Why Every Entrepreneur, Writer, and Creator Is Just Dead WRONG About Habits...

First off, this letter marks the 1-year anniversary of my newsletter!

It's been a wild ride so far (even a re-brand halfway through)

But I'm so grateful you are here.

Seriously. It means the world to me you take the time out of your day to read my letters to you.

So thank you. If you weren't here, I'd be writing to nobody (or just myself I guess).

I want to start this week’s letter off with a quick story.

The lesson from this story changed my life and business forever.

So let’s get right to it.

Just over 3 and a half years ago I struggled with alcohol.

I drank every single day and had no plans on stopping.

It negatively affected every aspect of my life (obviously)

From my relationships, to my job at the time, and my health.

After hitting a serious rock bottom (we can get to another time)…

I knew I had to rid myself of this filthy habit.

I started to study and go deep down the rabbit hole on habits. I watched YouTube videos. Read books and articles. And anything else I could expose myself to really.

After months and months of searching for the answer, I noticed one common thing…

Everyone talked about:

“If you’re not happy where you are now you need to change your habits. Start working out, start eating healthy, make new friends.” 

Etc.

But it was all regurgitations of the same thing —>Adding new and healthy habits.

After starting and failing, starting and failing, starting and failing…

I realized this was the wrong approach. Especially when you’re already plagued with so many bad habits (or in my case one real bad one).

So what’s the right approach that actually got me to stop drinking and change my life?

Addition through subtraction.

This one concept alone I’ve applied to all areas of my life and it got me to:

🔹Live a disciplined and fulfilling lifestyle

🔹Quit drinking alcohol (over 3.5 years sober now)

🔹Start a business and make more money than I thought possible

Let me explain more about how it works…

Most people’s daily lives are filled with distractions, bad habits, and unconscious programming that dictates their decisions and actions.

Adding a bunch of new and healthy habits won’t change that.

It’s only a matter of time before those new and healthy habits get outweighed by the bad ones you’ve had for years.

What you actually need is to start removing your bad habits first.

I know it sounds simple (and it’s a lot harder in practice) but this is what it takes.

You don’t need a new workout plan.

You don’t need a “fully optimized morning routine”

You don’t need a New Year's resolution…unless it’s to remove a bad habit

At least not yet.

What you need is to remove all the bad habits holding you back from your goals, vision, and potential.

For me it was alcohol.

For you it could be:

🔹Negative self talk

🔹Not keeping your word

🔹Blaming others for everything

🔹Binge eating junk food at night

🔹Mindlessly scrolling social media

Whatever it is…start there.

Then make it your mission to rid yourself of it.

This LinkedIn post is the bi-product of me applying this to my own life:

If you don’t believe eliminating your bad habits will lead to business success… let me ask you this:

Are you where you want to be in your business currently?

If you had 0 bad habits and were operating on all cylinders… chances are you would be.

If you’re not where you want to be, it’s time to look at those habits a little closer.

Now in the beginning it’s not easy to know which bad habit to focus on and eliminate first.

The best exercise I can recommend to you is answer this…

What’s the 1 thing you know you shouldn’t be doing, but do it any ways?

And then once you do it, you feel a bit of guilt… so then you keep doing it to avoid/distract yourself from the guilt?

That guilt is real and it comes from a real place. Start with that habit (and only that habit) to avoid overwhelm.

Remember, this is a different lens to view changing your habits from. If you’ve tried to change them in the past but it didn’t work…I’d almost bet you tried adding a bunch of new ones and did nothing about your bad ones.

I know because I did that too.

But forget the past. This is different. It’s all about removal first.

Eventually what you’ll notice as you refine yourself and your programming,

Is now you have a bunch of space for those new healthy habits.

And as a bonus, you won’t be bogged down by all the negative ones.

This one concept changed my life, and I know it will for you.

You don’t need a bunch of shiny new habits that you’re going to quit in 2 weeks.

You need to focus on removing all the bad ones holding you back.

That’s it for this week!

Thanks for being here on the 1 year anniversary, you’re the best.

Your friend up north,

Darion.

—

PS. For the bottom of funnel (sales post) workshop next Tuesday…

I’ve gotten a couple messages about the time being an issue which is currently 1:30PM (PST)

I’m more than happy to adjust it so you can make it. So if that’s the case, reply to this email with your preferred time!

I’ll do my best to accommodate your time zone.

The link to sign up is here:

Doors close on Monday! See you there?