MasterMind Drummer
Sep 30th, 2024
Newsletter #41
Welcome back!
Let’s start this week with a quote this week.
I want to start doing this more as I have many quotes I’ve written down over the last couple of years that have impacted me positively, so I’d like to start sharing them with you.
Sometimes all it takes is just one sentence to get the furnace all fired up, and have you moving in the right direction.
#1 “Discipline is destiny. The ability to control your impulses is the first step to mastering your craft.” – Ryan Holiday
I love this quote. Jocko Willink says something similar. His is ‘discipline is freedom’. But the point is that disciplining yourself against your primal (and often feelings-based) urges, puts you on the fast track to growth as you cut out all distractions.
When it comes to moving forward in any area, it really comes down to how long you can focus, so you can get those necessary reps in.
Time + effort = reults.
For me (outside my family), everything I do is in service of my craft.
A quick way to start tapping into this is by building good habits throughout your day-to-day life. So in areas off the kit.
Good habits help build good habits. Everything relates. Its a momemtum thing.
Having daily non-negotiables, like –
Getting up early
Making your bed (don’t undervalue this one)
Reading
Journaling (getting your thoughts out of your head helps wrangle them more)
Exercising
Eating well
Not drinking alcohol
All of these are ‘net-gain’, meaning there is next-to-no downside and will impact your life and your playing positively. (Well, I’m sure some of you could find a downside to getting up early and not drinking, but I’ll leave that with you to wrestle with).
This is not about perfection – we know that doesn’t exist, and I understand fully that these sorts of suggestions can come off a little preachy too. I get it. But with these areas of improvement, this really is a case of ‘if you know, you know’ (IYKYK).
Work on these areas of your life, and you’ll quickly start to understand what this quote truly means.
Discipline is destiny. Discipline is freedom. Discipline is progress.
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You’re a smartphone ADDICT… But I can help
– 7 actionable steps to breaking your phone addiction!
Look, don’t take this header personally. I’ll be honest, I’m talking to myself here just as much as anybody else.
Something to acknowledge, straight off the bat, is that if you are aged between 15 and 50, it’s fair to say that your phone addiction is (or has been) an issue, and is most likely getting in the way of your progress in some shape or form.
I know it certainly has for me over the years. Many times.
So don’t think I’m coming at this from a position of being above it. I’m not. It’s a daily battle for me too, and I’ve done many things to help myself manage it, which I’ll share with you today.
Last week I was helping an online student dial in his social media content, and he mentioned in passing how bad he was with the amount of time he spends on his phone.
I said, ‘everyone is, man’, to which he replied, ‘nah man, I’m reeeeally bad’, and I said, ‘no, you’re not, you are not worse than anyone else here man, as EVERYONE is struggling with this in their own way.’
Let’s just take a little bit of the heat off ourselves here and acknowledge that some of the smartest people on the planet were hired to make these devices as addictive as possible. That was their job, and well, they succeeded.
It’s no new revelation that phones tap into all our dopamine receptors and have us coming back for more, time and time again.
This is not an accident, it’s 100% by design. You are not the problem here.
Don’t get me wrong either, I really enjoy the convenience of my phone too, it has its benefits for sure – music streaming apps, metronome apps, fitness apps, notes, banking etc etc…
Smartphones can be fantastic! I’m actually super grateful to be living in a time when we get to benefit from this great technology.
But! As always, it can come at a cost, and like everything in life…
“Too much of a good thing is never good”.
I’ve personally struggled with this big time over the years.
For me, there are two main reasons why –
1. I create content which requires using my phone.
2. I run a large portion of my business from my phone.
In terms of creating content, I really enjoy it, but it often means I’m on my phone either creating it, posting it, or engaging with those who have made a comment or have sent a message, etc.
My policy has always been, if someone has taken the time to comment or ask a question, then I will too.
It’s actually not that part that frustrates me, as connecting with my audience is great.
What frustrates me is every element of every platform is now designed around hooking you in for as long as possible, loosing hours to watching or reading random shit you didn’t sign up for.
It’s the mind-numbling aspect of them that I find super frustrating.
I had too many psychedelic experiences in my teens to be O.K with this level of control (lol).
It’s really the only part of these devices that I personally don’t enjoy.
So, over the years, to help navigate my dumb monkey brain, I’ve done certain things to take the power back, and I want to share those with you today.
Much like any list I share with you, some of these will be obvious, but remember, its little reminders, and little steps in the right direction, that help us in our day-to-day life – repetition is key! As well as hearing someone elses struggles and perspective, too.
Let’s get into it!
1. Turn notifications off.
Seems like a no-brainer, but this can have a much more positive impact on things than you probably realize.
Remember, the less distraction, the better.
For me, email, text, and FB messenger, are the only points of contact I have that could be considered truly important, and that may need immediate attention. Everything else can wait. So I make them wait.
Now, there are exceptions, like if I’m doing a post and want to engage with my audience at the start of the post going live, I do, but ultimately, Instagram DMs and comments, and FB comments too, can ALL wait. They are not important or immediate lines of communication for me, and I manage them so.
2. Move your apps location on your phone.
I figured this one out many years ago, after listening to a neurologist on a podcast.
It was around the time I was on Drumeo, and I was feeling a massive pull to check my socials and the Drumeo videos on the regular. That level of exposure and attention is not normal, and it almost became an impulsive tick.
Without even thinking, I would open my phone and check 3-4 different areas where my content was featured, every few minutes or so. It was nuts.
So, what I did was I put the problematic apps on the 2nd page of my phone, and in their own folder.
It’s subtle, but what this does is basically train the brain to think they are not important, and that they are not worth the extra effort. Hilarious, right?
Too many steps to get to them, so we do it less. And guess what, it really works!
3. Set strict times for your usage.
The best way to approach this is setting a curfew. So, as an example, simply saying you can not get on your phone between the hours of 7pm and 7am.
This can be tough, as once again, it comes down to your own self-control and discipline, but the more you try to work the ‘self-control’ muscle, the better, as this has a massive roll-on effect in life.
I’m also a firm believer in not going on your phone for the first 1-2 hours of the day as it can completely derail your mindset.
The gift of each morning is a clear mind – it’s a daily reset, a blank canvas to help shape your thoughts and mindset for the day, and once you give that over to some sort of external input, it’s seldom you’ll get it back.
4. Leave your phone at home.
I started doing this many years ago also, but basically, if I am with my wife, and we are going on a family mission – the park, bike ride, the beach etc, I do not need my phone, so I don’t take it.
If something important happens, they can reach my wife to get hold of me, but I’m never really gone that long, and nothing else could warrant needing it, so I often don’t take it.
If you say you need it as it has your bank cards on it etc. all I say is, remember wallets?
At all times, I’m just trying to train my brain into thinking that the phone is not important, its secondary in my life, and not taking it with me when I leave the house, when I don’t need to, is a great way of doing that.
So when you are going to leave the house, simply ask yourself, for this mission, can I get by without my phone? I mean, I remember a time in my teens when we didn’t even have phones, so we would often leave the house without any point of contact. We did fine, and so will you. Its ok.
We can all still tap back into the freedom that this truly gave us.
5. No phones in the bedroom.
This is HUGE, and I’d say probably the hardest for most people, as everyone has an awful habit of sitting on their phones in bed, in the darkness, for the final 30 minutes (or 3 hours) of being awake.
Let’s be honest too, it’s usually the MOST mindless stuff at that point.
Stop this immediately. What we expose our mind to just before we sleep, impacts our sleep, and affects us heavily when we wake. This has been proven time and time again now, and can create an awful loop that is very hard to break.
Watch phone in bed – sleep poorly – wake up and are tired – make poor decisions all day – do it all again.
The way to combat this is by having a book beside your bed.
I read best in the morning, but I always have 2 or 3 books on my bedside table, to grab once I’m in bed. I only last a few minutes as nothing will put me to sleep faster at night than a book. It’s a much calmer way to end my day, and once again, it puts the power back in my hands.
The bedroom should really only be for sleeping, and, well, *cough cough, you know… I’ll let you figure out the rest here though.
Now, I know some of you are already thinking, I need my phone in the room as it’s my alarm clock, so…
6. Get a manual Alarm Clock!
Remember them?
I bought an awesome little alarm click off Temu that takes 1x AA battery. It’s small, it’s rad, and it is not super loud either.
Once again, a total game changer.
In order to break our phone addiction, we need to break our perceived areas of dependency, and getting an actual alarm clock is a big one.
I’ve had many people bite back at me about this main ‘issue’ when I recommend not taking your phone into the bedroom at night, and this is the most obvious, but also not so obvious, solution.
If you’d like the link to the EXACT alarm clock I use, hit me back here, and I’ll send it through to you 🙂
And finally…
7. Get a lockbox!!!
This may seem extreme, but extreme solutions tend to get results.
Look, I have periods daily, weekly, and monthly, that I need to be hyper-focussed – my newsletter, course creation, content creation, website management, etc, and what I’ve found is that by using a lockbox, it completely removes ANY temptation, as once it’s in there, there is nothing I can do.
Its amazing how calm the mind gets when you remove all options.
My lockbox has a timer that you set for the amount of hours you want it locked for.
Sometimes it’s 1 hour, sometimes 2 hours, but mostly I put it in there in the evening, and set it so I can not get access to it again until 7am.
I wake at 4:15am, so having those first 2-3hrs where I have no choice but to read, write and think, is sooooooo beneficial, that I can’t even quantify it here in this newsletter.
These devices come in many shapes and designs, but are now VERY common. There seems to be a massive market for those wanting to break their phone addiction and take the powerback.
Once again, I got mine off Temu, and if you’d like to know which one exactly, hit me back here, and I’ll send you the link.
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So there we have it… You’re a smartphone ADDICT… But I can help – 7 actionable steps to breaking your phone addiction!
All I want is to help you become the best version of yourself, so in turn, you service your craft the best you can.
I hope this helped. 🙂
Any questions regarding this topic, just ask.
Let’s leave it there for this week.
As always, thanks for taking the time, and thanks for all your feedback, too. I really appreciate it.
I read them all. So please, if you have any thoughts, send them through, and let’s get a dialogue happening.
Don’t forget… Stay hungry (and stay healthy!)
See you next week.
Stan