(B) How To Live the Life You Are Truly Made For with TOMS Founder Blake Mycoskie
In this interview, we dig into the incredible story of Blake Mycoskie, the one for one model, and what it’s like to be an entrepreneur, be the founder of TOMS, and ultimately find happiness.
Blake Mycoskie is a serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, and best-selling author most known for founding TOMS Shoes and is the person behind the idea of One for One®, a business model that helps a person in need with every product purchased.
Born and raised in Texas, Blake now resides in Jackson, Wyoming with his family, dogs, and horses. In his free time, you can find him outside enjoying nature whether it is rock climbing, surfing, or snowboarding. Most recently, he’s started a new company called Madefor to help you find specific things you could learn that would transform your daily life!
I’ve joined the most recent class of Madefor and you can too! Go to https://getmadefor.com/ and use the code MFSUCCESS for 20% off the program!
For more information: www.blakemycoskie.com
Blakes incredible story of how he came to found TOMS, Madefor, and more!
How Blake’s childhood competitiveness kept him driven.
The first businesses Blake every started you may not know about!
How One for One came to be as a business idea!
How does giving back lead ultimately to profits?
Some of the most impactful life habits you can adopt - proven by hard science.
How Blake learned and practices self-discipline.
How to craft your own personal or family mission statement to guide you through life and business.
Word matters - find those that ring true to your soul.
How to keep not only your mind but your body in shape using proven science.
How to find happiness within and not depend on outside sources that will eventually fade with time.
How Blake overcame depression and found meaning in a new chapter in life.
Austin shares his journey through dark times and what helped him overcome self-doubt.
What out there in the world of self-improvement has been proven?
You find happiness internally, not from things.
How to not only adopt new habits and practices but how to also sustain them over the long haul.
How Madefor uses the proven data behind the science to make your habits stick.
Blakes Top 2...
Sleep
Gratitude
How to begin to express more gratitude intentionally in your life and the health benefits it has on you.
Homework: You have to work to understand your own mission and core values.
Thank you so much for listening!
Please SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE US A REVIEW on iTunes! (Click here for instructions on how to do that).
The personal development world is full of bad information. We got sick and tired of this, so we hired a team of researchers to dig through a huge treasure trove of scientific data and figure out what the science is really saying, free of bias, hype, and self promotion.
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Want To Dig In More?! - Here’s The Show Notes, Links, & Research
General
Media
Forbes - “Brand Purpose Evolution From Single Event, To 360° Change Agent” by Michelle Greenwald
MBG Mindfulness - “How I'm Shifting My Mindset Right Now, From The Founder Of TOMS” By Amitha Kalaichandran, M.D.
Inc. - “Toms Founder Blake Mycoskie's Simple Habits for Recovering From Burnout” by Kimberly Weisul
CNBC - “How burnout inspired Toms founder Blake Mycoskie to start his next business” by Lucy Handley
Footwear News - “Toms Shoes Founder Blake Mycoskie Launches New Wellness Business” By Neil Weilheimer
Daniel H. Pink - “3 Questions for Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS Shoes”
Vogue - “Blake Mycoskie Is Flourishing—And You Will Too If You Try His New Wellness Program, Madefor” By Nicole Phelps
GritDaily - “TOMS Founder Blake Mycoskie Creates Wellness Kit” By Jori Ayers
Fast Company - Articles on Blake Mycoskie
SHRM - “TOMS Founder Blake Mycoskie Encourages Self-Help After Depression Diagnosis” By Dori Meinert
Foundr - “267: How TOMS Founder Blake Mycoskie Blazed a Trail for Social Entrepreneurs” by Nathan Chan
Esalen CTR - “Blake Mycoskie on Why I Started Toms” by Blake Mycoskie
HBR - “The Founder of TOMS on Reimagining the Company’s Mission” by Blake Mycoskie
Crunchbase Profile - Blake Mycoskie
[Podcast] Storybrand - Should Your Company Take a Stand on a Social Issue? - Interview with Blake Mycokie
[Podcast] Why Not Now? with Amy Jo Martin - Episode 113: Blake Mycoskie - If Not You, Who? If Not Now When?
[Podcast] How I Built This with Guy Raz - TOMS: Blake Mycoskie
Videos
TOMS YouTube Channel
Sadhguru - Why Are We Not Naturally Enlightened? - Sadhguru with Blake Mycoskie (Founder, TOMS)
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon - Toms Founder Blake Mycoskie Announces $5 Million Donation to End Gun Violence
Daily Stoic - This Is How You Change The World | Ryan Holiday on Blake Mycoskie | Daily Stoic Podcast
Lewis Howes - Blake Mycoskie: TOMS Shoes Founder on Changing Business and The World
Tom Bilyeu - Humanize Your Mission - Blake Mycoskie | Inside Quest #76
CNBC International TV - Blake Mycoskie, Founder of TOMS | The Brave Ones
Bulletproof - Invisible Patterns, Finding Joy & Other Lessons with the Founder of TOMS Shoes - Blake Mycoskie
Books
Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Science of Success. Introducing your host, Matt Bodnar.
[00:00:11] AF: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Science of Success, the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the Internet with over five million downloads and listeners in over 100 countries. My name is Austin Fabel, and I'm really excited to bring you this interview today.
Today, we’re going to interview Blake Mycoskie. We’re going to dig into his journey of founding several companies, most notably Toms Shoes and his latest endeavor, Madefor. We dig into the science of how small tweaks in your routine can lead to huge impacts, and some of the most impactful habits and routines Blake and his team have uncovered, and how you can really find true and sustainable happiness in life.
Are you a fan of the show? If so, do me a favor and go to www.successpodcast.com and sign up for our email list. You can sign up right on the homepage. We’re going to give you a lot of goodies in the email list including a free course. We put a ton of time into called How to Create Time for What Matters Most in Your Life, as well as our weekly newsletter, Mindset Monday. We’re going to keep you up-to-date on all things going on here at the Science of Success.
Are you on the go? Are you on the phone right now? Just pull it right out and text smarter. That's S-M-A-R-T-E-R to 44222, and that will sign you up immediately.
In our previous episode, we dug into the science of decision-making and thinking with best-selling author Ozan Varol. Ozan and I went into how you can pivot your life and dig into his incredible life story, including being a part of the team that sent the first rovers to Mars and also how you can question your assumptions and really challenge your own opinions to make sure you’re thinking like a rocket scientist.
And now onto my interview with Blake.
[00:01:57] AF: Blake, welcome to the Science of Success.
[00:02:00] BM: Hey, Austin. Thanks so much for having me on the show. Well, I really appreciate the time, and it's great to have you on. As I was telling you kind of before we started, digging into just all of your past work. Obviously, Toms is huge, Madefor going to be huge, continuing to grow. But there’s just so much to unpack there from your life and just the different entrepreneurial journeys. It was just so fascinating to learn about you.
I’d like to kind of start. Just tell us a little about yourself, where you're from. Touch on some of your past endeavors and really kind of what led you down this path of founding Toms and then eventually Madefor.
[00:02:31] BM: Yeah. I grew up in Arlington, Texas and my kind of earliest passion in life was I was a very competitive tennis player, and I think a lot of my entrepreneurial success actually comes from the self-discipline and just like a focus that I had as a very competitive young tennis player. Also, tennis being an individual sport I think was a great precursor to being an entrepreneur, because you didn't have a team to fall back on. That's one of the things that you hear a lot about entrepreneurial life is it can be quite lonely because you are the person who's responsible for calling most of the shots. I, for the first – From age 10 to basically 20, tennis was my entire life. I then shifted over to becoming an entrepreneur in my early 20s, and that's what has characterized most of my life since then.
[00:03:25] AF: When you look at founding Toms, tell us kind of how that got started. Did you always know you wanted to start a company that was going to have a social kind of giveback component to it or was that something that kind of evolved as the journey went on?
[00:03:36] BM: Yeah. The question itself is really interesting because I don't think you would have asked that question 13 years ago because people weren’t talking about businesses or social components. When I started Toms, there was no real concept of a conscious capitalism or a social business. I mean, it's hard to believe now because it's so important and so woven into the fabric of entrepreneurship in business. But when I started Toms, that wasn’t even a concept, so if you can go back to that mindset.
When I started Toms, I wasn’t even thinking that I was really building a business. I just knew that I saw many children around the world, specifically in South America where I was at the time, who were living in great poverty so much that they couldn't afford a simple pair of shoes. At the same time, I discovered this really great shoe in Argentina that all my friends who were polo players and their girlfriends are wearing around town, and I just kind of put the two ideas together. I thought these are really cool shoes. I could sell them. I think the style is cool. I’ve never seen anything like this in the US. But I think what would be the coolest way to do it is I could sell a pair in the US and then come back and give a pair to all these kids I’ve been seeing in the streets and in some of these neighborhoods who don't have a simple pair of shoes.
It really was just more of kind of a what if or this would be fun. Or we called it the shoes for tomorrow project, and it really wasn't until the shoes kind of gotten noticed by the fashion community and not even say kind of Brooklyn hipsters, if you will, that it started to grow so fast that I realized, “Well, this could actually be a business and help a lot of people.” Then it was later that academics and journalists started labeling what I was doing as a social enterprise or conscious capitalism or all of this. But I never really self-labeled it that at all.
[00:05:35] AF: It’s so interesting too. Just to bring up the point 13 years ago, that wouldn't even be a question. I know you’ve spoken in the past about how social media was kind of on the rise at this time too, so like the visibility into doing the right thing and kind of building out the social aspect to a business. That was really amplified by a lot of that but really it was cutting edge at the time.,
Now, you just see it’s everywhere. I think Warby Parker does something similar, the one-for-one kind of model. But it’s really kind of set the standard for, especially in the world of social consumerism too, right? People want to know that the companies that they're giving their money are doing something to help the community at large, and so it’s just so fascinating how it was kind of something that wasn't really planned ahead of time but quickly evolved into something that was just a huge win-win not only for you entrepreneurially but also just for the world at large and the people that you are trying to help.
[00:06:23] BM: Yeah. I know it's truly one of things that I'm sure I’ll look back at the end of my life on and be most grateful for because it's not just the fact that Toms has now given 96 million children a pair of shoes, which is a number that's hard to believe. Or 600,000 people that we've given eyesight too through our eye program. But it's all the hundreds and thousands of businesses that have incorporated and emulated our business model and all the good that they've done. That’s what I really – When I’m being reflective and thinking about impact, that’s what I really like to think about.
[00:06:58] AF: Yeah. It’s definitely, definitely something worth looking back and being very proud of. There's so much I want to dig into too, and it was hard to kind of narrow some of these down. I mean,
everything just from novel things like being on the great escape to like changing the way advertising works on buildings in Nashville. I do want to dig into Madefor but I'm going to table that kind of to have its own section of this interview.
But it’s funny looking at everything like on your resume and that you've done it. There's been so many different things. Like I said, the great escape, changing advertising in Nashville, a dry cleaning in college when you’re at SMU, but it always just kind of seemed like you've really had a stable kind of why, like you understand that there – The why behind what you're doing. I mean, I even look at what you did with gun control. I mean, it's incredible and it’s admirable. How do you recommend someone go out and try to find their own why and try to find their own purpose, because there's really no roadmap or something like that, right? But if you want to work at a job or do something that you enjoy every day, it’s important to find that.
Then [inaudible 00:07:57] is kind of a selfish question for me because I feel like in certain phases of life, my why can completely change, right? It’s almost like a seasonal type thing. How do you go about recommending someone find that?
[00:08:08] BM: Well, a couple things. I mean, first is I know we’re going to get into Madefor later, but that’s actually where the name Madefor came from was that we believe that at some point in our life, we all ask this question. What am I made for? That’s very much connected to what is my why. Why you say there's not a roadmap, I would say that we have found some very systematic ways to help people get there because I think a lot of people wallow in this kind of moment of hoping that their big whys is just going to become this epiphany that it kind of smacks them in the head one day and gives them all this clarity and purpose. But it actually takes some work to get there.
I’ll just give you a few key things that I think I have helped me and some of this is is actually integrated into the Madefor program. The first thing is most businesses have a mission statement that became very popular in the 80s and has continued on, and almost every new company has some pretty clear articulation of why they're in business. But very few humans have personal mission statements. Or if they do, they don’t necessarily have them like plastered up in their kitchen that they read every single morning and recommit to.
I am a big believer in developing a personal or I would even say a family mission statement, because a family mission statement helps define the culture of how you’re going to raise your children on how you’re going to conduct your family. The best way to get to a family mission statement or a personal mission statement is actually first to do the work of identifying your core values. We have a process with Madefor that is very specific about really looking at long list of words and seeing which words really connect to you in your gut. There's all the science now around how your gut, this feeling or the gut feeling is actually quite intelligent that you intuitively know like, “Oh, this word means something to me.”
Now, I could go down a full rabbit hole of my spiritual beliefs and how I think that there's reasons why a certain word might really resonate with you based on what your purpose is and why you came to this earth to work through that purpose. But even if you don't believe any of that stuff, there’s just people will say, “Oh, grace.” That word really somehow means or courageous. Oh, yeah. That deals right to me. I want to be courageous, but they might not want to be brave. For whatever reason, words matter. In order to get to your purpose and your why and ultimately your mission statement, what I like to do is take people through this exercise, which we do with Madefor where we really help you identify words that just feel right to you, which ultimately become your core values. Then through your core values, you derive your ultimate mission statement.
My mission statement in life is to live a courageous life with grace and moderation. This podcast is probably not the place to go through dissecting that, but those are very specific words that some people might not attest with me or think like, “Oh, I don't see that. But it all makes sense to me because then it goes into my core values and the way that I operate my life.” But I think that it is so important and it is such a proven technique for kind of personal well-being and mental health to have that clear mission statement and these core values because then you can orient the way that you spend your time around that. There’s nothing more satisfying than dedicating and feeling like your time spent every day is aligned with the values that you set. That’s, once again, why we named it Madefor after doing a lot of work around.
[00:11:55] AF: Yeah. It’s such an incredibly powerful exercise, and working on my own mission statement has also been kind of a personal journey for me and something that I kind of have to really, really drill down on. I think I'm going to give this a stab tonight and just see what I can come up with. I've never really sat down and done the exercise of thinking through just words that really hit me in the gut, but it seems like a pretty nice and really kind of intuitive place to start.
[00:12:18] BM: Absolutely, absolutely.
[00:12:20] AF: Let's go ahead and go there then. Tell us the story of what led you to Madefor. It sounds kind of like you were a little bit adrift. I mean, you sold off 50% of Toms. I’ve kind of read a bunch of articles. You’ve adopted mountain climbing and racecar driving, and there was a lot kind of things going on there that’s ultimately led you to Madefor. Share with us a little bit of that story, and let’s dig into more about Madefor.
[00:12:39] BM: Sure. I sold half of Toms in 2014, and that was a very big moment in my life. I grew up with kind of middle-class upper, middle-class family. But, I mean, I really bootstrap Toms. I had no investors. Every penny kind of went back into building Toms. Then I got to a place where I built this company that had half a billion in sales and was helping tens of millions of people a year. I recognized that I didn't want the pressure of owning 100% anymore and that I really want to bring in some partners in to help me grow the business. Really selling half a Toms was not about getting a liquidity event but more bringing in the right partners to help grow the mission.
Now, at that same time, I made $350 million which is more money than I would ever spend and that I could ever imagine. I pledged about half of that money to go back to helping social entrepreneurs and then growing their businesses. I’ve invested in over 30 businesses since that with that fund and have a lot of dry powder to continue to do so. But most people would say, “Oh, my gosh. You now have just this incredible wealth. You have a family. You have friends. You have been celebrated as kind of changing the way that we do business. You must've been at your all-time happiest.”
I will say that for about a year, a year and a half, the buzz of all that really carried me through and really did give me a deep sense of feeling of happiness and excitement. That’s when I started mountain climbing and got in great shape and racecar driving and all of these things that I'd always kind dreamed of but never had the time or money to do. Well, that led to about 2016 when kind of the music stopped, as I like to say. You can only do so much of these activities, and then ultimately some of their glimmer and shine wear off. Where I found myself was I didn't feel like I had real purpose. I had neglected a lot of my kind of physical and mental hygiene, if you will. I just kind of jumping from one exciting thing to the next.
But the biggest thing I realized, and this was a hard realization to have, is everything that was basically contributing to my happiness or well-being wasn't external thing. It was an accomplishment. It was an accolade. It was a new racecar. It was a kid. It was a wife. I mean, all these things aren’t bad but all of my joy and contentment and well-being was coming from external factors. Ultimately, I realized that that was never going to really fulfill me on a consistent and sustainable way, and so I got diagnosed with mild depression. I had trouble getting out of bed some. I was really kind of in a dark place.
Luckily, the way that I am wired is I don't stay in those places for very long because I'm very productive. I’m very proactive. I’m very entrepreneurial. I kind of took my entrepreneurial thinking to my own mental and physical health and said, “Okay, hold on. I've done everything that my parents and society told me to do, and I kind of feel like shit.” Clearly, I missed something here, and so I’m going to start looking at who feels great, who's thriving, who's really good reporting a sense of well-being and not just based on what they say on a podcast but actually what has been scientifically proven. I really became obsessed with science or their laboratories that were studying people who are having high energy levels and sense of contentment. What I found was there were, and a lot of it was residing in this fast-growing space of neuroscience.
I ended up meeting a gentleman named Andrew Huberman who runs a lab at Stanford in neuroscience department. I also met a gentleman named Pat Dossett who became my business partner in Madefor, and Pat was a Navy SEAL for nine years. When I met him, he had his deep fascination and drive to help all humans live better through what he had learned in the SEALS and also what he thought science could teach us. That was the beginning of me going on a personal journey to try to feel better and to have a more predictable sustainable way to kind of live with the challenges of modern living.
Through Andrew's guidance, I started learning a lot about neuroscience. What I found was that these simple habits and practices that certain people have found a way to integrate and sustain their life actually changed the neural pathways and really provided the insulation from the challenges of modern living. Andrew started introducing me and Pat to different scientists all over the country. Some who specialized in sleep, others who specialized in human connection, others who really looked at how the body can move and how you can get older and avoid most of the typical aches and pains that people experience. I just got so excited, and so I just dove deep into this. I mean, I had a lot of free time on my hands, and so Pat and I went and met with so many of these scientists, and we started implementing and experimenting these things with ourselves.
No surprise here, I started feeling so much better, and it had nothing to do with any external things. It was all these internal practices that I was experimenting with with myself. So much that, and this is where I think my kind of way I'm wired is to try to help people, is that as soon as I started feeling better eyes like Pat, we have to get this information out of these labs and away from just scientists and get these to every person that we know and people that we don't know. I mean, I see so much suffering going on in the United States with so many people on antidepressants, and so many people having to take sleep aids, and young people reporting highest levels of anxiety and stress. That just really hurts to see in my own backyard and in my coworkers at Toms. I mean, I see this and I experience some of this myself. How can we get this out there?
We spent the whole summer thinking of different things. We thought of like having like a center of excellence where people could come and learn, but we realize that would be too expensive for people and when to scale. We looked at all different types of models, and ultimately we came up with let’s identify the practices and habits that had the biggest impact with the least amount of effort because we really know that people are busy. They have a lot of stuff already in their plate, and it's really hard to add one more thing.
Our goal was actually to find 12 things. We thought just from a packaging-marketing presentation standpoint, a year-long program where you learn one new thing each month just felt right. But the science actually told us otherwise. If you ever meet my business partner Pat, I don’t know if this comes from his military background or whatever, but he is a total no-bullshit guy, and so like he was not going to squeeze out 12 when science only showed us that there were 10. The Madefor program is only 10 months, and each month we teach you in a very specific way how to learn a new habit or practice that can transform your life and most importantly how to sustain it. We developed this program. We spent another year having 1, 300 people going through a beta test, and got incredible life transformations and testimonials out of that. Then we decided to actually launch it to the public on March 4th, and we had thousands of people going through it right now.
[00:20:15] AF: What a great time also just coincidently to launch something, I mean, right before a pandemic hits. Some people probably need something like this. You couldn’t have planned that at least I don’t think so, but it seems like a time where people really, really need something like them.
[00:20:28] BM: Yes. I mean, the one thing that has been so gratifying, I mean, there’s been so many challenging things and experiences through COVID and everything else that’s going on in the country, but the real shining light for me has been getting feedback from so many of our members of how going through the Madefor program because you do it completely in your own home. I mean, this is not something that you have to do outside of your home each month that they’ve been able to do it during the quarantine and how it's just giving them so much grounding and something very positive to work on in their life when there's so much uncertainty and stress.
One of the other really interesting things about Madefor and it also is I think kind of very radical in this time and age. But once again, the reason we did it this way is because this is what the science told us, is the program is completely analog, so there's no digital app. There's no device telling you how you're doing. Everything you get, everything you need to learn that new habit or practice comes in a Madefor kit on the first day of the month. We found that people really appreciated that too, because there's so much digital distraction. There's so much desire for multitasking. This is a little bit of a refuge of they are committing to their own well-being.
For 45 minutes, when they first get the kit, I mean, they open it up. It takes about 45 minutes to go through what you're going to do that month. Then usually, we’re only asking for 5 or 10 minutes of your day for 30 days to really ingrain that new habit and practice. People have really appreciated that. When we launched it that way, I will say we were like, “Gosh, this is where the science show it works.” But people are so obsessed with all these devices and all these apps. I don't know how people are going to respond. Well, we found that people loved it. Any excuse to get off their phone and turn it off or turn it in silent or work on themselves for a few minutes a day really has been well received, especially during the quarantine as well.
[00:22:25] AF: This episode of the Science of Success is brought to you by our partners at the Business Casual Podcast. Business Casual is a new podcast by Morning Brew that makes business news enjoyable, relatable, and dare I say even fun. Host, Kinsey Grant, interviews the biggest names in business covering topics like how technology is changing the fitness industry to the economics of influencer marketing. It’s the business podcast that makes you smarter and makes you laugh. It gets that mixture of entertainment but also information. Listen to Business Casual wherever you get your podcasts today.
[00:23:05] AF: There's so much I want to impact there. It’s difficult to even know where to begin, but it does seem like this would be a good place to go ahead and mention that Blake and his team have been kind enough to extend a special offer of 20% off on the Madefor program. We’re going to give that code at the end of the interview, but you did such a good job explaining the journey and the impact here, and I couldn't agree with all the principles you mentioned. I feel like this is a good time to just let people know that there will be a discount for Madefor presented at the end of the interview.
[00:23:32] BM: I would say one of the things I love is an important part of habit and life transformation is accountability. I know you have a really robust community, so one of the reasons we did that. I'm excited about having that code, and so more people can afford to do it is really seeing how your community goes on this journey. I know you said that you’re going to sign up as well. It’s so exciting for me because I love seeing when people are growing and then they’re connecting to each other through that growth and sharing their experiences.
I got so many years of just incredibly joyful heartwarming experiences traveling the world, helping children get pairs of shoes that sometimes they've never had through Toms. But I can say that when I log on, we have a private Facebook community for members. When I log on and hear some of the people’s stories and shoot them a note back or a video back, I mean, there’s often – I usually do it on Sunday nights. I mean, there’s – Yeah, I definitely tear up. I mean, it’s amazing to see how people when they start to build some momentum.
That's a big part of Madefor and that actually comes a lot from Pat’s experience as a Navy SEAL. They had this belief that you got to crawl first, then walk, then run. I believe a lot of transformation in life doesn't happen because people try to run too early. Madefor is all based on very simple baby steps to help you build momentum. As I see our members, many of them in month four right now, building this momentum, it just gives me so much joy. I'm so excited that members of your community are not only going to get to do this but they get to do it alongside each other.
[00:25:07] AF: Yeah. Do it with me, guys. Come on. Let’s do it. Well, it’s interesting too. What have you seen around making things stick like habits and how is it working with Madefor because you mentioned a couple of things? I want to unpack some of these but I appreciate you sharing your depression diagnosis with us. As someone who also has been clinically diagnosed with depression in the past, I feel like it's in middle school, high school with crazy years a lot of emotions and things going on.
But one of the things that I kind of realized, I had this moment like three years ago where I kind of like broke down just to be completely honest was I always really sought a lot of my self-worth from external sources, from what people thought of me, from what people – How they treated me from how people spoke to me. I had all these beliefs that if I didn't do X, Y, Z for every single person in my life, they weren’t going to love me and things would go away.
It’s even after realizing that a lot of this happiness comes internally, I still have to make it stick, right? I’ll still find myself like going out of my way to do something because it's almost selfish because I want that validation that then makes me feel better. It’s not anything to do with who it is. In the same way like I'll go through seasons of life where I’ll sit down and meditate every day for like 30 minutes and I get like super Zen Buddhist monk and I'm listening to all this music. Then after that, I'll watch a YouTube video or read something and get really into like distance running for a while or like I bought a compound bow. I wanted to get into archery. I still never shot the thing.
But how do we go about making things stick and what does the research that you did in developing Madefor show, because there are so many things even when it comes to our emotional and spiritual well-being or our physical well-being, mental well-being that we might start but we basically get a good week or two out of then. We might throw a little money at the self-help industry by buying some books and we’re basically the same person. How do we keep from that happening and actually make lasting change?
[00:26:55] BM: Sure. This definitely comes back to neuroscience. I would say like in terms of hobbies, I can't really speak from an educated place of like your situation with buying a compound bow and not shooting it. Hobbies is different than I would say habits and patterns. In terms of how do you make a new positive habit stick, I’ll use like hydration as example. One of our months with the basic, basic aspect of human well-being is how hydrated are you. What a lot of people don't realize is that even a 1 to 2% fall off on your optimum hydration level can be enough to affect your mood, your sleep, and your energy level. There is a very scientifically fine-tuned way to really look at hydration. We have a whole month that focuses on that, and a lot of it has to do with also like what climate you live in and how much you exercise, even what type of foods you eat.
But I’ll use hydration as an example because before Madefor, I always thought I drink water and I would go through periods of time where I would drink a lot of water and in periods where I wouldn’t, and so it never stuck until Madefor. Part of it is and we’ve heard this many times before is you really got to focus on something for 30 days like with total commitment for it to become formed as a habit. There’s a lot of science behind that, and you can’t focus on more than one thing. You can't be trying to get, say, becoming the type of person that drinks this much amount of water every day and becoming someone who’s starting out a new fitness routine at the same time. I wish you could but that's not the way that the brain works if you want it to stick.
The thing is with habits is by doing the same basic thing over and over and over again and, this is the most important part, having a reward mechanism, so we have a water bottle that has a built-in thing that keeps track of how much you’re drinking water. You move this bead every time you finish a bottle. You get a dopamine hit every time you move that bead because you’re like, “Oh, I'm accomplishing my goal, these micro goals throughout the day.” Then we ask you to write for two or three minutes in your journal. How did you feel? Did you have more energy than normal? Did you sleep better?
You got to do something consistently. You’ve got to see that there's a real reward in it, and that ultimately is how you form a habit. Now, the word habit is so important here because the thing is you ultimately don't ever want to have to be thinking about drinking water again. Why people don't necessarily stick to meditation is it feels like something that they’re doing. They got a scheduled time in their day, and it's like an activity is somewhat similar to maybe even shooting archery but probably a little bit easier to stick to. With things that we focus on in Madefor, these are habits that once you have ingrained them, you're probably not even going to be thinking about them. Just like you naturally brush your teeth, you’re going to naturally be a person that carries a water bottle everywhere with you because your brain knows that it feels better when you're drinking more water.
That’s really how things stick versus become kind of these things that we try, and then ultimately fall away from. I do think you could have that happen with meditation if you are getting enough positive biofeedback and you did it at the same time every day, so it wasn't like a scheduling issue. That's one of the reasons why people don't have things like meditation stick because they just say, “Oh, I’m going to do it at some point today,” versus everything. You do it first thing in the morning. But that’s really the key to getting things to stick.
[00:30:42] AF: Yeah. I love it and it’s such good actionable advice too, the idea of having that reward kind of built in. The example of the water bottle is just so easy to understand but it’s so true. I mean, just knowing you're going to be rewarded for accomplishing that goal or taking a step in the right direction really can help you solidify the action you need to take. I'm super curious too. I was trying to think of ways to kind of phrase this. I'm curious as to like if you could choose one habit to stick for the rest of your life, what would that be?
[00:31:14] BM: I mean, I’ve already used the water. The water one is so big and it sounds so simple.
[00:31:17] AF: I love water, yeah.
[00:31:18] BM: I’m not going to use that one. But honestly, I would probably say that’s the one because, I mean, 70% of our body is water. I mean, there's so much science now that says how so many people were actually chronically dehydrated and they never know it. It affects every single organ. It affects your mood. It affects your energy. But let's just give a second one then because I’ll say that's already a given now. I think the other one that has –
[00:31:43] AF: Well, here let me rephrase the question. I'll give you a little more rope here. I'm curious as to – You obviously take care of yourself, so how do you go about taking care of yourself mentally, and how do you go about taking care of yourself physically, and how has your sort of personal routines and goals and habits bled into the making of Madefor?
[00:32:04] BM: Sure, okay. I'll just say there's 10 months. There’s 10 practices. I’ll pick a mental one and a physical one beyond water that have had the biggest impact on me. The physical one is optimizing my sleep. I had read sleep books. I had listened to podcasts on sleep. But until I really got down to the science of the steps and the ways that you can really prepare for the perfect night’s sleep and then also as importantly how you wake up in a way that doesn't cause your cortisol levels to spike and to really reap the benefits of a good night’s sleep, that has had the biggest physical impact on me and definitely in terms of mood and everything.
I mean, like when you wake up feeling refreshed, it is amazing. I mean, I love to drink coffee here and there but I used to like need a double espresso within 90 seconds of waking up. Now, I mean, I might have like a half caff or usually I’ll have some tea, but it's definitely not a need anymore. That is huge because not only do I feel better. But mentally, I'm like, “I don't need anything. I can go camping and forget my coffee and wake up and feel great and enjoy my morning.” There’s something really liberating about not having that need. Sleep was the thing physically.
Then I would say mentally is I've always been someone who I would say feels grateful. I’ve always said – I thank people. I’ll write a handwritten note here and there. I feel like I've been really blessed in my life. I’m a grateful person. But it wasn't until we started really looking at some of the work from Martin Seligman about the power of gratitude practice. Think of gratitude practice as almost like a yoga practice or a meditation practice, and there's very specific things you can do both in thinking, writing, speaking that help you integrate gratitude into your brain in a way that’s just incredibly powerful.
We have a whole month that focuses not just on the basics of like write three things you're grateful for today at the end of the night before you go to bed. There's nothing wrong with that, and that's a great start. But there are some really more specific things that we do that help you kind of rewire the way that you look at positive and negative events in your life. At some point through these practices, you can actually have a negative experience. Because of what you’ve done with this work, actually be grateful to it almost in the moment if not right after, because you know that in other times in your life when you had a negative experience, it ultimately had a silver lining that you couldn't see then but you could see 10 years later.
It’s that type of detail that we get into with the Madefor program and that’s had a huge impact on me now. I mean, like literally I can – My girlfriend right now, for instance. She can literally have like this kind of emotional breakdown. If I stay calm and present, I can actually be grateful that that's happening because I know what that's doing is allowing her to open up and be more vulnerable to me and allowing me to prove my ability to stay strong and clear and with death and helping her working through something. I literally could never experience that in the past had I not learned these practices.
[00:35:18] AF: I think it's so important. I mean, the two things you mentioned, they’re great. I mean, first of all, I'm a sleep nerd. I'm in bed usually most nights if I can by like 9:30 but I wake up at like 4:30. I mean, sleep is something I covet above all. I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Matthew Walker, but he has some incredible research out there about sleep. He’d been on the show in the past. Great, great book. I would highly recommend his work.
The thing – Gratitude too, it’s interesting. You talk about even being able to be grateful in the face of kind of “bad situation” because it gives you these opportunities. I think it’s an interesting example of how gratitude more so I think than a lot of skills is like a muscle. The more you practice gratitude, the more you’re going to see it. I remember there was a couple of years ago I had an internship in college. I had this mentor during that internship who just really took me under her wing. I mean, I was trying to get a – I love public speaking now. I used to hate it. It terrified me. My big project then was to present in front of like the VP of the company, and I was terrified. Day two of the internship, she had me put together some slides and go stand in Starbucks in the middle of like rush, busy time and put up these slides on a little projector and go through my presentation in front of everyone in line. They would listen. It was like terrifying.
By the end of it, I love public speaking and I do to this day. The other day, it was actually about a year or two ago, I just called her up. I had her number in my phone, and I called her up and said, “Hey, Jamie. I just wanted to let you know this is Austin. You may not even remember me but I just wanted to let you know you made a huge impact on my life and really it's helped shape me into who I am today. Just thank you.” She broke down crying and was just like, “I don't know what's in the world but like I needed this today. My dad has been sick lately. I'm having problems at home.” It was just such a crazy thing and it was weird how I was like terrified even to do it but then it makes – Since then, I’ve always tried to express gratitude to at least one person like outwardly every single day, right? Just like strengthen them.
Now, it’s not even weird. I felt like such a weirdo calling her, but now it's like I'm that kind of guy who’ll be like, “Hey, Blake. Just calling to let you know, man. I love you, dude, and you’re doing a great job.” Some people like really need to hear that. Some people are still going to tell you like –
[00:37:29] BM: Flex a muscle, right?
[00:37:30] AF: Yeah. Like, “What are you smoking, Austin?”
[00:37:31] BM: You become uncomfortable the first time you did it. Just like when you go to the gym and squat and you haven’t squatted in two years. You’re going to be sore as hell, and it’s not going to be fun, and you’re going to like, “I don’t ever want to do that again.” Gratitude is the exact same way. I'm so glad you pointed that out.
[00:37:46] AF: Yeah. It’s so important too. I mean, I think what you're doing with Madefor and what you’ve done in really throughout the majority of your career is very important because it's something that if you can lead this horse to the water and just keep them drinking, eventually they’re going to be fine and they’re going to be able to grab the reins of their own life. Eventually, I assume you after the 10 months you don't really need Madefor anymore as far as the products go. I mean, you’ve really kind of built these things into your life toward now you should be living optimally.
[00:38:13] BM: Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up because it's one of the things that I love is that I'm like most companies in the wellness space and I even hesitate to even say that's where we are. They want to continue selling stuff. They want to sell you stuff the rest of your life. I mean, they want to sell you another powder, another protein, another class to sign up, another retreat to go to. This once again goes to kind of the purity of how we built this. My business partner, Pat, is like, “It’s a 10-month program, and that’s it.” People are always like, “Well, what do you mean?” Business friends of mine are like, “Hold on. You have these people who are deeply committed to you, totally connected your brand, or having transformed their life experiences, and you’re not going to give them another 10 months?” I’m like, “No, because like these are the 10 things that work. This is what we do, and you graduate, and we hope that you’re experienced, and you carry it on, and you do well in the world.” But, yeah, I mean, this is not a subscription model. This is a 10-month program. I'm so glad you brought that up because I think that gets confused with a lot of the things that are out there.
[00:39:14] AF: Yeah, absolutely. Blake, you’ve been very generous with your time. I'm going to ask just two more kind of quick questions and then I want to give the code out and then, of course, let people know where they can find you, learn more about Madefor. I’m kind of a nerd lately. I’ve always been very intrigued with time management, right? I’ve got a wife and a kid myself. Things are exploding right now in a number of fronts. We’re busier. At least I feel busier than I've ever been. But you’ve worn a ton a hats, right? Written a best-selling book, ran many massive companies, chipping social good on multiple media channels. You’ve gone on several, several media tours, so obviously a very busy individual. How do you go about planning your day to make sure you actually have time to accomplish the things that are going to keep you driving forward?
[00:39:55] BM: Yeah. It’s funny because I have a very high need for freedom in my life. If you do any of the psychological tests or Enneagram or whatever, like freedom is so key to me. But what frees me up the most is actually planning and scheduling everything. I plan when I'm going to hang out with my kids on my schedule, and it's there, and it's protected. I plan when I’m going to take time to go for a trail run. Some people that might not work for because they’re like, “I just want to like to be spontaneous [inaudible 00:40:26].”
Now, I actually plan for spontaneity. Actually, the funny thing is I’ll plan like – My girlfriend and I are doing a trip in September. We’re just going to decide where we’re going to go. We’re just blocking off like, “We’re going somewhere and we’re going to decide a day before because we want to be spontaneous.” You can even actually plan for spontaneity. But in terms of time management, to me, the most important thing and this goes back to the question you asked at the very beginning about your why is you need to do the work to really understand your mission, your core values. Then ultimately, your core values should drive how you’re going to spend your time. If I put one of my core values, it’s family first. The role I play as being an incredible dad, well, then that needs to get factored in just as closely as I’m going to do three podcasts this week for Madefor because I want to continue to help push the mission and reach more people.
For me, before you can really do good time management, you got to have real clarity about what your priorities and what your roles are in life, and how much time on a percentage level you want to give to those. Then after you have those percentages of that, then you can start laying out your weekly, monthly, quarterly calendar. I say just do it with incredible specificity. So then when you wake up in the morning, there’s no stress. You look at your calendar and that's what you're doing. If you don’t like it, then remember that next time you plan that. That’s the other thing is like it takes time to realize like, “Oh, that was a little too much kid time today. I really need some adult stimulation.”
Or, gosh, me and partner, my wife, my girlfriend, or whatever, we just aren't feeling connected. Well, let’s go look at this schedule. This month, we literally only had one date night and we had one afternoon where we went for a hike. That's clearly not enough for us. So then you fine-tune it as you go, but that's a key thing for me with time management is just really plan and really schedule.
[00:42:20] AF: Yeah, I love that. That’s a take I actually haven't heard in the past. Again, I’m going to dig into this whole figuring out my core values thing here later on tonight. You’ve given me a little bit of homework. I want to pass the baton to you and say what's the homework that you would give to anyone listening right now that they can act on this week, something that they can do to improve their lives in the next seven days?
[00:42:41] BM: Yeah, this is something with an easy answer because it’s something I committed to last September for the first time, and it has a huge impact, and that is commit to a morning routine. Now, your morning routine could be five minutes or it could be an hour. Mine is about 45 minutes now, but it is something that I am pretty religious about. Now, I would say with some self-compassion I probably do it five out of seven days a week but I try to do it all seven days. It’s just things happen. But having a morning routine I think is – Once again, we talked about building a momentum in your life. Building momentum in your day is so powerful.
My morning routine is, once again, I wake up. I do not use a phone, so I have no distraction. I use an alarm clock, and that’s something we get into with Madefor. My alarm clock goes off. I get up. I do not look at my phone until my morning routine is done, so nothing can distract me from my morning routine. The only thing that distracts me is sometimes my kids wake up earlier than normal. Now, I’ve got that pretty dialed now. The earliest they’re waking up is 6:30. If I started 5:40, I can get my routine in.
My routine is to do three cups of tea. I have this beautiful teakettle that I make some beautiful tea. I pour myself three cups simultaneously. I do it in silence and I really just allow the day to come to me, me to be open to the day. Then I usually do about 5 minutes to maximum 20 minutes of breath work or meditation, depending on what your practice is. For me, I’ve been doing a lot of breath work. I feel that’s as energizing as the meditation and also clears my head. Then if I have enough time, the kids haven’t gotten up, I try to write my journal for five minutes, maybe some gratitude stuff or what I'm working on that day or an idea that came to me. A lot of times, I get great ideas when I'm doing meditation and breath work I think because I’m so clear. Then I’m done.
Then the kids get up. Maybe I then start checking email. I just get going. But having a morning routine has made a huge difference in my life, and that's something that we don't necessarily bake into the Madefor program. There's pieces of my morning routine that you learn through Madefor, but an actual morning routine is something that I think everyone can deeply benefit, and you can start tomorrow.
[00:44:59] AF: I love it. Yeah, being a morning person myself, I definitely rely on my morning routine to keep me sane throughout the day for sure. Blake, thank you so much for all the time. This has been incredible. Where can people find you or learn more about Madefor, about your work in general, and interact with you?
[00:45:16] BM: Yes. The place to learn about Madefor or to sign up is that getmadefor.com, so G-E-T-M-A-D-E-F-O-R.com. Like you said, we have created a special code for your community. It’s MF SUCCESS. If you put in MF SUCCESS at check out, you’ll get 20% off the program. Where you can find me personally is on Instagram. That's pretty much the main outlet for social media and riffs and thinking I have on a daily basis.
[00:45:46] AF: Awesome. Yeah, we will definitely link that code on the show notes page as well. I love what Deborah did there with MF SUCCESS, Madefor Success. Pretty clever stuff there. Cool. Well, Blake, thank you so much for coming on the Science of Success. It’s been great talking to you and thank you for all the wisdom you shared today.
[00:46:02] BM: Awesome. Have a great day, Austin. Thank you very much.
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