Life
7 Ways You Can Create a BIG Life – Carl Harvey
As host of The Big Life I host weekly private training sessions with the biggest personal growth experts on the planet – including Bob Proctor, Dr Joe Vitale, Christie Marie Sheldon, Lisa Nichols, Robert Greene, Vishen Lakhiani, Laura Silva, Carol Tuttle, John Assaraf… and many, many more.
All of this awesome training is geared to help you achieve one goal:
To help you create YOUR version of a “Big Life” – a fun life filled with abundance, happiness, purpose, passion, success, joy and more love than you can handle.
And – yes – champagne 🙂
Books I recommend you read:
Think and Grow Rich
No B.S. Wealth Attraction for Entrepreneurs
Here are the 7 biggest lessons I’ve learned from these amazing teachers so far:
1. You need to have a vision (and be in love with it!)
If you want to create a big life – filled with more abundance, happiness, passion, love and success – the first thing you gotta do is decide what you really want.
Problem is, most people’s idea of a “vision” is focussing on what they don’t want – from “I don’t want to be in debt” to “I don’t want to be overweight anymore”.
Here’s why this sucks: we get more of what we focus on, so focussing on lack only creates more lack. Avoid this approach at all costs!
The key is to have a vision that inspires you… a vision so exciting and sexy and YOU that you simply fall in love with it and can’t stop dreaming about it. (It’s gotta be this exciting to help you overcome the inevitable challenges you’ll encounter on your road to success.)
Also, write your vision down. Bob Proctor told me there’s magic in getting your goals on paper.
Just try it. And go back to your goals some time later. You’ll see!
2. Work with your subconscious mind
The worst advice I’ve heard in personal growth is to simply “take massive action” – because, until you’re ready to succeed, this usually leads to self-sabotage, procrastination, and deeper feelings of inadequacy.
This isn’t your fault… it’s because of a fundamental misunderstanding of how our minds work.
Here’s the problem: most people only set goals at the conscious level, which neuroscience is proving to limit us to just 1-5% of our total resources. This means that 95-99% of our resources are accessed through the subconscious mind – yet most of us ignore this completely!
What this means is if we want to create MORE income, love, happiness – or anything else – in our life, we first need to work on our subconscious beliefs. That’s where we’ll get the most leverage and biggest results.
As Dr Bruce Lipton from Stanford University says – your subconscious mind “ultimately casts the deciding vote” on your level of success and happiness, because it’s “a million times more powerful”. Imagine that!
So, all you gotta do is make sure you’re working on a plan to reprogram your subconscious mind.
Speaking of which…
3. Practice Creative Visualization (daily)
Creative Visualization is the art and science of imagining what you want to create – in vivid, sensory-rich, “high definition” levels of detail.
The reason this is so powerful is because – as Dr Maxwell Maltz wrote in his classic book Psycho Cybernetics:
Your subconscious mind “Cannot tell the difference between what’s real, and what’s imagined.”
What this means is you can TRICK your subconscious mind into believing you’re more successful / happy / rich / sexy / loveable than you actually are – simply by imagining yourself that way, in vivid detail.
It’s a wonderful quirk of our nervous system, but it really does work. You can use visualisation to boost your confidence, skills, happiness, abundance, energy – and more.
The keys are repetition (practice every day for a few minutes), vividness (use ALL the senses when you imagine – including touch, smells, hearing etc) and emotions (the stronger the positive emotion you can summon, the better results.)
More than 200+ studies prove that visualisation works… so get visualizing!

4. Take Inspired Action
This is where things get really FUN.
Most folks worry themselves silly and give up on their goals, because they “don’t have a plan” to get there.
But here’s the good news: when you have a compelling vision, and you work on your subconscious beliefs by visualizing every day (steps 1-3), you open yourself up to receive ideas, insights, hunches and “flashes of inspiration” from the universe – ideas which you can quickly and effortlessly put into action.
As Dr Joe Vitale taught me,
“The next step is always revealed”. Always. ALWAYS!!
So don’t worry about having a master-plan. Instead, focus on your vision, and take action on the ideas that inevitably float into your consciousness.
Then rinse… repeat… and keep following the hunches ‘til you reach your goal. Simple!
5. Go Zen
I’ll keep this one short and simple:
More than 2000 studies prove that meditation has countless benefits for body and mind. This is indisputable – it will have a HUGE positive impact on your life.
But it’s not just good for your wellbeing – from a “success” perspective, meditating puts you in flow, increases your creativity, makes you feel mentally stronger, helps you become more present, boosts your focus and productivity – and makes you a nicer person to be around. (And much more.)
That’s why if you want to be the best version of yourself, I invite you to make meditation part of your daily routine.
(And if you think meditating is tough, consider the alternative – that the voice in your head you can’t seem to shut up during meditation will be running your life; unchallenged; on autopilot, FOREVER … unless you learn how to quieten it down – by meditating! Pretty humbling, right?)
6. GIVE More
When The Secret’s Bob Proctor came on my show he revealed about 1000 ideas which blew my mind and made me wish he was my grandfather.
But the best of all of them was “you cannot out-give the universe”.
I love this idea – at its simplest it means we should stop chasing what we want, stop trying to GET it, and instead focus on giving as much value as we can.
Give love. Give appreciation. Give better service. Give a better product. Give more time. Give more attention. Give more awesomeness. Give more compliments. Give give give give give.
Give whatever you want to receive more of.
When you shift to that level of focus, abundance starts to magnetize in your life.
It took me a long time to truly *get* this, but the more value you provide, the more money you’ll make (and the better you’ll feel about it.)
7. Have A Kick-Ass Daily Routine
I wish this final strategy was sexier, but it’s crucial – literally every guest I’ve had on The Big Life, from John Assaraf to Lisa Nichols, has stressed to me the importance of having a kick-ass daily routine.
Why? Because it builds confidence, progress, flow… and MOMENTUM.
My daily routine includes meditation, visualization, writing down a page of things I’m grateful for, and heading to the gym to get my sweat on. Oh – and gangsta rap. (It always gets me psyched up and ready to take action.) But yours can be different – obviously, the hiphop is optional – but the key is to do something EVERY DAY that puts you in a PEAK state.
Then, from that level of “higher” consciousness, you can go about your day, kicking ass and being the best version of you you can be.
Do this enough times…. and you’ll end up with your “Big Life”, filled with abundance and purpose and passion and all the other awesomeness you desire.
Peace!
Carl Harvey – The Big Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viyj8BdMw0g
Entrepreneurs
The Brutal Truth About Entrepreneurship with ADHD (And Why Most Advice Is Making It Worse)
You’re not lazy. You’re not undisciplined… and you’re definitely not broken.
You’re an entrepreneur with ADHD, and right now you’re probably sitting on 19 unfinished projects, 47 open tabs, and a brain that feels like it’s running on 12 different radio stations at once.
You’ve read the books. You’ve tried the planners, the Pomodoro timers, the accountability groups. You’ve even hired coaches who promised to “fix” your focus. Yet here you are — brilliant ideas, massive potential, and a business that still feels like it’s one step away from collapsing under the weight of your own mind.
Here’s what almost nobody in the entrepreneurial space will admit:
The real struggle isn’t your ADHD. It’s that you’ve been trying to run a neurodivergent brain inside a neurotypical business model — and then beating yourself up when it doesn’t work.
Most advice for entrepreneurs was written by people whose brains work differently. They preach consistency, routines, long-term planning, and steady execution like those things are universal truths. For the ADHD entrepreneur, those “truths” feel like trying to swim upstream in cement. You can force it for a while (and you have), but eventually your brain rebels, the burnout hits, and you’re left feeling like a failure who just needs to “try harder.”
That cycle is quietly destroying more talented founders than cash flow problems or bad hires ever could.
The deeper layer most people never reach is this: your ADHD isn’t a bug in the system. It’s a different operating system entirely. And when you stop trying to install Windows on a Mac and start building everything around macOS, the game changes completely.
The Hidden Addiction That Keeps ADHD Entrepreneurs Stuck
You already know the surface symptoms — time blindness, rejection sensitivity, starting strong and fading fast, shiny object syndrome.
But the real trap is more insidious.
It’s the addiction to chaos and novelty.
Your brain is wired for dopamine. New ideas, big visions, last-minute sprints, high-stakes pressure — these things light you up like nothing else. The boring, repetitive, systems-building work that actually scales a business? It feels like torture.
So unconsciously, you keep your business in a state of controlled chaos. You say yes to too many things. You chase the next exciting opportunity. You avoid building the boring infrastructure because “I work better under pressure anyway.”
And every time the pressure gets too high, you crash, swear you’ll get organized next quarter, and repeat the cycle.
Meanwhile, the neurotypical advice keeps telling you to “just build better habits.” As if your brain is a poorly trained dog that needs more discipline instead of a high-performance race car that needs the right fuel and track.
This isn’t a character flaw. It’s neurology.
And until you stop treating your wiring as something to overcome and start treating it as your greatest strategic advantage, you’ll stay stuck in the same exhausting loop.
The Identity Shift That Changes Everything
The entrepreneurs with ADHD who finally break through don’t “fix” their brains.
They redesign their entire business to work with their brains.
They stop trying to become the consistent, routine-loving founder the gurus talk about. Instead, they become the architect of a system that leverages their natural strengths — hyperfocus, pattern recognition, creative problem-solving, relentless drive under pressure — while outsourcing or automating everything that drains them.
This is the layer most ADHD entrepreneurs never reach because it requires something terrifying: accepting that you are never going to be “normal” at entrepreneurship… and that’s exactly why you can win bigger than most.
Your ability to see connections others miss. Your tolerance for uncertainty. Your capacity to go all-in when something lights you up. These aren’t liabilities. They’re unfair advantages in a world that rewards speed, creativity, and bold moves.
The shift is simple but brutal:
Stop trying to manage your ADHD. Start designing your business around it.
How to Actually Build a Business That Works With Your Brain
- Stop fighting your energy cycles — weaponize them. Most ADHD entrepreneurs try to force 8-hour focused days. That’s insane. Instead, track when your brain actually works best (for many it’s 10pm-2am or random 4-hour hyperfocus bursts). Build your schedule around those windows. Protect them like gold. Do the deep, high-leverage work then. Use the low-energy periods for admin, calls, or recovery.
- Build “chaos containers,” not rigid systems. Traditional project management tools feel like cages. Create loose but effective structures that give your brain freedom. Use tools like Notion with massive flexibility, or body-doubling (working alongside someone virtually), or even hiring a “chaos wrangler” — an assistant who thrives on turning your scattered ideas into executable plans.
- Turn your rejection sensitivity into rocket fuel. That intense fear of letting people down or looking stupid? Channel it into creating ridiculously high standards for your customer experience or product quality. Use it as fuel instead of letting it paralyze you.
- Outsource the parts that make you want to die. The execution, follow-through, and maintenance phases are where most ADHD entrepreneurs lose. Hire or partner with people who love the details. Your job is vision, strategy, and big swings. Let someone else own the spreadsheets.
- Create external pressure on your own terms. Deadlines and public commitments work wonders for the ADHD brain. Use them strategically — announce launches, create beta groups, or work with coaches who understand neurodivergence instead of fighting it.
The entrepreneurs with ADHD who are quietly crushing it right now aren’t the ones who finally became “disciplined.” They’re the ones who stopped apologizing for how their brain works and started building empires that are specifically engineered for it.
They have teams that handle the boring stuff. They have systems that flex with their energy instead of fighting it. They’ve turned their “flaws” into the exact reasons their businesses stand out.
Your ADHD brain is not the enemy. The enemy was trying to play the game by rules that were never designed for you.
The moment you accept that and start designing everything… your calendar, your team, your offers, your processes — around how you actually operate, the struggle doesn’t disappear… but it becomes manageable, even exhilarating.
You were never meant to fit the mold. You were meant to break it and build something better.
The world doesn’t need another cookie-cutter entrepreneur. It needs the chaotic, brilliant, all-in, slightly unhinged visionaries who can only operate at full power when the game is built for them.
That’s you.
Stop trying to fix yourself. Start building the business that was always meant to be run by a mind like yours.
Your next breakthrough isn’t going to come from working harder or being more consistent. It’s going to come from finally giving yourself permission to work differently.
And when you do that? Watch what happens.
The same brain that once felt like a curse becomes the exact reason your business becomes unstoppable.
You’ve got this. Not despite the ADHD. Because of it.
If you want to learn more from me or send me a personal message I’ll respond to you on Instagram at https://instagram.com/iamjoelbrown speak soon!
Health & Fitness
The Health Planning Habits That Support Long-Term Success
Most people think about health planning only when something forces them to.
A medical bill arrives unexpectedly. An insurance issue appears during treatment. A diagnosis changes how future care needs are viewed. Suddenly health planning becomes urgent instead of preventative.
The problem is that long-term health stability is usually shaped by smaller habits built quietly over time, not just by major decisions during emergencies.
That includes physical health habits, of course, but it also includes how people approach insurance coverage, preventative care, financial preparation, and long-term healthcare planning before problems become immediate.
The families who navigate healthcare stress most effectively are often not the ones avoiding every issue entirely. More often, they’re the ones who built systems early enough to make difficult situations feel more manageable later.
Consistency Matters More Than Perfection
A lot of health advice still revolves around extreme change.
Perfect diets. Aggressive routines. Complete lifestyle overhauls.
In reality, most long-term health success comes from consistency people can realistically maintain for years instead of months. Small preventative habits tend to matter more than dramatic short-term efforts that collapse under pressure.
That principle applies financially too.
People often spend more time researching investment strategies than understanding their healthcare coverage or preparing for future medical costs. But healthcare instability can disrupt long-term financial plans surprisingly quickly when households are unprepared for how expensive even routine care can become over time.
The practical side of health planning is becoming harder to separate from overall financial planning now than it used to be.
Preventative Planning Reduces More Stress Than People Realize
One overlooked benefit of health planning is emotional stability.
People who understand their coverage, maintain preventative care routines, and think ahead about healthcare decisions often describe feeling less overwhelmed when unexpected situations happen. The goal is not eliminating uncertainty entirely. That’s unrealistic.
The goal is reducing how chaotic healthcare decisions feel under pressure.
That’s one reason broader conversations tied to healthcare and health insurance have expanded significantly over the last several years. Rising costs, changing coverage structures, and increasing healthcare complexity have made long-term planning more important for average households than many people expected.
Healthcare is no longer something most families can comfortably approach reactively forever.
People Underestimate How Quickly Healthcare Costs Compound
One reason health planning habits matter so much is that healthcare costs rarely arrive in one dramatic moment alone.
More often, they build gradually:
- recurring prescriptions
- specialist visits
- ongoing treatment plans
- insurance deductible increases
- long-term care considerations
- unexpected procedures layered on top of existing expenses
Families often absorb these costs incrementally until they realize how much financial pressure accumulated over time.
That gradual buildup is part of what makes proactive planning valuable. People who think ahead about coverage structures, emergency savings, provider networks, and preventative care tend to adapt more smoothly when healthcare needs eventually increase later in life.
The difficult part is that many households delay these conversations because they feel healthy right now.
Healthcare Decisions Have Become More Complicated
Another challenge is that healthcare systems themselves continue evolving quickly.
Insurance structures change. Telehealth expands. Employer-sponsored benefits shift. Prescription pricing fluctuates. Patients now carry more responsibility for understanding deductibles, provider networks, and out-of-pocket exposure than previous generations often did.
That complexity creates decision fatigue.
Even relatively organized households sometimes feel uncertain about whether they’re making good healthcare choices because the systems themselves are difficult to navigate confidently. A lot of current health insurance trends discussions reflect this larger issue, healthcare planning is becoming less about isolated medical events and more about long-term sustainability across entire households.
People want predictability, but healthcare systems increasingly feel harder to predict.
The Most Effective Health Habits Usually Feel Boring
One thing people rarely admit is that good long-term planning habits are often not particularly exciting.
Scheduling preventative appointments. Reviewing insurance annually. Building emergency savings slowly. Staying physically active consistently. Maintaining realistic routines instead of dramatic cycles of burnout and reset.
None of those habits feel dramatic at the moment.
But over long periods, they create stability that becomes incredibly valuable once life gets complicated. The people who navigate healthcare stress most effectively are often the ones who built ordinary systems early instead of waiting for perfect motivation later.
That applies financially and physically at the same time.
Why Long-Term Success Depends on Adaptability
Health planning is ultimately difficult because people’s lives keep changing.
Careers shift. Families grow. Aging parents require support. Medical needs evolve. Financial priorities change over decades in ways nobody predicts perfectly in advance.
That’s why the strongest long-term health planning habits are usually flexible rather than rigid.
The goal is not building a flawless plan that never changes. It’s creating enough structure, awareness, and preparation that future adjustments become manageable instead of overwhelming.
Most people cannot control every future health outcome. They can, however, build habits that make uncertainty easier to navigate when it eventually arrives.
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