the 7 steps to going ghost mode (no bs)

Here is a brief summary of the key points from the transcript: The speaker talks about how to improve your life and achieve your goals. He says that small changes won't be enough - you need to "go ghost" and fully commit to self-improvement. The 7 steps he recommends are: 1. Cut ties with friends who are holding you back. Spend time with people who are focused on similar goals. 2. Fully commit to one goal at a time rather than trying to improve everything at once. 3. Remove time-wasting activities like following sports or playing video games. 4. Schedule enjoyable rewards like massages to look forward to. 5. Have a simple, quick morning routine focused on mindset rather than a long, complicated one. 6. Prioritize getting 8 hours of sleep every night. 7. Do a weekly review to reinforce good habits, identify issues, and refocus on priorities. The key overall message is to fully commit to self-improvement by removing distractions and focusing intensely on your most important goal. Regularly reviewing progress is also emphasized.

This video is not gonna change your life. And I think that you know this. You've been wanting to improve your life, and you've probably even already started setting goals for yourself and creating new habits. But things are not changing as fast as you'd like to see. Am I right? Bro? The harsh reality is that you're not just one small adjustment away from making millions, dating tens, being jacked, and living that lifestyle. Nah, a new morning routine is not gonna do shit for you. And neither is some online course. I can tell you from personal experience, having been frustrated and unhappy with myself for the first 28 years of my life, for me, nothing changed until I finally went ghost mode and disappeared for some time. Like Bruce Wayne leaving Gotham City, climbing this remote mountain, being mentored by Ra's al Ghul, and then returning as fucking Batman. Like, I left as this young, innocent boy, and I returned as a man. And these are the seven steps that I took. Number one, make strategic alliances. So, question for you. Do you have true friends in your life, or do you have more of these, like, past the time acquaintances that you hang out with? For me, growing up, I always felt a bit like a loner. I didn't really care to spend that much time around other people. But at the same time, I didn't want to be a complete loser. So I always had two or three close friends throughout high school and university. And then once I graduated and I was on this path of wanting to improve my life, I still felt this urge or this need inside me to hang out with friends two or three times a week because I was afraid otherwise I would look at myself as a completely lonely, isolated loser. But looking back, it was just this facade that I was creating for myself to feel okay. Because when I was hanging out with these people, what was I doing? I wasn't improving myself or having meaningful experiences. We were just watching tv, playing NBA two k, getting high. I was a legend at NBA two k. But be real with yourself, bro. The friends that you're hanging out with now, is that a net positive or a net negative in your life? Some people might disagree and say you need socialization on a weekly basis. But for me at that time, it was definitely a net negative. And mentally separating from that false need, in my mind, was probably the first big part of my evolution, realizing that, look, I can actually go weeks without seeing other friends. And guess what? Not only am I okay, and I'm not a loser, but I'm making faster progress in all this shit that I've been procrastinating on for years before then, like back then, I was probably spending three nights a week with these friends. And each night I was probably hanging out with them for 3 hours. That's 9 hours a week that I was basically flushing down the drain, just passing time away. And naturally I started spending those 9 hours reading self improvement books, filming content, editing content, and probably most importantly of all, I was protecting my mindset because now I was only consuming the types of content and information that motivated me. And that's the funny thing, man. I thought that doing this was gonna make me a loser, but really is what made me a winner. And just to be clear, I'm not saying you should have no friends in your life, but I look at friends now as strategic alliances. I wanna meet other men that are on the same path as me, working on the same things, but I don't need to see them. Each week we can each have our heads down in isolation. And then once a week, maybe we'll talk on the phone, and then once a month, maybe we'll meet up and spend the weekend together. If you've been feeling stuck, it probably means it's time to disappear from your friends. Number two, complete sacrifice. So back when I caught the self improvement bug, I wanted to date a bunch of women, get in the best shape of my life, start making money online, learn how to fight different martial arts, travel the world, have all these crazy adventures, bro, I wanted to do it all. And I thought that this was this big strength I had that I was so motivated to do all these different things. But in reality, it's actually a crippling weakness. You see, our brains are very good at trying to take pressure off of us so that we don't feel stressed out and anxious. And if you got all these different projects going on, you're trying to level up your body, meet more women, start your first side hustle. Really all you're doing is avoiding placing a bets on yourself because this allows you to dabble in all these little different areas. And you know, you don't have to make that much progress because you're trying to work on all these different things at the same time. Like it's this built in excuse that you don't have to go hard as fuck balls to the wall on one specific thing. Because if you do that and you fail, well, damn, that sucks. And that means I'm a failure now, right? So here's my challenge to you. I want you to select one goal that you're working towards. One specific goal. And from now on, the mindset has to be, that is your number one priority, and everything else in your life can be sacrificed in order to make progress on that one goal. And you might already catch yourself kind of fighting against making this commitment because, man, I don't know what if this isn't the right one to pick, man, I just don't know if I can do that. Cut the shit, bro. Anything less than that, and you're never going to make the type of progress that you're hoping for. The first time I ever did this was back in 2017. That's the first time I went to ghost mode and I told myself, this YouTube channel is the focus. Fuck everything else that I'm working on right now. I'm committing to two YouTube videos per week, and I'm gonna do everything in my power every single day to make the highest quality content possible. I sacrificed working on my dating life. I sacrificed trying to grow my Instagram. I deleted the podcast that I was working on at the time. And guess what? For the first time ever, I had a breakthrough. 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, baby. It is time to stop playing it safe and go all in on one thing. Let's get started now, real quick. After I filmed the video today during the workout I just did, it popped into my head that I need to correct something, because I do think there's one area of a man's life that should not be sacrificed, not even during ghost mode, and that is maintaining a fit physique. Because let's be real. If you look in the mirror and you're clearly out of shape, you're gonna move with less confidence and be less effective in whatever it is that you're doing. And other people, they're not gonna take you as seriously if you're clearly out of shape, bro. And realistically, it only takes 1 hour in the gym three or four times per week to maintain a great physique. It's not this huge time commitment. So right now, if you are not proud of your body, my challenge to you would be to make this your first priority in ghost mode. Get in really good shape. Because once you're in that shape, it's gonna be cruise control to maintain that for the rest of your life. Like, you're just fucking your future self over by putting this off. And if up until now you have struggled to get in shape, then I would highly, highly, highly recommend you try out the beastly app. Because the beastly app removes all of the guesswork out of getting jacked. You literally just have to show up to the gym and follow the app. It automatically incorporates all of the proven scientific variables to guarantee you make progress in the gym. There's video breakdowns of every single exercise, so you always nail the form. There's workout routines in there from three to six days per week, so you can always find something that fits your schedule. Not to mention it has the world's easiest calorie counter macro tracker built into the app, so you can finally stay consistent with your diets and actually see the results. And because you're watching this video, I'm gonna hook you up with a free seven day trial. Just click that first thing in description to download the beastly app now and get started. You cannot afford to put this off any longer. Let's get back to the video. Number three. Remove the fillers question, bro. Right now, what is your favorite sports team? What's the number one team you're cheering for next season? Myself, I grew up in Boston. Big W for the Celtics. This year in the NBA. My family's from Sevilla in Spain. I used to watch every Sevilla FC football game. Tom Brady and the Patriots dynasty. The best sports team ever. Man, I was living in Boston through that entire arc. And the funny thing is, the wild thing is that all the way through university, really, up until 2017, I had this urge inside of me that, like, I have to follow sports. Like, I have to keep up with my teams, or, wow, or I'm gonna miss out, bro. Or something. Like, something bad's gonna happen. I just have to know how they're doing. Well, guess what? 2017. That year, I went all in on YouTube. I also sacrificed following my sports teams, and I survived. I was okay. Nothing bad happened. In fact, something amazing happened. And my life, the trajectory of my life, completely changed forever. Like, back in the day, you could mention any NFL or NBA or soccer player in the world, and I would immediately know what team they were on, you know, where they went to university, what their stats were this year, what their power ranking was. I took a lot of pride in that shit. But how much of my, you know, short term memory and my mental focus was being diverted to be this sports savant? I can tell you that it was a significant mental cost. And no longer do I follow any sports teams or no, any statistics. Yes, I watched some of the Celtics games in the NBA Finals. But when I finally unplugged myself from that matrix of sports leagues, it was a game changer. Maybe for you it's not sports. Maybe it's video games. I had a long, long video game phase as well. Like, bro, when it came to playing Call of Duty or FIFA or Halo, I was the best of the best. I was better than you, bro. But like, what are those fucking bragging rights of? Who's better at what video game worth? At the end of the day, they're just another net negative, another thing preventing you from, from reaching your potential, bro. Cut out the stupid time fillers. You think Bruce Wayne was up in the mountains worrying about his kill to death ratio? You have to commit to ghost mode number four, introduce new rewards. So look, I want to be realistic because I know that just removing all these things from your life that you like to do can make your life feel kind of depressing. If you enjoy playing video games and watching sports, like, that's not going to be sustainable. Just to, you know, there's no fun, there's only work. Because we're the self improvement guys now. Like, that's stupid, bro. Humans, we need something to look forward to. If we don't have something in the near future, we're looking forward to doing that. That's going to allow our brain to decompress. We're going to get depressed. So what I do now is throughout my week I schedule things that are going to be fun and enjoyable to do, but they're not going to be something I have to commit to doing 3 hours a night. Like playing video games, for example. Tomorrow night we're taking the boat out. I'm continuing my awake surfing journey, learning a new skill. Every Sunday night Julia and I will go get a, get a nice massage. I look forward to that all week. I love massages, bro. Maybe you have a terribly busy, packed week and the only thing you can look forward to is your workout tomorrow afternoon. Well, at least you have that. You have to give yourself something, bro. This makes it so much easier for me to wake up, just commit balls to the wall, going, diving deep into my work without worrying about distractions when I know that, hey, guess what? Tomorrow I'm doing something cool so I can focus now. Number five, the zero morning routine. So I think this phase has passed a bit with self improvement. But for the longest time it seems like in order to be successful, you have to have a morning routine. A strict morning routine where you wake up at 06:00 a.m. then you take your cold shower, then you meditate for 30 minutes, read a book for 30 minutes, go outside, ground your feet, get the sun in your eyes, say your daily affirmations to yourself. And then maybe, then, maybe after spending 2 hours doing this every morning. Maybe then you'll be a real winner. And I'm guilty of this, too. I played a part. I've done my share of morning routine videos, but what I've learned is that having a zero morning routine, something that just allows me, because, look, I think it's stupid not to have any morning routine as well. But then you wake up, you're in bed, you know, looking at your phone, you kind of do what you feel like doing. You have to have something that sets the tone to start the day. But what I've realized is you want to do something that sets the tone as fast as possible. It gets you in the right mindset, so you can spend the actual time of day getting shit done. For me. What that looks like right now is I'll wake up, get the sun in my eyes. That's a big Andrew Huberman thing that has a lot of physiological benefits. Like, it wakes me up, reduces my need for caffeine, makes me sleep better at night, and then some days I'll take a cold shower if I feel I need that extra jolt. Otherwise, I just get to work. Just like that. That's 15 or 20 minutes. Then, boom, I'm sitting down on my laptop, dialed in, ready to go. You cannot afford to waste the mornings. The mornings is when humans are most alert. We have the highest energy levels, the most willpower. We can think with the most clarity. That's when I dive in and solve my biggest problems, plan my next YouTube videos, work through whatever problems the businesses are facing. If you're wasting your first two or 3 hours jerking off or on your phone or doing some stupid long morning routine, you're never going to live up to your full potential because you're wasting the time of day when you can operate at the highest possible frequency. Number 611 pm. Question for you. Do you have any of the following symptoms? Low energy levels, brain fog, inability to focus, anxiety. You know, these are probably the most common struggles that each of us experience on a daily basis. And what do you think the cause of these things is? Do you think it's some, you know, deeply rooted psychological complex that you have some condition? Or maybe, just maybe, is it that you're not getting consistently enough sleep every single night? Like, if you're watching this video, you're clearly trying to improve your life, which is commendable. But if you're not getting seven or 8 hours of sleep every single night, what the fuck are we even doing here, bro? Like, why are you even trying to set new goals for yourself and make more money or get a girlfriend or get in good shape if you can't take care of the one most basic, fundamental fucking thing in the world. Yeah, it's stupid. I don't like calling people stupid, but it's stupid if you're not prioritizing this, man. Sleep is the foundation for everything we do. And it just still bewilders me how many guys struggle with this. And guess what? In order to solve this, you don't need a bunch of sleep hacks. You just need to go to bed earlier. If you need to wake up by 07:00 a.m. well, what's 07:00 a.m. -8 hours? That's 11:00 p.m. that's when you need to go to bed. There's no reason ever why that shouldn't be the case. And if you can't have even that little smidge of discipline to go to bed at a time every night, just give up, bro. Just give up. Just stop. And number seven, maintain focus. So something I like to do every single week is a weekly review. I'll be honest, I need to be a bit more consistent with this. Lately I've been off my weekly review game. But this is another foundational habit that can really change the course of your life because it makes sure it's a way to guarantee that you're always incrementally improving and you don't just get lost on some random side quest and procrastinate and don't make any progress for two years. And literally all you have to do at the end of each week, you could do this, you know, Friday when you get done with work, or Sunday morning is when I like to do it. You ask yourself four simple questions. Number one, what did I do well, over the past week? For me, this week I did a good job of eating healthier than normal, going to bed on time, and, you know, I created a bunch of new content for Beast Nation for my guys in Beast Nation. We just filmed the personal branding module that's gonna help you take your Instagram profile to the next level so you can leverage that to get dates with more attractive women. Or if you're working on building up your side hustle, get clients that will pay you the top premium dollar. Question two, what could I have done better this week? Well, you know, I got a bit upset with Julia one night. I need to have stronger emotional control in times of high stress. Also, I procrastinated a little bit on creating the next clothing collection for Ed's lifestyle. I can't let that go any longer. And question three, which of the things that I didn't do well is going to be my number one focus to improve this next week? For me, it's edge lifestyle. Getting that next collection locked in. And the beauty of these three questions is that, first of all, they reinforce positive behaviors. So you're proud of the things that you're doing well. You're more likely to do them again. Two, they allow you to catch the things that you're doing wrong before they turn into these really bad habits to get you way off track. And third, it allows you to refocus on the most important, highest leverage thing over the next week to make sure you stay on track. It's a simple weekly routine that is fucking game changing. Now, for those of y'all who've been feeling a lot of resistance, that's been holding you back from finally going for that thing that you've wanted to go for, you need to watch this video. Next. It's about how realizing that no one cares about me completely changed my life and allowed me to go for those things that I was putting off. Click there to watch that. Now, if you're new to the channel, click down there to subscribe as I release two new videos every single week and you don't want to miss them. I'll talk to you in the next video. Stay beastly.