The newsletter which curates & delivers the best mind hacks, mental health tips & high performance strategies to you every single week.

‍🧠 LIFE HACK

How Your Friends & Community Impact Your Behavior & Results + How To Use This Insight To Transform Your Life!

As Goethe once said...

As Jim Rohn said...

Or, as philosopher & great stoic, Seneca, said it almost 2 millenniums previously (before his death in 65 AD)...

They were all right!

And modern scientific research further validates this insight that the people we spend with have a huge impact on who we ourselves become, our behaviors & the results we achieve (or fail to) in life.

Here are examples based on data from one of the largest & longest-running health studies ever conducted — the Framingham Heart Study — which tracked 12,067 people from 1971 to 2003 (32 years)...

• If your friends are overweight/obese, your risk of obesity is 45% higher…
  

• If your friends smoke, you're 61% more likely to smoke yourself…
  

• The same results also translated into less specific behaviors like happiness & life satisfaction — if your friends are happy, you're more likely to be happy too!

However, the influential power of our social connections goes beyond our immediate social circle...

Research into social networks has unveiled a fascinating insight:

This ripple effect — known as the '3 degrees of influence' framework — proves just how entire communities profoundly shape our behavior & results...

In a groundbreaking study exploring this phenomenon, conducted by Nicholas Christakis & James Fowler, they found the following:

• Obesity: if you have a friend of a friend who is obese, you're 25% more likely to be obese yourself (even if you've never met this friend's friend). 
  
  And if you have a friend of a friend of a friend who is obese, you're still about 10% more likely than average to become overweight or obese.
  

• Smoking: if a friend of your friend smokes, you're statistically 29% more likely to smoke yourself.
  
  And if a friend of a friend of a friend (3rd degree out) smokes, you're still about 11% more likely to smoke than average (even if you've never met the friend of your friend, let alone your friends friend's friend.)

So, it's not merely about the immediate company we keep; it's the collective influence of our wider community that shapes our decisions and actions.

The next question is: how can we leverage this insight to sculpt a better social environment for ourselves?

Well, as you can see, it's about consciously selecting not just the people you want to spend time with but also the broader communities & networks you want to be a part of too!

More specifically, the best course of action from now on is to…

Recommended: in the book ‘Self Mastery: Create The Life You Want By Becoming The Person You Want To Be,’ there’s a chapter which only only dives deeper into this framework… but goes on to walk you through 9 super-practical, actionable strategies for reconfiguring your social group & harness the network effect for better results!

More broadly, the book decodes the mindset, the habits & daily practices of the world's highest achievers…

…& reveals how anyone (of any age!) can apply those same ideas, insights & strategies into their own life to become unstoppable & achieve anything they want!

👉 Get all the details & get the book here »

💭 QUOTE OF THE WEEK

 🔥 FREE EBOOK

FREE: 6 Proven Productivity Hacks To Level Up Your Success

Inside this guide, you’ll learn simple, yet highly-effective 'hacks' for eradicating distraction, boosting focus, multiplying daily productivity & achieving even your biggest, most ambitious goals, fast!

👉 Download the ‘Productivity Hacks’ ebook (it’s free) »

Specifically, in this guide, you’ll learn:

• How to create a 'work structure' that automatically boosts your focus… (this is one of the biggest secrets to new, heightened levels of focus, productivity &​ success!)

• ​How to​ apply the 'Pareto Principle' (as well as the lesser known, yet even more powerful, '4% Rule') to stop wasting time & instead, focus your precious time on the things that truly move the needle in your career, business, work, relationships & success in life!

• ​​​Why "​what should I do today?" is a terrible question that sets you up for 'busyness' rather than true '​productivity'... (plus: the much better question you should be asking yourself first!)

• ​How to use not just the infamous 'Pomodoro Method' itself but strategic variations of this method, for ever more focus, creativity, productivity & prolific output!

• ​​​A mind-blowing study reveals how to ​create improvements to your results without making any conscious changes to your behavior whatsoever... (note: this sounds crazy, but once you learn the details, you'll know exactly what we mean + how you can use to multiply your daily productivity!)

👉 Click here to download it for free now.

🧘 WELLNESS HACK

The Value Of Rest, Downtime & The 3 Keys To Effective Recovery

Here's another insightful quote for you this week:

Some people view rest, recovery or 'taking time of' as weakness...

They think if they aren't training, working, or 'hustling' every waking minute, they are falling behind or failing...

And while it's true that super-achievers do indeed work, train & hustle much, much harder than others...

That is not to say that they do not rest, recover, or take time off...

What people also believe is that rest & recovery slows down learning, skill development, growth, efficiency & overall success...

But this is not true...

First, a metaphor...

Muscles grow in the rest time that follows training, not from the training itself. Not enough 'rest' & muscles don't grow optimally...

Secondly, sure, in the short term, rest/recovery time does slow down progress a bit as you have to allocate time to it...

But, in the long term, rest & recovery in itself is a method of accelerating learning & skill development — it brings a net positive boost to learning speed, work & training effectiveness!

And that's because with sustained focus, intensity & effort, over time, your performance declines...

This is not something bad; it’s simply a sign from your mind or body that you need to take time to rest & recover, before continuing.

It’s normal...

If your topic or craft requires a lot of physical intensity (like most sports) you’ll begin to feel a performance decline...

You’ll feel the tiredness kicking in, in your body...

That’s easier to spot ^

What’s harder is in topics, skills or types of work that require less physical & more mental intensity (like chess, playing an instrument, building a website, managing others, creative writing or the general office work most people do nowadays.)

In those topics, skill, or types of work, it’s not your body that’s getting tired or fatigued, but rather your mind (your brain)...

And, as your brain — just like any muscle — gets tired, it declines in performance over time too...

Hence, in either case, rest & recovery is important, beneficial & a net positive for long-term, sustained high performance...

The next part is that there are actually 3 keys to optimal rest & recovery. They are:

1. Intentional

A lot of people rest by accident...

They rest when they have nothing else to do, when somebody tells them to, or when they burnout & can’t do anymore...

None of these are particularly effective approaches...

Instead, the world’s highest achievers are far more intentional about their rest & recovery. Often, it’s scheduled. It’s consistent. It happens predictably. And it’s so important for them, it rarely get skipped.

They’ll often have people (coaches) whose job is just to help them rest & recover optimally; coaches that they deliberately, intentionally, decide to hire.

They don’t tell themselves ‘’I’ll rest when I have nothing left to do,’’ or ‘’I’ll rest when I feel like it’’ but rather, they make the time, block it out & rest with intention.

2. Intervaled

A lot of people will work as long & hard as they can, without rest & will then go & rest for many weeks or months...

However, we know that, most often, taking 8 1-week-long breaks during a year is more effective than taking 1 long 2-month break.

In that same way, taking 9 spread out 10-minute breaks is, often, more effective than taking 1 long 90-minute break.

Why?

If you rest too long at one time, your recall of what you learned before starts to suffer (& so does your motivation to keep going).

Taking a 2-month vacation makes you lose focus & momentum far more than taking multiple 1-week breaks...

Plus, often, if you’re passionate about what you do, you don’t need (or even want) to take a long break; you’ll prefer to take many bite-sized ones.

Even taking short 2 - 5 minute breaks every hour has shown to increase productivity & effectiveness. Create strategic intervals of rest in your life.

3. Immersive

We all know people who, even when they are resting, are still thinking about their business, career, or items on their to-do list. They never let themselves rest fully.

They lack focus (immersiveness) in their rest.

Immersive rest & recovery is about resting at 100%.

Work hard, but remember to rest hard as well.

While resting, don’t continue to think about the tasks at hand, rather, allow yourself to rest immersively (fully).

Challenge yourself to take your mind off learning, skill development or work (a tough, but possible, act) & place your attention entirely on rest & recovery during this time…

Look at how you’re resting (or forgetting to) now & ask:

These 3 factors will form a powerful foundation for you to rest & recover optimally (just like the world’s highest achievers!)