Achieving Your Goals in 2026

Scott Schaper: welcome everybody to the Spirit Health and Hustle podcast. I was just telling Brian that I like winging it and said today we're to be talking about habits, New Year's resolutions, sticking to your goals, why things fail and how to So hopefully you can gain some inspiration and a few tips and tricks along the way. How's it going, Brian?

Brian McMaster: And hopefully you can gain some habits. It's Yeah, exactly. ⁓ It's going good, man. It's going good. a lot was a little bit of a struggle, but ⁓ I'm forward to this year. We're coming out of the blocks a little slow. But ⁓ I the I think the year is going to shape up pretty good. How about yourself?

Scott Schaper: some atomic habits. Yeah. Doing well. had a good profit year in 2025. So we had to turn around a lot of our operations, which have really affected in a positive direction our profit. But this year, the focus is on top line growth and adding accounts while we're keeping our old accounts. So it's kind of like you got to start spinning another plate, but don't drop the don't drop the ones you got going. That's the challenge. I think we're prepared for it, though. So I'm really excited.

Brian McMaster: I love it.

Scott Schaper: Well, I just want to start, you know, since we're right at the new year here, we as humans come up with such ⁓ random little lines in the sand for ourselves. As soon as I hit 100,000, as soon as I hit a million, as soon as I hit 10 million, January 1, everything's going to change. I can't wait for the second quarter. Why do we do that to ourselves?

Brian McMaster: That's a good question. we're, we're, ⁓ I think, I first thought that comes to mind to society, society drives, right? You're measured by money. You're measured by success. So, ⁓ know, think so, and I'm guilty of this too, you know, it's like, forget what's important because it's like, I got to get to the next milestone and you know, we ⁓ set these expectations ourselves and they're really not expectations. They're other people's expectations.

Scott Schaper: Yeah.

Brian McMaster: And I think that's what gets us in trouble. And then also we try to do too much. And that's one of the things I'll talk about today is having that subtraction mentality. Because in 2025, was trying to do too much. It's like, yeah, I'm going here, I'm going there, I'm going to this trip, I got this seminar to go to, I got this plane flight, that plane flight. it's like, my last conference I went to, which was in Austin, I didn't even finish the thing. I was sitting at the table in this the storytelling seminar and Amber was actually with me. And I'm like, man, what am I doing here? I mean, you know, it's like, got other things to do. I got other things that are more important to me than this, but it's like, you just feel like you gotta be doing more. And I think that's a product of society. I think it's an expectation that we put on ourselves based on what other people think. And as entrepreneurs, it magnifies it by a hundred times. You know, it's like, I gotta, you know, I gotta be successful. And then we get our pride and our ego involved and then it ⁓ that by a hundred times. So that's where I think it comes from.

Scott Schaper: I make the mistake of thinking busy is productive. Or the financial side, that income is the same as solvency. And you end up substituting what's easy for what's real. ⁓ saying no is hard. And owning that no is even harder.

Brian McMaster: ⁓ yeah. Yeah.

Scott Schaper: And we've talked about this even recently. Everything you say yes to, you got to say no to something. you agree to, you know, this is just in general, but whenever you agree to something, ⁓ goal, or an engagement, you're saying no. You have to figure out what am I saying no to here? What will I forego? Time family, time in the office, time with my salesperson, time with my team. Something's got to for you to get that to happen.

Brian McMaster: Yeah. Yeah. I think it was Deming, wasn't it? William Deming that said, move is not work. mean, you know, we, ⁓ I know he was a man ahead of his time. would have been nice if we would have paid attention to it, then maybe our automotive empire would been bigger, but ⁓ he certainly the Japanese. But yeah, move is not work. So busy ⁓ is not equating into value. And I think that's the other thing for me that, you know, looking ahead to 2026 is,

Scott Schaper: Hmm. I love that guy.

Brian McMaster: When I do say yes or no, a yes is gonna be on what value does it add? ⁓ value does it add to the business, to my lifestyle, to, you ⁓ ⁓ finding even ⁓ on in year here, I mean, we're not, what, six days in, that, you when ask myself that question, it's like immediately I the answer. You know, do I wanna say yes to this? Well, you know what, does it add value? Does that value to my relationship, my life, or my goals for 2026? No, it doesn't. Okay, it's easy. No, just doesn't make sense. So move is not work. I'm not gonna just keep myself busy just to be busy. So. ⁓

Scott Schaper: There's a trap of constant optimization. found myself in. I'm like, I'm driving myself nuts here. I mean, I'm, giving myself anxiety because I haven't optimized enough. And I learned that it kind of in the second half of 2025. And I just started saying no to, um, you know, optimize a little bit, pick one thing that way, you know, if it really works and move on to the next thing, that could be something in your diet, something in your health, something at the gym, something that works something in sales and make, make small. changes. So that brings us to setting goals in the new year. How have you traditionally been with goal setting and goal achievement, especially around New Year's resolutions? Just you personally.

Brian McMaster: You know, I always try to do too much, just like we've been talking about. You know, it's like, I'm gonna get back to my routine. And you just said it yourself. You know, with health optimization. I mean, you know, we've talked about this on the podcast a lot. You know, I have this crazy routine in the morning. And it's like, I feel like I got okay, I got a how can I hack more? How can I add more in? How can I? ⁓ it so I think ⁓ learning for me is, ⁓ less is more. And that goes back to that subtraction mentality. It's if maybe the You know, you take the top three things. What if I just had to do, and that's my happy household group, they ask that question. the one thing that if you did it consistently throughout 2026 would change your life or would change your business? What's the one thing? And you know, I think when you go to that minimalist mentality, it makes things so much easier. It's hard to answer that question because, ⁓ well, 10 things, you know. But it's like, get to that one thing. And I've been really pondering that. haven't put that down yet. I don't owe them that until Wednesday of next week. I for me, traditionally, ⁓ goals have been just way out there. It's like I have a list of ⁓ things I wanna do, get in shape, ⁓ get in better shape. I think what all boils down to is you overestimate what is important and underestimate what is important. So it's like, you know, just, just keep it simple. So for me, that's my motto for, for setting goals in 2026 is keep it simple. I'm going to hone in on that one thing. What's the one thing I can do. ⁓ you know, if things come along the way, then that's fine. And I've

Scott Schaper: So is simplicity your word for 2026?

Brian McMaster: Yeah, I think two words simplicity and set their am up in the game again, simplicity and consistency. ⁓ So keep it simple, but also keep it consistent. And, and then not let forces or people or that type of stuff kind of throw me off the rails. And, know, keep just keep coming back to that one consistent thing. This would make ⁓ a lot difference. How about you?

Scott Schaper: Mm-hmm. I have not, you I have looked at goals in terms of the wrong way over the years. And I've looked at them as ⁓ something to achieve. Like I'll ⁓ do some and I'll get there. And ⁓ it was platitude of saying that this is my goal that felt good. And it really it was, I fell short in the accomplishment. And I think really what changed for me, especially in the last two years, is saying, you know, it's kind of like you can't lose weight, but you can do stuff to make you lose a pound this week. What are those three things? Eat three days, eat really healthy, pick the other three days and figure out how you're gonna fill that in. Go into the gym.

Brian McMaster: Yeah.

Scott Schaper: And I have, I have put like, you know, like this week, ⁓ will hit one 93. That's all I need to do is achieve a one and a half pound weight loss. If I get a little bit more, I can pat myself on the back, but all I need to do is just hit that. It's one pound a week is what I have. ⁓ I don't have a big weight loss goal this year. It's just continuation of last year. just to shed that, that little bit of fat that I have in my, ⁓

Brian McMaster: Yeah.

Scott Schaper: I determined to get down to 12 % body fat. I'm at 16. So it's not that much more. So that's really achievable, but breaking down.

Brian McMaster: Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah.

Scott Schaper: what a goal means into very, very achievable steps is key for me. It's figuring out why things failed before. It's because I didn't put a process in place. So a process and a system, I think I'll continue with those words. Those words have served me in prior years is what is the smallest thing that I can do to further this goal? And then realize that, you know, it's not by 1231, it's not by 6.1. I need to do these things. this week. So that's only five business days. And I put that on my list of my top three things, kind of following your guideline from a few weeks ago. ⁓ do those things. Because I can't lose weight, but I definitely can show up at the gym ⁓ a workout.

Brian McMaster: Yeah. Yeah. You know, another thing that could be value to our listeners too is, know, when you're setting goals and you're putting these things ⁓ place that you wanna ⁓ actionable tasks in, I think is identity. a of, ⁓ you know, I wanna quit drinking alcohol. And it's been hurdle for me for a long time. It's like, you know, social events and all that kind of stuff. I think it was Tony Robbins that I first heard this from was, was create an identity. So instead of, you know, I want to quit drinking or I'm gonna quit drinking or something like that. I'm not a drinker. So, you know, all of a sudden I don't drink, you know, just just an identity. And I think that helps develop goals around it and also put your mindset in a different in a in a really different place. So I'm gonna work on that one for the, because alcohol just, know, as you know, I'm a healthy guy and it's like, we go out and oh yeah, let's have a beer, you know, and beer turns into two and then turns into three. And it's not like I'm drunk, but it still just doesn't make me feel good. So it's like, man, what am I doing? Well, I'm gonna work on that as an identity. I'm just someone who prioritizes those things and that's one thing that's always gotten away from me. So that's a big goal for 2026.

Scott Schaper: Yeah. Yeah. a goal for me, I did my weight loss goal. have a couple financial goals. One is personal, one is business, but are very ⁓ short and succinct, which is nice and a process for getting those. But ⁓ I also want to start ⁓ like great. Last year, if I look back, we didn't start a podcast. What we did is we got, we went to your office and started talking into microphones and stumbling our way for the next eight weeks through tech. It really wasn't, I mean, it turned into a podcast, but those small steps is like, let's just show up. So whatever your goals are, just see how can you show up for them? And that's what I'm, I want to start another podcast this year. I've talked about that.

Brian McMaster: Hmph. Yep. Yeah. A-Action.

Scott Schaper: I want to start an advisory group ⁓ the marketing space. So that's my big one.

Brian McMaster: Yeah, you had talked about that as well. That's awesome. That's good stuff. man. ⁓ like said, consistency. It's consistency. not discipline. think discipline sucks. Everybody talks about discipline. ⁓ you got to be disciplined. Discipline is like a bad word when we go back to that identity. But I think the consistency around those things, like you had talked about losing weight, if you take small chunks, I think that's another one Tony Robbins talks about is chunking. You know, let's just get the first week in and then build on that or habit stacking, I think is what it's called in atomic habits. But you think about compounding. I mean, if you do that and you do that consistently and you do something new every day until you make it a habit, 30 days, 45 days, then you can add something else into it.

Scott Schaper: Yeah.

Brian McMaster: and compounding by the end of the year. Man, it's huge changes. So, yeah, it's good stuff.

Scott Schaper: The problem with goals and I'll just for our listeners here's something that you want the problem with goals is their intentions which are fantastic. should set intentions, but they're not instructive. So get healthier, make more money, be more productive, have a podcast. Though the brain doesn't know what actions to take, there's no instructive actions. There's no way. So if there's no instructive actions, there's no way to measure progress. So if you fix that, take your intentions and then put four or five bullet points underneath them, which are specific behaviors with a frequency and a timing every week, every Monday, every Tuesday afternoon during my sales meetings. Whatever that frequency is, there's got to be a specific behavior. Your brain can do that and you can write it down on a list, use whatever kind of productivity tool you want. So that's one is the goal is too vague with intentions. The second thing is they rely on motivation instead of systems. That was my downfall for years is being motivated. Like you said, discipline feels like the opposite of being human. it's like military, term.

Brian McMaster: Yeah. Yeah. Yay.

Scott Schaper: Motivation is temporary life, you know, just as continuous. So it fades after your fresh start. And then two weeks later, you're kind of stuck in your old habits because that motivation is just temporary. what takes over fatigue, know, drinking distractions, social, family stress. So the fix to that is to build a routine, build a schedule. And you read atomic habits, you'll find that work when motivation is low. So he talks about habit stacking, for example, the trigger is I'm brushing my teeth. As soon as I set my toothbrush down, I'm going to review my priorities. So there's a trigger and a habit stack there that goes. the goal, sometimes the goal is too big.

Brian McMaster: Yeah, yeah, that's, that's good. We you know, the other thing. Yeah, I was I was just gonna go there. simplification. You know, make it small, make it easy, make it easy to be successful and then build on your success. mean, ⁓ again, it's it's, you know, as entrepreneurs, we bite off more than we can chew, or we try to do, you know, too many things at one time. But ⁓ you if you make it easy to have a success, then that then you can keep building on that success as well. And the other thing is measuring to You know, it's one of the biggest ⁓ or of the most valuable health measurements to me is HRV, heart rate And it's very easy to measure with a device that you put on your wrist, ⁓ but measuring and seeing that measurement could also be blood sugar, you know, looking at your blood sugar. You know, you eat a donut and your blood sugar goes through the roof. ⁓ You know, keeps you honest. So ⁓ making sure you're measuring what you're doing is important as well. But, ⁓ you know, it simple, keep it consistent and make it measurable.

Scott Schaper: Yeah.

Brian McMaster: Just like you're saying, you got to have an action plan. So.

Scott Schaper: I think people like I've been going, you know, been going to the same gym for the last year and a half. And now it's first week in January and there's a lot of new people around. Right. And I don't want to judge people. They should be there. I'm glad they are. There are some people from last January that are still there, so I'm really rooting for them.

Brian McMaster: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Scott Schaper: their goal is too big and too fast a lot of times. So a daily workout just will not with daily after zero consistency. I've never done it. So now I'm going to go daily. It's kind of like an extreme diet, extreme fasting, massive productivity overhauls to your entire system just will not drive results. You'll frustrate with the, you know, after week one, you'll kind of start going back and start eliminating things.

Brian McMaster: Yeah.

Scott Schaper: So you'll get burnout, miss days, guilt, emotional cycle of guilt, quit, start over February 15th, that sort of thing. When really, yeah, you can just start off with the smallest viable habit and scale very gradually, just after you it a couple pounds, adjust ⁓ and feel to adjust your progress.

Brian McMaster: Just the pain. Good goal is just to move. move. mean, ⁓ exactly. Yeah.

Scott Schaper: Read one page a day. If you're not, I'm not a reader. I can read one page a day and I can build to two in about four weeks. And it's just about starting really small and having really tiny progress because progress over zero should should be goal. My personal goal for working out isn't to get strong, isn't to be better, blah, blah, blah, blah. My goal with working out is to do it tomorrow. That is it.

Brian McMaster: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Schaper: And so I will not push myself, you know, like, like a bodybuilder. know, I know what bodybuilders do. They're, they're tough on themselves. They're disciplined. They, they, they press and to failure. they take their protein and they come back the next week and they're the results show it. That's just not what I need to do when I'm in my fifties. My goal is to be there tomorrow. ⁓ Not weak knees. Cause if I wake up with weak knees, I'm not going to the gym or soreness. ⁓

Brian McMaster: Yeah, yeah, I mean. Yeah. It's funny, funny how and I've had this happen many times in my life, you wake up and you justify yourself why you should stay in bed or why you shouldn't, you know, it's like you start it. That's, that's why to me it's important that as soon as you open your eyes, you got to hop up, just, just hop out of it. Cause if you lay there and you think, know, and some, you know, sometimes I'll lay there and I'll pray or, know, something along those lines. If you're doing something productive, it's one thing, but if you lay there and think your, mind works on you know, hey, it's warm in here. Hey, you know, I don't, I think I'm gonna just stay here for another 10 minutes. ⁓ doesn't work either. So it's ⁓ just a matter of ⁓ contemplating with yourself and just saying, out of bed, get out and move. ⁓ think... ⁓

Scott Schaper: Have your workout close with right there in arm's reach. Mine is always stacked up in a pile, ready to go.

Brian McMaster: Exactly. Yep, exactly. So it's easy to do. It's easy to, again, we go back to making it easy, just make it easy to move. But I think that's the, another funny one. I've been ⁓ been listening to Tony Robbins, again, I've done a lot of his work. But, ⁓ know, he talked about his wife at one point, which is now his ex wife. And she had the greatest equipment, I have to go to Dix and I got to get I gotta get the equipment and I gotta get a water bottle and I gotta get the towel and I gotta get all the stuff. And he's like, you don't need any of that stuff. You just need to move. You know, it's like, you don't need to look good while you're doing this. You just need to get up and move. And I think that for the bulk of our whole country, really our whole world, that's what it's all about. Just get up and move for 10 minutes. That's another thing that I have as a goal as well as mobility. mobility work, just 10 to 15 minutes of mobility work every morning. And if I do five days a week, that's fine, but just getting up, foam rolling, stretching, doesn't have to be anything crazy. Doesn't have to be, you know, some stretch routine that's on TikTok or whatever. Just get up, do a couple downward dogs, you know, stretch your back up and, and yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and it feels great to stretch. I mean, yeah.

Scott Schaper: Your heart starts moving, doesn't it? You can feel it. With run, I said, yeah, I love it. I started running last year. That was tough. I not a runner. And so I was shocked at how little I could run without getting to quickly. ⁓ So I can I run for 60 seconds?

Brian McMaster: Yeah, so that's a big goal.

Scott Schaper: And I'm like, I can, I can go 60 seconds. a timer right on the treadmill or on my watch. And so I ran for 60 seconds and I'm like, I'm going to do that ⁓ three this week after my workout. And then I got to two minutes and then I thought, can I go for five minutes? I finally got to five minutes, which was weeks of progress.

Brian McMaster: Mmm.

Scott Schaper: And then I formed a running playlist on my iPhone. every song is about 3 and 1 minutes. So I'm like, I'm going to do two songs. That's it. These are songs that I love. They're distracting. And I can get through two songs. And eventually, I worked up to 35 minutes of running. And I was just shocked. But it took me

Brian McMaster: Nice.

Scott Schaper: 120 days. ⁓ I feel like is a short amount of time to get to three. That was three and a half miles. ⁓ I was shocked. It's just tiny little, just tiny little movements. ⁓ is.

Brian McMaster: Yeah. Well, running is on your body. ⁓ with as much as we sit and ⁓ not active, but is so important. Whether you're ice bath in that sauna, whatever, recovery is important. And I think that goes to a lot of these people that run these marathons and these ultra marathons and all that kind of stuff, they have heart problems and they keel over from a heart attack. So a lot of people don't realize how hard running is and how much you need to recover. That's one of the things that I've always been focused on is recovery. I I look at my recovery score every day. It's like, did I sleep good? Did I sleep enough? Did my body recover? Am I ready to hit it again? I think that's ⁓ another, HRV, that's another recovery statistic. it's something I keep an eye on. But ⁓ yeah, tried to run. When I when I did my fourth degree black belt, I had to do four miles and I wasn't running so I I started working my way up to it and man I'm telling you my adductor tendons and you know, I mean it was it was brutal

Scott Schaper: My knees, my ankles, a few things. I developed little aches and pains here and I thought, is this because I'm old, older? Is this because I'm new at running? Is my body just adjusting? Am I going to have to deal with this pain at all times? I put a knee brace on to kind of have a little extra support, but it went away. By the time I hit that 30, that 35 minute run, they were all gone. It was just my body adjusting to a new set of pressure and a new, a new sequence of movement. Because I was at that time walking 10,000 steps a day and I'm like, man, this is weird I thought I could just graduate to running in my body would be like, okay. Yeah, no problem go but it wasn't It took a it took a little bit of pain and I was very I don't want to run through pain I don't want to say is this a problem? Or is this an adjustment? Because you don't want to run through a problem. It's okay to adjust. But eventually it all went away and I ran today again and yeah, no problem. So I'm glad I'm able to run and my heart can handle it and I got the lung capacity to do it.

Brian McMaster: Yeah. thing out. Yeah, I think I used to really enjoy running. I'd get that runner's high, you know, where you start running and all of sudden you just get that dopamine or whatever going on. It's like, man, you feel really good. But the other thing too is what's great about running is you just you're out by yourself. You know, you put some headphones in, you go and you're good to go. And I've been doing that with walking too. I've been walking every morning for maybe an hour, but I strap on a 35 pound vest.

Scott Schaper: Yeah.

Brian McMaster: And, you know, it's more like rocking than it is walking. And it's just me and, you know, I'll either listen to the Bible or I'll listen to a book or, something along those lines. I find that just being having that time is just, you know, ⁓ it puts me at peace to start my day.

Scott Schaper: Yeah. Does the vest make you look like an FBI tactical unit? Neighborhood watch.

Brian McMaster: Yeah, it's orange. orange and it does look like because the weights are black and it does look like I'm carrying like all kinds of ⁓ spray and all that kind of stuff. And then then of course, as I get into it, I'm like, you know, I'd like to have a Velcro bottle that sticks right here, you know, so I got one of those. ⁓ then I'm like, I'd like to have a belt that goes around here. So I carry my cell phone down here. So I'm going to look more and more like like Paul Blart, the mall cop. ⁓ ⁓

Scott Schaper: Ha Yeah, like a bat like I a bat belt with a winch.

Brian McMaster: Exactly. I want to be able to shoot shoot stuff off my wrists

Scott Schaper: What books are you listening to? What products are you using in the new year that you just started that we can tell our listeners about?

Brian McMaster: You know, not just started, but I would say just started using more. Are you familiar with my shift wave chair? Have you, have we talked about that?

Scott Schaper: The little stick. No, you're telling about the walk, the walk, the walker. Walk pad. Yeah.

Brian McMaster: Nuh. yeah, the walk walk illusion. Yeah. So the walk illusion I'm using for sure I didn't I didn't do it today, but I will do it on a call today. At some point, I'll walk for an hour while I'm doing a call. But I have a chair called shift wave. And it's and we can put it in the show notes shift wave.co. And what is, is this guy, he he had his ⁓ or his leg, broke his leg. And he's a he's got he's a neuro guy. And so he he had a 3d cast printed 3d printed cast that vibrated. And what he found was when he would have his cast vibrate, he'd take it on and off at night. And and he would have this cast vibrate and his his broken bone fixed itself what like 60 % faster than it would have if it would have just been in a regular cast. So so him and his partner come up with this chair.

Scott Schaper: Okay.

Brian McMaster: that has these vibration pucks. It's basically all it is a zero gravity chair, but it's got vibration pucks the whole way along it. And then what you do is it's all kinds of routines, but you breathe in and breathe out with the waves you can adjust it accordingly. It's got a heart rate variability sensor on it. So it's checking your heart rate variability. ⁓ telling you brother, ⁓ is like, if you want to sleep, ⁓ has ⁓ this SS which is a synthetic sleep program where you can, I fall asleep. I literally fall asleep and when I wake up I feel amazing. It has prepping for meetings, just all kinds of stuff. But if you don't watch it, it vibrates the heck out of you. But I found this fascinating. It's not an inexpensive toy, but it's just absolutely phenomenal. If you can find somebody that has one of these in your area, I would highly highly recommend it. But the whole idea is to re center your nervous system with your breathing and your parasympathetic and it's like, just absolutely phenomenal. So if you want to come up sometime and try it, you'll you'll absolutely love it. But I at my house right now. So I've been doing it. I'll do it at night before bed or I'll do you know, I'll even I'm only two miles away from the office. So

Scott Schaper: Do you keep it at your house or at the office?

Brian McMaster: I'll head home at lunchtime and do a 45 minute or something along those lines, but gonna start using it more in 2026. I ⁓ have been already. It's just absolutely phenomenal. ⁓ So about you?

Scott Schaper: Wow. You know, I'm always listening to, I got two books going right now. I talked about John Grisham last time, because I love his legal thrillers. I'm also halfway through, when I go to the gym by myself, I listen to this one. It's the ultimate guide to methylene blue. It's, don't know, have you ever read that? It's very dry, it's very clinical. ⁓

Brian McMaster: Mmm. I haven't.

Scott Schaper: It's almost like the author is reading and commenting on actual scientific and medical studies around the world for, you know, it's been around for 150 years. And he's basically reminding the reader that it's a powerful antidote to a lot of different problems, viral, bacterial. all sorts of energy in it. I almost, about 20 minutes, I almost stopped it. It's so dry and clinical. like, do I want to listen to this guy read this stuff? But it ⁓ is fascinating I'm totally sold on the benefits of it. If you're thinking about it, talk to your doctor or practitioner or osteopath about it. I know, Brian, you're believer. You take it every day, don't you?

Brian McMaster: Yeah. Yes,

Scott Schaper: I took it every day and stopped 30 days, but ⁓ thinking of going back on it and just kind of making it as part of my ⁓

Brian McMaster: cycle it three days on three days off ⁓ ⁓ if I'm if I'm gonna do ⁓ light ⁓ something along those lines then I'll take some but

Scott Schaper: Okay. Yeah, he's in the red light section right now, how red light activates red light a little bit more deeply in your body when you're on methylene blue and red light therapy at the same time.

Brian McMaster: Yeah, there's a there's another book called Magic Bullet. It's Methylene Methylene Blue, the ultimate mitochondrial support. That's a great book that that's Dr. John Larrance. So it's not as dry. Still has the clinical stuff and still is the test and those kind of things. ⁓ just recently had someone, ⁓ naturopath tell me that I shouldn't take Methylene Blue because it'll it causes kidney failure. And was like, ⁓ I'd to see that research.

Scott Schaper: Okay. Yeah.

Brian McMaster: because I'm not getting that out of any of PubMed or any of that kind of stuff. I it because your kidneys are filtering out the blue, and ⁓ that's thing that'd be good for our listeners too. My coach, Ben, I had to ask him, because obviously when you take this stuff, you urinate blue, ⁓ and the more that you urinate, the less your body needs the methylene blue.

Scott Schaper: Yeah.

Brian McMaster: So you can take less of it at that point and still get the same benefit. it's, is a magic bullet. It's crazy. ⁓

Scott Schaper: Yeah, it's been around a long time in there. It is widely, widely studied worldwide for the last 100 years. So it's pretty cool. ⁓ this author doesn't demonize, that's too strong a word, but absolutely criticizes ⁓ the and therapy surrounding nitrous oxide.

Brian McMaster: nitrous for like dentistry and that kind of stuff or

Scott Schaper: ⁓ No, it's like people that eat beets or ⁓ up their nitrous oxide for health reasons. It's a temporary fix, but it has a long-term consequence. But it's essentially adding free radicals to your body and a temporary ⁓ kind of blood.

Brian McMaster: ⁓ okay.

Scott Schaper: arterial widening effect for a while, which is healthy. But effect is overshadowed by the number of bad things that nitrous does to your body. But I was surprised how he spent more than two chapters on, I'm like, when are you going to talk about methylene blue in these chapters? It's just interesting how he makes those two interact. Yeah, I would ⁓ recommend to that.

Brian McMaster: Hm, how about... Man, I have to check that out. I geek out on that stuff.

Scott Schaper: But it's a little rough to get through. Just listen to a bunch of facts. There's nothing entertaining about it except for the factual nature of the chemical in your body.

Brian McMaster: Sure, he needed to have like Matthew McConaughey narrated or something.

Scott Schaper: you know, the problem ⁓ with some books is it can come off as a lot of bogus health claims. And I think what he's doing is he's reading published studies or at least ⁓ explaining them and.

Brian McMaster: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Schaper: Maybe not putting them in such clinical terms and maybe commenting on them, but he's getting away with, think that level of claim because these are studies that have been in the public domain for, for a hundred years. That's pretty cool. It's worth checking out.

Brian McMaster: Yeah, that's fantastic. I think I'm going to ask this person to the naturopath. I'm going to ask her to send me, okay, send me the data that you have on methylene blue, probably be some medical organization or something that wants to sell you drugs, some pharmacology company.

Scott Schaper: You know, I just realized what I do for my body and my circumstance and my environment and my chemistry and my personal health. is going to be a little bit different than what happens to yours. Every view we've talked about running experiments on your own. If you want to try extra protein, do it, but pay attention to your body. Just because it works for Brian McMaster doesn't mean it's going to work for you. There's good knowledge there. There's it's probably a good substance, but it doesn't mean it works in every single environment. Every single health condition. We are complex beings and medical practice should be yours alone. ⁓ First and then you share that with your practitioners and ⁓ always measure your blood and to your doctor ⁓ routinely these things.

Brian McMaster: Just, yeah, just like anything, your genetics, you you could have a predisposition with your, you know, or a precondition with your kidneys or your liver or something along those lines. And then in that case, you probably are stressing them. So, you know, just like you said, it's important to measure, it's important to understand. genetic tests are cheap. ⁓ you can find out if you're susceptible to Alzheimer's and... you know memory issues and that type of stuff very very easily so. Yeah that's good stuff.

Scott Schaper: Yeah, just for our listeners, I test my blood every quarter. I take a full blood panel and a hormone panel. I go over those with my doctor. Matter of fact, I was supposed to go tomorrow morning to my doctor and I couldn't get my blood work done in time. I, but my first, I'll start the year off with a complete reading, a doctor's visit, and it will set my health goals together. And I have two doctors I work with. And one is an osteopath and can't prescribe a lot. But the other one is a medical doctor and can prescribe. So they work together. And if I need a prescription for something, I go to one. the other one, they're both involved. it's ⁓ sure you have a health care system in place. Not sick care. That's your health insurance. That's for relief and chasing down a sickness. But you need to have a health care practice that starts with you. So check your check with your doctor before trying anything and read and research do a lot of research for yourself.

Brian McMaster: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was just going to say the same thing. your own researcher. Be your own scientist. base it on how you feel.

Scott Schaper: So I ⁓ did a chat GPT search and also this jives with Atomic Habits, which I read last year from James Clear. It's a great book if you're ⁓ about starting a new year, that's a good one. That's a good foundation. But I asked that the four most effective research backed methods for achieving a new goal or a new year's resolution, especially for busy professionals and entrepreneurs. I wanted to make that a caveat. The number one thing was make the goal specific, measurable and behavior based. And we've talked about those things. Vague goals tend to fail and clear behaviors succeed. So instead of saying, I want to get in shape, go with something like I'm going to work out 30 minutes, four days a week at 7 a.m. Then you can create a behavioral schedule around that and make that work force your brain to execute an action and not that intention. So that's number one. Anything stand out to you there, Brian?

Brian McMaster: love it. ⁓ no, I mean, I think that pretty much says it all. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's good stuff. How about number two?

Scott Schaper: So in business, number two, was shrink the goal to a non-negotiable minimum. And you talked about that. As soon as my eyes wake up and it's morning, I'm getting out of bed. Consistency always beats intensity. So the smallest version of that goal. And we had a few examples already. Read one page. If you have a writing goal, I'm going to start writing my book. Just write 100 words. That is literally three paragraphs. Run to the next mailbox and then do that all week. Run to the second mailbox in your neighborhood next week. So let's walk five minutes. So it removes, this is essentially, it removes all the friction and excuses. I can do something for five minutes. I can write a hundred words. I can read one page. And does it do? It builds an identity. I'm a reader. I'm a writer. I'm a runner. I'm a jogger. So you have that identity in yourself that ⁓ builds non-negotiable

Brian McMaster: Yeah, absolutely. If you're in Ben Greenfield's group, it's run to the next mailbox and do 30 burpees, just to let you know. And then you can always you can always add. But the other thing I want to say about that, too, is if you tell yourself I'm just going to do five minutes on the treadmill, you'll do 40. So, ⁓ know, once you're on and you're cranking, you're going to keep going. And even if you say I'm going to do five minutes and you do 15, but ⁓ you're you're you're making progress. So it's just a matter that that's what they always say, right? The hardest part about

Scott Schaper: Yeah. Yeah.

Brian McMaster: going to the gym is getting there. So good stuff.

Scott Schaper: Yeah, that's awesome. three, attach the goal to an existing habit. This clearly straight from James Clear habit stacking. Willpower is unreliable. ⁓ are reliable. So after I fill in that habit, I will do a new habit. After my morning coffee, I'll review my top three priorities. After I brush my teeth, five minutes of stretching.

Brian McMaster: Yeah.

Scott Schaper: As soon as I get up, I'm going to grab my clothes. I close my laptop, I'm going to plan tomorrow or I'm going to have sales meeting, meditate for five minutes, go take a break. So it uses existing neural pathways for success. It eliminates decision fatigue because you're not redesigning every day when I'm going to do this meditation or fill in the blank there. and it increases your follow through dramatically and those tiny little pieces of success build confidence in you. Confidence matters. ⁓

Brian McMaster: Love it.

Scott Schaper: Last one is add accountability and tracking. Do it with somebody. It's really handy. Talk about it on a podcast. Also very handy. What gets tracked gets done. And to Brian's point before, you could say what gets measured results. So ⁓ check in with a person, public commitment, a habit tracker or scorecard.

Brian McMaster: Yeah. Yeah. Tell a friend. Tell, tell it. Yep.

Scott Schaper: easy, usable right there on your phone or right there on your desk. But that external accountability activates a lot of follow through creates awareness and course correction. So we've been talking a lot about personal stuff. What about let's go into business and let's talk about some business goals because you've had some struggles in 2025 and ⁓ some successes, what's your, you got to create a lot of behavior for the company. That's even harder.

Brian McMaster: Yeah, you can. Yeah, boy, have I ever. Yeah, and it's really been around people. There's a lot of people that are looking for opportunities. One the things that I think I learned this year ⁓ was if you're if doing an employee search, find people who already have a job. I ⁓ know it's kind poaching, but if there's somebody looking for job and they're not I've found that we get in trouble more times with that kind of scenario than if we find somebody in our industry that's working. But you know, from a from a business and a goal standpoint, for me, I'm to go back to what we first talked about. It's that ⁓ subtraction. do keep, pardon me, how do we keep things ⁓ simple, measurable, And you know, that's just really what this whole podcast has been about. And I think, you know, personal business, whatever it it's a, it's, it's the way to do it, keep it simple. And I've really made things a little bit more difficult. I told somebody the other day, said 99 % of the problems I have are my own problems because I created them. So it's like, you know, when I look back on 2025, it was definitely a struggle year. And you know, like I said, it's gonna be a little slow out of the blocks for 2026. you know, think we got a really, really good team and we're headed in the right direction. We're running EOS. You know, we're doing good from a sales standpoint. So just keep it simple, simple, measurable, achievable. That's my.

Scott Schaper: hardest wrinkles to get out are the ones you ironed in yourself.

Brian McMaster: love it. I'm ironer, so I love that. I love that metaphor.

Scott Schaper: One thing about business is there's I've seen this before in other companies. They especially with US companies like because there's a real call to manage your business by the numbers because what gets measured gets managed and so it makes a lot of sense. So you go into KPI mode like ⁓ that's interesting. Custom return. That's interesting. ⁓ And so you come up with these 10 or 12, but the problem is the team. All agrees that the KPIs are useful. I want to know that. But ask the team for every KPI. want this one to be higher or we want this one to be lower. If it's too low, what are the actions? When ⁓ measurement fails, what are the action steps to get it back on track? Because if you don't have that, then it will just drop to an unacceptable level and no one will know what to do.

Brian McMaster: Yeah. Yeah, we-

Scott Schaper: So every KPI means to say, do we lean on it more? When is it too high? And if it's too low, what are the four steps? Because we have 90 days to correct this KPI. So what are the steps to make this higher?

Brian McMaster: it. And again, keep it simple. I mean, you can you can analyze yourself to death. mean, they really when when we first started this, this direction, you know, with the US, we had so many we had like 26 different things we're measuring. ⁓ don't need 26. We need five in as a leadership team, you know, now that breaks down into more things underneath. But ⁓ a leadership team, we need five. And if those five things are trending the right way, then we know

Scott Schaper: Right.

Brian McMaster: you know, I can keep focused on what I need to stay focused on. But if one of them's in the red, then we need to know why and what the action plan is to get it back. But you try to do that with 20 or 30 things and it just overkill. And then you end up not getting anything done.

Scott Schaper: The way we do it, and it's somewhat loose right now, I'm going to tighten this up in 26, is somebody must own every KPI. You're in charge of reporting it, and you have the access to get those data and report on that. It doesn't have to be weekly. It can be monthly. It can be quarterly. Whatever is ⁓ useful for that particular KPI. We're talking about key performance indicators or stats for the company. somebody's got to own it. And they don't have to be the ones that raise it, lower it, or affect it, but

Brian McMaster: Yeah.

Scott Schaper: They have to be in charge of gathering the people. I'm going to gather the quick team and ask questions. So somebody's got to own it and people can own one or two to start with. one is better. And once that becomes a habit and you've nailed down that metric, then they can load up because one's on automated and it's, there's some ⁓ around it. Then a second one becomes more manageable for them. So everybody needs to own something and ⁓ going to happen if this thing falls below 40. Cause that's a critical point for us, or it could be cash. could be receivables. It could be.

Brian McMaster: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Schaper: anything. That brings us to 45 minutes. Usually we end with a few challenges ⁓ the next week. I think we've issued a lot of those. Start small, start measurable, ⁓ go on yourself, say no more than say yes. But I think we've done that.

Brian McMaster: Great strategy. I love it. Yep, yeah, and I just to add to that, just pick one, pick a habit, just pick a habit, pick something small, easy, achievable, just like you said, and do it for the next week, ⁓ build on it from there. I think that's fantastic, man. Good

Scott Schaper: There's nothing magical about January 1. Pick one, do that for a quarter. When that's a habit, start one on March 1. nothing magical about March 1 either, but man, go achieve something. Thanks listeners. See you next time.