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- [00:03]
A
Welcome to It's a Good Life, the podcast for entrepreneurs where it's all about growing yourself and your business. Here's your host, founder of America's largest business coaching company, Brian Buffini.
- [00:17]
B
Well, the top of the morning tea and welcome to It's a Good Life. You know, as a father of six, you're not supposed to have favorites. And as the host of a podcast and the curator of 2,500 seminars, you're not supposed to have favorites, but we all know we all do. And we have one of our favorites on today, one of our crowd's favorites. And in a world we live in today. You know, I first got introduced to Habit by Stephen Covey, and there's a million people talking about habits today, but there's one person who brings the research, the science, and the ability to communicate it in terms that even an Irishman can understand it. And his name is Charles Duhigg. And. And when I first read the Power of Habits, it changed my life. And then as we brought super communicators on and, you know, in the business we're in and coaching people, you know, when you have a book that teaches you how to unlock the secret language of connection, I was like, this guy's got to be our guy. And he's spoken at our events, he's come to our podcasts and shows, and we're just want to get people off to a great start here in 2026. And there's no other better way to do it than having great habits and being a great communicator. Charles, thank you so much for making the time for us today. We're delighted to have you and help people get off to a good start for real.
- [01:28]
A
Oh, thank you, Brian. It is such I. Every time I get a chance to visit with you and all of your, your staff and your, Your. Your. Your huge community, it's just such an enormous treat for me. So thank you for having me.
- [01:41]
B
Well, you're a crowd favorite because you've been so helpful to people and you just again, mastery to me is the bill to be able to communicate the complex and make it simple for understand. And you're able to do that as we step into 2026. People have gotten to the point, oh, I don't make New Year's resolutions anymore because they don't work. But there's a power to the start of a year and what it can do. And I'd just love you to talk about how do we set the tone for the year and also the habits that really can change our life.
- [02:07]
A
And we can talk about those New Year's resolutions because it turns out if you do them the right way, they do work. But you're exactly right. There's been a ton of research looking at when should I. When should I start a change in my life? And particularly a woman named Katie Milkman, who's a professor at Wharton. She's done a lot of research on this. And what she's found is what's known as the fresh start effect, that it doesn't make any sense, that if I make a resolution in January, it's going to be more powerful than if I made it in February. Except that in my head, it's a brand new year. And there's something about beginnings that give us additional motivation, that give us additional commitment, that give us oftentimes additional time and dedication. And so it could be January 1st, it could be the birth of a new child, it could be starting a new job. But that fresh start effect kind of resets our brain. And we can take advantage of it by making changes during those moments that are easier to do.
- [03:03]
B
And there's ways to do it that doesn't affect us negatively. I had dinner with a guy last night. Charles, you'd get a kick out of this. I had a dinner with a guy last night, and he's divorced. Five years later, he gets remarried. And he said to me, I think I'm now the man my first wanted me to be. You know, that's kind of a dramatic one. But without having all that pain and that difficulty, this very dynamic of fresh start, new beginnings, like, how do we embrace and truly, like, okay, I need to own this and believe it and concretize it so it's real.
- [03:32]
A
Absolutely. And let's talk about it in terms of resolutions, right? Because. Because it's early January. We. We've been thinking about this. There's been a lot of research that looks at why New Year's resolutions fail. And the reason why is because people often set New Year's resolutions as far off goals rather than as plans. What we should think of a New Year's resolution is not an outcome that we're seeking. I want to lose 30 pounds. I want to run a marathon. I want to, you know, be nicer to my kids. Those are all great goals to have. Those are great aspirations, and it's important to have those aspirations. But that is not a plan on how we actually achieve it. And in fact, it's so outcome focused that if you lose £12 rather than 20, you feel like you're a failure, right, because your goal was to lose 20 pounds. But on the other hand, if we set our New Year's resolutions as processes, as plans, then it changes that conversation entirely. Because instead of saying, I want to lose 20 pounds, what I say is, look, I'd like to lose some weight. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to stop eating carbs in the morning of a big protein drink because I know that that means that I get through the day a little bit better at night. I'm going to e. I'm going to eat some vegetables before I eat something that's really starchy. When I set those little goals, those plans for myself, what I'm doing is I'm first of all taking advantage of what's known as the science of small wins. Because it's very, very easy to do that for one day. And if I can pat myself on the back and say, instead of saying I didn't lose £20, I can say, you know what, I achieved my goal for today, then that's going to make it easier and easier and easier for those goals to become habits, to become automatic.
- [05:13]
B
Yeah, the perfect thing. I remember we did a, we had Buffini company one stage, we had 400 employees, right? And we, we had our own in house health coaches, right? So we had a physical trainer, we had a yoga instructor, I mean the whole thing. And this guy was, you know, your classic. He was a brilliant guy, but he was like real intense and he was the gym rat. And so he had this competition for the staff. And I got into it and everybody got into it and it was like, you know, we had this no carb challenge for 30 days or whatever. So I'm speaking at this event and I, here I am, I'm doing great, and so on and so forth. And I'm the guest speaker at this huge convention. He's with me and my staff is with me. And as you well know, you get the what the, you know, the rubber chicken circuit, right? So I don't normally eat, but I'll eat a little bit just to be courteous. But I'm really not going to eat a meal before I go on and speak. So I eat a little piece of this chicken, a couple of vegetables, and I go up on stage and speak and I come walking off. And it was a point system and I had been perfect. He goes up, that chicken was breaded. You lose a point. And my answer to him was, screw it, I'm done. Like I was Like, I was out. I was out. I think I had a beer that night. You know what I mean? I was like, okay.
- [06:19]
A
Yeah.
- [06:20]
B
And it was this perfectionistic all or nothing. And so we do this to ourselves, and we ultimately set ourselves up for failure.
- [06:27]
A
No, it's true. There's a guy named James Prochaska who's a behavioral scientist in Rhode Island.
- [06:32]
B
And.
- [06:32]
A
And one of the things when. When they. When they look at people who have lost weight, what's really interesting is that people who try and diet and fail on them, it's usually because one day they eat something bad and they say, well, I've already screwed up today, so I guess I'm going to eat a bunch more bad things. And then they're off track, right? And so the answer isn't to say I judge myself based on whether I can go 30 days without eating carbs. The answer is to come up with a system where I say, if I made it through today and I ate pretty healthily, that's a pretty good accomplishment. Because the truth of the matter is that one bite of breaded chicken, that doesn't matter. What matters is whether you have a bite of breaded chicken every time you eat. The habit matters, not the one instance. And the more that we embrace that in our own lives, the more power we give ourselves to change.
- [07:24]
B
We know each other pretty well and over a lot of years. And there's one question, Charles, I've always wanted to ask you that I've never. It's never dawned on me to ask you, which is, what would you say are the habits personally that you embrace? I mean, when you do this work, if you're an authentic human being, you're going to be a product to the product. What's the one or two habits it has changed the most for you?
- [07:47]
A
You know, I would say, and it's a combination of the Power of habit. In my other book, Super Communicators, one of the things that I really try and do now, it's so easy to get into a mindset where many of your conversations are transactional, right? Hey, I want X and you want Y, and can we come to an agreement? Or I need this and you need that. And so every time I meet someone, whether it's for something that's, like, commercial or whether it's just meeting someone at a party, I always try and ask at least one real question that invites that person to share something meaningful with me. And I think you and I, and you're very good at this. You do this almost intuitively I think. But it's really. We really feel good. In fact, our brains have evolved to feel good when we have a real conversation and a real connection with someone. And giving that to someone is a gift, and receiving it from them is a gift. So that's the most important habit, I think, is that I try and have a real conversation with the people that I talk to just because it makes the day so much better.
- [08:48]
B
Right. I think another big piece here that's coming is, you know, AI is fast and furious, right? And my daughter came to me the other day and she was doing a video for one of her great friends. It was like a little baby dedication video, right, For a shower. And she put it together and she did this whole thing. And then out of curiosity, she ran it through AI and she said, the AI one was better, dad. So I said, well, let me take a look at this. And I said, you know, the AI one is better written, it's better edited. It's really cool. But I said, here's what. The piece that you brought to the table that you don't even realize that I can never do. And I just think, you know, what I'm doing with my whole business, Charles. I have rebuilt my whole business.
- [09:31]
A
Oh, wow.
- [09:32]
B
And as much as we have had all the technology and all the investment, we just won an award for the best AI class in real estate last year. However, I'm contrasting all of that by focusing far more on the relational, far more on the white glove service. I'm like my staff. I want you to know our clients birthdays, what's going on, where they're struggling, where they're hurting, when they're sick, I want to be able to care for them. We want to blow them away. And then I've also gotten my leadership team to go. We're doing the same for our staff. We want to know what's going on for them, how can we can reach their goals, how can we support them, what's going on in their life? And I'm just contrasting everything. We're going to have the high tech, but we're going completely high touch. And I just think super communicators is part of that. And you're talking about this meaningful conversation, and everything's transactional and everything's a scroll. And I actually believe the pendulum is going to swing. I think people are going to get sick of seeing eight hours of scrolling on their phone and go, I'm just going to forget it. I'm going to throw it in the drawer here and I'm going to try to look for something real. I think younger people are already who've grown up in this. They're so desirous of it. And this dynamic of the super communicator, I think. And I'd love you to just kind of unpack it a little bit, because I think so many people have lost the kind of the. The skill with it. They go to parties. Like, there's a third of men under 30 have never asked a girl out on a date because they don't even know how you know this. Like, it's massive. Talk to us a little bit about the habit of super communicating.
- [10:56]
A
And I think that's a really good point. You raise that. I think about when I. When I've bought homes for myself and my family in the past. The conversations I remember are not the conversations about the numbers. They're frankly, emotional conversations. They're conversations where I'm saying, I'm anxious about this. I don't know if we can afford this, or we put this bid in and we're really excited for this, but I don't know if they're going to accept or we're going to be at the top bid. When I really connect with the people in my life, even around transactions, even around commercial, it's those emotional conversations. And this is one of the big insights, I think, of the last decade when it comes to the neuroscience of communication. What we've learned is that when you're having a discussion, you often think you know what that discussion is about, right? You're talking about where to go on vacation next year or what the deal points should be for this. But when researchers look inside your brain as you're having a conversation, what they see is that you're actually having multiple different kinds of conversations at the same time. Right? Now, I think we talked about this last time, that most of our conversations fall into one of these three buckets. There's these practical conversations where we're making plans or solving problems together. But then there's emotional conversations where I tell you what I'm feeling. And I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize with me. I want you to show. Show me that you understand. And then there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other in society and how we see ourselves and others see us. And what's really important, researchers have found, is that we're having the same kind of conversation at the same time, right? So if I come to you and I say, you Know, Brian, I'm so. I'm so excited about this house, but I'm really anxious about it. And I have done the numbers and I think I can afford it. But, like, maybe there's something I've forgotten about. Even if it sounds like I'm talking about practical things, the language I'm using is emotional language. I'm anxious, I'm excited. And when you, as a talented coach and a talented, the friend can say, hey, look, I know exactly what you're feeling. I felt the same way myself, and I want you to know this is how it plays out. And so those anxieties, we have lots of time to make decisions. You don't have to be anxious. It's going to be okay. That feels so good. And suddenly we're on the same wavelength. And from there, it's easy to move to the social, the practical, or the emotional together.
- [13:20]
B
And it's not so much scripted. But there were patterns in these conversations. I sold thousands of homes, right? And so I would ask somebody, what's your biggest fear or concern about the upcoming transaction? And you'd hear stuff like, well, I'm just afraid, Brian. If we put our house on the market, I'm not going to find what I'm looking for. And now we're going to sell our house from underneath us, you know, and so people. People literally look me in the eye and say, we're going to be homeless. Like, I'm going to sell the house of my dreams, but I'm not going to be able to find what I'm looking for. You know what? That makes sense. That totally makes sense to me. And just so you know, and then I get into the practical, just so you know, we can put some contingencies in the contract. We're going to find suitable housing. You don't have to say your house till we find something or sometimes something come up. Like you just shared where, you know, I'm concerned, you know, we're biting off more than we chew and so on so forth. And if I've done the analysis, because I won't have a client bite off more than they can chew. But I'll say to, you know, Charles, you remind me a lot of Bill and Nancy Stewart. Bill and Nancy, you know, they were just like you guys and where they were. And I helped them get into this home. And five years later, you know, the home has doubled in value. They've really done a great job of paying it off. Now it's three times the largest part of their net worth. And they're in the same spot. And just so you know. Yep. You might eat spaghetti for the first couple of months. You might not be doing Starbucks. It might be Maxwell House. Heaven forbid. You're in the exact same spot. And it's just at the end of the day, the reason why we have to have this. I mean, in the service industries, we are going to be replaced by AI 100% unless we meet people's emotional needs.
- [14:45]
A
Exactly.
- [14:45]
B
And if we meet the emotional needs that, you know, that's just what I can't do and won't be able to do.
- [14:50]
A
I think that's absolutely right. And in fact, we know this from. From studies when, when people feel like they have a relationship with an AI agent and they know it's an AI agent, almost inevitably over time, it degrades. And the reason why is because when I'm having a conversation with you, part of what's valuable for that conversation for me is what I know I'm making you feel. And similarly for you, it's not just expressing yourself, it's that, you know, that you make me feel something that's so good. And when. When the count, when your counterparty in a discussion is someone who can't feel because they're a machine, at some point, it just feels tinny. The same way that you had mentioned that video about welcoming the new baby, that there's something missing. Even though it looks so good, that there's something missing. And everyone I know who's listening has had this experience where you're the agent, you're the person who's at the middle of a transaction, you're trying to help facilitate these two sides. And for whatever reason, you just. You just can't connect. Right. Like. Like everything, nothing feels like it's just people really coming together. It's often because we're not engaging with that emotional level and, and humans can do that and machines can't.
- [16:06]
B
I'd love to switch back to our habits for a second. Sure. And it's so fun to have someone like you because you can do both things, which is you have both games, which is awesome to do. So we all know, and we've heard ad nauseam, you know, quitter's day and the second week in February and all these types of things. How can we, once we've identified a habit.
- [16:24]
A
Yeah, absolutely.
- [16:25]
B
How do we just make it stick? How do I make this habit real?
- [16:28]
A
So to answer that, let me sort of explain what we know about the science of habits. We tend to think of a habit as one Thing, there's a behavior, right? But actually, what researchers have figured out is that every habit has three components. There's a cue, which is like a trigger for an automatic behavior to start. And then there's the behavior itself, the routine, what we think of as the habit. And then finally, that behavior delivers to us a reward. Every habit in our life has a reward, whether aware of it or not. And according to research that's done particularly by a woman named Wendy Wood, about 40 to 45% of what we do every day is a habit, right? When you back your car out of the driveway, that's mom's huge. It's huge. And when you back your car to the driveway, and the first couple times you did it, you really had to concentrate on it. Now you can do it on autopilot. That's a habit. And if I looked, what I would see is that when you made it out into the street, your brain actually experiences a little reward sensation, a little release of dopamine, even though you're not aware of it. To reinforce that habit, when you tell your spouse in the morning, oh, today I'm gonna have salad for lunch. Cause I'm trying to be healthy. And then you walk into the cafeteria and you make a beeline for the unhealthy sandwiches you get every single day, it's because your brain has actually turned off. You're in the grip of a habit, and we think less. So the first step to creating a new good habit or to changing a habit is to say to ourselves, okay, I'm going to identify for this behavior. I want to influence the cue, the routine, and the reward, what's known as the habit loop. Because if I can play with that cue and that reward odds are pretty high, I'm going to be able to change the behavior.
- [18:07]
B
Well, I just interviewed a guy here not so long ago who lost 150 pounds. And his cue was food, right? And so his cue was when he was really stressed and when he was really happy. And he said he didn't realize the happiness was causing him as much pain as the stress, he would reward himself with a celebration and then self medicate with the same thing. So what he would do, his thing was he had a little phone journal, right? And he's driving home. His cue was when he was feeling this anxiety and stress. His cue was to take out his phone now and speak it into the phone. And by the time he got home, he'd re listen to it, and then he'd go for a walk on the treadmill. Then when he wanted to celebrate, he would do the same thing and he would speak, I'm just on fire. I just had a great day. I just closed this sale. It was awesome. We just put this transaction together. And then what he would do is he would celebrate by getting on the treadmill. He didn't realize that he, you know, he went to see a therapist and they, they pointed this out like you use food for two things, both to celebrate and to medicate. And so he started with, boom, started taking out his phone and he would talk into his phone. And that's ultimately what his new cue became.
- [19:14]
A
Exactly.
- [19:14]
B
He lost 155 pounds in 18 years.
- [19:16]
A
Yeah. That's amazing. You know, there was this experiment that was done in Germany, very similar to what you just mentioned, where this German healthcare plan, they invited in about a thousand men members of the healthcare plan, and they gave them this like 20 minute lecture where they basically said, you know, you should exercise more. Exercise is really healthy for you. Let us give you all the data on exercise. And then they send everyone home. But except for about a third of the audience, they ask them to stay a little bit longer and they get just an extra 10 or 15 minute lecture. And in this lecture, what they do is they explain the habit loop, that there's these three components to a habit. And they say to them, okay, here's what we want you to do. We want you to choose right now a cue for, say, going on a run, right? Like, just decide tonight you're going to put your running shoes right next to your bed so you see them in the morning, or you're going to plan on meeting your friend at the gym every Wednesday, right? So that's going to be your cue. And then the routine is whatever you want to do. Go for a run, lift weights, you can run for five minutes, doesn't matter. But when you're done, we want you to to choose right now a reward you're going to give yourself. In particular, because they were German, they said, a small piece of chocolate, you should give yourself a small piece of chocolate. As soon as you're done, even if you only ran for five minutes, give yourself a small piece of chocolate. So then they wait six months and they track everyone down. And the people who had gotten just the normal lecture, about 18% of them were exercising, which is about typical in any population. But the people who had just gotten that little additional lecture where they had been asked to choose a cue and to choose a reward, 29% of them are exercising. And what happened is that people would wake up and they'd see their running shoes, and they'd put them on, and they say, okay, I'm just gonna run for five minutes. And they go out and they run for five minutes, and they come back and they eat a little piece of chocolate. And they think, this isn't. This doesn't make any sense. But then the next day, they wake up, and they're like, well, I already got my shoes on. I might as well run for 10 minutes this time, because, like, you know, why not? And actually, I kind of like having that chocolate. And then a couple weeks later, they're. They're running, you know, 20 or 25 minutes at this point, and they come home and they say, yeah, actually, I don't. I don't think I want a piece of chocolate. Like, what I really want is to take a nice, long, relaxing shower. That sounds great, right? So they're updating. Even though a habit doesn't start perfect, when we start it, if we come up with cues, routines, and rewards and we commit to them, what happens is it becomes perfect over time, and that's when it's powerful.
- [21:41]
B
That's so good.
- [21:42]
A
And the same way that we shouldn't criticize ourselves for having a bite of breaded chicken, we shouldn't criticize ourselves for starting a new habit and not being at 100%.
- [21:55]
B
Okay, I'm gonna ask you to coach me up here, Charles. You ready?
- [21:57]
A
Okay.
- [21:58]
B
Okay, here it is. Real live, real time. I just came up with this this morning after my morning hike. I'm out here on the Big Island. I hiked the King's Trail, so there's nobody ever there.
- [22:08]
A
Oh, yeah, it's beautiful.
- [22:10]
B
So I was coming up for a word for the year and that. You know, I've had all kinds of words for the year, and this year, I came up with a couple, and it's patience and perseverance. That's my word. You know, we've come off a very tough market. I've made a bunch of changes, and now I need time for those changes to be installed, to take root without making any more changes. So patience and perseverance. So give me, from the super communicator side, the habit side, put those two things together. Coach up Brian Buffini here.
- [22:39]
A
Okay, so let me ask you a question. Let me. So when you find yourself becoming impatient, what. What precedes that? Like, what. What happens where you. You suddenly are like, oh, this is taking too long.
- [22:50]
B
So Irish, Italian, nitro and glycerin, like, buffini is the Last name. You've always been curious about that. I know. So my thing is, I love momentum. I love forward progress, any type of forward progress, no matter how small. And when I see A, things, B, processes, third, people. I'm more patient with people than I am with anything. But the things that they're slowing me down and stopping momentum when I feel like, hang on a second here and now, sometimes things need to move at glacier speed, and sometimes things need to move at F18 speed. And I've had a season of F18, just so you know. But so now it's a case of what triggers me off is, ah, the momentum is stopped. I've worked hard to get this rock rolling, right. I want to keep this momentum. I want to keep this thing moving forward. And now I'm stuck.
- [23:36]
A
And, and so. So what I hear you saying is your cue is that it's a feeling almost of, like, annoyance and frustration and a little bit of tension, because it's not. It's not living up to the speed in your head that feels natural, which is totally. And in fact, tension is oftentimes the most common cue. So let me ask, so in the situations where you don't react as well as you wish you had in those situations you're feeling that frustration, what do you do? What's the, what's the routine, the behavior that you want to change?
- [24:08]
B
You know, I, I think it's the emotional response is, you know, I just don't want to. I don't want to empty the tank, my own tank. What I typically do is I don't take it out on anybody else. I have a tendency to take it out on myself. And so I just gnaw on it and marinate and marinate. I see the energy inside, what it does. It drives me to work harder. Oh, I will make this thing happen. Right? So instead of, oh, like again, when I'm really stressed, I get to the office earlier, my workout gets shorter. You know, I have a great routine in the morning when I'm at home. I work out or I go for a long walk, I get in the sauna, I jump in the pool. And I don't heat the pool, so it acts like a little cold plunge. And I do my little reading, I do my little meditation, and I'm smoothie off to the races. I have a whole routine. It takes X amount of time. And when I find myself under stress, next thing you know, I'm in the office at 5:45 and I've blown all that off. To address it and then I get home and it's late and I'm tired and I'm beat up, and now I'm okay, where's the. You know, I'm walking around the office and they got the pretzels, you know what I mean? And that kind of stuff. So.
- [25:06]
A
So what I hear you saying, actually, is that when you are all wound up tight, when you're feeling all tense, you actually reward yourself. Because in those moments, you do something that you esteem, which is you start working harder, right? You take that tension and you turn it into something that's motivation, that's drive, that's pushing you to the office. And when you get home that night, you think to yourself, I'm still feeling tense, but at least I made it into the office really early today. So there is a reward that you're giving yourself from this tension. So we know the cue and we know the reward. The cue is that you're feeling tension because things aren't moving fast enough. And the reward is that this speeds up. If nothing else, you speed up your own behavior, your own action, in a way that is someone who's accomplished, you esteem, which is totally natural. So now the question is, can we find a new behavior that corresponds to that old cue and corresponds to that new? Deliver something similar to that reward? Let me ask you this. So let's say at those moments that you're feeling anxious and you're feeling like things aren't moving fast enough, if you were to sit down and take, I don't know, five minutes to write out a page where you're saying, okay, I'm actually gonna not going to get worked up about this because here's the plan, right? I don't see the plan moving right now. But I know a week from now the plan's gonna be moving. And here's how I envision the future. But to make that happen, I gotta get into the office, right? Like I. Like I have a plan here. I have marching orders that seems to me that it would be a healthier way. Do you think that would work?
- [26:45]
B
I know it will work. I know it will work. And if I take the five minutes to write down the plan, what I'll do is I'll stick to the workout, I'll stick to the sauna, I'll jump in the pool, and I'll go into the office a little bit later. You know why? Because the office is going to survive without me. The world's going to turn without me. The reward is I'll do it myself, right? The Old Darth Vader piece. If I focus on the plan and I actually journal my thoughts, which is what you're saying, I'll actually go do the thing I was gonna do all along and keep to my routine. That's the thing. So it's brilliant.
- [27:14]
A
And part of it is that you're just reminding yourself that the plan's a good plan. Right.
- [27:17]
B
It is.
- [27:18]
A
Like you came up with this plan in the first place and you knew it was gonna be slow at the beginning. And of course, knowing and living through it is very different things. And sometimes we just gotta remind ourselves, well, brilliant.
- [27:29]
B
I thought it would be great to demonstrate the Charles Duhigg insights here to get a free coaching session out of it myself.
- [27:36]
A
No, I love it.
- [27:37]
B
And maybe the hundreds of thousands of people list here today got a blessing from this because we all have it. We all have these shortcomings. And the questions you asked are the questions to ask ourselves and also the questions to ask others to get to the heart of the matter. And this is. This is how you become a super communicator. Well, Charles, it's interesting as you're talking about getting off to a good start on January 22nd. You know, these Buffini coaching lives that we do, that we do out of Vegas, I'll have a couple hundred VIPs with me and then tens of thousands of people join me from all over North America, and it's absolutely free to them. And I'm really excited because I'm going to share my formula called the Restaurant Cycle, and really how to optimize performance, but also quality of life in the new year. And then we have Ken Coleman, who's just a brilliant interviewer, is going to interview John Acuff, Dr. Henry Cloud and myself and really talk about breaking through these psychological barriers on performance, understanding the psychology of success. And then people get a chance to ask questions. So just for all of you listening, if you get a chance, go to It's a Good Life. All one word. It's a good life.com BCL and BCL stands for Buffini Coaching Life. And it's a new format. It's two hours. And we're saying two hours to change your life. So it's specific standard time, 9 to 11, two hours, absolutely free. And it'll be the best two hours you spend to get your year off to a great start. So join me January 22nd for that one.
- [29:02]
A
Can I ask you a question?
- [29:04]
B
Yeah, please.
- [29:04]
A
So when you're coaching folks, what do you find? What do you find? Is the Is the, the trap people keep falling into or as you're seeing these patterns, like what's the habit that someone develops that was a positive at the beginning of their career and now has become a negative as they've become more mature?
- [29:22]
B
Yeah, I think the tyranny of the mundane is what gets people. And I think what people have is spatial disorientation. And you know, we just talked about it here. You know, you remember when John F. Kennedy Jr. Died, right? Remember he died in a plane crash tragically and he, he was not instrument trained. So what happened is foggy night comes in, he can't really see, can't read the instruments.
- [29:43]
A
That's interesting.
- [29:44]
B
And so what happens, you have spatial disorientation. You can't tell if you're going up or down in this single engine plane. And he ends up crashing into the sea and he and his wonderful wife die and was a great American tragedy. Well, what we see with the thousands of people we coach is that same spatial disorientation. You have to be able to read the instrument panel, right? Sometimes the instrument panel is physical. Here's my bp, here's my weight, here's the this, here's the that, here's my cholesterol. Sometimes in the financial, here's my activities, here's my results, here's my referrals, here's my transactions, here's my P and L, the same in relationships. So we all get spatial disorientation. And that's why we need coaches, we need books, we need insight, we need little systems, we need these routines to keep us on track. I, you love this story. So we had a client who, her goal for last year was to do $8 million in sales. And in our system we have a contact management CRM system that basically like a referral management. So if you put in, hey, here's how much my average sales price is, here's where I live, here's how many transactions I need to do. And in order to make $8 million in sales, I need to do this many activities, you know, which is the routines. Here's how many calls you make, here's how many notes, here's how many relationships you add. Well, she entered in the wrong numbers. So she set a goal for 11.5 million instead of 8 million. So then the system spits out based on this, you know, write this many personal notes, go see this many people, take this many people for a coffee, go back and see your past clients this many times. And it was almost the end of September, the Beginning of October, where she looked up and she'd already surpassed her goal for the year. And what happened? She ended up doing. She ended up finishing up the year just right around 12 million in sales instead of 8 million. And, Charles, this is. I'll send you this because you can use this in your events, because this is so true for your talks. She didn't realize she was doing the habits of somebody else's goal. It turned out she was totally capable of it. It didn't stretch her beyond belief. She wasn't working around the clock. She was doing what she perceived to be the right actions. And then she ends up. And she's with her coach. She blew away her goals by 50%.
- [31:50]
A
That's amazing.
- [31:51]
B
Because she was doing the activities of a goal that she improperly entered. Yeah, well.
- [31:56]
A
And what I love about that is that if I'm certain if you had told her at the beginning of the year, we want you to do 11. $11 million worth of sales, she would have said, there's no way I can do that.
- [32:04]
B
Like, possible.
- [32:05]
A
That's amazing. That's a great story.
- [32:07]
B
Yeah, I'll get you the data on that one. Because if you love that. Yeah, that'd be a great story in your talk because I think it's proof we are capable of more. It's easier than we think. You know, patience of perseverance are my words for the year. And I believe I'll do more with patience than I will with force.
- [32:23]
A
I think that's right.
- [32:24]
B
That's my affirmation for the year. As we finish up here today, Charles, we become friends, and I enjoy our conversations. And I just.
- [32:30]
A
Me, too.
- [32:31]
B
I find your work to be incredible. I think anybody. If you want to change your habits, you get the power of habit. And everything else is just. Those are all the crumbs on the table after what Charles left on the. The main course. And Super Communicators are just two brilliant works. And in our conversation today, you just demonstrated your mastery of your content. Okay, thank you. I've interviewed people in the last couple of years that I know their content better than they did because apparently I read the book. But you're a master of it. But as people go into 2026 here and they want to have a great year, what would be your best advice that you could give them?
- [33:01]
A
I think it actually really relates to the story you just told, which is when I think about the mistakes I've made in my life, they have always been mistakes of self limitation. I haven't believed that I could do something bigger and better than what I thought I could. And what we know from research is that absolutely any habit you have in your life right now can be changed. There are people who tomorrow will start a diet and they'll lose £150. There are people who have been smoking for 20 years and today they're going to have their last cigarette and they're never going to smoke again. You can not only change any habit you want, you can create any habit you want. And in many ways, if someone comes to you and they say, I want you to do $12 million worth of sales this year, and you think, I can only do 8 million, that can be terrifying. But if I come to you and I say, hey, here's how many people you need to call every day, here's how many letters you have to write, here's how many old contacts, that's something I can do every day. That's easy. That's what means instead of setting a New Year's resolution, that's a goal, I'm setting a New Year's resolution, that's a plan. And I'm sure you've seen this in your life. I've seen it in my life. If you have the right system, you don't have to worry about the results. They just are the natural byproduct and anyone can do it.
- [34:19]
B
Well, words to live by, my friend and I thank you. And I also thank you for the personal coaching session today. It greatly helped me with this for the year.
- [34:26]
A
Let me know if it works.
- [34:27]
B
I will, I will. I've got my journal here. In fact, I love it. Have my journal sitting next to me. And I will. Now I'm making a habit of it. I will take it out. I'll write it in here right after we speak today. Just want to thank you and I wish you a great 2026.
- [34:42]
A
Thank you.
- [34:42]
B
We're always in your corner. The books are the Power of Habit and Super Communicators, and I recommend that to both. Let me leave you with the little Irish blessing. My mother always did. Charles, My mother used passed away last year.
- [34:54]
A
Oh, I'm sorry.
- [34:55]
B
But she used to always finish our podcast and you always got a kick out of that. So I finish it up today in her honor. So may the roads rise up to meet you and may the wind always be at your back. May the rain fall soft upon your fields and the sunshine warm upon your face. Until we meet again. May God hold us all in the hollow of his hand. We'll see you next time. Ra.