Tomorrow/Today (02/04 - depends on when you see this post lol), we’re going to have the pleasure of welcoming a very special guest to our community call, Eric Martin. Eric has been my mentor for the past 8 years, has been running his own business for over 15 years, and is someone I deeply respect both professionally and personally. He has built his success the long way, through relationships, consistency, patience, and choosing growth over comfort, and that’s exactly why this call is going to be powerful. He's not only an incredible leader and mentor, but also a father of a daughter and a recent newborn son, and he truly understands how to manage life, business, and responsibilities at the same time. On the call, Eric will be touching on • Playing the long game in business and life • How relationships compound over time • Staying consistent when results are not immediate • Why freedom is built slowly, not suddenly • Keeping an open mind and remaining a great student as you grow Because this conversation will be so valuable, I’ll also invite other communities to join us. This is one of those calls you don’t want to miss. 🕖 02/04 (Wednesday) at 7 pm EST. 🔗 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5614515373?omn=85017240292 I’ll add most of you to the calendar invite as an extra reminder, and I've also attached Eric’s background PDF to the chat so you can get to know him better ahead of time. 😎 Super excited for this one. Come open-minded and ready to think long-term.

After going through Bruno’s Time Mastery course, I realized that I didn’t know my 4 quadrants as well as I thought. (check it out here if you haven’t gone through it yet. It’s worth it!) So in January I decided to take it a little more seriously. I used google calendar to track every single thing I did. Color coding each of the 5 categories made it super helpful to visualize. They were: - Health (exercise/sleeping) - Relationships (family/friends) - Growth/Business time - Chores - 9-5 Before I reveal the % breakout for each, the reason why I wanted to do this was because I had AN IDEA of the time I was spending in all the areas, but I wanted to ACTUALLY know. Knowledge is power It also helped me stay accountable by blocking ‘growth work’ and family time in advance so I could plan around those and stick to a schedule the best I could. I try to keep my days as similar as possible with the only changes coming on the weekends when my family time replaces the 9-5 time. Same wake up every day, same bedtime everyday (unless I get sleepy lol). Since I’m a numbers nerd, here is the breakdown of each of the categories by percentage for January: - Health 36% - Relationships 25% - Growth/Business 14% - Chores 5% - 9-5 20% How do you think yours would shake out? It makes sense to me that Health and Relationships is over half, I feel like I’m good there. The Growth/Business is frustrating looking at it from this perspective, but it still comes out to about 25 hours/week. I don’t think I can physically do more right now without disrupting the Health or Relationships. I don’t want to say the growth/business is the most important, but that’s the push I’ve been making recently. So I’m in a stage of finding better uses for this time, rather than more of it I’d love to ‘offload’ the chores and 9-5 lol. The chores would probably free up more family time and the 9-5 would definitely free up more Growth/Business time.

I’ve listened to Jocko Willink on YouTube sporadically over the years (info about him here: Jocko Willink - Wikipedia) and I’ve always liked the following quote from him: “Discipline equals Freedom.” He even wrote a book with that title (which I have yet to read, along with so many other great books). To onlookers, discipline might appear like suffering / an overly-restrictive way of living. However, applying strict protocols to oneself, as Jocko argues, is actually liberating. Here are some examples: If I am disciplined about my diet and exercise, I will achieve freedom from chronic diseases, medication, being a complete wreck by the time I am in my 70s, etc. If I am disciplined about saving money, building my own business and investing, I will eventually achieve freedom from financial burden and reliance on employers to survive. If I am disciplined regarding my education, I will be free from having to work menial, entry-level jobs forever. Etc.… Of course, there are no guarantees in life, but you get the point. Putting in the work now creates freedom in the future. Inputs equal outputs, as I’ve read both in this Skool and elsewhere. What’s your opinion? Do you agree with Jocko regarding his claim that ‘discipline equals freedom’? How has discipline made you free? How do you see it freeing you in the future? How strict should one be, in your opinion? When should we break the rules and promises we set for ourselves and just ‘live a little’ (many people have told me to do that over the years, haha🤣)? On a related note, I often like to apply what I call the ‘zero policy,’ for lack of a better term. This reduces ambiguity regarding things, such as eating sugar or drinking alcohol. If I simply follow a ‘zero sugar lifestyle’, there is no ambiguity regarding how much I should eat, should the opportunity arise. ‘Moderation’ is ambiguous, and doesn’t work. For some people, it could be one sweet per week. For others, it could be two per day. Zero is zero – simple, clear and liberating.