If You Feel Fear, Doubt & Anxiety Right Now… WATCH THIS | Ed Mylett

Key Takeaway

The road to success isn't well-lit or smooth—it's filled with doubt, fear, rejection, and isolation. But these aren't warning signs to turn back; they're green lights confirming you're on the right path. Most people choose the comfortable, crowded road and later regret the dreams they didn't chase. Your moments of greatest difficulty are actually proof you're becoming someone extraordinary. Don't yield to comfort—the breakthrough you can't yet imagine is waiting on the other side of the hardest challenges.

Episode Overview

This episode explores the reality of pursuing meaningful success—the 'road less traveled.' The speaker reframes common struggles like doubt, fear, rejection, and isolation as positive indicators that you're on the right path, not the wrong one. Through personal stories, including how his success enabled him to help restore his sister's vision, he illustrates how perseverance through difficulty leads to dreams you can't yet imagine.

Full Transcript

Transcript of If You Feel Fear, Doubt & Anxiety Right Now… WATCH THIS | Ed Mylett from The Ed Mylett Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Hey everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Hit that like button and be sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel so you never miss my show whether it's Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday. Now on with the show. show. show. All right, welcome back to the show everybody. Really excited today to talk to you about your road to success. Just your road in your entire life and the things you should expect if you're going to choose the road less traveled. I was reading a couple lines from the road not taken by Robert Frost.

It's a great poem. If you've not read it, you should. But he says, "Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled." And I think if you're going to pursue success in your life, you have to decide. You're going to be on a road that most people are not on. And a lot comes with taking that road. And I think, you know, a lot of times success is glamorized on social media right now. It looks like it's about Lamborghinis and private jets and, you know, great dinners and amazing stuff like that.

But the truth is the journey to success, especially as an entrepreneur or even as an athlete or in really any endeavor, can be a very painful journey and you can feel very alone and it's designed that way. And so it often bothers me when I hear people say, "I need this support from my spouse or my friends or I've got haters or no one understands me or I'm getting all this rejection and negative feedback from people. I've got haters." That's the road you're on. Those are the signs you're on the road less traveled.

Those are the signs you're on the path that most people aren't going to be on. That you're going to a place most people aren't going to go in their lives. And so what comes with deciding to be great, deciding to do something awesome with your life is all of those things. It's a to the other road, the road that almost everybody you know is on, that road's well lit. It's beautiful. There's all kinds of great scenery. There's not a lot of bumps in the road, not a lot of potholes, right?

Everything's wonderful on that road. It's also very crowded. The road to success, the road less traveled. Let me just tell you something. That road, it's windy. It's up and down. There's potholes. You're going to have breakdowns. You're going to have blowouts. You're going to have days that you can't you can't even get it started again. It's a dark road. It's not well lit. It's all kinds of bad things on that road. That's the road to success. And you're not going to see a lot of people there.

And then there's going to be a few times you're going to hit a yield sign and everything in you is going to tempt you to yield to the road everybody else is on because it looks so good over there, right? Everyone's there. It's well lit. It's sunny out. Your road, there's ice. It's snowing. It's raining. It's dark. It's windy. It's massive ups and downs. All the breakdowns. And when you hit the yield sign, the reason I'm making this message today, I don't care what level of that road you're on or how far down.

By the way, on the road everybody else is on, there's navigation equipment. There's directions. Everyone kind of goes in the same direction. The road less traveled, the road to success. Sometimes you feel like you don't have a map. Sometimes you feel like you don't have any direction or sense of direction and you get so far down it sometimes like, "What am I doing?" Well, let me just say something to you. When you get down that road, right, you're going to hit yield signs regularly. They're going to try to get you to yield and give in and yield back to the other road.

And it's your decision right now when you're listening to me today to say, "I will not yield. I will not give in. My will to win. My will to do something great is not for sale." Because I'm going to tell you, this road is difficult. And I often find it amazing when people say, "I'm getting all this resistance. I'm getting all this rejection." That's exactly what it's supposed to be. Let me tell you what comes on the road to success. And I know this isn't pretty, but maybe for some of you say, "Oh, that means I'm in the right place." If recently at any point in the last 12 months, you've experienced doubt, like lots of doubt, you're probably on the road less traveled.

There's no doubts on the easy path. There's no doubts going to a job every day, collecting a check, going about your business, not trying new things, not challenging yourself, not growing, not contributing. There's no doubt there. What are you going to doubt? Everybody's doing it, right? So, if you're getting doubt, that means you're on the road less traveled. If you have a lot of fear or anxiety on the road you're on, or if you've experienced those emotions recently about what you're doing, you feeling like an impostor, like you have imposttor syndrome, like nobody knows, I don't really know what I'm doing, you're on the road that I think you should be on, the right road, the road less traveled.

If you felt anything like rejection, like lots of rejection, you get all kinds of rejection on the road. By the way, you want to go get a beautiful relationship in your life and you're on a road to that. It comes with rejection. You want to build an amazing business, it comes with rejection. You want to build an amazing body, it comes with rejection. So if you experience that, you're on the right road. You're on the road less traveled. You don't get rejection on the road to doing nothing.

And so the very fact, what I'm trying to get you to understand is the very fact that you're experiencing these things means you're on this road that I've been on, that most of your heroes have been on, that the people that make a difference, the people that change the world, that change their own world, that change their family's generational tree forever, those people, by the way, the people that you know that are the most happy and fulfilled at some point had to go down this road to achieve those things.

Maybe if you felt a lot of isolation, like you're alone. I think the number one thing I felt often on my road and my journey and even to this day is I feel alone. People don't understand me, right? Just get ready. By the way, if you're going to do something great with your life, you're going to be controversial. People are going to talk about you. You're going to feel like no one understands you. You're going to feel like no one else is coming with you. Even when you're surrounded by a big team, even when you've got a bunch of people working with you, oftent times it's you feel very alone.

It's a very lonely road. lonely road. lonely road. You know what happens when you're alone and you're lonely? You learn a lot about yourself. You know, when you're at a big party and it's crowded and noisy, there's all kinds of people around you, everyone's having a great time. You don't learn a lot about yourself then. But the times that you're alone and you do feel a little bit isolated is when you actually dig deep into yourself and you find things out about you that you never knew existed and you work through pain, you work through trauma, you work through difficulties, you're on the right road.

You feel any anxiety, you have any anxiety you've experienced recently, you're on the right road. So I'm actually telling you that these things that seem like the negative things are actually indications. They're actually green lights. A green light is doubt. A green light is fear. A green light is rejection. A green light is isolation. A green light is anxiety. And then here's the other thing that happens when you're on this road, cuz it is so difficult and treacherous. You start really beginning to ask yourself, is it worth it?

Is it worth it? And if you've had any occasion in the last recent little while or in the last 12 months of your life to ask yourself, is this worth it? That contemplation of whether it's worth it or not means you're on the right road. It means you're on the right road. See, people that are on that other road, they're not asking themselves if it's worth it because they're making no sacrifice. There's no commitment. Remember this. With no commitment, with no sacrifice, ultimately in your life, there's never any freedom.

And so, where you really are is you're on a road to freedom. Spiritual freedom, emotional freedom, financial freedom, physical freedom, relationship freedom. You're on the road to have a freedom of choice of your emotions by the way as well. Now, do I think the entire journey has to be painful? Absolutely not. Am I saying there isn't amazing moments and amazing highs and you can have blissful dissatisfaction on the road and you can enjoy your life still on this road 1,000% on the road less traveled. You can enjoy your life.

You can have beautiful experiences and an amazing relationships. relationships. relationships. But the truth of the matter is, you see all that on social media all the time. Every once in a while, somebody's got to tell you, "And also there's some of this other stuff. Also, there's some pain. Also, there's setbacks." By the way, the other thing that happens on this road is two or three times a year, there's just a massive catastrophe and crisis. I'm just telling you, I have not had a year go by and my pursuit to my dreams.

There's not been a crisis or a catastrophe every three or four, five months. Couple time, two, three, four times a year. If you haven't had a catastrophe or a crisis in your life in the last 12 months, you're not doing something great. You're not trying to grow. You're not trying to change things. You're literally trying to change your life, change your family's life forever. So, these things come with it. Again, I want to be clear, there's all kinds of amazing experiences and and having been on this road, I can tell you the beautiful experiences and the emotions and the breakthroughs and the pride that comes with overcoming these challenging things.

overcoming doubt, overcoming fear, overcoming rejection. That's the juice of life. It's where all the juice is. It's where all the goodies are. It's it ultimately where all the rainbows are is on the more difficult road. You can't get a rainbow if there isn't a storm. And so I just feel like so often people they listen to podcasts like mine and they they think my gosh it's like most people aren't going through everyone that's gone anywhere great in their life has had their version of this adversity in their life.

And like I said you're going to be controversial. You decide to do something great you've decided people aren't going to understand me. People aren't going to relate to me. Listen to me. Don't be so caught up in these external voices external voices external voices that are gnawing at you or talking bad about you. You got to listen to your inner voice. That inner voice that's been with you since you were a little boy or a little girl that says you were born to do something great with your life.

Here's what I know about you. If you were on this road less traveled, you've always known you're supposed to do something great. There's been this little part of you when you were a little boy or a little girl and it just whispered to your spirit. It whispered to your soul, you're supposed to do something awesome. You're supposed to be happy. You're supposed to be blissful. You're supposed to make a difference in other people's lives. And it's okay that you may not know where this is going or what it's going to look like or even where the end of the road is.

It's okay. But all your life you've known this. Here's what's crazy. So have all the other people on the road everybody's on. They heard the same things when they were a little boy or a little girl. They have the same calling. They have the same emotions. They had the same decisions and they yielded. And there's a bunch of them over there that yield. And let me tell you what they live with. See, when they get to the end of their road, it wasn't real bumpy. The weather was pretty good.

They get to the end of their road someday. It's the end of their life. They're going to look back at their life with regret. They're going to look back and say, "I played it safe. safe. safe. I didn't take any risks. I lived." Here's the truth. I lived my life scared. I lived my life afraid I might crash. might crash. might crash. I might burn. People might talk bad about me. I might be a failure. And so I just rather just kind of cruise. In fact, at some point in my life on the road everybody's on, I just flipped on the cruise control, took my hand off the gas pedal, hand off the steering wheel, and it was all about cruise control and hitting the brakes.

The road you're on, it's beautiful. It's more beautiful than you realize. You're going to see things you would have never seen. You're going to experience things you would have never experienced. You're going to achieve things that you would have never achieved. And you'll get to the end of your life. And by the way, you may not get where you want to go. You may not get all the way to whatever this place is you think you're going. And for some of you, you don't even know what it is.

You just know it's not where you are now. You just know it's not where I am now. This is not what I was made for. This was not what I was born for. And I'm just going to get on this road. I wasn't born for this. I'm going to get on this other road. I'm just going to start driving. And I don't know where it's going to take me, but I'll take a left turn and a right turn. I'll do whatever I got to do. But I know I wasn't born to be where I am right now.

And I may not have the exact map, the navigational equipment, nobody supporting me. But I know I wasn't born for where I am now. And you may get to the end of that life, the end of that road, and not even get to a place you thought you would get. But here's what you won't have. You won't have regret. See, I don't think in life we regret the things we tried to do and we fail at. I think the regrets in life are the acts of omission.

of omission. of omission. The things we didn't do that we omitted from our life. The opportunities we didn't chase. The dreams we didn't pursue. The challenges we didn't face up to. The curiosities and the learning and the growth we could have had that we just didn't pursue because most other people don't. Most other people don't. And so, you're not going to have people relate to you. Now, listen. On this road, you have to be willing to course correct. You got to check in with yourself once in a while.

Is this still my current dream? Where am I heading? Where am I going? What does this mean? And I also think you have to just decide, I'm going to stop trying to get support of all the people around me. If everybody around you is supporting you, you're probably not trying to do something very big. You really aren't. Cuz most people don't want you to see you get too successful or too happy because it'll expose them. So, don't let people with small lives and small thoughts thoughts thoughts project their limitations on to you because they're trying to get you to yield to get on their road.

I miss you. You ever hear that? I miss you. I miss the way it used to be. I miss this. They're basically saying, "Come on, get in the back seat. Take your hands off the damn steering wheel. Quit hitting the accelerator and let's just cruise around for a while." And you inside you knows that you weren't born to cruise. You were born to experience life and to have great memories. No great memories come from something that everybody does every single day. The monotony of life. Now, what would I recommend you do to pursue this dream a little bit better?

I think you need to need to find a mastermind or a group of people that you can be around that support your thinking. Listen to podcasts like mine, especially mine on a weekly basis. And the other thing is when you're on this road, one thing that will light this road up for you is service. service. service. When you're feeling most helpless on this road, get the most helpful. Do everything you can to help other people. When you begin to just serve other people, contribute to other people, encourage other people.

See, maybe it's just a act of encouraging words that you give to somebody today. That act of service to another human being increases your vibrational frequency. And when you increase your vibrational frequency, you face less resistance because things begin to become attracted to you as opposed to you having to pursue everything all the time. Acts of service, acts of contribution in your life at every single level along the way. from the person listening to this who's making negative $10,000 a year in their bank account right now and they're they're piling through money and losing money to someone making a hund00 million a year.

Your pathway to more illumination, to more light on where to go next is through the acts of service to other people. What that does is it lightens your life. It enlightens your life and other people. But the other thing it does is it increases your vibrational frequency and things begin to become more attracted to you rather than you having to chase everything in your life. I want to remind you as your friend, the reason I do this show is that I believe there are millions of people on the wrong road.

Millions of people on the wrong road. And I also believe there are millions of people on the right road who don't know it. Who don't know it because it doesn't look like that on social media. It doesn't feel like it with the people around us. Remember this, when you're in the midst of doing something great with your life, it typically doesn't feel like it when you're doing it. It typically does not feel like it when you're doing it. It's only in hindsight that you look back and say, "Wow, that was amazing.

I can't believe I overcame that." And sometimes the most chaotic parts of our lives, the busiest parts of our lives, the times where we feel like we have the least amount of freedom are the happiest. If I ask you to think back to some of the most, you know, chaotic times of your life where you had the least amount of freedom and some of the most difficult times and you were the busiest, busiest, busiest, maybe you were the most happy. See, if there's a mother listening to this and I said, "What about that pregnancy that you had?

that discomfort of carrying that baby and maybe you got sick and you different, you know, issues with being pregnant and the discomfort of it and the birth process no man can possibly relate to and I'm not even going to try, but that was one of the most difficult times of your life, yet it's the time that you're the most grateful for and you feel the most blessed. Those of you that were in college at one time and you were crazy studying and cramming for tests and had a job to support yourself and two jobs or three jobs and you're out of control and you look back at that time and you go, "Man, I I love that time in my life." Isn't that interesting?

Those of you that have had, you know, had to have one or two or three jobs at any given time and it was very, very difficult and you're busy and scattered and everyone thought you were crazy. Some of the happiest times of your life. So sometimes chaos and and difficulty and doing something great, all we feel is the chaos and difficulty. We don't know we're doing something great. It's only in hindsight that we look back and go, "That was when I was the most happy." And so the truth is this.

What you really want is freedom. You want a freedom in your relationship, freedom financially, freedom in your career, freedom in your emotions. And I'm going to tell you, the pathway to freedom, ironically, is total commitment. Most people think, "Wow, if I commit to this relationship, I lose all my freedom." Nothing could be further from Once you've committed to something, you're completely free now to act on that decision. Lack of commitment is a is a jail, is bondage, because you've got nothing to decide to do with your life, to do something great.

total commitment to a business you're starting or pursuing or a new hobby or a new this creates total once you've made the commitment all these other options are gone and now you've got complete freedom to pursue that decision to pursue that road and so what you're really on on the road less traveled is the pathway to freedom and whatever that means to you and nobody needs to understand it and you don't need anybody's permission you don't need anyone's permission the cool thing about our road there's There's no speed limit.

There's no speed limit. You can go as fast or as slow as you want to. And I like that part of it. I'm just going to tell you right now, you were born to be on the road less traveled. And I want to challenge you today to know that when these things come up, these are indicators you're on the right road, not the wrong road. I want you to remember that today. And the last thing I'll tell you is this. Don't yield. Don't yield. There's going to be all kinds of temptation maybe even today to yield to the road everyone's traveling on.

See, we make micro decisions every day. Maybe your overall journeys on the road less travel. But today, ah, I'm going to be on the road with everybody else. Today, I'm not going to work out. Today, I'm taking the road everybody. Today, I'm not going to eat great. Today, I'm not going to make all my contacts. Today, I'm not going to make a total commitment. I'll get back on the other road tomorrow. See, this road you're on needs to be a lifestyle. needs to be a lifestyle.

It needs to be a commitment that there are very few moments where on the road with everybody else. If you're on this road the majority of the time, eventually the the road gets lit up. Eventually it it produces a pathway to freedom and eventually your dreams. And by the way, you'll begin to achieve dreams you never thought you even had before because these these left and right turns and around every corner there's a new dream and a new vision and a new experience because you're going to start to go faster and faster.

you're going to vibrate at a higher and higher frequency and all kinds of things. I can just tell you in my own life, I've made dreams happen that I never imagined. I would have never imagined. I have a sister who's diabetic and uh she was losing her vision. She was actually became legally blind. And I had no idea over the years while my sister was struggling, she has type 1 diabetes. I had no idea that, you know, as I was working hard and getting rejected and and all the negative things that were happening to me and all the anxiety and all the worry and all the late nights and all the early mornings and all the overdrawn bank accounts and all the difficult times.

I thought that dream was to become rich and famous and all that kind of stuff. But the ripple effects of what you can achieve in your life are really amazingly unknown around these corners on the road less traveled. And what happened was I actually did build a bunch of wealth and that was cool. And I bought a house in a particular neighborhood. And one time my sister lost her vision to the point where she couldn't drive and she's a school teacher. She couldn't even teach anymore because she couldn't see the classroom and she's got diabetic retinopathy and she was starting to get justifiably depressed.

Imagine being able to see and then you can't. I mean, even just close your eyes for five minutes in darkness when you're awake, right? It's one thing to be born without vision, another thing to lose it. And so, one night, my mom had called me and was particularly telling me how concerned she was that my sister was just downed. And she's m she's living in darkness and she can't go do what she loves to do what she was born to do, which was to teach these children.

She's an amazing school teacher in the and and she's just loved doing it. My sister's not a rich woman financially, but she had a very rich life of contribution. She lives richly. And my family was very concerned about her. And little did I know all those years when I was working hard and paying this price. And see, I didn't know what the rewards would be. There's going to be so many dreams happen for you that you can't even imagine right now. And this is an example of one of them.

And so although I had become wealthy and I was living in a great neighborhood, it wasn't for the house or the pool or the golf course, I hung up the phone with my mother mother mother and I thought to myself, I need to take a walk. Just a I a walk. I need to take a walk. Just a I was so hurting for my sister. And as I was walking down this street, I realized I won't say his entire name, but I realized, oh my gosh, Dr.

Chang lives in that house and he helps people with their vision and their eyes and he created this laser that helps people and it's an optometrist. He lives in that house. I want it be crazy if he could help my sister. And I called him. And to fast forward the story, that doctor saved and reversed my sister's blindness. And so my sister now is teaching again thanks to Dr. Chang. thanks to Dr. Chang. Now, she doesn't have completely perfect vision where, you know, she's never had any medical issues, but my sister's now functioning again.

She can now see her children again. She can see me again. She can see my mom again. She can teach her class again. She can grade papers again. She can do a lot of things. She could can't do all of them, but she can do a lot of things that she could never do before this time. And that's because I worked hard all those years. And God was preparing this dream that I didn't even know that I'd walk and knock on Dr. Chang's door, who happened to be my neighbor.

And the only reason I lived there is because I fought through the anxiety. I fought through the doubt. I fought through the fear. I fought through the rejection. I fought through the isolation. I fought through all of that. Thinking all these other dreams and many other dreams came true. But you could have never told me back when I was on that road less traveled and crashing every other day and trying to ye thinking about yielding every other day that hey Eddie if you stay on this road 20 years from now you will help cure your sister's blindness who's not even blind yet.

She's not even blind yet. It's amazing to me that of all the things I went through that God was preparing this dream that I couldn't even begin to imagine at that time. time. time. Is that amazing? And now my sister sees again because I part of the reason is I went on that road and so did Dr. Chang. And then we met at some point in our neighborhood on the same road on the exact same street. I ended up on that road because the all the roads I took to get there and he lived in a house on my road, road, road, literally on my road.

Knocked on his door. Do you think you can help my sister? And he said, I might be able to. And he did. He was able to get her to see again. My sister sees again because I lived on that road. And I lived on that road because of all the lefts and the rights and the yields and the ups and the downs and the corners and the dark times and the crashes and the blowouts. All of that led to the actual physical and literal road I lived on.

The person who could save my sister's vision lived at the end of that road. So when I'm telling you that you don't know what dreams are going to come true, you don't know. But I can tell you none of them come true on the road that is welltraveled. All of these micro dreams, ancillary dreams that you will not even dream of right now, that you can't even imagine are going to happen because you're willing to pay that price. You're willing to do something great. You're willing to have a life where you will take risks, where you will do something great.

And the benefactors of that will not just be you. It will be the people you love in ways you can't imagine. But someday, you'll be telling your story just like I am right now. That's just one of thousands of stories that I could tell you that have come true, dreams that have come true that weren't even visions of mine because of the road I decided to choose in my life. And so, I don't want you to cheat you or your family or your loved ones or anybody else out of all these dreams that you haven't even had yet.

All these moments that you can't even imagine yet because you yield to the other road. So, please stay on the great road. When I tell you you're born to do something great in your life with big ways and small ways, I mean it and I know it cuz I've done it myself. Here's something you're going to have to all accept and and and and if you already have at an even deeper level. If you're going to win, you got to change your relationship with pain. You got to do hard things and build the habit of doing hard things.

And what you wouldn't know about Dean, but I'm going to make him speak to it right now. This dude leans. His tendency is to drive through the smoke. I tell this story about we used to sponsor Carl Edwards, the NASCAR driver. I said, "What's the scariest thing about driving NASCAR?" He goes, "Easy question to answer. When there's an accident in front of you and there's all this smoke and you're going to drive 150 miles an hour through that smoke and you don't know what's on the other side, you could be hitting something head-on and you're done." And he said, "I've learned to drive through the smoke." And the people that I know that are ultra successful, they have a different relationship with fear and pain and they drive through the smoke.

They do hard things. They build the muscle fibers mentally of doing hard things that other people avoid doing or try to find a way around a smarter, easier way. And that is not you. You've gotten where you are. And I don't want you to be humble about this because this dude does difficult things. He does difficult things quite frankly like most people do easy things. He just runs towards the smoke. Tell them about that about you. Don't be humble. I appreciate the the kind words. Uh, I would have to say it's true because what I realized at a young age is my father and not going back to childhood, but my father stressed about all the little things and and you know, you don't realize this stuff when you're in it, Ed.

You realize when you look back after 20, 30 years, but my dad freaked out and stressed about $100 ideas, thousand ideas. And I watched the pain this guy went through. And I remember at a young age just thinking to myself, if I solve like my dad worries so much about the little things, what if I put that much energy in just the bigger things? And and what happens when you're young and you start that way of thinking? It's honestly a lot easier because I was 17, 18, young, naive, dumb in some cases, right?

So I just ran towards the fire saying, "If my dad's going to stress so much about a $1,000 deal, what if I did it on $5,000, $10,000 deals?" And the proof is in the pudding. And you know this, Ed. Some of your biggest deals that you probably have done in your life had less stress than one of the smaller deals you've done. And what I've done is just program myself to say, "How could I go after something bigger?" You know, I just be honest. I I read um Green Lights by MCA, right?

right? right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get done with that book just like I felt with your book. I got done. I'm like, damn, this is good. I want more. Like the world needs more MCA. So, I had a mutual friend. I fin I got a voice memo over to McConna and I told my team we're we're going to help this dude build a course through what we do, right? We're going to help build a course. We're going to do a live event and uh we're going to help get this course in the hands of tens of thousands of people.

My team's like, "How the heck could we get that done?" Right? When I got on the phone with this attorney, working with celebrities is different. You have an agent, you have attorney, you have somebody and and rightfully so. This crazy world, you do one thing off, it could hurt your brand, right? We get done with a meeting. My team gets off and goes, "No way this is happening. How do you make that person happy, that person h McConna is the sweetest man on the planet. You've you've interviewed him.

He's he's sweetest guy." But my team's like, "No way that's happening." So, we get done with this meeting and I go in and sit with my team like, "What do you guys think?" Like, "No way in hell. It's never going to happen. How do you satisfy so many people?" And I'm like, "Listen, you guys, that means no one else can do it besides us. Let's let's just do whatever it takes. And if we go all the way and it doesn't happen, then I'm gonna love the lessons we learned along this journey.

And I I know it takes years to get up to that, you know, to to to do an event like that. But it was one of the toughest events on the planet and the most rewarding in my life. And tough in the meaning of just every ad that we did, every mo every every visual that we did, how to be approved by five different people, how to work. And I would not change one bit of it, Ed. I I created new friends. McConna became a friend and we did the largest event in the history of the We had two and a half million people on day one live.

Like insane what we did. And we put his course in the hands of tens of thousands of people. They all loved it. They thank him to this day. They people find him on the street and thank him. In fact, the the last thing I'll say, I said to McConna, "What do you think of the whole experience?" And he said, "Well, I thought you were crazy at first. I thought I'd never do something like this." I said, "Well, what do you think now?" He said, "Uh, I realize it's the greatest experience of my life because my whole life I play," he said, "my whole life I've played a character that was written by somebody else, directed by somebody else, edited by somebody else." He said, "I got to play me." So when people come up, they don't go, "I love the character." They say, "Thank you." That goes to my point from earlier, brother, which is that you get to play you.

See, you're most fulfilled when you're expressing the real you. And even someone like Matthew McConna who's had all these external accolades says it's the best experience of his life because he got to express him and that's when we're fulfilled. I really believe probably the most un underpursued underspoken about part of fulfillment in life right now in the personal development industry is the level of fulfillment one feels when they're the fullest expression or the truest expression of themselves and serving people. And if you're looking for a pathway to have a little bit more juice in your life, peace, happiness, fulfillment, I believe that's the place to look.

Am I expressing myself, my love, my gift, my knowledge, my information, information, information, my feelings to the people around me, to the broader world in a way that fulfills me. And if you're not, if you're holding these things in, which is what most people do, they hold their feelings, they hold their thoughts, they hold what they believe in, they hold their opinions, they hold their knowledge, I believe you're dying. I believe that's the beginning of a death of our spirit. And I believe, you know, not to be very, you know, faith-based here, but I really believe this.

God did not make you to for you to repress your greatness, for you to suppress your expression of you. You're not you're not doing what I believe is God's will in your life when you suppress your stance, when you suppress your knowledge, when you cheat another human being out of the gift of you helping them. And I always say this, my life changed because my dad got sober. But my dad got sober because somebody helped him get sober. Another human being said, "I can help you." And by the way, what qualified them wasn't they were there this magnificent perfect person.

What qualified them is they at one time were also an alcoholic and a drug addict and that's what was qualifying them. So ironically the great pain they went through in their life was the qualifier to help other people. Perhaps that what you should be looking at right now my friend. Maybe this pain you've been through somewhere is the pathway for that expression to help other people and to your fulfillment. Welcome back to the show everybody. So grateful you've decided to join me again here this week.

And this week I have a question for you. Do you play hurt? Because I think playing hurt is one of the invisible skills of all the great ones. And if you think back in your lifetime, the people that you've been the most, you know, emotional about when you've watched them perform in sports or life in business, they were overcoming some pain they were in currently at the time. Typically in sports, it's some type of an injury that they have. And so I ask you, can you play hurt?

Because I think that's the great separator in life and in business is that the great ones are able to perform even when they're not at their best, even when they're hurt, even when they're wounded, even when they're down. And average ordinary people succumb to the injury, succumb to the pain, the down cycle in their life. You know, I really believe the separator in life is not what you do on the days where you're feeling great, you're feeling healthy, you're feeling emotionally strong, everything's going your way.

Everybody performs well on those days. It's what do you do on the days that you don't feel that way? In sports, especially the greatest moments of my lifetime in sports, we'll talk about them in a minute, have been watching athletes perform under pain, under injury, under hurt, and in business, in life, you know, we're not on television. And so sometimes we don't realize that's the separator. The difference between winning and losing in life, in sports is so small, it's almost too scary to talk about. One of the things that worries me is I have to be candid with you.

I think everybody can help someone. But one of the things that's happened in the business space, the entrepreneurial space is there's just so many people that are giving advice and information that have never built a business that have never accomplished anything other than telling you how to accomplish something. And so often times I hear their messages and I'll commiserate with other people that I know that have actually done something in their life and like, can you believe that they teach this stuff and that people are believing this?

I worry sometimes that you don't get told the truth about what it really takes to win and that so many of you are listening to so many different voices, many of which aren't qualified to help you in the area that you're looking for help. And I say that with respect cuz I think everyone can help somebody. But by and large, if I want to get fit and in shape, I want my trainer to be fit and in shape. If I want to become wealthy and build a big business, I want to listen to someone who's wealthy that's built a big business.

If I want to become happier and more influential and more passionate in my life, I want to listen to someone who's done that. And so I know that one of the separators from the people that I know that have become mega successful in their lives is their ability to play when they don't have their aame. Their ability to win and step up and sometimes play better. And so ask yourself this question. The last year on days when you were down or not even feeling physically well, you had the flu or cough or you know you had an injury that you hurt yourself and your knee or your back was hurting or someone had hurt your feelings the day before or maybe a week or two before the day before you lost an account or didn't get a sale you thought you were going to get or something's going on with your kids.

How did you perform those days? Because that's the separator in life. And so we're so moved often by the people we see when they do this. I'll give you an example. I was recently moved by a young man and I'm sure this will get back to him and he may be surprised that I saw this, but a young man named Cade Belaloo and he's a college baseball player at Auburn University. I played college baseball. He's a lefty. I was a lefty. And so I took note of this young man, but the reason I saw him wasn't because he played college baseball or because he played at Auburn.

He's much better college player than I was, by the way. But um the reason I saw him is that his mother had died and the day that his mother had passed away, he still played in the game that night. And I guess evidently went to the coaches and says, "You know, mom would want me to play tonight." This young man under tremendous pain just lost his mother. Can you imagine? Just hours before he said, "I think mom wants me to play." And this young man steps up to the plate.

I believe it was his third at bat. Guess what he did? You know it. He hit a home run. Mother of Auburn baseball outfielder Kaloo. Stacy passed away this morning after a battle with cancer. Our hearts and Auburn baseball are with the balloon family during this time. Ball right side. It's deep. IT'S GONE. HE HIT IT OUT OF HERE. BRAD, I you know, some things just transcend the the human experience and how sports can bring everybody together and that that's one of them. One of the most inspiring things I've ever seen in 32 years of coaching was uh Big Blue getting hit First one of the season.

hadn't hit a home run on all the good days, but he hit a home run on that day to honor his mom when he was under tremendous pain where many people would have said, "Hey, hey, Kade, we wouldn't blame you at all, man. Sit out the game. Sit out the weekend, you know, that's okay. And by the way, that would have been okay. You know, heal up a little bit." You know, there's so much this stuff in about healing and all that stuff. And by the way, I think you can take action and still win while you're healing.

And sometimes the winning can be the healing. Instead of just sitting around and machinating in your thoughts and trying to evaluate yourself all the time, get up and do something, right? And I say that out of love. I would say this if you were my children. I talk to the audience as if they're an extension of my family. I also don't say these things sitting on some high horse because I've made the mistakes of not [snorts] taking action on the days when I was down or hurting.

I've sat out games when I was an athlete when maybe I could have played. And now in life, you know, as I got older, I realized that's the separator. And so, Cade Belaloo, man, congratulations, brother. Way to honor your mom. Just want you to know I saw it. And now you've moved millions of people through our audience here today. On the day he was probably hurting the most in his life, he stepped up and hit his first home run of the season. I have to imagine that inspired his teammates.

Have to imagine that his mom's very proud of him. The rest of his family is very proud of him. By the way, would would we have been proud had Kate hit a home run? Sure. Would I be mentioning a guy at Auburn who hit his first home run of the year on my podcast to millions of people if he wasn't hurt? No. And so what I'm saying is some of your greatest accomplishments, your greatest story, we've all heard the saying that your test can become your testimony.

Your mess can become your message. But it's true. In fact, often times this adversity is a gift. It's an opening to get something for your pain. I've always said that I don't believe God's going to give you pain without a gift on the other side of it. That if you'll look for the gift of the pain you're going through, that all pain is temporary. And if you can survive the temporary, whatever the pain is you're going through, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, if you'll survive the temporary, but while you're surviving and getting through it, look for the gift.

Look for the miracle. He's going to give you something. He's going to give you a new friend, a new relationship, a new insight, a new thought, a new talent, a new ability, a new innovation, new innovation, new innovation, a new whole new life. Often times, a new reference, a new whatever it comes your way through pain. And so this is the people that we admire in life. You think about in your sports life, think about Michael Jordan. Of all the championships that Michael Jordan won, it was winning the 1997 NBA Finals, the flu game where most people wouldn't have played.

He had 104 degree fever. He no one thought he was even to show up and play that night and somehow he comes through and wins the NBA title playing with the flu, right? I mean, we remember this. It's iconic. Now, he won a lot of championships, but that's the clip that you see the most. Why? Because he played hurt. He played hurt. It's Tiger Woods of all the majors that he won. He won the 2008 US Open, they tell us, on basically a broken leg. Are you kidding me?

This is these are the stories of legends. These are the stories that are what icons do. And you have a chance when you're going through this down day. These are the days where maybe you're going through it today and you're like, man, I needed this today, brother. Or send this to somebody who needs it. My gosh, this is actually an opening for me. This is where I separate. This is my separation season because almost, you know, it's I almost get off in my mind on these days because I'm like, I know nobody's working as hard as I am.

Not after how bad yesterday was. Not after how bad I'm hurting. Not after that let down. Most people are licking their wounds and staying down. And there's all this stuff that says, "Well, maybe you should stay down for a while. Evaluate what happened. Learn the lesson." Yeah, maybe. Or maybe you should get your ass up and go back to battling. Go back to fighting. Go back to winning. Get in motion again. I think you could heal, learn, and take action at the same time. Tiger Woods winning that US Open on a broken leg.

They tell us Kirk Gibson in the 88 World Series hitting a home run coming off the bench. He was so injured he couldn't play. He didn't he didn't play the game and he didn't play at all after this home run. He had one at bat. Limps up to the plate. He couldn't play a position so they put him into pinch hit. He gets up there two strikes. Dennis Eckersley bam hits a home run over the right field fence to win the World Series game. One of the most, if not the most iconic home run in the history of baseball.

One of them. Why? Cuz he hit a home run in the World Series. No, cuz he had a home run hurt in the World. By the way, I was at that game. game. game. Funny anecdote. My dad wanted to leave that game the inning before. We got up to leave and we ran into my T-ball little league coach in the We were in the bleachers at Dodger Stadium and my T-ball coach says, "You don't leave World Series games early, Mr. Milelet." My dad went, "Ah, all right." We walked back to our seats.

True story. Sat down in the next inning. Maybe the most famous home run in the history of baseball was hit by Kirk Gibson, but we remember it cuz he played hurt. If you're really old like me, the year before I was born, but I heard about it all my Willis Reed for the Knicks coming out and inspiring his team to win. You know, when I speak, I walk out on stage to Thunderruck by AC/DC. And everyone thinks that's because he's such an AC/DC fan. Well, I am a fan of that band, but that's not why I walk out.

I walk out to AC/DC when I speak because my favorite fighter of all time is Arturo Thunder Gotti. He came into the ring to Thunder Struck. My favorite fighter of all time, Gotti. Why? because he was the best fighter of all time. Arturo was not the greatest fighter of all time. If you don't know him, go watch his clips. I don't care if you're a boxing fan, female, male, go watch Arturo, guys. Cuz the shots he would take and keep coming. His fights with Mickey Ward.

I mean, I'm just going to tell you like inspired me to want to be somebody. If you think about the movies, it's Rocky Balboa. It's how he came back from being hurt. Cut me Mick, right? It's those are the things that move us. the greatest of all time, Muhammad Ali, and how he beat George Foreman and would come back from being hurt. The wonderful Carrie Scrugs, most of you don't know this, one of the greatest clips of all time. Carrie Scrubs, 1996 gymnast, ends up basically winning the gold on a torn ankle.

And I remember watching that and crying, literally crying when she won. I wonder, by the way, why do we cry when we see somebody accomplish something great and overcome something amazing? Whether someone heals from cancer and they come back and they live or an athlete that overcomes an injury like Precious Carrie Scruggs did in the Olympics and just the world cried watching her go through this pain and win. I submit that we cry when we see these great acts of courage because we know that exists within us and we're not using it.

We're not even crying out of happiness. There's a part of it's like why can't I do that? I have the same capacity. I'm also a human being. I want to be proud of me. I want to overcome my pain. You know the story that you're going through right now or have gone through. It's only inspiring if you win. It's only inspiring if there's a fairy tale. There's only It's only inspiring if there's a lesson. If there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

And so you got to play hurt. Sometimes, I'll be honest with you, I think we exaggerate the pain we go through. We make it a bigger deal than it really is. You know, I've had people cancel. Well, I've got a cough or I've got the flu. Heck, this is a Zoom call. I'm I'm doing this today. My My producer will tell you, I'm sitting here today. I've got at least two teeth that I need a root canal on today. I I've got something wrong with my jaw where I can't really open my mouth to eat.

It's enough that I can talk, right? and I've got the flu. But no one asked me to run a marathon today. They asked me to do six zooms. I'm sitting in a chair. What's the difference between sitting on the couch and doing nothing and sitting here and helping change the world? And I'm not bragging about me. Heck, I'll just tell you this. I played this whole year hurt. I I haven't been on social media in a year. I've had issues with my heart. I've had a back issue that's just very significant.

I've had surgery on my back. I've got a I played hurt all year. It's one of the best years I've ever had. Now, has it been the biggest growth year? No, but I played hurt. Deion Sanders, Coach Prime, was on my uh podcast a few weeks ago. His agent and my agent Constar was also on some of the most popular shows we've ever had. And Coach Prime's this legendary coach now at Colorado. But what a lot of people don't know is Coach Prime played entire major league baseball season and NFL football season at the same time, multiple years in a row.

You imagine playing, imagine how hard it is to get to the NFL. Imagine how hard it is to get to MLB. He got to both and played both and some days would play a major league baseball game and an NFL football game in the same day. Imagine that. And guess what? One year he did it with a bronchial infection, walking pneumonia basically for the entire year. Imagine that. You got a bronchial infection, almost borderline walking pneumonia for a year, and he plays a full NFL football season and major league baseball season and went to the postseason in baseball.

But some people can't get on a Zoom because they've got a cough or their tummy hurts, right? But you want to be a millionaire. You want to be one of the great ones ever. But any chance you're hurt a little bit down, I'm just being honest with you. Maybe this isn't the message everybody wants to hear, but it's the message everybody needs to hear. The separator is what you do on the days you're hurting. This man played an entire football season, entire baseball season, both with a condition that most people would cancel their zooms for.

Can you imagine? And so it's about how many punches you can absorb. Remember this, your breaking point is God's building point. Just when you're ready to break, just when you think you've got too much, if you'll push to that next level, that's when God starts to build. That's when he starts to break through. That's when the growing happens. But we don't take advantage of these opportunities. I'm almost to the point in my life where I believe adversity is a gift. I can't tell you that every time bad things happen.

Like today, I didn't want to wake up with my jaw and I didn't want all that stuff. It's just like a year of stuff in my physical being. I've had issues personally and socially. It's been a tough year. You know, I'm not saying I would wish that. Same time, it's I've learned a lot about myself. I've learned how much, to be honest with you, I love what I do and how much I care about you all because in a long time ago financially I didn't need to do this.

And I kind of always thought in my life when I got very very wealthy I probably wouldn't work like I work still. But then when I got here I fell in love over my lifetime with people and making a difference and serving them almost like feel like it's my home and it's my calling. It doesn't feel like that much work to me. And so, who am I to be, you know, telling you to do all these things? And so, when I'm not feeling great, I don't.

And so, I'm really convinced that your breaking point is God's building point. I tell you another story of a guy you probably haven't heard of unless you live in Australia. I've been reading about this guy for a few years now. 1983, it started the one of the world's toughest ultramarathons. 540 mile trek from Sydney to Melbourne. I want you to imagine this. Some of the top runners in the world are running in this race and a farmer shows up. True story. Dressed in overalls and like galashes over his boots is what they say.

I'm just telling you what they tell you. And so people like, "Who's this farmer? This guy's got overalls on." There's this combination of runners, but some of them are the best in the world. 540 miles. And so reporters ask who he was. He replies, "His name's Cliff Young." Young." Young." Oh, by the way, Cliff is 61 years old. Sheep farmer. Sheep farmer. Sheep farmer. Picture this. A marathon's 20some miles. Guess what? 5 days, 15 hours, and four minutes later, he won. He finished first in this race.

Grueling race. He beat the next closest competitor by about 10 hours. He becomes this Australian national hero, total icon of ultramarathon running, you know, example of determination, perseverance. But what he's really an example of is pushing through pain. Pushing through pain. You know how he won the race? He slept less. Now, there's some legends that say he didn't sleep at all. Evidently, that's not true. But he just slept less. He didn't know how much sleep was really required of him. And all the training of chasing sheep on his farm is what equipped him for the race.

So, while these other guys were just running their normal race, this dude's chasing sheep for years and years and years around his farm, some days having to run days at a time. He was totally built for this. And so when the actual race comes along, he dominated dominated dominated because he'd pushed through pain for years and years and years and years. The actual race was nothing. And so I believe when you push through pain over and over and over again, it starts to not affect you like it once did.

But if you avoid pain, if you shrink to it all the time, if you give in constantly, it weakens you. weakens you. weakens you. Remember this. When you've gone through a difficult, painful mental experience, a bad day yesterday, physical, spiritual, maybe it's in your relationship, maybe you're just losing confidence. This is an opportunity to either strengthen you or weaken you. And how you respond means everything. I'm pretty sure Cliff at 61 years old in overalls overalls overalls didn't have all of the pedigree to be the guy to win that race, never mind by 10 hours.

But what he had done is trained himself to sleep less than most people. what he had done is trained himself to push through pain over and over and over. This wasn't something he trained for. It was his daily life and he becomes this national icon. Isn't that incredible story? It's just incredible. So, can you push through pain until you find your truth? I think of so many of my female friends and they'll tell me the greatest experience of their life is having children. Yet, they'll tell me the most physically painful experience of their life for many of them was child birth itself.

And so for that unbelievably painful experience, you get the greatest gift of your life. your life. your life. Is that amazing? If you really look back at your life, man, you've come a long way. And if you look back, most lessons learned, most gains were made during your flu game, during your broken leg round, most of your great experience of your life were the painful ones. In some odd way, it's God's gift to us because when you go through the real pain of life, believe it draws you closer to God.

At least in my case, I had to conclude, I can't do this on my own. I need you, Lord. Please help me. And so, ironically, sometimes pain is one of the great gifts we can have to strengthen our faith. But it also strengthens our resolve. There's also something that happens in us where we develop grit and toughness and resiliency and a relentless pursuit that our conditions aren't the thing that determines our behavior. our behavior. our behavior. Conditions and behavior can be separate. The Bible says in 1 Peter 5:10, "And the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ after you have suffered a little while himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast." Life can be heavy.

There are moments when the weight of the trials we go through, it feels unbearable. Pain can linger. Sometimes prayers seem unanswered. unanswered. unanswered. And oftentimes we wonder whether we're ever going to feel whole again. But take heart because your suffering is not the end of the story. Remember this. God sees every tear, every struggle, every weary side. And he's promised that after you've endured for a while, he'll step in and restore you. You got to endure for a while usually. And he steps in, strengthens you.

He'll make you unshakable over time. Your pain is temporary. All pain is temporary. The only thing that's permanent is our souls. But God's grace is eternal. Whatever your faith beliefs are, just know that. And what feels like brokenness now, brokenness now, brokenness now, it's simply the ground where he's planting something new for you. Just remember that his hands are holding on to you all the time. They're rebuilding you. The storm you're facing right now, it's not going to destroy you because you're going to get up.

You're going to persevere and you're going to fight one way or the other. You're going to get through it. One way or the other, you'll get through this day. Remember this. One day at a time, one meeting at a time. My book, The Power of One More, I tell you this because I believe it to be true. You don't need to decide to never quit. You just need to decide right now I'm getting up. Right now I'll make one more call. Right now I'll do one more workout.

Right now I'll read one more book. Right now I'll go one more day. Right now one more. Just do one more. It's such a powerful concept. If you've not read the power of one more, go get it. By the way, I should say this to you. You should be on my email list. I Everything I send you is going to be free if you go to edmmylet.com. You just put your email there. I think it says join here or follow here at the top. Whatever. Go to edmmylet.com and be in there.

And by the way, let God's grace carry you and trust that he'll bring you through. But you got to step up and be resilient. Remember this, by the way, the best ability is availability. availability. availability. You got to be available. The great ones like Deion Sanders during that season, the best ability was he was available. So many people just aren't available. They miss too many hours. They miss too many meetings. They miss too much stuff. They allow too many things in their conditions to affect their behavior.

The great ones do not do this. And that's why habits matter. Rituals matter. Routines matter. Because when we're down, when we're under pressure, when we're hurting, we resort to habit mode because our brain kind of checks out. And if your habit's to get up and fight, if your habit's to get up and do it anyway, if your habit is to show up and give it your best regardless of how you feel, then that will be your default setting. But if your habit has always been, and it's been mine in the past, yeah, I got to rest a little bit.

I got to evaluate this. You know, I'm really hurting right now. They got to take a breather because that's what everybody does. But everybody's not successful. There's this whole thing in the world now. Everybody wants to be successful. Everybody wants to build a big company. Everybody wants a great body. Everybody wants a great relationship. Everybody wants a bunch of money. But nobody's willing to do the work on the hard days. They're willing to do the work on the good days. Man, I just listened to a great Instagram video.

Man, I'm fired up. Yes. Someone said yesterday, "Here we go." But what happens when three nos in a row, somebody quits on you, somebody hurt you? And you're feeling physically ill. Can you get up those days? Can you push through? Can you do what winners do? And when you do what winners do, you get what winners get. You get what Jordan gets. You get what Carrie Scruggs gets. You get what Tiger Woods gets. There's a great story. Kobe Bryant tears his Achilles tendon, but they need him to make the free throw to stay in the game to win.

They're like, "Kobe, you tore your Achilles. It's okay, bro. He We'll show you the clip. HE WALKS OUT ON THE COURT AND MAKES TWO free throws with a torn Achilles tendon. THAT'S WHY HE'S KOBE. THAT'S WHY HE WAS JORDAN. That's why HE'S TIGER. THAT'S WHY SHE WAS SERENA. That's why Carrie Scruggs is Carrie Scruggs. And I promise you, if you went through the lives of these people you admire, they played hurt. They found a way. They built that muscle. It's the separator. I tell my kids this all the time.

Max when he golfs, you know, and he said to me, "Dad, I don't have my swing." "Hey, Max, it's the days you don't have your swing. Hang in. Shoot a decent score today. Go work on your swing on the range after. Come back tomorrow with your A game, but you got to score with your B game or your D game." This is the separator and let God's grace carry you through. We all go through pain in our lives. We all do. It's part of life. It's It's like if you're not in pain right now, you're probably going to be soon.

So, why not have a blueprint, a mindset, a habit, a way of being that says, "Oh, I see what's going on here, devil. Okay, I'm stepping up. I'm getting more faithful. I'm taking more action. I'm coming back stronger. I'm built for this." And by the way, I know some of you listening go, "I've just never been that way." That's okay. Neither were these people until they started to be that way. No one's born like that. What happens is they all hit a wall at one point and said, "I'm tired of running.

I'm tired of quitting. I'm tired of giving in when I'm hurt. I'm tired of backing up. I'm gonna stop. At some point, Kobe Bryant said, "I'm gonna stop backing up. I'm going to stop making excuses. I'm going to stop quitting. I'm going to stop flinching flinching flinching and I'm going to step into this." At some point, I did. And I'm not acquitting myself with those people. But I know what it's like to give into an injury. I know what it's like to lay down too long when I'm down.

I know many years ago, even at the prime of my health and fitness, I didn't work like I do now. And I'm probably in the worst physical condition I've been in in decades. Pro actually certainly ever. Yet, I think I've been delivering the best content of my life. Most athletes will tell you, by the way, any of you that played sports, my dad used to tell me this when I'd play sick, most athletes, most business people play better hurt, especially they got a little bit of a fever running.

everything kind of slows down a little bit. It causes you to focus a little bit deeper and a little bit more. You kind of have to move out all the noise and stay in the moment because that's all you have energy for. A lot of times you're better. you're better. you're better. And here's the truth. None of that's real pain. I was thinking about real pain this morning. I woke up, had a lot on my mind, and I was still fuzzy from waking up. And I thought, "Oh, I'll call dad." And it wasn't for about 10 minutes until I got up and started to move around.

I remembered I can't call my dad. My dad's been passed away now for 3 years. years. years. I don't know if any of you ever lost somebody, somebody, somebody, but every once in a while you forget. You have a great moment. You think you'll call them or you have a dream that's so real when they're in it. Yeah. And I woke up this morning and for about 10 minutes I was planning on calling my dad this morning. And then I realized I can't. You don't know real pain until you crave a conversation with someone that's no longer with us.

That's some pain. And then I had to decide today. Don't feel real good. Wish I could call my dad and I can't. That hurts. hurts. hurts. I think I'll honor him with what I do today. I could have chose a different decision. Yeah, decision. Yeah, decision. Yeah, I worked real hard. I've got got a little bit of money. Be okay if I kick the curb can down the curb a little bit. Did this tomorrow. I don't want to do that. In fact, what my producer will tell you is I texted him about two hours ago.

I said, "Let's do one more today, too." So, we're actually doing more today. He probably wondered why. He's learning right now. I decided to [clears throat] do more today because it's one of those days. I'm not going to meet my normal standard. I'm going to do one more. So, real pain is that stuff. And if you have that in your life where you can't call someone cuz they're not here anymore, honor them and make them proud of you with what you do on the days you're hurting.

Welcome back to the show, everybody. So, will you please stop being so hard on yourself? So many of you are your own worst enemy. And it's what I want to talk about this week. Let me ask you a question. How's that working out for you? I mean, so far, how's it worked out being your own worst enemy? Being so difficult, so hard on yourself, beating yourself up so often, the negative selft talk, the negative self- thoughts. If being hard on yourself worked, it would have already worked by now, right?

And one of the things I think we have to ask ourselves is, is what I'm doing working? You know, how's this working out for me? And so far, not so good when you're really difficult on yourself. You would never talk to other people the way that you speak to yourself. And I have a podcast I just recently did. I don't know it'll be out or not by the time you see this, but what I talk about on that podcast is that you teach people how to treat you.

You teach other people how to treat you with what you're willing to accept with what you're willing to tolerate. And you teach yourself how to treat you. And for many of us since some age we were at and I you know you could draw a line for almost all of us. Some of us happened much later in life. Some of us started happening childhood. We started treating ourselves poorly. And if we treat ourselves poorly, how are we ever going to ask other people to treat us well?

And by the way, whatever your belief systems are, you all know that I'm a Christian, but I also believe in inspiration. I believe in vibrational frequency. If you're not treating yourself well, how do you expect the universe to treat you well? How do you expect to have good things come your way when you don't even treat yourself well? You know, it's probably the number one mistake that I see people make that's their invisible enemy is themselves. So, they go into things like I do it when I speak on stage.

And ironically, sometimes we're the most difficult on ourselves are the things we're actually the most anointed and best at. If you were to ask me what's the area of my life that I am probably the most hard on myself, the most abusive to myself, I will tell you that it's my public speaking that when I get off the stage, I I think maybe three times in my life has someone asked me, "How did you do?" And I said, "Very well or great." But probably 15,000 or 30,000 times, depending on how many times I've spoken on stage, I've said not so good.

I should have done this. I could have done that. Ah, okay. Or terrible. And then I spend a bunch of time lamenting the things I said that I shouldn't have or things I forgot to say or things that didn't go well. You know, the other area that I'm very difficult on myself, if I step back and look at it, is in parenting. Yet kind of have I stepped way away from it, I'm a pretty good parent. So, it's ironic that sometimes we beat ourselves up in the number one place that we're the we're the best at.

And here's what I figured out. You know, as a person of faith, I believe in the adversary or you can call it the devil, whatever you want to be. You and if you don't believe in any of that, it could just be negative and positive. And I could tell you that I believe the adversary or the devil attacks us and our thoughts. And we begin to listen to our thoughts. We're really doing the work of the bad guy, the dude downstairs. Or if you don't believe any of that, negative vibrational frequency, it attacks us in our thoughts.

But when God's working on us, he speaks to our hearts. He speaks to our spirits. And I've learned to stop listening to my thoughts because that's where I'm attacked. That's where you get attacked is in your thoughts. But if you can get quiet and listen to your heart, that's God speaking to you. Remember this. God talks to our hearts. The devil talks to our minds. If you don't believe any of that, highest vibrational frequency is in the heart, heart center. Lowest vibrational frequency is actually in the mind.

And the thing that vibrates at the lowest possible frequency is a lie. And so when you tell yourself a lie about yourself, about yourself, about yourself, you are now reducing your vibrational frequency. Not only is it not true, not only does it beat you up, not only does it program your reticular activating system to find more bad things about you or have you make more mistakes, but you're reducing your vibrational frequency because it's not true and it's a lie. And when we lie to ourselves, we reduce our frequency.

Truth, on the other hand, vibrates at the highest possible frequency. And that's why it comes from God. And so what I want to challenge you to do this week, man, this is good for a Monday, huh? What I want to challenge you to do this week is to begin to listen to your heart. That whisper, that quiet voice that you have to be still or quiet to hear and drown out the noise, the vast majority of which that noise is being created by you in your mind or the adversary in your mind.

And it's a lie. Here's the bottom line. It's not working out so good for you. And you need to begin to separate your behavior sometimes and your choices andor your performance from who you really are. Here's the truth. Not every singer nails every note every time they sing a song. It doesn't mean they can't sing. It doesn't mean they're not great. I promise you, take your favorite musical artist of all time. I don't care who you're listening to right now. Doesn't matter, right? I could promise you they have off nights.

I can promise you some nights are better than others. But I doubt that they beat themselves up to the point where they don't at least open up the opportunity for another great night in the future. You're probably going to have a bad call, a bad speech, a bad meeting, a bad exchange with somebody that you love. And if you beat yourself up about it, you've opened up the possibility of you doing it again, not less. We think, well, if I beat myself up about this bad sales call I just had, I'm punishing me.

Then I won't want to do it again. because when I was a little boy or little girl, I would get punished when I behaved poorly. And the truth of the matter is that's not how life works. It's not about punishment. That doesn't mean we don't want to course correct. So, for example, learn to say this. That's not like me. One of the things I teach my professional golfers when they miss a putt, what do most golfers say to you think when they miss a putt? I suck.

Right? I'm terrible. Effing dummy. That's what you say when you miss a putt. And what you're doing is reinforcing the fact that you're more likely to miss another one. But when you separate yourself from your behavior and realize that's not who you are. It was a behavior. It was a motor movement. It was a a word you said. It was a moment of weakness. It's not who you are. So what I teach my golfers to say when they miss it is that's not like me. Gosh, that's not like me.

The greatest athletes in the world when they make a mistake, they correct it. But that's not like me. Because if you believe that's like you, you will act in accordance with who you believe you are. And we don't want to act in accordance if we believe we can't putt or I suck. So separate from the outcome who you are. That's not like me. If I have a bad speed, that's not like me. Huh? Let's get back to me. What is more me and then I step into the positive me, the higher vibrational frequency me, the true me.

And so in any event, I want to remind you to stop beating yourself up and to begin to become your own biggest fan, your own biggest cheerleader, your own biggest support. Heck, if you could just get to neutral for most of us, that's an upgrade. It's not like you to have a bad sales call. It's not like you to miss a speech. It's not like you to respond in anger. It's not like you to make a mistake with your kids. It's not like you to forget to call a friend back.

That's not like you. I believe something very deeply that once you have rapport with somebody, so there's some sort of trust or rapport, the more certain person always influences the less certain person when there is some sort of rapport. And so, and by the way, my wife has proven this now for 30 years. Just about every single fight we've ever had, she ends up winning even when she's wrong because she's more certain she's right than I am that I'm right. And the most certain person always influences the less certain person.

Why is that so important? Because we when we're in a sales environment or we're coaching somebody or anything we're doing, speaking from stage, uh interacting with anybody about trying to make a point, talk to them about our faith, our politics, whatever it is, the more certain person always has influence over the less one. So the less certain person, what we spend most of our time doing is refining the PowerPoint, refining the presentation, the words we're going to say, exactly how we're going to frame things, what it's going to look like, and we don't spend all of the time we need to on increasing our own true certainty level.

Now, by the way, you can't transfer to somebody that which you truly aren't experiencing. It's not authentic. So, you have to actually be certain. And I don't think enough people work on certainty of themselves and their product or service both. There's two things that need to come across in an exchange with somebody. One is certainty about self. That's the hard one. That's the one that takes some digging. And that's why I always say link your certainty or your confidence to your intentions, not just your abilities.

Cuz you're in, you know, about your intentions. You know that's to be true. When you connect with your intent, you can come across much more certain. I'm certain I want to help. I'm certain I want to serve. And that increases your certainty level. But the other thing not enough people do is increase their certainty about their product or service. They don't do enough third-party reading. I am constantly reading. I mean all the time uh articles that validate the different companies that I own and their products and services or our ideas or our concept or validating that the market's getting bigger or there's a need for us or that we're unique and different.

And I like to validate it with third party stuff whether that's a book, an article, something online, a story I see and I'm always feeding my certainty. One of the things I've realized about myself over the last, you know, I don't know, 10 or 15 years is this is sort of one of my superpowers. I when people ask you why you're successful, sometimes it's very difficult for successful people to answer that question if they're successful in an area. And by the way, I'm unsuccessful in many areas and successful in some.

But the ones that I am, often times, even on my show, when I ask people, they don't know why because they begin to do things habitually and reflexively. It's become part of their pattern. So they they're almost oblivious to the fact that they do it like any other pattern. And one of my patterns and habits for a very long time is to just be ferocious with working on my certainty level about myself, about my product and service. And I do it over and over and I'll share it with people that I work with.

See, look at see what so and so said. Look at this thing here. Look how much the competitors are doing it wrong. Look, and I'm constantly increasing certainty because as you increase certainty, you increase the propensity to perform. And that's why it's so important, as I discussed, to not beat yourself up. People who beat themselves up, here's what they lack. Certainty. They lack certainty. They've not worked preemptively, proactively on their certainty level about themselves or their product or service. And so, this isn't something you can do during a presentation or during an exchange with a friend.

It's done before. It's preemptive. It's preparation. Preparation is not just the words or the thoughts or the the concept. Preparation is the belief. You transfer belief to people. The more certain person influences the less certain person. And so if that's really true, then we have to work on that more than any other element of our being in terms of persuasion with people is certainty. And you have to actually believe it. So this week I want to challenge you. What are you doing externally outside your business, outside your normal routine to increase your certainty about yourself or your product, service, your company?

And it's got to be a habit. It's got to be daily in my opinion. If for at a minimum weekly, you're reading things, you're sharing things, you're feeding it, feeding it. It's like this it's like this I was going to say monster or beast, but it's really not. It's like this beautiful spirit you're feeding that you can transfer. So, you know, sometimes it's a monster of beast where you're like, man, we got it. you know, you got that. But other times, it's this beautiful spirit of just confidence.

I was watching um politically, I don't care where you lie politically, but two of the people that I've really studied a lot of are Kennedy and Reagan. Ironically, one from the left and one from the right, but I've studied these two as leaders. And one of the things that both of them uniquely had in common was this really sly smirk under pressure. Literally, they were both known like when the pressure increased. They didn't scowl more, they smirked and smiled more and it was like this reflexive habitual thing that both of them did.

Isn't that interesting? Yet very different people but at different ages when they were president by a mile, different parties, different philosophies in some cases, yet under pressure their staff and team and family both commented individually about both of them that they would smirk. You go back and look at Reagan in debates. You can go back and look at Kennedy in debates. Uh videos under pressure, big speeches they made. They had this thing. And the reason that the people around them said that as the pressure increased, their certainty level about their decisionmaking increased under pressure that they felt more and more certain about um the decisions that they were making.

It's really a really fascinating study of leadership and of human beings. human beings. human beings. that actually most people cower under pressure and shrink. These two leaders knew to increase their certainty level under pressure and they had done that work preemptively so that when the pressure hit, when the moment hit, they were the best them decisively in those moments, processing information in those moments, persuading their team and staff, persuading other world leaders. I mean, imagine the amount of persuasion that has to happen. And so, it requires a gigantic level of certainty.

And so no matter what you believe politically, most people think that both of those guys were pretty darn good presidents depending upon if they believe in the left or the right, depending on their party. The point is under pressure, they got lighter, not heavier. And that's because they had worked on their certainty level. So I want you to change this. You know, ships don't sink because the water around them. Ships sink because of the water that gets in them. It's not what's going on around you.

It's what's going on within you. There's an enemy within you and it's you. You have to remember this. You are not your thoughts. Your thoughts don't come from you. There's nothing wrong with having high standards. In fact, I recommend it. Having high standards for yourself is completely different than being hard on yourself. And because I talk about having high standards all the time. I think people conflate these two things and think, well, if I don't live up to my standards, then I have to beat myself up.

As if I beat myself up somehow, that's how I'm going to change. And where's this really stem from in our lives? This enemy within. This enemy within comes from this notion that when we were little kids, when we did something bad, we got punished. And somehow over time, we've decided, I'm going to punish myself. And somehow that's going to get me to reach my standards. Nothing could be further from the truth. And so, you have to stop doing this. The ship is sinking because you're letting the water within you drown you literally in your thoughts.

Remember this, self-t talk leads to self-th thoughts. And by the way, vice versa. Negative self- thoughts lead to negative self-t talk. And human beings, you and I, are designed to live consistently with the story we tell ourselves about us. And so, if you're telling yourself this story, you're going to live congruent with it. You're going to find more situations that are negative, more situations to let yourself down, more situations to beat yourself up. you're going to get more and more of what you keep saying and thinking about yourself because that's how the mind works.

That's how life works. Thoughts are like magnets. We literally draw to oursel exactly what we're thinking about. So if you're thinking something negative about yourself and I know many of you think, "No, I know a lot of successful people that are very hard on themselves." It's different. They're hard on the behavior, not on themselves. So when you watch a great athlete and they miss a bunch of shots, they're thinking, "That's not like me. That is not like me." They're not thinking, "I suck at shooting." And so there's this fine line between living up to our standards and talking to ourselves as if we're our own worst enemy.

And what's really sad about that is that you're going to get to the end of your life and you're going to live with no peace because you've had to live with you, your own enemy. Do you imagine the person closest to you, the one person in your life who's going to spend every second of your life is one of your great antagonists? Or you may say, "Well, Ed, I'm not really antagonistic on myself or to myself." Let me ask you this. Are you your own biggest fan?

Are you praising yourself regularly? Lifting yourself up regularly, rooting for yourself regularly, believing in yourself regularly? So maybe it's not. For some of you, and for a lot of us, it literally is. We're our own worst enemy, biggest enemy. biggest enemy. biggest enemy. Right? And some of you listeners go, "Well, that doesn't really apply to me." Well, let me ask you this. Do you talk to yourself like Jesus would or like your version of God would? Do you talk to yourself like you would hope someone would speak to your children if you have children?

Do you talk to yourself like your best friend is you? Do you are you your own biggest fan, your own biggest supporter, your own biggest cheerleader? The person who believes in you on earth the most is you. I'm talking about on earth is you. If you're a person of faith, do you truly believe that you were made in the image and likeness of God? Do you really believe that he's holding you in the palm of his hand? And so, you can't love yourself conditionally. conditionally. conditionally.

Well, I'll love myself when the conditions are right. I'll believe in myself once I'm winning. See, we have to have unconditional love for ourselves, which means the conditions don't dictate how much I love me or how much I believe in me. Now, I'm not saying selflove is never to be honest with yourself or you're not living up to a standard that you have. That's different than thinking you are your behaviors. There's a fine line. I could tell you that I know, you know, people that perform at a pretty high level and although they are hard on the behavior, they're not hard on themselves.

Meaning, they don't begin to believe that they are the way they're performing. They actually believe the inverse of that. They believe they're better than they're performing. And so this internal belief causes them to be frustrated with the result. Yes. Or want to work harder and change it or be honest with themselves about what needs to change. But there's a difference between not thinking you're good enough and then proving it and thinking you're better than what you're doing and wanting to live up to it. And so what most of us do is we love ourselves conditionally, which means we get very little of it because we have to be doing great in order to feel loved.

We have to be doing great in order to believe in ourselves. So this becomes this tale that we end up chasing all of our lives. And so we begin to think it's the water around my boat. It's the haters. It's the circumstances. It's the market. It's my lack of opportunity. It's whatever it is. And it's not. It's the water within the boat. It's not the words being said and the thoughts about you outside of you. It's the words that are being said and the thoughts about you and or inside of you that is holding you back in your life.

not only holding you back from the results you want to get, but holding you back from the emotions you want to experience because your closest ally, you who's with you every second of every day, doesn't even believe in you and love you the way that you're worthy of right now. And so, I want to challenge you to change that because you will do everything in your life to confirm what you believe about yourself, to make it true, to live in congruency with the real thoughts, the real beliefs you have to be true about yourself.

I say often that one of the most powerful forces in the world, if not beyond God, is to live in congruency with our identity, is to live in a way that's congruent with the identity that we hold for ourselves. And as you climb higher in your life, and I know you intend to, just realize this, new levels, new devils. The higher you climb, the more you have to have your own back. People think, well, if I could just have my back down here. No, all the way up because new levels, new devils.

And a lot of times that devil is within you. It begins to be your own thoughts. I'm higher than I've ever been. I don't know that I belong up here. I'm not sure I can get I never thought I'd get this far. So, I can't get any further. I never thought I'd get this happy or this wealthy or this fit. I start to doubt myself. And the new levels could be new devils around you, but it could be new devils in your thoughts, in your mind as well.

And so, what I'm saying to you here today, my dear friend, is that you have to love yourself unconditionally. Meaning regardless of the conditions, self-love or self-t talk does not mean you accept everything about yourself. In fact, what it really means is that you expect better from yourself because you believe so deeply in you. And that fine line is misunderstood by about 99% of the population. They see successful people demanding high standards for themselves, wanting to grow, wanting to get better, wanting to improve, and not realizing it comes from a place of deep self-belief.

self-belief. self-belief. And what they do is they flip it and they begin to think, "No, it comes from a place of self-loathing or not believing in oneself or being hypercritical of oneself." Hyper critical of oneself doesn't work. I can tell you that, you know, one of the things that I'm, you know, one of the best at in the world according to other people and even in my own mind is speaking on stage and it's the place I'm the most hard on myself, the most self-loathing, the most beating myself up, the most picking it apart.

And so, as a consequence, although I am really good at it, for many, many years I didn't enjoy doing it. And once I stopped doing that and I began to give myself the grace of believing I was great at it, I began to enjoy it more. And because I began to enjoy it more, I shifted into a state of much higher inspiration, much higher vibrational frequency, and I got better at that very thing that I thought I was great at. So that one area where you think you're great, where you're really hard on yourself, if you begin to give yourself some grace, you'll even get better at it, more you're in flow.

And you can only be in flow when you're enjoying it, when you're at peace doing it. And so my message to you today, and I hope this really hits home for you. Everything we've covered today, is you must begin to be your own biggest fan, your own biggest supporter. That's with what you think, that's with what you feel, and that's what you say out loud and inside about yourself. And I would just say, my friend, you're worthy of it. Give yourself more grace. A little bit more grace.

Will you please give yourself a break? You're not going to get out of this alive. You're not going to get out of this alive. And what if the person closest to you was your own biggest enemy or at a minimum wasn't even your biggest supporter? supporter? supporter? You're with you every single second of every single day. A little grace, a little patience, a little gratitude, a little love, a little bit of support. In fact, a lot of all that would change your life today. And I just want to tell you as a friend who I may or may not have met you.

You were born to do something great with your life. You were born one of a kind. You're the only human being on earth today with your talents, gifts, and experience all combined into one soul. And I believe God wants to use you and other people's lives in an even bigger way than he already is. And the only way that that's going to happen is that you accept you in your own life in a bigger and more loving and warmer way. Demand high standards of yourself because you know you're better.

Because you know you're worth it. Because you know you're great. Because you know you were born to do something great with your life. When you were a little boy or a little girl, was there anybody who made you feel special? I pray for so many people that they at least had that one person. Maybe you did. It was your grandmother or a grandfather or a mom or a dad or a coach or a pastor or a teacher. Was there somebody in your life, an auntie, an uncle that they would just look at you and you'd feel special.

You just knew it. There one person made you feel a certain way. If they exist or existed, just picture their precious face just for a second. Close your eyes just for a second. For me, it was my grandfather papa. papa. papa. I can just picture his face just how he would look at me and what he would say to me. I felt I am special papa. If you had that person in your life and you picture their face, I bet that it makes you emotional. And the reason that it makes you emotional is they saw the real you.

you. you. They were right about you. If they're alive, make them proud of you while they're still here. If they've passed away, honor them with the man or woman you become. you become. you become. And if that person doesn't exist, I apply for that position from a distance. And I really recommend you step into that role starting right now as that person who looks at you that way.