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Hi Team,

I thoroughly enjoyed the BBQ at Omar St on Friday afternoon despite the awful weather. It is such a great long standing DDB tradition that Veka has established with putting on a Lamb spit roast. I am only sorry that it has been so long since our last Lamb spit.

Lyle, Will and I had a great day last Thursday when we attended the "Future Of Leadership 2019" seminar. We were thoroughly entertained and informed by 8 inspiring speakers who covered all the different aspects of leadership. The highlight of the day was the amazingly witty Master of Ceremonies and the communal rock band finale during which Will was dancing up on stage (you will need to ask Will all about that!). I will revisit the main take away's from this seminar when I cover the topic of leadership in coming weeks. 

This weeks main topic is one that I truly believe is vital to any level of success in life, that is "the importance of establishing your own good habits and routines".

"Depending on what they are, your habits will either make you or break you. We become what we repeatedly do"  Sean Covey

One of the biggest challenges in life today is managing the vast quantity of choices we are all faced with every day. Numerous studies have shown that too many options and choices can greatly contribute to our personal level of stress and anxiety. One of the most effective ways to reduce stress is to reduce the number of decisions we need to make each day by developing good habits and routines. This can be as simple as having a set routine each morning that you follow to go from bed to work with the minimum number of decisions and choices. This is why super successful people such as, Steve jobs, Elon Musk, Warren Buffet and Jeff Bezos all have a very limited wardrobe of clothes they wear each day, by eliminating any decisions of what to wear each morning. They know the value of sticking to a set routine and by doing so they "de-clutter" their thought process.

I am a firm believer that for the first and last hour of each work day you should follow a set routine. I personally enjoy following an early morning routine from when I get out of bed to when I get to the office and I have followed pretty much the same process for a number of years. I find that following this morning routine greatly simplifies my life and allows me to think about the day ahead and not have to deal with a myriad of small decisions.

"Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action and the architect of accomplishment"  Zig Ziglar

The wide ranging benefits of meditation and mindfulness practices are well known and are universally practiced by the majority of high achieving people in business, sport and the arts. All meditation and mindfulness practices are based on different techniques for clearing the mind by reducing or eliminating the constant flow of thoughts. Following good routines and habits each day can have similar benefits to meditation.

Some of the biggest long term benefits in life come from having healthy habits around food and exercise. Your long term habits and routines for purchasing, preparing and consuming food and how you exercise, largely determine who you are physically and mentally. Fit, healthy successful people are not born that way. They are who they are because they have established the types of habits and routines that other people either don't like or are unable to maintain. 

"The secret of your success is found in your daily routine"  Unknown.

Thanks for reading,
David.