How to Force Self-Discipline onto Autopilot | Ed Mylett

Key Takeaway

Put self-discipline on autopilot by choosing one high-value practice and repeating it with intention every day—especially when it feels boring. Treat ordinary meetings, workouts, and conversations as preparation for an opportunity you will not recognize in advance. Pair that daily standard with emotional control: do not let a win make you lax or a setback make you quit. Consistent fundamentals make calm, confident performance available when pressure arrives.

Episode Overview

Ed Mylett breaks down five “rules of domination,” inspired by an article about Tiger Woods and other elite competitors, to explain the mindset behind durable self-discipline. Across additional conversations with high performers, the episode reinforces that long-term success comes from focused preparation, resilience, discomfort, and refusing to become satisfied or complacent.

Full Transcript

Transcript of How to Force Self-Discipline onto Autopilot | Ed Mylett from The Ed Mylett Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing, they just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6 p.m. and my third day, 6 p.m. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise.

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This is The Ed Milet Show. Hey everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow The Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. Want to know what the five rules are? I'm going to give them to you. These are the mindsets, not just the behaviors. These are the mindsets of a self-disciplined person. So here we go. Here's what he says. Here's the article, by the way.

Do you believe I still carry this thing? Here we go. Number one, genius is 99% perspiration, perspiration. I had to hear that. I had to have someone give me permission to work really, really hard. Now what they do in this article, by the way, is they interviewed other dominators. So they interviewed Martina Navratilova, the great tennis player. They interviewed Joe Montana, the incredible quarterback, football player. They interviewed Wayne Gretzky, the greatest hockey player of all time, all talking about Tiger and their similar mindsets. So this isn't just Tigers.

This is the dominator mindset. 99% perspiration. It begins, all the dominators agree, with good old-fashioned hard work. There's no magic pill, no such thing as effortless grace. At this level, talent is a given. But Tiger works harder than anyone out there, and that's why he's kicking butt, says tennis great Martina Navratilova, winner of 167 women's titles, including a record nine Wimbledon's. Every great shot you hit, you've already hit a bunch of times in practice. The vast majority of athletes have a much lower tolerance for preparation.

It's not the pain. It's simpler than that. Listen to this. It's not the pain. It's simpler than that. This can be boring, says Joe Montana, who led the San Francisco 49ers to four Super Bowl wins in the 80s. A lot of guys say, yeah, I watched two hours of game film last night, and that's enough. But they're not really studying what's going on. They may as well have been watching television. Tiger's habit of pounding golf ball after golf ball long into the twilight, often during tournament play, has already become part of his legend.

It's just 23 years ago. During his so-called slump earlier this year, Woods claimed to be working on something special for his new swing in the Masters. People rolled their eyes until he won the Masters. Montana, like Woods, understands that such preparation pays off biggest and critical situations, moments when a bout of nerves could disrupt even the most basic play. Dominators can be wondrously creative when they have to be, but they're also geniuses of simplicity. In his famous fourth quarter drive to beat the Super Bowl champion Bengals, Montana threw nothing but short passes.

No big strike, no fireworks, and no mistakes. No matter who you are, no matter how good an athlete you are, we're creatures of habit, says Wayne Gretzky, hockey's leading scorer and four-time Stanley Cup winner. The better your habits are, the better you'll be in pressure situations. I think I said that. I think I said that about 10 minutes ago, when I said under pressure, you react reflexively. And so although these great people that you see have these unbelievable geniuses in creativity, but they really are great at the fundamentals, and they grind, and they hit more golf balls than everybody else.

They throw more passes. They watch more game film. They make more contacts in business. They talk to more people. They see more people. And that number one rule gave me the permission and the habit of I've got to become self-disciplined if I'm going to be a dominator. And these are habits and rituals and routines. Everybody on the PGA Tour could hit golf balls. There's nothing special about that. It's who hit the most, with the most intention, with the most focus. Tiger Woods did. And that's why Tiger Woods became Tiger Woods, and everybody else became everybody else.

So if you want to become aspirational, level four, these self-disciplined mindsets and thoughts in addition to the structural things I said earlier are the keys. How good is this? By the way, thousands of times I've read Tiger's rules on domination. Number two, let the other guy get nervous. Gretzky and Woods have one more critical thing in common, an almost creepy ability to keep their cool. Believe it or not, the bigger the game, the calmer I got, said Gretzky. The dominators let the other guys flinch, the other guys get nervous, and that becomes a weapon on their behalf.

I was comfortable because other people were nervous, says Yankee great Reggie Jackson, Mr. October, a title he earned with a startling spring of playoff runs, including the 1977 World Series in which he homered a record five times. Sooner or later, you're going to rush and you're going to make a mistake, and I'm not going to do that. That helps explain why Woods, playing in a gentlemanly sport where the rivals directly can't affect each other's play, has nonetheless become known for rattling his opponents. Being paired with Woods is akin to when the disciples tried to save their boat during a storm, only to be distracted by the sight of Jesus walking on water.

You're not only aware of his superior skills, you're also dealing with a whole new set of variables, such as bigger galleries, oohs and aahs, et cetera, et cetera. So, listen guys, what about you, your peers in your industry? Anybody getting nervous? Anybody worrying about you? Anybody up staying late at night thinking how they're going to compete against you? Do you get people under pressure to crack and flinch, or are they not concerned about you at all? See, in business, not only did I want to have the hardest work ethic, but I wanted people to think, man, I got to be at my A game to beat this dude.

I wanted the people around me that were on my team to want to rise up to the standard that I was setting at any given time. I want everybody else to get nervous and flinch, and under pressure, I was cool and calm. You remember this, self-discipline, one of the things that comes with it is in a sense of emotional control. You don't get too high, and you don't get too low. See, self-discipline people maintain emotional control. That's what they're saying in number two here, and I've learned that skill.

I used to get very up and very down. Well, listen, when you're very up, your disciplines crack, right? When you're very down, it's very difficult to be disciplined, but when you can stay somewhere in the middle, up and down maybe 20%, 25%, it allows you to stay self-disciplined in those moments. Number three, don't just dominate, intimidate. Yeah, Tiger's repeatedly said that intimidation isn't a part of his game, but that's once he's on the course. He's thinking about nothing but his own shot making. Sure, once he's on the course, but what about when he's getting dressed in the morning?

I love this, by the way. It's no coincidence that Tiger often pulls out a blood red sweater on his Sunday charges, just as it wasn't by coincidence that Dale Earnhardt preferred dark sunglasses and drove a black and white stock car that looked like a 200 mile an hour pirate ship. Reggie Jackson during the 77 World Series was the last Yankee every day to take batting practice just before the Dodgers took the field. He claims he didn't care if they noticed, but you could tell he was watching.

Before one game, Reggie crushed about 45 out of 60 balls over the fence. That night he walked on four pitches in at first at bat and then hit three home runs. Bob Gibson, the ferocious pitcher from the St. Louis Cardinals, took intimidation a step further. He wouldn't even talk to guys on the other team, especially if they were hitters, says Gibson who had a baffling 1.12 ERA. So here's what I'm saying here, here's what this means. You have to have the mindset that you are not going to think like everybody else, that you're going to think differently.

And I'm letting you weigh on the inside here of self-discipline. This is deep, deep, deep, deep into it. But if you keep thinking like everybody else thinks, right, you're not going to be great. And I know this stuff isn't always pretty to hear, but I'm going to tell you right now, this is what winning is. These are the little subtle thoughts that when you're, hey, good to see you, good to see you. And then you're like, they ain't getting to me. They don't know how to play it at this level.

They don't know this game. These are all the things you start doing all this stuff. Plus what I said in the very beginning, eliminating the distractions, scheduling the right things. You got to be kidding me. Moving needle activities next, the big stuff, starting with simple practices that build self-confidence and build momentum. How about number four? This is huge guys. Have a sense of the historic. Do you hear that? Do you have a sense of the historic that what you're doing is something great? I tell my family since we were, they were little kids, say the Milets are going to do something awesome.

The Milets are going to do something great. We're going to do something psycho as a family. We're going to do something incredible in business. I tell my colleagues, we're going to do something so amazing. You guys aren't going to believe when we get there. We're doing something awesome. This is a team of destiny. This is a company of destiny. The Milets, a family of destiny. You have a sense of the historic. This gives you a context to want to be self-disciplined. Does that make sense? Why be self-disciplined if it's never going to mean anything?

That's the problem. One of the reasons we're not self-disciplined is it's never going to mean anything. Who cares? No one's going to notice. It's no big deal. What I do doesn't matter. It does matter. It's just your dad-gum life. It's just the story of you. It's just your family name. It's just your reputation. It's just what they're going to talk about when you're gone, is doing something historic. Whether that means you're going to win a World Series or a Master's Golf Tournament or just be the one in your family and change your family forever, you've got to have this sense that you're making history because, by the way, you are.

You're making some type of history. If you're a faith-based person, you know someday you're going to account for it. There's going to be a history of your life. Even if you're not, you've got to believe somewhere along the road there's some record of your existence. You're making history, so you might as well have a sense of it. When you have a sense that that history is going to be great instead of average and ordinary, you begin to automatically become compelled to be self-disciplined. If you lack self-discipline, there's nothing compelling you to have it other than wanting it.

But if you have a sense of the historic, that's totally different. So he says this, do you have to win the big ones to be a dominator? It's a subject of eternal debate among sports fans, but it shouldn't be. Tiger is the proof. He's at the head of a heavenly crew of athletes, not because he's won five of his past six tournaments, but because he's won five of his past six major tournaments. Every athlete says he wants to win major championships, but Tiger doesn't just want those moments of glory.

Listen to this. He has an innate sense that he can't be a legend without them. In our lives, there's going to be a bunch of every single day meetings, every single day encounters with people, and they seem inconsequential. But when you have self-discipline in these meetings and in these encounters with people, in your relationships, in business, in the gym, whatever it might be on an everyday basis, every once in a while, there's going to be a big one show up and you're ready for it when it happens because it's your habit.

It's because it's your discipline. But when you aren't day-to-day prepared, here's the truth in life. When you're doing something historic or when it's a big meeting, most times you won't know it until years later. But if you look back at your life right now, the person you're married to is probably a chance meeting or something you weren't even sure was going to be significant. The business you're in, the company you work for, probably you weren't even planning on working there or even being in that business.

See, our dreams often show up in life in packages that we don't picture, that we didn't dream of. And so it's that day-to-day staying ready and being ready until the important meeting comes, the major appointment comes, the major relationship comes. I always say that you're one more meeting, one more decision, one more relationship, whatever it might be, one new emotion, one podcast away from changing your life. But the hook is you will never know when it's actually happening. You will not know when it's happening until it shows up.

So you're not going to know when it's the big one. You'll only know after you've done it. Now there are times in life you're like, this one really matters. You will not feel the pressure in this one really mattering when you've been great day-to-day and self-disciplined all the way along the way. You hear great athletes say, it's just another game. It's not just another game, but the great ones can perform just like it's another game, just like it's another meeting, just like it's another appointment. Whereas the average ordinary, the ones that fail, feel the pressure because they haven't been disciplined consistently throughout their life or their business or their fitness and they blow the big one.

And it's true in life. The difference between winning and losing is so small, it really is almost too scary to talk about. If I look back at my own life, the very few occasions and meetings that took the massive difference in my life, it is scary to think about had I not shown up and performed in that meeting or I had not done the right thing on that first date. It's amazing even in your own life, isn't it? And so that's why day-to-day being ready, day-to-day having self-discipline, day-to-day having these habits and the mindsets to go with them matter because you never know when it's coming.

And the fifth one, this is big. This is why a 52-year-old is just fired up today talking to you. Ready? Never ever be satisfied. Most athletes work the hardest when they're trying to reach the top. So do most business people. Once they can get to that $100,000, they worked hard. Once they get to that million dollars, they've worked as hard as they can work. The great ones work even harder after they get to the $100,000, harder after they get to the million. Harder after they're famous, harder after they've got a big following, harder after they get that promotion.

They work harder in their loving relationships after they've got the one that's the one. But most people work hardest to get them and once they have them they don't work as hard to keep them or to grow it. The great ones work even harder after they get what they want, who they want. Wouldn't you love to be in a relationship with somebody who works so hard to get you and then once they got you worked even harder the rest of your life to keep loving you?

Wouldn't you love in business someone who had a goal to get to a million dollars or a hundred thousand dollars and when they got there they worked even harder? But we all know in life that's not true for most people. But the great ones, the dominators, the goats, the self-disciplined people, they work even harder when they get there. So most athletes work the hardest when they're trying to reach the top but Tiger has seemed only more committed to improving his game since leaving the competition in the dust.

He's won his first Masters by the largest margin in history in 1997. But he knew that he wouldn't reach Jack Nicklaus mark of six green jackets without a jolt of his game. So he spent the next 18 months literally retooling his thunderous swing and it goes on to give you more and more examples about that. Talks about Michael Jordan in here and compares him to Michael Jordan. But I want you to think about that in your own life those of you listening to it. How hard did you work when you were totally broke and now that you're not, do you have that same hunger and work ethic?

How hard did you work to lose that first 20 pounds to get in pretty good shape? But are you working even harder now to get the ultimate health and vitality in your life? How hard did you work to get your spouse or your girlfriend or your boyfriend in your life? Are you working even harder now to love them more? Because that's what the dominators do. That's what self-discipline is. And so these five steps of the Tiger rules, by the way, they wrote this article in 2001.

They didn't know who Tiger Woods was going to turn out to be. Turns out that this is like literally for me almost like a business Bible in some sense because all of these things proved to build the greatest golfer of all time or at least one of the two. And I watched this man in his sports life, not in every area of his life, but in his sports life, implement these five things over and over again. And that's how he's come back from car accidents and unbelievable situations and still won the Masters a few years ago on basically one leg, won a US Open on a broken leg.

It's incredible. And these are the people we look at and go, they're so self-disciplined. They're so amazing. Maybe you think that when you're listening to me sometimes. And now you know, naturally I'm not. But I do have some steps and some strategies that I've shared with you today. Technical steps, that's the science. And then there's the art and the art is the mindset. The art is the thinking. So today I've tried to give you the best of both worlds, the science of self-discipline and the art form, which is the mindset.

And I hope that it's inspired you to make some of these changes today and to share this with as many people as you can. I really feel good about what we covered today. In fact, I want people that I love, I want my kids to hear this. I want people that I know that want to win in life to hear this today because I know that it could really be transformative to so many of you. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far.

Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. This episode is sponsored by Rowe. A lot of people assume GLP-1's cost a fortune and that assumption keeps them from even looking into treatment. But the reality is GLP-1 medications may be more affordable and accessible than people realize. Rowe helps people find a more affordable path to FDA approved GLP-1 treatment, whether that's through insurance coverage or cash pay options. Rowe wants to help people lose weight.

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That's R-O-W-E dot C-O slash mylet to get started on Rowe. So when I ended up buying the island, we had to do all of our outdoor decorating and I spent a fortune in the first half of the place and I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore, but I want the best stuff. And that's where Wayfair came in. My wife wanted to get this new garden bed and Wayfair was the place that offered the perfect solution. Wayfair also helps you create a home that stands up to real life with quality products, great value and trusted reviews.

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Join Wayfair rewards today and get 5% back on every purchase. Head to Wayfair.com or shop the Wayfair app for all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair. Every style. Every home. Welcome back to Max Outt with Ed Milad. I'm so fired up today. I have one of the great fitness icons of all time right here. Yeah, you big boy. Yeah, you. You can tell from looking at us which one of us is the fitness icon. I'm photoshopped. Yeah. I've been telling everybody today, please photoshop me into this picture so I look at least half his size.

But you can tell who's sitting next to me. He doesn't really need an introduction. Four time Mr. Universe. Titan from American Gladiator. One of the dominant people in the history of bodybuilding. Right there. That is Mike O'Hearn. Thanks, brother. Thanks for being here, man. Thank you, man. So good to have you, man. Thank you. This is beautiful. Let me just say this. Yes. For everybody, my fans and everybody. This house is amazing. And so I hope we do show this through the day. We will. And I just don't bore you.

No, you're not going to bore anybody. You're more important than the house. But thank you, man, for being here. So everybody knows, well, most people know all of the achievements you've had. When I was reading through Mike's bio to introduce him, I was thinking for a minute, like, how would I even read all these things? We probably can't cover all of them. But I want to go back before everybody knew you. Just for a little bit. OK. OK. Because you come from a place where it's probably not the most predictable place for someone to become an actor, one of the top bodybuilders of all time.

It's not, you know, I doubt it was predictive when you were a kid. Right. So tell them where you grew up and how you grew up. So I think this will be interesting for all of you to know this. It's interesting you say that because at the time when I was growing up, I had mentors that were the best in the world. You did? I did. OK. How old are you talking? 9, 10, 11 years old. OK. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I guess you would say I was bred to do this lifestyle.

But I grew up in Kirtland, Washington. I loved it. It's a beautiful place. It is beautiful. Costco, probably because of our family. I come from a family of nine. Really? So yeah. Where are you in the nine? I'm the little one. You're the baby of nine? Yeah. Really? You should be. OK. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. I'm the baby. And that's another thing that helped create something bigger. Because of the fact that, you know, if you've got older brothers, you're getting your ass kicked.

That's for sure. I had older sisters kicking my ass. And so I'm like, wait a minute. I need to start becoming something. So our family is very athletic. Mom and dad, mom was a martial artist. Dad was a football player, bodybuilder. Dad bodybuilder, too. Yeah, yeah. So he's into the weightlifting. The whole family in front of me was weightlifting. And I'm talking about my sisters doing martial arts, doing all that. Where did these mentors come in? Who are they? Like, when that happened? It was shortly.

I started lifting at eight years old. And I started competing in martial arts tournaments by 11. And my first powerlifting meet, or Olympic lifting meet, was actually at 13, and then powerlifted at 14. And I was already on stage competing in bodybuilding at 14 years old. And before that, I was already, when I was really little, by 9, 10, and 11, I was already running half marathons. And so I was thrown into this pretty darn young. Pretty early. So you were bred. Do you believe in, I'm curious about this.

I always hear this. This guy's genetically gifted. Is there such a thing, or is that just something people who don't train hard say? There are guys that are genetically gifted. Are you one of them? I would say my family has good genetics. I wouldn't say we're the most freaky genetics. But I would say this. It's the consistency and the work ethic of knowing the little chip on the shoulder, or whatever that was, and growing up with the idea that I wasn't genetic, made me who I am.

I mean, I've seen your pictures when you were 18. I mean, you were a big guy already at 18 years old, right? Those were probably me at 14. Seriously? You were already that, because you've been lifting since you were that young, you were already that big at 14. Yeah. And one of those things is don't lift when you're young. Well, it actually builds bone density and connective tissue. So that's a complete lifestyle. Yeah. We've learned so much in 40 years. That's amazing. Because so many of my followers have kids that are athletes that are young, and they don't lift weights for that reason.

I hear this all the time. That's not true. Yeah. It's not true. I recommend... Obviously. Look at you. How tall are you? I'm 6'3". Yes. It didn't hurt your growth. No. And my whole family lifted, and they're all tall people. So one thing that I think I learned when I was really young is the continuous building day in and day out, because my brothers and sisters were all ahead of me. And so when I started training, my goal was to beat them, obviously. Yep. First. Yeah.

It didn't matter if it was martial arts, I didn't want to lose it, power lifting or bodybuilding. It didn't matter what it was. I wanted to compete and be better than the next person up. So that was bred into you, competing. Right from the start. Do you... Did you want to be a professional bodybuilder, or was there an age where you went, I want to be a bodybuilder? Or I want to be a martial artist. Was there an age that you picked one? Because you're an athlete.

You're not... You don't... You're unique, because you're not just this kind of... We were talking about it before. You're not just a bodybuilder. Right. We're going to talk about this a little bit later, but you're an athlete who is a bodybuilder. Right? And I know bodybuilders are athletes, but you're an overall athlete. Even in the American Gladiator stuff, when you're tight, no normal bodybuilder could do that show. You had to be a great athlete to be on that show, right? So did you pick bodybuilding, or was it just, you just wanted to compete and you were good at that?

It was always athletics first. Okay. And then everything stemmed off of that. So can I power lift and then do it well enough to where it didn't interfere with my athletics? Or could I bodybuild, and could I do it well enough to where it didn't interfere with my athletics? Because the ultimate goal... I mean, obviously I grew up with Arnold and Bruce Lee, and I wanted to be a combination of both. Wow. I didn't want to be just Arnold. And I didn't want to be just Bruce Lee.

I wanted to be both. I basically wanted to be a superhero. A comic book superhero. And that's kind of what you're known as now. That's literally how people refer to you. That's sort of ironic that you became these things. So there was an age where you were like, I'm going to be somebody. Yeah. I was nine years old. Wow. Yeah. Did they raise you? No. No. No. And I came from a great family, in a sense of they both worked, and then they both said, listen, we got nine kids.

You're going to help out. You're going to get paper routes when you're 10, 11, start working. And you're going to be held responsible for your actions. And I look back, mostly in today's day and age, and how people are raised, and how you have to be a certain way politically correct and stuff. It's amazing that we're going to lose all that grit. You're so right. Oh. Yeah. Oh. And I know, we're going off for a second, but just the way people respond to a post tells me how their mind is.

And when somebody sees something and go, ooh, aren't you going to hurt yourself? And I'm like, yeah, you're right. Yeah. They don't even realize I've been doing front squats for 40 years heavy every single day. And it's like, you guys, their minds are so, I hate to say it, just, um. Weak. Weak. No, you're right. And they get weaker and weaker. And the same with me when I make posts. I notice the same thing. The way you respond to things is so reflective of your mindset, man.

I totally buy that. I totally agree with that. So was there a point, like, this guy's done 539 fitness covers. Just imagine that for a second. He's the most covered person in the history of fitness, of bodybuilding, by far, right? Like a mile. Right behind Arnold. It's just me and Arnold. Okay. And Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah. So let me ask you this. So was there a turning point? Was there like a point? So you're in Washington. Yep. Okay. What was the point? Where did this thing flip for you?

When did you start to become you? Ah. Was there a first cover? Was there a bodybuilding competition? Was there something that happened? Well, I was discovered by Joe Weider. Didn't know that. Uh-huh. I was already competing. By 14, I was winning shows. So it wasn't just I was competing, but I was winning. And so I had that mindset of, okay, I'm different than everybody else. I'm doing something here that nobody else can do. And I'm doing it light years in front of people. And so it's funny.

You'll understand this. It's weird. People go, how the heck did you get that big when you were that young? Yeah. Well, at 14, before puberty, I was 176 pounds on stage. Okay. A year later, I was 272 pounds. And people are like, wait a minute, that's not feasible. It's called puberty, guys. Oh, my gosh. Everybody had it. Oh, my gosh. But I took advantage of it. Oh, my gosh. You took advantage of all that growth. All of it. People don't understand that when they see a picture, they go, oh, you've been training for a year.

I've been training since I was eight. That's amazing, man. So during my puberty years, during that year and year and a half, I did gain 100 pounds. And my strength, obviously, it was already strong, but it went through the roof. I was competing, by the time I was 17, I was already in the magazines. So I was already competing against men by 17, because my dad says, enough of the kid stuff. Wow. He says, compete against the men. And so by 17 years old, I started doing the open shows and open powerlifting meets.

You're on stage with a 30-year-old guy? Yeah. At 17 years old. Yeah, at 17 years old, and I was competing in martial arts against the men instead of kids. And it was just one of those things that it's, he suggested, but I'm the one that made the choices. And by watching my older brothers and sisters do right things and then wrong things, I kept going baby step. I can take everybody. When they make a mistake, that's another day that I get ahead. Every day that we would go and skip school and go play football, but then they would be drinking beer during the playing football, and I'd be like, I'm playing football.

Wow. I want to do this, and then I want to go home and train. And I just kept that kind of... You've always been this sort of beast monster training. Yeah, here's what I want you to get about the reason I started in the beginning is because this is the most impressive thing About Mike to me is that he's even more dominant now. Are you 48 or 49 49 49 years old? So I want you to think about this He's on state he's starting lifting when he's 8 or 9 But he's on stage with men when he's 17 and this man has been able to continue to compete but not just compete He's at his peak and dominating into his late 40s.

I want you to think about that for just for a second in any endeavor I don't care if you're in business if you're an athlete if you're an entertainment to be Dominant that late for that long to get better So I want you to talk to people about what are some of the keys for you in doing that because it's incredible, right? Like you're bigger faster damn stronger now, it seems right. So how is that the case? Oh, is it just choices over time? How does someone dominate long term because everyone watching this you've probably had a winner to you wanted something in business You want a contest you were at the top of a board somewhere you did pretty well in your sport You're talking about multiple decades of domination, right?

So, how do you do that? I want to know how you It was the idea that I was different and I wanted to prove something and I wanted to be alone Alone, I I want to be alone because by the way, most people are afraid to be alone. They're afraid just absolutely I just want to tell you this because I work with a lot of athletes as you know, too The thing they're the most afraid of is being alone is standing out of being alone of being that's a that's a dope That's nothing that you should take for granted in yourself I don't want to interrupt you but just that phrase brother and by the way Just think about all the guys you've been trained with how many of them because you're the alpha of the alphas Right, even the dudes you train with and they won't like this when I say it, but you're the alpha of the office No, no, my guys don't like that mostly because you're one of the guys, but you're not you're not one of the guys You don't want to be one of the guys Tiger Woods doesn't want to be one of the guys That's why I don't everyone on tour like Tiger.

Everybody likes Phil. Everybody likes Tiger. That's talking. I want to be one of the guys I don't want to be one of the guys in that sense. So you're willing to be alone and you wanted to be alone Yeah, it's it's growing up with dyslexia and put into special classes where you set me in a different way Because in my family a lot of us in the family grew up with dyslexia, but they handled it. Well, I didn't that was my chip Thought it was a bad thing didn't realize later in life.

Yeah, there's the greatest thing that ever happened to me Yeah, and I wouldn't even be Why why was it good? Oh my gosh, it goes because you grow up with something like that It already starts building you you're already in a competition with with the world or yourself and growing up in special ed and Instantly going I want the 1% these people here that are special And I'm gonna protect them against all these bullies because it was young I was young and fighting every day because you know kids Yeah, and it's like yesterday feels like yesterday, but you got kids teasing the special kids Special ed kids all the time and that's special in the sense of like Oh God's chosen No, no, no, and now they can use social media to do it to each other.

It's even worse. Yeah but I felt I Felt honored to be able to fight for them and stick up for them And if you're teasing the kid in the wheelchair, I'm hitting you get you and what is this chip stuck with you for 20 years? I'm still the 14 year old that walks in the gym You know when people go, how do you get the motivation to go train every day? Yeah, I don't have motivation I got passion your passion. I got passion. I believe this I need to wake up in the morning and people go.

Why do you train so early tell him what time you train? I train at 4 a.m. I get up at 3 a.m. And I'm in gym and this is not something I've done in a year This is what I've done my whole life your whole life my whole life. We started early because of paper routes Yeah, you get up early you do the paper routes. I've trained then I'd go to the gym school But it was one of those One of those things where it set me up and it's still that passion today that I love the fight Yeah I love to fight every day and I love the gym and I love going in there with the banter and all that stuff and training with the guys and outlifting them or doing whatever I do, but it's You've been in a fight and anybody that's been in a fight a street fight You hear nothing else All you're hearing is the hits in the head or you hitting the guy and there's no matter how much they're yelling at you You hear nothing Yeah and I can get to that place every time I work out and there's something there and I'm like in a fight with myself in That moment and I love that and I live off that that's crazy because I gotta tell you whether I've interviewed It's such a running theme man.

Like Athletes I've interviewed business women. I've interviewed the one of the running themes They all have is they have a way to get themselves I think I do it myself, but they have a way to get themselves in a state of competing still long-term Like they still find a way to compete. There's something to compete for I don't care who they are What their industry is that's sort of like there's like like four times already You've referenced either fighting or competing like that's a that's in your just yeah, that's makeup, right?

Like that's cool to hear that others do that bro. It's the it's the common line It's wild when you meet somebody else that's successful in what they do. Yeah, and there's that the bonds of what? Yeah, that's cool It's cool the other thing you have though and I want to talk about this next is the other thing they have that you have in like Abundance like I train on I'm fit and we're basically the same age, right? So more than most people I have a deep appreciation for what it would require to be you Right because I don't have that in that realm.

I'm fit, but there's a level of Dominance that you you've sought and found right and so it's little decisions that you make in disciplines, right? So talk to them a little bit like you mentioned your brothers and sisters drink, right? You've ever had a drink never poured alcohol in his body in his life I mean just think about this. How about your eating habits, right? Like just talk to them a little bit about I don't I this is annoying though This is annoying to people because it's one of those things you can't beat the guy that never gives up.

Yeah, I'm that guy Yeah, but I'm the guy that's never missed a meal in 40 years What do you mean by that this honestly honestly on this it's annoying to them, but I don't believe I got the greatest genetics I don't believe I was gifted anything physically. I don't even the next guy I don't eat what I believe is that I just don't miss meals It's not something that I guess the only way that you can relate to it is It blows my mind that people go to work for somebody else from 8 in the morning till 6 at night Night and that's how they live their lives.

And the only reason I say that is because people say to me How do you train at 4 in the morning? How do you go to work for somebody else and make them rich? Well, you're just staying average I don't get it. And for me, I wake up at 3 in the morning still today and I'm excited and I'm like Let's do this. I can feel like you are like Okay, I go early I go at 5 because well man we're in it for and he's like just pumped about it You know like and I'm like, I know that I know what it's like to go to the gym every day He's done this every day for freaking decades and he loves it, right?

That's the passion that was a great conversation and if you want to hear the full interview be sure to follow the Ed my let's show on Apple and Spotify links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our neck So, you know I've been trying to take my health in my morning routine to the next level and I used to do a whole bunch of different Stuff tons of different supplements and then I found all-in-one in a drink with im8 I made is the way to simplify your supplement routine.

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That's code ed10 at im8 health.com Slash ed10 these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration This product is not intended to diagnose treat cure prevent any disease next guest Welcome to the end my let's show I have been looking forward to doing this program for a Long time ever since I've read this book and I could do a big introduction for this man But I thought I'd read what Kobe Bryant said about it And so this is the gentleman sitting to my my right Tim Grover knows more than anyone about the mental side of sports and I would amend that and just tell you life life business Success overall this book is a blueprint for discovering what you're capable of achieving getting results You never imagined reaching the highest level of success and then going even higher And so that is Tim Grover the author of this incredible book that we're going to talk about today relentless Tim Thanks for being here brother.

Thank you partner. Appreciate you. Thank you So good to have you here One of the things I told Tim before the interview this relentless and his program is relentless program as well I was telling him before the interview on this topic We just were there's so many of you that have children that are at that teenage years And they're thinking about their sport or college or the rest of their life I so strongly believe the sooner in life someone begins to learn to think like this the easier it is to develop Those habits and so at the end when we promote this or even Tim's book in his program Really encourage you to get your children at the right age Involved in this and learning to think like this earlier in life their lives will be so much better Earlier if they learn to think this way as opposed to the way the world's teaching them to think right now So I want to make sure that I've told you that in just a few minutes We're gonna tell you how you can get access to his program You know I keep saying it, but we're getting too soft everyone talks about you know Nobody moves anymore.

We're getting unhealthy listen We have access to the some of the healthiest foods all the diets out there all the knowledge There's more gyms Opening now than ever before and why is the obesity rate going up you have the knowledge you know you know hey if I eat This this is what's gonna happen if I eat this this is not good But people want to make it's people want to make excuses. You know all my you know. I got a slow metabolism rate I'm big-boned at all that no you're eating too much.

All right. Let's stop mate stop making excuses all right There are people out there that do have those conditions sure okay? We can't we over complicate that we over complicate things Move more eat less equals weight loss there you go Yeah, and I'm pretty sure most people's bones aren't much bigger than other people's People say that's completely nonsense your bones are not bigger than my bones Yeah, but it's an excuse they've heard that so they've heard that summer Yeah, I can't lose. I can't lose the weight because of that.

It's the same thing. You know when you're competing at something It's not why was Michael and Kobe? Who they were Tom Brady Dwayne Wade Wayne Gretzky Muhammad Ali Floyd Matt Floyd Mayweather all these guys Not because of their physical gifts yes that had a lot to do with it. It's up in here Yeah, it's up in here, and we can all listen. We're not gonna learn to fight like Floyd We're not gonna learn to play basketball like my oh like Michael We're not gonna be able to do these things But you can all think that way and whatever you're doing you can all take that action You can be you can be that cleaner and whatever you want to do it starts it starts and ends up here All right, it's time to recharge this and reboot this.

What is there a difference at all? I'm just curious as you work with both of them just a sports thing you indulge me What is the difference between Kobe and Jordan was there a difference in the two because there's tons of similarities is there a difference in? The two I always say this Kobe worked out harder Michael worked out smarter is that right yes? with They both that were extremely hard, but Michael was always smart Kobe was It was this constant push push push push, and we had to kind of even when you reel them in Okay, you'd get a call it you get a call at 3 a.m..

In the morning. They said what are you doing? It's 3 a.m.. I'm sleeping. That's what you should be doing right. Let's go back to the gym really all right And I'm like no. It's really not a good idea. Well. Here's the thing Even if I tell him it's a not a good idea I still got to go to the gym because he's gonna show up at the gym. No kidding. Yeah, he's gonna He's gonna. He's gonna. He's gonna show up at the gym were they the two hardest workers.

Yes. Yeah, you're most successful individuals Yeah, it doesn't happen by accident right it doesn't you listen There's a lot of talented people that succeed at nothing and Absolutely nothing now when you have that individual that's talented you have that individual That individual that knows how to work hard all right, and they have the intelligence Okay, and this is key. This is key because this is what's missing now with individuals all right you have the talent You have the intelligence all right? You know how to compete You don't have the resiliency the resiliency you don't have that when failure comes kicking it comes Kicking your ass.

Yeah, all right you you crumble, and you forget all right Yeah, come on. You gotta have that resiliency over and over again But at some point that resiliency is got to turn into something all right You know people talk about all time Oh you build so much character from losing and you know from failure and all that listen at this point in my life Yeah, I got enough From my wins You always learn more from you when you cool see here's the thing you cannot say this all right a Cleaner never calls himself a cleaner, and you know why a cleaner never calls himself a cleaner because he's never satisfied Yeah, another individual can call themselves a cleaner that statement you just made Tells me right now.

Don't let this guy You are a cleaner you'll never admit it your wife will never admit it, okay? But somebody else and say when they see that he's a he's a cleaner I appreciate, but you're never gonna be sat you're never gonna be sad honestly doesn't feel like it Yeah, it just never and it never will because guess what when it does you're no longer cleaner You're crazy if you move backwards right backwards, and that's what we go through the next wall I it's and it happens you get a lot of individuals that make that stage they go from closers to cleaners And they just it's too intense.

Yeah, it's I watch it all the time It's too intense, and you see them they see that you see them go back. You do you go back like this You're You have you're built a certain way mm-hmm, okay? You work out to have this physique I work out to look this way okay your wife everybody else does What happens if you stop? We know It goes you got it your body goes back. You don't have those arms. You don't have those shoulders You don't have those guns.

You don't no longer have that waste Your body wants to always convert back to being comfortable. It's so true, man. Okay. It's so true. And we say this all the time. You gotta get, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just wanna remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way.

Now on with the show. Welcome back to Max Outt, everybody. Today's awesome. I just reached out to this man. I said, hey brother, I think the world needs a little bit more of Dean and Ed. And everywhere I go, people bring up the time that we've spent together on our other show as one of their favorite, if not their favorite show that I've ever done. And this man here is a friend of mine. But beyond that, I just want you to know he's an incredibly financially successful person.

We were just talking about some of the great things happening in his life off camera. I think he's one of the most articulate and brilliant people in all of the entrepreneur, life strategy, personal development space. And he approaches it in a way that's different than everybody else. There's a kindness that exudes out of this man, a gentleness, yet strength that no one else has. He's also somebody that many of the other people in the space go to for personal advice and for counsel. He's just a good man.

He's a great husband. He's a wonderful father. And I count him as a friend and somebody that I admire greatly. So Dean Graziosi, thank you for being here today, brother. Thank you for that beautiful introduction. I feel the same way about you, Ed. We met each other a little bit before the podcast and it was like we were bonded brothers forever after that. And it was a great show and I still get hit up on a regular basis. I know you do. There was something magical about that show because we get hit up all the time about it.

So it's good to be here with you. Man, I'm so grateful for you. I got two things left because we're gonna run out of time. Literally, brother, we've almost been an hour. We could go forever, you and I. But I have to ask you a couple of things because I'm curious about your opinion about this because I've been navigating it. A lot of entrepreneurs listen to this or they want to be entrepreneurs. And there's this new thing out there, not new, but there's this adage that, hey, millionaires have multiple streams of income, right?

And sometimes I think, myself, that that's a fact that's not true. Although it's true that most millionaires have multiple streams of income, my experience is that most of those millionaires got great at one thing first and then as they became millionaires, diversified their income streams to multiple streams. Why I ask this is, and I would really like your opinion about it, I see a lot of people doing five, six, seven things, three, four different things, trying to spin all these plates, but not really getting great at any of them.

And I almost think to some extent that they would be better off if they got great at something. Same time, I understand the world today is a different world than it was 20 years ago. And I really don't know your opinion about this. And I'm curious as to how you feel about it. Should someone get great at what they're doing? You spoke about greatness earlier. Or are you a believer they should have four, five, six different things going at any given time? I think the biggest disservice you could do to a new entrepreneur is tell them that they should have multiple streams of income because they'll never go deep enough on one thing, never go through enough pain and enough failure on the one thing that'll go deep enough to give them the breakthroughs to be able to do that later on in life.

It's an absolute fact. And here's something, before I get there, I wanna say something. I love the fact of what this device has done for us, that you could log in and listen to Ed right now. I died, I listened to Tony Robbins tapes when I, in 1996, I don't know, 96, 95, I listened to Tony Robbins tapes. And when I got done, I ordered his power talk and I'd wait for them to come every month. And I was searching for you to be able to have access in a second to Ed and Andy Fursella and Tony and so many great people out there.

I love that part. But the other part where I think it's done a disservice to a whole generation is you think success is easy when it's brutally freaking hard. It is hard to have the success you want. It's hard to have a jet and freedom and extra houses. And it takes hard work and it takes time. And there's no shortcut. I don't care what anybody thinks, there's no shortcut. Maybe you could've bought Dogecoin and you got lucky. That is the rarest thing in the history of the world.

Ed and I, I would bet we agree, I don't even know. Neither one of us probably invested in crypto when all of our friends said to because we didn't know it, we didn't feel it, and we missed it. So I'm so blessed if you did for you. But that's not where true wealth is made. You have to work 50% harder than you think you do. You have to get kicked in the teeth more than you think. You have to get questioned by your friends and family and look like the dreamer twice as much as you think.

The people you thought were gonna support you aren't. Some people are gonna talk behind your back. Some friends are gonna leave you, and guess what? It's worth every freaking penny. It's worth every moment, every disappointment. There was a gentleman named David Kekich. I met him, he was paralyzed from the neck down. And not always paralyzed, I think it was a jogging car accident. And he had these Kekich credos. It was like a business card that folded out. And one of his Kekich credos to make him positive, most positive guy you ever met couldn't move anything below his neck, one of them was, living the hard way is easy, and living the easy way is hard.

So before I answer this about multiple streams of income, I think it's really important I tell you this. Living the hard way makes it easy. It was hard when my friends were partying every single, I still had fun, don't get me wrong. But when I was getting up at five o'clock going to work every day, my friends were like, oh, you're crazy. We come from a small town, it's blue collar. I grew up in a similar town as you did. All my friends are gonna be mechanics or construction workers, and if they're lucky, they work for IBM, right?

When they told me that I was crazy for doing it, when I worked seven days a week, when I borrowed money, when I used to take credit cards and apply for 10 at once so I could get the money and use that money and leverage it and go buy a junky piece of property and fix it up every night. I'd work on cars during the day, I'd drive a tow truck at night, and I'd work on my houses at night. I'd put 20 hours a day.

Everybody, my sister, my family, my friends, thought I was insane, I was nuts. I was a dreamer. People without educations, without money, they don't really get there. What were my chances? If you looked at the percentages, you wouldn't bet on me if you were in Vegas, but I knew it. I took the hard path, didn't know I was, but I took the hard way, but now I get to be the dad I want. I take my kids to school every day. I coach Little League, I coach softball.

I can jump on a plane and go to New York and go to my farm in New York and spend time. It looks beautiful now, but I put the work in, none of it was handed to me. Now, I'm not saying me, but it's easy to sit on the couch, order pizza, and binge out on Netflix. That's easy. It's hard when you're 60 and you got diabetes and you can't play with your kids. It's easy in today's world to go hit up the girl I used to hang out in high school and be unfaithful and nobody will ever find out.

It's easy to do now. It's really hard when you're the fan and you're alone when you're 70 years old. I know that might sound harsh, but I think through all of this. So first off, I want to tell you, live the hard way now. Make the smart decisions now so you can live easy and have choices that you want. You know how many baby boomers I meet that took a job that seemed easy and a nice 401k and they're 62 years old going, I just wasted 40 years of my life building someone else's dream and I have my own.

Help me, Dean. And I want to help them, but they didn't take the hard way. So take the hard way. Work hard on your thing. Secondly, multiple streams of income are absolutely amazing once you crack the code, once you have something steady from one thing. Give you Tony Robbins, for example. Number one personal development guy. I don't think anybody will ever reach his height of success. I don't think anybody will leave the legacy that that man's going to lead. Do you know he was 48 years old before he invested in another company?

And it's because when he was younger, he used to hang out with billionaires. He coached a lot of these guys when he was in his 20s and he was on a jet with really successful people and they're talking about all these different businesses they have, but they were in their 60s. He was in his early 30s and he's like, man, I'm working my tail off on one business. These guys are flipping companies and making billions. And a guy said, all, one of the guys on the plane, I think was the second richest man in Canada, said to him, all in your own time, man.

Go deep on your company. When your company is paying, then you can take the money from that company and there'll be a time in your life where you can start investing in other companies. But don't do that until you go deep, till you know it, till it becomes bulletproof. It was almost, Tony was almost 50, Ed, before he started investing in other companies. Now he has multiple streams of income, but he went deep and mastered what he'd done. And here's the last thing I'll tell you.

When you master something, doesn't mean you have to stick with it forever, right? I mastered real estate. I got really deep, but all those principles I learned in mastering real estate, in hiring people, in running businesses, I took that and they lent great for my next companies. I 1,000% agree, and that's exactly what I did. I built one thing for a very long time. Then I diversified into all these other businesses. This is one of the best conversations I've ever had. I mean, just doing it straight up.

Because it's so wide ranging. When we started the show, I told you, I'm not gonna tell you what we're gonna talk about. I said we were gonna, and you just crushed this. That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. For 125 years, Nordstrom has been part of your story. The stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview.

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From the director of Birdman and The Revenant. What would happen if I stopped moving? You'd starve, you'd freeze to death, that's what. With great power, comes great deniability. I'm not the earth, Danny. Digger, see the trailer online. Now playing only in theaters. Rated R, under 17, not a minute without parent. I mean, you live in a space where there was a lot of other people that came through that could have done something big, like you have. There's no question. By the way, and I think successful relative to what, right?

Like, I think both you and I are pretty good at this deception thing. Like, people do it in reverse. So, some people deceive themselves into thinking they're further ahead than they are, right? They're constantly, you know, they always wanna tell you how well they're doing, and they're sort of deceiving themselves, and that deception leads to lack of activity, drive, desire, blah, blah, blah. You and I do the reverse. I deceive myself I'm further behind than I am. I know you do this, too, because we've talked about it.

I love deceiving myself. I love deceiving our company. I love being, I love deceiving the team, because I want us to feel like we got, Malcolm X has this great quote. He says, that which you do not hate, you will eventually tolerate. I'm a big believer, and I gotta almost despise where I am right now, and I do. So, I'm kind of the king of deception with myself. So, I don't feel that successful. You understand what he's saying, okay? He deceives himself, okay? Most people that I meet, like, I'm doing good, really?

Compared to what? Correct. Okay, if I tell you, hey, a guy says to you, he's living the dream. Yeah. You like that? I don't like that. Every person that's ever said that to me, I knew had already pulled off the side of the road. 100%. I'm living the dream. I'm like, what dream is this? Yeah, literally, it's funny. One of my top guys at our firm a few weeks ago, one of my favorite people, probably one of the most talented guys in my company. I won't say who he is, because he might be watching this, but he said that to me.

He goes, I just wanted to share with the world how amazing and incredible my life is, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I told him, I said, when I was at your level, I couldn't stomach it. Yeah. I couldn't handle it. I couldn't live on that kind of income. Yeah. I didn't want to live my life like that. And I said, it scares me that you think somehow this is the dream. Yeah. And then, of course, he kind of corrected himself and backstopped, but the fact is, I'm constantly deceiving myself.

And I, it's not even, it's really, I really do feel that way. Like, I really don't feel successful. I'm not, I don't think I'm a failure. Yeah. But I do measure it up against the highest version of me, my highest expression. As opposed to what? As opposed to measuring yourself against what? Other people. Uh-huh. That's the biggest thing people do. They're so obsessed with other people that it kills them. They think about, what are they thinking about me? What are they gonna think about me? What are they saying?

And then they measure themselves against other people, too. And I don't think, I mean, I've been around you. Yeah, yeah. You're a powerhouse, but neither one of us are, I think you were talking about Einstein at the break. Neither one of us have a super crazy off-the-charts IQ. Yeah. I sure know you don't. So I've talked to you for enough. I know for sure you don't. He's done that a couple times now. He keeps taking shots at me. Well, it's obvious. They're watching. They know. They've seen you.

They know you. No, but the fact of the matter is, you didn't get where you are. No, but you didn't get, you didn't get where you are because of some gifted, gigantic intellect. I can't wait to meet your wife, though, man. No, but it's a fact. Both of us didn't get there because of some unbelievable, natural giftedness we have that just produced success, right? So I don't measure myself against other people because they've got gifts that are different than mine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you've done unbelievable with what you've had.

Okay, and I agree with the statement you made in the first segment, which was this middle class thing. Yes. I got enough food. Yeah. I got enough, you know, I got enough food. I got enough money. I got a car. I got a bike. Yeah. It can be very easy to become deceived by it's good enough. Well, here's what it is. People's, for most people, you have to ask yourself this too. Most people, this is what's different about you. I just told you this the other day.

The thing that impresses me the most about you is that the more successful you've become, the more you've been fed, the hungrier you are, which is irrational. Most people, the more they eat, the less hungry they are. The freaks of the world, the mega successful, somehow the more they're fed and they get hungrier. So the question now for a guy like you, and that they're asking, when's enough enough? And how many times have you been asked this? I've been asked that a lot, and there's no such thing for me because I'm not trying to get to necessarily a place or just an amount.

I have goals. I want to be a billionaire. I have these things I want, but I'm not trying to just get to destinations. I'm trying to see where I can get as a man in every aspect, my body, my spirituality, my family, my finances, my influence, my ability to communicate. And here's for most people, this is what I love about you, since I took this shot at your limited intellect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which isn't really that limited. Hey, we all have a limited intellect. Don't kid yourself.

No, you're right. I can recognize it in others because I suffer from it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, and here's what it is. Most people's will to win is for sale. It's for sale. Most people's will. Will is for sale. To win is for sale. It can be bought. I can't be bought. So if we give you just, most people, if we gave you just enough money, if there's a certain dollar amount, you'd stop working hard. We give you a title, you'd stop working hard. We give you a car or a plane or a house or.

That's the book, bro. That's the book. Is that the book? Yeah, that might be the book. That is the book. Your will to win is for sale. That's right. And I decided, once I realized that, because I watch it happen with people in their body and their finances and their family and their faith, whatever it is, I'm not for sale. So there isn't a place you're going to buy me. There's not a stop, a place, a destination where you're going to get me to relent, to quit.

I want to improve. That doesn't mean I don't struggle with my motivation from time to time. It doesn't mean I don't get confused or down. Of course I do, but I'm not for sale. You can't buy me. And you know this too. We see friends of ours, even guys in their 60s, and they sold their company for blah, blah, blah, and now they golf nine days a week or whatever. That's fine, but they're for sale. They were bought. You were for sale. I'm not for sale.

Tell me about, tell me about, I mean, Ed Millett today, you got, I mean, I know you don't like to brag or anything. He's got a plane. He's got four or five homes. How many homes you got? I have, I have, golly, man, I have five houses. Where are they? Uh, okay. Laguna beach on the sand. Laguna beach. Okay. I got Palm desert. Palm desert. I got. Two hours away. Yeah. I got, oh, I got my, I got one in Diamond Bar where I grew up.

Where's Diamond Bar? Diamond Bar is where I grew up. Okay. How far is that from your main house? Uh, not that far. Hour and a half away. Okay. An hour and a half. You got a third home. I got a place in Hawaii. Four. Yeah. And I got a place, my favorite place is in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Five. Yeah. Why does anybody need five homes though? They don't need five homes. They don't need. Why do you have five homes? I'm okay. I'll give you a good answer for it.

I did it. One, I wanted to enjoy nice things, but it was part of my dream early. I wanted to hit those places. But here's the other reason. I don't like traveling and I don't like feeling like I'm on vacation. So I wanted to buy houses where I could live on vacation and work so I can be in the most beautiful places in the world. I can get the sand and the ocean and the beach. I don't have to go to Fiji to do it. I can grind and work from my house, my backyard.

So it feels like I'm on vacation, but I'm not living on vacation. I want to waste those days traveling and taking two weeks off. You know, you meet these guys, I was three weeks in Cabo. I don't do that crap. I live in Laguna Beach. I don't really need to go to Cabo. I go once in a while if there's a business reason or some break. But I understand the Laguna thing. It's the other four homes I don't understand. Well, okay. You don't want to have the details, but one of them, my mother-in-law lives in because they couldn't afford to keep their house, right?

The other one is I'm going to build on it eventually someday and Coeur d'Alene is my dream place, man. I just love it. And Palm Desert is a place called Big Horn, which I'm going to take you to. I think it's the best golf club in the world. So when I do want to go golf, or I do want to entertain, or I do want to get my vision stretched. And here's the other thing, last thing. But you're questioning all these homes yourself. I don't question it.

Because you brought it up to me. What I question is whether I should own them all cash because I have no debt on any of those homes. And I wonder whether I leveraged them. I don't question having the house. But let me just say something. The other thing is, there's a lesson to this. These places have brought me into associations and meeting people that were further ahead of me in my life and stretched me. And so getting in the environment, changing my environment to be around people that were further ahead in some of the games of life I wanted to be in has had a huge impact on me.

So a couple of these homes, I paid for them themselves just by the people I got around. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. Welcome back, everybody. I wanted to have Alan on our show for a long time. I was just telling him this off camera. I wanted to have him on because he's got a really unique perspective and an upfront view to some of the key performers in the NBA for many, many years.

And he's taken the lessons he's learned from these high performers and he's distilled it down into information that everybody can use as an entrepreneur, as a father, as a mother, as just a human being. And he communicates it in a very unique way. We're going to go very deep today on performance, on your game. His first book I read, which is called Raise Your Game, the book that's out now is called Sustain Your Game, High Performance Keys to Manage Stress, Avoid Stagnation, and Beat Burnout. I think everybody listening to this needs some help right now in the world with stress, stagnation, and burnout.

So, Alan Stein, welcome to the show, bro. Oh, man. It's so awesome to be here. My pleasure. Finally, man. And I've been doing the show for a long time. You know, the truth that you're spitting here is remarkable to me and the application of it. Here's how people need to apply that. So once again, and I'm so glad that you brought up the point that, well, I may use basketball examples because that's where I've spent most of my life. Folks need to take these and figure out how they can, you know, apply them to their situation.

So step number one is figure out what does winning look like to you or what does success look like to you. Again, this could be in your marriage. This could be, you know, in your business. This could be for something you're doing in your community. But figure out what does winning look like. Now, of course, in the game of basketball, which Simon Sinek has said is a finite game and I'm a big fan of Simon's work, is a finite game. We have unanimously around the globe agreed that the team with the most points on the scoreboard when the final buzzer goes off is the winner.

Life, relationships, business, it's a little more esoteric. It's not as clear. How you might define winning in business might be slightly different than maybe one of your friends or colleagues, but that doesn't matter. You just have to get crystal clear on what winning looks like to you and then you need to figure out what are the measurable building blocks, the bricks, if you will, that will allow me to reach that goal. And then once you have that North Star, take your eyes off of it and just focus on the bricks.

Think about a GPS, which most people need to navigate the world these days. I don't know how I survived without one beforehand, but you need to know two things. You need to know where you are in the moment, not where you were five minutes ago, five days ago or five weeks ago. You need to know where you are right now and you need to have an end address. Where am I going? Those are the only two points you need. And then once you have those two points, you don't need to worry about either one of them.

What you need to do now is pay attention to the directions and listen to every turn that you're supposed to make. And of course, the beauty with this analogy is if you're like me and kind of directionally dysfunctional, you're probably going to take a wrong turn. And then what happens? It reroutes. It just reroutes. So the GPS doesn't get angry at you. It doesn't call you an idiot. It just simply reroutes and it puts you back on that course. And that's ultimately what all of us should be trying to do is pursue our North Star by focusing on the steps and directions it takes to get there.

And when you misstep or you make a wrong turn, don't get upset over it. Just move to the next play and take the next direction to reroute. It's really, really good. And I think oftentimes people feel lost and that's why this clarity of what success looks like to you or the blueprint that you want is really so important. The other thing that happens is people get tired. I think it's the second chapter of the book. You talk about stress management. You talk about energy management as well.

And that's a big thing in our culture today. I think people are tired. I don't think they manage their energy very well. I watch this, even a basketball analogy. I've watched certain teams that, you know, I think, wow, they're tired. And I watch friends of mine in business and life. They just seem tired to me. So what is energy management and what are some of your keys for it? Well, we need to make sure we're protecting both time and energy. And as we know, I know you've said this on many previous shows, you know, obviously time is our most precious resource because that is finite.

Whenever that's done, that's done. We don't have any more of it. Energy is something, though, that we can actually replenish. And a lot of that has to do with our routines and our self-care. Are we making the time to fill our own buckets mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually so that we can keep that battery, that internal battery of our lives as close to 100% as possible? You know, most people would freak out if they looked down at their iPhone and saw their iPhone had 3% or 4% juice left in it.

They'd immediately start looking for a plug or a Mophie or something. But they allow themselves to go down to 3% or 4%, and they don't seem to do anything about it. And then you're just running on fumes. And there's no way that you can be your best self or make a maximum contribution to the things that are important to you if you're doing that. So part of it comes down to our discernment of what are we going to invest our time and energy into? And this goes back to just two simple words, yes and no.

What are you saying yes to and what are you saying no to? You know, as a self-diagnosed people pleaser, this was one that was really challenging for me most of my life. Same here. Me too. Because I love saying yes. It feels good to say yes. I want to help as many people as I can. But I've learned that when I say yes to one thing, I am by default saying no to something else. If I'm going to say yes to investing this hour with you, that means this hour in time cannot be invested anywhere else.

Now this happens to be a wonderful investment of my time, one I'm very happy to make. So am I. But we have to be very careful of what we say yes and what we say no to. So we have to have some discernment. For me, I've learned to be able to say no respectfully, with tact and to be polite if something is not a good fit. And how do we know if it's a good fit? Is it in alignment with the North Star that you're pursuing?

If you're asking me to do something that is taking me away from that North Star, then it's most likely not the wisest investment of my time or energy and I'll politely decline. If what you're asking me to do is in alignment, then it's probably a great investment of my time and energy. So being able to step back and use our core values and use that North Star to design our lives and design our schedules and design what we're going to say yes to is incredibly helpful.

We can't rely on feelings and emotions. If you're just saying yes and no to things based on your mood or how you're feeling, there's no consistency in that. What a really good point because you know what? I have a hard time saying no and oftentimes it is just based on my energy rather than out of my values or does it fit into the vision of what I'm trying to create and what I'm trying to do? I want to stay on that word vision. You know what surprises me is how little people talk about visualization and how much of it I do and how much of it happy and successful people, both happy and successful people that I know, spend in doing so.

So you talk about it. It's not a lot, but you talk about in the book visualization and I'm wondering any keys you would have for that and also the importance of it because I think most people don't realize you're visualizing all the time. It's just what are you visualizing, right? And I think most people are visualizing their fears, their worries, their to-do list, the stuff they've got. I got to get the kids to soccer. I got to go work out. I got whatever it might be.

But are you taking control of what you're visualizing in your life because I think ultimately our minds move towards what it's most familiar with. And so you talk about it in the book and I don't want to use my version of it, but how do you feel about visualization and anything about it you want to share? One of the words that comes up in a lot of your shows and a lot of your work is intention. So we have to make sure we're very intentional with what we're visualizing.

There were a few different research studies and I reference them in the book. The one that I like the most from a visualization standpoint was they took three different groups and they were going to have them shoot free throws and these weren't professional players by any means. These were just regular weekend warriors. And in the three groups, the first group, they got tested on the first day and then they practiced for 21 consecutive days and then they took the retest 21 days later. Second group took the test on the first day, did not touch a basketball, but only visualized making free throws for the next 21 days and then took the retest.

And then the third group tested on the first day, didn't practice and didn't visualize and then retested on the 21st day. I think most people would realize the group that didn't practice or visualize there was there was no improvement. In fact, they had a slight decline in their ability. But the part that blew my mind was the group that visualized was only a couple of percentage points less than the group that actually practice. So by actually sitting with your eyes closed and visualizing making free throws, it's almost as good as being able to practice and that blows my mind.

Now, I think we can also agree that the best thing to do is to do both, is to get in repetition, you know, purposeful repetition as well as visualize. I visualize before every single speaking engagement. Every engagement I do, I always arrive the day before and I request to see the room the day before I'm going to speak. I want to get a feel for what it's going to look like. I visualize before I came in here with you today. I watched several of your other guests on YouTube who were in this studio.

I knew what this room looked like before I set foot in here, which gave me a certain level of comfort that I wasn't going to walk into anything that I hadn't hadn't prepared myself for. And one of my favorite quotes that I learned from a mentor of mine is make preparation your separation and that I want to be as prepared as possible for everything that I do and that will also lower stress. Yeah, Ben Newman was telling me this Saban quote where he says, you know, most teams practice until they get it right and he says here at Alabama, we practice until we can't get it wrong.

Yes. And it's just a different standard of preparation and I'm the same way, by the way. I try to do all of those things and I'll give you this thing on a visualization to share with you. It'll take me a minute for the audience, but I got hurt my sophomore year of college and I couldn't play. And we had a team psychologist at the time he ended up being killed and I use a lot of his work to this day. It was in a car accident.

I use a lot of his work and I get a lot of credit for it because he was so cutting edge even back in those days. And he said, Ed, here's what we're going to do. And I hit .215 my freshman year. Terrible year. That's terrible. And then I sat out because I was hurt. The next year I hit almost .380 and I wasn't any better of a hitter. What happened was he taught me to visualize and we'd sit behind the batting cage where the other guys were popping some up, grounding the double plays, missing a few.

He said, Ed, you're going to hit a line drive up the middle thousands of times. And he made me focus on my visualization. So he goes, Ed, all right, visualize you hitting the line drive up the middle. I go, I got it. And he'd go, okay, really? Do you? And he would make me hyper visualize. And he'd say, Ed, where's the camera? I go, what do you mean? He goes, well, how are you seeing it? From what angle? Is the camera in the center field like on TV over the pitcher's head shooting in?

Or is it from the batter's box your view out? And I go, I don't know. And he goes, well, then you kind of should know. And I go, okay, uh, actually turns out the camera's on me. I'm looking out at the pitcher. He goes, great. Not everybody has it that way. He goes, can you see the release point? Can you see the stitches on the ball? Can you see the rotating? And it got to the point where he'd go, what is it? And I'd say, it's a curve ball.

He goes, how do you know? And then I could see, I got to the point where he'd make me work. I could see then the stitches coming in. I could see the ball hit the bat and the stitches re-rotating backwards the other way, right back over the guy's left shoulder. I just got to share this with you. So I come back. I'm a 215 hitter. The first day in BP, first pitch throw to me is up and away. And I swat at it and hit a line drive up the middle.

Next ball down and away. Line drive up the middle. And I think it was 28 straight hits. My teammates are like, what's going on with my let? Line drive up the middle every single time. And I popped one up and I hit like 16 more up the middle. I had not swung a bat in six months. But the upside to that was I didn't have any negative experiences from actually swinging the bat. And the subconscious mind really doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's imagined.

I share this because your work is so good, bro. And the people that are listening to this, if you would start to visualize and then get better at it, refine it, see it more clearly. Can you slow it down? Can you speed it up? Can you add color? Can you add sound? And the more you get good at visualizing, you're going to change your damn life. The better you get at this. So I just wanted to add, second it and add to it that I have a real life experience.

And to this day, things like getting to the studio and visualizing it, I do that crazy stuff too because it's not crazy. All right. Chapter five. Never heard it said this way. Using stress. So usually people are taught avoid stress, minimize stress. And you have strategies for that in the book as well. But sometimes you're almost like, hey, dance with it. Use this stress. What does that mean? That goes back to something we said earlier. It's kind of the difference between viewing something that's making you nervous versus viewing something that gets you really, really excited.

I mean, I've, I said to you before off-air, I'm a huge fan of your work. You've had a massive impact on my life. I could have been nervous coming in here and to meet you for the first time and sit. But instead I was excited for this opportunity. Was I and those though they can have very similar feelings they can have you can have the butterflies in your stomach You know and I don't remember who said that originally But if you ever feel butterflies in your stomach just get them all lined up in the same direction I think they can work we can work for you But we do we need we need to have some stress in our life if the stress is overwhelming Then you'll be completely debilitated if I was completely overwhelmed with stress right now.

This wouldn't be much of an interview however if there was zero stress I'd probably be bored, and there wouldn't be much of an interview So we want just enough to keep us sharp It's very similar to fear you know fear in and of itself keeps us safe We want to have some fear if not We just walk in the middle of traffic, or we just juggle knives or do something foolish But if we have too much fear then we become paralyzed and we can't actually do anything so yeah these things Hope they help keep us sharp So we want to have a little bit be on a little bit of edge for the things that mean the most to us very Short intermission here folks.

I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify links are in the show notes You'll never miss an episode that way welcome back to the show everybody. I am so excited about today's topic I've wanted to record this episode for about a week now I'm finally getting a chance in the studio to do it with you We're gonna talk about today is actually what do you need to do to fulfill your dreams and your potential and? I want to start out by saying something to you You're gonna have to decide in your life That you're gonna be different That you're not gonna be like everybody else that you're not gonna be a part of the crowd Everything in our culture today is trying to make us all the same Put us all in the same box Take what I call the crowded road of life as opposed to the lonely road of life the road less traveled and I've done a show On that before and people ask me if I would go deeper on it, so I will today and so today We're gonna talk a lot about the mindset That's required to do something great and the first decision is to accept the fact that you're going to be different You're going to be criticized.

You're going to have haters, but not only that you're gonna feel very alone oftentimes on the journey And you're not gonna feel like a lot of people understand you and it's making a decision up front that I'm okay With not being like everyone else. I'm okay with not being part of the pack that I want to be different I want to stand out You know it's a difficult decision to do that especially when maybe you don't have the confidence yet to do it But at the end of your life You're going to regret the fact that you didn't go for it that you didn't try to do something Different and unique and follow your heart follow your own path if you're a person of faith we know that each of us was made individually in God's image and likeness, whatever your faith might be and That there's an individual plan for our life.

And so if there's an individual plan an individual destiny for our lives Why would we try to take pages out of everybody else's book? Let me say something to you up front, okay Conformity to me is the ultimate form of cowardice Let me say it again Conformity is the ultimate form of cowardice Meaning when you just decide to conform to what everybody else expects of you What everybody else is doing or what they think you are what they think you should be doing or they're limiting beliefs about you They're small minds see small minded people.

God bless them we'll constantly try to project their smallness on to you to get you to shrink and Then what happens is most people end up being a coward in life It's what it really is where they just begin to conform. I'm gonna do and say what you think I should do and say I'm not gonna speak my mind. I'm not gonna stand up for what I believe in I'm not gonna try something outside of the box because I might fail and then you'll criticize me and even when I'm trying you'll probably Criticize me and even if I win and succeed You're probably gonna criticize me.

You ought to just decide right now and understand something. Okay? Let me say this to you. You're gonna get criticized the whole time You're gonna get criticized when you try you're gonna get criticized if you fail and believe it or not You're gonna get criticized when you win because what people that are losing in their life do is they Criticize people and the reason they're critical of other people is it's the only time in their life that they feel like they have any power or any value That they're even noticed so because they're in the pack and they've conformed and they're on the crowded road They don't ever stand out They don't ever get noticed and so if you're not ever gonna do that and you're being a coward which is to be like everybody else Well, what's the one way out of that cowardice is to be a bully is to be a critic is to sit on the sidelines And poke fun or tell people how they ought to do it better when they're not doing anything And you've just got to decide in your life I know I'm being a little bit more intense than normal today You got to decide in your life that you don't want to take advice from these people You don't want to think like these people and by the way, many of them are really great people just at one time They just decided You know what?

I'm just gonna color between the lines in my life It's gonna color right in between the lines like everybody else which I'm gonna talk about in a minute And so what ends up happening Gandhi has this great quote that I've been really working on lately Gandhi said I will not let you walk through my mind with your dirty feet and too many of you are letting the people around you walk through your mind with their dirty feet and It's polluting your brain. It's polluting your thoughts.

It's creating negative belief systems limiting belief systems and you know what your own Confidence your own strength Your own self-esteem is gonna come from you You have to understand something when you try something in your life, okay, or you attempt anything in your life You're either gonna become wise or you're gonna become wounded And too many people once they start to try Become wounded the failure wounds them the setback wounds them the criticism wounds them their own by the way sometimes the people walking through your mind with their dirty feet are you and Your own thoughts and by the way, the reason I know this is I very much have done this myself the guy walking through my mind most of the time with his dirty feet is this dude right here and I've learned something.

I don't have to believe everything. I think in fact, I don't need more most the stuff I think all the studies say I've said this another podcast 80 to 90 percent of our thoughts are negative These aren't my thoughts. Those aren't God's thoughts Those are somehow very very wounded man's thinking not a wise man And I'll ask myself that when I have these thoughts is this a wise man's thoughts or a wounded man's thoughts You ask yourself that these negative thoughts that you're having these limiting thoughts that you're having Is that the wise woman's thoughts or the wounded woman's thoughts?

And if it's the wounded woman stop listening to her and start talking to her Sometimes in life you got to stop listening to yourself so much to start talking to yourself And it's all your responsibility listen It's not called friend esteem or stranger esteem or mom and dad esteem It's called self-esteem for a reason because you have to be the one to believe it and listen to me Right the fact that you're listening to my podcast or watching it means this you're starting to grow and maybe you've been growing for quite a while and by the way, if you're outgrowing people it makes them very uncomfortable with themselves and Then because they're uncomfortable with themselves they become dream stealers Because here's what happens you getting bigger makes them feel smaller And so the consequence what a lot of us do is we decide to shrink ourselves and get smaller So that they can feel bigger or safer with us around.

Let me say that to you again You getting bigger makes them feel smaller and because you're a good person whether it's your your boyfriend or girlfriend your spouse your friends your parents What you do because you're a good person is instead of still getting bigger you decide you will get smaller so they can feel bigger Or safer with you and what ends up happening is you shrink your dreams and we shrink our lives We shrink our energy. We shrink our capacity to fit in and We make all these other people around us comfortable And what I want you to do is I want you to make some people uncomfortable in your life There's nothing wrong with making people feel uncomfortable and if you're gonna do it see to me that's courage Courage is being willing to make other people uncomfortable Remember this sometimes I had to say this to my family pardon my progress But I'm gonna be making progress over here, right and eventually they might get on board and they might not get on board But I want to know that at the end of my life when it's over That I've given it everything I've got That I didn't shrink myself because I was a coward.

I didn't shrink myself to please small-minded people around me That my capacity to grow my capacity to read my my total Commitment to a personal development program my total commitment to a self-improvement program I started out as a very young man in my early 20s with absolutely no self-esteem. No confidence Communication ability whatsoever and I started the journey of self-discovery self-improvement and personal development I started I was a terrible reader But I found myself at least I could read a book a month and then it got to a book a week and I got up to where I was reading sometimes 50 60 70 80 books a year and These were like mentors to me when I read books It's like this author is personally speaking to me and mentoring me pouring into me If there was a podcast like mine back then my gosh, I'd be glue I mean, I would be glued to I don't mean to brag but like I would be glued to it There's this great Chinese proverb that says if you want to know the road ahead Ask those coming back and to be able to listen to my Thursday episodes or the people I interview on Tuesdays These are people who have the directions because they're coming back.

I Think I have some of them But I know this when I started out because I didn't have a lot of confidence Man every once in a while the cowardly me would come back in I would shrink my life shrink my dream shrink my belief Right those voices were that those dirty feet were running through my mind and then a few other people had their dirty feet doing it To me as well and between the rest of us between them and me It was like a stampede in my mind all the time and I didn't want to make people uncomfortable I still to this day at 53 years old.

I'm a people pleaser. I don't like to offend I don't like to hurt people I if I have strife with somebody in my life, like I can't sleep until I fixed it I'm just wired that way many of you are But I've learned that if I've made it a mistake and how I've treated somebody or spoken to them Then it should bother me and I should fix it But if the mistake I've made is trying to do something great with my life The mistake I've made is trying to change my family tree forever the mistake I've made is trying to be happier and grow if the mistake I've made is trying to give to other people and Contribute and create great memories in my life, but guess what?

That's not a mistake and I'm not apologizing for that I've got one life you've got one life and It's time we have the courage to get after it and take the lonely road and not Have this cowardice this cowardly way about us where we just conform to what everybody else is doing and I can tell you I think I know where it comes from. I Think it comes believe it or not all the way back when we were little little kids in our coloring books Remember how much we were trained over and over again to color between the lines and I was always a terrible color I'm left-handed.

I just I've got no coordination skills this way you go look at my old coloring book They're just terrible But we're trained as children color between the lines Sarah color between the lines Bob color between the lines stay between the lines and we're over And over and over this is reinforced to us to stay between the lines and there's a lot of great things about school Coloring between the lines sitting in the same way fold your hand all these things What ends up happening as we begin to get older?

We literally start to only color between the lines in our life We don't want to get outside the lines and I'm gonna say something to you all Great people color outside the lines all the people you admire. What do you admire about them? They colored outside the lines in their life. They didn't stay a conformist They didn't stay with some pre-determined picture. So here's what a coloring book is. Here's the picture Now you just fill in the one I gave you color between the lines and That's what most people do in their life the world hands them.

Here's your picture. This is what you get. This is your life This is the one you're handed stay between the lines. Don't you bear outside those lines? Don't you get outside of there and what happens is that we have this thing that's now wired into us once we're adults Oh my gosh, I'm outside the lines. I better get back. I'm outside the lines I better get back and it becomes something in life where I've never been out here before I need to come back I'm I'm misbehaving I'm gonna get in trouble I'm not doing what I was trained to do This isn't what I do and I can tell you that's why there's so few people in life that win But I can tell you the decision they've made they've made the decision that they're not coloring within the lines anymore And so my challenge to you today is to have courage is not to conform but to create Is to decide in your life that you're not playing within these lines somebody else handed to you that you're gonna design your own life With God your own story your own pictures and that you're gonna pick up a new pen a new crayon You're gonna start coloring a whole new picture of your life And when you begin to do that, it's gonna be uncomfortable at first And by the way, some of you've said Ed I've done it and you know what now that I'm listening say I'm back between the Dang lines again.

I was outside. I had some failures and setbacks and I ran back within the picture They gave me you've got to stop this tendency of running back within the picture that everybody gave you Shrinking your dreams down shrinking your life down to fit between these lines some artificial lines that everybody some strange a random person I guess gave you But I could tell you this. I don't believe you were created to stay within those lines I don't think you yet have any idea what your potential is and your capacity But what I can tell you is you begin to expand your capacity and you start really getting out there You'll be surprised how far you can go I the people that I know that are successful myself included if you think I am For me to look back now how far I've come my gosh, it's amazing You'd have told me all these different things would happen It blows my mind but the reason that that happened is I finally started building a habit of I'm not shrinking to make you comfortable and By the way, I'm not gonna shrink to make me comfortable I've got incredibly comfortable at being uncomfortable In fact, this is probably not great to admit But when I go too long just kind of laying around being comfortable I start to get uncomfortable.

I Start to get uncomfortable not doing difficult things people ask me all the time Why do you do cold plunges the more is that the anti-inflammatory properties? Is it? I don't know. No, not really In fact, there's some data that says the longer you do it the less that has an impact I don't even know if that's right, but isn't why I do it Anyway, the reason that I do it is it's hard. The reason I do it is it's difficult successful people happy people do difficult things unhappy people People, and I believe unsuccessful people, have a tendency to not do difficult things.

There's this great story. My firm at one time, we sponsored Carl Edwards. He was a NASCAR driver, very successful one for a long time. And I asked him about driving a NASCAR and I'll never forget what he told me. I said, what's the hardest part? And he goes, well, there's obviously the physical toll that it takes on you, Ed, and obviously the mechanics of knowing how to drive the car correctly and all those things that I don't understand of being a top athlete in any sport.

But he said the most difficult part is when you're driving and there's a crash in front of you and you're doing 150 miles an hour and all you can see is a smoke cloud. All you can see is a smoke cloud. And he said, and what you gotta do is drive right through that cloud. You gotta drive right through it. And he goes, and it's scary because you don't know what's on the other side. You could be going headlong into a car that's already crashed at 150, 180 miles an hour, bam, and you don't know.

And you gotta drive through the smoke anyway. I never thought about that before. He goes, oh yeah, there's a wreck in front of you and the smoke's everywhere. He goes, you just gotta drive right through it. And he said the other thing is when there's an accident, he goes, you're up against the wall when you're driving. He goes, your tendency when you're driving, you're doing 150 or 180 or whatever they do, the wall's a millimeter away. He goes, you can't look at the wall because when you look at it, you drive right into it.

You end up gravitating right into it. He said, you gotta keep looking ahead, Ed. You can't flinch when there's an accident in front of you. You can't flinch where there's smoke and you can't see what's on the other side. You gotta drive right through it. And I remember it firing me up thinking, man, that's life. Man, that's success. Sometimes you can't see where you're going. You gotta drive right through it, not knowing what's on the other side and have the faith and the confidence. And when you get to the other side, you will figure it out, that there'll be a blessing and a gift, that you'll be protected.

And that's what I mean by conformity is cowardice, right? It takes courage to go through that smoke cloud. And then you gotta keep your eye on the prize. When you're driving 150, 180 miles an hour an inch away from the wall, don't look at the wall. Don't look at the wall. Look ahead where you're going. And so many of us in life, even once we get it going, we start looking at the wall. I know I'm gonna crash. It's so close. And we start looking at the things we don't want and we manifest them.

We literally, I believe thoughts are magnets. And what you think about most regularly, you attract to yourself. I believe that. Especially if you do it repetitively. Especially if I can be candid with you and I may sound outside the lines for you, but let me just say this. I love being outside the lines. The more you begin to become successful and vibrate at a high frequency, the more you really need to protect your thoughts. Because when you're vibrating the highest frequency, you tend to draw things to you even more rapidly and more regularly when you're at that frequency, okay?

And so it's important that you not look at the wall in your life. That wall is an artificial line in the coloring book of your life. And when you begin to look at it, you decide to conform or hit it. But when you look ahead at where you're going, when you're focused in the present moment. See, I could tell you this. The other reason I love the cold plunge is it's so dadgum cold. It forces me to be fully present in that moment. You get into a cold plunge, you can't be worrying about your problems in that moment.

You are fully focused on getting through those three to five minutes or however long you sit in there. For some of us that are crazy people, it's some of the few minutes every day we are fully present, right? And I can promise you, if you're doing 150 or 180 into a smoke cloud, you're not worried about your grocery list at that time. You're going right in there fully present in the moment. And it's the most alive you ever feel in your life. See, total focus, you'll feel the most alive in your life.

If you look back at your life, some of the most chaotic, busy, difficult times were your happiest. And you may not have realized it at the time, but when you're in college cramming for finals, and I ask you to go back to those days, you were all distressed, you had a job, and you're going through college, let's say if you had that. Some of the happiest times in your life. Some of you mamas, those days where you're eight months, you're pregnancy, and you're, it's one of the difficult times in your life, yet one of the most blessed times in our life.

See, when it's really busy and we feel the most out of control and we're driving through that smoke cloud, we're coloring outside those lines when we're the happiest. And when it's easy and cruise control, and we're just kinda shrinking our life down to conform like everybody else, it's when we're the most miserable. That's why there's this thing that's inside of you right now saying, I'm supposed to be somebody. I'm supposed to do something great with my life. I'm not exactly settled where I am right now.

You're not settled right now. You don't feel settled in your spirit. You don't feel settled in your spirit because you know there's more abundant faith for you. You know there's more people to help. You know there's a dream and a life waiting for you out there, even if you're in a great one right now. You've got this sense about you that there's another place for you to go. There's more people for you to help. There's more people for you to serve. If you're a believer that you wanna serve God's kingdom in the biggest possible way you can, whatever that thing is for you.

And I can tell you I know where that lies and that lies outside the lines. And so today I hope you decide that you or no one else is ever gonna walk through your mind with their dirty feet and that you've decided that you're not gonna conform and that you're gonna do something awesome with your life. I'm giving you full permission. In fact, I'm begging you. Color outside the lines because that's where all the people that you wanna help are waiting for you. All right everybody, God bless you, max out your life.

Good night. Good night. Good night. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant. What would happen if I stopped moving? You'd starve, you'd freeze to death, that's what. With great power comes great deniability. I'm not the earth nanny. Digger. See the trailer online. Now playing only in theaters. Rated R. Under 17, not a minute without parent. I see you. Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney+. It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet. Go, go, go, go! A true epic and completely jaw-dropping.

This is the only pure thing in this world. Return to Pandora on Disney+. It will be an adventure for the whole family. And watch the Oscar winning phenomenon at home. This is sick! Avatar Fire and Ash now streaming on Disney+. Rated PG-13.

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