Let's just jump right into it...

A couple of weeks ago, our town (and most of the country) was hit with an intense wind and ice storm. While I was chipping away at letter 4 for this newsletter, I glanced out the window, and I noticed that one of the trees in our front yard had been knocked over by the wind. I took a break from my writing, inspected the damage, and then dragged the lifeless tree to the backyard to be repurposed into firewood.

Sometimes we are like trees and we are at risk of being toppled when the storms of life arrive. Which is why today, in letter 6, we will be using the tree as a metaphor for our personal growth. More specifically, I'll be covering the "roots" that nourish and support every tree in existence.

"The strength of a tree is not in its branches, but in its roots."

-Anonymous

When people see a tree from the outside, they see a trunk, branches, and leaves - they see the "results" of a tree (go with me on this). Invisible from the outside, 50% of the tree is actually below ground.

Most people are so concerned with how they will be perceived from the outside that they neglect to develop the root system that will help them achieve their goals.

Your "roots" are the behaviors, actions, and habits that will hold you steady through the trials of life.

Remember, like the roots of a tree, the most important work you can do will be invisible from the outside, but that invisible work is what drives the results that people will actually see.

As we go into 2023 (and beyond), we will face challenges and obstacles that are like storms with strong winds. Just like a tree, the key to weathering these challenges is to anchor yourself with a solid foundation - with strong, deep roots.

When a fierce storm arrives, the tree with weak, shallow roots will be knocked down - just like the one in my front yard. It is the tree with a web of deep roots that will withstand the storms.

And in times of drought and scarcity, it is the trees with the deepest roots that are able to access the resources they need to survive (and thrive).

By cultivating good behaviors, and habits, we can develop our own web of roots that will give us the resilience and strength we need to thrive in any situation.

Over the next two letters, I am going to share 23 "roots" you can grow to support your personal growth tree in 2023. Every single root listed below has been stress-tested by me - I swear by each and every one of them. There is no fluff, these are real things that I practice and swear by.

Part 1: Mind Roots

I've split these 23 roots into two categories: mind and body. I will give you all of the "mind roots" first, and the "body roots" next week.

1. Challenge Yourself

This one is the longest, so I'll get it out of the way first.

If you want to achieve sustained growth, one of the best things you can do is come up with a big challenge for yourself. Something that will take you months (if not years) to accomplish. Your challenge should excite you and should provide you with a steady stream of positive by-products throughout your pursuit.

A few years ago, I created a goal for myself called the "10 minute challenge". 50 pull ups, 100 push ups, and a 1 mile run - all in less than 10 minutes. I still haven't pulled off this challenge yet, but I've gotten closer and closer. My bests are 11:07 and 10:37.

Like I said last week in letter 5, making progress towards your goals will bear fruit every single day. As I've pursued the 10 minute challenge, I have become freaky fit. So although it has been years, and I still have a lot of work to do, I get to enjoy the benefits of this challenge every day.

I've had to back off on the 10 minute challenge due to health issues (I got Hepatitis A from eating street food in the Philippines). And while this challenge is temporarily on hold, I've created a new challenge for myself: to become fluent in Tagalog/Filipino. This challenge has been in progress for over a year, but I've cranked up the intensity over the past few months. Learning to speak Filipino is very fun and I look forward to practicing it every morning.

I've even built a simple web app that I am using to help me study:

Your challenge should get you excited, every time you think about it.

2. Uridine Monophosphate & Alpha GPC

If you want to increase your mental horsepower, then try our this cognitive supplement stack. It is my favorite combination, by far.

300mg Uridine Monophosphate + 300mg Alpha-GPC makes me feel like I took the "limitless" pill. This mental performance stack will help your brain cells communicate with each other as well as the rest of your body.

It is an incredible combo for extended focus and short-term memory. Start with half the above dose to assess tolerance, before increasing.

As an added benefit, if I take 300mg Uridine before sleep, I'll pop out of bed feeling more refreshed the next morning.

Here are links to the brands I recommend: Uridine, Alpha-GPC

3. Caffeine + L-Theanine

I lean on this is combination to keep my productivity and focus high.

To keep my productivity and focus high, this combination is tried and true

Caffeine (have you heard of it?) is well researched and has shown to improve focus, attention and memory. I get my caffeine from coffee. Aside from the productivity enhancing effects of coffee, it is also proven to provide many other health benefits. Here is an article from Harvard Medical, if you don't believe me.

L-Theanine helps reduce the jittery, anxious feeling some people get from drinking coffee - it is great for keeping you calm and relaxed, while aiding in your focus. L-Theanine is naturally found in green tea.

When I drink my first cup of coffee, I'll take a 200mg L-Theanine capsule. It is that simple. If you don't like coffee, you could try green tea which naturally has both caffeine and L-Theanine.

A word of advice on coffee: a little goes a long way, and it is easy to build up a tolerance. Respect the beverage and it will take care of you. Don't drink caffeine after 2 PM or it will delay when you fall asleep, making it harder for you to wake up early (and if you read letter 3, you know how I feel about waking up early).

You can get L-Theanine for cheap on Amazon: this company will sell you 4 months worth for a whopping $12.

4. Read More Books

"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." - Joseph Addison

Whether audio book or physical, you need to have a steady stream of high quality information coming in every single day to offset all of the surface-level garbage you see on social media. My audible account has 252 books in it, and my personal library has more than 300 physical books. Follow your curiosity and you will develop a hunger for learning. There are a reported 20M+ english books available on Amazon - I'd bet at least a few of them have the answers to some of your deepest questions.

Don't just read books, study them. Devour them. Pick the bones clean. With non-fiction books, if you aren't pausing to ponder, re-read sections, or take notes, then you are missing out on countless golden nuggets.

Commit to reading two physical self improvement books this year.

5. The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz

Written in 1959, the advice in this book is timeless. I read this book when I was totally lost, and it was exactly what I needed. I ended up buying 5 copies and giving them away to friends. If you need a motivation boost, then read this book.

6. Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

Originally published in 1960, this is the most impactful book on developing self-belief I've ever found. It took me 4 months to finish. I read through it very carefully, took extensive notes, and practiced everything recommended. It completely changed my life, and it will probably do the same for you. Read it.

8. Visualize Your Future

This is a habit I picked up after reading Psycho Cybernetics (again, you need to read that book). The more time you spend visualizing your future, the more real it will become. They say your mind can't tell the difference between real life and a vividly imagined reality - I believe this to be true.

The power of our mind is amazing - we are all walking around with a gold mine between our ears, I promise.

As a daily practice, I visualize the future I want to live in, to the finest detail, every time I am drifting off into sleep.

I've experimented heavily with visualization, even going as far as using an interval timer to turn my visualization into a daily training session. I'll save a deeper explanation of these incredibly nerdy experiments for a future letter.

I highly recommend you start developing the skill of visualizing your future, as soon as you can. Shoot for at least 5 minutes/day to keep the habit alive, but the more you can do this, the better. Ah - just read Psycho-Cybernetics.

9. Morning Journal

In my opinion, this is an essential habit. You can't really mess it up. Just sit down, and for 10 minutes just write-out whatever is on your mind.

I added morning journaling as a habit almost 2 years ago and it has massively increased my mental clarity, and writing ability. This habit has also given me a written log of every major thing I’ve experienced over the past two years, and how I felt about it. Reading back through old journal entries is like time travel.

I use an application called Roam Research for my journal entries, as well as all of my other writing. I will police myself and not go on a mega-tangent about Roam, but to say I am a fan would be a massive understatement. It costs $15/month and I would gladly pay $300/month for the amount of value it has given me. The very words you are reading now were written in Roam. Every page you create can be linked to any other page, which means eventually you build up a giant web of your own thoughts and ideas. The more you write, the more of your thoughts become interconnected.

This is what my graph looks like:

I like using Roam Research, but you can journal by hand, in a google doc, or even (gasp!) in the notes app on your phone.

As with most things, the more seriously you take this habit, the more you will get out of it. This is the best approach for me: immediately after I wake up, I write in my journal for exactly 11 minutes, and then I shut my laptop and go on with my day. Sometimes the words aren't really flowing and the words drip out slowly, but other times I can't move my fingers fast enough to keep up with my thoughts - those are the best days.

10. Increase Your Typing Speed

Last year, I started writing a book called The Fitness Journey. As part of that book, I cataloged all of my personal experiences with fitness, ever since I was a little kid. Unfortunately, my fingers couldn't keep up with my thoughts. My typing speed was a major bottleneck. Since high school, I had only used 6 fingers when typing. My fastest typing speed was somewhere around 42 WPM.

So, me being the self-improvement-minded person I am, I committed to improving my typing speed. I found a free website called Keybr with simple lessons I could follow, so I could start tapping into all 10 fingers when typing.

I worked on my typing ability for about 30 minutes a day and after a couple of months, guess what happened? I improved. At one point, my typing speed hit 106 WPM, but now it consistently sits in the 60-70 WPM range.

Suddenly, I was flying through emails at top speed, and responding to slack messages at lightning speed. And, just as I was hoping, my fingers were starting to be able to keep up with my thoughts.

I hadn't realized how big of a bottleneck my typing speed was, but once this restriction was removed, my writing output nearly doubled. If you have ever wondered if your typing speed should be improved, then I highly recommend prioritizing a free typing course.

In a future letter, I'll tell you more about Keybr and how I totally hacked it to help me study and memorize new information. I’ve discovered a fun way to fully absorb my notes, quotes from historical figures, and articles from my favorite authors. This is one of the coolest things I've discovered in the past couple of years, so keep an eye out for this down the road.

11. Tools > Drugs

Everyone has a drug dispenser in their pocket. In fact, you are probably reading this on your drug dispenser, right now: it is your smartphone. Our phones have become a key source for distraction and discontent. For a million reasons, I need you to re-frame your relationship with your phone.

Start viewing it as a tool, instead of a drug.

Most people have an addiction to their phones (myself included).

The single best thing I've done to address my phone addiction is to compartmentalize my screen time. I have two phones: one is a tool, and the other is a drug.

I use my "tool phone" to empower me, and I use my "drug phone" to entertain me. I went through my apps and asked: "does this app give me energy, or does it take my energy?". If the app was extracting my attention and energy, I moved it onto my drug phone. This might seem a little extreme, but phones and the apps are really out of control. I genuinely think our devices are polarizing and stupefying us.

And from a productivity perspective, I've found I can't take full advantage of the power of my phone, if it is constantly tempting me to check Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc.

I keep the drug phone *quite literally* locked away for most of the day.

Obviously this isn't the most practical solution, but most people have an old phone laying around that can be repurposed.

If using a second phone isn't practical, then the best thing you can do is set screen time limits on all of the troublesome applications, remove them from your home screen, and disable their notifications. I still don't think this is sufficient, which is why I have compartmentalized my screen time into two separate devices.

This one change has unlocked several hours each day, and has given me peace of mind that money can't buy.

Start using your phone as a tool, you won't regret it.

12. Let Your Phone Read To You

Now, in the final "root" for this letter, I'll share the single biggest productivity hack I have found in the past 5 years.

This hack only works on iPhone, but here are the steps:

Go to your settings > accessibility > spoken content > toggle "speak screen"

Okay, here is what you just did...

Now, when you swipe down from the top of your screen with two fingers, your phone will automatically start reading the content on your screen to you at whichever speed you would like.

This feature was originally designed for the vision impaired, but holy smokes, this one iPhone setting has been the single biggest productivity hack I've found in the last 5 or 6 years.

Over the past I have, without a doubt, had my phone read hundreds of hours of content to me. I've covered more ground than would ever be possible with just my eyeballs.

Yes, the voice is a little robotic. Deal with it. You are having a computer read to you, it isn't going to sound like Obama. Under the same accessibility settings you can select "Tom" under enhanced voices. It is powered by AI and is rock solid. We live in the future.

Give this feature a shot, experiment with it, you won't regret it. It isn't perfect but I absolutely swear by it and I will have future letters dedicated to how I am using it to improve my mindset, learn new things, etc.

Using this feature is like listening to a podcast (hosted by a robot). Even if you don't like to read, just enable this one setting. It will allow you to cruise through the letters I send you, as well as any other text-based content on your phone.

I can't recommend this highly enough, so test it out with today's letter!

Hello? Are you still there? Amazing. This was the longest letter I’ve sent, so if you made it this far - thank you.

I’ll continue this letter next week. Next Saturday, I will cover the most important “body roots” you can cultivate to support your personal growth tree.

So, if you have been waiting for me to cover topics like exercise, nutrition, or cold therapy, then definitely check your inbox next week.

Keep growing.

- Cliff