Shadowing Practice: 5 "BORING" Habits That Took Me From Broke to Millionaire - Learn English Speaking with Video

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What if everything that you think makes somebody successful is actually wrong?

And boring is actually what works.

I built and sold three companies by the age of 29.

Not because I was special, but because I did these five very boring things every single day that nobody wants to talk about.

These habits do not get likes and engagement.

They don't look impressive, but they build real wealth.

So I would like to walk you through these five boring habits

that can actually build your wealth so that you can start using them right now.

Number one is stop chasing all these hacks.

Why is most self-help bullsh?

Because they tell you to focus on the wrong thing.

I used to love my hacks, I can tell you that.

Morning routines from billionaires, productivity apps, biohacking tricks, like every single fking one I would do and it would work for like two weeks.

And then I wanted a new one.

It was like almost an addiction to the dopamine hit you're getting of trying these new things.

What I realized is that a system is just a boring process that you repeat until it creates predictable success.

And then you keep doing it, okay? this could be a hiring system, a content creation system.

I've been running the same systems in my business for

so long and I tweak them as I learn new things

and such but like barely compared to what I used to

because half the time you trying the new hack actually costs more in change of energy

and time than it gets you return on the system you're trying to improve.

So that's the thing is like they're not glamorous.

Systems and having boring ones that I don't change very often are the reason that I'm able to scale my companies, have a life I like,

remain healthy while working a fraction of the hours that I used to 10 years ago.

So for example, a system I use every week is essentially planning my week.

I get down a piece of paper

and I look back at everything that's occurred for the last week and then even sometimes a couple weeks prior.

Then I look forward at the next month prior and I write down everything that I need to do.

Emails I look through, my project board I look through, my phone I look through, what is unanswered, what do I still need to work on, who do I need to touch base with.

I write it all down in a Google Doc and then I say who can do this besides me.

And I go through, and I write the name of everybody that could do something that's not me.

I delegate everything out that I can, and then with everything I have left, I build it into my calendar.

A lot of times what we do is we have like calls and commitments, but we put them in our calendar before our priorities.

And so instead, I go through and say, do I have time for my priorities?

And if I don't have time for the priorities, I need to change the calls on my calendar.

People will probably say like, my calls change a lot, and that's because my priorities do shift based on what's happening in the business, and I need to adjust, I need to remain flexible.

That system works super well, really reduces overwhelm, allows me to get a lot of done, and it allows me to get my other stuff done too, like things that are in my calendar.

I keep in there my workouts, when I meditate, when I journal, when I spend time with my husband, when I go on date night.

I keep so much stuff in my calendar

because I wanna make sure the important stuff that also keeps my quality of life high is in there.

Now, is that sexy?

No. Do I have a hack for you?

No. Hacks feel exciting because they're new, but new is also expensive.

Boring works, and it's not expensive.

And so every time that you reset by wanting a new hack, you kind of lose the momentum you had and you break that compounding effect that consistency has created for you.

And I understand because like systems feel boring, right?

You repeat them over and over.

There's no novelty, but that's what makes them very powerful.

I mean, I knew this when I was a trainer, getting somebody results in the gym, if I want to get someone the best results, they should do the same workout plan for like six months.

I did the same exact plan for six months at one point in my life.

It was boring as I was so bored in the gym, but guys, I look sick.

I had, my legs were the most muscular they'd ever been, my shoulders were capped, like, I was like, damn, I'm in good shape.

I was like, I'm so f*ing bored.

But I knew, I was like, I need to follow the system because if you do something repeatedly, you get those 0.1% increases just by executing it that many times over and over again.

Here's a great way to implement a system.

Take the most chaotic area of your business or life right now.

Maybe it's hiring, maybe it's making content, maybe it's taking care of your kids.

I don't know what it is.

Write down just like one simple, repeatable system for it and then just document the steps.

So like maybe it's the plan of your week like I did.

It's like, okay, look at last two weeks.

Look at next two weeks.

Look at email, Slack, project board.

Delegate other tasks to other people.

Like, just write the steps down.

That's it.

I'm gonna go ahead and say like 99% people aren't gonna do this.

That's also why 99% people don't get what they want like.

So like, be the 1%.

Do the shit that's boring.

I cannot tell you the amount of lists and checklists

and systems I have on my phone to make sure

that I can just execute the basic things that make my life better.

Boring things compound, exciting things expire.

The second thing you want to do is saying no to drama.

How much time did you spend this week on drama?

It could be someone venting to you.

It could be office gossip.

It could be just you emotionally spiraling or fixing problems that weren't even yours to fix.

Just add it up in your brain.

The people who win, who actually build wealth and have peace of mind, they look boring because they don't engage in drama.

Okay, and it's not because they're cold or uncaring.

It's because they've learned that every minute of drama is a minute

that they're not putting into a life that they actually love and a life that compounds.

I've had so many instances where people will text me.

They'll call me and say, oh, I want to tell you what happened with this thing.

One, I keep my phone on do not disturb because guess what?

I do not want to be disturbed.

But the second thing is that I don't like getting those random phone calls when someone wants to talk shit about somebody.

When somebody calls me and they start talking shit about somebody, even if I don't fucking like the person, I feel gross.

And the truth is, is that I think a lot of the times they're doing it because they want to connect.

I think a lot of times drama is, it's a disguise of people trying to connect with you you might not even realize that you're doing this.

Like you might actually be the person who calls and they're going to be telling you this about something, right?

But it tricks you into thinking that you're being helpful, that you're being empathetic, or like you're in the loop of what's going on.

But what it actually does is it robs you of your focus and it's burning out your emotional bandwidth, not to mention the respect you have for yourself.

Because I always ask myself this question.

I'm just like, do I respect myself more or less from engaging in this conversation?

I even feel bad when like somebody will bring somebody up and be like, what do you think of this person?

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Every once in a while, my team knows or my friends will know, like, I'll be like, oh, that guy's a piece of shit.

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I'll say something like that, and I'll be like, oh my god, I feel terrible for saying that.

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And then I realized, I was like, oh, the same feeling I'll have if somebody calls me to talk to me about this thing.

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And so something I've been very intentional about is that I don't keep around friends who want to do that.

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If we want to connect, we're going to connect about positive stuff.

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We're going to connect about supporting each other.

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We're going to connect about talking about valuable things, talking about productive things.

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We're not going to connect over talking shit, over talking about things that are negative, over like it's bad energy

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and successful people they protect their energy like it's their most valuable asset

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because it is here's what I'd ask you do write down

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three of the biggest sources of drama in the last month

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in your life you might have a specific friend group

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that like you feel like connected with and you love

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but like they're just drama or you might have like a co-worker

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that continues to loop you in with drama

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or maybe you have a family member who's constantly talking shit about other people in your family

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and you're like I don't want to answer the phone like it's drama.

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Out of those three, pick one and cut your exposure to it.

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Now what does that mean?

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The answer often doesn't lie in the extreme, it lies in setting boundaries.

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Maybe that means shorter conversations.

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Maybe it means when they call you, you don't pick up and instead you text and say, what did you want to talk about?

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Maybe it means that you have boundaries.

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Maybe it means that when you see them, you ask to do a lunch

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because you know you have an end time rather than a dinner that could go on forever.

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Then what you do is you watch how much freaking energy comes back to you

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when you stop letting drama hijack your day.

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Also, not drama that you feel like engaging with, but drama that somebody else brings to your table.

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That brings me to number three, which is follow the same daily schedule.

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You are not overwhelmed because you have too much structure.

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You're probably overwhelmed because you have none.

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A lot of people think doing the same thing every day is exhausting, but what is actually more exhausting than that is deciding every day.

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A million little decisions.

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When do you wake up in the morning?

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Okay, negotiating with yourself.

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When are you going to start work?

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Debating, do I work or do I not work out today?

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Every one of those, like, little tiny decisions, they drain all your mental energy before you've actually even started doing any kind of work.

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The most productive people that I know, they appear unassuming because they've eliminated all the negotiation.

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They wake up at the same time.

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They work at the same blocks.

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They follow the same shutdown routine.

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They don't do that because they lack spontaneity.

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They do it because they figured out something that a lot of people have not figured out, which is constraints create freedom.

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Okay, so for me, I follow a specific routine.

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Now, do I always follow it?

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No, but most of the time I do.

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Why?

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Because it guarantees me the highest likelihood of having success the next day.

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I know that if I'm well-fed, I've slept well, I've worked out, I've taken care of myself, my relationships, my business, but I'm gonna operate well the next day.

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I'm gonna get through everything and do it at 100% rather than like 50 or 70 or 40.

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You know, some of the things I do is like, I go to bed at the same time.

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Sometimes I wake up a little earlier, sometimes I don't, but like at the same time every morning, I will meditate and then I will journal.

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And then at the same time every morning, I'll usually do like prepping for the day and then also work out.

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That's most days of my week.

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Now, what happens in the meaty middle, as I like to call it, I have different meetings every day, but it's the same time block pretty much every day I have a meeting.

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Now, does that mean if I go on a vacation, I'm gonna follow that?

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Like, no, there's sometimes where I'm like, fuck it, I'm staying up late, I'm gonna be fucking tired tomorrow.

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That's not my every day.

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If you're doing that every day, you're stealing so much energy from yourself that you could have because you're just changing things up so much, and our bodies like to have a rhythm.

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Every time you change your routine, you kind of tax your brain.

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You get decision fatigue that builds up, And it's one of the biggest reasons people can't be consistent, because they're just constantly making these decisions.

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Sometimes for me, even I catch it with myself, where I'm like, oh, that feels wrong, or I should change that a little.

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And then I'm like, is it that wrong

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that it's worth the cost of change or the cost of decision fatigue for you, Layla?

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Then I'm like, no, I would rather use my brain to think about something else.

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When your structure is fixed, your brain is free to focus on things that actually move the needle for you.

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And that's because freedom is not about having endless options.

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It's about making the right ones easy to do on a daily basis.

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So here's my challenge for you over the next, Let's just say let's just say seven days wake up at

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the same time work at the same time go to bed the same time

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Literally like that's all those three things move the other stuff around

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if you want to

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but like try doing those three things at the same time There's a lot of studies that show

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that like going to bed at the same time Every day

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is like one of the best things you can do for

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your like entire life The next action to repeat is the same boring inputs over and over

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and over again Breakthroughs are not found in the next big

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thing They're often found in the last rep of the set

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that you didn't want to do And you know if you're in the gym, you know what I'm talking about.

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I used to spend years chasing new marketing tactics, new sales tactics, new productivity systems, like new anything.

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What actually grew my business was making the same sales call over and over again, writing the same types of content over and over and over again, running the same weekly meeting over and over and over again.

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0.01% better every week.

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There are so many times where people look at something and they think, it didn't work those three times, I need to change it.

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Or it's been working, but now it stopped working, it hasn't worked the last two times.

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I should change it.

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We're not being patient enough.

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I can't tell you how many businesses, even recently, I was talking with them.

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They were like, I really think that we need completely new marketing department, blah, blah, blah, all these things.

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And I was like, oh, why?

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And they were like, well, the cost of ads is just like insane.

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It's just like, you know, doubled in the last month.

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And I was like, have we tried seeing if there's something broken in the funnel?

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No. Have we tried making more ads?

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Uh, well, when was the last time you made new ads?

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Well, normally we make them every two weeks, but we haven't made them in like six weeks.

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Okay, so maybe we should just make some new ads to put into the system

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that we know works rather than building a completely new system.

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See what I'm saying?

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And that is most business problems

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and most how you solve most things is like just doing more reps and you will make progress.

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I remember when I was losing the hundred pounds and there was three weeks where I didn't lose a single f*ing pound.

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And I remember I messaged my coach and I was like change something, change something please.

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He was like I'm not gonna change anything and I was like you should change something like let's change something.

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He was like, you'll lose weight in the next couple weeks, I promise.

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And I was like, and dude, like clockwork on week five, all of a sudden just started dropping.

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I didn't change anything.

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Like sometimes the results come out of a delay, but people aren't comfortable waiting in that middle.

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They're not comfortable waiting for the delay.

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They get too bored and then they change something and then they never get to see what could have happened, which sucks.

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It's like everybody wants a shortcut, but the new strategy that promises the faster results, that's like what people go for.

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But what actually works is the same boring thing a thousand times over and over again.

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Boredom is freedom in your business.

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It's freedom in your life.

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It means that you have moved past the learning curve and entered a zone of growth.

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It's just that growth often, when it's that incremental, it starts to feel boring.

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It's like people who master something get bored, but that's when you need to stay in it because that's when you become a savant at whatever it is you're doing.

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How do you put this into practice?

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Pick one skill that directly impacts your goals.

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Maybe it's sales calls, making content, outreach, going on dates.

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Commit to just doing 100 reps before you judge yourself.

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Not 10, not 50, 100.

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And track them.

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I personally right now have three different behaviors I'm trying to change

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and I have a Excel sheet that I mark every morning how many reps I've done out of the reps I have.

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I am not telling you guys this because I think that it sounds cool for a YouTube video.

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It is how you actually change yourself.

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Number five is focus on one lever.

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While everybody else is gonna pull 17 levers, pull one.

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One lever pulled at 100% beats 17 pulled at 10%.

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Now what does this actually mean in business?

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I know that math didn't add up.

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It means what kills most businesses is trying to do everything at once.

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Same with like trying to look good, for example.

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If you're trying to get in shape, try and do everything at once.

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That ain't gonna work.

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New product, new marketing channel, new audience, new offer.

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If you pull 17 different levers at once, you're not gonna give yourself 100% effort on either one and then nothing's gonna move forward.

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Like for example, when I would get a client in that wanted to lose weight and they were like, I have to lose like 150 pounds, I need to change everything.

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And I was like, let's just get working out down.

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Now, why is that?

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Because you only have so much attention And your brain can't subtract, it can only add.

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So when you start a new goal or you have a goal, you're ambitious about something, you have to add that into your current life.

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And then if you try to add too many things at once, you compress the amount of time and attention you have for other things in your life.

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So for example, for me, you know, one lever in my business at one point in my phase of growth was just understanding recruiting.

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It was like the only reason that anything wasn't growing in my business was recruiting.

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And so I dove in, I studied recruiting, and I just said, you know what? we're just going to master the first call, the intake call.

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And I just hammered the intake call and the script for the intake call for every single person I talked to.

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And that alone, that one call was responsible for hiring like 25 people that quarter.

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Find that one lever for you.

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When you focus on one lever, you're not thinking smaller.

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You are thinking deeper and much more intelligently because every major breakthrough, whether it is business or personal growth,

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it comes from doubling down on the one constraint until it becomes effortless

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and then you can do the same with the next thing

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if you try to do it all at once it is

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a waste of time people are like i don't want to keep sabotaging myself it's

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because you try to change too many things at once here's

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how you pull one lever at full force write down every project initiative

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that you have on your plate right now

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and then just ask yourself this which one if i nailed

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if i sent it home would make the rest of them easier

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or even irrelevant so i'll give you an example right most people

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when they come to me

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and they wanted to lose weight they would be like i'm I'm going to start working out with you

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and I'm going to focus on, nope, let's just focus on diet.

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I don't want you to focus on your workouts.

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And you're like, why?

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I'm like, well, if you are eating the same food, you won't see results with the working out.

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So we might as well start with diet because that's more important.

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That's going to be the domino.

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If we get that right, everything else is f*ing cake.

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Now, here's the hard part on this.

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Deprioritize everything else until that one's done.

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We're not going to try and balance it or like do a little bit of each.

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We're just going to focus on one thing first.

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That's the hardest part.

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This is not easy for anybody.

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It's still not easy for me.

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Success doesn't come from doing everything.

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It comes from doing the right thing with full focus.

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Everyone on YouTube wants to sell you on how exciting these things are Excitement keeps you broke boring will set you free.

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So just pick one of these five habits Not all of

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them just pick one like I just said in the last point Let's pick one thing

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and go all in and see for yourself And if you like this video, don't forget subscribe and watch the next one

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Why This Video Is Perfect for English Speaking Practice

This video is a goldmine for english speaking practice because it blends conversational tone with practical advice. The speaker uses natural pacing, casual phrases, and relatable examples—like "hacks" and "dopamine hit"—that mirror real-life conversations. Its focus on daily habits makes the content easy to follow, while the mix of short and long sentences helps learners adapt to varied speech patterns. Plus, the topic of success is universally engaging, keeping you motivated to practice.

Breaking Down Natural English Phrases

Let’s analyze 3 key lines to master natural speech:

"What if everything that you think makes somebody successful is actually wrong?" This question uses a common structure to challenge assumptions. The contraction "what if" and casual "actually" make it sound conversational, not formal. Practice stressing "everything" and "wrong" to emphasize the contrast.
"Systems and having boring ones that I don't change very often are the reason that I'm able to scale my companies." The phrase "boring ones" is a natural shortcut for "boring systems," showing how native speakers simplify language. Notice the flow: "are the reason that I'm able to" connects ideas smoothly—avoid pausing between "reason" and "that."
"Hacks feel exciting because they're new, but new is also expensive." The repetition of "new" and the contrast "but" create rhythm. The adjective "expensive" here isn’t about money—it’s a metaphor for effort, showing how context shapes word meaning. Mimic the speaker’s slight pause before "but" to highlight the shift.

A Simple Shadow Speak Routine for This Video

Use shadow speak to master pronunciation and fluency with this video:

Watch a 30-second clip without sound, focusing on mouth movements. Notice how the speaker stresses key words like "boring" and "consistency."
Play the clip again, pausing after each sentence. Repeat it aloud, matching the tone and pace. Record yourself—this helps spot gaps in english pronunciation.
Once you’re comfortable, shadow the clip in real time. Try to keep up with the speaker, even if you miss a word—this builds fluency.
Compare your recording to the video. Ask: Did I stress the right words? Did my tone rise and fall naturally? Adjust and repeat until it feels effortless.

This routine works because shadowspeaks trains your brain to think in English while improving muscle memory for pronunciation. Over time, you’ll notice your speech sounds more natural, just like the speaker in the video.

Learning English with YouTube doesn’t have to be complicated. This video’s relatable content and conversational style make it the perfect tool to practice speaking—one "boring" habit at a time!

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	I've been running · it's been working
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if i sent it home would make
“Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true	used to love · used to spend
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have left · has created · they've learned

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: 5 "BORING" Habits That Took Me From Broke to Millionaire - Learn English Speaking with Video

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