39 - Habits of Success

Habits of Success

What if nearly half of what you do every day happens without you consciously thinking about it?

In this episode of Become The Leader, Jody Holland, Mike Grigsby, and Meghan Slaughter explore how habits shape our success, leadership, energy, and personal growth. Rather than relying on motivation or willpower, successful people intentionally build routines and systems that move them toward their goals.

Jody shares his personal Key Three—learn something, teach something, and create revenue—and explains how identifying a few repeatable behaviors can make progress far more automatic.

Key Takeaways

1. Your habits eventually become part of who you are.
The word *habit* is rooted in the idea of how you “hold yourself.” Repeated actions eventually become second nature and help shape identity.

2. Identify your Key Three.
Ask yourself: *What three things, if I consistently did them every day, would make success significantly more likely?

Jody’s business Key Three:
- Learn something.
- Teach something.
- Create revenue.

3. Forget the 21-day rule.
Habit formation varies significantly by individual and behavior. Research discussed in the episode suggests an average closer to 66 days rather than the commonly repeated 21-day claim.

4. Design your environment instead of depending on discipline.
Willpower is difficult to sustain. Build routines, cues, environments, and systems that naturally lead you toward the behaviors you want.

5. Turn goals into daily behaviors.
A goal tells you where you want to go. A habit determines whether you actually get there. Ask:

What habit would make this goal almost automatic?

Five Habits of Successful Leaders

Create clarity each morning.
Identify your top one to three priorities before allowing email, notifications, and other people’s priorities to take control of your day.

Protect your energy.
Sleep, movement, nutrition, and recovery aren't separate from leadership performance—they support it.

Write your goals and connect them to habits.
Don't simply identify what you want. Determine what you need to consistently do to achieve it.

Reflect and prepare.
Take time at the end of the day to evaluate what happened, learn from it, and prepare intentionally for tomorrow.

Grow deliberately.
Read. Learn. Attend training. Seek coaching. Participate in conversations that stretch your thinking. Growth rarely happens accidentally.

Quotable Moments

“ What are the three things that, if you did those things every day, your success would become automatic?”
— Jody Holland

“If I learn, teach, and bill for it, my success becomes automatic.”
— Jody Holland

“Doing something to grow every single day will set you up for success down the road.”
— Meghan Slaughter

“What habit makes the goal automatic?”
— Jody Holland

“The engine that drives your habit is your character.”
— Mike Grigsby

“Character is who you are when no one is watching. Habits are what happen when no one is applauding.”
— Mike Grigsby

“The public applause that's missing is actually substituted by fulfilling the promise you made to yourself.”
— Mike Grigsby

“Don't rely on willpower. Rely on habits and systems.”
— Jody Holland

The Leadership Challenge

Take a few minutes and identify your own Key Three.

What are three behaviors that, performed consistently, would dramatically improve your leadership, health, relationships, business, or personal success?

Then stop waiting to feel motivated.

Build those behaviors into your environment and your routine until success becomes less dependent on how you feel—and more dependent on the systems you have intentionally created.

Become the leader you would follow.