Transcription
Hey, what's going on guys? It's Ben, CEO and founder here at Both Deals. And today I want to share something that I've noticed over the last month, not only working in my business, but our clients businesses as well. So with that said, I want to dive in.
Many entrepreneurs, myself included, believe that the biggest mistake or biggest reason as to why we can't scale is because of marketing, my sales process, our talent, the system processes, SOPs, whatever the case is. And to an extent that is absolutely correct. But the question is what influences that? From my experience, it's the decision-making. So my question then becomes, how can I improve my decision-making that way I can solve the right constraint in my business and scale it? So I went a step deeper and I wondered what is influencing the decisions that I make. From what I've noticed, it's personal problems, right? Personal experiences as well as personal problems. And I want to share a quote that has helped me out a lot that I want to share with you. You don't have a business problem. You have a personal problem that reflects into your business.
So, I'll give you a perfect example by asking a question. How can I expect to show up in my business and scale to six, seven, or even eight figures if number one, I can't even lead myself? I can't even sleep on time and get enough sleep. I can't even control my eating habits. Instead of eating healthy food, why am I just eating junk food, ultra-processed stuff that's destroying my body? Third thing is, if I can't even show up to get exercise, how can I show up to lead a company? And this is what I've noticed for myself over the last month. And if I can go back and tell my 15-year-old self from 5 years ago about one thing about business, and it's to take care of your health, right? So, I'm glad I'm learning this now when I'm relatively young, but I want to pass on that lesson over to you. That way you can get your business back on track because you might be doing everything right, but still your body, your energy, brain fog is probably what's keeping you from scaling.
So in this video, we're going to be covering two things. Number one, the truth about running a business and making the right decisions. And the second thing is my health and productivity protocol or blueprint that I use to stay more productive, have more energy, and show up better as a leader within my companies. So with that said, let's dive straight into it.
The number one is the truth and why I should care or why you should care. The old version of me who didn't care about my health, I had horrible sleep. My diet was terrible and it affected the way I showed up as a leader within my company. I had something called an Aura Ring a while back where it's basically an activity tracker that tracks your sleep. And every single night for months on end, I would never be able to get a quote-unquote good score, which is anywhere from 85% and above, right? It's like your sleep score. It's like a game. And I wondered why. It was probably because I was getting four to maybe five hours of sleep every single day. My sleep patterns were extremely inconsistent. And more importantly, my diet was affecting how I slept because I was eating fast food, ultra-processed stuff every single day. That screws up your body and it eventually screws up your sleep. Same thing with my diet. When I just moved out of my parents' house and I got an office at one of the WeWork places, I was eating Cane's, like chicken fingers. I was eating Chick-fil-A, I was eating Subway, and then Panera Bread every day, twice a day. When you eat that much bad food, fast food, it screws up your diet. And unfortunately, that affected how I showed up as a leader. I was always having brain fog. I would always crash after every meal and I would just waste hours and hours of work on a daily basis. I did that for an entire year. So, I don't want to say I wasted a year, but I wasted a year basically, right?
And my realization from this is that when I started prioritizing my health and my diet as of like two months ago, a month and a half ago, my work got way better. My clarity, how I think, my mood, the decisions that I make are incredible. And I wish someone told me this before, but hey, you live and learn every day.
So, here's my blueprint. Take what you like, copy it for yourself. And, um, yeah, first thing that I care about is sleep. Everybody knows that if you have a bad night of sleep, it's going to be hard to have a good next day. So, I'll share what's worked for me. For me, if my sleep is trash, like if I get two hours of sleep, which is so rare, like it's probably happened once in the last, I'd say, month, because I was traveling, my day is off to a rough start, right? And I'm not here to sit and tell you like, oh, you need eight hours of sleep. I'm not a health guru. I'm just sharing what worked for me and how life-changing it's been for me to focus on my health. And hopefully, someone's going to watch this and it serves as a wake-up call to start prioritizing your health, taking care of yourself. That way you could show up as a better entrepreneur. Another thing, it's hard to scale a company off of four hours of sleep. I've done it before, but it was miserable, right? My thesis is that the following day starts the night before.
So here's my wind-down routine right before I'm about to go to bed. My last meal is typically two hours before I go to bed. And the reason why this is is because after you eat, your body has to get active and start digesting all that food, making it a little bit more difficult to sleep, right? So for me, I try to eat at least two hours before bed. And ideally, it has to be a light snack. I don't want to eat just to sedate myself and eat a lot of carbs. I just want a light snack to crush the cravings and, like I said, not fully satiate. The old version of me would just eat fast food at night just to sedate myself and pass out. That is not good. I've come to realize that is not good and you should not do that. At least I should not do that.
Another thing that I do is making sure all of my to-do items are on a sticky note for the following day. The reason I do this is because I hate laying in bed when I'm supposed to be sleeping just thinking about work. So, I like to just dump everything on a sticky note that I have right here. I have a sticky note right here. I like to dump everything on a sticky note. That way, everything's out of my mind, and the next day, I wake up knowing exactly what I need to do to crush the day. And it works really, really well for me. Another reason I like sticky notes is that you can peel it off. You can stick it anywhere. It fits in your pocket. And it's so compact because it's such a small size where you only put the important things on here. And my favorite part is that when I'm done scribbling everything out and you know it's done, I just rip it and throw it in the trash. It's simple, it's easy, it works really, really well for me.
Next thing, pre-bed shower. I mean, shower whenever you want. I like to shower due to the fact that it relaxes my muscles and my mind, at least from what I do research and it's what I feel. Um, and another big thing, the science is that it lowers your body temperature before bed. So, many people don't know this, but I recently learned this, but like in order to get good sleep, your body needs to cool down and go into this like resting state. Um, I just like showering before bed. I like to shower twice a day. Makes me feel clean. It makes me feel good.
Um, eight sleep pills. Cut it right here. I'm going to go get it. So, this is like a sleep supplement thing. The recommended dosage is three capsules. It's like 60 bucks. There's like no melatonin in it. It's just like organic healthy stuff, vitamins or whatever, like extracts that help you go to sleep. I take these. I'm out in 15 minutes. I love it. They taste great and it works for me. So, I use that. You should get it. Try. If you don't like it, you can send it to me.
Um, and the final thing is an eight sleep on max cooling. So, you may be wondering, what is an eight sleep? An eight sleep is basically a mattress topper that runs cold water through pipes, cold and hot water through pipes to help you sleep better. And the cool thing about it is that there's an app where you can track last night I slept okay. I didn't sleep greatest, but anyways. So, it tells me how well I slept, my deep sleep, and my REM sleep. The cool thing right here is that it shows me my performance windows. So, when you should focus or when you should work out. I don't pay attention to this. If I get a good amount of sleep, I ignore this. It doesn't mean anything to me. Sleep debt, if you have any sleep debt, which fortunately I do somehow. Um, your schedule, time to fall asleep, it somehow tracks your biometrics. I don't know how this works, but it works incredibly well. My resting heart rate, it's just cool things to know. And once you get really granular with it, you know where your numbers need to be at for you to feel good. The reason why is because if you want to improve something, you have to first start by measuring it, right? This is not going to change your... I take that back. This is something that's worked for me. Again, if you can't afford it, it's like $2,500, but it, I kid you not, it is going to be one of the best investments of your entire life. It has been for me. And then you go to the main page. You can like turn it on and it changes the temperature. So, there's autopilot right here. So it has like a, it's like a subscription, unfortunately. It's fine. It's worth it where it changes the temperature of the bed based off of your metrics. So it's like adjusting the temperature to help you get better sleep, which I think is some freaky stuff and it's incredible. Right? So I love this.
Another thing on top of that is my Whoop. Right. Last night wasn't the greatest. Uh, I don't know why, but technically I know why. I'm just not going to say it. Um, but like if you go to Saturday, my sleep was 80%, my recovery is 67%. I like my recovery to be in the green because it just feels good. So, sleep, it's just nice to know, right? You don't need this at all. It's just nice for me to know because it keeps me accountable to improve.
Another thing is get a good comforter. For the longest time, I know this is so weird. Again, I'm just sharing what works for me. I never had a comforter. It's been so long since I had a comforter. I probably last one I had was probably in middle school, right? Um, I used to just literally sleep on a blanket, right? The one that my grandparents gave me. I got a good comforter and it just changed the way I slept. So get a good comforter, get blackout curtains if you have that and an eye mask. Again, I want to get good sleep.
So like I said, metrics that I aim for. I want to be in bed by 10:30. I want to be asleep for at least seven hours. Wake up at like 6 to 7:30 is my typical wake-up. I want at least 20% REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep, 20% deep sleep, and a stable HRV. And then the lowest possible resting heart rate. These are just metrics that I like to look at. Again, find what works for you and stick to it.
Next, diet. Crazy. Uh, my creative director is like, "Hey, if you eat healthy, you'll feel a lot better." And in America, it just was so bizarre to me. So, here's what my diet looks like. And again, I try to keep it simple. I run a business. I'm busy all day. I don't have time to chef up all these meals, and I don't like somebody in my house banging pots and clicking pans. So, this is what I use. I can cook, eat, and clean up all within 15 minutes. And it's a good way to break. It's a good mental break.
So, here's what I use. My source, I only go to a butcher, like a local butcher here in Austin. Here in Austin, Texas, and they get food from like barns and farms and stuff here in Texas, right? It's either that or H-E-B, which is basically like Publix. Um, and I try to only cook on a stainless steel pan. Starting out, it was a little hard to cook on it because I didn't really know what I was doing. But make sure it's hot. Make sure the water's balancing and make sure that you have a good source of fat and you should be good. So, my choice of fat right here, beef tallow, right? It's basically beef fat. It's better than butter and vegetable olive or anything like that. It's $10. It's a little pricey, but hey, it's only your health, right?
Second thing, duck eggs or pasture-raised eggs. Um, only, right? Right. These are my main source of like eggs. Duck eggs. They're bigger. They're more healthy. The yolk is clear. Or not the yolk, the egg white is clear. Tastes good. Pasture-raised eggs, better eggs, more vitamins and stuff. Right.
My protein. Red meat wise, I like chuck eye. It's simple. It's easy. I can cook it. This one takes a little bit longer. It takes about 20 minutes. So, I typically only eat it later in the day. I like it. It's clean. I feel incredible after. Again, all of these are being cooked in beef tallow. And then fish. I love salmon, right? Make sure you get the one that's never frozen and it's wild-caught. The farm-raised stuff is not real in my opinion. And the frozen stuff is not good either because it's frozen, right?
Um, fruits, simple, man. Blueberries and bananas. I like things that I can eat with my hand and then when I'm done, I can just throw it out. Simple, right? I don't want to eat a mango and you got to crush it and put ice and salt and you got to clean up. I don't have time for that. Uh, white rice. I'm Asian. I love rice. It's I got a rice cooker back there. I love making rice. Um, seasoning as I don't have it. Tabasco and soy sauce. It's all I need. Um, I'm a happy man.
Hydration, water, ice, and electrolytes. I love ice because it has that like, there's a science behind it. It's actually really interesting where it's like it's the equivalent to doing a cold plunge because it activates like something in your brain that is like fight or flight mode and it just wakes you up. For simple context, and I love to combine it with Liquid IVs. These things are amazing. It's basically flavored salt. It's very expensive, overpriced flavored salt, but it keeps me proactive. It keeps me hydrated throughout the day. So, I'm going to use, I'm willing to invest in my health. Again, the stuff here is a little more expensive, but I'd rather pay for better food than medical bills, right? My food bill is probably about $800, $900 a month. I eat out rarely anymore because the food I make is so good and I feel amazing. Um, and if I eat out, it's typically only sushi, right? And when I say sushi, I mean the nigiri. So, it's like fish on top and rice inside, right? So, it's not the sauced-up BS, right? So, that's that's my diet. It's funny as a side note because I went from talking about marketing agency and scaling ads to to diet. I'm not a health expert. I'm not a doctor, by the way. So, please take everything lightly. This is for education and entertainment.
Okay, now let's talk about my productivity formula. Here's how I get an incredible amount of work done. And ever since I switched, I was able to get a week's worth of work done in one day. And that was like, oh my god, how do I do more of this? Right? So things started finally clicking. And believe it or not, many entrepreneurs from my experience are not as productive or barely get anything done on a weekly basis. They don't get much done.
So, sticky notes I showed you. I like to write everything down here the night before and I like to cross it out as we go and when I'm done, I just throw it out. Weekly scorecard. So, a weekly scorecard is basically a spreadsheet that I have. I didn't want to put it here because there's sensitive stuff on there, but it's a simple spreadsheet where you track all the metrics in your business. So, I track my agency, my other ventures and their KPIs, as well as my personal and professional goals. Make sure I'm on track to hit those. And on a daily basis, I track and I make sure everything is being completed to help me achieve my goals. Right? If you have a planner, it's the same thing.
Pre-planning calendar the night before. So, in addition to doing the sticky notes, I go on my Google Calendar or my Apple Calendar, and I time block everything on there, right? I time block everything. And a quick hack that I have is instead of giving yourself like two hours to do a simple task, cut the time in half, but give yourself a buffer. So you technically have less time. Psychologically, you're giving yourself less time, but in the case that you're in the flow and you need a little bit more time, you have that time available. So that's a little hack that I use.
Staying hydrated and stimulants. Drink water. Obviously, I showed you that. I showed you Liquid IVs. But I'll show you the real star of the show. These bad boys. These are caffeine pouches. There's no nicotine. Everyone takes Zyns and Voses and stuff. I don't like nicotine. I was going to say I don't like drugs, but caffeine is somewhat of a drug, so that would not really make sense. But these have been something that has absolutely changed my life. So, what are these? This one is like a coffee pouch. So, there's like coffee grounds inside of them and you just stick it. I have one in right now. And it's like instead of drinking coffee, you take this and you, it hits you instantly. So, these are like life changers. Um, these I got them in right now. These are nootropic pouches. Um, I've put our clients, I've put friends, I've put other vendors that I work with on these and it has been life-changing for them. So, I'm not going to tell you to try them because you will most likely get addicted because I most definitely am. But, um, here they are. This one's called Alpha Fuel and this one's called Grinds. They are amazing.
So, stimulants. Some people take Adderall or whatever. I stay out of that. Do whatever makes you happy, dude.
Instrumental music. So, when I work, I typically like to play some sort of instrumental music on my Spotify. It just lifts up my mood, right? It helps me work better. It helps me stay focused. It helps my ADHD mind from doing anything else besides working because I listen to music and then I work. I can't do four or five things at once.
So, another big thing is timing myself on task. Here's what I mean by this. On my sticky note when I'm about to start a task, I typically have a pen and I write down the start time, right? Because I want to see, oh, it's been 20 minutes and I still haven't started. Like, let's get my act together. So, and then I can track, okay, this I thought was going to take an hour. Instead, it only took 20 minutes. Like, that's great. So, next time I do it, I know to use up less time to actually get it done. So, that's something that I absolutely love about timing myself.
I know this is a lot. I'm not telling you to implement everything that I showed you here. More so, I just want you to take what you like and do it. Whatever you don't like, don't do it. Like, if you don't want to take Liquid IVs because you don't want to pay for overpriced salt, don't. I don't care. Right? If you don't like beef tallow because you just don't, again, try something. But if you try these bad boys and you like it, just let me know because these are, I haven't met anybody that doesn't like this. Right.
So, everything I showed you here today is a bit different from all my other videos, but I wanted to share because it's made such a positive impact on the way that I work and the stuff I'm able to get done. How am I able to show up for my team, my clients, other people? I was debating recording this video, but hopefully it helped somebody. If it did, just drop a comment. Let me know how it helped. If you like this video, please like as well, subscribe to my channel so you see more videos like this. All I ask is just try it for a week, right? Clean up your diet for a week. Prioritize your sleep for a week and tell me how it's going to hurt you because it's not, right?
So, I hope you guys enjoy this video. I know it's a little bit different from all my other videos, but I had an absolute joy creating this video. Um, again, if you are an established wholesaler and you want to scale, you have your health in order, but you want to scale the marketing, the sales side, close more deals, make more money, there's a link in the description. Click it, find a time. I'd love to speak with you personally to show you exactly how I'm going to help you scale. And, um, that said, I look forward to hopefully speaking with you on the call. And, uh, I'll see you guys in the next one. Have a good rest of your day. Bye-bye.