Category: Personal Development

When I was growing up, I had this theory about life. GRIND it hard through your teens and 20s. DO WHATEVER I WANT in my 30s and beyond.

Ever since I was young, being an immigrant kid from Bangladesh, I saw how hard my parents worked.

And so from a very early age, I had this mental goal that I just want to GRIND IT HARD through my early years, bank as much cash as possible, get as many skills as possible, do WHATEVER was necessary, so that in my 30s, I could get to doing WHATEVER I WANT.

This episode is not about how to do that. We’ve done prior episodes about how to think about your career in your 20s and 30s, go check that out if you want to learn about how to actually get to DOING WHATEVER YOU WANT IN YOUR 30s.

What this episode IS about, is a struggle and an obstacle I face today at 35.

Over the last 9 years, I’ve started and sold my own company, I helped sell the company that bought it, and I’ve gotten to hitting my goal.

I quit my job last week, and I’m taking complete down time to do WHATEVER I WANT.

I made a pact with some friends that I wouldn’t start any new companies, I wouldn’t jump into a new project or job, and I wouldn’t just keep working on stuff. I’d go and enjoy. And have downtime. And go explore the world. Maybe even put myself out there outside of my home city and find the love of my life!

The problem is, I can’t.

I just can’t sleep in.

I can’t just lay on a beach.

I can’t just turn it off.

I feel like a retired bank robber and there are banks everywhere and I just want to go on ONE MORE HEIST.

Here’s the thing though.

If you truly grinded it out through your 20s and even your 30s….

It becomes EASY to get another job.

It becomes EASY to hop onto another project.

You know enough people and it becomes EASY to start another company.

But that doesn’t mean it’s the right move for you. The right project for you. The right job for you.

Things that might’ve been hard and a gift for you 10 years ago, may be easy now, but that doesn’t mean they are worthwhile.

Ironically, even though I GRINDED IT OUT through my 20s and even my early 30s to get to a point of being able to do WHATEVER I WANT — I’m still not ready to get out of the game. I literally CANNOT get myself to just go to the beach and lay there.

I FEEL LIKE I’M JUST GETTING STARTED.

I think this is why serial entrepreneurs exist.

I think this is why billionaires exist. Long before they become billionaires they had more than enough money to just go to the beach — but they wanted to do more for the IMPACT.

And so I got to thinking…. How can I get down time, take some time to reflect, and yet still work on something that will have IMPACT and make me feel fulfilled?

I got to thinking about our goal here at Unstoppable to impact 1K people.

I got to thinking about one of my favorite tools that I learned and utilized through my 20s. The 45-day challenge. And so I decided, while I take my downtime, I’m going to spend about 4-hours every day and work on making Unstoppable even bigger so that we are more likely to hit our goal of helping 1,000 people be more proactive in their lives.

And so I got to sending out a tweet.

The tweet led to a number of people interested in doing a 45-day challenge.

I set up a spreadsheet to track it.

I emailed the people interested in doing a challenge with me and got them all locked in to our system for this 45-day challenge.

And… off we went!

It’s funny. I grinded through my 20s so that I could do whatever I want in my 30s.

And in my 30s, what I thought would just be leisure and hanging out on the beach, I find myself wanting to DO MORE. Take on BIGGER challenges. Work with GREAT people. Have an IMPACT.

And so, while I don’t want to jump into starting my next company right away, or taking a job right away, I figure it’d be good to have a challenge to work on! With people!

So I’m super pumped for all the people on our 45-day challenge. And I’m super pumped for putting int these focused 4 hours every day to grow Unstoppable while I take some downtime.

If you’re interested in kicking off a challenge of your own with your OWN friends, use my spreadsheet template to get organized with your friends, track your progress, and go into beast mode together!

Our mission for Unstoppable this year is to help 1,000 people live more proactive lives. Are you going to be one of those 1,000? In this episode, I’m going to talk about WHY getting proactive can change your life.

Today, I’m going to talk about what the end result looks like when you’re living a PROACTIVE life.

I thought this would be a good topic for today’s Unstoppable Sunday because over 1,200 people have downloaded our Unstoppable Life Planning Guide in the past week alone to start getting proactive about their lives. And I wanted to show all of you that if you put in the work, here’s what the outcome can be for you.

About 10 years ago, I woke up one morning and decided I didn’t want to be reacting to life anymore. Fast forward to today. I helped sell two companies in the past two years, and I just quit my job to just focus on myself for the year. All because I decided to get more proactive about my life 10 years ago.

BEFORE this moment where I decided to get PROACTIVE, I would approach every Sunday with this angst in my stomach — just WORRYING about Monday.

BEFORE this moment, I’d go into Monday and start counting down to the the Friday and the weekend, only to repeat the same patterns of just reacting to life again and again and again counting down from one weekend to another.

The thing is, I didn’t want to live that way anymore. I didn’t want to dread going into work, I didn’t want to just live for the weekends, I wanted to maximize my entire week and get the most out of life. But I had a job, I had bills, and I didn’t quite know how to break out of that pattern.

Until…. I decided to start taking a more proactive approach to life.

I stopped with the Netflix.

I stopped with just hoping things would change.

I stopped escaping from my reality and just counting down from one Friday to another.

And instead I started to take a more PROACTIVE approach to life.

Now on one hand, getting PROACTIVE about life sounds easy. But on the other hand, actually doing the work to face reality and start making changes in your life sounds REALLY HARD.

The thing is, changes in your reality don’t happen overnight. It didn’t for me. However, what CAN happen overnight is a change in your mindset. Your ability to snap your fingers and say ENOUGH — I’m not going to live in this REACTIVE way anymore — that’s a decision you can make right now. AFTER you do that, you’re able to start to take the steps to make changes in your reality.

TODAY, and over the past 10 years, here’s is what my PROACTIVE life looks like. Because I followed the steps on our Unstoppable Life Planning guide, I’ve got my life plan bookmarked. I’ve got a view into what I want over the next 6-years. I’ve got a view into what the next 365-days looks like. AND, I’ve got my Unstoppable Sunday pause and reflect document right here — which is now running over 200 pages!

By following the steps to plan out my Unstoppable Life, I’ve been able to unlock over a decade of productivity for myself. If you’re going through the guide right now, I encourage you to KEEP GOING! By getting a proactive life plan together for yourself, you’ll completely change your life. I did.

And if you haven’t downloaded it yet, just follow the link below and get started. I walk you through the steps on how YOU can start taking a more proactive approach to life, and how you start to lay out a Life Plan for yourself.

 

 

 

This past year, my team was asked to take on an impossible task, an insane goal. It was strategic to the company, so I did NOT want to back away from it.

The odds were stacked against us. It was a brand new team. And much like a lot of long term strategic objectives, it didn’t have short term backing — but it still needed to be done.

So often, when we’re going after our goals, we get SO bogged down by all the obstacles in the way. Our inside voices start nagging at us…

It’s so hard. This won’t work. They don’t want us to succeed. All the odds are stacked against us.

Never in the history of mankind was there ever an endeavor worth pursuing that was easy – or without obstacles. If you look at any of the most successful people in history, they’ve all mastered ONE thing. They’ve mastered resourcefulness.

When faced with a huge goal and obstacles on the way, here’s how my team practiced resourcefulness:

1. My team and I got into a room and made a list of all the things that were stacked against us. We then looked at straight in the face and said OK. Got it.
2. We then asked ourselves: What do we do to win anyway?
3. What are the things we’ve got that we can use to our advantage?
4. What are the plays we can run to double down on the things that ARE working?
5. What are the things we can do creatively to stack things even just a smidge our way?

My team ended up delivering and exceeding on our goal. Even with all the odds stacked against them. They figured out a way to be resourceful and win anyway.

So the next time you’re feeling paralyzed with all the things stacked against you in the way of your goal, ask yourself this: are you being resourceful?

As Tony Robbins always says: “It’s not the lack of resources, it’s your lack of resourcefulness that stops you.”

Over here at Project Unstoppable, our mission is to help 1,000 people lead more proactive lives. If you’re looking to take a more proactive approach to your life using strategies like this — be sure to SIGN UP for our Unstoppable Life Planning Guide by following the link below!

 

 

 

By the time the second week of February rolls around, 80% of people will have broken their New Years Resolutions. That’s right. You didn’t misread that! Because of that exact statistic, I stopped setting New Years Resolutions nearly a decade ago. Instead, I developed a very specific system that helps me set goals for the year, check in on them every Sunday, and keep course correcting throughout the course of the year so that my goals stay top of mind, and I crush them at the end of the year.

Even more so, out of the 365-days we have in the year, only roughly 220 of them are actual working days when you take away holidays, family commitments, sick days, and vacation.

To get the most out of these 220 days, I follow this very specific yearly planning process through the end of December and refine over January. The bulk of this work happens when I shut everything down at the end of the year and go into my reflection period.

This year, I was fortunate enough to have my pause and reflect week in Bali, Indonesia. In this very special episode, for the first time ever, I go into detail on exactly how I go about creating a 365-day plan for the year, create a 5-year vision for myself, and also wrangle in my calendar so I can take a proactive approach to life.

If you’re looking to take a more proactive approach to your life using strategies like this — be sure to SIGN UP for our Unstoppable Life Planning Guide by following the link below!

 

 

 

About a year ago, I started this insane project called Unstoppable with a goal of helping people be more proactive, practice belief x discipline, and become unstoppable in life.

On this Unstoppable Sunday, I reflect on our journey a year in as we celebrate hitting 10 THOUSAND Instagram followers, with over 35 episodes clocking 17 THOUSAND minutes of watch time on YouTube, and ONE THOUSAND people having downloaded our Unstoppable Life Guide, and now a globally distributed team spanning FOUR COUNTRIES.

So often in life, we set big goals and then fail to celebrate. So often we get to DOING instead of pausing and thinking about how to set our goals right. Unstoppable and my other projects wouldn’t be where it is today if I didn’t follow my very specific system for setting goals, ruthlessly executing and celebrating small wins.

In this very special episode, I talk through how I think about setting my big goals in life, how I think about celebrating small wins, and most importantly why I’m excited about Unstoppable as we go into our second year.

Most importantly, I spend some time thanking YOU for supporting us and introducing you to Team Unstoppable who works behind the scenes to help all of us become more Unstoppable.

If you’re looking to take a more proactive approach to your life using strategies like this — be sure to SIGN UP for our Unstoppable Life Planning Guide by following the link below!

 

 

 

In a prior episodes, I talked about how to get a growth mindset by investing in yourself, and have also talked about being stuck on the hamster wheel of life.

On this Unstoppable Sunday, I asked myself, how can we identify if you’re growing? — because life gets busy and days go by and we may be stagnating and not even know it.

In this episode (video above), I teach you this one simple trick I use to gauge if I’m growing. I ask myself… am I scared? I talk through the three BIG times I was scared in the past 18 months, and what I did to push myself and grow.

It’s no secret. I constantly want to be growing every day. I want to become a better version of myself every day. But so often in life, we get stuck, and we forget about that mantra. Between travel, holidays, job, family… it’s easy to fall back into what I call the hamster wheel of life — where you stop growing.

Until… I developed this one benchmark. I started asking myself when was the last time I was just SCARED. When was the last time I felt “OMG GOD.. I have no idea what I’m doing….” When was the last time I felt “I must be the dumbest person in the room?!”

In the past 18 months, I’ve had to move to London to run our entire European operations, I’ve had to move to Sydney to run our Australian operations, and I’ve even had to get on stage in front of FIVE THOUSAND people to give a keynote.

In each of these cases, I was SCARED SHITLESS.

I knew I was over my head, and yet in that moment I felt the most alive.

IN THOSE MOMENTS, I buckled down did what I had to succeed and knocked it out of the park, and in those moments, I GREW.

So ask yourself, when was the last time you felt scared shitless? Comment below and let me know what do you do to keep making sure you’re growing in life?

If you’re looking to take a more proactive approach to your life using strategies like this — be sure to SIGN UP for our Unstoppable Life Planning Guide by following the link below!

 

 

 

We’re all taught that we should invest in life. You may be investing in the stock market, a 401k, maybe even real estate… Or maybe you’re just trying to live at this point and just can’t figure out how to even get access to investments at this point… I’ve been there…

What’s the ONE asset that consistently gives greater returns and is a relatively cheap investment to make?

You.

My mantra in life is to invest in myself above anything else. Even when I was living paycheck to paycheck, before I invested to buy a house, or buy stocks, or start a company, I always prioritized investing in things that I knew would make ME better.

I invested in myself because EVERY SINGLE DAY, I wanted to become a better version of myself.  If you think of yourself as an investment asset, much like you’d think of the stock market, or your 401k, or your house…

This is an asset that will be working for you your entire life. This is an asset that you have complete control over and you already own.

Over the years, I’ve narrowed it down to THREE consistent ways I always invest in myself first:

1. INVEST in Books, the average CEO reads 60 books a year, best and cheapest
2. INVEST IN Courses & Conferences, GO LEARN SOMETHING AND MEET OTHER PEOPLE THAT ARE DOING THE SAME THING > Net worth, network
3. INVEST in Clothes, not a LOT of clothes, but a few clothes that are made with great materials and style… almost like a uniform

They say there are two kinds of people in this world.

People who have a growth mindset.

…and people who have a fixed mindset.

People with growth mindsets believe that they can change who they are and become a better version of themselves.

People with fixed mindsets point at their past failures, their perceived limitations, and put themselves into the confines of a box and limit themselves.

Growth mindset people are unstoppable.

Fixed mindset people stopped years ago.

The question becomes… how do you adopt a growth mindset?

How do you stop limiting yourself and your unlimited potential?

How do you get out of your own head and go achieve the things beyond your wildest dreams?

It’s simple. You invest in YOURSELF.

Good investments are the ones where you put in $1 and you get back $2.

Great investments are the ones where you get 10x or even 1000x returns.

In my life, I’ve consistently prioritized investing in myself. I’ve found that investing in yourself is the #1 way to get yourself to shift to a growth mindset, and achieve the things you want to achieve.

If you’re looking to take a more proactive approach to your life using strategies like this — be sure to SIGN UP for our Unstoppable Life Planning Guide by following the link below!

 

 

 

Throughout the course of my life, I’ve lived in Dhaka, Bangladesh, New York City, Upstate New York, Connecticut, and California.

If there’s one thing I got REALLY good at — its to make new friends in new cities, new situations, and new industries.

On my last episode, I talked about how dinner parties with 6 to 8 people can be the killer way to unlock and grow your network

But what do you DO once you’ve got all these people together? How do you make sure you don’t end up with a BORING dinner party?

Here’s a game I invented to rock any dinner party…

I don’t know about you… but this is when the FEAR sets in…

What if they don’t show up?!

Even worse, what if they do and it’s CRICKETS!

What if it’s a boring dinner party?

What are we even going to talk about!?

If you’re extroverted, and naturally the life of the party, you’re probably going to be fine…

I’m a pretty outgoing guy and I’ve gone into dinners without a plan — and some of them went OKAY

But not GREAT

Thats until I decided to get proactive about it and created a the truth or bullshit game

..it changed everything

.. people started going away from my dinners becoming best friends

The truth or bullshit game is simple.

Everyone on the table gets a tent card like this

On one side it says truth

On the other it says BULLSHIT

I got these printed but you can make them at home with a simple index card, just fold it in half and write with a magic marker like this

…so you’re at your dinner party

..everyone is a couple of drinks in (wait for a couple of drinks)

And then I as the moderator kick it off.

This is the important part… You as the moderator have to get a feel for the group. So it’s always great if you get everyone at the dinner to introduce themselves first; so you get to pick out some common threads that people have (same industry, same hobbies, same city, etc)

Often times, I’d have dinners with people with at least one BIG thing in common. For business dinners it’s easy, there’s an industry in common. For friends, I find people in similar fields, or similar hobbies, or similar values…

This game consistently brings people together, helps them connect deeply in their values, and creates memorable experiences. What’re you waiting for? Throw that dinner, and then start the game.

If you’re looking to take a more proactive approach to your life using strategies like this — be sure to SIGN UP for our Unstoppable Life Planning Guide by following the link below!

 

 

 

Throughout the course of my life, I’ve lived in Dhaka, Bangladesh, New York City, Upstate New York, Connecticut, and California.

If there’s one thing I got REALLY good at — its to make new friends in new cities, new situations, and new industries. How? Here’s the one trick I use…

Firstly, let’s talk about why this is important. In a prior episode, we talked about how your network is your net worth. Meaning, the friends you make, the average of the 5 people you spend time with, and the 100 people you keep in close contact with — makes up your net worth.

But as we go through our 20s, whether it is going to a new school, or as we start new jobs, and ESPECIALLY in our 30s, it always becomes harder and harder to make new friends and break into social circles.

If you want to live a proactive life where you have control over your time… Building financial independence is extremely important… How many bank accounts do you have? How are you managing your money? What’re you doing to be more proactive in your life?

Making new friends SOUNDS easy. You just go up to new people, try new things, and say hi right?

The thing is even if you have a great time hanging out, it always becomes SO damn hard to continue to hang out, and to build a real connection or friendship. This becomes even MORE true as you go into your late 20s and through your 30s.

BUT… your network is your net worth, and there’s only so many Saturday nights you can spend at home watching Netflix. And if its particularly your business network, it becomes even more important to make new friendships and connections outside of meetings.

It finally came together for me when a friend taught me this one simple trick. I started hosting dinners. And for these dinners, I invented this game called Truth Vs. Bullshit (more on this in the later episode).

Sharing a meal, breaking bread, experiencing great and memorable food together is one of the best ways to forge new relationships.

Here’s my 3 simple steps for doing it.

• Step 1: Find a place where you can host a dinner for 6 people
• Step 2: Invite 3 people to a dinner that works for all of them
• Step 3: Ask those 3 people that they can bring a friend (not a plus one)
• Step 4: This way, you’ll get about 6 to 8 people together
• Step 5: As you get the dinner going, set an intention. Be up front! Tell them you think they’re all cool people and thought it’d be great to get everyone to meet and share a meal

…in the next episode, I’ll tell you about this game I invented called Truth or Bullshit that makes ANY of these dinner parties amazing and memorable.

This simple dinner trick has never let me down. It takes a bit of courage to get started — but once you do — it leads to making lifelong friends…

If you’re looking to take a more proactive approach to your life using strategies like this — be sure to SIGN UP for our Unstoppable Life Planning Guide by following the link below!

 

 

 

What’s the one thing you do to make sure you get the MOST out of your day? For me, I always did the standard things: meditation, breakfast, avoiding my phone…

But there’s this ONE thing that completely CHANGED the amount of productivity I get out of every day…

I like the get the MOST out of every single day. And because of that, I obsess over how to run my day better. I follow all the advice that people give you around productivity.

(Check) I wake up early in the morning.
(Check) I’ve got TO-DO lists structured a certain way
(Check) I’m maniacal about my calendar
(Check) I don’t check my phone during the first 30 minutes of waking up
(Check) I even eat a healthy breakfast

But EVEN with all those things I would still come home and have the feeling of — did I do enough?

Am I just on the hamster wheel?

Did TODAY matter?!

And that’s what this blog is all about right. How do we live a PROACTIVE life and accomplish our biggest goals?

I constantly struggled with this until I discovered this ONE trick that completely changed how I approach my days.

Along with my morning tea and breakfast (super important), I now take an index card and make a simple list of THREE big things that I want to just punch in the face today.

Forget the little TODOs, the meetings, all of it– just THREE THINGS that if I get done, I know at the end of the day, seeing these THREE things crossed off — I’ll just FEEL FRIGGIN AWESOME.

Ever since I started doing this… I started to frame my day for maximum impact. I started to evaluate every meeting and every ToDo around whether it’ll help me cross of my big 3.

And somehow, THREE always seemed to be the right number for me– because anything less didn’t feel complete, and anything more — I never got to.

So what’re you doing to PLAN your day and make every day the MOST?

If you want to live a proactive life where you have control over your time… Building financial independence is extremely important… How many bank accounts do you have? How are you managing your money? What’re you doing to be more proactive in your life?