Momentum Podcast: 95

Dont Join “The Crowd” In Q4

by Alex Charfen

Episode Description

The fourth quarter is a time of year where either due to tradition, habit, or excuse, the crowd has already predetermined that it will lose momentum. 

Most people make up their mind in advance that they are going to over eat, drink more than they normally would, and exercise less during the fourth quarter. There is no other way to look at this than pre-determining that you will lose, and lose momentum. 

This is insanity because the fourth quarter is a time of year where there is a huge opportunity. The fourth quarter allows you to exponentially outpace your confrontation. All you have to do is step out of the crowd.

Full Audio Transcript

I'm Alex Charfen and this is the Momentum podcast. Made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers, and creators of all kinds, those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution.

Sure we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, and rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny, we define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop, and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority, the few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future. And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important people in the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive, human evolution, and we always will be.

Welcome to the Momentum podcast. This episode is, Don't Join the Crowd in Q4. I have a hard time saying, "Don't join," without putting the two words together. I think this is going to be an important podcast for you and I'm negligent in that I should have put this earlier in the first quarter, but I'm excited that I'm doing this for you now because I think that the fourth-quarter is this insane time of opportunity, and I don't want you to join the crowd when there's crazy opportunity available.

Let me define that, here's what I mean by join the crowd. You know who the crowd is, the crowd is the people who haven't woken up, they're not aware of what an insane opportunity we have just being alive, how much opportunity there is today that's out there that wasn't out there just 10 years ago. How insanely easy it is to have an idea and actually make it do something compared to what it was just, again, five, 10 years ago. Haven't realized how important they are and how taking care of ourselves is one of the most important things we can do to create momentum in our lives and how when we treat ourselves better, when we actually take care of ourselves, when we lean in, when we put our oxygen mask first, we get more of everything that we want in the world.

Here's the problem with being part of the crowd in the fourth-quarter. The fourth-quarter is a time where the crowd indulges, uses excuses, and just over-does everything. All you have to do is look at the popular themes around the fourth-quarter, "Everyone puts on a little weight, it's not big deal," or, "Everyone indulges," or, "This is a tradition, this is how we've always done this. It's like a tradition of destroying yourself." People who don't drink the rest of the year drink in the fourth-quarter. People who don't eat crazy in the rest of the year will go bananas in the fourth-quarter.

It's really weird for me too because when you look at holiday foods in the United States, we eat foods that we don't eat the rest of the year. If turkey and gravy and potatoes was really awesome, there would be a lot of turkey and gravy and potatoes restaurants, but there's not. You can't go to a restaurant and get Thanksgiving food most of the time ... At most restaurants, it's rare you can, but then there's this time during the year where we just can't get enough of it and we eat until we literally can't ... We have to stop. All of these things don't make sense. This is how the crowd thinks, the whole, "Everyone else is having dessert so I just ... I guess I will have another."

And here's what happens, is that when we are part of the crowd in the fourth-quarter, we have a pre-determined time of year due to tradition and due to habit and due to how we've thought in the past, not today but how we've thought in the past, we have a time of year that we've pre-determined we are going to give up physiological momentum. We are going to give up physical fitness, we are going to give up how we feel so we are going to indulge in the short term. We've pre-determined we're going to indulge in the short term, overdo things in the short term, lose discipline in the short term, step out of habits in the short term, all for the exchange of being part of the crowd in the fourth-quarter.

I realized that it feels good sometimes to just do whatever you want to do. Maybe you do that one time during the fourth-quarter but the problem is, the crowd during this time of year just becomes indulgent and just starts using excuses and starts giving things up like working out and hydrating, and starts leaning in to what's happening around them. The insanity of this is that when we choose to give up physiological momentum, we choose to give up momentum in every way in our lives. I know this because I've coached entrepreneurs like you for over 20 years and one of the things I've done to increase the level of success of all of my clients is to push them to hydrate and to eat right and to think better about foods.

There was a time where I didn't do this. I leaned into fourth-quarters and I did all of those things and I ended up 300 ... Almost 300 pounds and living in South Florida, it was right when I met Cadey. It was about 14 years ago and my doctor told me I was his most likely case for a heart attack, and he had an aging patient population. It had been to many indulgences, too many excuses, too many fourth-quarters of knowing I was only going to put on another five pounds or another 10 pounds and I'd take it off someday, and I ended up being the guy who was going to die because of how he was eating. The problem for all of us, we don't know where our tolerance threshold is for indulgence. We don't know where our real thresholds are for what we can put our body through before we start taking on serious issues, before we start getting sick, losing momentum in a big way, feeling fully constrained, going down, not being able to do what we want to do everyday.

So I had to get out of the crowd and even though I was telling everyone around me to hydrate and eat healthy, I wasn't doing it myself. So 14 years ago I gave up the tradition of indulging in the fourth-quarter, I stopped completely feeling like this was a time of year where you could give up momentum. Because I had lost so much I knew how hard it was to get it back, I decided to make fourth-quarter a totally different time of year for me because here's how I look at this time of year, I think that whole world has unplugged, kind of given up. They're phoning it in and they're just not trying that hard.

There is a amount of energy in the world today that just gets spilled over in the fourth-quarter, nobody uses it it just gets ... It's just gone. And if you lean in to where you would normally be, you don't even have to go crazy during the fourth-quarter, you can outpace your competition by an exponential factor because they're all resting, they're all indulging, they're all drinking, they're all over-eating, they're all missing days of work, they're all not putting a plan together to end the year strong. They're all checked out, and if you want to make certain that you stay ahead of everyone who you're competing with, if you want to make sure that you stay ahead of everyone who's competing with you for your clients, if you want to defend your clients, protect your clients, take care of your clients ... You owe it to them, not just the ones you have today but the ones you're going to have in the future, you owe it to all of them to take care of yourself in the fourth-quarter because you don't want to fall behind and let them get taken by somebody else.

So here's my ... Here's the commitment I made to myself 14 years ago, that every fourth-quarter I would end December in better shape than I was at the beginning, feeling better with a better body mass index and lower body fat and in physiological momentum. I decided I refused to continue to let myself, to pre-determined, to have a pre-determined time of year where I was giving up momentum because guys, I'll tell you, I work really hard to create the momentum I have.

I often share with people that in most of life I have been a natural failure, I've had to work like crazy to find a place to create success. Sometimes people have said I'm a natural entrepreneur and it's that ... It makes me laugh because when I was younger I had a hard time doing anything, just talking to people, just getting any type of momentum. I was incredibly socially awkward, I struggled with weight issues when I was a kid. I know how hard this stuff is and for me to just get momentum is ... It takes a lot of work and I think it does for everyone, especially if we want to get into the place where we're making the type of money we want to make, where we're living the type of life we want, where we're vacationing when we want, when we're doing what we want to do, when we're spending time like we want to do. That's where all of us want to go and for me, I realized once I get momentum, I don't want to give it up anymore.

I think the challenge for so many of us is that we don't look at indulgence, we don't look at giving up working out, we don't look at having a few more drinks than we normally would or eating more than we normally would as choosing between presence and awareness or short term pleasure. We don't see it as choosing between being in momentum and short term pleasure. We don't see it as continuing the momentum we have, building on what we're doing, being more able to see the unique connections to create our business, to see the future, to have clarity around exactly what our path is next year over short term pleasure.

They say only 12% of goals that are set around the end of the year ... Of goals are achieved, 88% fail. I don't see how anyone could succeed at setting goals during this time of year if they are leaning into the crowd. You're literally setting your goals for the next year, you're trying to see the future, you're trying to understand where you're going at the same time that you're taking on physiological practices and what people would call, "Traditions," that put your body into fight or flight. You go overeat, your body's going into fight or flight. You eat the wrong types of food, your body's going into fight or flight. You indulge, your body's going into fight or flight. You drink the next day? Your body's going to stay in fight or flight. We are choosing to be in that place where we get reactive, where we have a hard time being who we are, where we have a hard time being comfortable, where we have a hard time just moving forward.

So here's what I do in the fourth-quarter, I'll give you some of my habits. One, I commit to whole foods. I eat whole foods and only whole foods. I even stop my ... I do a hyper-nutrition shake every morning. I flip over to green smoothies for the fourth-quarter. I've been doing it for the last week here in Aspen and it's just a complete change because I go from taking on a lot of protein and a lot of fats to really ... It's cleansing to do green smoothies. Anybody who's done it, you can try it. On top of whole foods I move more. I make sure that ... While I've been here in Aspen, I'm on vacation right now, we've been here for a few days and I've worked out everyday. I took the kids down to the gym today, Cadey and I took them down there, we were down there for about an hour today. I make sure I move the entire fourth-quarter.

And then here is the biggest one: hydrate. Make sure you're taking on a ton of water because here's ... Water, and if you haven't yet, go to getthirstynow.com, getthirstynow.com. Take our 10 day water challenge, it doesn't cost anything. Thousands of people have taken it, they have ... We've had people report stuff that would blow you away, like using one-third the insulin that a woman was using just a month ... Just three months earlier. We had a woman who lost five pounds in five days using this challenge. I've gotten people who've told me that it's eliminated pains that they've had in their neck for months or pains that they've had in their joints or they've gotten off of prescription medications. That's how powerful hydrating is, it'll connect your mind and body in the fourth-quarter and it will keep you in momentum and it'll help you have better judgment. It's a complete game changer so go to getthirstnow.com and check it out.

If you do those things, if you eat healthy, commit to whole foods, don't eat anything processed your ... The entire fourth-quarter, just do it the rest of December, everything in your body will change. If you've been eating processed foods and you stop, commit to whole foods, and you will see a massive increase in momentum in your body.

Move more and then hydrate and here's what you will do, you're going to end the cycle in your life of creating momentum all year and giving it up in the fourth-quarter. You're going to end the cycle in your life of creating momentum all year and having it slow down in the fourth-quarter, and you're going to end this cycle of having a pre-determined period of the year where you already know you're going to lose, you're going to give up momentum, you're going to slow down, you're going to take your eye off the ball all on purpose and all pre-meditated, and instead you're going to start the cycle of getting out of the crowd and achieving more. Going forward faster and creating more momentum and building on what you have. Outpacing your competition and making a greater contribution because you know in the back of your mind, there's always been a voice telling you, "You're here to do more, to be more, to give more, to create more, to leave more behind," and this is your opportunity.

I said earlier only 12% of goals get achieved. Most people set them at a time of year where they put their body in fight or flight and they've left it there for so long that their vision of the future has drawn near, their options are fewer, they don't really know what they want. So instead of figuring out something that is actually going to put them in momentum, they make some commitment that falls apart almost immediately because they didn't mean it in the first place, they were doing it because it was a quote unquote, "Tradition," just like all the indulging they've been doing.

You and I both know that doesn't need to be you and so right now you have the opportunity to pre-determine that you're going to end the year stronger than you ever have. Right now you have the opportunity to pre-determine you are going to carry any momentum you have right now into next year. You have the opportunity to pre-determine that you end the year in a state of physiological momentum that's greater than what you have now. And I make the commitment to you that if you are willing to do that, you will see every area of your life improve. You want one of the fastest shortcuts to financial success? Get in insane physiological shape, it just works that way. We are evolutionary hunters and when we look like one and feel like one and can behave like one and could go out and hunt like one if we had to, it's amazing what we create, it's amazing what we're capable of and it's amazing about how ... It's amazing how magically we show up in the world.

I'm coaching an entire group of entrepreneurs growing multi-million dollar companies and I can tell you, every single one of them focuses on their self-care, focuses on nutrition, focuses on hydration. They're all obsessed with it. They were before they got to me and they're even more now that they work with me, and every one of them looks like they could be a professional athlete in their given sport.

I think that if you ... Not think, I know that if you make this commitment to yourself, you don't have to dream about 2018 being the best year of your career. You make this commitment to yourself, and you are pre-determining that you end the year in the physiological fitness and the mental state to ensure 2018 is your best year of your career. Why don't we do this together? You let me know if you're in.

If you haven't yet, check out ClickFunnels next year, it's a conference in Orlando. You can go to clickfunnels.com ... Sorry, check out Funnel Hacking Live. I'm going to be speaking there next year. I don't get paid anything for saying this, I just signed the contract today with Russell Brunson to go out and speak. It's going to be 3500 entrepreneurs that are out to change the world and sell more of their product and make a greater contribution.

It's my second time at the event and it is one of the most intense experiences that there is, so go to clickfunnels.com, they've got a link there to Funnel Hacking Live. I'll be speaking, Russell will be speaking, my client Alex Hormozi will be speaking. Gosh, a few of my ... Layla, I think Layla's going to speak as well, I think Brandon and Kaelin Poulin. I'm trying to think of all the people that are speaking but it is an incredible outline and there's some really well-known speakers too like Tony Robbins. I think you'll get so much out of seeing the people up there that are actually out there making their business happen, making a greater contribution, selling a insane amount of product, and everyone of them is changing people's lives.

If you've never been to Funnel Hacking Live, it's an event you will remember forever. I'd love to see you there. I'm speaking as well and ... I think I already said that but I'm just pumped, so thrilled. There's very little in the world that meets the energy of a room of over 3,000 people like us at once, and being on-stage in that situation is incredible. I can't wait to talk to you guys about it as it's happening and then share with you on this podcast what it was like. I look forward to talking to all of you again tomorrow. One last reminder, when it comes to the fourth-quarter, stay out of the crowd.

Thank You For Listening!

I am truly grateful that you have chosen to spend your time listening to me and my podcast.

Please feel free to reach out if you have a question or feedback via our Contact Us page.

Please leave me a review on iTunes and share my podcast with your friends and family.

With gratitude,

Alex

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