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What's up, YAP fam. Today, we're revisiting one of my all-time favorite conversations with the inspiring Mark Batterson. We originally published this episode back in January 2022 as episode 154. Mark Batterson is the lead pastor of National Community Church in DC, which owns and operates DC's largest coffee house, Ebeneezer's. Mark is also a New York Times bestselling author who has written some of the most impactful books on faith, purpose, and living a life full of action. What makes Mark so special is his ability to connect the dots between big dreams and the small daily actions that can bring them to life. In this episode, we learn what it's like to be a social entrepreneur and run a business supporting a cause. We'll get an inside look at Mark's unique and fulfilling career as a pasture, community leader, and an entrepreneur. We'll learn Mark's seven life changing habits and understand Mark's perspective on making and breaking habits. And lastly, we'll gain insight on how to better stick with our habits by using commitment devices and how to create chain reactions of good habits with the domino effect. If you're interested in social entrepreneurship or want to learn how to better tackle your goals, let's jump right in this conversation with Mark Batterson.

Hey, Mark. Welcome to Young and Profiting podcast.

Well, thank you so much. It's a joy to be with you.

Yeah, likewise. We're super excited to have you on here. For those who don't know you, you are the lead pastor of the National Community Church in Washington, DC. You are also a New York Times bestselling author of 22 books, including Do It For A Day and When The Day. And for today's episode, we're going to really focus in on Do It For A Day, which is your methodology around how to build habits. And it's super fascinating, one of my favorite topics. And in addition to that, we also want to cover your journey because I found your journey really fascinating and unique, and you have some great life lessons about that, about following your purpose, following your gut. So I would like to start there. When you were first setting out on your journey, you ended up getting a scholarship to the University of Chicago for basketball, and you were going to study law, but then you quickly decided to abandon those dreams and become a pastor. Let's start there. Talk to us about your start with college and how you made that big decision.

Yeah. Let's be honest, I Probably went to the best college I could get into. I barely got into the University of Chicago. Playing basketball probably helped my case a little bit, but I was. I studied politics, economics, rhetoric, and law, just this liberal arts degree and planned to go on that path, thought that maybe law would be something I would be interested in. Long story short, I really had this moment where I felt like maybe just maybe, Ministry, pastoring a church would be something that I would want to do, but I would want to do it in a unique way, from the ground up. I had this entrepreneurial streak that I love starting things. We actually started with a core group of 19 people. And a couple of decades later, we've had the joy of impacting tens of thousands of people. And I might add, giving about $25 million to causes that we really care about that make a difference in people's lives. And so it's been a joy ride. Nothing easy about leadership in any venue or any vein. But I consider myself a spiritual coach and like coaching people towards purpose, towards meaning, and really leveraging the gifts that I believe God has given to each one of us.

It's super, super interesting. And I really love what you've done with the NCC and how you've really built that business model around your church. So from my understanding and from my research, I found out that you guys actually own one of the biggest coffee shops in Washington, DC. It's called Ebenezer, and it's actually a chain of coffee shops. It started with you guys buying one property in the early 2000s and then opening your doors in 2006, and it just took off. And I just found this so fascinating. Why a coffee house? And what can we learn about having a business from a cause in all the success that you've had?

Yeah. I think every business is owned by someone, and they have some motive in starting it. And if we're just keeping it real, some people, it's primarily a profit motive. I'm grateful that we live in a capitalist society where we can pursue dreams, and I have nothing against that. But we started this coffee house with the idea that what if we actually gave all the profits away to causes that we care about? And so it really is coffee with a cause. Now, I better back up a little bit. So we did buy a piece of property about five blocks from the capital itself, right on Capitol Hill, a block from Union Station. So it is location, location, location. In fact, we're kiddy corner to the Security and Exchange Commission. And so we've often joked, if you can't make a coffee house, we're kiddy corner to thousands of people in law and finance. You probably can't make it work anywhere. So we do have a great corner here on Capitol Hill, and it's been an amazing business. I think caffeine makes the world a better place, if we're just being honest. I don't know about anybody else, but when I get up in the morning until I get my caffeine, you don't want to spend a whole lot of time with me.

Oh, yeah. I need my morning coffee. We feel like we're both Caffeinating the world and then using those profits for some wonderful things, like the DC Dream Center that we operate in Ward 7. It's just an amazing outreach to a part of our city that is under-resourced. And so we're mentoring kids. We serve 64,000 meals last year. And so it's really this wonderful outreach. But part of what funds it is this coffee house that we own and operate here on Capitol Hill.

It's just so interesting that that's how you decided to fund the different projects that your church takes on. I have to imagine that a lot of people support the coffee shop because it's related to the church. And that a lot of employees really love their job because it's so fulfilling. Even if they're not making a whole ton of money working at a coffee shop, they know that it's going towards a good cause. So talk to us about that a little bit and the culture that it's driven.

Yeah, I think the coffee tastes a little bit better, feels a little bit better when you know that it's making a difference. In fact, we use our space. Part of our coffee house is we have a performance space that we can do events for 100, 150 people. Well, every week, once a week, we turn that into something we call the living room for our friends experiencing homelessness, which live on the streets around DC. And so part of what we do is also leverage our coffee house just to love on our neighbors, people that find themselves without a roof over their head. And so we feel like there's a way to do business with excellence. Now, we've been around since 2006. So way back then, there weren't all of these third wave independent coffee shops, which they pop up everywhere, right? But back in the day, it was Starbucks. We felt like, if you can't compete with Starbucks, just stay out of the game. But now more and more, the coffee business has evolved involved in so many amazing ways. And so we want to serve a great cup of coffee, but then there's this social dimension to it.

And it's not like we came up with that idea. I think about someone like Tom Shoes, for example, that famous example, where buy a pair and you end up giving a pair. And so there is something about that business model, though, that resonates, and I think it resonates with younger generations. I'd be interested in take on this because there's an instinct towards justice, an instinct towards the good of our culture and of neighbors. And so have you seen that as well? That a lot of business models. Oh, yeah, 100 %. Yeah.

A lot of millennials and Gen Z, they don't care about the money necessarily. They need a certain amount of money. And then everything after that is more about meaning and purpose and their place in the world rather than how much more money they can make on top of whatever they're already making. So I totally agree there. So I think there's something pretty special in what you're doing. I think it's very unique. And I just wonder, is there any way that we could lay out that business model a little bit more deeply for the listeners so they can understand, Hey, if I have a great cause that I want to support, you need money to actually do that. So there is a need to actually generate revenue. And sometimes just asking for donations is just not enough and is not a proactive way to actually fulfill your dream of giving back to society or improving society. So talk to us about that and your advice for somebody who wants to build a similar business model.

Well, maybe I'll come at that from this angle that along with this coffee house, there's another piece of property, a city block. It's 100,000 square feet that we have been building out into something called the capital turnaround. Ultimately, it'll be a mixed-use retail restaurant. But one of the things we observed in our city is that our mayor said that one of the top priorities is childcare or child development because there aren't enough spots for those preschool kids. And in DC, most people are double income. And so you've got people working, and they need someone to watch your kids. Well, instead of, as a church, building a It's a kids' ministry space, which we did, and it's about 20,000 square feet. It's got an indoor playground. It's got a kids' theater. It's pretty amazing. But instead of using that once a week on the weekend, we said, what if that could be a Monday to Friday child development center. We have one of the largest child development centers in the city, capacity for about 200 kids. Where I'm going with that is, I think as an entrepreneur, you need a dream. You absolutely need a vision of what you want to do.

It ought to be in keeping with those passions that you have because that's what's going to get you up early and keep you up late and give you the energy to go after that dream. But the other thing is you got to have a good pulse. You have to take the pulse of the culture around you. And what are those needs? Where are the gaps? Where can you, as an entrepreneur, step in and even find unique ways of of meeting those needs? One fun thing is, I even think about coffee shops. All we have is just a coffee shop. But isn't it interesting how I've seen so many bike shop, coffee shop tandems pop up? It's such an interesting thing to me. It's like, do these two things really belong together? But I think entrepreneurs are good at cross-pollinizing and getting ideas from different places. And then let's not just do it the it's always been done. That's how you repeat history. Why don't we make history and do it the way it's never been done before? And so part of what has driven us as a church, and I would say driven me as an entrepreneur or even as an author, is just There are ways of doing this that no one's thought of yet.

And so that's pretty exciting. And I know some people are listening right now and they have an idea, and it sounds like a crazy idea. Can I just say, hang on to those crazy ideas? Because that often is the thing that's going to differentiate you from the market and allow you to bring something to the table that maybe no one else has tried before.

I totally agree. I think your story is so inspirational. And I really find your career so interesting because when you think of a pastor, you don't think entrepreneur, but yet so much of what you do is actually entrepreneurship. And I really feel like you've hit the nail on the head in terms of passion but then also financial stability and creating jobs for other people and just helping society. So you must feel really fulfilled. So with that, I'd love to hear about all the different hats you wear because you wear a lot of hats. So let's unpack that a bit.

Well, I wear a few hats. My day hat is pastoring a church, and I love it. I feel like my job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable in the sense of there are a lot of people hurting. I mean, come on. One-third of Americans say we're anxious or depressed. There's just so much happening in culture, from racial tension to political polarization. I want to be someone that stands in the gap has been is really good at loving people and helping people. I think potential is God's gift to us. What we do with it is our gift back to God. So that's the pastor hat. What's interesting is the writing hat, it's actually not a natural gifting. When I was in school, I took one of those assessments that basically shows your aptitude for different things. And my aptitude for writing was so low. Basically, whatever you do, just never think about writing a book. I read 3,000 books before I wrote one because I knew that it wasn't a natural gifting. So I had to work a little bit harder than maybe other people who can naturally put pen to paper. And so the writing piece has just been, to be honest, a lot of early mornings.

And as a word of encouragement, because I think the latest stat I've seen is that about 81% feel like they might have a book in them. And so to that, that potential author that's out there listening right now. I just want you to know that I felt called to write at 22, but I didn't write a book until 35. So hang in there. Don't be discouraged. It's going to probably take longer than you think. It might be harder than what you want, but about 13 years. But I didn't waste my time in between. I was not just reading those books, I was reverse engineering them. And so the pastor hat, the writing hat, and then that entrepreneurial hat are a few hats that I enjoy wearing. I guess maybe I feel like right now, I'm just self-diagnosing as a little bit of ADHD that I get easily bored. I don't like doing the same thing for too long. My hunch is a lot of people that are listening to this podcast have that, your gifting is to start things or you have new ideas, and it's that entrepreneurial streak. And so hopefully there's some encouragement in there somewhere.

Oh, yeah. Your story is super inspirational, and it's clear you love to make an impact. And I love the fact that you said, if you have the itch to write, don't worry about how old you are. You're never too old to learn something new and to start something new. Even me with this podcast. I started when I was 28. I started this podcast when I was 28, and I'm a number one podcast on the cover of podcast magazine, blah, blah, blah. And it took a few years to get there, but it's okay. And it wasn't my first rodeo either. And I didn't waste my time before that either, like you said, it's not like you just sit there and do nothing. You have to learn, gain the experience, gain the skills, and then you might be ready to hit the ground running when you do want to take on something new.

I love that. And full disclosure, I should probably share that I've had the joy of starting with a core group of 19 people, pastoring this one church. But my first attempt was a fail, and I probably ought to put that out there. I really believe that the cure for the fear of failure is not success. It's failure in small enough doses that you build up an immunity to it. I think in some ways, you have to experience some failure, preferably earlier in life. Then it gives you the ability that, okay, you can get back up, dust off, and give it a second try. Because I think largely, success is well-learnt failure, and failure is poorly learned success, right? And so it's about learning those lessons along the way, especially in those early years where some foundation is being laid for your life.

100 %. So let's move on to your new book. It's called Do It For A Day: How to Make or break any habit in 30 days. One of the things that you say in your book is we are one habit away from getting into shape, financial freedom, and getting better mental health. So what do you mean by that? We're one habit away from making all these changes.

Well, big picture. Show me your habits. I'll show you your future. Destiny is not a mystery. Destiny is daily habits. So whatever goal you're going after, I think a lot of us, we want to dream big, set this goal, but you have to reverse reverse engineer it into those daily habits. So for example, a few years ago, I ran the Chicago Marathon, and it's the first one I've ever done. And I'm not a distance runner. I played some basketball in college, but I was more of a sprinter. Well, I couldn't just go out and run 26.2 miles. I had to download a training plan and then reverse engineer it. And so 475 miles over 72 training runs over six months. That's how things happen. If you want to get out of debt, it is going to happen one paycheck at a time, and it's going to take tremendous discipline. Just a big believer in those habits. And the word of encouragement is like, you can accomplish so much more than you imagine. The catch is you've got to have that daily discipline, that daily habit, and that's the going to be the thing. And it's true physically, financially, I think, spiritually and relationally.

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One of your really, really popular books called Win the Day. You have seven life Changing Habits, and you use these habits in your new book. And I thought it would be great if we could do a little quickfire segment where I will rattle off these seven habits because they're just great life lessons in general. And I'll say the habit, and then you give us a So 30 second, one minute explanation on each one. So the first one is, Flip the script.

If you want to change your life, you have to change your story. And I think the narratives that we are internal monolog, sometimes we're our own worst enemy. And so you really have to make sure that you're telling the right story. And so in cybernetics, there are two kinds of change, a first order, second order. And second order change is conceptual. It's this idea of you really... A habit can't just be something that you do. It has to become part of your identity. Maybe the easiest way to say it is, quit saying that you're writing and call yourself a writer. Quit saying that you're running and call yourself a runner. You got to own that identity. So flip the script. You got to change the story.

I love that. I had a guest on the show. Her name is Marissa appear. And she always says, Tell yourself a better lie. Like, lie to yourself. You are a writer. You are an entrepreneur. Even if you're not yet, tell yourself a better lie. Yes. Okay. Kiss the wave.

Yeah. And this is a tough one because I don't think the obstacle is the enemy. The obstacle is the way. It's the hard times that you walk through. It's the test that you go through that are going to make you the bigger, better person that you need to become. And so kiss the wave is this this idea of I'm going to embrace it. In fact, can I just on a personal note right here, because I'm guessing that there are some people that might find themselves in this situation. My wife, a couple of years ago, diagnosed with cancer, and that's so hard when you get that news. But there's one or two things that you can do. One is you can just give up and play defense. But my wife read a piece of poetry that posed a question and it said, What have you come to teach me? In other words, you're going through a tough time. Maybe there's someone out there who's going through chemo or radiation, or there's some struggle that you're walking through. You have to kiss the wave. You have to learn the lesson, cultivate the character, make the change, whatever it is.

Just a little challenge there to kiss the wave.

Embrace all the obstacles that come your way, basically. Okay, feed the frog.

Mark Twain said, If you ever have to eat a frog, do it first thing in the morning, then you'll know that the hardest thing is behind you, which is hilarious because I can't imagine that scenario. But it's this idea of harder is better. Do it difficult. You got to get up and hit the ground running. Eat the frog is this idea that the way you gain strength is through resistance training. I talk a little bit about things we can do, commitment devices that can enable us to really eat the frog and cultivate some of those harder disciplines, especially with that morning routine.

We will definitely talk about commitment devices to make and break habits. All right, fly the kite.

Yeah. The idea here is if you do little things like they're big things, in my experience, God has a way of doing big things like they're little things. I think we want to do amazing things, big things. But really, if you study the exceptional athletes, for example, or musicians, or people who are just really good at their craft, the reality is they're just better than the best of us at the basics. Someone asked Pablo Casal as one of the greatest cellists of all time. I think he was in his late '80s, early '90s, and he was still practicing six hours a day. Imagine that. And someone asked him why, and I think his short answer was, Because I think I'm getting better. It's this idea that flying the kite is just getting 1% better every day. It's this mindset that I want to benchmark and get a little bit stronger, a little bit smarter than I was yesterday.

Yeah. And in your book, you have a quote, How you do anything is how you do everything related to fly the kite. And that is literally my all time favorite quote. It has been for years. It's such a good one. Okay, cut the rope.

Yeah. At some point, you got to take the risk. Playing it safe is risky. The greatest risk is taking no risks. And by the way, I love in my books, I usually try to include quite a bit of science and history because I like geeking out on that stuff. But Cut the Rope actually comes from one of the original, the OG elevator pitch. A guy named Elisha Otis, who in the Crystal Palace, the World's Fair, débuted his elevator break and did it in dramatic fashion. He said, Cut the rope, and an axeman literally cut the rope. And his elevator break worked. And the next thing you know, There are hundreds of skyscrapers in New York City, but it traces back to someone who was willing to take the risk. And without that elevator, you don't have all those skyscrapers. And so a fun story to back that one up.

I love that story. Okay, wind the clock.

Time is measured in minutes. Life is measured in moments. And so I think what we've got to do is be a little bit better at really enjoying the moments of life. We're in such a hurry, aren't we? I think an average person spends 122 minutes on social media. And listen, I love the phone, the technology, the way that my phone gives me access to so many things and so many people. I love it. But there's a great danger in that we're so distracted that we can miss what's happening around us. And so the idea here is, and there are actually there are two words in the Greek language for time. One is kronos, and it's this idea of the minutes. And we've got to be good at time management. That's part of the deal. But then kairos is not just time, but opportunity. And so We also have to be better at understanding the season of life that we're in and when moments present themselves, like learning to really wind the clock and enjoy those moments.

Okay, last but not least, seed the Clouds.

Yeah, and this one I have a little bit of fun on the science side because you can drop dry ice into clouds and seed the clouds and cause it to rain. There's a fun little story about the origin of that. And the idea here is that you've got to prepare today for what you want to experience tomorrow. And you would think that this is self-evident and so obvious. But the truth is, most of us We want to win the lottery instead of win the day. We want to get lucky instead of fate favors the prepared. Let's do our homework, let's do our groundwork. I imagine that I bet you studied a lot of other podcasts. You watched what other people did. You did your homework. And then you launch it, and then you keep learning. And so you're always seeding the future, seeding the clouds. And so I think faith is being sure of what you hope for. And it's pretty critical that you won't accomplish 100% of the goals that you don't set. And so I have 100 life goals. And what those goals do, by the way, is I think they sanctify the reticular activating system, the part of the brain that determines what we notice and what goes unnoticed.

And so what goal setting does is, okay, now I'm going to notice anything and everything related to accomplishing this goal. And so I do think that goal setting is a piece of that puzzle.

Yeah. And I completely agree with you. You have to put in the reps. You used me as an example, so I'll just dig deeper on that. I used to work at a radio station. Young and Profiting podcast is like my fifth show. I had online radio shows. I had a YouTube show. I had a Facebook show. I built, hacked Twitter. I hacked LinkedIn. I knew how to use social media. I did social media for corporate companies. And so I stuck all those things together and then launched my podcast. But it was after all these things that I had been sewing, to your point. And Tim's story calls this work in your land. It's actually taking action every single day towards that bigger dream and leveling up your skills.

I love that. Working your land. And one of my MOs is this idea. And Jesus actually said this, be innocent as a dove, shrewd as a snake. And the idea here is innocent as a dove is you always have to check your motives. Can I just challenge us, everybody on this call? You got to check your ego at the door. I've got a mentor who, by the way, says there are two kinds of people in the world. The first person walks into a room and internally announces, Here I am. It's all about me, myself, and I. They feel like they're God's gift to everybody. But then there's a second person that walks in and says, There you are. There you are. It's all about everybody else. If you just look to add value to other people, if you check your ego at the door, then I really think there's no limit to what you can accomplish because you're not going to short circuit. It's not going to come back and bite you in the back. And so innocent as a dove, I think, is key. If you do the right thing for the wrong reason, it's not going to turn out the way that you want it to.

But then you have to be shrewd as a snake. And I love that because I think you've got to be really good at your game. I want to be really good at everything from communicating in public, which is what I do on the weekend, to writing. I work my craft. I can literally spend an entire day in a thesaurus trying to figure out what is the best word right here. So I think it's about really working hard. And the way I say it is, you got to pray like it depends on God, but work like it depends on you. And if you do those two things, usually some good things happen.

Guys, Mark is dropping so many bombs right now. I advise that you go rewind that little bit back and get inspired and motivated to work Super hard. Okay, so let's talk about habit formation. So 45 % of our behaviors are made up of habits. If you guys listen to this podcast, you know that already. We always talk about habits on this podcast. So something interesting that I found in your book was that you say that habit formation is as old as the sermon on the mount. What does that mean? And is habit formation or the concept of it really that ancient?

It really is. I mean, I think long before B. F. Came along or Ivan Pavlov and taught us about condition reflexes or operant conditioning, I would argue that the sermon on the mount, which is Jesus' most famous message of the world, I can reduce it down to just six counterhabits. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Bless those who curse you. Turn the other cheek, go the extra mile and give the shirt off your back. That's a quick crash course in the sermon on the mount. Here's the thing. None of those things are natural. If someone slaps me, my reaction is to slap them right back. And so what's happening here? Well, I would call them six counterhabits. And so Yeah, I think this idea is pretty ancient, and I think that habit formation and spiritual formation may be the same thing. And I realized I love the fact that a lot of different people from a lot of different faith or non-faith backgrounds listening to this. And so you have to put that through your filter. But the truth is, habit formation is at the heart of anything and everything. That we try to do.

And so, yeah, I think Jesus had some good things to say about that.

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So I know that you have your habit cycle that you talk about in your book, and it's very similar to Charles Duhigg's Habit Loop, which is a cue, routine, and reward. So talk to us about your habit cycle and what the steps are to make or break any habit.

Yeah. And let me go on record. Like any other writer, you're researching what everybody else writes. And the truth is, there's nothing new under the sun. All of us are reinventing, recasting so many other ideas. I love Charles Duhigg, great book on habits, same with Atomic Habits, so many amazing books. I take my unique slant on it, and I think it is you have to identify the prompt. There's so many triggers that we have for better or for worse. And then you have to interrupt the pattern. And that's hard to do because we are these creatures of habit. The way I would say it is once a routine becomes routine, you have to change a routine, even because it's the law of requisite variety. It's this idea that if you go to the gym, which good for you, but if you work out the same sequence on the same machines every single time, it actually loses effectiveness because your body adapts to it. And so what a trainer will do is actually confuse your muscles. How? Well, they'll give you a different incline on the bench, or they'll make you do some exercise with a tire instead of with a weight.

What they're doing is the law of requisite variety. You have to change the sequence, mix it up. Then and only then is your body going to react to that and grow from it. In fact, here's a little formula that maybe people can jot down, and it's something I put into practice all the time. Change a pace plus change a place equals change a perspective. And so what I need to do is change my pace. If I'm always running at the same pace, I'm going to get in trouble because it doesn't allow me... Sometimes you have to walk three miles an hour get different mindsets or different ideas and then change a place. There's just something about, for me, oh, man, get me a 30,000 feet. I just have more better ideas. I don't know what it is, but that change of place is huge. And so you've got to figure out how and where you can go to change pace, change place to get that change of perspective.

Very interesting stuff. So I'd love for you to share a story with us. So in your book, you talk about the domino champ, Bob Speca, and how he did really well with dominoes. And you describe a term called the domino effect in habit formation. So talk to us about the domino effect and this domino champ.

Absolutely. I think it traces back to a guy named Lauren Whitehead, an engineer who published this study in the American Journal of Physics, and it was called Domino Chain Reaction. What he discovered is that a two-inch domino is capable of knocking over a domino that's one and a half times its size. So a two-inch domino knock over a three-inch, three-inch can knock over four and a half-inch. So I just have a little bit of fun with it. By the time you get to the 18th domino, you can knock over the leaning tower of Pisa. Of course, it's leaning, so that's not entirely fair. You get to, I think it's the 23rd domino, you could take down the Washington Monument, 27th domino, I think, the Eiffel Tower. And by the time you get to that 28 domino, you can knock It's over the Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world. It's this idea that don't get overwhelmed by the huge goals or the things that are so far out there. Just focus on that two-inch domino. If you write 100 words a day, and you do that five days a week. That may not seem like much, but when that year is up, you've written yourself a book.

So don't get overwhelmed by the quantity or size. Break it down into those dominoes. When I started training for that marathon, I could barely run three miles. It was killing me. It was killing. And For the record, I did not win the Chicago Marathon, okay? I finished in the middle of the pack. But for me, the fact- But you finished? Yes, I finished. Thank you. I finished. They give you a medal for finishing, right? So you have to start small and then just stick with it and try not to get too discouraged. I think this idea of just do it for a day and then getting a win streak going where two days in a row, three days in a row, that's where the magic happens. It's about creating winning streaks, and it's breaking it down into that daily discipline. Can I share one other simple example?

Yes, 100 %. Whatever you think to drive at home.

I think I'm a little bit concerned, and this is not an indictment per se, and it really this doesn't matter where you land politically or anything else. There's just a lot of negativity these days. There is a lot of negativity. One of the things that I do to fight negativity in my own life is I keep a gratitude journal, three gratitudes a day, and I just jot down, What am I grateful for? What am I like, Wow, I get to do this, or I'm just so thankful for this or that or the other thing. And what that's done in my life, just by coming up with three gratitudes a day, that little daily habit totally changes my mindset upset changes my heart and how I feel at the beginning and end of the day. And so that maybe is a simple example. I promise you, you find three things you're grateful for every day, and it can really change your outlook and your attitude and how you feel about life.

Oh, I totally agree. And what you said before about taking action every day, taking these small steps, really reminded me of something Jeff Hayden told us when he came on the show. Jeff Hayden, he wrote the motivation myth. And basically it's this concept that motivation doesn't happen first. You actually need to take action first. And then there's this motivation feedback loop where you take a little bit of action, you get good results, you get motivated to do it again, and then you get more good results and you're motivated to do it again. But if you don't start, you never get any of that feedback. And people think that motivation is going to fall from the sky, but really it doesn't. You have to actually start. And yes, there's going to be ups and downs. But every time you get that up, you get that motivation to keep going. And as you learn more, you get motivation to keep going because you understand more, and it just gets a little bit easier and easier every time.

That is so good and so true, because that first step is the hardest one. By the way, the key moment for me in writing that first book, after 13 years of a dream deferred, was I leveraged my 35th birthday, and I said, I'm not going to turn 35 without a book to show for it. It may not be very good, may not even be edited, but I'm finally, I'm throwing down the gauntlet. And so part of it is you've got to give yourself a start date and a deadline, because a dream without a deadline is called a wish. And so in some ways, it's It's just about you have to... You almost have to jedi mind trick yourself. You have to give yourself self-imposed deadlines. And there are ways you can bring other people into the puzzle that holds you accountable to that. But you have to know how you're wired, what's going to motivate me to really go after this. But that's so true. You cannot finish what you do not start.

Okay, so I think you are alluding to a commitment device. So what is a commitment device and how do we use it to make or break habits?

Yeah, it's funny because I think the most obvious commitment device is something called an alarm clock. It's this idea that when you get up every day is a pretty significant factor because if you're getting up just in time to eat breakfast, get a shower, get out the door and get to work, I don't think that's a recipe for accomplishing your dreams. I don't think you're going to get in shape that way. I don't think you're going to get out of debt that way. I don't think you're going to grow spiritually, relationally that way. And so you really have to leverage that alarm clock. A commitment device is simply, it's giving yourself a deadline. It's putting things in place that force you to actually do what it is that you're saying that you're going to do. What's fun is I actually leverage occasionally in one of my messages, and I have the privilege of speaking to a few thousand people every weekend. One of the things I do, and this is a little trick of the trade, is I'll go public with something because I know that then I'll hold myself accountable. So I announced in a message, Hey, I'm going to run a marathon, when I couldn't even run three miles yet.

So there's a commitment device is basically something that forces your hand. It's making that appointment. It's filling out the application. It's doing something that initiates that process and forces you to commit to it.

Yeah. And I think sometimes it can be a financial investment. They always say that if you actually pay for a course or a coach, you're actually going to follow through because you made that investment. When it's free, you're just like, Oh, I guess I could flake, and it doesn't really matter.

That's so good because then you have skin in the game. Same. And so, fun fact, the coffee house, Ebenezer's Coffee House that we own and operate on Capitol Hill, it was a crack house. It was a dilapotated property, and it wasn't even zoned commercial. The first thing I did, I was at an auction at our kids' schools, and there was some book on the zoning codes for Capitol Hill. And I remember I bid $85. It would have been a total waste of money if we didn't buy the property and eventually rezone it and eventually build the coffeehouse. But you know what? I go back to that moment, and it was a unique moment because it was only 85 bucks, but it was me putting some skin in the game. I think that's so good that you have to invest a little bit in it just to get it off the ground.

I talk to all these experts all the time. I always have everyone's thoughts in my head of all the guests that I've studied over the years. Gretchen Rubin recently came on the show, and she breaks down the world into four personality types. And I feel like this really resonates with people who are one of her personality types called obligers, which means that they really need external accountability to get anything done. And so part of this is knowing your personality. So for example, I'm an upholder, and I actually don't really need that much external accountability. That means that if I decide to go on a diet, I go on a diet because I told myself I would. If I want to exercise three times a week, I do it. I don't need a gym partner or a trainer or whatever to go do it. But if that's you and you have trouble sticking to your internal goals and anything that you don't have external accountability for, then you need commitment devices when you're trying to start a habit. And so you need to proactively do those things to make you stick to those goals and to those habits.

And so I also think knowing yourself and what you're good and not good at is key to all of this.

Oh, that's so good. And that maybe is where the whole thing starts. That, yeah, you have to know yourself really well. That leadership starts with self leadership. And so much of that is really knowing the way that you're wired. It's crazy. I think some of us know more about our favorite celebrity than we know about ourselves. And so it's that It's such an idea. Know thyself.

Yeah. All right. So as we wrap up this interview, a couple of questions that I ask all my guests at the end of the show. What is one action we can take today to become more profitable tomorrow?

Oh, wow. I I love it. Here's the first thing that comes to mind. When I set 100 life goals, the turning point for me was when I shifted from getting goals to giving goals. It totally transformed the way that I think. My goal is to give it all away. And so instead of setting getting goals, you set giving goals, and you have to get a lot to give a lot. But there's something about that, that setting giving goals It was a huge turning point for me because it made it more of an altruistic motivation, which really changed the game for me.

Let's dig deeper on that. Say a getting goal versus a giving goal, or flip it on its head to become giving.

Yeah. A getting goal is, Hey, I want to be financially independent by 50. I want to make that first million, or I want to have a net worth of X, Y, and Z. I get that. There's nothing wrong with financial planning and planning for retirement. But my wife and I, our goal is to give a greater and greater percentage of our income away. And part of that is motivated by what I see in the person of Jesus, and I see in scripture that our goal is to eventually live on 10 % and give away 90 %. And so what we've done with every book contract is that we give a greater percentage away. And I tell you what, that's where joy is found on the giving side of life. And then it makes the getting feel really good because you know that you're going to be a conduit for blessing other people. And so, yeah, it's a simple idea that we want to give away a million, 10 million. As a church, we want to give away 25 million. We've hit that goal, and so now we're dreaming bigger. How can we give it all away?

I think that mindset is really a game changer.

Yeah, it's super interesting. I never heard that one before. And what is your secret to profiting in life?

The secret, I think, to profiting in life is to... It's not about you. It's not about me. It's about other people. When I add value to other people's lives, that's where I find joy. That's where I find meaning. And it's like happiness. If you seek it, you aren't going to find it. Happiness is a byproduct of something else. I think meaning is the same way. Here's where I would challenge listeners. Have you ever defined success for yourself? Not adopting a cultural definition, not adopting your great uncle's definition. No, you. What is success for you? And For me personally, success is when those who know me best respect me most, and that's my wife and my kids. It's not about how many books I sell, how many people I pastor. It really is about, am I better in private than I am in public? If not, am I at least the same person? I want to be famous in my own home. You really have to define success for yourself and figure out. Otherwise, you fall into what Stephen Covey famously So many people are so busy climbing the ladder of success that they fail to realize that it's leaning against the wrong wall.

Man, that was so powerful. Yeah. For me, personally, success is when those who know me best respect me most. That's my wife and my kids. It's not about how many books I sell, how many people I pastor. It really is about, am I better in private than I am in public? And if not, am I at least the same person? I want to be famous in my own home. So you really have to define success for yourself and figure out. Otherwise, you fall into what Steven Covey famously said, so many people are so busy climbing the ladder of success that they fail to realize that it's leaning against the wrong wall.

Man, that was so powerful.

Yeah. For me, success is when those who know me best, respect me most. And that's my wife and kids. And so really, and especially right in the world that we live in, where a lot of people, there's just a lot of, come on, there's a lot of trolling and shaming and baiting and canceling and everybody's doing this to everybody. At the end of the day, I care most about the people who know me and love me. You start there, make sure that that grass is green right where you live, and then let it expand out from there.

That is amazing advice. Thank you so much, Mark. This was such a lovely conversation. I loved learning about your journey. I loved learning about your perspective related to habits. And then this last bit about your secret to profiting in life was also amazing. So thank you so much for your time.

My joint privilege. God bless.