 supposedly when the Buddha died he left his disciples with a very simple piece of parting advice. Now in this video I want to share why this advice is the starting point for anyone that really wants to master their mindset, especially mastering their inner state. So if it's a time of adversity or something's going on this is where I'd begin. Hey guys, Alex Hine, author of the book Master of the Day. Now I've included down below this video a free journaling worksheet which is a free download and it's going to show you exactly how to get your life together and plan the path forward to reach some of your wildest goals. So you can download it, the first link right below this video. So Buddha's advice seems kind of simplistic. When he was supposedly dying he left something along the lines of the words, do your best. Just try your best. The spiritual path is a hard life. You need to be disciplined if you want to reach the highest levels of realization. Now the reason I wanted to kick off this new challenge that I'm doing which is a 10-day mindset challenge is because at the end of the day you're probably here because of two reasons. The first reason is that things actually are not going well and you're trying to figure out how to feel better. The second reason is that you just want to have a higher degree of performance and you want to feel better internally on a daily basis. So whether you are actively going through some kind of adversity or whether you just want to perform at a higher level in your life, I think this challenge can really help you. But it starts with the foundational thing that Buddha said which is do your best. Now it starts with this really simple question. Are you really doing your best? To me at the end of the day what I'm looking for more than anything is a feeling of peace and satisfaction that I really did do everything I could to improve that part of my life that's not really working. But about five or six years ago I got a really honest reality check because I had always wanted to end up quitting my job and working for myself at the very least just to do something that I was more passionate about. And at that time I would come home after my work and after the gym and I would watch Netflix and I would play business for an hour and then try to convince myself that I was really doing my best to become a successful business owner. So I would come home, fiddle around for an hour, maybe research. I really did anything. And then at one point I had this kind of reckoning with myself where I was like well what is doing my best really look like? Like I was discouraged that things weren't coming together. I was discouraged that things weren't working out. I was discouraged that I thought I was really putting in the work and I deserved to be successful in some way but that's not what ended up happening. And so I sat down one night and I kind of journaled and reflected and I was like well what is really doing my best look like? And I realized that guess what you know coming home for an hour and reading articles and how to build a business or how to be a youtuber or how to be a successful author that does not constitute really doing my best, right? So I realized that for me one hour a night was playing author, playing business, playing youtuber but really doing my best meant three hours a day seven days a week. I would come home with my job, work nine to five or nine to six, go to the gym, come home and work three more hours every single day seven days a week. So on the weekend it was pretty relaxed. I'd just work in the morning in the cafe and I'd have the whole day free. On Sunday it was the same thing but that was a far cry, a big difference from my one hour a day while I'm watching Netflix. And so I realized you know I was being disheartened and disgruntled but I really wasn't doing my best. So maybe like me you've convinced yourself you're really doing your best and maybe you really think you are but I would start this off with a reality check. Are you really doing your best if your whole family and friends and kids and your significant other if they were relying on you at gunpoint to do your best? Are you doing your best? Now the second piece here is that when you do your best you can often step into the arena of life calmly. If you're a medical student or you're applying to be in medical school and you have to study for these crazy exams that are standardized you have to take the MCAT or some other certification in your country and you've put in all this work like you've just blinding amounts of work every living minute and you still fail at least you know you really did do your best. If you've been crazy about this person they're in your life somehow you've always been wanting to ask them out but for some reason you haven't because you're afraid and then you finally ask them out and it doesn't work out at least you actually ask them out you truly did your best. Maybe it is a competitive sport you're playing or you actually are that one in 10,000 people that actually decided to start writing the book you always wanted to write and guess what if it really doesn't work out you fail that competition you don't get into that school your business doesn't work your book doesn't perform well at least you really were sure you did your best and that is a feeling of peace you cannot get any other way unless you really are sure that you did the work so to kick off this 10-day mindset challenge it really is first externally to make sure you truly are doing your best to improve your life do that reality check and don't let yourself off the hook make yourself be accountable and the second is if you really have done your best then you can live with a greater amount of acceptance that things didn't work out my dream didn't work out but at least i really did try and i wasn't afraid and i actually did something whereas most people don't all right guys so i hope buddhas last dying words help you in some way at the end of the day you just got to do your best but in my opinion be real about what doing your best really is again check out the first link down there below this video it's for a free journaling worksheet to help you script out whatever your dream life is as well as how to figure out how to actually make that happen and then you can come check out two related videos on this topic here