Daily Motivations
S19 Ep90: One Life, One Chance
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Nothing changes and nothing changes man. In order for something to change, there needs to be change. I'm afraid to make a change and I'd say that's okay. That's understandable. How afraid are you of not making a change? Let's make a little vision of that. You're a 35. You hate your job. What's the consequence? You're not motivated. You don't want to get out of bed in the morning. You're starting to get depressed. You're getting bitter. You're getting resentful. You're getting cynical. You're a motivated at work. You're not doing a very good job. And you're starting to shrink. Now play that out for 10 years. You don't change it. You don't fix it. And what happens? Well, it's not like it's going to get better of its own accord. Well, it's going to happen to you. Well, for sure at minimum, what's going to happen to you is you're going to be in the same situation. But 10 years older. And if you can't get out of that situation now, what the hell makes you think you're going to get out of it in 10 years? You're only seeing what's in front of you. You're not seeing what's above you. Everybody's so crippled by decisions, but you never know how the other thing worked out. Let me give you an example. Let's say you don't go to college. And you start this business and you were 100% right. And it's huge. And you're doing so great. But because you did that, you had a fly to America for a big meeting. And your plane crashed and you died. That would be a bad idea. Or you think you're going to go to college because it's a good experience. And you'll meet people. You can meet people in a business. You're not going to know. I think people overthink decisions. You'll never know what the alternative would have been. So just pick one and do it. If you will change, everything will change for you. You don't have to change what's outside. All you've got to change is what's inside. To have more, you simply have to become more. And then he said, don't wish it was easier. Wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems. Wish for more skills. Start working on yourself. Making these personal changes. And he said it'll all change for you. It's a few that do. The few that do in life. That creates the envy for the many that gets watched. The real pain in life is getting to the end of it and realizing that you left something on the table. I think that I had unfulfilled potential. I could have done more. And I didn't. Two forms of pain. Pain that breaks you. And the pain that changes you. That's the pain of a change right there. That's the pain of progress. The pain that destroys you isn't this. It's later in life knowing you could have been more. And all that's left is you and the fear and tears of a possibility left. That you allowed to die. Own your life, guys. You got every opportunity. There's no excuse not to be the hardest mother of the worker in the room. What would have had to have happened in a week for you to look back on that week with pride? Okay, maybe stop breaking promises to yourself. When you say I'm going to wake up tomorrow at 7am and when the option comes to hit this news button, don't do it. There's one win that you've got for the day. That's action. The path of the exceptional person is one of an exception, which means that you are not with other people. And rather than fighting that or bemoaning it, you can't see it as an indicator that you're on the right path. Because if everyone else works hearing you want, then it means you're not in the right place. Because it means you're just like everyone else and that's not where you want to be. I would say ask her out. You know, matter who she is, whether she's a job or a new city or or an actual person. You know, whether she's an opportunity or a fear. Whatever she is, man, ask her out. There is a way out. There is a way to do more, to get more, to obtain more. But I personally don't want to lose all that I've been able to get. So I need to make sure that I do everything to keep it. So I can't be content. You know, we're all writing a book. What's your book look like? What does your book look like? Like, your life is a book. You got a bunch of chapters in your book. But when they close that book, how good was the book? You know, there'll be times where you succeed and there are times that you fail. So wasting your time doubting whether you're going to be successful or not is pointless. It is. And you just pull one from the front of the other. You control what you can't control. And then you see what the outcome is. Right? If you went great, you're going to have to wake up the next day and do the journey over again. If you lose, it sucks. But you're going to have to wake up the next day and do the journey all over again anyway. Right? So it's really pointless to sit here and debate or have doubt or just any other. You train as hard as you can and you step out there and you let it flow. What is that thing that we wanted to accomplish? That thing you want to do accomplish? That thing that has been gnawing at your gut. That thing that you think you have some passion about. That you want to take a crack at. That thing that's been in your crosshairs. That thing I'm thinking about, I want to accomplish it. I think I'm going to be good at it. I think I could make something of this particular thing. Ah, you know what? One day. Ah, I'll do it one day. This is day one. This is day one, that thing I have had in my crosshairs. That thing that I believe gets me out of bed. That thing that I run towards. That thing that I want to be passionate about. That thing I want to accomplish today is the first day. Today is day one. Why would you not go for it? Why would you not take a chance at one point in time? You got to take a chance on you. It's like, I've got one in life, and this is it. And we're in it right now, and there isn't a second to waste. Let's do this. What are we doing? What am I doing? What's exciting? What's fun? And kind of stand or fall, it doesn't matter. There's a great Chinese expression, a great old proverb. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now. What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail? If you knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that you could not fail, what one thing would you set as a goal for yourself? Because sometimes answering that question will tell you the one thing that you've been put on this earth to accomplish. 75 years. That's how much time you get if you're lucky. 75 years, 75 winters, 75 spring times, 75 summers, and 75 autumns. When you look at it like that, it's not a lot of time is, don't waste them. Get your head out of the rat race and forget about the superficial things that preoccupy your existence and get back to what's important now. Right now, this very second. Every morning when you get up, say over and over to yourself, do it now, do it now, do it now, I do it now, do it now. Whenever you have this tendency to procrastinate, program your subconscious mind with this automatic conditioned command, do it now, do it now, do it now. The key to overcoming procrastination is to develop a sense of urgency. Be the kind of person who gets things done quickly. Be the kind of person who launches fast on a task. It's that when it feels scary to jump, he and that is exactly when you jump. Otherwise, you end up staying in the same place your whole life. And that I can't do. There's a saying when the devil ignores you, then you know you're doing something wrong. Wait a minute, I'm not done now. You know, the devil goes, oh no, leave him alone, he's my favorite. Don't you rather him. Conversely, when the devil comes at you, maybe it's because you're trying to do something right. You know, if every time someone asks you a question, you try to say the right answer, your entire life is a test. And when did you have the most anxiety in grammar school and high school? Not a question. On test day, you know, so your entire life become this test. I ain't trying to say the right answer. I am just doing what I feel. My momma said trying is failing. There is no ifs, words, cuts, shuts, it just is and we just are. But go out there and make something of yourself for God's sake. Be an honest person and work and get to the top of whatever it is that you want to get to the top of. Stand up for yourself like a respectable human being and be a bit of a light on the world instead of a blight. The time is now. The time is now to express and for people to believe in themselves. The time is now for it to be okay to be great. People in this world shun people for being great, for being a bright color, for standing out. But the time is now to be okay to be the greatest you. Heroes and villains always have the same backstory, her pain. The difference is what they choose to do about it. Villains says, "The world hurt me. I'll hurt it back." The hero says, "The world hurt me. I'm not going to let it hurt anybody else." Heroes use pain. Villains are used by it. You and I are capable of doing whatever we can see. We can hold it in our head. We can hold it in our hand. Don't waste your life. Set your goals high. Quit thinking about what's wrong. Start thinking what's right. Love a little more. Hate a little less. You have no idea what you're capable of doing. Make up your mind today. You're going to figure it out. To develop the quality of being unstoppable. Develop the quality of being unstoppable. Say in yourself that no matter what life throws at me, it'll never stop me. No matter how rough it gets, I will never quit. And nothing will ever stop me. Make the decision that you can be tired, you can be worn out, but nothing is ever going to stop you. I'm always waiting for everything to be perfect before I live my life. I'm always waiting for everything to be perfect before I live my life. As soon as these things line up, I'm going to live my life. You can't wait for everything to be perfect to start living your life. That's what I've done. My whole life has been like that. Inside of me, it has been. As soon as it's all lined up, I'm going to show you myself. As soon as I've got it all looking the way I want, I'm going to show up for you. I'm never going to get to that where everything's okay, where everything looks a certain way. And in the meantime, I'm burning the best time I do have available. I'm burning that candle up. I'm burning this candle down, and I'm saying as soon as it gets bright enough or warm enough in here, I'm going to show up. But the candle's getting smaller. I had a difficult childhood, but there's no excuse for people not being able to do what they want to do. You can do anything that you want to do. So if you're young, don't give up. Don't say the world is just against me. That's not true. And the other thing that's so interesting about being alive is that you're all in. No matter what you do, you're all in. This is going to kill you. So I think you might as well play the most magnificent game you can while you're waiting, because do you have anything better to do? Really? Why not pick the best thing possible that you could do? If times are hard, good things or bad things last forever. But most generally, we are in control of our own destiny. You think when you're young that you have all this time, you have no time. There's no time. I mean, one of the quotes on the wall in the gym and there's, there is no tomorrow from Rocky 3. You know, there is no tomorrow. That shit. Let's get all this done today. Just sitting around dreaming someday, someday I'm going to get a different job. Someday I'm going to change this. Well, someday ain't a day of the week. You know, there's money Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Look on your counter. Some days not on there. So you got to say, okay, I want to take this small step by here, this small step by there, this small step by there. And then pretty soon, you know, we don't leaps tall buildings in a single bound. We take it a floor at a time. You know, greatness is not meant for a few chosen people. It's meant for those who persistently pursue their dreams every day and make that choice when they wake up. So just a mentality, really, aspiration, come from people that do amazing things. But they're really ordinary people just waking up every day doing it, doing the little things that other people aren't doing. So chopped wood, carry water. I got to stay poised. It's definitely something. And we all have this feeling that I came into this world. Now it isn't true. You came out of this world, like a leaf comes out of a tree. You're going to realize it one day. That happiness was never about your job or your degree or being in a relationship. Happiness was never about following in the footsteps of all of those who came before you. It was never about being like the others. One day you're going to see it. That happiness was always about the discovery, the hope, the listening to your heart, and following it wherever it chose to go. Happiness was always about being kinder to yourself. It was always about embracing the person you were becoming. One day you will understand that happiness was always about learning how to live with yourself, that your happiness was never in the hands of others. One day you'll realize that true happiness comes from within. And no external factors can define it. It was always about you. It was always about you. If you want to know something about yourself, sit on your bed one night and say, "What's one thing I'm doing wrong, that I know I'm doing wrong, that I could fix, that I would fix?" You meditate on that? You'll get an answer, and it won't be one you want, but it'll be the necessary one. If you can get a mental image of the person, you would most like to become. Begin now to act if that person would act and everything you do. Gradually, imperceptibly, you will actually become that person. He goes back to what the great German poet and philosopher Gerta once said. Before you can do something, you must first be something. Before you can do what you would most like to do, you must first become the person who can do it. Anything I have done in my life, I've done it, and I've done it with the expectation I have no regrets, or I wouldn't have done it in the first place. I'm a man of calculation. I'm a man of strategic planning and strategic movement. So when I do things, I make sure I don't regret it. Is there any limit to your ambition? No. Or any limit to what you think you can achieve? No. Well, no. Because I think right now, if I was to quit wrapping it, I'd say I want to go to the NBA. I would be in the NBA. No, you wouldn't. Yes. No, you wouldn't. Yes, I would. No, you wouldn't. Yes, I would. Why would you think you could make it to the NBA? Because I think I could do anything. Ten years from now, you will surely become someone. The big question is, who? What are you becoming? And if you go to work on it now, sure enough, in a very short period of time, you can take on a new direction to become the kind of person you want to be. Ten years from now, you will surely arrive. And the question is, where? So to answer the question of where you want to arrive and the kind of person you want to be, you've got to get serious. Hey, you can do anything. You put your mind to never give up on your dreams. Keep smiling. No matter what you're going to, if you fall down, just get up. If you can't get up. Your friends are there to help you up. Your mom is there. Your daddy's there. Got there. Hey, I'm there to help you up. And so all of a sudden you're sitting there and you're thinking, man, I thought my life was together. Now it's in shambles at my feet. No, it's not. No, it's not. It's not. It's all right. It's all right. You're not supposed to have it together. All right. Those who go to college, get out of college, get a job and stay in that job until they retire, then retire and buy property down the floor. That's an anomaly. That's not normal. It happens, but it's an anomaly. And most of those people, they might be really good people, but they ain't got cool stories to tell. Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it. I always thought joy was, oh, I get this and then I'm happy, or I do this and then I'm happy, or I get her and then I'm happy, or I make that and then I'm happy, or they respect me and then I'm happy. I always thought happiness was to be acquired by the things I would gain from life. That's why I was always grabbing. If I knew early on that happiness actually is in me offering all of my suffering up for other people as some as an instructive thing, or as something that could benefit man, then I maybe would have lived my life different. So I guess the question I would ask anybody is how do you use your suffering to tap into your joy? When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful. And when you get to the point where all you want to do is be successful, as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful. And I'm here to tell you, number one, that most of you say you want to be successful, but you don't want it bad. You just kind of want it. You don't want it badder than you want a party. You don't want it as much as you want to be cool. Most of you don't want success as much as you want to sleep. Some of you love sleep, more than you love success, and I'm here to tell you today, if you're going to be successful, you've got to be willing to give up sleep. You've got to be willing to work off for three hours or sleep two hours. If you really want to be successful, some days you will have to stay up three days in a row. Because if you go to sleep, you might miss the opportunity to be successful. That's how bad you got to want it. Your family is looking for that one guy right now. You're looking for that one guy who's strong, who's that pillar for the family in hard times. Make sure they look around, they look around and find you. These are times right now for you to step up. Be that guy that can take anything. One of my friends, Alex, has got this quote which I love and he says, "The heaviest things in life aren't iron and gold but unmade decisions. The reason you are stressed is that you have decisions to make and you're not making them." How am I able to just extract dopamine, the good dopamine whenever I want? Man, I've trained 99 percent of my life alone. No one had me on the back. I did all of the work alone and while I'm still hard on myself, I know what I did. So whenever times get bad, all this, "Who's your care of the boats?" And look, that's real. I hate that people know me for that guy because that guy is not every day. When they see me, they want that energy. That's not me every day. I can extract it immediately when I need you because when you train alone and I lived alone for so many years and this misery and you're able to get out by yourself, I can take myself to such a level of real, real passion and purpose and the feeling I get is something I can't even expect by myself. I don't need anyone. That's why people come to me to motivate them. No one can motivate me. People only root for people who don't need it. Like the amount of times when I was on my lonely path where I was too different from the friends that I had but not successful enough to be friends with the people that I wanted to be friends with. That's when you want people to root for you. That's when you want people to support you. Once you've already won, people are like, "He's amazing. He's so good." But like, that's the time when you need it the least and so you always have to be the person who roots for you before everyone else does and it's usually a single clap in the auditorium for a very long period of time. It is a slow clap that's just you rooting for you and that visual I think is one that you can kind of take because it is. People struggle to do things alone and the path of the exceptional person is one of an exception which means that you are not with other people and rather than fighting that or bemoaning it, see it as an indicator that you're on the right path because if everyone else were cheering you on then it means you're not in the right place because it means you're just like everyone else and that's not where you want to be. Damn man, what the hell are you doing? This guy will not kill you on your Come on, Rock. It's not a game. You want to live in the hospital for five weeks this time? You thought I was tough? This job will kill you. He's trying to hurt you, Rock. He's trying to hurt you. Okay, here it comes. Jeff, he's Jeff, he's Jeff. He's something. He's something. Damn, Rock. Come on. What's the matter with you? Come on. Let's go tomorrow. There is no tomorrow. There is no tomorrow. There is no tomorrow. Look in the mirror and look at themselves. The problems in your life are your own day and fall and so the answer into fixing the problems in your life are in your own day and hands. The responsibility for the well-being of your family, your wife, your husband, your children are yours. You know, some of y'all are motivated by broke. I'm broke. I'm stuck. I can't do nothing. Some of y'all are motivated by just wanting to accomplish the things that you want to accomplish. Other folks are motivated by materialistic things. Some very simple concept. If you want it, you got to go get it. You think when you're young that you have all this time, you have no time. There's no time. I mean, one of the quotes on the wall in the gym and there is, there is no tomorrow from Rocky III. You know, there is no tomorrow. That's it. Let's get all this done today. So whenever it gets nasty, David Goddess goes, you had nobody anyway, mother. So see, I'm talking to myself for now. That's me. That inspires me to fuck. That makes me nuts. You had nobody anyway, mother. Look around you. There was no team. It was you. There was no weight loss programmer. Mom and Dad waking you up saying you can do it. You can be better trying to build belief. You built belief when you had nothing. Rock bottom. It's easy to give up. You're really easy. It's the easiest thing in the world to do. All right, man, I'm done. I ain't going. I ain't going to keep going. I don't feel like going to work. I'm done. Easy. It's very easy. But what's hard is going, yo, yesterday I got nothing from working as hard as I could. Nothing happened from that. I'm going to do the same thing again today, but I'm going to try to go harder. That's the hardest thing in the world to get up every day and give 100% and be in the same position that you were each day, but mentally know that you're trying and trying and trying. That's a real, that's a real grind. The bottom line is no one's coming. No one's coming to push you. No one's coming to tell you to turn the TV off. No one's coming to tell you to get out the door and exercise. Nobody's coming to tell you to apply for that job that you've always dreamt about. Nobody's coming to write the business plan for you. It's up to you. And because you're only ever going to do the things that you feel like doing right now or that feel good right now, unless you understand that you've got to parent yourself, you got to push yourself, you're not going to make your dreams come true. You're just not. We're not wired that way. You weren't born that way. You weren't that way when you were growing up and you're certainly not that way as an adult. At some point, everything's going to go south on you. Everything's going to go south and you're going to say, "This is it. This is how I end." Now, you can either accept that or you can get to work. Be the hero of your own movie. If your life was a movie and it started now, forget about whatever financial disasters you've had, personal failures, relationship failures. What would the hero of your life's movie do right now? Do that. You cannot live in that normal mindset. You must be your best on your worst date. And how you do that is you cannot think of a normal mindset. You cannot have a normal mindset. And I promise you, every single person who wants to do something with their life and has done something with their life has gone through the exact chapter that you're going through. And it's the lonely chapter. It's the chapter where you don't fit in with your own friends, but you don't have the outcomes yet to fit into a new group of friends. And you're doing this thing, you're consuming content on the internet. You're doing these free tutorials online to try and figure out how to set up a podcast. And what do I host this thing? And you're going through this and you're like, "Is this even worth it because you have no signs of success?" But if there's anything that you can take away from what we're saying right now, is that the sign of success is the hate that you get along the way. And what you can't do is bend the knee to their hate and fit back into the conforming because it's comfortable and it's warm because, like in the Matrix, when Trinity opens the door, when Nio's about to go take the red pill, and he wants to get out of the car, she says, Nio, you've been down that road. And you know exactly where it leads. And I know that's not where you want to be. And then he closes the door. Like right now, this moment that you're going through is Trinity opening the door and being like, you could go back, but then you'd have to remember exactly what the reason was that you decided not to go out to begin with, just because you listen to this podcast and you consume this concert and you're like, "I can do more than this." Like because you are starting to live in some of that how you look in the mirror and you're like, "I can do more." And you start to see the person that you could be. And you're like, "This does start to feel like hell." It's all in your mind. Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life. If you continue to believe as you have always believed, you will continue to act as you have always acted. You will continue to get what you have always gotten. If you want different results in your life or your work, all you have to do is change your mind. There's no passion, no motivation. There's no, "Oh my God, man." This is no. It's every day of your life just doing. No passion, no discipline, no motivation. All these words, I hate people. I hate that so many people use these words not because it's watered. It's worse passion when you're 300 pounds. Where's the motivation when you can't read and write? Where is it? So how did this happen? I just fucking did. There's a great Chinese and a great old proverb, "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now." It was life and death. Either you live or you die. Which one do you want, Tom? That was the decision in the corporate life and in the gym. But if you want something bad enough, if you want something bad enough, you can't let anybody tell you you can't do something. I'll repeat that. If you want something bad enough, you can't let anybody tell you you can't do something, not even yourself. A lot of days, I'm like, "Oh, you can't do this, Tom." Let me show you. I mean, I would have arguments with myself. I could do it. We define ourselves far too often by our past failures. We look at our past and we say, "Well, that's me." That's not you. You are this person right now. You're the person who's learned from those failures and you can choose to be the hero of your own movie right now. Write down your goals, write down things you want to improve, write down things you won't tolerate from yourself, write down things that you've done in the past that you never want to see yourself do again and go forth from here as the hero of your own movie. If you think the price of winning is too high, wait till you get the bill from regret. Everybody just wants to be comfortable. Everybody wants to sit in the car. I don't want to go outside. It's cool. I don't want to do this. It's hot. You've got to do things that you don't want to do because you show your body that your mind is the boss. Your mind is telling your body what to do and then you have control. Every morning when you get up, say over and over to yourself, "Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. I do it now. Do it now." Whenever you have this tendency to procrastinate, program your subconscious mind with this automatic conditioned command, "Do it now. Do it now. Do it now." I don't care how good you are in anything. You don't have discipline. You ain't nobody. Right. You're nothing about discipline because you give up a slight struggle without discipline. With discipline, do what you hate to do, but do it like you love it. It's that when it feels scary to jump, Ian, that is exactly when you jump. Otherwise, you end up staying in the same place your whole life and that I can do. How bad do you want this? If this is bad as you want to live, breathe, or sleep, whatever hell it may be, I can work with you. A lot of people, most people don't want it that badly, which is why they ask the question, "How do you get to where you are?" You know how to do it. You know exactly how to beat you or how to beat me. You don't want to do it. So I can't make you do it. In order to have the time or energy to force you into that place that I know you have to be to do it. There's no luck in this game. Maybe a little bit of luck, but the luck happens after you bust your ass and you put yourself in that lucky situation. Luck doesn't happen. You put yourself in that situation where luck might happen. Be the guy who embraces the ugly, the miserable. Be the guy who embraces hard work, the grind. Don't be afraid of being heard. Don't be afraid of a sacrifice to some blood. Is that hard times create hard men. Hard men create soft times. Soft times create soft men. Soft men create hard times. We are now around soft men and hard times. You know, there comes a day, man. Everyone's going to have this day. There comes a day where being average, being mediocre, it's just sickening to you. It's just sickening. It makes you want to throw up because you've seen people with far less talent than you as you're growing up with them. They're childhood buddies, whatever else. They didn't have what you had. Yet now they're going to become something that you haven't. There comes that day. It's either when you're young, you know, and it strikes you on the baseball field because you're sick of striking out or it's when you get fired from your fifth job, you know, when you're wiping kids running your ass because you don't have support anymore. There comes a day where push comes a show where being mediocre, being like average and just burning that sucks so much. You can't deal with it one more day and you get off your ass and you create something. It's always been there. It's always been inside of you trying to come out, but you've never wanted to unwrap because there's too much pain and commitment. You're scared you're going to fail. You're scared if you started, you never finished it. You didn't want to tell anyone about it. You knew it was there, but you never wanted to embark on it until something in hits. You get fired or somebody else gets success. Remind you of what you could have done. And then the f***ing spark is born. And no matter what happens, I'm never going to be in this boat again. And you get up and you don't even get knocked on you. Keep going. Keep going. You're a wild man. And life has never been so sweet. That can happen at an early age. It can happen at a later age. It's going to happen to somebody every, you know, no matter what's going to happen to you. And when it does happen to you, think you're lucky stars that finally you're alive. It's time to unwrap the potential you can be. Superior, man. It's within you. It's within every single one of us. And the people that have risen to that level were no different than any one of us. It's as they believed it and they're willing to work there for them. And that's all to get it. The easiest thing in the world to do is to complain, blame, and quit and settle. That's the easiest thing in the world to do. But it takes real work to deconstruct and to reconstruct the thought process in the mindset of an individual when they're trying to change something. That's why I always say to people, what's more important? What we acquire? Or who we become? Everybody has a turn back moment. You have a moment where you can go forward or you can give up. But the thing you have to keep in mind before you give up is that if you give up, the guarantee is it will never happen. Wait when things go completely to pieces. When things are the worst, when your very best deal falls apart and your rent is late and you're tired and you're sick and everybody is mad at you and your car doesn't work, then it's the person that picks themselves up and says nothing is going to stop me. You know, the best quality in the world that you can develop and I give it to you because I've made it my life's habit to develop this quality. I hope I've got it but I don't know for sure. But the quality is to develop the quality of being unstoppable. On all those bad days and all those days you don't want to do s***. You have to be your own motivator, your own coach, your own trainer, your own everything. So to do that you have to come into work and work is whatever your work may be ready to go. And what that means is you may have failed miserably yesterday but you come to work like, you're like man you just lost everything. How the hell are you just damn motivated? Because this is what it takes. This is what the f*** it takes. And you got to get it from wherever you can. Whether you make up this illusion of your life or this false reality that gets you motivated, whatever gets you motivated, it's going to be here at the tip of your brain at all times. Because in those dark moments you got to pull it out. So that's the big thing for me man. I was always fired up at all times. No matter how rough it gets I will never quit and nothing will ever stop me. Make the decision that you can be tired, you can be worn out but nothing is ever going to stop you. Don't settle. Make sure that whatever life that you want you will strive for that. You make sure you go for that. Don't let anyone tell you it's not possible. Don't let anyone tell you that it's not practical. You make sure that you go for it. You hungry, you want it, then get it. I went to a homeless shelter to get what I have now. I went to a homeless shelter. I stumbled. I went hungry three nights in a row every week to get what I have. Don't let no one stop you. No one tell you what to do. You make sure you get it. Don't let no one stop you, all right? You're driven. The energy that you need. The drive you need to get it. You pull that from yourself because when you pull it from yourself no one can influence it. Just you. What would have had to have happened in a week for you to look back on that week with pride? Okay, maybe stop breaking promises to yourself. When you say I'm going to wake up tomorrow at 7 a.m. and when the option comes to hit this news button, don't do it. There's one win that you've got for the day. That's action. The path of the exceptional person is one of an exception which means that you are not with other people and rather than fighting that or bemoaning it, see it as an indicator that you're on the right path because if everyone else were cheering you on then it means you're not in the right place because it means you're just like everyone else and that's not where you want to be. The thing is with me is I don't give up. I don't give a **** when anybody says or what anybody thinks, I have this mindset. I know exactly who the **** I am. I have my circle of people that I hang around with who know me and know what I'm about and whatever and anybody else who doesn't like it or doesn't want it, looking bad. And you know, you learn from those mistakes. Those failures that you have just so consequential and then you don't want that to happen again. So you've got to be either quit or get way better. And then the next day comes and you're back playing again and you understand that life has this cyclical nature where it's what you do on Monday. It's fantastic but then Tuesday is a bad day. But guess what? There's Wednesday. So are we just supposed to live our lives like this the whole time? You know, versus just staying like this and understanding that it's really just a journey of evolution every day. It's just constant improvement, constant curiosity, constantly getting better. The results don't really matter. It's the figuring out that matters. Yeah. And we all get obsessed about the results. Now we get obsessed about like the output, not the input of not figuring it out and not like changing things. What you said, trial and error, like the experiment. And for people that see someone who's a beast, who's done great things, you just assume that they're different than you. But then you hear about your insecurities and your pitfalls and all the things that went wrong with you. And you realize, with those the same things that go wrong with me. Like maybe I have that inside of me and I've just never summoned it. Right. And I tell you this, I started really realizing that when I started overcoming myself, I started getting around these real alpha males. And I always put people way above me when I was growing up. Like my God, they had to have a lot more to me to get to where they're at. And a lot of them did. But once you get around the best of the best of the best people, you can kind of start breaking them down and realizing, man, you're just as up as me. There's there's a great feeling in these overcoming these difficult things, because life is never this just constant state of, I'm at a nine all day. And when I'm with my wife, I hit 10. Yay. And I stay like that. That's not real. When it, when it comes down to how long can you stay in that pool? When it comes down to how far can you run? When it comes down to how much can you push yourself past the part where you want to quit? How far can you keep going? There's a purity in that that it dissolves social order, all that, all the, what people think about you goes out the window. It's what, who are you right now? That's right. Who are you right now? That's a true statement, man. And I look at it as psychological warfare. And that's where I started learning that that life is one big psychological warfare that you play on yourself. You play on yourself, man. The most important conversation I ever had is with myself. And it's not telling myself was so tough. It was so wrong. It was so misguided. And other people start to write that dialogue for you also. And it starts to be what you say to yourself every single day. And I started creating a whole nother warfare, a whole nother battle started becoming, I was like, Oh, hang on a second, guys. You have these tools. The human organism, the animal that we are needs constant stimulation because it evolved trying to find food and escape enemies. You have these tools. Your life was basically the perfect, the perfect grounds for training for where you need to go in your life and find shelter, escape nature, escape the elements, try to survive. And this is the great joy that you have in taking care of your children, that you can protect your children from the elements and the enemies and feed them. And it's also the great sadness that you see in losers. All the beatings, all the, all the bullying, all the, you know, you going through, uh, learning disabilities, all the struggles. It was the absolute perfect training ground for you to go to where you need to go. When I see a loser, I see some guy who's 43 years old, lives in his parents basement. He hates the world. I'm like, that was a baby. Man, this is a baby that somebody just gave any nutrients to, whether it's nutrients in the forms of food or in the form of thoughts and ideas and examples. And this kid developed these horrible, self-defeating patterns of behavior that have led them to this point where there is this middle aged person with no future and no idea of how to get out of this rot and probably never will escape it and might just wind up sucking on a gun. You know, I mean, this is, this is the world that we live in today. And I think part of that world is because we have been fed this line of heart that you're supposed to seek comfort. And I don't think you are. And that's how I started looking at my life versus well with me, poopy pants, kicking rock down the street mentality. It was not. God just hooked you right? He hooked you right up, man, with the perfect place. You were training for the first 18, 19, 20s. You were training for this stuff, man. You have the advantage of everybody else versus my God. They're so above me. They came from a great family. Mom and dad love them. They didn't have a learning, they didn't start, they didn't struggle. No, man, your struggle made you who you are now through that struggle. I will now have a better day and I better do it again tomorrow or do something else because if I just think, well, tomorrow, I'm just going to coast and eat Twinkies and watch TV. Oh, hello, sadness, my old friend. Hello, depression, because when you're not doing anything, you feel like, so I started flipping this into a whole different, I started being a master of, well, I was scared of, I was scared of my mind and I became literally a master of that mind and that's what now, from now on, it's just me apart from most people. I started diving into that and that's just the part of being a human being and we can pretend that we're something other than what we really are and we could pretend, "Nah, me, man, I'm just cool, just chilling, doing nothing." You're a human, you're a human being. You evolved from the hundreds of thousands of years of hunters and gatherers and people that were struggling. Those human reward systems are carved deeply into your DNA and if you don't respect that, if you don't respect the mechanism of happiness and fulfillment and what you really need to do in order to feel satisfied in life, camaraderie, love, family, friendship, struggle, testing yourself, learning, all those things are imperative. They're all a giant part of being a person. I watched these movies, you know, I talked about Rocket last time I was on here, but I always equated training to mental toughening. Like, it always look brutal, people waking up early and doing all these things and look horrible. I was like, "Wow, man, I got started doing that, not to get better, bigger and stronger, but that is what's going to build me. That looks uncomfortable. That looks brutal and getting up early, I don't want to do that. Some of these long lists of things I don't want to do, and through that, I found myself." I'm like, "You guys aren't doing this shit in high school. You guys are getting up at five o'clock in the morning running over here in this golf course. So, I started seeing myself very differently than the average human being. I was like, "Hey, on a second, I have something they don't have." That's when I started to develop these things through working out. It was just great, never-ending work ethic. Through work ethic, I developed self-esteem. Emotions come and go. The important thing is to accept them all, to embrace them all, and then you can choose to do with them what you want, versus being controlled by emotion. A lot of times, I've seen players, even myself, when I was younger, being consumed by a particular fear, and to the point where you're saying, "Okay, nah, it's not good to feel fear. I shouldn't be nervous in this situation," and it does nothing but grow, versus stepping back and saying, "Yeah, I am nervous about this situation. I am fearful about this situation. What am I afraid of?" Then you unpack it, and then it gives you the ability to look at it for really what it is, which is nothing more than your imagination running this course. Yeah, absolutely. I love that, because what you're saying is that when you're dealing with something, it's almost like, "How can I get to the root of it?" Because sometimes what we're dealing with, like you're saying, it's an imagination, an illusion. It's not really a thing. The next time you're facing a fear, the next time you're going against something, do that. They literally unpack it. Don't just settle for your first answer, because the first answer is really the right one. Don't hide from it. You've got to be able to look at it and deal with it head on. Yeah, I love that, man. If you don't change what you're doing and how you do it, nothing else will change. I don't want to live in a hole anymore. It makes me feel poor. We are poor, but we're happy. Come see, come saw. Anyway, the views are better above ground. I'm seven, nine, five years old. Now my father died at seven and a half. I don't want to live in a hole anymore, and I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to have setbacks, I know. But if I'm feeling bad, that doesn't mean I'm doing bad. That doesn't mean I am bad. That doesn't mean that I can't still take some action. Because yeah, nothing changes and nothing changes, man. At some point, everything's going to go south on you. Everything's going to go south, and you're going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work. That's all it is. You just begin. There's a quote that I've fallen in love with. The magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding. The magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding. Never consider the possibility of failure. Every person here is here because they refuse to quit when the going got rough. Your ability to persist in the face of setbacks and disappointment is vital to all great achievement, and it's always a decision that you make. It's not the external environment. It's always the internal environment. I don't care how good you are on anything. You don't have discipline. You ain't nobody. You're nothing of discipline because you give up under the slightest struggle without discipline. A hundred percent. I mean, discipline is doing what you hate to do, but do it like you love it. Most of us, we live in a box, and we don't want to go outside that box at all, ever. Outside that box is all these possibilities of life. When people understand that they live for themselves, not knowing that you have the power within yourself to change millions of lives by facing life, by facing yourself, I now know that there is no cap on the human mind. There's no cap. We cap it ourselves. And through that, I would die never knowing that the power to change millions of lives. There's a great Chinese expression, a great old proverb. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now. So you overcome procrastination with a very, very simple method. It was developed by W. Clement Stone. When he was a young man, he built a fortune of $500 million, and this is one of the central principles of his life. It's simply this. Every morning, when you get up, say over and over to yourself, do it now. Do it now. Do it now. I do it now. Do it now. Whenever you have this tendency to procrastinate, program your subconscious mind with this automatic conditioned command, do it now. Do it now. Do it now. The key to overcoming procrastination is to develop a sense of urgency. Be the kind of person who gets things done quickly. Be the kind of person who launches fast on a task. Everybody just wants to be comfortable. Everybody wants to sit in the car. I don't want to go outside. It's cool. I don't want to do this. It's hot. You've got to do things that you don't want to do because you show your body that your mind is the boss. Your mind is telling your body what to do, and then you have control. Well, life took me somewhere I'd expect. I'm unprepared. It's about six degrees out here, and I'm underdressed. But guess what? No one gives a ****. Sometimes life can really hijack your **** mind. When that happens to you, you're off **** up. Your goal is your ambitions. Everything is out the **** window. In life, we all go through different things. Sometimes your girlfriend or boyfriend breaks up with you. Guess what? Get the **** over it. They no longer want you. Maybe you fell a test in school. You worked your **** off. Guess what? You fell a **** test. Get over it. Move past it. Learn to not let life hijack your brain. At work, you've been working your **** off that new promotion. You don't **** get it. Someone else does. Maybe they kiss better **** than you do. Guess what? Get over it. Life will hijack your mind if you let it. Don't allow all these things to make you a lesser person. You must own your mind. Don't let life own yours. You can't wait for everything to be perfect to start living your life. That's what I've done. My whole life has been like that. Inside of me, it has been as soon as it's all lined up, I'm going to show you myself. As soon as I've got it all looking the way I want, I'm going to show up for you. This is my life. I said, this is my life. You are exactly who the this is it. And I said, this ain't going to be it for me. In that restaurant, I quit my job, left my canister in that restaurant, my spray canister, got back in my equal app truck, and I went home. And I started working out like somebody. I became the most obsessed person on the planet Earth. And I was basically, I had to invent a guy that didn't exist. I had to invent a guy that can take any pain, any suffering, any kind of judgment, be called, be called whatever the world and be able to stand in the room and say, go for yourself. I had to build this callous mind and I built it through suffering. If you think the price of winning is too high, wait till you get the bill from regret. The unfulfilled potential is the story of most people's lives. It is. It is. And it could have been the story of mine. And I tell a lot of people, people go, what's your biggest fear in life? And my biggest fear, honestly, was, let's say this, let's say, I don't care if you believe in God or not. I don't care. So this, this is a play game with me. Let's say, let's say you're God. And we have a big and long line of people. And I made the heaven, 75 years old, I'm 300 pounds, I made the heaven, I worked for equal that, my entire life spraying for cockroaches. That's what I did. But I'm dead. I'm in heaven now. And you are at your, you're judging us all now. So we're in line, we're all sitting there in line, you have Adam Brown. He has a big board up and you're talking to Adam Brown about his life. And you rip it down. I'm next in line, David Goggins. I see my name and I see all this. God goes, hey, you say, read this, man. And I'm reading this list and I'm seeing 182 pounds, Navy Seal, Ranger School, motivational speaker, changing lives. Okay, man, pull up record, all this. And I'm like, that's not me, man. And God looks at me and says, that's who you are supposed to be. Everything is possible in your life, when you believe. When you believe, everything is possible. You have two hands, I mean, everything is possible, all and take it on who you want to do. Success usually comes to those who are too busy who will be looking for it. They're always working towards it. If you want ordinary, don't risk everything. Risk everything if you want extraordinary. Just make sure that is calculated. It's that when it feels scary to jump, that is exactly when you jump. Otherwise, you end up staying in the same place your whole life. And that I can do. Nothing is permanent. Nothing is permanent. And a lot of times, you have to learn to perform without motivation. You have to learn to perform without purpose, you have to learn to perform a lot of different things. And that's what people think. They think I need to have this motivation to work out, to study, to be better. So if they don't have it, they don't do it. So I was at work the other day, and I just been kind of in this like what, at work. Not a bad job, but I just really want to get out of it. So I'll catch up on some of your podcasts, and you said something like resonated with me. You know, you said nothing changes, if nothing changes. I thought about it, and I went home and I applied for a job. I'm probably not qualified for, but I was like, I'll take a shot. And the next day, I get a call from them, have the interview. It goes well. She says she's going to set me up with a in-person interview. Never even had a thing. Email me a few days later, and I got the job. So now I'm going to be doing a job that I think I will appreciate more and enjoy more. And I'll be making double the money that I'm making now. This society is too weak. And why? Because of all the technology which is available right now. So you don't need to use your body anymore. I always think about in the stone ages. Do you think somebody in the stone ages had depression? Or even a more modern variation, the Spartans? Do you think they had depression? You know, maybe you are laughing, but all of these groups, they are too busy with their body. They are too busy with activity to be depressed. Yeah, but nowadays, how does the time look? You can sit, if you want, from morning till evening, just in front of the screen. And nothing's going to happen anymore. What can happen if we decide to let? I'm going to see what happens when I decide that I am qualified. What happens when I decide for myself that I'm going to do something different? Everything worthwhile is uphill. You see, every dream that you've ever had, it's all uphill. If you have a great relationship with somebody, you had to work on it. It's uphill. If you've built a wonderful business, guess what? It was uphill. If you've made the right decisions, they're not easy, are they? It's uphill. And the only way that you can go uphill is to be intentional. Nobody ever accidentally went uphill. You've never talked to a successful person and said, "How did you get to the top of the mountain?" And then look at you and say, "I have no idea." If they're at the top of the mountain, they know how they got there, because they had to have effort. It took energy. It took time. Everything worthwhile. Everything worthwhile is uphill. There's no passion, no motivation. There's no, "Oh my God, man." This is no. It's every day of your life just doing. No passion, no discipline, no motivation. All these words, I hate people. I hate that so many people use these words, not because it's watered. Someone's sitting in the room by themselves and they figure themselves out and say, "God, this is going to suck." Words, passion, when you're 300 pounds. Where's the motivation when you can't read and write? Where is it? So how did this happen? I just did. I just did. Everybody's asleep, man, or they're just getting home after a long night. They're coming out of their party this Friday night. They're still at close to three in the morning right now. The thing is, man, it's always going to be a party. There's always going to be a time to celebrate and the time to join friends and for a day. I mean, the bars are always open. Always open. They're not how old you are. They're always open. What's not always open is the opportunity to check the box in life, to achieve your dreams. That's not always open. You know what a loser is? A real loser is somebody that's so afraid of not winning, they don't even try. I never forget one time I was running by a graveyard. I was just trying to become a fat and I ran by a graveyard and I looked out there and I have all these epiphanies, man. I have all these moments of like, it's crazy, man, of just thought. I'm always by myself. I'm always deep thought about how to be better. Now, look, I'm like, man, I wonder how many of you mothers in there just are so upset with how you lived your life and just regret how you lived it. I'm running a 300 pound man thinking, man, don't fucking die like this, bro. Don't die like this. Do people wonder where this shit comes from from me? It comes from such deep thought of trying to see what this is all about. What is this life all about? What am I all about? Why am I here? It was life and death. Either you live or you die. Which one do you want, Tom? That was the decision in the corporate life and in the gym. But if you want something bad enough, if you want something bad enough, you can't let anybody tell you you can't do something. I'll repeat that. If you want something bad enough, you can't let anybody tell you you can't do something, not even yourself. A lot of days, I'm like, oh, you can't do this, Tom. You can't be as quick as a 30 year old on the computer. Let me show you. I mean, I would have arguments with myself. I could do it. People doubted me. I doubted myself sometimes too. But you know what? I watched Arnold fall down. Nobody remembers when he fell down. Your biggest enemy is you. My whole book is about you battling yourself. People don't understand as you against you. The only person that gets in your way is you. Nobody else is you. Well, there's so many people that have the ability and just refuse to get off that couch, refuse to study a few more hours, refuse to go deeper, to go further. And that's where I gained the advantage. It's so easy to be great nowadays, my friend, because most people are weak. So I want to ask you, can you admit something in your life that you don't feel like you deserve or have earned? Can you admit a goal or a dream that you want to chase, but if you're feeling like, I can't fly that high, I'm not equipped. I don't really have the ability. I'm not qualified. Can you admit something in your life that guilt is keeping you from getting? Can you admit something that you don't want to start, continue, or finish, because you're afraid to? Say it aloud to yourself. Write it down. Confess. A lot of times, I'll be in a tour of my run or something like that, and I'm all jacked up. Body's broken, mind's broken, spirit's broken. I started to say, "What if I can pull this off?" When I first walked into the Navy City Recruiter's office, he looked at me and said, "There's only been 35 African-Americans in 70 years making it through." You know what I said to myself? "What if I can be the 36th?" It's the "What if I can pull off a miracle?" "What if I can become someone that no one thinks I can be?" Be the hero of your own movie. If your life was a movie, and it started now, forget about whatever financial disasters you've had, personal failures, relationship failures. What would the hero of your life's movie do right now? Do that. Take yourself out your comfort zone. Do not live in your bubble. Put some more air in your bubble. If you stay in your comfort zone, that's why you will fail. You will fail in your comfort zone. Success is not a comfortable procedure. It is a very uncomfortable thing to attend, so you got to get comfortable being uncomfortable if you ever want to be successful. The heaviest things in life aren't iron and gold, but unmade decisions. The reason you are stressed is that you have decisions to make and you're not making them. In life, folks, you cannot change your life unless you change something. If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got. I started thinking every day, I was like, "I hope I don't wake up." You know what I mean? That was the thing where I was like, "This is a big enough problem that if you don't want to wake up, then..." What have you got to lose? Exactly. That was it. I had nothing to lose. That was when, I think in the last podcast, we talked about this, where it's like, if everybody who's at the bottom and feels like they have nothing going for them, reframe that as I have nothing going for me, which also means that I have nothing to lose by taking action, it makes you a much more dangerous person. And I think that was the flip that I've had repeatedly shown to me in my life that allowed me to take the step that I was afraid to take. The fear is never reaching your potential. That's it. That always fallen short, always quitting before you're done, always procrastinating, always not doing the right thing, and then one day you're an old man. Preparing to do the thing isn't doing the thing. Scheduling time to do the thing isn't doing the thing. Making a to-do list for the thing isn't doing the thing. Telling people you're going to do the thing isn't doing the thing. Messaging friends who may or may not be doing the thing isn't doing the thing. Writing a banger tweet about how you're going to do the thing isn't doing the thing. Hating on yourself and not doing the thing isn't doing the thing. Hating on other people who have done the thing isn't doing the thing. Hating on the obstacles in the way of you doing the thing isn't doing the thing. Fantasizing about all of the adoration you'll receive once you do the thing isn't doing the thing. Reading about how to do the thing isn't doing the thing. Reading about how other people did the thing isn't doing the thing. Reading this essay isn't doing the thing. The only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing. We define ourselves far too often by our past failures. We look at our past and we say well that's me. That's not you. You are this person right now. You're the person who's learned from those failures and you can choose to be the hero of your own movie right now. Write down your goals. Write down things you want to improve. Write down things you won't tolerate from yourself. Write down things you've done in the past that you never want to see yourself do again and go forth from here as the hero of your own movie. Here's the big challenge of life. You can have more than you've got because you can become more than you are. That's the challenge and of course the other side of the coin reads unless you change how you are you'll always have what you got. Most people don't want it that badly which why they always ask the question. How do you get to where you are? Do you know how to do it? You know exactly how to be you or how to be me. You don't want to do it so I can't make you do it. In order I have the time or energy to force you into that place that I know you have to be to do it. There's no luck in this game. Maybe a little bit of luck but the luck happens after you bust your ass and you put yourself in that lucky situation. Luck doesn't happen. You put yourself in that situation where luck might happen. Would I be able to do it? Would I you don't know until you say yeah I'm going to you know what I'm going to take action. Nothing changes. Nothing changes man and I'm not preaching at you. I just want to remind you because I you know I've spent a lot of time in my life sitting around wanting things to change and not being able to make them change and not thinking I could and I wish somebody had told me that earlier sometimes that in order for something to change there needs to be change. It's you against you. You against you and if you misunderstand that give it real problem. Real problem. I can understand you misunderstand me running on the street, shirt off. Just know yeah I can get it. I get it. If you misunderstand the same right now today the problem is you and you don't want to fix it. Here's how to get older without getting better. Keep relearning the same lesson. If you keep making the same mistake over and over the mistake isn't the problem you want. There was no passion no driving or nothing but I had this fire that I'm going to be somebody and it has to be there because on all those bad days and all those days you don't want to do you have to be your own motivator your own coach your own your own trainer your own everything and what that means is you may have failed miserably yesterday but you come to work you're like man you just lost everything how the hell are you this fucking damn motivated because this is what it takes it's not about disuse it's about knowing where you're going not forgetting where you started it's about having the courage to fail not breaking when you're broken. Lacing is is something that has to do with you you're not connected to something deep enough you don't feel the necessity you don't feel the devil at your heels you don't feel the fact that you could very well die tomorrow that will impel you to get something done there's no necessity behind it and the human animal that we were created is when we feel pressure we feel the necessity to get things done we can move mountains but when that pressure like almost like a barometric pressure releases and we don't feel the need to get something done we could become incredibly lazy because there's no necessity so you have to create necessity in your life you have to create the need to get things done why do that much why go that far why try to become everything that's a good question why and you're the only one personally that can answer that question for yourself one of the big thrust for success is to come up with a strong enough why and if the why is powerful the how is easy if the vision isn't clear the old prophet said without a vision we die without a vision we perish without a dream we're nothing most people the bottom 80 percent are lazy they're looking for an easy way they're looking for a shortcut to be successful and there are not there aren't any but if you do something repeatedly over and over you develop a habit so most people are in the habit of looking for easy ways to get the things they want it's almost like you have to have the ability to go to the deep end no matter whether or not you'll ever go there right yes and some people are like well i'm never going to go to the deep end but you should be able to yes what do you want to give up what do you want to sacrifice what are you willing to forgo if you're struggling if you're frustrated with yourself if you're at that point where you're so sick of yourself and your excuses i've been there steven's been there this is a normal part of the human experience and at some point either the pain is going to get big enough or you're going to bump into somebody's story somewhere on this planet who has been in the position that you're in right now facing the stuff that you're facing right now and there is something about their story at this exact moment in time that will ignite something in you that is missing and what is missing in you right now is hope here's to the crazy ones the misfits the rebels the troublemakers the round pegs in the square holes the ones who see things differently they're not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo you can quote them disagree with them glorify or vilify them about the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things they push the human race forward while some may see them as the crazy ones we see genius because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do playing out the fear layla says this and i love it but that fear is a mile wide and inch deep and so it looks like this ocean that you're going to step into and drown but as soon as you step into it you realize it was not that deep at all and you can keep walking through it and i just love that visual because a lot of times when it's like we have this anxiety run this big decision we have to make if you actually take the step and realize that it's not death you're not going to drown immediately there's plenty of other steps you can take from there even if you get a little wet you have to be open-minded to the possibilities that i can do this once you shut your mind down to the possibility that it can be achieved there's no way can happen is there advice you can give to young kids they're living through a situation of any sort a tough life try to find a thing that you really enjoy try to find a thing that you're passionate about everybody thinks they're a loser every young person thinks they're a loser at least at young person in the situation i was at like i didn't know i wasn't a loser until i started winning till i started doing martial arts martial arts taught me that like i could get better at stuff that it wasn't i wasn't really a loser i want to maximize what i can i want to be the best that i can be i want to do things well and i don't want to leave stuff on the table but i don't want to be chasing the end goal so much that i never actually enjoyed the process of getting there because ultimately that's really all that matters so you're going to look back at any destination realized that it was 99.9% journey and only you know one day of celebrating achieving the thing you're lazy you know exactly what to do exactly what to do because even me in my state of i can't read and write i knew exactly what to do it just sucks doing it hey Theo this is Greg from Indiana i actually just wanted to call and tell you so i was at work the other day and i just been kind of in this like what at work not a bad job but i just really want to get out of it so i'll catch up on some of your podcasts and you said something like resonated with me you know you said nothing changes if nothing changes i thought about it and i went home and i applied for a job i'm probably not qualified for but i was like i'll take a shot and the next day i get a call from them at the interview goes well she says she's gonna set me up with a in-person interview never even had a thing uh email me a few days later and i got the job so now i'm gonna be doing a job that i think i will appreciate more and enjoy more and i'll be making double the money that i'm making out bro that's awesome man that's really great congratulations for trying something new yeah it's crazy to sometimes think like what can happen if we decide let i'm gonna see what happens when i decide that i am qualified what happens when i decide for myself that i'm gonna do something different i've made huge huge huge developments while i was staying up until four in the morning five in the morning running a nightlife business you can make huge developments in your personal growth journey while you're doing a nine to five you have this moment where you go well what if what if this is the time sobriety sticks what if i go to therapy and i actually do change the way that i think what if i could get out of debt if that person did maybe i could do it and without either hope or that kind of rock bottom moment i don't think you're gonna change we can stay here get the shit kicked out of us or we can fight our way back into the light we can climb out of hell one inch at a time you are responsible for your life and if you're sitting around waiting on somebody to save you to fix you to even help you you are wasting your time because only you have the power to take responsibility to move your life forward what matters is now this moment and your willingness to see this moment for what it is accept it forgive the past take responsibility and move forward i came to realize that all the time i was praying to god asking for god to do something god was waiting on me how many times do you have to hear if nothing changes nothing changes right and yet somehow we expect things to change you're always afraid to take the first step because all you see is every negative thing 10 miles down the road but you can do anything you want you are bound by nothing the time come for you to be your own man and take on the world and you did but somewhere along the line you changed you stopped being you you let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you're no good and when things got hard you started looking for something to blame like a big shadow i'm gonna have setbacks i know but if i'm feeling bad that doesn't mean i'm doing bad that doesn't mean i am bad that doesn't mean that i can't still take some action because yeah nothing changes nothing changes man because if you're thinking then you're not taking action and if you're not taking action then there's no consequence and if there's no consequence then there's nothing to be afraid of the overthinking can be an excuse for actual fear it doesn't matter whether i achieve all of my goals or i don't achieve all of the goals in three generations i'll be forgotten and the only people who were nacing against me will also be dead and so then it's like just do it for me you know we'll sit around forever wondering well what if i what if i was a dog catch or what i be the best what if i was a you know respect things to change you think you're gonna get in better shape you think you're gonna get more money you think your relationship is gonna improve you think you're gonna get promoted you think you're gonna get a raise you think the world is going to get better without you doing anything but it isn't nothing is going to change unless you change what you're doing change the time that you wake up change what you do when you get out of bed that's what you need to do you have to change some things or nothing will change so make changes and start little get up a little bit earlier get a workout done that's what you need to do a positive place you draw mental strength from when life is difficult has to be i just want to be better and i'm trying my best that's all that there is you want to be better that is something to be proud of you want to leave it all on the field of play you want to make yourself as good as you can you want to make the world a better place you want to have an impact all of these things are just that all positives what really breaks my heart is how stuck people are and that there are things you can do to change your life for the better if you don't have hope and you don't have this breakthrough where you have for just a millisecond this insight where you go well what if things did work out if you don't have that moment most people stay so stuck in resignation if you are trying to battle the same boss over and over again and you don't change what you're doing and the boss keeps beating you then it's not the game's problem it's your problem you are the problem i was not always this strong god you see i went through a lot of hard times in my life to get here today and a story i'll tell you with real quick i tried once to get in the air force to be a air force pair of rescuement and i quit for fear of the water i was 175 pounds i left the air force four years later at 300 pounds i went from 175 to 300 pounds there's a long story in there on how that came to be you're going to lose sleep you'll doubt whether it will work you'll stress to make ends meet you won't finish your to-do list you'll wonder whether you made the right call and have no way to know for yours this is what hard feels like and that's okay everything worth doing is hard and the more worth doing it is the harder it is the greater the payoff the greater the hardship if it's hard good it means no one else will do it more for you why pay the price why work this hard why go this far why try to learn this much why try to do it all why try to see it all why try to have it all why do it why learn it why study why put yourself out why try to take on this much responsibility why develop yourself to the full why try to become all that you can possibly become so i define learning by same condition new behavior and so when you go to a video game and you battle through the level and you battle the boss if you keep doing the same thing to the boss and you keep losing then you have not learned because you have the same condition and the same behavior and so i often say that like for anyone who's listening to this podcast if the goal is to get better and you're like man i really want to learn something from this podcast if you listen to this podcast and then you're in the same exact conditions as you were before and then you do not change your behavior you learned nothing and so using that definition has at least allowed me to change my behavior faster which then goes into rate of learning which i define as intelligence and so a lot of people are like man he's so smart but he just doesn't it's like well then if he doesn't change his behavior and he's in the same conditions he's not that smart the more that you're able to let go and not fear about stuff the more enjoyable you'll find it so the thing that is making you better is the thing which is making you feel pain and this is a perennial balance what would have had to have happened in a week for you to look back on that week with pride maybe stop breaking promises to yourself when you say i'm going to wake up tomorrow at 7 a.m and when the option comes to hit the snooze button don't do it there's one win that you've got for the day that's action the path of the exceptional person is one of an exception which means that you are not with other people and rather than fighting that or bemoaning it see it as an indicator that you're on the right path because if everyone else were cheering you on then it means you're not in the right place because it means you're just like everyone else and that's not where you want to be when you were born you are a phenomenon you are unique your DNA has never occurred in the history of the universe going back billions of years it will never occur in the future your life experiences with your parents and everything that you experience in your early years going on up is your unique it's yours you're one of a kind right so that is your source of power to waste that it's just the worst thing you can do in your life and what what the power is is finding that uniqueness what makes you you and how you can mind that how you can go deep into it and use that to create a career path it's supposed to be hard if it wasn't hard everyone would do it the hard is what makes it great you need to just keep living listen to the pain it's both history teacher and watch and tell pain teaches us who we are we sometimes it's so bad we feel like we're dying but we can't really live till we died a little count we don't get it there's there's great joy in the grind great joy to suffer it's totally cleanses your body out man if any kind of hey makes you grow up what I want to invite you to do what I want you to consider is that every single time you go and do something hard that's the story you've told yourself that it's easier said than done you know it's kind of hard to do that well it's supposed to be hard look if growing stronger if growing stronger and building muscle were easy you'd have no reason to go to the gym you'd have no there would be no growth if there was no challenge and I'm answering your questions every question I'm answering I'm with you been the back of my mind all I'm thinking about is all the times I could have won those matches that I lost by not bringing my best mindset you're haunted by all the opportunities that you missed by not bringing your best at that time when you could have won but you didn't win because you allowed life to interfere with that one shot when you're sitting there get ready to serve for the match and your mind is not thinking about where that ball place needs to be but thinking about your family this or this at work or that at work that's greatness greatness is your recall on every single shot that you missed throughout a 20 some year career every shot you can go back and say I was here this person was in the red shirt there greatness is being so aware of the time of life in the second that went by and you can recall like it was yesterday greatness is being able to go back there not making that same mistake again and being haunted by it there really are only two macro level motivators that we have in life and that's pleasure and pain I want people to understand is okay so if nature only gave you two things to motivate you pleasure and pain why would you eliminate half of them and so most people think that life is about avoiding the pain I'm here to tell you right now in a very controlled fashion it is about really experiencing the pain learning from it pain plus reflection equals progress failure has been achieved thank god now the only place to go from failure is to win you have to achieve failure you have to take it that far nobody wants to go that far too scary but you know something I got news for you that's where winning is it always has been the one thing I would tell them is and I would tell them to get a tattooed on your arm like and it would say it's supposed to be fucking hard