advance and give it to one of my teammates, giving
them strict instructions to deposit the check on day 30
in the event that I fail in this challenge.

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 MARK

6. Who will be your Success Partner?

Who: My teammate Sally.

Why: Sally sees me more than any other person, and she
knows how driven I am to become a better person. She
is also very passionate about personal development. I
think she will be the ideal person to help me with this.

How: We will meet for ten minutes every Tuesday and

Friday where she’d ask me intentional questions about
my Morning Ritual (What’s going well? What could I do
differently?).

7. Who are the people that you need to spend less time
with?

Who: My sister.

Why: All she does is complain and criticize others. I

don’t want to be a part of that anymore.

How: This is not easy, but I believe it is necessary for

the short term. It would be a waste of my time to confront
her on her negativity, so I will let my success do the
talking. I am going to schedule my visits to my parent’s
house when I know she will not be there. In the occasions
that I do meet her, I will keep our conversations brief and
positive, I will not be drawn into an argument with her,
and the second she starts complaining about something,
I am going to change the conversation but if that fails I
will walk out of the room pretending I have a phone call.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

8. How are you going to make it easier for you to wake

up at the time you promised yourself (so that you
don’t hit the snooze button once your alarm starts
ringing)?

I will leave my alarm on the other side of the room to

ensure that I have to walk over to switch it off.

The night before, I will leave a glass of water with lemon

on the bedside table. Once I hear my alarm go off in the
morning, I will drink the glass straight away. I will create
a rule for myself that I am not allowed to switch off my
alarm until I drink the glass of water.

Also, this might sound crazy to others, but I’m going to

set an automatic tweet at 6:47 a.m. every morning
(except on Sundays) that says, “Hey, I am a lazy ass
sleeping in. To punish myself, I will give $10 each to the
first three people who reply.” Thus, every morning I
have to get up, log on to my Twitter account, and
manually stop the tweet from sending. I know people
who swear by this approach, so I am going to give it a
try to see how effective it can be for me.

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 MARK

9. How are you going to design your environment to

make it easier for you to do your new Morning
Ritual and more difficult for you not to do it?

I am going to buy a journal and a pen, and I’ll leave

them right on top of my bedside table. That will make
it easier for me to keep my promise of journaling.

The night before, I am going to fill the kettle with water

(for my morning cup of tea), and next to it, I will leave
a cup with a teabag inside.

I will also put my yoga mat in the middle of my bedroom

as a visual trigger for me to do my stretching routine.

10. How are you going to make it easier for you to

measure and evaluate your progress during the 30-
Day Challenge?

I love the idea of using a checklist. I love writing lists

and ticking things off. It is a very satisfying feeling when
I do this. As I already use my digital calendar every day,
I will link it to a spreadsheet where I will track my
Morning Ritual.

Also, before I begin the 30-Day Challenge, I will ask my

Success Partner, Sally, “Out of 10, how would you rate
me as a boss?” while instructing her that giving me a
score of 10/10 is not an option. Once I get her answer, I
will then ask her, “What do I need to do to make it a 10?”
I am sure she will not expect these questions, but I am
going to encourage her to answer honestly. If necessary,

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I will give her enough time to think of the answers. She

can even give me the answers the next day if she chooses.
I will explain that I need her help, not only to become a
better boss, but also a better person. At the end of the 30-
Day Challenge, I will ask her the same two questions. It
will be a great way for me to discover what progress she
has seen in me over these thirty days.

11. How are you going to deal with unplanned setbacks

during the 30-Day Challenge? How are you going
to turn bad days into good data?

Looking over my plans for the next thirty days, I know

there will be days when I will be traveling out of town,
and there will be nights when I will not be able to get
to bed at the time I want. I am going to be flexible with
myself when these things happen. Whenever possible,
I want to plan and adapt my Morning Ritual if I know
there are going to be some disturbances. I think it is
important for me to have a planned alternative Morning
Ritual for these days (for example, creating a minimum
requirement for me to complete three of my success
habits) rather than skipping everything.

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 MARK

AN INTERVIEW WITH MARK

THREE MONTHS LATER
How do you feel?

I feel like a champion.

Do you still practice a Morning Ritual?

Yes. Having a Morning Ritual is one of the best things that

I ever did for myself. It has given me the boost that I
desperately needed. The focus it gave me helped me
revitalize my business. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it
would be. I wish I started years ago.

What was the best decision you made once you

decided to have a Morning Ritual?

The meditation practice. I am embarrassed when I think

that I resisted it for years. The first few times I did it, I felt
very uncomfortable. Sitting on the sofa being still is
something I am not used to. I moved instead to lie on the
bed and started to experiment with different guided
meditations on YouTube. I eventually discovered a
meditation practice that worked best for me.

Although I did not feel the effects immediately, doing a

small amount on a daily basis helped me become more
focused and productive by giving me a greater sense of
calm and control. My meditation practice helped me find
the right perspective on what is most important.

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SELF-EVALUATION CHECKLIST TABLE

Completed by me Reviewed by Sally every Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM

before I go to sleep over a cup of coffee in the office meeting room
while in my bed at
10:15 PM
Version # 4 Day (1 = YES, 0 = NO)
November 03-10, Duration M T W TH F SA SU Actual Target Net
2018
MORNING (min)
Did I wake up on - 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 4 6 -2
time?
Did I make my bed? 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 6 1
Did I complete my 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 7 0
5-min Journal?
Did I do my daily 20 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 6 5 1
exercise/yoga?
Did I do my 10 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 6 1
morning
meditation?
Did I write 10 new 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 5 2
ideas?
DURING THE DAY
Did I complete my - 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 5 6 -1
no. 1 task for
today?
Inbox 0: Did I reply 1 hour 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 6 1
to every email
within 24-48hours
Did I complete 3 - 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 4 6 -2
acts of intentional
kindness today?
EVENING
Did I stop working - 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 6 7 -1
at 8 pm? (4 pm on
Saturdays; no work
on Sundays)
Did I make my 5 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 5 6 -1
healthy smoothie
for the morning?
Did I read a 15 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 6 6 0
personal
development book?
Was I in bed before - 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 5 6 -1
9:59 PM
TOTAL 76 78 -2

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 MARK

Did you use a checklist? If yes, how did it help

you?

The checklist worked great, especially during the 30-Day

Challenge. I created a spreadsheet and linked it to my
online calendar. Having Sally as my Success Partner was a
golden idea. Sally checks my calendar every day, so she
was able to see if I did my Morning Ritual or not. Having
that level of daily visibility and accountability drove me to
keep my promises to complete my Morning Ritual every
morning. When we had our success meetings, the checklist
was always one of the first things that we looked at.

What about your Success Partner, how did

he/she help you?

When I shared with Sally that I needed her help in making

my Morning Ritual a habit, she got really excited and
promised me that she would do her best to support me. In
fact, as I began to explain to her why I was doing this, she
also realized that a disciplined Morning Ritual was
something that she was missing in her life — so in the end,
we agreed that we would become each other’s Success
Partner.

In the first month, after our regular work-related one-on-

one meetings on Tuesday and Friday morning, we would
have our short discussion (ten to fifteen minutes) on the
details of how we were progressing with our morning
rituals. It was a dedicated time for both of us to reflect on
what was going well and what we could be doing better in
our respective morning rituals. In the last two months, we

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changed the frequency to once per week. These short

meetings really worked between Sally and me. I would go
as far to say that without it, both of us would have slipped
back to our old habits. It really motivated both of us to stay
on track.

How did you protect yourself from negative

people?

I was surprised how easy this was. I think I had way too
much anxiety about this at the beginning, feeling that I was
like a bad person for even considering this. But the
alternative of making myself responsible for my sister’s
bad behavior was completely stupid. There is a limit to how
I can help other people. I am not a saint, and to be
completely honest, I do not regret my decision to
significantly minimize the time I spend with her. Letting go
of this stress has been a massive relief for me. It may take
her years to change her behavior, but that is not my
responsibility — the only thing that is in my control is to
continue to be a good role model. Life is too short. I am
proud of myself for what I have done, and to be honest, I
don’t care about what anyone else thinks.

What was the biggest adjustment you made to

your Morning Ritual since you started?
I think imposing a “no e-mail” and “no social media” rule
helped me. I found myself checking my e-mail at the
beginning of my ritual, and then, while I was meditating
and practicing yoga, I was thinking about my response to
the e-mails as opposed to focusing on what I was doing. I
realized I was exposing my mind to other people’s to-do

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 MARK

lists by opening my e-mail so early. Instead, I moved

checking e-mail and social media to the end of my ritual
and used it as an additional reward for completing my
Morning Ritual. It was a tiny change of sequence, but it
helped me get the most from my ritual.

What was the most difficult part of your Morning

Ritual, and how did you overcome it?
The most difficult part by far was getting to bed on time.
When I did not get a night of good sleep, I felt it the next
day. So I started to research on the different things I could
do to ensure I get to bed on time and have a good quality
sleep. One of the things I did was to significantly
minimize my time looking at a computer screen at night. I
know that the blue light it emits is not good for my eyes, so
I got myself one of those infrared glasses that I can wear at
night to block out the blue light. I would wear those
glasses for the last two hours of computer work at night,
which helped me get a night of better quality sleep. I made
lots of other little changes, so I am not sure which ones
had the biggest impact. But I would recommend to people
to experiment with not just improving their Morning
Ritual but on significantly improving their quality of sleep.

How did you manage setbacks?

I experienced many setbacks since I started a Morning

Ritual. There was one time at the beginning of the 30-Day
Challenge where I felt that I came really close to quitting
the entire thing. However, my end-of-day reflection
exercise helped me to process any setback I had that day. I

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found that all I needed were two or three minutes at night to

reflect on the day. In the past, I would frequently overreact
to small things, totally being driven by my emotions and
not using objective reasoning.

I discovered that there is real power in making time at the

end of every day to ask yourself, “What could I have done
differently?” It’s funny that my ego never liked me
answering that question. Even on my best days where I
expected to have no answers to that question, I would
always come up with two or three tiny things that I could
have done differently. I know that many people talk about
continuous improvement, but I believe it means nothing if
you don’t have a daily practice of how you are actually
doing it.

Did you help anyone else create a Morning Ritual

as a result of your own experience?
Sharing this with my team and, more importantly,
practicing this with them have been particularly
gratifying. Nowadays, we start all our team meetings with
some type of gratitude exercise: What gave you joy at
work today? Who in the group do you want to
acknowledge? What would you like to acknowledge
yourself for? These may sound like very simple questions,
but I can’t tell you how powerful this is for our team.
Spending just five minutes on this totally transforms the
energy of the meeting. One other thing we also started was
to introduce group reflection exercises: What went well?
What could we have done differently? We do this after
every event or on the closure of a big project. These habits

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I am now sharing with my team are all things I first learned

as a result of my own personal journey with Morning
Rituals. Simply put, these new habits are making us a far
more productive team than we were three months ago.

What advice would you give to others who are

about to start the 30-Day challenge?

Life is like a video game; it’s all about having fun and
getting to the next level. Like playing video games, life is
more fun when you do it with others. So don’t try to do your
Morning Ritual on your own. It is far easier and more fun
if you involve others on the journey. It is really hard when
you try to do this on your own. It is even harder if your own
family, friends, and work colleagues do not share your
enthusiasm for personal change. So I want to encourage
you to seek like-minded communities or groups that you
can partner with. The sad reality is that most of my friends
and family would have made terrible Success Partners. I
was lucky that Sally was so positive and proactive about
this. Lots of people are looking for this; you just have to
find them.

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EXAMPLE OF MARK’S JOURNAL ENTRIES FOR

CREATING IDEAS (THREE CONSECUTIVE DAYS)

Saturday
10 ideas on how I can make my mom worry less

 Send her a text message every day.

 Buy her that TV series box set that she loves.
 Ask her more questions about her work.
 Plan a mini-vacation with her at Christmas.
 Buy her a cookbook from her favorite chef.
 Remind my brother to call her more often.
 Write her a thank-you letter.
 Every time I call her, I need to affirm her that I am very
happy.
 Directly ask her what I can do to be a better son.
 Plan a surprise visit home.

Sunday
10 ideas on how I can eat healthier food

 Never allow myself to bring unhealthy food into my

home.
 Ask my friend Alicia for advice on healthy recipes.
 Prepare a packed lunch for days when I am on the road.
 Drink one glass of water 30 minutes before every meal.
 Research on food that is healthier for me to eat.
 Hire a health and wellness coach.
 Start checking the ingredients of the food I buy at the
store.
 Stop snacking while watching TV.
 Get healthy food delivered to my home.
 Ask my workmates to be my accountability partner.

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Monday
10 ideas on how I can attract more clients

 Ask for my existing clients to recommend me.

 Attend more networking events.
 Ask the three most successful online entrepreneurs that
I know for their advice.
 Write a blog post every week.
 Ask my existing clients for feedback on what I do well
and what I could do differently.
 Create a free e-book, so I become known as an expert
in my field.
 Study my competition to see what I can learn from them.
 Finish reading the marketing book that my friend
recommended to me.
 Attend a marketing course.
 Rewrite my online profile to make it easier for others to
understand the problem I help them solve.

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HOW MARK HAS IMPACTED OTHERS

An interview with Sally (Mark’s Success Partner)

What was your first reaction when Mark asked

you to be his Success Partner?
I was not sure what being a Success Partner meant at the
beginning. However, when Mark explained the roles and
responsibilities to me, it made sense. I became excited
about it. I was impressed that he asked me to be his
Success Partner. No other employer has ever asked me to
help them in this way. It was inspiring how humble he was,
and his willingness to ask me for help made me feel that
he really valued my support.

What impact has Mark’s experience with Morning

Rituals had on you and the rest of the team?
I could not believe how much he improved in the weeks
after he started his Morning Ritual. It was like a new Mark.
He was more positive and more energetic than ever. His
positive energy impacted the entire team. It was as though
the whole organization was feeling the benefits of his
Morning Ritual. Unlike many bosses I know who are all
talk and no action, Mark was very different. He modeled
the idea of having a Morning Ritual, and it became
contagious.

Our entire team, including myself, now practice a Morning

Ritual. Morale at work has never been so high. It’s amazing
to see how much an impact a small change can make to the
entire team, especially if the leader is the one to go first.

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How have you shared with others what you learned

from Mark?
We delivered a special training program for our team
wherein we would help them design the first hour of their
workday to set themselves up to optimize their day. It was
amazing to see the positive reaction of the staff. By
focusing on the start of the day, it helped us solve some
very simple problems within the team like lack of
communication, prioritization and motivation. Some of
our clients have been very impressed by the impact this
training has had on our people. They are now asking us if
we could train their employees too. I feel proud when I
hear that other people are noticing how productive our
team has become.

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REBECCA
A young working professional stuck in a job she hates
finally took action to get closer to her dream job and
inspire her younger sister to follow her example.

AN INTERVIEW WITH REBECCA BEFORE SHE

STARTED THE 30-DAY CHALLENGE
1. What are the ten most important lessons you have
learned about yourself in the last twelve months?

1) I have been too casual about my life. I am in a job

that I hate, my work does not make a difference, and
my friends are always complaining. I feel like I am
completely wasting my life. There has to be more
than this. Even though a part of me wants to blame
my boss, my parents, my work colleagues, and my
ex-boyfriend, I know that I must make a stand. I have
so many things I want to do in life, places I want to
go, and people I want to help. I need to plug myself
out of the matrix and take back the control of my life.

2) I have been getting advice from the wrong people. So

many times, I have been tempted to make a change
in my life, like finally quitting my job, but my friends
have talked me back into doing nothing and focusing
on short-term gratification.

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3) I need to find the right mentors in my life who have

a more positive worldview than my current circle of
friends.

4) I have neglected my health. For a young woman like

me, I should not be in such poor shape. I really have
myself to blame — my laziness in what I eat and the
infrequency of my exercise are probably big factors
in me waking up depressed some mornings. Gotta
make a change here.

5) At the end of the day, you only have a few loyal

friends. My best friend, Sheryl, went through a
horrible break-up last year. That girl was totally
messed up. But I am really proud of how I was there
for her. She really appreciated how I stuck by her
and helped her in her recovery. I told her that I did
not have any doubt in my mind that if the situation
was reversed, she would do the same thing for me. I
have made so many friends over the years, but it is
moments of crisis that you know who your real
friends are. This really helped me understand the
difference between acquaintances versus true inner
circle friends. Moving forward, I need to be more
selective with who I spend my time with.

6) I waste way too much time watching TV series. It

would be common for me to spend more than thirty
hours a week glued to my TV screen. I need to stop
this as it’s really not helping me grow and achieve
my goals.

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7) I got more clarity on the type of work I enjoy. Earlier

this year, I got a chance to co-facilitate some training
of new hires at work, and I loved it. It was probably
the only time in the past year that I felt alive at work.
I never realized that training would be something
that I would love doing. I want to do more of it.

8) I need to be a better older sister. We are a small

family, so my relationship with my little sister,
Anna, is really important to me. But if I would rate
myself out of 10 here, I think I would give myself a
3. I really do not know what is going on in her life,
and I spend almost no time with her talking about
serious stuff — like career, purpose, and passion. I
want to guide her. I don’t want her to repeat the same
mistakes as me. But I think if I don’t start getting my
life in order, anything I say to her would appear
hypocritical. Being a better role model for her is
something that is going to really motivate me.

9) I need to have more control over how I spend my

money. Truth be told, I buy so much crap that I don’t
really need. My savings are nonexistent. I find
myself floating from paycheck to paycheck. I need
to start building my “war chest” today.

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10) I need to invest in myself more. When I spoke to

Rachel, the training manager of our company, a
leader I greatly respect, she told me the criteria she
was looking for from new people in her team. That
meeting really highlighted to me that passion and
interest are not enough. I have to work harder on
developing myself than on anything else.

2. What is the #1 goal that you must achieve within

the next three months?

Successfully transfer full time to the Training

Department of our company. This would mean a big
promotion for me, and without doubt, the proudest
moment of my career so far.

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3. Why is achieving that goal so important to you?
THE PURPOSE MATRIX
Benefits, pleasures and rewards of achieving your #1 Goal
FOR ME
1. This is the perfect job for
me. I know that this is
something that I will excel
in.
2. I will learn so many new
skills that I can use in
multiple industries. It will
look great on my CV.
3. I will get an increase in my
salary, allowing me to pay
back my college debt by the
end of next year.
4. I will be able to shove it in
the face of my ex-boss who
told me that I would never be
good enough for a job like
this. It would be so sweet to
see the look on his face as I
succeed in this job.
5. I will become a more
positive person: no more
sulking, no more
complaining, and no more
bitching from me. This will
be life-changing for me!
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FOR OTHERS
1. I will be able to inspire my
sister to follow my example. I
need to show her that finding
a job that you love is possible.
2. My past mentors will be really
proud of me. Seeing me
succeed is something that I
know will give them so much
joy. I will prove to them that
they were right to believe in
me.
3. I know that my future
students will really benefit
from my presence as a
facilitator/trainer. As I will be
working in my dream job, I
know that every day they will
be getting the best from me.
4. I can use these new skills to
get involved in nonprofit
projects outside of work. It
can be my way of giving back
to those less fortunate.
5. My uncle will be really proud
of me. He has been my
biggest supporter for so long.
So knowing that I got this
promotion will prove to him
that his faith in me was valid.
 REBECCA
THE PURPOSE MATRIX
Pain, disappointments, and consequences of failing to
achieve your #1 Goal
FOR ME
1. I would be miserable if I was
stuck in this job that I hate. I
believe that I would have to
leave the company in search
of other opportunities.
2. My old college friends will be
able to say, “I told you so,”
and use that as justification
for why it is a waste of time
trying to find a job that you
love.
3. My mental health and self-
worth would suffer. I would
be a depressing person to
hang around with.
4. I will have to continue to
listen to that crap advice that
I need to accept my job and
start being realistic with my
expectations.
5. I feel that the world is still not
getting the best from me. I
don’t want to be one of those
people whose song dies
inside of them.
FOR OTHERS
1. I will have failed my younger
sister. How can I help her
succeed if I myself cannot
succeed in my career?
2. I know my mentors will be
disappointed. They may not
say this to my face, but I know
they may start to doubt
whether I am deserving of
their support.
3. My ex-boss will be proved
right: that I don’t have what it
takes to be successful. The
thought of him laughing at my
failure makes me sick.
4. No one will be able to point at
me as an example of
someone who lived life on her
terms. I’ll lose my influence.
5. The nice things that I want to
do for my family (especially
my uncle) will not happen. I
will become one of those
ungrateful family members
who are not able to treat her
own family.
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4. How will a Morning Ritual help you achieve your #1

goal?

My uncle once told me that the more valuable I become,

the greater influence I will have on others. I love this
advice. It is so simple yet so true. The level of my success in
my career is directly related to my level of personal
development. This inspired me to establish a Morning
Ritual where I have a dedicated time every day to educating
myself and move up in my career.

I have never tried a Morning Ritual before as I really don’t

consider myself a morning person, but I am willing to give
it a try. The consequences of doing nothing is no longer
acceptable to me. My personal transformation happens
now. I am at the point where I would rather make a change
and fail than stay in my current job and never know.

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REBECCA’S NEW MORNING RITUAL

Wake Up Time: 7:30 a.m.

ACTIVITY TIME
Drink one glass of water 1 minute

Do a short Power Workout in my 6 minutes

bedroom while listening to my
playlist
Drink another glass of water 1 minute
Read my affirmations 5 minutes
Put three things I am grateful for 2 minutes
into the Jar of Awesome
Reflect on my vision board 2 minutes
Say a quick prayer 1 minute
Read my leadership book 10 minutes
Drink one more glass of water 1 minute

Number of Activities Total Time

9 29 minutes

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5. How are you going to incentivize yourself to

ensure you successfully complete your Morning
Ritual and the 30-Day Challenge?

My daily reward for completing

my Morning Ritual
My guilty pleasure: I will allow myself to play my
favorite video game on my phone while on my way to
work.

My daily punishment for failing to complete

my Morning Ritual

No social media for the entire day.

My big reward for successfully completing

the 30-Day Challenge
I am going to buy myself a new phone.

My big punishment for failing to complete

the 30-Day Challenge
I am not going to allow myself to go on another beach
vacation for the rest of the year.

6. Who will be your Success Partner?

Who: My work colleague, Jeff

Why: Jeff is in a similar position as me. He hates his

job and wants to follow his passion but, like me, he is
stuck in his comfort zone.

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How: Jeff and I see each other every day at work so I will
arrange with him that every Monday we go for lunch
together to discuss this.

7. Who are the people that you need to spend less

time with?

Who: My friend Megan

Why: I don’t consider Megan a negative person. In fact,
I love hanging out with her. However, the truth is that she
is a negative influence on me. She thinks short-term. All
she wants to do is party. I can’t do that anymore. I need
to be disciplined in what time I go to sleep and what
time I wake up.
How: I’m just going to have an honest conversation
with her next time we meet. I will tell her that for the
next few weeks, I am only available to hang out on
Saturday nights. I will explain why making this change
is so important to me and will ask her to help me stay
focused.

8. How are you going to make it easier for you to wake

up at the time you promised yourself (so that you
don’t hit the snooze button once your alarm starts
ringing)?

I will use two alarms, each going off at the same time. I
will leave them on the other side of the room forcing me
to get out of bed to switch them off. I will leave my glass
of water beside them so, once I switch the alarms off, I

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will immediately drink water. After I come back from

the toilet, I will do a six-minute workout just to get my
blood flowing.

While I am exercising and listening to music, I will be

talking to myself, reminding myself of why I am doing
this.

9. How are you going to design your environment to

make it easier for you to do your Morning Ritual and
more difficult for you not to do it?

I think the most important thing is that I set myself a

rule for what time I must be in bed every night. I know
if I get enough sleep, I will be able to get up on time. I
will put reminders on my phone for when I should stop
using my computer or watching TV in the evenings and
when I should be in bed preparing to sleep.

The night before, I am going to ensure that everything I

need is ready for the morning and in the correct position.
I don’t want to waste any time in the morning searching
for things. Before I go to sleep, I will already know what
I am going to wear and what I am going to eat for
breakfast. I know that the more decisions I have to make
in a day, the more exhausted my brain becomes. Thus, I
will make my morning as automatic as possible to save
my brain for when I need it the most.

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10. How are you going to make it easier for you to

measure and evaluate your progress during the 30-
Day Challenge?

I am definitely going to use a checklist and post it next to

the mirror in my bedroom. There is always a pen on my
bedside table that I can use. I will write there the
progress I am making every day. When I go to bed later
that night, I will fill in the checklist for the day to see
how successful I was in completing my Morning
Ritual.

During the 30-Day Challenge, I am going to give

myself the target of reading at least one book, ‘The 7
Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen Covey.
A part of me feels a bit overwhelmed since I have not
read a book in years, but I know I have what it takes to
do this.

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11. How are you going to deal with unplanned

setbacks during the 30 days? How are you going
to turn bad days into good data?

My relationship with setbacks must improve. I don’t

want to run away and feel so defeated by them like I
usually do. I want to be like one of those world-class
athletes who study hours and hours of video footage of
their own performance so they can maximize their
learning from any mistakes and study why they were
able to be successful at certain things. I am going to
dedicate a time every evening for quiet reflection about
my day. So while brushing my teeth at night just before
I go to bed, I will ask myself:

 What went well today?

 What could I have done differently?

I think making time for honest reflection like this will

ensure that I keep adjusting as I go and learn from any
setbacks. I know that even more effective action will
come from this quiet reflection!

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AN INTERVIEW WITH REBECCA

THREE MONTHS LATER
How do you feel?

Wonderful! I feel I have made massive progress in

becoming more qualified for my dream job. There has been
no vacancy in the Training Department in the past three
months, but I really feel that when the opportunity finally
opens in the next few months, I will be ready.

Do you still practice a Morning Ritual?

Yes, I am so grateful that the 30-Day challenge helped me

become more disciplined, have more energy, and overall,
get more things done in the day. Thanks to my Morning
Ritual, I have read more books in the last three months than
I have in the last three years. I feel that I am doing the
work that it takes to show the leaders in my company that
I am worthy and deserving of this promotion.

What was the best decision you made once you

decided to have a Morning Ritual?

I think the best decision I made was to find a new Success

Partner. My initial choice, Jeff, was not the right fit for me.
I realized after having one conversation about this with
him that the assumptions I made about him were
completely wrong. He really isn’t in a position to help me.
The main reason I chose him at the beginning was the
convenience factor (we see each other at work every day)
and the similarity factor (we both share the same problem).

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However, he had a completely different mindset about

personal change. As much as I like the guy, he was just so
negative all the time and was ignoring his own
responsibility to be proactive. I didn’t need someone who
would drain my energy. So I decided that I would just pay
for a professional coach instead. I didn’t want to repeat my
bad experience with Jeff, and I ended up finding someone
who knew exactly what is needed to successfully change
behaviors and achieve big goals.

Did you use a checklist? If yes, how did it help

you?

Yes, I used a checklist for the first month. Once the

activities became a habit, I did not need it anymore. I was
surprised at how much the checklist helped me at the
beginning. It gave me no excuse to say that I forgot what
to do. I felt great joy from ticking the box at the end of the
day when I would fill it in. Also, when I met with my
coach, it made the conversation a lot easier. Bizarrely,
knowing that my coach was going to look at it sometimes
became my primary motivation to do what I promised I
would do. And it worked.

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 REBECCA

SELF EVALUATION CHECKLIST TABLE

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

What about your Success Partner, how did he/she

help you?
As I mentioned earlier, I decided to hire a professional
coach to help me as both my Success Partner for the 30-
Day Challenge and to help me achieve other big personal
goals that I have been procrastinating about for years. I
think hiring a coach is one of the best investments I have
ever made in my life. My coach has been amazing. I feel
like he gives me so much more clarity and focus. After our
first few sessions together, we agreed to a three-month
coaching program in which we meet virtually once every
week for a coaching session. It has changed my life.
Having a coach is something that I had never considered
before, but now I realize it really is worth the investment.
Almost all of the world’s top-performing athletes, artists,
and entrepreneurs have coaches. So if world-class
performance is what I am striving for, then it makes sense
for me to do the same.

How did you protect yourself from negative

people?

I really appreciated now the importance of being very

selective with the people I spend time with. When I reflect
on my circle of friends, I realized most of them are really
not the people I need to hang around with in order for me
to make this switch. Saying no to invitations to hang out
was initially tough at the beginning, but once I started to
internalize more and more of why I was doing this, it
became easier.

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 REBECCA

What was the biggest adjustment you made to

your Morning Ritual since you started?
I have a commitment every Monday night, which means I
get to bed an hour later than I would like. So rather than
not get enough sleep or skipping my ritual completely, I
found myself doing an adapted and shortened version of
my ritual every Tuesday morning. I made up for that time
during the weekend by doing an extended version of my
ritual. It worked well and prevented me from feeling bad
about it.

What was the most difficult part of your Morning

Ritual and how did you overcome it?
I think the most difficult part was in the first week of the
30-Day Challenge when I started to listen to the ANTs
(Automatic Negative Thoughts) in my head. I would say
horrible stuff to myself like, “I’m not good enough to be
a trainer. I’m too stupid, and this will never work. I am too
serious, and I am missing out on life.” I hated that voice.
I think overcoming this self-doubt has been by far my
biggest achievement.

The thing that helped me the most was doing a “No

Complaints Diet” at the same time as the 30-Day
Challenge. The “No Complaints Diet” challenges people
to wear a rubber band on your wrist. Every time you find
yourself complaining or having negative thoughts about
yourself, someone else, or a certain situation, you snap the
rubber band against your wrist. The simple act of snapping
the band is a reminder that you are in a negative state and
that you do have the choice to either dwell in this negative

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energy or choose to be positive, to be grateful, and to rise

above the situation.

The results blew my mind. I found myself snapping that

rubber band many times during the day, but wow, it did
help me stay in a positive mindset! The “No Complaints
Diet” really did complement the positive energy I created
in my Morning Ritual.

How did you manage setbacks?

To be honest, there were many times when I woke up that
I did not want to do my Morning Ritual. What really
helped me deal with setbacks was my end-of-the-day
reflection exercise. At the end of every day, I would write
down what was amazing about the day and what I could
have done differently. I always found myself writing
about my Morning Ritual. When I did not get a good
night’s sleep, when I rushed my Morning Ritual, or when
I felt I was not learning anything from the books I was
reading, I would start to objectively investigate the
reasons why. It was like I became a scientist observing my
day and then identifying little changes I could make to
improve the next day. I recommend people to adopt this
practice of reflection. It helped me not to take the setbacks
personally and instead use them as opportunities to
improve.

Did you help anyone else create a Morning Ritual

as a result of your own experience?
The amazing progress that I have made has already helped
my little sister, Anna. I told her about all the changes that

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 REBECCA

I have experienced, and to cut the long story short, it

eventually inspired her to develop her own Morning
Ritual.

I found myself becoming her Success Partner. It gives me

so much joy that I was able to help my sister like this, and
I feel that I have become the supportive and encouraging
big sister she deserves.

What advice would you give to others who are

about to start the 30-Day Challenge?

Don’t be hard on yourself. That fact that you have failed

before is not an excuse for you not to try a new approach.
After doing the 30-Day Challenge, I realized that the
primary reason I failed in the past was that I was trying to
do everything on my own. This insight was extraordinarily
empowering for me. I realized that not every story that I
tell myself in my head is true. So my advice is don’t let
your ego and pride stop you from becoming successful
with this 30-Day Challenge. Having the Success Partner or
Coach really makes this process so much easier.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN
REBECCA’S END-OF-DAY 5-MINUTE REFLECTION
EXERCISE FOR THREE CONSECUTIVE DAYS
WEDNESDAY P.M.
3 amazing things
about today
1. My boss was impressed with
my presentation.
2. I got a thank you email from
my former teammate, Ralf.
3. I completed my three most
important tasks before lunch.
THURSDAY P.M.
3 amazing things
about today
1. I got to hear my mum’s voice
and make her laugh.
2. I went for an amazing run
after work.
3. My niece asked me to help
her. I am grateful that she
looks up to me as a role
model.
134
3 things I could have
done differently
1. I could have resisted the
temptation to eat those
donuts in the afternoon.
2. I could have been more
patient with Anna during
our meeting this morning
and asked her better
questions.
3. I could have called my
mum.
3 things I could have
done differently
1. Not to get angry when I
was stuck in traffic;
instead, I could have
practiced my breathing
exercises.
2. Not have checked my
email until after my
Morning Ritual was
complete.
3. I could have responded
to John’s request for
help sooner.
 REBECCA

FRIDAY P.M.
3 amazing things 3 things I could have
about today done differently
1. No traffic on the way to 1. Have planned my lunch
work today. better and picked a
healthier option.
2. I got my inbox zero. 2. Listened to my team
more and asked them
what they thought
before I gave my
opinion.
3. John values the career 3. Sent a thank-you email
advice I gave him and to my mentor, Rachel,
looks up to me as a to let her know how
mentor. much her advice has
helped me.

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EXAMPLE OF REBECCA’S AFFIRMATIONS

MY FALSE BELIEF:
I am not smart enough to be a full-time trainer.

MY AFFIRMATIONS:
I am a unique child of this world. My Creator has great plans for
me. I am not born to play it small. I have unlimited potential. I am
committed to unleashing my inner genius. Nothing will hold me
back from my destiny. This is the opportunity I have been waiting
for to prove the world what I am capable of.

MY FALSE BELIEF:
I will be single for the rest of my life.

MY AFFIRMATIONS:
I am a great person. I love and approve of myself. I know that I
have extraordinary love to give to a special someone. I know that
the right person is waiting for me. I know that all things will work
for the good. I am excited to fall in love with the right person. I am
patient and kind because I know I am going to be an amazing
partner for that special person.

MY FALSE BELIEF:
I will never be financially free.

MY AFFIRMATIONS:
I trust my inner wisdom and intuition. I know that challenging times
are only designed to make me stronger. I know that wonderful
things lie in store for me. I believe that I have everything I need
within me to create extraordinary wealth for my family and me. I
am committed to becoming better every day at attracting the right
people into my life. I know that financial freedom is what lies
ahead of me if I continue to invest in myself.

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HOW REBECCA HAS IMPACTED OTHERS

An interview with Anna (Rebecca’s younger sister)

What was your first reaction when your sister

shared with you her Morning Ritual?
I was surprised when my sister started to share with me
her Morning Ritual. I never knew that she was into
personal development. It is not part of our usual
conversations. I have never seen her so enthusiastic about
something like this before. And because this was
something she was getting real results from, it made me
very curious to see if it could work for me.

What impact has Rebecca’s experience with

Morning Rituals had on you?
She gave me this book to read, and I found myself starting
my own 30-Day Challenge. Now, I fully understand why a
Morning Ritual is so helpful. I see a big difference in my
energy, happiness, and clarity.

How have you shared with others what you

learned from your sister?
I have become very active online, sharing my own
experience with Morning Rituals with the various groups
and communities I am a part of. There is so much amazing
content about how Morning Rituals can help you.

It is nice to be able to share these articles with my friends

as well as add my own commentary about how it has

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helped me. Even if just one person reads what I share, I

will be happy. I am very thankful to my sister for
introducing all of this to me.

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 ALEX

ALEX
A first-time father and amateur athlete who overcame the
failure of being dropped by his coach to have the greatest
comeback of his career and become a hero to his team and
family.

AN INTERVIEW WITH ALEX BEFORE HE STARTED

THE 30-DAY CHALLENGE

1. What are the ten most important lessons you have

learned about yourself in the last twelve months?

1) I become easily distracted sometimes. I have a bad habit

of starting things but not finishing it. My short spell
with yoga classes, my failed attempt at learning the
guitar, and learning a new language being classic
examples of this. I need more focus.

2) I need to spend more quality time with my wife. We had

our first baby last year, and I feel that we both have
really neglected our need to bond as a couple. I get so
busy with work and my sport sometimes that I forget to
make time for her. I don’t want to end up separated. I
need to make a better effort in bringing back the romance
in our relationship.

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3) I have neglected my fitness. I have been too casual over

the past few months with what I eat and the frequency,
duration, and effectiveness of my workout routines —
losing my starting position on the team was inevitable.
It really hurt to be on the bench. It was the wake-up
call I need.

4) Being a dad is the coolest thing in the world. I never

thought that it would be this hard, but at the same time,
I never realized it would be this rewarding. The birth
of my baby girl was the greatest moment of my life. It
began a new chapter for me. I learned that if I am really
serious about being the leader of my family, I must have
self-discipline.

5) Life is unpredictable. This past year, my uncle

suddenly died of a heart attack, and one of my best
friends suffered a career-ending injury. It reminded me
that I really need to be more grateful for all the
blessings in my life. Sometimes, I forget this. I find
myself complaining too much. I spend too much time
on things that are not important. I need to stop focusing
on what I don’t have and instead think of the blessings
I have been given.

6) I need to reconnect with some of my old friends. Time

seems to go by so fast — I feel a bit guilty when I think
of all the old friends that I haven’t checked in on. I want
to reach out, but I always seem to have an excuse. I
need to get better at managing my priorities every
week.

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7) I need to be a better son for my mom. We have been

having some arguments lately, and I don’t want to
continue to fight with her. She has been so amazing this
past year in looking after my daughter. I have failed to
let her know how much I appreciate her. I really want
to prove to her that I am becoming a better man for my
family.

8) I need to study more about how I can make the right

behaviors a habit. I get so frustrated when I fall back
to my old bad habits. I feel like I am taking one step
forward sometimes and two steps backward. If I am
serious about becoming better, I have to learn how I
can make it sustainable. I hate the guilt of reflecting on
my failures all the time.

9) The secret to living is giving. I did some volunteer

work this year with the youth in our local community,
and it really lit a fire within me. I want to do more of
this type of work and start giving back more often. I
don’t think it’s fair for me to keep dropping the excuses
tag. Perhaps I need to surround myself more with the
right people who share the same values as me.

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10) I made the right decision to stop watching pornography.

Once my daughter was born, I realized that I needed
to start making big changes, and that is one of the best
changes I did. Before, my wife accused me of being
addicted; I kind of laughed it off. However, when I
started to research the consequences of pornography
on my subconscious mind, I finally realized that I
really do have a problem here. My mentor told me that
if I am ever struggling to make a decision, I should ask
myself just one question: “What would a great father
do?” So I am proud of myself for ending this addiction.

2. What is the #1 goal that you must achieve within the

next three months?

Have the greatest comeback of my career by reestablishing

myself as a regular on the first team and then go on to lead
my team to become the champions of our division.

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3. Why is achieving that goal so important to you?

THE PURPOSE MATRIX

Benefits, pleasures and rewards of achieving your #1 Goal

FOR ME FOR OTHERS

1. I will have proven to myself and 1. I will help my team win the
others that I have what it takes championship and get promoted
to play at this level. I will shut to the next division. What a
the mouths of my critics who feeling that would be to have that
said that I am finished. winner’s medal around my neck.

2. I will get to be on the field with 2. My coach will be really proud of

the boys during games and me — and he will start looking to
experience with them the me as an irreplaceable member
amazing joy of victory. of the team.

3. I will win back the respect of my 3. My wife and my mom will be

coach. I will no longer be an
inconsistent performer but a
player that he can always rely
on, who gives 100% in every
game.
4. I will be a hero for the young
4. Playing my best and directly
contributing to my team’s
success on the field makes me
feel so significant and valuable.
It puts me in a great mood for
the entire week.
really proud of me. They know
my sport means so much to me.
My happiness will make them
happy.
players in our academy. I know
a lot of them look up to me, so
my comeback — when so many
people did not believe in me —
will really inspire them to
become better.

5. If I develop new positive habits 5. I think my success will really

now, this will help me extend my
career by perhaps another two
years. Giving me two more
years of playing the game that I
love.
make my dad proud (RIP Dad).
He was my first coach, my first
mentor, and my first hero. I know
that he will be smiling from
heaven when he sees how I
recovered from this setback. I
love you, Dad. This comeback is
for you.

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THE PURPOSE MATRIX
Pain, disappointments, and consequences of failing to achieve
your #1 Goal
FOR ME
1. I will be depressed. My sport is
everything. To not be able to
live my dream would crush
me.
2. The coach may ask me to
leave the club as I am no
longer adding value to the
team. I could even be forced to
retire early.
3. If I continue to play, I will have
to leave the club and transfer
to another club in a lower
division — admitting to myself
and others that I don’t have
what it takes to play at this
level.
4. I will not be able to go on the
team vacation at the end of the
season. I will be too ashamed
knowing that I don’t deserve to
be there.
5. I will slip back into old bad
habits — become fat, ugly,
and selfish and become the
guy that I promised myself I
would never be.
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FOR OTHERS
1. I will have disappointed all the
people who have put their faith
in me, especially my wife and
my mom. I don’t want to break
their hearts.
2. I will lose the respect of my
friends in the team. They will
know that one of the main
reasons they missed out on
winning the championship is
because I failed them because
of my selfishness.
3. I will have disappointed our
supporters. Some of them are
so loyal and supportive of me.
It would be a slap in their faces
if I failed to be disciplined
enough to do this for them.
4. I will disappoint my coach. He
is the one who encouraged me
so much. I used to be one of
his favorites. It would hurt me
so much to lose his admiration.
5. I will lose my legacy. One day,
I want to write a book about my
career. I want this comeback to
be one of the most inspiring
chapters in the book. But this
will never happen if people
start looking at me as the guy
who never realized his
potential.
 ALEX

4. How will a Morning Ritual help you achieve your #1

goal?

When I heard about Morning Rituals in the past, I easily

dismissed it as something not for me, as I always
considered myself a night owl. However, I know this could
be a false belief I am at the point where it would be
completely arrogant of me to not even give it a try. If this is
something that can help me achieve my #1 goal, then I am
willing to try it for thirty days to see what impact it has.

ALEX’ NEW MORNING RITUAL

Wake Up Time: 5:30 a.m.

ACTIVITY TIME
Drink one glass of water with a 1 minute
splash of apple cider vinegar
Look in the mirror and repeat 1 minute
“‘Today is going to be a great
day!”
Give my wife and baby a kiss. 1 minute
Tell them I love them.
Workout (while listening to my 20 minutes
podcast)
Meditate outside in the sunshine 5 minutes
Read a chapter of my Bible and 10 minutes
say a quick prayer

Practice gratitude with my family 5 minutes

while eating a healthy breakfast
Once I get to work, I will write 2 minutes
down things I can do to make
today great.
Number of Activities Total Time
8 45 minutes

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5. How are you going to incentivize yourself to ensure

you successfully complete your Morning Ritual and
the 30-Day Challenge?

My daily reward for completing

my Morning Ritual

I will put a spoonful of honey in my morning coffee.

My daily punishment for failing to complete

my Morning Ritual

I will not allow myself to join my work colleagues for lunch.

My big reward for successfully completing

the 30-Day Challenge
I am going to buy myself a new tailor-made suit.

My big punishment for failing to complete

the 30-Day Challenge
I am going to delete my entire movie collection. To ensure
that I am serious, I am going to put it on a flash drive (no
backup copy) and ask my friend to keep it until the thirty
days are over. If I fail, then I give him 100% permission to
delete the entire thing. I cannot think of anything that
would frustrate me more than to lose my entire movie
collection because I was unable to do this Morning Ritual.
Game on.

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6. Who will be your Success Partner?

Who: My wife, Tammy

Why: She wants me to become a better man, and thanks to
some of my mentors, I slowly realize that I can’t do
everything on my own.

How: I will tell her exactly what my new Morning Ritual

is, and I will ask for her support in helping me make it a
habit. Once I explain to her what a Success Partner does, I
know she will be excited to help. Also, as we live together,
I will need her understanding on why I need my alone time
(#DoNotDisturb) in the morning during my morning
ritual.

7. Who are the people that you need to spend less time
with?

Who: My friend Marv.

Why: Marv is one of my oldest friends, but his constant

negativity and complaining is something that I can no
longer be a part of.

How: I am just going to avoid him for the next few

months. I won’t respond to any of his messages. I need this
time to be positive. In a few months, I will explain to him
why I have been avoiding him, but for now, I can’t take on
his problems too. Sometimes you got to be cruel to be kind.

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8. How are you going to make it easier for you to wake

up at the time you promised yourself (so that you
don’t hit the snooze button once your alarm starts
ringing)?

I am a huge fan of snoozing, so I know I have to win this

battle. To help me keep my promise to myself to wake up
on time, I am going to leave my phone in the toilet every
evening so that when my phone alarm rings, I have to go
to the toilet to switch it off. When I am in the toilet, I will
throw cold water on my face. When I get back to my
bedroom, then I will immediately drink a fresh glass of
water. As an extra incentive (I live in a tropical climate), I
am going to set my air conditioner to switch off ten
minutes before my alarm goes off. The increase in room
temperature will make me uncomfortable; I am sure that
will be enough to get me going.

Also, I am going to make little changes in the evenings to

improve the quality of my sleep. My first rule is no drinking
caffeine after 4:00 p.m. My second rule is no electronics
allowed by my bedside, and my third rule is that at 9:00
p.m., I will always switch my Wi-Fi off. I have a bad habit
of watching Netflix, browsing YouTube, or playing video
games until midnight. I realize that I have to stop this.
Instead, I will use the last hour, from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.,
before I sleep to either journal or read books.

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9. How are you going to design your environment to

make it easier for you to do your new Morning Ritual
and more difficult for you not to do it?

The thing I dread the most is the exercise part, so I know a

part of my brain will be looking for excuses for me to skip
this. To make it easier, I will have my workout clothes and
running shoes prepared the night before and leave it in the
center of my room. I will also put my iPod next to my
running shoes and have it set to automatically download
my favorite podcasts so I that I will listen to good stuff
while I exercise.

10. How are you going to make it easier for you to

measure and evaluate your progress during the 30-
Day Challenge?

I found a free app for my phone (HabitShare) that I believe

will really help me stay on track. Even better, as it allows me
to share my progress with my wife. It will be motivating for
me to check it off every day.

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11. How are you going to deal with unplanned setbacks

during the 30-Day Challenge? How are you going to
turn bad days into good data?

I think I take failure very personally. If I am going to be

successful in transforming myself, I must stop this pattern
of thinking. I am not a failure! If things don’t go according
to plan (especially if I do not wake up when I said I would)
I want to make two promises to myself:

 That the mistake will not happen two days in a row.

 That I will honestly reflect on the mistake to see

how I can prevent it from happening again.

In the past, I have fallen for the “what the hell” effect. All it
would take was for me to make one tiny slip, and a part of
my brain would be telling me to completely throw in the
towel. Not this time. I am going to study every time I have
a setback and every time I come even close to having one,
I am going to practice a new level of awareness over the
next thirty days.

Also, I will become better at planning. I have created a

shorter version of my Morning Ritual if for some reason
outside of my control I don’t have as much time as I require
in the morning. I think it is very important that I give myself
this option to avoid the scenario where I do nothing. Doing
something positive is always better than doing nothing, so
I think creating a plan B will be very important to ensure I
do not allow any setbacks to stop me.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH ALEX

THREE MONTHS LATER
How do you feel?

Great. I have never been better. I won my place back on the

team and really feel like I am in the best shape of my career.

Do you still practice a Morning Ritual?

Yes, of course. I love my Morning Ritual. I never thought

that this would have such a big impact on me.

What was the best decision you made once you

decided to have a Morning Ritual?

I think the best decision I made was to start a daily gratitude

journal. This was the game-changer for me. In the beginning,
it felt a bit robotic when I started writing down the obvious
stuff (family, health, my job), but once I started searching my
heart for things that made me feel truly grateful, then it
opened up so much more. I started to see so many things that
I took for granted before. Especially when I did my gratitude
exercise outside when the sun was rising. When I was
depressed or sad, I was always thinking to myself what I was
missing out on or what I thought I had lost. When I started
practicing real gratitude, new life came to me. I could not be
fearful and grateful at the same time. It made me smile, and I
believe that this practice alone was the most effective change
I made.

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Did you use a checklist? If yes, how did it help you?

The checklist was very useful to me for the first month. I was
surprised. A part of my brain, let’s call it my ego, did not like
the idea of using a checklist. I felt uncomfortable at first and
thought it was too restricting. To be honest, I didn’t really
want to use it, but that would have been a mistake. The more
self-control I practice in the present, the greater the choices I
will have in the future. This checklist gave me that discipline.
It gave me that self-control. It helped me to focus on doing
what was right, not what was easy. Every Sunday evening
after dinner (as part of our efforts to make it a special family
day), I showed my wife, Tammy, my checklist for the past
week. It gave me a lot of pride to do so, and I think she was
also proud of me for making such a positive effort.

What about your Success Partner, how did he/she

help you?
Initially, I was uncertain if I should have my wife, Tammy,
as my Success Partner. I thought I would be exposing too
much of myself. But now I know it was a great decision. The
more vulnerable I was to her, the more she appreciated it. It
made our relationship better. She was so inspired that, after
the third Sunday in a row when I showed her my checklist,
she created her own Morning Ritual. And amazingly, I
became her Success Partner!

How did you protect yourself from negative

people?

I am grateful that I recognized that there are certain people in

my network who have very different values to me. I don’t

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regret my decision to spend less time with them — in some

cases, I have completely eliminated them from my social
network. I have big goals to achieve, and I am glad I had the
self-awareness to see the dangers and the courage to act on it.

What was the biggest adjustment you made to your

Morning Ritual since you started?
Most of the adjustments I made were more on my Evening
Ritual rather than on my Morning Ritual. I experimented
with a couple of things that helped me.

I left a pen and notepad on my bedside table, which

encouraged me to write more. I also got three biographies
that I wanted to read for ages and left them next to my toilet,
which as simple and silly as it sounds, did encourage me to
read more. But I think the most effective change I made was
banning all electronic devices in our bedroom after 9:00 p.m.
I wanted to use those hours for family time and to prepare
myself for the following day. To prove to myself that I was
serious, I removed the TV and DVD player from the
bedroom. I would put an alarm on my phone every evening
at 8:55 p.m. with the message, “Switch off Wi-Fi: You are a
better man now.” I know that may sound like crazy self-talk,
but I needed that daily reminder so that I didn’t slip back into
my old habits. I was determined to make this a lasting
change, so all these tiny things combined did help me to stick
with it.

Also, one of my great discoveries was that if I increased the

speed of the audio while listening to podcasts to 1.5 times
faster, it did not negatively impact the quality of my learning.
Sometimes, on the condition that the people I was listening

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to were not fast talkers, I could increase the speed of the

audio to twice as fast without any negative impact on the
quality of my learning. I recommend everyone to try this out.
I wish I knew this when I first started listening to podcasts. I
would have been able to learn so much faster.

What was the most difficult part of your Morning

Ritual, and how did you overcome it?
The most difficult part for me was getting up on time,
especially in the first two weeks. I found myself lying in bed
once my alarm went off, looking for reasons to stay in bed
longer. What helped me was implementing the five-second
rule. This is so simple, but it worked for me. Once I heard the
alarm go off in the morning, I simply counted backward (five,
four, three, two, one) and once I got to one, I jumped out of
bed. I now do this every morning. It has trained my brain into
taking action and not dwelling on all the excuses to
procrastinate as I did in the past.

How did you manage setbacks?

The process of journaling allowed me to study when things
went wrong, rather than constantly beating myself up as I did
in the past. I discovered some great insights about myself. It
allowed me to see many tiny changes that I could make to
improve.
In particular, journaling in the evening while I was in bed
helped me remind myself why I was doing this Morning
Ritual: It helped me get clarity about what was most
important.

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 ALEX

To give a practical example, answering the following three

questions helped me:

 What are the things I fear the most?

 If I were not afraid of failing, how would I live my life

differently?

 What are the things I can do to make the next 12

months the best ever 12 months of my life?

I found myself asking dozens of questions like this. I feel I have

discovered more about myself over the past three months than
at any other time in my life.

Did you help anyone else create a Morning Ritual as

a result of your own experience?
My wife, Tammy, was my biggest success story. I am so
proud when I see her practicing her Morning Ritual and how
it makes her feel when she has completed it. It’s a good
feeling for me to know that she learned this because of my
personal example.

I also tried to help others but have not been so successful.

When I talked about it to one of my closest friends, he seemed
to just laugh at the idea of waking up early. I was really
disappointed, to be honest. I guess he behaved in the same
way I would have behaved a year ago.

The experience reminded me that I cannot influence

everyone I want to help. Sometimes it takes a different
person and a different time and place to move someone to the

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point where they are ready to make a positive change in their

lives. I am not taking it personally, and instead, I am going
to focus on helping others who are more open to new ideas.

What advice would you give to others who are about

to start the 30-Day Challenge?
If you spend your life being casual every day, you will end
up becoming a casualty. Life is too short to spend on things
that, at the end of the day, really don’t matter. I know that
becoming a new father was the spark that created all these
great changes in me, but I did not have to wait so long to
realize this. I wish I had realized this when I was a teenager
because it would have saved me years of wasted days.

So my final message is to not wait for a dramatic change in

your life to start a world-class Morning Ritual. Instead, take
control of your destiny today and create a Morning Ritual for
tomorrow that will help you win the day. I promise you it will
be one of the best decisions you’ll ever make.

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AN EXAMPLE OF ALEX’S JOURNAL ENTRIES

FOR THREE CONSECUTIVE DAYS
MONDAY A.M.
3 things I am 3 things I can do to make
grateful for today great
1. The sun shining on my face 1. Give a LinkedIn
this morning, I am feeling, recommendation for my
loved by the universe. former boss, Derick. It will
be a nice way to thank him
for his support.
2. I got to spend some quality 2. Do not open my e-mail
time with my brother until after lunch so that I
yesterday. can complete my report
without distraction.
3. That I am learning so much 3. Cook dinner for my
from the podcasts I am family tonight.
listening to.

TUESDAY A.M.
3 things I am 3 things I can do to make
grateful for today great
1. I got my report finished 1. Watch the new Batman
before the deadline. movie with my friend,
Robbie.
2. I got to cook dinner for my 2. Go for lunch on my own
family yesterday. so that I can finish
reading the article that
Allan recommended.
3. That I have a job that I like 3. Write a thank-you note to
unlike so many of my friends. Jill for her help last week.

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WEDNESDAY A.M.
3 things I am 3 things I can do to make
grateful for today great
1. My wife Tammy. She is 1. Book my trip out of the city
really helping me with this next month.
challenge.
2. That I am disciplined in 2. Complete my application
following my Morning papers for a new
Ritual. passport.
3. That Brian considers me 3. Surprise my mom by
one of his closest friends. getting her something
nice from the store.

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HOW ALEX HAS IMPACTED OTHERS

An interview with Tammy (Alex’s Wife and Success Partner)

What was your first reaction when Alex asked you

to be his Success Partner?

When he first told me that he was experimenting with a

Morning Ritual, I was surprised. I was even more surprised
when he asked me to be his Success Partner. We have never
done anything like this before, so once he explained that my
role as his Success Partner would primarily be to help him
think and reflect, I got excited. I knew this was something
that I could help him with. I am so grateful that he asked me.

What impact has Alex’s experience with Morning

Rituals had on you and your family?

This has had a tremendous impact on me and our relationship.

I noticed the changes within just a few days of him starting.
I am so proud that he takes this seriously and is committed to
change. Alex has improved so much over these past three
months. He is a new man. He inspired me to create my own
Morning Ritual. It’s so fulfilling to see us both practicing a
Morning Ritual now. Especially when we do our gratitude
sharing over breakfast. This habit of expressing gratitude to
each other has become one of the best things we do together
to grow as a couple and as parents. I love him so much. I feel
so grateful that he was the one who took the lead on this and
shared it with me.

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How have you shared with others what you learned

from Alex?
The discovery of the importance of Morning Rituals became
a revelation to me. I immediately started sharing it with my
closest friends and to all those who attend the new mothers
club that I am part of. I was shocked to realize that a lot of
them are prone to neglect themselves because they are so
focused on others (their husbands, partners, parents, and
children). Mothers are always the ones to sacrifice first. But
now I realize that if you continue to neglect yourself, over
time, you will reduce the love that you can give to others.
Someone will end up having to look after you. I did not want
that to happen to the other mothers in my club. So I began
sharing this book with them and letting them know how they
and their families could significantly benefit from doing this.

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 CHAPTER SEVEN

THE WISER WAY

“I do not think much of a man

who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”
— Abraham Lincoln
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

So did you figure it out yet? Did you see the method that was
used in all three stories to transform their new activities into
habits? After reading just two of the stories, I am sure you have
already realized that it is how our characters answered the eleven
powerful questions that were the key to their success. I refer to
these eleven questions as the WISER Way to implementing
Personal Kaizen.
THE WISER WAY

WHY
You have a clear purpose and motive of why this is important
to you and the consequences of not doing it.

INCENTIVES
You incentivize your journey by promising yourself specific
rewards if you succeed and punishments if you fail.

SOCIAL GROUP
You become a part of the right social group who will
encourage and support you on your journey.

ENVIRONMENT
You set yourself up for success by designing your environment
so that it is easier for you to do the new activity and more
difficult for you not to do it.

READY TO FAIL
You anticipate unexpected setbacks and have a plan for how
you are going to deal with them.

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 THE WISER WAY

The WISER Way was used in all three stories, and it was this
methodology that empowered each person to successfully
convert their new activities into habits.

“When you first start off trying to solve

a problem, the first solutions you come up
with are very complex, and most people
stop there. But if you keep going, you can
often arrive at some very elegant
and simple solutions.”
— Steve Jobs

To understand the WISER Way more, let’s look in greater detail at

its five components.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

WHY
“Very few people or companies can clearly
articulate why they do what they do.
By why I mean your purpose, cause or
Belief, why does your company exist? WHY
do you get out of bed every morning? And
WHY should anyone care?”
— Simon Sinek

1. What are the ten most important lessons you have

learned about yourself in the last 12 months?

2. What is the #1 goal that you must achieve within the

next three months?

3. Why is achieving this goal so important to you?

The Purpose Matrix (See next page)

4. How will a morning ritual help you achieve your #1

goal?

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 THE WISER WAY

THE PURPOSE MATRIX

Benefits, pleasures and rewards of
achieving your #1 Goal

FOR ME FOR OTHERS

1. __________________ 1. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

2. __________________ 2. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

3. __________________ 3. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

4. __________________ 4. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

5. __________________ 5. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

THE PURPOSE MATRIX

Pain, disappointments, and consequences of failing to
achieve your #1 Goal

FOR ME FOR OTHERS

1. __________________ 1. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

2. __________________ 2. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

3. __________________ 3. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

4. __________________ 4. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

5. __________________ 5. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

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 THE WISER WAY

The first part of the WISER Way is to discover why the activity
is important to you. Attaching meaning to any activity requires a
deep level of self-awareness of what goals are the most
important.

By doing self-awareness exercises — like the ten lessons you

learned about yourself in the last twelve months — you get a
clearer picture of where you are today versus where you want to
be, as well as reflecting on the type of person you are today
versus the type of person you want to become.

“I think self-awareness is probably

the most important thing towards
being a champion.”
— Billie Jean King

A greater self-awareness allows us to establish more meaningful

goals. Once we have the right goals, we use tools like the Purpose
Matrix to help us go deep into our mind to discover the emotional
energy of the goal that we may not have realized before. It forces
us to explain the joy, pleasure, and benefits of achieving this goal
and the pain, consequences, and disappointment of not achieving
it, both for ourselves and others.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

The Purpose Matrix helps us see the big picture — that this small
change we are doing is just a step along a longer journey that will
lead us to bigger results. And by choosing that path, we are getting
closer to goals in life that really matter to us because it is part of
something bigger and more emotionally rewarding than the
immediate task that needs to be done.

Because the majority of our decisions are driven by emotion,

clearly understanding our why gives us the emotional fuel we
need to keep moving forward, especially in those moments on
the journey when we don’t feel like doing the activity.

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 THE WISER WAY

INCENTIVES
“A goal without real consequences is
wishful thinking. Good follow-through
doesn’t depend on the right intentions.
It depends on the right incentives.”
— Tim Ferriss

5. How are you going to incentivize yourself to ensure you

successfully complete your Morning Ritual and the
30-Day Challenge?

 My daily reward for completing my Morning ritual

 My daily punishment for failing to complete

my Morning Ritual

 My big reward for successfully completing the 30-

Day Challenge

 My big punishment for failing to complete the 30-

Day Challenge

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

The second part of the WISER Way is creating the right incentives.
Anticipation used correctly can be an extraordinarily powerful
force in modifying human behavior. Just knowing that a certain
reward is waiting for you at the ‘finish line’ can be enough to get
you through the most challenging of times. At the same time,
knowing that a certain punishment is waiting for you if you do
not cross the ‘finish line’ can be just as effective.

There are two different types of incentives that you can use:
short-term and long-term incentives — both of these were
leveraged in our three stories. Short-term incentives are the tiny
rewards/punishments that you give yourself on the same day for
completing or not completing your desired activity. Long-term
incentives are typically a significantly bigger and more valuable
reward/punishment and are associated with repeating your
desired activity consistently over an extended period (in our case,
the 30-Day Challenge).

For any reward or punishment to be effective, it must carry a

significant emotional meaning for you. Making other people
aware of your choice of reward/punishment can also be
extraordinarily powerful — this is especially effective if you give
your Success Partner the permission to be your ‘Police
Commissioner’ to ensure that you follow through and execute
your reward/punishment once the challenge is over. In some
cases, selecting the right incentive can be the critical ingredient
between success and failure.

“Call it what you will, incentives

are what get people to work harder.”
— Nikita Khrushchev

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 THE WISER WAY

SOCIAL GROUP
“No matter who you are, no matter what
you do, no matter who your audience is:
30 percent will love it, 30 percent
will hate it, and 30 percent won’t care.
Stick with the people who love you and
don’t spend a single second on the rest.
Life will be better that way.”
—James Altucher

6. Who will be your Success Partner?

Who:
Why:
How:

7. Who are the people that you need to spend less time with?

Who:
Why:
How:

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

The third part of the WISER Way is being part of the right social
group so that you have the right support on your journey. No man
or woman is an island. It has been proven time and time again
that humanity’s greatest achievements cannot be achieved in
isolation. The primary reason why humans are the dominant
species on planet earth is our ability to form trustful and
collaborative relationships with the right people. This is how we
are wired to succeed.
At the same time being part of the wrong social group can have
disastrous consequences. Many believe that the number one
reason people do not achieve worthwhile goals is that they are
surrounded by the wrong people – people who do not share the
same vision and values as they do. Whose constant negativity
discourages them from overcoming setbacks and continuing to
make positive progress.

“Never let someone else’s

opinion of you to define your reality.”
—Les Brown

Dumping your loser friends and adding winner friends is the

single most powerful advice that I give during my motivational
talks to the youth. But it is the advice that most people are afraid
to take. You must not let that happen to you. You must get away
from poisonous people. Cutting people out of your life does not
mean that you hate them, it means that you respect yourself more.
Never blame yourself for having to make this decision. Respect
yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer
serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.

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 THE WISER WAY

ENVIRONMENT

“A bad system will beat

a good person every time.”
— W. Edwards Deming

8. How are you going to make it easier for you to start your
Morning Ritual (so that you wake up on time and you
don’t hit the snooze button once your alarm starts
ringing)?

9. How are you going to design your environment to make it

easier for you to complete your new Morning Ritual and
more difficult for you not to do it?

10. How are you going to make it easier for you to measure and
evaluate your progress during the 30-Day Challenge?

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

The fourth part of the WISER Way is to design your environment

to make the activities easier to do and more difficult not to do.
This can be done by leveraging the right tools or triggers that
allow you to easily start your activities as well as making it easier
to see your progress so that you can continue to build your
momentum and make adjustments along the way.

Goals on their own are not enough. You need to design the right
systems to set yourself up for success. For example, creating a
simple system every day to evaluate and reflect if you completed
your activities or not (i.e. The Daily Checklist) is proven to be
extremely effective in helping people keep their promises to
themselves and learn from any setbacks.

“Losers have goals;

winners have systems.”
— Scott Adams

As the three stories testify, making tiny changes to your

environment and selecting the right tools can have a major
impact on your level of success. Looking at it from another
perspective, why would you want to make it more difficult for
yourself?

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 THE WISER WAY

READY TO FAIL
“At some point, if you’re changing
a really deep-seated behavior,
you’re going to have
a moment of weakness.”
— Charles Duhigg

11. How are you going to deal with unplanned setbacks

during the 30-Day Challenge? How are you going to
turn ‘bad days’ into good data?

The final part of the WISER Way is being ready to fail

Unexpected things are going to happen no matter how much we
plan. None of us can accurately predict the future. To always think
that Plan A will be perfectly executed is to live in a fantasy world.
One of my mentors once told me, no plan is a plan without a plan
for how you are going to deal with setbacks. For transformative
change to be successful, you need to create the expectation of
failure — not the failure of the mission itself, but the failure en
route.

He who wants peace must prepare for war. Thus, he who wants
success must prepare for failure.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

Our characters from the three stories were physiologically and

practically preparing themselves for setbacks. They removed the
Drama Queen crown from their head that prompted them to quit
just because they missed a day or went to bed late.

They instead put on a lab coat and studied their actions rationally.
They became scientists of their own behavior. They did so in a
way that did not negatively lower their confidence in their ability
to be successful but in a way that embraced the realism of the
unexpected. Expect the unexpected.

We must think of these setbacks (including the near misses — the

setbacks that almost occurred) as nuggets of gold. Every one of
them is a treasure. Every one of them can teach us something.
Failure is really only failure if we do not learn from it. How you
respond to setbacks will be the most inspiring part of the success
story that you tell others in the future. Trust me on this: your story
will be boring without setbacks.

“Everyone fails. Highly successful people

fail many more times than
the rest of the world and with
much higher stakes at hand.”
—Lewis Howes

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 THE WISER WAY

WILL THE WISER WAY WORK FOR ME?

This chapter aims to affirm you that there is significant value in
answering each of the eleven questions. I believe that you don’t
need me to go into more detail about why the WISER Way is so
effective.

As far as I am concerned, a detailed discussion about theory will

not serve you. The three stories about how these questions were
answered and the outstanding results the three characters
achieved by using these questions are by far the most valuable
part of this book. If those stories were not enough to convince
you to start your 30-Day Challenge, I don’t think that anything I
write here will either. I don’t intend to be disrespectful about
other different theories of behavioral change and habit creation,
but my point is that I don’t want arguments about theory to
become yet another excuse for inaction.

A NEW TYPE OF THINKING

One of the reasons our education system is so broken is that we
focus so much on theories, philosophies, and high-level concepts
that we fail to give people the practical steps they need to help
them discover the truth for themselves. We force people to stay
in the comfort zones of our classrooms and conference rooms.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

“It’s not the great ideas that make you

succeed, it’s the great results.”
— Trevor Chapman

This book is different. It is designed to give you the practical

steps you need to drive you towards self-experimentation and
empower you to achieve the goals that have alluded you for so
long. This is not a book made just to enhance your theoretical
views. My goal is not to get you to agree with my theory on habit
creation. I am OK if you disagree with me. I wrote this book to
help you start experimenting with an approach to habit creation
that works best for you.

If the approach you use complements the WISER Way, then

great. If you discover a more effective approach, then even
better. What matters most is not the theory you use but the results
you achieve. Your success is what is most important here. I
believe that it is much easier to act your way into a new type of
thinking than to think your way into a new type of acting. The
next chapter is your chance to do exactly that.

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 CHAPTER EIGHT

YOUR 30-DAY CHALLENGE

“Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is only

potential power. Action is power.”
— Tony Robbins
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

IT’S DECISION TIME!

You are on the verge of something special. We have reached the
climax of this book. The time has come for you to create your
new Morning Ritual and answer the eleven questions. The time
has come for you to start the 30-Day Challenge

By doing this, you will begin the process of extracting a million

times more value from this book than if you decided to just read
the stories and do nothing. Reading stories about what other
people have done is not enough. Inspiration alone is not enough.
Knowledge alone is not enough. Willpower alone is not enough.
You are the only one who can solve your change problem. You
must apply. You must take action.

I encourage you not to skip any of the eleven questions. There is

value in all of them. Some of the questions may only take you
one or two minutes to answer. Within thirty minutes, you can
have it all done. And the lifetime benefits of those thirty minutes
could be immeasurable. This is something your future self will
thank you for. The extraordinary change you deserve is waiting
to be unleashed, but you must start by getting your ideas on how
you are going to do it out of your head.

“Your mind is for having ideas,

not holding them.”
— David Allen

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 YOUR 30-DAY CHALLENGE

Writing down your new Morning Ritual and your answers to the
eleven questions is your way of committing to yourself that you
are really serious about this.

With all my heart, I want you to take this opportunity now to

answer these questions for yourself. There really is no valid
excuse not to do this. You have come this far on this journey and
it would be a tragedy for you not to reach the summit and reap all
the benefits.

“I don’t think my ideas are worth sh*t

until they’re executed.”
– Gary Vaynerchuk

Don’t stay at base camp. If you do, then I would have failed you
as the author, and you would have failed as the reader. The reason
this book is in your hands is not for you to finish reading it; it is
for you to complete this 30-Day Challenge. I do not want you to
let this opportunity slip by.

You are sitting on the edge of what could be one of the best
personal decisions you will ever make. You deserve this! It is
time for you to act. Take what is yours.

A life-changing 30-Day Challenge awaits you.

To download a FREE easy-to-use template, go to

www.kaizenleadership.ph/personalkaizen

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

THE 30-DAY CHALLENGE

Your Name:

Start Date:

Finish Date (30 days later):

What is your new Morning Ritual?

_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
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 YOUR 30-DAY CHALLENGE

_____________________________________________
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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

The WISER WAY

(Please answer the 11 questions below.)

WHY
1. What are the ten most important lessons you have
learned about yourself in the last 12 months?
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
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 YOUR 30-DAY CHALLENGE

_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
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_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
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_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
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_____________________________________________

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

2. What is the #1 goal that you must achieve within the

next three months?
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
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_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
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 YOUR 30-DAY CHALLENGE

3. Why is achieving this goal so important to you?

THE PURPOSE MATRIX

Benefits, pleasures and rewards of achieving
your #1 Goal
FOR ME FOR OTHERS
1. __________________ 1. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
2. __________________ 2. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
3. __________________ 3. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
4. __________________ 4. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

5. __________________ 5. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

187
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

THE PURPOSE MATRIX

Pain, disappointments, and consequences of failing to
achieve your #1 Goal

FOR ME FOR OTHERS

1. __________________ 1. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

2. __________________ 2. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

3. __________________ 3. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

4. __________________ 4. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

5. __________________ 5. __________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________
____________________ ____________________

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 YOUR 30-DAY CHALLENGE

4. How will a Morning Ritual help you achieve your #1

goal?

__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
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__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________

189
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

INCENTIVES
5. How are you going to incentivize yourself to ensure
you successfully complete your Morning Ritual and
the 30-Day Challenge?

My daily reward for completing my Morning Ritual

___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________

My daily punishment for failing to complete

my Morning Ritual

___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________

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 YOUR 30-DAY CHALLENGE

My big reward for successfully completing the

30-Day Challenge
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________

My big punishment for failing to complete the

30-Day Challenge
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
__________________________________________________

191
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

SOCIAL GROUP
6. Who will be your Success Partner?

Who: ____________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________

Why: ____________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________

How: ____________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________

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 YOUR 30-DAY CHALLENGE

7. Who are the people that you need to spend less time
with?

Who: ____________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________

Why: ____________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________

How: ____________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
__________________________________________________

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

ENVIRONMENT
8. How are you going to make it easier for you to wake
up at the time you promised yourself (so that you
don’t hit the snooze button once your alarm starts
ringing)?

______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________

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 YOUR 30-DAY CHALLENGE

9. How are you going to design your environment to

make it easier for you to do your new Morning Ritual
and more difficult for you not to do it?

_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

10. How are you going to make it easier for you to

measure and evaluate your progress during the 30-
Day Challenge?

_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
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 YOUR 30-DAY CHALLENGE

READY TO FAIL
11. How are you going to deal with unplanned setbacks
during the 30 days? How are you going to turn ‘bad
days’ into good data?
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

198
 CHAPTER NINE

IMPROVING YOUR PLAN

“Everyone has a plan

till they get punched in the mouth.”
— Mike Tyson
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

When I do my leadership workshops related to creating Morning

Rituals, I found that one of the most valuable parts of the entire
day is when the attendees get into small groups of four to six
people and each person shares how they answered the exact
questions you just answered.

As one person shares, the others give feedback on what they like
about it and what they think can be improved. It is my favorite
part of the workshop. The learning that happens in these small
groups is incredible. As a result, the participants always end up
updating their plan because of the new insights acquired from
this sharing and feedback process.

If I had just one wish for you after you have written your new
Morning Ritual and answered the eleven questions, it would be
to find a person (or a group of people) with whom you can share
your plan and receive feedback about what they like and what
they think can be improved. Of course, you don’t need to
embrace all their recommendations, but listening to other voices
will give you some powerful insights that you will not have
thought of. Especially if the feedback is coming from someone
you greatly trust and respect. Even better if they have previously
completed the 30-Day Challenge themselves.

“We all need people who will give us

feedback. That’s how we improve.”
— Bill Gates

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 IMPROVING YOUR PLAN

To give just one piece of practical advice on how you can improve
your plan, let me share with you one of the biggest improvement
opportunities I see after people make the first version of their
plan.

To significantly increase your odds of success, you need to make

it very clear to your subconscious brain what desired result you
are looking to achieve.

There is a part of our brain that is always looking for excuses to

conserve energy, to do what is easy and lazy instead of what is
right and just. So if you put vague language into your Morning
Ritual, it will give that part of your brain the excuse it needs to
justify inaction or minimal effort. Below are some common
examples:

My Coaching Version 2
Version 1 Feedback (Improved)
“I will try my best to Really? Try your “I will wake up at
wake up at 6 a.m.” best? You either will 6 a.m.”
or will not. Don’t just
try. Say it like you
will.

“In the morning, I will What type of “After I brush my

do exercise.” exercise will you do? teeth, I will do a
When exactly will 12-minute guided
you do it? How long workout in my
will you do it for? bedroom.”

“I will drink How much water will “Before I take a

water.” you drink? shower, I will drink
When will you do it? one pint glass of
What type of water? cold water from the
fridge.”

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

I want to challenge you to look back over the answers you have
written. Have you used any vague language like that in the above
examples? If so, correct it by being more specific and detailed.
Remember: Your attention to detail matters. It is worth the effort.

“Be faithful in small things because

it is in them that your strength lies.”
— Mother Teresa

Now that you have created and updated your plan, there is still
one part remaining that we have not yet covered in detail. It is
possibly the most critical element that will determine your
success over the next 30 days. And that’s your relationship with
your Success Partner. To get the most out of this relationship,
responsibilities, and expectations must be defined at the
beginning. Turn the page to learn more.

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 CHAPTER TEN

YOUR SUCCESS PARTNER

“You will be the same person in five years

as you are today except for the people you meet
and the books you read.”
— Charlie “Tremendous” Jones
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

WHY YOUR CHOICE OF A

SUCCESS PARTNER MATTERS?
From my extensive research and personal experience, I believe
that your choice of Success Partner and how you choose to
interact with them will be the biggest determining factor on your
level of success during the 30-Day Challenge.

After they successfully completed the challenge, all the main

characters from the three stories had a far deeper appreciation of
why their relationship with their Success Partner had such a
major influence on their performance.

Yes, technically they could have done it on their own. But how
much more difficult would the thirty days have been for them?
In my honest opinion, all of them would have failed to achieve
the transformative results that they now celebrate if they had
made the decision not to involve a Success Partner and tried to
do it on their own.

THE RESISTANCE TO FINDING

A SUCCESS PARTNER
Possibly the most dangerous thought that could occur inside
your head as you start your 30-Day Challenge is the idea that
you can do this on your own. That voice in your head that’s
telling you that you are the exception, that you don’t need a
Success Partner.

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 YOUR SUCCESS PARTNER

So allow me to be honest and direct. Yes, it is possible for you

to do this on your own. In the same way, it is also possible for
you to find your way around a new city without asking for
directions or using a map. It is also possible for you to organize a
big wedding on your own. It is also possible for you to build a
new house on your own.

But why would you want to do this? Why would you want to
make things harder for yourself? There are only two reasons why
someone would choose to try and do all of this on their own.

 Ignorance: You just don’t know how critical involving

others is in creating new habits and achieving personal
goals.

 Pride: Your ego will not allow you to ask others for help
because you are afraid that you will appear weak.

BEWARE: YOUR GREATEST ENEMY

IS ALWAYS YOURSELF
What you think is not always true. Do not allow your ego to hold
you back from your extraordinary potential. My belief is this:
When it comes to creating new habits, having the right Success
Partner can infinitely increase your odds of success.

An overwhelming body of research on behavioral change tells

us that short frequent touch points with the right Success Partner
when attempting change is a critical element of success,
especially during the first thirty days when the desired activity
is most likely not yet a habit.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

“As iron sharpens iron,

so one person sharpens another.”
—King Solomon

FINDING THE RIGHT SUCCESS PARTNER

From a theoretical perspective, anyone can be a Success Partner.
No qualifications or experience is required. However, this
idealistic statement is not really helpful to you. The reality is
that, although many people in your network of friends, family,
and work colleagues are capable, not everyone is ready to be a
Success Partner. So you need to be very careful about whom you
select. Below are some of the most important factors you need
to consider when finding the right Success Partner:

A great choice for a Success Partner is someone who:

 Will be enthusiastic and supportive of your attempts to

improve yourself. They have a positive outlook on life and
are excited that you have committed yourself to
improvement.

 Has successfully changed their behaviors in the past. They

know change is possible for them. Thus, they believe
change is possible for you too. They have an existing
passion for personal development.

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 YOUR SUCCESS PARTNER

 Will be proactive, responsive, and reliable. Most

importantly they will make themselves available to you.

A terrible choice for a Success Partner is someone who:

 Would ultimately discourage you from improving
yourself. They have a crab mentality. Thus, they begrudge
seeing other people progress (especially those closest to
them) as it highlights their own inadequacies. They are
skeptical and critical of anyone trying to better themselves.

 Is constantly complaining and blaming others for their

problems. They live with a victim’s mentality: They do not
take responsibility for their life. They are constantly
breaking their promises to both themselves and others.

 Is reactive, does not take initiative, and, worst of all, are

unreliable. You may love them, and you may enjoy their
company, but deep down in your heart, you know they
would not be the right support for the personal changes
that you need to make.

“Surround yourself with only people

who are going to lift you higher.”
— Oprah Winfrey

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

After reflecting on the above factors, you’ve probably come to

the conclusion that a lot of people you know are possibly not the
right fit for you. Don’t be saddened by this. It is a common
scenario. This should make you even more determined to find
the right person.

All of the three main characters from our stories pay testament
to the importance of choosing the right person to be their
Success Partner. It is a decision that you must not take lightly.
So choose wisely.

HOW TO BE A GOOD SUCCESS PARTNER

Once you have found the right Success Partner, clarifying the
responsibilities and expectations of the Success Partnership
upfront is one of the most important outcomes you need to
achieve in your first interactions with them.

I am not very proud to share this with you, but when I first
stepped into the role as someone’s Success Partner, a part of me
assumed that I had to somehow justify my “qualifications” for
that role. I had to show the other person how smart I was, how
intelligent I was, how wise I was — so I ended up doing most of
the talking.

I got this very wrong. My thinking was totally messed up. The
moment I realized this was when one of my mentors gave me
what I still consider to be one of the greatest pieces of teaching
advice I have ever received: “Mike, the more you talk, the less
they learn.”

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 YOUR SUCCESS PARTNER

That simple piece of advice forever changed how I influence

other people. The primary role of a Success Partner is not to give
advice. The primary role of a Success Partner is to help create
the environment in which the other person can think better.

“Very little is needed to make a

happy life; it is all within yourself,
in your way of thinking.”
— Marcus Aurelius

The Success Partner must be non-judgmental. They must not

give any destructive feedback (for example, telling their partner
that they are lazy, undisciplined, or selfish). They must not imply
that there is something wrong with the person if they do not
follow through with their own promises. Setbacks are a normal
part of the process.

Below are the three most important rules that a Success Partner
must follow to be of greatest service to the person they are trying
to help.

THREE RULES HOW TO BE A GREAT

SUCCESS PARTNER
Rule # 1: Start the meeting with gratitude.

Why is this important? The brain’s default condition is to focus

on what is wrong or what is missing. This negative focus directly
results in negative thoughts and negative emotions, which may

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

become a massive barrier to helping the person think clearly. It

is the responsibility of the Success Partner to intentionally start
the meeting focused on the positives. This approach of getting
people to acknowledge their past success has the empowering
effect of giving them the confidence to continue to build on the
progress they have achieved so far as opposed to beating
themselves up for any slip-ups.

How do you do it? Ask great questions:

 What gave you joy this week?

 What went well so far?
 What are you grateful for?

Rule # 2: Listen ten times more than you talk!

Why is this important? The more you talk, the less they will
learn. Trust me. Resist the temptation to vomit stories from your
past onto them. Anytime you interrupt them while they are
thinking is an act of arrogance. This is especially true when it
comes to silences in the conversation. Most people assume that
silence in the conversation means that it’s their turn to talk.
Silence does not mean the person is not thinking. Be more
patient and allow them to come to their own conclusions by
resisting the temptation to interrupt their thinking.

How to do it? Ask great questions:

 Tell me about your week?

 How did that make you feel?
 What else are you thinking?

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 YOUR SUCCESS PARTNER

Rule # 3: Hold back on giving advice.

Why is this important? In the majority of situations, the person

knows exactly what they need to do. Your primary role as a
Success Partner is to help them get to this in their own mind and
in their own time. Affirm to them what they already know they
must do. If you refuse to be patient and start telling them what
you think they should do, you are robbing them of the chance to
grow. You are doing more harm than good.

How to do it? Ask great questions:

 What do you think you should do?

 Knowing what you know now, what would you have
done differently?
 If your best friend were in your exact situation, what
advice would you give him/her?

Once the above expectations are clear, you will also need to
determine the frequency and duration of the meeting with your
Success Partner. I want to encourage you to keep an open mind
on this and experiment as you go. The time and duration will
vary from person to person and from situation to situation.

Like the three characters from the stories, you and your Success
Partner must experiment to see what works best for you. Ideally,
your meeting is face-to-face. However, if that is not possible,
then a high-quality virtual meeting can be just as effective. The
more frequent and shorter the meetings, the better.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

In summary, the key to being a great Success Partner is not

sharing your experience and stories. Instead, it is all about being
a world-class listener by asking the right questions, at the right
time, in the right way. The more you do it, the better you will
become, and the more you will be of greater service to a greater
number of people.

I encourage you to share this chapter with the Success Partner

you have chosen for your 30-Day Challenge. Once everyone
involved knows what makes a great Success Partnership, then
you will have achieved a major step forward in ensuring that you
are both successful.

SUPER BONUS TIP

I feel that I could write another book on this subject alone.
However, for now, let me share with you one super bonus tip that
I think will help you in your role as a Success Partner. I believe
that success in life is 80% about the why and 20% about the how,
and that this universal principle is at work when you are creating
Morning Rituals. So when you meet your partner, I really want
you to challenge them with these two questions:

1. Why is your Morning Ritual important to you?

2. What are the consequences if you quit?

What you will find is that people tend to answer these questions
from the surface level. As their Success Partner, do not be
satisfied with short answers. Keep asking them why. Keep
pushing them!

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 YOUR SUCCESS PARTNER

Get them to explore the depths of their mind and heart so they
discover the real reasons why they are doing this. Once they get
this clarity, this will be their single greatest motivation to keep
moving forward until their Morning Ritual becomes a habit.

“Man’s search for meaning is

the primary motivation in his life.”
— Viktor Frankl

When I do this exercise in my leadership workshops, it becomes

one of the most powerful exercises of the day. Individuals on
their own typically come up with a few different answers (six to
twelve), but once I continue to push them and especially when I
get them thinking in groups, they eventually discover over fifty
different reasons why their Morning Ritual is important to them
— for their health, for their career, for their relationships, for their
finances, for their family, for their legacy. The list goes on and
on. I cannot tell you how many breakthrough moments I have
seen after people have gone through this exercise. Even if it
takes them thirty minutes to find all the answers, the power of
this self-discovery process is immeasurable.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

214
 CHAPTER ELEVEN

BEYOND MORNING RITUALS

“The only thing worse than being blind

is having sight but no vision.”
—Helen Keller
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

I have focused the scope of the application of Personal Kaizen in this

book to the development and realization of Morning Rituals. I
intentionally chose Morning Rituals because of the significant
return on investment that they give compared to any other type
of personal change I know of.

Very soon, once you have completed the 30-Day Challenge, you
too will be able to join other high performers around the world
and provide your own powerful testimony on the extraordinary
benefits of having a Morning Ritual. For a moment, let me ask a
question that I’m sure has entered your mind since you started
reading this book:

“Can Personal Kaizen be effective for situations outside of

Morning Rituals where behavioral change is required?”

Let’s revisit some of the examples of typical changes people

want to make that I mentioned earlier.

 A business owner who wants his employees to become

more accountable and proactive.

 A parent who wants her children to focus on their studies

and not get addicted to video games.

 A sports coach who wants his players to become more

disciplined and organized.

 A pastor who wants to help his church members abandon

destructive behaviors and practice righteous living

 A manager who wants her team to become more creative

and innovative.

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 BEYOND MORNING RITUALS

 A teacher who wants her students to become more

imaginative and insightful.

 A public servant who wants to change the way the general

public thinks and acts.

 An entrepreneur who wants to change the way their

customers use their product.

 A humanitarian who wants to help the people they are trying

to serve break free from the false beliefs that are holding
them back from their potential.

In attempting any personal, organizational, or social

transformation, any progress will just be temporary if habits are
not created. If lasting successful change is going to happen, then
all of these situations will require people to create new habits.

There is not a single area in life or business in which habit

creation is not a critical component for ultimate long-term
success. I believe that there is a universal science of habit
creation and that the same principles we used here to create
success habits at the start of your day can apply to habit creation
in every area of life. So, yes, the Personal Kaizen is not just
applicable to Morning Rituals. I believe that the Kaizen
methodology can be used successfully in all the nine situations
mentioned in this chapter. You can replicate your success beyond
Morning Rituals. Your only limitation is your imagination and
vision.

217
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

A detailed discussion of this is outside the scope of this book. It is

a conversation for another time and place. Simply put, learning
how to master habit creation and sharing this with others are
things that we cannot afford to neglect if we are seriously
committed to making the changes we want to see in the world.

218
 CHAPTER TWELVE

CONCLUSION

“Twenty years from now you will be

more disappointed by the things that
you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”
— Mark Twain
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

WHY INSPIRATION IS NOT ENOUGH

It was one of the best talks I ever gave. As I walked off the stage,
the event organizer ran up to me, excitedly shook my hand, and
told me it was one of the most inspiring talks she has ever heard.
Later during the book signing, I had some of the participants
hugging me, some almost in tears, telling me how much they
related to the message and how motivated they felt to make a
change. However, as I made my way back to the hotel, my heart
was troubled. A part of me felt like a fraud.

Now I don’t want to come across as ungrateful. I sincerely am

honored when I am invited to speak in front of an audience.
However, over time, I grew uncomfortable when people labeled
me as a motivational or an inspirational speaker. I started to
question how much impact my talks can have, in terms of helping
someone make long-term behavioral change.

The more audiences I reached, the more I realized that

inspirational messages alone are not enough to create lasting
change. We may know that we need to change, we may be really
motivated to change, yet most of us end up failing to change.

The painful reality is that you may indeed have moments when
you feel greatly inspired and motivated to make a change, but
only hours later, that positive feeling completely disappears, and
almost everything is forgotten. Nothing changes.

My greatest fear is that, this is going to happen to you.

220
 CONCLUSION

SUCCESS IS A CHOICE
So as I close this book, and if I am asked to give you one final
message, it is this: Success is a choice!

Regardless of your circumstances in life, you really do have the

power to choose how you respond. You have the power to choose
to live a great life.

But the real reason why most people do not make that choice is
that they are not willing to suffer for the better future they desire.
They are not willing to suffer for the great things that they want
to achieve. They live in fear. They are all talk but no action. They
have all the excuses but no action.

I believe that after reading this book, you now have all the
knowledge you need to start making significant progress every
day towards the success (health, wealth, love, and happiness) that
matters most to you. However, with this knowledge comes great
responsibility because words alone are not enough. You still have
a very important question to ask yourself.

 Am I really going to apply what I have learned?

 Am I really going to complete the 30-Day Challenge?
 Am I really ready to embrace Personal Kaizen?

The entire purpose of me writing this book was not for you to
finish reading it, but for you to complete the 30-Day Challenge. It
took me a long time to realize this, but absorbing knowledge
without application is useless. I do not want you to make the
same mistake I did.

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

You don’t need to read another book, listen to another podcast, or

watch another video of someone sharing yet another opinion of
how you should change. More knowledge is not the answer.
More technology is not the answer. Listening to more inspiring
speeches is not the answer.

History has proven to us that great things cannot be achieved

without sacrifice, that a great life cannot be achieved by avoiding
pain, that helping others cannot be achieved without suffering.

So are you ready to sacrifice? Are you ready to embrace pain?

Are you ready to suffer?

I believe you already know what you need to do. There is nothing
more that I can say.

The final decision belongs to you.

NOW, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

“The final forming of a person’s character

lies in their own hands.”
— Anne Frank

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 APPENDIX

FREE TEMPLATE
To help you be successful in your 30-Day
Challenge, we have created a FREE,
easy-to-use template.

To download it now, go to:

www.kaizenleadership.ph/personalkaizen

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 PERSONAL KAIZEN

SHARE YOUR STORY

Once you complete the 30-Day Challenge, I want to encourage
you to share your story.

Remember, “words are how we think; stories are how we link.”

There is nothing more powerful in influencing others than your
own personal story. I would also like you to consider sharing
your story directly with me on Facebook (@mikepgrogan) or
Instagram (mikegroganph) or by e-mailing me at

mike@mikegrogan.ph

I can’t begin to describe how much it would mean to me to get a

message from you sharing your experience with the 30-Day
Challenge. After all, you are the reason I wrote this book. As I
intend to feature readers’ stories in future editions, I would love
for your story to be one of them.

Finally, if you have any comments, feedback, or improvement

suggestions about this book, in the spirit of Kaizen I would really
appreciate you letting me know.

Thanks in advance for helping me make this book better for

future readers. I am excited to read your message.

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 EPILOGUE

YOU WERE BORN

FOR GREATNESS

“Then you will know the truth

and the truth shall set you free.”
— Jesus Christ
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

We live in an extraordinary time in human history. Never before

have we had access to so much knowledge, information, and
potential to make positive changes. Yet at this same moment in
history, we have never lived with so much hypocrisy. Our world
has so many significant problems that need solving, yet instead
of seeking solutions, most people spend their time focused on
criticizing and blaming others and waiting for someone else to
fix it. Without even knowing it, they become what they hate the
most: they become hypocrites.

When some of these people finally realize that change really

does start with themselves, they get excited. They start to
visualize the positive impact their new personal changes will
have on the people they want to influence and the great things
they will achieve. Then reality hits them. They get punched right
in the face by “the change problem.” They may know that they
need to change, they may really want to change, yet they do not.
They lose their momentum, their enthusiasm, and their
motivation. They fall back into their old ways of thinking — that
change is too difficult. Without even knowing it, they
resubscribe to the false belief that they are not worthy or
powerful enough to achieve great goals or make a difference in
the world. They become “almost leaders.”

I have been on a long journey to write this book, and there have
been many setbacks along the way, but the reason I kept going,
my greatest motivation, was you. You rejuvenate my faith in
humanity because you are different from everyone else. You are
not a hypocrite. You are not an “almost” leader. You are a leader.
This is your truth.

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 YOU WERE BORN FOR GREATNESS

You know you were not put here on this earth to play it small, to
play it safe, and to live in fear. You know that you will not allow
setbacks from your past to determine your future. You know that
you are destined to achieve great things, to lead the way, and to
show others what is possible. And you know deep in your heart
that at this moment in your life, you were meant to discover
Personal Kaizen. This is your time. This is not an accident.

So get out there and do what you know you need to do. Make
the decision that you are going to be 1% better tomorrow than
you are today. And keep making that decision every day for the
rest of your life because, believe it or not, this is how you can
change the world: by becoming a living example of discipline,
wisdom, and kindness — the type of role model our broken
world desperately needs.

There is extraordinary power within you, my friend.

Your greatest days lie ahead.

Mike Grogan

227
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my world-class Filipino team — Mary
Gabaya, Kray Cortez, Arabs Sanchez, Jesie Jaleco, Ian
Cardinoza, and Adrian Pantonial. Without them, I would not be
able to do what I do. Thank you, guys.

My amazing family back in Ireland — Marie, Padraic, Gregory,

Olivia, Lorraine, Jaime, and baby Aiobheann.

Malcolm and Jocelyn Pick (The Profiles Group) — the two

people who took a leap of faith and believed in me when I first
arrived in the Philippines.

All the reviewers, editors, and graphic artists who contributed to

the previous versions of this book.

All the current and past students of our Kaizen programs — for
being role models of positive change.

The Filipino people, for embracing this Irish guy and so many
other foreigners as one of your own.

And last, but not least — MG and baby MG: the two most
important people in my life. I love you always and forever.
Thank you for making me a better man.

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 APPENDIX

MORE BOOKS FROM MIKE

To learn more, visit: www.kaizenleadership.ph

229
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

SUBSCRIBE TO MIKE’S PODCAST

Free business and life advice from the most inspiring

leaders in the Philippines.

Over 100+ interviews.

Listen now on:

To learn more, visit: www.kaizenleadership.ph

230
 APPENDIX

NEED HELP SELECTING

THE RIGHT PEOPLE?

231
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

NEED A BREAKTHROUGH IN YOUR

BUSINESS IN THE PHILIPPINES?
Kaizen is the long-awaited solution
your business has been searching for.

See measurable results within days

of implementation.

Expect the long-term benefits to be

10X to 20X your initial investment!

To learn more, visit: www.kaizenleadership.ph

232
 APPENDIX

THE POWER OF KAIZEN

Kaizen is the leadership philosophy
and management practice that made
Toyota the #1 motor company in the
world.

For the past 30 years, Kaizen

has been trusted by thousands
of Business Owners and CEOs
around the world as the
fastest, most efficient, and
sustainable way to drive high
performance in an
organization, independent of industry, size, or
location.

Today, dozens of companies

in the Philippines have
already experienced
breakthrough business
results after embracing
Kaizen into their work culture.

To learn more, visit: www.kaizenleadership.ph

233
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

WHAT EXPAT LEADERS IN THE

PHILIPPINES ARE SAYING
ABOUT KAIZEN

To learn more, visit: www.kaizenleadership.ph

234
 APPENDIX

WHAT FILIPINO MANAGERS

ARE SAYING ABOUT KAIZEN

To learn more, visit: www.kaizenleadership.ph

235
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

WHAT FRONTLINE STAFF ARE

SAYING ABOUT KAIZEN

To learn more, visit: www.kaizenleadership.ph

236
 APPENDIX

IMAGINE THE IMPACT KAIZEN

WILL HAVE ON YOUR BUSINESS

BEFORE KAIZEN AFTER KAIZEN

 Blaming and  Accountability
Excuses and Ownership

 Inefficient and  Disciplined and

Reactive Proactive
 Wasteful and  Streamlined
Inconsistent and Innovative
 Siloed Mentality  Strategically
Focused
 Micro-  Trust and
Management Collaboration

To learn more, visit: www.kaizenleadership.ph

237
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

OUR CLIENTS AND PARTNERS

Thank you for your support in helping us spread
Kaizen in the Philippines.

238
 APPENDIX

DON’T GET LEFT BEHIND BY

YOUR COMPETITION

Kaizen: The fastest, most efficient, and sustainable

way to grow your company.

Discover today, how our Kaizen Programs

will change your team.

To learn more, visit: www.kaizenleadership.ph

239
 PERSONAL KAIZEN

KAIZEN LEADERSHIP PHILIPPINES

Our Vision
A First-World Philippines fueled by Kaizen,
where people wake-up inspired,
give their best at work and go home
feeling fulfilled at the end of every day.

Our Mission
To spread Kaizen in the Philippines
by helping a select number of organizations
become role models of a Kaizen Culture.

Discover today, how our Kaizen Programs

will change your company.

To learn more, visit: www.kaizenleadership.ph

240