Trying vs Training: The One Shift That Makes Change Stick| Chris Cirullo : 65

Host: Joseph Lewin

Guest: Chris Cirullo — Founder, Mission Fit Dads (helping busy Christian business leaders build healthy, lasting habits)

This show was originally aired on Aug 21, 2024 on LinkedIn.

The show is produced by Sell Through Social.

📌 Episode Snapshot

Joseph and Chris unpack why smart, driven entrepreneurs still struggle to build healthy habits—and how to rewire your brain so change actually sticks. They walk through practical frameworks, a simple daily scorecard, and a 15-minute morning routine that can work in any season of life.

🎯 Why This Matters

• Ambitious leaders often succeed in business while silently running on fumes.
• Most are “trying” instead of training, expecting overnight transformation.
• Without fixing habits, you eventually hit a ceiling—in health, family, and business.

🧠 Key Ideas & Takeaways

• Wrong expectations = constant failure loop
• People assume habits “just happen” instead of requiring design, repetition, and discomfort.
• They jump straight to the ideal state (e.g., “I’m going to run a marathon”) instead of small, sustainable steps.
• Habits are well-worn paths—not erased, but replaced
• Old habits rarely disappear; you must create a more compelling alternative path and put “roadblocks” in front of the old one.
• Environment design (friction for bad habits, ease for good ones) is crucial.
• The Habit Loop
• Cue → Craving → Action → Reward.
• If you don’t intentionally engineer this loop for new habits and disrupt it for bad ones, you end up relying on willpower, which always runs out.
• Trying vs Training
• Trying: “I’ll wake up tomorrow and run 26 miles.”
• Training: “This week I’ll walk/run 1 mile, next week 2…”
• Transformation comes from progressive training, not heroic one-off effort.
• Google Maps Analogy: Current vs Desired State
• You need brutal honesty about where you really are and clarity about where you want to go.
• Without both points, you can’t plan a realistic route.
• Chris references the Stockdale Paradox: confront the brutal facts with relentless optimism.
• The Habit Health Ladder (Self-Assessment)
• Top: 8–12 months of consistent habits (rarely miss twice).
• Middle: Inconsistent good habits; sometimes long gaps.
• Bottom: Out-of-control habits; doing what you don’t want to do.
• If most of your life sits in the bottom three rungs, you’re in the red, even if one area looks “successful.”
• You can’t level up on “red” habits
• You may grow revenue or team size while in the red, but you can’t keep scaling or stay healthy without upgrading your habits.
• Eventually you hit burnout, like Chris did—massive success on the outside, collapse on the inside.

🧩 The Mission Fit Framework (Knowledge + Practice + Community)

• Knowledge
• Intake system for the right 20% of information that produces 80% of results.
• Feedback loops to refine what actually works for you.
• Practice...