Overcoming the Middle Class Mindset and Embracing Wealth with David Neagle

There's various different ways that we can approach something once we realize we can do it. If we shut it off and just say that we can't, we also shut off the other options or the other ways to get something done. Our problem is that we try to look at our subconscious behavior with our rational mind. How many people died? How many people lose? Like, we have to wake up to the fact that success is our birthright. And then, of course, like I said before, there's a reason that you're here, right?

Hey there, Bob Govreau here, and welcome to the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. I will be your host for the day. Excited to have you here once again. And listen, today is a very special episode. I'm actually bringing in a friend and colleague of mine, and we're going to be talking about mindset and mindset shifts. And really the foundation for this came from a conversation I had months ago with a friend of mine named Mike. We were having dinner in LA and. And Mike said to me, you know, what is the one thing that's sort of challenging you right now? And I said, well, what I would love to know from you, Mike, is how you have become the CEO of a company that's a $40 million company. You know, like leaving a. A million dollars or $2 million and, and venturing into that side. And he said something to me that kind of stuck with me for, you know, the last couple of years. I think I met with him maybe five years ago, now that I'm remembering. And he said, well, Bob, you know what? You're never going to become the leader of a $40 million company if you continue to be the way that you are. And he's like, nothing against, you know, the way that you are running your business. He said, but truthfully, if you want to become the leader of a $40 million business, you need to become that leader first before you can help expand that journey and get yourself there. You're not going to get there after. You need to be there first. You need to become that leader, that CEO, that expert, that driver of the company. You have to be able to get yourself to your peak performance level if that's where you want to get to first, and then you can bring everyone with you. And that really started my. My major journey down understanding mindset and making sure that we're in maximum performance mode as we enter into becoming that leader that we aspire to. And so this is a great sort of intro today into a good friend of mine, David Neagle. David Neagle. Is a speaker, best selling author, founder of the multi million dollar global consulting company Life Is Now Inc. And is the host of the business news ranked podcast the sun or sorry. The Successful Mind. Being in the personal and professional development industry for more than 20 years, David has helped tens of thousands of students from across the globe gain confidence and find the right mindset needed to increase their revenue, turn their endeavors into seven and eight figure ventures. David has shared the stage with me for multiple years, is always a very empowering and enlightening speaker. Always grateful to connect with him. I'm happy to introduce you to my friend David Neagle today who's going to help you transform your mindset into becoming a high performer. All right David, I am so excited to have you here today. I know a few years back we had our very first live virtual event and you were a speaker and so many mind blowing ideas and concepts about how to stretch ourselves as humans and how to achieve our full potential. So, so great to have you back. Wanted to kick things off about a concept that you introduced to me during that event that for me it was something that finally got labeled and it was something that you labeled the middle class mindset. And it kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. Like oh my. I think maybe I've experienced this middle class mindset at least at some points in my life. Can you share with us what the middle class mindset means and, and how it impacts us?

Yes, I absolutely can. It's an. It's. First of all, let me just tell you how I can kind of came about that, that idea. I was preparing a program for a friend back around 2006 and she asked me if I would speak to her mastermind group and she told me what the, what the problem was. They were, they were all constantly in this struggle. So I put this thing together and I spoke to them and it was the first time I ever used the term middle class mindset. And I started off by saying you have to understand that a business owner or an entrepreneur has a totally different value system than somebody who was raised in the middle class. And middle class suffer from the mindset that supports people being raised in the middle class. Because the idea, the fundamental idea behind the middle class is that a person stays safe their whole life. They're anti risk, they're anti debt, they're anti different social constructs that make it difficult. Like you don't talk to people about money, you don't talk to people about intimate things. That's considered rude. Right? You be nice and nice is not a value, right? Nice is a way of being kind is a value, but nice is not. Nice is a face that we put on so that we're socially accepted by other people. But serial killers do the same thing, right? So it's not something to judge a person whether or not they're nice. So we have all of these different, all of these different values that are part of the middle class mindset that we're raised in from the moment that we're born. And the idea is that we're able to stay part of the group that we're in that keeps us safe. So we start off with our family. They're responsible for our safety and well being. When we're infants, they keep us alive. We don't have the ability to get our needs met outside of them. We don't even have language when we're born. So we're right in that value system. And we're learning it on a biological and a neurological level because we don't, we're not speaking right? It's the subconscious mind is noticing what works as far as the movements and crying or whatever. And are we getting a response from mom? And if that works, then we, you know, it gets ingrained into that, that pattern recognition. So then we go through that we go through being a toddler and then we go to school and then we have another person of authority that's in charge of us. So we go from mom and dad being an authority to a teacher being authority. Maybe you were raised with some kind of a religion, then you have a religious authority. So everything comes from this perspective of, of two things. Do what you're told. I'm in charge of what you get to do and what you don't get to do. You must ask permission to advance in life and you have to learn specifically what we tell you and not anything else. And it's really not learning because if you remember when we went to school, especially in the early years, it was just, could you remember the information and repeat it on a test? And then that determined what your, what your report card came out to be. So there was no integration of behavior in all of those things. The behavior was basically, you do what mom and dad tell you to do. And what's fascinating about it is that all kids have what I call an authentic self that starts to come out. They don't. They're not bored with shame, they're not born with guilt. And they, they stretch. They begin to do things based on what they feel impulsive to do. But they learn really quick what the boundaries are with mom and dad. Anything that goes beyond what makes them uncomfortable and they're quickly brought back into this zone of this is how we behave. And then we're given two things that run crazy paradigm in our mind for the rest of our life. Shame and guilt. Right. You should be ashamed of yourself for doing that. You should feel terrible that you punched your sister in the head, that type of thing. Once those are installed in our mind, then we self regulate based on those two principles forever. It's one of the reasons why society can literally cripple the masses with shame and guilt because it's already programmed in their mind. So the idea is that if we want to start a business, and I, I would go as far as even becoming wealthy, right. If you figure out another way to do it besides starting a business, you're going to have to overcome middle class mindset because you cannot be wealthy with just you. That's not, that's not going to happen. Wealth follows a completely different set of values and rules versus I'm going to earn my income from somebody else for the rest of my life. And I'm not saying that that's wrong. I'm just saying if you want to transfer over and get out of that way of living, you want to create a different lifestyle, you have to understand the values and beliefs that are causing you to stay stuck in that lifestyle and then be willing to work through.

Changing them and eliminating those constraints that we just feel have been set as parameters to what we can accomplish. Yes, right. Like that. It's interesting. And I remember when you talked about this too, you talked about the idea of, you know, we're all sort of created as kids to just work harder and then if we just work harder, we're just going to continue to get those outcomes. And you know, it kind of hit me too, that was a good one where I thought, you know, an element of hard work is a good attribute for someone, but working harder, working more hours isn't necessarily going to create or transform into that wealth that we're trying to build. Right.

And not only. So here's the interesting thing about it. I like. So it's not that I'm against hard work from the idea of not working hard as it being difficult. Right. But working hard as being like persistent. Right. That's the attitude that I want to have. I, when I first started in this industry, I was making about 50,000 a year and I wanted to get to 50,000amonth. And I had a very Interesting experience. I set a goal. My mentor challenged me. He's like, you could do it this month. I totally believed him. And I started off after this goal. The end of the month, I was no closer than I was any other month. And I, I, I was so floored that I hadn't made any progress. Like, this seemed really bizarre to me. And I had a conversation with him on the phone. I'll never forget this. It was like midnight, the last day, end of the month. And he said to me, how did you do? And I'm like, bob, it was horrible. I'm. I am no further away than I was last month. And he laughed and he said, you know, it's easier to make 50,000amonth than it is 50,000 a year. And I thought he was joking with me, like, teasing me, right? Poking me a bit. And I laughed. And I'm like, yeah, it is for you, right? He says, no, it's easier. He said, all right, let's do it again this month. So second month, do the same thing. And I'm like. And I'm, I'm thinking to myself, I gotta be more dedicated. I've got to work harder. I started making sales calls around the world based on time zones. So I was working like 20 hours a day just making calls, starting England, end up in Asia, you know, by early in the morning. And I was even. It was even worse the second month. I was further away the second month than I was the first month. And he said to me again, he said, I told you, it's easier to make 50,000amonth. He said, why would you work all year to make 50,000? He goes, I wouldn't even get out of bed to make 50,000. And I'm like. I was getting furious at him. And then all of a sudden, it clicked and I. And I realized he's being serious with me. And what I did not realize was that when I first made a transformation in my youth to get out of, like, going broken, bankrupt and having all these issues, one of the, One of the values that I took on was an incredible work ethic, like, nobody was going to work harder than me, type of a work ethic. And it worked. It worked. When I worked for somebody else, it got me to. It got me starting off from driving a truck in a company, going all the way to the top without getting a further education. Like, it really worked. What I didn't realize was that I was taking that idea and I was making problems difficult. I was actually making them hard so they fit my internal Value of what? Of how I valued myself. And when I saw that, I thought to myself, okay, so if it's actually easy, what would be the easiest way, based on what I do, to go from 50,000 a year to 50,000amonth this month? And I was like, one sale at 50,000, that would do it. And that scared the hell out of me. So I didn't do 50, but I did 15. And I did it in two weeks. I went over 50,000. I was like 62, 62, 63,000 within a two week period of time. And I was. And I woke up to that so fast. And I was like, okay, this hard work ethic is great until you start making it hard to meet your internal ethic. Right. During what you. How you've learned to actually value yourself. So then everything that I looked at from a strategic perspective after that was what is the easy, elegant way to be able to do this? And it totally changed everything.

I love that. And, you know, I guess that the whole principle of that is the work smarter, not harder. Yeah. Sort of concept. Right. Just put in a much more better words and elegant. Thank you. I do love that. And I think, you know, so many of us get caught up in, you know, this is also how we grew up. This is what we're seeing as role models with our parents. And you know, my, my mom was a nurse, my dad was a plumber. And it was like that. That's amazing. They were, they worked hard and that was always what they were instilling in us was just work hard and, you know, continue to be educated. But then something changed, right. And when you started to stop having those parameters, those limits on what was potential and what was available to you and thinking differently about how you can accomplish those things, you know, you bust through that ceiling and. Yeah, you know, pretty big moment for many business owners when that happens.

Yeah. Well, the. When I first started to do it, I happened to be having dinner with my mother and my stepdad one weekend. And they said, well, how's the business going? This and that. Which I was always a little reluctant to get into that conversation with them because they just couldn't understand it. But I was a little overexcited about the fact that I was raising my prices. And I said, I'm raising my prices to 15,000 to work with me. And my stepdad, he put his eating utensils down and he said, who the hell would pay that? And my response to him was, people that don't value saving money, but they value the outcome that they're paying for. And I had realized that there's basically two types of people in the world. You have people that are raised and the middle class mindset has saved money on everything that you do. That's the, that's the thing supposed to give you pride, right? Oh, that's an amazing. Whatever you bought. Yes. And I paid half for it or I got 20% off. That's where the, that's where this crazy value. You got a deal. You got a great deal. Right. Especially in the, especially in, in the Midwest where I, where I grew up. But then I realized that there were people that were more than happy to pay a lot of money for something because they valued the outcome. And there's literally, I mean, I think that, I don't think that this is actually that it should be this way, but it, it is a very, it's a truth that marketers know very well is that raising the price automatically induces the idea of higher quality with those people. So when you're, when you're trying to find those individuals going with a higher price to see what the limit is that you can attract on that basis, it works very well for sure.

And we, we talk about that in pricing strategy as well, where, you know, one, understand how to relay the value of what goes into what you deliver. But two, there's an ownership element for a buyer that they just embrace paying more and it being more meaningful to them because it's costing them and they're feeling that as an investment versus it being a discounted, inexpensive item where, you know, everybody has, you know, if I'm paying more for this, I'm more invested. I, and I feel like, you know, the ability to get that outcome is more. Because I put more into it. Yeah. Is that fair?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right.

I want to, I want to change gears a little bit, but I do, I do appreciate the middle class mindset so much and I, you know, even post been a while since I've been in school, but I never really appreciated the study of sociology when I was at university and I, it's probably one of those things that I refer to back the most. And it fascinates me now. So thank you for, for that. Saw a recent video that you did and you talked about the number one skill that business owners need for success and you said that it had to be something around how to make a decision and how to be 100% committed to that outcome. Would love to hear a little bit more about that.

Yeah. So again, I'll just refer Back just a bit to what my mentor taught me. It was the foundation of everything that I learned from him over a seven year period of time was how to make a decision. And he said, he used to say this all the time. We're, we're not taught how to make decisions as kids, not that benefit us anyway in our life because the decisions are based on safety and not losing and not risking and, and not making anybody upset at us, that type of thing. He's like, that's no way to make a decision. And then the other thing is that if you think about like a New Year's resolution, people make decisions all the time to say, I'm going to do this. And they think that just saying it is the decision itself. And then when it comes down to the application of whatever, whatever it is, they forget they even said it half the time. Or if it's, you know, like, I'm going to exercise, but tomorrow it's raining, so I'm not going to exercise. That's not it. That's not a decision whether exercise. Exactly right. So, so the idea is that there's two things that I think that are very fascinating about this. There is I'm going to make a decision to do something I like and I'm going to make a decision to do something that I don't like. The latter is again, going back to this middle class mindset that success has to be about making decisions to do things and overcome things that we don't like to do. And I really disagree with that. I think that there are people that become very successful doing that, but it's not 100% true because there are people that choose to do like something is flawed in that. And, and I used to go back, still do I look at nature like, because one of the things that I ask myself internally is what is the truth about this? When I see something or I'm having a problem or I'm trying to figure something out, what's the truth? And I will often use the universe itself, or nature as we know it, as a, like a beacon of truth. Where do we see this outside of human behavior? And you don't see struggle outside of human behavior. You see, everything flows exactly the way that it's supposed to be interesting. Animals, plants, all life knows what to do. The only time it gets messed up is when human beings get involved. So I started thinking, well, what about, what about when we make a decision to do something? What is it that causes most people to break that decision or that commitment? Well, they don't like what they're doing. Right. They're struggling through something that they absolutely don't like to do. Well, why are we doing something that we don't like to do? Well, because we were taught we have to do things that we don't like to do. Everybody's got to do things that they don't like to do. And I said, why could we decide to do what we do like to do now? That means that we have to rearrange beliefs about other things. So for. For business, people will often say, well, I can't just hire people. I don't have the money. And I said, where did you hear that you had to have the money to hire people? So it's really. It's really rearranging their thought process of how things actually have to go. I think everybody's here for a reason. So I start from the top down on this idea of decision. What's your purpose? What do you feel your purpose is in line with what the desire of your heart? What is that pulling you toward every day? And why do you deny it and do something different? And they'll always say, because I don't think I can do this. I don't have the money. I don't have. They'll tell you a whole list of excuses or reasons why they can't do that thing. And I'm like, that's all bs. That's bs. You've got stories around each one of those excuses that keeps you stuck and tolerating a life of doing things that have to be hard. Right now, this can get very tangled. But when you help a person think through it, the answer is we can get up every day. We can do the things that we love to do. The things that we've associated negative thoughts to that make it difficult that are actually part of what we should do, like being healthy, treating people kind, having great relationships that can be rewired very easily. Just a matter of reframing what it is that you're actually doing, because I don't think that difficulty is part of our life. I think it's a construct that was created by people for various different reasons. But it keeps people. But it totally keeps people stuck. So when we make a decision, we should ask four questions. Number one, is this something that I want to be, do, or have and only look at one thing at a time? Don't bring in a whole scenario of stuff. Is this something I want to be, do, or have? If I get a yes, I go to. The second question is being doing or having this going to take me closer to my goal or my purpose or whatever it is that I'm measuring this against. If I get a yes, I go to number three. Is being, doing or having this in harmony with the laws of the universe are God's laws as you know them. And really the one law that we're looking at is the idea of more life. I believe everything is for is to move life forward. That's everything that we see in the universe. All energy moves in that. In that direction. If you get a yes there, the last question is, is being, doing or having this going to violate the rights of others? And what we're looking to not do in that case is take away somebody else's choice. So if you give yourself three yeses and a no, then you can make. You can solidly make the decision to move into that direction. Now, you may have to evaluate it for other reasons, but at least you're making it from a centered position of who you want to be as a person and what you actually want to have in your life. Because we don't have to do things that we really don't want to do. And when you tell somebody that, their mind will. The bride will just go wacky with this. When I was working in corporate, I had a guy that the owner of the company was a bit of a sadist. And he, like, seriously, he loved to mess with the employees. If you screwed up as a manager, our job was to mess with the people that screwed up and make their life miserable for a few weeks. And I. This went against every fiber of my being. Now we were a union company also.

And I would say this wasn't in a fun nature.

No, this was not in a fun nature. This was, yes, you screw up their routes, mess with their day, make them stay out over time, give them the worst things to do, like really nasty stuff. And we were a union, and you know, the bylaws of the union would say what you could do or couldn't do. And I was in this guy's office one day and I'm like, we can't do this. The union book says, I mean, you agreed to this, you signed it, we can't do it. And he said, I'm going to tell you something. He said, we live in America. He said, you could do whatever you want as long as you're willing to pay the price for it. And I'm willing to pay the price for it. Now he was used. I'll never forget that. I could see him as if it was yesterday. Even though he had it, was using it for something dark. The power behind the truth in that idea spun my head around because I kept coming from the place like, we can't do this. And he's like, I can do whatever I want. Don't tell me what I can't do. Now, is it right or wrong? That's a totally different conversation.

Yeah. It maybe doesn't hit everybody's moral compass.

That's right. But when it comes down to our lives and how we're going to live our life, you can do whatever you want to do, and that's. To become aware or awakened to that power is extraordinary because you remove all the limits to everything that you tell yourself about why you can't do something. Yes, there's a consequence to everything that you do, but that's secondary in nature. The first thing is to understand you can do whatever you want.

I love that. And I do love. You know, you talked about do what you want. You know, kind of choosing your own life to do something that, you know, gets you excited. You said it gets complicated. So there are things sometimes that come up where it's like, okay, well, this complication isn't necessarily something I want to deal with, but it's a means to the end of me enjoying what I want. Right. Is that what you're saying when you say it gets complicated?

Complicated, yes, absolutely. Because we can always. Look, I mean, there's various different ways that we can approach something once we realize we can do it. If we shut it off and just say that we can't, we. We also shut off the other options or the other ways to get something done. And I usually refer to this first and foremost with the idea of a person taking controlling of their life and doing what it is that they love. Right. I think that God gave. There's a reason why we have that feeling inside of us. It's a direction. Right. It's not just there to make us feel good. It's a direction. It's pointing us to the things that we're here to do. As far as our purpose as a human being. The other thing that I believe is that that purpose had to exist before we came into our. Into our physical being. There's a reason for all life to exist, including us, but the reason existed before we did. Our job is to. To become aware of that reason and then follow it in our life. And I also think. Think that that's what brings unbelievable fulfillment to human beings when they're doing the thing that they're here to do. I don't care how many hardships they're overcoming and challenges, they're completely fulfilled because they absolutely are. They're connected to what it is that they're here for.

Yeah, I love that. So walk me through those four rules again. So the first is choose your. Your own path. Choose something that excites you. Right. And if we're successful there, step two was so.

So it's follow your heart and then ask yourself the four questions to make a decision. Is it something I want to be, do, or have? Is being, doing, or having this going to take me toward my goal? Is being, doing, or having this going to add to my life? Is being, doing, or having this going to violate the rights of others? You're looking for three yeses and a no. And then move forward, make the decision and don't look back.

Love that. Love that. Great advice. Anybody listening? Man, that. That's almost every decision you make. You should follow through that. Right. Spending in life, going through doing what you want to do. Does it meet these three criteria? And then a no. Love that, David. Thank you.

Can I just add one more thing to that, please? One of the hardest things about doing that is that very often when a person wakes up to the idea that they actually have that, that that's actually possible for them, they've usually set up a life full of responsibility and other individuals that probably won't agree with it, and they're going to have to deal with that issue. So what happens is that instead of choosing what they want, they choose to be in a relationship because they know that it's not going to go over. One of the hardest things for a human being to do is to say no to somebody else. And when you do this, when you walk that path for yourself, you're going to have to learn to tell other people no and to set boundaries around what you're doing, because not everybody's going to agree with it.

Yeah, Saying no can be hard sometimes. It's definitely challenging, but. But empowering, too, to be able to think very much. Yeah. And I want to build off this and even the statement from your union boss there suggesting we can do whatever we want and essentially don't tell us otherwise. You know, again, that that is super powerful. And I know for me, when I started back in 2008, I started on my own. We now have just shy of 100 employees and have certainly grown and maximized our impact. And it's been a hell of a run with just scraping the surface of what we want to accomplish. And I guess the question I had for you builds off that we can do anything we want. Can you speak to the mindset shift that's needed in our life, in our business, in order to go from, you know, essentially starting out a business to building that business that you're really dreaming of? That's on your, you know, it's your goal, it's your horizon. What sort of mindset set shift has to happen between now and then to accomplish that?

All right, so I made a list of these because I had a feeling that this was. This was actually going to come up. So person needs to just sit and listen to this and ask themselves how many of these things they're actually experiencing in their current reality. Lack. Being broke, struggling anywhere things being too hard, making excuses, constant failing. Procrastination, Blame. Tolerating things in your life or your business. Toxic relationships. Okay, so here's the thing about all of. I've been doing this for 24 years and this is consistent with every business owner that I've ever worked with. Maybe not all of them, but. But pieces of them. And the idea is, why is it so difficult to trick, to transform these things? Here's the reason why. Because if you attach the idea of holic to this word, it. It says everything. You're a lackaholic, a broke, a holic, a struggle, a holic too hard. A holic excuse. A holic failaholic, procrastination. A holic blame. A holic toleration, a holic toxic relationship. A holic. We are literally a addicted. I've been looking for years to find a way to give somebody the, the real emphasis on why is it that we do these things over and over again? Because we're addicted to them. Our problem is that we, we try to look at our subconscious behavior with our rational mind. And they're two different. They operate two different ways. Subconscious mind is only concerned with keeping us alive and surviving is it doesn't care whether you're happy or in love or not in love. It doesn't care what you like or you dislike. It doesn't care about any of those things. So we get wired from birth where a lot of these things, as we talked about with the middle class mindset, actually are values, right? Like it's a value to struggle. It's a value for things to be hard. We have conflicting ideas around money, right? It's like money is a necessary evil. Don't make too much or you become one of those evil rich people, you know, and then all the stuff that you hear about that. So we have conflicting. We have value conflicts. It's what we call them. But the truth is, is that we're addicted to those things. Like any person would be addicted to drugs or alcohol or sex or bad behavior or risky behavior, whatever. It works the same way. We can't. We have to, because we have to break it. We have to let go of it. And what is it doing? It's a way for us to cope through life because we don't know how to do it successfully. We don't know how to be in life without being attached to these things. I firmly believe that success is easy and it's our birthright. Everything about us, from a genetic perspective and from a spiritual perspective says that that's a hundred percent true. Right? I mean, if you think about what it takes for us to be here from a genetic perspective, that's. It's amazing. It's like you're the one sperm that made it to the egg out of.

How many million high performer, David, that's just.

That's a high performer. Exactly right. And that you. And that you're alive and that you're here and that you've moved through. And people take that for granted because they don't really think about how many didn't make it, right, how many people died, how many people lose. Like, we have to wake up to the fact that success is our birthright. And then, of course, like I said before, there's a reason that you're here, right? It's not because mom and dad had a great weekend together, you know, at the beach or something. There's a reason that you came into this lifetime. And when you realize what that reason is, you have purpose behind what you're doing. And when you have the right purpose, you have the right why, and these things begin to go away. We only hang on to these things because we want to be accepted by other people. And I challenge anybody to look at this and tell me that that's not true. Every one of the things that I read to you, we hang on because we want acceptance by others, not because we actually want to experience that in our life. Right? Just by the amount of people that go out and play the lottery every day will tell you how many people wish that things were completely different for them, but they don't understand what gets them there. So when we're addicted to this kind of behavior and we're starting a business, we're either going to approach everything that we do with this in mind, which will Always bring us back down to experiencing the belief around this, or we change those beliefs and we start experiencing it completely different. And I, again, I don't believe that it needs to take a long time. The whole reason that I got involved in this business was because my first experience with changing something inside of myself led to a tripling my income in a month. And I was driving a forklift at the time. And all I did was change three things in my attitude and what I mean, that made no sense. Like, how could it be that easy? There could be, you know, that's just. That's crazy. And every time my business is advanced, it's always been something simple and elegant, not something that we struggled at for a long period of time. And it was hard. And, you know, that's not been my experience. And the more money you make, the easier it is. So it's letting go of the beliefs that we're addicted to that come from a former way of living and accepting something radically different. As far as how you're going to approach life, life is going to be easy, it's going to be beautiful. And. And it doesn't mean that challenging, that it won't be challenging. It is going to be challenging. But there is a difference between this is a fun challenge, right? Or, oh, my God, I don't want to have anything to do with this. There's a huge difference between the two. And we want the fun challenge. We want the thing that energizes us, not the thing that steals our joy every day.

Absolutely. So. And you said one thing, and I maybe just want you to touch on this because I think it's important. It's that sense of acceptance from society where I feel like, you know, you've outlined this and what a great exercise to put some behaviors, put a holic beside it. And, you know, does that change your perception of how you're dealing with these, like, workaholic, you know, like, it changes when you attach a holic to it. But let's, you know, the acceptance from society, I feel, is a major challenge. And I'll give you an example, you know, money, moneyaholic or whatever, however we want to deal with that. I know when I first started, I always had this, and still do, of the stigma attached to having nice things. And I always remember it was even a discussion in my profession as being an accountant, right. That when we started out, you didn't want to have too nice of a car, because if you had too nice of a car, people thought, well, you were charging too much. And you were benefiting too much off their backs. And I feel like there's a lot of people who struggle with this where, you know, they want to make money and they want to enjoy nice things, but they just have this belief that they can't because they're being constrained from what society accepts as, as being reasonable. And we're talking about building this life. That is what is almost by design. How do we cast away the societal approval? What do we need to do in our lives to, to bust through that?

Well, the simple answer is you have to accept yourself 100% and not care what other people think. And realize that whether other people think good or ill of you has nothing to do with you. It has to do with their perception of the world that they're actually seeing through. That's the simple answer. That the answer behind it gets a little complicated is why we would choose to view the world through those, those lenses and to realize that you didn't create them, they were given to you. Right? We did not come into this life with a book that said, here's what everything you're going to experience in life means. Meaning was passed down in our life from one generation to another and from one experience to another. But if you didn't, if you weren't raised with the idea that you could choose what something meant to you, then you just took whatever meaning was given. And the truth is, is that for everything that's good, there's almost a double binding message around everything, right? There's double binding message around money, there's double binding message around sex. There's double binding message around anything that you're going to do for fun, right? You don't want to do it, you don't want to do it too much. There's the idea, I mean, when people work for other people, I remember you'd feel guilty if you were asking for a day off. Like, you know, you were scared, you didn't want it and then you felt guilty when they said yes and you were off. Like, I feel guilty that I'm not at work. We've got so much negativity around the good things in life that we have to. I think that we have to come to terms with it inside of ourselves and ask ourselves what's really the truth about this? Do you really want an accountant that's broke? Like really? Do you want a stock investor broke?

Yeah.

But the idea of saving money versus paying for value is two completely different things. They don't even belong in the same room.

Yeah, no, I, I Definitely, definitely didn't want to go down that path with you because I think you and I could have that conversation all day that, yeah, it's all about value.

It's all about value. And the idea is also that probably the number one thing that runs all the rest of this is a lackaholic. Because we're, we're addicted to the idea that there's not enough. And human beings are manipulated like crazy with the idea that there's not enough. And the truth is that there's more than enough. Everything that we've ever been told there's not enough of has turned out to been a complete waste. Lie in life. Now, again, it's one of those things like that doesn't mean that you want to or don't want to do something. It's just what's the actual truth around this? There's no shortage of money, right? There's no shortage of anything, people. And, you know, this being a financial guy, what, what literally creates the problems within, in markets is what they tell you is happening, right? It's. It's what they tell you. So then that controls people's behavior, and they want to control people's behavior so that they can manipulate the markets. And that's the way that it is all over the world. So what's really true? What's really true, you know, the truth is, is that there's always an abundance. Every time you see a financial period that we go through where there's people going broke and losing jobs and going bankrupt, there's people making millions and billions of dollars. Right? Both things exist at the same time in the same place. You get to choose which one you.

Want to be 100% and well said. Because, you know, the times where we're going through, you know, like right now, we've. We're hitting a bit of a recession. Interest rates are continuing to rise, and, you know, the media is portraying fear, and a lot of people are very fearful of how this will impact them. But on the other side, we've got people making way more money than has ever been made, you know, in the history. Because that's how this works. It's a balance.

Right? And.

And why choose to be living in fear and unlimited beliefs and not feeling like we can bust through this where, you know, you can see the other side is doing so much more because they believe and they know that there's no limit on money and resources.

Yeah, no limit. No limit at all. And the other thing is that savvy business people understand that whenever there's a problem, there is an opportunity to provide service to solve that problem, which is an opportunity to make more money. It's not like rich people are stealing money from people. I mean, I know that there's some that, that are, but from. There's always the bad egg in anything. But business is based, Capitalism is based on the idea of solving problems and then reaping a word for solving problems and then contributing to society with what it is that you're doing with that. It's a phenomenal concept. And when people are honest, it works very, very well. You know. But it all comes down to the decision that you're going to make for the life that you, what you want to lead.

Absolutely.

What do you do, what do you do in your family when you're the only one who's decided to become a multi millionaire and everybody else has chosen middle class lifestyle. Right. You know that it's going to be an uncomfortable situation. I've never met a family that where it wasn't right. My mentor used to say we'd be doing these big seminars and he would, he would tell everybody, okay, here's what I want you to do. Go home, get all your friends and family around, have a big dinner party. In the middle of the dinner party, stand up and say, I have an announcement to make. I have decided I'm going to become unbelievably wealthy. And you'd hear everybody in the audience crack up every time he, he said that. And the idea was that everybody really knows how that would go over in their family if they made that kind of announcement. Right. They could hear, oh, you're a big shot now. Right? What do you think money grows on trees? I mean, you hear all the voices of the people that you've heard your whole life.

Yeah.

And that's what we have to get rid of in order to live the life that we want. Whether it's with money or anything else for sure.

And money definitely has a stigma attached to it. And we all need to get beyond that. That, you know, even for, for me, I know. Our mission is to empower business owners with financial confidence so that they can help more people. And you know, with that comes a somewhat of a financial reward when we're able to do that and accomplish that. And you know, it's almost, I almost turn it around to say we're being selfish. If we're not trying to help more people and build more profit and reinvest more. Our objective needs to be to focus on that. Because if we don't we're selfishly leaving people behind.

That's right. That I agree 100%. That's absolutely accurate. Everything that we do is either benefiting society or taking away. There's no middle ground.

Yeah, absolutely. I love this. So this will maybe tie in. And I know again, we're hitting in this sort of recession period of time, there's a lot of fear, but there is a lot of opportunity. And, David, one thing I say to a lot of our members in our community is, you know, this is a time where there is more opportunity than probably any other time in your life is when we're in this recession, because fear is pushing everybody to step back where the opportunity is, to lean in. And I know a lot of people are, you know, fearful around this with the way that media portrays recessions and interest rates. But you talk about this a lot, but it's about creating that sense of urgency and, you know, striking while the iron's hot. And there is this opportunity. So can you, you know, share with us from your perspective what urgency means and how we create that in our lives?

I think that. I think from an emotional level, it's created by stepping into allowing ourself to become the person that we want to become and do what it is that we want. But all urgency is also I. The attitude of, I will not be denied my success, and I don't let external conditions control my behavior. Everybody in my company knows this well. All of my clients know this well, because I teach it over and over again, and I do it all the time. As soon as anything shows up in my experience, that indicates there's a lack of money, I go out and spend more every time, and my mentor taught me that. And you're number one. You're. You're telling yourself there's an abundance. I can do this. I'm not reeling in fear going, I better. I better hold on to my pennies because, you know, who knows what's going to happen? And I'm changing what I expect to show up in my life. I expect success and money and sales to show up every single day. And for I. All I know is for 24 years, I've never had it go the other way. It's always worked that way. Somebody once said, the number one time you need to fly first class is when you're broke, right? Because you've got to change the mindset that's causing what. See, it's not the external condition that's causing you to be broke. It's how you're viewing it and the decisions that you're not making that are causing you to be broke. So that's fear. Right. God gave us faith, not fear. So the idea is have faith in the direction that you want to go. Right. Don't have faith in the direction of what you don't want to happen because that you'll create that every time.

Absolutely. It's easy to slip back into fear and disbelief in yourself. Right. And what you're capable of. What would you say? You know, like, I, I know it happens to me, I'm sure maybe not to you. You're a pretty strong mindset guy. But I, I know every now and again I'll fall into this. Well, you know, I may be invested in this. How do I mitigate sort of any, any downside? How do I versus focusing on how do I make this work? We fall into the, you know, the former here in that, yeah, if things are challenging, how do we mitigate that? What's maybe a tip for people to say? How do you constantly stay in the push forward position?

God is good all the time. It's not that I don't have that issue that you're talking about. I have a business like anybody else's that has good times, bad times. There's problems, there's not problems. People come, people go like all those, all of those things. But I believe everything is happening for good. I don't believe anything's happening for the reason of bad because everything happens for more life. So if that's true, and that's what I choose to be true, then I choose to make that my experience. So now, immediately, there's no downtime. When I met, when I come up with a problem, it's automatically, this is good. Let's find the good, let's make the good decision and let's move, keep, continue to move toward the good. I think when we let that little bit of doubt get in our head, that's what screws everything up. It messes up our decisions, it steals our joy. Now I'm not letting it steal my joy. I was telling a group of people yesterday, I said, look, if you're not willing to completely let your business go at the idea of what's more important, your joy in life or the, or what's happening in your business, then your business is running your life. Like, I don't care if it disappears tomorrow, I can start all over and do it again. I don't have an ego behind what I created or, you know, there's. Because that will steal every bit of joy. For me, the idea is I'm going to do the very best that I can. And if I make a mistake and screw something up, which I don't think that I will, because that would have to be. I don't know what kind of mistake that would have to entail to do it where it would completely go away. The only other way to do that is if the government shuts your business down. But the idea would be that I'm not letting any problem in my company take away my joy. I'm going to sleep good at night. I'm going to have fun every single day. I'm going to love what I do and I'm even going to love the challenges that problems present in the business. Otherwise, why would I do what I'm doing? Why would I want to spend one day miserable? Because we're miserable aholics. We think we have to be miserable part of the time. And I don't believe that's true at all. I think that if you, if you are right, it's like a red flag. Right. If something, say something's wrong, you're viewing this wrong. If you're going to let this problem steal your, your joy and you're up at 3 o' clock in the morning or you're drinking the numb the fear or whatever it is that you're doing, something is not right. And it usually comes down to the way that you're viewing the problem. So immediately we have a mantra through the whole company. God is good all the time. No matter what happens, when it's good and when it's not good, God is good all the time.

I love that. So, you know, kind of tying into that, you know, as you continue to grow your business, people become a bigger portion of the business. Right. As we continue to grow our teams so on that when there's challenges that come in and there's negativity and we're quickly saying, right, you know, there's something good in this, we're going to resolve this, we're going to make this good because we believe that, you know, everything is happening for a reason and everything is going to be positive. When we think of, you know, those challenges of like an employee or issues that come up in your business, are you of the support that we make those decisions quickly to get back into all positive, like eliminate those quickly instead of dwelling on them?

Yeah. Because when what usually causes people to not make them quickly is trying to find a way to negotiate through the problem. Why are you doing that? What is it you're trying to hold on to or save. Is it money? Is it time? Is it a person? If it's time for it to go, let it go. If it costs something, it costs something. Just pay it and move on. Quit screwing around with these little things that don't mean anything.

Absolutely fantastic advice. Two last pieces for you. One, I want to talk about sales, because for many of us, especially those business owners that are, starting sales is always the constraint to get things rolling. And I usually say, you know, more revenue isn't necessarily going to help you make more profit or be more financially successful, but it's a big driver, and if you don't have any of it, you're in trouble. You know, it's not sustainable if you can't create sales. My question for you is, I'd love to hear your take on what approach a business owner can take to maximize sales outcomes and their sales growth, because I know you've spoke about this, and I love what you have to say.

So, first of all, I have never met or read or learned about any great business person that wasn't a master salesperson. Not one, not anywhere in any field for anything. It's the number one human skill set. And here's something that's interesting. Back in the day, like in the. In the 80s and 90s, when I was reading books about sales, they would all say, nobody's born a salesperson. And I totally disagree with that. We're totally born a salesperson because we have to figure out a way to communicate to get our needs met when we don't even have language. We have the ability to. All sales is influencing somebody else, right? So I think we have the ability, but then we lose it if we're not raised in an environment that authenticates it and praises it and teaches how to use it ethically. The number one thing that changed this for me was I. I spent a week sitting at my desk when I first started doing this, and I couldn't get myself to pick up the phone. And I. And I was freaking out. I was like, I don't know how I made. I had an agreement with my wife at the time that if I couldn't earn $5,000 a month, that I would fold the business and go back to work. It seemed like a. Like a. Like if you can't at least earn five grand yet, maybe you shouldn't even attempt it, right? Because you got five other people in the family that this is affecting, not just you. And I was like, okay, I'll make that. I'LL make that deal. And I couldn't pick up the phone, and I called my mentor and I said, I just. I said, I. What can you do to help me find somebody else to make sales? And he said, why don't you want to make sales? And I said, I don't know. I just don't want to. I want to do the other things in there. He said, well, I know why you don't. I said, you do? He said, yeah. He said, you think sales is something you do to someone? He said, it's not. It's something you do for them. And when he said that, it rearranged. He reframed it in my mind instantly. And I saw that sales was no different than the seminars that I was doing, the coaching that I was doing. It's helping a person. It's influencing a person to get clear about what's a yes or a no for them. That's it. It's not about coercion. It's not about manipulation. It's not about, you have to buy this. It's simply helping a person get clear. So all business people are problem solvers. If you. If you really learn that skill set, then you wake up every day going, who can I help today? That should be the first thought in your mind as a business person. Who can I help today? That's what I'm looking for. I'm just looking for people to help, right? Ask for what you want and look for people to help. I think you also need to set goals based on what you want and not what you think you can accomplish. When I. When I work with salespeople that work for other companies, one of the problems that they have is they don't have inspiring goals for their own sales quotas, whatever they are. And when you sit down and talk to them, it's because they're picking a number based on what they think they can accomplish and not what they truly want. So there's no energy around it every day when they're. When they're doing what it is that they're doing. So sell what you love. Do the thing that you want to do. Set goals that inspire you. Go after what you totally want in life, not what you think you could accomplish. And you'll have the energy and you'll have the influence, and you'll have everything that you need to be able to. To go out there and do it. And the other thing is this. Remember, even if a person says no, you're helping them. You're. You're a major part of a person's journey in life when you give them a good sales experience, because the whole idea is them getting clear on whether or not they want your product or service or not. So you're a benefit either way. Either way, it's not a rejection. It's not a rejection. It's two people coming together to try to help one person get what they need.

And when you think of setting goals and. And, you know, expectations and budgets for yourself as a salesperson, your targets that you're going after, are you of the belief that we should set them high and reach for the stars, or do we set them so that they're. They're reachable, or is it a combination of both?

I think that a person needs to set it based on what they're willing to do. Because the underlying idea behind Go behind making any goal come true is will you be your word every day and do what's necessary to make that happen? And if the answer is no, setting the biggest goal in the world won't change that. Right. So my. My practice is what is. Let's set a goal based on what you're willing to do every day and what inspires you. Because the whole idea is that if we can learn to be our word, in other words, we know as an individual, if I say this, I will do, it's going to happen. There's nothing that you can't be successful with because it would. What's behind all success? It's consistency. Right. Can you be consistent in sales? Can you be consistent with your team? Can you do everything consistently in a way that brings about success? That's it. It's not that rocket science. It's actually really simple. So if you're not willing to do something, don't say you're going to do it. Pick the goal that you're willing to do that inspires you. Start there. You could raise it later. Right. But I think that the idea of going after setting the, you know, the BHAG goal, I think that's great for a person that doesn't have a discipline problem in their own life. It's got to start there first, fix that problem if it's an issue, and then set the B head goal.

Amazing. Love that insight. The last piece that I just want to quickly touch on with you, and I think we were aligned on this. I spent a lot of time mentoring young kids. There's a program that we work with called Junior Achievement. It's on establishing the youth with an idea and concept of financial literacy. Because I think Our education program is really missing the boat for a lot of reasons for people to understand money at a young age. And, you know, I. I was watching some of your videos and some of your trainings, and, you know, one of the things that you talk about is how we can empower our youth to have the mindset of accomplishing whatever they want. As a parent, as an entrepreneur who's got kids, you know, what's the advice for us as parents to help our kids break through those barriers and set unlimited potential for themselves.

Don't teach them to manage a limited resource when it's not a limited resource. Teaching them how to manage the money is. Is absolutely important, but don't come from the place that most school districts come from, which is that it's a limited resource. If you limit the things that make the biggest difference in a person's life, you limit their ability to dream, to go after what they want, because they don't see a way to get there. So they're not going to do it. When they understand things differently and they understand that they're only limited by how much they actually know. That's true about something. It allows them to expand their mind to do whatever it is that they want to do. But I think with kids especially, the idea is get them making their own decisions as soon as possible. That's age appropriate. Let them experience the consequences. Let them experience failure. Let them experience. Teach them how to evaluate something. Don't make them wrong because they failed. Don't shame and guilt them because they failed. Let them fail, congratulate that. Show them how to redirect to get another result and get them going again. The more they own it at the earlier age they own it, the more that'll stick for the rest of their life. Because. Because here's the thing. And again, this was. It was interesting. This came up the other day with a client I literally told. She's like, how do I get my kid to do this? I'm like, why do you want your get your kid to do that? Let me take out the garbage or something. Because he has to take out the garbage. I'm like, no, he doesn't. He doesn't have to take out the garbage. Yeah, we have to do things in life that we don't want to do. I'm like, no, we don't. Like, where did you get this idea that we have to do this? I said, why don't you take a look at all the chores that have to be done in the house and give everybody a pick of the responsibility everybody has to pitch in. What are the things that you want to do? Right. And start from allowing the person to be empowered to pick the challenges that they actually want to go after in life. But when you raise them with the idea that they have to do something, they're going to design their life that way and of course they'll be miserable.

Yeah. And it, let's just agree no parent wants their child to be miserable. And let's stop shaming them for wanting certain things as well. Like I, I feel like that's something. And this probably comes back to your middle class mindset where parents are going, well, don't, don't dream too big. You know, your reality isn't that you're going to be the next Elon Musk. Well, no, like let open up the opportunity for them to be who they want to be and to create what they want to create. Let's stop shaming them for wanting something more.

Yeah. When I was a kid, everything that I was in that early dream state phase of life, every time I would, I would pick something that I was interested and I would go to my parents with it, they would always ask me, how are you going to do that? And of course I had no idea how I was going to do that. So then they would say, well, if you don't know how to do it, you can't do it. Or they would associate it to it's going to cost too much money or you're going to have to go to school for a long time and you don't like school. There was never anything that they encouraged me to move toward. So it was weird because when somebody would ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I didn't know because everything was not an option. Everything had become a non option in my life. So I'm like, I don't know, drive a truck, something, you know, something like that. I mean that's literally what we do to kids minds when we do that. Yeah.

Something reasonable. Right. We don't want to stretch this too much.

That's right. Yeah, that's right.

It's amazing. I was actually just going to ask you that as it was coming up. What did you want to do as a kid? Because I know we had this conversation in a mastermind group I was part of last week and I said I actually wanted to be a helicopter pilot.

Me too. Did you? I did. And if I just stayed in the army, I would have become a helicopter pilot. The first thing I can remember wanting to be Was a marine biologist. I was fascinated with like Jacques Cousteau in the, in the 70s. And then I think from there the mechanic was one, of course, a rock star. Like every, every teenage boy wants to be a rock star. I was, I was really into science. I loved scientific things. I thought about being clergy for a significant period of my life because I was so motivated by learning the spiritual ideas of the world. An actor was something that I considered for a long time. A photographer. And of course, with each one of these things, I was told, you know, no, yeah, so. But they were up by us. So I'm telling you these were, these are ideas. And then of course, you want to be a little bit like dad. So my dad was a mechanic at one point. He was a truck driver at one point. And I did those things to earn money in my, in my youth. Youth as a teenager in my early 20s. Yeah.

And that. And that's where sociology would say you were expected to essentially stay in that lane too. Right, David? Like you're expected to be that mechanic and. Yeah, busted through and you broke the rules and.

Yeah, because money's not everything, right? Money won't make you happy.

That's right.

I don't know about that. I've. I haven't seen any truth in that statement. Money makes me very happy. And the other thing about money. Well, think about it like this. We all have problems in life, but how many people are reduced to the problem because they don't have the money to solve the problem?

For sure. And you know, marital breakdowns. How many marital breakdowns is because of financial reasons? For sure. Like number one reason. So it definitely having lack of resources can cause life's pain for sure. And again, you know, I, I think not looking to build something incredible that is financially successful. If you're not willing to do that, you're being selfish because that machine or whatever impact you're trying to create is being limited because of your lack of investment and building something great. So, yeah, you know, let's focus on building the greatest thing we can to help the most amount of people. And that's how we change the world together.

Absolutely.

David, thank you for this. I want to make sure that my audience knows how can they get a hold of you? You know, I know I've had the opportunity to interact with David and be in different mastermind groups with David over the last, I'm going to say, close to 10 years, which is pretty amazing. Always super insightful for me. You know, the greatest mindset coach in the world. So very, very privileged to have you in here today. How can people get a hold of you?

If they want to sample what we do? Go to the Successful Mind podcast and everything is free there. Or they go to davidnagel.com or lifeisnowinc.com any one of those things will take you'll start you down the journey.

Amazing. And one more just last piece. I've seen David on a ton of stages. If you are an event host or you're building an event and you want a world class speaker, make sure you reach out. David is nothing short of the best of the best. So David, thank you for being here, being part of this today, for sharing your insights with our community. We're blessed to have you. Thank you, my friend and I look forward to connecting again soon.

You bet. Thank you. It's been an honor.