Using the Gifts You Already Have with Ed Mylett

Thank you for tuning in to the True Grit and Grace Podcast. I'm Amberly Lago, and I'll be sharing inspirational stories of resilience and empowering ideas to elevate your business and your life, ignite your passion, and fuel your purpose. Hey, it's Amberly Lago. Welcome back to the show. My heart is beating so fast because this is a dream come true, um, to have Ed Mylett here with us today. Y'all, he's an entrepreneur. He's a legend, a legend in everything he does, like whether it's in the fitness world, whether it is in the entrepreneurial world. He is a sought-after global speaker. Oh my goodness, he's a best-selling author. In fact, he's got a brand new book coming out. It is The Power of One More: The Ultimate Guide to Success and Happiness. And y'all go out and grab that. I read his first book, so I can't wait to get my hands on this one. Ed, thank you for being here. It's so good to see you.

Amberly, honored to be here. What a great introduction. That was beautiful. Thank you. About 70% of it's true.

Oh my goodness.

Thank you.

I'm just so happy to see you, and my heart's still beating real fast. I told my daughter, um, this morning, I said, Ruby, have you ever really, really wanted something and really like it, a dream come true, and it happened? I said, this is what's happening right now, so make sure that there's nothing going on outside my office door. She's out of school today.

So I know what that's like, believe me. I know what that's like. I got 2 of them. But that's wonderful. What an honor. I mean that too. Thank you.

Yeah, well, I was, um, looking through my notes because I had written some notes in my phone to ask you, and it came up on my podcast. And back in 2019 when I first started the podcast, you were the first person I had listed as who I really wanted to be on the show. So I, I believe in delayed gratification.

So do I.

And it's, it's happening now. I mean, I'm so grateful. So With your book, I have to say, I love the way that you speak about your father. And I know he had 35 years of sobriety. And I just wondered, and I'm sober myself. And so it really touches me when I hear you speak about your dad. And I can understand too, how you grew up. But is the title of your book, was that inspired a little bit from your dad?

Entirely.

Was it?

Yeah, I don't know that I even realized it as I was writing the book. I was telling people as I was writing the book, I'm, I'm relearning where I learned stuff, I guess, you You know, and yeah, my— the power of one more. For example, my dad had tried to get sober many, many times. And then, I remember I was a little boy. Well, I was 15. I was turning 15. Only my dad would get sobriety birthday be on 4/20, by the way. My dad got sober on 4/20, which most people know what that date means.

Yes.

That's my dad's sobriety birthday. But long story short, we're— I never seen my dad cry before or after this day, but we pull up to this— I'm going to a Little League game. We're at this fast food place and I look at my dad and he's crying. And I've never seen my dad cry before and he wouldn't look at me. Then after we got the food, he pulled to the side, still didn't look at me and goes, he goes, Eddie, I'm gonna go away for a bit and I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna not drink anymore! And I said, Daddy, what would be any different about this time? And he goes, I'm gonna give it one more try! And I said, what would be different? He said, well, your mom told me I'm gonna lose my family and your sisters deserve and you deserve a dad you can respect and your mom deserves a husband she can be proud of and I'm gonna try it one more time! And I've just never forgotten that. And I have a whole chapter in the book called One More Try. And then, just to be brief about it, once he got sober, he came back. I said, Daddy, are you gonna never drink again? And he said, I don't know. He said, I'm just not gonna drink for one more day at a time. And I've used that lesson many, many times in my life when I've thought of quitting a business. Even when my wife and I, when we were young, we met in elementary school and have dated, when our relationship's gotten tough, I'm just not gonna quit for one more day. You know, and those one more days ended up turning into, you know, 35 years together. And so, everything in the book, really most of it probably comes from lessons I learned from my dad.

Well, there's— I, you know, for me, when I woke up out of a coma, doctor said that I had a 1% chance of saving my leg. And I was like, so you're saying there's a chance?

Your story's amazing. Your story is so amazing, you know. I have to tell you one thing that just dawned on me in the last week about the book, and I don't know why I'm sharing it now. It's just, it's emotional for me. My dad getting sober changed our family forever, right? And the premise of the book is that you're one decision, one relationship, one meeting, one podcast, one book, one event like what you went through from completely changing your life one way or the other.

Yeah.

And yet, you're much closer to your best life than you think you are. But because you believe it's so far away, you behave and have created patterns in accordance with that thought process. And so, you keep this life, that emotion, that stuff you want away from you because you think it's so far away. But my dad's life changed like that. But what most people think, I'm not qualified to help people. Why me? Like, I get, you know, you or me or whatever. And it just dawned on me last week, and I'm not kidding you, and here I am, 51 years old tomorrow.

Happy birthday!

Thank you. Someone helped my dad. Someone helped my dad. And because he was in an anonymous program, I have no idea who that person was, but that person completely changed the world. Because if my dad doesn't get sober, I'm not talking to you. I don't reach millions of people. And here's what's crazy. I want everybody to hear this. It's just on my heart today. You know what qualified that person to help my dad? Ironically, their own personal mess. The fact that they were also a drunk and an alcoholic and a drug addict at one time. The very thing they were the most ashamed of, the most difficult thing in their life, was the thing that qualified them to help my father, and that in turn changed my family tree forever. So, if you sit there and listen to these shows and think, wow, that's for everybody else. Why? How am I qualified? You know as well as I do, God over and over in His wisdom does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called. That person who ever helped my dad, they didn't know it, but when they were drinking and getting high, That was qualifying them to change the world at some point. So if they could help my dad, which changed my family, which helped me change millions of lives, imagine what you just helping one person could do in your life.

Yeah, I, uh, I couldn't— not sure if you could tell, you made me cry just sharing that. But it's so true. And I think there's— I think there are a lot of people out there that like, well, who am I to help? Or, you know, there's a lot of people that don't have self-worth. And I know I struggled with that. Sometimes still I get the confidence knocked right out of me, and I have to really try to build it back up. When you were first starting, like before you started with your book and you were starting into, you know, real estate and then the financial industry, and you started leading teams, um, and teaching them how to be better leaders, how did you really start to feel worthy and gain confidence to do some of the things that you're doing?

That's a great question because I didn't have any. When you grew up in that type of a family like I did, you have no self-esteem whatsoever. You're embarrassed. You know, I was not a big guy when I was little. I got bullied at school. I was Eddie Spaghetti, your meatballs are ready, and they would hit me. And, and so I had no— in fact, I got into personal development and self-help, if you will, Because I needed to learn these things to become a baseline functioning person. And then once I got really good at it, I'm like, wow, I can take this to another level. And so as it relates to self-confidence, I have an entire chapter on just this topic, and it's sort of cutting-edge stuff, I think, for most people. It's not your normal stuff. For me in life, I don't think you get your goals most of the time, unfortunately. I mean, most people prove that. They probably get 20-30% of their goals. You will always end up eventually though getting your standards. And so, I had to ask myself what my standards were. The truth is, I didn't have self-confidence and most people don't because they don't keep the promises they make to themselves.

Hmm.

And self-confidence is really a relationship or reputation you have with yourself. And if you built a reputation with yourself where you just don't do the things you say you're going to do regularly, you don't have confidence. And so, for me, it started out by keeping the promises I needed to make to myself and then I thought, okay, that'll get me to the baseline. What would the standard need to be to where I actually trick myself into believing I'm worth it? And for me, it was one more. So, if I— the promise I made to myself is I was gonna make 10 contacts in a day, I'd make 10 plus one more. If the promise was I was gonna do 10 sets in the gym, 10 reps, I'd do 11. If it was 30 minutes on the treadmill, I'd do 31. If it was tell Christiana, my wife, I love her once a day, it was tell her one more time a day. And I started stacking up this standard of, I don't just keep the promises I make to myself, I actually exceed them and do one more. And quietly, over time, I built this reputation with me that not only do I do what I say I'm going to do, I do one more. I'm a one more person. And I think one more people deserve one more shot at life. I think people who are willing to do things other people aren't willing to do will ultimately get things other people aren't going to get. And I started over time to change how I viewed me by doing one more than what I committed to. And then I also say in the book that there's a trilogy of self-confidence. I'll just give you this quickly. The trilogy, I call it the holy trilogy of self-confidence. The first is faith. If you have faith in your life, it's amazing. I'm a Christian, but if you have a different faith, it's amazing to me how people have, in my case, Jesus in their life on Sundays or even Wednesday at Bible study. But boy, when they walk into a business meeting, they're alone. Or when they got to go into their first date in a relationship, they're alone. Or when they go to the bank, they're alone. For me, I bring him with me everywhere I go. He's my business partner. He's got my back all the time. As much as I love my children, he loves me more. He loves me with all my sins, all my flaws, everything. So my confidence comes from my faith, number one. Number two, believe it or not, my intentions. Not enough people give themselves credit for their intent to serve, their intent to make a difference, their intent to do good. Even for this podcast today, if you get a little nervous next time you do that, you go, I have faith, I have the strong faith, and I intend to make a difference. If your self-confidence is predicated upon your abilities all the time, you will be constantly chasing that tail all your life. And I had some people mentor me young say, Ed, you want to make a difference. You're a good man. But people feel intent if you'll allow you to give them that energy. And we have to remember, we're always making people feel something. So, if we can understand we always are, then what are they feeling? So, 2 is intent. And then, the 3rd thing that changes self-confidence is associations. It's who you're around. It's people that are more confident than you, that live at a higher vibrational frequency, that are a little bit more— in my faith life, tonight, I'm going to dinner with some mutual friends of ours, right? And these men that I'm happy to be going to dinner with tonight are men I admire their walk and their faith. through association with them, I have become better in my faith. So if you take faith, intention, and association, you begin to change who you are.

Oh, I love that. And also that you bring so much faith into everything that you do, um, when you do a talk. And actually, you know what, we did an event together. I didn't get to meet you, we were speaking on different days, but do you remember Powerful You? It was in This one we were at together was in Los Angeles. Yeah, Powerful You.

That was—

oh, I think that was about 3 years ago now. I'm like, it was before COVID so 3 years ago. But I watch your talks and I love how you bring faith into it. Our friend John Gordon does the same. And it was interesting to me when I did my first TED Talk, one of the first things they said is don't talk about God. And I'm like, but God goes everywhere with me. What do you mean don't talk about God? He's my best friend. Like, you know what I mean? And so I love— I feel like you are giving a lot of people permission to speak more openly that, that, you know, because some people think, oh, don't want to mention the word God. And I'm like, really?

But thank you for saying that. I try to nuance it. I wrote a whole chapter in the book called One More Level of Faith. And I was really— it was the hardest chapter for me to write because I want to— I can't write a book about happiness and success about me and not include my faith. Same time, I don't want to alienate people or push them off or come across as judgmental. So, I always try to nuance it. But when I talk to, you know, Joel Osteen's become a friend of mine, Steven Furtick's a friend of mine.

That was such a great episode on your show with Joel. Oh, y'all have to go listen to that episode. Actually, you'll probably want to binge his Ed Mylett show because it's so great. But yes, but tell me, I'm sorry, I just had to—

No, no, I love that episode. I— and I was on Joel's show and I love that too. I— well, I've just told them both, and I love them both, but I've said, hey, people know what they're getting when they come hear you, you know what I mean? People, when they go to a church, they know, okay, this is what I'm getting. And I said, I have a little ministry of my own because when they come to me, they want to get a jet, they want to get a mansion, they want to have an ocean, they want to own an island like I do, right? They want all these things of the world, which by the way, you should have. They're, they're there, you ought to have them. But when they get there, they're going to realize when they listen to me that, hey, there's something else you're going to get to. And so I love the fact that, you know, and by the way, I used to be resistant because I'm a sinner, but I'm saved by God's grace. He's thinking, man, hold me up? Come on, man, I'm not the guy that you got to hold up. And I just realized over time that, you know what, God uses everybody. And if you look at, you know, all of his followers, you look at the apostles, you know, you look at these guys, they're just a ragtag group of dudes who made a lot of mistakes too. and they change the world. Right. And so that's what each of us incumbent upon, just to share from our heart, if we can, whatever we believe in, and hope that makes a difference for somebody.

Well, I love— I hear you say a lot, God is always working for you. Because a lot of times in our life, you know, a lot of times people are like, oh, my life is so hard. This sucks. Why is this happening? But you look at it always as everything in your life is God is working for you. And when you were younger, I heard on one of your interviews, how you got hit, you were a baseball player and you got hit in the calf with a ball and it made a tumor and you had half. And I didn't know we had that in common. So my calf, my right calf, is it your right leg?

It's my right calf.

So my right calf is actually in the front of my leg. But so I was like, wow, we have that in common too. So SUV that hit my leg. I'm not trying to one-up you on that one.

You one-upped me. You one-upped me. A little baseball hit me. So it's much different. Yours was much more traumatic.

Well, I, I love the story you shared on, on an interview that I heard with you about how it was a whole identity shift because you were going to be this professional baseball player and then studied broadcasting. And 30 years went by or so, you had no idea that later on down the road you would have the top podcast out there to listen to in business. And so I love that you share that story, but there's a lot of people that have these tough times, and they're trying to figure out who they are because they've either lost their job, and they just don't know. What would you say to them, to someone who is like, well, I don't know who I am, and how do I find myself?

That's okay, by the way, because I was there too. Number one, I would say don't make permanent decisions based on temporary conditions. And everything in our life other than our souls is temporary. I watched my dad's body die right in front of me, you know, when he passed away. So even our bodies aren't permanent. But what happens is we begin to think whatever pain we're going through, whatever this horrible thing as we're going through is permanent and it's not, it's temporary. Napoleon Hill says in Think and Grow Rich, when you get to the other side of pain and you survive the temporary, you get introduced to your other self. And so the gift of the pain you're going through, the gift of the struggle is that on the other side of this, if you can wait it out and push through it, you get introduced to your other self and that other self produces another life. And so remember that that's why this exists in your life and the truth is that There's— everything's always happened for me and not to me. I'll give you 2 quick examples. My dad's drinking was traumatic and you say, well, my gosh! How did that happen for you? Well, I'm really only good at a couple of things and it's true. I've made hundreds of millions of dollars in business being good at only a few things but what I am good at, I'm good at and one of them is I really can listen to people and be present with them. I know how to be with somebody and love them and care about them and believe in them and read them. Where's that come from? Starting at about 5 years old with my little sisters, when my dad would come through the front door, this 5-year-old little boy would have to look up at his dad and I had to decide in about a minute which dad was it. Was it drunk dad? And if it's drunk dad, my sisters, I need to get them upstairs. I'm 5 years old. My mom should go take a shower and then what I got to do is I got to go into my second thing. I got to change daddy's state and talk to him and tell him how good I did at school that day and how was your day, daddy? And try to talk my dad out of this state. I've made hundreds of millions of dollars with my ability to read people quickly and talk to them. If it was sober dad, I could read him and we'd go play catch in the backyard and it was a great day. It got to the point where I could actually listen to the sound of the key in the lock and I knew with my dad. So, it's my ability to read people. The baseball injury happened for me. Let me tell you why. We had a team psychologist who ended up getting killed in a car accident, ironically with your story. He got killed in a car accident the year I was injured but before, he had breaking cutting-edge technology on something called the reticular activating system in your brain and how to program your prefrontal cortex with your visualization so you see, feel, and hear things. I call it the matrix in chapter 2 of the book and I learned this cutting-edge brain technology from a man who never got to share with the world because he got killed my sophomore year of college and if I don't get injured, I'm not sitting there with him every single day for a year learning all these mental skills that he then gave to me that I now teach the world in my book. So everything in hindsight always has happened for us, not to us. It's our ability to have hindsight vision in the present context that gives us bliss because last thing, it's not the events of our life that define us. It's the meaning we attach to the event that creates an emotion that then drives our behavior. You and I could roll up to— and this is sensitive for you— you and I would roll up to the scene of a car accident. And see someone passing away and think this is one of the most tragic events we've ever witnessed in our life and would generate a certain emotion in both you and I that would be very similar. Mother Teresa, her beautiful heart, she'd roll up to that same event, totally different meaning to her. She used to say the honor of her lifetime was to be with somebody as their soul left their body and went to heaven. Same exact event, totally different meaning, totally different emotion, totally different experience. So it's not the event you're going through, it's the meaning you're attaching to it.

Oh, that is so powerful. And I love this idea of, you know, visualization. I think that having a vision is so important for everything that you want to achieve in your life. Yeah. So speaking of vision, when you were thinking about writing this next book, I'm always curious to know, how long did it take you to write this book?

Oh gosh! A long time! It took me about a year and a half to write it and the reason it took a long time is I just wanted to get it right. Now, the concepts took me about 15 minutes. So, when my dad passed away, I was with him. I don't know why it makes me more emotional today than normal and within about a few minutes of my dad passing away, I don't know why this is one of the thoughts that occurred to me. One of the things I thought of was, I will be the next one. And before I leave here, I want to get in a full text because my other book was very quick for a reason. What do I— the older I get, the more I realize what I don't know. But what I do know, I know. And I've learned some stuff along the way. And I love Think and Grow Rich. I think it's a great book. The truth is though, it's my favorite book, by the way, other than my Bible. The truth is though, you don't just think and do and get rich. There's stuff you got to do. And so, no book's ever been written on what's the thought and what's the action that you need to do congruently, simultaneously to produce a result. No one's ever written that book before. And I'm like, I know what they are. I know how I became successful. I know a lot of it was blessing, but I also know the things I did. I know what I did to change me. I know what I did to change my emotions. I know what I did to change the way I manage time. I know what I did to change how I'm a dad. So the application of this book is bizarre, really, because there's a lot of it about how to be a better mother, a better business leader, a better athlete, a better entrepreneur, a happier person. And so it's, there's, it's a lot, it's heavy. But I wrote it quickly with the concepts, but to get the details and the exact phraseology I wanted took me about a year and a half. And it's not something I'm looking forward to doing anytime soon again, certainly not anytime in the next few years.

Oh, well, thank you for sharing that. Because it took me 2 years to write my book. And I'm just like, I've, and I remember the day it published, I was with my publisher or my publicist, and she was like, okay, and I had just got walked off the Today Show and we were having brunch and I was like, oh my God, I was on the Today Show. And she's like, okay, uh, when are you gonna start? You need to go ahead and start that next book right now. And I was just like, what? Yeah, I know it's been a few years and I'm not ready yet.

You're not ready. And by the way, I think a book is a piece of art and I think it's like any other art. I think you know when you're ready. And the fact that you don't know yet, it's okay. I, I I knew I was ready this time and I definitely know I'm not ready. Frankly, I need to go live some more before I write another book because I put most of what I know in this one. And it's a funny process, isn't it? In all candor, it's like, it's an insecure process when you release it. You know, you're confident of what you put in there and your heart's in it, but then you're like, I hope it's good. I hope people love it. I hope it helps people.

It's a really interesting process. Ed, I know it's going to be good because everything you share is so well done. And I have to say, everything that you do, the way you speak on stage, Every single episode that you do of your podcast, one of the reasons I love it is because of the intention that you have behind it. You don't just half-ass anything. Like, you do it all the way. Like, you do your research on your guests, and it's— the enthusiasm that you have for your guests on your show is incredible. And so I listen to the show to learn about your guests, but mostly because—

Thank you.

I like to listen to you and the input that you have about your guests. So I know I cannot wait. I was like, as soon as I found out it was for, for preorder, I was like, I just got it. I mean, I just preordered it. So I can't wait to read it. Thank you.

I appreciate that. My show's just sort of an extension of me. My wife laughs all the time. I'm introverted, which is really weird. And so one of the secrets of being an introvert is I just ask other people about them. But like, you know, everyone's asked me, do you have a professional driver and security? And sometimes when I travel, I have to, but a lot of times I just take Ubers. And I like getting in an Uber and I love saying this, tell me your story. Yesterday, I have to tell you this really quickly. Humans are awesome. They're a gift if you open them, right? And this guy yesterday drove me, he's from Lebanon and I said, tell me your story. I'm from Lebanon and I said, you have children? He's got 3 kids. Listen to this. He's driving an Uber. This man has a child at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.

Wow!

And he's driving an Uber to put him through school and then he took me through Lebanon and he lived in a gated community and he took me on this journey for 20 or 30 minutes. And I felt like, man, what a gift this was. And he listened to my show, but he didn't tell me until I was getting out of the car that he knew who I was.

Oh!

He didn't tell me the whole time. And he said, it's such a blessing to know that you're who you are in person is who you are in the public field as well. And I said, brother, I loved this 30 minutes with you. You're a remarkable man. And it gave me my heart because I'm telling you right now, what an amazing man. He's out there driving Uber. 3 kids at some of the 3 best schools. And I told him, I said, tell me about your wife. She must be amazing. He goes, oh, let me tell you. I met her when we were 14. I was just like, what a great— just unlock this gift of the human, right? So, that's why I love to do the show because I get to do that every week when I have someone on.

Yeah. And, you know, I think that's one of the highest compliments is when somebody says, wow, you are exactly like I— or when somebody says, you're so nice. You're so down to earth. I can talk to you. You know, that's a high compliment. And then, And then I have heard you compliment, I think it was Megyn Kelly on your show, and you said that she was confident yet had humility.

Yes.

And to me, if I were to describe you besides being, you know, like a complete legend and badass, is like you have this confidence about you, yet you still have such humility about you. And one of the things I love about you is your authenticity. For, I mean, the luminous success you've achieved and all the fans and followers that you have, you still admit, yeah, sometimes, hey, look, when you release a book, it's a little bit like, oh, I hope it's good. I mean, that's one of the things I love about you, because as humans, we all have those emotions where we go through periods of our life where we have feelings like that. So I appreciate you saying that.

I feel honored that I get people listen to me. So actually right now, even on my social media, I've been regularly talking lately about some stuff that's, you know, I'm going through something stressful or a friend had hurt me. I decided early on when I worked at the orphanage that I worked at with all the boys that changed my life, they just wanted someone to love them, care about them— very important here— believe in them and show them how to live better.

Mm-hmm.

And I used to think, well, that's because they're orphan boys and I want that because I have a child of an alcoholic. Every human wants. So people, how do you get these? You know, I coach some of the top world leaders. I was on this morning with someone who used to run a very big country and they asked me, how do you— why do these people want to work with you? I honestly believe it's that they believe I love them, care about them, believe in them, and I can show them how to do certain things a little bit better, just like those boys. But the truth is, I don't want to be idolized. I want to be aspirational, but I want to give people hope like, wow, you can have flaws, you can have insecurities, And still win in spite of them and still overcome them. And I have those things. I still have my set of insecurities. It's like, for example, that call today. It's a brand new client and was referred to me by a very, very, very famous person. And there was a part of me before we started the call, I'm like, what in the world does he have to get from me? And then when we started the call, I went back to my trilogy. I went, God's with me on this call. I intend to serve this man and make a difference. And the third thing is I've got great people around me that I can bounce ideas off of as well, my associations. So I always try to show the things in me that are my weaknesses too, or things that are bothering me so that people go, oh, I can do it too. If he can do it, I can do it.

It shows that you have a heart being of service to others and that a good listener.

So do you, by the way. I want to acknowledge that, that confidence and humility thing. I would be making a mistake if I didn't say that. That's what's great about you. You know, we mentioned John Gordon earlier, my friend and your friend. Listen, my favorite people have that. Meghan has that. Meghan's extremely confident, beautiful.

I love her. She was so kind to me on the Today Show.

Like, so sweet. Isn't she just a wonderful woman, right? And she doesn't have that reputation with everybody, but the truth is she is. She's brilliant, yet so much humility. And I want to have that because most of my great friends have that combo. Here's why. Self-confident people with no humility, their ego, they eventually burn out. They eventually make mistakes. They eventually fry. And they're so self-centered, they're no fun to be around. Then you have those other friends that are so beautiful, they're humble, they're— they have great humility, but they have no confidence, and you're dragging them through life all the time. Come on, we can do it! And they drain your energy. I want to have self-confidence, but I want humility because it keeps me curious, it keeps me humble, it keeps me growing and learning. No humility means no growth.

Mm-hmm.

And I love knowing I'm not the smartest person in the room, and I don't want to be most of the time. I want to learn from— I already know what I know. I want to learn from other people. And so that's why humility is super important to me anyway.

You know what I just remembered? There's a funny story about you speaking of humility and also being able to reach out to other people on your team and stuff and your friends. I cannot remember where I heard it, but you were telling a story about how you first started Instagram. It was a story About hash browns.

Oh my goodness.

Could you please share it? Because I was, I was like crying laughing.

I cry still thinking about it because that proves how stupid I am. But I was a speaker and I was an entrepreneur. I was actually, you know, pretty highly paid speaker, but I liked that I would just go talk and leave. One of my friends is Tony Robbins. We were neighbors in a couple different places, and he's like, you need to get on social media, you need to take it big, you know, you need to really take what you know to the world. And I'm like, nah, I don't want to do it. And he goes, that's why you're a fraud. That's what he says to me. You're a fraud. I said, what the—

what?

He goes, because you want— you say you want to help all these people, but you don't want to inconvenience yourself to do it. There's a chapter in my book because of this conversation called One More Inconvenience. Literally.

Are you serious?

There literally is, out of this conversation. But he says to me— my son's there, he's like 15, 16 at the time. No, he wasn't. He was younger than that. He was like 13. And he goes, you need to get on Twitter and Instagram. I go, I'll do the Instagram thing. How do you do it? He goes, you got to make videos. You put them out and I'm giving 1-hour keynote speeches. I go, okay, how long are these videos? He goes, a minute. I go, a minute, man? It takes me a minute to clear my throat. What the heck am I gonna say in a minute? He goes, well, you need to figure it out, dude, because this is how it works. So, I said, give me the damn phone. I'm not a fraud. My son's sitting there. We're at my fire pit. Tony's right to my left but he's off the camera. And I do my blah, blah, blah, my 48-second video and I post it. And he goes, oh, it'll blow up. I've got like 3 followers. And, uh, the next day it gets 4 views and 1 like. And I call him, I'm on my son, hey, I thought you were a social media— I literally called it, I didn't tell you this the last time, I called it InstaFace. I confuse Instagram and Facebook. And I'm like, I thought you were an expert on InstaFace, man. I'm telling this to my 13-year-old son. Dad, it's Instagram and Facebook. I'm like, whatever it is, clearly you don't get it because I got 4 views and only 1 of them even liked it. So, I called Tony and we're both on our boat, so it's noisy. And I go, hey, this thing doesn't work. He goes, you posted one video, man. It's gonna take a while. I said, well, what am I doing wrong? I got 4 views and only one of them even liked it and no one said anything on the comment thing. And here's what I hear him say. He goes, listen, first thing, you gotta post at the right time of day. Post at breakfast time. Okay? Now, to this day, I still post every day at 7:30 AM because he told me to do that. I say, I post the exact same time every day. But he said breakfast, and the boat's on, it's a little bit loud, and I don't know anything. And then I hear him say, you got to post at breakfast time, and you got to have hash browns in every video. And I'm— I don't want to sound any more stupid than I already sound. I'm like, hash browns for breakfast? What? I go, all right, man, I got you. Okay. And I hang up. I go, Max, how come you don't know about the hash browns? He goes, Dad, what are you talking about? I said, Tony says specifically post at breakfast With hash browns in the video. And Max is like, I've never heard that, Dad, but if Tony says we should do it, we'll do it. So the next video, you can look at my Instagram, the second video I make, I'm at a breakfast table with hash browns in front of me and I make another video. I have no idea why these hash browns are a necessity to the video at all. I post, it gets 3 views and no likes. And I call him back, I go, hey Robbins, you don't know about this stuff either because I just posted a whole damn video. It took me forever to record it 9 times. Now I got 3 views, no likes, and I got the hash browns in the video. He goes, what in the world did you just say? I said, I got the hash browns in the video. He goes, dummy, I said hashtags, not hash browns. I said, what is a hashtag? He goes, I don't know, it's like a pound sign and then a word. I go, what does that have to do with anything? He goes, I don't know, but it works. You got to do a pound sign and then some words. Now it's even weird. Hash browns seemed less weird to me than pound signs and words. And I started out on social media thinking I needed hash browns in the video I had in order to get successful. And what's ironic about it is, here we are, like, I don't know, 100 years later, and I've been picked like 5 different times the fastest growing viral businessman in social media history because I've never run an ad. All my peers have run hundreds of millions of dollars for ads for their businesses. I've never run an Instagram or a Facebook Never mind an InstaFace ad in my entire life.

An InstaFace.

And I've got millions of people that watch my stuff. I've never run an ad before. So, it ended up working out because of the quality of the content. But yeah, I started out with breakfast foods in my video thinking—

Oh my goodness. And wait, how long was— how long ago was this?

I'm gonna say— I said, I was thinking about this yesterday too because the story occurred to me yesterday because I had a video that did like, you know, like 8 million views or something. I was like, wow, that's a big difference. I think it was 6 years ago, maybe it was 7. 6 or 7 years ago was when I did my—

That is incredible. And it's because you just give value, value, value. Everything you do is you give so much value. And so I've been following you on Instagram for years, and I— you're my go-to page for wisdom or motivation or inspiration, um, because it gives people hope.

I hope people have hope. Like whatever you're doing on social media, you probably weren't so stupid to put breakfast food in your first video. You're probably doing better now.

Well, I love that you share that because I tell people, you know, 5 years ago, I didn't even own a computer. I didn't have social media. I handwrote like 80%, 90% of my book on a notebook. And then—

Did you really? Wow.

Yeah. And so when I heard you share that story, I was like, thank God I'm not alone in figuring things out with social media. Because it hadn't been that long ago that I started figuring things out You're unique though.

Let me say something to you. You have a special superpower, which is that there are inspiring people. I'd like to think that, you know, I can be inspiring, but it's very rare that someone— and then there are, by the way, people with inspiring stories, but they're not so inspiring, right? You're the combination of both. Your story is radically inspirational, and then you deliver it in a highly emotional and inspirational way that resonates with people. That combination is like a superpower because it's very rare. There's very few people on the earth that both have your story and the ability to deliver it in an inspirational way. So you have a huge advantage and strength that most people don't have.

Well, thank you. I am just taking that to heart right now. Thank you so much. You just made my day.

It's true.

Y'all heard it here. Y'all heard it here on the show.

I'm right. Trust me.

Well, You know, for me, I know, Star, and a lot of people in my mastermind, there's some people that are doing really well on Instagram and on social media. There are other people that are kind of introverted and it's hard to do a video. Were you ever like uncomfortable doing a video of yourself and speaking right into the camera or going out onto stage and delivering a talk? Were you ever like have stage fright or even like get camera shy and be like, oh, I don't know if I can talk into the camera?

Yeah, more the stage. For some reason, when I started doing the videos, that actually felt relatively natural to me. I'll tell you now what I am is I'll pick myself apart. I mean, I'm being completely honest here where I don't like how I look a lot.

You know, I'll which is crazy because no, people strive to look like you. But I think it's human nature again to I did it yesterday.

I did three shows in the SiriusXM studios. They bought my show, and so I do stuff with Stitcher and Sirius. I did it yesterday, and finally my producer said. Ed, stop saying you don't look great today. You look fine. You know, she didn't say fine. She said something nicer than that. But I'm still that way. So the part of my appearance, but the content itself and the ability to deliver it, I feel very comfortable doing that for some reason. What I'm uncomfortable doing is sharing my private life a lot. My wife doesn't like to be on social media at all.

I think— My husband doesn't either.

I think half people think I'm single because I almost never post about my wife because she would prefer that I didn't. I'm not single. And then I think the stage stuff, certainly though, I do get anxiety sometimes when I'm going to go speak and usually that's when I'm just in my ego, when it's all about me. When I really move into that intention to serve people and it becomes about them, the pressure sort of comes off. I don't have to have the perfect words. I'm there to make a difference. My flaws are sort of inspirational and, you know, I remind myself of something. There's kind of 4 categories of people. There's people that are just not motivated at all. That's the masses of people. Then there's people who finally step forward in their life and they're motivated or motivational people and they play to motives. I want a car, I want a house, I want a relationship, I want a bunch of money. They're driven by motives. Nothing wrong with that. Then there's an elevated place from there which is inspirational. Inspirational people hit you differently. They move you. The root of that is to be in spirit. You feel an energy from them. There's something that moves you emotionally when they communicate. And I— then I wanted to be an inspirational person and transfer that energy to people. And then when I speak, not just transfer but transfer to each person in a room. And then the 4th level is really unique, which is aspirational, where people aspire to be like you, more like you. And that's when people are around you and things aren't taught, they're caught. People just catch things by being in your presence. And so, I try to always try to stay in that place if I can of being inspirational and aspirational. And when I'm doing that, I don't feel a lot of pressure. When I'm motivating and it's to the motives of, I hope they like me, I hope it goes well, that's when I start to feel pressure. And so I just remind myself of that.

Oh, that's so good. Yeah. I remember one time I was about to go on stage and I love my friend Dan Clark, is an incredible speaker. And we were both in Phoenix and he says, well, I'll come to support you. I'll be your bodyguard. And I'm like, oh my gosh, come, he's going to come hear me speak. And he comes backstage and I'm like, oh my gosh, you, you're actually here. Oh my heart, I just got nervous. And he goes, then you're thinking about yourself. That's pretty selfish.

Right.

And I was like, okay, you're right, but you just told me you're here to hear me speak. And then that made me nervous, so I'm getting out of it. So I went into the bathroom. My, my friend, uh, Patrice Washington comes in and I'm like, I'm really nervous. Can you say a prayer with me? And she actually prayed with me in the bathroom. And then I was like, okay, There we go. God's with me, coming out with me, so it's all good. So I know we got to wrap up, so I got one more question for you.

Sure.

That is, I need some tips on what you think I should do. I'm playing in the celebrity baseball tournament.

Whoa.

I know. I told them I'm not good at baseball.

Are you sure that's true?

I, I am really seriously doing this in June.

No, I'm sorry, are you sure it's true that you're not good? How do you know that?

I played softball as a kid.

And, uh-huh.

And what's not good? I was out in the outfield and I heard everybody yelling and screaming, upset. And I looked and the ball was right next to me. I was daydreaming. I had no interest in it. And so I'm like, I told them, the people that asked me to play in this tournament, I'm like, are you sure? Because I'm gonna be upfront and tell you, and very honest, that I'm not that great at baseball, but I'm a really good cheerleader. I can bring on the hype and they're like, no, we really want you to play.

Oh, wonderful.

So just get a ball and start playing catch or what?

My advice to you is hit it where they're not standing.

Okay.

I wasn't very good at that, which is why I'm sitting here right now. No, I would tell you just to have fun. And I'm a big believer that they're probably not having you there because you're going to hit 6 home runs. They're having you there because people want to see you be there. And if they see you enjoying yourself and they see you trying, Hey, this may sound corny. I think people are inspired by seeing people do things poorly at first. I really do. I think they go, now that took some courage to go out there. So do I think you should be at the batting cages for the next few weeks? I doubt it. I would just have some fun with it. And when you hit it, hit it where they're not standing. That's why I'm sitting here. I had a habit of hitting exactly where they were standing too many times in my life. So no, hit it where they're not. If someone would have told me that a long time ago, I'd probably still be playing.

Oh my God, well, wait a minute now. I think you might be playing with the Red Sox or something like that, right?

You know about that?

Yeah, yeah, I heard that somewhere. I think it may have been John's interview, John Gordon's Positive You podcast.

I'm gonna be taking batting practice at Fenway for sure, so I gotta hit one out of that park. Now that I am practicing for, I'm not gonna lie to you. There's a couple guys on the team that—

So it's true, you're really gonna I'm, I'm practicing.

I'm not playing with them.

But I know when you say you've got a vision for something— Yeah, you're a—

you know, I'm not sure there's a market for a 51-year-old, uh, couple torn hamstrings anymore in the big leagues. But if there is a spot available, I will certainly be willing to take it. But I am—

But you know what? You're not like any 51-year-old.

I'm gonna tell you right now, I, I'm gonna hit one out over the fence in batting practice if I have to stand on second base to do it. I'm going to do it, but I'm hitting one out of Fenway Park. That's been my dream all my life. And so I'm going to go do that. It's just cool that they actually want me around for a day. So I'm going to take full advantage of it. And that's how you should look at that celebrity baseball game. It's just cool they want you around, right? Like just enjoy it.

Hey, it's cool they want me around. I don't know why, but they do. And so I'm going to go have some fun and I will remember your advice that you told me.

We'll compare notes. We'll see how you did there compared to how I do with the Red Sox. We'll see how we did when we catch back up.

Well, you've got a swing on you, so I have no doubt that it's going to be out from first. Yeah, it's going to be hitting some home runs.

So one of us believes that that's better than none of us. So thank you. Thank you.

Well, tell us where everybody can go grab your book because I know this is going to change a lot of lives and I really want to shout it off the rooftops for people to grab your book and follow you and get to learn from you because it's been such an honor and privilege to get to learn from you for, for years now. And so, where can people find you?

First, you, thank you for being so prepared today. That's the highest form of respect and compliment you can pay somebody. And I really do appreciate that. So, thank you. It's called The Power of One More. You can get it anywhere books are sold. Go get it. It will improve your life. I am very confident that that's true. And it's not like a book you've ever read before. Some of the chapters will resonate with you more than others. It is a heavy book. There's a lot of content, there's a lot of detail, and so it probably needs to breathe on you a little bit. And if you go to thepowerofonemore.com, there's some cool stuff on there with like surveys and stuff you can do that'll enhance the book experience for you. If you go to thepowerofonemore.com after you go buy the book. You can follow me anywhere on social, anywhere, my podcast, YouTube, social, you can find me, Insta face.

I'm all over it. Thank you so much, Ed. It is just It's been so much fun talking with you. Thank you for being on the show.

My complete honor. Thank you.