The Most Dangerous Form of People Pleasing (An Urgent Message) | Ed Mylett

Key Takeaway

Today, catch one moment when you criticize yourself after a mistake and replace the identity verdict with: “That’s not like me.” Then name one concrete correction you will make next time. This preserves high standards without turning a bad outcome into a story about who you are. Treat yourself as someone worth coaching: use honest feedback to adjust your behavior, while giving yourself the same patience, support, and belief you would offer a close friend.

Episode Overview

Ed Mylett argues that the most dangerous form of people pleasing is abandoning yourself—putting everyone else first, remaining attached to limiting stories, and becoming your own harshest critic. He encourages listeners to renew themselves, separate identity from performance, and build self-belief so they can serve others from a full cup. The episode also explores how physiology, intentional routines, curiosity in relationships, and certainty shape action and performance.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Most Dangerous Form of People Pleasing (An Urgent Message) | 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. All right, welcome back to the show everybody. I love our episodes where it's just you and I because I get a chance to answer your questions. And one of the questions that I keep getting on a very regular basis is about priorities, and I think it's a really valid question.

In other words, who do I make the number one priority in my life? What do I make the number one priority in my life? And so, I'm going to say something pretty controversial to you to begin today, and then I think more we talk throughout the next 15 or 20 minutes, I think you'll find that this is a correction and an adjustment so many of us, including myself, need to make. The number one priority in your life, I'm exclusive of God and your faith, but in terms of other people or focuses of yours, the number one priority in your life needs to become you.

Yeah, you. And I know initially that sounds selfish, like me. And for so many of us, that's a foreign concept to make ourselves a priority. Isn't that crazy, by the way? That it's a foreign concept for so many of us to make ourselves the number one priority in our life. Most important person in your life as a human being is you. Because you can't begin to serve other people. You can't pour from an empty cup. And so many of you, I mean all people, but particularly the ladies, you're constantly serving other people and caring for their needs first, and you always put yourself last.

And I know a lot of you men are saying, "Hey brother, I do the exact same thing. I care for my family, I care for the people that I work with, my friends, and at the end of the line is always me." And what ends up happening is our cup is empty, and we have nothing to give those very people that we think we need to be serving and contributing before ourselves. That's why when you're flying on an airplane, they always tell you put your own oxygen mask on first before you put it on even your child.

And I always thought when I was flying, that's crazy. I'm going to put it on myself and what? But I can't begin to help other people if I'm not breathing myself, if I don't have energy and life force myself, if I don't have the cup full in my own life, I can't continue to pour into people. And that's why so many of us feel depleted and tired and fatigued, lost in our lives. Maybe we even feel like our focus isn't where it needs to be. Maybe we lack a happiness in our life.

And it's because we're constantly focusing outside of ourselves and we have no reserves, no energy, no time to create and think and innovate and renew and be born again in our lives. And again, I'm not talking about exclusive of God. I look at the relationship that you have with whatever your faith is. You and God are one. Right? You're one. Part of that renewing of you, that energizing of you, that refreshing of you, should be focusing on that relationship with your higher power. So, I'm not talking about that.

You know what I mean. Put your own mask on. Fill your own cup. And in our lives, we don't do this. And what ends up happening is we belong nowhere. And I want you to remember a few things. The people in your life that you want to help most need the best version of you. They need a version of you that's growing. I often say that if I'm the same person next year at the same time that I am now, I'm of no value to you because you already had that version of me.

I want to be replacing myself every year, every day. You know, naturally, inside our body, our lung tissue, our bones, everything is renewing itself on a regular basis. Part of nature. But is your mind renewing? Is your spirit renewing? Is your energy renewing? Probably not because so many of you put the needs of everybody else first. Your intentions are great. But you're doing it the wrong way. They're not even getting the best of you. They're not getting the most happy, powerful, blissful, growing, the vibrational frequency you're capable of carrying, the most faithful version of you.

They're not getting that. They're not getting the strong you. And often times in life, we don't know what we don't know. We don't even know what we're missing. You may say, "No, I'm I'm pretty good version even as I give to everybody." You don't know what you're capable of by not putting yourself first. And it's not selfish. It's the most unselfish thing you could do. Would begin to prioritize your own spirit, your own energy, your own focus, your own reading, your own growth, your own renewing.

Because probably for a lot of you right now, you're somewhere where that you don't feel like you belong. Right? You're in a job maybe where you don't feel like you belong. Maybe you're in a relationship where you don't feel like you belong. Maybe you have a group of friends that you no longer you've outgrown them or it's just not what it once was. You don't belong like you used to. Listen to me on this. The longer you believe that you don't belong where you are, eventually you begin to believe I don't belong anywhere.

The longer you stay where you know you don't belong, you stay at a job where you know you don't belong there. You stay there too long, you begin to believe you don't belong anywhere. You stay in a relationship that you know I don't belong in this relationship. Eventually you'll believe you don't belong in any and then you stay for that reason. And that's what I mean by putting ourselves first. You become almost like this elephant. You know the elephant that's tied to that stake in the ground.

You watch these massive animals, multiple ton animals, and what holds them in the ground is this little stake with a string to it. And over time they're trained, they train, they program themselves that this little stake holds this multi-ton animal in the ground and they don't go anywhere. They just stay in the same little space. That stake is in their mind. They could move that thing in a second with a flinch, they could move. But they've patterned themselves, they've conditioned themselves to believe that they have to stay where they are.

That they're anchored in that spot. And over time eventually they stop even trying to move. They've been trained to do that. Well, ironically in our lives, if we're not renewing ourselves, we're training ourselves to stay. And it's not real. It's make-believe. I'll give you another animal analogy. It's almost like we become like a spider who lives in the web of our own making. And we just stay in this place and eventually we can't serve anybody in this web. We can't make a difference for anybody, never mind ourselves.

And listen to me, time is running out on you. I don't care if you're 18 years old listening to this or you're 85 years old. Time is running out. This life goes by like a flicker. It's a flicker. It was just yesterday I was turning 21 years old. It was just I remember turning 30 going, "Man, I remember giving my dad a cup on his 30th birthday saying, 'My dad is 30.'" And then I turned 30. And then I remember my kids being born and I remember then their first day of school.

Then they graduated high school. One of my kids getting ready to graduate college. Then I Then I was 40 like that. And then I'm 50. It was just a flicker. Heck, here's how crazy I am. I don't know if any of you do this, but I'm a I watch college football as a guy. I watch these guys play college football and I know they're younger than me. But in my mind, this sounds delusional, they're only like three, four, five years younger than me. I know that sounds crazy when I say it.

I'm 30 years older than everybody on that field. But in my mind, it's a four or five year separation. Is that crazy? It's nuts, but it's one of those stakes in the ground and I have to tell you, I usually teach things that I've had to work on myself. For years, I just depleted myself caring for everybody else. And I realized I looked around at one point and I was getting older. And I don't feel like I was getting better, not to the extent that I could have.

I had planted these proverbial stakes in the ground, not not everywhere in my life. You know, when I say things, I think sometimes it's easy to discount, "Well, that's not me." Is there an area you do it? In your physical life, in your spiritual life, in your financial life? We can have these stakes, we can have these webs in different areas of our lives because we spend all our time and you know what? Maybe we focus on everybody else in our lives because we can hide in doing that.

We don't have to really take a look at ourselves. We don't have to really audit ourselves. We kind of hide in the lives of all the people we care for. But at some point we're going to wake up and it's going to be us. But they may still be in our lives, but my children are going on and having their own lives now. And the even the people that you're in your intimate relationships with, their lives will change and evolve as well. And for you to love them the most and have the most rich memories, it has to be a new you, a renewed you.

You know, it leads me to another point. Who are you? And I know it sounds all really philosophical and we're not going there today. But if you begin to think about it, like who do you really think you are? Really, in my opinion, what we are is we're a collection of stories and memories and emotions that are all reinforced with neurology. That's really what we are. You say I or me. When you think about it, it's a collection of stories of your life and memories of your life, emotions of your life.

And then it's kind of wired with the neurology in our brains. You know, it's interesting. An emotion in your life, a feeling in your life, really needs a story to exist. It really does. I mean, and the and the the stronger the emotion you attach, the easier you remember the story. You've had lots of things happen in your life you don't remember anymore. One of the reasons you don't remember it is wasn't that emotional for you. That feeling wasn't that deep. But when we begin to have stories where there's a major emotion attached to it or a major feeling, then the story sticks and then we begin to accumulate these stories.

Lo and behold, we believe that's who we are. You are not your memories. You are not your stories. You are not your past. You're not even the collection of the accumulation of your achievements. Who you are is a soul, is a spirit that needs to be renewed, that needs to be re-energized, that needs to be in some sense born again, energized again, focused again. And we only do that by giving ourselves the level of self-care that's required, some quiet time. Right? Some time in reflection. Some time in self-awareness.

Some auditing of the things in our life that bring us bliss and joy, the things we want to achieve and focus and grow in our lives. So, when we begin to evaluate, I've always said to And by the way, sometimes when you've had a past that's actually successful, you can hang on to those stories. We've all met that guy who says, "Yeah, I was a high school quarterback." And they're 40 years old, they're talking about high school. Right? And I always kind of laugh when you hear that person talk.

But are you doing that in any area of your life? Maybe something two or three years ago? Five years ago? Are you a story about somebody who hurt you? Are you a story about one of your failures or a breakup or a mistake? Do you use those stories as sort of a weapon against yourself? Do you ever use those stories as excuses to not grow and achieve now? Have you taken See, it's not the events of our life that define us. It's the meaning we attach to those events.

And the stronger the emotion, the more that meaning stays deeply within us. And we become a collection of what we believe life means or what we believe we mean. And the longer you begin to believe you don't belong here, and you stay there, you begin to believe that you mean you belong nowhere. And you begin to tread water in your life. You have that stake in the ground. Listen to me. Settling sucks. Settling sucks. Stop settling. You do not get in your life what you hope for or what you dream for or what you'd like to have.

You get in your life what you believe you're worth and what you're willing to fight for, what you're willing to change for. If you really love these people that you keep putting priority in your life, will you please fight for them and make yourself a priority? Will you please fight for them and lift that stake out of the ground? Get out of that web. Stop being this collection of these BS stories you tell yourself. You know exactly what I'm talking about. And by the way, the story gets bigger and bigger and bigger and the more you repeat it, the more that neurology connects, the more it's deeply embedded in you.

You got to tell yourself a new story. And you don't have to change the story of the past. You got to create a new compelling story for the future. What's your new story? What's the new you? What's the new version of you? Even if the old one's one you like. For most of us, it's not. But even if it was one you like, you want to stay in that story forever? What's the point of having another day? God did not give you another day because you need it.

God gave you another day because somebody needs you. And it's a new version of you that they need. So, I came here today to remind you that it's time for you to change. Lift the stake out of the ground. You belong in your dreams. Let me say that to you again. You belong in your dreams. You belong in the new story, not the old story, whether it's a bad one or a good one. You don't belong there. It's a figment of your imagination, even if it really happened.

You've repeated it and made the emotion bigger. And guess who suffers? The very people that you think you should be serving first. Because they don't get to see this beautiful productive new version of you. They stay with some version. And by the way, you may be growing a little bit. You may be expanding a little bit. Things may be going pretty well. But could they go better? Could you be happier? Could you be a different version of you? Could it be bigger? And if I could give you one last piece of advice, make it bigger.

Make your life bigger. Dream big. Think big thoughts. You can always back it down and settle for the little ones. Dreaming is free. Won't charge you for it. Yet, so many people don't even dream anymore. When you were a little boy or a little girl, you had all kinds of dreams. You're going to be an astronaut or an NFL quarterback or the president of the United States or a powerful businesswoman. And as life begins to happen, we begin to believe these stories that other people tell us about ourselves and the meanings we take from them and the emotions that become embedded in them and they stick.

And those are the stakes. And then we go, "Well, I'm just serving everybody else. I'll get around to me." And you never get around to you, do you? You never get around to you. So, who should be the number one priority in your life? Between you and God? You. And only from there can you pour from a full cup. It's what I recommend you do today. Make these changes and I think you'll be very grateful that you did it and more importantly these people that you love or that you want to lead, that you want to make a difference for, they'll be the biggest beneficiaries.

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I'm just curious as to I don't want this to be Pollyanna either because I know you and I are both very tactical and strategic, but I want to go to that for a minute. So, I have this theory that, you know, I think children are happier than adults for the most part because they operate out of imagination, vision, dreams. That's their prism. And at some age, it could even be very young for so if you go through childhood trauma or whatever it might be, but at some age almost all people, 99%, start to operate out of history and memory.

And that's sort of their filter or their pattern of their life. It's it's history and memory. And I am asked often, how do I break that pattern? I think this all begins when you have fear, you go to history and memory and then they're telling you what to believe. How does one begin to operate out of their imagination, imagine new skills, imagine a new life, uncover their version of their own genius? How does somebody do that, Tony? What's a skill or a strategy that you would recommend to somebody who says, I need to flip from this history and memory, these patterns I have, to create a new ones and I think that starts in your imagination.

How does somebody do that? You have to shift your your physiology first. If you try to paint a compelling future, you know, why are people depressed? One of the main reasons people are depressed is they don't have a compelling future. In other words, you can deal with any tough today if you have a compelling tomorrow. Anybody can do that. But today people think, "Oh my god, I can't go outside. Oh my god, oh my choices are taken away. Oh my god, we're all going to die in 12 years cuz of an environmental crisis which is total bullshit." But there are people that have been taught this and their kids today they are saying, "I'm not going to have I'm not going to have children because this is the world I've entered into." Cuz they have no compelling future.

But if you try to paint a compelling future when a person is in a lowered energy state, it won't work. They'll just reject it. Because in a lowered state, your brain goes into survival mechanisms. And in survival mechanisms, you're always looking for what's wrong. What do I have to fight or what do I have to fly from or what do I have to freeze and hope it don't hurt us? That's the part of your brain that's 2 million years old and it's well-wired. But we don't have a saber-tooth tiger to deal with.

So now we worry about what people say to us or will we have enough money or what somebody's going to write about you in social media. We have a similar reaction. The way you overcome that is the way you drive your nervous system. So I'll give you an example. When I was at my worst and I was in a place where I gained 38 lb and I was feeling sorry for myself and I come home one night literally I ran out of gas on Pacific Coast Highway in Venice.

I had a little apartment down there. And I didn't run out of gas because you know, I forgot to fill the tank. I literally had no money. I pulled over, locked the car and prayed it didn't get towed cuz towed be 50 bucks. I didn't have 50 bucks. And then I walked a couple miles home. And I lived there on Pacific Avenue, 2516 Pacific Avenue apartment 3 A if you ever want to go by. I did recently. It's pretty funny. But anyway, I walk up the stairs as the sun setting and there's a note typed and stapled on my door and I don't know if you ever had the joy of having one of these experiences in your youth.

But it basically says you've not paid your rent. Remove yourself and your things if you don't pay within 3 days the sheriff will take your stuff and you will lose everything, right? So, I open the door, I go into this place and I I lit a candle. And I I didn't light it because I was spiritual, I lit it cuz I also not paid my electric bill. It's a true story. So, I'm reading by candlelight my eviction notice. This is how low I gotten. And then if that wasn't enough, I get this banging on the door and I got three locks cuz I haven't paid anybody, right?

I'm looking through and it's a friend I've not seen in a couple years and I got a beer belly on me and I've grown out, you know, this shaggy little beard and I just in the worst shape. I open the door partially, "What do you want?" He's like, "Tony, it's me, you know." I let him in. He goes in my house which is this little 400 square foot bachelor apartment. He can't even turn around. I'm cooking on a on a hot plate on the trash can.

I'm washing my dishes in the bathtub. And so, after he left, I was so humiliated. The whole thing it's just I it's like, I got to do something. I didn't know what I was doing then, but now I understand what I did. I hit rock bottom and it was like, WHO I AM IS more than what I'm living spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically. So, I'm old enough to have had a Walkman. I think you might have had one at one time or another. And you had to really love your music in those days, right?

Cuz you had one cassette in there. So, I took this group called Heart and I put on this song called Barracuda. I said, "I'm going to run this beach till I spit up blood." I'm just And I did. I ran as hard as I could and when I thought I couldn't do anymore, I ran harder. And I got to [clears throat] the end of it and I had left this journal on the ground. I drew a line down the middle. I wrote everything on that list that I really hated that was in my life, which was most of my life.

And then everything I was committed to changing. And I didn't have all the skills and tools I have today, but I had changed the ignition. It's like, if you got the greatest computer in the world, there's not enough electricity, your screen's going to be messed up. Without that energy change, really not going to make the change. That's why everyone that comes to one of my seminars, you know, it's a physical experience. You're not sitting on your ass for, you know, 12 hours. You're going 12 hours a day for three or four days.

Now people are at home in 100 countries and they're going full tilt like they're in a stadium for full time and ALL OF A SUDDEN their energy changes. Well, in that place now we can start to create this compelling future. Now we can start to make the end your nervous system says I'm ready. You know, Stanford did a study. They came to me during the pandemic. This is fascinating. They said, "Tony, we had two people go through your Date With Destiny, that little six-day seminar I do." And they said they were both clinically depressed and they have no symptoms of depression.

We've never seen anything like it. You know, what data do you have on this? I said, "Well, I have thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of testimonials." You go, "No, but like scientific data." I said, "That's not my focus." They said, "Do you mind if we did a study?" And then they showed me something fascinating. 40% of the people that get treatment for depression, and by the way, depression has gone through the roof since COVID and since all those limitations, I know you know, suicide's gone through the roof.

And it's horrific, but only 40% get better through treatment of drugs and therapy, right? SSRIs, you know, Prozac, Zoloft, all these things, right? 60% don't get an ounce better. Of the 40% that get better, on average across the meta studies, they find they get about 50% better. They're half as depressed as they were. Now some people get totally better, some not at all, but that's the average. I said, "That's not much better than a placebo." They said, "You're right." I said, "Well, what's the best you've ever seen?" They said, "Two years ago, Johns Hopkins did a study where they took people for 30 days of psilocybin, magic mushrooms, and therapy for 30 straight days.

They got results that were four times greater than they'd ever seen in history. 53% of the people 30 days later had no symptoms. Never seen anything like it, but psilocybin's illegal. It's not really duplicatable. So they said, "What if we model their study? We'll use the exact same criteria, but we'll have you with no drugs and have your people go through the seminar. We'll send people in that are clinically depressed and so forth." And so they did it. And the study with the results were so profound, they sent the data out to two different organizations blinded to get the data back cuz they wanted to make sure it was accurate before they reported it.

100% of the people 30 days later after Date With Destiny had no symptoms of depression, but even better, 19% of those people had suicidal ideation. None had suicidal ideation. 11 months later, 11 months after 1 week, they changed so much. Their negative emotions had dropped 72%. Their positive emotions up 51% and now this last week, 2 weeks ago, I did another Date With Destiny and they did a study with 750 people, the largest study of its type. Well, why does it work? Because we're not only helping people shift the way they perceive the world.

Like you don't experience life, you experience the life you focus on. Yes. If you're focused on things that piss YOU OFF, YOU HAVE TO BE deleting the things you could be grateful for. If you're grateful, you're deleting things that could piss you off, right? So if I changing their beliefs and values, they do this, not me, there's a huge shift, but it's also the biochemical change. So they tracked my body for 3 years and they found crazy Like, you know, you know cuz you're you're an athlete, but you know, I jump a thousand times in an average program on one day.

And I weigh, you know, 285 lb. So every time I come down, it's four times your body weight. So imagine 1,000 lb times 1,000 jumps, it's a million pounds of pressure. So I did my bone density and they go, "These are humans. You know, this is great athletes. This is you." And they're like, "It's not like it's like I'm a gorilla from just the demand, right? If you've been running with a friend and you can't talk anymore, it's cuz your lactate is at four. I'm an 18 and still speaking." Crazy.

But here's the most interesting thing. They tracked my audience and me and they found something really fascinating. There's a group that does studies on like Tom Brady, on the Tampa Bay Lightning that's won multiple times in the, you know, the the what do you call it, Stanley Cup. And they found there's a place biochemically that people who are under stress perform at the highest level. It's why they win. And they call it the championship uh blood stream. And what happens is your testosterone surges, so you have this incredible drive, but your your cortisol, which is the stress hormone, drops through the ground, so you think so clearly.

That's why Tom Brady's down by 14 with 2 minutes left, and he comes back to win, right? Well, I produce that in my body, but what's even more fascinating, if you know about mirror neurons, everybody in the seminar, literally, cuz they do it to people around the world at home. And they mirror neurons exactly the same biochemical change. That's why a year later the change is there. If I said, "Where were you on 9/11?" everybody knows, even in foreign countries, they'll remember who they were with, what they saw.

But if I say, "Were you on 8/11?" most people don't know, because information without emotion is barely remembered. So, I make sure those are merged, and that's why we get these lasting changes. So, it's not enough to just understand what to do or paint a compelling future. There has to be a shift in your identity and the way in which you feel physically, and that's why the combination is so critical. Okay, I'm going to tell you something I've never said out loud anywhere, and I haven't told you this.

So, by the way, thank you for calling me an athlete, and the reason I say that to you is It's true. I uh purposely adopted that identity at something you did. And and I was an athlete, I was a college athlete, as you know, but then I sort of I had gained weight, too. And people ask me all the time, you know, cuz I have been through several of these winters, like you have as well. I'm fit. I'm sure there's a vanity aspect to it, a wellness, a health aspect to it, but for me, it's my it's it's my neurochemistry being what I want it to be, so I can make choices.

My imagination is open. I am in flow state. This has been the most critical thing, and for years it was really just fitness people that were fit, not business people. But you had an event I don't you would you don't do this anymore, you probably can't in culture today, but I don't know if you remember, but I was very young. I'd gotten a little bit out of shape, and back we're in Maui at one of your events. You and I didn't know each other then. And you did this thing where I've never said this before, but I want you to know this.

You did this thing where you basically had the women in the room sort of ranked or lined up by their financial status. Do you remember this? Yes, I do remember that. The dudes, it was their fitness. And And do you remember doing this? Of course I DID YOU CUZ GUYS THINK THEY'RE HOT WHEN THEY'RE LIKE a beer belly, RIGHT? WELL, SO DID I. WOMEN CAN BE TOTALLY BEAUTIFUL and they're hard on themselves, right? Yes. Yes, but it changed my freaking life. I'm on this call with you.

We're doing a podcast because of this moment. So, he has the women sort of say which guys are fit. And then the fittest dudes get to walk up on the stage. Well, I'm young. I should be crushing this room at the time, right? There's a bunch of dudes in there that are in their 40s and 50s. I'm like, I don't know, mid-20s, early 20s, and I don't get picked. And then YOU GOT THERE'S THE DUDE AND WATCH the ladies in the room cheer for the hot guys.

And I wasn't picked. And I remember going, "This is never going to happen to me again." And it wasn't It wasn't just that I wasn't picked. It's like, you aren't living the things he's teaching, and you need to change your physiology on a regular This was an indication that my physiology wasn't being shifted on a regular basis. That it wasn't one of my patterns to shift my physiology. I want everyone listening to this, you have to have a pattern of shifting your physiology. It's in those moments your genius flows, your imagination flows.

These skills and tactics start to happen. And it also I want you to speak to this. I just want you to know that. I credit that with you with that experience 100% years ago. That's awesome. And I want everyone to know this, but I also want people to hear this. I want you to speak to this if you would. I think the other thing that you and I with the people that we see that are higher-level achievers, they're preparation freaks, you and I. I'm prepared today, you're prepared, but they have a lower threshold of what they think they need to know in order to step into action.

That's true. Right? And so, how does one build that? Cuz there's a lot of people going, "Okay, I got to overcome my fear. I got to move my physiology. I've got to anchor the right emotional state in, but man, I'm just ill-prepared." And you may be. That may be true. But you think you have to be so prepared that you never move. You never take action. And now it'll be 2024 and we'll be on another call and you're going to want to get going again. So, how does one build that resourceful, aggressive, whatever you want to call it, nature to go when they don't know everything?

Well, you got to first see what's preventing it. What's preventing it is everyone has the same two deepest fears. All humans, I don't care. I've dealt with greatest athletes in the world, multi-millionaires, you know, guys in prison, you name it, kids. We all are afraid we're not enough at some point. If you feel like you're not young enough, strong enough, old enough, mature enough, funny enough, rich enough, something enough for someone who you really want to be enough for, it brings up an even deeper fear, which is if I'm not enough, I won't be loved.

And love is the oxygen of the soul. You know, if a baby is not kinesthetically loved, they develop what's called failure to thrive syndrome. We are a unique species in that love is our competitive advantage. If you're born as a baby and there's no mother or father there, you're a lizard, you'll live. But if you're A CHILD, YOU DIE. WE NEED EACH OTHER. WE HAVE a long dependency on each other. You know, you know, some of the longest animals other than primates are like whales that are dependent for a year.

But 5 years, 10 years, these years, 35 years, some people are still dependent right up on their parents to make sure things work for them. The great fear of mine with my kids. So, but the but the point is that those that fear that we're not enough is what's getting in the way. And you don't get over it, you go beyond it. And the way you get beyond it is you just train yourself. And as you just said, that's why in the seminars it isn't just the content, it's putting you in a state where the content can land.

And when you put yourself in that state on a regular basis, those flows happen. Now, you want daily practices as well. So, you know, every day I've got a variety of daily practices, but one of those things I jump in freezing cold water every day, I think you know. But I don't do it because I like it or I want it. There's never a day I look forward to it. But, I don't hesitate. I don't negotiate with myself. It's both physically great cuz it flushes your blood and your lymph system completely.

You feel like a million bucks coming out of it. Going in it is painful as hell. But, it's like I don't say in a minute, when I'm ready, or maybe tomorrow. It's like I say go, we go. So, it's a mental training as well as it's a physical training, right? And when you do that over and over, and then you say I'm going to do this, your brain doesn't negotiate. You've trained your own mind. A lot of people have these discussions in their own head back and forth, and that's just a habit.

All these things are patterns. You know, I get up and I do my priming, which is putting myself in a state for just 10 minutes, a form of meditation, but it's a directed meditation. I think of three things I'm grateful for, about a minute each, and I live them. I don't remember it over there. I get in the roller coaster as it's going down and feel it. And I get associated to what I'm most grateful for, because gratitude destroys the two emotions that mess up your life, which are fear and anger.

You can't be angry and grateful simultaneously. You can't be fearful and grateful. So, I train my nervous system every day to start with that. Then I do this form of a prayer or blessing. Then I do this three to thrive, which is a minute each on what I really want to make happen, but I don't think about making it happen. I see it as done and complete, and I train my brain to feel celebratory in that area. And in 10 minutes, I've changed my body, I've changed my mind, and then my third discipline is I usually text or call someone to leave a message of sincere acknowledgement, because I like to start my day to brighten somebody else's day.

Uh but, I don't ever I don't go, "Oh, you're cool." I'll go, "Listen, I saw last Thursday, you know, in the meeting you did this and this and this. I just thought that was so amazing. I just want to thank you for being that kind of person." And so, it starts my day with momentum. Physical momentum, mental momentum, relationship momentum. So, there's disciplines like that. Then there's my workout, just like you, right? You know, you have your workout that you look great by the way. I pump and I make sure in that workout I do something that's incredibly difficult so that I'm always pushing a little bit stronger, getting a little bit better in some area.

And then WHAT THAT DOES is it creates a foundation that when winter's here you go, "Give me winter, You know, bastard. I'll rip through this I don't care what it is you want to do. I'm ready." But most people, you know, they're living their life in front of a screen a lot of people today. They're living at home. Mhm. Right? Their shoulders are down. They're breathing like this. They get distracted by all the things around them. There's no energy really at a vital level. And then so what happened there's no stimulus from being at the office for some people anymore.

And so what happens is people's lives have gotten down to a low level of energy. If if you forgot everything ELSE THAT I TEACH YOU skill wise, financially, emotionally, business, all those tools, but all you did was constantly increase the strength and energy in your body as a resilient source, you're going to find the answers, WHETHER I TAUGHT THEM to you or somebody else. YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE UP THE ANSWERS. GUYS, this is a hundred Yeah, I got to interrupt you but I have to say this.

It's so This is true what he's telling you, okay? Not that you need me to second something Tony Robbins is saying, but he's right. I've lived it. He's a thousand percent right. Do the things we're talking about. These will make changes for you. The other thing he added to that that I must say that is brilliant is that when you are feeling helpless, get helpful. Help people. He He had a video out recently that you recorded you about the feeding the families this year. You were so emotional.

It moved me cuz I know I know how This is the richness of your life is helping other people. It's the same in mine. And I think people think, "Well, once I get over the stuff I need, then I'll do these things." That's what they think. They think, "Once I get my own stuff handled, then I'll be that person." No, you'll you'll get that stuff handled when you're that person. Yeah. And I'm I'm writing I just want to say one thing about you with that morning message.

Uh the FBI did this study recently, I know you know about it, where they're talking about the releasing of hostages. Yeah. And how do you get a hostage released? And is it when someone's taken a hostage, is it is it the fact that you meet their demands that actually you get the hostages back? Actually, it's about the same whether you meet the demand or you don't. Believe it or not, there's a 2,000 times greater likelihood of the hostage being released if the person who took the hostages believes you understand why they did it.

That's right. That that they feel seen. And one of the things when if you want to be seen as a person, see other people. I have this thing I do, Tony. I'm writing a book about it right now. Let me tell you about you. I love doing that with friends with Let me tell you about you, but something with He said, "Not you're awesome or you're cool or you're fun." Something really true that they go, "That is true. I did do that. I do have that." So, I just want to acknowledge the brilliance of what he's sharing with all of you.

And I'll tell you a 2-second story about that. It's interesting. I remember when I was um going to my 10-year high school reunion. When I was in school, uh I was really a driven kid, and I was not popular. I was popular with certain girls, more like more friend girls than anything else. I had like all the cheerleaders on my side. I became student body president. But I ran it like a real thing. I went to all the different groups and said, "What do you want to do?" And I went to the principal and I said, "I don't think this will work, but I think I can make this happen." So, it taught me that if you're sincere, even if you weren't popular, that you could have the kind of impact.

It was It was a real shaping experience for me. And so, but I remember I had some guys specifically that were older than I was that were competitive with me and were really brutal. I was 5'1". They were like you know, my head nose guard was 6'6" and he He just would brutalize me. Come and pour milk over my head and So, now my 10-year high school reunion comes up. And so, I'm going to be what? 28 years old. You know, I've become pretty successful. I've got books and I'm having impact around the world.

And you know, I've been seen all over the world. So, I'm getting ready to go and I got kind of I don't [clears throat] know. I got really uncomfortable. And I part of it was I realized like, I don't know if like I don't know if I even relate to any of these people. I don't know if they'll even remember me or anything else. And I remember calling my mom, and my mom was an interesting character, and rarely did she have advice, but she I was talking to her I was driving in the car up there, and I always always imagined I'd go up there in my limousine, and you know, I'd have the the three women in my life that would be there, whatever that was, you know, that was my picture as a stupid boy, right?

And you know, I had a limousine at that point, it was funny as hell, but I didn't take it. I took the least expensive car, I drove myself. And I'm talking to my mom on the phone, and I said she goes I said what she what are you doing? I said I'm going up to my 10-year high school reunion. And she goes, wow, she goes, you feel funny, there's something funny about you right now. I said what do you mean funny? And she goes, I know what it is.

You were so different in high school. And you're thinking about you're not one of them, and you're going up there. She was so intuitive. And I said, well, I guess yeah, I think you're right. She goes, honey, you know, one seminar, you touch more lives of people than your entire high school of a couple thousand people. She goes, you know, look what being different got you. And I I remember after you hung up the phone, I realized you know, I'm so focused on well, how will I connect and all this which I never would think normally, because normally I'm thinking about how to give.

I'm not like how do I receive? And so I I started thinking I was driving up there about the people I might bump into, and some of them that actually kind of tortured me at the time. And I thought, you know, I'm going to get fascinated by their lives. I'm not here to talk about mine or tell them how great it is. I'm not going to do that. And I remember you know, you go to your high school reunion, I don't know if you all did this, but they have the old picture of you when you're in high school, and I had you know, hair down beyond my shoulders, and you know, and I was this little guy.

And so I walk in, and I'll never forget the first guy that comes up to me, he didn't recognize who I was, and he looks his eyes were at the level of my chest here where my stuff, and he goes, Tony? He looks like this. And it was the guy that used to torture me, right? It was the guy. I was kind of a hard on you, I was kind of rough. And I said, you know what? I deserved I had a really bad mouth. I didn't have much respect.

I said, "Tell me about you." AND I SPENT THE WHOLE NIGHT GOING AROUND TALKING TO PEOPLE ABOUT THEM, nothing about me. And I had the best night. BECAUSE IT'S LIKE IF YOU REALLY focus on others, you disappear. It's like I used to have these long mission statements and change the earth and all that. Now my mission statement is really simple, how can I help? Like every day I get phone calls from people. Somebody's got cancer, somebody's you know, I've done so much in the health area.

Somebody's got something in their business. Somebody knows somebody's got a challenge. It's like, how can I help? And nothing makes me more grateful. So I think people, as you grow, you you know, hopefully, you know, you and I are at a stage of life where we can mentor people cuz we've been through so much crap. Right. You know, you know, overcome so much. And I my hope is that the people that listen to you, that listen to Ed personally, I I endorse Ed as a friend because Ed lives this stuff.

I mean, there's very few people that live it. And that's one of the reasons I love you and respect you. You work out, you train, you do this stuff. You're not somebody just interviewing other people. You're somebody who lives it. And that, unfortunately, is rare. But when you find those rare people, you want to learn from them because we all become like who we spend time with. And the good thing about a podcast is you get to spend time with somebody like Ed. I think it's fantastic.

I want to ask you about this. I have friends that I have noticed the couple [snorts] doesn't like to be alone together anymore. Meaning, you ever been in a restaurant and my wife and I have had this happen where we're kind of in an a great conversation and then just for a second we'll take a glance around the restaurant and you'll see a couple that's sitting at a table together. Yeah. Not talking. Mhm. It's just the two of them and one's looking around, checking out what's going on in the Everyone knows what I'm talking about.

And the other one's sort of looking at their phone and and I've I've [clears throat] seen this last 30 minutes, 40 minutes. And by the way, it also seems to me, Jay, like I think the older the relationship is, the more pronounced this is. And so the alternative is then they're just always around other couples. They're always around other people. Do you believe in these new activities, these other things, but also just alone time? Can you almost hide in the groups you're in and then when you're alone you don't have anything?

Bro, that is like you you're like I love and this is exactly what I knew this conversation would be. You're spotting like these very nuanced human behavior patterns that we're experiencing in relationships. So, in the book I break down an ideal 7-day week. And what I'm saying here is like here's a schedule and here are the things that are important. I don't know how I don't mind how many of them you do, but I want everyone to remember to do each of them. So, every week you have to have time alone to yourself.

There has to be some me time, alone time away from everyone. Now, there has to be alone time with us. Just as a couple. There has to be two people who are spending time together. Now you have time with your own friends and they have time with their own friends. That's another thing that's really important. We just heard about it in there. We had so many of our friends say that they don't have their own groups of friends and the happier couples are when both of them have their own tribes.

We just heard it. Literally just heard it. So, you've got that and then the fourth one is you with collective friends. Okay. So, notice how there's four different things you're trying to achieve every week, every month that provide different support. Time with yourself gives you self-love. Time with your partner gives you together love. Time with your friends gives you like hangout love and nostalgia and chill love and then time together gives you community. And so, all of these are important and you can hide in community.

And the reason we do that truly, Ed, is because we've run out of things to talk about. You nailed it. We've run out of things to talk about because you think you think you know everything about your partner. And I promise you you don't. And in the book I break down what I call the three-date rule. And inside of that I give questions for each date. And it doesn't have to be your first three dates. It can be any three dates. And I recommend asking these questions and they're based on personalities, values, and goals.

Honestly, like if you sit down and you talk to your partner and you ask them a question you've never asked them I'll give an example of a question that I love. Like I might just say to my wife right now like uh you know, what was the most exciting thing that happened to you this week? I promise you you'll be surprised. You think you know? You think you know, but you don't. You have no idea. And if she asked me the same thing, I promise you she doesn't know.

She could assume it. She has no idea what I thought was the most exciting thing. And so I don't judge couples for it because I get it. Our phones are interesting and we're we're bored and we don't know. But the thing is we've never been taught how to have interesting conversations with the people we love. What's the most exciting thing you did this week? What was your highlight of the week? What was something you struggled with this week? You know, when was the last time you did something for the first time?

And when was the last time we did something for the first time? Like just I think going prepared. Like I think we think about love is like oh should we be spontaneous and if it's not there it's not there. You got to work at it. You don't walk outside and you see a dead plant in your garden or your home and you go ah it's dead, who cares? It just died. No, it died because you stopped watering it. And I think we just I think we have this idea we don't realize and this is a very faith-based idea too.

Like we don't realize that everything everything on planet Earth including us is either growing or dying. You're so right. And so if you're not putting in the work to make it grow, it will naturally die. And so relationships are just dying every day not because love died, kindness [clears throat] died. Curiosity died. Curiosity is a Empathy died. Understanding died. Love never died. The all the other things died and so Oh, rewind again, everybody. Rewind again. Maybe the love hasn't died. And I think a biggie, man, a big one in a long-term relationship is the curiosity piece.

Yes. I think I know everything about you. Yeah. I think I know everything about you and so I'm not curious anymore. And that's one of the beautiful things in the the beginning of a relationship, by the way, what you said earlier, new experiences together. Everything you're doing is the first time you've done it together. Exactly. And then the second one is you're curious. Yeah. And you've lost that curiosity. I just want to give you gratitude for this because I knew that you talked about this a little bit cuz I was prepping last week and my son picked me up just 2 days ago from the airport and so it's a it's I'm getting 30 minutes with him.

And it's usually it's your son. I know everything about my son, he knows everything about me and I actually did exactly what you recommend. I said, "Hey, what was the most exciting part of your week last It kind of feels a little goofy at first, like almost like I'm reading off a list. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And but then he's like, "Actually, kind of crazy thing, Dad, I hit this one shot on this one golf hole." And he just sort of lit up. I said, "What were you like most grateful for last week?" He goes, "Actually, me and you last week when we were together." And it was just this beautiful experience of this this is my only son.

So, the application of these things isn't just your intimate relationship. When's the last time you asked your mom these questions, everybody? Aw. When'd you ask your dad or anybody that you love in your life? Mom, what do you What was the most exciting thing last week? I love that you brought it up. I recently took my mom on a vacation and I didn't put the camera on, but I interviewed my mom. I was like, "I'm going to because I find the people I interview so fascinating.

So do I. And as time's gone on, I feel like sons and moms, it's it's harder to connect. Yes. You you lose stuff to talk about. It's It's It's challenging. And you think you know everything. And you think you know everything and they know it. So, I I said I interviewed my mom. And I'm telling you, like, my mom had me in tears. Yeah. My mom told me that when she was 15 years old studying for exams in Yemen, which is where she grew up. She had Yemeni soldiers on her roof fighting the Brits in her country while she's preparing for exams and she just saw that as normal.

Normal. To her that was just normal. I was like, "Mom, like what do you mean you were studying?" She was like, "Yeah, we were just studying for exams. The soldiers were on top shooting. We could hear the gunshots." Like, I'm like, "Mom, like what?" Like and I I was just like, I thought I knew about where you moved from and which country you're from and the language you spoke. I had no idea. I've known my mom my whole life. I love my mom. Yeah. She loved me deeply, but I didn't know anything and so How beautiful is that?

How beautiful and I have a newfound respect for my mom. Like newfound like character understanding of who my mom is. Like she's a boss and like but it's like I didn't you don't think that about your mom cuz your mom never told you and and and she was never asked. never asked. never asked. It's so funny you say this, brother. My dad passed away, uh you know, as you know, last year. What almost 2 years now. And I have a different relationship with my mom now.

When I go over there, it's not me and my dad talking all the families have dynamics. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Now I'm with my mom and we're alone and I'm learning all these things. I'm like, this is what's cool. I like my mom. Yeah. I don't just love her. I like her. The more I get to know my mom and you know what most of you, you don't know your parents. Yeah. If they're still here, what a blessing to be able to ask them some of these questions and expand that loving relationship you have.

Speaking of life and needle moving. I don't know if you texted me this or you posted it. So, it probably doesn't matter. But, that's the micro stuff. The macro is you're so obsessed with this that you look at like duration of time on the planet. Mhm. And it was something about you just realize you read something on your you're laughing, but you Did you text me this or did you post it? I just posted that I wanted to live 1 million hours. That's That's right. So, you read something that convinced you that you're going to that you could live to a particular age and you deduced how many hours there.

So, I actually think this is brilliant cuz this type of focus causes us to live with intention and attention and the lack of I think all the time. Do you know when I pray at night? You're going to laugh at this. Never said this out loud, not even to my wife. I'm going to tell you and about 70 billion people right now. When I pray at night, one of my last prayers is that I'm going to live to 120 years old. Okay? And I really believe now again, someone will listen to this in 3 years.

Wow, it's so sad he passed away. But but but I I I have that prayer and that intention and I've repeated it over and over and over and over again because I believe if I don't pick a number, if I don't pick a time, if I don't set a goal, if I don't then it'll all be up to the whims of whatever else comes my way. And I really believe that you create a space when you set something like that that didn't exist before you did it and then you find the behaviors, the people, the things, the thoughts, the technology, the nutrition to fill it up.

What I didn't do was calculate the amount of hours that it gives me to then optimize that time. So, speak to that whole thing. Yeah, and and look, I'm you know, it makes it really makes me happy. That means we're going to we're literally we're going to be friends deep into our hundreds. We're going to be having these conversations about well, what do you think? You thinking you're going to 128? You think you're going to I don't know. I'm push I'm feeling pretty good right now.

But I think about it more from a this is what I'm big on. This is your existence. Right? And and this is this is the framework of your the experience the human experience, right? You only truly can judge anything, your energy, how well you're using time, everything that's happened in your past, how you actually feel in the present moment. You can only do it in the present moment and you only experience it in your mind, right? And then you have to make a decision of like I want to change All of these things so my I'm going to create a better future experience.

That is the human experience and I realized that it that I wanted to make it last to 112. I initially wanted to live to 104 and be shot in a rocket into space and explore the universe without the light pollution from planet Earth for the last year before I died and then floated out into the cosmos. Now, that was before I had a wife and kids. So it's like now the audacity of don't worry about me and then like I'm up there for like 24 more years like so that changed and then when I read the book Ikigai, right?

The Japanese long life and happiness book. They talked about supercentenarians and I'm like like that brand. I want to be a supercentenarian. So then I made it at then I made it that I would want to live to 112. And then as I started getting deeper into okay, how many days is that? All right. Okay, that's how many days I have. This is how many days that I've done so far. Then when I was going going through my time matrix and looking at all these different things where I spend time of like wow, I spend nearly as much time shooting a television show as I will picking up my kids and taking them to school for the year.

Right? And And to me as I just started looking at these hours and then where am I losing a lot of time? On the couch watching Netflix. You know what I mean? It's It's me and the wife on there watching our favorite show but boy when you start looking at what that is, man. You're letting You're letting the hard 8 to 9% go on the couch. You know what I mean? Like it's It's cold hard reality but as I looked at that, you know, I'm [snorts] I then was like, you know, what is like what's a round number of time and like, "Wow, 1 million hours is 114 years and 54 days." I'm going to experience a million hours on this earth, right?

And so, of course, a lot of people push back on like, "Oh, it's good Yeah, you're like a vegetable. What are you going to do?" And And it's like Like, I didn't even contemplate that. And And it's because you live in two different mindsets. There's I live in a mindset that I just keep getting healthier and happier, more balanced, lighter. Life is more effortless. My system, that is my entire body, is more efficient. And I can show you in blood work. I can show you in net worth.

I can show you in time. And I can show you in qualitative data that I have collected about how I feel about my life, work, and health that I am uh in healthier, better physical condition, wealthier, more balanced, and happier in the data, which only proves to me there's no reason why you can't keep getting healthier, happier, and wealthier for the for the remainder of your life. And then, I'll just fall right off a cliff. You know what I mean? Whatever it ends up ending. But, again, what's it go back to?

I want to live with with absolute intention. And I want to experience every moment that I get into and feel the vividness and the richness and the beauty that is the human experience and life. You know, you don't want to be so future-focused and trying to create a better future that you never feel the present, right? And so, for me, I'm I really began to un- understand what state my mind is at all the time at all times. And how do I learn to control that and begin to put in systems and solutions that keep my mind in a balanced state is really one of the bigger things that I've learned to do over the last year or so.

Share this one of those systems. What Well, you know, I I the if you can imagine this, your your mind is is balanced in this way, right? You it's past, present, and future, right? And so there's sort of five sections as I see it. And and on one end it's dwelling in the past. Okay. You ain't doing nothing. You want to sit and dwell about something you did, you ain't doing nothing. Then the next level up is rectify, right? You are problem solving, taking action, something that happened in the past.

So now you're in the present past, where okay, I'm I'm dealing with something that happened. Now I'm problem solving, taking action to make a better future, right? You sit right in the middle and you experience it. Or you go to the next level is creating, right? And so now you're in this future present, right? Where you're experiencing the present while creating the future. That's that's where you want to toggle, right? Because what goes beyond creating the future is wishing. Mhm. Right? Because that if you're sitting there wishing the future was better and wishing like like this will be like this or you're dwelling, you're not moving.

Mhm. Right? And so you want to be either experiencing the moment or [snorts] handling something that happened in the past present or creating something in the future present state and and and swing between that, right? [snorts] And so if you can imagine that's your mind, what you what you think about on an ongoing basis is ranges between all of that. That's where the action lives. Now it's the quality of your mind and your mind's quality is either in a proactive state, a reactive state, an inactive state, or a magnetic state, right?

And for me, when I when all aspects of my life are in order, meaning I'm eating super clean, everything all all my goals and visions and everything is is running smooth. I'm I'm spending very little time rectifying the past because I've designed my present future experience with such intention, I'm dealing with very little disruption that then I eventually go beyond just being proactive to this magnetic state and I know you've experienced this before because this is when your everything is going at operating at such a level that answers start coming to you without you asking the questions.

It is the law of attraction that that's the unexplainable force that lives in the quantum field where your energy is at such a high level, you are so clear of not only being present and experiencing but creating your better future and you rise to this you vibrate to this level to where the answers show up and you never ask the questions, right? And for me I'm trying to master all aspects of my existence to where I basically sit in that state of toggling between future present and proactive and magnetic at all times.

Oh my god. It's a deep one. Oh no, bro. Okay, that's an all-timer right there. It's a deep one. I I want everyone to go back the last five or six minutes there. That's an all-timer. Um when we talk I always filter it through my life and my perspective. I just realized something cuz I do know what that vibrational frequency feels like. When I am getting answers to questions I haven't even asked. It's not frequent enough. And the And the reason it's not frequent enough is I'm depleting my energy reserves to not put myself in a state where I can have that type of energy and what I call vibrate at that frequency.

Yeah. And you're exactly right. And that's the other reason why rest, recovery being present matters. I just really pulled something here. This I just really did. But let me say this. Every single thing matters. Every thought, every action, every decision, every single thing that you do is interconnected to to get you to that space. And and for me it's like I think I'll have a glass of wine. I'll have a couple chips. It it it will pull away from that. I'll make it I'll make one bad decision from eating bad that will then cause me to be short with my wife that leads to this entire pull pulls me right out of the magnetic state, right?

Because it's like even when you're there it's really sensitive and you could just get one thought that could rip you out of that. You could look at one text it could rip you out of that, right? It's like and so that requires really really understanding every single bit of you and then giving value to everything you do rather than trying to like pocket your values. Oh, if I eat healthy. Oh, if I'm stay focused. Oh, if I clear out this stuff. Oh, if I rest or recovery versus like no, it is all works together to make the best version of you.

How committed are you? How disciplined are you to live at at the level that you know you have to live at at a consistent enough basis that it becomes to compound effortlessly and become a way of life rather than getting disciplined again. Hmm, that's really what it is, you know. Well, for me I burn myself out going from those states to the good state back to the bad state. I'm still having wine with you at dinner tonight, but um I know exactly what you're talking about and I I everybody you all hear the show every single week.

It's pretty rare that I'm this quiet because I just I I really process a lot of information when you and I go like this. It's good for me. I'm already thinking of stuff I'm going to say and I'm going to teach that I'm going to steal that I'm going to make mine. 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 self-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 if it'll be out or not by the time you see this, but what I talk about in 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, we could draw a line for almost all of us.

Some of us it happened much later in life. Some of us it 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?

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 in 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. 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 if 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've figured out. You know, as a person of faith, I believe in the adversary or we 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 can tell you that I believe the adversary or the devil attacks us in our thoughts. And when 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 in 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, 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, now 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. You need to begin to separate your behavior sometimes and your choices and or 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, it doesn't matter, right? I can 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 do 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 speech, 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, interacting with anybody about trying to make a point, talking about our faith, our politics, whatever it is, the more certain person always has influence over the less one.

So, the less certain person is 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'm constantly reading. I mean, all of 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, oftentimes 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 so-and-so said, look at this thing here. Look how much the competitors are doing it wrong. Look at 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 will beat themselves up. Here's what they lack. 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 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 or 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 like 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. Uh 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 as the pressure increased, their certainty level about their decision-making 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. 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 of 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 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-talk leads to self-thoughts and by the way, vice versa.

Negative self-thoughts lead to negative self-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 the 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 ourselves exactly what we're thinking about. So, if you're thinking something negative about yourself, and I know many of you say, "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 were 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 have 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. Right? And some of you listening this 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. 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 self-love is never to be honest with yourself where 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 tail 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. It's 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. Oh, 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-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.

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." Hypercritical of oneself doesn't work. I can tell you that 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 choose 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.

And what if the person closest to you was your own biggest enemy? Or at a minimum wasn't even your biggest 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 in 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 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 was that 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. 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 makes you emotional. And the reason that it makes you emotional is they saw the real 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. 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.

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