From Struggles to Strength:

How James Clear, Alex Hormozi, and Dan Koe are transforming my life.

I’ve always wanted to change, but I didn’t know where to start. Then, I found guidance from James Clear, Alex Hormozi, and Dan Koe—mentors who’ve shaped my journey both online and in my personal life.

I started following Alex Hormozi on Instagram because he talks about what I’m passionate about—honest insights on starting and running a business. He doesn’t sugarcoat things, and that’s what drew me in. His advice has been my go-to for understanding the realities of business.

Dan Koe’s content popped up from YouTube recommendation algorithm, and though I bookmarked it, I didn’t watch it right away. A few weeks ago, I finally clicked play, and it hit me. His ideas about the one-person business model and the impact of writing spoke to me. He’s made millions serving humanity, working just four hours a day—proving that focus and the right strategy can take you far.

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, came into my life through a borrowed book. His approach to building good habits and breaking bad ones gave me the tools to start changing my life in small but powerful ways. It’s about becoming a better version of myself—healthier, wealthier, and more confident.

Here’s how I’m building my personal brand, prioritizing my health, and pursuing a life of continuous improvement, inspired by these mentors. I hope this journey resonates with those seeking self-improvement and serves as a guide for anyone on a similar path. If this can help me, I believe it can help others too.

Push-up Habit

Seventy-one days ago, I decided to start doing push-ups every day. My initial goal? To hit 100 push-ups within 30 minutes each day. Well, it didn’t go as planned. For the first four weeks, I couldn’t hit that target. On my first two days, I managed 20 reps twice, 15 reps twice, 10 reps once, and 5 reps four times—adding up to 100 push-ups, but it took me a whole hour. By the third and fourth days, I could only squeeze out 10 and 5 push-ups, and I was done. My biceps, triceps, and chest were on fire from those first two days, and it knocked me back hard.

But now, 71 days and 7,100 push-ups later, I’ve made some serious progress. I can now confidently knock out 50 reps twice in just 5-7 minutes.

My next goal? To reach between 70-100 reps, seven times a day, totaling 500 push-ups daily, and I’m giving myself six months to get there. To make this happen, I’m changing up my strategy. I plan to do my first 200 push-ups before and after brushing my teeth—100 reps each. The next 200 will be before and after my shower, and the final 100 push-ups right before bed.

This approach is called “habit stacking,” a technique I picked up from James Clear’s Atomic Habits. Habit stacking is about pairing a new habit with something you already do daily. It could be anything from waking up, brushing your teeth, or getting ready for bed. Here’s how you can start: first, make a list of your daily actions. Then, find a spot where you can stack a new habit before or after one of those actions. For example, if you want to start reading more, make it the first thing you do in the morning when you sit at your desk, or the last thing you do before bed. If you’re looking to save more money, set aside 5 or 10 percent of your budget every time before you go shopping. Habit stacking makes it natural and easier to stick to new habits.

Give it a shot with any habit you want to build in your life—it’s a game-changer.

Hydration Hack

We’ve all heard it: water makes up about 66% of our bodies, and we should drink at least 8 glasses or 2 liters of water every day. But here’s the real question—how often do you actually stay hydrated? How much water do you drink daily? I’m not a health professional, but from what I’ve learned, staying hydrated has clear benefits. Did you know that not all headaches are due to malaria? Some are your brain’s way of signaling that you need more water.

Here are some quick facts about our bodies and water:

• The human body is about 66% water.
• Bones are 22% water.
• Muscles are 76% water.
• Blood is 83% water.
• Lungs are 90% water.
• The brain is 95% water.

So why should you drink more water?

• It improves blood oxygen circulation.
• It helps keep your skin bright.
• It regulates body temperature.
• It aids in waste excretion through perspiration, urination, and defecation.

Convinced to drink more water? Let me share how I’ve started drinking more recently. I’ll admit, I never used to drink enough water. That changed after reading James Clear’s Atomic Habits. One key idea from the book is if you want to build a habit, make it obvious. Making it obvious means creating an environment that supports the habit you want to form, which is a more effective and sustainable approach.

Here’s how I made it obvious with my hydration habit, and you can too. Just follow these three simple steps:

1. Find a water bottle that makes drinking water easy for you. The less effort it takes to open the bottle, the better. The goal is to reduce any friction.
2. Always keep the water bottle on your work desk. I keep mine right next to my laptop where I spend most of the day. Trust me, you’ll drink more water when it’s within reach and in sight. Your brain will send a cue, and you’ll start craving water.
3. Refill your water bottle as soon as you take your last gulp.

That’s it—no tricks. If you haven’t started yet, get going today. Set a goal to double your water intake over the next 2, 3, or 6 months. I used to drink far less water than I should, but that doesn’t matter now. These days, I’m averaging 1,110 ml (37.53 oz) daily, and my goal is to double that in the next 6 to 12 months. You can apply this method to any habit you want to build. For me, it’s more effective than relying on motivation or discipline. Set up an environment that favors the habit you want to build, and that environment will constantly trigger the urge to follow through.

Reading Hack

Quick question: how many books have you read in your entire life? How many of those were from this year? And what were they about? For me, I’ve read no more than four books in my entire life—Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, The Unfair Advantage by Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba, Think Big by Ben Carson, and Atomic Habits by James Clear, in that order. This year, I’m focused on reading and re-reading one book: Atomic Habits. Despite only reading one book this year, I’ve taken screenshots of more than 10 different books and written down about 5 titles on my to-do list—all on self-improvement and bettering myself.

There’s a wide range of books out there—self-improvement, financial, fiction, novels. You can read any kind of book at any point in your life, but the key question is: what are you looking to gain from them? Whether it’s for fun, research, or, like me, focusing on self-improvement (social, financial and self-fulfillment), your reason for reading matters. For me, I want to be a better version of myself and achieve financial independence.

Most people struggle to read a book, even though they know all the benefits of reading. They’d rather spend time on social media or watching movies—which isn’t bad, by the way. I was the same, but I’m breaking that norm. I’ve developed and am constantly refining a reading routine for myself, and you might find it beneficial too. No motivation or discipline needed, because let’s be honest, those fade after a week or two.

The first time I read the book was about 73 days ago, over a span of 21 days, averaging 10 pages a day. I’m currently reading it again for the second time and getting more out of it than my first read.

The strategies I developed for reading actually come from the book I’m reading—Atomic Habits. It’s funny how I found a practical use for what I’m reading.

Here’s how I manage my reading habit:

1. Get a hard copy of the book you want to read. Sure, there are plenty of free ebooks and audiobooks to make reading affordable and enjoyable, but I still recommend going old school with a physical copy. This way, you don’t mix old habits with new ones in the same environment. Think about it: reading an ebook on your phone, tablet, or laptop—how many distractions or temptations could pull you away? Social media, messages, calls, games, notifications—the list goes on. The chances of actually concentrating on the ebook are pretty slim. If you can manage it, by all means, go for it. But a hard copy keeps you focused.
2. Place the book where you’ll notice it at least once a day. This spot will vary from person to person and environment to environment. You might keep it under your pillow and read for 10 minutes before bed. Or place it on your favorite couch so you have to move it before sitting down. Or, like me, keep it on your work desk. I have mine next to my laptop, where I spend most of my day. This has been very effective for me—I’ve found it easy to spare an hour each day to read a chapter. Find your spot, and it’ll become natural for you to read your book.
3. Put the book back in its spot when you’re done reading. Don’t be tempted to carry your book around the room. Trust me, you’ll forget where you left it. Instead, make it a habit to return it to its “spot” after reading.
4. Handling missed reading sessions. No matter how close the book is, there will be times when you just don’t feel like reading, or someone borrows it and doesn’t return it on time, or you’re away from where you keep it. When this happens, don’t quit or feel bad. It’s normal—just restart your reading routine. Before you know it, you’ll be back on track.
5. Reading session duration. If you want reading to become a lifelong habit, don’t rush into it with 30 pages or 2-hour sessions on your first, second, or third attempt. Give your habit space and time to grow—enjoy the process. Come on, give it a break; it’s something new you’re adding to your life. To start, I’d recommend planning to read for just 10-15 minutes a day for the first 2-4 weeks. Once your 10 minutes are up, close the book and do something else. If you want to keep reading, go ahead, but if you find yourself struggling, take a break and do something else. You don’t want reading to become stressful—it should be enjoyable. This way, maintaining the habit will become second nature to you.

After the first 4 weeks, gradually increase the time, say every 2 weeks or a month, depending on what feels comfortable and has the least friction. I currently set aside one hour each day to read, with the occasional day missed. I’m not planning to increase that time anytime soon, but I’ll adjust if I feel the urge. For now, I’m in it for the fun and growth.

Writing Hack

Writing is the foundation of every form of media you can think of—speech, news, songs, tweets, social media captions, comments, YouTube videos, podcasts, articles, books, audio, and even movie scripts. It all starts with writing, which is crazy when you think about it.

After following my biggest mentor, Dan Koe, for about 80 days, listening to his stories, advice, and content, I decided to venture into writing. Dan is a huge advocate for writing, and he’s the reason I decided to pursue my dream of building a personal brand. The plan was simple: build a personal brand within 3 years by becoming more active on Twitter, starting a newsletter, offering mentorship, skilling up, and expanding my network to increase reach and offer more services. Now, 71 days later, I can proudly say it’s all going according to plan. I’m more active on Twitter, I’ve successfully started a newsletter—this is the fourth one—and I’m actively mentoring one student. The next phase is to improve—by that, I mean enhancing my writing and communication skills to make them more attractive and potentially draw in more people.

Let me dive into my newsletter writing—both the process and the goals—hoping you already see why you should start writing if you haven't already. Writing a good article or newsletter begins with brainstorming ideas you want to address, identifying your target audience, and figuring out how you want to address them effectively. I often experience a bit of irony when brainstorming—I have so much to talk about, yet at the same time, nothing comes to mind. Crazy, right? The brainstorming process starts with deciding on a topic and jotting down anything relevant that comes to mind. This usually happens in point form, with phrases of about 4-9 words. Whatever thoughts come to mind are noted down in my Google Notes.

After brainstorming, the next step is to draft rough paragraphs from the points I’ve gathered. Related points are grouped together in the same or adjacent paragraphs. At this stage, I’m not worried about grammar or spelling; the focus is on constructing related sentences and paragraphs, ensuring there’s no repetition.

The third step is to go through the paragraphs, improving sentence structure and moving related sentences around to ensure the entire paragraph flows smoothly. Reframing sentences is often necessary, and I make sure that the next paragraph ties in with the current one.

The fourth step is leveraging ChatGPT to double-check spelling, flow, and sentence structure. I take a paragraph or subtopic, feed it into ChatGPT, and ask it to check for spelling, ensure the main idea flows, and reframe sentences if needed. As this happens, I also make my own corrections to ensure the ideas flow as I expect.

The fifth and final step is posting the content as a newsletter on Substack and as an article on LinkedIn long posts. This happens after prompting ChatGPT for a suitable title—one that captures attention.

I believe my newsletter is the best it can be at this stage, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to make it perfect. I want to keep improving. Currently, my newsletter has one subscriber with two likes from the last three articles I posted. I want to know what my readers like and develop a framework to attract new subscribers. I’m actively promoting my newsletter on X to get more subscribers. The time I spend on writing a newsletter is about 6 hours over the last 3 days leading up to posting. I want to shift to spending 2 hours daily and track any improvements associated with that. My consistency is decent, but I need to stick to a specific day of the week for posting and maintain that schedule. I’ve chosen Wednesday for this task.

I want to make significant improvements in my articles in the least amount of time. What better way to do that than by learning from successful newsletter accounts? I’m planning to conduct 10 interviews with successful account owners, those with more than 100 subscribers, before the year ends. Through these interviews, there’s a chance of getting shoutouts, proofreading help, tips on writing better articles, insights into what didn’t work for them so I can avoid those mistakes early on, how they draft their articles, their newsletter community, paid subscription plans, how they promote their newsletters, how much time they spend, and when they got started. I’m confident I’ll learn a lot more and a lot faster than if I were to try everything on my own.

Typing Quest

Did you know the average typing speed is around 40 WPM (words per minute)? How fast can you type? Test your speed right now using TypingTest.com . You can double or even triple that speed. My current speed is 55 WPM, a personal best from today.

If you're an online creator or wanna survive in creators economy, having a high typing speed is a crucial investment. Most of your ideas start with typing—whether it's drafting an article, writing comments, or posting on social media. Being able to type as fast as you think makes you incredibly productive. If you’re the fastest typist in a room, you flex.

I was inspired to type faster by Ali Abdaal, whose typing speed is around 157 WPM. When I started, my speed was about 32 WPM, below the average. Now, I’m at 48 WPM with 90% accuracy. My goal was to double or triple my speed, and I'm making progress.

To improve your typing speed, start with touch typing—typing without looking at the keyboard. I used keybr.com to learn this. It teaches finger positioning, which initially drops your speed (mine went from 32 to 21 WPM), but with practice, I can now type without looking at the keyboard. The effort has definitely paid off.

Once you master touch typing, focus on speed and accuracy. I use monkeytype.com because it mimics real-world typing and feels like a graduation from keybr.com . The key lesson I’ve learned is to prioritize accuracy over speed. Speed is a byproduct of accuracy, not the other way around. So, try doubling your speed too—it’s incredibly satisfying to type faster and faster.

Final thoughts

My journey towards self-improvement has been a mix of physical challenges, mental growth, and the pursuit of personal goals. With the guidance of mentors like James Clear, Alex Hormozi, and Dan Koe, I’ve found practical strategies to build habits, and make myself better. Each step, no matter how small, brings me closer to becoming the best version of myself. I hope sharing these experiences encourages you to start or continue your own journey—because if I can do it, so can you.

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