In this episode, You will learn why motivation sucks and why it won't get you to the destination you want with your goals, dreams, desires, relationship, life and more.
Motivation is a useful tool when it is used correctly. But most are doing it all wrong! Don't make the same mistake others make when it comes to relying on motivation to get you where you want to be in your life.
We share our real-life examples in this episode. This lesson on why motivation sucks covers everything from your relationships, marriage, kids, your daily practice, fitness/health, business and all aspects of your life.
This is an important one you don't want to miss.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Video Siri Shakti Jumping Into Cold Pool
Transcript: (Read Time: 48 Minutes)
Siri Shakti: Welcome to the RockStar In Life podcast where you learn the secrets to unleashing your inner RockStar so you can make the world your stage.
Hey fellow RockStars In Life. It's Siri Shakti. Welcome today. And with me, joining me today is my awesome cohost.
Dr Dan: And husband.
Siri Shakti: And husband.
Dr Dan: Dr. Dan.
Siri Shakti: Welcome, Dr. Dan.
Dr Dan: Well, thank you very much, Siri Shakti.
So today, what are we going to be talking about?
Siri Shakti: Today we're going to be talking about commitment, and the power of commitment. And this is a word that we hear often in our life. Everyone knows what commitment is, but it's one of those things that kind of eludes us because we have a general understanding of what commitment is, but I think it's one of those words that you hear a lot, but you don't really understand or grasp just how powerful commitment is, and what that encompasses. That's what we're going to be going over today.
Dr Dan: Yeah. For me, I realize because starting out, when we were on our path for achieving the success and all the things that we wanted to our life, originally we always thought it was about motivation. Like, “Today, I'm just not feeling motivated. Today, why can't I feel motivated to get this done?” You know? And it was always about motivation, and we learned that motivation sucks.
Siri Shakti: Yep.
Dr Dan: Sort of.
Siri Shakti: Motivation is awesome when you're feeling it, but it's very short-lived.
Dr Dan: Yeah, motivation is kind of like caffeine, yeah. It'll give you a little spurt of energy, but it's guaranteed to dissipate. It's not like you can stay caffeinated 24/7, you know?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: Because then you wouldn't be able to sleep, and that would be all bad. So, motivation has its place, but something we learned, you know, fortunately for us we learned, is that the commitment is what takes over for when motivation kind of wears out, and that is super-important. That would be like saying, “For motivation, I'm going to just take caffeine to stay awake and feel energized all the time, but I'm never going to sleep,” right?
Commitment is that sleep. It's going to refresh you, and get you to feel good the next morning. You can only last so long on caffeine and no sleep, you know?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: You have to rest. You can't not rest. I didn't look this up, because I just thought of it, but I know we talked about in the past, just you and me, and I've talked to other people about it too. But I don't know how long a human being can actually last without any sleep, but it definitely is not that long.
Siri Shakti: No. It's not.
Dr Dan: Maybe a couple days I think, at the most. You can probably start hallucinating.
Siri Shakti: You're not going to feel too good.
Dr Dan: No, that's for sure, you know? Motivation will not help you, make you feel better if you haven't slept. So this is where commitment comes into play, and we're going to talk a lot about this because it's so much stronger than motivation.
Siri Shakti: You see, to me, how I like to relate to commitment is, commitment is like a personal vow to yourself. It's basically saying to yourself that no matter what, no matter what you feel, no matter what the circumstances is, you are committed to staying focused on what it is that you are … whether it's something you're working on, or a commitment to another person. There's different variations.
But really, commitment is totally unbreakable.
Dr Dan: Yeah. You know, one of the other things that I mentioned in the book, one of the lessons, is to let yourself have a bad day. I know that when I was focused on motivation, I did not let myself have a bad day. By doing so, when I didn't do what I thought I should be doing because I wasn't feeling motivated, I would actually beat myself up even more, which just added way more negativity into my life, felt more toxic. You'd beat yourself up for a day, then it'd take a day to recover from that mental beating you gave yourself, right? Those mental bitch-slaps, I like to call them, where you're slapping yourself.
Yeah, so the commitment has actually changed that for me, big time. One of the examples for commitment, is waking up early, and I don't even know if we talked about this before, but I'm definitely not what you'd consider a morning person. When you first met me, I'd sleep in until … 10:30, I think was early for me?
Siri Shakti: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Dr Dan: I'd want to sleep in until like 11:00, 11:30, sometimes noon. I mean, heck, sometimes even one o'clock. This is when I was considered myself healthy, and I was bodybuilding and eating good food. At the time I thought it was good food, but I was exercising and doing all those things, but I'd like to stay up late and do all that.
But now, we're kind of forced ourself because of our commitment to wake up early so we can get more done. We can do the cold showers in the morning, which we talked about in washing your brain daily.
Siri Shakti: Yes, yes.
Dr Dan: And what else?
Siri Shakti: When we first started practicing Kundalini Yoga, at the time, it wasn't like we were full-force, like, “This is a commitment!” But once we started to get into the practice, and we had the experience of what it felt like to start waking up earlier and doing our yoga practice, and doing some meditation, it was just so obvious to us the power of this and how great it made us feel that we … I don't even think we actually said to each other it was a commitment, it was just something that we did.
Dr Dan: Well, yeah. It's something you have to do because the only example I can think of that some people can relate to if they've never done Kundalini Yoga, and the cold showers, and the meditation, and all things we do in our daily practice in the morning, would be comparing it to staying up late at night, drinking a lot of alcohol every single day, or every night, being hungover in the morning.
So, that's the comparison. I'm not saying that before Kundalini Yoga, we felt hungover or anything like that, I'm saying the comparison between the two is the difference between waking up with a hangover, a massive hangover, and not waking up with a massive hangover. That's the difference for us, and enough of those, you kind of form a commitment to-
Siri Shakti: Oh, big time.
Dr Dan: But you still have to commit, because there's times when you just wake up like, actually I would say almost every single morning, I wake up and I don't want to do it. I'm like, “You know what? You're committed.” So there's no, “Today I'm not motivated. I can't trick myself in saying I'm not motivated, so I'm not going to do it today,” or “I got to jump up and down in my bed, and feel a certain way before I get up to do it.” Definitely not.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, exactly. Well, that's one thing I just thought about that waking up each morning, oh my gosh, I can totally relate to that because there's so many mornings I wake up and I'm like, “This bed feels so comfy. I just want to lay here. It's so cozy.” But one thing about commitment is that it basically overrides emotion, okay? Because the nature of emotion is that emotion flows. Emotion changes. It changes from day to day, from moment to moment. That's something that you can totally depend on, is that that's what emotions do.
That's our experience that we have felt, is waking up in the morning, and having different emotions come up. Sometimes it's “I want to be in bed,” other times … actually, it's just usually “I want to be in bed,” because it's so comfy. But there's all these different emotions and excuses that come up. But when you have set a true commitment, a true vow … I love the word vow, too, because that's how I relate to it … to yourself, then the commitment overrides anything that you could possibly feel, or any excuse that you feel.
You just basically force yourself to get up and do it. Hasn't that been your experience too with committing to our morning practice?
Dr Dan: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, for us, I know there's times that we have to support each other as well. So there's times like I don't feel like doing it, and you come in and you're like, “Come on. Let's go. Let's do it.” And then there's times that you don't feel like doing it.
Siri Shakti: Oh, perfect example. Perfect example, we just started … well, we've been doing cold showers for a long time, but just recently, we decided to make sure we do it for three minutes. Because when you do a cold shower, whenever you submerge your body into water, cold water, for three minutes or more, you actually reset your glandular system.
Dr Dan: Well, we thought … or at least I thought I was doing three minutes. But I wasn't timing myself, but I would wash and do everything in the cold water. So yeah, now that I'm actually timing it, I find there's an extra, I don't know, 45 seconds to a minute that I'm like … sometimes 45 seconds that I'm like, “Uh, yeah. I'm going to sit here and do nothing for 45 more seconds.”
Siri Shakti: Well, I know I wasn't doing three minutes. I kind of lied to myself a little bit by counting really fast in my head.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Under the cold water, you're like, “One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight.”
Siri Shakti: I'm like, “Oh my God, I did three minutes, yeah!” That was fast.
Dr Dan: You're like, “I did three hours.”
Siri Shakti: So now, my husband is timing me. He sets the clock on his phone. I'm like, “Darn it, you butt-head.”
Dr Dan: Exactly. So it's a lot more fun.
Siri Shakti: No, but it's so good. Actually, it's really awesome, thank you. Because that is an example of us supporting each other in our commitment because as you move forward, there's going to be times where you do struggle with sticking to whatever it is that you're trying to commit and devote yourself to. When you can have someone support you in that way, it's just really powerful.
Dr Dan: Yeah, no. Totally. Yeah, one example … I'll give you an example in business, and your goals towards success or whatever you want to do. Back in 2007-2008, when the housing market crashed, a lot of people don't know this, but people that have been following me for years, some people have heard my story. I think most people haven't because I usually only shared it inside of coaching programs that we put together. But it's kind of a fun story. Now it is, now that I kind of came through it.
Yeah, back in 2007-2008, I was … part of that, I was doing a lot of real estate, and investing, and stuff like that, and the market crashed. Before that, I was actually already not happy with what I was doing. I was like, “You know what? I've made some money. This is awesome, but I'm not happy.” I was searching for meaning and purpose, a mission, something that I can do. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do, and there was a lot of things that I was thinking of, but nothing I was like, “Oh, this is it!”
And then the market actually crashed while I was traveling, and learning from mentors, and I had joined Tony Robbins' Platinum Partnership. So all during that 2006 to 2007, so all that stuff kind of collapsed. Some people thought I was a genius. They're like, “Oh wow. You got out of the housing market right in time.” I was like, “I didn't know.” People had said it's going to crash at any point, but I was already wanting to get out, so it had nothing to do with whether … I just wasn't fulfilled, and I knew there was more that I wanted to do with my life other than just making money.
I remember that from this traveling, and trying to figure out what I wanted to do, the money started … because I had some money saved, and the money kind of started going away. We couldn't sell our homes or anything because the market had dropped like, I want to say like 40 … actually more like 60% in the Bay Area where we were, and it sucked. We're like, “What are we going to do?” And I was looking for jobs, kind of.
At first, I wasn't because I was trying a couple things, and trying to figure out, but I still didn't have a clear path yet. I just knew that I was committed to finding something, and not working for somebody else, and building somebody else's dream, you know? I was more interest … I was committed to finding what it is that I was put on this earth to do.
Siri Shakti: That's right.
Dr Dan: And I remember that our money started going down, and I was like, “Man, I'm still trying to figure stuff out. I was looking online.” And back then, there wasn't a lot of the resources that we have today. There was none of the resources that we … I don't think any of the resources we really have today. Things were so different back then.
I remember my father had said, “Hey,” you know, because they actually own a restaurant called The Copper Skillet in Dublin, California, and they've had that restaurant for over 30 years. I don't know exactly how many, but over 30 years. I remember him saying like, “Well, we have some openings. We could use some help at the restaurant.” And I was like, “Oh man, I do not want to go back to the restaurant.” You know, I don't mean anything bad by it, it's just not where I wanted to be.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, exactly.
Dr Dan: It's not what I want to do. I had my mission. I knew I had something bigger in store, I just didn't know what it was. I had a discussion with one of our mentors, and I had asked him, I'd said, “Hey, I don't know what I should do. Should I do this? Or should I just keep waiting for something to happen?” He'd said, “Well, treat this like your college years, you know, where you go to college, and you're working a part-time job, and if you're going to college to be a doctor or a lawyer, or something like that, if you're working in a restaurant, or some job like that, well, you're just doing that to get through to where you need to get to.”
I liked that. I was like, “You know, okay. I'll do that.” So I started work about three or four days a week, just a couple hours, and I started actually making it fun, you know? I actually had both of my books, so I was like, “You know what? I've got all these books here, and I've been trying to sell them online.” But when you're selling physical books online, and I was also speaking at events, and selling them at events, but I got sick of traveling. I got sick of trying to peddle books from a stage. I just wanted to give them away, you know?
Also, I don't know if you remember these days, but when I first started selling those books, there wasn't really … I mean, there were, but there weren't. It wasn't really easy to get a fulfillment center to ship out your books and do all that kind of stuff.
Siri Shakti: I remember that.
Dr Dan: So yeah. I was like, okay, so we would go to the post office, and have to mail them out. I'm like, “Man. If you calculate the amount of time it takes to put these together, and even if I hired somebody …” and I thought about doing that. I was like, “You know, this is just a job then. I don't want that.” I was looking for something else. I didn't know really what else was out there.
I made it fun. I was selling the books at the restaurant. I was actually signing them, having great conversations with people. I kind of turned it into a study, where I was like studying human behavior, and studying people, and having great conversations, and networking with all types of different people that I would have never met if I didn't do that.
So my commitment was still there, and I was working towards my goal on those other days. That's when I was only working three, four days a week. I started meeting people there. As I was networking with people, they would ask me, “Oh, you wrote these books, so what are you doing with those?” Or, “How are you selling them?” I said, “Well, I sell some online, and I got a website up, and I'm doing all these things.” And they're like, “Oh, really?” I was like, “Yeah, I'm doing some YouTube,” because YouTube was kind of … it's nothing like it was today. It was nothing like that. There wasn't any YouTube millionaires, like there is today, and there wasn't [inaudible 00:16:58] or anything going on like that. It was nothing like it was.
So they were asking me, they were like, “So, you do the social media stuff, and you got your books on YouTube, and you got your website, and you do all these things, so wow. That's really interesting.” And we get on with the conversation, and they're like, “Hey, I have a jewelry business. I have a jewelry place in San Francisco. Can you help me with …” no, actually they asked, “Who can I talk to to learn how to do that?” Or “Who can I hire to do it for me?”
And I looked, I couldn't find anybody. You had your traditional stuff like press-releases, and getting on radio and TV and stuff like, but there wasn't really any social media marketers. There wasn't any social influencer. That word wasn't really thrown around. It wasn't common-place or anything. I had never heard of it. I had never heard of local business marketers, or any of those kind of terms being thrown around. So I said, “I don't know. I've tried to find somebody, and I couldn't find anybody, so I just started doing it myself.”
They're like, “Well, can I pay you to do it for me?”
Siri Shakti: Wow. I actually forgot about this. It's awesome thinking about this again.
Dr Dan: Yeah. So I was like, “Okay, well this is the universe knocking. Knock, knock.” You know? I talk about that, and the universe knocks, and you got to like kind of open the door and see where it's going to take you, you know? So I was like, “Okay. Let's see where this goes.” And from that one client, it turned into another client, and another client, and another client. They referred me to some people, and then there was a couple other business owners that hired me from that as well. They were like, “Hey!”
And I wasn't even really trying to sell my services. People were just … it was from conversation like, “Oh, you wrote these books, and you do other stuff,” and “How'd you do that?” Then it was like, “Okay, well.” Then I was like, “Okay, well where is this leading me to?” So I had to do more research, and I was learning online from some online marketing forums. There was a couple of them out there, a couple big ones, like maybe two or three big ones.
I started posting what I was doing, and people started following me on there, and they were just like all “Whoa!” You know? Like, “What are you doing?” And I started telling them, and they're like, “Oh, can I hire you to coach me?” You know? And I was like, “Okay.” I got paid to do it, and I forgot what I charged. I think it was like $500 an hour or something. I was like, “Okay, cool. Okay, so there's something here, but I don't want to just coach people because that's a job, right?”
Then I remember somebody reaching out to me, a couple people actually reaching out to me and saying, “Hey, have you created a training on how to do this stuff?” I'm like, “Well, I've done some coaching,” and they're like, “Well, can you put together like a ebook,” you know, because those were pretty popular at that time. I was like, “Okay, I'll put it together.” And I closed my door for like six days, and said, “Don't bug me.”
Siri Shakti: Yes. You were hiding in your cave. I remember that.
Dr Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Yep.
Dr Dan: So for six days, I put all that together, and then I put it out there. I launched it. And I had no expectation, I was like, “Okay. Well, hopefully I make some money at this, you know?”
And keep in mind, the pricing for that ebook was something like seven bucks, and then I think we raised it to like nine bucks, and then eventually it got raised to like 16, or 14, or 15, or something like that. But it took off. I had sold over 1,000 copies, and it I was just like, “Whoa!”
Siri Shakti: Awesome.
Dr Dan: Yeah, that one ebook generated more than … it was over $100,000. I mean, it was like, “Whoa.” I was like, “Okay, universe.” Universe is saying, “Hey, here you go.” But none of that would have happened if I wasn't committed to my dreams, my purpose, my mission. If I wasn't saying, “You know what? I'm going to …” instead of taking the easy route, which would have been, “Okay. Well, I can go work for somebody else and do something else, something I'm good at, for whatever they're willing to pay me.” Yeah, I could've had like a $50,000 a year starting salary, or could've got up to 100 grand, or whatever, but I would still be working for that person, and I wasn't working on my dreams, on my mission, and my purpose in life, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Yeah, right. You know, one thing I just thought about when you were saying this is, you had … before this was successful, your ebook, right? That was an ebook, right?
Dr Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Siri Shakti: You had many smaller victories that kind of led up to this. In your commitment to staying focused, those little victories eventually led to this big victory, and then again, this is how it happens, you know? Is when-
Dr Dan: When you stay committed.
Siri Shakti: When you stay committed, yeah. That it's not “if it's going to happen,” it's “it's going to happen.” You don't put a time limit on commitment. You just know in your heart that it's going to be, which is exactly what you did, and look at where we are now. I mean, look at where you are now.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Yeah. We turned that into a multi-million dollar digital media and publishing company with my partner, Ben. If it wasn't for all that, we would not be where we are today.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Yeah. And there's something that I want to mention, too. When you were discussing when you first went to the restaurant, and how at first, you did struggle internally with the idea of going to work at your parents' restaurant. Not that it was not a good place to work at. I mean, it's awesome restaurant, and your parents were so generous to invite you to come work there.
But, I remember you going through a lot of internal struggle during that time because you have naturally big goals, big dreams, that you wanted to manifest. But something that I remember is, you would come home, and you were struggling between how to organize your time with working at the restaurant, and then also working on your ultimate vision. We decided to break up your time into A days and B days.
The B days were the days that you were at the restaurant. When you were there, we decided that you were going to … actually, you decided that you were just going to focus on being present, and being there, and enjoying it. Then on your A days, those were the days that you were going to be present at home, working on Dr. Dan, working on your vision.
In that commitment, you found that flexibility to make it work.
Dr Dan: Yeah. You can kind of dig … we can go even further back than that, but you can kind of dissect that, and hopefully for some of you that know you have a purpose, you have a mission in life, but you haven't figured out what it is yet. If you're like, “I know I'm smart. I know I'm driven. I just don't know what the heck I want to do, or what I'm going to do.” Just know that if you move towards that path, it can lead you there.
Even though, sure. It would have been just as easy to sit back and hide in a corner, and say, “I'm not going to do anything until I figure out what exactly I want to do.” But if it wasn't for me doing something towards it, even though I didn't know what it was at the time. If I didn't do something towards it, then it wouldn't have unfolded in front of me.
It's kind of like, you know how they talk about the law of attraction, with the movie The Secret and stuff? And a lot of people complain like, “Oh well, in the video,” I think it was like the little boy sits there and spoke to the universe and said, “I want a bicycle.” And then the bicycle showed up.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr Dan: Yeah, there are cases when something like this does happen, but let's be honest. Let's be real, right? Real talk right here.
Siri Shakti: Let's real talk.
Dr Dan: If let's say, I sat here, and I said, “I'm going to envision and make it so real in my head, that an airplane's going to crash into our house, right?”
Siri Shakti: Oh, God. Let's not say that one.
Dr Dan: Yeah, I went a little dark with that one. So let's say somebody's going to give me a Lamborghini.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, that's better.
Dr Dan: There you go. Somebody's going to give me a Lamborghini, brand new Lamborghini, and I'm just going to make it so real, and I'm going to use the law of attraction to get it, but I don't leave the house, I don't answer the phone, I don't talk to anybody. I lock myself in the room, and I don't do anything, you know?
You have to actually do something. You have to look for the signs, you have to listen to the universe, you have to move forward towards those things, and then yes. They will manifest themselves. But you have to move towards them.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr Dan: You can't just sit around waiting in your underwear on the couch, right?
Siri Shakti: Yes. I like to think of it as we commit, and then we take action.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Well, and it's crazy because we don't need to get too deep into this as well, but we have many stories of prior to even getting into the real estate, we had started our own little business, right? It was in the telecom industry, and we were independent representatives of a company. We had brought in some people, and we all kind of worked together. They would share their dreams, and their vision, and all the things they wanted to do in their life, right?
We would meet so many people as well, like-minded people, that also had dreams, and visions, and all the things that they wanted in their life. They wanted to be free, and all these things. I would go as far as to say that some of them would quit in a week or two. Some of them would quit in a couple weeks. Some would quit in a couple months. Some of them in a couple years, but I want to say like at least 95% of the people we met over 200-300 people in a span of a couple years.
Siri Shakti: Oh, yeah.
Dr Dan: I mean, more than that probably.
Siri Shakti: And it was usually … Oh God, you're right because I can remember some of them quitting within a week, and it was usually when they hit like an obstacle, and it was kind of sad because that one obstacle, the [uncomfortability 00:28:05] of that, was bigger than the joy of thinking about where they could get, or what their goals were, or their visions.
Dr Dan: Well, they weren't committed.
Siri Shakti: Oh, yeah. There we go.
Dr Dan: Is the bottom line. And it could have been like … I mean, we've heard them all. Like, a family member made fun of them or something.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr Dan: Or said like, “Oh, you're not smart enough to start your own business,” or “You're going to fail,” or “You don't have a degree. What are you doing trying to run your own business?”
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I do remember a few of them saying that. Yeah.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Or it was like, their current job that they worked at, and friends that they worked with, would put them down, and that was enough to get them to quit. Or it would just be a little tough for them and they just, again, they didn't have that … they were motivated in the beginning, but they didn't have that commitment.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. And I think that goes back to what I said at the beginning, that all of us have heard the word commitment, but in our culture, we're not really taught what commitment really is and how to commit to things, because I know this is not something I … I mean, I didn't learn this until, well I was an adult, and when we started practicing Kundalini Yoga. I remember this was one of the lessons that I learned, and it was like a whole new eye-opening experience, because I thought I knew what commitment was, but was way off.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Well, again, you want to dive deeper into this, commitment to me is no matter what. It doesn't matter. Nothing. It doesn't matter. You're committed to doing it, and nothing will stop you.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr Dan: Yes. If you're running for instance, and you should definitely talk about your triathlon stuff. But before you do, if you're running, and you're in a race, or even if you're just practicing, and you're committed to this running, if you get a sprain, or you get like a muscle spasm or something, that doesn't mean that you got to still continue to run, right? Because it's not a sprint, right? Life is not a sprint, so your commitment is not about no matter what, I'm going to run, even if I injure myself.
Siri Shakti: Oh, no.
Dr Dan: Yeah, your commitment is, is that you are going to either complete this, or you're going to complete this, and it doesn't have to be that one day if something happens like that.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: It's no matter what, you're going to do it.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, and that you continue taking those steps. And with your analogy, you know, running. Instead of running, if you're injured, then you take the steps each day of taking care-
Dr Dan: Recovering.
Siri Shakti: And resting, and using the foam roller, and all those things, the Epsom salt bath to nurture yourself.
Dr Dan: Massages. Sports massages, and all that stuff. And then you come back stronger.
Siri Shakti: Yep.
Dr Dan: And then you do it.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: It doesn't matter if you do it this year, next year, as long as you're committed, and you keep moving towards that.
Siri Shakti: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And in those little times that it feels like a setback, which really, they aren't setbacks. As you're moving forward in any commitment, those little experiences actually make you stronger. They help you to see, “Oh, that didn't work.” So then you try something else and continue forward.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just … where did I hear that before? But I read it or heard it years ago. It said like, “Do you see grass struggle to grow?” No. It doesn't sit there and go, “I'm trying to grow.” It just grows, right? So it might be a little tougher in a spot than in another spot, but it doesn't matter. It just grows. It's committed to grow. It's committed to grow, so it doesn't matter if there's a rock in its way, or whatever it is, it's going to grow.
That's the same thing here is there's not set time that it has to happen. It just has to happen. You just keep moving towards what it is you want to accomplish.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: Sometimes that might change, you know? Like for me, I didn't even know which direction I wanted to go into, I just knew that I wanted to. I knew what I wanted. I didn't know what I wanted, but I knew, I had an idea of where I wanted to be.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: Yeah. So you should definitely talk about your triathlon, and-
Siri Shakti: Okay. Well, you know, I think it's been … gosh, it's already been three years. I actually bring it back to this first experience. This one day, I was feeling really down, and just really emotional.
Dr Dan: So, you weren't motivated?
Siri Shakti: Uh, no. I was totally not motivated. I was feeling really sad. Sad because with … and I talk about this a lot whenever I'm communicating with women, is that so much is expected of us, you know? I was feeling like I was giving so much, but I didn't have any time to take care of myself. My history, all through my childhood, and junior high, and teen years is, I'm a very physically active person. I've always done something, dancing, swim team, competitive ice skating.
So here I was an adult, and I didn't have any physical thing that I was doing to nurture myself. So this one day, I was feeling really bad and I decided, “I'm just going to jump on my bike and go for a bike-ride.” I'm on this trail, and I start crying while I'm on my bike ride, feeling really sorry for myself. Then that feeling of sadness turned into anger, which we know anger can be really powerful. It can also bring forth a lot of emotion and power as well.
I was thinking to myself, “I have to find something to do for myself. This is enough. I'm done with this.” All of a sudden, I thought about my brother Steven who's just a few years older than me. When I was growing up, my brother used to compete in triathlons, and he did sprint triathlons, which are the shorter ones. He did the bigger ones, like Ironmans, and things like that. Here I am, on my bike, and I just get this thought all of a sudden of like, “Huh. Triathlons. You know what? I could totally do that. I know how to swim, I know how to run, I know how to bike.”
So I came home feeling quite a bit better, and immediately jumped on my computer and started looking up information. It was just this crazy idea I had and-
Dr Dan: Wait. So you're saying you didn't wait like a couple months to start looking at it, and then forget about it, and then look at it again?
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr Dan: Okay. Good.
Siri Shakti: No, like right away. I remember over the next few weeks, I immersed myself. Like, any free time I had, I was on the computer researching. Like, how to train-
Dr Dan: Or your phone, right?
Siri Shakti: Or my phone, yeah. Or my phone, yeah. I was researching how to train for a triathlon, the distances for triathlons, the equipment that you needed. I made like a long list of everything I'd need. I started looking at different races in the area, and blindly … I say blindly because I had no idea what I was doing. I was like, what's that phrase? Ignorance on fire, right?
Dr Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: I was definitely on fire, and I remember I put on my shoes … I didn't even have real running shoes … and started running. That first mile, oh God. I hadn't ran since I was in junior high school. That first mile was awful. It was so hard, but I thought, “I'm doing this.”
So over those next few weeks, I set a commitment for myself, that I was going to do my first triathlon. You guys, I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have awesome equipment yet because the equipment was pretty expensive. I wasn't going to go out and buy it all. All I did, was I went and got a nice pair of running shoes, I used my hybrid bike for my first triathlon. I used my regular bathing suit, which now I have this cool tri-suit and stuff, and awesome wetsuit.
Dr Dan: Now you have a triathlon bike.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, now I have a cool-
Dr Dan: An outfit and everything.
Siri Shakti: Expensive triathlon bike, and really cool now. But, so I showed up for my first race, didn't know what I was doing, and you know what was so neat? Is that everyone in the community was so nice. I remember I didn't even know how to hang my bike on the rack. Because before you race, you have to set up your bike on this rack.
Dr Dan: Like a coat hanger?
Siri Shakti: No, not a coat hanger. There's this cool rack thing that you hang your bike on.
Dr Dan: Got it.
Siri Shakti: I was so confused with that, but everyone was helping me. So this was a commitment that I made to myself, and I have kept it over these past few years. I feel like my commitment has even gotten stronger this year because I have some personal goals that I want to achieve this year with my racing.
But what I have found to be so cool in this experience is that, in this commitment, there are days where I am just floor-tired because I have been working with the kids, driving them from activity to activity. I come home, and I'm beat, you know? But I still get out there and I do my training because I know that when I get back, I'm going to feel so much better, and that's exactly what happens.
95% of the time, when I come home, I feel more energized, and I just feel proud of myself. Because regardless of how I felt, I am keeping with what I decided to commit to in my path.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Actually, was it like a day ago? Was it yesterday, I think? You came back, and you're all sweaty, and you're like, “Yeah! I feel so much better now!” And you weren't feeling like doing that, and then I mentioned, “You should jump in the pool and make a video.” Right?
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr Dan: So if you guys want to see that video, we'll go ahead and put it on the page with this episode.
Siri Shakti: Actually, there's something I want to say about this, too. That yesterday, because I'm building up my mileage again, because I haven't been doing as much running the past month or two. I thought to myself, “I'm going to get out there, and I'm going to do like a seven-mile run,” you know? And in my head I thought, “I can do this. I'm committed to it.” But my body was not quite there yet.
So I got pretty far out, and I started coming back in, going towards the house again, and my legs started cramping up, and I thought, “Oh my gosh. I can't go any further.”
Dr Dan: Well, yeah. Well, your commitment is not, “I'm going to do seven miles right this second.” At the time, that might have been what you said to yourself.
Siri Shakti: Oh, I did. And it sounded like a really good idea.
Dr Dan: But your commitment is, is that you're going to run seven miles, whether it was today or tomorrow, but you were going to do all you could today.
Siri Shakti: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And I was proud of myself, though. I wasn't feeling discouraged. I went as far as I could, and then you know what I did, guys? I called my husband and I said, “Honey, I can't go any further. Can you come pick me up?” My loving husband drove and picked me up.
Dr Dan: Yeah, you weren't that far away.
Siri Shakti: No, I wasn't.
Dr Dan: You weren't even a mile away.
Siri Shakti: But I thought it was funny. I thought it was pretty funny.
Dr Dan: It was. But actually, I almost picked up the wrong person. There was somebody standing on the street, too, wearing a black outfit, and I don't know. I guess I wasn't paying attention. I was like, “Oh, it must be her.” I mean, who else is going to be standing on the street. But you were a little further ahead.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, I saw that. You started pulling over, and she looked at you like, “Uh, why are you pulling over next to me?” It was kind of-
Dr Dan: If I had already pulled over, I might have … because I like to joke … I might've said, “Get in the car!” I don't know. It might have been bad.
Siri Shakti: Totally creep her out. Yeah, let's not scare the neighbors.
Dr Dan: No, I'm just kidding. So yeah. So that's triathlons. Now obviously, some of you probably can't fully relate to that because you're thinking like, “Triathlon? I just want to go to the gym and do some Pilates or something,” or “I just want to lose five pounds.”
Siri Shakti: But you know what? The same thing goes for all those goals. It doesn't matter what sort of goal you have.
Dr Dan: Five minutes on the treadmill each day, you know?
Siri Shakti: Absolutely. Yeah.
Dr Dan: A walk. A walk around your neighborhood every day. Whatever it is, commitment is still the same. You need to be committed to whatever your goal is, and then you can increase it as you move forward. You can make it a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, so like for you, seven miles. The next thing you know, you can do 50-mile runs, 100-mile runs.
Siri Shakti: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Dr Dan: 100,000-mile runs.
Siri Shakti: Well, you know, that's one thing I'm so intrigued by is, a lot of these athletes that I follow now, like a lot of vegan endurance athletes. I look at them, and it's so easy to think, “They've always been this fit. They've always ran 20 miles at a time.” But no. They started from basic. They were just like myself. I at first could do like half a mile, and even that half a mile, I struggled in.
Whatever, however big or small your fitness goal is, or any goal that you're working on, this same principle applies to all of those. Yeah.
Dr Dan: Yep. Yep. So take that lesson in.
We can also talk real briefly, because this will deserve its own episode, is talking about home-schooling, you know, the commitment to home-school. Just if you can give one example of something recently, or something that you can-
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Well, the first one that comes to mind is when we started home-schooling. I've mentioned this before is, we were told that our daughter was going to be, well she was going to have to be in special ed, and that she was diagnosed with like, being on the spectrum. What I noticed immediately, is there was so much talk about diagnosis, and for my husband and I, we just didn't want her growing up with being labeled. That just wasn't sitting well with us.
So I took it upon myself. I decided that I was going to home-school. I'll tell you, like I've said before, I really honestly knew nothing about home-schooling. This was-
Dr Dan: But we were committed.
Siri Shakti: But we were committed.
Dr Dan: Yeah, because I mean, what was the alternative? We knew what the alternative was, and we see it today with our friends' kids and their families that go to school, and we hear their complaints. Like for one kid, they're like, “Oh, we love their teacher for such and such kid.” And then for the other kid, they're like, “Oh, we can't stand that teacher,” or “That teacher's really mean,” or they say this or that, or there's something in the school, or they're being bullied.
We know so many examples of a kid had to be taken out of school-
Siri Shakti: Yes. Yes.
Dr Dan: Because of bullying. And also, we just recently … I didn't even know they were doing this, but it makes sense now. I mean, they're teaching in … this is actually even a private school, so I'm assuming public schools are doing it as well, is they run drills. Remember they used to run drills for like, earthquakes here? And I'm sure some … obviously, we don't do tornadoes or hurricanes here, but in some states, I'm sure they do. But they're also doing mass shooting, school-shooting drills at the schools.
We didn't want to roll the dice with our kids and be like, “Okay well, let's hope they get a good teacher every single year, and who knows what other influences there are going to be at at the school, whether it's like a school bully, or somebody that's going to be …” you're just kind of putting it out in the air, so we [crosstalk 00:44:05] committed.
Siri Shakti: And also, less control over what they were exposed to. That was a big one.
Dr Dan: You can't control everything, but you're controlling nothing. Nothing, if you're … and again, this is not to make anybody feel bad or guilty.
Siri Shakti: No. No, no, no, no. No. And that's-
Dr Dan: It's our commitment. This is what we committed to, and we knew it would not be easy. And it hasn't. We've been doing this for how many years now?
Siri Shakti: Well, Kayleen is 16, and she was five when we started.
Dr Dan: Wow.
Siri Shakti: Wow. Wow. And you know, I'm going to be completely honest with you guys here.
Dr Dan: Well, it's super easy now, right?
Siri Shakti: Let's just say easier. Easier is the key word, but I'm telling you. This, it has been an up and down experience. But when I committed to this, what that did, is that ensured that I was going to find the answers no matter what. The one thing that happened is, our oldest daughter, having differences in how she processes information and learning, I tried so many different ways to teach her how to read.
Age five, age six, age seven, age eight, all the way up to age ten rolled around, and still reading was not happening. I'll tell you, I went through years of so much struggle. Just ask my husband, there were-
Dr Dan: Well, at age ten, she was reading a couple words here and there.
Siri Shakti: Okay, let me … yeah, yeah-
Dr Dan: It wasn't that she couldn't read at all.
Siri Shakti: But it was like little beginner books, okay?
Dr Dan: Correct, exactly.
Siri Shakti: The mother side of me was so freaked out, right? That it was not going to happen. What I did, though … oh, I even hired two different tutors, and that wasn't helping as much either. I remember-
Dr Dan: Hey, remember that, remember one of the tutors? You were like, “Oh, I love this tutor, and she got highly recommended.” She came in, and she started getting all strict and stuff. We're just like, “Wait. What?”
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: This is no different, you know? We could have just sent her to public school for this, you know?
Siri Shakti: Yeah. But one thing that did help is, I remember I got online one day, and I was looking up what other home-school parents had to say about this topic, and I found story after story of people saying the exact same thing, that their child didn't read until an older age. But what was so interesting to me is that at age ten, I bought her the book Avatar. So I bought her the Avatar book, the first one of the series.
Dr Dan: Okay, so not the movie.
Siri Shakti: No, not the movie. Not the movie. The Airbenders, and-
Dr Dan: Yeah. So not the blue people.
Siri Shakti: No, not the blue ones, yeah. That was it. She loved that book so much. It was like magic to me. I remember sitting there hearing the words come out of her mouth, and I was amazed. After that, it just kept coming and coming so quickly, I bought her the whole series. And that was it, she was a reader.
So I'm telling you this story because-
Dr Dan: Well, it took me over 20 years to get to that point myself. I had to find a book that I was like, “Whoa! I can actually read now? I can understand something?” It was because that interests me.
Siri Shakti: Yes. Yes. Yeah, so I was not going to give up. I was not going to give up on her. I'm never going to give up on our home-schooling. People even ask me, “Oh, are your kids going to go to high school, like public school?” I'm like, “No. We're in this for the long haul. This is my commitment. We're in this, baby.”
Dr Dan: Yeah. And it's definitely not easy.
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr Dan: Again, you have to turn to your commitment. I hear there's days like you go into the bedroom and cry. It's like, “Oh my God, it's so tough today, you know?”
Siri Shakti: Yes. But I do celebrate my victories because it is getting easier where I just have gotten used to it over doing this so many years, that putting together what we're going to do each year is a lot easier. I think the one I struggle with the most is our eight-year-old just because he's younger, and so strong-willed.
Dr Dan: Talking about Bodhi, right?
Siri Shakti: Yes. And he likes to do what he likes to do.
Dr Dan: Exactly. Again, which is not bad. We have to stay committed, and it's a challenge for us, but we grow from it. We learn from it. And they learn from it. We're very careful because my son, I forgot what he said. Bodhi said something to me like, “I'm sorry you were mad at me and don't like me right now,” or something like that.
Siri Shakti: Aww.
Dr Dan: And I was … or, “You hate me right now,” or something. And I said, “Bodhi, I don't hate you.” I said, “I love you. You're making me very angry. You're pissing me off, and I don't want to be around you right now, but I still love you.” So we actually got in this long discussion about how that is.
I said, “Look, you can be mad at somebody. You can be upset at somebody. You can not want to be around them right now, but you still know you love them.” It's just giving it a little bit of time, letting you calm down.” Having that deep conversation with him was really awesome because then … because too many people out there are just like, “Oh, they made me angry. They pissed me off for something they did.” And then they hold on to that. They don't really understand how that's separate, you know?
In that moment, you're angry at them, you know? But it doesn't mean you hate them, or anything like that. We can save that for another time because that's like a whole nother episode to talk about that. I definitely want to talk a little bit about how commitment works into relationship. Again, this could take its whole own episode as well because when it comes to commitment with relationship, it's huge.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: It is really big.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I think this is one of the coolest things for me, because I know … we've been married now for what, 16 years? And together for 17 years, and you know, any marriage is going to have ebbs and flows. We're going to have arguments, disagreements, and then times where we're totally connecting. That is relationship, okay? I think that this is one of the key things that we're not really taught growing up, is how commitment really looks in a relationship.
The way I think of it is that, when you're not fully committed, you have one foot out of the relationship, and one foot in the relationship. That causes an imbalance. Commitment is when you both have both feet in the relationship. I love that you hear that thing “it takes two.” It really does take two. It takes two people that are going to be equally committed to each other.
Dr Dan: Yep.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: Well, I think the first time we heard this was from Guru Singh, and I had also put this in my book, the Little Book of Secrets, How to Attract the Person of Your Dreams and Keep Them! Which you can get at rockstarinlife.com as well. I remember he related it too, he said, “Are you sailing through life in a relationship? Or a relation canoe?” And I thought that was like, awesome. He said, “Can you stand up in that ship? Or that canoe?”
You know, you can't stand up in a canoe, you know what I mean? You're going to tip over. It's very difficult, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: Will it whether any storms? Will a canoe whether a storm? Definitely not. Who here wants to be in a canoe when there's a storm, right? You want to be in a nice-size ship is what you're hoping, or you're actually hoping not to be on a ship, but if you had the choice between the two, which one would you want to be in?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: That's, like you said, one foot in, one foot out, and too many people are in a canoe when it comes to their relationship. That's why they're like, “Well, if this person does this, or says this, or says that, then I'm going to leave them,” or, “If they don't act a certain way, then I'm going to leave them.” That's having one foot in, one foot out, is that you have that option in your head of, “I can always leave.”
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: That's not commitment. That's exact opposite of commitment.
Siri Shakti: Yep. Yep. Another thing to go along with what you were talking about the ship. Another part of that I remember hearing is that, even when you're in a fully committed, let's say you're on a nice, big relation ship, okay? I love that, relation ship. Let's say you turn around and here comes this big typhoon. You're going through a big challenge in your relationship. The feeling that comes to you when you're going through a typhoon in your relationship, is you want to jump ship.
How smart would it be to jump ship when you're going through a big storm like that? Not very smart because you're probably going to drown in that water. When you say committed, both people firmly planted, and secure, and safe on the ship, eventually that storm's going to end. Eventually, the sun's going to come out, which we have experienced. Right, Dan?
Dr Dan: Yep.
Siri Shakti: Eventually, you'll see that sun coming up, and what happens is, each time you pass through a storm like that, and you both have stayed on the ship, it is going to make you so much stronger. I mean, you come out of that storm understanding things that you didn't understand before. Actually, your commitment even becomes stronger.
Dr Dan: Yeah. Also, again, you kind of mentioned it a little bit ago, it takes two to be committed. So, you can't control the other person, so you need to be committed. Years ago, I used to do relationship coaching as well. One of the things that came up quite often. I won't say all the time, but quite often was they would say, “I'm committed, but they're not.” Which would tell me that neither of them were committed, you know? Because they were like, “Well, they're not committed, so why should I be committed?”
Well, if you have to say that, then you're not committed, right? So you both have to be committed, and again, you can't control the other person, so you need to be committed. If you're going to be in this relationship, then you need to be committed. What's going to happen is, either … and again, this does not mean like that movie … and don't even think you saw that movie, Misery?
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr Dan: Okay. You didn't see the movie Misery, but-
Siri Shakti: I still want to see that.
Dr Dan: Yeah, we should. Anyways, I don't want to give away a spoiler, okay? Spoiler.
Siri Shakti: Okay. That's okay. Spoiler alert.
Dr Dan: So in the movie, it's her favorite author, and she is like in love with him, and he just happens upon her path, and she kind of saves him. So she holds him captive, you know?
Again, I'm not saying … I don't want to give away too much of that, but-
Siri Shakti: It's okay.
Dr Dan: I'm not saying that commitment means that if they're not committed, then you're going to lock them in a room, and tie them to a bed, or something like that, and not let them out. “I'm committed to you. I'm not going to let you leave me!” So instead, what it is, is you be fully committed, and if they're commitment isn't there, then that doesn't mean that you say, “Oh, well if they're not committed, I'm not committed.”
Because they're just going to kind of go their own path at some point then. If they're not committed, then it's just going to end, you know? But you're not the one that's with your foot out already. There's a good example of that in Hollywood, right? Because in Hollywood, I can't even honestly think of more than maybe two relationships off the top of my head that lasted as long as I can remember that they were together, and one of them isn't even married, you know?
The one that I was referring to was one that me and you've talked about quite often. We used an example.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Can I say it?
Dr Dan: Yeah, go ahead.
Siri Shakti: Cool. Because I like this. So Jada Pinkett and Will Smith, when they were interviewed one time as a couple, they asked, “How is it that you have managed to stay together this long, and have these children, when so many Hollywood relationships can't seem to make it work and end in divorce?”
I loved what they said. They said, “We simply take divorce out of the equation. It's not an option.” So, perfect example of commitment. That is exactly it. They took divorce, the even option of it, out of the equation, so then, they locked themself into being forced to figure out solutions whenever they were confronted with challenges.
Dr Dan: Yeah, failure's not an option.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: A lot of people have probably heard this quote. I usually write it down, but I totally forgot about it until just now, was that story about this famous war where the general, they were outnumbered. They were outnumbered, and their numbers were like, I think it was one to three, or one to four, or something like that, four to one, or whatever to the opposite side.
The men were all like, “Oh, we can't do this,” right? So they'd all had to take ships to get there, to fight. Well, the leader had said, had ordered them to burn the ships, so retreat was not an option. It was either, “You're going to die, get captured, or you're going to win.”
Siri Shakti: Oh, wow.
Dr Dan: So they had to win. And they all died.
Siri Shakti: Oh.
Dr Dan: Just kidding.
Siri Shakti: That would be a really bad, sad story.
Dr Dan: Well, as the story goes that they won, so I don't remember all the details about it, but that's just … you know, we use that example a lot. It's burning the ships, you know? You have no other choice. Burn the ships, and maybe in a relationship, it doesn't sound that good, but in business, it definitely sounds good. “Burn the ships!” You know? You're going to make it happen no matter what.
Siri Shakti: Don't burn the relation ship.
Dr Dan: Exactly. No, it's the retreat ship that you want to burn. I love that.
Siri Shakti: And one of the thing that came to me about relationships, and I know from myself, this has been huge for me. When I really became fully committed in our marriage, and I understood what that meant. Suddenly I felt like I could really … I felt like this sensation like I could breathe in the relationship. What it does, is it actually frees up space where you're so secure because you know there's no threat of anyone ever leaving the relationship, that suddenly you're able to be who it is that you need to be.
The reason this is so important for me is because, over the years, I've gone through some major transformations on the inside, and on the outside, and being so secure in my commitment with Dan, I'm able to just totally explore who it is that I need to be, and however that looks like. I know that I'm totally safe in that, and he'll support me with whatever I need to do, or to be in this life.
Dr Dan: Yeah, and I kind of had an advantage over you when it came to this commitment, but again, in my past relationships, I did not have that commitment. I had to learn it as well, but fortunately for me, my parents have been together since I was born, you know? Before I was born. For you, not so fortunate. Your parents had … so you had learned there is an option to escape.
Siri Shakti: Uh-huh (Affirmative).
Dr Dan: So for you, and again, this deserves its own episode, so we're not going to go deep into that, but one thing I do want to mention is that if you are … this doesn't really go for if you're in an abusive, you know, physical, or verbally abusive to the point to where it's like you need to get help. So definitely, I'm not saying, “You need to be committed if they're beating you,” or something like that. Or if they're constantly yelling at you and calling you names. You need to go out and get help.
Again, and you can be committed, committed to getting help and trying to work through it. Obviously, if they're physically abusing you, then you just need to leave.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Exactly.
Dr Dan: And get help. Definitely want to make sure. So is there anything else you want to touch on that?
Siri Shakti: You know, I had some things that I wanted to say about how do you commit? Because it's easy just to say “commit.” But there's some things that I was thinking of, of how I've committed in my own life. I know at the beginning, I said that I look at commitment as being like a vow, or a devotion to my internal self, to myself. I guess another way of saying it is like, to my higher self.
So it's really like a promise, and that's why whenever I'm going to commit to something, I encourage you to choose wisely what it is that you're going to commit to. Because these things are not to be taken lightly. When we say “commit,” it's something that is really important in your life. Just like a relationship, you wouldn't take that lightly, right?
I know for myself, anything that I have chosen, that is going to be a major commitment and part of my life, I don't take that lightly, and I make sure that it's something that I know is really right for me, and for us. Don't you agree with that?
Dr Dan: Yeah, I do.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr Dan: Definitely.
Siri Shakti: And also, what has helped me too, over the years is, when there's something that I've decided to put in place, there's people in your life that you know that you can trust whole-heartedly, and that are there to support you and uplift you, and you're there to uplift them. I'm sure right when I said that, there's certain people, or a person, that comes to mind. Could be a family member, or a friend, or a teacher.
Those are the people that you want to go to to share your commitment, and you can even ask for support. Like, for instance, like a fitness goal, let's say. Oftentimes you can ask for support for in, if you feel like you're struggling a little bit in that, you can reach out to a friend, or whoever it is that you choose, and just talk to them. Tell them-
Dr Dan: An accountability partner.
Siri Shakti: That's right. Thank you.
Dr Dan: And especially if you both have similar goals. We do that in business a lot. If two people want to create a course, an e-course that they can sell online, and they haven't done it, but there both beginning or starting out, a lot of times they'll partner up and hold each other accountable. Like, “Oh, did you finish these lessons today?”
“Yeah, I did. Did you finish your lessons? Cool.”
“What's next? This is what I'm doing.”
“Okay, cool.” You know? So they hold each other accountable and you can do that with fitness as well, just like having a workout partner.
Siri Shakti: Yep.
Dr Dan: Yep.
Siri Shakti: Absolutely.
Dr Dan: It's very powerful to be able to do that.
Siri Shakti: Well, anything else you wanted to add? Or we getting close to …
Dr Dan: I'm ready to give everybody their RockStar mission for today, if they choose to do so.
Siri Shakti: Nice.
Dr Dan: But before we do, don't forget to go to rockstarinlife.com to get links to all the resources we've mentioned, the show notes, the episode transcript. You can also see the cool video of Siri Shakti jumping into the pool. It's a one-minute clip. We cut it down to one minute so we could put it on Instagram as well. Download my free books. Both books you can grab on there.
Training, yoga, meditation. We're adding … I think we have home-schooling stuff on there as well. If it's not there, it will be.
Siri Shakti: It will be, yes. It's coming.
Dr Dan: It will be there, exactly. We're going to be putting home-school advice, and tips, and strategies in there as well.
Siri Shakti: And resources, too.
Dr Dan: And resources. And we're adding something every single week. So make sure to go to rockstarinlife.com and join the RockStar In Life revolution today.
All right. So here is your RockStar mission, if you choose to take it, and we hope you do, right?
Siri Shakti: Yep. Absolutely.
Dr Dan: All right. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to write down, what are five things that you want to achieve, or do in your life, that you haven't fully committed to? This can be anything from your relationship, it can be home-schooling your kids, it could be a fitness goal, whether you want to lose weight, or … and write down, “Hey, I want to get in shape and drop, get rid of, eliminate.” We don't like to say “lose,” because then it's kind of like, “Oh, well I lost that.” That means that it's mine, and I want it back, you know?
You don't want to lose, like you lose your car keys, “Those are my car keys. I would like to get them back.” So you don't want to lose weight. You want to eliminate it. You want to destroy it, right? Get rid of it. So write that down. If it's, you want to run seven miles, or work up to seven miles, or five miles, write that down. Maybe you want to write a book. Maybe you want to start your own e-course that you can sell online. You want to start a new business. I mean, whatever it is that you want to do, right?
Is there any other examples you can think of?
Siri Shakti: It could even be things like wanting to spend more quality time with your kids. That's also a commitment.
Dr Dan: Yeah. One thing though, is when you're writing down something you want to commit to, make sure if it's something like, “I want to get into shape,” it needs to have something like a number, something like, “I want to get rid of this set amount of pounds.”
Siri Shakti: So as clear as possible.
Dr Dan: As clear as possible. Just like, “I want to spend more time with my kids.” Well, how much more time? “I'm committed to spending two hours each day when I get home from work, and they're home from school,” or whatever your situation is and you're going to take two hours a day, or an hour. You can start with an hour a day, where you're going to do something with them.
“I'm going to play video games, or we're going to go out to eat. We're going to do something together and talk.” Right? “We're going to walk around the lake.” We like to do that sometimes. We take the whole family and walk around the lake, and listen to them complain sometimes. “My feet hurt. I don't want to do this anymore.” But we're spending quality time together.
Siri Shakti: Oh, yeah. Good old quality time.
Dr Dan: Yeah, it's not all the time, but sometimes. We're just like, “Okay. We're not doing this for another two weeks. We'll just play video games instead this time.” Because they like that.
So it can be any of those things. So write down five things that you want to fully … that you are going to fully commit to. From those five, choose three. Choose the three that you're going to take action on right now, okay? That you're going to commit to right this second.
Now obviously, if you're driving, or if you're running on a treadmill, or walking on a treadmill in a gym, or you're doing anything else out, that you can't really grab a pen and paper and write while you're doing this, you know? Then just commit to it whether it's in your head, or if you're feeling brave enough, roll down your window if you're driving and scream it out, “I commit to these three things!” At the very least, one thing.
Siri Shakti: If you're at the office, just scream it out, you know?
Dr Dan: Yes. Scream it out. “I am committed to doing that.” Well, if you're at the office, then you obviously have pen and paper-
Siri Shakti: [crosstalk 01:08:11]
Dr Dan: You have phone, you have something you can write on. Just don't do it while you're driving. You can scream it out loud, just don't write nothing down. Don't grab your phone and try and type it in while you're driving, okay? So don't do that. Stay committed to driving safe.
So circle those three things out of the five that you're going to take action on right now. Then, if you're in a place you can start doing it, then do it, right? Whatever that action is, maybe it's joining the gym, because you don't belong to a gym yet. Maybe it's reaching out to a friend that also has that fitness goal that you're going to have an accountability partner. Or maybe, like I said, you want to write a book, or create an online course, or go back to school, or do something.
Whatever it is that you've written down and you're going to do, or if it's you want to spend an hour a day with your kids, then that commitment is telling your kids, “Hey, tomorrow, we're going to spend an hour around this time, or at this time, and we're going to play video games together, or we're going to go on a walk,” or whatever it is that you choose to do.
Or if it's that relationship with your significant other, whether you're married or not, and you're making that commitment, you can tell them, “Look, I'm committed to you.” Give them a compliment, tell them you love them, and you're committed to them, and you want to deepen your relationship. Whatever it is, email to them, text it to them, call them, but don't wait. Do it right now.
Siri Shakti: Yes. Yep. Now time.
Dr Dan: Yep. So the time is now. So do that. And that's all, right?
Siri Shakti: Beautiful.
Dr Dan: All right. So you have your RockStar mission in place. Take action on it. Go out and do it, and we will see you next week.
Siri Shakti: That's right. You got this, guys. Go make your commitments.
Dr Dan: Awesome. All right everybody. Be a RockStar In Your Life.
Siri Shakti: And make the world your stage.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to RockStar In Life, your source for unleashing your inner RockStar. For more tips, training, and free stuff, be sure to go to rockstarinlife.com and join the RockStar In Life revolution today. Thanks again, and don't forget to make the world your stage.
Be a RockStar In Your Life.
& Make The World Your Stage!
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