How To Train Your Mindset For Wealth w/ My 7 Figure Coach
Ryan Daniel Moran talks with coach Kyle Carnahan about building mental toughness through discomfort. They cover why successful people get complacent, how daily habits beat feelings, and using gamification to build self-discipline. Carnahan argues that pushing through dark places creates breakthroughs.
Chapters
I realized I wasn't depressed. I was just weak. Weakness to me was one little thing would go wrong, and I would create meaning out of what that meant for the totality of my life. I thought I was strong because I was in reasonable shape and reasonably successful, but I was actually just complacent and weak. Once you start building capacity to deal with discomfort, all of a sudden, you don't make so much meaning out of it. Depression is gone. I would say my depression was healed in three days.
What's up, brother? Good to see you.
You too, man.
I just spent three days in Disney with my daughter.
Yeah, that made me cringe a little bit. Three days. Like, I'll do one day. And then, like, I'm like, I gotta come back to this happiest hell on earth.
What I thought you were gonna say is, I'm so proud of you for breaking time for your family. Because when I met you, I was not doing Disney stuff with my kids, bro.
Three days of Disney. You are like, that's some superhuman father.
Well, it's. It's more than that. You know, when. When we started, when I reached. When I reached out back to you, you know, you came to me for business. I came to you for life and fatherhood. I didn't do any of this kind of stuff. And now I just look for the opportunities to cultivate memories with my kids. She turned 9, which, according to my calculations, is halfway to 18. So we decided to do a halfway trip.
That's a trip.
This is. Okay. You're never going be nine again.
And before this. This term came up, man. Success sedation.
What? How did. How do you just turn a conversation about Disney into some new ninja term? Success sedation?
Because, like, so many of these guys reaching out, it's like the money grabs you by the ball.
Oh, I said, oh, you mean me? Before was.
Yeah, and I felt it, too, where you're just, like, you're so stressed about the money, and then you're so enamored by it, and your heart gets put on it, and so your brain just goes, success is money. And the weeks go by and the months go by, and you start getting fatter, and then, like, you're neglecting your wife. You don't even know it, and your kids, and you're just kind of half there. When you're there, and you're thinking about business all the time, and you're talking about business all the time, your relationships are just falling apart. And Ryan and I were talking. My brother Ryan. And like, this. This term Fake king.
Fake king.
Yeah. Where you're on your throne of just, like, mask and lies, and you're actually miserable inside. But. And you don't know why, but it's because you've actually left behind the pieces in your life that are more meaningful.
Yeah.
And then that anxiety and depression comes and just swallows you. And you're like, why the am I so miserable? I'm winning.
And you're just sedated by what you thought was going to give you freedom.
Yeah.
And you're actually a slave.
Yep. And then what happens? Complacency. The integrity that built you into this man. You're just trying to escape the work and the pain. And so you. You're like, I got money. I can chase pleasure. Chase comfort. Which then further pushes you into the depths of hell.
So this is. This is the paradox that I wanted to talk to you about is while I was at Disney, I get this reminder every time I go out in big groups where I remember how most of the world operates. And it's. I try not to be judgmental about it.
Yeah.
A little bit.
That's the hard part.
It's a bit impossible not to be.
When you open your eyes, finally, it's hard not to just judge everyone around you.
What I. What I observed is I. I would estimate, like, 75% are over. Were, like, overweight.
Y.
And which. Which meant what I really noticed was that if you were fit at all, you stood out in this crowd of hundreds of thousands of people. I mean, you could count the number of actually fit people.
Yep.
And I observed that, like, money just gets thrown around everywhere. I'm successful, but I budgeted for this trip. Right. Like, I knew I was going to be paying $6 for Coke Zeros. Yeah.
Right.
And I was. It's. It's fine. It's like, I made point out of it, but I just wondered how many people.
Peace with it.
Before I did. I accepted that I'm a shareholder in Disney. That's how I justified it.
Swipe your credit card. You're like, yeah.
Pretty. Yeah. I was like, hey, I'm. This is a reasonable percentage of my portfolio. It's okay. And I. But I wonder how many people are just going out and spending that much without having any financial control. Oh, yeah. At all. And I just started to wonder about what gets people into that place where they're just. It's normal for 75% of the world to be. I don't even want to say 75% of the world is overweight. It's that there were so few, even healthy looking people.
Yep.
And that is most of the world. Yep. And the ability to deal with any sort of discomfort in the short term at all made you. Made me realize that if you're willing, if you're willing to suffer at something for a year or two, you win. You win at most things. Yep. So it is this paradox of we work so hard for freedom and then we. It doesn't actually get easier per se. You have to maintain a certain level of ability to suffer.
Yeah. And there's a decision at some point where you're like, I am going to live like this till the day I die. And once you do that, you're free. But, but when you're looking for rest, like, oh, I just make this much money, we could just finish this and then I can just. Then I can go back to the way I was. You're. You'll find all that anxiety and depression again.
Yeah, I find it creeps in.
Y.
Like it finds a way to creep in.
Yep.
Why is that the case?
Cuz we're made to fight. We're made for war. We're made to create, we're made to expand. We're. We're created by a God that wants to teach us on this planet and this earth and have purpose and meaning. And when a man loses purpose and meaning, he stops moving. And when he stops moving, he spiritually dies. When he spiritually dies, he just gets eaten by darkness.
And so there's that.
There's that. It's. It's not really a big deal. But this, this judgmental piece is interesting too because like, when a guy finally like commits to his fitness and he gets his macros dialed and he gets some abs, he, he. There's this ego in you that's like, I'm better than everyone and you can't help it. And it. And like now I see it and I'm like, oh, he's new at this. Because like, like I have people that are like, bro, you're jacked. And I'm like, thanks. I don't need that. Thank you. Like, it's just standard. This is the standard. And. And then I also see people that when I see them, I'm like, my heart.
Yeah.
Tears in half. Because I want them to live on fire. Whatever I can do to wake them up and give them fire in their lives. Like, I don't judge them. I understand them. In, In a big sense, I am them. And if I stop, I become that again. I'm in that. That's Me, but my.
Mine is more over the capacity to suffer and realizing, like, how. How close I have been on that gradient of just slipping into complacency.
Yeah.
And how even a modest amount of turning the dial in the other direction, nowadays you pass everybody because, because it's. I would say that the range of possible experiences of life is now wider. And so the path of slipping into complacency and overeating and overspending and dopamine fixes the short term pleasures. There are just more opportunities for that. But if you have the ability to withstand some amount of short term pain, the, the winnings are also much greater as well.
Yes.
It's just my observation, looking at it, and it kind of reconfirms the need to develop the ability to withstand discomfort.
And there's, there's, there's pain on both sides. So it's like.
I just ran an event with Sam Taggart D to D, and, and I was like, hey, can I unleash on these guys in the morning? He's like, do it. Yeah, like, because, like, we can set a pretty hard frame and like, really open these guys up. And.
So I did. And I mean, I went full like drill instructor. And I was like, line the up, you know, And I'm like, you think this is funny? Go get an Uber. You know, like, just bringing heat to like, wake them up. Like, oh, this is not like what I thought it was going to be. And.
Men in particular work very well under pressure. Like, there's an opening of their mind and heart if you can get them to comply and be like, okay, I'm listening. And it's like their, their antenna goes up. Like, you're like, okay, good. He's like, everyone's antennas up. Perfect. Well, there's a guy that's like 60, and he's big and he's out of shape. And we're going up this hill and he's last. And I'm like, this dude didn't know what he was getting into. And so I'm, I'm like thinking to myself, like, how hard do I push this guy? Because, like, he didn't like, sign up for this really. Right. But I'm like, he's in my container right now and he, he's here for a reason. Maybe we find something. And so I go lay into him. Like, what's it like to be last, Last on the hill? Killed over, barely able to breathe. And I go, how did you get here? When did you let go of the rope? And he's like, I'm 60. I go, I have 60 year olds in my group that'll smoke every single one of these young guys. So it's definitely not that. I go, when was the last time you worked out? He's like, well, it's been a while. I was like, okay, well that's the problem then. And then he's like, listen, I, I'm here for my, my salespeople. I'm like, you mean the ones you lead? He's like, looks at me, like, starts getting irritated. I go, because you're in the back of the line and I would never follow you.
And it sounds harsh, it sounds, sounds mean. But in reality, I, I'm breaking with this guy. Like, I'm trying to hold back tears because I'm like, I know he's hurting right now. Then he me good. He's like, get the out of here. Go bother somebody else, you piece of. You can't talk to me like that. I run a $10 million company. And I was like, there it is. What is that? What is that right there? What just came up in you? He kind of softens and he's like.
I just came back to my business. I, I gotta get my fire back. Like I gotta come in and help. And I let myself go. And then it came out and then he finished the thing and he worked his ass off. He's doing his air squats with his shoulders at the end, you know, no legs, but he pushed and at the end just grabbed. This guy just cried up my shoulder, man. Like, he just looked at each other like we went there together and we found it and this guy's in pain and he's scared and like he had to be pushed and he was stuck in that place.
What, what, what place?
He didn't know if he could do it. Come back. And he did. He was, he was fighting with who he needed to be. The king had to return to battle and he hadn't been training, so his mind was weak, his body was weak, he was ready to die. And really, if a 60 year old wants to retire and just not do any anything, I'm not going to judge the dude. But I'm like, what is it about you that made you come here? You knew this was a workout. So like you're here for a reason. And there was something in there. And I'm learning this because I'm delving into pushing men farther and farther in going into that dark pain with them. And I've been resistant to push that hard because I don't want to Break people. I want to free them.
Well, I. I have found.
That the I. You always hear like, there's, like, there's no darkness without the light or like, whatever, you know, there's no light without the darkness. But as myself, who's. I would consider myself more of a light chaser than a darkness chaser or. It's kind of funny. You're wearing black, I'm wearing white. Kind of reflects our personalities a little bit. But the way that I would phrase it is your ability to experience the light is only to the degree at which you can. With. We can have the capacity to withstand the darkness.
Yes.
You're more like. You sprint into the darkness to build that capacity.
Yes.
I have to remind myself, like, if I lose the ability to stand in the darkness, I cannot experience the light.
At the same time, in the depths of your darkness, there is a spark. And the only way to get there is to go deep and go in completely into your fear and into your radical, humiliating honesty and go all the way in. And that's where the lesson of light is found. And then you can slingshot to the future. But until you go that deep, you're what you can. Vision cast is lacking.
I also wonder, though, if, like, if they're. At some point you just give up. Right? There's like. Like a letting go of the fight.
Yeah. And that's when you find the light, man.
Exactly. That.
Yeah.
That's kind of where I'm going.
Yeah. And. And so many times when people pray or receive messages or like, it's like this. The words let go always come up. Or you. You have a medicine journey, and it's like the words were let go, let go, let go. And it's like you. You. You do a mushroom journey. And it's that phrase, it just keeps coming up over and over again. So many times it's let go. And it's like what it is, is let go of your old self. Let go of all of it, because to become the new version of you, that version has to die. And it's so hard to let go of it because it's everything that we know, and it's comfortable and it's safe, even if it sucks. Like, you could be living in an absolute hell, but it's uncomfortable for you. It's like, if you're an abusive relationship, well, you're. You're like, like, like a woman in an abusive relationship. You're like, well, he does protect me. I mean, he beats me sometimes, but I know if someone with me, he's gonna get him, you know, so there's like, some safety there. It's hard to let go of your past.
Your. Your tattoo on your left arm is warrior monk.
Yeah.
Which we've had these conversations about. Like, is. Is there like a monk level beyond the warrior, where it's just all love? And. And I've been exploring this. I've been. I've been. I know you. I know you really want to get out on this, but let me share something with you. Yeah. I have been.
Studying the people that I think represent is like, this idea of unconditional love or selfless service. This has been fascinating to me because that is. That. That is more what I aspire to. And I keep getting punched in the face with. Every once in a while, they'll come back and remind. Michael Singer is one of these people for me, wrote the Untethered Soul, one of my favorite books ever. And every once in a while, he'll throw in. He doesn't use the same language that you would use, but he'll throw in. If you're unable to continue your practice through the resistance. Once you think you've made it, then you'll never make it. It's when you finally give up on the desire to be in a state of unconditional love that you will find unconditional love. And it is this smack across the face every time I think that I can just graduate from one level of warrior to monk or to go from darkness to light. It's this reminder that it is all in sync and you have to be able to let it all go and embrace all of it.
Yes.
And experience all of it. To experience the peaks.
Yeah. There's a surrendering to both the darkness and the light. To surrendering to all of it. What must be. And the crazy part is being nice. Being nice is usually being weak and is actually hate. Love is telling the truth. Like. Like, I couldn't have loved that guy on the. On the hill more to do that, because that pains me that I am not comfortable. I am in pain when I'm pushing him. And I love him enough to go there just for the chance to have a breakthrough. And I'm like. Afterwards, like, I'm shaking. I'm like, what just happened there? I don't want to go there. I don't want to go there with people. And that's why it works for me. Because if you do it with ego and, like, trying to control, you're just evil. It's never going to work. You have to go there with Love. You have to have a loving heart and pure intent, or you cannot go to that place with people and they'll. They'll. They'll actually see it in your eyes when you're pushing them. Like, they can see the love there, which is why they relent. They're like this. They're. I. How do I feel? Loved being put in, under so much pressure. You know, I'm trying to figure this out myself right now, man. Like, I'm about to run an event in August. And, you know, I've been pushing these guys on the first day of our event, but this one's going to be 10 times. Because the deeper I go with these guys, the more breakthroughs they have and the more they see the difference between the pain that they're in and where they could go. And it slingshots them into the future. They. They. They come out with this fire of motivation because they have an understanding of, like, what's at stake, and they can see the difference.
Could you. Could you try to say that a different way? Like, I'm trying to wrap my head around what you mean about this. Slingshot to the other side.
So, like, if I can take a guy deep into the pit of his heart and help him see all of his pain and shame and guilt and he can go find the light in that place, then when he start, then. Then when he sees what he's capable of, it creates this massive gap in between the two to where, like, it means something.
No, I get it. I get it huge.
Otherwise, if you're just like, hey, you could, you know, be a multi millionaire. And you're like, I mean, I'm good. I'm good. And it's like, are you. Are you good? And then you start digging in. And I've never met any man on this planet that I go there with. Who's good? No one. That's what's crazy. Every man is in pain. All of them, 100, including myself. And so, like, I have to do this to myself every day.
That's probably the craziest thing that I've learned through this, is that I used to talk to people and be like, oh, this guy's got it together. He's good. Like, he talks good. He's got the wife and the kids in the house and goes to church and nope, even that guy's all of them. There's always something. We want something more. And if you can find that little piece that, like, motivates them, and it usually comes from pain, like, they're off to the races.
It's what, what I'm. The way I'm processing, that is the slingshot is when you create meaning for the suffering. Like now, now the suffering is meaningful towards something. I've shared this with you, but ever since I first dove into your work, once I started experience change myself, I developed this theory that on a. And I don't know if it's true, but I find it useful for me, which is that every day there's going to be a certain amount of suffering that I'm going to experience or a week or a given period of time. But I look at it every day. Every day there's going to be some amount of suffering that I'm going to experience. If I don't choose what I suffer over, then life will choose for me. But I can consciously choose how I'm going to suffer. So if I do a brutal workout or if I sit in 40 degree water, or if I wake up earlier than I want to, like if I just choose what I'm going to suffer over, it's not that it gets easier or that I like it. It's actually that I hate it. But I've chosen some sort of suffering for the day. Then all other suffering that life throws my way is a cakewalk. Feels like nothing. It's like I've already done this thing that is much harder than that.
And what are you doing when you're doing that? You are taking the action of surrendering to what is. It's a surrendering. You're like, I'm going to surrender to the suffering by just doing the hard that I don't want to do right now. And then once you surrender, the rest of the day is like, I've already surrendered to this.
Yes. Right.
Like I've already accepted this. So. But it has to happen every day. That's the problem. It resets. Like, I wake up pissed off usually in the morning. Like, I don't wake up.
Like, I'm really glad when we talk and you remind me that it actually brings me a lot of.
Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't want to go to the gym, bro. I hate working out now. I've been doing, I've been working out for like 20 years. Like I'm so tired of doing the same every day. But what I found is like, you know, my, my mornings are pretty packed. Like I'm preparing myself for the day. So it's like that 2:45 wakeup is.
And then, and then what do I do? I immediately Give something to the world. I give a message to the world, a service to the world. I'm immediately going to put out something and ask God to help me to say something that might give something to someone. So service right out the gates. And then I'll go outside. Go outside and try to connect with whatever that thing is out there. God or the universe or whatever. Like, I want to feel. I'm like, I'm gonna stand out there, look over my view, stand on my rock, and I'm gonna. I need to give a today. Like, if I don't give a. I get the case of the. And then the day's just a drag. Then I'll come in and do my. My journal stack, which I try to go as deep as possible. Then I'll create some content. And then at 5:30, me and Whitney go to the gym. And what do we do? We push every set to failure. Why not? For the body, for the mind? Because I don't want to do it. And then when I get home and I eat and it's eight o', clock, it's time to go to work. I am on fire. Yeah, if I miss that, I feel a little bit of blah in the day.
That's right, it's the blah. It's that blah where there's like a gap and now there's room for like unconscious suffering. This is where for me, depression or anxiety will creep in. Yeah, I'll get a case of an I don't want to y and I don't want to comes. I'll do it tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes the next day. What am I doing all of this for? It's just where dark thoughts come in. And within a couple of days, I can give you all the reasons why I'm depressed. Yep, nothing's working.
Oh, and we talked. I started adding in A. A Chapter 2 of the Bible and breaking that down and just trying to add more spiritual meaning behind my life. And that's been massive, dude. Massive. And I'm like, I don't know if.
I can go there on a podcast. You know my background.
Well, you know my background too. I don't give a. Like, I just had somebody tell me that he's pretty sure that Satan is the actual God. And I'm like, interesting. Tell me more about that. I'm curious about this view. I'm open to the idea. So, like, I don't. I don't close my mind off to anything, bro. All I know is that book helps me get into a place of spiritual connection. I don't care if it's true. I don't even care if Jesus was real or not. This, the concept and the story behind it. I'm like, those are very powerful teachings that, like, fill my soul.
What. What are you in pursuit of in all of this? Because, I mean, you just. You just listed off the morning routine. Yeah, but you're. You're in pursuit of what?
Finding people that were stuck where you were and pulling them out. That's all I care about. That's it.
That's it.
And then in the midst of it, not getting distracted and leave my wife playing kids behind, because I will get so sucked into it, like, I will forget that anything else exists.
That's it.
Why does that matter to you?
I don't know. It's the. It's. There's something right here. And I. I'm just like, is it.
Because it was you?
Yes. And it still is me. That's the thing. People are like, I'm depressed. I'm like, I'm always depressed. I'm always depressed. That's why I have to do what I do in the mornings. I have massive anxiety. I'm shaking right now. I'm always nervous. I'm scared.
And. And I think that's why people connect to me because, like, there was a guy at our event, he's such a rad dude. He owns a tile company, and he's. His lip was quivering while he was talking. You know, he's like, I just. You know, I really messed up my life, and I need to make a change. It's quivering, and I'm like, oh, this is my brother. Like, we have the same heart. And I go, come here. Stand up with me. Stand up here. We got, like, 50 guys in the room. And I lift up my hand, I go.
Terrified right now. I'm about to make my pitch, bro.
I'm like, I'm your Upsell pitch Me?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm like, I'm terrified.
Yeah.
And I go, but all you know, you get my way, I'll slit your throat. Now, I don't mean I'm going to do that. But what I want them to understand is that you can go forward and attack and go to war with that internal regardless of how you feel. And, I mean, you may have heard the story, they used to call me Slim Shaky in the fire department. I would do IVs, and my hands would shake, and they would just clown my ass. And I was so humiliated. And at some point, I just stopped caring. And I'd be like, I Got so good at IVs that they would. Like, the guys that would clown me, they'd be trying to get ivs, and I'd be like, you need daddy to help you, bro? You know, And I'd come in and get it with my shaky hands, surgically cracking with a freaking sawzall blade. But I got good with it. And. And guys would be like, he seems nervous. I was like, I'm always nervous. And just look at him with death eyes, and they're like, don't with that guy, you know? So, like, I took my. My weakness and I turned it into my biggest strength. And I don't know, man. I get calls from, like, my Instagram, from guys that are just in the darkest places.
They just.
It's just darkness. Like, when you're in your darkness, you're like, oh, that's my guy. I'm like, I just attract it, and I love it, bro. Like, I want. I want it. Tell me your darkness. Give it to me. I. It feeds me.
I get that because before. Before we reconnected, all I wanted to do was not feel.
Pain, discomfort, depression. All I wanted to do was make it go away. Right? And I had very interesting strategies to make them go away. Very interesting strategies. We all do. We all have, like, our vices or our, you know, practices or whatever. Like, we all have very interesting strategies. And once. Once I slayed, like, a little thing, meaning, like, getting up before 6.
It's like, what else can I slay? And when you see the capacity at which you can operate from, that's my answer to, what am I in pursuit of? It's like, I want to see how big that capacity gets. Yeah.
Yeah.
I just want to see what happens when I can handle it all. Which is a really, like, in some ways, a very dangerous question. It's. It's. It's like asking God, lead me toward truth. I prayed that prayer. That was dangerous too, bro.
When.
When you start going down the rabbit hole.
Oh, yeah, When. When you start really surrendering and just, like, kind of praying to God and just saying, hey.
Whatever you have to do to me to turn me into the man I must become, I accept all of it. So don't go easy on me.
That's a terrifying prayer to pray.
But there's freedom in there, too.
Yes, exactly.
Exactly. And that. It's the only way to build capacity.
Otherwise, we fight what is inevitable anyway.
And why fight it? It's coming.
We started this conversation by me sharing my judgmental thoughts about people at Disneyland.
And the the thing that, like, the message that I'm not even sure I. I could deliver because it wasn't mine, but the thought that I, like, learned from you was if you can practice a little bit discomfort, you just pass everybody because so few people are willing. It used to be that discomfort was chosen for us. Yeah. Like, we had to work for livings. Like, go.
Yeah.
Like, go do things.
Yeah. Or else your family dies of starvation.
Right. You're like, okay, well, that family's living with you anyway, and you're taking care of them while they die anyway. This was, like, 50 years ago.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right?
Like, literally no one's coming to save you.
And. And now. Now, you know, AI does work for us, and we're upset about what somebody said on a screen. These are the things that are threatening to us. Yep.
Yes.
And so our. Our ability, like, what is what we see as uncomfortable is the words that people say about us on a Facebook post or an Instagram post, which I know you've had some recent experience with.
When you say this. I feel like such a pussy.
I. Me too.
Like, it's so good, and it's so humbling, and it's so good to remember, like, we're not at war. We're not, like, having to fight for our lives. Like, our families aren't starving, and yet we're still feeling all the feelings as though we were. Because we're weak.
So in this book that we're sort of writing together, slowly.
I. I shared with the person who's piecing everything together that I realized I wasn't depressed. I was just weak. Like, when I started working with you, I wasn't depressed. I was just weak. Like, weakness to me was one little thing would go wrong, and I would create meaning out of what that meant for the totality of my life. That is not clinical depression. That's weakness. It's like you have lost the plot.
Yeah.
And once you start building strength, which I thought I was strong because I was in reasonable shape and reasonably successful, but I was actually just complacent and weak. Once you start building capacity to deal with discomfort, all of a sudden, you don't make so much meaning out of it. Depression is gone. I say my depression was healed in three days.
By getting up early and going and working out. And I remember texting it to you, like, I absolutely hate this. I absolutely hate being up this early and working out, but I don't feel depressed.
So knowing that a little bit of capacity to deal with discomfort helps you beat pretty Much everybody. What do I mean? I will never wake up at 2:45.
Yeah. I wouldn't expect anybody to do something so stupid and bad for you.
But.
But what?
What do you think most people can do in order to.
Build capacity?
So the idea is this. You got Feelings Guy, and you got Habits Guy. Right? Feelings Guy. When he's motivated, he does. And he feels good. Because he feels good. He does. And then he feels.
Most of my life, I'm Feelings Guy. I still am driven by Feelings Guy.
Yeah. So now you start to develop Habits Guy, and Habits Guy understands that feelings are lies. All of them, good ones and bad ones. They're not real. They'll teach you. Like, you can, like, learn kind of why this might be happening, why I'm feeling this way, and start to, like, unravel it. But in the end, it doesn't matter. It's like, what am I going to commit to forever? And you can start to collect those, Right? So if it's like getting up an hour earlier to, like, work out, like, you got one. Like, there's one. Put the feather in the cap and let's keep it in there. Let's not go. I'm gonna do this for the next three months until I get results, because I really, really like to drink a lot. And I can't wait to get back to that. Well, you're just gonna unravel back into where you were. But if I can collect it and keep it and then I can add more, so. So it's like, okay, well, let's get up a little earlier and do some prayer and some journaling. New habit committed for life. Not for a little while now can structures change and things replace those things as you review your habits to see, like, how effective this is and where I'm going. Yeah, that's the point. But the point is, when you collect it, you keep it. And then there's this other side, which is the guilt and shame of not doing it, which is also a lie. It's a lie. It's a fake feeling in the story in your head that you create that you're shameful because you slept in with your alarm. It does. It actually doesn't matter. It's a lesson you just learned of, like, okay, I reached capacity for where I'm at right now. So now instead of getting upset at myself, I just go, what do I need to do to adjust if I want to stay on this. This path to make sure it doesn't happen again? Those are little things like, put my alarm across the Room. Oh, Very simple things make massive differences. And then. And then, like in our game, we plead. You know, we partnered up with Warrior and we had the SHF Warrior app. Now we play the impossible game. So, like, I start my guys with a three point game. What's the three point game? They hit their macros, they do their workouts, they study the Bible every day and they do a stack. So half a point for your workout, half a point for your macros. Three points. That's it. We report that every day. Badass or beast? And they say it yesterday I was. If they were a. Yesterday, they got one point. Yesterday I was a. And then they followed up always with today, I will be a beast. And they have to say it like that. Declare it to the brotherhood and the. And. And the tribe that they're penitent from. Yesterday it's gone. Move on. Stop thinking about it. Let's go. Today's a new day.
It's really difficult, I think, for most people to see how this, how much this bleeds over into business, into family, into like. My book is called 12 months to 1 million. You couldn't pick a hype. Your title. Yeah, right.
It's good. You won the game on that one.
And yet the entire process is like. I need to warn you how hard this is. Once you accept how hard it is and you commit to something for a year, it's kind of just math.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
But when the pursuit of business or entrepreneurship is freedom so that I don't suffer anymore, you are unconsciously choosing a lot more suffering.
Yeah. Yes.
Like, unconsciously, there's a whole lot more suffering that comes because now you're going to try and dodge everything that is hard. You are going to run away from any sort of danger. You're going to freak out anytime anyone says anything negative about you. But the minute that you accept, oh, this is either at least a year sentence, but probably a life sentence now. Not just math. And the hard things are just part of the process.
I mean, but you.
You cannot do that if there is no capacity to deal with some sort of discomfort and suffering.
Look, how did I build superhuman fathers? I never missed it. I never missed a post on Instagram for three years. I never missed.
I always created time. And how did I do that? I got up early, so I had time. I. I didn't miss workouts. I. I collected those habits and I started piling. Then what did I start to do? Other ways of marketing. I reached out to a certain amount of people every day and that turned into a habit. Now I'm just beating these drums every day. And then I'm like, okay, well what about my family? And it's like, okay, man. Me and my wife are starting to get kind of disconnected as I'm building this. Am I really a superhuman father? Because my kids, I see them as much and it's like, okay, 10 minutes per day per kid. And okay, let's, let's beat that drum now. Put that in the game. Date nights with my wife, overnight weekends. So now it's non negotiable and you're adding non negotiables in your life so that all these pieces grow together. Because if we just chase the money and we're like, I'm disciplined. If we looked at it as a test, like, all right, so your, your physical fitness 25%, your marriage and family life 25%, your, your spiritual power and connection 25%. And you're making hundreds of millions of dollars a year. You have an F minus, minus, minus if all you're doing is making money.
Failing.
So there's a lot to juggle, especially if you have kids and a wife and like, and you're trying to stay fit and trying to deal with addictions and your depression, your anxiety, and then trying to make run teams. And it's crazy. So there has to be an organization and a system, and that's why we.
Gamify everything, which is another challenge all on its own. It's like, then how do I organize all of this? There's like a different, like a different amount of discomfort that I need to be able to manage. I have to manage my discomfort.
Yeah. And then as you get one thing, something else slips and then you got to go, okay, what got up here? How are my habits creating this so that some guys will start doing their fitness and then they, they start dropping their business. They're like, oh, I can't do fitness. I can't because my business suffers. And it's like, no, it's not either or dumbass. It's. What you're doing isn't working. So let's figure out how to make it all work.
This was a lesson you gave me where I, I think I, I brought up some business challenge and you said, start getting up at 5:30 and then ask me this question again. And I didn't. I was so mad at you. It's just like, this is dumb. And then I remember being like, oh, the version of me that can handle getting up at 5:30 when I don't want to addresses this problem much differently than the person who just wants the problem to go away.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's. I have a, a friend and a client that I'm thinking of right now. I gave him the same exact advice when he was turning around a business. And that like the version of him that shows up when he is putting in that work is different than the version of him that just wants to run away from problems.
Yep. And he talks different.
Yep.
He leads different. He, he like the words that come out of your mouth when you're that guy. People listen and they're like, I feel led by this confidence in this power.
You know, and just making decisions. And.
It'S. All these pieces are connected so deeply and, and I think that's sometimes the lack of understanding of how they are so connected. And once you see it, it's so simple. But most of the world doesn't connect these things.
How does it. You just had an experience where you had a video go kind of viral and you got a lot of hate on it.
Yeah.
How does it impact? I think this probably was the biggest amount of exposure.
Oh yeah.
And negativity you've gotten at one.
Yeah. Like grotesque, like homosexual comments. Like, I'm like, wow, this is getting, they're pretty. I'm like, this is creative. And I laugh at some of them, but usually. So I've had it happen a few times where like something I put out just gets enormous amount of hate. And it affects me. It affects me. I start to feel pressure. I far, I start to doubt myself. But at the same time I know it's a lie. Like I know deep down inside I'm like, I know this feeling is a lie. And I also know on the, after going through it so much, on the other side of this is an even deeper separation of me giving a shit. So I have to go through that pain. It hurts, but it's like pain in the gym. It's like I'm going to build my back and when I do the pull downs, my back is burning so bad that I want to cry. And so in this I'm like, yeah, my, my stomach hurts. I have self doubt and I'm like. But I also know I'm never going to stop or slow down regardless. So that decision is already made. So I'm like, I might burn this thing to the ground and ruin my reputation. There's a part of me that's like, I don't care. So I'm going through the pain of it and then the hate just keeps pouring in, pouring Thousands, Thousands. And I, I don't respond to it anymore. I used to, like, go to war with it, which is terrible for you. Do not do that. Just let them. Let it come. But then, you know, I'll do some other post. And I noticed that in the post I got a lot of hate. It went to like 99.7, 99.7% of non followers. And then I do another. I did a live about it and I, I said like 908 comments in two days. And that live went to 99.7 of my followers. And my followers support the. Out of me. They love me, they support me. They, they feed off my. The information I give and then they feed me back. And, and I was like, this makes sense. Like, if you're going to be authentic, most the world's going to hate you. If you find.
Wait, say that again. If you're going to be, if you're.
Going to actually be honest and authentic, your authentic self, most of the world will hate you.
You think so?
Yes.
I'm gonna go on a really weird left turn on this. And then I want to come back to this point. I was just playing with this thought earlier. A lesson I've learned from wrestling. This is for you. Yeah. Lesson I've learned from wrestling. It's easier to get attention as a bad guy and attract a whole lot of hate.
So it's easier, like you get more attention faster if you're a bad guy. So if they want to turn somebody who's not getting a lot of attention into a star, you put him in as a bad guy for a long time and you attract a lot of hate and you get a lot of booze and you're the one that everybody wants to lose and everybody wants this person to go away. And then there's a moment in which they turn.
And when they turn, they've already got all the attention on them. And now their star. And we're recording this on the day that Biden announced that he was not going to run for reelection. And I think about his opponent who has spent the last, I don't know, however many years or decades attracting a lot of hate and negativity. And now all he needs to do is just be like, sort of unifying and he looks like a rock star. So as we're talking about this, I'm thinking about the amount of discomfort or pain you have to be willing to tolerate in order to hold being the source of all the negativity, whether you're a politician, whether you are a wrestler, Whether you are, whatever, being able to not be affected by that amount of hate. And then the dial turns and all of that is light or star power. Right. So when you say if you're authentic, most of the world is going to hate you, I just think about if you are.
Unwilling to feel the rejection of whatever you put out or be the bad guy or whatever. If you can't feel that, then authenticity is going to be really hard. But if you can and you could just handle that hate.
Star power.
Yep.
So explain to me what you meant by that, because that's what's going through my head as you say it.
Yeah, I. I just. There's so many different ideas, views, and then also just naturally, like, people aren't going to take the time to like, get to know you.
Right?
So they're gonna, they're gonna judge you on like the 60 seconds they saw you or the one statement you said, which we all say stuff that like, could be interpreted as stupid or up. Like, I've said stupid stuff all the time. I open my mouth and just talk like, I don't filter anything. I just let whatever's in my head come out. Like, so what is that going to do? And probably 50 of the I talk about I'm going to disagree with in like a year because I'm going to be a different human.
So the other part is, like, we judge people so harshly for what they did like 10 years ago. Like, I'm on like the 30th version of myself in the last three years. So people like, oh, that guy, you know, back in 1986, he stole my girlfriend. And you're just like, wow, that's a long time to judge somebody. But the like, genuinely, like, you can change completely and utterly transform who you are in a matter of months. And now that I understand that, like, I don't judge people from their past at all. Zero. It just puts me in this forgiving place where I'm like, well, where are they at now?
How would you.
How would you suggest that? Meaning, like, how would, how would you enact change.
Back to the beginning of our conversation. You have to, you have to go internal and look at yourself in authenticity, truth and honesty, exposure and self crucifixion.
To be willing to admit that you're wrong and be humble enough to realize, like, I don't know.
And something's coming that's going to teach me that and I'm waiting for it. And I don't have to be the. I don't have to be the man and the guru and I don't have to always be right. And I, I'm just learning.
So I'm, I'm, I love it because I was raised Mormon. Dude, we don't listen to that. We listen to you like this. Oh yeah, really? Really. I can't wait till I can talk so I can tell you you're wrong and why I'm right. I was, that's how I was raised. I was raised with a shit shut down mind and heart and I didn't want to hear what you had to say. I would smile because I was really nice and I didn't want you feeling comfortable. But I'm waiting for my moment to tell you about the Book of Mormon, which also is a great book by the way.
That's funny because I grew up Baptist and we were waiting to tell you that you were in a cult.
Exactly.
Perfect.
And then what happens when you tell me I'm in a cold?
I'm like, you didn't dig your heels in?
I'm like, freak. You freak. You know what? I, I, you're satanic powers from the Baptist church. Satan got a hold of them and they're trying to take us down. It's like, no, it's just a different viewpoint, man. Like, just relax. Maybe just sit down and have a conversation and learn some. Like, I'm open to all of it.
Letting, this is a weird way to end. But letting go of my faith was the most painful period of my life. You know, my deconstruction, as I call it, was the most painful, like time period in which, because, I mean, where I thought I was going to go when I die, my reason for being, my social circle, all of that had to crumble and, and I couldn't hold it up anymore because I didn't believe it. And it wasn't that I wanted to go sleep around and drink. It was, I just didn't believe this anymore. And that was very painful to let go of. And yet at the same time, I don't think that I would have ever had a shot at finding the truth if I was not willing to let that crumble.
You and I had a similar experience, man. I mean, I let it all go for 10 years. I was in the darkness. I was like, when you die, you rot in the ground.
I was like, I don't believe it. And I'm okay with that.
Right?
That's where it was crazy. Well, I wasn't afraid of it anymore. So then once I wasn't afraid of just disappearing anymore because I was like that's all ego anyway. Why do I want to live forever? Why does that worry me so much? And then the fear of just disappearing went away. Then I could actually go and check other things out because I wasn't trying to defend something out of fear. I wasn't afraid to doubt anymore. So I can just doubt. And I'm like, yeah, that's part of the process. I doubt everything that's normal.
And to bring this full circle, the part of me that had to die when we started working together again was the part that was that thought that there would be permanent comfort once I reached some sort of level.
Yeah.
Is letting go of this dream of now it's going to be easier. Now it's going to be better.
Yeah.
Now it's going to be.
Different in some way. And I mean, it is different, but the pain just changes.
Yeah.
And letting go, letting go of that. This is the weird irony.
Yeah.
Letting go of that dream is the only way where I could find peace.
Love you, bro.
That's it.
Love you too. Great to see you, man.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I'm Ryan Daniel Brand with capitalism.com if you're at the beginning of your journey and you want to build a business that you ultimately take to a million dollars and then have an exit, the best place for you to get plugged in is to download our free resources over at capitalism.com playbook. That'll show you how we take businesses to a million dollars in top line revenue, how we position them to sell them and how we do that in about a 12 month timeframe and we give you examples and case studies to be able to see that this is actually possible. Thanks for watching. I'll see you on the next episode.
Thanks for watching.
Take care.
