Hey, it’s Mike Cooch of LVRG.

I’ve got a personal story for you here that has a very, very important business lesson for you as well.

You know, I’m getting old, I’m in my mid-forties. One of the things that I noticed a handful of years ago was that my current fitness routine and diet we’re no longer working as well as they used to. My metabolism was slowing down a little bit and it was getting a little bit harder to keep the weight off. My weight and body fat was creeping up.

Getting help

When I looked in the mirror, I no longer felt like that young athletic buck that I was hoping to look like. So I decided to hire a trainer for the first time in my life.

I’ve always been into health and fitness. I’ve always watched what I eat and I always exercise consistently, but I realized I needed to change it up. I needed somebody that had some different strategies and approaches that could help me.

So I hired a trainer.

This guy is known as one of the best in the industry in southern California. Southern California, of course, is one of the best places in the world for getting that kind of help. He put together a program for me that has worked for thousands of his clients and it worked for me.

The weight came off, I got lean and added a bunch of muscle in a very short period of time.

Got results but miserable

BUT I was miserable.

It was a very low-fat diet and I never felt satisfied with my meals and I had to like pre-plan and pack my meals every day.

It was ridiculous to me. I had all these meals packed and all these Tupperware containers that I carried around in a cooler bag that I would have with me all the time. Even in work.

So I had to eat these very specific meals at specific times, all of this type of stuff, which did not work in my lifestyle at all.

I’m running businesses, I’ve got three kids, I run around with my hair on fire and this idea that I have to only eat very certain specific things at certain times is not going to work for me.

It was just not conducive to the lifestyle that I live.

So it just stopped working for me. I was miserable the whole time and I felt like I was struggling every day to try to follow this approach, even though it was getting results and it was working well for me.

I eventually quit it.

If you’re doing something that makes you miserable every day at some point or another, you’re gonna quit. And that’s what I did and I got great results.

Look for a new routine

For a period of time, I was really happy with it and went back to some of my old routines. I started eating how I wanted, hiking, exercising and all that good stuff.

But sure enough, the weight started coming back on and I started getting less lean in the last six months or so. I realized that I went back up to my old weight again. I’m getting soft again and I’m not as solid as I used to be.

And I was frustrated. I was like, “Man, I have to change this again.”

So I went on the hunt based on what I learned from the previous experience. I went on to look for some new strategies and I found some new ones. I’ve found some people that had complained about similar things with these low-fat diets.

That’s when I discovered Keto Diet, which is actually eating a very high-fat diet.

People felt more satisfied that they were much more satisfied with their meals when they were following a high-fat diet and they were actually losing weight like crazy.

They were losing weight faster than when they follow a low-fat diet.

So here’s this totally different strategy and approach that I would have never occurred to me but I decided to give it a shot.

Sure enough, when I started eating a high-fat diet, the weight started falling off of me. I was getting lean and it was easy.

I was satisfied when I eat these meals because they had a lot of fat in them and I didn’t feel like I was starving myself.

In fact, I eat huge meals a couple of times a day and I feel so satisfied. I just love it. I can eat this way for the rest of my life and I don’t have to pre-plan my meals. It’s very easy for me to go out to a restaurant and find something to eat that fits within the approach that I’m taking now.

It’s just super easy.

Taking it further

I’ve now got this diet that works for me. It fits my lifestyle and I’m getting lean. I love it.

So the next thing though is that I wanted to take this further.

I wanted to get some change in my workout routines. I’m not interested in being a big muscle head guy. I don’t want to look big like a bodybuilder. That’s just not for me.

No offense to the guys I know. I know a lot of guys want to be big but that’s just not for me.

In fact, my rule was that I don’t want to change any of my clothes because I put on more muscle. I don’t want to get so bulky that I have to go buy new shirts because they don’t fit around my pecs anymore.

I did a research and I found there are certain guys out there that have found these approaches to exercising in weightlifting where they are getting much stronger by developing more muscle mass, but they’re not getting bigger.

They’re staying much leaner and get more cut physiques instead of bigger, bulkier physiques, which is great.

So, I started following that approach. Sure enough, it worked for me. You may not be able to tell, especially if you don’t know me and don’t see me every day.

But I can see in the mirror every day that my physique has totally change. I’ve added much more muscle.  From 22 and a half percent body fat I’ve dropped down to right about 16% last time I tested and that was about 30 days ago.

My guess is that I’m down closer to probably about 14% by now and I’ve added quite a bit of muscle mass, quite a bit of strength, but everything on me is essentially the same size. I haven’t had to change insurance, haven’t had to do anything like that. So I’m very happy with that approach.

Tracking data and measurements

One of the things I learned from that approach was to use certain apps. They help in measuring how I was exercising every day and to measure what I was eating every day. So I will know next time that I go to the gym how many more pounds I can add to my reps.

Now every time I go to the gym I have the data and measurements to know if I am improving. As an entrepreneur and as a goal-oriented guy, I am obsessed with data tracking. When I have that data in front of me I will know exactly how to push myself each time that I go to workout.

Now, I know that I’m on target with my diet by combining those things. I’ve lost weight, I got leaner, meaner and added muscle mass. Also, I’m adding strength because in every workout I’m improving a few gains for every single day. I’m getting those incremental gains because I have the data and I can make sure that I’m doing it.

Then finally, because of this data and strategy in the approach that I’m following, I have the ability to make adjustments and see how it impacts me.

Everybody’s got a different body and specific goals. So somebody designs a fitness program that says to eat this much, this many calories, this percentage of protein fat, do this workout and things like that.

Those things may not work specifically for me, but because I’m tracking that data I can essentially run little tests and start to improve this process. I can tweak it, tune it and make it work just for me.

Some people may need more protein in their diet or more fat in their diet or maybe a bit less. For me, certain exercises may really get results, for other people, not so much.

It’s hard to know that if you don’t have data and you’re not tracking. So this takes us back to the business lesson.

Strategy and measurements for business

The principles that I just described work in anything that you want to improve. Of course, you want to improve and constantly grow your business.

Yet, the far majority of business owners that I meet don’t have a specific strategy. They don’t have the measurements in place that is giving them the data that they need every single day.

They don’t have a strategy nor a process to see if it is working or not. A methodical process for testing, improving and running experiments.

They don’t have that visibility and the measurements to know if it is truly working better today than yesterday.

If you don’t have those things in place, you can’t realistically expect to be able to predictably grow and improve your business. You can’t get better results. You’re just relying on luck and on hope.

One of my favorite sayings in businesses is, “Hope is not a strategy.”

You need to use data and metrics. You need to use a process for improving those metrics that you can rely on every single day. That your team can use because it’s scalable and easy to follow.

I call this a growth operating system at my businesses.

Growth Operating System

Growth operating system is a system that we use for having a clear strategy. We have specific metrics that we use to measure every day in our business. We do it just in a simple Google spreadsheet.

It’s called our daily scorecard.

Every day we’re tracking a certain metric. I look at them first thing every single morning to see what’s improving and what’s not. Then every single day we are running experiments in some area of our business that we’ve determined needs improvement.

We’re using the metrics that we’re tracking to determine in our experiments whether we are moving in the right direction or not.

That’s a growth operating system.

That’s an approach that I can follow every single day to make sure that I’m improving and it’s because of those components.

Because I have a strategy and metrics associated with that strategy that I’m looking at every single day. I have a process for improving those metrics, but those things are universal.

Find anything that you want to improve in your life and take that approach in your business as well. I guarantee you, you will improve.

You will improve those metrics because that’s your nature as an entrepreneur. That’s what we do. We get competitive about this stuff.

You put a number in front of me, I can’t help but try and make that number better and it’s going to be the same thing for you too.

Apply it!

Put it in place. Get your specific strategy in place.

Make sure it’s clear. Make sure it’s defined.

Put metrics in place to measure how you’re doing at executing that strategy and have your process for improving them.

Get the details. I love to help you out with it and let me know how it goes once you applied it. Take care.