A Simple Mindset Shift That Drives Success

I believe that the path to success is incredibly simple – show up every day, no matter how you feel. Focus on the small stuff, getting 1% better each time.

I’m currently reading The Diary of a CEO by Steven Bartlett and cannot emphasize how actionable it’s been for me. Every “Law” (Each chapter in the book is a principle of life/business/relationships) I read gives me a new area of improvement I can tackle.

One point that really stuck out to me was that the seemingly most insignificant actions and/or decisions we make ultimately contribute the most towards whether we achieve our goals.

The Japanese philosophy Kaizen (which means “good change” or “continuous improvement”) exemplifies this idea exactly.

I plan the entire process for my YouTube channel using Notion. Within my YouTube document is a page titled ‘Improvements’.

There’s a little over a dozen small goals for myself that I think will contribute to making a better video overall. Here are just a few:

• Act like you’re talking to a friend while filming – you’re always talking TO the VIEWER
• SHOW don’t tell – sometimes it’s unnecessary to explain small things, and you can just do the actions within the b-roll
• Experiment with quick cinematic sequences during the video with sound effects (5-10s cutaway then back to a-roll)

I don’t want you to focus on the goals themselves, other than to see the format of them.

What’s important is that I’ve intentionally noted areas where objective improvement can be made.

I’ve been familiar with the idea of “1% better every day” since reading Atomic Habits 2 years ago, but this reminder has made me implement it in a new way.

As I’m reading over them I’d actually recommend you to make these goals as small and specific as possible.

Instead of “Act like you’re talking to a friend while filming”, “Act like you’re talking to a friend in the intro”

This is far more specific which makes the goal itself more attainable.

Vague goals tend to be the ones left unfinished.

“Go to the gym three times a week” is better than “Start going to the gym”.

One is specific, and the other leaves room for interpretation.

I joined in on a webinar from Tim Denning & Todd Brison about idea creation and took away some actionable advice from it:

• give yourself one box to check off each day – start a winner’s streak
• write down one idea from each piece of content you consume (every book, podcast, youtube video, newsletter, etc.)
• have a single place to keep every thought you have (for me this is my ‘inbox’ in notion)

During the call, I wrote down nearly a dozen ideas that popped into my head and made a commitment to tweet once a day.

Later that night I was watching one of Alex Hormozi’s videos.. got a tweet idea.

I remembered a comment I read on Instagram.. it gave me an idea to base an entire newsletter on.

The small actions you take and minute details you search out compound over a longer time horizon.

The one thing I want you to take from the letter this week – find one, tiny action you can take today to bring you a step closer to scaling Everest.

Talk to you again soon.

– Cole