 When I moved back from China in 2011, this was at the worst pressure of my life, one of the worst economic depressions in the United States. I moved back home with my parents, had no friends, no job, no nothing, no routine, no purpose. But one of the things I promised to myself was that for the next five years, I would push, even if I didn't feel like pushing, until something that presented itself to be more intuitively exciting and something that resonated more showed up. Now at the same time, I had a friend who started at the same time, who wanted to do the same thing I did to build his own business, have his own freedom. And yet in those five years, nothing consistently improved or changed for him. And five years later, he's exactly where he was five years before. And in this video, I want to share the very simple reason why I think that is the case and why I want you to consider something very important before you waste any time today. What's up guys, Alex Hein, author of the book, Master of the Day. Now look, one of the things that can help you if you're, feel like you're kind of bored or you're wasting time or you're trying to get your crap together, is doing some simple journaling exercises. I've included a free journaling e-course right there in the description box. Click that first link. It's going to bring you to an email list, which will give you some sample journaling exercises, more about my story of reinventing myself, and it'll provide you a little bit of insight on how to go forward. So when I got back from China, I started this blog called milkthepidgin.com. And it was really my journey to reinvent myself and feel un-lost because the main feeling I felt, the dominant emotion, was lost. Like lost what to do with my life, what I'm passionate about, what to do every day, what excites me, what even makes me happy. The main thing I felt was lost. I didn't know which direction to go in. And I started this blog and I was like lamenting how unmotivated I saw most millennials, people my age. I didn't see people that wanted to go after their dream and committed. I saw people that quit so easily. I saw people that were so easily discouraged when their parents convinced them to get the banking finance job instead of doing what they were passionate about, or just going to Europe for a month, going to Spain. And so I started this blog called milkthepidgin. And my family eventually got to know about it and my cousins and my aunts. And one time a friend and my aunt came over and they were like, how's your blog going? Like very, very, very sarcastic. And I was like, it's going well, you know, it's cool and all. And of course, what people always say, are you making any money from it? And I wasn't at the time because the goal wasn't to make it a business. It was just a message that I felt like I had to share. I was compelled to share. Now my buddy at the same time was saying the same thing. He had started this business. He'd started like this on-wear software business online. And each week in our mastermind calls, I would be talking about this is the thing I'm going to do to improve. This is what's not working. This is what I'm going to try instead. And he would always go back to this like, I'm not sure if this is the right idea. Like maybe I should do that. It looks like they're making money. Or maybe I should do that because that looks like it's more economically viable right now. You know, this is going well in the economy. And he was always jumping from thing to thing and like always super passionate about something but never stuck with it for more than a few months. And for me, I was a little bit more quiet. I wasn't sure if it was going to work out. I had committed to one thing, which at that time was Modern Health Monk, my blog on fitness and personal development. And over the years, he kept doing this jump back and forth thing. You know, this new idea, this new business, he would move here. He would move there. Just a very fluttery kind of focus. Just very scattered. But it was funny because when we first started our businesses, he commented on my blog and he was like, dude, to really make it as a blog or make any money, you got to have like this content that's like crack. It's got to go viral on day one. And my opinion was the exact opposite. My opinion was that it was a slow and steady build up of community, of audience, of learning what worked because I'd never written before on the internet, never written anything besides in school and English class. And so his view was, if you don't get it right at the start, it's not going to work. And my view was 1% every day. So what happened after five years? Now almost five years has gone by. In January, that'll be the five year anniversary of my business. And sure enough, five years later, he's exactly where he was five years ago. He's not any closer to having a business that's sustainable. He still is working a job even though he doesn't want to work a job. He hasn't made progress on any of his other goals. And he's still the same exact person with his flightiness going from here and going from there. And what people don't know is I was only dedicating a few hours per night every day, seven days a week to building this better future of mine that for me came through a business and came through having time freedom and financial freedom. And he thought that you had to go all in, go 100 hours a week. But what I actually did was just a few hours per day, every day, every day learning, every day testing, every day trying something new, every day focusing on the bread and butter of creating content, getting better at creating content, always reinventing myself and bringing along you the audience for the ride. And so my lesson here is that if you're feeling lost and you're wasting a lot of time, you don't know the power of improving your life not by making huge dramatic changes, but by dedicating one hour a day or two hours a day to that thing that most excites you that you most want to build in the future. And it doesn't take as much time as you think. It's more about the consistency who puts in the 1% every day for the longest duration, the grit, rather than who puts in the most time in the short run. So if you are sitting there wasting time today, I want to inspire you and challenge you to dedicate even just one hour per day towards building that better future because it really does only take one hour a day to improve your life. No matter what it is for fitness, for writing a book, for building a business, all of those things can see massive results over time without regular dedication. And so this is a cautionary tale because I don't want you to be like my friend and end up five years later where you are because you have this belief that it's this big monumental thunder strikes and the voice of God comes down and is like this is your purpose in life. It doesn't usually happen that way. It happens through the little whispers and you get those by committing to the process every single day more and more towards that one singular goal. Alright guys, I hope you enjoyed my impassioned rant right there. People overestimate how much it takes to change and they underestimate the power of consistency and grit. Now again, if you are feeling lost and you're like kind of pissing away time, go download those journaling prompts, get on that journaling email course there because it's going to bring you to a series of emails that not only share how I reinvented my life through journaling but give you some prompts, some exercises, and some more information on how you can go about doing that in your own life. That's the first link in the description box right there below. And again, my last two videos right there, right there will help you out too.