It’s a Great Day to be Alive!
Thoughts on Gratitude, Assuming the Best, and Choosing Joy

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #589: It's a Great Day to be Alive! Thoughts on Gratitude, Assuming the Best, and Choosing Joy

Jeff Sanders
Good morning and welcome to The 5 AM Miracle, episode number 589: It's a Great Day to be Alive! Thoughts on Gratitude, Assuming the Best, and Choosing Joy.

I am Jeff Sanders, and you have reached the podcast that is dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast, as crazy as that sounds.

I am a keynote speaker and corporate trainer, and if you want to learn more, head over to Jeff

anders.com slash speaking. Now, in the episode this week, I'll break down why joy

is a choice, how you can leverage simple strategies to choose joy more often,

and how daily affirmations and gratitude can rewire your brain in the most

positive of ways. Let's dig in.

So if you heard the episode last week, you heard that I was starting something brand new and a bit crazy, shall I say, a bit risque in the modern world we're in, which is that I began a break from caffeine, a break from caffeine.

coffee and tea and all of the extraordinary amounts of energy stimulants that I was

just consuming at extraordinarily high levels for a long, long, long time.

Today is day number nine.

And yes, I am still caffeine-free, as painful as it has been.

And I will go into a lot more detail on that in a future episode of the podcast.

My intention as of now is to go a full 30 days without caffeine and then discuss

that experience on the show in a lot of detail. However, I have watched a lot of

YouTube videos and I've bought audiobooks and I have dug into articles and I have

been obsessed in the last week with learning more about how caffeine affects the body,

how it affects your mind, your sleep, your gut health, all of these different

components that interweave with caffeine in our bloodstream and in our body and in our

brains and the impact of that, both positive and negative.

And my research in this area, I can't stop.

I just want to learn more because, and this is the kicker, I'm still very tired

every single morning and trying to overcome that withdrawal symptom that I

have from the addiction to the drug of caffeine, which is what it is, the morning

hours are tough.

And I'm recording this podcast for you right now at 1130 a.m.

I waited. I was going to record this earlier in the day, but I just couldn't do it. I just didn't have the energy to make it happen. So what you're hearing now is an authentic version of me without any stimulants, without any caffeine. And the journey that I have gone through just in the last nine days has been so revealing. And I think that what you may see, what I alluded to earlier, what you may see at the end of the 30 days is that I don't stop, that I continue this process.

process for 60, 90 days, 180 days.

It could be a long time, could be permanent.

I'm not sure yet.

It's still very early in the process, but the data that I am consuming at a

rapid pace is teaching me that this is a much longer process than I thought

that it would be.

And so I will go into all the details and specs very soon.

I'm not going to get away too much right now, but I will say if you are considering

a caffeine-free experience or a break from your...

your addiction to stimulants in general, do some research, watch some videos,

figure out what the experience is going to be like before you dig in.

Because, man, day one, it'll get you.

Okay.

Now, for the topic this week on the show, I do want to discuss kind of related to caffeine

or related to the stimulants of life, if you can use that metaphor there,

which is that for a long time, for years.

In fact, in my mid-20s into my early 30s, I literally did bounce out of bed with enthusiasm.

The phrase I've used on this podcast 10,000 times, and I have said that 10,000 times, because it has been true in my life for a long time.

It was true for a long time, but there were seasons when it was not.

And I've gone back and forth between those seasons of waking up and literally saying, today is a great day.

And much of the regret of my wife, Tessa, who just finds me very annoying when I am perky and happy and in the past very caffeinated.

She found me to be annoying.

However, my experience in waking up early, feeling energized, wanting to begin my day, and to do so in a positive way, was such a core component of my identity and my personality.

And I want to believe at the core of who I am that I am a positive person.

I want to believe the glass is half full.

I want to believe that today is a great day.

Not because I said it, but because it's actually true.

And that by saying it, I also make it true.

And it kind of works both ways.

And so if you're the kind of person who finds very perky people annoying,

I'll give you a pass on that one for a couple of reasons.

Number one, we're all different, which is fine and good.

And number two, the perkiness that you hear from me on this podcast

is not me all the time.

It's not.

I am very frequently a low-energy introvert,

if you can believe that.

This is a performance.

It has to be.

It's a podcast.

I'm a theater major from college,

and I have a lot of experience

doing public speaking and performances in general.

And I love that stuff.

I thrive on stage.

I feel very connected

when I can deliver value

and whatever means that is.

two people in real time.

However, my day-to-day experience is much more low-key.

And me being caffeine-free, I'll use that another good example,

me being caffeine-free has revealed that I am even more low-key than I thought

that I was, and I'm very curious to see how that plays out as well long-term.

But for the episode this week, what I want to be able to do is discuss these concepts of gratitude, of joy,

joy of this perspective on choosing joy and really being able to say, like,

I want to have a great life.

Well, if that's true, can I just say it and make it true?

Is that how it works?

It can't be that easy.

Well, it's not, but that is a component of a great life is saying out loud.

Yes, I have a great life.

Today is a great day.

This is going to be an awesome day.

Let's go make that true.

And then you set out to do so.

that's part of the process, but there's more to it.

So let's discuss the details on what it means to have a great day and all these various components of choosing joy.

And we're actually going to begin this conversation in the opposite direction.

We're going to talk about fear first.

We cannot discuss joy without first discussing its counterpart.

Fear is such a driver of the actions we take and especially the inaction of our lives.

the things we choose to avoid.

And for the most part, the fear of suffering is actually worse than suffering

itself.

Our fears are based in suffering.

We think bad things are going to happen.

Therefore, we change what we do today to avoid that suffering in the future.

There are a lot of famous quotes about this.

They believe Mark Twain has a great one about this, that I think 80% of our worst fears

never came true.

And they did not because they were all in our head.

We made them up.

but despite that our perspective is our reality and if fear is part of your life

if struggle is part of your existence of suffering is what you feel each and

every day then that's your experience that's your life it is true it is real

there's no one that can talk you out of that if you experience it it is real

for you however what i believe to be true and what i have lived is that there are

ways to talk yourself out of that. There are ways to literally work yourself into a

more positive existence, not one that's counter to your natural personality. We're

not going to change who you are as a person, but we can change how you experience

your day. One component of fear is success, and a lot of people will stop short of doing

the things that would actually make them a lot happier. And one of the key phrases

you'll hear in this arena is that your greatest success in life is just on the other

side of your greatest fear in other words if you actually want to have a great day

if you want to boost your career boost your health make more money have better

relationships if you are looking for a better experience here on earth you're going

to have to face fear and in fact facing fear is the path to the success you're looking

for. And some of those fears are based in our identity. It's based in our perspective

on our lives. And so let's say, for example, that one of your greatest successes

you're looking for is to experience joy, is to feel fantastic. But there could

be fear there. Fear that that's not who you are, fear that that's not the life

you're allowed to live because you have not given yourself permission to live that life.

There's a lot in this. It's a very complex.

concept. There's a lot of angles here and so many factors that play into how we

perceive our lives. But I will say that this simple idea that fear is part of us,

we experience that no matter who we are, fear is a part of life, but the direct

tackling of it is what leads to the breakthroughs, the success, the joy, the peace,

the calm. I mean, I'll just once again use the caffeine example. I had a legit fear of not

consuming caffeine. A legitimate fear that if I did not have my daily coffees,

plural, and tea, et espresso, et cetera, that I wouldn't be able to function.

I had a fear that I wouldn't get anything done, a fear that I wouldn't be my best

self. And as it's turned out, so far part of that is true. Part of that is real.

But a big chunk of it is not. And so our fears are also inaccurate. They're not tied to

reality, they're tied to an invented future. We don't actually know what's going to

happen unless we live it. We have to step in and experience real life to then get

that feedback and pivot from there. There's such power in being able to address

your fears, name them, identify them, step into them, because it's only then that we

allow ourselves the permission to experience the joy that is possible on the other side.

There's a really fantastic quote from Pope John the 23rd.

This is one that I heard on a success CD, if you want to believe that.

Years ago, I had all of these personal growth CDs in my car,

and I would play them at a CD player.

Yeah, I sound like an old man right now.

But I would play CDs in my CD player in my car, and they would play

audioectomy.

And a lot of the audio that I listened to almost exclusively were personal

growth CDs, one of which, in fact, was from Brian Tracy, who, hopefully,

fingers crossed, will be a guest on this podcast very soon.

So I'll keep your eyes out for that one.

But one of the key quotes that I heard on one of these recordings was from Pope

John the 23rd.

And what he says is that you should consult not your fears, but your hopes.

and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential.

Concern yourself not with what you have tried and failed in, but with what is still

possible for you to do. There's so much good stuff here. I love this quote. I actually

have this on my habits board in my office. One of the key things you'll see if you come to

my home office slash podcast studio is I have two things on the wall next to my recording

session area here. The first is a big whiteboard where I have the goals for the week

and I mark down all the things I'm working on here and now in the present day.

Right below that whiteboard is a cork board. And this cork board has all these printed

pieces of paper that I have stapled to it that have really great quotes on them.

These are quotations and reminders and philosophies and ideas and concepts.

One of them being, by the way, it's a great day to be alive.

I pulled this episode from this quotes board.

I also pulled this quote from Pope John 23rd on here as well.

There's a lot of power in having positive success statements surrounding your life in and around where you exist as a reminder of the kind of life you want to live.

Talking about consulting your fears as the wrong direction.

He says consult not your fears, but your hopes and your dreams.

This is future oriented.

Think not about your frustration.

top thinking about all the problems in your life, but instead, think about your

unfulfilled potential.

This right here, let me pause the middle of this.

This is the key to personal growth in general, is our thoughts are who we become.

You are what your thoughts create you into.

That's a really awkward way to say that.

But your thoughts are your actions, they are your habits, they are your results.

Everything starts with how you think.

think and experience your life. And if you were thinking about your unfulfilled

potential, if you are always thinking about what is possible for you to do,

to get yourself involved in, the next goal, the next project, the next growth area,

well, then you have no time at all to think about all the problems because you've

squished them out. You're a life, your time, your energy, your projects, everything

pushes you forward. The personal development world is obsessed with the future.

to a fault.

But that is an absolute reality that in the personal growth and coaching space,

everything is about your next action.

It is about, yes, of course, being productive and feeling happy and joyful.

But at the end of the day, it is a future-oriented, forward-moving, progressive thought process.

But the reason why that is true and why that exists is because it absolutely works.

And if you are spending your day-to-day, your daily life, just think

about all of your problems and that's what consumes you.

You become your problems.

You become what you think about.

And so if you want to think about better things, it can be as simple as shifting

your thoughts to more positive directions to move, about your unfulfilled potential,

about the goal that you want to see happen in the near future, the kinds of goals

that are action-oriented, the kinds of goals that get you off the couch today and

move. Recently, I heard a podcast episode where the guests reminded me of a

concept that I just love, which is that mood follows action. And that is

absolutely true. If you want to feel better, you have to first move. The movement,

the action is what creates the mood that you want. If your current mood is around

the concepts of fear and suffering, but you want to feel the mood of joy, you have to

move to get there. You have to do something. You have to dig in and actually get

yourself to do things when you don't want to do them to then feel the thing you want

to feel when you want to feel them. Movement is not optional. It is a required component

of this process, but it is the thing that puts you in the driver's seat to say,

I'm doing it now. Here I am. I don't have great results to show for it yet, but I'm

doing it. I'm here. I got to the gym. I'm in the office. I'm doing the work. And

that's where all the results will come from, where the mood will follow from that action.

So all that to say, fear is the starting point for this conversation and addressing your fears, labeling them, naming them, and moving through them will be an absolute necessity for you to eventually land in this possible glorious future of saying it's a great day to be alive.

And speaking of that, part two is about joy.

Joy is a choice, though you can experience joy through circumstances that were not your choice.

Right.

Life is complicated.

Part of it are things we control and part of our things that we do not.

The question is always about your controllables.

If you have the power to make a different choice, which by the way, every episode of this podcast ends with that phrase, you have the power to change your life.

Part of that power is the power of choice and choosing things like joy.

You know, thoughts have predictable patterns, and ruts can form when bad habits become too commonplace.

So your goal is to fill your life with habits that encourage and generate joy in your life, as opposed to the ruts you may be in that have wound you down a path of always feeling a little bit down, a little bit discouraged, a little bit frustrated.

The intention is to figure out, identify, okay, that's my experience right now.

I may be in a rut or a bad season or a tough job.

Like things may not be ideal now.

But if I can fill my life with more habits that encourage and generate joy,

generate, actually create it out of the life that you have now,

you may be able to then feel better and make different choices and get better results.

There was a really incredible infographic that I found online a while ago that I saved in my hard drive.

looking for an opportunity to share it with you on the podcast, and I've got it for you now.

This infographic is called four happy hormones, and it talks about the four main

hormones that we have in our body that are tied to happiness.

The first is dopamine, which is the reward chemical.

So any time that you eat food, achieve a goal, get really great sleep, take a bath,

these kinds of activities will help you to produce more dopamine and get that reward

sensation, that happy dopamine hit, because you did these few activities that

add up to that particular hormone really being active.

The second are endorphins, the painkiller.

So think of this one as a great workout, laughing a lot, listening to great music,

the kinds of things that get you honestly moving, a lot of movement here,

is where the endorphins really kick in.

The third is oxytocin, the love hormone.

So socializing, physical.

physical touch, petting animals, helping others. These really lovey-dovey kind of

activities can produce the happiness from oxytocin. And finally, we have serotonin,

the mood stabilizer, sun exposure, mindfulness, nature walks, things that really make

you feel at peace and calm and happy. That is serotonin at work. Now, the fun part here

is that you can combine activities to produce different and multiple hormonal.

responses at the same time. One thing I noticed in this list that I saw here is that if I go for a trail run, I'm actually hitting three of the four hormones at the same time. And so there are activities where you can really get a lot of joy and happiness from just a single activity. And honestly, I think this explains a lot from me about why I love to run the trails so much. If I work out, I have endorphins. If I'm outside in nature, I get serotonin. If I have

to bring friends along. I get oxytocin. And if I achieve a goal while doing it,

I get dopamine. I get all four all at the same time. And so the goal here is to fill

your life at these kinds of activities that produce these kinds of happy hormones

and you are literally physically choosing joy in these activities. The more of these

that you do, the better you feel and the better you feel the way that I tend to see it,

the more likely you are to then do those kinds of activities over and over again because

they're self-reinforcing and the quality of your life will improve by default.

Now, that does not address the elephant in the room of you may have other problems to

solve, so you'll still have to do those, right? The work still has to get done,

even if you had a really great day. But your life could be filled with those two main

focuses of do things that make you feel fantastic. That's part one, feel really great,

and then use that energy to go tackle those fears and go directly address your

problems and solve them. And the more of your life that's filled with those two

main activities, do things you love, and tackle difficult problems with positive

energy, I don't know, that sounds pretty awesome to me. And that's the kind of life

that I want to live. I know recently I've had some problems that are very complicated

in my life. And my approach to them for a long time was from a place of scarcity,

a place of negativity, a personal feeling of, I can't do this. I don't know what to do.

I don't know how to begin. Well, those kinds of questions don't lead to solutions.

They just lead to you staying stuck. They lead to that rut getting deeper and deeper.

As opposed to flip that script, go do the things that bring joy into your life and then all

a sudden you say, wait a minute, I've got a fresh perspective. I had a great walk

on the trail today, and my mind is clear, and I'm ready to be creative and think

through this old problem, but in a new way, with some more creativity, some more

life behind me. That's how you move forward. Happy awesome choices, tackle difficult

problems with that happiness. All right, the third area this week, let's discuss affirmations.

Affirmations in the past in the personal development world have been pretty hit and miss for me personally.

And I've seen a lot of people who basically believe that affirmations are nonsense and do nothing for you or possibly even harmful.

And on the flip side of that, people who are obsessed with them and believe that they change their life for the better.

I don't tend to use affirmations myself personally all that often, except on these rare occasions of saying things like, today is a great day and actually believing that that is true.

Saying the phrase, today is a great day, is an affirmation.

That's an example of one.

There are infinite possibilities for the kinds of affirmations you could create for yourself based upon the life that you want to live.

But the intention behind this, the core concept here is a rewiring of your brain to make your brain believe that that is a true statement.

I did a little bit of research in this area looking for this concept that I know has been around for a while, which is,

that your brain does not hear the word no in the same way that you do.

And what I read online basically said that that's partially true or mostly true.

And so, for example, if you were to say, hey, brain, like, stop thinking about problem X.

Well, your brain just hears problem X and then thinks more about it.

And it kind of ignores the negative word attached to it.

So stop thinking about it.

And so you might actually think more about the problem.

The better solution here is what I alluded to earlier, which is to think and act and do the things you want to be true in your life.

So tell your brain what you want more of and do so repeatedly.

Do so every single day, multiple times a day, and literally rewire your brain.

Change how your brain thinks, change the results you get.

I am not an expert in this arena.

I'll be the first to say that, but there is a lot here.

There are many great books in the topic about affirmations.

A really good one you should probably check out is called The Confident Mind by Dr.

Nate Zinser.

I've discussed that book in more detail in this podcast previously, but it is a wonderful book.

When it comes to affirmations and recording audio scripts for yourself to listen back to, the book is really about athletic performance as the main driver, but it can be used in lots of contexts.

And so the confident mind really does break down how.

how to use affirmations in a very effective and practical way to set yourself up for a difficult scenario.

You're going to give a really nerve-wracking speech or you're going to go perform in athletic events.

You're going to go do something that normally makes you nervous and chaotic.

But instead, you approach this potentially difficult scenario with confidence and poise because you have done the work to retrain your mind to think in a much more

positive and practically oriented sense.

And that's what an affirmation can do for you.

And one of the best solutions I love from his book is the fact that your

affirmations can be audio recordings.

You then listen back to yourself reminding you of the life that you want to live.

You said before that I love my personal growth CDs.

And that is true.

And those are wonderful.

But those are other people.

This podcast right now, I'm not you.

The words that I am saying right now for you to hear is coming from an external source.

But what if it wasn't?

What if this podcast or this speech that I'm giving now was from you, to you, by you, for you?

Well, that's so much more personal.

It's so much more customized.

It is the ultimate version of customization because you made it for yourself.

And if you hear yourself saying those words each and every day, it is such a powerful way.

for you to change your experience.

You know, one thing I do with this podcast is I edit my own show.

And by editing my show, I literally every single week will record the podcast

and then listen back to every single word that I said.

I will cut out the things that didn't work really well.

I'll do some edits and make some changes, add in some music, whatever the case is,

make it sound really fancy.

But the key thing to this is that I'm listening to myself.

I'm hearing every single word that I said for better or for words.

worse. If it was an awful recording, I feel terrible about it. I feel the emotion there. If it was a great recording, I'm really proud of it. I feel that as well. But I also hear myself saying these words out loud. And the audible nature of listening to me say positive things is reinforcing to me. And that could be your reality as well. So check out the book, The Confident Mind by Dr. Nate Zanzer. Affirmations have incredible power when it comes to resh

shaping how you think and how you perform and being able to practice that on a daily

basis.

This is outside of things like meditation or going to the gym or whatever else you

might do.

Read great books.

Affirmations have a place all by themselves to change how you think and change

how you feel every single time.

The fourth key concept this week is to accept what you cannot change.

I discussed controllables before, but this is such an epically necessary piece to this process.

Not only should we.

we focus on controllables, which of course is the only thing we actually can do.

But simultaneously, we have to accept the things we cannot control.

I've had a really hard time with this in the last couple of years.

I'm not going to go through the details.

There's a lot of personal things I'm not going to share here right now.

But what I will say is that part of my struggle in the last couple of years with controllables has to do with other people.

And my desire to control their behavior.

And I can't.

as much as I want to, I cannot do that.

So I have had to accept the fact that they have made a choice that I have some influence over, maybe, but at the end of the day, I do not control their decision making.

And being able to live comfortably in a world where you are striving for goals and you're involving other people in that process, which is most of the things we pursue in life.

It is a group effort.

We have to play nice with other people.

and my past personal choices have been less than ideal when it comes to that.

Let's just say I've been a bit argumentative, a bit controlling, and it has not worked that well.

So I have had to figure out how to accept that reality that I just can't do that.

I control me to the best of my own ability and I am my own difficult challenge, let alone someone else.

So my own personal mental rehearsal that has to happen is on positive possibilities.

Let's see how well I can do now.

We can do something great here.

Let's go see what that looks like.

How could this be possible?

All these great questions, but just recently on the podcast, I went through an entire list of all of these great questions you could ask yourself to really push yourself forward.

That is part of this process.

Accepting what you cannot change is easier when you really focus your energy on the things that you can because you see potential there.

You see all the possible goals you could achieve there, the steps you could take, the results that you're looking for that are possible through all the actions you do have control over.

That's the power.

Once again, we are shifting our mindset from things that are frustrating and fear-inducing and out of our possible realm of control.

and into our wheelhouse.

We can. We will. It is happening.

But it has to be that pivot from the things we don't to the things that we do.

And accepting the fact that that is reality is going to make this process a lot

easier. And you can accept it once again a lot better if you take the action and the

mood follows secondary, right? Take the action to focus on what you can and you will

begin to feel the emotion of acceptance as a byproduct of the actions you have

taken.

It's all connected.

It's all here.

Now, the fifth key concept in this conversation is that limiting beliefs are

more powerful than you realize.

Once again, action often comes before confidence, let alone mood.

Believing an untrue statement can actually prevent you from taking action,

which then, of course, prevents results, which,

makes your limiting belief actually true. We don't want to think things that are

false. We want to think things that have potential and are rooted in reality.

And if you find yourself stuck because you're the bottleneck, because you have not

actually tried yet, that could be a difficult place to be, but it's also filled with

possibility. One thing that I've seen in my daughters, I have a three-year-old and a seven-year-old,

and is very clear to me when they hold themselves back, when they don't try,

when I ask them to put on their pajamas, when I ask them to make some food for themselves.

And they don't give any effort.

And then they cry about it and they're struggling and they're frustrated about it.

But it's very obvious to me as an external person here, as the adults in this scenario,

looking at their little child brain and saying, well, you're not actually even trying.

You gave up before you tried at all.

But then I have to pause and ask my.

myself, where is that true in my own life? What are all the different things that I have

just simply not even attempted? And because I haven't attempted it, I have kind of

less responsibility for the lack of results in that area. If I tried, I might fail,

and that might be difficult to rectify in my head. But that's the only path forward.

We're going to have the confidence and the mood we want and the results we want by taking the

action. But if we believe things that aren't true, if we hold ourselves back with

limiting beliefs, we are the ones who suffer those consequences. That's all that it

results in. We're not going to get what we want if we don't try. So you have to make

the opposite of this scenario true by facing those fears, taking the action, and acknowledging

the fact that if you are the bottleneck, you have the power to change that. And your own limiting

beliefs are the thing that is really the struggle.

And your own limiting beliefs are the weight that you're carrying around,

that it makes everything so much more difficult when it doesn't have to be.

So just let the weight go.

Set it down and move forward.

The sixth key concept this week is about gratitude.

Gratitude is something that I practice every single week in my weekly review process.

I don't spend as much time on.

this as I should, but it has been a key component every single week to force

myself to write down at least three things that I'm grateful for for the last week.

And I love that process.

It is always helpful.

I always easily find three things.

Usually it's 10.

There are so many things every single week to be grateful for if you force yourself

to sit down and write them down.

And so my review process forces me to ask and answer those questions and

Every single week, there it is.

I am more grateful for my life because I am reminding myself of all the good things that are true about it.

Now, there are other ways to practice gratitude through meditation, through journaling,

through just a regular practice of making the list of why you're thankful for the things that you have today and doing so on a consistent basis.

But the act of gratitude itself, there is a lot tied into personal joy you will experience because you remind.

yourself that your life is already filled with joyful things.

And despite the struggles you may have that are present in the here and now,

there are still things to be grateful for in the here and now.

And that's the point of this practice,

is to have that be top of mind on a regular basis so you don't find yourself stuck in a rut.

So you don't believe things that aren't true and then hold yourself back.

You see, once again, it's all connected.

Gratitude is very powerful.

And so if you don't have a regular way to review things you're grateful for,

the easiest way to do that is to build it into your task manager, put it on your calendar,

put it into your review, have a regular reminder to do so.

And potentially, it could be a daily practice.

A lot of people do this, and it is very effective.

So make it part of your life, and you will be very grateful that you did.

And the seventh and final key concept this week has to do with physicality

confidence. I love to work out. It has been a key part of my life for decades.

It is going to be something that I will stick with to the day that I die. There

will be some kind of a workout in my life most days a week. One thing I've

discussed on this podcast, I think now probably three or four times, is the Superman

pose. The Superman pose is one of the most ridiculous looking silly things you could do

that is so awesome. If you literally just stand like a calm,

confident Superman, like put your chest out, put your hands on your hips,

and just look around with a big old smile on your face, like, I got this.

Let's go.

It works.

You feel better.

You physically feel empowered.

I'm literally doing it right now as I record this show.

And it just automatically, it activates the back muscles and your posture improves.

You smile more.

You cannot help but do so.

It just adds such an instantaneous way to say,

man, I feel good in this moment and this was helpful.

And you can do this anytime whenever you want.

Just strike the pose, feel better, and then move forward confidently into your next activity.

Physicality and your body are so intricately tied to the joy that you can experience.

And if you take care of your body and you take care of your mind, you take care of your muscles, you will be seeing the results of that.

in some cases literally in the moment and others down the road, but it will always be true.

It will always be there to pay you back for the work that you put in.

Now, along those same lines, I have in the past been very obsessed with running marathons and doing lots of cardio work.

But in the last five, six years since my kids were born, mostly, I have become much more focused on strength training and getting power and muscle and all of the kind of aggression that I get from lifting weights.

And they're very different activities.

Cardio workouts and strength training are wildly different.

And if you've ever done one or the other with intensity, you know what I'm talking about.

Cardio workouts are fantastic for dopamine and getting a surge of positivity.

I just, I love my cardio time.

But strength training is a whole other beast.

You get power and confidence and testosterone boosting activities that just make you feel this sense of raw energy that's

just it's so different and on its own right very effective.

Now, the way that I tend to see it is that you need both.

We all need both in our lives.

And the more that you have that kind of physicality, that strength, that energy,

that positivity, you will, the physical nature of yourself will then play

into all the other work that you do.

It will play into your day job, your marriage, you and your kids, you and

your activities, the healthier and stronger and more.

powerful you are, the more likely you are to feel that joy you're seeking.

So I would encourage you if you're not already working out on a consistent

basis to make it part of your life, to have daily movement.

Some of those movements will be more intense than others.

Some will be very low key.

But daily movement is such a powerful way to feel better now.

Without having to wait for months and years in the future on big changes,

just go take a walk today.

in the moment, and you will feel it, and you will love it.

It will be joyful, you'll be grateful you did it, and it will just change your life.

So I hope these strategies were helpful for you this week.

I know that there are so many different perspectives on how to achieve happiness or joy

or what an ideal life may look like.

I mean, I'll be the first to say that what my ideal is every day changes every single day.

I'm constantly evolving and looking for something.

new. And I can't say that my past successes or struggles will be true in the

future because they probably won't be. They're going to be different successes

and different struggles. But throughout that process of growth and evolution,

I want to make sure that my daily habits are aligned with my best self.

And doing things like journaling, meditating, working out, focusing on the fears I

want to tackle, having affirmations, reminding myself of those happy hormones,

those types of thought processes and daily habits will result in you feeling better.

You will have more joy.

You can literally rewire your brain and change your life.

But you have to do the work.

There's no avoid in that.

You have to do it.

But if you do, I guarantee you, you will feel it.

You will love it.

It just works.

That's just awesome.

And for that action step this week.

Add a daily affirmation to your schedule.

Remind yourself why your life is awesome, why it's a great day to be alive,

and why you have ample opportunity to improve your life each and every day.

Joy is a choice, even or especially during the hardest days.

So make joy a habit by reminding yourself as often as you need to that each and every day is a gift.

Of course, subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app or go to 5am miracle premium.com for the special ad-free VIP version of this show.

That's all I've got for you here on the 5 a.m. Miracle podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life and all that fun begins bright and early.

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