7 Habits Michael Bosstick Swears By for a Successful Life

It’s time to optimize your life. If you love creating systems for success, then the latest episode of The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast is for you—packed with powerful and practical insights on living a life of success. Michael Bosstick, Dear Media CEO and founder, shares the seven key habits that changed his life and elevated his mindset. The best part? They’re  all cost effective and easy to implement today.

If you want better results in your own life, follow these high-impact habits that high performers, like Bosstick, swear by for living a more focused, fulfilling life. 

1. Implement a wakeup routine.

One of Bosstick’s most impactful daily habits is his morning routine. Bosstick typically wakes up around 6 or 6:30 a.m., but he has a slow cortisol rise in the morning. According to his wife, Lauryn Bosstick, he wakes up grumpy. “I need a moment to kick into gear,” he says. “I am not one of those people who jumps up and starts seeing flowers, rainbows, and happy thoughts.” 

Much of Bosstick’s morning routine is about getting his mind right for the day. He prioritizes hydrating slowly with his homemade hydration drink. It contains 16 ounces of water, Paul Saladino Lineage Nose-to-Tail collagen (which he notes is great for your skin, hair, nails, and joints), sea salt, and lemon. Then, he takes a handful of supplements, including L-Tyrosine, Fatty15, N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC), to help with mood, energy, focus, and mental clarity.  

Next, he’ll set his intention for the day. Before his kids wake up, he spends the first hour of his day reading books or The New York Times and making sure he is calm and present. “It’s so important to have a routine to look forward to,” he explains. “You know after doing this routine, you are going to feel great. You want to have something to look forward to in the morning.”

2. Develop a daily movement habit. 

Moving your body is not just about the physical gains. Bosstick explains this habit is about getting out of your comfort zone and challenging your mind. “It’s about holding yourself accountable and doing something hard,” he says. “Comfort is where you go to die; Staying active makes us feel good and helps boost confidence.”

Bosstick’s movement routine looks like a mixture of things lately—tennis, strength training), stretching, and cardio. “The more you do it, over time, you will have more confidence and feel better,” Bosstick says. “For me, it’s about waking up with intention and then jumping into something hard and challenging.” 

3. Get rid of to-do lists and focus on essential lists. 

Bosstick thinks to-do lists are garbage because they’re tedious and won’t move the needle forward. The key is to focus your attention on the essentials that are going to have the greatest impact.  “High performers focus on the essentials, not the to-do lists,” Bosstick says. “I figure out what are the most important things I need to get to, and I ignore the rest.”

When you focus on the essentials, you train your brain to tackle the hard things and become more productive. If you have a list of 15 things on your to-do list, Bosstick advises to cut down 12 to 13 of those things. “Focus on the three things that you have been dreading the most. The things that are the hardest and that are the essentials,” he explains. 

4. Start asking yourself the hard questions. 

One habit that Bosstick swears by is treating himself as an investor who is going to potentially invest in his own life. As the CEO and founder of Dear Media, he’s learned a lot over the last 10 years about business, raising capital, and what makes a great investor. 

“What makes a great investor are the questions that they ask in their underwriting process,” he explains. “They are excited about the vision, the founder, and the future, but they are also poking holes into the infrastructure and into that individual. They are looking for the individual to come up with the answers to their concerns.”

According to Bosstick, this process applies to everyday life, too—underwriting your own life as if you were investing in yourself. Some questions he suggests asking yourself are:

• Am I being smart with my money? 
• Am I showing up the right way in my relationship?
• Am I being a good parent? 
• Am I holding myself accountable for my health? 

“Once you ask yourself the hard questions, with the answers, consider whether you would invest in your life as is or make changes,” Bosstick explains about this game-changing habit.

5. Ask instead of assuming. 

Bosstick has learned as a husband, father, and CEO, including that it is unwise to assume what he is thinking is how everyone around him is feeling. “Most tensions in relationships, personal and professional, happen because of assumptions,” he says. 

One powerful habit is to start every conversation with an ask, instead of an assumption. Examples include: How are you doing? How do you feel about how I’m doing this? How do you feel about how I responded to this? What do you need that I’m not giving you? 

This habit is about making the people around you feel valued. “This will open up opportunities for you to form habits that will fix those relationships and improve them,” Bosstick explains. “But it is also going to create a bond of trust in your relationships because the person on the other side will realize you are putting their wants and needs first.”

6. Pick something new to learn about each week. 

Bosstick describes the world we live in as an echo chamber. “We live in a society where we are good at digging into our own biases and our own corners of the world,” he says. “The algorithm is interest-based, so it’s going to give you more of what you already believe.”

The problem when you live in your own bias is that you develop a limited view of the world. Tribalism is real. To understand diverse perspectives, one of Bosstick’s weekly habits is learning something new from a wide variety of topics. “You want to broaden your perspective and listen to different people,” he says. “You want to challenge your brain, expand your mindset, and see different perspectives.” 

7. Develop a perspective of the world outside of your own. 

Everyone around you views the world in a different way. Bosstick practices the habit of being mindful that people don’t see the world the way he does. “The best thing we can do is to ask questions, get into people’s heads, and see things from their perspective.”

Next time you interact with someone, change your perspective. Ask yourself: What does this person think of this moment? What does this person see that I don’t see? What does this person want that I might not be aware of? 

“It’s so important to get out of your head and into the perspective of others,” Bosstick says. “The people I see struggle the most are the ones who only see the world from their perspective.”

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