15:56The Mindset Mentor Podcast · Talking Head
What I Do Instead of Scrolling on My Phone
A mindset coach breaks down the neuroscience of doom scrolling and gives a blunt four-step process to actually quit.
July 3rdThe argument in one line.
A year is enough to remake your life if you take total ownership, define a vivid vision, reverse-engineer a plan, treat the year as an experiment, and remove every backup option.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- Someone who feels stuck in the same routine for years and wants a concrete 12-month plan instead of another vague resolution.
- A goal-setter who writes New Year's resolutions that fizzle out by February and wants a system that actually compounds.
- Someone who keeps blaming circumstances, other people, or timing for why their life hasn't changed yet.
SKIP IF…
- You already have a written, specific 12-month plan and are executing it consistently, so this would just repeat what you're doing.
- You're looking for tactical business or money advice. This is a mindset framework, not a step-by-step business plan.
The full version, fast.
The video argues a single year is enough to fundamentally change a life, but only if five things happen in order. First, take total ownership: no more blaming circumstances, other people, or bad timing for where you are. Second, get painfully specific about the target, since vague wishes like 'be happier' can't be hit because they aren't a real destination. Third, reverse-engineer that vision into concrete daily and weekly actions instead of hoping motivation shows up. Fourth, treat the year as an experiment: try things, expect some to fail, and adjust instead of waiting for a perfect plan. Fifth, remove the backup plan entirely, because a plan B quietly steals commitment from plan A.
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00:00 – 00:41
01 · The One-Year Premise
Cold open stating the thesis: a year is enough time to radically change a life if the conditions and mindset are right.
00:41 – 04:30
02 · Step 1: Total Ownership
The host argues real change starts with taking full responsibility, retiring every excuse, and banning passive complaining. A mid-roll pitch for his live event runs inside this chapter.
04:30 – 08:19
03 · Step 2: Clarify The Real Vision
A push to get painfully specific about the one-year destination instead of a vague wish, using a 365-day visualization exercise.
08:19 – 10:49
04 · Step 3: Reverse-Engineer The Plan
Once the vision is locked, work backward into the concrete actions that build toward it, written down like a real plan.
10:49 – 13:47
05 · Step 4: Become The Scientist
Treat the year as a series of experiments rather than waiting for a perfect plan, expecting some attempts to fail.
13:47 – 15:44
06 · Step 5: Burn The Backup Plan
Commit fully by removing every fallback option, illustrated with the parable of commanders burning their own ships.
15:44 – 16:23
07 · Take The Next Step Today
A closing challenge to pick one step from the list and act on it immediately, followed by the standard subscribe ask.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- A year is long enough to radically change a life, but only for people who act with intention instead of hoping change happens to them.
- Total ownership means no more blaming circumstances, other people, or bad timing. If your life crashes, that's on you, and if it's amazing, that's on you too.
- Most Western adults never get a real rite of passage into adulthood, so many stay unconsciously stuck waiting for someone else to rescue their life.
- A rule worth adopting: you're not allowed to complain about your life unless you're actively doing something about the thing you're complaining about.
- Wanting to 'be happier' is not a real goal because it can't be targeted. A number, like an extra $10,000 saved, is a goal you can actually hit.
- Working hard without a defined destination just produces motion, not progress, like digging a hole that only leaves you with a hole.
- Writing a one-year vision down and putting it somewhere you see it daily (phone wallpaper, sticky notes, mirrors) reprograms identity, not just a to-do list.
- Once a specific vision exists, the plan comes from reverse-engineering it: naming the smallest actions someone already living that life would be taking today.
- Treating a year like a lab experiment removes the pressure of needing a perfect plan before starting. You're the scientist and the experiment at once.
- A useful year-long experiment isn't just a side hustle: going alcohol-free for 60 days, weekly therapy, or trying 12 new hobbies all count as valid data.
- Keeping a backup plan quietly signals to your brain that plan A is optional, which is why removing plan B entirely raises commitment.
- The regret of not trying eventually outweighs the discomfort of doing the hard work, which is the real argument for committing fully.
Five Steps To Change Your Life
THE 5-STEP SYSTEM
A year of deliberate ownership, a specific vision, a reverse-engineered plan, and a burned backup plan is enough to change a life, if you start with the smallest true step today.
02Step 1: Total Ownership
- Total ownership means retiring every excuse. No blaming your past, your parents, the economy, or bad timing: if your life crashes it's on you, and if it's amazing that's on you too.
- A workable test for the mindset: stop allowing yourself to complain about anything unless you're actively doing something to fix it.
03Step 2: Clarify The Real Vision
- A goal like 'be happier' can't be hit because it isn't a real target. Pick a specific number or outcome, since you can't hit a target you can't see.
- Visualize 365 ideal days in concrete detail, write it down, and keep it somewhere you see it daily (phone wallpaper, sticky notes, mirrors) so it reprograms identity, not just a to-do list.
04Step 3: Reverse-Engineer The Plan
- Once the one-year vision is specific, work backward from it into the smallest first actions someone already living that life would already be taking.
- Write the plan down like an actual business plan. A plan that only lives in your head is as unreliable as a business plan nobody ever wrote down.
05Step 4: Become The Scientist
- Nobody needs a perfect plan before starting. Treat the year like a lab, expect experiments to fail, and adjust based on results instead of waiting to feel ready.
- Valid year-long experiments go beyond a side hustle: a 60-day alcohol-free stretch, weekly therapy, or trying 12 new hobbies all count as real data.
06Step 5: Burn The Backup Plan
- Keeping a plan B quietly pulls commitment away from plan A, so removing the backup plan entirely is what makes full effort possible.
- The parable of commanders burning their own ships after landing illustrates the logic: removing the option to retreat forces the only remaining path forward.
07Take The Next Step Today
- The pain of regret from never trying eventually outweighs the pain of doing the hard work, which is the practical argument for committing without a fallback.
- Pick one action from the five steps and do it today. Not Monday, not after a course, not when conditions finally feel perfect.
Things they pointed at.
Lines you could clip.
01:15
“Which means that if your life crashes, it's on you. If your life is amazing, it's also on you.”
07:28
“You cannot hit a target that you cannot see.”
13:53
“I'm going to quote the great philosopher Marshall Mathers. Success is my only motherfucking option. Failure is not.”
14:38
“The only thing that is worse than the pain of hard work is the pain of regret.”
15:18
“He said, all right, everybody, burn the ships. There could be no going back at that point in time.”
Word for word.
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metaphoranalogystory
Let's get real. Change your life in a year. It sounds like some Pinterest worthy slogan that's like slapped on the back of a picture with a sunset, right?
But under the right conditions, with the right mindset, with the right strategy, a year is plenty of time to radically shift the trajectory of your life. And so the point of this is to be intentional and to understand that every action that you take that's in the right direction compounds. over and over and over again with each one of them that you do.
And so this is a system that's for rewiring a lot of you, rewiring your mindset, your behavior, and also your identity of who you think you are from the inside out. And so we have five different steps that we're going to go through of how to actually change your life in a year. Okay, number one is to accept total ownership of your life.
But before anything shifts externally, You personally have to shift internally. And what that starts with is you taking radical responsibility in your life.
And so what I mean by this is no more blaming, no more excuses, no more waiting for the perfect time, no more outsourcing your results, none of that. If you're going to really step up, you have to be the CEO of your life, which means that if your life crashes, it's on you. If your life is amazing, it's also on you.
And so you have to have this sense of radical responsibility. I think that one of the things that's kind of a tragedy for growing up in the West is that we kind of just go from living with our parents to kind of going to college to kind of getting a job and stuff. But there's never any real big moment of you are now a man, you are now a woman.
That is a full break psychologically. Not just like I moved out of my parents' house, but like a psychological breakup. I'm now a man or I'm now a woman.
And years ago in tribes, they used to have rites of passage. Where there was this really hard thing that you had to do and that was a symbolism for you now becoming a man or a woman. And we don't have that anymore.
And so a lot of people are 45 years old and they're still like, well, you know, I'm waiting for my life to change as if someone's going to come and change your life for them because they're kind of unconsciously still like waiting for mommy and daddy to come and save them. And so you can't say anymore, like, I don't have enough time.
Or I'm too young to do it. I'm too old, or it's the government's fault, or the economy's not in the right place, or you don't understand how my parents treated me when I was a kid, or I have children so I don't have enough time. What it means is you cannot blame anything externally outside of you.
Total ownership is what I want you to brainwash into yourself. If you don't fully adopt the mindset of total ownership, nothing else that I say today is going to matter at all.
And so without it, you're kind of just like stuck in the waiting room of life, just like hoping someone's going to come in and call your name and go, hey, you, I'm going to save your life. I'm going to make it amazing. And so I want you to try this.
I want you to set a rule. You're not allowed to complain ever again unless you're actively doing something about it. If you're like working towards something, you could complain about it.
But if you're just sitting on the couch, you can't complain about anything anymore. No more excuses, no more complaining, total ownership of your own life. That's the first thing that you need to really burn into your brain if you're going to change your life in a year.
And we will be right back. Hey, if you're looking to get to your next level and you realize that it's not another strategy, it's not another book, it is found by you conquering the version of you that's holding yourself back, then you need to be at my live event this December 3rd, 4th, and 5th called Freedom Live. We're gonna find out exactly where you wanna be in life, why you're not there yet, and then find and break the unconscious patterns, limiting beliefs, and fears that are holding you back and capping your success without you even knowing it.
So if you wanna live to your full potential, but you don't know how to break through, This is the event to be at. You can go to freedomlive2026 .com or you can go to this QR code, scan this right here.
There's currently a $50 off coupon right now. So go ahead and scan that and I will see you live in Austin, Texas. And now back to the show.
The second thing is to clarify in extremely vivid detail the real vision. So clarify the real vision. Most people try to change their life.
without really knowing what they're actually building towards. And so it's really weird because it's like getting into your car and going, well, I want to drive to the next town over. And then you just start going on random streets and hoping you're going to end up in the next town, not realizing the next town could be east and you're driving west.
If you get into your car and you say, I want to go to the next town over, you can simply take out your phone now, go to Google Maps, type in the next town over, and it's going to take you there directly. So when you know exactly where you're going, It makes it easier to get there.
But so many people are just kind of like, most people just like get in a sailboat and they just lay down and they just let the tides and the winds take them this way and then this way. And they're like, I hope my life is going to be what I want it to be. But really, they're just going with the winds and the tides.
When in reality, you can step to the steering wheel and go, no, I'm going to drive myself to where I want to go. I need to know exactly where I need to go. And so what happens when you don't have a real destination?
You can work really hard, but it doesn't feel like you're going anywhere. You're kind of like spinning in circles. And so you're kind of like hustling for a goal that you've never fully defined.
And hard work is really, it's definitely necessary in life to get what you want. But it's not the only thing. Like I can work really hard at digging a hole in my backyard, but at the end of the day, I only have a hole in my backyard.
So it's like, what am I doing in this hard work? Where am I going? So instead of sitting there and not being clearly defined on what it is that you want, I want you to sit down and like do some breath work and close your eyes and think to yourself like one year from today, picture yourself.
If you had 365 perfect days in a row, where are you? How do you feel? What do your days look like?
How do you speak to yourself? Who do you surround yourself with? What time do you wake up?
What time do you go to bed? What's your life look like? If you can wave a magic wand, And you have the best 365 days in a row, the most productive 365 days in a row.
Where could you be 365 days from today? And you write it down. You don't just think about it.
You do think about it first off and you visualize it. And then you write it down in extreme detail as much as you possibly can. And get very specific.
Like, I want to be happier is not a goal. That's a trash goal if we're being honest. You know, if you say, I want to wake up excited and work 30 hours a week.
doing creative work and feel confident in my own skin and have an extra $10 ,000 in my bank account. All of that is much more detailed than I just want to be happier. And so I want to make more money.
That's not clear. That's not a good goal. I want to make $50 ,000 more this year.
That's a goal. And you have to get very, very clear because you cannot hit a target that you cannot see. Like one of the things that...
that I first realized when I was first in coaching people in sales is sales reps would come in and I say, hey, how much do you want to sell this week? And they would always say, as much as I can. And I'm like, that's not a goal.
That doesn't make any sense. Like you can't hit the target because you have no target to go from. Like, give me a number.
Get clear on what it is. Write it down. Speak it into existence.
Revisit that goal every single morning so it's top of mind. It's omnipresent. It's always in front of you.
Because you're reprogramming your identity, not just making a to -do list. You're thinking to yourself, this needs to be everywhere. I need to see it every morning when I wake up.
I need to have it on the back of my phone or my screensaver, my wallpaper on my phone so that I see it a hundred times a day. And I'm going to have sticky notes and I'm going to put it on my mirrors. It needs to be omnipresent.
So you're just constantly reminding yourself of these goals and constantly reminding yourself what you're working towards. And the more clear you are, the more likely you are to get it. So that's number two.
Then number three is once you get very clear on the life that you want, you reverse engineer what it's going to take to get there. So once that vision's locked in, you start working backwards. If the future you is a confident speaker, maybe a great speaker 365 days from today, how do we work backwards?
Well, I'm going to start Toastmasters. I'm going to go on YouTube and I'm going to look up videos of how to become a better speaker. I'm going to start doing Instagram Lives.
in order to become better at public speaking and kind of start off slowly. And I'm going to practice at home every day with no one around. And I'm going to buy a course on how to become a better public speaker.
Well, now we're starting to work backwards. And from working backwards, we start working forward to the goal that we want. And we come up with a plan.
You know, if you say, I want to be financially independent. Cool. Well, what does that mean?
Well, I start learning how to save my money. And I get good at saving my money. And I listen to podcasts and YouTube videos around saving money.
And then I want to learn. after I start saving money and how to invest that money. You have to learn how to make money and then you have to learn how to save money and then you have to learn how to invest your money.
I want to cut out all the pointless expenses. I want to put a budget together. I want to build a side hustle now so I can start making more money.
Okay, cool. Well, that's a lot more clear. I want to live with more peace, just more relaxation in my life because it's just, I'm so stressed out in my own head.
Okay, so then what do you need to do to get there? So I'm going to start scheduling some boundaries. I'm going to go to therapy once a week.
I'm going to spend more time in nature. I'm going to make meditation a real practice that I'm actually going to do. Not like, hey, it'd be nice to, and I do it twice in a week and I forget about for a month, but I'm going to meditate every morning for 15 minutes and I'm going to prioritize my peace.
What I'm trying to say to you is everything is figureoutable. So you've got to ask yourself, what would my future me do today? This me that's in 365 days from today that I saw and that I wrote down on a piece of paper, what would they do?
If they were in my situation, what habits and thoughts and boundaries and priorities would they have set? What non -negotiables would they have set? And you plan it out and you actually put it on paper like it's a business plan.
Like imagine if someone tried to create a business plan just in their own head, that'd be insane. You got to put it on a piece of paper so you know what you're shooting for and everybody else knows what they're shooting for. So you figure out the goal, you work backwards and you make a plan from there.
So that's number three. Number four. Become the scientist.
In your life, you don't need to have it all figured out. Most people think that they need to have like the perfect plan before they start taking action. It's completely impossible.
There will never be a plan to create the life that you want to that is 100 % perfect. What you need to do is you need to experiment. You in your life, .
And so it's not about being perfect or perfection or having the perfect plan. or planning it and then planning it and planning it and planning it for you planners. What it's about is about going, okay, this is something I'm going to try and I'm just going to experiment.
And you just experiment everything that you possibly can. And you treat the next year like you're in the lab and you're going to try things and you're going to fail and you're going to fail forward. And you're going to have some results and you're going to see what works.
You're going to see what doesn't work. And you make adjustments as you go. But you are the scientist.
And you're also the experiment at the same time. You don't need a perfect map. You don't need a compass with you.
You just need to try new things. And so like, as I was writing this episode, I was like, what are some examples of like a one -year experiment? Like maybe you launch a side hustle and you go for it on the weekends.
Like, you know what? I want to start a candle business and start selling my candles. Cool.
Okay. Well then maybe start formulating what types of candles and smells that you want. And you start putting it together and you find YouTube videos about how to make better candles.
and healthier candles and you start using beeswax and you get everything that you need. And on the weekends, you're like, I'm going to try to make the best candles I possibly can. And then you start getting better at making candles and your friends come over like, damn, these candles are really good.
Okay, now what I'm going to do, I'm going to start to go to farmer's markets on the weekends. And then you decide that you want to do that. So you have a side hustle that you start.
Maybe another way that you experiment is like go alcohol free for 60 days and just track how you feel. How does your skin look? What about your energy, your mood?
Maybe you say, like I said earlier, you're going to go to therapy once a week for the next 52 weeks and just try to heal the core wounds that you know are there that are holding you back. Maybe it's trying 12 different hobbies. Like you pick one new hobby that you've never done before that seems interesting to you and just see if you can find something that you're passionate about.
Maybe you try fasting and you fast 24 hours for... one day out of the entire month. And then Monday through Friday, you fast until 2 p .m.
just to see how you feel. Just try new things. Like stop doing the same every single day.
Like try things. You're supposed to have experiences in this life. You don't have to stay the same every single day.
In order to create a life that you've never had, you're going to have to do things you've never done before. And so just try some new things. Be the scientist.
So that's number four. And number five, just please do this. Just Burn the backup plan.
There is no backup plan, right? I'm going to quote the great philosopher Marshall Mathers. Success is my only motherfucking option.
Failure is not. So you've got to go as if that's your mindset. I'm going to commit.
Not like, let's see what happens. No dipping my toes in the water. Like I'm going to burn the backup plan.
There is no reason to have a plan B because plan B distracts from plan A. I'm putting all my eggs in one basket. Most people that say don't have your eggs in one basket don't have the life that they want.
And so this next year is the year for you. You don't need to act like, hey, I'll just try it out. You need to act like the bridge behind you is on fire and you've got to run across the bridge into your new life.
Because the only thing that is worse than the pain of hard work is the pain of regret. And the last thing that you want is to be like, man, you know what? Like I had that idea a couple years ago of like really trying to change my life for a year.
And I didn't. And I'm stuck in the exact same place. And so you have to go at it the same way that there's the old parable of, you know, the ships came over from Spain and they landed in the United States before it was the United States.
So they landed on this patch of land and he could tell, the commander could tell that all of his guys in the ships were just a little bit hesitant. They wanted to go back home. They didn't seem fully committed.
And so as soon as they landed on shore, they all had wooden ships. He said, all right, everybody, burn the ships. And that's what they did.
They burned the ships. There could be no going back at that point in time. That's how you mentally have to think about your life and what is it you're trying to create.
And so I want you to understand as you do this throughout the course of the year, like you don't need to be perfect. You don't need to wait until the planets align. You don't need to wait until you're fearless because that's never going to happen.
You just need to create a strong vision that excites you, that is enough to pull you through the fear in this. this willingness to take one step after another, not to have all 100 steps figure out, but just like one step, what's the next step that I need to do to change my life today? And so what I want you to do is I want you to pick one of the things from the list that we went over and I want you to do it today, not Monday, not next week, not when Mercury's out of retrograde, today.
Take action towards it. You've got one year, do it now. Thanks so much for watching today's video.
If you love this video, click this one right here. This is the one that you need to watch next. And if you want to make sure you don't miss any more of these episodes, click that button right there.
Make sure you subscribe and check out the next one.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The host opens with a blunt promise: a year is enough time to remake a life, but only under the right conditions. What follows is a five-step system for turning that promise into something more concrete than a New Year's resolution that fizzles out by February.
Named ideas worth stealing.
00:00list
The 5-Step Year of Change
- Accept total ownership
- Clarify the vivid vision
- Reverse-engineer the plan
- Become the scientist
- Burn the backup plan
A sequential system for producing measurable change within 12 months. Each step builds on the last, from taking full responsibility to removing every fallback option.
Steal forany 12-month coaching program, cohort challenge, or new-year offer structure
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
03:43product
“Get $50 off Freedom Live tickets at freedomlive2026.com, a live event December 3 to 5 in Austin, Texas”
Clean mid-roll pitch with an on-screen QR code and URL text, framed as the fix for feeling stuck, before cutting straight back into the content.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
OTHER LINKSAlso linked in the description.
Visual structure at a glance.
