Ever found yourself frozen by indecision or crippled by procrastination? This episode holds the key to unlocking your action-taking potential.
Join us as we dive into the five-second rule, a simple technique that can revolutionize your productivity and self-belief.
Learn how this rule has reshaped our approach to life's hurdles, spotlighting the crucial window for decisive action that leads to momentum in our work and personal lives. It will transform negative feedback into stepping stones for growth and strengthen your self-confidence.
Read/listen to "The 5 Second Rule" book!
Listen to Mel Robbins episode about the 5 second rule!
Sign up right now for the Digital Nomad Kickstarter beginning May 6th and learn what you need to get started as a digital nomad!
https://austinandmonica.com/digitalnomadkickstarter
-----------------------------------
Join our Facebook Group Digital Nomad Start-Up Circle if you're interested in living nomadically, growing your online business, and forming a community of like-minded people.
Get our FREE 85+ Ways to Make Money While Traveling guide!
Connect with us on Instagram by following @austinandmonica
Visit our website: AustinandMonica.com
Enjoyed this podcast? Subscribe to our show and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcast. Your feedback means a lot to us, thank you!
Ever found yourself frozen by indecision or crippled by procrastination? This episode holds the key to unlocking your action-taking potential.
Join us as we dive into the five-second rule, a simple technique that can revolutionize your productivity and self-belief.
Learn how this rule has reshaped our approach to life's hurdles, spotlighting the crucial window for decisive action that leads to momentum in our work and personal lives. It will transform negative feedback into stepping stones for growth and strengthen your self-confidence.
Read/listen to "The 5 Second Rule" book!
Listen to Mel Robbins episode about the 5 second rule!
Sign up right now for the Digital Nomad Kickstarter beginning May 6th and learn what you need to get started as a digital nomad!
https://austinandmonica.com/digitalnomadkickstarter
-----------------------------------
Join our Facebook Group Digital Nomad Start-Up Circle if you're interested in living nomadically, growing your online business, and forming a community of like-minded people.
Get our FREE 85+ Ways to Make Money While Traveling guide!
Connect with us on Instagram by following @austinandmonica
Visit our website: AustinandMonica.com
Enjoyed this podcast? Subscribe to our show and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcast. Your feedback means a lot to us, thank you!
Hello and welcome to the profitable Nomad Couple podcast. This is a show where we share all of our secrets about building a sustainable location independent lifestyle.
Speaker 2:We are Austin and Monica. We're a digital Nomad couple here to help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset, ignite your passions and develop a purpose-driven online business.
Speaker 1:Get ready for weekly insights and inspiring stories to empower you to live life on your own terms.
Speaker 2:So are you ready to unlock the Nomad mindset and embrace a life of limitless possibilities? Let's dive in.
Speaker 1:All right, what's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode. Today we are recording in bed. For the first time ever since Austin just barely had his meniscus surgery here, in Peru. So if you haven't been following along, austin tour his meniscus from the time we were recording this less than a week ago and he's already had meniscus surgery and is recovering well. So for more information on that, you can definitely go follow us along on Instagram, where I've kind of been sharing some of our journey of that process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to be talking about the whole process of the meniscus injury and recovery and we're going to be talking about the insurance plan that we have and how that all works, because I know a lot of people have had questions about insurance as a digital nomad and how to cover things like this.
Speaker 2:This would be a perfect example of all of that and how it's used. So we definitely are going to be talking about info later down the road, but for today, what we want to be talking about is something that's been incredibly helpful, especially for me, in the past couple months since I first learned about it. It's called the five second rule by Mel Robbins, and it's been really, really helpful for a lot of different things. It's been helpful for increasing my productivity. It's been helpful for increasing, I guess, bettering how I talk to myself and my head just better self-talk, being more optimistic. We're going to talk about all the different ways that can help, but it's been a really powerful tool for me, and so I felt really excited to share about it, because I know it can be helpful for you as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for anyone who doesn't listen to Mel Robbins yet, we definitely recommend that you go start listening to her podcast, the Mel Robbins podcast. We'll have this specific episode linked down below for you. It is such a good podcast and this is such a cool principle. We just are huge fans of Mel Robbins and, like Austin said, this is literally such a simple thing, but so powerful, so life-changing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is such an awesome tool. So let me kind of give you the breakdown real quick on what this rule is. If you've heard of the five second rule before, it's maybe a different one than you've heard of, because this has nothing to do with picking up food off the ground after you drop it.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that's funny. I didn't even associate that.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh, I know that's when I first heard it. I'm like what does Mel Robbins have to do with eating food off the ground? But nothing is the answer. So, mel Robbins, five second rule is a tool that you can use to conquer your fears, to like, feel your action and start helping yourself build momentum to overcome procrastination, to improve yourself, talk all these things. And so the premise is if you need to do something, as soon as you have an instinct or a thought or idea to do something, just count down from five all the way to one, five, four, three, two, one, and at one you just snap yourself into action and go do it without thinking too much about it. So there's a lot of I mean, there's some really simple reasons why this is super powerful. It shortcuts our decision-making process and it keeps you from spending too much time ruminating on a thought.
Speaker 2:I'm not a neuroscientist, but from the research I've done on this topic, here's what I've learned about it. So scientists have what we call a five-second window of activation that our brains have After we have an idea. We have about five seconds before we're going to start talking ourselves out of that idea or before we start telling ourselves why we should do something else, or not do it, or coming up with excuses, and during that time our brains are highly receptive to change. So that's a very important window of time, a very important five seconds. What's happening is our amygdala gets activated. That's our brain's fear center, and the more that we use that, the more it's going to be reinforced. And so what happens when our amygdala is activated is we are more hesitant, we overthink and that can quickly become a pattern. The more certain pathways of the brain are used, the more easily they're going to be used in the future. So the more that amygdala is used, it's going to reinforce our tendency to avoid change and avoid taking action.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's kind of a negative feedback loop, because hesitating and overthinking activates your amygdala, which makes you freak out, which makes you hesitate and overthink, which activates your amygdala, and it just goes round and around and around and you kind of like get stuck in a circle and you don't take any action. So this five second rule is what is going to help you bypass all of that, avoid all of that and just start taking action, and it's amazing what a difference it can make.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the part of the brain that the five second rule will start to activate is your prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of decision making. So as soon as it's activated then you know, it's so much easier just to build that momentum and get going.
Speaker 1:So, once again, neither Monica nor I are neuroscientists, so yeah, I don't know, after this maybe I'll become one, maybe you should, you'd be good at it.
Speaker 2:So please don't drill us on the specifics of everything we just shared, but I do know that it has been heavily researched by Mel Robbins and by other, like people who are neuroscientists, and they can back this up and they confirm that this is a simple tool that has really profound effects on our brains.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it takes all of your brain power away from the image of love, forces it into your prefrontal cortex, and that is where the action happens. And it is, it's so powerful. It's something you can use in your everyday life. You can use it for things like overcoming fear and taking action. So, for example, if you're getting ready to pitch to maybe your very first client, or maybe just a bigger client or someone that you're really excited about working with, and you're feeling nervous, like maybe you're not qualified, or you're feeling like what if they say no and you start to overthink five, four, three, two, one, send that email, get on that call, and a lot of times it just, it just takes us to start moving. So maybe it's like not even like send that email, but it's pull out your computer and open up your email, start writing that email, you know, and then maybe you need to do it again to hit send. But those small actions we take are going to help bring us that momentum and help us move forward.
Speaker 2:I had that exact experience not that long ago. I had a call with a potential client that I was really nervous about and I was excited about it, but I was nervous and I wasn't sure how it was going to go and I was a little bit scared about it. We had worked together before and this is kind of a role reversal for us. She was coming to us for coaching and I was scared Scared about the how the call was going to go and how I was going to be, you know, present myself and all that stuff. And I just took a step back and I recognized that I had that fear.
Speaker 2:And then I just counted down from five to one and I clicked the get on the call button. I had already prepared for it but, just like clicking that button, I just needed a little extra push. So I used a five second rule, got on the call. She ended up signing on as a client and has actually become one of my favorite clients that I've worked with and we've had a bunch of fun working together. It's been an awesome experience and we've built a really good relationship. And that five second rule helped me get onto the call to have that conversation with her to then sign her on to be a client with me.
Speaker 1:Another really good example of how to use the five second rule is for making new friends. As a digital nomad, this is one of the biggest things that people struggle with. It's just a loneliness and wanting to make new friends and wanting to talk to people. So if you're on a tour, if you're in a hostel, if you're at a restaurant and you see somebody else sitting there and you want to try to start talking to them, to like to spark a conversation, but you're nervous, what if they don't want to talk to you? What if they're busy? What if you don't speak the same language?
Speaker 1:Whatever it is they might be nervous about five, four, three, two, one. Get up and go talk to them and the amazing thing is that they were probably wondering and stressing about the same thing. People want to be friends, they want to have a tribe and a community, but sometimes they just need someone to be willing to take the first step. So this five second rule can give you the power to take that first step and, honestly, you're going to be amazed at how many friends you make and then how many friends that you make that last a lifetime.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what else can this five second rule help you with boosting your productivity? Let's say you want to form a habit of waking up earlier. So I mean, Mel Robbins is really big on this specific one, on not hitting this news button. So if you go listen to her episode about this, you'll hear all about her. Take on not hitting this news button, but when you get up in the morning you hear your alarm go off.
Speaker 2:Instead of hitting this news button, five, four, three, two, one get up out of bed and start getting ready for the day. Or I know for me, sometimes I get really wrapped up in a task and I know I need to take a break, but I'm just really absorbed in what I'm doing and I keep pushing myself further than I should and my brain's exhausted and my butt is exhausted from sitting on the chair and I know I just need to stand up and take a break. Or maybe the other way around you're taking a break and you're like I'm not really, don't really want to get back to work, even though I know I should use the five second rule and either take that break that you need or end your break when you need to and get back to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it can also be a great way to build confidence. So when you need to give yourself a positive affirmation, maybe you're feeling a little bit defeated and it can be so hard to like snap yourself out of the negative self talk that you keep, you know, bombarding yourself with, but this method can pull you out of that enough to be able to to say you know, I am capable, I am worthy, whatever affirmation you need in that, that moment, or maybe you receive some negative feedback and so you need to figure out how to learn from your failure and instead of getting caught up in oh my gosh, like I can't believe I did so bad, I can't believe I got this failure, everyone must hate me kind of spiral that we all tend to go in, you can five, four, three, two, one, analyze the feedback, learn and move on.
Speaker 2:That's actually a really, really good one. I like this one a lot because we had something like this happen to us just recently Somebody left a comment on our social media that was extremely rude, very unnecessary, and I mean you're going to get those comments sometimes, whether it's public or private. You're going to come across these times when people say things that aren't very nice, or maybe maybe they didn't even mean it that way, but maybe they say something that triggers some insecurities or some yeah, just some some insecurities in you that could potentially start to kind of spiral you into these all, into all these negative self talk dialogues in your head. And if you read a comment or hear someone say something that you can tell is starting you down that path, you can use the five second rule and just go five, four, three, two, one, not going to give that that negative thought any more time, and just move on from it.
Speaker 1:So how can we incorporate this five second rule into our daily lives? Anytime we're introducing something new, there's going to be a little bit of a learning curve. So, austin, since you've been the one who's writing the books and I mean we both have listened to the podcast stuff, but you actually read the book you've done the research on the neuroscience how are you able to incorporate this into your life?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. Starting something new like this can be hard because you're not in the habit of using the tool and so it can be easy to forget that you have this tool to use. So when I first started using it, it'd be like every other day it'd be like oh yeah, the five. Second rule I should use that Like.
Speaker 2:What you can do is set reminders for yourself in different places Sticky notes on your computer or on the wall, or a message on your mirror, or I like putting things on my phone.
Speaker 2:So sometimes it's an alarm that goes off randomly throughout the day, or sometimes it's like a background that I put a reminder on, like a wallpaper, and I put that on the background of my phone different things like that and that way I'm reminded constantly that I have this tool at my disposal so that if something comes up throughout the day like you can use dozens of times throughout the day, but if something comes up, then you have that reminder that is there and you can use it.
Speaker 2:And then the more you use it, the more you're going to remember it's a tool in your arsenal and you can keep going back to it, and then it's eventually going to become more of a habit that you can use regularly. I would also really recommend to share this tool with someone else your accountability partner or your spouse or friend, someone that you have close to you that can provide accountability, provide support and if they know that it's a tool that you're trying to use more, they can support you in that they can also start using it themselves and you can help each other out, talk about how it's going, but having that extra person outside yourself that knows you're trying to make this change can be super helpful.
Speaker 1:More than anything, though, I think you just really need to be patient with yourself, because it will take time to change your habits. It will take time to change your thought patterns. You might have to use this 17 times a day or 17 times an hour when you first start, but as it becomes a habit, it'll become more of a subconscious thing that you do that you find yourself counting down. You don't even have to think about it, or maybe you don't even need to count down anymore because you're just able to spring out of bed. You're just able to take that action.
Speaker 1:But as you continue practicing this, the long-term impact of using this consistently is amazing. You're going to find increased confidence. You're going to find that you're way more productive, that you're more positive, and you're more positive towards yourself. Just your general outlook on life is going to feel more positive. You're going to be able to overcome different fears. You're going to take more action, which is going to get you closer to your goals faster. Your overall well-being is just going to be so much healthier, so much better. So we really, really encourage you guys to number one go listen to the podcast Again.
Speaker 1:We'll link it below or go read her book, or both honestly Do both breath deeply, and then we also just encourage you to just start using this, start implementing it, to take action, and as you do, you're going to get closer and closer to your goal, your goal of becoming a digital nomad, becoming financially independent, becoming location independent. Whatever it is that your goal is. You're going to get there so much faster while implementing this rule.
Speaker 2:All right, you guys go use this five-second rule. Go kick butt, be awesome and we'll see you next week. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Profitable Nomad Couple podcast. We appreciate you listening to us today.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed this episode, share it on Instagram and be sure to tag us. At Austin and Monica, Together, we can inspire others to embrace a location independent lifestyle.
Speaker 2:And while you're there, we'd love to connect with you, so make sure you follow us for more tips and inspiration on living your dream location independent lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Until next week. Remember that you have the power to shape your own path. So stay curious, stay adventures and stay connected.