Mindset Training / Living With Intent

No matter your goals, I believe this strategy will make an impact on both the day-to-day and macro levels.  

In case you have no idea who I am, let me give you a little background information about myself.  I used to be a professional dancer by the name of El Tiro.  I danced for T-Pain and got to tour the world with him!  The Adrian in the middle is probably the Adrian you know now — an internet side hustle dude.  Lastly, the picture on the right is me and my current new adventure.  As you know, I live in a van and am traveling across the states living my best life.  

Okay, now that you know a little bit about me, let’s get into the good stuff… learning to train your mind. 

Living With Intent

What is intent? Intent can be defined as the “state of mind in which an act is done”.  That’s powerful!  Before you do anything, you often unconsciously make the decision to do it.  You can set the intention of what you're going to do and how you’re going to do it all in your head!  

Living a life of intent can be dissected into three categories: habits, focus, and progress.  I promise you that when you operate a life with intent, you can create richer experiences, better relationships, and improved quality of life.  

Habits

When the tour with T-Pain ended, I decided to get a job at a call center.  I only made $27,000 a year.  This made me extremely emotionally and financially stressed; I was lost.  My purpose and intent regarding how to live each day or how to spend my time were gone.  

Now, let’s say you dropped everything and went all-in on self-help.  Even if you bought every single course that ever existed and bought every single book ever written, there would still be zero guarantees that your life would be changed.  Isn’t that kind of scary?  While I can’t guarantee that self-help books will enlighten you, I can guarantee the formula for failure.  When I think back to young, lost Adrian, I think back to this: the fail morning routine.  Here’s what it looks like… 

Hit Snooze + Grab Your Phone + Drink Coffee Before Water + Put Yourself Last

First, you wake up in the morning and hit snooze.  Every time you do this, you are telling yourself that you aren't ready to live your life.  This is tragic!  There are tons of dead people out there that would die (no pun intended) to live again.  They would be so excited to get up and live!  You should be too.  Hitting the snooze button creates a programmed behavior that stops you from living your life.  How do you expect to go about the rest of your day productively while knowing you already denied yourself an opportunity?  

Second, you grab your phone.  Falling into this habit rewires your brain to be distracted and reactive.  There are literally millions of algorithms in your device that are telling you what to think!  I promise you that you do not need your phone first thing in the morning.  It will stress you out, make you emotional, and distract you from living your life!  

Third, you opt for coffee or soda over water.  We (I mean each and every one of us) are not superheroes.  We wake up dehydrated every damn day!  The first thing that should go into your body each morning is water.  If you want to operate at 100%, you need to nourish your body.  

Finally, when looking to set yourself up for failure, you will put yourself last.  In fact, according to Yahoo, “there are 3.6 million nurses [and] in relativity to the average American, they eat more junk food, sleep less, and are stressed more”.  That’s insane!  The best gift you can give to others is being the best version of yourself.  In order to do this, you need to put yourself first.  

This exact failure routine is what I was doing when I was making $27,000 a year and was stressed out of my mind.  Now, I make 27K a week and have no stress at all!  How is this so?  

The Golden Hour

This is the concept that transformed my life.  Seriously, it changed everything.  The Golden Hour is somewhat metaphorical; it doesn't legit mean sixty minutes.  We all different situations that allow for different amounts of free time to devote to this concept.  Some may have an hour and some may only have ten minutes.  That being said, there are a few rules to The Golden Hour morning routine…

1. Drink Water.  Again, water is essential to us humans!  It fills the tank and gets you operating at full capacity.  

2. Do NOT Grab Phone. I wait at least thirty minutes before looking at my phone.  The mind is so focused in the morning and the last thing I want is for the world to take my time from me.

3. Sweat. I am not a fitness guru by any means but I do try to sweat every single day.  Our bodies are our machines.  If you don't take care of it, it will not take care of you.  

4. Read. I read every morning because it allows me to grow and expand my knowledge.  What’s not to love about that? 

5. Write. This step goes hand in hand with reading.  Writing helps me focus on my goals and dreams.  It is a great way to get out emotions and clear the mind.  

6. Golden Time. This is where you do you before you have to work.  Spend this time doing whatever you’d like as long as it gets you closer to meeting your goals.  Remember to put yourself first and only focus on YOU for this chunk of time!  

The goal is to complete all of these steps before work.  Even the most planned people don't exactly what is going to happen throughout the course of their day.  As soon as you open your email or your social media, I guarantee you will become distracted.  This is okay as long as you get the important things done first.  

Focus

The next category to living with intent is focus.  Where we distribute our focus is where our life tends to go.  For most of us, our phones are life and death.  In my case, my phone provides me life because it makes me money, it allows me to call my family, and it is a platform for my businesses.  It also provides death.  My phone distracts my mind and poisons my thoughts.  This is why we need to find a healthy balance between the two.  

The average American spends two hours and twenty-two minutes on social media each day!  This about how much I spend… but I do social media for a living!  I’m an influencer and I get paid to make content.  If you also find yourself spending hours on social media and have a “regular” job, I urge you to ask yourself why you are spending so much time doing so.  Why are you letting social media take over your life?

The same goes for Netflix.  When you don't have the intent of only watching one episode or simply watching because you had a long and productive day, you will end up watching a whole season!  You just lost a whole night and let Netflix take over you.  

One day you will regret all the time you wasted watching dumb TikToks and TV shows.  You will regret wasting your time aimlessly scrolling through Instagram or Facebook.  You will regret it all!  

Every time you go to pick up your phone from here on out, I challenge you to ask yourself the question “what is my intent?”.  Are you going to text your mom back?  Are you going to check the weather?  Are you going to order food?  There is no bad reason.  Whatever it is, answer the question and do just that.  Stay focused on the task at hand and don't dare click on social media!  

Progress

The final measure to living a life with intent is progress.  Progress unveils your reason why.  Why are you spending time reading this post?  What’s in it for you?  Why do you go to work every day?  Why do you do what you do?  What drives and compels you?  This is a big one; I don't expect you to know the answer to this right now.  

Here’s a glimpse at my reasons why throughout the years… 

In the first picture, I was a young and unsuccessful kid.  I was bullied in high school and had low self-esteem.  Back then, my reason why was superficial.  All I wanted was to be so successful that others back home would envy me.  This reason got me nowhere!  Bullies are like gasoline but I was trying to fuel a rocketship.  Yes, the bullies gave me motivation in the short run, but after some time, that motivation to be successfully burned out.  I needed a new reason why.  

My next reason why was so that I could one day make 70K a year.  I had read somewhere that this was the magic number to living an amazing life without worrying about debt and bills.  This reason wasn't perfect but it was better.  It planted the idea in my head that I could one day have financial freedom.  

My next two reasons why really changed the game.  You’ll notice that the progress it took to achieve these goals took not as long as the other goals.  First, I wanted to make enough money that my wife wouldn’t have to work.  That being said, she is a kickass businesswoman who will probably always be hustling.  But, if something ever happened, I wanted to be able to support the two of us.  This goal took three years to attain.

Lastly, my most recent reason was to retire my dad.  He is one of my biggest superheroes and I have always dreamed of the day that I could help him retire.  Now, I did actually end up hiring him to work for me after retiring him but he only works a few hours a day and really sees it more as a hobby.  We get to work together and it’s absolutely amazing.  

Your reason needs to be so compelling that it will pick you up when you fall, breakthrough walls that stand in your way, and give you an infinite amount of energy to tap into.  If you find yourself complaining, making excuses, or not seeing the results you want, you need a stronger reason why.  

Your next job is to write down your reason why.  Write a sentence powerful enough to get you through the darkest days.  Small progress over time amounts to massive amounts of momentum.  

I’d love for you to comment your questions, thoughts, and ideas below.  Are you guilty of checking your phone in the morning?  Be honest!  If you’d like to share your reason why, go for it!  We are all one big community here.  

Thanks so much for reading.  I hope you learned at least one thing that made you think differently.  I’ll see you in the next post.

Peace and God bless.  

I make new content every single week, so be sure to subscribe to my Youtube and follow my Instagram @brambilabong and TikTok at @AdrianBrambila. I also have tons of resources and courses on my website that you won’t want to miss. Head over to www.adrianbrambila.com to learn more about what I do and how I live a financially free life.