Everyday Leadership Lessons from Award-Winning TED Speaker Drew Dudley

Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart, and we're here to interview the game changers, the future makers, the co collaborators and creators who are here to collaborate with one another towards a better future for all of us. Enjoy the show. We've got a great guest coming up for you right now. 3. Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart. Today I have somebody who is not only Canadian, a chilly, cordial Canadian, but also has an alliteration for a name. How much more exciting can it get? Guys, Drew Dudley's on the show. What's going on, Drew?

Not much, my friend. I like that chili cordial Canadian. That's pretty great.

All about the alliterations, man. Black and white animals and alliterations.

Well, hey, you and I are. You and I are together on the Love of Penguins.

Yes, sir. Penguins, pandas, zebras, huskies, even polar bears are black and white. Did you know that? I bet you knew that.

I didn't, actually.

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Really? Yeah, I'm going to pass that on as interesting fact that I knew.

Right on, brother. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for being on the show. If you don't know Drew get together, I'm just kidding. No, go check him out. He's pretty awesome. He's a TED speaker. He's one of the most influential speakers out there. People hire him all the time to come to speak at corporate events and just rock, you know, the messaging and marketing and leadership aspect of it. He's got a course out that's pretty rad. I've been checking it out. He has a great blog called Shit that Ain't True, which is pretty awesome. We're gonna dig into some of what those are because I'd love to get a few of the coolest takeaways from that. And he's just being a rad dude and doing his thing. So, Drew, thank you so much for being here. And let's dive right into it with the question, how did it all begin, man? Let's get the journey up to this point. You know, just some of the bullet points. If people haven't heard of you, let's ground it. Because ultimately, you know, people will respect you for your successes, but they'll love you for your failures. Everybody can relate to, but not everybody can relate to success.

Yeah, that's a great way looking at it. Well, I guess the Reader's Digest condensed version was that I chased the wrong stuff for most of my youth. I was a smart fat guy, and let's face it, Being a smart, fat teenager is not the best combo that you can go through. But most of what I felt about myself was tied up in how well I could deliver what adults wanted, right? So I wasn't great at sports when I was younger. I became a half decent football player. But ultimately everything about my entire self concept was based on how well I could get good grades. And, you know, you were smart. And I didn't like science, so I was supposed to go to law school and headed off to university after being, you know, the prom king and the captain of the football team and editor of the school paper. And all the stuff that you're supposed to do to be successful at that age, like there's only so much you can do to be successful as a kid and most of it is get good grades and impress the teachers and the adults around you. And so my self worth got tied up in what other people thought of me. Went off to university and discovered, you know what, when you're in the classroom, you're just talking about doing shit. You're not actually doing anything. You're commentating on the world, you're not living in it. And I got involved in some charity work and it sort of became what I lived for. Whether it was raising money for Canadian Cystic Fibrosis foundation through a charity called Shineorama, which eventually I ran on a national level, or scholarship funds for a roommate that we lost to a car accident, or a musical tribute project for a friend of ours that we lost to cancer. Once I got sort of hooked in that and had the opportunity to start running bigger projects with volunteers and leadership teams, I started to develop programming to help people plan events effectively and safely and make money when they didn't have a budget and market without a budget. This is the day before social media, right? So I started doing workshops on those things. Turns out I was good at it. Got spotted by the dean of students at University of Toronto here. He asked me to build a leadership program. We spent eight years building the largest and most dynamic one in the country at a university level. I kept speaking on the side and, you know, I got, there's a guy named Neil Pashrika who's probably responsible for the last six years of my life on a, you know, a global corporate speaking level because his agents came to see him speak at a TED event in Toronto and I was up first and he was the headliner and I guess they loved what they heard and they said, you want to do this for a living? I said, I really don't think people are going to pay me to talk about what I talk about, but you go right ahead. And that was, you know, 600 speeches and however many clients and, you know, a whole bunch of marbles ago. So that's kind of where it went, you know, where were the failures along the way? There was a lot of failures along the way. I was undiagnosed bipolar when I was young, and that. That resulted in that kind of relentless drive and creativity that I didn't really understand why I had this gear that other students didn't seem to have. It was a. The manic portion of bipolar. And, you know, I battled alcohol addiction and managed to come through that. I ballooned up to 300 pounds and have managed to drop back down to 200. Like, all of these failures kind of set up each one a challenge that, as you get through challenge after challenge, each successive one doesn't seem quite so scary. You know, you drop £100 and, you know, it's not a big deal to. To start being able to run a 10K. You sort of take on beating alcohol, and it's not that hard to get through the grief that comes from the woman you love dying, which happened last January. So there's something really powerful about the scars you carry around, because you can look at them and whether they're actual visual or sort of on the emotional or psychic side, you can look at those and remind yourself that you've beaten every challenge that's ever come your way. You might not be happy with how you dealt with each one of them, and you might have scars as a result, but there's no empirical evidence that whatever you're facing next can beat you. Because when you think you can't deal with it, I just asked myself, what is one specific example where I wasn't able to deal with. With a problem I faced. And when you ask yourself that way, you realize that you can't actually give yourself one example of when you didn't survive a problem because you're still here. There is no evidence. And so why would we assume that this one's going to be the first one? And so that's kind of the way it went through is I managed to have this really exciting ride that's brought me to a place where I couldn't be happier with my life and career. But I think all the shots to the head that came along the way have convinced me that I don't know what's next. But I do know that the man that I try to be every day is going to be able to deal with that good and bad. And I think that's where success is. Success is when you are enough and you know that you're enough even as you pursue more.

That's beautiful, Drew, and thank you for sharing. I can relate to a lot of elements of your story. I won't pick apart each one right now because we'd be here all day. But suffice it to say that through sharing and the way you share, that people will connect, and I appreciate that. One thing that jumped out at me specifically was what you kind of said at the end there. Primacy and recency. By the way, it's a powerful thing with regard to understanding that you are as smart as you've ever been. You're as young as you'll ever be. You're as just as capable as you've ever been. And that will continue on in the future. You'll continue to crush these little problems. Like, there's this really great mental hack that I want to share, and I'm sure you've heard it before, but I'll share it for the audience's sake. Is like anything that's coming up for you. Problem wise. Challenge wise is really just there for you to overcome, to become the person for whom the things you wanted, needed, and desired showed up effortlessly.

Right?

And when you're in the thick of a problem, it seems like the end of your life or the end of your world, because that's what cortisol and adrenaline do. They tell you that you're going to die. Oh, my God, you're going to die because of this problem, that problem, that problem. And that's just how we're wired. But you can step back and look at that and say, listen, is this going to matter in a year? Is it going to matter in a month? Is it going to matter in a week? Is it going to matter tomorrow? Well, if the answer to all those questions are no or maybe, then why can't it just not matter now? Why can't you just forge ahead and make the best decision you ought to make? You know, I've had people break down crying because I was able to show them that the decision that they were making isn't life or death. And they might have been living that way up until now, but they now have an opportunity to move forward into the future without having the burden of any one decision weighing on them, because they know they can always sort it out. And that's a really important thing to keep track of. And if we just got that one thing out of this conversation for everybody listening, I think that would be worth the time here spent. But I want to move forward.

You know, it's interesting, my friend, just before you move on, I think when you talk about decision making and you know this particular moment, there's one thing that I used to tell my students, which is make every decision in your life as if you're explaining it to a group of people you really respect five years from now. Like in that moment. Usually the criteria we use to make decisions is what will avoid the most consequences. That's the criteria we use to make decisions. For me, if you identify the core values that drive you, which is what my work is really about, and you always use those values as criteria for decision making. You make every decision as if you're describing it five years from now rather than you're about to make it. Because five years from now, all the short term consequences that are going to make you make a decision that isn't consistent with who you want to be, they'll all have passed five years from now. And you get to tell the story like, and you know what I did, I quit that job and never had to deal with that kind of ethical behavior again. That's the story you want to tell in five years, but it's not the one you make now because, well, I got mortgage payments. So you mortgage who you are to avoid short term consequences. And for the rest of your life, you have to carry that memory of being less than the person you wanted to be. Do that enough times and it changes how you feel about yourself. And I think that's a great way. That's how I tell people to think about their decisions.

That's brilliant, Drew. And I think that's so important because it gets you the result that you want and it also gets you the result that you need, which is so important because so many people make choices based on first order consequences. And this is a direct quote from Ray Dalio here, is like, you can't think in first order consequences because you won't actually get what you want. You just want, right? If you just pay attention. What I want right now, usually you have to be able to have the willpower to forego that, you know, donut that, you know, whatever in the short term, to actually get what you want, which is, you know, that body in the long term or that, that thing. And you know, when you become a leader and you step up into higher levels of service, you have to start thinking not only in second order consequences, but third, fourth, fifth, all the way down the chain. So by having your values be in the driver's seat when you're making decisions, by looking back in the five year term, that's what's driven everything, you know, and being able to explain that to your, to your mentor, network or to whoever you respect is a great way to stay accountable. Because ultimately we all want to be enough. And if we, you know, like you mentioned Tony Robbins earlier before we jumped on the call, you know, that's the two biggest fears we have is if we're not enough, we won't be loved.

You know, So I think you make a valid point. You won't get what you want. And a big part of what I talk about is not only will you not get what you want, but you won't be who you want to be. And if you're who you want to be, it doesn't hurt you as badly when you don't get what you want. And that to me is people focus a lot on what they want and what they want to get and we aren't really aware of who we want to be and why does that matter? And I know that sounds fluffy, but ultimately I think that you can use that as criteria for decision making. This isn't some fluffy self awareness thing. It's really practical because on my, you know, my personal leadership philosophy, and it's really a positive one personally and business wise, is when you don't know what to do in a situation, ask yourself, what would the person who I want to be do in this situation? And then do that. And it's such a powerful driver of what I do that I actually have the phrase what would the man I want to be do Tattooed on my inner left forearm. And that allows me, when I mean, in one of those situations where, okay, what, what should I do here? And you're struggling and you, you know deep down what it is you should do, but you'd rather not. And life's full of that is I look down and tattooed on my arm is what would the man I want to be do? It's also what I have to look at if I ever start bringing a drink to my lips. I have to stare directly at that phrase too. But that is a simple but powerful guide to decision making for me. The challenge I found in 15 years of doing this is most people don't know who it is they want to be. We go through an education system that teaches us you should pay the most attention to stuff on which you're going to be tested. And we Never get tested on who we are and what we want to stand for and what criteria we're going to use to make decisions and what our values are. We are never tested on that. So we become our own worst subjects. And that's why decisions are so hard, because we have to figure out the criteria we're using to make them. Every single decision. If we make that criteria consistent, it doesn't mean that the decisions get easier, but the process we use to make them is a lot clearer. Doesn't mean that making the decision is going to be with fewer consequences or will be easier on us, but. But it does mean that making it the process to make it's a lot clearer.

I love that, Drew. And that's a really great way to approach, I think, just the function of who you are in the world.

Right.

I think that's what we all really want at the end of the day. Just like people don't want money because it's dead presidents on paper, they want it because they feel like it'll solve their problems. And that may or may not be true, depending on how you're using it. But ultimately, if you don't have a system, you don't have a process, a checklist you can follow and, like, hey, a tattoo on your fricking forearm is pretty good. You know, you don't want to go down that alliterative road. Alcohol addiction again.

Well, I mean, it's. It's. A friend, a guy once taught me when he was coming in to speak at our leadership program. He's just like, all the things that we treat as goals aren't really goals. What they are is what we believe is the avenue to the feelings we want. We don't really want money. We want to feel secure and successful. We don't really want a fancy car. We want to feel that feeling of success we get when we're walking across the parking lot towards it. You don't want a penthouse. You want the feeling of success that comes from hitting the PH button. He's like, what you're chasing are a set of feelings. And you've been taught that there are specific ways to access those feelings, and those are the only ways. And he said, yeah, like, I always. I love the fact that he pointed that out to me that a lot of the things that I was chasing were. It wasn't the things themselves that they represented. It was how they were going to make me feel or how I hope they would make me feel. And, like, here's the thing, like, for any listeners out There, particularly young ones, you are lied to a lot about how things are going to make you feel. And it's really frustrating because when you get those things and the expectation is, okay, now I'm going to feel happy or successful or complete, and you don't, it's really disorienting because a lot of the time you worked a long time to get there and you sacrificed things and you screwed people over and you were less than you wanted to be in the name of getting to this place that you were told that once you get there, you're going to feel a certain way, and then that feeling isn't there. That could piss people off. It makes them cynical. It makes them lost and scared. So that to me, if you want to feel certain ways, you got to recognize that a lot of the things we're told will lead there aren't the only options. And we mortgage ourselves and how we act in pursuit of the things that we think are goals. And you got to realize that it's not the things you want, it's the feelings that they bring. And there's a lot of different ways to access those feelings that are a hell of a lot easier on your bloody soul.

Yeah. And you actually have an entire blog that's dedicated to this. Can we pick out a few of the key learnings over the years that you've come across with regard to things that are not really what they seem to be? You know, like you talked about, for example, education focuses on things you'll be tested on, but the ultimate test we failed because we're not paying attention to who we're becoming in the process.

Yeah, I mean, the that Isn't True blog that actually was born while I was still at the University of Toronto. We brought in a former student leader there who had gone on to make just a fortune in his first five years. He actually never graduated because, you know, he starts a business doing some landscaping, and then he finds himself in the back of the business classes he's in, not paying attention because he's working on his business. So he realized, this is an insult to me and my professor. And sure enough, you know, millions of dollars later, he's less, not even 30 years old yet, and he comes back in to speak to the students in my leadership program. Because if you got money, you are a good person or you are a successful person or you are a leader, and that's not the case. Like, if you have money, it's an indication that you are doing things right, which is isn't true. But Ultimately, what I asked him, and I didn't really plan it, but as we wrapped up the interview, I said to him, look, man, you aren't that far removed from these students. And young people get a lot of shit thrown at them from older people. Like, we're wise and we want to feel as if we're smart because we're passing on info. Is there any piece of information, any piece of advice that you heard repeated again and again that in your personal experience isn't true? I went on to start calling these phrases cultural cliches, things that get repeated so often that we stopped actually analyzing if they're true. And he thought about it for a minute, and then he said, yeah, people keep telling me that life is short, but life isn't short. Life is the longest thing you will ever do. So make good choices because you have to live with them for a long time. But don't forget, because life is long, when you do make bad choices, don't panic. You have plenty of time to make a bunch of good ones to recover. But I hate it when people say life is short because it isn't. And I loved it. And so I started asking that question to all kinds of people, like, what's a cultural cliche? Does slow and steady actually win the race? And we really talked about that. Think, if you're a listener here, think of your favorite sort of mantra or expression that's on your bathroom wall or whatever, and then make the opposite argument. You know what I mean? Like, actually pick it apart and say, this isn't good. So I started asking people this, and I got some really great ones. Like, the first woman I ever interviewed was from Uber, I believe. And she. I asked her, and she actually picked one of my favorite quotations of all time, which is, be so good, they can't ignore you. And she said, that's not true. Because the problem is, it seems to indicate that your entire purpose in life should be to get the attention of other people. And there's a real danger there. I heard someone say, where there's a will, there's a way. And this was the head of the United Way in Toronto, which is the biggest United Way district in the world. And he said, what it does is it reinforces this idea that it. If you haven't found your way out of poverty, that it's because you don't have a strong enough will. He says, what it does is it reinforces this idea that people are where they are simply for a lack of trying, as opposed to recognizing it's a lack of opportunity, he said. Where there's a will, there's a way is. And I keep hearing it like, this has been such wonderful Laughter is the best medicine. A great friend of mine who's the VP of a major hospital said laughter is not the best medicine. Sometimes the best medicine is a glass of wine, a good cry, and a shower, she said. You have to give yourself permission to feel all the feels. Laughter isn't always the best medicine. And for me, the worst advice I was ever given, the cultural cliche that drove my youth and I think drives way too many young people now, is if you just work hard enough, it will all pay off in the end. If you just work hard enough, it will all pay off in the end. But we have to recognize is when it comes to our education system, we don't ever tell our students how hard is hard enough. We don't tell them. We don't help them figure out when the end will come, and we don't actually help them truly identify what they want their payoff to be. So they start chasing this undefined goal on an like, undefined goals on an undefined timeline. And the whole idea that it will all pay off in the end also gives an idea that there's some sort of finish line that comes before death. There isn't right. There is no end. There's a million different ends in your life. And so it will all pay off in the end. As if we're racing towards some defined moment where you can sit back and say, yeah, all right, I did it. My life's good. I can sort of mail it in from here. You never get there. So that's what I want people to think about, is that we repeat these things over and over again. Like there's some sort of wise mantras, and we never actually stop and say, is that true? And anything that makes us sort of jump to conclusions without consciously evaluating how good they are are just bad things to have. So we need to pay attention to cultural cliches. I encourage everybody to think of their favorite one and then say, okay, you've just been challenged to pick that apart. Treat it like the gun debate on Facebook. Anything anybody says, you know you're immediately going to tear it apart, no matter what. So try to take your best, take your favorite saying about life, and try to take it down. And you start to realize that there's a whole lot more nuance to everything. And that, to me, has been a really great experience. And I think that people find it good, too, to ask Them, you know, what's one thing that you found not to be true? Most people have been asked that. And the best questions are the ones where not only the asker learns something, but the person being asked does in the process of creating that answer.

That's really great, Drew. And I just want to point out, too, that I think that's the most succinct possible way to show people that, hey, you know, nobody's got it all figured out, right? That all this cliche advice is a cliche for a reason. If everybody knows something, then nobody knows anything, right? It's these. These simple truths that come out of experience and finding the thing that works for you and then relating it to your environment in a way that makes sense to you, right? With your own stories, your own paraphrasing, your own, whatever that is going to push the distance. And that's how knowledge is really created and wisdom retained is that we have a system that works for us, right? We have a way to approach life that actually works for us. That's the definition. Integrity, if you've taken landmark, you know, they talk about integrity being, hey, is your life working for you or not? It's not a values judgment, although that's important. It's saying, like, hey, is what you're doing, given your goals and what you want to achieve, is it working or not? And if not, you have to shift. So, you know, from the educational background, I agree, like, we're failing our students miserably. But I think from the self development background, which is really, you know, if you want to be a leader, you got to start with yourself. You got to have a way to take the gems and Bruce Lee them, right? Take what's useful, discard what is not, add what uniquely is your own, and move on from there. So I just want to say how grateful I am for doing that for you. Doing that on a large level with the blog and with everything that you're putting out there, what are some of the things that if you were to have to do differently in your life, you would go back and say, okay, cool, I could have done a little bit better here or there. How do you incorporate the lessons as you learn them to move forward in, you know, doing things better as you go on?

I think I would have liked myself more. You know, I think I just. I made it so hard to like myself. Like, it was. It was like it. When you. If you're dating somebody for a while and you get to a point where you start to notice all kinds of little things that annoy you. And then it almost starts like this spiral where you're pissed all the time. And I just. When you don't like yourself, your behaviors start to become a problem. So when you don't like yourself, you are always trying to do something that makes you do so. And when it doesn't, you become more and more frustrated, and you take that out on other people. I think that I have a friend of mine named Steph Dixon who is Canada's most decorated Paralympian. 17. 17 medals or 13 medals, I think, and five world records. And she tattooed the word enough around her ring finger where an engagement ring usually goes. Because when I asked her why, she said I married myself. Because you should be most committed to the person you're going to spend the most your entire life with, and that's you. I have to be enough on my own before I can be enough with someone else. And I think the biggest. Yeah, the biggest mistake I make, what I go back and I tell myself on the. You know, my company is called Day one Leadership. So I often ask people, if you treat the first day of university or first day of high school as day one, what would you tell yourself? And, I mean, it sounds so trite, but I pull myself aside and say, if you're a D to yourself, your life's gonna, like, stop being such a dick to yourself. Because I didn't like myself. So I drank. And then when I drank, I would eat a bunch because it made me feel better, because I hadn't yet learned the difference between healthy pleasure and unhealthy pleasure. And food was a pleasure, but an unhealthy one. A healthy pleasure is one that when you engage in it, it actually benefits you. An unhealthy pleasure is one that feels good while you're doing it, but it doesn't benefit you. And I think because of that, I grew to £300. And the bigger I got, the less I liked myself, the more I drank, the more I ate. And becomes a cycle. I think I'd go back and I'd say, don't be a dick to yourself. Like, be a really good friend and never treat yourself worse than you treat somebody that you care about. And that, I think, was. Was a big part of what I go back and do. If I could do it all over again, ultimately, I also think that I'd have to say, and this is so hard to just take in when someone says it to you, But I would say, there's no weakness in forgiveness and that happiness is not possible. Without forgiveness, like, for most of your life, I tell this person on the first day, for most of your life, the number one thing you could do on any given day that you're completely in charge of that will instantly make your life better, is to forgive. Whether it's yourself or somebody else. It never makes your life worse, as hard as it is. And as much as you think somehow you'll lose something. And I think there's not one single person listening to this where there isn't somebody in your life that you wish you could call or you wish you could text or email or spend time with and share things with that. And the only reason they're not in your life right now is because you won't say, I'm sorry, or you won't hear I'm sorry. And leaders do that. And I tell myself the big mistake I made for most of my life was just simply refusing to do that because I knew it would make my life better. But I didn't want somebody out there, like, feeling like they won. Like, I wanted to win. I didn't want a former boss or a girlfriend or a friend going out there. And then when they tell the story of them and I. They could tell it like they. They won. And I realized, man, like, the greatest leaders, they don't give a crap about winning. Like, what they care about is succeeding. And sometimes the only way to succeed is to let go of this idea of winning. And not forgiving is almost always about winning. And there's no worse feeling than going to the funeral of someone you desperately cared about. And the last thing you said to them was terrible. And it's happened to me twice. And if I could go back and pick one mistake of all these many ones, I would just say, make sure you go to bed every night making sure that cannot happen. Because you cannot take back things once they're said. Right? You can't unsay things once they're said. But you also can't say unsaid things once that person is gone, if that makes any sense. And there's a lot of regret that you'll go through life when you don't say the unsaid things in time. And so, yeah, that's a mistake we make. We do not forgive. And I think ourselves and others, it's essential.

Yeah, it's so important, Drew. And thank you so much for just framing that. In a way, I think it's really easy to digest and understand because that's it, man. Like, life is the longest thing you'll do very Important to understand that when you get to that place in your life of you're looking back on the regrets you had and you wish you could make them right. You know, we've both lost a lot of people, and there's things that I wish I did or said to my father before he went, you know, are my best friends. And there's nothing I can do now about it, certainly. But I can only learn and move forward. And it's part of the reason that I'm driven so much to do what I do today. And I'm sure you're the same. It's like that we've gotten it wrong before, and that's okay. Anybody out there listening, if you've made mistakes, it's not too late. And to treat yourself better, to treat other people better, to forgive more, you know, certainly I wouldn't keep allowing people and have, you know, I would have the boundaries to not let people abuse you again and again and again, if that's their nature, but maybe give people another shot. You know, in general, like, people are all doing their best based on what they know about the world. I think that's a piece that a lot of people miss, is that they're acting as if they're the hero of their own story. They're acting as if, you know, they're the. You know, they're doing their very best given that situation, based on what they know and the level of consciousness that they're at. So when they do something that doesn't agree with your lens or the way you would do it, ask yourself the question, what is this person feeling, experiencing? What do they know that is causing them to behave this way? How can I shift that?

Yeah, I think part of it, too, is imagine, like, think about your relationship with yourself. And if. Imagine that yourself is your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your partner. Like, if your best friend was in that relationship, would you see it as abusive? Like, think about. Imagine the way you treat yourself is like part of a partnership. And then imagine you saw that same partnership relationship in your best friend's relationship. Would you consider it abusive? Would you tell them to get the hell out of it? And if the answer is yeah, then you got to change something about the way you conceive of and speak of when it comes to yourself and all, you know, you want to make more marbles. And, like, ultimately, we treat these goals right that we put out there and we say, I have to do this. And most of the goals that we identify in our lives, we want to be rich. We want to have money, respect, prestige. They're not actually good goals. What they are is the natural byproducts that come to people who behave in a positive, productive way every day. Like leadership. Leadership comes from consistency above anything else. That comes from consistency. And a lot of the things we chase as goals are the byproducts of consistent daily behaviors. And instead we start blocking out the behaviors we think we need to get places over blocks of time. I need to do this this week, I need to do this this month. I need this over the next three years. Ultimately, that's not where the focus can lie. The focus has to lie on what are the behaviors you have to do every day to be there one day. I'm day one leadership, because there is no one day that did not have a day one. Some of the core things you have to do on day one, you've got to do every single day between day one and the last one and where you want to get to look. One thing I learned in recovery is that if you don't want to have a drink for the rest of your life, you choose not to have a drink today because you're in charge of that choice, and it's the only one that matters. It's the only one day you need to focus on. You don't want to drink for the rest of your life, choose not to have a drink today. But then you have to treat every day of your recovery as if it's that first day where there's one essential decision that has to be made. It's not the only decision you have to make every day, but it is the one that has to be made every day. And if you keep doing that, you identify the principal decisions and actions that have to happen on day one of any journey towards health, towards stopping a bad habit, towards building a company, towards building a strong relationship. What are the key actions that have to happen on the first day? And then make sure they happen every day. Treat every day like it's day one of your journey. Make sure the key foundational behaviors are consistently made to be a part of that day and what you're capable of on the 100th day one. And then the thousandth day one will always be more than the first day one. But you treat them all like they're day one. And the stuff you want is the natural byproduct of daily consistent behaviors. And if you're not identifying core daily behaviors that you repeat again and again, discipline is doing the same thing, something today that you also did yesterday. If you don't have specific daily behaviors that are consistent. You are not going to get what you want. And more importantly, you're not going to be who you want to be. And here's the thing. You'd better figure out who you want to be and live up to it every day, because that is the only thing that keeps you strong when you don't get what you thought you wanted. Like, we're going to chase a lot of things in life we don't get and expect. You know, you do it in business, you do it in education. You do it in your relationships. One of the things I always like to tell people is that there are way more Rosalind's out there than Juliet's. And some of you get what I'm talking about, and some of you should have paid closer attention in English class. But ultimately, you know, Romeo could not have lived without Rosalind at the beginning of that play. And you never meet her because along comes Juliet. And a lot of the things that we think we can't live without, it turns out that they're Rosalind's, they're not Juliet's. So I think I try to remember that every time I don't reach a business goal or something in a relationship or some part of my life that I think I have to get done that I really wanted, and it gets denied some opportunity, I try to sit back and be like, probably a Rosalind, and somewhere down the road, the Juliet is coming. Now, granted, they both die at the end of that story, but, you know, does Rosalind die? I don't remember that part. You know, we don't even know. I think Rosalind made out like a bandit.

I'm pretty sure she gets relegated to the dustbin. But she doesn't die necessarily. Although she's probably dead now because 15th century Verona has come and gone.

Turns out very, very true. You know what? Rosalind might have made out best in that whole scenario. Like, yeah, Romeo had some baggage, right? Like, swipe left Rosalind.

Maybe Rosalind just did. Okay. And one of the things that came up for me, I think, because people don't get how powerful this is what you're saying right now. So I like to put math to it.

I'm a math guy.

And that's one thing that school taught me, right, was that compounding is the biggest and most powerful force in the universe. It doesn't take a lot. Like, you don't have to get 100% better every day. You don't have to get even 10% better every day. If you just focus on that consistency of 1% better every day after a year. That's not 365%, because that's addition. When you compound it, it's 1 to the or 1.01 to the 365 power, which is 3,778% better over the course of a year. It's 38 times better than where you started. And it's just that function of consistency, because 1% 100 days from now or 300 days from now is a lot bigger as a function of numbers, real numbers, than 1% was when you first got started. The most. Most people don't see that beginning of the exponential curve, and they want to give up because they're not seeing results, because they're making 1% gains based on a very small number. But when you get the number bigger and bigger, and this is true in wealth, is true in building an audience, this is true in reaching more people, the compounding effect so massive that it's almost unbelievable where you'll start making in those 1% bigger jumps than you did in the first hundred days and the first 200 days and the first 300 days. And when you get to be in Drew's position, where you've been at this 15 years, the 1% shifts are so massive that you couldn't even have, you know, foreseen it in the beginning. You couldn't even have imagined it. And I know I've had experiences like this myself, not to brag or impress, but the right person at the right time and in the right situation, the right deal, whatever it is, the right opportunity, just reaching out allows me to unlock potentially six or seven figures in my life that I had no idea, connecting the dots, looking back or looking forward, that it would produce that. But I'm consistently building relationships and looking at those 1% gains. And that's why I can live the life that I live today. And I'm sure Drew and every other successful person and fulfilled person can say the same thing, because relationships are very much the same, and that's where you're going to get the bulk of your fulfillment life. And I really feel like that message is important to reiterate, because if people don't put a what's in it for me on top of it, you know, that's what drives them. Right. Why do anything? What's in it for me? Well, compounding is in it for you. If you do the thing consistently, it compounds everything.

You said after the numbers. Sounds great. Yeah. My eyes. My eyes crossed as you started on that. I'm like, yeah, that sounds right.

You can go do the math yourself if you like. But it's true. Like, you know, I used to sit in class and wish somebody could tell me why the hell I needed to learn calculus. Nobody could ever explain it to me in a way that it made sense to me. And when they did, it was horribly boring. They're like, well, you can become a math teacher. I'm like, I don't want to be a math teacher. You seem like a loser, good sir.

I like how you tossed in the good sir.

Well, I had to call my teacher sir because they were monks and, well, ma' ams as well. I went to a Catholic school, so I had a lot of experience with.

I hope so. Otherwise, that's just odd.

Yeah, absolutely. No, it was an interesting experience. If you really don't want to be a Catholic when you grow up, send your kids to Catholic school. That's what I say.

You know what? I went to Catholic school as well, and I don't know if I've ever heard it put quite that well.

So, Drew, I want to kind of transition here and just say, like, I'm really grateful that you took the time and decided to share your message with us today. And there's a lot of valuable stuff here. I want people to, you know, if you haven't taken notes, go back and take some notes. There's some real gems there that I want you to pull out of here and share this as well. But, Drew, I want to make it more about you right now. I want to put you on the spot just for a second, because the Make More morals community is an idea, really, more than anything else. Right. It's an idea of how we can do shit better. And I don't believe that we can win just through competition. I think competition has its place, certainly, but we win more overall through collaboration with one another. And the way we do that here is that we want to connect you to the resources, the opportunities, the people, and the systems that allow you to move your mission forward faster. So what are some of the ways we can do that for you? What's your mission right now? What's the thing that we can most help you with, whether it's me, my team, or somebody listening at home?

That's a really great question, my friend. Be decent to one another. I think, honestly, it's. You know, my particular concept of leadership is that we've defined it too narrowly, and we have therefore made most people feel that they're not leaders. And that there is a form of leadership to which we all can and should aspire. And at the core of that is finding ways to create moments that cause people to feel as if they are better off for having interacted with you. And especially for those of you listening into the United States, listening in the United States right now, I'm not going to say there's no been no time in human history because your country tore itself apart with a war once. But I will say this. The divisiveness between people, the ability to lose people's humanity and who they are and why they're worth something based on where they fall on an ideological spectrum is profoundly, profoundly problematic right now. And so just, you know, this is more on a broader scale. I know you were looking for, like, a specific thing, but here's something like, go out and do something to recognize someone else's leadership today, and if possible, do it in the realm that's not in your echo chamber. You know what I mean? Like, identify leadership, recognizes leadership created. And we talk about creating more leaders or building more leaders. And I think one of the things we have to do is better recognize the leaders that surround us today. You know, that was the talk that sort of thrust me onto a lot of people's radar, is talking about what was called the lollipop moment, a moment when a young woman told me about an impact I'd had on her life that I was not aware of. And the impact it had on me to hear that has pushed me to encourage other people to think about moments in your life where someone fundamentally shifted the way you felt about yourself or the world, and then let those people know it, because when they feel it, they're going to do the same thing. So if you folks want to help me, my key life is about making people realize they have that power, that they have the power to, at least in a moment, shape how another person feels about themselves and the world. And what happens then is we start to recognize, one, we can impact each other positively, and two, that we can just as effectively support and build each other up than we can tear them down. And that most of the time, whether you're on the left, you're on the right, whatever you feel about issues, you all have the same ability to send people walking away from you feeling better. I recently heard a brilliant observation, which is, you are entirely in control of what it feels like to talk to you. And I think, go out and recognize leadership in somebody else and try to start remembering that every single moment, you have a choice about what it feels like to talk to you and to never lose sight of that fact. Because the debates we're having, we're starting to treat people who disagree with us as if they are less than we are. And that is not leadership. I think that's really important. On the other side of things, if my work says, identify the values that are most important to you and make sure that you live them each day. Because what it does, it gives you evidence that you matter. Most people cannot answer the question, why do you matter? If I asked it to any one of you listeners, how do you answer that? Why do you matter? People struggle with the answer because we're not giving ourselves daily evidence that we do. What I teach is the importance of identifying the values that you want to drive you and then making sure that you don't just say you want to stand for them, but you give yourself evidence that they do every day if you're interested in doing that yourself. Because what I think it will do is make more people do more things that impact others positively and send you home at night feeling as if you were the person you want to be. Which isn't to say every day is going to be a good day, but you're not always in charge of what you have to do every day, but you're always in charge of who you are. And too often we allow ourselves and our self concept to be formed by what we have to do and how well we do it, not whether or not we went through this day staying true to the person that we want to be. If you want, check out my website@drewdudley.com and there's an online program that will help you surface those values. And it's relatively expensive, but if you type in the word marbles when you buy it here, you'll get. I think it's. I set up $500 off for anybody who does this, so I think it'll be 200 bucks if you want to take the program. I hate selling stuff, but that's what I'm trying to do. What I teach is a concept about leadership, but what I really want people to be able to do is know how to apply it specifically to their life. And what I try to do for podcasts and such is make it available to people if they'd like to do it. It's about five hours long of interactive and a lot of stories and a lot of key values in leadership and how to live them every day. Just type in the word marbles and I'll make sure that it's available to anyone listening for a couple hundred bucks. If you take it and you learn how to do it, teach it to somebody else, because that part's free. And so we'll get it out there into the world. Just, you know, to go back to one of my favorite, and I can't believe it was one of my favorite movies when I was growing up, like, be excellent to each other. We're just losing sight of the fact that we're people. And we're just treating each like we're just acting like we're on different teams. And we just think even if we're the worst member of our team, we're better than the best member of the other. And what it does is it makes us all sort of clump together because it gives us a feeling of belonging and like people are on our side and a feeling of moral and intellectual superiority. And we need the other team in order to feel like that. You don't need to feel better than other people to feel worthwhile. You need to give yourself evidence that you've done things that matter in this world, and that will start breaking down some of those barriers between us. And maybe that was just a long spiel. It's just been a really hard week in watching how people treat each other. Smart, dynamic, caring, and compassionate people who basically are like, as soon as they realize you're on the other side, they simply aren't interested in you as a worthwhile human being anymore. And that's a problem. At the basis of every single interpersonal and societal dysfunction is fear. And leadership uses fear. Leadership removes fear to succeed, and politics adds fear to win. And what we need to start recognizing is that there are far more leaders than politicians. And change is going to happen with leaders, which means change is going to happen. We acknowledge that we're all afraid of different things. We're all afraid of things. And if we can address our behaviors on the level of the fears that cause them, rather on the behaviors that emerge from those fears, we're going to be better off. But what we do is we look at the behaviors and we start to be. That's what we have to fix. No, we have to talk about what scares people. Because we're all scared of things. And because we're scared of things being taken from us. Money, respect, security, even our lives. That's what drives our behaviors. The fears that we have. We got to figure out what they are, and then we've got to address them at that level. That's what leadership is. So start to see each other as leaders, start to recognize the impact, the positive impact we have on each other, and start to realize when you see people behaving in a way that upsets you, don't say they suck. Don't say, we need to change that behavior. Say, what are they afraid of? And what can I do to maybe make them a little bit less afraid? The less fear we have, the less bad things we have. That's what we got to recognize. And each and every single one of us can do a little bit every day to make somebody a little bit less afraid of something. That's leadership. And every one of us has got it. I love that.

That's really well defined and succinct, and I'm glad you went and got through all that, because that's so important. Like Jim Carrey once said that they want to be free from concern. That was the pivotal moment in my life where everything shifted for me. And he's a pretty smart guy, and he's done really well in his life. And it doesn't have to just apply to making people feel free from concern in a comedic sense or using that as a tool. It's an important tool, but it's not the only way to do it. You can do it through leadership. And what I love what you said was leadership removes fear to help people succeed, and politics adds fear to win. And if we win the battle but lose the war for humanity, if we win in the short term and lose in the long term because we become people that we don't even like, even though we got a few things along the way, what the hell is the point of living? So, you know, you very much sum up the Make More Marvel's philosophy, you know, and I really appreciate you being out there in the world doing what you do, because leaders don't create more followers, they create more leaders. And that's what you're doing, and you're a true leader, Drew. And thank you so much for being here. How can people reach out to you with the feedback, comments, people who are taking your course? I'm actually in the course, too. I just signed up a little while ago there for the intro, and I'd love for some way for people to reach out. And that's@drewdudley.com so that's-r e w d u d l e-ey.com and you can check out the course there. If you enter the code marbles, you'll get a significant discount, about 80% off of the price of the course. That's really great, Drew. How do people reach out to you?

Yeah, the best way is check out the website, but honestly, it's Drew Dudley dot com. The website's Drew Dudley dot com. Just Drew Dudley dot com will get you there. Day one, Drew on Twitter or Instagram, I guess I'm on Facebook. I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook anymore because you know what I realized? We almost all have an abusive relationship with Facebook, big time. After you deal with it, you feel judged and judgmental and angry. But Instagram, check out. I love Instagram because nobody puts anything on Instagram that makes them unhappy. Like, Facebook's all debates and yelling and screaming and bitching. Instagram is like desserts and dogs and babies.

Yeah, you have to be consistent and very aggressive with the cultivation of your Facebook feed if you're going to use it, that's for sure. And you got to use it the right way. I've got a few tips for that. That's a whole nother podcast. Yeah.

Drew dudley.com, drew dudley.com is my email. Day one. Drew on Twitter and on Instagram and Drew Dudley on Facebook. Yeah, drop me a line. It might take me a while, but I answer every single email that comes in. It means a lot to me when people do it. Hey, if you really want to get an idea of what I'm all about, check out. Just type in Drew Dudley Lollipop moment. Or you can search for my name on Ted.com and there's a short video that comes up. And if you get onto the website, check out the talk called the Game has no Winners. That is maybe the talk that really reflects most what I think business and personal success is all about.

I love it. Drew, thank you so much for being here. On behalf of everybody at Make More Marvels, you rock. Keep doing what you do, brother. And I appreciate you.

Thanks, Brad. It was great to be here. And thanks everyone for listening.

Thanks so much for listening to the Make More Marbles podcast For more tips, hacks and strategies to create an amazing, abundant life in your health, wealth, relationships, whatever that means to you, Head on over to makemoremarbles.com check out our cool explainer video about what we're about and join our community of entrepreneurial game changers. We want to help you level up your life in every possible way. And don't forget to subscribe to us on itunes, Stitcher or Google Play wherever you're listening your podcast. And please do leave a review. Thank you so much and we'll see you on the next podcast.