5 Daily Habits That Will Change Your Business (And Your Brain): The Standards of Excellence

What if I told you that the thing standing between you and your best business year has nothing to do with your strategy, your niche, your packages?

What if it's five simple daily habits that take less than an hour total?

And most of you are skipping them completely.

I ran a 30 day challenge inside a strategist's society based on what I call the standards of excellence.

And the results blew my mind.

Now, here's the deal. I've been doing these for two years.

And I know that the people in strategist's society who do this have the best results.

But this was the first time that we'd ever done a 30 day challenge.

And y'all, these standards work.

These daily habits work.

And I'm going to take you behind the scenes so you can implement them in your business.

Because the business wins, the mindset shifts that we saw students going from zero clients to three clients in 30 days,

booking their first VIP days and showing up consistently.

And today I'm breaking down all five habits.

And why it's like 75 hard, but let's make it cozy.

Let's jump on in to this week's episode of the serve scale sword podcast.

Welcome, welcome back my friends to the serve scale sword podcast.

My name is Brandy Males and I am so stinking excited about this episode.

Because honestly, I've been wanting to talk about this for a while.

If this is your first time here, hello, welcome.

We are so glad that you found me.

This podcast is for one-on-one service providers, my VAs, my OBMs, my ad managers,

copy writers, funnel builders, anyone who's building a business serving clients and you want to scale.

That's the feast and famine cycle and in to real consistent 10, 20, 30 K months.

Pull up a chair, grab your coffee, you're in the right place.

And for my longtime listeners, you know the deal.

This is going to be action packed full of value, no fluff.

So grab your pens and your paper.

And let's get this party started.

So here's what we're going to be covering today.

My five standards of excellence.

What are they?

Why I created them?

I personally do each one.

And actual real life results.

My students got when they committed to all five for 30 days.

I also want to be very clear.

These are not like wake up cold plunge.

Do your yoga.

Take a billion supplements.

Like I get it.

We have kids.

We are moms.

I'm not going to tell you to wake up at 5 a.m.

I don't get up at 5 a.m.

I don't meditate for 45 minutes.

I don't journal six pages of notes.

This is not what we're doing.

What I'm going to give you is a framework that you can make your own.

Because that's the whole point.

There's no cookie cutter approach.

These are for you to take and then make your own.

So if you're ready to do the dang thing, let's start talking about habits.

So before we jump into what are they,

we first need to talk about what are the standards of excellence anyway.

And why they work.

So let me paint you a little picture.

You've probably heard of 75 hard.

It's a brutal fitness challenge where you drink a gallon of water.

Work out twice a day.

Follow a strict diet.

Read 10 pages and take progress.

Photos every single day for 75 days.

Zero compromises.

Like you can't be off of it or you've got to start back at day one.

I respect the commitment I do.

But for most of us, especially moms, women,

running businesses from home,

little ones running around clients to manage and a life.

75 hard is not the vibe.

And it's not something I ever wanted to commit to.

But I did like the concept of going all in on these habits.

So I created what I call the business cozy version.

The standards of excellence are five daily non-negotiables that feel your mindset,

your body, your relationships, and your business without burning you out.

And here's the thing that makes them different from every other habits

or habit challenges you've tried.

There's no prescribed times or amounts.

I don't tell you how many steps to take.

I don't tell you how much time to read.

I don't say what getting ready looks like for you

you set your own standards.

Because you know your life, you know what sustainable

and sustainability builds momentum.

It's not about getting it perfect every day.

It's about having your minimums that you can say,

hey, I'm committed to that and I could do that daily.

Now, let me tell you why these work specifically for service providers.

Because that's who I built them for.

And I used them in my business for a year before even sharing them.

Our business lives on relationships, right?

Because more relationships, more revenue.

It's as simple as that.

If you're sluggish, if you're disconnected,

if you're not fueling your brain,

you're not showing up with energy.

Your clients feel it.

Your prospects feel it.

And you definitely feel it.

These habits are not soft skills.

They're foundations that make every other strategy work.

I've seen so many people that are looking for these big swings

that are going to take their business to the next level.

And then they burn themselves out trying to post three times a day

for 30 days.

And they don't see the results because they weren't.

It wasn't sustainable.

I'm creating a system that is sustainable long term.

Like I said, I've been doing these for two years.

And I don't deviate.

I've seen students try to hustle their way to 10k months without these habits

and run themselves into the ground.

Burnout is real if you're trying to do too much.

And I've seen students implement the standards of excellence

and sign clients they never would have reached out to.

Close contracts, they thought were dead in the water.

And show up with confidence that wasn't there before.

So let me walk you through the five standards of excellence.

Standard one is get up and get ready.

Okay, as people who work at home, this can be like challenging

to get up and actually get ready.

And this sounds like the most basic.

But I promise you it is the most transformative.

Here's what I mean by getting up and getting ready.

You get out of your PJs.

You put yourself together to the standard you set for me personally.

That means mascara, brows, lip gloss and a brush my hair

and I gotta be out of my PJs.

Because here's the thing, when we're in our PJs, we are too cozy.

Like we are too cozy.

Also, if we need to jump on a discovery call or something,

we're not ready for it.

Or if you're like you haven't done the bare minimum to feel confident

to show up online, you're not going to do it.

When we get up and get ready, we feel more confident.

It's just like when you go get your hair done, right?

We feel more confident.

So why does this matter?

Because how you show up for yourself is how you show up

for your client's period.

If you're not willing to get out of your PJs each day,

you are not willing to get your clients the best results.

Because if you're not willing to take care of yourself,

you're not willing to take care of clients.

Like point blank.

We have a different energy when we get out of our PJs.

We have a different energy when we get to our level

of what makes us feel confident.

Some people, there's just getting out of their PJs.

Other people, they need full face makeup, hair done.

I told you, my bare minimum.

And that doesn't mean that's all I do.

But my minimum that I can commit to every day

is out of my PJs.

Browse done mascara on and lip gloss.

If I do that, I can show up online.

I can show up on a call.

We had one of our students.

And she's a mom.

And she has two.

And she had never really been feeling confident

since having her baby.

And I can totally relate to that.

This is actually when I created the standards of excellent

is after Bodhi was probably about seven months.

And I felt like I was coming up for air.

And this would have been when I started it

because I remember I had been like, you know,

nursing brawls and spit up all over you.

And I felt so gross all the time.

And one of our strategist side members

during this 30 day challenge,

she was kind of feeling that too.

And by doing the habit every single day for 30 days,

she said it helped her show up and be present.

She booked a haircut.

She got her nails done.

She said this one standard changed her mindset

both personally and in business.

And it's something as simple as getting up

and getting ready, which completely changes

our attitude and how we run our day.

So ask yourself this right now.

Are you showing up like the business that you want to run?

Are you showing up like someone who charges three, four,

$5,000 per month for their services?

Or are you showing up in your PJs and sweatshirts

and not actually showing up on Instagram

or not actually getting out there

and going and meeting people are not cold calling

or whatever yours is,

I can guarantee you, if you get up and get ready,

you're going to feel more confident,

even if people can't see you.

It's a proven fact.

So I'm not judging.

I've been there.

Like this is exactly why I created

the standards of excellence

because I was sitting around in my PJs

with spit up and breast milk all over me.

And instead, I decided I got to change this.

I got to get out of my PJs.

I got to start getting up.

And guess what?

I started feeling much better.

I started showing up in a whole new way.

Something as simple as this can really change our attitude

towards our business.

So that is our first standard.

We get up and we get ready.

And you get to decide what that means for you.

Okay.

So number two, I'm going to argue

is the most important standard.

Like if you don't do any of these,

but you still want to grow your business,

this is the one that you got to focus on.

And that's your daily touch points.

Now, this is very aligned with your business.

Your touch points are your daily conversations.

They're your daily outreaches.

They're intentional conversations and outreaches

to potential clients, follow-ups, referral partners,

warm connections, doing a networking event,

doing a sales call.

This is your marketing.

Not posting on Instagram, hoping someone finds you.

But actually having real human conversations.

So that can be an Instagram DMs.

That can be cold calling.

That can be cold emailing.

That can be in-person networking.

It can be on LinkedIn.

But we're having conversations.

We're not just posting.

For me, my standard is five daily conversations.

That's it.

Five.

Because I know when I'm consistently having five daily conversations,

that's 25 conversations a week.

My business grows.

Plain and simple.

It grows.

But however many you need is completely up to you.

We have some people who this feels very uncomfortable for them.

So they start with one conversation a day.

And guess what?

Their business still grows.

Because they're building consistency.

Now, will it grow as much as someone that's maybe having

10 conversations?

No, it's not going to grow as fast.

But that's okay.

They can be consistent with one.

And consistency beats being sporadic any day.

But you need to decide what is your number.

And maybe you start with one.

Maybe you start with two.

And you build from there.

You need commitment.

You don't need the biggest number.

You need commitment.

Because here's what happens when you don't have one.

You don't have one.

You tell yourself you'll do it when you have time.

And that time never comes.

Because you're focused on client work.

You're focused on your kids.

You're focused on the housework.

And it's the one thing you probably don't want to do.

So you keep pushing it off.

But what are you committed to?

And I want to share with you what happened to one of our students

and started deciding during the 30-day challenge.

She said before the challenge,

she described her consistency with touch points as non-existent.

After the 30-days,

she said the challenge showed her how easily touch points actually are

and they're not that scary.

And one conversation she started ended up being the person

who booked a call with her.

Emo held her that they wanted to work together

and signed a done with you VIP day contract.

One conversation, one habit, one client.

You don't need 100 conversations.

You need very specific intentional ones

that happen on a daily and it builds momentum.

You can go from non-existent touch points

to landing a client in 30 days

when you are consistent and strategic.

And one of the things that our strategist society members said

across the board is when they move their touch points

to the beginning of the day,

they saw a massive increase

and them actually completing their touch points.

Not saving it till the end,

but that's the first thing that they do

soon as they start their day is their touch points.

And so I would encourage you if you're struggling,

move it to the beginning of the day

and set a lower number and work your way up.

And one of our members, LaShaw,

she's already scaled her business past 20k months.

She said the challenge fundamentally shifted

when she does her touch points

before she was treating them as an afterthought at the end of the day,

which meant they often didn't get done.

Now they're the first thing she does every morning

and she's getting up early and starting her day by 6.30 AM

and building a real pipeline of momentum.

The touch points are your needle mover, my friends.

This is not something that we like put to the wayside.

This is the most important part of your business.

This is how you make your money.

Touch points, if nothing else gets done,

should be the one standard that you implement today.

Okay, standard number three is fuel your brain.

So here's the thing, our job as service providers

is to be the smartest person in the room

when it comes to our area of expertise.

And a lot of times I know we don't feel like that,

but that is our job to know more than our clients.

Our clients are paying us for our brains.

And if you're not actively feeding your brains,

we get stale.

We stop growing, we feel like imposters.

For me, my standard is reading a minimum of 10 pages a day.

Not 50 pages, not a chapter, 10 pages.

Because 10 pages is sustainable and sustainability wins.

You could listen to a podcast, you could read a book,

take a training, watch something educational on your field.

The point is intentionality.

You are actively, deliberately learning something

every single day, but here's the deal.

We're not in consumption mode.

We're getting better at our skills so we can apply it.

We're getting better at sales so we can apply it.

You listening to this podcast is fueling your brain,

but if you don't go do anything with this podcast,

you just wasted 20 minutes.

It doesn't do anything for you unless you actually implement it.

There's a difference between fueling our brain and consumption.

So one of our started to society members taught us that her standard

was she wanted to read five books in January, five.

And during that challenge, she shared that it helped her

have more clarity in her priorities,

more confidence in her role, and more follow through.

So when we fuel our brain, it opens us up to more ideas.

And then another member said that something that really stuck with her.

She said fueling her mind was something she never really thought too much about.

But during the challenge made her realize she was already doing a really good job

of feeding her brain.

Sometimes these habits just need to have a name so you give yourself credit for it.

So some of you, I would say the majority of people are actually really good at

fueling their brains.

One thing I will say though is you're probably more in consumption than fueling your brain.

Because you're consuming, but you're not doing anything with it.

Fueling our brain means we're actually taking in the information

and then going and applying it.

So every Tuesday you could listen to this podcast and take something I share

and go apply it to your business.

Every single Tuesday when I share something, there's always actionable steps.

So what are you applying?

It's not enough to consume.

We want to fuel our brain to help us move us forward.

Okay, so standard number four is move your body.

I'm not telling you to train for a marathon.

I'm a 7,000 steps per day girl.

I'm not even at 10,000.

I'm a seven steps a day type of girly.

That's my standard.

So some days I'm walking while I talk on boxer.

That has been the biggest thing that I have done.

A big challenge for me and it has been is getting in steps.

One with my standards, I kept on trying to hit 10,000 and I was so far away.

Like so far away.

And I kept on beating myself up about it.

So see, I'm not perfect either, y'all.

Like I don't have all the answers, but I'm constantly trying to optimize my standards of excellence.

So I said, you know what?

I know what I'm doing wrong.

I'm trying to shoot for a number that's just not realistic for me right now.

I bumped it down to 7,000.

I have a walking pad.

I do not like walking and working under my desk.

Like when I'm computer work, I just don't like it.

And so I asked my husband.

I said, let's move my walking pad to in front of my desk.

And then I answer boxer messages for our strategist sighting members.

They get one-on-one access to me.

So every day for 30 minutes, twice a day, I'm usually responding to boxer messages.

So I created a rule that if I'm responding to boxer messages, I have to be walking.

And what I found is, oh my goodness, y'all, I hit my 7,000 pretty much every day now.

And I'm working.

And what I found is when I'm walking and boxing, I actually, my brain is stimulated,

and I feel like I'm a better coach.

So here's the deal.

If you're trying to stretch for this crazy goal that's not working for you,

and you're not hitting it, you're going to get frustrated.

My was 10,000.

I had to get down to 7,000 steps a day.

And that works.

And I found a way to weave it in so I can't say I don't have time.

I'm doing the boxer messages anyway, might as well be walking.

So that is my standard.

Some days I'm walking while I'm boxing.

Some days I'm chasing the kids around the backyard.

The point is I'm making sure I'm moving.

And I even set timers where I get up and I do a few laps around my office.

Because here's the thing, we're sitting around all day long.

We got to get up and move our body.

So here's why this matters for your business.

Your body is the most important business asset.

And most of us are sitting at our desk for eight hours, five hours, four hours,

wondering why we feel so freaking unmotivated.

Anxious, foggy, stiff, our back hurts.

Movement changes your brain chemistry.

It reduces anxiety.

It builds the kind of quiet confidence that makes you better on discovery calls,

better with your clients, better in your own head.

Movement we have to get.

And again, you set your own standard.

Maybe it's 20 minutes of yoga.

Maybe it's walking around the block.

Maybe it's chasing a toddler.

Whatever it is, create your standard.

One of our students is trying to just society said she exercised every single day

during one of her hardest weeks.

Even if it was just once around the block, she'd been sick dealing with personal challenges

and barely keeping it together.

But she still moved her body.

And she said it felt good to be able to do that.

That's the point.

The habit holds even when life doesn't.

Because we're not creating the 75 hard, we're creating habits that are sustainable,

no matter what, we're going through in our business and our life.

Because consistency matters more than the big numbers.

We're building momentum in our daily actions.

We're not swinging for the fences.

Okay, so standard five is share a win.

Y'all, this one, this one right here is probably my favorite one.

I love to win.

I share wins every single day.

I share wins in my journal, Facebook group, Voxer, our community,

to Austin, even at dinner.

We sit around and share a win.

Every night at dinner is a family.

And winning and sharing those wins is something that does amazing things for the brain.

And you can share it wherever you have our strategist society members.

They have a channel inside their community.

They're sharing wins daily with each other.

I'm sharing them in my journal and dinner with my family.

And I even share mine in the community as well.

Say it out loud, write it down.

Our strategist society members also voxed me with their win.

So I can share them one.

And I know some of you are like, Bernie, that's so fluffy.

That's like, I don't need to do that.

But you do.

Service providers are wired to minimize their success, like, especially as women.

We hit a revenue goal and immediately move on to the next one.

We sign a client and spend three minute celebrating before we panic about delivering what we just sold them.

We close a discovery, call it instead of sitting in that win for five seconds.

We're already worried about something else.

You showed up for your business.

You're a mom running a business that in itself is a win.

The daily win, practice, rewires, patterns and thought processes and things that keep us small as women and a service providers.

It helps you notice that you are freaking awesome.

Even when you don't feel it.

And one of our strategist society members said that the habit made her rethink how she approaches and what she even considers to be a win.

She said things that previously felt too small.

She now recognizes as a legitimate progress.

That's what happens when you start celebrating wins.

Especially if you do it daily and you're like, I don't have a win, that's not acceptable.

You did win today.

You just got to find it.

And when you make that a habit, then it rewires your brain, like it did for this strategist society member.

Another strategist society member said that sharing a win each day has been a great toolkit for her emotional well-being and has helped her reframe the rough days.

This is not a small thing, my friend.

Do not dismiss this habit.

That is the habit that is literally changing how these women see themselves and their business.

Do not skip this.

So the five standards of excellence, I'm going to repeat them real quick for you is one, get up and get ready.

Two, your daily touch points.

Three, fuel your brain.

Four, move your body.

Five, share a win.

Okay.

So at the start of 2026, I ran a 30 day standards of excellence challenge inside a strategist society.

My students tracked every single habit every single day.

And the results.

Let me give you some highlights that like completely just let me know that this isn't just about something that works for me.

But it's something that can change each and every single one of y'all's lives.

One of our strategist society members committed and did all of them five days a week for the whole month of January.

She said she would have let outside forces dictate her days instead of leading her days from intention she said.

She came away with new habit.

She plans to carry through all of 2026 and said the biggest surprise was how much having a backup plan helped a backup plan for movement if walking didn't work out a backup book.

If she needed to take a break from the one she was reading little tweaks made a big difference in her ability to keep moving when her days got busy.

Another strategist society said that her January was slower than she was expecting.

But the standards of excellence challenge is the reason January didn't derail her.

She said it would have been easy to phone it in and ultimately have a slow financial month could have turned into February also being slow.

But she stayed consistent and she said she's now seeing the momentum come back.

She also said something that I want everyone to hear.

I proved to myself that taking 30 minutes to send 10 touch points it isn't actually as big a deal as I thought it was.

And this strategist society member is having massive momentum now in February.

We don't always see the momentum when we start something.

It takes time. It's funny this morning I was telling my husband he struggles with allergies and we're starting him on two new supplements.

And he said it's not going to start working for three weeks.

You have to be consistent doing this every day.

And it's the same thing with the standards of excellence.

It's not going to show up in a week.

It takes 30 days to start seeing the momentum.

And because this strategist society member didn't let a slower January slow her down she stayed committed.

Now she's having a freaking fantastic February.

And something she's been putting off selling in the DMs.

And now going in on it and doing so stinkin' well she's got better because she's been putting in the daily effort.

That is the gift of the challenge.

It proved things to yourself that you didn't know were possible.

Another strategist society member said her biggest win from 30 days was the mindset shift.

Not a client, not the Revever with new, but a mindset shift.

She said she's now more aware of when she's not completing her standards.

More aware of her weak spots.

This challenge reinforced and reminded me that you need 30 days of consistency to establish a habit.

Another strategist society member said now that she's getting up at 6.30 every morning which was a huge shift for her.

She said doing the touch points earlier in the day instead of treating them as an afterthought has fundamentally changed how she shows up in her business.

Here's what all these results have in common.

None of them are about a perfect strategy.

All of them are about consistency and making an identity shift.

When you do these 5 things every day, you stop feeling like someone who's trying to build a business and you start feeling like someone who already has one.

Alright my friends, if you're sitting here and you're like brini, I've been sleeping on these habits.

I think this probably may be the piece that I've been missing for my business.

You're probably right.

Here's what I want you to do right now.

I want you to pick your standards.

Not mine, not our strategist side members, but yours.

What does getting up and getting ready look like for you?

What is your touch point goal?

How are you going to fuel your brain?

How are you going to move your body?

And how are you going to share your win?

Write those down, put them somewhere so you can see them and do them tomorrow.

Not next Monday, not next week, not next month, start tomorrow and actually start today.

And if you want the full support system, the community, the coaching, the weekly calls, the accountability where we actually hold you to these.

That's what strategist side is.

It's a group of seriously incredible service providers who are building real businesses, making big girl money and supporting each other every single day and week and doing the dang thing.

If you're already past three K months, you have some clients and you want to push past 10, 20, 30 K months, strategist side may be your next step.

So head to these strategist side.com and go on and you can fill out a form.

We'll have a short conversation and we can chat about it if it's right for you.

If you're just starting your journey and you're like,

I am just getting my journey started. I don't have any clients yet.

But you want to know the way to lay in clients to run a successful business and to start offering the number one highest paying skill that allows you to find clients with these.

Head to conversions for clients.com. That's where you want to start.

But no one, no matter what, you don't need a perfect plan. You don't need to feel ready.

You just need to do the dang thing. One day, five habits consistently.

So until next week, go out and serve your clients, scale your business and soar into the success you deserve.