Why Your Environment Dictates Your Future Success | Ed Mylett

Key Takeaway

Do a 30-minute environment audit today. List the five people you spend the most time with and rate whether each person strengthens your belief, points you toward the future, raises your standards, and gives you energy. Do not default to cutting people off; instead, reduce proximity to relationships that repeatedly pull you backward and deliberately spend time in places where growth-oriented people gather. Your habits and goals are far easier to sustain when your environment reinforces them.

Episode Overview

Ed Mylett argues that environment—especially the people closest to you—shapes your standards, energy, identity, and future more powerfully than motivation alone. He explains how to assess relationships, reduce the proximity of influences that reinforce old patterns, and build reciprocal connections with people who challenge and support your growth. Guest excerpts reinforce the same message through accountability, persistence, self-belief, and choosing environments that allow potential to flourish.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Why Your Environment Dictates Your Future Success | Ed Mylett from The Ed Mylett Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

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Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT Work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT Work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans. This is The Ed Milet Show. Hey everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show.

Be sure to follow The Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. So I get asked all the time, how in the world did you go from having no running water in your apartment to living on the water, to living oceanfront, to have another home that's lakefront, how does somebody go from changing their conditions that dramatically in a pretty short window of time? And a lot of different things went into that.

A lot of it was blessing, a lot of it was a lot of hard work, all kinds of mental changes that I made. But there's one area that I've not talked a lot about that I want to cover today that I think you need to know if you want to change the conditions of your life that way as well. So when the water got turned off, you know what I had to do? I had to look around my life. I really had to take an inventory, not just of me, but what was around my life.

And the fact of the matter was, I did not have the right people in my life. I didn't have the people who believed in me. I didn't have the people who supported my vision. I didn't have people who made me want to be better in my life. I had a few, but I didn't have enough. I had too many people in my life that have just always been in my life. They always accepted me for who I was. And that acceptance, that lack of belief in me, that lack of standard got me all the way to where I couldn't even pay a water bill.

I didn't even have a car. Never mind electricity for a while. And so it's very dangerous. It was very dangerous for me, for who I allowed just to support my limiting thinking, who I had around me. They weren't bad people. There's very few bad people. They just weren't people who were going to get me going in my life where I knew I needed to go, where I was born to go. I had read all the books on personal development. I learned about influence. Kind of learned how to change my state, how to think differently.

Been to a lot of the events that you go to. Why is it that so many people go to all these self-improvement, personal development, business events? They get all excited when they're there. They're ready to conquer the world. Then they get back home and life very slowly starts to drift back to normal. And that's because environment overrides almost everything in our lives. That's why. And so the reason you're so excited when you're at the event, the reason you're ready to conquer the world is the environment supports what you're doing.

And so I had to start to address my environment. And environment is the place you are, but most importantly in your environment is the people that are around you. Because write this down, number one. In our lives, the most powerful force that I'm aware of in the world is to be consistent and congruent with the expectations of our peer group. Let me say that to you again. The most powerful force on earth is we become consistent with the expectations of our peer group. You're going to get out of life what the people around you expect of you.

And so I had to begin to address who were the people around me and specifically what was the environment that I was in. Because number two, proximity is power. The closer somebody is to you, the more influence they have over you. That's why your personal relationship that you're in is something that must be evaluated at all given times. And people ask me, how do I get more spouse support or partner support, boyfriend or girlfriend support? I don't know that you're always going to get more support, and I don't even know that that's needed.

But one thing that's a foundation of all relationships is does this person believe in me? Most people love us. That's one thing. If we're in a relationship, we kind of feel a level of love. But the deeper question is do they truly believe in me? And when I started to evaluate my friends that were around me, if I asked myself, were they supporting where I wanted to go in my life? Not that they didn't love me or like me. In fact, what most of us do is we love to have people around us who accept us.

We say, I want people to accept me as I am. And there's a benefit to that. There's a huge negative as well. If people are constantly accepting this version of you, there's nothing compelling you to go to the next version. There's no stimulus that says I better change. There's no discomfort. Because these people closest to us, their proximity has influence over us. So number one thing I want you to ask yourself is do the people around me believe in me? And if they don't, that needs to be evaluated.

People say, well, then what do I do? Do I get rid of them? Well, maybe in some case. I mean, if they're antagonistic to you, certainly. But what you have to do is begin to add people in your proximity who do believe in you or who will believe in you. And if they don't believe in you, perhaps they don't need to be eliminated from your life. But one thing you may need to do is start to reduce their proximity to you. Maybe they're not as close to you as they used to be.

I've had to do that many times in my life where I've had to eliminate a few people from my life, but very few. This is so critical to you becoming successful because your environmental gain is more important even than your mental gain because it's what supports it. And so I want you to evaluate a few things. Do they believe in me? Number two, are they a past or future reference type friend? In other words, when you're around them, what do you find yourself talking the most about?

Is it the past or the future? I want to be around people who are constantly talking about either the present, but most importantly, the future. In other words, I want people who are present with me so that when they're with me, we're together. You know you have those friends too who are constantly not present even though they're in your presence. We don't want that either. But if people are constantly taking me in the past frame of reference, old stories, old things, remember when, high school, college, previous date, previous vacation, previous business, remember when, constantly, you know, they're just always reminiscing.

Or are they projecting me into the future? If at least 75% of your conversations aren't about the future with the people that you're around, these are not people supporting your future, they're supporting your past. They're reinforcing your past. The more we talk about something, the more we reinforce its importance in our life. And so this is a very subtle thing, and I think even as I say it, you're going, whoa, they do love me. I think they might believe in me, but man, we talk about the past all the time.

Well, this is somebody who's going to reinforce that state of your life. You need to add people to your proximity who are discussing the future with you. You know, you've heard about triggers before, where you can learn in personal development that, you know, you snap your fingers, you put yourself in a state, or you walk, you hear a song, it's a trigger, isn't it? You hear a song from some point in your life, it triggers a memory. Or a song you love right now, it triggers you wanting to work out or move your body.

So things are triggers. People are also triggers. And if there are people in your life, just by their proximity, trigger events that are prior in your life that didn't serve you. Just by being around them, they're a trigger. Humans are triggers. Do you have people that just when you see them, they trigger peace for you. They trigger joy. They trigger abundance. They trigger competing. They trigger intensity. They trigger belief. They trigger confidence. They trigger your desire to grow. Ask yourself what triggers these people are in your life.

What do they trigger in you? And you start to look at these things, you're going, wow. We have this group of friends who, they accept me, but I don't know if they believe in me. Then I've got this other group of friends where they believe in me, but we're always talking about the past. And then you know what? They kind of trigger these states of sort of comfort or average in me. Who do I have that's triggering my desire to grow? Who makes me uncomfortable? Who do I have like, I kind of clean up the house before they come over.

Who do I have where I get excited when I see them because not every conversation is the same. I don't know where it's going to go. You should have those people that accept you in your life. There's nothing wrong with that. It's an important thing. But you should have these other people who really don't accept this version of you. They believe in you so greatly, so much, that they don't accept this version of you. They don't accept this performance from you. They don't accept this level of happiness, abundance, joy, performance from you because they know how much more you're capable of.

Who do you have like that in your life? And the reason that that matters so deeply for us is because, and I want you to write this down, we get our standards in life. We don't always get our goals. We don't always even get what we focus on. We end up ultimately getting what our standards are. Standards dictate everything in life. And the people around us help create that standard. For example, I was at a birthday party last night and the people sitting around me were all very fit people and dessert came.

It was birthday cake time. And I probably, normally, would have probably had that piece of cake. But the first three people that were asked have this standard for how they eat in their life and when their cheat days are, their cheat meals are, and all three people passed on it. And immediately, almost through peer pressure, I went, no, I'll pass too. And then my buddy goes, dude, it's okay, have a piece. And I said, no, no, no, man, it's good. That standard alters us in every little area.

Now that's an obvious example, but we're going to get our standards, our standards of wealth, our standards of faith, our standards of abundance. And the people in our proximity help set the standard based on what theirs are in their life. So the people around you, evaluate next. What are the standards they help you set in your life? The other thing we win with is energy. And so ask yourself this. Is this person in my life an energy giver or an energy drainer? This is massive. So when you're talking to them, do they feed you energy?

You know, there's that one number where it shows up on your phone and you're like, oh, oh. You know that conversation, that text, is going to be an energy drain. This person's proximity to your life is stealing some things from you. I'm not saying you shouldn't have people in your life who you're supporting and you're helping, because we're going to talk about that next. But if the vast majority of people around you are energy neutral or energy drainers, what do you think that's doing to your environment that you're supporting yourself with?

Or, on the contrary, is this someone who gives you energy, feeds your belief, makes you stronger, gives you that juice in your life? Because all of these things, these people around us, all these evaluations, they're creating our environment so that it'll support our thinking, it'll support the changes we're making, it'll support our goals. This is supported by scripture as well, Proverbs 27, 17, as iron sharpens iron, so does one person sharpen another. And so one of the obvious questions about this is, if someone is lower energy for me or is a past reference person or a trigger that doesn't support me or they don't believe in me or they only accept me as I am, if you have some of these issues, what do you do with them?

I'll give you three things. I don't think you just eliminate people from your lives. It's not that hardcore a thing because this is more about adding the right people than it is eliminating people, but it is reducing their proximity. And so I think with people in your life that aren't supporting you the way you want to, number one, I would recommend you be kind to them. Be kind in your conversations with them. You don't have to become mean to them or adversarial to them, and I don't even think you need to let them know this.

Number two, I think you need to be cordial, but I will tell you that you begin to become three, which is concise. Your dialogue with them begins to be concise. Their proximity to you begins to shrink. And these are things people say, gosh, that's so difficult. Well, do you want to be happier? Do you want to win? I mean, you've already tried the other things, right? You've already started to write goals down. You're already working on yourself. You've already got some habits that you're working on.

Maybe this is the area. Perhaps this is the area. Those of you that have children, this is an audio or video they should be watching or listening to. Their school teachers influence them. That's their mentors. That's like what we're doing right now, right? But who really has influence over your children? Who really sculpts who they are? It's their friends, and it's their closest friends. That's why parents guard those associations so vigilantly, the good parents do, because they know the proximity of these kids around their children are going to influence ultimately who they become.

Our lives begin to have a pace that's different than when we're young, but the same exact thing is true for us. These people closest to us dictate who we become. It's not our mentors like our school teachers. They have some influence. I have influence, hopefully with you, but not the same as the people that you're texting with when you're done listening to this. Not the same as who you're having dinner with tonight. Not the same as who you have lunch, who you're around at work, who you're around in the evening, who you socialize with, right?

They have the greatest form of influence over you, because in your life, you're trying to build this library of memories, aren't you? And in your mind right now, these memories are going to be different. They're different places, different experiences, different things, right? Different moments, different achievements, different breakthroughs, different feelings. With the same people? With the same people. With the same people, you are likely to build the same types of memories over and over again. So if you love your life right now, if everything in your life is rich, and you don't want it to change, and you don't want it to grow, and you'd like to keep repeating these memories you're getting now, well, then by all means, keep these people very close to you and add people as you go.

But if there's this part of this, I want to change the memories. I don't want the next 10 years of my life, the feelings, the experiences, the accomplishments, the places I see, moments I have. So all I'm asking you to do today is do an audit on your environment. I want you to audit the people around you in your environment and the things around you in your environment. What do you have around you in your environment? Are your goals up on a board? Do you have visualizations?

Are you reading things that you can see visually in your life? Are you listening to the right things? These are all part of your environment, but the most important thing are the people that are inside that environment that are around you. And so that's how you eliminate. Now, adding people to your life. The best way to do that is to seek out, go to places where they are. So, I mean, where do they have lunch? Where do they have coffee? Where do they work out? Where do they worship?

Go to the places where these people that you think could help you to become good friends and just become a part of that environment. And the more you're in the environment, you'll end up meeting people. It's a strategy. It's work to add people to your life. I can tell you that I work very hard at this. I also believe in the law of reciprocity. You don't just ask somebody to be your friend. You find a way that you can contribute. You want to become a friend of mine, say, how can I help you?

How can I serve you? Just offer whatever you have. You say, well, I don't have anything to offer people. You'd be surprised. Could you offer me your belief in me? Could you offer me your truth? Could you offer me your prayers? Could you offer me your support? These are real gifts you give people. Not all of them need to be knowledge and breakthroughs and an example and a track record. You'd be surprised someone like myself what just your belief means to me, your support means to me.

And I'm the type of person, the people you want in your life, when I feel like you've given me something, I feel obligated, obligated to pay you back even more. And so the way you add people to your life is with the law of reciprocity. Reciprocity put yourself in environments where they are and begin to offer your belief your kindness your support your love Maybe it is your collaborations. Maybe it is your connections Maybe it is a talent or skill you have but it doesn't have to be those things when I was a young person I ended up adding people to my life that were much more successful than me much more well-known than me But you know what as I got to know them, I think they sense this person truly believes in me They truly care about me.

This is a real friend You have those people in your life as well where they don't necessarily have the all the experience to support you But they really believe in you. They really love you And then the last thing I want to ask you today is because for you to add these people to your life What I just said is the most important thing. How do you show up in people's lives? How do you show up in people's lives right now? Are you that person? That's an energy giver or drainer?

Are you a future frame of reference or the past? Do you help your friends set high standards or the acceptable standards? They already have right. Are you someone who deeply believes in people and they know it or you just kind of accept them as they are These are the things you begin to ask you of how are you showing up in other people's lives? Because that'll have an awful lot to do with who shows up in your life How do you show up in other people's lives?

And if you begin to evaluate these things your environment slowly But surely will begin to support your mental game will be supported by your environmental game And why is that so important because I want to remind you about something you were born to do Something great with your life. You were put here to do something special all your life Since you're a little boy or a little girl There was some point in your life Where you knew you were supposed to do something great that you were put here for a reason that you've got a calling that you've Got a home in your life You're eventually gonna find where you're living the real true authentic version of you your best version You know, you're supposed to do something great with your life And right now if you're listening to this or you watch this, maybe you're not quite there yet And maybe it's your thinking maybe it's some tactics and strategies and habits, which I cover all the time on this show Maybe it's all the mental stuff, but more than likely it's the environmental stuff.

It's the standards It's the people around you to believe in you It's not just having people that accept you because you want to do something so great with your life I have this theory that many of you heard that when I die someday I Believe I want the Lord to say well done good and faithful servant But I have this hallucination as many of you know that when I die the Lord's gonna do that and he's gonna turn around and Say Eddie, I want you to meet the man.

I made you to be when I made you in my image in likeness This is the destiny version of you This is the man you were born to be and that guy's gonna be standing there and I want to meet him and go I've been Chasing you all my life man, and he's gonna say boy you caught me you did it I'm proud of you You had all the memories all the moments all the contribution all the feelings all the difference all of in your life You made it all happen.

You became the man you were born to be we're identical twins to me That's heaven when I pass away heaven as I meet the man I was born to be and we're identical twins hell would be that you'd meet that person and you're total strangers You're total strangers that woman someday when you die and you meet the woman you could have been and you're total strangers You went down different paths different roads different decisions your entire life, and you never become that woman You never become that man to me.

That's hell So if it's that important to you that you've always known it maybe it got buried as you got older Maybe life sort of kicked us around a little bit to where not everyone in our life believed it And then maybe our parents our friends our school teachers just life started to happen and we forget who we are We forget who we are and you know why you forget who you are because of the people that have been in your damn life Because they haven't supported that great version of you when you were really little you knew it you felt it because you were closer to God at that time and the more and more people were added to your life They began to treat you in such a way that they didn't expect those things of you And maybe you've started to accept that So if it's people that created these limiting beliefs created this anxiety created this fear created this Thing about us where we forget our greatness if it's people who did this to us It's people who are gonna help us get out of it if it's the environment that stole this joy stole this belief stole this confidence from Us stole this sense of purpose from us and passion.

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That's W-a-y-f-a-i-r Dot-com very short intermission here folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify links are in the show notes now on to our next guest All right. Welcome back to the program everybody I'm so excited to have this man here today because I've been a fan of his work for a long time but as I started to research him I became a bigger fan of the man behind the microphone what he stands for and And his story in his life.

I think there's gonna be an amazing amount of lessons on life and success and Abundance here today. He's got a new special out. That is hilarious on Netflix called the good old days He also happens to be the number one seller of comedy albums in the history of the planet Earth like of ever So that's kind of a big deal But I'm more impressed with the kind of man husband and father that he is as I've learned more about him So Jeff Foxworthy, welcome to the show brother.

I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me And one of the things you talked about that every time that is don't make the big mistakes What are some of those help us help us avoid them or what you see is some of the big mistakes. What does that mean? well, I You know most of the time when when we go off the road and blow our lives up We don't take a 90-degree turn off the road. We don't just turn it's like that slow drift you know, and so the big mistakes are Having the affair that blows your family up.

Well, you don't just Walk in one day and see somebody go. Hey you want to? You want to screw lady? Yeah, it's it's you start hanging out with them. Then you start You know making sexual references with them and then you joke and then you start being left alone with them and so it's that slow It's not that 90-degree turn. You're just kind of breaking little bitty trust along the way, you know, and I Man, we're all good. We're all fallible. I mean, I'm I have such the potential to do that that I got all I Got to put up a little guardrail for myself to go now can't do that.

Can't can't be alone with them. Can't Because it's the big mistake I used to tell my kids that don't make the big mistakes don't don't get in a car with somebody that's drunk driving because You you can die from this or you can be crippled from this or you know Those are the life changers, you know, don't get pregnant when you're in the in the 10th grade Because I want you to have a full life. Not that having a baby is not a wonderful thing But there's a season for that and this ain't it Do you think this group so there's two groups with you though?

so you got the group that you lead before kovat with the the Homeless folks and that's just beautiful work. You've done and that grew to from like a few to like a hundred people I think right so started with 12. Yeah. Well, not interesting that I started with 12 Ironically, yeah, what an interesting number But it grew but I think the other thing for me has been who I'm around As my friendship circle and this power of association people don't take it seriously enough If you really look at the lives of the five people you're around the most I mean really look at they're not just their material success But you know their their bliss their happiness their peace right their contribution like really evaluate them Their emotional maturity is an other thing like people won't be around people that accept them.

These people accept me as I am I don't want people. I want to have a few friends. I'm like, hey, let's pick up before they come over I want to have a few friends. We're like we laugh our tails off But I'm kind of accountable to them too, right? Like that to me has been huge and I have to think for you to have this kind of longevity and not make the big Mistakes there's this other group that I think you meet with on Thursdays or used to That like has been in your life forever So discuss this because it may not be a Bible study for everybody most some people might not want to read the Bible Some people may not be people of faith, but having a group right so talk about that a little bit Yeah, it's having a having a group of guys You know and I don't mean the sexist at all But for me it was having a group of guys that you could be accountable to That you could that some guy could look at you and go.

Hey dudes. I'm struggling at home right now, man I'm you know I've been flirting with this girl at work where somebody else can speak some wisdom until you go to be careful Because you're gonna mess this whole thing up. You're not gonna have your kids. And so yeah, there was a group We met for breakfast Thursday mornings in a bar back of a barbecue restaurant for 18 years And so what we did was we did life together, you know when somebody was having kids then you're sitting there like Praying that night man, please please let this kid be safe Please let the mom be safe when somebody's mom died you're there with them if for no other reason just I'm here You know why you bury your mom, but we were doing life together going through work struggles together And I think it's real important in your life.

We weren't created To live in isolation, that's what that's been the really weird thing with kovat is is this isolation? I saw a study where they were they were studying people that lived in isolation, but had totally healthy habits I mean like a vegan exercised every day and all The people that lived in community like had that group of friends didn't matter if they smoked drank whatever they lived longer and happier lives than the people that That lived in isolation no matter what their health habits were because we weren't create you need people around you I always said Elvis needed somebody around him to go Drop the cape and the hat stop stop.

You're acting like an idiot stop Michael Jackson needed somebody to go dude, don't be taking this stuff to go to sleep stop Yes, and you need people speaking truth into your life and and the people that are telling you what you want to hear That's not your friends. Your friends are telling are the people that are telling you things that you don't necessarily want to hear You know to go hey, buddy, I love you, but you need to be careful here You need to watch this.

And so you need people that care that love you enough to speak truth to you. Yeah. Yeah So good. Yeah, I last question. It's actually I hope I hope you remember this story or this analogy so I've been around faith all my life and Well, not all my life. That's not right, but I've been around faith most of my adult life and Very rarely does somebody say something at Erwin McManus who's a pastor on my show He was a pastor. He came on my show and he said something I had never heard before that stuck with me Which is that all other faiths about are basically about what you need to do to get to God And he said what I love about my Christian Christian faith is that my faith is all about what Jesus did to get to me And it just has always stuck with me.

It's that's that stayed on my heart There's a second time and it happened yesterday and it came from you So there's pressure on you to remember this but you talked about we've all sinned in our lives guys. We've all made mistakes and We carry this stuff with us because we do want to be better people we should try to aspire to be better We should try to Do good in our lives. That's the whole we were put here to do something great with our lives But we fail often and it was the defense attorney analogy, do you remember that?

Please tell me that you remember it because I do I do remember that and it's not gonna leave me Jeff So would you just share that with everybody in the last couple minutes here that whole concept and thought? And and so here's the other thing yet So for me that there's a lot of things that happen in organized religion that I'm not a fan of it all right here but I'm but I'm but I'm really big on faith and and it's this one the amazing thing about it to me is it's not Based on how good we are because you said we all make mistakes.

I hell I'm gonna make them today I'm gonna make them tomorrow and no matter how bad in my heart. I don't want to do it. I'm gonna make them So it's not based on how good I am it's how good he is and so What what and that's what happened at the cross was was he goes hey, I love you enough that there's got to be justice for all this Bad stuff that you've done, but I'm gonna pay the price for it. And so being the visual guy It's like sitting in a court and they're going through your life and going All right and what about the you know the time you drove drunk and you know had sex with your buddy sister in the back of your Car and and and it's I just depicted the defense attorneys just being Jesus, and he stands up, holds up that hand with a hole in it, and he goes, I already paid for that.

And what about the time you do this? I already paid for that. You know, and that's, what is, what about that is not attractive to somebody? To be loved, because that's, that's what we all want. And as a comic, you're always looking, what do we have in common? We all want to be loved. We all want to be heard. But we all want to be significant. You know, we all, we want to mean something. We all search for significance. And to me, then the story of Jesus is, he goes, not only do you mean something to me, you mean everything to me.

You meant, I let him do this. And I could have just held up my hand and a band of angels was, I let him do, I let him beat me and I let him nail me to a cross because I love you this much. So you don't mean something, you mean everything to me. And I, and, and, and, and this is not, I'm not a preachy guy. And if you don't have faith, you and I still be friends and we still hang out, we still laugh.

You know, this is just for me. This is, this is my lane and, and it works and, and, and I, and I, and I don't want to sit in judgment of anybody's faith or lack of it. It's not my job. This, I'm just telling you my story. Yeah. I love your story and I'm, I could feel it right now. My audience wish we were going another hour, but you got a busy day and I enjoyed this 10 out of 10 tremendously brother. I think you're right.

And I love your heart for other people to want to mentor, to, you know, to, it's, it's like holding, helping somebody else hold their heavy rock, you know, to go here, man, give me that side of it. I'll help you hold it for a minute. And that's, I think that's awesome that you just got a heart to mentor people that way. Thank you brother. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Milet show on Apple and Spotify links are in the show notes.

Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. All right, welcome back everybody. It's not every day you sit a couple of feet away from an icon, from a mogul and somebody and you're growing up that you admired so much from a distance to be able to come up close and meet them and feel their spirit is really an honor for me. And uh, the man that I'm going to talk with today that I'm going to share to the rest of the world, this conversation with is a rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, unbelievably successful entrepreneur.

The thing I'm most impressed with him though, is uh, how he is as a father. It's the thing that stood out the most to me. And so most of you know him as Master P, but his real name is Percy Miller. And I'm so grateful to get to know Percy today. So Percy, welcome to the show. I'm glad to be here, man. It's so good to have you. What about who you surround yourself with? What do you think about that topic? I really believe that, and I'll say this to you respectfully, I think in a lot of different communities that message is not communicated strong enough about, because particularly when you grow up in an environment, I would imagine, I can only imagine where not everything around you is great.

Right? It's so easy to grab onto groups of people that don't serve you, that aren't doing the right things, that don't think the right things. And even in everyday life, no matter who you are, I think you are who you surround yourself with. I think it's a huge influence on people. Is it true? Do you believe that? Yeah, because think about it, right? Most people look for followers. How many people look for leaders? Because a follower is going to tell you whatever you want to hear.

That's right. So you all should know right there. Man, leave that alone. Don't be afraid to cut people off that don't mean you no good. I don't care who they are, family members, friends, could have been around, because my thing is I like everybody has 24 hours. Most people want you to be successful until you're successful. That's when they hate you. That's when the jealousy kick in, the self-hate kick in, because nobody wants you to get there before them. You're right. Think about it. I grew up in a project.

You think people in a project wanted to see me make it instead of saying, you know what? This kid made it out here. He one of us. No, man. Well, he ain't all that, really. So you know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing like on repeat all the time? That sweater that kind of just goes with everything, or these perfect pair of pants? Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere organic cotton.

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Code ED10 at I-M-8 health dot com slash ed 10. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. I was the best person I could be when I was there, and I represented the way I need to represent. I was an A student. Were you really? Yeah. I grew up in the hood. I didn't want what everybody else wanted. Even though I know this is my environment, I was thinking, I live in a mansion, because I know that's why I was going there.

Why they was thinking, oh, I live in a ghetto. I'm going to die here. I'm like, no, I'm not about to die here. I'm about to make it out here, because I already seen it, that I'm supposed to be living in a mansion. I'm already dreaming big, thinking outside the box, looking at something else. I'm not looking at these bad conditions and thinking, oh, this is for me. I'm like, no, this ain't for me. I wasn't supposed to be here. I'm here because of my family that came before me, but now I need to break this curse.

People don't realize these curses are generational, especially when you come out of poverty. The only way you could break it is you have to do it. You got to be the one. I've always looked at my grandparents and told them, look, I'm going to get us a body. That was before- How old were you when you would tell them something like that? Seven years old. Oh my gosh. Seven years old. I used to tell my grandparents, my grandmother said, baby, don't worry about it. We going to be all right.

I said, no, grandma, I'm going to get us a body. I always thought it was basketball. I worked on my game to get to college. I wasn't even thinking about the NBA, even though I know I wanted to make it to the NBA, but I'm like, look, if I get education, then I'll be able to do something. I'll be able to get some better resources. When I got to college, my coach was like, why are you so happy, son? I said, coach, I've been sleeping on the floor all my life.

I never had a bed. I got my own bed when I went to college, but I never was angry and upset. I'm like, that motivated me. I'm going to change this. My grandmother had 12 kids. Me and my brother, that's 16 people in a three-bedroom project, but we was happy. We had the best, neatest house in the ghetto. Whenever the mayor or something come, they come look at our house. We had grass. We had flowers in the backyard. We wasn't living like we was in the ghetto.

Our mindset, and that come from my grandfather. When you look at the military thing with No Limit, with the camouflage, my grandfather always told me, because he fought in the Vietnam War, and he said, son, they were supposed to give me 10 grand when I come back, so I could go put down payment on the house, and they didn't do it. He said, son, you have to start your own arm, and you have to get your own business. That's where my company came from, No Limit.

That's where the whole camouflage came from. My grandfather, the big daddy, Claude Miller, and so that's how I built my brand. With the whole camouflage and the No Limit thing, No Limit Soldiers, that's where it started from. Then my grandfather passed. I was with him, and he died in the VA hospital where they gave him some blood thinner medicine for another patient. My grandmother ended up getting $280,000 on a life insurance thing, and she gave everybody in the family $10,000. I took my $10,000 and opened up No Limit Records, the retail store.

At 19? At 19. That last couple of minutes is one of my favorite minutes of my life, just hearing that. Sorry. I'm just picturing you as a seven-year-old little boy, and look what you've turned into. When a lot of people didn't believe. I'm sure almost nobody believed. That's what this is about. You don't have to wait for them to believe. When I started my record business on the music side of this, you got Tupac, you got all these great artists. I'm in the radio station trying to get my song played.

I bring my record up, and I'm from the South, but I live in California. I sound country. I got body, body. Nobody understand me but me. Tupac, like, you about to get this played? I said, yeah, man, I'm about to get this played, right? I get up in there. The program director said, what you have, P? I said, body, body. He said, what is that? I said, man, it's a hit, Eli, man. This don't work here, P. He said, bring me something next week. Something better.

I'll come back next week. He said, what you have? I said, body, body. He said, didn't I tell you to bring me something else? I said, yes, sir. I'll bring you something next week. Come back the next week. What you have? I said, body, body. Come back the next week, body, body. He said, man, I can't play. I said, can you just put it on one time and let the people hear it? If they don't like it, I'll never come back again. He said, all right, just to get you from out of here, I'm going to put it on.

The people called in and said, man, I love that record, body, body. That's how my career blew up. I also was on tour with Tupac. I'm there with the lights on. Don't be afraid to start with humble beginnings. That's why I'm so humble now, because I started with humble beginnings. Nobody gave me nothing. I had to work for it, so I appreciate it. That's the message we got to give to the next generation. Appreciate every opportunity. Go create opportunities. I'm on stage when the lights on.

Everybody coming to see me, they're waiting for Tupac. I see one guy. I'm singing my song, body, body. One guy jumping up. I don't know if he's drunk or what. This guy jamming. I walk off the stage, 30,000 people, and walk to this guy and give him a No Limit t-shirt. I said, you like that? He said, man, I love it. My brother's standing next to me. He said, man, why are you so happy? I said, I got one. He said, you got one of what?

I said, a fan. I said, I'm going to turn that into a million. He said, yeah, right. I turned that. We even sold over 100 million records independently today. And that's how God works. It's nothing but God because not stopping, not giving up. People ask me, how bad do you want to be successful? As bad as I want to breathe. Oh my gosh. I'm sitting here. I have to be honest with you. It's a little bit of an out-of-body experience for me. This is Master P telling me that he gave a dude a shirt.

He was happy to get his first fan. The other part of me is like, there's going to be hundreds of millions of people sharing these clips. This is some of the best clips in the history of the planet. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show.

Ed Milet. Jamie. It is such an honor to interview you on your show. This has never been done before. You in the hot seat. Yeah. We're flipping the script and are you ready? I'm ready. I feel like I'm in great hands with my dear friend here. So let's do this. Can you share with everyone this story? I feel like someone needs to hear this today about your first grade teacher. Yeah. Mrs. Smith. Yes. So yeah. I'll even elaborate on it a little bit. So I had no confidence at all and I was getting picked on.

This is what I think happened. Mrs. Smith was just a super really kind lady and we had moved to the town that we were in then. And I was also a new kid on top of being small, on top of being Eddie spaghetti, on top of being insecure, on top of leaving many mornings where my dad maybe didn't come home the night before or there was this turmoil the night before and I'm just leaving that house. This little dude, I wish I could go back and hug him, you know, which my mom did a lot of by the way.

And so she knew that I just had no self esteem and I believe she orchestrated this entire thing. But we were doing testing like for grades and stuff for the next grades. And she purposely had, I believe she purposely did this for me. She had someone come in the back of the room and say, Mrs. Smith, we need your smartest student to come take a test to represent the class. And I could see the person in the back. I heard them. And I watched Mrs. Smith go, that's Eddie my lad, I would pick Eddie, he's the smart boy.

And she picks me and I remember going, Oh my gosh, she thinks I'm the smart boy. And I just looked at her and she smiled at me. And I remember just lighting up. And then the person goes, okay, then Eddie, my lead, you need to come with us. And I stood up and it was the first time ever in my life that I was like, I'm special. This is special. And I walked up and went to the back and I took the test and I guess I did well.

But when I came back in, I didn't say this on the last time I told this, when I came back in at the end of the day, the class was over and Mrs. Smith said, Eddie, can you come up here for me? And I came up and she hugged me and she goes, you're so special and so smart. You're the smartest boy. And she just like hugs. on me for a minute, and it really changed my life a lot. It changed my life, because that was the first time I was like, well, maybe they're wrong.

Maybe I am smart. Maybe I am special. And this beautiful soul knew exactly what she was doing. She orchestrated all that. She knew there was this child, I think she had this sense, something was going on in my home, because kids don't come like that to school, that shy, that timid, unless something's wrong at the house. And I'm telling you the truth, that I've thought about that like hundreds, maybe thousands of times in my life, that event in my life. What a beautiful, beautiful soul she was.

So that's Mrs. Smith. It's one of those people, you know, in your life, when you close your eyes and you go, there's this handful of humans that make you feel special, make you feel loved and cared for and believed in. And she's on that highlight reel of like maybe three or four human beings in my entire 51 years. And the reason that that's important is because I've tried really hard in my life to be that person for other people, that they go, he loves me, he cares about me, maybe even as important, he believes in me.

And then you show people how to live a little better. That's exactly what she did. She was a super, super special person. And little did she know that little first grade dude would, you know, be on a show with you today. You know, last night when we were talking on the phone about this idea about how many people don't feel seen. And I'm just imagining like the power, right, of her seeing you. First time anyone saw me, I was telling you last night that a lot of my work in my life has been, I don't know why it makes me so emotional, but a lot of my work in my life has been about helping people that perform pretty well, perform their best.

And the more and more I've been doing what I do, the more it's occurring to me that that's my role is a little different. And that is that there's millions and millions and millions of people, maybe more than ever in the world that were like the first grader, me, but they're 30 years old. They're 35 years old. They're 40 years old. They're 22 years old. And they don't believe they're important. They don't believe they're valuable. They don't know what their role in the world is. They walk in a room and no one knows them.

No one acknowledges them. No one sees them. And more and more and more, our culture's making that prevalent. And then worse, sometimes we're mean to one another or hurtful to one another. And I really feel like the remaining part of my life is to help people know that they are seen, that they are important, that they do matter, that they do have something to give. My sister's here watching this, my baby sister, who's runs all my businesses. My middle sister is hugely successful as well. She's not on Instagram.

She's not wealthy. She's born with diabetes. She's basically blind. She can't drive anymore. But she's changing the world every day. And what she does is she's a school teacher at a Christian school. She doesn't make any money, any real money. But every day, she's using the gifts God gave her, her two or three gifts, which are her kindness, her ability to teach, her gentle nature. She's also really tiny and short, right? So she's the same height as the students. Like, she was made for this job.

And she helps little children feel seen and important. And guess what? She's seen and important. And I want people to know that you do matter. You're not invisible. You count. You were born to do something great with your life in big ways, what people think are big and what people think are small ways. But I see you. I know you see them. And I just want people to feel like, you know, our community and what I'm going to do with the rest of my life is to let you know that you matter, that you're important, that you're beautiful, that you're special, and that you were made.

God made you in his image and likeness. He literally made you in his image and likeness to do something beautiful with your life. And you may not have found it yet, but we're going to find it together, all of us together. We're going to find it for you. We're going to find it. We're going to take advantage of your great blessings and gifts that God gave you. And he did give them to you. And you need to figure out what they are, and we'll help you do that.

And I hope the book helps with that, actually, a lot, too. The book is so powerful about that. And you know, I think another powerful thing about your story and you getting to this place where you're able to articulate, like, your contribution to the world and with such clarity and granularity about how you see people and the impact you want to make, but on your journey, right? Because there's people that probably heard what you just said, like, okay, I believe it, but right now I can barely pay the rent, or right now I don't feel seen when I walk in the room.

And what I want to ask you that I think is so beautiful and relatable about your journey is you have had, you have been in a situation in your life where you're driving a car where the panels were Velcroed on, you've had your car repossessed, you've had your home, I believe, foreclosed on, you had to shower in a public shower. Can you share about that time in your life, and in that time, did you still have this sense, this sense that you had a calling, that you were going to make it even if you didn't see a way at the time?

Because I think there's people listening right now that feel like they're in that spot, and they think, okay, I meant to do something great with my life, but look at my situation. You've been there. I've been there. So, yeah, I've had all that stuff happen. The hard part for me was that, like I said earlier, I had these fears. Maybe a lot of people can relate to this. I wasn't really sure that I could do something great with my life, and then when I started to, I was like, maybe I can, and then when I'd have this setback, I'm like, I knew it.

It was a fluke, and the worst, though, was when the water got turned off. When the water got turned off, and we would have to go down to that outdoor shower. We were newly married, and take showers every morning there, and I'd hold the towel up, and Christiana would brush her teeth, and shower outside, and then she would hold it up for me, and then I'd totally emasculated in the shade. We'd walk up every morning to that apartment, and I'm trying to sell the dream, and I'm living a nightmare, right?

But I have to tell you that my faith during those times, I did actually have a little bit of a sense that, you know what? I'm going to do something great, and I got really, really, really, really close to not believing that, but my dad had this thing where when he got sober, and this just stuck with me, thank God, my dad, when he got sober, I said, Dad, are you going to stay sober the rest of your life? This is where the power of one more comes in.

My dad says, I don't know. I can tell you this. I'm going to stay sober for one more day, and so when I went through that, my dad called me. I was really broke. My dad goes, you thinking about quitting? I go, yeah, I'm close. He goes, just don't quit for one more day. He's so wise, and I didn't, and that not quitting for one more day and holding on would go to the next day and to the next day, but there were these glimpses in my life where it's like, you know what?

I may not be the smartest or the best talker. I definitely don't have the highest IQ. I'm not the tallest dude or the strongest dude or the best looking dude or any of that, but I'm not going to get outworked. I'm going to outwork you. I'm going to do one more rep in the gym. I'm going to do one more phone call. I'm going to do one more email. I'm going to do one more text, and I did have this overriding opinion, which I opened the book up with that, you know what?

I am one meeting away from changing my life. I'm one decision away. I'm one relationship away. I'm one new thought. I'm one new client. I'm one away. I never thought it was impossible, and I also really believed, here's the thing that I had advantage of. I believed in this one more stuff so strongly that I also didn't think it needed to be 25 years away either. I thought it was like, even for you, in your career, you struggled and struggled and struggled and struggled, and then, you know, the QVC moment happens, right?

And so there was this one moment, one decision, one meeting, one show, and it wasn't all the one because there's all the things you led up to that, but it was a catalyst that puts you to a new level. It catapults you to a new level, and so for me, I always was looking for that one. What's the meaning? What's the thought? What's the emotion? What's this seminar I should go to? What's the breakthrough? And I stacked up these one mores, and I did have this sense like, I am going to be the person who is pursuing these one mores much more aggressively than most other people will because I'm not the smartest, and so because I'm not, I have to outwork people, and I can control that, and I think anybody who knows me will tell you back in those days, and even now, they'd say, that dude doesn't get cheated when it comes to work.

I won't get cheated, so that humility of knowing my limitations. Some of you, they're like, I know I'm not this or that or the other, awesome. That's great. Let's leverage that into being a one more thinker, being a one more doer. Let's leverage our humility, that humility you have, which is all it really is. You're way more talented, way more gifted, way more favored than you know you are, but let's leverage the fact that you don't believe all that stuff about you. You don't have to believe all these great things about you.

What we have to do is do the right things for right now, and as we do the right things, all this evidence is going to start to appear for you one by one by one by one, and by the way, I'm not unique to that. Jamie's story's identical in just a different way, in a different form, and if you took apart most people who are successful, there are these one meetings, one relationship, one decision away from new levels all the time, and I did have a belief I would find those.

Yeah. When I read the open of your book, I instantly went to, you know, as everyone I think will do, you apply it right away to your own life, and you start thinking about where could I have done one more, where did I do one more, and it made all the difference, and the first thing I thought about was, you know, for me it was hundreds and hundreds of no's, but I learned to sort of change my relationship with rejection and just keep going for that one more, and then I eventually got that one yes, and then I eventually got the one show, and I would email and email and email, you know, trying to get into a retailer who told me I would never, right, and it's that one more email, and you don't know which one it's going to be, but when you go for that one more.

You change your relationship. Let me ask you this. You change your relationship with the one more, or with the rejection. Do you think to some extent that people, I write about this a little bit in the book, but I'm more and more believing this, do you feel like maybe you have a different relationship with pain than most people, meaning I feel like to some extent eventually, because I got a lot of pain in my life, I think my relationship with it changed, that the presence of it didn't mean necessarily I was a failure, or the presence of pain or adversity used to mean to me, see, that's proof, I'm not, but now, at some point, the presence of pain, my relationship was like, I'm going to get something from my pain.

I'm going to get pain anyway, and I talk about this a lot lately, but all pain is temporary. It's when we believe it's permanent. Nothing's permanent. My father's body, other than my father's soul, my father's body even wasn't permanent. My body's not permanent, so my father's pain in going through chemo or radiation or the surgeries wasn't permanent, and so the pain you're in, whatever it is, is not permanent. Don't make permanent decisions based on temporary pain and temporary conditions, and at some point, my relationship with pain changed just a little bit to where the presence of it, Napoleon Hill says that on the other side of pain, if you can survive the temporary, you get introduced to your other self, and that's so profound to think, this presence of pain in my life, if I can survive the temporary, on the other side of it, I meet another me, and usually, another version of your life is on the other side of it, so now when pain comes into our lives, it's not that we want it, it's not that we embrace it, but we almost dance with it differently now, because we know on the other side of this, there's another us, and you know this to be true, you've met many different versions of yourself on the other side of temporary setbacks and pain, so have I, and I hope that helps everyone.

It does, and I don't fear it anymore. Me either. I want to get really real about pain, though, you, I don't want to say inflict pain on yourself, cause pain, you're very hard on yourself, and I think that may surprise a lot of people, because you're also so inspiring and uplifting, and you just, oh my goodness, can you just pour into someone and have them just believing to the point where they're flying, you know what I mean, flying high with belief, and this other part of you is so hard on yourself, can you share that?

This is what I've finally discovered as I've gotten older, is that when you allow yourself to feel loved and valued, you'll actually achieve far more significant things, so this actual feeling of if I get this achievement, I get this significance, then I'll get love, is actually a limiting level of significance and achievement, but someone who feels loved, someone who feels cared for, someone who feels valuable, they go achieve far greater external things anyway, and it's not always just achievement, it also can just be attention, so sometimes people conflate attention with love, so if I can get this woman's attention, if I can get this man's attention, if I look, my look, if they think I look great and I can get attention for that, then I'll feel loved, or if they think I'm really smart, then I'll feel loved, or if I can read them my resume, that I've got an MBA, or I've got a doctorate, then I'll feel loved, or I'm gonna tell them about my jet and my car, I meet people all the time where I live here, that's like the first three minutes is their resume, I've got this, I've got that, I did this, I did that, and I've literally stopped people here before, after a while when they do it with me, at this particular place I live, and I go, hey brother, I love you, it's cool brother, I love you, you're cool with me if you had that jet or you didn't.

I don't love your jet. I love you, right? I don't love how beautiful you are. I love you, right? I don't love what you're achieving. And so we have an achievement addicted culture as well That's lying to people by saying if you'll just go do these things Then you'll feel better about yourself. Then you'll be happier and I talk a lot about blissful dissatisfaction Which is essentially this people conflate you can be dissatisfied and want more and still be blissful You can live blissfully and still be dissatisfaction is healthy Dissatisfaction says I'm capable of this and I'm doing this.

I want to fill the gap. That's wonderful. But they're not being dissatisfied That's totally different than being unhappy though So you can simultaneously be blissful and happy and dissatisfied to the extent that you want to grow and change That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Ed my let's show on Apple and Spotify links are in the show notes You'll never miss an episode that way Welcome back to max out everybody. I am Ed my let and by popular demand I have the man to my left here today is one of the most inspirational figures in the world author Motivational speaker thought leader and for me one of the most interesting and influential people in all of social media Somebody that I'm very proud to call a friend of mine former NFL football player Baylor football player Wonderful father and husband Trent Shelton's here.

Hey, man. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. Thank you. You can connect man I've been waiting for this for a long time I think a lot of people been waiting for this so people ask me are all your friends really wealthy and successful No, right. In fact a couple of my very best friends. I consider them incredibly successful, but not wealthy, right? They're successful. His husband's are successful. His dad's are successful in their contribution They don't measure success based on money, but I consider them successful people all my friends.

Most of them have this in common The very self-aware. Yeah, they're self-aware. And so because they're so self-aware. They're aware also of me It's very difficult to be to be able to give yourself to somebody and support them If you don't even aware of who the heck you are exactly So I got some goofy crazy friends because but I love that about them out of all of them are business moguls or former athletes They're just people who kind of know themselves and like themselves and want to change themselves That's what might have in common, but I want to talk about that change now with you.

Yeah, because they see this man I mean, I think it's obvious that you know You're you and I are grown men were sinners saved by God's grace in both of our minds, but we're we make mistakes Yeah, and we're both always trying to figure stuff out. But let's be honest I think one of the reasons you've evolved so much is that you're vulnerable with the changes you made So if you follow Trent and if you're not you're about to all of you, you know You're gonna see someone who's constantly giving wonderful advice like what you're hearing based on his own experiences and mistakes But it's amazing to me to think that this man that I know is such a loving father Yeah And when we talk on the phone or in person About what kind of father you are about what kind of a son you are a friend.

You are a husband You are I consider you a great man based on those things about you But those are things that have also made progress in your life, too So if you're willing to talk about this just for a second, let's talk a little bit about Tristan and your son because you said it three years old, you know, right you would come back and all that But let's if you don't mind sharing this I want all the men and women hearing this who right now are beating themselves up about a behavior They have everything that's listening to this.

There's something you're ashamed of There's something that you've done in the past or are currently doing that you think because you've been bad You can't win. You can't make progress You can't change you don't deserve to succeed and you keep beating yourself up about this Something you've done that you don't feel good about So if you'd share this and they can see a total turnaround and so they share it Before I shot I want to share three things real quick for because I'll forget Okay, where these three and in some people who follow me might have heard these things But I came up with these quotes based upon this transformation.

Okay, number one I said my transparency leads to my transformation and I want them to understand that your transparency will lead to your transformation and other people's Transformation the second thing that I told myself was see my heart not my past Right because just because you made some past mistakes doesn't mean your future can't be great. So understand that so with my story Me and Maria, which is who's my wife, you know, we didn't have a Cinderella Type of you know come together and it was so beautiful.

We went through a lot Yeah, you know Tristan was born out of out of way a lot and it hurts me to say this man and Tristan knows so if he ever sees this he knows but I was viewing Tristan as As a disappointment When Maria called me told me she was pregnant I was viewing him as a disappointment and it's amazing how when I fast-forward how God can use what you thought was your biggest Disappointment as your greatest rescue absolutely and Tristan when you listen to this later The first thing your daddy talked about when we first met was you exactly so, you know He knows and he knows and so the reason I say that is because Me and Maria had a girlfriend at the time.

You had another girl. I had another girlfriend at the time This is my first time talking about it, man So I'm giving it to you brother I had a girlfriend at the time and we were off and on and that was still no excuse for me to do what I Was doing but I was messing around. I was living that lifestyle man, which the hard lifestyle to handle I mean you have money you have everything at your disposal you want to live that life and I end up getting Maria pregnant and when Maria called me I Made her feel like she was wrong For getting pregnant because I didn't want to face my truth because I knew I had to call my girlfriend I don't have to say hey, I cheated and you know make a long story short I was in New York and I tell her and you know She kicks me out and I feel like my punishment was right then I get stuck in the airport for two days For two days and what was even deeper as our families were close.

Yeah, so our parents that were best friends didn't talk for years and I became I Subconsciously and even consciously I was blaming Maria for it. Mm-hmm. So I was treating her wrong throughout our whole pregnancy. Mm-hmm and It was probably lowest point of my life, man Yeah, yeah, but it took me facing facing my reality, which a lot of us don't do You will never win your war by running from your battles So it took me man and I'm looking myself in the mirror say you're not being a man Mm-hmm.

You had an example. You have no excuse. Your dad was a man. Yeah, you know, my dad was in my life Yeah, and so I faced it man and um to fast-forward, you know me and Maria we went through our ups and downs She dated other people. I dated other people but Maria Was there for me? When nobody else was she had all the right to get back at me by saying all you're nobody now You don't have football no more. You're playing arena football. You don't have any money.

She never threw that in my face She never bothered me about child support when I couldn't afford it She stood by my side regardless and I appreciate her forever, baby watching this. I love you forever and She believed in my purpose When nobody else did wonderful and a lot of people on social media like oh, you know, Maria doesn't she's a solid supporter I know exactly what you know, I do. It's like oh she should be a speaker. No, she shouldn't Yeah, she wants to be that fine But she supports me more than anybody else because she allows me to do what I do without any interference I love you man like just so you know your Transparency does lead to your transformation and the fact that you're willing to share this because he's such an incredible father And you can see his love for Maria and how he talks about her and by the way Maria same thing off-camera, too That's how I measure a man, right?

Like when no one's around when you with your boys, then how do you talk? How do you act and I admire that about you, but I will like people say well, I'm a vulnerable on social media That's real vulnerability. Yeah, but you just that like because all of us listen this listen Everybody I love you so much, but I appreciate you so much because you're so highly respected And it's easy when we're in the positions you and I are in to sort of put on a facade of perfection and You know people say well, I share some out that's sharing something and and I hope everybody listen to this We all have things in our life.

Listen, listen, we all have things in our life. We're ashamed of that's right We all I was just thinking of something the other day I'm you know in the interest of time, but I was like, I can't believe I did that at one age I'd done something in a classroom on a test in college, you know, and I said, I can't believe I did that like I We all do things we're ashamed of and what happens is is we hold our own sins against ourselves For the rest of our life and they they hold us back from making progress So the fact that you do share this it does give you a chance to move past it and to make progress I'm so impressed with you I want everyone to hear this message this man has turned himself into one of the most influential people on the earth About how to transform your life and change your life and he came from the places.

He's describing to you forget perfection It doesn't forget it. It doesn't exist. I know in a social media era. It's it's popular. I mean, it's popular, right? I mean, it's like Nobody's really posting their struggles and I might tell you to go on a soapbox and post all your struggles online You know, I'm not saying that but just be real. It's okay to show that you're a human. It's okay to be embarrassed I mean when I first started speaking it was ten people that showed up and it was my family and my friends But I was proud.

Yeah, like I was happy about that And I just see so many entrepreneurs influencers trying to fake it till they make it you're so right the better thing to do when we agreed by the way, we were gonna riff today because we share stuff the better thing to Do is to get people rooting for you. And by the way when you're vulnerable people root for you That's what you show your weaknesses and your bad days the things that aren't going good So you shouldn't do it for this reason?

But here's a secret if you want to grow your social media content if you come across perfect all the time exactly that kind of Gets boring right now relatable. It's not true and people kind of sense it so Unbelievable story just unbelievable very short intermission here folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify links are in the show notes now on to our next guest Welcome back to max out everybody. I'm so excited about today's program because I'm one of the most inspirational people I think on earth today with me and She was also I always put these polls out to you guys saying who do you want on my show?

And there kept being this name color this beautiful name by the way Fallon Taylor Fallon Taylor get her on your show And so I'm so excited that she's here today. This lady to my left is amazing. She's an incredible entrepreneur She's got an amazing social media in YouTube presence, but she's probably best known for being a world barrel racing champion and Not only is that extraordinary But she did that after breaking her neck and having a 2% chance to even ever walk again And she comes back and wins the what is really the world series of barrel racing?

So I'm so excited for you guys to hear this story. So thank you for being here. Thank you so much I really am excited to be here. How important have your parents been to you? So insanely instrumental and so I I always encourage people because I realize that I'm probably in the minority of people that have parents that were married for 56 years and You know have that kind of encouragement I think that that's the biggest thing the biggest takeaway for me when I help someone is I'm understanding They don't have that same support, but you can get that same support from just like the max out universe You've got people around you.

They're like-minded that want to help you that want to see other people win Yeah, not everybody's gonna want to see you win, right? Not every single person is excited for your journey because you're gonna prove a lot of their beliefs wrong So be around people that really believe that if you do all of the things Necessary to really get some lift off the ground of the things you want to achieve Those people are gonna just propel you to the next level So being a part of something is really important.

It's why I created this. It's like I want our community supporting each other That's why I do all this stuff of like hey comment on my stuff get in there I want you commenting on each other stuff. I want you liking each other stuff I want you knowing what each other do and Supporting each other because you're exactly right most people don't have parents like you had or that I have They don't they don't have people in their life that are supporting so you have to go find those people and in my case I've created that environment for you to find those people and then I bring on amazing people like you too.

So last question If you and I you know, this has been a blessing for me as I've told you But if one of my listeners said could I get like five minutes and a cup of coffee with you, right? Or could we go on a ride for five minutes and they could ask you something? Most of them would say and I know we've covered a lot of it But you're just like there's so much still that we didn't even get to And they said I want to make my dream come true and I'm at this place where I'm not doing it I've tried and I failed I tried and I failed or I don't have support around me.

What would you just say to somebody's like I got a dream, too And you've inspired me today would be just a couple things you would share with them if they met you like I got to What would you share with them that they should be doing and thinking I would tell them to write it down the craziest thing Let your mind wander to the craziest place it could go Because we limit ourselves so much and we limit ourselves by those beliefs that aren't true Writing down if you had just an endless supply of money and all the time in the world what it is that you would do And then break it down to what if you had almost no time?

What would you regret that you haven't done? What's that big regret? What's that regret and then attack that thing first go there? And when the brain starts to kind of work its way around what if this thing could actually be possible? The other little stuff comes along. It's so crazy when you When you focus on fixing yourself and loving yourself all of a sudden that standard shift like I think more about my Checkbook I think more about my how my spouse is treating me I think more about the people I keep around me and how they speak to me I think more about what I get up and get dressed like in the morning You know there's a time where it was Sweat pants, and it was just like if I left my house It'd be a miracle so depressed and since such a place and now it's like no There's a standard for how I want to present myself to a group of people and however they think about that is their own problem That's their own belief system, so I think just narrowing it down to what's that one big thing?

Let's not leave this planet regretting something that we haven't tried and you will fail, and that's okay That's the biggest lesson is in the failure. Oh my gosh like 2013 for you, right? I think your whole I picture this day today of the whole story of this little girl who turns pro it You know seven years old and then has this amazing life But then I picture you taking that first step down the hallway that you've got to walk back and forth right and it's amazing to Me to think that first step you took that day to get to the end of the hallway and back That step eventually led to you being the world champion back on a horse smallest thing it gets me emotional all over again It's those nothing's ever done in these huge moments Nobody's gonna run up to you and go I've got a million-dollar idea or I'm gonna help you win a world title It's this little like saying yes to the lady that said you can get up But you might die or saying yes to yeah, I might try that thing or saying yes to well Do you want to give this another shot?

It's a little tiny thing saying yes to a first date with somebody you thought would never like you saying yes to a Job that you think you're not qualified for saying yes to it's not these huge moments It's a little tiny ones just that one step that one little step That was a great conversation, and if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow The Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest.

Hey guys, welcome back to the show. You know, the reason I do this show, and by the way, it's precious to me because we only do one a week. We're the number one show in the world, and that is not easy to do when you do one a week and you're sort of ranked up against shows that come out every day or three or four days a week. And so that seat that this man is sitting in means the world to me because I only get to share one person a week with each of you, and so I take it as a great responsibility to make this time we have together every week so profound and so valuable in your lives, and I know so many of you get value out of it, and that's why you share the show, so I wanted to thank you.

Today in particular is really an honor for me because I'm going to introduce somebody to you that some of you will know but many of you will not know, and I wanted him on the show today solely because of how good his work is, how solid his content is in helping people change their lives and perform at a higher level. I'd call him like a peak performance expert. There's all kinds of different terms I could come up to describe this man, but he's got a book called The Breakthrough Code that is outstanding, and I like the way it's written.

He was a Wall Street guy for a while, then went to work to train in Tony Robbins companies. He's been training top athletes and corporations for many years, and he's just great at changing people's lives. And so, Tom McCarthy, welcome to the show today. Yeah, it's an honor to be with you, Ed, and I'm just amazed at what you've done in such a short period of time, man. It's incredible. Well, thank you. Identity. We both talk about identity a great deal, and I think it's almost invisible to most people.

So, you know, when you really listen to someone or you watch them, you can begin to hear their identity. I'm working with a couple new athletes right now, and people ask me all the time, what do you work with when you're with athletes, or what do you work with when you're with a CEO of a company or an entertainer or whatever? It might be say my name, which I think might be Beyonce. I'm not completely right. Am I right about that? Probably, yeah. I am right about that.

The fact that I know that is pretty bizarre. And if I'm wrong, it's close enough, everybody. But it was rattling in my head. So anyway, I might be right. It's close. But what I work with, usually when I'm talking with athletes or working with them, there's all kinds of different techniques, but at the end of the day, if I distilled it down, it's both their confidence and their identity. At the top levels, people still struggle with confidence. When you see an athlete go in a slump, is it that they don't know how to hit anymore?

Yeah. No. A couple negative results happen. Yeah. They're not moving towards that story. And all of a sudden, they're lacking confidence. And so, if you have to work on your self-confidence or your identity, welcome to being a human. And I'm talking about people that have led big countries, run big companies, are the top athletes in the world. I think a lot of people think, well, I struggle with my confidence, so I'm not like these other people. It's natural to them. Yeah, right. Until they have a big setback.

And then it's not so natural. Yeah. Or they just have this amazing identity. And they just have more, yeah, until they don't anymore. Yeah. Until the success is stripped of them. So, how does one begin to build a new identity and how important is it? It's everything. You know, your identity is your most critical story that's inside of you that shapes everything you see. Like, we think we see the world with our eyes, right? We think we hear things with our ears, but you really don't.

You hear with your story, right? You see with your story. And identity is like your truest, most precious part of your story. The one that you're going to like stand up for day after day. And a lot of people do have identities that are not supporting them. You know, they have identities or belief systems around, like I've written a couple of books on speaking, public speaking, right? I've been speaking all around the world for years and years and years. And so we'll train somebody and they'll go, you know, I always get nervous right before I speak.

And what I try and do is like, that can't be the way you think about this. And they go, well, no, I get over it. I go, yeah, but nervousness, you're either in one of two emotional states. I'm going to generalize here a little bit. When you do anything, you're either in a protective state, you're walking in, like if I come in here and I'm going, all right, I don't know this guy, what's he going to ask me? You know, I'm in a protective state, I'm not going to be as good.

Words aren't going to flow. The mind's not going to work. I'm in a growth state. Right? Like I've already flubbed some words, made some mistakes. I don't even worry about that when I'm speaking. I don't even worry about that. I probably made like 84 mistakes already. Right? If we've been counting. Yeah. I'm just kidding. I've been counting, but it doesn't bother me. Right? Because I'm not worried about that. My identity is not that I've got to be perfect every single time. My identity is just, I give everything I've got.

I'm going to just pour everything I have into this and we're going to have some fun. But my identity, and I'm sure yours has shifted a lot, you know, from childhood. I was that person that thought life was hard. I thought I was that person that thought life wasn't fricking fair, man. Why do I, how come I don't have a dad? I just shift that. And at the core of who we are is our identity. And when you really get clear on what that is, you can, and if you don't like it, you don't have to stick with it.

Right? You can shift it and change it. I love what you were saying earlier. To me, it's like carving away at something. So I don't look at it as like one and done, right? You know, I know there's some lag time, but I'm just going to carve away today. Carve away, carve away, carve away. And then it does start feeling more and more real. And then you're living it. And then life is so much easier because you're not even seeing the same world you used to see.

It's a completely different world you're experiencing. And that may be hard for people to imagine, like, what do you mean it's a different world? Like everyone sees the same thing. No, they don't. I had a friend, I was in a car accident. It wasn't bad, but we were in Hawaii. This friend of mine, CEO of a company, was driving. His daughter was in the back. She was like six years old. And somebody hit him from behind. So his experience was, he's pissed off, like gets out, you know, he's kind of angry.

And I'm sitting in the car, his daughter in the back, you know, she called me Uncle T. She goes, hey, Uncle T, can we go out and look? She goes, this is so exciting, right? This is so, I've never been in an accident before. So people don't see the same thing. They do not. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, brother, that is such a good example. On identity, there's little pieces of ourselves that we begin to realize. Like I used to hear people say, here's one little subtle thing that might help everybody.

I was just thinking of it when you said it. Why here, and I say this often too, like my, a lot of my, the separation is in the preparation, I say. Or like, you know, a lot of my confidence comes from how prepared I am. Yeah. I'm in a fine line with that though, because years ago it drifted into something dangerous for me. So yeah, I do think you need to be prepared. But I think a lot of people, what holds them back is the threshold of what they think they need to know before they act.

Yeah. You agree with that? Absolutely. So like they, they get this preparation thing conflated where they go, yeah, and so I'm just preparing. Yeah. And if I just knew a little bit more about it, if I was a little bit more prepared, if I had a little bit more knowledge, if I went to one more seminar, if I read one more book, if I just had one more exercise, then I'd take action. What I find is the identity level of people that do find bliss, do find successes, their threshold for what they think they need to know before they leap is lower.

And the people that struggle, the threshold of what they think they need to know or be prepared or capable of is so high that they never quite meet that threshold to take a leap. That was just a subtle thing. That is such a great point because I, you know, there's people in life that whatever they do, they just seem to get the ball in the end zone. Yes. Right? And you know, were they more prepared? Maybe, but a lot of times they weren't. And then there's people that, and they're good people, but they always need that extra little thing and, and that, you know, they're never quite ready and everything looks good and then it doesn't work out.

I do a little test with this stuff on me, and I'm sure you do it on you too, but I do some crazy things, right? Like I was asked years ago, actually it was 2005, so as many years ago, I was asked to play in this poker tournament. Now I'd played poker exactly one time in my life and it was back in college. So it was 20 years before. And these guys are saying, you know, come on, it's going to be great. There's going to be some world series of poker players that play in the world championships that are going to be there.

I'm like, guys, I don't even know how to play. I don't even remember anything. They go, oh yeah, come on, you're going to be fun. So I said, all right, I'll do it. And I said, you got to spend, I told one of the guys, you got to spend 10 minutes with me and just show me the hands so I can remind me of the rules and things like that. What wins. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But I didn't watch, and you know, because I don't play poker, I haven't played since, but I didn't watch tutorials.

I didn't read books. I only had like a week to prepare. But here's what I did. Every time, because my identity was, at first it was like, I'm going to suck at this, I'm going to embarrass myself, I'm going to lose early, and I'm like, no, stop that, stop. I said, put a new thought process in, put a new belief system in. And literally, this is crazy, but I told myself over and over again that I made great decisions and I found a way to win.

And every time I thought of it, and I didn't, you know, I didn't proactively think of a lot, but every time I thought about it, oh, that thing's coming up, yep, I made great decisions, found a way to win. Now when I said it, though, I was like in a confident state, right, I made sure I matched what I wanted to, the emotional state that I wanted to have. And I literally believed that I was going to win the damn thing, right? And so I remember I'm getting ready to leave and my wife knew I'd never played before or played once.

And I said, hey, I'm getting ready to leave, go to that poker tournament. She goes, what time does it start? I said, 6.30. She goes, I'll see you at 7. And so anyways, I went and I didn't even let that, right, because you've got the naysayers. She was just playing with me. We've been married 30 years, you just met her. But I went and I just, you know, I had this confidence, like unearned confidence. Totally unearned confidence. But people are making mistakes and I win my table and then I get, you know, finally the championship table and now I have one guy left.

I had like this huge pile of chips and he didn't have as many, but he was like, you know, one of these really good players and people are saying, oh, this guy's beating you, doesn't know how to play and the guy's getting pissed off. And he goes all in, I go all in and, you know, I win and my friends are picking me up and I got this, you know, big, huge trophy and bracelet and all this kind of stuff. And so I come back, it's like two in the morning, I open the door of the bedroom, my wife's long asleep, turn the light on, guess who you're sleeping with tonight?

The champion. Now that, I'm not saying I could have done that 10 times in a row, but literally I consciously burned all the boats. I did not allow a thought that was going to lower my confidence in any way. And I did it for about a week, right? So yeah, but that's what happens, right? You know, that you, even if I wouldn't have won, I know I would have played a heck of a lot better because I had done that. That's the thing that most people don't get.

Why didn't you win? Well, were you better? Yeah. Okay. Then do it. That's the whole point. By the way, I love that term unearned confidence. Obviously the highest form of confidence is something you've earned, but let me tell you something, unearned confidence is a pretty damn good substitute and it's a whole lot better. When you gotta go. And by the way, what most people think, this is what they'd say to themselves, I've earned lack of confidence. And so you think you have to earn this confidence thing all the time.

It is absolutely not true and not enough of you give yourself credit for your intentions either. You don't give yourself enough credit just for your intentions to serve, your intentions to contribute. And it's a huge, huge thing. I love that story because, you know, for me, where's it come from for me often? I had two friends the last week say something, I have a couple of things I'm ill prepared for. Like I have no life experience to prepare me for a couple of things, kind of like this poker tournament for you.

A really good friend of mine, John Gordon said, and by the way, we've talked a lot about energy today. I'm also a Christian. So I'm both and John's and he's a good Christian friend of mine. He goes, Ed, faith over fear. Choose faith over fear. I'm like, that feels good, man. And then like three days later, my next door neighbor at the beach, Jerry, Jerry, if you're listening to this, thank you for this gift. He's like, Hey man, I've just all my life I've chosen faith over fear.

And it just, I was like, wow. Now that's that vibrational frequency thing, right? Like all of a sudden, both of these messages were being directed to me. For me, that applies to my Christian faith. But for some of you, it might be, I'm going to have faith in the work I've put in. I'm going to have faith that, you know, that everything always works out for me. But sometimes it's just a matter of taking a leap and going, I'm going to choose faith over fear because what is holding you back is the fear.

So I just wanted to share that with everybody. One thing, one thing on that, on to it is, uh, turn fear into faith because fear is energy, but use that energy, shift that energy and turn it into faith. I used to sometimes, you know, way back in the past, be a little bit jealous. Hey, how'd that person, you know, accomplish that or do that? And I'm like, Hey, that's not a good use of energy. And I turned jealously, uh, jealousy into prosperity. Right. You know, I just, whenever I will, you know, see someone doing well, I'm like, whoa, great.

Hey, this is proving that I can do even more too. So good. And literally just shifting energy into another form. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. All right. Welcome back to the show. Everybody. I'm so excited to have my friend here today.

This guy, uh, he's perfect timing for me in my life. And so I know what we're going to discuss today is going to improve and change your life tremendously. And I just have this feeling I'm having them on again at the right time. So this gentleman has been on the show. I very rarely have people come back twice, but when they really, really help people, I do it. So very few times, only a couple of, I've done that. But my friend Trent Shelton is here today.

Trent is an author. He's a podcaster straight up with Trent Shelton is his podcast. And I think I would just call him somebody who I guess a life strategist, but I just think he helps people manage their lives better. And I want him to help all of you do that today. And I think he's the best at what he does. So Trent Shelton, welcome back to the show. My brother. Yeah, man, I appreciate you, man. Thanks for having me back. It's good to see you. It's good to be back on this epic podcast, bro.

So thank you, man. Now there's the, so there's the angels in our life. And then there's the people that aren't angels in our lives. This is part of that peace thing. Yeah. Everybody says all the time, Hey, remove toxic people from your life. But here's the truth. Almost nobody ever does it. Almost nobody does it. They just don't. They go, I'm going to get rid of these toxic people in my life. Yeah. But you don't, you know, and I think, I don't know if it's a lack of courage or the ability to do it, or if people feel like, well, then I'm going to be alone.

And that's worse than this toxic person in my life. But talk about, cause you're just so profound about this is the, the way you say it, what do toxic people do to us? And then how do we find the strength to, do we remove them? Do we keep them at a distance? Like, what are your thoughts about toxic people? stealing that piece I want this year, or we all want. Absolutely. I'll just, I'll just ask everybody this question. And this question seems a little bit straight up and harsh, but it's the reality.

You know, if you're in a situation where your environment sucks, your environment's terrible. And I want to be clear, Ed, you know what I mean? Sometimes we're the toxic people, you know what I mean? Sometimes we gotta look ourselves in the mirror and make sure we're not that person and take that responsibility. But once you understand that, you have the things around your life, you gotta ask yourself, picture everything in your life as soil, right? Your environment is soil, the people that you're around, the places you take your life, everything is soil.

I believe that each and every one of us, we're a seed. We're a seed of greatness. We're a seed of goodness. We're a seed of, you know, a person being legendary. We have all of those qualities in us. I believe God made us that way. What happens is, a lot of us, we put our seed in toxic soil and we wonder why we're not producing the right harvest for our life, right? We wonder why we're producing weed. We wonder why we're producing things that end up dying.

So I'm gonna ask the person, listen to this right now, is what type of soil are you putting your seed in? Because a great seed in bad soil will not produce good fruit, will not produce a good harvest. You gotta be real with yourself. Do you wanna live the rest of your life unhappy? Do you wanna die miserable? Because like you said, a lot of people are afraid. They're afraid of confrontation. They're afraid of what people are gonna say once they make that decision, because we know how it is.

People will start to make you feel like you're the bad person no matter what you have done for them. They'll point out all the things you didn't do and not all the things you did do. I think people are also, yeah, they're afraid to be alone, but you have to understand this about the journey. Sometimes it takes being perfectly lonely, because I say perfectly, to understand what being perfectly loved feels like. So it took me in my darkest moments, in my loneliest times to understand God's true love for my life.

And once I realized the love that he had for me, once I realized how he created me, it became a lot easier. So I gained more confidence. I knew my worth and I went on this journey of being the greatest me. And one thing about the journey that's true, the journey will always be loyal to giving your life what it needs. So as I walked down the right path, yeah, it was lonely at first, but as I'm climbing this mountain, I've seen somebody else that was climbing the mountain in the same direction.

I've seen somebody else as I went a little higher that was climbing the mountain in the right direction. And then you build this tribe of like mindsets. And so, you know, another illustration, just really quick. And like, it's like, I'll just put it like this. My neighbor, like two houses down, we're in Texas, right? We're like in Dallas, it's hot. So we moved here and my neighbor has like a palm tree and it was about fall time. So the palm tree, it looked good, right? And so when winter hit, the palm tree was terrible, right?

The palm tree was bad. The palm tree withered away. It died. They had to cut the top off. It looked terrible. And it made me realize this truth. And I want people to understand this. When you look at your life and you look at yourself as that palm tree, right? You're beautiful. Everybody wants you. You're popular. You're a popular tree. But if you put yourself, right? If you put that palm tree in New York, that palm tree wouldn't ever reach its full potential. That palm tree wouldn't be a palm tree.

It would be a ugly tree nobody would buy. But if you put that palm tree in Cali, you put that palm tree in Florida, you put that palm tree in Hawaii, you put that palm tree in Puerto Rico in the right environments, that palm tree flourished. That palm tree looked beautiful. So with your life, yeah. You're that palm tree. You have all those great qualities. And if you're in the wrong environment, you will never meet the potential that your life has. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT.

Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans. I see you. Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney Plus. The film critics are calling the best Avatar yet.

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