How To Sculpt Your Life Like An Artist With Paul Hoffman

Welcome back to Bacon wrap business. This is Brad Costanzo and today I've invited a good friend of mine on the show named Paul Hoffman is the personal discovery architect and he is the visionary and chief inspiration officer behind sculpting your life. Now, Paul is one of the most interesting men you can meet. If you spend any time with him, you will be enthralled by his stories, his life history, the things he's done, the people he's met, from getting a basketball scholarship to being Pink Floyd and Emerson Lake and Palmer's tour manager, even being restrained and put in a straight jacket. Overcoming drug addictions and going deep into understanding how the brain works in order to overcome limiting beliefs and really tie that in with music and just really understanding the entire neurochemical makeup that allows us to navigate through life successfully and what causes us to potentially veer off path. Paul's courses and processes and tuning in brain retraining technology have been downloaded by more than 3 million people worldwide, helping them to create more wealth, ideal health, self confidence, clarity and focus. And if you are listening to this, you are likely an entrepreneur trying to become one. And if you haven't figured out that the entire foundation of success rests in between the six inches between your ears, then you haven't been doing it long enough. Because no matter how good you get, how big you get, how many failures or successes, it's what happens in our brains that allows us to either get back up or excel or be crushed by limiting beliefs and negative self talk. And I think this is such an important conversation that I wanted to bring Paul on the show today so we can jam out, hear more about his story and really what led him to this and what people like you, myself, etc can do to get over some of the head trash that's lurking in there with some really cool and innovative technologies. So without further ado, Paul, welcome to Bacon wrap business.

Well, thank you, Brad, I appreciate it. You and I have known each other a long time and I admire your work and, and I'm honored to come on and share my, my hope and inspiration and help people, you know, like you say, get rid of the head trash. Right?

Absolutely.

Yeah. I call it mind traps. Right.

Yeah.

And, and, but yeah, man, so tell.

Me about, tell me more about. Okay, I wanna, I wanna dive into. Look, we could spend seven hours talking through all your backstory and all this other stuff. You're super duper interesting. But how did, how did this become like, let's let, let, let's go back in time to some of the before you got into really understanding the way the brain works and helping people overcome this and success, like, you know, we talked about drug addiction and being a rock star, tour manager, etc. I mean, what was life like back then for you?

Well, you know, it was actually pretty interesting. I will tell you. People think when I tell people I was, I was Pink Floyd's tour manager or Emerson, Lake and Palmer store manager when I was 23 years old, they go, oh my God, that must have been awesome. And the truth of the matter, you know, it was awesome. But what it was for me, Brad, it was really a learning experience on how to show up and be responsible. That's number one. And to learn business and to learn organization and to learn systems and to really put that into play. Because when you run a tour, man, is a lot of moving parts, bro. And so, so while it was exciting to be on the road and being in a different city every night and doing European tours and what have you and so forth, the truth of the matter is it, it gave me a great foundation for what I, what I now do. And, and after I got off the road.

I, I got into the jingle business. You know, I mean, I'm a self taught musician. I play enough to be dangerous. As I tell people, like, oh, how well I play enough to be dangerous. Let's just leave it at that. I'm a good composer, I can sing. You know, I remember I never thought of myself as a singer. And when I was re. First of all, I wrote as you know, I wrote this jingle. Have you driven a Ford lately? Okay, which I love that put me on, which put me on the map in, in the jingle world. It also got me interviewed on CNN and NBC and all these, all these big things. But at the same time it gave me the opportunity to have a $2,500 a week cocaine habit which actually brought me to my knees. But one of the things that got me into what I do now, which is really to understand.

How you as an individual control everything that happens in your life by some thought and some belief that you have. And, and where most people think that, oh well, you know, something outside of you is going to create whatever it is that you're looking for in your life. We've all heard the expression that, you know, your inner reality creates your outer circumstance. And so, you know, you know me, Brad, I'm one of those kind of guys that tries to create his own language, if you will. And a lot of times that works and sometimes it gets me in trouble. But anyway, so when I talk about, you know, the whole inner reality out of circumstance, I, I talk about, you know, how your environment, which is your. In your environment, needs to be a vibrational match with the environment, the en. Of what you want to create in your life. And the only way that can happen is by what happens, like you said between your ears, what happens in your mind, how you believe what you think about yourself, what you allow your inner critic to tell you about yourself and so forth. So once you learn how to control your. Your mind and control your thinking, then that's the first step to creating a pathway to whatever success you want to create in your life, or what I call your ideal life. Why I got into this, man, I tell you. So when I was making millions of dollars in the jingle business, I, I, you know, I thought I was on top of the world, but I had worthiness. Worthiness issues. I don't know if anybody can appreciate that.

Nobody.

And I also had what's called the imposter syndrome. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. So here I am, you know, I'm working with the top agencies in the world. I'm probably one of the top five jingle guys in the country, yet I can't play a freaking note of music. Okay? When I started, and finally when I learned how to compose, I would be. I'd go into a recording session and I would be hiring these consummate musicians. So, for instance, I'm sure some of you people have watched the Letterman show, of course, which is not anymore, but all the people in the Letterman band, from Willie to Paul Schaefer to Anton fig to Sid McGinnis, all those people played on my jingles.

That's great.

And, and, and, you know, you know, Michael Bolton used to sing my jingles, or Ashford and Simpson or, Or Luther Vandross or, or, you know, I've worked with, you know.

All sorts of different stars, you know, Michael, Michael McDonald and so forth. But, but every time I go into the studio, I would feel like people would be looking at me like, and, and saying to themselves, this guy doesn't even know how to do anything. Now, that was my mind talking to me, okay? But the truth of the matter is, you know what? That was just me getting in my own way, because I will tell you, I got, I got so good at what I did that, that people kept saying to me, I'd get calls from all these guys and they'd go, hey man, you got any work? You know, but, but I got in my own way. And I know that the biggest obstacle to success that anybody can have, and I'm a good, good study on this, is, is ourselves. And we, we can easily get into our, get in our own way. And so when I decided to get into what I do now, which was kind of by fluke, if you will, so I, I, I, I had, as I say, $2,500 week cocaine. But I went to my fourth rehab and finally got it okay, and finally understood that, okay, I am not going down a path that's going to either keep me alive for a few years long or I'm going to be dead. So, so I, I, I changed my mindset, I changed my, my outlook on life. I changed my belief system about what is possible for me. And then I, I, I had a defining moment and, and which I think everything in life is a defining moment. And doing this podcast with you is a defining moment for me because it.

Just probably the most pivotal moment of your life. Not gonna lie. Like, it's, it's up there.

Absolutely, absolutely. And, and, and so getting, getting, getting to be able to really deal with the whole idea of, of worthiness and imposter syndrome and all those things that really kind of clouded my vision of what's possible in my life, being able to work through those. And I'm still working through those, by the way.

I think we all are.

Yeah, it just gave me an opportunity to show up and become who I am today. And, and another defining moment in a pivotal moment was, you know, you know, Harv Ecker, I'm sure T. Harv Eker. Right. And, and so Harb got me into, into what I do with, because he invited me to go to his Millionaire mind Intensive. And I went there and I sat there for three days, Brad. And it was my first experience into, quote, PD personal development. Sat there for three days, thought he was a great teacher. And after the event, he comes up to me and says, what'd you think, man? Said, I've your early gay teacher. Your music sucks, bro. He said, what do you mean my music sucks? I said, well, you know what? It seems like all you people in this world, all you people in this world play popular music. You try to fit all these popular songs into your principles. Yeah, why don't you have your own song? You know, that's my advertising world coming down, my marketing music, right? He said, well, what do you mean? How would I do that? I said, well, let me write it for you. So I wrote him a song called I've Got A Millionaire Mind. Right. Which is for his Millionaire Mind intensive course. And that opened my. The door to. To many other people in the personal development world, like Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, Robert Allen, Brenda Burchard, Alex Mendozi, and the list goes on. Who asked me to brand them musically? So I wrote to all these people. So I have this company called Success Songs. And if anybody wants to go to successsongs.com you can get a song for free. But. But that's kind of how I got started. And then I. And one day I called Harv because I'm one of those kind of people that really feels that if you want to have something in your life, Brad, you kind of got to ask for it. Yeah, Right.

And it's amazing how well that works and how, How. How rare we do that.

Yeah. And because a lot of people are in fear of. Of hearing the word no. But, but the truth of the matter is when, When. When you hear the word no, you're saying yes to something else. And when one door closes, another one's getting ready to open. It's always next.

Okay, this ain't working. Next. Whatever. So. So I ended up writing these songs for Harv. I ended up doing all this stuff. And then one day I said, called up Harvard. I said, harv, listen, I want to start speaking. Paul, what do you want to speak about? I said, well, you know, I. I have this idea about how rituals create habits, and habits create mindset. So now I talked about rituals, habits, and mindset, and I do it in a lot of different ways. And that's the passion I have. Because. Because I know that, you know, it's like when Michelangelo, you know, my platform is called Sculpting youg Life. So in Michelangelo, you know, looked at the block of granite, which was flawed, cracked, discolored, and just like human beings. Just like human beings, had all characteristics of us as human beings. He. He said, I'll take it. Because he saw David, and what he did was he took everything in the way out of the way, and there was David. So again, once you get. Learn how to get out of your own way, then. Then I. I teach that you can sculpt the masterpiece known as you.

I love that. And I. I love the Michelangelo reference. By far my favorite artist of all time.

Absolutely.

By the way, if you haven't read the book the Agony and the Ecstasy, it's amazing.

The.

The.

I want. I want to dive into that for a second. But you. You said something that just piqued My curiosity. And I want to go back to kind of like the jingles.

Right.

So as much as I want to talk about this, I want to know, like, when you're. When you're writing a jingle. So you wrote the music and the lyrics. Is that correct?

Well, no. What happened? Sometimes. But what happened? Have you driven a Ford lately? What happens is advertising agencies have copyrights, they have copy. So they come. They'll come up with the probably tagline. The tagline right. Now, if I want to change it, I mean, obviously I'll say, hey, listen, I think it would be better if you did this right. Y. But, but, but, but most of the time it was just. We took a script and then we wrote the music to it.

Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So I. Yeah, because I didn't know if you did both of them because I was always curious the way I know jingle. I. I do a lot of copywriting, etc, and I understand that, but creating a jingle out of that's a whole other art and science altogether. So encapsulating that. Right.

And I remember. You're absolutely right, Brad. And a good example was that. So when I. After I would. Have you driven to Ford lately? You know, I was interviewed in the studio. I think it was CNN back then. They came in, oh, my God, this is such a great thing, and blah, blah. And again, you know me, it's like I'm high in cocaine. I don't think, I don't believe in myself. I mean, whatever I'm thinking. But the truth of the matter is. So somebody said to me, well, you know, you write jingles, you know, they're not really songs. And I said, well, here's the gig. They really are songs because they have an intro, a verse, a bridge, and a hook. But I just got to get to the hook a little faster than most people.

Exactly.

You know what I mean?

Cool. So let's talk about getting over the mind traps. Now, there's a lot of ways to do this, and it sounds like you, You. You utilize both.

Concepts, logical concepts that you can think about, like habits and rituals, etc, but then you also. Do you also integrate music into this and technology that is beyond just the con. The things we can think of.

So like, you.

You mentioned, I don't know if it was binaural beats or some other things like that, brain training. So tell me how these two things interact. Because it's one thing to just tell somebody, okay, you need better rituals which will create better habits and et cetera, et cetera. And it's another Thing to help make this feel more automatic and less hard to do. So explain to me kind of how your systematic approach works or the people who go through your programs, what do they experience?

So I have. So you're absolutely right about that. So, so, you know, the hardest concept that. That I've ever had to embrace was that whole concept of, you know, Paul, everything that happens in your life is created by you. You know, And I go, well, wait a minute, man. You know, I remember, you know, my ex girlfriend did this. And then I felt. But it's like victim and blame, if you will, right? So what? So I have this brain technology that I created. I don't call it brain entrainment. I call it brain retrainment because again, Brad, I like to make up my own words. But it's. But it's, you know, if anybody knows about the five levels of brain retrainment or entrainment, the alpha, beta, theta, gamma, delta. And they all are based on different frequencies. And you are in those frequencies depending where you are during your day at any different time. So I created this technology where I took binaural beats, which are the frequencies, and I added heartbeat and breathing patterns to them, okay? And I created this. This. This technology which I called multivariant resonant technology. And what it does, and I have lots of science around, and what it does is it activates the four holistic intelligences. And so then what I do is I take you through a process, and this is, I think will answer your question, I take you through a process called tuning in. So when. When people talk about meditation, which I think is a great thing, by the way, but the truth of the matter is.

When somebody says to me, brett, you know what? I'm going to meditate so I can quiet my mind. Here's my. My. My response is like, well, good luck. Because your mind is not designed to be quiet. Your mind is designed to focus in on what you place in it. And it's designed to go to where you want it to go to so you can direct it. So, you know, I. So the stuff that I do when I talk about tuning in, I call my stuff tuning in and not meditation. And. And so if you go to sculptations.coms C-U-L-P-T-A t I o n s dot com, you can download two of my sculptations experiences, my advanced millionaire mindset, which would shift your brain pattern. You or your brain thinking about money, and my sharper focus, which will give you more Focus. So, but what I do is I take you through a process called tuning in. Okay? And tuning in. If you ever read the book.

The Power of Now by. By Eckhart Tolle, the one thing about that book that I loved was the whole concept of the witness. And so through my whole journey in life, I actually realized that once I'm able to. To witness my behavior and where I am, I can change it. Okay? So. So the. The tuning in process is seven steps. So the first step is observe. So once you are able to observe where you are in your life, good, better, and different, then you get to shift and change that. So you observe where you are, and then you can identify what's working or what's not working, right? And then what happens is after you observe and identify, you get to pivot out of negative thinking or limited thinking or whatever you want to call it, and reframe that thinking, right? And then you get to anchor your new thinking, activate it, and integrate it. And those are the seven steps. So when I do a. A sculptation experience, I take you through. Through this tuning in journey. So it's not. I don't do stuff like, you know, imagine. You know, close your eyes and imagine you're in the forest and you're walking down the path and you going through the golden arches and whatever, whatever. Which I'm not saying is good or bad. That's not how I do it. I'm all about nuts and bolts. If you want to get from point A to point B in your life, know where you are at point A and. And know where you want to be for point B. Because I think the biggest obstacle that most entrepreneurs have or most people in life is, you know, you know, there's always three forms to an idea. So I call it the. So point A is the idea, point C is the outcome that you want. Okay, so I'll use this example right here about me being on Brad's podcast. So my idea was, hey, you know what? I love Brad. He's a great guy. We're good friends. I love what he's doing. I want to be in his podcast. That's the outcome. All right, so what happens in. In the B part of anything is one of two things. A, you're going to say to yourself, well, I don't know how to do that and you'll never do it. Or you say to yourself, the one question I think you should ask yourself on any time you have an idea, which is, what do I need to do to make it happen?

And then all of a sudden, now you're in action, right?

You know, I'll add, I'll add some color commentary to that, because one of the ways that I phrase that, like, I've got a very, I'm very passionate about this aspect too, so. And I'll do this when I'm consulting with clients or working with myself or my team, etc, which is instead of saying, how, how do I make that happen? Or how do I, how could I, how should I, I, I use a phrase out of design thinking, which is how might we. Or how might I. Right? If I'm doing it, if you and I are doing, it's like, how might we. And what that obviously does is it softens the need for the outcome or it softens the need for this method to be for sure. And it, to me, it ignites the imagination a little bit more. So I might say, well, how might I get on Brad's podcast? Right? Like, how might. And it just allows you to come up with a whole bunch of different ideas. And some of the things may be outrageous, and then some of them might not. But then sometimes those outrageous ones, if you allow yourself to think of that, it's not. You actually think about it. It's like, huh, that's actually not as outrageous as I thought it was. But.

I, I, that's how I come up with a list, like, how might I do this? And you come up with, oh, well, here's like one or three or whatever ways that I could do that. So anyway, I just wanted to add some commentary out of my own experience to that point.

I, I like that. I like that. I, I might, you might even use that. My brother. I like that.

Good.

Yeah. So.

You know, I also like one of the things you said about with meditation. So I, I go in and out of meditation. You know, I'll go through, like, a lot of people, I go through spurts. Like, I'm not this committed person who does it all the time. And even recently I was saying to myself, I got, I need to do this more often. That's like, because I've, I felt some, I guess it's unexplained anxiety or just feeling rushed and overwhelmed with some projects that I'm working on. And it's just, and I could tell something felt a little bit off, right? And I didn't know what it was. And I do know I haven't been meditating. I've just been like, waking up, go, go, go, go, go. And not giving myself time to quiet my brain Think empty my mind. But one of the things you just said there was really poignant. It's like that. Yes. Although meditation is kind of about to a degree emptying the mind because the mind, you know, you don't necessarily have to empty it or if you do, give it something else to focus on, give it something positive that a direction you want to go. Otherwise if you just let the mind wander, it's going to wander all, all around and drift in and out of where you want to be. So having that real intentional focus and being able to center yourself in that space, I can see as being something really powerful. It's a distinction I hadn't really thought about until you mentioned that.

Yeah. And I think, you know, one of the things that I, I, I encourage people to do when they, when they use my, my sculptations work is, is before you sit down, do anything, you know, so, so, so they're like the advanced meander mindset. There's, there's sharper focus, there's ideal weight and health. There's love and intimacy. There's creativity and inspiration. There's more productivity, whatever it might be. Like you just said, you need to sit down. Sit down before you do any and set the intention. What is it? The what, what's the outcome that you are looking for? Okay? So if you can place that intention in your mind, then your mind has something to wrap itself around which will then give you the guidance be to, to go for now when you're going to sit. I mean, listen man, we've all sat down, we've all closed our eyes, we've all whatever done to, to, to, to, to meditate, tune in, whatever you want to call it. There's a lot of stuff going through your mind all the time. Okay. And you just need to be skilled enough because it takes practice to just let that stuff flow through and don't get caught up in it. So if there's a thought that comes through your mind that maybe you don't like, okay, cool. I don't like that thought next. And you just keep letting it flow. But eventually what will happen is, is you'll be able to get, get the, the result that you want because you, you're staying focused on the intention for what it is you're looking for. So, so, and that's in a very important part of I think what, what, whatever you do in your life. And, and so I found that, that, you know, the way I like to, to talk about my work is I, I get you to tune into your Active mind. Okay. Because your active mind is the mind that's going to get you from, from point A to point B or wherever you want to go in your life again. I, I just, personally, I just don't believe that, you know, you can sit down, listen, unless you want to go to the Himalayas and sit in front of a tree for 40 years and look at the tree and do nothing but look at the tree, then maybe you'll be able to have an empty mind.

You know, I think that's one of the areas that too, that has turned a lot of people off of, or just the mainstream off of the idea of meditation. Because that's what they think of when they think of meditation is somebody just sitting around doing nothing for a long period of time, trying to quiet the mind. We're quiet, quiet. Quiet in the mind is really just, it's really just a one step. You know, first quiet. If it's all noisy and crazy, quiet it, it's almost like a reset. Like, start from, you know, clear the, Clear the plate or clear the desk and then allow yourself to focus on the things you want and then get into action. I think the people who probably have the most success in life, especially those who meditate, probably do this intrinsically or just, you know, they're second nature. So when, when people are using sculptations. Take me through. You gave me the kind of, the steps, but your process, take me a little bit, you know, through that because you probably have a, I'm guessing you have a program that people can invest in, enroll in, etc. But what is the experience like of that? So if somebody says, I like this, it's definitely something I need. I like what Paul's saying. What's the experience like of working with you or throughout your programs?

Well, so the, the thing that. Again, so my, my, my starting point on anything when I work with anybody in, in all my programs is, okay, know what you want to work on, right. Know what you want to change in your life. So if you want to do a sculptation and you want to change your money blueprint, Brad, then you might want to do the advanced millionaire mindset. Okay. And what, what will that do for you? It'll give you the opportunity to look at, observe what's holding you back when it comes to your money blueprint. Okay? Because there, because, you know, if, if again, you know, if you think you're poor, guess what, you're poor. If you think you're abundant and prosperous, you will become abundant and prosperous. You might not, might not be immediate, but, but you're in that consciousness because everything's consciousness and everything's energy as far as I'm concerned. That's, that's my belief and I'm going to stick with it. Okay? And so, so the process again is figure out what you want to work on and figure out what you want to change in your life or what's important to you or what's holding you back. And then, and then the, the, the process I go through, the tuning in process will get you to what I say. Reset, rewire and recode your super mind. So you then are now in a different mind state to get you to where you want to get to. You know, I've identified 10 what I call mind traps which are basically limiting beliefs. Bro, I've identified 10 mind traps. Everybody has.

Yep. Scarcity, right? Distractions and diversions. That's a big one. Fear of failure, procrastination and perfectionism. I am not enough. I am unlovable. Lack of responsibility and accountability.

Resistance to change. Lack of commitment, and then low self esteem and confidence. Okay, and those are the, Those are the 10 mind traps that I believe most people get stuck in. Okay? And either you have all of them at once or one at one, whatever it might be. But there's, there are accommodations of it that, that will get you to, to just either give up on yourself.

Not really stay present on what it is that you want in your life. Listen, mistakes are great, you know, I mean, you know, both of us, you know, you know, we both know.

You know, God.

Get to it. What, what's his name? Oh my God.

When that happens.

Yeah. Isn't that wild? Anyway, so one of my friends, okay, who, who.

Told me this one time, he said, listen, Paul, if you're gonna fall down, make sure you fall down on your back. So you're looking up.

Right?

Love it.

And, and so, so I always tell people. Listen, it's easy to make excuses, Brad. Right, we know that. I always tell people there's two forms to an excuse. So people say, what do you mean by that? Well, here's the two forms to an excuse. There's the excuse you make for not doing something which might be part of a mind trap, might be just whatever it might be, you know. But the two forms of an excuse. There's the excuse you make and then there's the excuse you make for the excuse and then that becomes your reality.

Can you give an example of the excuse make for an excuse?

Well, you know, it's the, the second excuse is Always the easy one. So the first excuse is, okay, you know, I gotta create. I mean, I gotta finish this program today and, you know, I really need to do it. Oh, but I gotta clean the garage too or something. That's the excuse. Then the excuse that you make for the, for the excuse is, that's okay, I'll get to the other thing later.

And then what happens is then that becomes your norm. See, then you're, you're training your subconscious mind to be okay with you not doing what you say you're going to do. Because if anybody's ever read the, the Four Agreements, Les Brown came up with the fall on your back and, and, oh, Les Brown.

Okay, gotcha.

If anybody's ever the four Agreements, you know what is be impeccable with your word. So if you're going to say you're going to do something that doesn't just apply to somebody outside or a friend or a family member or whatever that implies to you.

Yeah.

Because what you, because if you're not impeccable with your word to you, then you won't be impeccable to your word to anybody. Because again, your environment is going to create your environment. So, so if you, if you were, you want to find love in your life, the first thing you need to do is love yourself.

Yeah.

Because you can't find love outside of you unless you love yourself. You know, I, I, you know, how many times have, you know, I mean, I've said this, you know, millions of times to myself whether, you know, I'll be happy when. When what?

When you get the car. Oh, that's gonna make you happy?

Yeah.

You'll get the car or you get the. Won't be. This is a state of, a state of being.

It's a frequency and it's often cause, not the effect.

Absolutely, absolutely. And so I always talk about, you know, being able to really, really discern why you do what you do. Again, it's all around this tuning in thing. And then once you are able to. Why do I do this? I always tell people, go through an exercise, you know.

Put three columns down, you know, what do you want in your life? Column B is why do you want it? Right. And column C is what, what would, what would you want look like if you did it.

Right? It's not rocket science. Right. But, you know, but getting back to the whole idea of, of rituals, you know, and I think, you know, I agree with you. You know, to be able to create great rituals is an art. Okay. And, and again, I always tell People, you're a masterpiece. You're a work of art. You can create anything you want in your life. You get to sculpt the masterpiece known as you. But creating a ritual. I wake up in the morning and. And you know what, man? I used to go get up in the morning, and it would be. I'd be just on the run, bro. I'd be on the run. But now I get up in the morning and I take the first hour of my day and I spend it on me. I don't look at my phone. I get up early, man. I get up at 5:30 because I love the morning. So my morning ritual is I get up, I pray, I do a gratitude exercise, I drink a great glass of water, okay? Then I'll get out of bed, okay? And then what I'll do is I'll. I will sit down and I will listen to my 15 minute good morning, Great day sculptation, okay? Because what I do is I'm listening to myself talk myself into having a successful day.

I love it.

And it's got my brain technology in it and so forth, okay? And then after that, Brad, I read three books, man. Four books. I read 365 Days of Think and Grow Rich. 365 Days of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Whatever day it is. So today I read.

So you're not reading like three or four whole books every month?

No, no, no, no, no, no.

I was gonna say.

You that good a reader? Yeah. And then I read a book called Grace by a guy named Max Lucado, which is about spirituality. And then I read. I read a page in a book called the Art of Living by a guy named Epictetus, right? So I do that, and then I sit down and I write. I write a thing called Good morning, Great day. So I've written about a thousand of them over the years. They're finally now going into a book because I, I. Because I. By the way, one of my mind traps is sometimes procrastination and perfectionism, Right?

Oh, I've got. I've got no experience with procrastination. Yeah.

And I'm sure none of our listeners do either. And so, so I write, good morning, Great day. Right? And. And then today's Good Morning, Great Day. The title of it, Brad, was called Insurrections of Fear.

And I just talk about that, right? And I write this whole thing. And so now they're going into a book. Then I'm going to do some. Some other things. I'm recording them and so forth. So After I finish writing that, I send it out to my list. My. My good morning, great day list, put it on Facebook, do a Facebook story, and just share it with some people, right? And then I go out on the beach and I do a video of it because I'm creating content. Then I come back, right? And I play with my animals. Okay? I got. I used to have two dogs, two cats. Now I got two. Two cats. And I play with my animals because they teach me unconditional love. So now I'm in a state of love. And then I go out and I talk to my plants, bro. Now, people have seen me do that, and they go to you. What, are you crazy? Well, I love my plants. My plants love me. Yeah, right? So then now I'm done with that, and then the next thing I do is I do what I call a process called nutritionize. So I juice, I make my smoothies, and I've now created my. My nutrition for the day, if you will. And then I'll go out and do a workout for an hour and a half. So the first hour is setting myself up for my workout. So first, what? Two and a half hours of my day. I'm not talking to anybody. I'm not looking at my phone. I don't care what's going on in the world, because I'm full focused on what I'm gonna do.

Yeah.

To make it a great day. Now, will every day be a great day? Absolutely not. But I'll be prepared for any challenges that come up. I'm really good at hitting curveballs finally. Okay, I can hit fastballs, but the curveballs are the ones you got to really work on.

Yeah. Well, even if it, like. Yeah, you. You can't control. You can't control what happens to you, but you're in control of how you respond to it. And if you aren't preparing yourself, your ability to respond is going to be dramatically lower. That's why those morning rituals are so helpful. I used to do those a lot, too. I've stopped doing them. And it's all like. I will say that I do take maybe the first one or two hours to myself per day, or at least the first hour. But I haven't ritualized it in a long time. I'll. I'll just. I just allow myself to explore. I will pick up my phone. I will look at things. I will read while I'm having my coffee. But I'm just. I'm getting some of the. Oh, what is it? The curiosity stuff out of the way. It doesn't necessarily have to do with my work. I'm just diving into something, I'm in part of it. I do love reading at least 10 pages of a book every morning or, you know, we talked about this offline. I, you know, this past year I've been really heavily involved in know, crypto, investing, etc, so I'll, I'll catch up on the market and what's going on and just, it's allow myself to not rush into work at least. And that, by the way, has just been absolutely critical.

And you know, having this conversation does remind me that, yeah. Get back into ritualizing this stuff because, yeah, I have had some days where it's just that unexplained uneasy feeling, kind of like a, an anxiousness that isn't really coming from any one specific. Like I can't put my finger on it going, I'm anxious about this. But it's, I think it's just running around with too much going on and not necessarily being as focused or grounded as I probably should be, you know, throughout the day. And then it, and then when some, when you, when you get a curveball thrown at you and you, you don't have a good foundation of that, you swing and miss.

All right? So it's. Yeah, and, but, but you know, it's interesting because again, you know, what I do is good for me, bro. Right? What you do sounds, it's good for you. And, and I think, you know, it's, it's really a personal choice about how you, how you do that, but I, I do think it's really important to, to, to set yourself up for, for success. Okay? And, and I know that very too often there's lots of people out there and I've worked with them. And, and it's like, you know, a lot of people sometimes would get up and go, oh my God, another day, you know, I'm not interested. I, I used to do that, but I don't do that anymore because I'm excited about what I do and I'm excited about my day. And it's unfold like you said, Brad. It's gonna unfold however it unfolds, okay? But I'm going to be prepared for how it unfolds, okay? And I'm going to be able to direct it as best I can in, in this, those circumstances where I will be challenged, which are just opportunities and learn. I've learned now to respond and you mentioned this earlier rather than react, okay? Because when you respond, you're taking responsibility. When you React. You're coming from emotion and emotion will sometimes get you in trouble. But I've just learned, as I say, to be able to take the time in the morning to really check into Paul Hoffman.

Yeah, it's, it's important.

Yeah. What's Paul Hoffman gonna do today? And, and, and you know, I do it every day and if I don't do it, which is rarely rare, if I don't do it, then I don't feel good.

Yeah.

Because I've, I've convinced myself. Okay. Which I'm good at that too, by the way. I've convinced myself that, you know what, if you don't do this, you cannot feel good. And my subconscious mind knows that.

How long is it you typically, your morning ritual typically takes for you?

It takes me an hour before I do my exercise. So everything up to, up to doing my exercise. So I'm spending like the first two and a half hours of my day with exercise on, on me. Okay. And so my spiritual work, my mental work, my emotional work, my health work and my physical work. Right. And, and then, and then, so if I get up, 5:30, you know, I'm there, you know, 8 o', clock, I'm ready to rock. Yeah.

Most people, by the time most people are just getting going, you've already done a whole bunch of stuff.

Exactly. And, and I just think it's just, and you know, it, as I say, it works for me. I think if you can, if you can really do that, you know, and the other thing about being able to, to, to really accomplish things that you want to do in your life, it's important while you're doing this kind of stuff and even throughout your day, like I, like, I'll stop after this, man. I'll take a 15 minute break and I'll go out and take a walk on the beach.

Yep.

Now I got a lot of to do today, bro. Excuse my language, but I'm gonna, but I know that if I, if I disconnect, and science has proven this, and you take a walk, you look at a tree, you read a book, whatever, take a nap, what happens is you do a reset, okay. And then your brain resets and then what happens is you'll be just beginning. And I teach this in, in my day sculpting program. But the other thing I do, Brad, is I, I, I find that I, I will review my day, okay, at night. And I think most people review their day, but I think when most people review their day, what they, what they fail to do is they fail To. To look at the. The success they've had today, they focus on what they didn't do. And when they focus on what they didn't do, now you're in a negative energy.

You know what? Along those lines, my friend, I forget which. What it is. I forget which friend of mine told me this, but I thought this was brilliant.

So.

Actually, I think it was Joe Fear. Do you know Joe?

No.

Okay. Anyway, so Joe told me that, you know, we've all got, or most of us have a to do list, right? We got a list of things we just need to knock out for the day. Maybe there's five things on there, maybe there's 10. And one of the worst things is when you get done with the end of the day and there's like, only one thing knocked off, but you've been busy. You're like, well, what got done? And he said that was happening to me too. And he goes, I was doing other things, but I would do other things that popped up. But I made sure that if I did something that wasn't on my list, I immediately put it on my list and crossed it off. Because that was a reminder that. Yes, although I didn't get everything done that I had set out to do, there was a bunch of shit I got done that. So it really allows you to go, oh, okay. I wasn't unproductive. I just wasn't as productive on this stuff that was planned. And I started to do that, and I really like it. I just throw it on there. Well, I did this. You know, it counts. Yeah. One of the other things that I used to do when I was creating a to do list, and I haven't done this in a while, but I would kind of do. In my morning journals, I would make my list, but I would almost make it as a narrative of. I would write it. I would write out what I had to do in the past tense. So I might have written something like, got up today, worked out, crushed the gym, ate really healthy, had an incredible interview with Paul Hoffman, and I did all these things. So in essence, what I'm doing is I'm. I'm saying that they already happened in my head.

So that future forward, bro. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. And then the, The.

The idea of doing it, they reduced the resistance because I. In my subconscious, I've already done this.

Yep.

Right. Oh, made the sales call. You know, let's say there was a sales call or some kind of a call that I didn't want to make. I might write you know, I had the call with Paul, closed him on a hundred thousand dollar deal, you know, whatever. I would just say it. And it's just those little things that get into your subconscious that can make just an absolute world of difference.

You, you know, I, bro, I love it. So, so, so I, I write, I have a. We all. I used to have a friend, okay, who we all know. And, and I. There's no need to bring it up. And it's all good. Who used to say, so what, what are your hundred goals this year? And I go, a hundred. I, I got about five men for the year. Okay, So I, so that's one the other people. I, I used to do a to do list. I used to write it and it had to have, I don't know where I came up with this number 25 things on it. And it's like one day I looked at that thing, I said, man, I'm not gonna do 25 things. So I, so I do three things a day, bro. Yeah, I have a chief aim, which most people would call goal. I have a chief aim, okay? So my chief aim today was I'm finishing a sales letter. That's my chief aim today. So I have three steps to make that done. One, finish my research to look at past sales letters. And three, write the one I'm working on. That's my three steps for today. I call them success steps. So I just do three things a day. So every day I have achieved aim for what I want to accomplish. My big rock, if you will. Okay. And, and so what I found is that works for me, but I also find that the whole idea of what you just said about. I love the narrative. I'm gonna, I'm gonna. That's a great idea. But I love that is. So at the end of my day, I do a check in. So as I say, most people, when they review their day, they're just beating themselves up, man. I don't beat myself up anymore. Happens. I'm, I'm, I'm around, I'm available. But I check into what my highlights and insights of my day are. So a highlight of something I've done really well. Okay, One of those three things, okay? Now I've already done two of them today, so I'm ahead of the game. Okay. The. And then, and then my insight is something I want to make into a highlight, right? And then I celebrate. Because if you don't celebrate success, you never feel what success is.

That's 100 true. It's so easy for people like us.

But, but you got to celebrate it, man, because other than that, you're going to be, you're going to be, you know, like you said, you know, wondering whether you've done it, what am I doing, blah, and all that nonsense that your, Your inner critic will tell you. Your mind traps all that nonsense, you know. And, and so, so that's the, the things that I do and that's the things that I, I try to get the people that I work with to do. And, and again, it's. It's not really. It's nothing that's so, you know, monumental. It's just really staying present to, to who you are, what you want to do in your life, and being able to. To anchor the good behaviors, if you will, so that you. Creating great habits. Because we all, we all have. Have habits. We all have some good habits. Listen, I got a good, great, good habit, man. You know, I work out every day. That's a freaking good habit. Yeah, I work out every day. That's a good habit. You know, there were days that I snorted cocaine all day. That was not a good habit. Okay. I had a lot of fun though. Don't get me wrong, okay? But that wasn't a good habit. So I know that I have the ability to create great habits which will then create what I call great mindsets of success. Because again, at the end of the day, as we started out, man, everything happens because of some thought and belief you have. And if your mindset is not in. In. In sync, if you will, or in the right frequency, then. Then I think what happens to most people is they, they. They just lose their bearing. They, they just. They, they. Their momentum, they lose their inspiration. They, they. They start to give up on themselves, you know, and mindset is a very, very interesting topic. I've read lots of work on it. I'm sure you have too. It's a very interesting topic. But the truth of the matter is, ma', am, we're really good at making up and doing things that maybe are not good for us. We can be just as good as making things up that are good for us.

Us, absolutely.

Because people have always said, well, you know, if you want to raise a thou. A thousand dollars, it's probably just as hard to, you know, it's just as easy to raise a million as there's a thousand. You just got to think differently.

Talk to different people as well.

There you go. Right?

Yeah. You know, along, along those lines, you made me think of something. I wrote, I wrote an article about this A while back. But it's this concept of fear. You know, we're all. We all have fear of something, right? Whether it's fear of failure, fear of looking like an imposter, fear of xyz. And I was like. And I realized, like, in. In order to be sufficiently fearful of something, right. Especially if it's not a real clear and present danger, like a tiger in the woods, you know, about to eat you. But if it's like, I'm fearful, what will they think of me if I do this? So the more fearful you are, that means you are. Your imagination is really running wild, right? You're imagining all the bad things that can happen to you if. If this doesn't work out and people are going to laugh and this is what they're going to say. And then it dawned on me one day. It's like, well, wait a minute. The more fearful I am, technically, that means the more vivid of an imagination I have. So if I have a really vivid imagination, why don't I just use it the other. Like, what if it works? Right? What if it doesn't fail? And it's kind of an empowering. Reframe that after really fearful. Congratulations, you've got a great imagination. Now let's just change the direction.

Absolutely. I. I always say use fear as a momentum. Yeah. Use fear as a motivator, man. Yeah, that's why, that's why, you know, I mean, fear is such a powerful, like you say, it's such a powerful emotion. It's such a powerful.

Instigator of, of. Of either retracting or contracting. Right. Or expanding.

Yes, yes.

You know, and they prove it.

Go ahead.

Go ahead. They've proven. Go ahead.

I was gonna say they've proven like the, like the neurochemicals that happen with fear are the exact same ones that happen with excitement.

Yep. Yeah.

You know, and it's. It's the story we tell ourselves around that, which in, in. In fact, that just actually reminds me of something that I thought was pretty cool. I haven't thought this in a couple years. So about two and a half years ago, I broke my wrist. I fell off one of those damn, like, bird scooters. Wasn't even going fast. Wrist. Had to get a. Had to go into surgery. Had to get a steel plate put in my wrist, and there I was. It was like seven in the morning. I was at the hospital and I was in my gown, and I was sitting there in kind of like this little private waiting room, getting ready to go into surgery and you know, it wasn't open heart surgery, it wasn't brain surgery. It was, I was getting my wrist done, but it doesn't matter. Anytime you're about to get general anesthesia and have your body cut open, it's, it's nerve wracking. And I remember, I remember sitting there having such a, you know, that, that fear and that anxiety started to come up and I remembered this, this concept that fear and excitement are the exact same neurochemicals just with a different story. I was like, okay. And I hadn't had any coffee this morning, but the brain somehow figured out how to, to do this. And I reframe this to where I was really excited. And the fear melted by. I asked myself what would make me excited to go into surgery right now. And what came into me, into my mind was I imagined that I, it was like 150 years ago and I was, I was a cowboy, like on a horse and I fell off my horse in, I don't know, 1870 or whatever it was, and I fell off my horse and I broke my wrist. Well, back then, if you had broken your wrist as bad as I did, I was for the rest of my life.

Right.

I was probably not going to have real good use of my wrist. It was probably going to be a lifelong injury that I was destined to live with and just, you know, because that's what, before surgery, that's what people dealt with. Absolutely. So then I imagined getting into a time cap, like into a time machine and appearing in 2000, what was it, 19, at this new hospital, the most high tech place I've ever seen. I've never seen anything like this. Like I'm a cowboy from the old west and here I am in this hospital and they just told me that, that I'm going to be fixed in a couple hours and I'm going to be fine with this new crazy futuristic surgery technology. And I've just, I told myself that story and as I did it, the fear became like confidence, excitement, thinking, wow, this is amazing. Because I just thought, well, if I got hurt today, wouldn't it be cool to be able to go to the future, have Star Trek like, here's a laser, you're fixed. Like that would be exciting if that happened. And so I just retrained my brain to look at fear as excitement through changing the story that I'm telling myself about it. And it was, I, I, I had never done that before. It was just something I came up with in the heat of the moment and but I, I'VE done it since.

Right?

It's like, okay, what story can I tell myself? And I'm feeling really fearful about something, so, I don't know. I just wanted to tell that story because you made me think of it.

It's a great story, and I love it. Because. Because, I mean, you know, the. The. I think the moral of that story, my friend, to coin a. A phrases. It's.

It's.

It's. And again, the moral of that story is the moral of your life, if you will. What story are you telling yourself?

It's so important.

You know, I always tell people there's a. Everybody has a history and a herstory, okay? And. And you get to every day rewrite your story and make sure that when you rewrite it, that you want to be the star of it. Yeah, okay.

Not a supporting character.

No, man, you want to write it, direct it, and be the fucking. Excuse me. And be the star of it.

That's quite right. You know, one of my. One of my family friends told me, when I was about 22 years old and I had. I had just graduated college, I went to work at Disney World. I was making minimum wage. I was working in the parks, because I was just basically screwing around after college for a little bit. It actually caused a lot of heat with my dad. He's like, oh, what are you doing? And my dad and mom came down, and there was another couple who was friends of theirs, like my dad's lifelong best friend. And, you know, he had pulled me aside one day when we were down there, and he goes, you know, you're doing it. You're doing everything all right. He goes, life's a book. Live your life like you're writing a book about it. And he goes, every book, if. If it. If it was a really planned out.

You know, guy goes to school, you know, grows up, goes to school, gets a job, gets a wife, has a kid, lives a life. Like, that's a boring book. He goes, everything that happens is just another chapter. And he goes, you want to write a book that you're the star of, that you're the hero, and bad shit's gonna happen, and that's okay. That's that chapter. But what is the hero gonna do, right? And. But live your life like you're writing a book about it, and understand at any moment you can stop and start a new chapter. And sometimes the chapters are forced on you. Like, okay, let's say you get married. Let's say you have a kid. Let's just say something. Let's say you have a loss of something that's a new chapter, but sometimes you can take control and start that chapter. Like it's never too late to reinvent yourself.

Yeah, there's a great. Oh God, what's that quote? There's a guy named Carl Bard. You know, he is, he said his quote was.

God, let me find it because it's really, really good, bro.

Yeah.

Something about, it's something about, you know, you, the, the, the moral of the story is, you know, whatever blah, blah, happens in your life, happens life. But, but you can still start from now and create a brand new ending.

Absolutely.

You know, and so yeah, you get to write your story any way you want to. Yeah.

Yeah. I found it though. No one can go back and make a brand new start. Anyone can start now.

Yeah, I love it.

There's a, you know, there's a. What's that song by Natasha Bedenfield about? I think it's called Unwritten. I've always loved that book too. Which is that the.

Something about. Yeah, like the future is still basically unwritten and it's up to you to write it. But I love that too. It's like so many of us, I think we feel as though we are, we are stuck as a supporting character in the story of the world.

Right.

We're just schlepping along and things happen to us and we're just trying to survive etc and we are.

You know, not the hero. And I think it's when people start to see themselves as the hero of their own story, it changes everything.

Absolutely. But, but you know, most people will share from wanting to be the hero.

Because you're tough to play dragons and dragons are scary.

Yeah. And, and you know, and if you, and if, and in order to be the hero you've got to, you've got to, to step up and challenge yourself and do things differently because every, every step you take in your life is going to do one of two things, man. I don't care, man. It's not rocket science. It's going to take you to where you want to go or take it away from it. Yep. I mean, and, and, and as entrepreneurs, you know, we end up, we end up, you know, being big thinkers. But a lot of times we, we create this, this misconception that if we think too big then that we can't make that happen. But the truth of the matter is, hey man, it takes just as much energy to think big as it does think small, man. Energy to think small takes a lot of freaking Energy.

It really does, you know, and it's not. And it's not nearly as much fun.

It's absolutely not, man. You might as well. You might as. You might as well think big, man. You know, because if, if, if you can do that, man, like you said earlier, man, your imagination just becomes unleashed.

Exactly. And you're making imaginations.

Yep. And you. And your curiosity is heightened and all that stuff. We know. And, but, but sometimes, you know, people will go, yeah, you know, I don't know. That's. I don't know if I can do that. Well, of course you can do that. You can do anything you want to do.

You couldn't agree more.

Yeah.

Now.

Absolutely.

Now, Paul, you mentioned earlier that you have some. Some things that you'd be willing to give away to listeners of the show.

Yep. What.

What do you have for us?

All right, so. So I want. I. You can get one of my success songs. I will tell you, I write these songs, guys, that are real powerful. And so success songs will change. The company's called success songs. It will change your mindsets, behaviors and beliefs. So as I like to say, Brad, you hear life from a higher vibration. Okay, so if you go to successsong, S u c c E S S o n g s dot com, you can download a song for free. Okay. You can download a song. It's called it's my time. And you, if you listen to it every day, I'm telling you what, you'll be dancing around the house. And that's success songs, successsongs.com and then you can go to sculptations, which is my brain stuff, which is SC u l p T a t I o n s optations.com and download two of my brain technology, my brain retrainment stuff, my 15 minute advanced millionaire mindset, which will get you to change your money blueprint or and I'm sorry, my sharper focus, 15 minute, which will help you focus. And again, like anything else, you know, practice takes. Takes everything. You know, you didn't learn how to ride a bike in a day. So the more you do this kind of stuff, the more you'll be able to chip away at all behaviors. Because, I mean, depending on how long you've been on the earth, I've been on the earth for a pretty long time and very happy about that, by the way. And I expect to be on even a much happier, much longer time. It takes time, man, you know, because we've built up all this resistance, all these circumstances, all this nonsense, all these mind Shots, we keep telling ourselves, and we got to chip away at that. Sometimes it's easy to do that. I'm good at that. But. But it takes practice. So those two things I want to give away. And then the third thing is, if you're interested, is that you can go to Good Morning, great day, good morninggreatday.com and you can sign up for Good Morning, Great Day. And then what happens is you'll get a Good Morning, Great day every day in your inbox. And they're really powerful. They're really powerful. Again, that's part of my. I write them in my morning ritual. And, and, and I think that, you know, I mean, I, I've had so many people write me about how much they love them and so forth. And I remember it wasn't too long ago, I was at an event, speaking, and this guy came up to me after the event, man, he said, man, I really enjoyed what you're talking about, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And he said, let me show you something. And I'm not. This is true story, man. He pulled out of his wallet a crumpled up piece of paper.

Good morning. Great.

No way. That's amazing.

I mean, it was like. It brought me chills, man.

Oh, I can imagine.

Yeah. So those are the three things. And then the other thing is, as I'd like, I mean, if it's okay with you, Brett. So if anybody, if anybody, I mean, I'm here to support anybody that's. That's a friend of Brad Costanza because he's an incredible human being. He is. He's one of the seventh wonders of the world, as far as I'm concerned. He's. He, he's the real deal, folks. Okay? He's. He's the real deal. And so if there's anything I can support anybody with in his tribe, you can email me at Paul Hoffman, H O F F m and the number24gmail.com and you could say, I heard you on Brad's podcast and I'm here to support you. I'm not here to sell you anything. And the other thing is, if, if you really want to connect with me and, and you feel like you want to have a conversation, my cell phone number is 323-810-5588. So a lot of people go, oh, my God, I can't call you. He'll never talk. I, I'm available. I'm always like that. I'm here to serve.

I love that.

And get people to get off their, their dime. So that they create magic in their life, man. You know, this is on wonder out here waiting for you to go and claim it, man.

Oh, that's brilliant. And that's, that's so generous of you to also put your, your cell phone on there. If people really, if this really resonated, they want to get a hold of you. I mean, I think that's, yeah, just incredibly generous. And you know, I can't wait to check out what you've got and some of the giveaways here. You know, this is a, this is a topic that, you know, I, I've really enjoyed and you and I have never really went deep into this. We have just casual, fun, social conversations and it's been, it's been just a real honor to get to know some of the more professional work that you've done here, Paul, because gives me a, gives me a new profound respect for, for, you know, who you are and what you do.

I appreciate that, man. And you know what? I'm, I'm just as, I feel just as blessed, bro, because you're right. You and I know each other for a long time. We've hung out a lot of different things. We've been to a lot of different events together, but, you know, we've never kind of sat down, like dived in.

Right, exactly.

And, and, and I, again, I, I appreciate you. I appreciate the work you do and, and, and I just appreciate, bro, how you show up in the work world, man.

You know, I appreciate that.

Yeah. And so, and so, yeah, again, I appreciate. Thank you so much for, for having me and, and those of you on this, on this podcast, you know, you're, you're certainly following in Brad, one of the, uh, the people that, if you allow, can really help you shift and really take you to a new, a new dimension in your life, man.

We recorded that, so I, I'm glad I got that on. So I appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you very much, Paul, for being such an amazing guest on Bacon Wrapped Business. I will, I will encourage everybody who's listening to this to go really think about what Paul and I talked about. Go check out the links in the show notes here. From sculptations to success songs and everything else that, you know, we mentioned the various resources and you know, take some time. Nothing else out of this at all. It's really, you know, life can throw a bunch of things at, at you, but take care of yourself first. And there's a lot of innovative and unique ways to do that. And Paul has got some of the most successful and innovative ones out there, so I suggest you go check it out. Paul, thanks again. I look forward to connecting next time you're in San Diego. And for everybody else, smash the subscribe button if you haven't, leave me a review on itunes if you really love me. Because I do read every single one of them. And they. They warm the cockles of my heart. Don't think I've ever said that. That phrase before. Cockles. But I will see you guys on the next episode. And Paul, I'll see you real soon.