In this episode we delve deep into the fascinating world of habit formation and transformation. Join us as we explore the science, psychology, and practical strategies behind creating and sustaining powerful habits that can positively impact every aspect of your life. From building a regular exercise routine and healthy eating habits to fostering productive work habits and cultivating a positive mindset, we'll cover a wide range of topics to help you understand the mechanics of habit formation. You'll discover effective techniques for breaking bad habits, overcoming obstacles, and developing sustainable practices that align with your goals and aspirations.
Blaine Oelkers
Blaine Oelkers is a TEDx Speaker and leading authority in personal implementation and consistency. He is America’s only Chief Results Officer®. He’s a habit master with documented streaks of 1,810 days in a row and counting! As a top LinkedIn Connector he has over 27,000 1st level connections. Blaine graduated from Purdue University and Stanford University’s Social Entrepreneurship Program. He is powered by Selfluence, a personal development and training company. He is excited to share with you ways you can take control of your life by taking control of yourself.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chiefresultsofficer/
Email: blaine@selfluence.com
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Transcription:
[00:01:11] Paddy Dhanda: Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Superpower School podcast. I'm your host, Patty Danda, and on today's episode I have a guest who's from sunny Phoenix, and I'm really jealous because I know he'll be in a much better place than I when it comes to the weather, but he is a chief Results Officer, I believe he's the only Chief Results Officer in the whole of America. And he's a telex speaker as well as an author. So I'd love to welcome Blaine Okes to the show. Hey, Blaine, how you doing?
[00:01:42] Blaine Oelkers: Yeah, so thank you for having me on the show and yes, I am America's only Chief Results Officer, and I feel like I found my niche and so for me, I like to help people take control of their lives by taking control of themselves.
And I think I was born to do that, and when I figured that out, My life got a lot more fun and now I spend my days basically helping people with personal implementation. How do you get yourself to do those things that you know you should do, but also how do you get yourself to stop doing those things, you shouldn't do? I spend a couple decades doing that and I enjoy helping people kind of better themselves. Oh, I love
[00:02:17] Paddy Dhanda: it. So for this episode, Blaine, what superpower would you like to bring?
[00:02:23] Blaine Oelkers: Yeah, so I'd like to discuss the superpower of self fluence. So self fluence is the art and science of influencing yourself, or would I like to say the power you already have to influence yourself.
And by using that power, exercising that power, you can do things like create new habits in 21 seconds instead of 21 days. You can do something I call the 30 minute hour how to get an hours worth. Of stuff done in just 30 minutes or maybe perhaps even hack your head trash. We all have those kind of voices of doubt, those shadows in our minds.
But you can take control of all that stuff. And the nice thing about the, this concept of self fluence is that everything you need is within reach. You're already doing it. And if you decide, you can master it. So those are some of the, the backdrop to this superpower of self fluence influencing yourself.
[00:03:16] Paddy Dhanda: Oh, I love that. I definitely need the superpower blade, so I need to steal it from you somehow. So, really excited to hear more of your insights on just how we build the superpower. But before we do that, I'd love to know how you got into this space and your background, because your title was really intriguing and I'd love to know how you came up with that.
[00:03:38] Blaine Oelkers: I had a few moments of dawning comprehension, right, where we're kind of, you're never the same, the light bulb goes off and it's kind of that aha moment . And for me, The first aha moment actually came in college. And so I was attending per Purdue University which is in Indiana, and I saw this little ad.
Now, maybe like some of the listeners here, I've always been a seeker, like how could I do better seeker of knowledge and betterment? And I saw this ad that said I could send away for free. Audio cassette. Now I'm dating myself, so this is back in the eighties. Some of, you might have to look up what an audio cassette tape is.
But anyway, it was a little audio program you could send away for this audio cassette. And it was actually Earl Nightingale reading an abridge version of this book called Think and Grow Rich. So I got this audio tape. Listen to it. And I resonated with the concept. So I bought the book and I read the book.
And basically this book, think And Grow Rich. I created a little saying called Why tabba? What you think about, you Bring About. And that's what this book taught me, was that my thoughts dictate my reality and that now I couldn't change circumstance, but the way that I perceive circumstance and the thoughts that I carried around with me all day long kind of directed my mind not only my conscious mind, but my subconscious mind.
To be looking for those opportunities and those ways to bring those things about that I wanted to bring about. So that was a big one. Actually I met my wife, we've been married now 31 years. Met her at college and had a lot of success. So that was dawning comprehension moment number one. The second one came a little later in life I came home from a business trip.
And it was a rather long business trip. And my son, Beau, he was one year old, and I came home and he was like giving me the cold shoulder. And then I said, Beth, is Beau sick? Is there something wrong? He says, no, he's not sick, but you were gone so long. He kind of forgot who you were. And I was like, whoa.
Like emotionally that night. That hit me hard. And so that night I made this clarifying decision. I had kind of the moment of dawning comprehension. I said, you know what? You know my parents both worked. And so I would come home a lot of times to an empty house cuz my brother wasn't there. And I said, I'm gonna become a work from home dad.
Like no matter what, like whatever it takes now, it took me a year, but a year later I broke free. And I left my job. I had started two businesses at that point, and what happened then when I did that was 27 years ago. So now the kids are grown and gone. But what happened for me then is I took control of my life and I really was able to figure out, I.
Because I had so much more time figure out why I was on the planet. And it was to help people take control of their lives by taking control of themselves. I started a company called Self Fluence and I started helping people get results. And one of the mastermind groups, they said, Blaine, we're gonna call you the Chief Results Officer because we're getting results every week.
And this is a lot of fun. And so I said, I like that. So I went to the US patent and trademarked office and I said, the term was not taken by anybody. So I got the registered trademark, so meaning that no one else can use it. But me and that is now, the rest of the story.
[00:06:45] Paddy Dhanda: Oh wow. I didn't realize you'd actually patent the term, so that's amazing. I can't use that one now is it only in the US you've got the patent?
[00:06:53] Blaine Oelkers: Well, I think you may, internationally you may be able to use it if you want to but it's up to you.
[00:06:59] Paddy Dhanda: Awesome. I might do the same here in the uk.
No, I'm not joking. So, Blaine, for our listeners out there who might be interested in, I guess, building the superpower, like what kind of situation do you think, if somebody is in, would they need this superpower for, is it, for example, somebody who's looking to live a healthier lifestyle and they're may be finding it difficult to convince themselves to go to the gym?
Or is it some of the big habits that they're looking to build, like the bigger habits around maybe changing mindset at work, for example?
[00:07:38] Blaine Oelkers: Yeah, so all of the above. And so, these frameworks, like say the 21 second habit, will help you create new habits big or small, right?
And so we could kind of break down the framework but yeah, so if you wanna work out, start exercising, right? But you may also want to start something on the mental side as well, right? So you might wanna start a new habit of feeding your mind. Well, a lot of people, we all eat every day, right?
So unless you're, maybe you're fasting but most people you eat every day and you feed your body, right? But all, you're also feeding your mind, right? So I like to take a 30 minute mind meal every day, which could be Patty, like one of these podcasts that you do, right? But at the base of things, we are creatures of habit and most of the stuff that you do during the day is based on a previous habit that you either wired consciously or maybe subconsciously.
And so for you to be able to create a new habit instantly, basically in 21 seconds is pretty powerful. Now, neurologically it does take about 21 days neurologically for the pathways to begin to be created in your mind. For that habit. And it takes about 63 days to really fully hardwire that habit.
But there's a little bit of a hack here that we can use to create that new habit in just 21 seconds. So if you want, we can kind of dive into that and maybe run through some examples of that. I would love that.
[00:09:05] Paddy Dhanda: Yeah.
[00:09:06] Blaine Oelkers: Let's do it. So the first thing you have to realize is what I said at the outset about self fluence is that, everything you need is within reach.
You're already doing it and you can master it, right? And so I just wanna make sure people realize that their habit masters. So if I ask you, Patty, like in the last 24 hours, have you brushed your teeth?
[00:09:25] Paddy Dhanda: Yep. A couple of times.
[00:09:27] Blaine Oelkers: Couple of times. Nice. Okay. Now, how long have you had that habit?
[00:09:33] Paddy Dhanda: Well, since I can remember, I guess ever since I had teeth, so
[00:09:37] Blaine Oelkers: we're not gonna go we don't, we're not gonna ask you your age, but basically for decades, yes.
So for decades you've had this habit. So most people that I meet, unless you have dentures, you have that habit, right? So I want you to this base case of you are already a habit master. Don't let the little voices that tell you can't do it. Be there very long because you can do it cuz you did it already, right?
And so I tell the story, first story of how I discovered 21 second habits was through my wife. Now my wife, luckily this is past tense. She used to have nearly daily migraine headaches. And so the doctor said, okay, Beth, here's this headache log. You gotta fill this out every day. And it was like extensive, like, what are you eating?
What's the weather? What's the barometric pressure? All this data that they needed. And my wife could do it for a day or two. Then she'd forget. Then she would lose it. And she was getting really frustrated. I said, one night I'm watching her brush her teeth. And I noticed, I go, my wife Beth, she's like the official dentist recommended two minute brusher in the morning and at night.
And so the first key, there's three keys to the 21 second habit, but the first key is what's called habit linking. So habit linking is where you link the new habit to an existing habit that you're already a master at. No willpower required. So I said, Beth, look, let's take the headache log, put it underneath the toothbrush.
And now when you brush your teeth two times for those two minutes, you got four minutes of filling out the headache log. And you're never gonna lose it because it's always underneath the toothbrush in the bathroom. So she liked that idea. She started doing it, and she went for 90 days in a row.
90 days in a row of filling that thing out and the smile on her face when we went back to the doctor and she had that thing all filled out was priceless. Now she has a migraine only once every couple months, which is nice. But anyway, so that's the first key. Is habit linking and think about all the things you already do.
You wake up every day, you get dressed, you go to work, you have coffee, all these things that you can link to. So that's number one. So then I said, look, let me try this. This is all, it's gotta be practical and tactical. I don't want to talk about anything that's not practical and tactical. So I said, what new habits do I wanna start?
And there were two. One is I wanted to do this Bible app every day. And then the second thing was I realized that I took a physical shower every day, typically after I work out, but I didn't really ever wash my mind, so I wanted to take a mind shower. So I wanted to take a mind shower every day, every morning.
And I wanted to do this Bible app. And so I thought to myself, okay, what could I have it linked to? Like, what do I do every morning? Like, no willpower required, happens automatically. Don't have to think about it. And yes, it's the smartphone. I opened my smartphone without fail. One of the very first things I do.
And so what I did is on my smartphone, I moved all the apps off the homepage and I just put the two apps, this Bible app and an app called Headspace. Which is one you could use to take the mind shower. And so when I opened my phone, which happened every morning, I said I have to do those two apps before I'm allowed to touch anything else on the phone.
And that brings the second key is that one habit linking. So that, that happened every morning. But the second one is urge surfing. You have to surf. Some kind of an urge that you have a desire you have to do something to give you the energy, to push you through, to do that new habit. So for me, why did I open my phone every morning?
Well, my son lives in Denmark. He texts me in the middle of the night. I've got emails, I got orders that came in. I wanna know what's happening in the world, what's happening in social media, what's happening in my email inbox, right? All these things. I wanna know all that stuff. And I used that desire to push me to do that.
And today I checked right before our podcast here, and so today was day 1,807 days in a row that I did that habit. And I started it instantly just by habit linking to me opening my phone for the first time during the day. That brings us to the third one. So habit Linkings number one, urge servings number two.
And the third one is leverage to get a new habit to stick. Now, once you get past 21 days, it starts to form neurologically. 63 days. It's a little more hardwired, but to get it to stick, you need leverage on yourself. And so there's a few forms of simple leverage. One is what's called streak leverage. And once you get like, Three or four days in a row, you don't wanna break the chain.
You don't wanna break the streak, right? And so it's really kind of psychologically powerful to get that three or four days in. The second thing is that you can use rewards or penalties. So pain and pleasure both work. So rewards could be like, Hey, if I do this new habit for a week, then I'm gonna buy that book I wanted to read, right?
Just a little reward just a little something else to put out there. And then this flip side also works a penalty if I don't do my new habit, then I have to form some penalty. And a lot of times a spouse or a friend, they're happy to give you the penalty. No problem. They'll find it.
so my wife she'll say, well, if you don't keep that new habit for the first week, you have to wash the garbage cans outside, which are these big garbage cans. She knows I hate to do that. And if she really wants me to do the habit, she'll say, If you don't do the habit, you have to wash the neighbor's garbage cans.
And they hate, they don't want you touching their stuff. So anyway, she can put a big enough penalty in there for me. So anyway you have some fun with that. But it's those three things. So it's the habit linking, the urge surfing, and then the leverage. I'll give one last example.
I was talking with an attorney friend of mine, Ann the other day, and she's like, Blaine, you always talk about next day planning. That's like my favorite thing is never let a day end without planning the next one. And she wasn't doing it. And I said, Anne, what do you do first thing in the morning?
Like, no willpower required. Automatically happens. She said I make a cup of coffee, have coffee. And I said, perfect. Take a pat of paper and a pen, put it on top of the coffee maker. You need a cue. Sometimes it's good to have a cue to remind you of, to have it. And I said, do you have that fancy machines that you know, grinds the beans and makes the coffee?
She goes, yes. I said, great. I want you to grind the beans, make the coffee, smell the coffee, but you can't drink the coffee until you start the plant. And so there, she's got the habit linking the urge to drink that coffee for her. And then I said, make a little reward.
So if you do this for a week, give yourself a little reward. So she's kind of, well on her way. So that is the 21 second habit framework. What do you think?
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[00:17:22] Shure MV7-2: Now let's get back to the.
[00:17:24] Paddy Dhanda: Oh, I love that. I was thinking about a few examples of how I could apply that in my own life and. One of the things I've struggled with, Blaine is making time to read.
I think for many years I've tended to shy away from reading because I just don't feel like I've got enough time in the day, or maybe there has been a lack of motivation sometimes, and I think subconsciously. I've been implementing a couple of those strategies, but without knowing it. So at night now when my kids start their reading just before they go to bed, we always make sure they have about half an hour or so.
I've tried to link my reading to their linking in a way it, so it prompts me to go, Hey, like since they're doing it, that's perfect opportunity for you to do it. It doesn't always happen, but I think. That's certainly something that's started to happen, but when you were talking that through there, I was just thinking in my own mind, what is the one thing that I do just before they start reading and it's actually brushed my teeth, so that might be a good one to
[00:18:37] Blaine Oelkers: link to that.
That's a good, those are good things to link to. And when you're starting a new habit. The other thing is that the more you can dial down the resistance to that habit, the more likelihood that you're gonna succeed. Now, I also say, I'd like you to win early and win often because, It's a battle of the brain chemicals here.
And if you can get on the other side, you can get the dopamine and the serotonin and the good happy brain chemicals going, which you get when you accomplish something or you do something that kind of gives you the energy to continue more, right? So if you said, look, I'm gonna read every night after the kids go to bed.
What I would tell you is make sure that you read every night. Even if you dial down the resistance to one, it's gonna sound ridiculous. One minute of reading. But that still gives you the win. And so a lot of people this works with like exercise, with any kind of habit that you fail at, dial down the resistance, right?
So some people will try to do exercise and they can't do 30 minutes, they can't do 10 minutes. I'm like, Okay, here's the deal. What's your favorite thing to do? Jumping jacks. Okay. Do five jumping jacks before you get in the shower. We're gonna count that as a workout because you've gotta win.
There's this biochemical thing that's happening that you, that as you start to win, then you can add more to it, right? So think about ways to dial down the resistance to that reading. And then again, any of those things. Search. So linking, you got the linking there, you have this desire. To read, why do you want to read, like kind of get yourself amped up to read, right?
And then also rewarded penalties, right? So you can put different, rewards or penalties in there to help you make it happen. And kids are great at penalties. Example is, I have this veterinarian surgeon friend of mine and I said, what new habit do you want? He says, I need to have the habit of going to bed before midnight.
And I say, how often do you go to bed before midnight now? And he says, like, once a week. And I said, okay, that's terrible. You're not getting enough sleep. And he said, you're right. And I just, start working way late into the evening. I said, okay, what's one thing your kids like that you don't like?
And he said, they constantly want to eat ice cream and I don't want them to eat ice cream all the time. And I said, that's great. So if dad stays up past midnight, the kids get to have ice cream. And so he told his kids that. So now it's automatic. Every morning the kids are like, dad, did you stay up past midnight?
Dad, did you stay up past midnight? They ask him every single day. And now he goes weeks without staying up past midnight, and he still stays up past midnight here and there. But it's dramatically different because that fun penalty. He's also teaching his kids, all about creating habits creating, contracts, honoring your word, and all that kind of stuff.
So, lots of fun ways to. To make this stuff happen.
[00:21:21] Paddy Dhanda: Oh, what a great story. I'm thinking. Should I try that? No. Better not blame, better not do that one. And do you think that there's a difference in terms of how effective these approaches are based on age? Like, are these principles universally applicable to any age or do you see that it's. Easier for certain people to form habits than others based on their youthfulness or age. Yeah.
[00:21:51] Blaine Oelkers: A great question. I think that neurologically, the wiring is there for everybody. And so typically the success rate comes down to the resistance or maybe a little bit of the pre-programming and the belief in people's mind.
But no, kids tend to do this stuff even faster and easier and better than adults because they don't have as many filters kind of blocking them or making them think they can't do head trash. I call it head trash. They have less head trash, but also, people could be dealing with different things, right?
that's why I often talk about brushing the teeth so that people realize, yeah, I am already a habit master, right? But the opposite is true if they're telling themselves. I'm terrible at habits. I never keep a new habit. I never keep my New Year's resolutions. I never, well, what happens is what you think about, you bring about, and so them saying that to themselves over and over again.
Why is that in? And then your brain says, yeah, here, let me show you why that's never gonna happen. So I think you have to be careful. Now, we could I call this hacking your head trash. And there's two things with hacking your head trash. One, there's some tools you can use like in the moment.
When the head trash comes, and then there's tools that you can like proactively use long term. But my favorite tool of all is one that immediately. Flips your brain back around to the other side to start working for you instead of against you. Right? So if I say something like, I never have enough time, Blaine, I never have enough time to read Blaine and if I say that, then your mind says, you're right, Patty.
You never have enough time to read. You've got kids, you've got this, you got podcasts, you got blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So in that moment when you say that, yeah, I never have enough time to read. You wanna say two words? You wanna just say, yeah, but. And you Yeah. But yourself. And you can also Yeah.
But other people, you can, yeah. But your kids. But when you say, yeah, but, and pause now, your brain has to answer that. Yeah. But I am in control of my schedule. Yeah. But I could read it for just one minute, like Blaine said. Yeah. But yeah, but, and the answers. The flip side come to you, and if you start Yeah.
Butting yourself over time, it starts to happen automatically. Now in the beginning, it's a little hard for some people who've got a lot of head trash. You might have to ask someone else Yeah. But, and get their answers right. So now I'm a great yeah. Butt partner because I can quickly think of all these other sides of the equation.
But anyway. Butting yourself is a great way to kind of flip that around. But back to your original question. Yes. Good for all ages.
[00:24:20] Paddy Dhanda: Oh, fantastic, because I was just thinking like in the current age that we live in where everything's just so fast paced, where sort of our attention span seems to be shrinking, if I read a lot of the literature at the moment and there's so much distraction I look at my own kids and I think they have the attention span of a fly.
Like it's so difficult to get them to focus on something for a long period of time. And they probably don't have as much willpower as maybe I did at that age. I don't know. It's maybe a, an assumption I'm making here, but I just was thinking could it be more difficult for this new generation to really create new habits?
Because if they're not immediately getting some benefit from whatever the habit is, or they're not prepared to put in a little bit of hard work, then they may not continue with it. It'd be great to hear your experience of that.
[00:25:15] Blaine Oelkers: Yeah, I think I I see the both sides of that. Like today, it's a more distracted world than ever.
Right. And my phone can be a great tool, a great instrument of productivity and habits, like it is for me, but at the same time it can be highly distracting and it can be, there's social media and there's, there's different things there. So I think that though at the base case, people wanna take control.
Of their lives. And they can. And for example, I might do social media too much on my phone, right? So I have an option though leaps and little steps. I can take a big leap and I can delete the app, which I have done. Recently for this year. I deleted Instagram, sorry, Instagram now I can still get to Instagram on my computer.
If someone says, oh, I sent you something on Instagram, or look at Instagram, but it's not on my phone anymore. Right. So that's like a big step or little step is I do a lot on Facebook. Right. So Facebook and other apps that I feel like I don't want on the iPhone you can put apps together and put 'em in a folder.
So if I wanna go to Facebook, I have to scroll three pages, maybe four, can't remember. And then there's a folder. There's a folder that says, don't do this. It's inside that folder, right? So I've just made a little fun game out of it that I gotta scroll, I gotta find, I gotta go in there. So even that little resistance helps me to gain power.
But I think that, in this area of kids and the development, they're developing faster and technology is turning them into super kids. They're still as persistent as ever. They're still, when they want something, they are incessant. Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
Are we there yet? And so as a kid I had that, and I wanted this. T r s 80 computer, and I just kind of badgered my parents till they ended up paying for half. I paid for half, they paid for half. But there's a persistence in there and there, there is a willpower for what they want.
Now, a lot of times kids don't know what they want, so you gotta kind of expose 'em to a lot of things to help figure it out. But then again, I think the same principles apply with kids. It's like dialing down the resistance, right? They can't hold their attention. Okay, so you can't hold your focus.
How long can you hold your focus for? We're gonna do a test. let's do meditation. Okay, kids, I'm gonna pay you to meditate and let's, we're all gonna meditate for one minute, and which typically they joke about it but the kids can do that.
And they build up to three minutes and then five minutes, and then all of a sudden now they have the superpower to slow the world down when they want to, when they need to. We used to take our kids to restorative yoga, which was, they'd call it adult napping.
You get all these bolsters and different things and you basically go to sleep there. But someone is guiding you through all this relaxation, but it's a skill that they still have today, in their twenties. So I think the possibilities are there. And it's the guidance and it's the starting small, right?
Win, early, win off, and, starting with the minutes and then build it up. Even like turning the roll off. One of my favorite things to do is to go into airplane mode now. Now the outside world doesn't like that. It's not just for airplanes. I turn my phone on airplane mode and one day I forgot that I turned it on airplane mode and I had this great day.
Like, cuz it was my day, right? Nobody called me. Nobody bothered me. And it was like six hours later I realized I'm an airplane at, oops. So I turned my phone on, what happens? It lights up like a Christmas tree, right? All this stuff, it took me like only 30 minutes to triage all the mess from the day. And a lot of those things people.
Figured it out on their own, which was great. So I tell people do it and they say, I could never do that. They say, well, you took a plane ride before. You can do it. Do it for five minutes, and then build up. But doing it just for five minutes, they feel like they won.
And when you win, it just starts this spiral of good chemicals, and then you do it for 10 minutes and then 20 minutes, and then sometimes you only have five minutes again. That's okay. But you build up and you build that success and things just start to get better for you when you do that.
[00:29:07] Paddy Dhanda: Oh, I love that. And just going back to your example of putting your apps in a folder. I've done that with WhatsApp and I have to say it definitely works because I now. Have to look through the phone and figure out where the app is, and it's almost like a game. And I've also turned off the notifications on that one app.
Because I was just finding myself constantly, soon as I'd see something ping up on the screen, I was like checking it out immediately. But now, I'm much more sensible about it. I try not to just keep looking at my phone anymore. and I love the airplane mode as well.
That's a great tip. I just wish we had a human version of that. Like, I, if I could click something in my head and just. Turn on airplane mode, that would be super awesome.
[00:29:49] Blaine Oelkers: You can build that up as a superpower to be able to turn the world off. And on my phone, my family doesn't like this, but my phone has no rings, dings, or bings.
Like, it never makes a sound. So it's all off, all the notifications everything's off. Now if I proactive, I can go in and see what's going on, but if someone's trying to call me or reach me, sometimes they can't get to me. But you can begin to push the world back.
And the other thing I studied people at the end of life the last few weeks and they all said the same thing. They all said, I wish I had more memorable moments with the people I love now, the people they love. A lot of times it was family, but sometimes it was friends, sometimes it was coworkers, but just more memorable moments with the people they loved.
It wasn't about getting more work done. Answering more emails or even building bigger fortunes. It was memorable moments with the people they loved. That was it, that was the stuff that life was made of. So I often encourage people to have more of those moments and whenever they can and push the world back.
To do it is fine.
[00:30:49] Paddy Dhanda: Oh, that's such a lovely way of putting it. Blaine I really like that. Now you've worked with lots of people. Throughout your time and could you give us some examples of where these approaches have really worked? And if you could give us maybe one or two stories of people that have used these principles and how it's helped them.
[00:31:13] Blaine Oelkers: Yeah. Let me go back to my friend Phil. He's the veterinarian surgeon. And I've got some different programs but I have this one program called a Day Ahead experience. And basically what that program is, it's a program to help people move from and this is mostly for business owners, but anybody could do it, but most people and many business owners, they find themselves a day behind.
Or even more than a day behind. And so it's using all these frameworks that I talk about, 21 second habits, 30 minute hours, hacking your head trash to move from being a day behind, to just being behind, to being ahead Up basically then being ahead and then being a day ahead. And so, not a super easy process.
So this was something that took about two years for Phil to go from being behind to being ahead to being a day ahead. And he went from, working about four days a week. Now he works only two. So he got himself to where now he's a day ahead, and so this day ahead living, which is where I like to live and I'm there most of the time when I come back from a vacation.
Maybe I'm not there that those few days, but most of my life is live the day ahead. Meaning when I wake up, I might have some appointments like to do this podcast, but like there's nothing that has to be done for day. And I'm working on stuff for tomorrow or for next week. And so life is better a day ahead.
And so for Phil, yeah, that now he's got more time with the family he can control his sleeping habits better. He's getting a lot more done and he's just a lot happier because he made that transition. Now it's getting rid of some of the head trash and figuring out like, What is really important and urgent, there's urgency and importance but what's really important in life and how do you compartmentalize and reduce the urgency and the push on your life from other people so you can open up the important stuff in your own life and that takes some time to do and some wrestling with life a little bit.
And periods of out of balance. But that's an example of one of those journeys of doing the work, going in and moving himself from being behind to being ahead and then being a day
[00:33:12] Paddy Dhanda: ahead. Ah, fantastic. Blaine, we're running out of time, but my kids have convinced me to buy a dog.
And we'll be getting the dog very soon and I can just see me having to create lots of new habits. Things like waking up extra early, taking the dog out for a walk, all of these good things. Any advice you've got for me?
[00:33:34] Blaine Oelkers: Well, so my kids did that to me and when the dog came, I had no responsibility.
I paid for the dog, but I was supposed to do nothing else for the dog. And I ended up having to do many things for the dog. But I will say this what I love most, and we just moved into a new home, so we're about to get a dog. Once we kind of settle in What I like is the unconditional love of that dog.
And so what I did is, yes, I was the one that typically would take the dog out in the morning. But what I did is I have it linked doing this form of it's something called Chi Gong, which is kind of like a Tai chi, it's kinda like an exercise program with breathing and kind of moving energy around your body.
But I would go out with Buddy, our dog, and I would do that every morning with him, and he'd go around and do his business outside. But I haven't linked things that were good for me, with doing the stuff for Buddy. I would also use that as a break for me. Like, I work from home so taking Buddy out, taking Buddy for a walk, those are all great times for me.
I, have fond memories of that getting out of the office, getting out into the fresh air. So wherever you can that would be my advice for you would be to have it link stuff like that, but then also try to bring in the kids, try to teach your kids lessons, that are learned from the dog.
And when if the dog does something wrong, how do you handle that? I mean, there's a lot of life lessons that can be learned from caring for a pet. And I think you're about to embark on those. And it's gonna be fun. Not always easy but can
[00:35:00] Paddy Dhanda: be fun. Oh, thank you so much.
Some great advice there. Blaine before we wrap up, I'd love to ask you where can people find out more if they want to build habits and actually get to know more about these principles that you've talked about today? And how can they get in touch with you?
[00:35:18] Blaine Oelkers: Yeah, the easiest thing is just go to blaine tedx.com, so B L A I N E T E D x.com.
And there you can opt in. I did a TEDx talk all about white table, what you think about, you bring about, and you'll get a copy of that. And then we'll be connected. So you'll have my email address if I can help you or serb you in any way, be happy to do it. I do write a lot of articles and have a lot of kind of teachings and things like that.
So you'll gain access to all that by just going there. Blaine tedx.com. Oh,
[00:35:44] Paddy Dhanda: brilliant. Thank you so much, Blaine. I will be signing up myself because I definitely need these tips as I go forward with these new adventures with with our dog. And I'll let you know how we get on, but thank you so much.
It's been a pleasure to get such practical advice. I think this has been such an enjoyable episode for me because you've just shared so many golden nuggets that I think we could all do with. So thank you.
[00:36:09] Blaine Oelkers: Thank you so much, Patty, for having me on. I'll lead the listeners with this. The bad news.
The bad news is time flies the good news. You're the pilot. So pilot. Well, my friends pilot well. Oh, what a
[00:36:20] Paddy Dhanda: great way to finish. Thank you so much.
E98: Productivity - Self-Fluence: Art and Science of Influencing Yourself - Blaine Oelkers (Chief Results Officer)