I’m an experimenter. My passion lies in tinkering and consistently immersing myself in novel experiences.

I thrive on exploring every avenue of self-development and quickly scrapping what doesn’t serve me well — be it supplements, dietary regimens, workout routines, sleep patterns, fitness devices, cognitive enhancers, psychedelics, breathwork routines, mindfulness practices, gadgets, or apps.

You name it, I’ve probably tried it.

But not all of these hacks, habits, or routines stick.

Charlie Munger reminds us to repeat behavior that works. The wisest people, Munger points out, invest in a life “full of good habits maintained and many bad habits avoided or cured.”

The habits that endure are the ones that impart lasting transformation — or as I like to put it — the habits yielding the highest “ROI” (Return on Investment).

The Pareto Principle, also called the 80/20 principle, states that roughly 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes. For example, 20% of life’s annoying tasks likely result in 80% of our misery. Flipped around, this means that 20% of our positive habits likely drive 80% of our happiness.

In the past year, I made a few small changes to my daily habits that drove significant results to my overall well-being. I want to share them with you in hopes that one (or several) of them will drive you to try the same.

These select few daily habits, when scrutinized closely, have pulled the most weight for my overall happiness:

1) Waking at 6 am (or earlier)

I’ve always been an early riser.

But, truth be told, peeling myself away from the warmth of my covers at the crack of ass still stucks.

Yet, every time I summon the willpower to roll out of bed into the abyss of pre-dawn darkness, I’m always glad I did so.

Sure, I’m stumbling around like a caffeinated zombie, but those early hours are magic. It’s my time to set the rhythm for the day at my own speed. No frantic scrambling or stressing about an overloaded to-do list. I’m in complete control.

In those personal pre-dawn hours I can meditate, journal, read a chapter of a book, go for a walk and watch the sunrise, hit the gym, shower, and have a cup of coffee with Lauren all before 9 am. Imagine that!

Now, don’t get me wrong, making the early rise a habit is a pain in the ass. It’s a grind, and yes, I’m still in a perpetual battle with the snooze button. But once you catch that rhythm, it’s like a drug you don’t want to miss out on.

Try setting your alarm 30 minutes earlier and spend some time to yourself before diving headfirst into the day.

2) Eliminating junk from my diet

Nutrition can be a maze.

I used to tinker with my diet, trying things like Keto or slow-carb, but like most diets, I found them impossible to stick to.

I used to think the path to abs required Spartan-level discipline — no alcohol, no carbs, no sugar. Turns out, that’s not sustainable.

Now, I try to follow just two simple rules:

1. Not eating my first meal until 11 am — 1 pm
2. Following a 90/10 diet, prioritizing protein and real food.

Intermittent fasting (or fasting in general) is not for everyone, so I don’t encourage it wholesale. Personally, when I start my day on an empty stomach, I find that I’m less lethargic and sharper mentally. It also gives me something to look forward to while I get my productive work done from 9 am to 11 am.

Eliminating junk sounds generic, but it’s really just making a few small changes to reduce the temptations.

Number one for me is only shopping for groceries in the perimeter of the store — that’s where you’ll find the fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood, and dairy. Anything that comes in a package or has a logo is probably best to avoid.

Number two is caloric density. Whole foods are my fuel. They’re like slow-release energy boosters, keeping my snack cravings at bay. When I eat my first meal, I’ll have eggs, ground beef, and avocado. Once I’m fueled up with all that lean protein and fat, I won’t feel my stomach growl until 4 pm, in which case I may snack on some fruit, yogurt, beef jerky, or a piece of dark chocolate to hold me over until dinner.

I also find that whole foods keep me full for much longer, so I don’t feel the need to snack in the first place. Making sure my first meal of the day isn’t filled with crappy carbs like bagels, muffins, oatmeal, or cereal ensures that I don’t creep into bad snacks for the rest of the day too.

Of course, I still enjoy pizza, cookies, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s from time to time, but I cap those indulgences at around 10% of my weekly intake. It keeps me sane without strapping myself to diet Alcatraz.

Fuel up in good whole protein and watch how much more satiated you feel.

3) Breathwork

Everyone experiences stress somewhere in their bodies. For some, it comes in the form of back pain or headaches. When stress comes knocking on my door, it’s like a heavyweight championship match inside my chest, and my breaths start playing hard to get. It’s not asthma, but my body’s cryptic signal that I need to hit the brakes.

I’ve sent a lot of praise to the great Wim Hof, but I was never able to stick with his breathing exercises for an extended time. In the last month or so, I started doing Wim Hof’s ten-minute breathing practice first thing in the morning every day.

It’s a series of deep breaths followed by a 30-second breath hold. By the end of it, you’re holding your breath for 90 seconds! I didn’t think that was possible for me but I feel like I’m vibrating by the end of the breathing rounds.

Does it completely rid me of my stress? No, it’s not a magic potion. Think of it more like that trip to the chiropractor when your neck’s as stiff as a board.

Of course, there are other things I could do to reduce my stress, but since I started doing daily Wim Hof breathing, it’s been 1000% times easier to control my heavy breathing.

Throughout the day, I’ll also incorporate physiological sighs: two deep inhales through the nose (no exhale in between), followed by a full exhale until my lungs are empty (through the mouth). It’s been scientifically proven as one of the fastest ways to reduce “autonomic arousal” aka, calm the fuck down.

Your body is a breathing machine, but if you’re constantly inhaling like you’re watching a horror movie your brain screams, “Stress alert!” On the other hand, if you let those exhales roll out in slow motion, your brain calmly thinks, “Goosfraba.”

Stress might be a persistent visitor, but with a few mindful breaths, you can show it the door — or at least make it a more tolerable guest at the party.

4) Keeping a notebook for journaling, copying quotes, & ideas

In this hyper-connected era, where digital note-taking reigns supreme, I find a certain charm in putting pen to paper. There’s something uniquely magical about the deliberate slowness of handwriting.

My green marble notebook is practically an extension of my arm, documenting my stream of consciousness since 2016. It’s not just a journal; it’s a repository of random sparks of interest — snippets like a profound quote from a book, a nugget of wisdom dropped in a podcast, or even doodles mapping out my next tattoo idea. It’s my mental scrapyard.

When I’m bored, I’ll flip through the pages and land on a random entry from years ago, stumbling upon a forgotten passage that reignites a dormant spark of inspiration.

Keeping that notebook has been so much fun for me. It’s a curation of the nest nuggets of wisdom gathered from the vast realms of books, movies, podcasts, and the invaluable lessons etched into me by my idols. It’s like assembling a Greatest Hits album of insights.

My dream is to one day hand over my notebook to my children, with the hope that they can hack through the learning curve at twice the speed I did. Or I can even turn these lessons into a book!

5) “Hell Yeah!” or No

In philosophy, a “razor” is a rule of thumb that allows one to eliminate unlikely explanations for a phenomenon or avoid unnecessary actions.

It’s essentially a broad concept one can utilize to make quicker decisions.

For example, you may have heard the term “Occam’s Razor” before — a principle suggesting the simplest explanation is often correct. Instead of assuming you’ve been robbed or there’s a household ghost, Occam’s Razor would suggest you simply misplaced them. By adding some of these frameworks to your life, you can vastly reduce the mental bandwidth required for decision-making.

One of the most powerful “razors” I recently added to my mental framework comes from the entrepreneur Derek Sivers.

The principle is simple: If you feel anything less than “hell yeah!” about something, say no.

How often are we seduced by opportunities that seem too good to pass up? A happy hour with coworkers, free tickets to a concert, or even a new job offer.

On the surface, these seem like upgrades, and you’d be an idiot to say no.

Yet, everything you say yes to is saying no to the thing you say you want most. If you’re not immediately excited about an event your friend invites you to next month, you’re probably not going to be excited about it when the day finally arrives.

Last week, Lauren and I sat together and reviewed our 2023 calendar to review what we did over the last 12 months.

What things do we want to do more of in 2024, and what things do we want to avoid like the plague?

For us, the number one thing we both agreed on was that we overcommitted ourselves to too many obligations. In other words, we were saying yes far too often.

So this year, our goal is to say no more often — politely, of course.

Time is our most valuable resource, and if you don’t cherish it and place it in high regard, you’ll lose it quickly to things that aren’t eliciting a “Hell Yeah!” response.

Finding time is rarely the problem. Whenever I think “I don’t have the time to do X,” what I usually mean is “I don’t have enough energy” or “I don’t actually want to do this.”

So if it’s not a “Hell yes!” make it a no.

-KB