Two-time transplant survivor, four-time marathon runner, speaker, and coach Mark Black welcomes you to the Level Up Your Life Podcast. If you're here that means you are ready to take some necessary steps to change your life. One of the wonderful things about this podcast is Mark doesn't focus on just your work or just your relationships. He encompasses your entire life: work, finance, relationships, fitness, emotional & mental wellbeing. He wants you to join him on the next level and with his advice, you surely will. Take a deep cleansing breath, grab a notebook and a pen, and get ready to make the changes you've been thinking about making!

In this episode, Mark talks about simplicity. We live in a complicated world of technology and many options on how to do things, but when we make things simpler we de-stress. We live multi-faceted lives and it's very easy for life to get complicated. Why would we want to make things simpler?

• Better execution
• • Mark gives an example of being on a specific diet for 5 years. People don't typically stay on diets because they're complicated: points, counting calories, weighing food . . . etc. He has been able to stay on this diet because it's a black and white - eat this, don't eat this and requires very little effort on his part.
• Allows us to be consistent - easier to automate
• • Doing something once is great (and better than not ever doing it at all), but it won't change your bottom line. Doing something consistently helps us make the changes we want to make in our lives.
• Allows ideas and strategies to expand
• • Mark gives an example of charity walks: sign up, put on shoes, go and walk.
  • Popular best selling toys of all time: yo-yo and silly putty (SIMPLE).
• Reduces stress
• • Expanding on exercise example: get up, go to the gym, come home shower, and go back to work/home. You can get the same amount of exercise at home.
  • Pre-prepared meals
• Allows you to focus at a greater level
• •  is a key element in getting results
  • • Focusing the suns rays can burn a hole in a paper
    • Time, energy, desire
  • Mark discusses the financial structure his family has been using.
  • One thing at a time

Practical ways you can simplify your life:

• You must buy into the idea that simpler is better
• Take all of your bills and set them to autopay
• • Automate everything in your life that you can
• Simplify your wardrobe
• • Narrow it down to the core of what you wear
  • • A row of t-shirts, a row of jeans, a row of skirts, a row of suites
    • Decision fatigue
• Meal prep
• Utilizing your calendar/task manager

Challenge: simplify your thinking

 

"If you can't explain something at a fifth-grade level, you don't understand it."

"Multitasking is perhaps the greatest lie perpetrated on working people in the last couple of decades."

"When we simplify what we're doing it allows us to have a deeper level of focus."

"If a process is not difficult or complex it allows easy execution and encourages consistency."

"Focused effort creates better results."

"Decision fatigue - make   a non-decision."

"Anything you do more than one time warrants trying to make things simpler"

"We tend to think we get complex and sophisticated."

"It takes true genius to take things down and make it simple."

"Don't live every day like it's your last day. Just be alive every day."

 

Your Best Year Yet transformation Program

Mark's website

Mark's LinkedIn profile

Mark's Twitter profile

Mark's Facebook profile