So I’ve been feeling kinda stuck lately, like I’m running on a treadmill but going nowhere. Then my buddy Mike slides me this podcast clip where Dennis Mayes talks growth – not some fancy guru stuff, but real talk. He basically said growth ain’t about big leaps, it’s about stacking small wins daily. Skeptical but desperate, I grabbed a dusty notebook and decided to test his two core strategies for 30 days straight.
The Morning Game-Changer
First strategy: win your mornings before breakfast. Dennis claims the first hour sets your whole damn day. So I started setting my alarm for 5:45 AM – and actually getting up when it rang (huge struggle, trust me). Here’s my exact routine:
- Chug half-liter water immediately
- Write 3 things I’m grateful for in the notebook
- Do just 10 push-ups beside my bed
- Spend 5 minutes staring out the window planning ONE key task for the day
First week felt brutal. Waking up felt like prying open a rusted door. But by day 10, something shifted. That water-gratitude-pushup combo took under 8 minutes but made me feel like I’d already accomplished something before my coffee brewed.
Clutter Warfare
Second strategy: daily 5-minute purge sessions. Dennis called this “removing friction” – physical mess = mental mess. Each night after dinner, I’d set my phone timer and attack one tiny zone:
- Day 1: Threw expired yogurts from fridge
- Day 3: Deleted 87 useless photos from my gallery
- Day 7: Wiped my crusty keyboard with a wet wipe
Sounds stupid simple, right? But after two weeks, my desk stopped looking like a disaster zone. When I needed my charger yesterday, I actually found it in under 10 seconds – no frantic digging.
What Actually Happened
After 30 days? No miracle transformation. But:
- My morning routine’s now automatic – even weekends
- Finished 4 books by reading 8 pages every damn morning
- Found $27 in old jeans during a purge session (bonus!)
Turns out Dennis was onto something. Tiny actions done consistently beat grand plans gathering dust. Still got miles to go, but for the first time in years, I feel the treadmill’s moving forward instead of just shaking.