Simple Life Hacks That Will Change Your Future (Steal These Habits From Billionaires)

(00:56):

And also a huge thank you to whomever it was in your life that sent you this episode. And today what you and I are going to talk about are the simple life hacks and daily habits that you can copy from billionaires. Don't you want to know what those are? I sure do. And what I love about everything that you're about to learn, it's all free. And so let's jump right in to number one with the first billionaire who is probably, he might even be like the first well-known billionaire that everyone knew about. I'm talking about none other than the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffet. When you do an episode about the habits of billionaires, you have got to start off with the OG Warren Buffett. And Warren Buffett is famous for being one of the most successful investors in the entire world. He's the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is also world renowned for his philanthropic efforts. He is worth $145 billion. Aren't you curious to know what his daily habits are? Well, the first one may surprise you and I want you to hear it straight from him. 

Jeff Cunningham (02:20):

What's your media routine?

 

Warren Buffet (02:21):

I just read and read and read. I probably read five to six hours a day. I don't read as fast now as when I was younger, but I read five daily newspapers. I read a fair number of magazines. I read 10 Ks. I read annual reports and I read a lot of other things too. So I've always enjoyed reading. I love reading biographies, for example, had

 

Jeff Cunningham (02:40):

you process information very quickly?

 

Warren Buffet (02:42):

Well, I have some filters in my mind.

 

Mel Robbins (02:45):

I just love that he reads for hours every single day. No wonder he's so smart. No wonder he knows so much about so many things. And there's two other things I want to point out. First of all, this habit, it's free. There is nothing stopping you from dedicating time every day to reading and learning. It's free to do. Go to a library, log online and you can read for free. And the other thing I want to point out is at the very end, did you notice he says that this daily habit of reading every single day has created a filter in his mind. And one of the things about Warren Buffett is that he is known and respected for making extremely decisive and fast decisions. And I was really curious about that. And so the next part of what you're about to hear him talking about is that his decision making and the reason why he's able to be like, yep, I'm in. I'm out. It's not happening fast. It's actually happening because of the slow buildup of information that has now been filtering into his brain from the years and years of his daily reading habit. And this is how he explains it.

 

Warren Buffet (04:04):

Somebody calls me about an investment in the business or an investment in securities. I usually know in two or three minutes whether I have an interest and I don't waste any time with the ones in which I don't have an interest. I always worry a little bit about even appearing rude because I can tell very, very, very quickly whether it's going to be something that will lead to something.

 

Mel Robbins (04:28):

Isn't that so cool? And just stop and think if you're worth 145 billion, everybody and their mother is pitching you their business idea. So he is hearing business ideas of the most wide ranging industries and inventions and problems that people are trying to solve. And this guy knows within two or three minutes whether or not this specific investment opportunity is unique and meaningful. How does he do that? He does it because of this first habit of billionaires daily reading. He has leaned into learning through reading every single day. And that has allowed him to filter through information quickly and tap into a lifetime of investing in this knowledge in his brain. And when I really reflect on this, I'm not a billionaire obviously, but one of the things that people have said to me over and over and over again, especially since launching this podcast is that I have this innate ability to synthesize very complicated information like you and I might be talking to a neuroscientist or a medical researcher or somebody that has this really dense and intellectual thing that they're trying to explain to you and me here on this podcast.

 

(05:42):

And I just seem to have this ability to listen and then go and distill it down to the simplest thing that you can take away from this complicated stuff that they're teaching us on this podcast. And as I listen to Warren Buffett, I'm realizing for the last 14 years I have been heads down reading every single day and researching the topic of psychology and happiness and human behavior. It all began because I was trying to help myself out of a very dark hole that I was in 14 years ago. And it's just spiraled into this habit of learning and reading every day. And the reason why I'm sharing this with you is because this is available to you. If you make it a habit to feed your brain information every single day in any category or any field that you want to learn more about, you are going to build a knowledge bank.

 

(06:40):

You're going to create filters in your mind, just like Warren Buffet has done just like I've done over these last 14 years. That helps you synthesize information, draw connections, and like Warren Buffet, make faster decisions. And 

Warren Buffet (07:17):

I was terrified of speaking in public when I was in high school. I avoided any class that would require it and in college. And then I finally signed up for a Dale Carnegie course. When I got out of school, I realized I had to talk to people and I spent a hundred bucks. I got this little diploma, I proposed to my wife during the term of the course, so I really got my money's worth there. But in terms of public speaking, I really had to force myself on that.

 

Mel Robbins (07:42):

He's such an eloquent speaker and he's just so comfortable and relaxed as he is speaking, you just kind of feel like you're talking to an uncle or somebody that you're related to. He's so relatable and he's worth $145 billion. That's pretty amazing. So you would never think this guy was terrified of public speaking when he was younger. That doesn't make sense. But actually it does. And here's why. Learning how to speak in public is one of the most important life skills that you can force yourself to get better at. And I use the word force yourself because the number one fear for most people is speaking in public. You want to know the number two, fear dying. So for most people, the idea of getting up on a stage or holding a microphone or speaking in front of other people is terrifying. However, you can learn how to do this because it's a skill and you do want to get better at public speaking.

 

(08:37):

And so borrow this habit from Warren Buffet, force yourself to do it because the more that you force yourself to speak in public, the more that you force yourself to just speak up with your friends, with your family, with your roommates speaking at work, the more comfortable you'll become. And if you're really terrified, you need to do what Warren Buffet did, sign up for a class because the class is going to make you do it. The class is going to make you stand in front of other people and actually learn the skill of speaking. Now, I don't know if it's going to lead to you proposing to somebody. It sure could and it'll definitely make that proposal better. But the second that you realize that these skills, the skills of gaining knowledge, the skills of becoming a good public speaker so that you can advocate for yourself, you can express yourself, you can walk into a room, whether it's at work or home or giving a toast at somebody's wedding and feel comfortable doing it, that is a life skill that will make your life better.

 

(09:32):

Alrighty, thank you Warren Buffett. Let's move on to the second billionaire, the one and only Twiz Man, let's go. I love Taylor Swift. I'm a huge fan of Taylor Swift. I'm so excited. I took our daughters to see the ERAS tour. It was worth every single penny that we paid to go see it. I love her. She is one of the most successful and famous musicians of all time. And

(10:33):

Wow. And check this out. All 31 songs debuted on the billboard 100, and she took over the top 14 spots. This was the first time this had happened in Billboard history. And I want to share with you a habit that Taylor Swift has. This is all about how she writes her song. And to set this up, you're going to hear a clip from an interview that she did in 2015 with singer-songwriter Ryan Adams about her songwriting process. And Ryan asked her this question, Taylor, how do you keep all this information in one place? And this is what she said, and for you on YouTube, I can't play the clip. This is pretty fascinating. Taylor Swift, anything with her voice is on lock. And so I don't want to throw up the video because this video would then get shut down. And so I'm just going to read verbatim what she said in response to Ryan's question.

 

(11:31):

Taylor says, when I'm pre-writing, which is what I'm always doing, like right now, I'm not actively making an album. If I get an idea that I feel is a cool observation and a cool lyric, I just write it down. I type it into this endless notepad on my phone. Here's what I want you to take away from that. Anything that you want to be better at, make it a daily practice. So if you notice Warren Buffet said he was reading daily because he was interested in building more knowledge and constantly learning Taylor Swift, even when she is not actively writing an album, she has a daily habit of capturing ideas in one place, and she's using this notepad on her phone. This is genius. And the reason why this is genius is because I'm sure you've had the experience probably every day where you have this great idea and you tell yourself, I got to write that down.

 

(12:26):

I got to remember that. And a minute later, you don't remember it at all. She has made it a habit to every single day, I got an idea, boom. I take it out of my head and I make it real and I ground it in the real world by typing it into my phone. I freaking love this. And that's not all that she talked about. She then goes on in this interview to explain now that she's got this long just sort of word thing of ideas, random stuff that she's just been putting into her phone every single day. Here she is taking a step further in this interview with Ryan Adams talking about the second stage of the song process. And so I'm going to read the second part of this interview for you on YouTube. She then explains to Ryan Adams exactly how she uses this long notepad in her phone of just random ideas.

 

(13:21):

So she says, when I was writing blank space, I wrote the chorus and thought, alright, I need to search through all my lyrics that I thought of in the last year that have to do with this sort of overdramatic kind of luxe visual that I want to paint. And so then she goes into her phone and she starts swiping through and she cherry picks lines like, darling, I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream. You know that song, things like that. Those are things that I had thought of at any time through the entire year. How cool. Now let's just stop and think about how smart this is and how that sets you up as a habit for profound success because she is made it a habit to take the ideas that jump into her head and yank them out of the subconscious and ground them in the real world by writing them down.

 

(14:14):

She now has an ongoing library that she can access in the future if a year from now she were in the middle of writing a song, she was like, oh gosh, I had that epiphany that one day I was walking the door. What the thing was? The thing that I thought, the idea is gone. It's gone. And the same is true for you. If you tried to hold onto all the amazing ideas that pop into your head, you're just going to forget 'em. They're going to come and they're going to go. And so I want you to steal this habit. And here's one way that you can put this to right now. You're going to steal something that my husband does. My husband has this little notebook that is probably, I don't know, maybe it's like three and a half inches wide. It's a tiny little notebook that can sit in the back pocket of a pair of khakis.

 

(15:06):

The man always has it on him for driving in the car. It's out of his back pocket and it's sitting there right in between us in his truck. And every day if he has an idea whether he is walking in the woods or he's sitting at a stop sign or he's cooking dinner, he has this billionaire habit. He pulls the notebook out, he pulls it out of his head and he writes it down. And this has been since I've known the man and we've been together for 30 years, he has probably 50 of these things. If I come to think of it now, for me, I'm really inspired by this. And I don't know if it's the A DHD or the dyslexia or just complete disorganization. I'm going to own all that. I have tried notebooks. I've tried those moleskin journals. Right now I'm working on a system where I'm using three by five note cards and they're all over the fricking place.

 

(15:54):

I have in my Instagram, I don't know if you do this on Instagram, but I've organized all these folders that I can save things into. I don't have a system yet, but here's what I do know. This is 1000% a habit of billionaires to take your great ideas and get 'em out of your head and get 'em on paper so that you're building a resource that you can come back to. And you know what, I guess I'm going to try the notes app just like Taylor Swift. 

(16:59):

How does he do it? What is the habit for LeBron James that really helps him show up and just peak performance? And I love this interview that you're about to hear because this is an interview that I found that he did on a podcast at the I Promise School. Now, you may not be aware of this, but one of the cool things that LeBron James has done is that he is the founder of the I Promise School in his hometown of Akron, Ohio that is dedicated to educating kids at a high risk of slipping through the cracks of the education system. And LeBron's involvement goes way beyond funding. He actively participates in shaping the school's mission and programs. And one of the things that I also love is that there's a lot of kids in this school that have learning disabilities and language-based learning differences, which is something I struggle with.

 

(17:54):

Our son went to a school like this, and so I just love that he has given back and founded this school and is really involved in it. And one of the things that he's involved in is this podcast that is hosted by the students. And so here's LeBron James. Just imagine he's literally sitting across from one of the students in the school. He's in a little chair and he is got a little microphone and the kid who's interviewing him has bright headphones on kind of like the color that a kid would wear. And on this podcast, one of the kids asked him, what's one specific thing that you do, LeBron James to practice self-care? Check his answer out. What's one specific thing that you do to practice self-care?

 

Lebron James (18:40):

What I do to practice self-care is I sleep. I love to sleep. I have to get my eight hours of sleep, eight hours plus. I think that's the best way to reenergize your body, reenergize your mind, reenergize your spirit, reenergize everything. When you sleep, you have great dreams, you come up with great ideas, and at the same time, you're giving your body an opportunity to rest. So you're killing a lot of birds with one stone at the same time. So I think sleeping is something that's very, very important on a day-to-day basis.

 

Mel Robbins (19:18):

Would you ever think that one of the top habits for billionaire LeBron James is prioritizing sleep when he's on the road for games? He has talked about this in several clips. He tries to get 10 to 12 hours of sleep at night. And you know what? That's not the only time that LeBron James has talked about the importance of sleep in an interview. So this next clip, I just freaking love this thing because this is from a post-game interview in December of 2021, and this is after a huge week where he has been flying all over the country playing several games. He is just dominating in his career. He is just dominated all week. He's 37 years old, he's at the top of the game and this reporter asks him, aside from the decades of practice that you've been doing and just all of this talent that you have, what is the secret for your stamina? Check out LeBron's answer. I fricking love this

 

Lebron James (20:17):

Sleep. Sleep and inspiration for my son and his team. I got some pretty good sleep in OKC the night we got in and the day of the game. And yesterday I was pretty tired flying and things of that nature, but watching those guys and watching my son and his team play, I got some energy from that and then got some more sleep today and was able to come with some energy and put it on the floor just because it's so obvious. How much energy are you playing with? How many hours of sleep are we talking about? What's a good night to sleep for you? I slept last night from 12 to eight. I got up, ate breakfast, and I went back to sleep from eight 30 to 1230.

 

Mel Robbins (21:05):

I love that. And you know what I need? I need to send that clip to my husband because the next time he gets up at five 30 in the morning and he comes back in our bedroom and I'm still laying there at 7:00 AM I'm going to be like, dude, I'm working on my stamina habit, LeBron James. I love that. And this is genius because one of the things that you and I have learned together on the Mel Robbins podcast is how important sleep is. We've had two incredible world renowned sleep experts on this show. Dr. Poe out on the West Coast, Dr. Robbins here on the East coast. And what we have learned is amazing that sleep really is the free superpower habit. We know that sleeping helps you clean out your brain that while you're sleeping, you get all the junk out of your brain so that you're ready to start fresh the next day.

 

(21:56):

It's like that Zamboni that's cleaning off the ice. We also know that if you don't sleep, you don't clean out the junk in your brain and you can't be as sharp as you otherwise might be. It also helps repair and boost your immune system. A full night's sleep helps your body recover from stress and illness. And the other thing that we've learned is muscle memory and neuropathways all of the learning during the day, whether you're learning how to be a better basketball player or you're reading like Warren Buffet does about investing, all of that learning actually takes hold in your brain and your body while you're sleeping. You've not only learned this from the world's leading researchers on sleep, now one of the top athletes in the world is telling you that the habit of sleeping is a superpower and it's free yet another habit from a billionaire that I want you to steal.

Sarah Blakely (24:07):

Neiman Marcus was my first account. And two things about that that are just something that I reflect back on. One is everybody in the industry after I landed Neiman's came up to me and said, how in the world did you land? Neiman Marcus? And I would look at them and I'd say I called them,

 

Mel Robbins (24:28):

This is why I love Sarah. It's so obvious, isn't it? I called them. And sometimes the most obvious thing to do isn't so obvious is it? And in fact, she reflected in this interview on why simply picking up the phone and calling the account the dream account that she wanted was so unusual.

 

Sarah Blakely (24:53):

And I would look at them and I'd say, I called them, what do you do? And they'd say, oh my God, we go to trade shows and we set up a booth and we've been doing it for seven years. And everybody says around year six or seven that you get a chance with Neimans. I didn't even know there were trade shows. So I often say, what you don't know can be your greatest asset if you let it. If you're not intimidated by the self-talk of I have no idea what I'm doing. And that shuts you down. So if you can power through the I have no idea what I'm doing and actually see it as a positive and go, that means I'm going to do it different.

 

Mel Robbins (25:27):

I 1000% agree. What's such a shame is that you talk yourself out of doing so many things because you say, I don't know how to do this. And what Sarah is telling you is her success came because she didn't know any better because she didn't follow what everybody else was doing. Because she's like, okay, if I want to be at Neiman Marcus, why not just pick up the phone? Figure out who the buyer is and start cold calling them. And if you don't know any better, you might just do better than everybody else that thinks they know what to do. And this is so important of a habit, make the call. This is the habit from Sarah Blakely. You don't get what you don't ask for. You have to make the call, you have to send the dm, you have to show up, you got to send the letter.

 

(26:17):

You don't get what you don't ask for. And what I love about Sarah is that she didn't sit around at a trade show and hope that somebody walked by. She put herself on a collision course with the thing that she wanted. She asked for what she wanted. She made the call. That is a habit of a billionaire. That is something you can do starting today. There is a person that you want to ask out, make the call. There is something that you want to do at work. Have the conversation. There is someone that you want to pitch, DM them, send them a FedEx, figure it out. Find out who the buyer is and make the call because you don't get what you're not willing to ask for. And she reflected a little bit more, and I want you to hear this because the only thing that's preventing you from making the call and asking for what you want is your own self-talk.

 

(27:06):

You are the one that is telling yourself, you can't do this. You are the one that's telling yourself you don't know. You are the one that's telling yourself you're not ready. It's complete garbage. You don't get what you're not willing to ask for. And by the way, if there's somebody in your life that you're like, oh boy, they need to hear this. Send them this, and let Sarah Blakely and Mel Robbins give them the pep talk and the habits of billionaires that they need to institute in their life. And I want to go back into Sarah's story about how exactly she got into Neiman Marcus because it's one thing to make the phone call. I mean, that is a great move because you don't get what you don't ask for. But now she's got one chance to go from that cold call to Neiman Marcus to actually getting this buyer to put her product in Neiman Marcus. So you're about to hear Sarah tell the story about walking into the intimidating headquarters of Neiman Marcus in Dallas. She's flown there from Atlanta. Here's Sarah

 

Sarah Blakely (28:09):

Got a chance to go and cold call Neiman Marcus. I flew on a plane from Atlanta where I lived to Dallas, and I met with the buyer and she was impeccably dressed. I'm in the intimidating Neiman's headquarters. I had my lucky red backpack from college. I had the prototype and a Ziploc bag from my kitchen and a color copy of the packaging that I had created on my friend's computer. And halfway through my pitch, I was telling her what it is and I could tell I was losing her after seven years of cold calling and trying to sell things to people. You get really good at reading nonverbals. And I always say, nonverbals tell you way more than the verbal.

 

Mel Robbins (28:44):

And she goes on in the story. She knew she was losing this woman because you can always tell when you're losing somebody, they start looking around or they look at their phone or they say, that sounds great, but they're shaking their head no. And so she was picking up on all these clues. And I want to ask you something. What would you do in that situation? Because I'll tell you what most people would do, they would panic, not Sarah Blakely. What is the habit that Sarah's teaching? You have to make the call. You have to make the ask because you don't get what you're not willing to ask for. And so what did Sarah do? She asked for what she wanted.

 

Sarah Blakely (29:20):

I just stopped and said, you know what, Diane? Will you come to the bathroom with me? And she literally was like, excuse me. I'm like, I know it's a little weird, but can you just follow me to the bathroom and I'm going to actually show you what my product can do. I'm going to go in the stall. And she was like, oh, okay. And she walked down the hall and I went in the stall and I put it on under white pants and I came out. So I showed her before and then I showed her with the product on and she just sat there and she goes, I get it. It's brilliant and I'm going to try it in seven stores.

 

Mel Robbins (29:51):

Boom, go Sarah. She went from $5,000 and her red backpack from college, her product in a Ziploc bag and a printout from a friend's computer of the sample of the packaging to getting into seven stores in Neiman Marcus. And that went all the way to a $1.2 billion company. That's how you do it. First of all, make the call because you don't get what you don't ask for. And the second thing is, stop talking yourself out of it. Doing things differently differentiates you. Alright, we got two more to go and I want to jump right now into habit number five,