Performance & Profit Lesson #3 The Most Important Habit You Can Do

When I talked about developing an Empowering Daily Routine (EDR) in Performance & Profit Lesson #2 , many of you asked, “Noah, can you give me an example of what I should do as part of my daily routine?”

Ask and you shall receive.

If a habit is something you do in response to certain stimuli (which it is), then what is the most important habit you can do?

The more I thought about this question, the more I realized there could be only one answer:

Meditation.

What is meditation?

According to Wikipedia, meditation is “a practice in which an individual trains the mind or induces a mode of consciousness, either to realize some benefit or for the mind to simply acknowledge its content without becoming identified with that content, or as an end in itself.”

What are the benefits of meditation?

1. Relaxation.

Life is stressful.

You have a thousand and one things on your to-do list.

But when was the last time you really allowed yourself to relax?

What if you built in a simple method of relaxation into your daily routine?

You’d feel a lot better, wouldn’t you?

2. To develop compassion and empathy.

It’s easy to be judgmental and to think that we’re the only one with stress or problems.

But when you meditate, one of the benefits is to realize that we are all in the same human soup – living on the same fragile planet – and that we are all interconnected.

This gives us compassion, empathy, and a greater ability to “seek first to understand, then to be understood” as Stephen Covey put it.

3. Gratitude and forgiveness.

“If the only prayer you pray is ‘Thank you,’ it will be enough.”

That quote has been attributed to several people, from Thich Nhat Hanh to Meister Eckhart.

The point is not who said it, but the truth of those words.

For example…

In 2007, when I found myself $40,000 in debt working in my parents’ basement, I realized that I didn’t have much.

I’d been working hard my whole life.

And here I was – with nothing to show for it but a pile of bills, no friends, no girlfriend, and no place of my own.

I was angry, afraid, frustrated, and deeply resentful.

But then, one day, I realized that there was an enormous difference between I don’t have much and I don’t have anything.

So I started to meditate daily on the words Thank you.

Every day, for hours on end, I would thank God for all the things that I had:

Thank you that I have eyes that can see.

Thank you that I have ears that can hear.

Thank you that I have hands and fingers.

Thank you that I have legs and feet and toes.

Thank you that I have food to eat.

Then I would thank God for all the technology that I had access to:

Thank you that I have a telephone.

Thank you that I have a computer.

Thank you that I have access to the Internet.

  The most important habit you can do? It comes down to 2 words.

Slowly, gradually, I realized that if I just started to focus on what I had, then what I had would have to grow.

And it did…

1 month later, I built and launched my very first online program.

2 months later, I had my first 5-figure month.

4 months later, I moved out of my parents’ basement into a lovely home in the Midwest.

5 months later. I met a gorgeous blonde who would become my beautiful wife, Babette.

12 months later, I had paid off all of my debts and became 100% debt-free.

16 months later, I got a six-figure book deal with one of the world’s largest publishers.

24 months later, I became a best-selling author for the first time.

So I went from basement to bestseller in just 24 months – and one of the big reasons it happened is because I decided to focus on what I had instead of what I didn’t have.

Meditation is the most important habit you can do for one simple reason: it makes all the other habits work better.

If you’ve never meditated before, it’s never too late to start!

Noah’s Note: Be grateful for what you have, and you’ll have more to be grateful for.

Got questions about meditation?

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I believe in you!