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The Martell Method w/ Dan Martell

8 Tiny Habits That Made Me Rich

25 Feb 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What are the eight habits that transformed the speaker's life?

0.031 - 20.892 Dan Martell

These eight habits quickly transformed my life. And if you try them for just seven days, they'll transform yours too. I went from an ADHD mess to someone who can run several multimillion dollar companies while still having time for my family, travel, and my hobbies. I'm gonna show you how to build habits that will start your day clear and prepared

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build energy and stay consistent, set up your environment. So progress feels automatic and many more improvements that will make your life feel easier and better every week. Welcome to the Martell Method. I went from rehab at 17 to building $100 million empire and being a Wall Street Journal bestselling author.

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In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life and business you don't grow to hate. My bestselling book, Buy Back Your Time, is out now. Grab a copy at buybackyourtime.com or at any of your preferred online retailers. All starting with winning tomorrow, today. Your tomorrow is won or lost the night before.

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You essentially can't have a productive morning if you have a weeknight routine. Because bedtime for me, it's the real productivity hack. And most people freaking ignore it. The metaphor I like to think about is like my battle for my day is actually fought in yesterday's battlefield. And there's a few things you need to do every night before bed. First, plan tomorrow to night.

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My day is dialed the night before. My whole week is dialed in the Sunday before the week. And I'll actually touch on how you do that in a little bit. Then, set a bedtime alarm. Most people set a time to wake up. I have an alarm that goes off to tell me to go to bed because if I don't, I know my morning is ruined. Next, dump all your open loops into a list before you go to sleep.

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Most people can't sleep well, so they wake up tired because they've been tossing and turning which they needed to write down and forget about. But instead, they like sat there and thought about it and didn't sleep and then I can't sleep. So maybe I should watch a show and then I watch a show and then I can't see any sleep. Dump it out in a book. Have something to write on next to your bed.

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And finally, put any unfinished tasks in your calendar to tackle it tomorrow. At the end of my workday, I have a Google Doc where I dump all the unfinished tasks and it's linked to my calendar for the next day to review. So that way I have a ramp down period so that I don't have any open projects or tasks that can't wait for the next morning. Now you set yourself up for success the night before.

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You need to look at the habits that will quickly transform your life from the moment you wake up. Habit number two, protect your morning. Your body is an on switch for your brain. Starting your day on the right foot sets the tone and your mood for the rest of the day. If you follow me on Instagram, you will definitely see me post, exhaust the body, tame the mind. Why?

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See, when I was diagnosed with ADHD at 11 and struggled on medication for 20 plus years, being somebody that I wasn't, it occurred to me that the harder I worked out, the more ability I had to control my thoughts, control my focus, control my output. And that morning time is so important to get that right that I don't leave it up to chance.

Chapter 2: How can planning your night improve your next day?

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Two, move your body and break a sweat. Simple, put a weighted vest on and go for a walk or go to the gym and go see how heavy you can lift. I don't care what it is, but if you struggle with consistency, get a workout partner. I don't care what you do, just make sure you wake up and break a sweat. And three, drink a full bottle of water as soon as you wake up.

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Like you literally lay there for seven or eight hours, your body's dehydrated. That's why you weigh less in the morning than you do when you go to bed. And you just like wake up and get into stuff and you think your brain's gonna work when you don't have enough liquids in it. Don't do that. Drink that electrolyte water, hydrate and watch your brain revive itself.

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I promise you, if you start doing these things first thing in the morning, you'll see your whole life transform. like that. And look, I know a lot of you are business owners or CEOs who wake up reactive. Inbox, Slack, Fires, that's why your weeks disappear.

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That's why the first thing I do with every coaching client is install the five daily non-negotiables that help them operate from momentum instead of chaos. I've helped thousands of very high-level entrepreneurs transform their businesses and their lives.

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So if you're a business owner, you're trying to cross seven figures and becoming the leader you need to be, find me on Instagram, Dan Martell, and DM me the word YouTube coach, and I'll see if I can help. Okay, now that you've prepared your body on a daily basis, if you really wanna transform your life, you need to prep your mind. Habit number three, mindful journaling.

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you get in life what you focus on. And if you don't learn that you are not your thoughts, then you won't actually create the separation, the learning. See, when you can write out your goals, write out your strategies, write out your desires, that act takes it out of here, which is a bad place to keep things, and gets it out of your head. And the cool part is it only takes five minutes.

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Like I'm not asking you to sit there and journal for an hour. And it's not about writing a book other people are gonna read. It's just about getting your thoughts out of your mind. When I was in my mid-20s, I remember I was dealing with a massive issue at work. And one of my mentors gave me a simple suggestion.

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Hey man, wake up tomorrow, write everything that's on your mind down and finish it with some gratitude. See, my problem is I was spiraling in my head and as soon as I put it on paper, I can look at it, I can process it. That act of doing that writing every morning is what got me through it. And this is why I follow the 1-2-3 method. And here's how you do it.

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First, do the one big brain dump on anything that's on your mind that is just like open loops or challenges or conversations you should have or concerns you have. Just dump it out on paper. Then set two priorities for the day. Like today, I want to accomplish these two things. Most people want to do three or five or seven or 10.

Chapter 3: What is the importance of protecting your morning routine?

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I read books that I need to learn to actually solve problems today. When you find out about a book and somebody says, that's a great read, don't read it unless that's what you need to read today. And if you're starting a book and it doesn't give you value or you feel it's relevant to you today, drop it fast if it's not useful.

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Number three, as soon as you find a golden nugget of knowledge, apply it immediately. JFDI, okay, that is my philosophy. If I feel that passage and it inspires me to do something, go do something. And to go even further and to really lock it in, step four, teach it to someone else. Share that insight to a friend.

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My favorite way is to actually screenshot the book passage, highlight it, and then tell people on my social media why I like it. The social posts on a daily basis, that accountability is a really great way to add value to your followers and also hold you accountable to always reading. So we made sure your mind, your body are fed and they're growing.

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But if we want to quickly transform your life, this next habit is crucial. Habit number five, environment engineering. Let me tell you what I mean by that. Few things will influence your life more than your environment. If you think about it, you can have the best mindset, positive, excited. But if I take you and I put you in a commercial grade freezer, you're going to be cold.

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If you're like, but I'm warm, I'm warm. I'm thinking about being warm. No, you're going to freeze to death. If I take you out of the freezer and I put you on a beach and it's sunny outside, guess what? You will get warm. You are the byproduct of where you spend the most time. The people you talk to, the way you structure your environment, is it clean?

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The things you look at, you are a sensory adapter to the world around you. Most people underestimate or don't even consider designing that. I always break that down into two parts, the people and the place. People, those raise or lower your standards by the expectation they have on your life. We'll dig into that. The places define your energy and your focus.

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You ever walk into a room and you're like, I feel the vibe of this place. The way I like to frame it is people are either pulling you up or they're pushing you down. They're either supporting your dreams or telling you why you should stay small. And here's what I know. God has a way bigger plan for you than being a big fish in a really small pond. So make sure you're in the right pond.

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So here's how you can design your life and transform it forever. The first thing is we have to learn how to design our environment. See, most people make it hard on themselves to win. I always ensure that the right action that I wanna take in my life, the right habit, is the easiest action.

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So for example, I don't keep in my house that I know I would go crazy on, like boxes of peanut butter and chocolate Ritz. I mean, they don't even make those, but if they did, I would eat the whole frigging box. Because I learned a long time ago, it's easier to avoid the dragon than to slay it. For example, there's a certain type of protein bar that I treat like a chocolate bar.

Chapter 4: How does mindful journaling contribute to personal growth?

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Now, before we move on to the last habit, let me warn you, it may not be what you want to hear, but if you actually want to transform your life, it might be the most important habit of them all. Habit number eight, choose hard always. I believe pain is the perfect teacher. People that look at winners think they're special. Winners lost more than losers because they decided to make tough choices.

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Because when you make those easy choices, you end up living a hard life. Think about it. If I just lay in bed, that's easy. Guess what? I'm gonna have a hard life. When you make the hard choices, you end up living an easier life. And it's crazy because there's always going to be stress on you. Okay. The difference is, is there's you stress, stress that you chose. You chose to go to the gym.

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You put stress on your muscles. That is self-imposed. And then there's distress. That is stress from the world imposing the pressure on you because you're reacting to making easy decisions because they weren't hard decisions. You stress builds your identity. Distress appears when you avoid hard choices. It's like when I was training for my Ironman.

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I was training three weeks before the race and a van cut me off while I was in aero position going 25 miles an hour. It destroyed my bike. It almost dislocated my hip. And when I started talking to my friends that were also training with me for the Ironman and family members, they all said to me, maybe you should sit this out.

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And I remember thinking I could and nobody else would hold it against me. In many ways, they were encouraging me to do it. But then I realized a quote I heard a long time ago is sometimes life is getting you ready to receive what you've been asking for.

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And I knew in that moment, I could choose easy and not race, or I can go work my way to find another bike, train on the bike, rehab myself and show up to the starting line.

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And I will tell you that full distance Ironman that I started on a bike I hardly trained on, in the heat we were running in, if I didn't go through that, the mental preparation to deal with that level of hard, I'm telling you, I had to go into a pain cave I didn't wanna enter. But because I went through that, it got me ready.

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It was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever done in my life to that point. And in the same breath, when I finished, I got crazy emotional because I knew I'd earned that. And if I didn't go through it, I wouldn't have grown through it to become the person who could have kept pushing. So if life is hard, good. Because winners push past the point where everybody else said stopping was justified.

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So if you want to prioritize choosing hard to transform your life, do this. First, pick one challenge that scares you. I don't care if it's the Everesting challenge, 75 hard, running your first 10K, literally deciding to drop 10 pounds. Just pick something that you know you have a hard time doing and decide to use it to shape you. Two, tell people about your commitment. Activate it.

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