 I've always been obsessive about consuming self-growth material. You know, the day that I decided that clearly not doing anything was not working out too well for me to live a better life, to get fitter, to make more money, to meet the kind of girl that I wanted to date long term. When I realized that things were not happening on their own, I went all in on the self-growth stuff. I did visualization, manifesting type stuff, new AG stuff, traditional goal setting. The crazy thing is, looking back seven years later, I realized that were really only two things that made a difference for me. What's up you guys? Alex Hein here. Now, before we jump in, there's a journaling worksheet right below this video that is free that you can download that will help you plan out how to get your life together and build the most awesome life imaginable. So check it out right below this video. I had this cool experience recently where I wrote down four of the most unusual experiences that were achievements that I had in the last seven years. And I wrote down these four specific events that happened in my life. The first was writing my two books before the age of 30 that have made six figures in royalties. It's pretty damn unusual to write a book. The goal is never to write the world's best masterpiece, it's to do the best you can. It worked out to an unusual degree. Number two was my YouTube channel, now that I've built, now a second one is out, but really being able to get this to several hundred thousand subscribers and tens of millions of views. That was something that I think a lot of people want and have not been able to do. Goal number three was finishing up my doctorate and doing some doctoral work, studying spontaneous cancer remissions. And number four was a general life experience of having lived on three continents and traveled to about 60 countries, so about a third of the earth. Now the reason I started with these ego flexes was purely because I wanted to see what really produced tangible outcomes in my life, what really produced material, tangible changes that were unusual, that were not just like, oh, this is a little bit better than average, but things that were pretty extraordinary to me, you know, 10 years ago when I hadn't done any of those. And I looked at all the actual daily rituals and daily habits and actions that I took. And the list was very, very long. I tried affirmations, visualization, journaling, all kinds of emotional and physical and spiritual healing, somatic therapies, therapy, hypnotherapy, psilocybin assisted therapy, the classic tactics, hard work, journaling, strategy, KPIs, read hundreds of business books. And reflecting back, it's shocking that I cannot track any of those outcomes to really anything that I did besides two major principles. And I wanted to share this because I think it's very, very important. So what worked? Two things. The very first broad principle, remember it's not a tactic, it's a principle. The broad principle was I only worked on things that were really, really exciting me. To make it more specific, I felt excited about something and the idea kept coming back to me. So, writing my books, you know, I had been doing this online wellness website, Modern Health Monk. I had never done a YouTube video and I was like, let me just put together a little packet because right then the self-publishing industry was just booming. You know, we were beginning to see self-published authors do quite well. And so I was like, let me put together a 30-page packet on my philosophy on where self-growth means weight loss because I was doing a lot of both at the time, coaching. And then eventually I was like, why don't I just take a year and do the absolute best I can to create a really good book and be deliberate and strategic. So I shelved it for a while and then a couple of weeks came back and I was like, that would be cool. And then a couple of weeks later, a coaching client asked a question and I was like, man, I wish I had that little book. So it kept coming back to me and I felt excited. And one day in a coffee shop, I just started writing. And then master the day, that first chapter began. In the other parts, you know, the doctrine of Chinese medicine, I was trying to figure out what work excited me because I liked entrepreneurship, but I didn't love it. And I was trying to find what was the thing that kept speaking to me over and over again. And as I read Robert Green's book, Mastery, I got, you know, as you have those images in your head, as you read a book and your imagination tries to create images, an inner movie to fit the words you're reading on the page. I saw myself as this kind of old school physician alchemist philosopher helping these patients in a very kind of cheesy traditional way. But ever since that vision popped in my head, it only got more and more exciting and more and more appealing. So after a year of ignoring it, I decided to take two weeks off work and I went to all the acupuncture schools on the West Coast of the United States and the excitement only increased. And I reread the welcome packet curriculum over and over and over for almost a year and it never got less exciting. And for other things, whether they were dates with women I ended up dating for a long time or beautiful countries I wanted to travel, the number one thing was this quality of excitement and it kept coming back to me. And so I knew that there was some degree of resonance there. The second thing is just as important and this is specific. I took action on it every day. You know, I think all of us are delusional and we fool ourselves with how much we think we are actually working towards our goals. In my mind, it's really simple. If you want to write a book, you either wrote for an hour today or you didn't. If you want to get fit and feel better and lose weight and sleep better, you either went to the gym today for an hour or ate a salad today or made a different nutritional choice or you didn't. If you want to stop being single, you either made a different choice to either go to a new spot or join a hobby or talk to that attractive person or you didn't. You want to build a business, you either spent an hour in your evening strategizing, planning it, doing or you didn't. If you want to save money for have a better life or a more secure retirement, you either have an automated savings going every single month or you don't. And I think we are so delusional about we're frustrated with the lack of results and completely unwilling to look in the mirror at how much action we've actually taken. And those two things, resonance, excitement, and really making sure I wasn't BS in myself with how much action I was taking on a daily basis. Those were the only two correlations with my big things coming true, my big dreams. Because you know what didn't work? Affirmations, visualization, even working hard, very debatable how effective that is for reaching so many goals. Only these two things, these two qualities were the things that made the difference in my life. And I wanted to share those because if you're frustrated with traditional goal setting advice and it's not working for you, then maybe you need to try something else and maybe these two qualities will help you. And one is a general philosophy and one is very, very granular and specific. And I think a lot of us bypass these and wonder why that big dream isn't happening. Now, one of the best ways to also keep plugging towards your goals is constantly be investing in yourself in the same way that I've learned how to be better on video or have hired people that help work with me and make my content better. But Skillshare is one of those services I've used quite a few times as well. And I've actually loved their workshops and their classes going back as far as to when they started in New York City. Check out all of the online learning communities and programs that Skillshare has with thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people on topics like illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing and more. So take, for example, this course called DIY Filming that I went through. It really helped me, number one, figure out how to really storyboard my video in a much more strategic way versus just being a teacher, as well as how to properly prep a short but sweet kind of highlight reel, as well as edit it, put it together and really polish it to be a much, much better presented piece of content. So Skillshare has classes to fit your schedule and your skill level. Members get unlimited access to thousands of these different kinds of classes with hands-on projects and feedback from a community of millions of people. Now, the classes are usually under an hour and they have short lessons to help you fit any schedule. But I would definitely go ahead and check out some of the topics that you might like. Like, for example, there are courses on journaling and design. There are courses on the fundamentals of DIY photography or even cinematography and low-budget filmmaking. You can even learn how to make your creative side gig your full-time job. And for a lot of these online ways to learn, you can have access to all of these an unlimited amount. So before you guys go, make sure you check out that special bonus. Check out that link below this video for Skillshare, that special deal. And otherwise, I'll catch you guys in these related videos over here.