How To Take Actions That Create Transformations

If every action actually led to transformation, you would have unlocked the code to the Holy Grail.

You would be smarter, faster, and wiser overnight and in your sleep.

But this is not the case.

In fact, some decisions are entirely so small, you give them no significance. You don’t see how one small decision can traject you to a completely different place in just a matter of months.

So what is the problem with this?

You believe you want to change, but you struggle to actually identify what actions will lead you to your desired transformation.

You believe that the consequences of that first step should be linear and upward. You might actually believe it can happen overnight. It does in the movies and we romanticize those too.

This is the first mistake. (Movies take FOREVER to make)

If you think it happens quickly and sticks…

I love you, but you are wrong.

You must recalibrate your perception.

You need to take a full account of what is at stake and what the overall view is for the transformation to take shape.

Secondly, No one is embracing the idea that you have more control and power over your growth than you think you do. It’s the opposite. You think the most powerful things are things you don’t have control over.

Wrong again, bae.

Every time you had a bad day, it was because of some external factor out of your control, right?

Is it possible to have a fine day regardless of your environment, circumstances, and the lot given to you in this life?

Is it possible to embrace an attitude that allows you to forge through dark skies and unmet expectations?

It all really comes down to taking action to figure it out.

For you to reach your potential, you need to identify the hardship as a pathway to confidence and clarity.

It’s simple:

Doing hard things builds confidence.

Are you tired of settling for mediocrity and playing it safe in your business or personal life?

Investing in doing hard things is the key to unlocking unprecedented levels of growth and success.

But you can’t do hard things just once.

When you challenge yourself to take on difficult tasks, you develop resilience, creativity, and problem-solving skills that can help you overcome any obstacle that comes your way.

Don’t settle for the status quo — invest in doing hard things and watch as you achieve new heights of achievement and fulfillment.

If it feels overwhelming, it is!

You have such a beautiful journey ahead of you.

And you are not alone.

I needed to learn this for myself.

Over the past decade, I’ve had some traumatic things happen to me. I’ve seen dark skies, and sleepless nights but also a lot of happiness and success.

As I’ve pondered on these experiences, I always had one question:

How could I make myself more resilient towards things I have no power over?

This lead me to experiment with the only thing I did have power over.

And that was my agency. My ability to choose.

And to take it a layer deeper, I had to acknowledge that I had power over my thoughts which dictated my feelings and resulted in my actions.

I had to align my thoughts to the end goal and engineer my way to results.

I didn’t realize that I found ways to do this in rigid and extreme ways, which results in a formula that is embedded in confidence and clarity.

With this formula I have accomplished the following things:

Went a whole calendar year without buying any clothing, shoes, or accessories.

Went a whole calendar year without eating fast food. (If it had a drive-through window, it was a no-go).

Went for two years daily, publishing a podcast episode daily. 730 episodes and counting.

And this brings me to today: 169th day of Intermittent fasting. (Keeping an average fast of 23.4 hours).

None of these feats would be possible without the Foreground Formula.

Foreground Formula: Focus on the end goal now. Map out potential roadblocks and make plans today to avoid the unavoidable tomorrow.

It’s close in your mind today and tomorrow you’ll be closer to it actually happening.

I gave myself narrow parameters that had high difficulty but also ensured rewards and results.

I had very specific things I wanted to achieve and I knew if I gave myself less room for error, there was absolutely growth along that path.

Along the way, I found people who had done similar things, but no one that had pioneered through the duration of the goal, which seems to lean into transformation more. Everyone can skip a meal or a fast food window, but for how long. How long can we go to actually transform ourselves?

The Foreground Formula consists of the following framework: S.U.P.F.

Specific Goal: One thing, not many. Each time I did a yearly goal, I only had one yearly goal. This goal needs to have a why. The bigger the why, the better the formula works.

Example: For the fast food goal, I recognized how I felt after I ate it. It wasn’t great. Then when I shared this idea and goal with my peers, they said I couldn’t do it. Not only did I have the dopamine hit of vocally the goal, I immediately received resistance towards it and a lack of support. My why was bigger than their opinions. Feeling crumpy from my food decisions was something I had more power over than the opinions of my peers.

Understanding Obstacles: Encountering obstacles forces us to think critically and futuristically. If we can create an overall view of the end goal, understanding obstacles gives us time to sit in and awareness of them.

Example: When I went a whole year without buying clothes, it was because I had developed a shopping addiction. I somehow got to a point in my life where I felt so seen and heard by the direct dopamine hit that comes through a purchase. It was happening every day. When I decided to pursue this fashion fast, I gave myself 10 legitimate rules I could break through the year, like if a girlfriend got married and needed me to buy a bridesmaid dress. Luckily, I was never a bridesmaid that year. I never bought a thing related to fashion. Part of the understanding of obstacles meant, I didn’t window shop at all, let online have my credit card number stored online. I was an addict, I already had my department store credit card number memorized.

Preparing for Difficulty: When you set out to grow and transform, it’s always nice to make it a little less traumatic by doing things daily that allow you to rise above the foreseeable hardship.

Example: When I published daily for two years straight, I knew that was going to be hard and a handful of entrepreneurs told me it wasn’t possible. I knew exactly why they said that. They need the roadblocks from their own experience. They had not created their anti-plan.

You will achieve so much in life just by avoiding who you don’t want to become.

Inspiration for the Forefront Goals: When I was 10, my mom had her last child. A boy to the tail end of 8 kids in 11 years. My dad had a new SLR camera at the time. It was a film camera and I began photographing that boy like he was my own. I never stopped taking photos. The foreground principle has changed my life many times.

In photography, the foreground refers to the part of the image that is closest to the camera and appears at the bottom of the frame. The foreground can play an important role in composing a visually compelling photograph.

The foreground can be used to add depth and dimension to an image.

By including a prominent foreground element, such as a rock, a plant, or a person, the photographer can create a sense of scale and perspective. This can make the viewer feel like they are a part of the scene, rather than just looking at a flat image.

The foreground can also be used to frame the subject of the photograph.

The foreground can be used to anchor the image and provide a sense of place.

Do you see how much more powerful our end goals can be possible when you position them in meaningful and important ways in our life?

So what will you use the Foreground Formula for?

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