Ep. 63-Rick Sapio:Total Life Fulfillment (Even During A Pandemic)

This is the You Winning Life podcast, your number one source for mastering a positive existence. Each episode, we'll be interviewing exceptional people, giving you empowering insights and guiding you to extraordinary outcomes. Learn from specialists in the worlds of integrative and natural wellness, spirituality, psychology, and entrepreneurship so you too can be winning life. Now here's your host, licensed marriage and family therapist, certified neuro-emotional technique practitioner, winner and certified entrepreneur coach Jason Wasser.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the You Winning Life podcast. Today's guest has already been featured in episode 14. He is Rick Sapio, the founder and CEO of Mutual Capital Alliance. He is also the founder of Business Finishing School, which you have heard me talk about at multiple points in previous podcasts. And not only is he my mentor, but he's also the person who certified me as a business and entrepreneurial coach through his program. He's already been featured on episode Episode 14, where we talked about creating a life filled with purpose and values. So, Rick Sapio, thank you so much for joining us today. And I know there's so much been going on in the world that we want to get into. And first off the bat, what has been the top thing that you have been noticing, that you've been focusing, that you've been seeing from your perspective as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a person? That's most in your eyes at the moment?

I would say a bifurcation is happening, a massive bifurcation. And this bifurcation has always been around. You can go back to Roman times and see, as an Italian citizen, I could see and what happened over there because I studied the history of it, but there was 400 Coliseums at the peak of the Roman Empire, 400 Coliseums. And those Coliseums addressed this bifurcation that's happening in the world. And what they did was, The people that just wanted to exist and, you know, watch the blood and guts inside a Colosseum, they got up in the morning and they went there and they did that. And the people who wanted to make things happen in the world, which is a very small percentage of people, those are the people that were making things happen while everybody else was sleeping. So the bifurcation is this. There are people right now that I am talking to that are absolutely, positively, bloodlusting-ly taking action, massive action. They're a tiny percentage and everybody else is binge-watching Netflix, caught up in social media, trying to figure out, you know, is what is happening a lie, is it true? And as far as I'm concerned, who gives a damn? Like, it doesn't matter. All I want to do is try to influence people to be on this side of that equation. Zoom out in your life. What is your purpose? What are your values? What objectives do you want to achieve? So when you look back on your life in 30 years, you're saying, "That time was a critical time for me because that is when I made shit happen." Yeah.

So the distractions that we all have, do you feel like right now this is massively amplified, like times 100x, times 1,000x?

Well, it's amplified for sure for the wrong people. And some people are waking up to that amplification and saying, "Wait a minute." This isn't life. So I just have to tell you a quick story. I'm in Dallas, Texas, and when this all happened, I said to my wife and kids, "We're gonna live life normally. We're just gonna live life normally. We're gonna have the teachers come to the house, the piano teacher, the karate teacher, the Italian teacher, the chess teacher, and we're just gonna have a normal life. We're gonna have our friends over that are like-minded, et cetera." And this is now June, and we visited some friends we hadn't seen in 3 months, and their house was dark. It was like they had blocked all sunlight coming in, and it was 1 o'clock in the afternoon on a Sunday, and the whole house was sleeping. This is a family with 3 young kids, and the mother came out. She looked like she gained about 40 pounds, and she said to me, "Rick, what are you doing out?" I said, "What do you mean? What am I doing out? It's Sunday. It's 1 o'clock in the afternoon." She said, "We're all sleeping." And so, She said they have not left the house since March 2nd. And my kids wanted to cry because these were their former friends. And the juxtaposition of us living completely normally in every way and this family down the street completely holed up, gaining weight, no sunlight getting in, playing video games all the time. We don't have a single video game in our home. So our kids have been normal. So my point is that is a metaphor for life. Are you the type of person that's going to make things happen despite circumstances? Or are you the type of person that's going to get completely embroiled and enrolled in the circumstances and destroy your opportunity of living life? I mean, to me, the answer is simple, but, you know, that's an answer that you have to come up with for yourself.

So if someone is more predisposed to playing on one side of the coin, right? So we can use that as, right, as a binary way of perceiving it, right? Like you said, bifurcated, right? There are people who are like you who already had a lifestyle in play, you already had rhythms and rituals in your life that your family has committed to, that you not only have committed with your family but with your wife, but with your business, right? That's what's one of the things that you're known for is these rhythms and rituals. Is now the time for people to get that clear about how they can do that even though there's all this chaos going on around them? But how do we get rid of the— right, so that's part one of that question, but part two really is that mentality mindset of there are risks out there. Outside where we have to acknowledge that there are scary things happening in the world right now. And we do have to protect ourselves to whatever level that we feel we have to protect ourselves and the people we love. So where is— like, how do we change that mindset of, yes, I'm going to do whatever I can do to be safe, right? Safety is number one. But we also have to do self-care and financial self-care, family self-care, relationships self-care. Like, where is that mindset where that aligns all of those things? And how does somebody get there?

Yeah, so let's first address what's going on in the world. We, we, um, since the beginning of time, we've had rampant racism. It's a horrible thing. There's no question that it exists and there's no question that it's horrible. Check that box. There's no question that there's a tremendous amount of financial uncertainty in the world. Let's check that box. There's no question that there's a tremendous amount of political uncertainty and there's a pandemic. So check all those boxes. Now let me ask all of you a question. Who in the audience has control over any of those 4 things? Who's controlling the narrative? Who's controlling the outcomes? Nobody. So you have to first accept that there are things that you cannot control. And once you get comfortable, wow, you know what, he's right, I can't control any of that. The only thing I can control is my reaction. To that. And so my reaction to that is I have very strict rhythms and rituals in my life. I haven't missed a workout since the pandemic started. So there's a lot of people that are doing online free workouts. There's gyms that are now open. There's coaches that are willing to commit to your health. So that's one thing. There's time with your children. I have an hour a week with no electronics with my kids. Once a week. I have 4 children. So there's things that I do in my business every single day. And one of those things is a podcast like this once a week. So I appreciate the invite, Jason Wasser. I have a tremendous amount of respect for you and what you're doing and the message that you're trying to propagate in the world. So it starts with being willing to acknowledge the things that may be affecting your brain that you cannot Control and stop it. You gotta send them the stop it video, Jason Wasser.

The Newhart, the famous Bob Newhart as a psychiatrist video, right?

Yeah, we live in a world, and this is not part of what we talked about, but I told you this is gonna be a different answer. We live in a world where people are chasing happiness, and happiness is a moment to moment to moment decision. I will be happy if I eat that quart of ice cream. I'll be happy if I could binge watch Netflix. I'll be happy getting in a political debate about something I can't control. But happiness is bullshit. Bullshit. So I was told yesterday, don't curse. Bullshit is an actual thing. It's brown, it looks like this. It's nothing.

It comes out of a bull.

Exactly, it comes out of a bull. So I apologize if I offended you by the word bullshit, but here's the bottom line. Happiness is fleeting. Let me describe for all of your listeners the difference between happiness and fulfillment. Fulfillment comes when you do something really, really hard. I hate getting up at 5:00 AM to work out. I hate it. I hate it. But I feel fulfilled at the age of 57 to be able to beat my kids in a running race and lift more weights than them. And hold my breath underwater longer than them, which they learned this weekend. That is not my ego at all. That is fulfillment from the hatred of getting up at 5 in the morning and working out. When you're married for 50 years, you are extremely fulfilled. And I asked my mentor, Reinhold, I said, Reinhold, you've been married 50 years. What's it been like? He says, it's been hell at times, but I am completely fulfilled. So fulfillment is something you earn. So let me ask you, Jason Wasser, what has more staying power and would give you more happiness? I hate using that word.

Mm-hmm.

Fulfillment after an arduous task was completed over time or this momentary happiness?

I completely agree with you 100%. And it's funny enough that my perspective going from being a therapist to being part of your community and as you know my story where I never saw myself as an entrepreneur, as a therapist, right? I was a therapist who was like, I'm, you know, I'm a healer. I'm involved in people's emotional wellbeing. But seeing your perspective over the last couple of years and our community's perspective is fulfillment comes from purpose. Fulfillment comes from commitment. Fulfillment comes from mastery of ourself and that the emotion, right? No one is all happy. So the goal to be happy should not be a goal because no one is always angry. No one's always frustrated. No one's ever resentful all the time. It's a momentary experience based on something that has happened. So I completely now—

Yeah, I have to just share something because you said it best. First of all, that was so eloquent what you said. I think you need to somehow package that into what you do for people. It is impossible. My mentor David Stendler said this to me. He said, it's impossible to be angry and grateful at the same time. So the next time you're having a fight with your spouse or your best friend or your business partner, while you're fighting with them, say, What am I grateful for? And the upset vanishes. So I just wanted to point that out.

And I think that's a big component of what's going on right now, where the beauty I think that I've seen, right? And I live in South Florida, in Hollywood, is at the beginning of this isolation, social distancing period, I've never seen more people in my neighborhood out and walking and riding their bike. And I live in a suburban area. It's very quiet, it's very peaceful, but the exponential number of people that were out there was beautiful. And I'm like, why isn't this normal day-to-day life? And I want people to like have this idea of like, yeah, so we're forced into this scenario, but if you're not going from that place of gratitude, look what I can do now because of it. If I'm not taking this opportunity to becoming a better person in a relationship, a better parent, if that's part of your life, right? A better human being, a better business owner, a better philanthropist, a better whatever it may be, then I think that's the gratitude piece of being forced into this period that we're missing I know that this word has been overused a lot during this timeframe, which is, "How are you pivoting?" Right? I know that with the digital technology, thank God we have that. We really can't bash using digital technology to one of your— we write one of your 3 core values is simplicity, probability, and leverage, that we've been able to leverage technology to make all of our businesses who are in this type of world to be able to run. Within 24 hours, I pivoted from a full private practice in person to fully online. The gratitude that I have for the technology, the gratitude I have for my clients, gratitude I have for my community of people, including you and my friends, and is that like there's still connection that are happening. And I want to realize like with everything going on in the world between the pandemic and the political fighting, that, that's about losing connection to others. We're separating ourselves from others. And one of the things that I was so shocked to learn learn about my false beliefs that I had about being successful as a business person or the word entrepreneur. I don't know if I ever shared this story with you. I'm a scholarship kid and everything was paid for from high school on for different programs because my family was struggling at that point with the divorce. I had this view of people who had money, especially the kids who had money, as a-holes because that was the way it was in South Florida. They have these expensive cars. They weren't always the nicest people. They weren't always philanthropists or giving charity, but they were doing it very selfishly. So I grew up with this belief that money schools, you're going to become a bad person. And it wasn't until my first weekend with you and the Business Finishing School community, I was— where that shattered. And, and, and that profound change and shift that has allowed me to grow as a human being, where I now see that entrepreneurship is a psychological self-growth, self-development platform that needs to be utilized. Otherwise, we're missing a huge component of our life.

You're talking about, uh, something I did want to touch on. I do want to touch on your questions too, but it's time horizon. Horizon. Now here's the problem. We talked about bifurcation, which no one's really expecting, but where are you gonna be in that bifurcation? You're gonna be the Netflix binge-watching, social media freak, or you're gonna do what we're about to talk about, which is be on this side of bifurcation. But time horizon, two words. Everybody wants life now. And that is a complete mind— I don't know another word but mind—

It's a mindf, right?

A mindf, because what— I love a quote that I heard a long time ago. People underestimate what they can do in 10 years and overestimate what they can do in 1 year. So here's the thing, I would like everybody to write this down. Why am I here? Not why am I on this voicemail, or not voicemail, voice recording, podcast, whatever. Why am I here? What were you put on this earth for? And then I want you to zoom out to a date. So we're going to go to the year 2030. In the year 2030, if we were looking back on today, what did I accomplish that was aligned with my purpose? And so for me, my purpose is to inspire entrepreneurship. And everything I do, including this podcast, is inspiring you to be an entrepreneur. And entrepreneur to me is anyone, anybody that chooses to take responsibility for outcomes. And another word for responsibility, I've been using this with my 4 kids, is self-governance. Self-government is a better way because responsibility is, what does that really mean? Well, self-governance means you govern every moment of your time. Okay. So now you've got your purpose. You've got your really big objectives that are aligned with your purpose in 10 years. And that's the only thing that should matter, Jason Wasser. All this other shit. I have never once in my life, not one time logged into Netflix. I think Netflix is a great business model, but I'm either, here's another bifurcation folks, you are either generating and creating or you are consuming. And unfortunately America was founded on people that were generating and creating and it's evolved to a society that's consuming. What are we consuming? Information, podcasts, right? Netflix, social media, books, and it's great for a small fraction of your life, but the self-governance is moving you to this side. I'm only gonna do this for an hour a day, but this creating, I'm gonna write books, I'm gonna create podcasts, I'm gonna create businesses, I'm gonna create a values-based decision-making lifestyle. I'm gonna create a life based on the 3 values I heard Jason Wasser just talk about, which are the values of my life and everything everything I try to get done in the world, because some things I try to get done in the world don't happen. Failure is a big part of my life. And those are using the values of simplicity, probability, and leverage. How do you simplify everything you're doing in your life? I'm going to talk about one of your questions. How does one stabilize their financial life? I'm going to give you the simplest way to do that. So simplicity as a value for your business and personal life. Probability. Do things that have a high probability of occurring. So make decisions that increase the probability that you'll make that outcome. I see people doing very low, stupid probability things. Hey, we're gonna partner with Facebook and we're gonna build this thing out. I'm like, wait, you're gonna partner with Facebook? How long is that gonna take? Well, we're gonna have a few meetings and make it happen. No, no, no, no, that's very low probability. And then leverage. Leverage to me means not financial leverage, but everything you do, Jason Wasser and listeners, is leveraged off of an existing talent, an existing piece of infrastructure, existing piece of technology, or an existing relationship. It's already there. So yesterday I'm on the phone with this guy and he's trying to raise, believe it or not, a billion dollars on this idea. He had this long list of banks that he's talking to. I was talking to, and he's been working on it for 2 years. And I said, "Steve, you're trying to raise $1 billion through a bank? What are the odds of that happening?" He's like, "Well, I'll eventually find one." And I say, "When you find one, what's the due diligence process going to be like?" He said, "A few months." I said, "2 years minimum. So you're not going to get any capital for 3 years. Why don't we think of 10 people in the world right now that are already in this industry?" that have already funded similar ideas, that have already gone through the brain damage due diligence in this type of product. And in 45 minutes we had 10 names. He called me this morning and said, "I've already made contact with one and they're interested." It's just changing the brain. So, how does one create stability in their financial life? I'm gonna just tell you straight. Stop taking all financial risk, cut all unnecessary expenses and start saving your money in the bank. And why am I suggesting that? Because there's so much stress around the volatility of money. Take a few months and just put your money in the bank. And when you see your money growing, it gives you a satisfaction and a feeling of serenity and a feeling of financial security. Me and my business partner with a company I've been involved with for over 10 years, which we've renamed the 100-Year Savings Solution. It's 100-year, 1-0-0-year, Y-E-A-R, savings.com. That company, what we advocate for people is save your money until you have enough money to pay all your bills for 6 months. And when you have that, it's like, wow, forget about paying down your debt. That's not what I'm saying. If your debt stayed the same, but you had enough money to pay all your bills for 6 months, that move right there gives you so much confidence and so much financial security. So that's the answer to the question, how does one create stability in their financial life right now? Having the ability to know that no matter what happens, I'm safe. Okay. Here's what people do, Jason Wasser, which just bugs the crap out of me. They're told to pay off their debt. Paying off debt is incredibly important, but I personally would rather have $100,000 in debt and $200,000 in savings rather than as I'm trying to pay off my debt, my savings goes to zero each time. So focus on the savings part. Whatever 6 months is of all your bills, let's say it's $75,000, save $75,000 first, then start thinking about paying debt. So that's my answer to that question.

And is there a way to do it where it doesn't necessarily— because let's say someone isn't able to make $75,000 a year and put away, or put away $75,000, but whatever that number is, is there kind of like an equation number of like, obviously people I'll say, listen, if you can move everything of your debt into a 0% 12-month credit card or leverage what's out there to minimize that. So, right.

You're the—

because there is the APRs, there is the financing fees, there is all of that. And one of the things is, as you know, like the average person, we're not taught how to be savvy when it comes to money. And then we have that old debate, which is, you know, banks versus, um, life, whole term life insurance that will pay you out at a much higher percent down the road, or who to trust, who not to trust. This, this, this community puts down this financial community, this financial community makes— right, where, where does crystal clear—

yeah. So the way I teach about finance is I use very old school universal principles. I don't do anything new. As you can tell by my phone, I don't do anything new. Someone said to me yesterday, "But you have a smartphone, right?" Morgan, rest her soul— no, she's still very much alive— she's like, "I'm not calling you anymore Ubers." So I do own a smartphone that I got relatively recently that I just don't use. So don't try to ping me there. It has zero apps and I use it for Uber. But here's the thing. When it comes to making money, you have to think about the long-term, and that's why we call it the 100-Year Saving Solution. So from my perspective, putting money in a mutually owned 100-year-old life insurance company, this company's been around, you know, it went through the Great Depression, it went through World War II, World War I too, probably. One of the companies even went through the Civil War. All of this stuff, every pandemic, blah, blah, blah. And you're getting 3% tax-free or tax advantage on your money, to me that makes a lot of sense. So the way I like to layer it is have 6 months of cash, then start thinking about a life insurance policy that's with a massive company that's been around 100 years that pays the best rate tax-free, and then start investing in markets and real estate and all that crap. That really is not in most people's, view of life, it's not simplicity, probability, and leverage. Saving money in the bank is simple, 6 months. Putting money in a whole life insurance policy that's going to pay you 3% tax-free or tax-advantaged is simple. And what that does, everyone, is it gives you the freedom to go make money and not worry about it. You know, this happened to me recently. I was at lunch with a guy and the whole time he's doing this on his phone. And I go, what are you doing? He goes, I'm looking at the market. I took his phone. I said, "How much did this cost you?" And he said, "$800. Why?" I threw it and it landed in the water. I thought he was going to kill me. And then I pulled out my checkbook and gave him a check for $800. And I said, "It is making me sick watching you destroy your life by trying to do something that isn't what I've been teaching you: purpose, long-term objectives. So when you look back, values, what are your values to make decisions from? 6 months of savings. Then you start saving in a whole life insurance policy that's mutually owned. So you get dividends. Very few insurance companies, by the way, are mutually owned. So, you know, I'm not going to give you any, uh, I was on this show Crisis Investing and it's funny, it was the most popular episode. I was the only one out of 30 people that didn't give crisis investing tips because they're all full of crap.

Right, because you're being reactive in those moments. You're not playing the long game, the proactive, the game plan, which very much makes sense. And it messes with— because there's already a biased belief about that, that you have to act in a crisis manner. You have to be triage. And what I think that I've always learned from you is that when you think about the long games, right, you know that I've become an ardent follower of values-based decision-making, and I've taken and I've adopted that work, that mindset, and applied it to different aspects in communities. And we're working with teenagers and my clients. And it's actually one of the things that I do with every single client that I do is say, in order for me to be able to help you therapeutically, I need to know what your core values are so I can be in alignment with your lens of what you want to get out of your life. And of course, most people say, like, oh, I know what they are. But then when they write them down, it's very different than what they thought. And the second thing is this, this newer approach that you've been sharing with us has been this 100-Year Philosophy, where the other night, um, I gave a class on Sunday night. I give a class every week to a bunch of, uh, singles on relationships and dating and psychology and boundaries boundaries. And we talked about when you're looking for a partner, obviously they've already heard me talk about values-based decision-making for, for relationship. But I challenge them to think that, like, the goal of people in relationships, of what we know, is to what? Is to get engaged or to get married. But I actually had them broaden their thinking and say, no, I want you to think about going into this dating process— because everybody in the room was single— about what is it going to be like for your grandchildren. And to go much bigger than that, right? Are you— is this person going to be not just the person you want to be with now, but do they have the same values? They have the same culture? They have the same beliefs? They have the same motivation and mindset? That will be the legacy and the co-inspirer, co-motivator, the co-right, whatever it may be, to inspire that legacy. I remember you were telling, um, and I can't— and I can't remember the name of the person, but you said that there was someone who was who was a slave who became a free man, who did a funding with the two different, there was something about the two different bank endowments. Can you tell that story? 'Cause it's, I can't remember the name of the person and I wanted to ask you since it's so relevant to what's going on.

Yeah, so you gave me a list of questions. I'm gonna answer 10 of them with this before we get to the slave who became a free man. So first I'm going to talk about one of the things we teach. We created this in like 2000, we started teaching it in 2008, and then it became a module in Business Finishing School. You could see it in businessfinishingschool.com. It's a paid program, but Business Finishing School is really about life too. But we call it the Battleship Principle. And the Battleship Principle is no matter what happens, if you treat your life and everything that you have as if you're a battleship. What's a battleship prepared for? Anything. Most people are a dinghy in the middle of the ocean and they're like, "I never expected a storm to come." Really? If you never expected a storm to come, you're crazy. And a storm will come. There'll be divorce and bankruptcy and pandemics and the market will crash and banks will go out of business and death and everything. That will happen to you.

And unrest on whatever topic.

Right. You know why I know it'll happen to you? Because it's happened to me and it's happened to every other human being that's ever lived in the world. So since we already know it's going to happen, you have to treat your life like a battleship. So the battleship principle is it doesn't matter what happens. So that's why when I looked at your questions, I'm like, these are all reactive and I can give people tips, but that's not who I am. So everything that I teach in Business Finishing School And inside the 100YearsSavingsSolution.com, uh, by the way, both of those point to the same website, is stability, values-based decision-making. You end up with a life of fulfillment. So that's the answer to that question. Uh, you asked another question, but I was so focused on that one. Uh, let me just summarize it this way. If I were to give you, I died and I bequeath to you, I don't even know if that's the right word, you inherited, and you've seen me talk about this, seen me on stage, you got a 1930 Duesenberg convertible, which is worth $4 million, it's a car. Without knowing who you are, everybody would do the same thing. They'd find the best humidity-controlled garage to put the Duesenberg in, 'cause it's $4 million, right? They'd find the best mechanics, the best cleaners, they'd make sure that no one touched it, they treat it sacred, sacredly. You're worth far more than that as a human being on this earth. Treat yourself sacredly. What are you putting in your body? What toxic relationships do you have around you? What toxic things are you doing with your time like pornography and binge-watching and social media? It's not healthy. That's factually true. If you spend your time on that crap, you're gonna be the type of person that is consuming— what I read, I don't know if this is a fact, Jason, you can correct me— 4 billion pills a month are consumed by Americans for mental disorders. 4 billion. Why is that? It's because people are spending their time on toxic shit instead of fulfilling stuff. So that's— I'm not here to preach at all. If you like anything I'm saying, use it. If you don't like it, turn off the frickin' podcast. But the reality is, if you truly want fulfillment, the answer lies in what we've been talking about.

Well, and everything that I, as a therapist, especially now that I'm working with a lot of entrepreneurs and family businesses, is making decisions in all parts of life from their values, right? So as you saw me sitting here and drinking my coffee, the coffee I'm now buying is only from a company that's fair trade, organic, rainforest-aligned certified, supports women businesses, supports against domestic violence and education, right? It aligns with my core values. So it's a company that I've now chosen to invest in. For the same price that I would get a bag of Starbucks coffee, I can spend the same $12 and get this company that I know is going— Starbucks has a lot of social value stuff, but it goes above and beyond. Whereas where I'm like, well, if I can put $12 here and $12 there, this one more aligns with, with that. And, and the other side of what you were saying, I think when it comes to the, the, the, we, we talk about who's in your room, right? The name that your book, one of the shifts that I've had radically since you and I have been, um, in, in a relationship business and professionally, uh, and, and so friendly is my business got completely cleaned up. Because one of the questions I now ask my clients, especially piggybacking off the pills on the medication question, is I'm a mind-body integrative wellness-based therapist. And my question to my clients are—

Hang on a second. I love that. That is an awesome title. Don't change that. I know you've been fumbling around what the best one is. That is the best. Did you hear that, everyone?

Mind-body integrative wellness-based therapist.

I love it. That's so cool.

So I will only work with people who are ready, willing, and able to move away from a medication model to work more on integration of nutrition, of removing the toxicities from their life, both emotional toxicities as well as chemical toxicities, uh, right? Food and environmental and, you know, the stuff around them in their laundry detergent, stuff like that, as well as move to a more supplement based, you know, with the right professionals, with getting people in front of experts who are that, as opposed to having to rely on— now, if there's life or death medication, different ballgame. But the average person, which I call the worried well, the persons like me and you who are going through general life stuff, are the people that my practice is made of. The worried well should not have to rely on pills. There are people who, yes, we need medication, that's right, a necessity for life and whatever it may be. But the average worried well human being, which is majority of us, can have a life where exercise and diet and healthy people in their life will make a radical difference in that. And again, going back to everything of simplicity, of, right, the theme of your book with Dr. Meisner and the other gentleman is Stuart Emery.

Here's the thing, and we'll touch on this subject and then we'll start to wrap up because I don't want to lose your audience. People have such short attention spans. There's a study done that I saw that was done by a very prominent group that said that they compared all these pills for depression and everything against diet and exercise. Diet and exercise won every time, every time. Now we're talking about the well people. So you take someone that's 30 pounds overweight that doesn't exercise and doesn't eat right, and you shift them to a motivated lifestyle where they're getting up in the morning, working out, maybe praying and/or meditating, going over their values, eating, uh, things that help their body. This person, the same person that was here, is now here, much better life experience.

And, uh, well, you were going through that yourself over the last year, right? You committed for the last year and change to a game plan of working out with a trainer, changing your diet, right? And those of us who, like, have seen— we've seen the amazing transition. And you are already a motivated person, right? That's like what I want to impress upon people, that like even even highly motivated, highly successful people still have to kick it up another notch and then another notch. We might be a few years behind that, but we still have the same possible potential. And that's why I think what makes our community so beautiful is that we get to— the leverage is by being around people who are at different places in our lives but all committed to the same values and the same growth, we're going to have that inspiration and that motivation. Ingrained.

Yep, 100%. And here's a funny thing. In preparation for this podcast, I didn't want to do it live. And the reason I want to do it live is because I am not talking about the topic that everybody wants to talk about. So now I'm going to give you opportunity to say what you want to get your message out, Jason Wasser, in conjunction with what we're talking about in a way that says what it is. And what it is is total Life Fulfillment Despite the Pandemic. That could be a good title. So it's not about what's the latest and greatest tip. It's not about, you know, what should I buy, gold or silver or Bitcoin, right? It's zooming out 50,000 feet and looking at your life from the universal perspective, from God's perspective, from whatever perspective you want, but it's up here. And that is just, in my view, I am not preachy at all. I never talk about success either. I'm not one of those guys. You'll never see me with a nice car or any of that crap. I am about helping people have more total life fulfillment. That's it.

Yeah. So I know that we did mention that story that I'm enamored with. So if you can take 2 minutes to just tell that about the free man. Because I think one, it's very relative to what's going on in the world right now. But two, I think that very much speaks to your 10,000-foot view, as well as the longitude of legacy. Yep. In a really beautiful snapshot.

And Jason, what you and I are fighting again is time horizon. So, if you got a really short timeframe, this isn't going to resonate with you. But for the people that want total life fulfillment, this will. So, I met this guy about 5 years ago. He was about 80 at the time. And he said, my great-grandfather was a slave. And so he was born in 1930, the guy that I'm mentioning, 1930-ish. And his great-grandfather was born in 1945-ish. So do the math. I'm sorry, 1845-ish. Yeah. And he was freed after the Civil War. He was a slave that was not educated at all. And he said to himself once he was free, he couldn't read, couldn't write. But he had a dream of what would it be like if none of my offspring, ancestors, none of them had to deal with what I dealt with. And he realized that had he been educated and focused on education, because he had a member of his family that was focused on education that did enable— was enabled to move to the North and became successful as a Black man, and he decided to create this document, a living, breathing document, almost like a constitution that said, if you're in my family, you get a college degree and you're very careful who you marry so there's no divorce and you're a family person. And so he had 300 offspring from this one guy, this person that couldn't read or couldn't write. This document generated 300 offspring that got a college degree, and we're married for life. And that's a legacy. And I know that there's a lot of strife going on with racism and inequality and all of those things that many of us have experienced, but not to the degree that the African American community has. And my heart goes out to them. But if all of them, white, Black, green, if we all decided to create this legacy document for ourselves and for our ancestors, I think that would would do more to cure and heal than anything else. And it would be really cool. This guy, he's African American for sure. And him and I were hugging when he showed this to me. I said, "This is incredible. This is incredible. This could do more." He goes, "I know." And I know where he sits on what's happening in the world. He's like, "Look, everybody just needs to do this." Yeah, yeah.

And one of the ways that people can start doing this, especially while being at home, is your family placemat. That's the best way to do it, right? You have your family core values, you have our goals, we have what we do as a family. All these things are so important. And if you want a simple document, it's familyplacemat.com, I believe the website is, and we'll put it in the show notes. But it's— and there's a template there and there it is.

I want to show you. So this is mine. And the thing that makes this so unique, I know you can't read it, but the thing that makes this unique is it's everything our family stands for in 35 pods of information. And it's permanent. What that means is, you know, you mentioned your new title, I don't know if it's your title or what, but the degree to which we can make things permanent, that means we thought them through, that means they're total and complete for the duration of our lives. This document my wife and I thought about and published 11 years ago is permanent. It's what our family stands for permanently. So to the degree that you can do that in your personal life and in your business life, that's it. I'm going to sign off with that. Total life fulfillment, permanence, values-based decision-making, long-term thinking, saving your money. Jason Wasser, it's been an honor to be on the show with you.

Thank you for hanging out with us again. I look forward to our next conversation.

Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️.