How To Get Your Sh*t Together and Take Back Control

This is nine steps to get your shit together. Welcome to the Martell Method.
I went from rehab at 17 to building a $100 million empire and being a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life and business you don't grow to hate.
My bestselling book, Buy Back Your Time, is out now. Grab a copy at buybackyourtime.com or at any of your preferred online retailers.
Step one, change your environment. You can't have a positive mindset in a negative environment.
I don't care how great your mindset is. It's like being in a commercial grade freezer.
If you're standing in that freezer and you think you have a positive mental attitude, no, you're gonna be cold. But if I take you out of that freezer and I put you under a heat lamp, you're gonna warm up.
You're human. Understand that you are built to be influenced by people around you.
So how do we change your environment? Number one is you got to look at your friend group. See, a lot of people talk about you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
Actually, that's not it. You become the average of the five people you allow to influence you.
The good news is, is you can allow yourself to be influenced by people online. Think of it as like who you give your power of opinion to.
In legal, they call it the power of attorney. I think it is power of opinion.
You can choose the people that you would allow to influence you. You could think about those people and say, what would they do? What would the people that you admire that have achieved the thing that you want to do, how would they assess your decisions? So oftentimes, one of the fastest ways that you can just reset your environment is to move, change cities, go to a new school, take a new job.
I know that sounds crazy for a lot of you, but I've done it several times in my career. And every time it's allowed me to reset who I wanted to become.
Not that there's anything wrong in who I was at my core, but I knew if I wanted to go to another level, I had to be around people that were way higher and further along than me. I believe that my vibe attracts my tribe.
So if my energy is good, I'm gonna attract other good people. The problem is if you're the smartest person on your street, if you're the richest person on your street, you gotta move streets.
If you're the wealthiest person amongst your friend group, you gotta find a new group of friends. If you're the big dog in your city, find a new city.
Your container, where you live, communicates your identity to everybody else and to yourself. And if you're not absolutely freaking proud around all the things around you, then you got to upgrade your identity.
You got to upgrade your friends. Here's what I believe.
Most people are scared to let go because they're worried that they won't find a new group of friends to hang out with, but you won't have the time in your calendar to go even explore you won't have the time if you don't start saying no saying no to your current life allows you to say yes to your potential future which leads us directly into step two which is just do it there's a reason why it's a license plate on my car a long time ago i discovered that the gap between knowing something and doing something is the delay. As soon as you know, you have to default to action.
If you're reading a book and there's a passage, a chapter, a paragraph that you're like, damn, that's really smart. Put the book down, go do something with it.
If you're talking to a mentor and he gives you advice and you're like, oh my gosh, that's so smart. Why am I not doing that? Go do it.
If something I've ever shared with you moves you inside, you have like a feeling around it, default to action. It's all about closing the knowing and doing gap where there's no more gap.
JFDI, just freaking do it. Most people sit there and they overanalyze and they think about it and they ruminate and they spiral in their head.
Is this the right decision? What would happen? What will people think? How about before you get inside your head, you just do. Most people would rather play it safe and talk to people about their decisions, their actions, doing the thing than actually doing the thing.
And it's funny because they'll waste time, 10 times more time talking about it, thinking about it, writing it down. How about no writing it down and just doing it? How about no scheduling and just doing it? How about no planning for it and just doing it? That muscle is the muscle that has to be built for entrepreneurs to take advantage of opportunities, which leads directly into step three, which is don't blame anyone or anything.
Go look in the mirror. After I got sober, I found it interesting.
I didn't tell anybody what I was doing or how they should act. But over time, everyone around me got sober.
Everyone around me decided to quit drugs, stop drinking so much. In my life today, many people don't even drink anymore.
And oftentimes I get messages saying, hey man, I've been sober for nine months, thanks to you. You shared your story and it made me really reflect on what I was doing in my life.
What I love about that is they decided to not blame other people. They decided to take control of what they had the power to control.
See, if you defer your power to somebody else by saying it's like, well, I could do it if my wife was on board, then you're making your change dependent on somebody else who you cannot control. My philosophy is very simple.
Nobody has to change for me to win. If you want to see people change around you, then you have to be the example.
In a relationship, I think it comes down to this. I will focus 100% on me and I'll expect that you focus 100% on you so that we both have more of each other for each other.
Think about that. Many people use other folks in their life as the reason for failure.
I can't do this because I have kids. How about because you have kids? How about because you have a family? How about the fact that your parents were obese and unhealthy that you decide to get in the best shape of your life so that you have the chance to have any kind of influence over these people versus using them as the reason you can't get your stuff together? Most people would rather point to somebody else, which is interesting because when you do that, you have three fingers pointing back at yourself.
It allows you to not be accountable, allows you to not have to be honest with yourself saying that person, whether they did that or didn't do that, doesn't change the way I responded. I could have used that as feedback to go be better, but instead I'm like, oh, that's the reason I can't win.
Or you could go, I created this situation. I allowed that person in my life.
I decided to have a relationship with that person. These are all things you can control and don't give the power up to somebody else to take away the power for you to change your life.
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Find it at martellmethod.com, which leads us directly into step four, which is it's easier to avoid the dragon than to slay it. Most people that want to get in shape, the number one move they could make is to grab all the junk food, all the snacky stuff, all the things that they know would be a slippery slope if they ate and put it in a box and give it to somebody that needs the food.
It's easier to avoid the dragon than to slay it. Most people are like, oh yeah, no, I've got mental toughness.
You could do that, or you could just design the game to be easier to play. Before I go to bed, I put out my clothes for the next morning.
Why? Because when the alarm goes off at four in the morning and I gotta get up and go to the gym, if I don't have things just set up properly and I'm trying to like overcome the desire to not get up that early, there's a good chance that I'm probably not gonna make the best decision. If you go to a barbecue, you can decide to show up after everybody's eaten and then enjoy the festivities without having to be enticed.
Just make these decisions. It's always easier to avoid the situation than to try to bring on the motivation, the mental toughness to say no.
I just decide to avoid the whole situation altogether. It's like a family gathering.
And you know if you go there, your uncle's gonna say something, and then he's gonna talk crap, and then you're gonna have to respond. Or you can just not go.
You can decide, my mental health, my emotions, I'm just happier when I'm not around that person. You're allowed to say no.
I coach so many people on getting their fitness together and they go, well, I don't want to eat different than my family. And I go, hmm, why is that? Well, I don't want them to feel like I'm better than them or that they feel guilty for eating in front of me.
It's like, well, when you go to a restaurant, do you eat the same meal as everybody else ordered? No, you don't. So don't lie to yourself that other people's feelings, that's what it is.
Most people use other people's feelings as the reason to not stay consistent, as the reason to not avoid the dragon. You're allowed to take all the food and throw it out.
And if somebody wants to have a certain type of food, have them save it somewhere else in the house. Be like, hey, put it in a cupboard where I'll never go to.
Don't invite me to that family gathering. Going forward, this person, I don't need them in my life.
Please don't invite me to anything they participate. You can ask people to support you in your dreams and your goals so that you don't even have to be the person that makes the decision.
Just make it once, let them know, hold the standard. Which brings us directly into step five, which is stop being so critical of yourself.
I know this all too well. I actually have a guy on my team and it's super natural, but anytime something happens that he sees that he's involved in or even arm's length, he thinks it's about him.
He thinks he did something wrong. And I get it.
Sometimes this happens to me where somebody will say something and I think, well, did I say something wrong? Like, why are they upset? And it's not even true. What's crazy is most of the time that that person on my team is worried.
When I ask them why the situation had nothing to do with that. So here's what you do.
First thing I want you to consider is to lift your head instead of looking at your feet and worry about like, is this about me? Is this about me? Is this about me? I want you to lift your eyes up and look over the horizon, focus on a vision, focus on the future. Focus on what are you trying to create? Who are the people that you want around you? Who can you serve with your message? Who can you serve with your services? Tony Robbins says this often.
If you get inside your head, you're dead. When you see yourself spiral, do one of four things.
Number one, gratitude, vision, future I'm trying to create. Three, workout.
Four, go help somebody. That gets me back on the path and helps me spiral up instead of spiraling down.
What happens is high performers have the tendency to be really hard on themselves. There's a thin line between being hard on yourself that impacts your performance versus hard on yourself because it's feedback for you to get better.
The difference is, is where are the feedbacks coming from? So that's why you wanna pay somebody else to give you feedback. Because when I pay for coaching, that information lands differently than when I'm saying those same words to myself in my head.
People beat themselves down because they create the situation that they want to move away from. They need the pain to be able to push against it.
Instead of the feedback from somebody else that's trying to make you better, then you're going to want to live up to their expectations, not necessarily push away from the pain that you've created by trying to tell yourself

Thank you. of the feedback from somebody else that's trying to make you better, then you're going to want to live up to their expectations, not necessarily push away from the pain that you've created by trying to tell yourself how bad you are to try to push you forward.
That desire to step into somebody's greatness that they see you through their eyes is way easier than trying to overcome the negative talk that you use to propel you forward. Before we get back to this episode, if you prefer to watch your content, then go find me on YouTube.
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Which leads us directly into step six, which is replace your negative habits with positive habits. When I stopped smoking, I replaced it with toothpicks.
When I got sober, I started coding. When I have a bad habit, something I want to give up, I got to figure out what's that trigger for me to do the bad habit and how do I replace it with something that's positive? Usually it's like working out, going for a walk, calling a friend.
I even use the concept of brushing my teeth at 6 p.m. to shut down my decision to eat any food after the fact because I know my eating windows are 6 a.m.
to 6 p.m. Even doing 10 push-ups.
Imagine if every time you wanted to go and smoke a vape, you decided to do 10 push-ups. It wouldn't take long before those push-ups became the new norm.
And the truth is, is you gotta get rid of the old to make room for the new. You have to give up the bad habits so that you can build yourself forward.
Most people make the mistake of just like giving something up and then creating a void. The problem with the void is it will get filled.
And especially if it's something like you've been doing for decades, it could be something silly, like playing video games or watching Netflix instead of getting up and doing your work. Some people literally, as soon as they have a moment where they're in flow, their brain switches and they open up a tab and they start typing F-A-C-E enter and they go onto Facebook and they have browser blindness and they come back three hours later going, what did I do with my day? In those moments, you need to design the situation to replace the old habit with something new.
Honestly, if you need to use apps to block your internet browsers or certain websites, or you need to create some accountability or use a timer or play some music or whatever it is to create the scenario, the best way to replace a bad habit is to use something positive that takes over, which leads us directly into step seven, which is dedicate yourself to a thousand days. Over the years, I've discovered that most people overestimate what they can do in one year, but drastically underestimate what they can do in three years.
And I call it a dedicate, choosing to be consistent around some new positive habits, things like waking up earlier, reading 10 pages of a book, going to the gym, reading affirmations, gratitude practice, meditation, whatever it is. If you can dedicate yourself to betterment, trust me, in less than three years, you'll see an impact right away.
But it's the consistency in the identity building and what it tells you about who you are. See, most people feel like they lack confidence or they don't have self-worth or they feel like they're not good enough.
But the truth is, is it's all the times you made a decision that you didn't keep, especially the ones you made to yourself in private that eroded the ability for you to feel better about yourself, to build that confidence, to think bigger because you have proof that you're the kind of person that can be consistent. And when you're consistent, it compounds.
And what I've learned over the years is that consistency builds a foundation for growth because otherwise without consistency, you won't have anything strong to build on top of. And then you'll always build a little bit and fall back, build a little bit and fall back.
If you can dedicate yourself to a thousand days, you will be unstoppable. Before we get back to the episode, if you actually want to know what my real life looks like and see the people and the businesses and the companies I buy and my family and just like how I make it all work, go follow me on Instagram, Dan Martell, 2Ls and Martell on Instagram.
It's where I show the behind the scenes, the real deal, real time. I'd love to see you there.
Have an amazing day. Which leads us directly into step eight, which is reward yourself along the way.
As much as I'm a person of sacrifice and saying no to things, I also have learned for the game to be fun to play, you have to give yourself many rewards along the way. That's why all of my goals have a positive reward of something I want on the back end of it.
So for example, when I was training for my first Ironman, I put my family vacation at risk. Now you want to talk about getting your family aligned with your goals.
Tell them that if you don't complete your Ironman in a certain amount of time that their whole family vacation isn't going to happen. So my wife did not ask me,

do you want some dessert? Or, hey, are you really getting up that early to go train tomorrow morning?

She was like, go train, go eat better, work on yourself, do good, go call your friends up,

push harder. Why? Because my mini reward was on the back end of doing something hard.
And I've done this in all of my goals. Every year I sit down and outline 12 goals for the year and I put a reward as the big goal and I put mini rewards along the way.
That way I get some feedback as I accomplish these mini milestones along the way to the big goal. Most people just buy themselves whatever they want

or go do whatever they want.

And because of that, they don't really earn it.

My whole philosophy is that if I want to have an epic meal,

then I'm gonna be consistent for 95% of the week.

If I want to go buy myself a new desk,

then I'm gonna go and earn it

by hitting some kind of financial reward

in one of my companies.

If I wanna buy that new supercar, guess what?

That's on the backend of something massive.

I just did it with my Ferrari Pista.

I don't know. to go and earn it by hitting some kind of financial reward in one of my companies.
If I want to buy that new supercar, guess what? That's on the back end of something massive. I just did it with my Ferrari Pista.
I decided to do a full body recomp, get down to four or 5% body fat, and then rebuilt to 215 pounds lean at 8% body fat. That's what unlocked the reward of that car.
The key is to design the game to play and to win. So give yourself many rewards will incentivize you to keep pushing when most people would wanna give up.
You wanna implement rewards to hack your brain into wanting to do the hard things. Why? Because if not, it just feels like pointless.
Most people, when they have to do a hard thing, if they don't have a reason for doing it, it feels like stress. As soon as you give them a crusade, a mission, a movement that they're participating in, all of a sudden it becomes honorable.
It becomes something they want to do. And then it's stress they've decided what's called eustress.
If we're going to climb the mountain and there's no point, there's no reward, there's no recognition, then essentially the heart is just hard for no purpose. If we say that I'm climbing that mountain because I want to raise some money for charity, you will do way more to get to the top faster because other people are involved that you're going to support.
The why is much bigger than the how. If the how is hard, you need a massive why to keep pushing you forward.
The reward creates that why, which leads directly into step nine, which is don't compare your chapter one to someone's chapter 10. I believe comparison is the thief of joy.
I've been building businesses for 27 years. So let's be honest, it's not that impressive.
I was talking to my dad this morning and he said, you know, Dan, the one thing I can say about you is you're consistent. My year is fairly consistent.
I do the same types of things with the same type of people and I change up the environment, but in regards to my effort, my focus, my process for winning, my revenue rhythms, consistent, consistent, consistent. So if you're starting off and you're trying to compare where I'm at on social media, on my finances, on my relationship with my wife, my health, my fitness, all these things make no sense because I've been at it for a long, long, long time.
You know, even these 23 year olds that you're like, oh my gosh, they're 23 and they're driving around a Lamborghini. Many of them been in business trying legit for 10 years.
So you're seeing the 23 year old and you're 35 comparing yourself to them. It makes no sense.
There's entrepreneurial ages. So I want you to remember this.
Your only job is to compare yourself to who you were yesterday and just ask yourself, are you getting better? Most people don't want to be honest because they'd rather just say, oh, that person is better than me, smarter than me, grew up in a better family, grew up in a better city. They want to use all the reasons of comparison to give them an out for being the best version of themselves.
Here's what I know. Nobody will ever be you.
You are the original. The most unique and awesome thing you could ever be is you.
And to compare yourself to somebody else in any way, shape, or fashion is kind of silly. You can use other people to be inspired.
You should be glad for them. You should praise them.
You should be like super happy. Like, man, that's amazing.
You're 23 and you're driving that car and you have that house. That's incredible because it should be proof that it's possible.
But for you to use that as a reason to beat yourself up and feel less than

that's where it doesn't actually help. Thanks for listening to Martell Method.
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