Reject the Default Script and Choose Your Future with Steve Rolle

You're listening to One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most with Outfluencer, Dr. Wayne Pernell. Welcome to One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most. I'm Dr. P, Dr. Wayne Pernell, your host, guide, and coach on this journey. Today, we're diving into personal agency and exploring a powerful question. Are you consciously creating your future or simply following the script you were handed? My guest, Steve Roll, knows what it means to reject the default path and to create his way out of what he was told he'd become. Growing up in a low-income community outside Washington, D.C., Steve saw business ownership, investing, and financial freedom as things reserved for other people. That changed when an Army ROTC scholarship brought him to California Baptist University and exposed him to entrepreneurs who were actively investing in themselves and building lives with greater agency. And I'm going to say greater purpose as well. Steve went on to serve in the Army and became an entrepreneur and business operator. He founded OneShop, an e-commerce company serving the hospitality industry. He's also the author of The Future You Choose. It's a book about refusing the default script, reclaiming control, and deliberately building the life you want. Steve brings an operator's experience, a veteran's discipline, and a deep commitment to helping others recognize that Where they begin does not have to determine where they end. I'm such a fan of personal agency, and I can't wait to dive in. Welcome, Steve Roll.

Dr. Wayne, thanks for having me on. I can't wait to dive in on this topic as well. I know it's also a big part of your background, so excited to break it down with you.

Yeah, it's great. I was so excited to be able to meet you. We had a call not that long ago, and I learned a little bit about you. I've been looking forward to talking with you. Let's start with— I want to— I actually want to know a little bit about your trajectory, like where and how you grew up. And then I'm going to jump to The Future You Choose, because to my mind, there's such a juxtaposition, like where you started, and it's almost like you didn't know what the possibilities were.

So that's definitely the case.

Talk a little bit about that trajectory. Where, where did you start? How was it? What was, what was the norm? And how'd you figure out how to reject it?

You know, I grew up on the East Coast in the DC area. My dad was a government contractor, but just getting started. And so we're in a single-income household surrounded by other people living in single-income households. We didn't live in the ghetto, but we could see it from where we lived. Very adjacent to it. And so you already saw the separation between those who were living in the Section 8 housing and where we were, where there were homeowners, but people who were just barely scraping by. That home was the only thing that they had, and there was nothing else coming on that. People who were living lives on the edge. And so that default script for me was being born into an interracial household. Mom was white, dad was Black. Dad had grown up in New York City. He had been inside Section 8. He was doing pretty well compared to how he was grown up. My mom was born in a middle-class family in Maryland, and they got married and had 4 boys together, would have 3 kids on the back end of that. But living so near poverty and in the environment that we lived in, everyone who lived around us was in the exact same situation. There was a park across the street. Up above the basketball courts, there was a pavilion where the drug dealers would hang out. That's where they would do all of their activities. It's an environment where there were drug busts in the neighborhood at least once a month. Drive-by shootings where my brother's oldest friend had bullet holes in his wall because gang activity was relevant in the area. And so when you think about that environment, again, better than the ghetto, but right next to the ghetto, what is the trajectory for the people's lives who live there? When you think through that, they are going to go to school, they're going to get an education, not a great education, but good enough to get through high school. And then what happens on the back end of that? There was no planning for anyone thinking about making lots of money and retiring somewhere and having a nice life. It was, what do I need to do to continue to just eke by the way that my parents eked by, the way that everyone around us is just barely getting by so I can get the bare minimum done so I can just live my life out according to this default script? It starts with high school and you get married, you have some kids, you struggle your whole life. You hope you have enough money to retire one day. And that's it. No one's living a life by design. They're living the life that they're stuck with, the life that they're, they're not designing. So they're saying, I accept it. And here's what woke it up for me. I began to understand as a teenager that all of us are living lives that we choose, regardless of where we grow up and that environment that we're in. There's still choices being made that got us here. And that means that there's choices you can make to get yourself out of there. And so I had these ideas in my mind as a teenager that I wouldn't fully understand until later. But the trajectory of myself and those who are around me when I was growing up was not a trajectory of people going to do big things. It was doing just enough to get by and living at the mercy of other people.

This is huge. I want to point out 2 things, and I will, I will kind of pause along the way because there are leadership lessons here and Uh, as you grow up, right, we, we're getting an education whether we know it or not, right? And, and beyond the formal education, beyond school where you get your education, it comes from your environment. And I'm certain you'll talk a little bit about this as well, how you changed your environment and you changed the people you were around, and that sort of elevated you. But There are a lot of people that— there are a lot of people that, um, they don't realize they're getting educated. Like, this is just the way it is, right? Of course. And you were smiling talking about the bullet holes. It's kind of like there's— being in it, you wouldn't be smiling. Looking back, you can see the absurdity. It's like, wow, that is just the way it is. It doesn't have to be. And, and that brings me to this point, which is I love that you said all of us are living lives we choose. And that's really— it is, whether we know it or not, we're choosing the life. And so it's really up to us to say, well, what's the life I want at this point, right? So how do you recognize That you might be living the script versus living or being able to step in to make conscious choices? How do you recognize that?

It's a great question because we all start on default living the script and the choices that other people make decisions for us, then we live the consequences of that. It starts for everyone with your parents. Your parents are going to make one of the largest decisions that will impact your life in one of the greatest ways, and that's the decision of where they decide to raise you geographically. What neighborhood do you grow up in? Now, they may be forced into that situation because of finances, but they're making a decision to raise their kids in a certain environment. That means the kids you play with as a child are chosen for you by your parents. And that means when you get older and you start getting your first job, the environment that you get that first job in is going to be probably near where you grew up. The friends you hang out with, the people who are giving you advice— this is one of the biggest ones to me that I didn't realize until much later in life. When you are surrounded by people who are living desperation with you, the advice you get is so different than when you go and live with people who have the abundance mindset, who know what the world has to offer, who know that they're in control, that they have agency. And so, you see people who are victims where half the neighborhood's on Section 8 receiving government subsistence. The other half isn't on Section 8, but they're getting food stamps. Everyone's getting something from the government. And you are learning at a young age that the government takes care of me. Well, here's what I have to do to get those benefits. As long as I get that done, I'm going to be taken care of. And you listen to yourself and say, wait, I'm going to be taken care of? Well, at what point do I take care of myself? And you see people that live generation after generation in these ecosystems of welfare, of the government taking care of them, where they do just enough to get by. And so understanding that you're living that default script It doesn't end. It doesn't start to change until you start to understand, I didn't choose any of this. This was all chosen for me. At what point am I going to make a decision and live by the consequences of what I want? And when you wake up to that mindset to say, no, I am in control. But if I don't actively take steps on that, I will live a life that is not in control, meaning I didn't choose any of this. Over here. I'm just going to continue living what was given to me. We had the expectations of our parents, the expectations of those who are in our community, and one of the biggest ones that people don't think about is what are the expectations that you have of yourself living in your community where you cap yourself and give yourself a glass ceiling that you cannot exceed? We always talk about the fact that how hard it is to go from one jump in the socioeconomic status. If you grow up in the lower class, the best you can do in life Is the middle class. You go for the middle class, the best you can do is move up one more rung. Why is that the case? If we're going to live our life by the norms, or are we going to decide, well, I'm— I grew up in the lower class, I want to be in the upper class. What would it take for me to be able to get there? And do I believe that I have it within myself to take actions that will move me along a path to get there? Agency begins when you start to believe that the actions I take have an impact. I have some power to start changing my trajectory of where I'm at right now.

That's a huge jump for, I'm gonna say, almost everybody, even high performers, because I work with high performers and I do a lot of— you call it the default script, I call it old stories. Um, we're actually approaching our, our work in, uh, creating greater agency With, with our clients in much the same way. And, and, uh, it's, it's huge because even people who are successful don't tend to look at what's, what's available beyond. Like, I've reached this level of comfort, and it doesn't matter what level of comfort it is.

Yeah.

I've reached this level of comfort. I'm comfortable. Why should I rock that boat? And I think there's— there are arguments about— there are arguments about, you know, if I'm comfortable and I'll be taken care of, why should I change that? And there are arguments about, well, if I've reached this level of success and I'm comfortable, why would I do anything to jeopardize that?

Right?

So I think I think this is a, this is a big conversation, Steve, because at what point do you choose to move out of what's comfortable? At what point do you— like, you're talking about people going, it's my responsibility. Hardly anybody feels that pressure to take on the responsibility. Until there is pressure to take on the responsibility, unless they see something so big that they can't stand where they are anymore, because where you are is comfortable. So what, in your experience and, and from your perspective, what allows somebody to make that big a leap out of comfort?

It's a really great question because it goes back to who you're surrounded by. I grew up super poor. I grew up in a neighborhood where drug busts happened all the time. Drive-by shootings happened. It was normal for us. And so when you— it's easy to believe that that's normal for everybody else.

Hmm.

And so sometimes one of the fastest ways to crack yourself out of that mindset is to have somebody else come out and shake you and say, no, this is not normal. You know, there's people living different lives and you can too. You know, that took place for me. It was a friend's dad who had grown up much the same way that I did, was a Green Beret badass, but a very, very kind heart. He pulled me aside one day. It was a friend from my church. And he goes, hey, what are you doing with your life, man? Like, don't just continue the way that you're going. You have great scores in math, great scores in science. Go do something really difficult. Go challenge yourself. Do you know how good your life could be on the back end? And then he told me his story about how poor he grew up and what he made of himself by joining the military. and going and seeing something new. The environment matters and the advice matters. So how do you snap yourself out of it? To your point, it's extremely difficult to snap yourself out of it. Other people can snap you out of it much quicker by helping to shake you. Now, what if you don't have access to those people? Ask yourself these questions. When you think about, are there people around me living a better life than I am? Okay, I know that they exist. Where are they and how do I get myself around them? Because it's going to expand your mindset. For me, it was church. And in church, I was around people who weren't living in my neighborhood. There were some people who were poor, people who were rich in that church. And it was one of the ones who had much more of that abundant, rich mindset that grabbed me one day and shook me. But if you don't have access to that, that's what books are for. For those people who are— who, if you're not actively reading and learning from people who have lived different lives, who have seen more of the world, and not hanging out with people who are where you want to be, I think you're really missing out on life. Reading is what really opened up the world to me when I was living in a very closed environment. I might have been living here, but because I was reading, my mindset was over here. And then it didn't take as much for someone to grab me and trigger me into actually making change and realizing that there's a better way to live your life. But I think it goes back to how we as human beings, we think about taking action. And the habits that we make, the habits that we form very unconsciously. And one of the biggest habits is the self-perpetuation of our own mindset of what we believe to be true about ourselves. James Clear wrote a great book called Atomic Habits, where he breaks down identity and what you believe about yourself. And that there's a 2-step process for you to change your identity about what you believe. The first step is just decide who you want to be and where you want to go. And then the second step, the most important part, start proving to yourself step by step that that's who you are. See, we only believe things about ourselves because we've proven those things to ourselves. I'm just a poor Black kid that grew up next to the ghetto, and I'm not going to be able to do anything with my life. Well, how do I know that? It's because I was first told that, but then I reinforced that in my own mindset over and over again until I believed this is my identity. And so when you understand that the key to change your identity all starts with your mind to decide what you want, and then start to prove to yourself through that iterative process that that's who you are, it's who you're going to be, and then it becomes who you are once you've done it enough. And it starts by taking small steps. You can't just jump from, I'm a poor Black kid in the lower class to say, I'm going to go have a $100 million business. No, it comes from progressively taking the next step and proving to yourself I said I was going to read that book. I read that book. I said I was going to get straight A's in my classes. I did that. Oh, wait a minute. That means that was my choice. Like I decided to do that. And then I proved to myself that I could do it. And I began to believe things. I'm the type of person that does what I tell myself I'm going to do. I'm the type of person who can stretch outside my ability and do a little bit more than I believe is possible because I've proven that to myself time and time again. Before you know it, you're the guy who's over here with the million-dollar business because you proved yourself through success. steps that you were able to do more than you believed in your own heart. But that starts with your identity change. And identity change can happen from someone shaking you. If you don't want that person shaking you, you have to understand that identity change happens right here in your mind. You can unlock it for yourself and decide what you want and then begin to reprove to yourself who you are. And that's agency.

That's great. It's, uh, this is so timely. I'm doing a lot of work on identity and I'm putting together a mastermind that's going to be focused on that. And it's, it actually parallels a lot of this, which is so phenomenal to hear. So I guess I'm curious about a few, about a few things. Let's talk mentorship for a minute, right? Because I think you were fortunate enough to have a Green Beret at church step in and kind of snap you out of what are you doing with your life, right? And, and I think it's up to us as leaders at this point to take an interest in the next generation, to take an interest in The people around us, and what's? I mean, I don't know what relationship you had with this gentleman before he and you had a conversation, or he took it on himself to to talk to you. What's a really good way to shake somebody up when you see potential in someone else? You know, I was I was told early on, you know, you're not living into your potential. And to me, I took that as a criticism, not as an invitation. Yeah, like, as a, as a kid, that was like crushing. Um, and as I look back, I'm like, oh my gosh, that was an invitation to actually do something bigger, not just be, be, uh, I don't know, yelled at for, for not doing something. Right. So how do you invite? How do you Like, what are your thoughts about how do you shake somebody up in a way that actually invites growth?

You know, you got to be willing to offend people when it's time to shake them up and say, you're able to do more with your life. I know you can do more. I see it. You don't see it in yourself. My friend's dad was willing to offend me, and he did offend me when, when he pulled me aside and said, what are you doing with your life? Was, okay, who— first reaction, who do you think you are to tell me what am I doing with my life? Here's the difference. I knew that he cared.

Hmm.

And when you know that someone cares, even though the first reaction when they shake you up and say, what are you doing with your life? When you know that they care, you snap out of that first reaction, you move past that emotion and go, What if he's right? Like, am I doing enough with my life? Am I challenging myself and giving myself an opportunity to meet my own potential? You see, the words that we use with others are so powerful. We can say things in passing, a light compliment to someone. Hey, I like that haircut. And it means something to them. It is boy, girl, man, it doesn't matter. People love to receive compliments. Our words are very, very powerful. And so if we're using those words To build someone up and to challenge them, it's something that I think is incumbent on all of us as leaders. Someone took the time to shake us up and have a difficult conversation with us and motivate us. Now it's our turn to be looking for the people who need to be shaken up. But again, remember, that person needs to know that you care about them. And it's not just that you're coming in with criticism, it's I'm identifying that you could do more, the impact you could have, the life that you could live. And when you deliver it that way, it doesn't have to be spoken. It just needs to be known that there's care. So I've had a couple of people in my life who have said things to me that stopped me in my tracks. All of them were people that I knew cared about me. Some of them were managers at the warehouse that I worked at who I had known for 3 or 4 months. Others was my friend's dad who was shaking me and said, what are you doing with your life?

Right.

I can remember very vividly times in my life when someone said something to me that just jarred me out of my own head and made me realize, man, I'm on a different path than maybe I should be. I had a manager at the warehouse and she pulled me aside one day after I'd been there working 12-hour days, just working my butt off. Uh, we're retrofitting trucks for an HVAC company, really hard work. It's super sweaty and it's nasty and it's grueling. And she pulled me aside at the end of the summer and she goes, I don't know what you're doing here, but I just want you to know, whatever you decide to do in your life, you are going to be successful.

Nice.

And then she walked away across the warehouse and I'm just standing there thinking to myself like, what? But it meant something to me. Oh, those words were powerful. And when I didn't have the belief in myself, Yeah. Hearing that from someone who wasn't a stranger, but someone who knew some things, and it made me question, what did she see all summer long that made her pull me aside and say that? I looked over at my buddy who worked with me, and I was like, well, she didn't say it to him, but she did say it to me. That made it mean more that I was isolated and singled out, that I knew that she cared, and you can be successful at whatever you decide to do in life. And I goes, whoa, those words matter. And it's incumbent on us as leaders to pay that forward to the next generation and to find those people that need to be shaken up and pay that forward to them and let them know, hey, you are capable of so much more than your mind can comprehend right now. And if you're someone who's aspirational and driven, that's going to take that person and push them to the next level.

I think, you know, it sounds like you felt seen in that moment, like there's— she sees me, and you did trust her, and that's That's great. A few years back, a couple of years back, I interviewed a man who wrote a great book on trust, Darryl Stickell, and he had 4 different what he called levers around trust. And one of them was just to ask the question, do you believe I have your best interest at heart? And I don't know whether you need to say that out loud or whether that comes through to feeling. But I think that when this woman who— your supervisor— when she talked to you, that came through in a feeling that you knew she had your best interest at heart. And it's so easy, I think, that, that people in authority can drop such horrible things on other people, like, you'll never amount to anything, versus, just wanted you to know, anything you set your mind to, you're going to be successful. How different are those messages? And either one is potentially believable because they'll both take root. How amazing is it to give that gift to somebody? I think that's, I think that's huge.

Yeah, it really is. And that old saying, whether you believe you can, whether you believe you can do something, whether you believe you can't do something, you're usually right. And so how crazy is it That the teacher that says to the student, you'll never amount to anything, and plants that seed for it to grow in that student's mind where it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If those words were changed to, hey, you have the potential to be so much more than you're choosing to be right now, that plants an entirely different seed.

Hmm.

And we as human beings, like, we're fertile ground for new ideas to come out externally, for people to come and tell us things about ourselves. I wish it wasn't the case, but it really is. And so the words that we speak in other people really matters. And I know that from my own experience, but I've seen it in so many other people where they've been built up over time. And after seeing that, I made it a big impact for me to tell my daughters and the people around me, the young people, man, you can really do anything you want in life if you put your mind to it. If you work hard, you don't have to become top 1% in most areas of life. You can become top 10% just through repetition and hard work. Imagine how good that is to know that in life you can achieve just about anything through repetition and hard work. Now, if you got to be world-class to go play LeBron James in the NBA, that might require some talent to go along with it. But why not reinforce for people you can do anything you put your mind to if you're just willing to do it 100 times or 1,000 times and continue to be disciplined along with that? That's stuff that we can give to other people. And I wish more people had that mindset and understood the power of their words and the emotional Instead of tearing someone down, you can acknowledge that you're not meeting your potential. You are capable of so much more. Because that's true for most people. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think it's a great— I think it's a great leadership lesson also, that if you are running a team, you as the leader can go to any team member and, and say, you know what, you're capable of more. And then part 2 of that is, as the leader of this group, my job is to reduce your friction in getting more. What do you need to get there? And it plants the seed and it opens the door. And I think that that is— that's kind of a big deal, especially if you're running an organization, because you'll— you become more profitable that way. You gain loyalty that way. It's pretty huge. Let me ask you about the, um, when you, when you got to Cal Baptist University, you were surrounded by business owners, investors, entrepreneurs, etc. Was there any particular conversation or any particular incident, or was it a series of things that kind of opened your eyes to more and then more and then more?

Yeah, it's a great question. When I went to California Baptist, I wasn't immediately surrounded by the entrepreneurs and the business owners. Here's what happened. I got to Cal Baptist University, which was a really expensive private school. I'm there on a scholarship and I'm surrounded by a bunch of kids who aren't on scholarship. And I'm thinking to myself, before I came to the school, when I heard that it was $50,000 a year for tuition back then, and that's a lot more today. $50,000 a year for tuition. I'm thinking, who could possibly afford to send a child to university for $50,000 a year?

Hmm.

I can't even imagine a job where I make $50,000 a year, much less to just pay that for a kid's school who's not gonna be working, who's just gonna be studying. It blew my mind because I'd never been surrounded by anywhere near that kind of wealth. The people that I knew went to college, they went to state school, they got some student loans for it. And so I'm asking the kids who are around me, who I live with, who are surrounding me, Hey, you're paying full price to be here? No, I'm on a scholarship. Like, so how— what, are you paying it for yourself? Oh, your parents are paying it for you? What do your parents do? And I heard all types of stories about, oh, they, they own a garbage collection company, you know. Oh, they own a manufacturing company, professional services, really boring businesses. And realizing that everyone who was paying full price at my private school owned something. They may not have owned a business, but they owned something. They had stock, they had ownership, they had rental properties, they had all different types of investments. And it was from those investments that they had used their earned income to create that they were able to nonchalantly send their children to a school that costs 4 times as much as the state school that was right next door. That's where I realized for the first time, it's not just that there's other people out there who have money. There's lots of other people who are out there who have money. I realized I'm one private school of many. We're on the hierarchy of private schools. There's some that are way more expensive than this that parents are sending their kids to. And as I'm driving through California, I'm looking at all the houses that are up on the hills and I go, who lives in those houses? What do they— what must they do to be able to afford this kind of real estate? When I would drive to the beach and see homes that were right there in front of the boardwalk, on the beach and you think, I know these homes are $10 million plus. Who can absolutely afford to live here? How can so many people afford to live there? And that's where you realize that there's lots of people who understood something that I didn't know. They understood that there were inputs that they could put into the system that brought great financial impact out on the other side. And they had either been taught that or they had been— they'd figured that out for themselves through trial and error. And when I saw that there were tens of thousands of people, I go, well, wait a minute, why not me? If they can figure it out, I'm a smart kid. Remember, I'd been told I was a smart kid. I now started to believe I was a smart kid. I had reinforced that belief that they can figure it out. I can figure that out. You start to meet the parents of the kids I was surrounded by at Cal Baptist, and you go, well, he's not a rocket scientist. He's a smart guy, but he's not a rocket scientist. I think I'm about as smart as he is. Well, let me, let me ask and start to understand. And you see the paths that people went down. And what I began to understand was that everyone who was there that owned something, their parents owned something, their parents had taken a risk at some point in order to own an asset. And it became a very clear formula to me that, well, I got to own something. I don't know how I'm going to do it. But if this is what it looks like on the back end of 30 years of owning stuff and living a life in control, that's what I want. And I began to reverse engineer. And so that 2-step part of changing your identity, I established at California Baptist University the thing that I wanted, number one. The second part of those progressive steps to get myself there through confidence and success building, I would have to spend the rest of my life going through those steps. But I understood what I wanted by meeting the kids at my school that were paying full price that I thought there's no way people can afford a school like this. It really unlocked a lot of things for me going to private school.

That's huge. That's, that's great. The, um, you know, the, the path to success, I really, I appreciate that, that you talked about like taking the risk. To own something. That, that's huge, you know. It's, it's taking a risk to step out of your environment, the one you know. It's taking a risk to step out of the identity that you know. It's, you know, you, you've described yourself and almost take it for granted that you're curious, you know. You haven't used that word yet, but that's like, you're curious and you're— you're looking at a larger picture. And a lot of people stay fairly myopic. They, they don't look at the big picture. They look at what they have and the cards they were dealt and where they grew up. And, you know, there's a, there's a distinction between taking responsibility and choosing and blaming, right? You— or blaming either circumstance or the environment Or even blaming themselves. Yeah, you know, if I was smart enough, if I was richer, if I was better looking, if I was whatever it is. Like, what, what do you do with the understanding that you can take responsibility for yourself and not blame others and not blame yourself? And what do you do when real challenges come up? Like, how do you— how would you help someone navigate that? Or how did you navigate that? Because challenges are real. Like, the more you grow, the more problems you'll have. They're greater problems, right? You— you— that was a— that was a big learning of my own. Like, oh, like, problems don't go away. Like, problems just get bigger. And that's because you get stronger. So you get to handle the bigger problems. So, right, how do you guide somebody to go, look, challenges are real? Like, how do you guide somebody through that?

You know, if someone's looking at the life they want to live, and looking at the problems that that individual living the life that they want to live is going to have to deal with, it can feel like something insurmountable. Because you're nowhere near the caliber of person that is required to get to that level just yet. And so this is why it's so important, that second part of the identity change, where you have to begin to prove to yourself with the small things that you are capable. And when you accomplish one thing, you build confidence, and then you take on something a little bit more and you keep on challenging yourself. And we have the science to back this up now where the understanding is You can't take on something that's astronomically challenging far from your station. The ideal amount of difficulty beyond your current ability is 4%. I know I can do this. I think I can stretch 4% and go to the next level. And so if you're 100% away from where you're at today and the challenges that are up here, how do you get there? It's 4%, 4%, 4%, 4%, each time building the confidence to be able to handle The next level of that. You see, we lose motivation when we say that things are too hard. Well, when something's too hard, what does that mean? Well, I haven't done it enough times yet. See, all of us have the ability to master pretty much anything through repetition and by challenging ourselves and then doing more repetition and building a body of work that I call the building blocks of success, where, okay, I know where I want to go. And we iteratively get ourselves there. And so those challenges are going to be real, but you are preparing yourself to be the person to handle those challenges as you go on the pathway towards becoming that person. And so I think about it very differently, where I think if the challenge is too great, okay, who's the person that I have to become who would think that that challenge is not that big of a deal? Okay, how far am I away from that? And how can I begin to prove to myself from where I am right now, That I'm the type of person who can accomplish that challenge without thinking twice about it. I love Myron Golden's take on tying our shoes. He goes, when you're young and you're a kid, you cry. It's so hard that you can't tie your own shoe. And then as he's on stage, he sits down and closes his eyes and unties his shoe and then ties it again. He's like, you see, I've mastered it. How did I master it? I got a lot of reps in a low-stress environment. Getting ourselves into a low-stress environment is one of the most critical skills to achieve anything in life, because if you can get Lots of reps in a low stress environment, you're building yourself those building blocks of success and the confidence. The last thing I'll say on this, I think it's actually a really important point because I think that when you understand who you want to become, there's one practical thing that anyone can do who's past the age of 18. Now that you're in charge of yourself, you're living your own life. The fastest way to become something that you want to be once you've decided that Is to get yourself around people where the thing you want to be is normal for them. The environment, uprooting yourself from where you are and going where the thing that you want is a normal output. The easiest example of this is think about the CrossFit community. Well, I want to get good at doing CrossFit. Well, that's not going to happen if I just crack open a book and look at the first exercise and I go and try and do it by myself. What's the much faster way to get there? Of course, I could get there that path. It'd be slow. It would be grueling. The faster way to get there is to join a community of people who are already doing CrossFit on a daily basis. And the output that they're getting is what I want. If I join that community, all of a sudden now I'm in the kitchen cooking along with them and the output becomes almost predictable for me. And here's what people miss about this. They think all I have to do is get around the right people and I will become like them. Mm-hmm. That's not exactly the way it works for a couple of reasons. You have to do the same things that they're doing, but you also have to be the type of person that they want to be around. You know, I call this— it's like the old potluck dinners at the Baptist church. You could partake of anything you want on the table, but you had to bring something to the table as well. And so you can't just decide, I'm going to go hang out with all these $100 million people They don't want to hang out with you unless you have something to offer them. And so the skills that we develop and who we become is what gets us into the door to hang out with the people that we want to be around so we can get the outputs that they're making very periodically for themselves. It's very predictable for them. If we want that, then how do I become the person that gets into that room in the first place? The environment matters, and the fastest way to get there Is to become the person that they want to be around. So I can join that community, and then from joining that community, I will be doing the same things. It will be normal for them. It's not normal for me, and I'll be able to achieve those things as well. Perfect.

It's really great. Uh, you know, at the— like, backing that story all the way up, someone reads it in a book, and a lot of people stop there. Oh, I read it. Oh, I heard it, so I understand it. It's like, no, go do it. So like, now you do it on your own and it's not the same. Now go do it with the people who are doing it. Awesome. Now you've leveled up even greater. And, uh, I love the idea of potluck. Bring something to the table. Like, be that person that— right, the, uh, I think it was Zig Ziglar who said you can have anything you want if you help enough people get what they want.

Hmm.

And, and it really is about, are you showing up in service or are you showing up as a taker? Like, I want what you have is a very different thing than, um, I want to be the person who can give what you give. So how do I give to a level that you're, you know, showing up at this level? I think it's a, it's a mindset shift. That makes a big difference.

Yeah, that's very true. I didn't understand that piece of it when I was younger, and all of a sudden I would find myself in a situation, and particularly here in Las Vegas, where all of a sudden there's an investor community that I'm like they're at a whole level that's beyond where I'm at. Why are they talking to me? And when I sit back and think that, I thought about. And understood the unique perspective that I developed by honing my skills in one particular market that they wanted to have access to my knowledge in that market when they wanted it got me into an opportunity to be in the room with them. So people who have way more money than I have that I aspire to, I'm now in the room cooking with them because of a unique perspective that I can offer. Now I know the thing that I bring to the table that makes me special To them, even though I'm not at their level yet. See, it got me into the door and what I can give to them. And if we obsessed over what we can give to other people versus obsessing over what we want, like one serves the other. It's know what you want. And then to be able to achieve that, what can I give to other people in order to get to what I want on the back end of it? And it's a whole different mindset of flipping on the script to say it's a life of serving others to achieve. what I ultimately want on the back end. I think that's actually a beautiful analogy.

It's great. It's great. You're big into motivation. So how is it that people— some people live really decisively, you know, they know what they want, and other people, they just, they're like, I know what I want, sort of, or I don't know if I know what I want. Or, right, like, like a lot of people have trouble getting to the here's what I want place. Some people will have wishes but won't be able to act on them, and so it's not actually a desire. There's no decisive action. Uh, and so how, how is it that some people can know what they want, act decisively, and get it, while other people have this sort of want and they have talent, they have opportunity, but they don't ever do it?

I've pondered that question for a long time to understand. People used to tell me these things, oh, if I was as motivated as you were, you know, I would get so much more done. You just, you're just driven. And I wondered to myself, like, what is that? And I see people who are extremely driven. You see 2 guys and one is just like, he's going after everything. The other guy is just more lackadaisical. And you wonder what separates those 2. Is it just innate inside one of them to want to go be a killer and go after all of it? And one person's just lazy, or is there something else to it? And after pondering that question about the motivated guy versus the unmotivated guy, I came up with this formula that I want to share with you as a framework.

Okay.

And I want to see where your mind is at on it. Because here's my formula. My formula is motivation is equal to value times belief times immediacy divided by friction. Value, value. What is the thing that that person cares about? If we don't start with something that they really, really value, then— and that's equals to zero— motivation will be zero. If you don't value anything, you don't want anything in life, Motivation will be zero. That's a given. But then belief, this is the agency portion of it because belief is my actions can affect the thing that I want to take action on. I have to believe that I can. And that goes back to our identity change in the 2-step process of know what you want and then prove it to yourself over successive steps. Immediacy is a really interesting one. You could also call it salience. It's that emotional connection to the juice is going to be worth the squeeze. Either I'm going to get something really quick for this that's going to be satisfying. And it might be small, or if it's gonna take me a long time to get there, in my perception, it has to be worth it. It's got to be much bigger on the back end. That's the immediacy. What's the juice? Is it going to be worth the squeeze? All of that is divided by friction. And so as mathematics goes, if any of the value, belief, or immediacy equals zero, you will have zero motivation.

Yeah.

You need to have all 3. But even if you have all 3, What is the friction that gets in your way? What are the things that are holding you back from doing it? How hard is it? How out of your way is it for you to do that? That friction is going to keep you from being motivated if things are too difficult, if they're too hard. And so when you understand the formula, it allows you to say, okay, that one guy is super motivated. The other guy is not that motivated. Well, what could possibly be the difference? Let's go to the formula and find out. Is there's a thing that you value that you believe that your actions can affect. There's going to be an immediate reward for you in the back end, and the friction is super low. You're going to have really high levels of motivation. And if any of those on the top are going to be equal to zero, you'll have no motivation. If friction's too high, you're going to have very low levels of motivation. Now, the distinction is that's just motivation. There's plenty of people that are motivated who don't take action. And so to get to action, you must have motivation. You must have the capability, and there's gotta be a trigger, and that will get you to action. But it starts by understanding where motivation comes from. And I think by putting a formula around it, we can look at people and start to articulate, here's the piece that's missing. If I wanna have higher motivation, either lower my friction down or increase the value, the belief, the immediacy. I love this formula. Maybe you're gonna disprove it as you go ahead to talk right now, but I love this formula.

I, uh, no, I wouldn't disprove it because I think you've given a lot of thought to it and I would define a few things differently. I won't do it here. It's like, this is a, it's a beautiful formula and it, and it works. Like, you know, I would, I, I would go into value a little differently. I think your belief about agency is spot on and immediacy I would define slightly differently. That said, what you said about it is perfect. I think the formula works, right? Your understanding of motivation. The question, the follow-on question I have, right? So, I wouldn't disprove it because I think, Steve, you're spot on with it. And I think it'll help a lot of people, right? So, don't invite that. What I want is, where I want to go with it is, What, uh, like, what triggers need to happen? You know, where is it that someone goes, yeah, this is enough, right? So, um, because that— it could be, it could be someone challenges a value. It could be somebody pushes on your belief. It could be somebody goes, this will take a long, long time, which dovetails with belief when you go, no, no, I'll show you, it'll, it'll happen tomorrow, right? Like, so I guess my question is, what triggers do you see? And like, in terms of agency, how do you trigger yourself?

Yeah, it's a great question. And one of the easiest ways to explain the triggers is to think about that person that, that wants to lose weight. Okay, they know they should do it. They're motivated to do it from time to time. But they haven't actually taken that step to do it disciplined for a long period of time. For those who have gone on a weight loss journey, they generally have something that triggered them that made them make a change. See, humans don't want to change. People say it's just men. I think it's men and women. Nobody wants to change. We are creatures of habit. We do the same things over and over again. We live these lives habitually. And so some people, it's going to take the doctor telling them, if you don't make changes to what you eat, you will die. And that trigger is enough for some people to wake them up, give them enough immediacy, enough value of the life that they want to live, that they get motivated to the point that they start doing it. But that trigger has to be a wake-up call, either internally or externally. Externally could be someone else who's the one who's shaking you to trigger that change in action. The internal ones, we tend to see that a lot with people who go through bigger changes that aren't even associated with that. One of the fastest ways and the easiest ways to change your habits is to change your environment. If you move from D.C. to California, you don't bring any old habits with you because all your friends are back there. You didn't bring anybody with you. You are now here to figure out what does my life look like now? I'm starting from scratch. Isn't that one of the best times to make a big change? Because now I'm forming new habits. I'm proving to myself who I'm going to be, and there's no other friction that's holding me back. And so that can be a trigger as well. People can have near-death experiences. They can have wake-up calls. There's plenty of triggers that are out there that get us to a point where we realize, no, the change needs to happen now. I've been motivated, but now is the time. I think that that's understanding that motivation and the capability and the trigger gets you to actually take an action that will begin to change your life from there. But we have the power to do it for ourselves, and others have an even easier time to shake us and give us those triggers.

Perfect. It's really what I was gonna say. It's about decision, right? You decide. And when you decide, You— if it's a true decision, when you decide, you're cutting everything else out but the thing you decided. Um, I will share that I lost around 70 pounds over the past year, year and a half.

Wow, congratulations.

The trigger for me to do that was a, was a push on my own values, and it was internal. It was like, I teach high performance and You know, at one point it's like, I can't, I can't look in the mirror or show up as a high-performance teacher and, you know, coach and, and say, yeah, but this part isn't that bad for me.

Yeah.

Um, right. So it was— and, and this is not about body shaming or anything else. Everybody's on a different metabolism. Everybody's got their own thing. Like, For me, that was just— that was a personal choice. And to recognize I'd made some decisions that were anti-values that I needed to correct. And I think—

How long did you wrestle with that before that trigger became real for you where it was, oh yeah, no, I'm changing my identity?

That's a really great question because, yeah, now we're asking personal questions. I had allowed the Excuse for myself, and again, this is for me. It's not about anybody else. This was my journey where, for me, it was. I would go, well, it's not that bad. Like I gained a little bit over the past, you know, year or month or whatever. Like, but I deserve. And so I was finding comfort because I was on the I was on the road a lot or. You know, and so I'd find a place where, oh, I deserve a great meal, or and I was eating way too many calories. I was eating way too much of the wrong stuff, and it was like, yeah, but and so I was excusing a lot and realized that while I was wrestling with a kind of body identity. I watched videos of myself. My first TED Talk was really terrible. I will just say that out loud.

Mm.

Because I was apologetic. I was stepping back from the stage. I was, I was not happy in my body. And so it, you know, I wrestled with it for years until I realized, until I realized, like, oh, it's not that bad, actually. You know what? That that's not okay. Yeah, like it it kind of got to a place where it was that bad, and so I yeah, I've been on this journey for a year and a half at this point, and feeling that's wonderful.

So what stands out to me on that too is you know you made the decision. What I know, and it's apropos to our conversation about agency for others, we're talking about weight loss. This applies to everything else in life.

Everything.

You made a decision. And you decided, this is not who I'm going to be anymore. I'm going to be the guy who loses 70 pounds. Here's what I know without you even telling me that, because we established what you valued and you already believed that you were in control, that it was your choices and that you're going to get something in the back end. I know that you took steps to make it easy for you to make it part of your daily life. And that you lowered that friction. It goes back to that formula. Hey, I already understand the numerator. The friction has to come down. So I know you took steps to take and reduce friction, which kept your motivation high. And I also say, okay, go ahead.

Yeah, there's a— so I wanted to add to this, Steve, because it ties directly to what we were talking about too, about identity. If you go, well, these are the steps I need to do, like I know I need to exercise or whatever, so I will, you know, go to, uh, I'll, I'll go to CrossFit, or I'll, I'll buy the, the new shoes or whatever. I know I need to lose weight, so I'll, um, I'll eat, you know, uh, more fruit today. That is— those are steps. That's not the adoption of an identity. Everything changed for me when I decided what my identity was. And that is the key. Like, I am not the person that I see in the mirror, right? Like, at that point it was bang. And now when I walked into a grocery store, 3 quarters of the grocery store was not food. It was not food. Like, it didn't register as stuff I would eat. You walk up the cereal aisle, there's no food on that aisle, right? You walk into a grocery store, you're either walking into the produce section or you're walking into the bakery. If you walk into the bakery section, for me, there's not a lot of food in that, in that area.

Yeah.

It's not food, right? It doesn't fuel me. And so the same is true for relationships. The same is true for Finance. The same is true for physical health, for mental health. Like you name it, spiritual health, right? Like philanthropy. Yeah, I'm somebody who I will give some time. I'll give to my community some way. Are you or are you not that person? Are you or are you not the spiritual person? Are you or are you not the best person in the relationship? Are you or are you not? Right? Like the person who is responsible for your health, your wealth, your, your well-being overall. That's the identity shift. And from there, I think, is where the, where the action steps come.

Yeah, I love that so much because it just goes to your decision. This is my identity now. Okay, do I know that I can lose 70 pounds? That's a lot. That's a big part to take on. Let me prove to myself I can lose 4 pounds over the next month. Once I've done that, okay, now I know I'm the type of person who can do what I say I'm going to do. And I'm already seeing progress and momentum. 70, I now know how many months to do that until I get there if I'm going to lose 4 pounds a month. And that's where it's the 2-step identity change. What do you want to be? Decide it and then do it.

This is really good. You know, now we're into like the meat of stuff and we have to wrap up, but This is, this is really good. The, uh, the key here is that the goal sets the direction, and it's the steps. Like, I, yeah, I had this goal, and I'm, I'm actually not done yet, by the way. Like, I'm, I've got, uh, I have a target in my head. I'm not done yet. So, um, so watch me.

Um, but you proved to yourself that you can do it. Like, you know you can do it now.

The key is You start on the path and you don't go, yay, I did it, now I can celebrate and have, you know, 6 donuts or whatever. It's like, no, I started on the path and that is my identity. And so it's the, the scale only proved the direction. It wasn't like it was— yes, there were milestones, and yes, I felt good. Um, it also was like Keep going. Not, well, you did that, so stop. Like, keep going.

Yeah.

I want to— we're, we're, uh, we should wrap. So let me ask you like a final question here, because I would love for you to talk a little bit about the book. And, um, and the book is called The Future You Choose. And, and what I'd love for you to talk about is As we wrap up, what is one concrete choice that anybody can make today to begin creating a different future? And I think that ties directly to The Future You Choose, your book, right?

So it certainly does. I think it's a great question. My book just came out a month ago. It's called The Future You Choose. You can find it on Amazon. I think the concrete thing that someone can do today, the most important part of choosing the future that you want Is the active rejection of the future that you didn't choose. See, I needed to actively reject the future before I could decide what I wanted. It's the decision to stop living the default script. And that's the first wake-up call for people that know, I do want more for my life. Hey, why not me? Why can't I go become part of the upper class? Why can't I go build a large business? Why can't I— my kids have the things that I didn't have when I was younger? Why isn't that possible? It's— I'm rejecting what everyone has told me and what my own mental beliefs are of what I am capable of doing in my life. And I'm going to now, after I reject it, go for the future that I choose. See, this book is all about identity. Now I'm choosing. I'm making that decision. That's my first step. My second step is now. Let me start proving to myself who I'm saying I'm going to be, even though it seems astronomical. Nope, that's my identity. That's the direction I'm going in. And I think I can get there. Let me start with a small step first to prove it to myself. I don't want to go jump for too much and then fall flat on my face and say, oh, it wasn't possible. See, I can go choose what I want after I reject. And then I prove to myself that I'm the person who is strategically And step by step becoming what I want.

I love this. All right, so what you just said was choose it and prove it. And I love that. And you do that by actively rejecting the thing that you don't want, right? So, and it's an active process. That's part of the choice. Um, Steve, I'm gonna spell your last name so that people can find you. Steve Rolle, R-O-L-L-E. And here's the question: where do people find you? They can find The Future You Choose on Amazon. Where can they find you if they want to connect?

You can find me at steverolle.com and on all social platforms. I'm Roll With Steve, my last name R-O-L-L-E, Roll With Steve, and steverolle.com.

Very good.

All right.

Look for Steve Rolle, S-T-E-V-E, just in case you needed to spell that, R-O-L-L-E.com. And Rolle with Steve, R-O-L-L-E with Steve on all socials. This is excellent. Steve Rolle, thank you for being with me. I appreciate you being here.

Dr. Wayne, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

Awesome. Awesome. All right. Well, this is One Sharp Sword Cutting Through to What Matters Most. I'm Dr. P, Dr. Wayne Pernell, your host, your guide, your coach on this journey. If you like this, please do show that you like it. Like it, share it, Um, and we'll see you here next time. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for listening to One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most with Outfluencer, Dr. Wayne Pernell. For more information, please go to onesharpsword.com.