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The Goal Achievement Podcast, hosted by Matt East, is all about helping you find clarity, design a plan, and most importantly achieve your goals.

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How Michael Jordan's Practice Habits Can Make Your Life Better

Podcast Transcription

Hey, it's Matt, hope you're all doing really well. 

On today's episode, we're going to chat through what Michael Jordan did to begin every basketball practice when he was a professional. And we're going to tie it into what you can do, how you can apply those same principles to begin your day and can't wait to get into it. Let's do it. 

The big question we all face every morning is this: How can we focus more time on the project's activities and relationships that are most important and meaningful to us and less time on the stuff that doesn't matter so we can actually move closer to our goals and dreams? 

That is the question, and this podcast is the answer. My name is Matt East and welcome to the Goal Achievement podcast. I'm so glad you're here, now let's dig in. 

Hey, guys, it's Matt. Hope you're all doing really well, thank you so much for tuning in and let's get right into it. 

So I mentioned in the intro I wanted to chat through what Michael Jordan did to begin each of his practices as a professional and his training sessions, so he, I was listening to a podcast by his personal trainer, his personal trainer was a guy by the name of Tim Grover, and Tim mentioned that Michael started each practice with the most like basic fundamental move, basketball move that you can possibly do, he started it with... always started his practices by doing chest pass, chest passes. 

So when you're like four or five years old and you go to your first basketball practice, that's the very first thing you learn, a bounce pass, and a chest pass... And the chest pass is literally the most basic basketball skill that you can learn before you dribble, before you shoot, before you do a layup, you're going to do the chest pass and the bounce pass. 

So I found that absolutely fascinating that the best, you know, who's considered by most people the greatest basketball player ever. He started each practice with the most fundamental basic skill, and I just think that that applies so much to how we can begin our days successfully and how we can plan our days to be successful, and it's not something that super complicated or complicated at all, I think it's going back to the basics. 

And it's something that as I work with people that hire me, you know, and probably one in five people will push back on how we start our coaching because I always like to start with the client sending me their top 3 priorities for the day, and, you know, they'll push back because they're like, man, I hired you because I want to accomplish a ton, not just 3 things each day when I say, you know, stick with the process, there's absolutely a reason I do that and it works and don't overthink it, and let's do it, top 3 priorities for the day. 

And I just think a ton about how, you know, to tie it back to Jordan, how he used, you know, the foundation of the most basic principles, a way to get started in a way to ensure that he had a solid foundation, and I think the top 3 is so much identifying your top 3 priorities of what you want to spend your time and energy on. I just think that that's a super powerful way to start, and it's the same thing Jordan was doing, you're establishing your foundation for the day. 

What are the top 3 things I need to do? 

And a lot of the people that have a lot of pushback to doing the top 3, it's you know, it's the same people that get way overwhelmed with wanting to do way too much in a single day or believing that they can accomplish much more than they actually can in a single day. 

So starting out with that top 3 can just be absolutely game-changing, and to set a solid foundation for your day and for what you want to accomplish with, with your focus or with your time, or with your energy throughout the day. And I always think, you know, if you can't execute on a... If you can't execute on a chest pass like Jordan, you know, you can't dunk or dribble or shoot well, like, if you can't get the foundation right, you're not too useful to your team. 

If you can't execute on a pass, you basically can't be on the floor. So you have to get the basics down, and I think that's what we're doing with the that's exactly what we're doing with our top 3. If you can't identify the top 3 things that you need to execute on that day, how in the world are you going to accomplish your larger goals and make serious progress? 

And in your in all your endeavors, you know, if you're trying to build a business, you need to be able to identify the 3 things that are actually going to move the needle that day, it's not thirty things, it's not twenty things. What are the 3 things that you're going to do to them that are going to move the needle that day? It's so important. So, so, so important and underrated, super underrated. 

So just kind of wanted to share that, wanted to throw that out there for you guys and encourage you like, you know, if you feel like that identifying that top 3 for you is really difficult don't freak out about that, it's a good sign, it means that you're actually thinking it through. And if you feel like, man, I should be doing 15 or 20 of these things, not just 3, you can do more than 3. What I'm asking you to do is identify those top 3, what are the top 3 of that 15 so that you can identify that's what needs done initially. 

And that's what I want to make sure I'm focusing on today, that's what I want done at the end of the day. And you can, you can always add some additional priorities to your day, I do that literally every day. I try to identify my top 3, it's hard for me because it takes thought, makes me, you know, think about what I actually need to get done instead of just going through the motions each day, and then I identify the other things I want to accomplish. 

So I'm almost always doing more than 3 things but that exercise forces me to make sure I'm intentional about what is really getting my time and energy that day. 

So I just wanted to share that hope that's helpful a little bit. 

Also, I started a, I think I've mentioned this, if I haven't, I need to. 

I started a mastermind, it's amazing. 

There's like I don't know how many people are in it right now 40 or something, 39 I don't know, I should pull that up, and anyway, it's amazing. People from all over the world think of the, you know, whatever it is, 40 ish members, there's like 25 countries probably represented, which is amazing people from all over the world, so, yeah, that's it. 

Think about your top 3. 

If you need help with that, join the mastermind. It's 29 bucks a month, which is like the most amazing coaching deal. I think that there is so much coaching is so hard to generate an ROIC off of, it's like a scam out there. If somebody is charging you like thousands of dollars a month, it's almost impossible to make that backup but 29 bucks a month mastermind group, you can DM me in there so there's still one on one communication, but there are some amazing people in there, amazing, amazing people in there. 

There's some people in there that I've coached for a long time that have really changed their life by through coaching and through, I have not done it because they've actually taken action on their stuff, so I'm not taking credit for what they've accomplished. But I think I have one client who has helped me pull up his numbers, who has set his top 3 priorities for 765 days, which is absolutely amazing, and he's in the mastermind and he's crushing it. 

He has like literally transformed his life over that 765 days, he went from a job that he hated to creating a job and a position where he can be an entrepreneur in the world that he loves. So amazing guy his name's Eli and there's just, it's just full of amazing people, it's absolutely full of some really encouraging and incredible people. 

So that's it, man. Do your top 3, get back to the fundamentals, have a good base for your day, just like Jordan started his practices with, with the chest pass, use that same principle in becoming super effective in your own life. And I know it sounds super simple just try it, try for some days. 

Oh, the mastermind, you can try for 7 days for free and just sign up. Just go to my website and there's a thing right now that says try the mastermind for 7 days, I don't know how long that's going to be up there. So if you're listening to this and it's not up there in 60 or 6 months or a year from now, it's because I've removed it, but it's up there right now. 

I'm recording this on February 25th, 2021 and it is up there and I'll keep it up there at least for a couple of weeks so you can try the mastermind absolutely free for 7 days and you can see how identifying your top 3 affects your day and you can have a group of people helping you. 

So to do that, you can go to can either go to Matt-East.com, that's just my website, or you can go to ProductivityMonsters.com, ProductivityMonsters.com and get signed up, it's awesome, the group is amazing, it's full of amazing people, and if you've ever thought of hiring a coach and then you go to try to hire a coach, you're like doing this is expensive. 

This is the perfect solution for you, it is literally perfect. 

So that's it, that's like the only drawback of coaching is that it's so damn expensive. It's just ridiculous, it's insane and, yeah, it's crazy, crazy. So, yeah, this is a great option, 29 bucks, try it for free for 7 days and join the crew, there are some absolutely amazing people in there and hunt Eli down and tell him I was bragging about him. 

All right, that's it, you guys be good. If you need anything, let me know if there's anything I can help you with, let me know and jump in the mastermind and go to ProductivityMonsters.com or my website, Matt-East.com and hop in there. 

I would say I'm going to record more podcasts, but I can't promise that we've been traveling a ton and podcasting is not that easy. When I'm, when you're traveling, like you can hear cars probably driving by right now because we're in an Airbnb that is close to the road and yeah, that's it. 

All right, you guys be good, if you need anything, let me know bye.