Shift Your Leadership Identity with Anthony Trucks

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I'm incredibly excited to welcome back.

Anthony Trucks, former NFL player and incredible transformational coach. We talk about his new book Identity Shift and he drops some absolute bombs in today's episode. So be sure to check in if you're a leader, if you're a parent.

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Anthony Trucks, a massive, massive welcome back to the Life on Purpose podcast.

Thank you for having me, man. How you doing?

So good. Really good down here in New Zealand. Cracking on with it and doing what I love. And I seen recently your book came out and you'd been talking about it last time we connected over six or nine months ago and it's now out. So I thought that there's no time like the present. Let's connect, let's talk about the book, let's get it in people's hands. It's phenomenal work that you do and I want more people to access it. So I guess first things first, some of the listeners will recognize you. They'll have seen our first episode together, but some will be totally new. So I'd love to for those new listeners, just for them to know a little bit more about Anthony Trucks and your story. So if you don't mind going through it again, it'd be amazing. It's a powerful story. I'd love to the listeners to hear about your childhood and your professional career and where you've taken things now.

Yeah, man. So in the world of what I do, I help people make shift happen. It's kind of the, it's the play on words. But I work in identity and it comes from my childhood of not thinking there's much possible for my life. I was given away as a kid in a foster care. Endured a whole lot as a kid growing up until the age of 14 when I finally got adopted by a really poor all white family as a black man in America, which is very interesting dynamic. And then from there I progressed on and had to fight and find a way to find myself and also find out what I'm supposed to do. It started with me trying something I wasn't good at but got really good at, which was football. In a weird turn of events, I learned how to put the work in to create this sense of self that turned into these actions that got me a college scholarship to University of Oregon. In college, which you guys may call university, played college football there for four years. Had a kid 20 years old and my first son. Yep. And then met my real dad at about the same age A couple of years later, got a chance to play in the NFL National Football League, which America is pretty important. And progressed past that after tearing my shoulder and losing my career into life after the game, had a massive identity. Cris didn't know who I was. My high school sweetheart, we got married, had that kid, had two more kids. Next thing you know, the marriage falling apart, business is going downhill. I'm not in good shape. I have no sense of self. Suicidal, quite literally because I didn't have a sense of like, I am this guy. Nothing was there. Went into a fog for a few years. And then my adoptive mom passed away from multiple sclerosis after a 17 year battle. And I had this waking up of like, I got to figure my life out. And then when I did, I promised her, I said, first I'm gonna figure my life out, then when I do, I'm gonna give back to this world the way you gave to me unconditionally to do something cool. And I didn't do it. I owned a gym at the time. And then I was kind of graced with a whole lot of insights in weird ways from weird people that directed me towards this world of saying, here is my story, let me share it with you, and let me teach you how you can actually do and create cool things. And then so after three years, divorce, remarried. My ex wife got in good shape. I'm a present father, have a thriving business, and I now get to go back and make good on promise two after I make good on promise one. And my world now is guiding people through what I call the shift method, which helps them eliminate guilt, figure themselves out, and get that kind of real powerful momentum again. Because once you remove that thing that's holding you back that most people they, we live perpetually in, which is that state of I feel guilty sometimes shameful, but when I remove that because I'm taking the proper actions, not only do I get that freedom of heart to move and feel real confident, have great support for my spouse while I build my dream and, you know, my kids know I'm present and I don't feel like I'm letting anybody down, but I also achieve some really cool things where you get the house, the car, the money if you want that, or you get the freedom, the peace, the joy, the control. So I help people get to that point because that's how you make shift happen.

I love it. Makes shift happen. It's amazing. And Gil, can we hone in on that a little bit? So I for one, so I'm a high performance leadership coach. And for me, part of that journey is helping others eliminate that. But I am human. I feel that. I feel guilt myself. So for me, I spend a lot of time with my son. He's five years old. It's precious, and I love it. But there's times when I've got to go to work, I've got to do the work, and there's times when I've got to look after my body, and there's times when I need to get away and have some me time. During those times, I can feel guilty. I can, because I'm like, I could spend a bit more time with him, so how could I deal with that?

Yeah, there's a lot. There's a depth. A lot of depth there. And this is what we actually create the method for. Because the reality is there's two parts. You can't always feel guilty because you're away from your son, because realistically, that's not how life is lived. I think if we are always with our kids, at all times, they have a skewed perspective of what the world is like because they think that, oh, dad's always home. And I think there's something along the lines of also humans needing to have something that they do to feel empowered and full so we can actually pour out. So if you don't do something that fills you up, you can't pour into your kid. And then if you go the long distance and never do that thing where you're away from the kids, the kids get into their life and go, I thought I was just supposed to be at home all day. But no, you're supposed to go, right? So we have to model for them what it means to chase a vision, chase a dream, do something that fulfills us. And I think that also fills us up to come back. So it's part of the elimination of that guilt. Is one, reframing, right? How do I reframe the way this concept is? And then two, how do I shift the way I show up as a human? Like Lily? It's the identity stuff that I talk about. If you think about it, your actions that you have, that you've built, that they've kind of created your life. I've taken these actions, created my life. Most of the actions come from our beliefs and our thoughts and our feelings. Right. And the reality is, is people don't grasp your identity is behind all of it. Your identity is who you are, what you do when you're not thinking about who you are or what you do. So these actions you slowly take, they are building your life in some capacity. And so you wake up one day and go, this is my life. And most people feel stuck, we feel in that perpetual cycle of suck. I'm the guy who keeps showing up to work, and I'm not really being a present father, and I know that. So when I'm working, I'm not really fully expressing in my work because I got a little bit of something tugging at me. Or when I'm at home with my kids, I know I didn't get work done. So maybe I'm not providing the lifestyle. So I feel like I'm pain, I'm feeling guilty. I'm not really living up to this big vision I had for your life, son. Or maybe you went to the world and said, look, I'm the guy that does this. I'm the girl that does this. And you're not doing it. At this point, three, four years later, you now feel guilty for letting the world down or your vision down. And all of these things come into the actions. And if I can go back and go, how do I do the actions in alignment with myself to where it's. I'm not even aware of it. It just happens because it's who I am. That's how you start making that shift. And most people. It's funny is you see some people that do things, I'm sure you've had some in the past where they did something that was bad and they feel guilty about it in the beginning, and then they go, and they create. They do, they build. And someone tries to out them and go, oh, but I know what you did. And they go, hey, I'm glad you're talking about that. Robert Downey Jr. Perfect example. He was a guy that was phenomenal as an actor. He got into drugs and craziness, and now he worked himself way out of that hole, took the actions. He identifies as a whole different human. So when he shows up and someone asked him that question, he goes, really, dude? I'm not that guy anymore. Right? You can't say that unless you've shifted to a different identity. But you have to build into that, take action towards that, and eventually just becomes who you are and you flow. All of us have the exact same capability, but we are burdened and hampered by the guilt we carry every single day that actually keeps us from desiring or feeling like we're worthy of the next new level. And then we don't actually understand how to work to a level to remove that to where one day I have proof in the opposite because of my actions for who I really can be and am.

That's amazing. And when you think about identity. So we've all got an identity, but it sounds like it's subconscious, it's within us. So how do we tap in and figure out what our current identity is before we then start the identity shift?

It's a big piece of it because most people will start a path, but they do it wrong. Because if you think about it, if I'm going to go on a path somewhere, there's two points I need. I need the destination, I need the starting point. And most people, all they think about is a path in between. It's like, why are you even thinking about the path and what you should do and what book you should read and how you should work out. You have to even clarify the destination. Most people, they'll say, I want more money or I want to be happier or I want to be in better shape, whatever. And I go, okay, great. That's pretty much telling me, I know the city, but I don't know the address.

I know the vicinity, but I don't know specific. So if you don't know specific, you're not going to get in the car and drive away. You can't GPS that. And then also if I do have that destination, mostly want to get to work and I go, well, how would you get to work if you don't even know where you're at? Doesn't make any sense. I'm not going to start the blue line. Because if you put GPS and go, where am I going? The other thing it says is current location, where are you at? So I got to know that. So what I do when I go to identity, I go back and take a look at what is your current identity. It's comprised of six segments. And when you know those six, you can actually look at what the levers are and the buttons are to actually modify and adjust that. But you'll have a starting point and go, okay, great. I may not like it, it may feel uncomfortable, but now I know who I am. I can finally see myself and I know where I want to go. Now, let me plan that. Let me say, what does that look like? What are the things that I must do to take the actions to not only accomplish this thing, but also to feel different inside? Because that's a big piece of it. Some people like, for example, you could go and accomplish building a business, but if you build it at the expense of your son's, relationship. Well, you feel like a turd inside. I feel crappy. Like I got this achievement but I'm not the right person. So we have to think about both as I accomplish this thing and shift into that identity, like to create this accomplishment, what identity is it? So these two ality pieces, we actually go in and we break it down. Who are you right now? Who do you need to become that gets you there? And then now you get into that flow and the cool thing is when you do it proper. Like right now, everybody gets up with for a certain amount. I probably say the majority of most people's day does not have friction. It has some. Right. It doesn't have like, oh, overwhelming friction. It's just like, this is my day. I get to a rhythm. How I get up in the morning, what I eat for breakfast, how I go to work hours. There's a rhythm to it all. We get used to the rhythm. When you want more, that more is attributed to doing and being more. You don't just get to have that, but do what you're doing. That's not how it works. And so you're going to feel this segment of like, oh, I call it an identity gap. I feel the gap of what I want, really a gap of who you are because you were that person, you'd have those things. The idea is like, okay, how do I feel this? How do I close the gap? And really it boils down to have you taken a look at what are the actions that you could do to where one day you've been doing them so consistently? They've been tough in the beginning, but eventually where it was hard to do it, it's now hard not to do it.

That's a special sweet spot because if we say, for example, everybody knows about cold calling. No one likes cold calling. Nobody does. Right. But this could business. That's just an inherent, like, oh, right. Well, there's one person. If we know that cold calling will grow the business, we just know that. Right. Statistically you can say cold calling can. Will it do? Well, I don't know, but for some businesses it would work. Now there's going to be a person that shows up and goes, oh my gosh, I got a cold call. And for them it's like pulling teeth to get to a hundred calls. And every call they take is. It's just. It's a draining of their soul. They don't show up properly. Right. So what happens is that out of a hundred calls, they may make 0,0 sales, but then you have the person that's been doing it for 10 years and they show up and they go, I'm a cold calling master. What do they do? They get a hundred calls. One before you got your a hundred calls done. Two, they did it. And it not just. It didn't just kind of wasn't hard, but it filled them up to do it. It felt like they were in alignment with their power to do it. So when it comes down to it, this person got the a hundred calls faster than you with less energy drain. And they showed up differently in that moment. And it's not that they had a different skill set that got developed because they kept doing it. It's not they have a better voice or they know how to push buttons better. It's just that they, as a human being, they show up and go, it is who I am to make 100 cold calls each day. Therefore, it will be more painful for them to go to sleep that night having not accomplished that alignment and got those hundred calls done, than it is for the person that was pulling teeth to get a hundred done.

That's amazing. So you can get the pain point of not doing something is enough to motivate them to get it done, but not just get it done, but do it with passion.

Yeah. Because who you are now, it's all an alignment thing. It's an identity thing. When it's who you are to do it, it gets done with joy. Maybe that was joy, but you get it done without it draining your soul. Like for every. For example, I did a video every day for 1,333 straight days. 3.65. I did a nightly 90 video. Didn't miss it for 3.65 years. And the reason was because there are nights when I would be like 11:30 at night. I got to get done by midnight. And I'm like, right. But I would get out of bed, I would go find a spot and record it. Because I was the guy that does a video a night. If I identity, it was who it was, my identity. If I didn't do it, I felt gross. Whereas somebody else goes, oh my gosh, you got to do a video. I don't want to do. Like, that's the pain. And because it's not who they are, they don't do it. They make a good excuse. And this little decision thing shows up over and over and over again. So for me, my goal is, how do I get you to shift into that person that you can't go to sleep until those things are done. Because it's who you are. So it's effortless effort. It's joy.

Hey, James here.

I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from Australia armies to small businesses, to large corporates, to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Carolinejlochlan.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes.

And when people go through and read the book. So. And we're going to make sure that on all socials that I'll have links to the book. It's available on Amazon, yeah?

Yep, it's available on Amazon. Yeah.

And they can also come check it out at your website. So I just remind viewers here we'll do it at the end as well. But where is your website? Anthonytrux.com Is that right?

Yeah, if you go to identity shiftbook.com you can get it there.

Okay, great. Okay, so, folks, by the end of this call, I'd like you to take some action and if you're really keen to look at your identity and shift your identity, go and get the book. It's going to be incredible. So let's talk about the experience of the book. So when someone gets the book and they start working through it, what can they expect to have happen in their life if they take action on what they're reading?

Yeah. They'll wake up one day and they'll look back and go, who in the world am I? That's the thing. It's always this because the book is part concept. So breaking down the understanding of like identity, where it shows up who you are. Right. Part of it goes into how do you make this shift? We have what's called the shift method. That is the process that guides you there. It's, that's the thing. It's. It's the. It's the magic medicine we'll call that actually is a thing that does what I'm talking about. So you wake up one day and you've achieved that thing and you feel like the person who achieved that thing. I call it a limitless state of ridiculous power. So I want you to feel Inside, Right? And so the book guides you through the process. And if you just read and then do what's called the reflection sections at the end of it, it'll guide you there. But if people go there and they use. So if you go to identityshiftbook.com, get the book on Amazon, come back with the code, which is your receipt number, and this code, L I V E Live, you'll get with the book, the audiobook for free, the digital book for free, and then I give a $97 workbook for free, which allows you to actually go through the segments and do the work in a way that ingrains the process so that you literally wake up one day, and some people go like, well, how do you know you made the shift ant? And I go, well, if you wake up one day and you try to put yourself back in the headspace of who you used to be, and it feels uncomfortable.

If I wake up and go, the guy that used to get up late and didn't have control of himself, and then he was always emotionally all over the place, had no structure to his day and no discipline. Ugh, it feels weird. That's an odd guy, right? That's. When you've made the shift, it takes work to get out of there. But the book shows you how that's phenomenal.

The shift method. Can we talk about that for a minute? So what does the shift method look like?

Yeah, so it's three stages. It's actually fairly simple from a standpoint of looking at it. But the work inside is where the power comes in. But it's three stages. One see, then shift, and then sustain. So see means we take a look at essentially, what are the things that you are unaware. You're unaware of? What are the parts of you that you don't see are holding you back once you figure those things out? Some will call them blind spots. Part of it's a blind spot. Part of it's just you don't want to honestly own up to some of it. Sometimes you hear people tell you stuff, you're like, I don't want to hear it. You're crazy. Right? But you know they're true. So there's that part of it. Then once I've seen that, I go, okay, great, now that I understand what it says, what's it been affecting? So I get to go, okay, ooh, this is what my loss is like. The calculated loss because of my inability to communicate. Something like that. And then we go, okay, now that that's gone, what is a hopeful destination I can go to. Where can I see a cool, better future? It's a C phase. Then I go, okay, great, now I'm going to go into the work, the shift phase. Most people jump to this. They go, tell me what to do, I want to know what to do. Well, sounds good. But what if what I tell you to do isn't what you need to do? You need to find out what you need to do and you'll find those things. You can create your own personalized shift plan and your own identity to shift into. Because the idea is if I can shift you into that guilt free identity that is operating in a certain way where there's no more guilt, only joy, you do some cool things. Well, now I know what that destination is. Not the city, but the address. Now and then I know the actions that'll build me into that. What do I do over time to create that? And now that I have that plan, the next stage is called the sustained phase. I now have to take action and sustain it toward eventually becomes who I am. That's the thing. All of us look at anybody in the world that started something the first day, it's like I'm trying this thing, the 1000th day. Oh, it's what I do. I just started boxing today. Ten years later, now I'm a boxer. There's a journey. And so we show you how to sustain by what's called a discipline system. Put discipline system into your life. You sustain this over time. And then what ends up happening is now you wake up one day and go, holy crap. I don't know when, I don't know exactly what time of the day, but one day I just woke up and I feel like I got this limitless sense of ridiculous power and look at all the cool things I've achieved.

That's amazing. It takes me back to something you said many months ago and we were talking about high performance. And I was like, whoa, you're Tuesday morning, you do this, you get up at this time and you do this and you work out and by 5am you've achieved all this. That's really high performance. And you said, well, no, some people will call it high performance. I call it Tuesday morning.

This is who I am.

It's part of who you are.

Yeah, it is. That's the thing that most people don't grasp is most of the time when individual, when they're describing someone who has success, they go, oh man, they're, they're high performers. They, you know, shoot, they Got a great mindset. But if you ask them, it's like, it's just how I operate. I don't. I don't go up and go, I'm a high performer. Like, no, I'm just. This is just Anthony. It's what Anthony does. And we describe that person doing the thing with these words. But the reality is, when it's who you are, it's not even a conversation. It's just who you are. You may later on some. What would you call that? Maybe you would call it a high performer, but I don't know, a person that's disciplined. That's what you call it, Disciplined? Yeah, that's really what it is. And you perform at a high level because you stay disciplined. So if anybody asks me, I'm like, I'm just disciplined and consistent. That's it. But people go, oh, you're high performer. I'm just. I knew what I wanted to get done. I put a discipline system around it. I know who I needed to be to work on these things to get there. I knew my holes in my bucket, what Anthony himself had to work on. I didn't borrow other people's habits and fixes. So I started doing things. And it's kind of like saying, I'm going to patch the holes on my camera. Just decided to go out, didn't it?

It's all good. It's back again.

Oh, it's back. It's kind of like saying, look, I got this car that happens to have holes in the tire, and the gas isn't running clean or smooth, and the belts are off and all that wonky stuff. Well, what I end up doing is I just go in and I just fix the things that my car has to fix. I'm not gonna go fix the wiper blades because that guy's wiper blade sucked. I'm not gonna go and, you know, change the back tire and his on my car because his back tire had to be changed. No, mine needed to patch the holes in the front. I needed to work on. I need to get the. We call it the belts lubed up and going again. I had my stuff to do, and so what happens? I just. I fix those, and then the car drives. People go, man, you're high performer. No, I'm just. That just the car's driving now because I fix the things that my car had to work on. And that's the thing people don't grasp. They want to. I want to get to the point. I've been in high performing. I want to feel that energy and emotion of just getting digging in. And it's like, it doesn't feel like that when I'm doing my thing, man. It doesn't feel like this energetic rise. It just feels like my Tuesday morning. That's how I do things consistently and flow. It's who I am to do it. And people look and go, how did you get all that done? It's like, I don't know. I just. Just my life, man, I'm living it. I'm just living my life. But the way that I've lived my life, the identity that's living my life, is accomplishing some pretty cool things.

You really give a shift about your life. Do you know what I mean?

It's like, you have to. Yeah, Good way to say that. Well done.

Yeah, I love it. Dad jokes 101, right?

Hey, somebody got to do it.

So good. Now, discipline, I truly believe, you know, if you lack discipline, then you lack the results that you really, truly want. So for people who have this, like, hey, I want to be fit or I want to be rich or whatever they want to be, but. And they start on this journey and they're in two, three, four weeks, then all of a sudden it gets too hard and they give up. So discipline clearly is not there yet. So they didn't have the desire strong enough. The burning desire wasn't strong enough for them to instill this discipline. So what's your advice for people who actually want to develop, like, hardcore discipline?

Yeah, you become a disciplined person. It's not. There's this thing of saying, I have disciplined, and I am disciplined. It's a difference. I have discipline. Right. Could be like, I have discipline to not punch my children in the face when they make me mad.

Good.

Right. I have the discipline not to. However, when I say I'm a disciplined man, that encompasses all things. If you're a disciplined person, it shows up. And so people ask, well, how do you get the motivation, the drive? It's. I am motivated to not be the guy I used to be. I am motivated to not go downhill. I am motivated to not fall out of alignment. And so what happens is I'm motivated to perceive the level of what I carry myself at my standards and say, that's who I am. I'm going to fight every day to stay in alignment with who I am. And that simplistic shift, that little shift of perspective allows me to go, okay, great. I'm going to be more keen on what I do put on my calendar. And I don't because I don't want to fall out of alignment with myself. So I'm not going to give self imposed deadlines that don't. They aren't even physically possible. Right. I'm not going to say things about who I am. I'm not going to say I'm the guy that's going to win a Grammy this year because I'm not going to win a Grammy. You know what I mean? Like people, they set these unrealistic things to achieve and it's so hard to get there that they feel less than because it's out of alignment with who they are or where they're really trying to go. And so when I look at people like how do I get that motivation? It's like, hey, don't be motivated to accomplish things. Be motivated to become someone who accomplishes things. And it's a baby step process. It's a journey. You have to fall in love with the day, not just the destination. What's the day look like? How can I love this thing? How can I show up knowing the things I'm doing in that day will bring me to that end? I want to be at. And then fall in love with the day. And then you become a disciplined person. And that disciplined person achieves the things and gets the things done and has the good marriage and has the great business and puts the systems in. Because a lot of the business owners I work with, they know what to do. They're phenomenal technicians. They could coach themselves out of Iraq in the middle of crazy, right? They could do it. But the thing is, is they don't. They're not the person inside that does all the stuff that wraps around it for the business to function and the relationship to function and their body to be in good shape and have it all. And so the separation for a lot of us is just we don't identify properly and so we carry this old self that really is guilt ridden and we do the same things that keep ingraining that over and over and over and we never think about how do I become somebody more? And the real, just so you know the feeling, it'll be, it'll be a feeling of out of character. It's the best way to explain it. The things you're going to have to do, they're going to feel out of character. The problem is most people go, oh, out of character? Oh no, no, I don't want to act out of character. I go, why? Like, why would you not? Well, it's just, it's bad, man. I know who I am. Okay, let's think about this. You're seeing out of character as bad. Why? Because to be honest, the out of character thing is also a positive, higher level character. It's out of character for you essentially to not put McDonald's in your mouth each day. Right? It's out of character. Right. So let's make it more of your character to not eat McDonald's every day. So now what happens is it's out of character, but it's positive. So idea is like all these things that feel awkward, feel funky, feel out of character. Yes. That means you're doing it right. It's supposed to feel like it's not who you are because eventually it will feel like who you are because you've done it enough and you get this return on the investment of that person. Because we're all investment based humans, there's a bias of if I give something, I want something in return. If I give you money, I want a burrito. If I give you money, I want a return on my investment. If I give effort and energy into something, the return I get on that investment is. It's who I am. Like if I give energy. Your dad, before you had a kid, you weren't a dad, you were a guy. And then a kid comes out in day one. You're like, I guess I'm a dad, right? But dude, after a couple years you're like, damn it, I'm a dad. Challenge me on that. I dare you. And what's the difference? It's not because all because the thing you could have a kid that got spit out by a school and you're never around. Do you feel like a dad? No. But it's because you invested and the return is I'm a dad. It's the same thing for all levels of life. And it becomes who you are unconsciously. If your kid falls or needs something you won't even process, I just go do what a good dad does. It's not even a processing just happens. It's part of your identity. And that same psychological concept applies to your work, to your health, to your relationships, everything. And we all think it's arbitrary and separate, but it's really dialed in the same.

I'm so glad you mentioned that. And you talked about investment. And nowadays our feeds are covered with crypto. NFTs, the stock market, all this investment. So the question I actually wanted to ask you was, let's say you had a couple thousand dollars to your name and you had to invest it somewhere. What Would Anthony Trucks invest that couple of grand in to get the best return?

The best return? I would invest it in knowledge, man. Because here's the thing, my identity is I am the guy that will figure it out before anybody else will and with less than everybody else. Because the only separation is knowledge, right? So if I have the knowledge. Well, it's not the only separation. If I have the knowledge and I don't execute on it, I'm no good, right? It's just like a guy. I know what to do, but I'm the guy that I know at a core. If I execute stuff, if I buy it, I consume it, I will execute it.

I will.

Dude, I take courses while I'm driving and picking my kids up from school and doing things. I'm in the airport. Like, I'm not in there banging out to music and all the new stuff I want to, I'm learning, right? It's just a natural part of my identity. So I just know stuff. So, which tells me is I also am an action guy. I got a really defined discipline system and structure. So my life is actionable. And then when it's time to take off working with the kids, I'm with the kids, right? Today I got an hour with my youngest son called dad Day. I know this stuff works. And so what ends up happening is I operate in this flow and then I know that if I got knowledge, I know I would apply it. Therefore, if I had that thousand, I'm like, look, I know who Anthony is. He's the one that consumes and does what he's supposed to do beyond anybody else. But give me more knowledge, let me know what to do, and I'll go do it and I'll end up learning more than you taught me.

That's powerful. And folks that are listening to that, you're listening to this podcast because you invest in your own self development, your own personal growth. So I'm with Anthony on this. If you've got money or time to invest, invest it in yourself and choose in whatever way you want that to be. Whether that's buying the book, right?

Go buy the book.

That's an investment in yourself. But it only works when you do the work. Buy the book, then execute. Do the work. As Anthony says. That's powerful.

Yeah.

I call it Shelf Esteem. I buy it, it goes on the shelf and I feel good and I don't do anything with it.

It's called Shelf Esteem. I love it. You're so right. I think how many of us have self help books and like hundreds of them. We've read them, but we've executed on maybe like half of them or one.

Of them or even read the damn thing, raids them. It's the weirdest thing, man. It's a different world, dude. It's different. All the information our fingertips and people do anything. It's odd. It's a really odd thing. We were more unhappy now than ever. And it's not like you don't know what to do. You just aren't the person to do it yet. It's like giving a hammer to a newborn baby. All the tools, not the person to wield it. Give it to a construction worker. That dude's building a house in an apartment complex and skyrise, you know, who are you?

That shelf help that the idea of buying these self help books and they sit on the shelf, it sounds like your book. Okay, so it sounds like it's actually like the linchpin. It's the key to the secret of, hey, you've got all this information, but your identity is not lining up. You're not taking the action, you're not doing the reading, you're not executing. So your book could actually help unlock all the prior knowledge that people may have sitting around their homes or around their vicinities.

It wouldn't so much unlock it, it would just put it into use. That's really what it is. It's not like. The thing is, I don't even teach people much more. I have some clients that are business clients. But the more important thing is I have clients that come in and go, dude, I know what to do, but I can't seem to figure out how to get it done. It's the weirdest thing. I get stuck in my own head and I have this weird. I wake up with a weird feeling in my stomach. I don't feel confident and powerful, whatever, but I know I'm the one to carry it. I know I'm the one that had that. I know it's my thing, but I can't. And we sit down, we figure out that in the day, it's just they aren't the person at their core to do that thing yet. For whatever reasons, whether it's imposter syndrome, which is essentially the guilt around the fact that I might charge somebody for something that I haven't quite done yet. So I feel guilty because I'm taking their money and can't provide. But this is weird ways of frame it. But the reality is, man, when you get that stuff figured out, like, it does move different, your identity shifts and flows and you accomplish way more things that are way different energy to it.

And see, getting back to the identity, figuring out what your current identity is. So essentially your current location, what are questions that people could ask or a question that could help them figure out where they currently are at, what their identity currently is.

They're going to hate it. It's going to be an out of character question. But here's the answer to it. At the end of the day, there's this statement I love and it's hard to see the label when you are inside of the jar.

We're all operating inside of this jar, myself included, by the way. That's why I got a good wife who I don't mind her telling me things. I'm like, nah, you're right. So the idea is we operate in flow. We don't even notice our havoc and are crazy. We just were like a tornado. We're just running around, not even realizing we're a tornado. And so the biggest thing I tell people is like, hey, and you have to ask them this question. You have to text your friends that you trust, you respect and you trust. Because if you don't respect them, it's a problem. They go, look, if you could help me or you could force me to improve one area of my life that you believe is hindering me, what would it be?

And they'll give you something, you're not going to like it. I'm telling you right now, it's going to be funky and weird. And if you tell them and also say I have, I will not get mad, I will not rebut, I will not refute, I will not justify. I just need you to tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear. And then let them tell you. And you're going to find out the things that you do. People been like, not. They've been smiling your face and not telling the truth, but they tell you go, oh, damn. But if you think about it, you settle in. Usually you're like, yeah, damn, they're right. Ugh. Right. But now I know what to work on. Which actually gives you the ability to have yourself give yourself permission to improve. We don't typically give ourselves permission to improve things. We just, we bury it. Because if you do, that means you have to accept it might be right. Oh, God. Okay, well, you can accept this pain of acceptance of something that's not great or accept your lack of success for longer.

Hmm, that's powerful and that's real vulnerable. Courageous to reach out to loved ones and friends to do that. So let's say they come back to you and they're like, hey, you know, you should probably stop drinking as much, or you should maybe, you know, stop talking about the gym and get to the gym or stop eating all the rubbish food. And you feel this defensiveness come up, this angst, this like, hey, who the hell are they? So how do you work through that process without losing a friendship and then going back to them and defending your point? How do you take that on board?

Yeah, it's funny, you're getting into that like, this is part of the method. It's not the end. This is one of the small lessons, but it's one of the most powerful ones. What you do is you preface it and you tell them, like, look, I can't respond to you for 24 to 48 hours. I'm not allowed to actually give you any response. And usually I call it 48 hours flat. I can't respond to you for 48 hours flat. So whatever you say to me, I will not say anything in response. I will just listen. And then 48 hours later, I'll reach back out and what you're doing is you're allowing them a safe space to tell you the truth. And how you handle the first question will determine whether or not you get gold. Because if they say the first thing and you get all responsive and argumentative, do you just cut off the golden goose? They're not going to give you any more insight. Like, they're like, I don't feel like dealing with this. You said you work it right and you damage the relationship. You don't get the gold. But if they go, say, say something crazy. And they go, oh, my gosh, he, he really just let me say that. Then they ask the next question, do it again. They go, oh, he's really going to let me tell the truth. They'll start telling you the truth and it all comes out and it hurts. Telling you it's a. It's. And people will avoid this. It's the stupidest thing to avoid it. Because why you. You must genuinely like the sucky life you're living. That's this thing. Either love your life or love the pain in your life, or you actually are something wrong. Because if you do this right, the idea is you're going to get the stuff that sucks, but it'll clear the space, it'll leave so much levate, so many different things that are going on as headaches. And then you actually Find out what you can work on, and then that becomes your shift plan. The stuff you do that gets you to be that identity. You go, okay, great. I see it. So 48 hours later, you go and call them back and go, look, you said some things, and, man, they really poked me. And here's the read. 48 hours lets the emotion die down. It lets the emotion succeed a little bit. Because if I say this to you and then I'm responding, now I am all emotion, no logic. They say when emotion's high, intelligence is low. So I'm all emotion, and I'm not logic. But the moment that the emotion can die down and I can go logic with it, I start listening differently. I go, yeah, yeah, you're right. Right. My wife can do this, and I can get to that point within like, a minute or two. I've practiced it for a lot of years, and I teach it, and I'm really aware. I'm consciously aware of it. Just say some things that are really hit the heart, like, oh, damn. Really? Like, ah, all right. But I can get to it quick because I realized that this is good for me. It takes a while to practice that. But when you can do that nonstop and openly, man, your life is perpetually getting better.

That's phenomenal. Do you remember personally, a time when you've reached out to someone in the last decade and asked that question and it really hit home? What was that one thing that they said that you need to change?

Man, it was down and it was like 2016. I had come off of. Not come off anything, but I was, like, living not the best life in the sense of. I was divorced, and I, you know, multiple partners, and I'm partying and traveling and spending money and yada, yada. And I just, you know, I was doing my thing, and I found this day, I was like, I don't like this guy. And I called my buddy Jason, had some conversations, and, I mean, he told me some things about how I was as a dad, the kind of man that he. That he knew me to be, that I wasn't being right now, you know, the way that he saw me talking about my business and how I showed up and things I was doing at work that just weren't professional. He told me the truth, man. And it hits. Because then it's like an attack on your identity. That's the thing. And most people feel. They go, oh, it's an attack on who I am. It's not. It's a bearing. It's a mirror to who you are. And here's the thing. If I want to get dressed, I can get dressed and try to get myself buttoned up. A mirror lets me know what I look like. And now I can go and change that shirt, because that shirt don't look good, don't match. I can brush my hair. I can look better, right? If not, you're out there walking around living a life with your hair messed up and your shirt's not matching because you didn't look at yourself in a mirror. So all it does is just. It gives you a mirror to go, oh, I shouldn't wear this anymore. Take it off. Put something new on. And now you can live your life with more flow.

That's amazing. And you talk about attacking the identity. So essentially the amygdala kicks in and defends it. Like you're being physically attacked.

Yeah, like the ego. The ego rears up and goes, no. And the ego, I call ego everyone's greatest obstacle.

Wow. I love it. I love it.

It's the thing that gets us not to let somebody tell us what's going on. We just. No, no, no, no, no. Right? And it's like, dang, if you can get the ego to take a nap, man, it's a whole different thing. Because the ego protects whatever identity is in there. That's the thing about it. It just protects the identity. Now, you can have great parts of the identity. Good dad, good husband, Right? But you can have sucky parts of the identity, which maybe you suck as a business owner. And therefore, because you're a good dad or a good mom, whatever it is, right? You go, no, I'm great. I'm great. It's like, you're not great at business. Yeah, I am. But, like, it's just protecting of your identity because you probably aren't good at the business because maybe you're mean to your staff or maybe you don't serve clients very well, right? But if your identity is just being protected by this ego, it'll keep on protecting that and keep it in place. But if you can let the ego open up a little bit in that space and then let something come in and then fix it, then now it's protecting something better that does better for the unit in the system. Because the reality is that entire unit is heavily affected by. By this part of your identity. You may think, it's like, I'm a good dad and I'm a good husband. Well, how much better of a dad or a husband could you be if the business ran smooth? We think it's separate. It's not separate. If my business is making me money, then I probably am less stressed. I'm happier. Therefore, I can do cooler date days with my wife. I can be in more joy when I'm with my wife. My kids can have more nice things, go to better schools. I can have a great relationship with them. Right? If the business is doing well. If it's not doing well, I might even focus when I'm with them, I can kind of be there, but I'm not being the greatest I can be. We think it's all separate, but no, if you're protecting a part of your identity that's not serving the unit, the whole identity, you are seriously in a bad space and a lot of us aren't aware of it.

That's really, really important for leaders that are listening. Life, work, balance, what we traditionally call lifework balance. They're separate things, life and work and balancing them. But what I'm hearing is, you said, no, it's life. And within life comes business, relationships, health, everything.

And we know that, everybody knows that. But they don't do the work to solidify the unit. They just work on one off pieces. It's weird. And everybody does it though, because we don't want to face the ego towards the place of me. That sucks. I want to bide my time and not face the pain of it all. But the realistic thing is, once you get to that flow, I think we live with this uneven, unexplored and unexpected guilt daily. We don't even. I don't think we realize it every day when you get up and you're going to work, you know, you didn't kiss your wife goodbye, your kids goodbye, your kids. You know, like, we know if we're not close to our kids, but then you don't even do anything to get close to them. And then when the moment happens, your kids write you a note and say, I wish daddy would stay home more. He's always on the road. You knew that was. You knew you were already doing that. You've been living in that perpetual state. Think about how much you've been bogging down your current work. So it's like we have these things, we're aware of these things, but we just. We don't open up the door and take a look at them. And it's like a perpetual, constant state of it. It's like that story of a farmer had a dog. And some guy walks up to the farmer looking for directions at a local church, and he gets up to the dog's moaning, you know, say, sir, how do you get to the church? Starts telling him, go down the road here, make a left. Sir, why is the dog moaning? Oh, because he's sitting on a nail. Well, why doesn't he get off the nail? It doesn't hurt him bad enough.

Right? So we live in this perpetual state of guilt, not making adjustments because it doesn't hurt bad enough. And. And it's just a focal point because you realize and you stop, you go, like, that doesn't make logical sense. The dog should move. Like, how would you have any pain, right? So when you finally look at yourself and you see who you are and you go, oh, wow. Yeah, Well, I guess it just didn't hurt bad enough. That guilt I've been living with has been piling up and piling up. Eventually it's going to rub a hole in your body as you start bleeding, get infected, right? It just happens. That dog keeps sending that damn nail, it's going to cause a problem. We just don't, as individuals. Get off the stinking nail.

Get off the nail. Folks, that's great advice. We've all got one of those nails in our lives somewhere, or a staple. Whatever it is, you've got it. And there's all things that we brush under the carpet now, talking about your business. So I've seen your business grow and thrive. It's just been phenomenal. And your personal brand, like, it's just. It's so impressive. So what happened along the way to help you, like, narrow down and get really, like, convergent and get that personal brand to be strong? How did you figure out that identity.

Was brand and branding? Right? The brand is what leads to branding. You've seen the branding, the colors, the logos, the images, the quality content I put out, right? That's the thing. But there's gotta be this brand underneath or else it can't come to life. And if it comes to life outside of what it should be, like, if I tell you we ride Harleys and we wear, you know, we got handlebar mustaches and our logo's a pink butterfly, right? That branding is not in line with the brand. So the first part about it was, what's the brand? And I realized that in the work that I do, right, we serve people from a place that we know you are best suited to serve the people who are where you used to be. So I kind of went back and I go, okay, who did I used to be and what did I used to want? Because those are my kind of People. And I figured out, well, I was a guy that at the time, like, I wasn't a good husband, wasn't a good dad, wasn't in good shape, didn't have powerful aspect and control of my business, so I couldn't serve the world. I felt guilty because I was killing the vision. Like, I had a dream to do something, but I wasn't even serving at the right level. That's what I was, man. And then I have some success, I make some money in business, got like a good quarter million dollar contract, was heavy profit, and I was like. But then I wasn't a good dad or a good husband, just made some money. It's just like I looked at it, I go, man, I was not the guy living all of it holistically. And so when I progressed to what I do now, as a matter of just taking a look and going, oh, this is who I am. I'm a guy that values relationship. I'm a guy that values parenthood. I'm a guy that values my business and the people I serve. That's who I am. So therefore, that's my brand. And it's easy to be that. This is the thing that's interesting is most people try to be something different. It's like the best way you can do it is to be you, because it's easy to be you. Like, figure out what your brand is. Then you just do that. And yes, you're gonna not like everybody, not gonna like you. You piss some people off, that's fine. Cause the reality is, if people don't know you enough to dislike you, they don't know you enough to love you, period. So you gotta put me out there enough for someone to dislike me. Then people go, this is my guy. And they align with you, and now they're aligned with you. It's smooth flowing. And then what happens is now you start creating stuff that expresses the brand. The colors that speak to who you are, the words that speak to who you are, the clothing that speaks to who you are, the type of content you create, the videos, like, the pain points you're talking to. It's all an extension of my actual life now. Because the people that I'm working with, they want to have that. I get to have a business that makes me good money. I can travel when I want to travel. I get to spend time with my kids and really be in a relationship with them. My wife has a present husband. A great stinking life, man. It's been a ton of work, but it's who I am to do the things that my life needs me to do so I can experience this life. That's the thing. It's not this arbitrary strategy. It's just who I am. That stuff gets done without even thinking about it. And the stuff that gets done creates this. And so when I show up, the brand you've seen built has been me saying, this is who I am, world. Take it or leave it. And if you do take it, I'm going to serve you. And so I serve them at a high level and I give them my secrets in my system and they apply it to their life. And it works. And that's how it all grows.

Phenomenal. Really, really phenomenal. And where do you see it going? Where's your brand going? Where's that journey happening?

Anthony brand will be separate from the shift method brand in time. Because right now, it's Anthony's story that powers the shift method. But it doesn't need to be. It just needs to be a human story. And if I can separate myself from the brand, two things take place. One, it can go beyond me, because if it's just me, it can't go beyond me when it's separated. It's a method and a concept that goes beyond me. And then two, it allows me to provide something to my family as a legacy. If you look at Stephen Covey's seven habits, it's his seven habits, but he ain't teaching it. But you can still go get that, get the book, you can get the concepts, all that stuff. It's all there. Therefore, his family has some kind of legacy and revenue and something that allows him to do something cool in the future because of what he created and pulled away from himself. So the brand will grow to have an aspect where individuals can work with the company. You can come work with us and we'll walk you through our shift method to get to the point of figuring yourself out, eliminating guilt and really getting that momentum again to hit that limitless state of ridiculous power. We'll have coaches that go, look, I really like this, and I want to use your methods for my clients. Beautiful. We'll certify you to utilize the shift method, and then beyond that, you'll have corporate stuff we'll do. So if corporation says, I really want to get our people at a level where they're making shift happen every day, Beautiful. We'll work with them. So we come in, we use our apps and our tools, and they get assigned a coach and they work themselves through our methods. So that's the long term thing. And then for Anthony, man, I'll do other stuff. It'll be a separate brand. Therefore I can go and, I don't know, be a ballerina if I want, you know, do everything I want to do.

I'll be there to clap ya. I promise you.

I'll do a pirouette and spin on circles on my head or something. I don't know what they do.

Beautiful. I love it. And just while you were talking about what you can do for people, can we just remind listeners where they can go to, to follow you and to engage with your books and your products?

Yeah, just go to nthonytrucksman. It's the simplest way to go. And if you go to identityshiftbook.com and then step three, use the word live, you get the freebies and some cool things that you can actually utilize and put this into your life for real.

That's epic. Well, one last question just before we wrap up. If you had to give some advice to your younger self or to your kids and the advice was around how to lead their life on purpose, what would you say?

How to live your life on purpose or lead your life on purpose, you said? Yeah, yeah, I would just say listen to the people around you, man. Because there are a lot of people around us that want us to do well, but we don't listen to them. We kind of shut them off. So it's like, Caleb, I think the focus that we should have is like, if these people are giving me insight, they're doing it for a reason. Listen, listen, your parents think about the age old system of kids. They don't listen to their parents. Why? I want only the best for you. It's all I want. I want you not to go to jail. I want you to have a good education, I want you to make some money. I want you to live an amazing life. So why don't you listen to me? It doesn't make sense, right? It's the same thing that happens in other parts of life. We just don't listen to people. So I think if we're able to listen, pay attention more, we could live a pretty stinking cool life. So if I can go back, I'd be like, bro, listen to your coach, listen to your mom, listen to your teachers, listen to don't have his ego trip. They're right and you got to say you're wrong. The faster you can do that, the better life gets.

Phenomenal. Advice for those listeners that are listening, please take action on that. One piece of advice I'm certainly going to do that. That's phenomenal. Everyone's greatest obstacle. That's ego, right?

Yeah. Ego, man. It's also the greatest opportunity because the end of the day, your ego, it shows up. But it'll show up as an amazing opportunity. If you adjust the identity that it's protecting, shift that identity, it'll show up and be an amazing asset.

Powerful. Anthony, thank you so, so much. I really appreciate it. Best of luck for the continued book launch and your programs. I'll be following suit and I look forward to introducing you on stage in New Zealand one day. Once we get this world back open again.

Count me in Whenever you need me I'm hopping on a flight if they'll let me.

Love.

Thank you so much for listening in today and investing in your own personal growth. Please hit that subscribe button.

I would love, love, love if you'd.

Leave me a rating and review and it really helps me to impact more people. I've got some amazing guests lined up in the coming weeks, and, folks, it's that time. Get out there and live life on purpose.