The Power of Identity with Anthony Trucks

It starts with action. It starts with those beliefs, the thoughts that you go through on any given moment.

Realize I do hard things because I want that pride and it's not to diminish you or anybody else around me, but it's in fact to be the best version of me so I can lead people better then you have. Between these what's called thoughts and actions, I think this do I act upon it? That's where habits fly in right in between do I do the habits on a consistent basis that lead the result.

I want this is the energetic leader led by a team of three who have influenced people at the highest level of corporate, athletic, entrepreneur and the business world. We teach through science and data driven methods to help you lead through energy and influence. We don't just use our stories, but the stories of those who have walked the walk, been in your shoes and ultimately excelled. Whether it's leading a team of 10 or 10,000, building a business of 1 million or 100 million, winning one championship or 10, they all have one thing in common. Energetic leadership. So with that step inside and let's help transform you into that energetic leader. Welcome back to another week of the energetic leader. And guys, I'm going to tell you, I say this every week but we have another guest that is going to bring the passion, bring the excitement and bring tangible actionable items for you guys to integrate into your life on a day to day basis to ultimately uncover that version of you and, and that life that you're truly setting out to be. Because we all know that sometimes in life you just get bogged down, it just becomes hard and you're trudging through sometimes a little bit of tar. And getting through that tar is ultimately what makes the sprint later on a whole lot more fun. And you guys have heard a lot of my story, a lot of the other NHL, NFL, NBA guys, Olympic athletes that we brought on here and no different today we got former NFL player, standout person, Anthony Trucks. So thank you Anthony for spending time with us and bringing the knowledge and education to our audience that you're going to do today.

Yeah man, I'm excited. I actually agree with what you're about to say. I'm a story guy, but I'm also a takeaway guy, man. I'm big into giving people things they can actually say. Oh, let me go apply that. So we're going to get some good stuff today, my man.

I love it, I love it. Anthony, kind of go through your story a little bit here and kind of, it's very Different. The way your NFL career went.

What.

You thought was going to become a much larger piece of your life ultimately wasn't. And as a. As a former athlete, the identity that you tie to that, the identity that you tie yourself as, this is my value in the world. This is my value to myself, my family, my legacy. And all of a sudden, it being gone. What was that like to be able to shift gears and go and ultimately create success in another platform?

Yeah. You ever seen. You ever watch It's Avengers? Ever seen the Avengers? Like, the last one where they have to go?

I mean, did I watch it once or did I watch it eight times?

I watched, like, seven. But, you know when the Hulk goes to visit the woman to get the things, the time stone, and, like, she, like, pushes him, and all of a sudden he's outside of the Hulk's body. Remember that part?

Yes.

I think that is a good way. When you feel like you've been removed from that thing you do. Like, that's the way, like, you. It's like, who am I now? Like, when sports is over, like, you ended. It's like, who am I? And honestly, a lot of us. I'm not just saying me, it could be anybody. It could be former athletes, former military. I sent a kid off to college. It could have been. I lost my job. The relationship fell apart, right? Whenever we lose this thing we've been working for and pretty much given our soul to, we lose a lot. And I've achoned this to kind of like being like an apple. It's a fruit of our labor, right? Fruit of our labor we've been doing, it falls off the tree. And like any kind of fruit, it falls off the tree, lands on the ground. It doesn't rot immediately. It can last a little bit, right? So, like, it can get picked up by the farmer, taken to the store. I can grab it from the store, take it to my house, set up my counter. But eventually, Justin, eventually it just rots. And that's how we feel, right? Just. Ah. And this is the thing that took a lot of years for me post football to figure out is when I look at that fruit, and I felt horrible, it affected some things negatively. And I realized that I. And we have never been the fruit. We've always been the tree. And for me, when you lose sight of that tree, man, you put it in the wrong soil. Wrong people, wrong place, wrong different things, right? You don't give it the nutrients it needs, so it dies and all that. You can't create fruit, not Only that if there is fruit on the tree, it all dies. So for me, man, post football, I came home and, like, I lost myself because I didn't know who I was. The fruit of the labor, right? And I wasn't focused on the trees. So I stopped pruning the branches, stopped brought in the roots, you know, nothing. So relationship fell apart. I got divorced. I wasn't a good dad. I had three kids. Wasn't a present father. I was all out of shape. My gym business, I'd started after football was falling apart. So essentially, dude, like, everything came tumbling down. Like that was more so. Not because I wasn't capable, because I was like, we're all capable of vastly more than we actually think. But the problem was I had just lost sight of the tree, man. And when you just look at one fruit, you don't take care of the rest.

I love the vulnerability in which you speak to that and so nonchalantly. And I know that that's not something that happens overnight because having. Having listened to you and being on the other side of the camera, it's like I'm looking at a mirror. And so many of those things that you've said were exact experiences that. That I had gone through. And so I can. I can sympathize with you and have empathy towards that because I know the journey that it's on. And so many people are see, feeling that on a different level. It could be that you got let go from your job over the course of the pandemic. It could be that you are leaving something else that you've identified with for so long. Losing of a loved one. My mother, for example, was extremely close with her mom, and she passed away in November and was really her caretaker for the last year and had pretty much stopped her life to care for her. And all of a sudden, that's gone. And that's a missing piece of identity. It's a missing piece what you were doing for so long. And I love the analogy that you gave of it's not the fruit, it's not the external things, it's not the things on the outside that are present, but rather, that tree has never changed. That tree is you. And that tree is what's rooted in deep. And so what was it for you that was able to ultimately bring that back to fruition, for lack of a better term?

Yeah, right. Yeah.

And really be able to get back to that.

That.

That tree and start looking after and nurturing it to bring out the better version of Anthony Trucks.

Yeah, man. Well, unfortunately, all the fruit died before I figured it out. You know, it's kind of. That's how it is. So, I mean, I grew up in a situation where I was like, adopted. You know, at 14. I was in the system for 11 years of foster care and like a really heinous system. Grew up in a really poor, all white family, had a kid at 19 years old, and like a whole bunch of weirdness. And so that happened. I pushed through, got a college scholarship, played in the NFL. And I get to this point. So, like, this is. It's odd, that moment of time, like, life sucked when everything started sucking because I got to the peak, right? Statistically, I should have never got the NFL. Then it comes crashing down. I'm like, if this is life after football, like, I don't want this. I don't wanna be here, man. I literally, I was like, I don't wanna be here anymore. That was at a certain level, at a certain point. And thankfully, I never took any actions to like, leave this planet intentionally. And I just kind of. I wallowed, dude. I call it a fog. I went into a fog for a lot of years. So the divorce took place. I was living in a 500 square foot studio apartment behind one of my staff's girlfriend's house. Like, I was like an in law unit. A super weird dynamic, right? My life, my kids were sleeping on an air mattress, and I'm a former NFL guy, you know. And what ended up happening was I did the whole, like, float around. I'm single, you know, multiple women. I'm a man of faith. And this was the far as I'd gone for my faith. And then two pivotal moments took place. One was a moment where it was April 14, 2015, and when I got adopted, my adoptive mom got diagnosed with Ms. So this was 17 years later, and unfortunately, we were in a hospital room and I was holding my mom's right hand and my dad and her left to my grandma as we watched her take her last breaths. And it was crazy because, like, this is a woman who was like, so joyous and so just, you know, had a bubbly, amazing, bright personality, but her body robbed her of the ability to live a full life. And I'm sitting here and I'm in a fog, and I can do things. I was like, well, how am I gonna let this woman who obviously loved me past crazy? Statistically, I am who I am because of her, A lot of it. I'm just gonna sit here and let this, like, woman die and not do something great for Life. And it, like, unsettled me in a good way. I was like, I can't keep doing this. I was like, three years deep in the fog, man, just surviving, doing craziness. I was like, not gotta figure this thing out. And so that moment was a big catalyst of me going somewhere. But here's the thing. I wish I could say it turned around. I wish I could be like, that was the thing that all of a sudden, right, Took another for me, literally, another two years before I woke up. And I say that because I want people to grasp that it's not always, you know, like, this was the moment, you know, it's not. It's not always how it is. And for me, it ended up I was doing the same thing. I was, you know, partying, hanging out. And I was still trying to fill that gap of, like, you know, trying to feel like I mattered. And I remember I got this, like, my businesses were always up and down. And at one point, I got this good gig to go to Russia and present to Russia. Met some people, met a woman, didn't even speak my language. Ended up having conversations. When I came back, I flew her back, and it was a thing, like, New Year's Day, 2016. This was the thing. And this is one where I say it, like, transparently. And I don't say this being proud, but I remember, like, there was. She was there for a couple days, and we had bought, like, a. Like, a 20 pack of condoms. And in, like, three days, we'd gone through 16. And it's not something I'm like, yeah, in any way, man. It was like, even saying that now makes me feel ashamed, because I remember New Year's Day, I woke up and I rolled over. I couldn't speak English to her. I couldn't speak a word. It was all physical. I went in the bathroom, and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. And it was like this ultimate wave of just shame, man. Like, I got two boys and a daughter, and I was like, I would absolutely never want my daughter to be with a man like me. I would be sick if my boys became men like me. My mom who had passed would not approve of this, and my God would let me into heaven. And that was honestly the moment. I was like, something's got to change, dude. Like, so I got to figure this out. And this was the first time I reached into the step of, like, what's going on? And I realized I am the common denominator in all my problems. It's me. Like, whether it Was the relationship fell apart or the business or not being a present dad or I'm out of shape, like, all of it. I'm like, dude, you are dead center at all those problems, man. And so it turned into this path of me cutting everything off. Like, literally, it was the first time I started working the soil for that tree. I wasn't working on a tree. Just, I was like, let me forget a soil first. Cut women off, get it all out of the way, focus on ant. And then I went to the tree. And that's a hard journey, man. Like, going back. I mean, I'm assuming I don't do, like, I have a green thumb, but I'm assuming, like, bringing something back to life like, that can't be easy. It takes a lot of watering. And what that watering looked like for me was like, ownership of a lot of different things, man. My wife and I's marriage, I blamed a lot on her. And I had to find areas where I was like, no, that was partly me, right? Eat that. Just own it. I had to go take you on the. Had hard conversation with people in my life. I just. I had to own up a lot of stuff. And in doing so, I started taking way different actions. And I realized the man that I was wasn't the man I had to be forever. I had, I could add, opportunity, I believe, to shift my identity to another level. And it happens through actions. So I started doing stuff that did not, I'm telling you right now, I'm like, I don't even know why I did it, Justin. I just like, I must do this. It just. It was, you know what it was. My heart knew it was right. My gut didn't want to do it. When your heart knows it's right and you're fighting your gut, do what your heart knows is right. It's gonna suck. And it does. But that is the only thing I can tell you that was a big catalyst because fast forward from that moment ten months later, my business picks up. I'm in good shape. My marriage, three years, divorced. My marriage gets back. Like, I'm back in an amazing marriage right now. Kids have their father. Like, my life is smooth. We've been at this for the last as a 2016. We're going on, you know, 5ish years of life being so much different than I genuinely could ever imagine. So, like, the moments pass and everything goes downhill. Like, I'm telling you, dude, that was the journey. That is only journey I can attest to bringing me here. But I'd like It's a lot of muck. We all. It's the muck. It gets. It gets literally seriously gets harder before it gets better.

Going back to that moment in that hotel room, what was the. Was it like an immediate action? The moment that you saw your glimpse of yourself, spoke those words to yourself and left? Was it that day that you took action and started to create that change? Or did it take more time to be able to get into it and get going? But that was the catalyst that kind of pushed you there.

Started. Yeah. It's funny is you will do things, I guess, the way we do. We'll commit to actions, and the actions will commit us to more. So for me, the first, like, if you do one thing, say, it's like. It's like they say the gateway drug, right? I commit to this first drug, then it's like, I'm already ends. I'll just do this. And next, you know, you're out here, you know, pumping heroin into your arms, and it's. It's sad to say it that way, but that's how it is. It's a. It's a slow roll, right? But it's the same thing in positive. So for me, the first step was like, all right, I'm not talking to her. That was it, right? I'm just not gonna talk to her. And I was like, hey, I just. I need some time and space for myself. And she was fine. She's in Russia. I just don't have to answer messages. Not like, it's hard, you know, so that was that. Then when you get messages coming in from other people, it's like, okay, I'm just not going to respond to that message. Well, now I'm a little bit committed to the pot, right? I. If you do poker, obviously, like, I was small, blind, and I'm, you know that I'm putting it in. I'm in the pot, man. I'm not going to fold. And so I make more commitments. I would. I would have deeper conversations. Like when you start passing up on the moments and passing up on meetings and stuff and whatever it might be, start passing up, it's like, well, I did this. I'm not going to mess it up now. I'm just. I'm going to go ahead and let that one, like, at all. I'm not going to ruin what I've already made of good decisions by making one bad one. And it started rolling. And then here's the thing is when you start having those cool, positive breakthroughs moments with my kids, when I was, I was there and present. I could sit there on a couch and like, you know, I wasn't making excuses to not be able to grab them that night because I had to go do something with some woman. I'm here right there. And it was a different flow. And then like having like the back and forth arguing to my ex wife because if you ever had an ex, you know those, they know how to poke your buttons. We're high school sweethearts man. They know how to say things. And so like the back and forth and blame and blame and blame. And you get that emotional night when I could actually go to the space and say, you know what? I know for the last few years I blame us on you. But like I know my part like just, you know, when I came home I tried to find my identity again in a gym business. I went in and I was there from 6am to 10pm we had twins and we had four year old newborn twins. She was at home with three kids that were all in the age of five. Two are brand new. Like how does anybody but 25 years old, how do you expect a 25 year old to do that by herself? Like I was a horrible non present husband so I own that. And the more you lean in, the more it flows, the better relationships get, the better you feel about yourself, the more pride you have and the more you protect that pride with future actions. And so we're now fast forward five years of the consistent just diving back into the same flow. Now it's I'm in stride now, now it's easy. And I am deathly afraid of doing anything in the dark that will ruin my light. Like I am a clean by the book simple dude, you can come if you could. I don't mind having a camera float around me all day long. Dude, you're never going to see me do anything. I'm not even tempted, right? And so for me life is smooth. That's why I feel really comfortable teaching when I teach because I've gone through the garbage and I live clean, right? But it wasn't, it's not immediate, it's not a fast thing. It's just like sports. We're both athletes. When you were a kid, you weren't amazing the first time you touched the ice. We just get better and better and better and the more, the better you get, the better you want to get, the better you get better and it just builds and that's been my process for life.

It's, it's so amazing and it's it's so true is the further in you get it. A lot of people often see it as, okay, I'm going to get motivated and then I'm going to take action.

Yeah.

And it's actually the inverse. It's where you take the first action and that action. The results yield further motivation, which yield further actions that repeat that same feeling and go over and over and over again. And it's. It's incredible to see how addicting that gets and wanting to be a part of that. I still remember Jesse Isler was talking about. We talked with him and he was telling a story about him and Tom Brady. They bought a racehorse together. And they were watching this. They were watching this horse race, and it was like the horse's sixth race, and it had only ever finished second. And the horse went and did a big race against all the horses that were going to be in, like the Derby and the Preakness and all these big, big, massive horses, like big rigs. And again, it finished second. Jesse calls me, goes Gay Tom. Great news, great news. The horse finished. Horse finished second in a really great, really great field. And he gets all upset. He goes, well, shit. And he goes, it's okay, Tommy. Awesome field. He goes, if that horse never learns what it feels like to win, it's never going to know that feeling and relent and will never be willing to relinquish it. And that's just like. What you're talking about is if you don't know what that feeling is like to do it differently, and you will never know what else you can do to become a better version, a fuller version of yourself.

100%, man, you got to get there. That's. My wife has friends that. Well, one friend specifically. She's an awesome woman. I'm not going to say anything bad about her, but she's, you know, she's been heavyset all her life. All her life. And for years, I mean, a decade, my wife had tried to get her to get in shape. I owned a gym for a long time. Couldn't get her to get in shape. My wife would help her work out all these things. Couldn't get her to do it. And my wife was like, why won't she do this? And I came to realization. She's like, you know what? Because she doesn't know what it's like to be skinnier in shape. She's never experienced that. Therefore, it's not an emotional tie. All she knows is what she knows. And when you don't have an emotional tie to It. It's hard to want that. Like, for example, a kid, when they first taste sugar, you give them a little piece of cake, they don't want the lollipop. They see a lollipop, okay, lollipop. You taste it, oh, they go reaching for it, right. I want this. Because now they know, and they'll cry to get it. That's what people have to have. But like you said, you can't wait to get motivated to get there. You kind of got to fall in love with the process that it takes to get there, even if the process sucks completely.

And tie it to your passion, tie it to your purpose, tie it to something deeper, that emotional connection that you were talking about. After you started to see this change, after you start to dive in and truly own it and move forward in that new direction, what did you start to notice about the way that you were able to lead and the way in which you were able to show up for those around you?

Yeah, you know, I'm real big on moments. I think there's this thing I call mastering moments moves mountains. And if we talk about mountains in life, there's a lot of mountains in life. There's the mountain of, you know, the business, closing the deal. There's the mountain of, you know, proposals, these moments that happen in our life. And there's also big moments that will lead into the future of our personal pride for ourselves. We will protect. And when I talk about moments, there's a lot of things that happen, but if I don't have the ability to unconsciously, in a specific moment, like, fight for myself, I'll lose a lot. I'll lose things. I'll lose the job. I'll lose the deal. I'll lose the client. Like, I'll just lose it. And I won't even. I don't think people even register that it happens sometimes. So when you ask what I noticed about myself, I noticed that I would not naturally, unconsciously, would not settle for less than I knew I deserved. I mastered moments. I would show up and fight for myself. I'd battle, and somebody would call me out, as opposed to tucking away, like, oh, no, this is who I am. This is what I do. It's why I did it. Right? Or like in a moment of a phone call and someone wants to possibly join a program, well, I don't know. I'm going to talk to the other guy. You talk to the other guy. But I'm telling you right now that I know with a shadow of a doubt above and beyond, I will Serve you at a better level. And if what I have doesn't, I will find that thing for you. There's a certain level of confidence I have because of the back years of build, you know, and that, that's not something you. You can consciously think up. It's a reaction that's almost like it's just an unconscious reaction. So what I noticed about myself and people who actually do this work is like, if I know in my heart of hearts and my gut that I deserve whatever this is, or I can do a better job, it's like, there's no way I'm going to not get it. Like, if it's my piece of cake and I'm starving and you walk up and take my cake, my immediate response is, what are you touching my cake for, bro? Like, just, that's my cake. You know what I mean? So what happens is that's the same thing for anything in life, no matter what it is. If you have inset built up that identity by doing the work to own that the moment anything comes into life to try and take it away, or it may, you may see it floating away, you will rear up immediately and protect that thing and keep that thing. Of all parts of what I've done that I believe is the most beneficial to me because it's like the make or break moments that make or break my life that I can't go back and change, they're happening in real time. And I don't like that whole hindsight thing. And the only way I can prepare for the moments that might be irreversible is I build today a confidence and a pride. So in those moments later, I show up for myself the way I need to.

You talk about the work that you put in, and so many, so often people think that stuff like this just happens. It's, oh, I'm just going to go through life and things are going to happen to me, experiences are going to happen to me. And without the intention, without the, the awareness of what's going on, it's very easy for life take you down a certain. A different path. Unless you honestly do the work that you put in to put yourself on the path that you want to be on and kind of talk to that, that work aspect. That, that it wasn't. Maybe it was easy, but that it wasn't always easy. That the work is hard and the work takes effort and consciousness.

That does, man, you know, it's funny is so there's a study that was done of people that had glaucoma. And they had, you know, the surgery after surgery had to have these eyedrops put in their eyes. And 59% of people knowing that if they didn't put eye drops in would go blind. They didn't do their eye drops. Why would that be?

59% did not do it.

59% of people knowing they could be blind just didn't put the eye drops in. I was like, doesn't make any sense. And here's what it came to be. The truth of the matter is people have this magical idea that the future is going to be better. Like, magical. It's going to be better in the future. And like, no, no, no. Like, that's not not how it works, my friend. And I think what people are doing is, like, they think it's me better because I got time to get there. I rest and I got time to get there. And they were waiting for that far destination. And I tell people, and I might have said this earlier, but you do not fall in love with the day. You don't fall in love with the destination. You fall in love with the day. My job and what I do is to love my days. The destinations will come. And I look at it like this when I want to get in shape. I just recently lost, like, 35 pounds. I was a chubby bunny at the beginning of the year, my man, and I want to get in shape. I was like, I got to get in shape. I didn't go and say, like, I'm going to find a way to just fight, fight, fight, fight, fight and grind until I get to the, you know, the finish line, cross it. I was like, I want to develop a system in a day where I love the food I eat, even if I'm not. I want some burritos. I'm going to fight the food I love. I'm going to fall in love with the workouts. I'm going to love this hard work. And what's crazy is it is hard in the beginning. It just is. I'm out of shape, man. I'm over here lifting weights. I'm getting. My lungs are burning. I'm hawking on you like that post cardio, like that lung butter that comes up. It's terrible, dude. It's horrible. You haven't done it for a while. So I'm doing that, but I'm like, I got it done. I feel good. I got it done right. And it starts to climb. And I get better. And I get better. What happens is in the beginning, yes, that thing is hard. And what I used to do months ago was difficult. Now, dude, it's easy because anytime if you think about like lifting weights in a physical sense, when the weight is heavy, I don't leave the gym and then come back and hope I can lift the weight. No, I come back, lift lighter weights day after day and I get stronger and I get stronger and I get stronger. Eventually I'm in great shape and I love it. I'm holding that for longer. But what most people are doing is saying, I just want to come in the gym and be strong. I don't want to do the hard work, I don't want to do it. It's like, I get that you don't want to do it, but the longer you have your brain keep saying, I don't want to do it, you won't do it. You won't have the result and it'll be burnout. You'll freak out. So for me, I'm like, find a way to love the hard work. My son, he's 11 years old, we're doing push ups and sit ups and pull ups right now. And he'll do 100 push ups and feel horrible. I'm like, you're supposed to, but it hurts so bad. I'm like, dude, find a way to love it. Find some way. I'm telling, like, think about things. Think about for, you know, if you get 100 push ups, you'll give yourself an extra 10 minutes of a video game or you get to go hang out or do something. We'll find something for you. But we need to get you to love that. Because when you love that and that's the piece you love, dude, it's like eating ice cream all day. And literally the thing you get later is a cherry. So the hard work, man, it's not something you can avoid. And I don't think we should want to. I think you should love to do the hard work. Because the people that are successful, they're not different humans. They aren't all of a sudden mad. They don't have extra parts of their brains and you know, there's not there. All they did was they started falling in love with the day they started finding ways to enjoy the moments. And the more moments they got to stack and love, the more success they have. And that's why they look like they're having an easy time being successful. And when other people are struggling because you're fighting it, find a way to fall in love with it. And the destinations come much quicker and much, much more frequent.

I Literally just did a massive piece of content on that, and it's called Durant and put it out. So I'll have to send it to you after because it's like, literally verbatim what you were just talking about. And you talk about being able to fall in love with the day and. And the destinies will come, the destinations will come. How has that been able to parlay now over into the way that you parent your kids, the way you show up as a father and. And as a. As a partner, as a spouse, and ultimately as an entrepreneur for your team?

I think there's two sides of the coin because there's. There's a way that I interact with them, and there's a gift that I'm giving them that they don't know just yet. So the gift I'm giving them, like, I grew up in, literally, poverty, poor foster kid, not much. So, like, anything was great for me. I used to have shoes that were so, like, I had the Nike Cortez, the Canvas. I would get, like, one pair a year, and I would run around like crazy. My feet. My toes would poke out the side of the shoe. I would. In class, I would lace those up with metal paperclips so that I could actually keep the shoe together. Like, this was my. My life. My kids, they got ridiculous stuff. So my thing is, I do not rob my kids of their hardships because they don't have that kind of lifestyle. And the gift I'm giving that they don't know right now is that I make their life hard on purpose. Like, I make them do things on purpose that they don't want to do. I'm like, go do that. Why? Because I said, damn it, figure it out. And the reality is, I don't want them to get to the back edge of their life, right? Whether it's their teenage years or their early teens or early twenties. I would have done a horrible job if I set them out into the world without the ability to problem solve and to enjoy doing hard work.

Give some examples of that.

So, for example, my kids, they want, you know, nice new stuff to go to. Go play sports. My son wants a baseball bag or something, right? Or cleats. My cool. So we'll have them actually work to go half, right? And working isn't like, go to a job, right? It's, I'll have you do specific work. So it may be someone in the house. We're tracking hours. I want them to understand the value of a dollar. So whatever our minimum wage is you're doing that many hours of work to get that 100%, dude. Like, so go in the backyard, pick up dog poop. For an hour. Yes. Find it for an hour. Or go in the front yard. I want you to clean up the little area, sweep things around for an hour? Yes, for an hour. Or restack it. They're having to learn what it takes to do something and feel proud to get it. Because if not, lots of rich kids, they don't realize what a dollar takes to earn right. And then on top of that, problem solving. When my kids come to me like, seriously, homework they want, dad, what's the answer to this? I'm like, I'm not doing your homework. I need help with. I'm not doing it. What do you mean? No, I want you to go over there and think it through. If you come to me with a question that you absolutely cannot answer, then I'm going to help you. But if it's something that I can't answer, just know that I'm not going to help the rest of the day. You will go to school and get in trouble, but the teacher says it's got to be done tomorrow. Cool. Better ask the teacher. Like, I need you to understand how to problem solve, communicate with people. I'm not going to make it easy. My wife doesn't get it as much. She's more of like, it's okay, make it. I'm like, no, I want it. When my kids go to college and they're 18, 19, I want to be able to sleep at night. I want to know. I'm not worried about that kid out there in the world and something crazy happening to him because the dude can't take care of himself. My daughter can't handle herself, all these little nuances. So I purposely find ways in their days to make things difficult. Their room better always be clean. You want to watch tv? Cool. You got a chore, right? We don't need them. We literally have cleaning ladies. I don't need them to do stuff. I make them sweep and clean things that are already clean most of the time. Like, just do it. Why? Cuz I said to do it, man. And you wouldn't watch the. Can you watch my tv? They got a hundred inch theater room with a TV they can go play video games on. You better do something to earn. That I didn't have as a kid, but that, that for me, they don't get it as a gift right now, but that genuinely will be the thing that later on they go, okay, I'm glad my dad was a little bit difficult because, you know, now I get this hard thing happening and when you have more responsibilities later and you shut down, you have a lot more to lose. So I want them to not shut down when things go hard. And then for me, that relationship, how I interact with my wife or my kids, I'm always big on reciprocity, respect. And the way that I've had all the, like, the aspect of work tie in is like, I understand like a certain level of effort that has to be given to all areas, right. And things that I also may not want to do. And so what I realize is if I'm going to tout do hard work and do the things that got to be done, I do it too. So there's things my wife will ask me to do that I don't want to do. Man, I'm like, whatever, I'll go do it. Because I realized a relationship. Here's the thing is when people know you don't want to do something, you do it. They understand you care for them. And it sounds odd, but like when my wife knows that I want to do something and she asked me, I thoroughly do it. You can see in her eyes, she's like, I love you. Like, you're my guy. You know, just like for example, at a Mastermind we ran last week, long days I was there, you know, I'm the lead guy. It's my mastermind. And we're there from. I think we started like 8 o' clock and we didn't get done until dinner was like at 8 or 9, and she was taking a flight to go to a track meet. She runs in and I literally had to get up the next day, like 6 o', clock, get my work and get going. It's I think like 10 o' clock at night. I go to bed at like 10:30. But she went to this thing with me and I was like, I wanted to come hang out, meet my people. So I drove her an hour and a half out to the airport and back and got back at like midnight. Just that she could actually have some time spent with me and like, and go on this ride, right? So I understand how hard work works. I understand that in doing so I didn't do it. Negative. I did it because I love her. But it bonds a relationship. When you can, you look, we can learn to find, like I tell them, find a way to love the day. Like, that's the parts I love. I could spend an hour and a half, my wife chilling, talking in the car drop her off, she goes off and she knows, like, damn, my husband supports me. He went out of his way to do something cool. She came back, she's happy. Like, it bonds things deeper. So there's so many nuances and weird parts of relationships people don't grasp that tie into your ability to do hard things, to do hard work that you might not really love, but seeking to find the joy within it.

I love that. And it's so applicable to so many different avenues because the work that you put in. And we had a couple of guests talk about that, of how doing hard things builds credibility with yourself. It builds that credibility so that when the real test comes, the real time that you need to pull upon that muscle, you've exercised that muscle, you've exercised it a million times at a very small, small trajectory over and over and over again. For that big one that you now needed to act upon and actually fire, you've got that capability and ability to.

Do it 100%, man. I agree. That's a really good way of putting it. And what it breaks down to, it's. It's weird. There's so many ways to look at the whole thing, but it really boils down to, like, if you. If so I. There's a process I call. Have called ideal identity. And you just kind of spoke to it, which is pretty cool. And in the work I do, which is actually rooted in the core human base of you, right? It's the anchor, the root of your humanity. It's your identity. It's like the software to your computer's hardware, right? So the way I look at it is we have these three key areas and overlapping. One is beliefs, other one's thoughts, other one's actions. So beliefs are. Do you believe in something specific or what is your ideal identity believe in? Like if I ask your beliefs, you have those, you'll fight for those, you'll die for those, right? Then you have the thoughts that are consistently running in our brain. And although we. I think the American Science association or like American Science foundation did a study, we have between 12 and 60,000 thoughts a day. 85% are negative, 95% of those are repetitive. So we have these thoughts and if we don't take any control of them, they will spin off negative, right? So if you have beliefs and these thoughts that aren't in line, where those overlap is your mindset. I believe something. I'm talking differently. I'm a weak mindset, right? I was like, I'm gonna go out. I should go out there and kill it. And then I go, but can you ant? Oh, man, you're gonna do bad in that field. You're gonna miss a tackle. The mindset's weak. I can't. I can't do anything right. Then you have between these what's called thoughts and actions. I think this. Do I act upon it? That's where habits fly in, right? In between do I do the habits on a consistent basis that leave the result I want. We all have habits. They're just a lot of the time haphazard. Like, I have a habit of maybe every night eating, you know, ice cream. You're gonna eat fat. That's a bad habit. But you do it every day. Then you have the big actions, the bold, amazing, like, the ones that like scary, but you do it and go, ah, hell, yeah, I got that done, right? That's the big action. Now the one you just talked about is the big one between beliefs and actions. If I believe to my core I'm supposed to do something and I don't take the action on it, I take a little bit of my identity down. I chip away at myself, right? If I believe I was talking about it this morning or yesterday morning, I believe I'm supposed to get a workout on a specific day. Yesterday, I didn't do it. How did I tell you? I felt like crap. I was like, man, I feel a little bad. I'm going to beat myself up today, right? My personal pride's diminished. I would be no good in a sales call right now because I'm like. Part of me is like, I don't believe in myself. It sounds super odd, but I'm so presently and intimately attached to it that I realize I do hard things because I want that pride. And it's not to diminish you or anybody else around me, but it's, in fact, to be the best version of me so I can lead people better with a full confidence in who I am. But anybody in the world, man, if you don't act upon the things you believe you should, you will lose that pride. You will lose investment. You can't cash in when you need it.

No, I agree wholeheartedly, 100%. And I love it. I love it. What would the old Anthony Trucks say about you if he was to run into you today?

Today? Oh, man, you'd make fun of me today. You know why I think that? There's this. This thing where a lot of people that are not at a certain level, they have to do one of two things. If they look at you. And their gut goes, that dude's doing great or that woman's killing it. They have to do first one option would be they have to look at themselves, realize they're not doing something great. And they have to feel that. And it doesn't feel good. And they gotta admit, I'm not doing so great. Now, most people will not do that. They'll do the second thing. Second thing is demonize you, make fun of you, and tell you what you're doing is not great enough so that they can bring you down to their level and they can feel good about themselves again. And I believe a lot of what we do in the world, even for myself, like, I go out trying to be a mirror to help how much more you have inside of you. All day long. I'm gonna do my thing and live my life. And I'm not, I'm not boisterous, look at me. But I'm living my thing. And when people poke and prod, I'm like, I don't even care what you think because you aren't on my level. And I don't say that in a disrespectful way. I say in a way if I need you to grasp, I'm not gonna let you bring me down to your level. You're gonna rise to mine. Now that old Anthony would have looked at Anthony and like, I make fun of him. He's just out there doing his stuff. He's stupid. But the reality is like, Anthony still wanted this kind of life. He still wanted joy, he still wanted peace, he wanted freedom. Like, I'm hanging out in the middle of the day. When I'm done with this conversation here, I'm gonna catch a workout, I'm gonna go pa. I have freedom because of how hard I work, because of what I do. And I believe a lot of people around the world and they go out and they try to bring people down, not because they're not great, because they know that they're not as great as they could be.

Even more important, what would Anthony Trucks today say to Anthony Trucks of old?

Oh, man, he'd love on him, bro. That's what I do all day nowadays. Seriously, this guy, going back to him, I would love on him. And the reason why is because sometimes people, they need to rise. There are different humans. And you need to be a pattern interrupt. I'm a pattern interrupt for a lot of people. I am a 6 foot 1, 225 pound black man who will talk about my feelings all day. I love My wife to death. I show up at a different level. I'm a phenomenal dad, and I'll give you all the dirt and craziness. I speak at a different level of, like, expulsion of my heart. I'm not a norm, and it's totally cool. And in doing so, I realized that in those moments, if I can be different from what someone would expect most people to do, I have an opportunity to improve their life. I had a guy one time listen to a podcast of mine, and he reaches out in a message and goes, you have a horrible FM radio voice. You should stop doing your podcast. I was like, interesting. My voice is butter, bro. What are you talking about? I was like, interesting. And I wrote back. I was like, hey, you know what? I'm sorry that you don't like the podcast. You know, I'm not for everybody, but I absolutely wish you the best. You can give me some ideas of topics or people you want to listen to. Maybe I could introduce you to somebody might like some more. And it was a complete different response. He probably expected me to fire back. I just didn't. I wasn't. I didn't care. I knew this one thing. People who will give you, like, anger, dis, unhappiness. I've never known an amazingly joyous, happy person to say negative things to somebody. So knowing that I'm like, this guy's got to be in a funky place, I'm not going to go and either come to his level or I'm not going to try to make him feel worse, because he's probably already feeling worse. I said it back. He goes, well, I'm kind of sorry. Like, you're kind of a nice guy. I didn't expect you to do that. I went back and forth. We ended up having a good conversation. I come to find he's having an issue like his wife and his marriage. You know, he's just kind of. Some of the stuff I went through, he's doing some stuff with work wasn't going right. He wasn't feeling good about himself. And he happened across my thing and latched onto me, and he was going right. And I actually got him to a better place. It started with a message of him trying to poke holes and make me feel bad, you know? And so in that moment, I realized that's how I got to handle everything from now on. So if that Anthony, I went and talked to him, started making fun of me. What you do get. I get trolls on my live streams and stuff, dude. I just go in and I Just I hug them, man. I give them, like, a verbal hug. I'm like, man, I don't know what you got going on, but I do know you wouldn't be doing this if everything was great in your life. So true. Heart of hearts, man. I hope things are well. If you need an ear, I'm happy to listen to your problem. Now, not everybody responds nicely, but that, for me is the end of it unless they go positive. But that's all you got to do, because the moment I engage with opposite negativity and meet that person, no matter what it is, my emotions are now in that place. And I don't like being in that place, Justin. I like being happy. So if you're gonna be there, I'm not gonna come down there. And the way you come down there is by retorting, responding, fighting, arguing in the comments. I don't do that, man. I don't. I'm happy, and I'm gonna stay happy, and I'm gonna do it by not going back down to your level.

And that's true leadership. I love it. I absolutely love it. Anthony, where can people engage with you? Where can people find you? Where can people engage further with you?

Yeah, man, you can go to Instagram. I'm on there all day long. I mean, not all day. It's like the place that's like the hub. When I get on and I open up the apps for social, first, it's always Instagram, and I'm commenting there. The other one's a little slower to get to. And then if someone wants to know about the work that we do and how we. We have something called the shift method, which allows people to. To shift into a vastly different identity. That is what I call a prolific executor. Someone that gets more done in less time with more joy and less frustration. You can go to YourLifeElevated.com and find out more about it.

I absolutely love it. Last question. We ask every single guest that is on this show, because, again, it's always better to serve than it is to take. Our audience is full of action takers. We are full of action takers. What can our audience do for you?

For me? Oh, man, just go. That's a great. I don't. Was gonna go just now. I'm like, what do you have me do? Nothing, man. You know what? I'm dead serious. If this episode resonated in any way, if anything I or Justin said, I ask that you share it. Like, I live in a place in a space internally where I got a business that runs, and I have abundance, and I'm happy, and I'm truly like, I just want people to be happier. And if I can do it through my words this way, like, that's all I can ask. So the audience, you guys listening, I would love for you to go to that little button that says share and share it. That's quite literally all I can ask of you. If you enjoyed any part of what we said.

Well, as they say in stepbrothers, did we just become best friends? I think so. So this was awesome. Anthony, it's very seldom that you meet somebody and you feel like you have this instant connection. And it's a great feeling when you're able to have that. You share that energy, you share that space, you share that mindset because it's a very unique place to be. And I've talked about this a little bit as well, but I have this concept that I called gas. It's your give a shit level, and I have a massive gas level. And thus I expect those that I bring into my company, I associate with those that have a massive gas level. And so with that being said, I love your gas level and something that creates that level of energy that connects us, that brings people together. So, and for everybody listening as you guys have dove into this and taken a look at this, if there's something sitting on your heart, something sitting on your mind that you're feeling, that you're like, hey, I'm not leveling up. I'm not where I need to be. I have the opportunity to be better and break out of this mold that I'm currently sitting in. You don't have to sit there. You don't have to stay there. It starts with action. Starts with those beliefs, the thoughts that you go through on. On any given moment and truly take action upon them in an appropriate way, that's going to take you to new levels, new heights. Forget about the fruit that's outside of the tree, but focus on the trunk, focus on the root, focus on the soil that isn't around you. And ultimately you can break out of it and create a life just as old and new. Anthony have been able to do that for themselves. With that, everybody stay hungry, stay humble. We'll see you guys next week.