Make Routines Your Superpower: Building Momentum Through Small Wins - Aaron Dodge | Ep 15

David Chung  
I mean, it sounds like a lot of a lot of the habits that you're going to be talking about is something you've really developed over the last couple of months. Because a lot of this was happening right around the time that you were getting married just before, is that right? Correct.

Aaron Dodge  
Yeah, October of last year 2023. And my wife and I got married a month later, the day after Thanksgiving. So yes, we were getting married at the end of November.

David Chung  
Okay. And so just listening in on the pre call, it sounds like the symptoms you're showing was just lack of motivation, getting out of bed. And you you mentioned depression, can you kind of describe what that looked like? For you?

Aaron Dodge  
Yeah, you know, a lot of spiraling and my thoughts, I, the the D word is, is challenging for me. Because I've always been a guy of positivity, I'm a, I'm just like a high energy guy. I am like, Enneagram. Seven. It's called like the enthusiast. You know, other celebrities in that realm are like Jim Carrey and Robin Williams. So I'm like, Hey, this is me, I walk into a room, I, you know, I like to, to capture the energy in there. And then it was challenging for me to not want to be that kind of person back in October, you know, depression is, is a challenging beast. And so I say, I tread really lightly with that. And I called what I was in, during this time of depressive state, I was still operating my business, I was trying my best to get to the gym. I was hanging out with friends, I was, you know, doing those kinds of things. But I wasn't happy with my business. I was dealing with some physical problems that were bothering me, my eyes were dry. I don't know why. But maybe the West Coast out here, eyes are dry, I had a shoulder injury. And it was just like, kind of a lot of stacked against me, I guess. Not the worst thing in the world. You know, I had a loving fiancee at the time, we had a roof over our head. So I'm not trying to knock down that, like, I'm blessed with the life that I've been given. But I was, I was circling in my, in my thoughts a lot about how am I going to get out of this, you know, we're about to head into wedding season, I don't feel like I can contribute to this wedding as much as I would financially want to. My wife is doing amazing at her job and bringing in a lot of revenue. And I feel like I wasn't supporting her as much as I could as a partner. And that was where the depressive state kind of came from. So, you know, this is owning your own business, you know, you know, heading into a wedding where you want to feel like a supportive partner, and then like, had some physical, didn't want to work out vibes as well. And so that's where it kind of fell short. Yeah.

David Chung  
So I mean, on that topic, it sounds like you had just a lot going on. You know, you're so I'm, I'm planning on getting married to so our data set for end of August. And it's stressful, dude. You know, it requires a lot of coordination. And I didn't realize how expensive weddings are until I looked up the price of the DJ. And I was like, Really, that's how much it costs to hit play. I'm sure

Matthew Osborn  
this is why courthouses are so popular. Yeah. But you know,

David Chung  
you're planning for a wedding. You know, so there was a financial stress, and then also just a stress planning, and then also just running your own business, which all of us relate to, but I mean, I'm sure you've gone through periods of your life where you had a lot going on, what made this time so different, or like what do you think caused you to sort of fall into this depressive state?

Aaron Dodge  
It's a great question. I guess. Like from just my previous answer. It was just a lot of things. It was like I said, it was owning a business. I believe when I like, hit like the lowest of the low. Chelsea and I had been sick for you know, 10 consecutive days. She got it on the first five days. I supported her I got on the second half she supported me but like we were in this like, not going out of the house, not getting to the gym, not doing all the you know, the things necessary to be putting your mental health because we are habitual workout people. We wake up every morning, she goes to the gym, she drops me off at the gym. And when that stopped for me and I was staying in bed and I was not getting the early morning movement, not getting the early morning sunlight like Andrew Huberman says, not getting all of those kinds of things that really kick started my day and gave me those positive endorphins to kind of tackle my day. That was when the spiraling and the thoughts all started happening.

Matthew Osborn  
So you've been said getting up a little bit early, you get up pretty early. Have you always been a morning person? Or is that something newer that's happened in your life like back when you were a teenager, we always get up early, or is that something more recent,

Aaron Dodge  
I've always been a morning person, everybody I noticed in my adult life and with social media that morning means something different to everybody. Back when I was living in Charlotte, before I moved in, out to LA and moved in with my wife, you know, I would, I would hit a 6am workout every once in a while, I would hit the, you know, the alarm at 540 to try to walk out the door and be to the gym at 6am. I would, you know, I love the time of the year when the sunrise is early. So and you know, set the alarm for 545 and start hitting the pavement for like a two mile three mile run at like 6am. That's pretty normal. To me, the extreme of it came when I moved in with my wife out in LA and her alarm clock goes off at 505. And we have to be out the door by 520. That is a different bear. And but I'll tell you one thing, I used to say no a lot to her before. And you know, because I wanted to, you know, sleep for another hour do anything like that. And since this whole thing transpired, and I come out of this depressive state this depressive fog, I haven't missed a morning with her since. And even though I was operating at the like, alarm clock going off at 6am. I never thought that I could get to like one more hour earlier and feel comfortable and feel rested with my alarm clock going off at 5am with Chelsea. And now that we've done it consecutively for four months, or I have personally got up with her consecutively for four months. Like you can kind of train your brain and habit stack and and you know, continue to move farther farther back if it if it does fit your life. Yeah.

Matthew Osborn  
505 seems oddly specific. Is there a reason? It's 505 versus five o'clock?

Aaron Dodge  
Probably because I asked her to give me five more minutes. Yeah, she needs a little bit more time. Sometimes she is. Sometimes she's you know, she used to do the thing where she was like, Babe, you're leaving in 10 minutes. Like, you know, I only need 10 minutes, she might need 20 or 25. But she now like this morning, I was like, up and ready and took the puppy out and started making my pre my pre workout started doing all that kind of stuff. And I was like ready to go with 10 minutes to spare. And I was like who is this guy? Like, you know, not not waiting in bed for the last absolute moment before we'd have to be walking out the door. Yeah,

Matthew Osborn  
I like what you said about having that habit consistently. For this time, it gets easier and easier to do it. I almost consider my morning routine. I think of it like a giant locomotive getting started, like if I've been off my routine, or if I'm trying to wake up earlier, it takes so much energy and effort to actually get up, get out of bed, start that routine and everything. Like you said, once you're 10 consistent days without missing 15 consistent days, it gets so easy. And in my mind, that's like one of the biggest things that keeps me going is like, hey, this train is moving. Now if I stopped now it derailed. And I have to get all the momentum built back up. And so I like this, if you haven't missed a day and keeping up that momentum, at least for me, that's what it feels like for me is that that's my key to keep getting out of bed. You mentioned one other thing I noticed on the pre call you did where you talked about, you had 90 seconds you talk to yourself. And that's kind of what ended up keeping you in bed or hey, I'm too tired, I can't do it. I want to stay in bed, whatever. And now you said you don't you try not to make decisions in the morning and try to make those the night before so you don't allow yourself to talk yourself out of it in the morning. Is that something you've done for a long time? Or is that something you realized recently that kind of got you out of that funk back again,

Aaron Dodge  
it's right back to my wife, my wife has been a habitual, set the bag up pack the towel prep the water prep, like have literally the least amount of friction in the morning as possible. And then especially when I was doing the stay in bed for for the last 10 minutes like I had to get ready as quickly as possible. So I started to set up my workout clothes in the same location ready for me. You know, spandex shorts, under shirt, hoodie, joggers, socks, shoes, water, like all that kind of stuff. And I started doing that, you know, pretty pretty readily at the beginning but now it's just once again it's just back to the setting myself up for success. I think I think Mel Robbins said it a couple of years ago where she was she's not that much of a morning person either. But she was like if you can't work out in the morning and you literally put your workout clothes on the floor. So when you turn out of bed and your feet hit the ground, you're landing on your workout, it's going to give you an extra percentage chance that you're going to work out because now you set those clothes up now Yes, step over those clothes and now it's just like now it's like if you if you can't get to your workout when you stepped over your workout clothes, like you know then it's then you're then you're really in for But yeah, just another way back to, you know, wanting to make sure to set myself up for success the night before and the 92nd thing that you said, I think the pre call that I did, I had one of ours had my most amount of resistance to get out of bed that I had in a while. Maybe it was a late night before or I was tired or something of that magnitude. But as I woke up, and Chelsea was getting ready, I was like, I don't want to do it. I don't want to go to the gym today. And then it's just like, it's weird for me. When you when you first wake up, you're in like that. You just came out of your sleep grogginess, and the alarm goes off so loud, and it's dark in there, and all that kind of stuff. And I just made the decision from that point on that I'm not going to, I'm not going to make the decision if I want to work out while I'm still sitting in bed. And so I decided that I'm going to, you know, walk up, grab a sip of water, use the restroom, all that kind of stuff. And if at that point, I'm just like, I'm so tired. I can't physically keep my eyes open, then yeah, you probably should go back to bed. But it's pretty easy for me to take a couple steps down the hallway and take a sip of water for me to be like, snap my fingers and be ready to rock and roll for the day. And then like I said, we're out the door to the gym and the next 10 minutes. Yeah.

Matthew Osborn  
And you said, you've said that your morning routine has been kind of instrumental for you and keep you up that consistency, even your business and things like that afterwards, correct? Yeah. Oh, totally. If someone was in a funk, kind of like you were there, they're having trouble getting up having trouble starting that kind of habit that morning routine, what would you say was the most like instrumental thing you did to get yourself out of that? Out of all the different things what would you recommend someone do that's in a funk right now, to get started waking up earlier and kind of get in the morning routine and build that habit? Find

Aaron Dodge  
a partner, that alarm goes off at five o'clock. Right? I mean, I'm very open with the fact that my wife is so dialed in that it gets me literally 90% of the way there because I know myself and I know that I know that there would be a percentage of time that if my alarm went off and she wasn't right next to me that I would definitely go back to sleep. But you know, you gotta you have to start somewhere. If you're not a quote unquote, morning person, try it once. Try it once a week. If it felt good and you see that the early morning wake up really set yourself up for success for the rest of your workday and the rest of your productivity and then you got to start somewhere so it's you know, I don't want to go too crazy with the cliche but like you know, 1% better or trying something new every single day and then once again, stalking that habit of that felt good i think i think you know, I think the I don't know what kind of hormone it is, whether it's endorphins or all those kinds of things but I just feel a certain type of way when I get back from the gym you know, I go when I go to the gym, I walk on the treadmill, you don't have to go crazy when obviously know all the science behind you don't have to go crazy off the run 10 miles every day to feel like he got a good workout and sometimes I even go to the gym, and I do 30 minutes of incline walking and that's really the only true quote unquote workout that I do I like to swim and also I'm super blessed that LA Fitness located out here in Hollywood has a cold plunge and a sauna so I go cold plunge on a cold plunge. And by the time if I walk home a mile after that I looked down at my watch I've 7000 steps I've now walked on an incline burned fat burning calories I've you know moved my entire body because I swam and then I got in a cold plunge in the sauna. So it might sound like a lot but honestly like all of that is we're out the door at you know she drops me off at 545 and I'm walking back in the door at 715 and you know for somebody that works for themselves like I'm ready to go you know I do I do like to read I do like to meditate I do like to journal and do stuff of that magnitude as well but really ready to rock and roll by 715 I got a good amount of steps I got some outdoor some outdoor sunlight coming back from the gym, I've got some good fresh air and you know you don't have to go to extreme as like all of these people are coal plants coal plants cold plunge like you know, I'm a CEO and I wake up at 4am and a crush this and then I do it you know it's 17 minutes of my cold plunge while I'm meditating and like it's not I don't say that to say like I'm a cold plunging craze but like just a morning routine whether that be a walk around the block with your dog as the sun comes up, good podcast calling your best friend but we all know the science behind the circadian rhythm and how it's really good to get early morning sunlight and and to watch the sun go down potentially if you can in the evening as well. So moving my body is at the beginning of the day is really set me up for success.

Matthew Osborn  
So I think cold plunging kind of has it seems like almost gotten a little cliche, but I think it's gotten popular for a reason because it works like people that actually do it. Right. The reason it's so motivated to talk about is because you feel different than you have doing anything else like nothing shows ox your body quite as much as getting into ice cold water. I really liked how you mentioned your wife is a huge part of you being able to wake up early that accountability. That's a similar story to me, except it wasn't my wife, when I was struggling to kind of wake up early, I wanted to go to the gym. This was years ago, I found out my boss at work wanted to go to the gym too. And so he's like, Hey, you want to work out together, we'll meet at the gym at 4:45am every morning. And like, nothing is more motivated and get yourself out of bed and knowing your boss will be waiting for you at the gym outside. And if you're not there, it could possibly impact your work, work performance, too. Right. And so like that was huge for getting me out of bed was having that accountability. And I was honest with myself, like, even though I was very consistent getting up, I was like, I don't know if I would be this consistent if I didn't have that person helping keep me accountable. And so when I moved away and didn't have that anymore, I went through a spell where I wasn't getting up early, I missed my morning routine I like didn't have that person motivating me to get out to the gym every single morning. And so I encourage anyone watching this that wants that accountability, what I did that worked for me is I started a text chain with my old workout partner and someone else, where we'd say, Hey, I'm waking up tomorrow at 5am. If you don't have a text and a photo of the gym by 5am, I owe you both 50 bucks or something like that. And so it's a timestamp thing, you have to take a photo of the gym, I didn't see your up. And so like we kept each other accountable. Even though we weren't in the same room, if you don't have a supportive spouse next to you, that's waking up earlier, maybe you don't have a morning person spouse, like I encourage you find someone and they don't have to have the same goal as you like anyone wants money. And anyone will be able to look at a timestamp and see if you hit your goal or not. So right find someone if you don't have that spouse or a workout partner, and start a text chain, you don't have to have that just to get up. But having that accountability definitely does help. And so I really love that you brought that in and accountability, how that helped you because that saved me It helped me keep consistent in my morning routine. David, you're not much you're not as much of a morning person, but you are very routine oriented. How have you kind of how do you how do you do your mornings? David, I'm curious what you typically do in your morning, since you're not as much of a morning person, how have you kind of tackled that? Yeah,

David Chung  
Matthew, you're absolutely right. I am not a morning person. I am. And that self proclaimed nite owl. And so, you know, when I was younger, when I was in high school, I regularly stay up until 2am, which is totally unhealthy for a kid and you know, who's still developing. But in college, you know, that went back to 1am. And now that I'm in my 30s, you know, 11:11pm is about the latest I can stay up. But that's still pretty late for me. And so, you know, one thing that's really transformed my mornings, is just, it's what you just talked about Aaron, it's like getting that first step and right like turning to the left of your bed, and then stepping on your workout clothes, right? It's about building these small wins, and essentially letting yourself build momentum for the day. And so one of the things that has really transformed my mornings is like, I actually find it really challenging to get out of beds, bad most mornings. But I have started scheduling my calls early in the morning, you know, I work with a lot of people on the East Coast. And so if I schedule a call at 7:38am, you know, it's a normal time for them, it's really early for me. And so you know, that forces me to get out of bed wash up, and then be ready to hop on a call by 730. And so just like sort of, you know, Matthew, it's like what you said, right? Creating a text chain and creating that accountability. You don't want to let people down, you also don't want to pay him $50 For me, like I don't want to let people down. I also don't want to stand people up for a 730 meeting, you know, and so that's really been, yeah, that's really been the solution for me is just like, again, if I'm able to get out of bed and hop on my first call, even if it's like a 15 minute call at 7:30am. Then after that I can, you know, scarf down a quick breakfast, and then get my day roll and you know, get into the office by 830 and then have a productive rest of the day. On the days where I don't have meetings early in the morning. You know, there are times where I'm just like in bed and playing chess.com until like 930 I could just sit in bed for you know, two hours. I kind of like that slow roll, but it's definitely not the best for productivity or like long term. You know, I found that it really does impact my physical and mental state, just not having that movement early in the morning. It's sort of like a compounding effect, where you know, you skip one day, and that's okay. But then you skip two days and three days and four days and you're starting to build this routine or habit that might not necessarily Be positive. And then it's just that much more difficult to break out of that. And so yeah, I mean, I'm really right now in a season of my life where I'm scheduling these early calls. And yeah, it's, it's been instrumental for me. Yeah.

Matthew Osborn  
So Aaron, your morning routine was one big habit or one routine that's helped you a lot. What are some other habits you're kind of implementing right now that you're seeing good results? With? Are there good effects from? Or another question, too? What's the habit you've taken away recently, or something you've stopped doing? Because you found that it wasn't as effective. So either one, what's something you've taken away, or what's something you've implemented recently, that's helped you a good

Aaron Dodge  
one I like is, you know, being a solopreneur, and owning my own business. A good habit that I've really liked is, you know, it's hard sometimes to after you know, after dinner with my wife, you know, we're eating we eat in our living room, I know, some people are like, you gotta get the, you know, we've got a nice little apartment in LA, we just like to eat at our at our couch in the living room, just the way that it happens. So, but it's really easy. Sometimes after dinner, whether let's say it's at seven o'clock, to eat dinner, and then the legs go up. And it's like, What are we watching. So one of the things that I've really started to implement and try to implement multiple times throughout the week is to come back to my computer, and to put in a good solid 30 minutes to an hour again, at the end of the day, as kind of like a wrap up to my day. And I think about it, there's a there's a great guy that I follow on Instagram that does a really good job with with graphics, and like explaining, like business and graphics and stuff like that, I'd be happy to share it with you. But I thought about this, like graphically, I was like, Okay, if I put in 30 minutes to an hour ever, you know, five times a week, compounded over the entire year, that multiple multiple days, maybe even weeks of extra work that I put back into my business that maybe somebody else that I'm quote, unquote, competing with or trying to progress with, is not doing. So that's one of the habits that I've really tried to focus on. The other good thing too is like, I feel like, even when you work for yourself, it's very regimented. You want to make sure that your clients and the partners that you're teaming up with, whether that be, you know, one to one, or brand deals that I have and stuff of that nature, it always kind of feels like even though you work for yourself, you're at times you're doing work for a brand or for someone else. Well, when you come back to your computer, from between seven and nine o'clock, it's like, alright, what am I doing to push my brand forward? Or what am I? What do I have that I may be put off? Oh, well, you know, taxes are coming up. So I got to do my mileage for 2023. Great, I don't want to do that in the middle of the day, that's when I'm operating at the in the most energizes during, you know, nine to five, I don't want to sit there and be like, Oh, I traveled from here to here. And that was 17 miles and like adding all that stuff. So I do kind of mindless work at night, sometimes I edit my future podcasts that I've done that I've been putting off for a long amount of time. But yeah, coming back to coming back to my work after dinner, you know, you know, my wife is going to be doing all of those habits that we're setting, she's gonna start to put her bag together for the night, we got to load the coffee up and press the button ready for coffee to be made at 7am. We got to do all of those kinds of things. So kind of taking that, you know, we take the five to seven o'clock and we make dinner together. And then we eat dinner, we watch maybe a 30 minute show, but then that after, after dinner time, back into my business, knocking off things for the to do list, setting up the to do list for tomorrow, all of those kinds of things has really, really helped me progress my business over the last couple of months. Aaron,

David Chung  
this may be related to what you were just talking about, with interacting with your clients. You know, you it sounds like you've started practicing saying no. to clients. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Oh, gosh,

Aaron Dodge  
I think I read it on a thread a couple of days ago. It's like it's not like when you've been able to say no and your business you've finally won. And that's so many different factors. Let me see if I can try to break this down. I'll repeat

David Chung  
that one more time when you just repeat it. Okay.

Aaron Dodge  
When you have the ability to say no in your business you finally want in my eyes. So what does that mean? That means, you know, I am a solopreneur I have an infinite amount of time, I've decided that I want to grow my business as a solopreneur. Yes, I have a video editor here. Yes, I have a copy writer here but essentially I am Aaron dodge solopreneur. And I have an infinite, you know, a sorry, a finite amount of time during the day. And so the ability for me to say no also comes from the fact that I understand that my voice value can be brought. And I can bring a lot of value to businesses. And if they don't see my value, and I don't feel like we're aligned professionally on what the role that they want me to take partake in their business is aligned, then I'm going to say no. Now, the Aaron dodge from three years ago who just started his business, who knew didn't know what an LLC was, who didn't have a QuickBooks account, who was just getting paid on Venmo $25, I would have killed for somebody to give me $100 My time is not worth $100 anymore. I've been doing marketing for many, many years, I've been doing social media, I've been doing content creation, I've been doing all these kinds of things. But the ability for me to say no, is understanding that I can bring value and that if I'm vibrating high in my business, and the kind of positivity that I'm bringing to the world, that somebody else out there is going to notice that as well. And then is going to see my value. And then it's kind of like if, if it's a no then it's just ready for the next Yes, it's count, you know, like the sales like I'm gonna call as many salespeople as I can, and as many people for me to say no, because I know I have to get 67 knows before I get a yes. Well, I just feel that same way in my business, just like, I don't think this is going to work for us right now. Great. Like I said, three years ago, oh my gosh, they don't want to work with me, I'm not good at business. Where am I going to get my next dollar rent is due in five days. Oh, my God, all that kind of when you're vibrating in a scarcity mindset, and that was another thing that was happening with my depressive state, everything that I was thinking about was scarcity. Where's my next dollar gonna come from? How am I gonna grow this business? How am I gonna? How am I? How am I? How am I all of these? Like, yeah, but then I lived in when I started living in abundance, like might not work right now. But somebody else is going to see my value. And when they do, it's going to maybe even be for more money than somebody just told me no, for. So that's kind of like how I really like to operate. My business is just understanding that it's not going to work out for everybody. And if it's, if it's a no right now, it could be a yes, later.

David Chung  
So, you know, Aaron, as you were talking about that, all I could imagine was, you know, that famous statue, David, and Michelangelo, like carve this giant statue of David. And, you know, in the beginning, it was just this giant slab of marble, right. And so like, when you were big, beginning your business, it was just a giant slab of marble, there's really no shape to the business. And so you were just kind of taken huge chunks off, you're just trying to figure out, you know, where you are going with this. And three years, then you're, you have a clearer picture of a vision of where you're trying to go. And similar to that, you know, I was just imagining this giant slab of marble getting chipped away, and then over time, you know, Michelangelo having to be more intentional, and saying no to this piece, and no to this piece and carving out all these, you know, fine details of the statue. And so, anyway, as you were, as you were talking about your business and you know, really crafting it and, you know, taking it to where you want to go and you know, sending out this message so that way you can attract like minded clients, all I could think of was this giant statue just being carved out I don't know what in my mind led me to think of that but I just wanted to share

Aaron Dodge  
I'm a bit I'm a visual thinker, too. So I like to is David like a muscular guy like I'd like to think like in the last three years like I've gotten a little bit more muscular and maybe it's you know, the business muscle I've been flexing the business muscles so yeah, trying to try to be better every day. David

Matthew Osborn  
there might be a book buried somewhere in there I think it's trying to come out and it's trying to escape you have to write a book about statue carving and how it relates to business a book of metaphors from David, do you are you someone that listens to audiobooks, podcasts? Things like that a lot? Is that part What are three kinds of podcasts that have really impacted you and your routines and business and things like that? Are there three that stand out to you three is not enough to three is not enough? Three is not enough or three listen to the most right now maybe that's what I should ask three listen to the most right now

Aaron Dodge  
currently at this juncture would be Tim Ferriss and then it would probably be ollie up doll after that. And then third is Rich Roll. Okay. So I am you know, those are those are legendary people and in each regard, but I also kind of see myself and all of them. I just, I'm just seven years behind all of them. That's kind of how I look at myself in my business. Another individual that I love, isn't it His name is Jay Klaus, I call him my North Star all the time. Jay is a solopreneur has a brand called crater science. And he is been at this solopreneur space for about six or seven years now. He's very open online about the revenue that his business brings in. And I look up to him a lot. But I am also understanding you know, a couple years ago, I would have been like, Oh my God, I want to be all these guys. They are interviewing, you know, Shaquille O'Neal over here, and they're gonna be Mark Cuban over here. And they're interviewing, you know, athletes and musicians and all that kind of stuff. But I'll get there. I don't I you have to have people and your people that you look up to do not have to be like a one to one relationship. They don't have to live in your town, they don't think that that's the amazing thing about the internet, there's a wealth of knowledge everywhere. And especially I'm a visual person as well. So I like to watch the youtubes. But also, if I'm at the gym, I listen to podcasts and stuff like that. And like, oh my gosh, we live in a space where if I want to figure out how Mark Cuban built his business, like it's right there sitting for me on the Internet for free. Like there's, you got to pay for Netflix, you got to pay for a movie, you got to pay $40 for a class, but like there are so many people that have exactly what I want. I want you know, to make a lot of money, be happy, and help others get there at the same time. And there's so many other people out there that are doing that. And it's always great to be looking and learning from these individuals, but also recognizing that it's not going to happen in in one week, one month, one year, I think a lot of think the viral virality of social media has really ruined us from wanting a lot quickly. And I've been in business for myself three years, my revenue has grown every single year. And I don't want like yes, okay, let me doubling my revenue would be amazing. But also increasing my revenue by 25% for the next six years would be pretty freakin awesome, too. And I think that a lot of people don't think that way. They want to get to get as many YouTube selves as possible, they want to get just like, everybody take a deep breath and understand this is the long game. You know, my, my wife and I just got married two months ago, she works in jewelry, the things that push me every single day to be a solopreneur. And to grow my business is so that when we have children in the near future, my my wife doesn't have to work. That's the that's the reason why I operate on a daily basis. And the good part about it is we're not going to get pregnant for at least three to four to five years. So I five years to build my business, to where I want it to be so that my wife doesn't have to put our child in daycare and we can all be home, I could be doing podcast up in the room on top of the garage. And she can be downstairs playing with our child. And we can go on trips because we make enough money and we have enough retirement like those are the kinds of things that kind of get me excited and get me jazzed up. And I think what like I said social media has really ruined that. Like, I gotta make all this money right now. It's like, no, it's like, you grow your business just like any other business. Small businesses mostly fail within the first three years. I made it three years. And I'm continuing to grow my business. I'm continuing to stack habits that are going to allow me to increase my revenue each year so that I can be where I want to be in five years. So I'm long winded. You asked me what my three favorite podcasts were. I went down, went down a rabbit hole. listen to podcasts, there's a lot of free information out there and then also have people that you look up to on the internet that push you daily. I mean, before I was 10 minutes before we got into this podcast, I was watching Noah Kagan and all the adults podcasts because Noah just came out with a book called Million Dollar weekend and just got me jacked up to build my business. I'm not I'm not saying that you have to watch. And like always be like into business like you know, you can watch you know me, my wife watch a 90 day fiance at night. So as we watch some garbage, some garbage TV, but when I'm waking up in the morning, and I want to make sure that I have a good workday. No. And I'll go back to Mel Robbins. Another good podcast Mel Robbins, her famous quote a couple of years ago that continues to go viral. I might butcher it. But no one's coming to save you. No one. Like yes, I have a wife in the other room but like, no one's coming to save you. No one's coming to make sure that you go to the gym in the morning. No one's coming to make sure that you record that podcast today. No one's coming to make sure that you make 10 sales calls today. Absolutely no one. You have to be the one Do it. You have to wake up in the morning, you have to make the sales calls you have to. Because as I said, when I came out of that fog, I wasn't treating my business like a business I was treating my I was I was helping my clients do what my clients needed, and they were paying me and then I was just like, What do I do for the rest of the day? Instead of how many calls did you do today? How many brands Did you DM? How many people did you connect with on LinkedIn? How many threads like it's you have to be treating your business like a business and then I've been stalking that momentum since I came out of that fog in late October. And my business is thriving right now more than it ever has in the entirety because I'm, I'm stacking those daily business habits. And I'll add my Alan my rant there. So you can ask. So,

David Chung  
you know, when you're saying you're treating your business like a business, it really sounds like you've latched on to metrics for creating measurables in your business. Would you agree with that?

Aaron Dodge  
100% 100% Okay, if you're like I said, Jay Klaus, somebody I look up to he calls him experiments, if you're not running experiments and your business, like how are you measuring anything? You know, I know that it's a little bit might be a little bit more granular with social media and stuff like that. But like, you know, I tried, you know, posting a long form video to Tik Tok because tiktoks algorithm is favoring longer form. Yeah, there's like those kinds of experiments. But also in the same sense. I look back at my January, and it was the best because I put in your right metrics, and measurable, I reached out to 15 brands, five of them got back to me, two of them inked deals with and I have a business call with one of them to further a partnership. And October, when I was in my own head, it was just like you were I was in my own head. And the only thing that I could do is swirl in my thoughts, instead of recognizing that I have a lot of value to bring to the market and that I needed to get out of my own way. I think I've seen a graphic going around on social media for a very long time, there are people out there making hundreds of 1000s of dollars, that are not as smart as you. And they're making that money because they put themselves out there. And they did it and you're sitting on the sideline, like, I don't know what people are going to say about this YouTube video making or I don't know if anyone's gonna buy this course. Well, if you don't do it, there's no chance for people to watch it. And there's no chance for people to buy it. So you got to put yourself out there and you have to Yeah, he's got to put yourself out there and like, like you said, measurable things about how many people did you reach out to? How much did my business grow? You know, I enjoyed this past month, I really enjoyed engaging on threads. I love threads. I think threads is hit critical mass threads is going to continue to go up. I don't really mess with Twitter anymore. Threads is going to continue to go up. And the funny thing was, if I analyze how January went, I commented on more people's things than I actually wrote threads. I'm not I'm working on my copywriting skills. I'm not the best at like, comprehend something I want to get better on. But all I did on threads when I couldn't fall asleep at night, like you're saying like chess.com I'm on threads. Like, you know, Tiffany from Idaho SAYS SHE GOT 1000 subs on YouTube. You go girl, post that next video. And she was like, Oh my God, thank you so much. You live in LA and we don't know each other and you're cheering that's it. Like it's like the threads like cheering on community right now is like pop it and I absolutely love it. So yeah, so that's kind of like, I just put a lot of engagement. I put a lot of effort into my business in January. And it's it's reaping the benefits and excited for what February has offered starting February 1 with a great interview with you guys.

Matthew Osborn  
So you know, thanks for being here with us. Everything you just said. It always goes back in my mind. I feel like we so often overcomplicate things, and the book that I just love is the compound effect of just putting in the work every day. There's nothing to beat that you can do new morning routines. You can read more books, you can do podcasts, do all this, but nothing replaces just putting in the work even if it's not perfect. And you mentioned something earlier to you said you think like the virality effect has affected the way people view their business. They want to go viral. They want to get it right now, where to me some of the most motivating stories are the people that just have that slow, steady game because they just haven't stopped like there's a guy that comes to by Myles Beckler. I do miles Beckler he's a marketer. He has a YouTube channel known as digital marketing. Really, really great guy. Okay, you should check him out Myles Beckler. But he was posting I think his first 100 days on YouTube. He was posting just one video every single day. And that was his goal for his first part on YouTube. And then he was posting a video every other day and he just never stopped doing that. If you're looking at his YouTube growth. There's never one video that went viral. There's never one specific thing. It's just a slow steady growth every single year. And I think he's around 250 300 DAO Wasn't there something like that on YouTube, but I just love that he just remained consistent. He didn't have one video pop off. It's like, Oh, if you didn't have that video, like 10 million views, you wouldn't be at 250,000 subscribers, but there's that consistently posting consistently making content consistently growing. Those stories really motivated me because I get lost in my head, especially doing self development stuff like this and Stacking Habits Um, oh, maybe I don't have the right habits. Maybe I just don't read the right content. And a lot of it's I'm distracting myself from actually just putting in the work each day that I know needs to be done that I'm avoiding by pretending I'm learning something new. We're researching something on YouTube. I'm sure we're all probably victims of that, too, sometimes. But Sharon, yeah, I liked you. I liked your story, that you're just you're putting in the work. And that's what you've been focusing on this year? It seems like it's paying off.

Aaron Dodge  
Yeah, totally. I mean, I think yeah, I just I am, I'm blessed that that depressive state is behind me. It's taught me a lot. You know, my, my wife and I communicate very openly about how our emotions are affected with work and with, with how we're feeling and all of that kind of stuff. And the best thing that I could do with the way that that make me feel is how do I never get back to that again? How do I find those, those red flags, those beige flags that are like, we're heading back towards this or like, you know, because I can, I could say, with a lot of certainty that in the last three months, since that has kind of went down the negative thoughts in my head of almost gone away, then it's just because I've, I don't know, I've kind of just, I finally just believe in myself again. And that's just that just comes with habitually making sure that you're doing the things that bring you joy, and a daily in a daily part of your life. So I know I kind of didn't really answer that one too well, but But yeah, I just I, yeah. Next question. Sorry. I might have trailed off on that question. I

Matthew Osborn  
think that's good, advanced and portly is that being aware of when those flags start a period coming up? I think all entrepreneurs have this thing where one day you feel on top of the world, and then very little changes, but somehow the next day, you feel like you're failing, and everything's about to collapse around you. And it's like, when I feel that way, I have to remind myself, hey, nothing major change from today. And yesterday, a few things might have happened. But my mind is making everything worse than it actually is. And just noticing when that comes up, take a moment realize those thoughts and meditative thing, examine the thoughts. No, they're there. Let them go and then move on. I think that's really important for mental health is an entrepreneur. Do you have that? David? Are you just always perfectly mentally sound all times?

David Chung  
Definitely mentally sound at all the

Matthew Osborn  
time, right? Yeah. That's why I like you, David, you keep us grounded.

David Chung  
You know, I, I actually think of my slumps as important, you know, I, I actually don't try to avoid those because like, you know, it seems like once every couple of months, I'll just have like, a streak of a few days where I've just unmotivated and I just don't want to do anything. And I'll just sit on the couch all day. And, you know, I'll just be kind of in maintenance mode, where I'm just like, keeping up with emails, but I'm not like, actively working towards something. And reflecting back at that, those are the moments where I realized that I've sort of lost my bearings or lost sight of where I'm going. And so those are powerful, those moments are powerful reminders for me to get real lined on what I'm really chasing and what I'm moving towards. And so, yeah, I mean, I actually think it's natural and it's human to have these states maybe not for months. Yeah, you know, I'm not a doctor. So I can't speak for like, you know, how good that is long term, but I think alike. You know, it was really interesting. You guys are talking about social media and how, you know, people are really adopting this mindset of, you know, quick growth or just like popping off and you know, Teddy Roosevelt said something like, comparison is the theft of joy. Um, but I might argue and say like, in today's day and age comparison is also the theft of focus and like, theft, a vision, right? Because you everyone has different goals in their life, right? Some people want to make a lot of money. Some people want quality time with their family. Some people want to do something that just really fulfills them or like, maybe takes care of their community. But you know, when people are posting millions and millions of videos, and they're making it, like, literally addicting to watch right so you're just like watching this and you're you're just consuming this content, I could easily see how your own You know, your own vision gets drowned out by all of these voices. And so yeah, I guess to answer your question, Matthew, I definitely have those states. But I also think that a lot of it is just defending your mind and defending your vision. And just like, you know, just making sure that you're you're aligned and what you want, and just like not getting too distracted. You know, I think all of all humans, but especially entrepreneurs, they have a tendency to just chase shiny and get distracted. Yeah, I think it's just so important that you have, like this compelling vision within, within yourself that you're chasing. So that way you don't lose focus. Because when you lose focus is when you fall into these funks, where you don't know what you're doing. You don't know where you're going, and you just don't want to do anything.

Matthew Osborn  
Yeah, that's good. So Aaron, the three routines or habits we kind of talked about was your morning routine, the habit of saying no, and then establishing some measurables in your business. I think that was three that we kind of pulled out from there. If you don't have an answer to this question, that's fine. Because kind of an on the spot question. But what's a habit? You know, you've done in the past that's worked really well for you that you're not doing now. I know, in my life, there's tons of things where like, I recommend people do this. I know it works well. But I'm a victim of not doing it very well myself. Do you have any of those that kind of come to mind right now? By chance? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I

Aaron Dodge  
mean, sitting here on February 1, and I put a goal was for me to meditate and journal for every single day in January, and it didn't, didn't go love meditation, that's something that I need to focus on getting somewhere, I need to attach it to something like, like James clear, says, and atomic habits, if you stack something together, then it's the likelihood of it occurring is going to be better. So I'm going to find somewhere in my morning routine that you know that let's see, you know, we come back from the gym at 715, my shoes are still on, I easily can walk out to my porch. Plus, press play on one of the many meditation apps out there and kind of meditate through that. So February is going to be a step towards more meditation. A cool thing that actually found that I would love to share with you guys is I found a an AI journaling app that I've been using on my iPhone is called thoughts. I really love it. I'm the kind of person that sits down with a pad of paper looks at the blank page of paper, blank paper and says I have no idea what to write and then end up saying like, I'm upset that I didn't finish that task yesterday, you better finish it today. And it's like I don't, I'm not really good at getting prompts and figuring out what I should write. And I came across this app that I can speak directly into the app into my phone, it gives me an AI script about what I've said and then gives me prompted questions off of what my script was instantaneously and says, so it looks like you had a successful January, what were those things that you did in January to set yourself up for success? And then I repeat back to that the things that I did and then it asked me another question, then you can be done with the entry. And then you have all of your entries are titled, and then also gives you like daily affirmations based on the entries I've given it. So a female talks about my life in first person back to me based on what I've said over the last 10 days. And when I press play on an affirmation the first time I was like, What is literally happening? So I've gotten away from the writing. I know that writing is cathartic. And I do want to bring that back reading in some regard. But that early morning, like I'm going to be a journaling guy because everybody else on the internet journals and says it's positive just kind of like cold plunges. But I've kind of stepped away from writing and found this like a cool AI app that I've been using for about three weeks now. And I'm really excited to continue to use that. What

Matthew Osborn  
is the website for that? Or is it Android Apple Store? What is it?

Aaron Dodge  
It's just apple? It's called? Gotta try thoughts.com I believe it's called thoughts got a green green background? And yeah, give it a give it a look, it's, it's pretty awesome. And I actually have a call with the CEO, he's gonna tell me that there's a couple of new things coming down the pipeline, because even just the scripting, the prompting, and the daily affirmations, I will use the app for ever just based off those three things. And there's going to start connecting you with personality. And then I also pitched to him like it would be really cool if based off the way in the positivity or the energy that I gave my journal entry for the day, if they could say, Alright, you're vibrating high. Here's a manifesting meditation that you can do for five minutes, like inside the app. So I thought that would be really cool. So we'll see if he took my idea, you know, made that made that change. Again, like journaling and meditation, like I want to stack those together. So how cool would it be He to, to talk about my day and how I'm feeling. And then boom, inside the app, I can have a meditation, right rock and roll. So they're targeting

Matthew Osborn  
Apple users, because they know they don't have their life as put together as Android users. So they probably need the app more, you know. So that's probably why maybe one day they'll come around to Android, you know, but I like to start with the needy audience.

Aaron Dodge  
That's hilarious. David, you're

Matthew Osborn  
an Apple user, too, aren't you?

David Chung  
I am. And I was gonna just say, we'll, we'll make sure we link this to the show. So people if they're curious to try it, I also website. Yep. And then it looks like coming soon to the Play Store. Yeah, they take care of you, too.

Matthew Osborn  
Oh, they will. Okay, perfect. Yeah, that's really cool. Before we kind of close out here, so we asked you three podcasts you like? Are there three books that stand out right now that you've read recently? Or they just come to mind? You're like, I really want to recommend these specific three books. Yeah,

Aaron Dodge  
let me see here. So I'm going to leave my creativity Bible for number three. But let me go ahead and look behind me just so I can not

Matthew Osborn  
that I don't already have too many books I've purchased and haven't read yet. But just in case.

Aaron Dodge  
From a solopreneur standpoint, company of one, Paul Jarvis, read that within the first month of owning my own business, and really set me up for success, I got out of a toxic small business team of eight that got crushed in the pandemic, and it kind of broke up in a negative manner. And so when my buddy Hey, enemy, Paul Jarvis company of one, you know, you can run this entire business by yourself if you need to hire a freelancer 1099 Do it. That's essentially the gist of the book but still read it even though I just gave you the whole book. Number two, looking behind me, creativity Inc. was pretty good. From the CEO of Pixar really talked about talked out about how like they call it I think they call it like a brain trust is like you would they would, you know, the first shot of the film would come back. And then they would show it to a room of 20 people and 20 people would give their feedback on how the characters interacted this character look to mean in this scene, and we don't want that character to have a mean vibe. So we're going to, you know, take her facial expressions and dumb it down so that everybody loves his character like so. Creativity, Inc, with the brain trust, that was really good. And then the creativity Bible is a creative act by Rick Rubin, which is my new my new Bible. So I saw him on a podcast. I love Rick Rubin, music producer and one of my new favorite thought leaders, I think he is like up there with like, the Jay Shetty ease and the Tony Robbins, with the way that he thinks I bought the book. And I opened up the book, and I was super upset. I was like, I wanted this actually, when I was in my funk. I was like, I wanted this book that could like, get me out of this funk. I want to deep chapters based on creativity and how to get out of your own way. And I opened it up and all the chapters are three to seven pages. And I was like, How do I dive into this book with chapters three is my buddy says to me, he says, don't look at it as chapters look at them as meditations. And I was like, I like that. So what I do every morning, I'm about I'm about halfway through the book is I feathered through the book, and I actually have my wife say stop. And when she says stop, I open up that chapter. And I had read that chapter, I read that chapter. And I also supplement that with Spotify, and I play I play Rick Rubin reading the chapter as well. And I use it as a meditation. The funny thing is just like, you know, if you have like a, if you have a meditation book, or if you have anything that's like for personal development, that's like date related, and you open up the day, you're like, Oh, my God, this, this correlates with what's going on in my business, a lot of those chapters have to do with like how I'm feeling in that exact moment. And one of the first ones that I opened up, I'll never forget the when I was because I told you before on this podcast that when I was in that depressive state, I was in a scarcity mindset. And one of the first chapters I opened up in this book was called abundance mindset. And I was just like, Okay, I'm on the right path. So get the creative act, don't read it linearly. I like to read it as a meditation every day, and open it up, read through it, highlight it, what you'd like in there, and then you can kind of just take what that meditation gave you for the day and kind of, you know, pop into your, into your day and go through it in that sense. So those are my top three for now. Oh,

Matthew Osborn  
you've convinced me to get that last one. I definitely want to check that out. That sounds really cool.

Aaron Dodge  
It's really good. It's really good. And unfortunately, I can't I don't I like to read I'm a book guy I unfortunately, I wish I could read faster but like I also like I'm in this you know, growth phase with my business that I would rather be you know, doing business related things and reading but I'm really trying to slow down and do a book a book a month. But yeah, cuz that like you said, there's just so many people out there that I want to learn from, you know, Noah Kagan just put out a book Ali Abdullah put out a book called feel good positivity that I want to get through, you know, and so it's the amount of thought leaders that I want to learn from is more than the amount of time that I can give but it's trying to get through 12 books this year is is a goldmine, for sure.

Matthew Osborn  
Awesome. All right. Well, to tidy this up unless, David, unless you have another question one, one last question on questions, feel free to answer again, that's fine. Is there? Is there anything you wish we would have asked you or something you wanted to talk about that we didn't talk about yet something you kind of had on your mind or something you've been thinking about? You wanted to talk about? Actually,

Aaron Dodge  
yes, perfect. So just like you said, accountability partner with the $50, and the getting you to the gym, something that I wanted to do, I've always wanted to build a community around my business, and it's never really manifested itself until I came out of this depressive state. And so in the near future, we'll actually I'm doing it right now within within a Slack community, but I am building a community of solopreneurs that are doing exactly what I'm doing are pushing through their business are growing slowly slow burn, I call it the slow burn squad, you know, and so have wanting to build this community so that if I'm ever vibrating low again, it's, you know, I can go into this and be like, Hey, guys, just not feeling it this week, haven't really been feeling for the last couple of weeks, like, talk me up, support me, tell me where I could go in my business, all that kind of stuff. Because when I was, when I was a little bit lower last year, I wish I had 1015 2030 people that were kind of sort of thinking about me and my business. And so I decided, this is kind of like an eye opening experience and made me realize that this is the kind of community that I was kind of made to be made to build with. So I say, you know, supporting solopreneurs, building their business through authenticity and community. And so if anybody is interested in joining, I'm sure you're gonna link all of my, all of my stuff below. But if you're interested in joining, and you need, you know, because you're like I said, you're in a random state that nobody else is a solopreneur. Or you're in a you're in a location that you can't really get a lot of meetups, maybe you're a stay at home mom that's trying to build a side business, and you can't get out to network in your community, building a nice community of online people that are, you know, I'm trying to do weekly masterminds, and that like talking about my business, let me because a lot of the questions and a lot of the things that you're doing in your business, somebody else's like eyeball could change your business so much, somebody else's, like inside of my community this week, a big win that somebody came up with was, she got a book deal, her son went through some some cancer scares, he's on the other side of it. And so she's writing a children's book for moms and dads that are going through a child with cancer. And another person inside of my community is a former teacher that is building a platform for parents of kids who are in elementary school. So one of them is writing a children's book. And another one is has a large following that she's continuing to grow on YouTube and her email newsletter, and they can potentially launch the business with a co collaboration and that happened inside of my community. So I say I call it a win to the third power, which is a win for Natalie a win for Megan and I made the connection so it makes me happy. So Win win to the third power. So that's awesome. Where

Matthew Osborn  
did you say people can go to learn more about that?

Aaron Dodge  
Yeah, just I'm just saying you can connect me connect them to me. Yeah, I

Matthew Osborn  
don't have for people to connect with you. Instagram

Aaron Dodge  
on Instagram, you know, shoot me a DM on Instagram. Or I can put a link to my to be email subscriber on my on my weekly newsletter as well. So sounds

Matthew Osborn  
good. It's fun. This is a lot of fun for being here. It's good conversation. I like the different habits and stuff that you pulled out there. So yeah, the really good thank you for taking your day and spending time with us. Really appreciate it.

Aaron Dodge  
Oh, of course. Thank you so much for having me.