While I’ve been developing these principles over the years, this is the first time I’ve ever written them out for myself and the world to see. Enjoy!

1. Ideas mean nothing, execution is everything! Don’t be an idea guy, be a creator.

2. “Hell Yes” or “NO” to potential opportunities. Never do anything out of obligation or pressure.

3. Quality over quantity. This includes everything from friends to material possessions.

4. Mental health requires a daily workout, just as much as my physical health. Meditation is a great way to achieve this.

5. Worrying is toxic to the body and mind, avoid it at all costs.

6. Hard choices make for an easy life. Easy choices make for a hard life. Make the hard choices.

7. Negative people don’t get any of my attention - that includes friends, family, business contacts, etc.

8. Hold strong opinions in areas that I’m knowledgeable in, but be radically open minded enough to modify them based on new information.

9. While I can’t control everything that happens, I can control my response (a favorite Buddhist principle of mine).

10. Live in day-focused compartments. Use the past only to learn from, and the future as a goal setting mechanism.

11. Once a goal is achieved, figure out how to sustain it.

12. Live with a fine daily balance between introversion and extraversion. There is an appropriate time for both.

13. Nature offers natural meditation and inner peace, enjoy it whenever possible.

14. Don’t care about what other people think about you. Live my own best life. Be an original.

15. When feeling stress in the body, stop and breathe deeply from the stomach.

16. Always be on time. Making other people wait is valuing your time over others (which it’s not).

17. Happiness is a conscious choice, not a goal to be sought after.

18. Sleep is a top priority. You can't achieve great things on a lack of sleep.

19. Death was designed as a way to make me live my life to the fullest. Don’t fear death, leverage it.

20. Recognize my ego when it arises, laugh at it and move on.

Here are our top 10 reasons to practice mindfulness:

1. Mindfulness reduces anxiety and stress, including our body's innate "fight or flight" response.

2. Mindfulness reduces addictive and compulsive tendencies.

3. Practicing mindfulness during a workout greatly improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the exercise.

4. Practicing mindfulness at work increases productivity and efficiency, meaning you can get more done in a shorter amount of time!

5. Mindfulness increases confidence at work and in your social life.

6. Mindfulness leads to clearer thinking to make better decisions.

7. Practicing mindfulness helps to improve relationships with your significant other, friends, family, and at work.

8. Mindfulness improves your memory by increasing attention and focus.

9. Mindfulness prevents overeating and snacking and helps to get you to your ideal weight.

10. Practicing mindfulness increases overall energy and decreases fatigue.

How to use them:

1. Take a deep breath

2. Speak or think your affirmation

3. Visualize yourself applying it to your life

Here are 12 of my favorite positive affirmations for success, enjoy!

1. "I live a positive life and only bring the best into my life."

2. "Today, and every day, I choose to be happy."

3. "My life overflows with happiness and love."

4. "Today is full of opportunity and I open my heart to receive it."

5. "Today, and every day, I choose to be confident."

6. "I am completely in charge of my life."

7. "I act daily with courage and confidence."

8. "I open my life to the world and the world gives me love in return."

9. "I act, think, and communicate like a true leader."

10. "I inspire others to be their very best self."

11. "Today, I choose to leave my old bad habits behind and take up new, more positive ones."

12. "Everything that is happening to me now is happening for my greater good."

1. Look inward

It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day and forget to take a step back and look inside. Try and make time to take a pulse of how you are feeling (body and mind) and apply it accordingly.

2. Learn something new

There is an endless amount of information available at your fingertips (thanks to the internet!). Back when we were in school we had little choice about what to learn, but now we can explore anything that piques our interest. Go explore!

3. Release the past

The past does nothing for us and can be a major burden on our current and future happiness. Take the time to address any past issues and just let them go. You will be free to live your life on your own terms!

4. Chat with family and friends

These close relationships are a gateway to happiness. Maybe you haven’t talked to someone in a long time, but would love to catch up – make today that day you reconnect.

5. Go after your passion

Stop talking about your “great” ideas and start putting them into action, today!

6. Get to the edge of your comfort zone

You’ll feel alive again as soon as you start to tackle things just outside of what you normally consider to be comfortable. The body and mind feed off of change, and that’s really the best way to grow as a person.

7. Stop comparing yourself to others

If you’re going to compare yourself to anyone, make it be your previous self. By comparing one aspect of your life to another person’s, you are doing no favors. Everyone’s life has many intricacies, yours included, and while one area can look great, another can be a total disaster.

8. Think positive

The brain is designed to work optimally when you are in a positive mindset. There are enough elements going against you, why waste time with negative thoughts from your own self? Yes, it makes no sense at all.

Warmly,

Justanikiguy.eth

Here are 7 steps to start building more positive habits in your daily life!

1. Evaluate

Take the time to think about the areas in your life that you’d really like to improve. It can be anything from eating healthier to working out more to limiting your screen time. List them out and refine them with more details.

2. Choose one

You’ll be tempted to select more than one habit to improve, but studies show that focusing on one specific area primes you more for success in achieving it. The key is “single-tasking” over “multi-tasking”. So choose the one that most jumps out at you - it will likely be very obvious.

3. Achieve small wins

You aren’t going to build that new positive habit overnight, but with small victories along the way your brain will start to feel like it is the norm to perform this way. Each small win will build up your muscle memory on the way to making it a habit.

4. Limit “activation energy”

This means to make it as simple as possible to build your new habit. A great example for those looking to exercise daily is to have your workout clothes and shoes already setup and ready to go. If you have to wake up in the morning and take additional time to get going, you may not actually get those positive habits forming. By limiting your activation energy you’ll find far fewer excuses blocking you from getting going.

5. Remind yourself

A trick I love to use here is setting up daily reminders or calendar notifications on my phone where I’ll be alerted throughout the day of my new positive habit. Simple nudges along the way can have a massive impact.

6. Accountability

Tell your friends, family, social media contacts, etc. about what you are looking to achieve. We are designed to not like letting down others - once we make our goals public, we have hacked ourselves into a higher likelihood of achieving them.

7. Reward yourself

You remember back in grade school how much you loved getting rewards (stickers, candy, trophies, etc.) when you achieved something. That positive feedback hasn’t changed, it’s just far less common in our adult lives. Bring that back and reward yourself once you’ve achieved your goal of setting in a new positive habit in your life.

Warmly,

Justanikiguy.eth

I like to refer to these failures as “perceived failures” because in reality, they were not failures at all – they were the catalyst that ultimately led to success. It could be argued that many successes would not exist at all without failing first.

Here are 6 ways to turn your next failure into a success.

1. Celebrate your failures

This celebration of failure is becoming more and more common in the top workplaces of today (think innovative tech companies). They encourage their employees to openly share their failures and some actually reward them for taking the risk in the first place. If you don’t reward yourself for failing, you won’t allow yourself to get outside your comfort zone – where the real growth happens.

2. Identify failure as a stepping stone

The common belief is that failure should be avoided at all costs, this is dangerous. Instead of always trying to avoid it, reframe your mindset to make failure your direct path to ultimately reaching your success. You have to tell yourself that failure and success are not opposites, but are two points on the way to reaching our goals.

3. Get consistent

There is a good chance that if you are doing something new or challenging you’re going to fail at first. Think about the first time you tried to ride a bike or ice skate…most certainly you failed time and time again before eventually succeeding at it. We can learn a lot by applying that same child-like consistency to our goals. Yes, you will fail, but the more and more you practice and persist on, the more success you’ll achieve.

4. Team up

Find a friend, family member, co-worker, etc. that may be interested in reaching the same goal as you. Having a partner who is going through the same failures as you will help bring both of you to success. If you can’t find someone who wants to achieve with you, instead look for a coach / mentor that can help you get there.

5. Focus on the present

I know it’s easy to just sit and think about how you’ve continued to fail and all of the things you did wrong. It’s ok to analyze your failures, but only as a way to learn from them – do not hang on to your failures as a way to become negative about what you are doing. The past is a great tool to learn from, but is the antithesis to living in the present moment (where the success actually happens).

6. Develop a “growth mindset”

Opposed to living with a fixed mindset, where you can’t learn and grow from your mistakes, growth mindset “people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” – Carol Dweck (Check out her book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success”). Living life with a growth mindset is a competitive advantage compared to most people that think people just “get lucky” or are “born with certain talents”.

Warmly,

Justanikiguy.eth

Below are some of my favorite techniques you can use to deal with difficult co-workers, customers, contractors, family members, and so on. Of course, you may know some of these difficult people better than others and know what tactics will work best on them - the key is to know that each of these are at your disposal (think of them like your toolkit).

1. Listen more than you talk

Let them vent and get out whatever it is they are angry about. Keep eye contact and nod your head to display that you are truly "hearing" what they are saying. This works two-fold - first, it demonstrates to them that you are attempting to see things from their perspective - second, it gives you time and all of the necessary information from them to respond methodically.

2. Don't get defensive

I know this is a hard one because of course you want to defend where you are coming from. The key is to separate yourself from the situation and understand that it likely is not about you. Difficult people have their own issues that they are struggling with and are simply projecting them upon you in this situation. Try your best to not take it personally.

3. Stay calm

It's a total waste of time to fight anger with anger. All that will do is put you two against one another and escalate the situation further. Instead, try to breathe deep into the stomach while listening to them - this will send calming signals from your brain throughout your entire body.

4. Find common ground

Ironically, the common ground you find with each other doesn't have to have anything to do with the difficult situation at all. If you both have kids, talk about that. When we see someone we have similarities with it makes it easier to put ourselves in their shoes and see things from their perspective. You'll find the more you demonstrate how you are similar, the quicker you'll reach a mutually beneficially solution.

5. Look for win-wins

Offer up solutions that both parties will be happy with. When you work together to do this it makes it extremely difficult to argue. If everyone is cool and collected, that's the absolute best way to deal with a difficult person - not through anger.

6. Try not to smile

I know this may sound odd, but if someone is exposing anger towards you and you're just smiling back, you're going to get them even more angry. Now, if you know the person well enough to know they enjoy humor, go ahead and try to inject some light into the conversation, but be careful and don't always expect a smile in return.

7. Avoid demands

Giving a difficult person an ultimatum is fuel for their fire. You have to understand that these people often have some serious issues going on below the surface and by trying to force their hand to comply you'll likely anger them even more. Instead of demands, try and find a mutually beneficial solution. This may mean you have to give a little, but that's ok. Just finding a solution with a difficult person will feel like a win!

8. Treat yourself

Successfully handling a difficult person is one of life's hardest tasks. So give yourself some praise (and even a treat!) when you accomplish this goal. Training the brain to know that after you deal with a difficult person or situation you'll get a reward is a great hack to set you up for success the next time you cross one (which you inevitably will).

Warmly,

Justanikiguy.eth