Hello {{ name | there }},

Welcome to this issue of the Modern Compass newsletter. Each issue I take one topic relative to personal development and we dig a layer deeper together to find new perspectives that create movement. If someone forwarded this to you, please [subscribe here] so you don’t miss a future issue.

This month’s topic requested by a subscriber is on vices, bad habits and their effectiveness on dealing with stress. This is a much longer issue than I normally write, so take time to consume in whatever chunks you can. My newsletter issues will generally not be this long for those new here, but I didn’t feel I could do this topic justice without length.

How you address these things is wildly different, and much harder once something becomes a habit. So lets start with the harder one first. The bad habit once it’s formed.

In order to break a bad habit, it requires a level of focus on changing it. When I think of focus, that doesn’t have to mean physically, it could be mentally just spending time thinking about how to win and apply tests. It starts with the creating a system that surrounds the habit you’re looking to changing, and the digging deeper to find the why.

Here is what I have learned and applied myself that last several years.

Step 1. Choose your one (two tops) focus area(s) to improve in. This can’t be just a New Years ritual you think about once a year. I firmly believe that focus, is the one of the few ways we create a different reality for ourselves from the existing one.

Step 2. Figure out your why behind the choice. This is going to require you to dig deeper, but I’ll give you a personal example below and I can expand on this in another issue if desired.

My suggestion on the why behind it if the why doesn’t come naturally, find the strongest, most resounding fear of “what if you do nothing”. I did an issue a few months back that may be worth looking back at. In essence, I wrote that fear can be a great source of fuel for starting a practice of discipline.

Step 3. You need to think about this focus area weekly, if not daily (it can be brief). That’s why you only ever carry 1-2 focus areas at one time.

Step 4. Define the focus area clearly enough so each day you know if you earned a win or loss. It should be that simple,. Example, you either had a drink, had a smoke, carbed up, gambled, spent money, doom scrolled, or you didn’t. For some, your win may be stopping cold turkey or it may just be a reduced amount, that is up to you. If you need help tracking the wins and losses, you can start by tracking on paper or a note app in your phone. I created an app for this purpose months ago that is largely exclusive, to you as a subscriber. In it, you pick your focus area weekly and log whether you got the win or loss each day towards a weekly goal. The app is called Impulse Wallet but don’t let impulse throw you off, it’s all about tracking these wins or losses and it resets weekly so you don’t beat yourself up when you’ve had a poor week. I’ve used this daily since I launched it, admittedly not as adherent to it on the weekends but I use it every week and there is a social aspect you can invite others to join you on a journey if you want.

Step 5. Create the environment that helps you succeed in your focus area. Example, I try to avoid snacking on carby stuff (I dont always win there if its around), but if there are Cheez-Its in the house, I will find them and I will eat them. So I never buy them despite kids liking them (trust me, there is plenty else they like). Ok one funny GiF, then back to being serious.

Now I’d like you to take a pause and think, what is one bad habit you’ve been wanting to break and/or maybe you have already broken, did you know why you were doing it?

If yes, amazing! What was the why and did it require pretty consistent focus? I’d selfishly love to hear this story if you want to reply to this email.

If no, is this the habit still on your mind? Maybe you’re not ready to dive back into it yet, but would you be willing to focus thinking about it 15 minutes a day or week researching, solutioning, and applying small tests? The why is still important, but if you aren’t willing to carve some time out of your day or week just to think about how to win at changing the habit, the why won’t matter.

So we have some steps but so what….what do we focus on and how do we land on why we’re doing it? This is the million dollar question and I think its made worse at times with so many people telling you to optimize everything, but by choosing everything, we actually do nothing. Additionally, AI won’t help much here either. It can help you research and solution quicker, but it won’t replace the the focus you commit and digging for the why. Additionally, I’ve also seen AI take you in circles because it has no conviction behind it’s words. I’m going to come back to this question using my example, but first I want to be clear that by choosing your focus, you get to say no to other things.

Choosing the focus area and the why means you’re going to have to say no to things. If your focus is eating healthy, that does not mean working out 5 days a week too. It just doesn’t. Obviously some do, but don’t compare others’ progress to your own. There are far too many variables down to our individual genetics that dictates what works for others may not work for us.

Quickest way to burn yourself out is by trying too many things at the same time, you know what will happen is nothing sticks. Also, picking on eating healthy (if that’s your choice) you have to experiment and break it down enough so you know what this looks like for you. Some go with protein shakes and bars as a method of eating healthy, some go the way of paleo, fasting, keto, vegetarian, or just simply eating more greens daily. This will look a little unique to you if eating healthy is your choice. You may not know immediately what the right path is, this is why it needs small consistent levels of focus. Trial and error is good as long as you stay focused to keep trying new things when something doesn’t work.

There’s a great quote that hit deep in a book I’ve been reading (more on that below) that should land on this topic as well, "As you start to walk on the way, the way appears." Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi. The way won’t appear if we haven’t chosen a focus or “path” to walk on and tried walking it.

Step 6. When you are seeing success, I'd caution against posting about your progress on social media. The only exception I'd make is if what you're doing requires you to eventually sell yourself or a product in some way. For example, I can't write my book in a vacuum and expect to sell any copies when it launches. I have to talk about it somewhere for people to know about it. These days, I do that here and on LinkedIn.

However, posting about losing weight, running 10 miles, etc., can provide a premature sense of accomplishment that actually works against us. A 2009 study by Gollwitzer and colleagues found that publicly acknowledging identity-related goals can reduce the effort people put toward achieving them. Similarly, a 2005 study by Fishbach and Dhar found that feeling like we've made progress can sometimes give us permission to make choices that contradict our goals.

If you need accountability, find an accountability partner or two. (see my Impulse Wallet app further down for a lightweight accountability app you can do with friend). There are plenty other paid apps strictly for the purpose of social accountability tracking as well.

Step 7. Final step is get proof. You need proof you’re moving forward in your focus area. For something like eating healthy, it may be weight related, or may be assessing your energy, or what I like to go by is how does my bloodwork look. You have to chase the proof to validate you are doing something right and enough to drive the change you started looking for in the first place.

Now back to how to picking the focus area and the why that results in breaking the bad habit(s). Here is my story of how I chose mine years ago, which will take the place of Look a Layer Deeper section for the issue. Disclaimer, I am not claiming any of my experience will work for you or be safe for your circumstances.

For nearly 9 years, I have been driven by one focus area, the why was fear. I saw what Type 2 Diabetes does to a person (my dad). It can destroy most organs in your body if it isn’t managed well. My fear started to take root and created the why, “proactively avoid getting Type 2 Diabetes”. I started to focus in on that topic that started for my dads benefit but additionally for my own. I read into it back then, more and more I thought treating it with medications didn’t make a lot of sense to me because over time you increasingly need more medication. The more medication you have, the safer you feel from harm from the effects of high glucose, insulin resistance, etc. It’s a double-edged sword.

Through just being hyper focused in this area and trying to find my dad resources, at my office they had these guys called 2 Keto Dudes come talk about Keto which involved fasting. Keto wasn't the right fit for me, but from that and more digging I found this book called the Diabetes Code on fasting and reversing the effects of Type 2 diabetes. I was the heaviest I had ever been at the time, around 250lb. I still have this picture from a Happy Hour from 2015…and who knew I could spin a quote like that off the cuff. I should have started writing more then!

I didn’t put that diabetes book down, and I was convinced then, fasting would be my focus area. Fasting then just as it is now sounds taboo, but if you look at our longer history, one maybe two meals a day is all we ever got. Additionally, you have coffee drinks with the same sugar and nutritional value as a snickers bar, so there’s more sneaky calories we have to watch out for these days.

Additionally take GLP 1’s for instance, in my humble opinion, what they effectively do, is slow your digestive system to the point that you stop eating for much longer durations that reduces your insulin sensitivity….hello fasting and improved A1C. Obviously there is a lot more science there and it’s not explicitly a fast inducing drug, but I’m glad those exist and are helping people. Something worth noting, a doctor will be happy to subscribe you a GLP1 if you’re nearing or are diabetic and of course to stop eating poorly, very few will just say try fasting. Just FYI, don’t hold your breath for someone to suggest you to try it out.

To summarize my example:

My focus area: Fasting. It enabled me to create the proof, positive gains in bloodwork, glucose, A1C and weight loss being a result that didn’t require me to workout for the results. Now movement is still very important in general vs living a sedentary lifestyle, but 2 young kids, a dog, and an acre to keep up with keeps me moving. So one very specific focus area where I said no to other things.

The Why Behind It: The fear of Type 2 Diabetes and to proactively do something about it and be willing to trial and error unconventional things. For those that don’t know, when you are officially Type 2 Diabetic, it’s often not what you did that year that made you push past A1C threshold to become diabetic. It’s the last 5-10 years of the lifestyle you’ve lived. There are of course genetic predispositions that make you more prone to it, but Type 2 is still largely lifestyle driven.

Bad Habits that were exiled in the process: Eating a ton of pizza (I was a bachelor and it was my go to), eating late at night (big problem a lot of people don’t realize), and eating candy all the time. Naturally, if you do less of all these, you can see why I would shed some weight in the process.

Trial & Error/Testing: What didn’t I try? That’s where the focus comes in.

I started Intermittent fasting 18:6 where you consume calories only 6 hours in the day and meant breakfast had to go. That wasn’t a big deal, I’m not that big a fan of breakfast anyway.

For lunches I tried many things, from protein shakes, salads, chicken salads, sandwiches, all kinds of things. Black coffee for clean fasts to zero sugar energy drink the last year or 2 in the morning which is technically a dirty fast. Needless to say, I’ve really never stopped iterating and the proof of stable weight and solid bloodwork are my proof.

This year, I’m iterating again and trying some new things related to fasting. Also I’ve tested out new things to improve nutrition, but it all centers around intermittent fasting as the focus.

Last thing. I’ve had the better part of a month to think about this topic and I decided to push myself on tackling a current habit I’ve been meaning to break which is drinking Diet Cokes. Mind you, I average around 2-4 12oz cans daily so not terrible amount. I thought, what’s the point of writing all this if I don’t put some more to the test!

After nearly 2 weeks, it’s going pretty well. Not really seeing much of a benefit of not drinking Diet Coke, but I’ll keep it going for another few weeks and see if this one stays or goes.

In conclusion to all of what I shared, I lost 50 lb over the course of a year (from that original picture years ago) and it has remained off. I know I can flex another 10lb, but I keep it because I enjoy the adult beverages on weekends, big meals for family gatherings, and throwing down at a few select restaurants on occasion.

I believe these steps and stories will help give you some thoughts on how tackle a bad habit yourself.

We’re going to now pivot over to the vice. Let’s first define the vice using focus area term we learned above, because I needed to several times for myself before I wrote this. I kept naming vices myself that were more just habits, like the Diet Coke one for example.

Vice is an indulgence that offers immediate satisfaction, despite conflicting with a focus area and likely knowingly unhealthy.

Vices themselves can be triggered through a wide range of ways, in many cases negative reasons like stress, but also some positive ones like getting through a big project and wanting to celebrate, and so on.

I posed this question to my LinkedIn network on what makes vices hard to replace/remove and here is how they responded. Clearly, stress-relief is the hardest part to replace when trying to change or remove a vice.

So let’s get cracking a vice or two. The following are less steps and more just different ways to think through breaking or changing a vice.

Change the device, replace the vice

By device, I mean whatever delivers the satisfaction you're looking for. If you're craving something crunchy and carby, swap the chips for dry-roasted almonds as an example. I just discovered Blue Diamond Dry Roasted & Salted Almonds myself this year as a great change to the device, otherwise I dislike all other brands and types of Almonds. If you enjoy sipping a cold beer from a glass bottle, try San Pellegrino instead. The idea isn't to eliminate everything you enjoy about a vice, but to find a healthier way to satisfaction and something you don’t consume normally.

In our household we try to avoid adult beverages during the week so that it’s a treat on the weekends. Weekdays with 2 young kids (my thoughts are with you for single parents and 3+ kids families) and careers, I feel like I earned the right to a satisfying drink in the evening that also tells me it’s time to wind down. Reason I call this a vice and not a habit, is to me it’s more about the satisfaction from it. I found that a S.Pellegrino as mentioned above that I only have at night, changes the device while leaving enough characteristics and making it special enough that my I still get much of the satisfaction and signal to wind down. S.Pellegrino and those Almonds I mentioned earlier were my changing the device.

Change the environment

This ties back to what was said in the habit section. If your vice is frequently reaching for snacks, change what you have access to. You might have better luck changing the device than just trying to stopping the vice entirely where something is triggering the need for you to indulge in a satisfying snack. Additionally, if you live with someone, you may need help and alignment from them to support you in creating the environment that helps you succeed. Same goes for coworkers. If you stopped eating what they eat or drinking what they drink, they may ask questions, there may be friction, but if those things were the only reason for the connection, then it was likely more about proximity then real connection.

Journal (I can’t believe I’m listing this one)

I’m 45 and up until this year, I have never been a fan of journaling. But, this year I started it up here and there and when stress causes me to over indulge, which essentially is temporarily losing your self control. I wanted to document that. I knowingly will stress snack, and the rare times that happens, it’s usually not one snack it’s many. This is also why I’m eager to keep testing how the removal of Diet Coke goes, if anything changes there. But the friction of the pen pushing those words out of why I think that happened right after it did, I’ve found did help to reduce the stress or anxiety around it. Now it’s become somewhat of what I think James Clear, author of Atomic Habits might call it a Habit Stack. Now anytime I over indulge, I force myself to write something about it and that at times isn’t enough to persuade me the satisfaction wasn’t actually worth it anyway in that instance.

Examine the inputs that lead to the triggers

This is really being more mindful and documenting what are all the sources of your triggers. Determine if there are trends, if it’s all stress, ask yourself why 3 times and force yourself to different answers. At one point in my career, I would stress snack after every 1:1 with a former manager and I kept asking why. Honestly, I had no good answer why. The calls didn’t go poorly, I was a high performer, it was self-imposed stress. Now this is a rare example of being self-imposed, but ask yourself why 3+ times and get to know the stress better.

Decide if your life inputs need a change

Maybe there is too much stress from your career, you’re trying to do too much, taken on more than you can, you’re struggling with parent life, or you simply aren’t pleased with where you are right now that is driving the need for frequent vices. This topic in and of itself could be spread across thousands of books but I’ll suggest one thing. If you’re recognizing a time for a change in job, love life, time for yourself/spouse/kids, fill in the blank then make that a focus area. If your focus determines your reality, leaving it focused just on what’s not working now, things will remain exactly that way.

What’s good enough look like for you?

To put it simply, to optimize everything in life is a fools errand that will burn you out. We alll are going to have some vices. Stop X vice here, and little did you know you start Y vice there, which is why I think playing with changing the device above is beneficial. Thinking through what good enough looks like for you helps so you know what vices are acceptable and creating a balance.

To circle back to replacing stress through vices, I honestly don’t think anyone person has it figured out and I certainly don’t claim to, as I cave to a vice here and there as well. I do believe a key to limiting vices aside from what I’ve given above is where you invest your time not only choosing those focus areas for improvement above in the habits section, but where you put focus into your life as a whole across your relationships, yourself, and so on. All that materializes in the day to day minutia, if you have no direction where you want to go or the destination your on track for doesn’t look appealing, vices can become common place to handle stress. If you haven’t started anything and want to get a handle on stress and vices, I do suggest journaling because it forces you to call yourself in the most real unfiltered way (if you’re honest). Of course there are many things beyond what’s listed here as well.

I know there is something here worth taking away and using for yourself if you’ve been looking to change bad habits or a vice. I’d like to end on this note. Award winning nonfiction ghost writer and editor Jonathan Jordan that I follow on LinkedIn recently stated this that really resonated with me. “As an author, I am not the hero of this story or what I write, you as the reader are.” And so, go be the hero.

I've got an extra copy of Work With the Best by Jay Yang. I supported his Kickstarter and got 3 copies, and I have 1 left I’m holding for one of you. I really enjoyed the book, you can see my Amazon review below.

If you'd like a chance to win, just reply to this email with "Count me in for the raffle!" by Friday, October 23rd and I'll add your name to the drawing.

I won’t make you wait all the way till the next Nov issue. I'll randomly select one winner on Oct 24th and reach out by email to the winner and arrange shipping.

One entry per person. I'll cover shipping within United States.

I don’t do a good enough job at keeping these front and center and I’ll list them here and make a better, smaller and consistent callout of these in future issues for newer subscribers since I don’t mention both in my cleaned up welcome email.

As a subscriber, you have access to both of these applications I’ve created for the last year+. They are free to use.

Map Where You Are AI-Powered Assessment: Quick 10 minute self-assessment that maps you at a high level across the Modern Compass framework (Self, Trust, Relationships, and Character) through a series of questions and then 3 open text questions to dig deeper into what is it that you want next and what are your perceived gaps and AI-summarized report on how your mapping plays into what your looking to do. I’ve had 10+ people try this, many are subscribers or others I’ve sent it directly to. Something I will look to do maybe summer next year is expand it to come back to your responses, allow you to add more inputs, show visual changes, allow you to add what worked or didnt for you, and more. I’ve personally wanted to go back to my dashboard to do more and currently it only allows for one time assessment. Anyway, if you have tried it, let me know if there is other functionality you would like in the future. If you haven’t, and you’ve read all the way down this far…what’s another 10 minutes with me gonna hurt for a chance to gain some valuable insights?! You can give feedback right in the app or just reply to this email, DM me in LinkedIn, or text if we have each others digits.

Impulse Wallet: This one started to help me track my focus area and impulses. I mentioned it earlier in habits but I had tried different habit tracking apps and didn’t like any of them. The concept here is every week you try to earn $10 in the “impulse wallet” of fake money and it resets weekly so you don’t have to be reminded when you’ve had a shit week. I largely landed on Impulse back then becauseI I thought, I’m either fighting the impulse to cheat on my focus area, or I’m caving to the impulse. Importance is on picking the focus area and know what the daily win or loss is.

I either do the fast I’ve planned to do or I dont…simple. I either write or edit something to do with Modern Compass daily or I don’t. So I can generally earn -$2 up to $2 daily. I also like to play with the concept of bonus points as it relates to vices or other things. These are optional, and don’t require a negative if you don’t do them but $1 gained if you do. I wouldn’t create many of these, maybe 1 or 2. You have to play with bonus points though as they are a little less defined. If you’re baller and blowing up your wallet well past $10 every week, you may not be challenging yourself enough.

I finally made some progress from my last issue and finished editing 2 chapters. I’m officially at a half way point in the book, wow that took forever! However, I am behind and made the tough decision to delay the deadline I set for myself to handover for copy editing from Dec 1st to Feb 1st. I’m looking how long its taking me to get through chapters and with a couple trips to close out the end of year and holidays, I would have to cut corners with editing the last half and I don’t want to do that.

Side note, funny enough as part of that book review I did above which I also posted on LinkedIn, I got connected with Michael Boorman that did that books visuals and I may work with him and/or another he has in mind for the visuals in my book so I’m looking forward to that!

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1. Gollwitzer, P. M., Sheeran, P., Michalski, V., & Seifert, A. (2009). When intentions go public: Does social reality widen the intention-behavior gap? Psychological Science, 20(5), 612–618. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02336.x

2. Fishbach, A., & Dhar, R. (2005). Goals as excuses or guides: The liberating effect of perceived goal progress on choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 32(3), 370–377. https://doi.org/10.1086/497548

P.S. This was a hard topic living rent free all month and frankly I’m ready to move on from the topic. I’ve had a few sleepless nights thinking about it and even had a 3am-7am writing session as a result one weekend. It’s not lost on me what occurs when bad habits and vices take control of your life, so I wanted to provide the most comprehensive ways that comes to mind for me.