The Hidden Psychology of Winners: Why Not Quitting Isn't Enough to Succeed

Winning is not an option. If you're going to be satisfied in life, if you're going to be have a feel like your life, forget how much money you make, if you're going to feel satisfied inside. You know, you hear people, they've got the poser syndrome and this, that and the other. Well, people have gone out there and worked and earned their success. Don't have the imposter syndrome. You know, they don't have to be told to be authentic. You know, they've gone out there and they made things happen. Hello, everyone. We're talking about winning today on the Big Hitter podcast and I have my son with me to help cover the subject of winning. Hello, Adam Wydell.

Hello, sir, how are you doing today?

I was just thinking, Adam, you have been basically right hand man for 30 years. Can you believe that? And so Adam has pretty good credentials on winning, which is the subject of the podcast. And folks, I don't think you talk about winning too much because it's really not an option in life. Adam, I was thinking about this. The. So for people who will, you know, for people to know. Adam has been with me, is kind of like my number one advisor, but in his own other worlds. He's got a clothing business, he has, that's basically all over the world. But he also has a bodybuilding career and just in the strongman thing one year after. So your strongman. Describe your strongman career to people, Adam, so they'll have a little idea of your successes there.

Yeah, I started in the strongman. I was always fascinated by strength. I love the bodybuilding, but bodybuilding is really, you know, it's an opinion of who looks the best. There's no black and white to it. That's a big kind of controversy in the sport itself. But I switched over to strongman because who, you know, whoever lifts the most weight or does it the fastest, it's pretty cut and dry. So I wanted to, I switch over sometimes to that competition because it's a very clear winner there. So I love the bodybuilding, but it's more like a beauty competition when it comes down to it. It's basically the opinions of the, of a panel of judges where the strong man is very black and white, whoever listed the most or did it the quickest. So in that realm, I have won multiple competitions all over the place, several different states and then North Carolina. I have won three North Carolina strongest man titles in my divisions there. It's the, I won a 2012, 2021 and 2023 strawman competitions. And I'm currently back into the bodybuilding mode after tearing a tricep tendon off the bone last year. So now we're back to bodybuilding.

Well, and the thing is that in terms of knowing about winning and coming back from problems, the deal is in life. The point I want to make on this, Adam, is that winning is not an option. If you're going to be satisfied in life, if you're going to be, you know, have a feel like your life, forget how much money you make, if you're going to feel satisfied inside, you know, you hear people, they've got the poser syndrome and this, that and the other. Well, people have gone out there and worked and earned their success. Don't have the imposter syndrome. You know, they don't have to be told to be authentic. You know, they've gone out there and they made things happen. And winning is not always, you know, finishing number one or getting a championship, sub championship or something like that. Winning is improving. Winning is, you know, if you're going to have a winning lifestyle, that means you're going to be going through things step by step, day by day, with, you know, little goals that you have, things you want to accomplish, and maybe in all kind of, you know, some personal, some business, some this, that and the other, but you're getting them done. You're not a whiner who, you know, you're going to run into obstacles, but you're going to figure out a little way, you know, your entire life is going to be one of figuring out how to keep moving forward, which is winning. You know, you're going to get closer and closer to where you want to go and eventually wind up getting there. If you keep moving there, success becomes inevitable. If you keep stacking the odds in your favor, if you keep getting closer. Adam had shockingly, you know, he's a bodybuilder, he's a big guy, but he had a thing where about was it two or three years ago, he's feeling a little something in his chest and he goes to the hospital. Turns out he got a triple bypass, had to have a sudden triple bypass surgery, but he didn't let that stop him. Talk about that just a little bit, Adam, because it kind of illustrates that was not going to be the end of your life. Bodybuilding, being in shape, you know, having that side, the kind of identity you'd built up for yourself, you weren't going to let physical things stop you, if anything in your power to do that. And so how did you respond to.

That, uh, well, I was lucky and had a very good surgeon at the time. So the Lord brought, brought this guy in. Cause I could have had anybody in the, you know, from anywhere. And this guy had been doing it for 30 years. Very positive, very positive outlook on everything. And he basically told me from the beginning, we're going to get it done. It's a, you know, pretty much a pretty standard procedure for those guys. And after I recover, I should be as strong as I ever was. Wouldn't have to worry about anything and shouldn't have any reason to hold back. And so once I heard that, I didn't have any reason to believe anything other than that. So within, within about 18 weeks of the heart surgery, I was, my strength level was back up to where it was before. And then one year later, after the heart surgery, to the day almost, I won the North Carolina Strongest man for the third time.

Yeah, one year to the day. And that was a part of that was a deadlift of 600 pounds.

Yeah. Which is a far cry from my heaviest deadlift. But for that competition, the 600 won that as far as many other, a bunch of other events. But yeah, I had gone. The day that I had that feeling in my chest, I had gone there to pull 600. Cause I was working back up with that again for reps and I didn't pull it. That's when I knew something was wrong because it was just an easy wait for me usually. So I did not pull the 600 again until that competition. So that was a. There's a lot of breakthroughs there for me mentally and everything else. But to achieve that one year later.

Yeah, and the thing is about winning, folks. You know, you learn this in, I mean, you can learn it in anything, but you learn it on the wave. That's why, you know, team sports are great for kids because, you know, not everybody's going to be the number one in the world. Especially at eight years old, you're playing little league baseball or football or soccer, but you know, you could be on a winning team and you can, you can taste winning at an early age. You know, you can be if you're in the band, I mean they have band competitions, cheerleading competition. You taste win, winning. And in the winning locker room from the eighth grade, you know, eight year old on up, there's an exhilaration, there's a happiness even though you're worn out after the competition. But you go over the loser locker room, not so much, you know, down, tired, dragging. And so folks, you Gotta find a way to win. You can't accept losing. You got to stand up for your darn self. And when I'm saying winning, you don't have to be the number one golfer in the world, but you've got to get better, you got to improve so you can feel good about going out there and so you're not beating yourself to death. I just can't do this, I can't do that. You've got to have a can do attitude in your life. If you're going to, you're going to be live the life you, you want, Adam.

Yeah, well, that's the, that is the argument in bodybuilding that most people don't understand as far as that, because you are trying to win a competition in front of a panel of judges. Judges and their comp and their opinions. However, year after year, competition after competition, the main competitor you're competing against is yourself. So if every time you step on the bodybuilding stage you look better than you did the last time, that's a win. Anything out, anything past that, it's out of your control. So if you've given it a hundred percent, you've gone in there, you've made some changes, you look better than you did last time, that's a win. Now whether what you look like against the other people, what other opinions of the judges are, that's really out of your hands. But what you can control is what you look like last time and what you look like this time. So those are where the wins are. Anytime you make an improvement, it's a win. No matter how small. You just got to keep making those improvements and keep winning and keep, that's the way you build up confidence in yourself and your abilities is to continue making little improvements time after time.

Now if you're going to be a whiner and you're going to be an excuse maker the rest of your life, go ahead and take your vitamins, they ain't going to do you any good. You know, go ahead and take any kind of supplements and this, that and that, they're not going to do you any good. If you let yourself go around like with a hang dog type thing, I mean, you've got to flip a gear in your head that says, I don't, you know, I'm not going to tolerate sorriness and losing them. I'm going to stand up, I'm going to get some done, you know. You know, I mean, you know, this is what we used to say, you know, comparing people like you see in Our company, we got a lot of million dollar earners and in our financial services company, and you say, well, look at what they do. Listen to them on stage and don't let yourself get overwhelmed listening to how incredible they are. Say, I could be 50% that good, I might be 25% that good, and making $250,000 a year be a whole lot better where I am now. And so you start thinking, and then maybe once I make quarter of a million a year, then making a half a million won't seem so tough. So the deal is you've got to give yourself a chance, sell yourself on whatever it is so you can get your butt moving. Because winning in the hobby, that's why I have this podcast and that's why I have a different. I don't always get it to the extent that I want, but the reason behind this podcast is not to get somebody come on and tell you how to technically build an AI program or to build a marketing campaign or, you know, build a business where you're making shoes or cars or whatever. You know, there's plenty of people out there that, you know, building your, you know, supply chain and all these technical things. But the deal is, once you get this information, what's going to be the attitude that drives it? What's going to be the attitude and spirit in your team? Because if it's right, you could take your team, your company, yourself, and you could do anything that you got excited about. But the main thing is if you don't have a team that's excited, working together, enjoying being functioning together and all, you know, can be able to do nothing, there's no market you can find that's going to be that perfect for you. And so anyway, winning in a hobby, that's what we try to do here. When I get people on, I like to find out what was in their mind when they went through the things in life and they caused them to be able to succeed. Where you always have a choice, Things happen to you, you have a choice, you can go this way or that way, you can take this approach or that approach. And it's like, obviously if I'm talking to a high achiever, they.

Like.

My cousin Edward told me a long time ago, he said, you don't have. He said, you just gotta be right 51% of the time. You don't have to be right 80%, 90% or whatever. He said, if you're making more right decisions than wrong decisions, you're probably going to come out all right. And now Adam, when you went through, you know, I've seen you, like, even when you were, you know, in high school doing body building competitions and the horse shows, you know, we did horse shows together. And there's a similar type thing about judging. You know, if you want to do horse shows, the hunter jumpers are where you get judged, you know, kind of like in the gymnastics at the Olympics, you know, and you can have judges that just have got crap for brains and they obviously couldn't pick, you know, the winner if, if they tried, but they're the judge, so they get to, to hand out the ribbons. But we always liked the, the sh. The jumpers because if you did knock the rail down and you had the quickest time, you won, so you didn't have to worry about a judge screwing you out of it. But when you were out there in the bodybuilding world a long time before you did the strongman, you'd run into these judges and everything. And after working weeks, months, years or whatever to get ready for a competition, there were some humiliating times that I saw you go through, and I just wondered how you were going to react because, you know, parent can't control how their children react to things. And you were always, somehow you were always tougher than nails. No matter how humiliating or whatever the thing was, it's just like, okay, all right, keep hitting my hand with a hammer. That's all right. Eventually it'll stop, and eventually I'll take this hand that you're hitting with a hammer and I'll knock your butt out. You know, that type, I mean, you just, you have a never give up attitude. But what was going through your mind? Because you can have, you can operate as a winner or a loser, you really need. That's when you start growing up. I think that's how you become an adult. You start standing on your own two feet. And that's why, you see some kids, they act more like adults than most adults because they take more responsibility for themselves. They got a more, you know, a stronger attitude. But what was in your mind back in those days when you'd go through situations like that?

And then I had some. One time in particular, I had some really bad coaching from a guy, which was one of my most humiliating moments in my life, actually, to step on stage knowing I looked like crap, which was devastating. But what keeps. What, what has always kept me going through things like that is I knew I had a way better package to present than what I showed. So I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna stop Go out like on a low note. I'm gonna come back. I know I have a better package to present. I know I can do better. Even with the, you know, riding the horses and stuff. You do this or if you're in a race or whatever, or whatever you're competing in, you go out there and you give an effort and what something may happen, you know, you might twist an ankle or step on a rock or, or you know, I've seen a lot of these guys in races. They'll show them. They get, they'll run like a 26 mile marathon and they'll get 10ft before the thing and they're like slub and throw their hands up in the air, you know, as they've won and they're 10ft from thing and then two, a guy or two they weren't. Didn't know where they're just shoots past them. They end up not winning because they didn't push all the way through, you know, so you've got to push through all the way. I remember Art Williams who started the company. I'll never forget something he said. He said I always. The finish line is never enough for me. He said, if I, if I have it in my mind, I'm going to jog to that telephone pole up there. He said, I always jog past it 10ft. He said, I don't stop at the telephone pole because the finish line is where, you know, let person there who, whatever you're working on, if you see a finish line, you want to stop right as you get there. Instead of a winner will push through to the next, you know, past the finish line to make sure there's no. To leave no room for error. And the other thing is every real true winner I know, whether it's, you know, whether it's little league football, somebody's playing that or Kobe Bryant or Tiger woods or you or a lot of the guys company A winner never celebrates a win for very long, maybe a day or two. And then as soon as they get that win, they're like looking for the next one because it's, it's to continue to better yourself, you know that. I think even like Kobe, there's an interview with him, they won the championship. So like you don't seem like you're celebrating. He goes, we gotta do it again next year. A real winner is never actually satisfied. Once you find somebody that's really satisfied and happy with themselves about what a great job they've done, they almost immediately start to go on a decline after that.

Yeah. And it's. It's funny because it's like you're either paying attention. Life is trying to teach you that winning, you know, tomorrow you got the same choice you had today, win or lose. And if you enjoyed. If you enjoy winning, you better keep your butt in gear, you know, you better keep your eyes up. You know, it's like, you know, and this goes down through history. You know the story of Gideon's army in the Bible? You know, God calls Gideon to fight, to go up, stand up and fight the enemies of Israel. And, you know, so he doesn't want to do it, and he goes round and round and asks the Lord to give him proof, you know, and that's another story. But finally he gets, okay, I'm going to do it. So he sends out the call throughout the whole land. And they go out there, 30,000 people show up. Okay, we're in, we're in. And then it came down to, you know, he said, well, too many, you know, because I wanted, you know, I want you to fight them, but I wanted to be clear that I'm giving you the victory. So you got too many men. So he said, tell everybody that wants to go home, then. Go home. They only had 3,000 left. Most of them went home. And then so God said, you know, Gideon said, okay, let's go fight. And he said, no, no, no, too many. And so you still gotta thin it down. And so he said, go down and have them drink. Get a drink. Send all 3,000 down to the water to get a drink. And he said, the ones that stick their head down in the water, just slurping it up, he said, send them home. He said, the ones that get down in the water and they scoop it up and they still keep looking around for, like, danger, you know, like, they're looking. They haven't lost their focus. They're still on the alert. He said, keep those. There was 300 of those. And so most people, that's why most people don't keep winning. They don't keep looking down the road. But if you get at a championship level, like a Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan or these kind of people, they know that, how close it was they came to getting beat and how they've got to stay on the alert because they like the feeling of winning. And when would you say. Growing up, you got that sense of winning and accomplishment, you know, that idea of improving and moving up. Cause you started training at a young. You know, you played sports, you did a lot of things. You rode horses, you did Bodybuilding, you know, we went to the gym. So when along the way did you get that sense of what it felt like to win? Not just being in a family where good things were happening, but you individually, you had something of your own and you were making positive things happen.

And they had, these guys had all their stuff, the fancy, the suits, the, the, you know, all the custom jerseys, the helmets, padding, full professional like and I had on a pair of jeans and a hoodie, you know.

But we didn't, we didn't know what.

We didn't know but yeah, we just going to race. But I, I just assumed, I don't know, I just had it in my mind that I beat the crap out of all those kids to the point where I think we did it once or twice and I was bored with it. So I don't think we went back after the second or third time I made that mistake. As a matter of fact, I remember you or mom screaming at me at the time. I was so far ahead of them and this is pedaling your bike. I was so far ahead of them at the, towards the finish line that the last 20ft I just quit pedaling and was coasted in and I guess I'm always catching. They didn't catch up but they got close to almost passed. But I just figured, you know, I just always figured if I'm going to do something, I'm, I never had anything that anybody else is going to beat me, you know. And we played little league football. I had got most valuable offensive player at one point, most valuable defensive player at one point, most valuable player of the game at one point with the horses, I won multiple, you know, I just figured, I don't know, I just always assumed if I was gonna do it, nobody's gonna be better, you know. Now bodybuilding, that, that was a wake up call. There is the, that is accident that didn't necessarily go as planned but because that's a little bit outta your hands and a lot of, there's other factors that come into play but why somebody's gotta be come out the winner here. Why, why wouldn't it be me? I wouldn't assume it'd be anybody else. And I, I'll, I will say this too about, I think is a key factor for winners or anybody that wants to win. If you have a long term goal like we're going to do this, you know, we're going to do a show, we're going to do that or even if it's just somebody who wants to lose Weight or somebody wants to accomplish some kind of goal in their life. If you say to yourself, I want to lose. Let's just talk about weight loss. A lot of people have an issue with that. I want to lose 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds. But in six months, let's just say, well, in their mind, they think to themselves, and you can apply this to anything. There's. They'll think, there's no way I can stick to this diet of what I gotta eat for six months. It's just, it's too much. But can you stick to this diet for one day? For one day? Yeah, I could do it for a day. Okay, then do it for the day. Can you stick to this whatever study schedule. Can you stick to this work schedule for one day without making a mistake? Yeah, I can. I could do that. Okay, we'll do it for a day. Okay, you did it. Can you do it for another day? Yeah. So instead of getting overwhelmed with, I gotta stay on this plan for the next however long to get it done. You just have to. All you could do is take one day at the time and give your best effort. One day at a time. People get overwhelmed with. You're going to have to do this, this, and, and I don't know, I've always thought this is hilarious. People go into a doctor's office and something goes. They're having some kind of issue or they're whatever. And they're like, well, if this. You're going to have to take this.

Pill every day for the rest of your life.

I'm like, and I've. Some people have told that me that I have situations like that. The doctor said I have to take this every day for the rest of my life. I'm like, okay, it's a pill. I'm like, you brush your teeth every day the rest of your life. You wash your hands every day the rest of your life. You eat every day. I mean, it. They make it like this, this big scary thing, but really, like, there's certain things you're going to do every day no matter what, and if you get those winning habits of things you do every day over time, that's going to create who you are. But if you take those bad habits that you know you shouldn't be doing, and you keep those every day, then eventually it's going to be your downfall. But all you can do is take one day at a time and give each day your best. And if you didn't give today your best effort, you don't have to wait till January 1st tomorrow. Give tomorrow your best effort. And so on and so on.

Yeah. And Art Williams even wrote a book on that. All you can do is all you can do, but all you can do is enough. The thing you is, it's like in every situation, life, you can't think about what you can do. You got to think about what you can do. And if you can only do this much of it, do that much of it, at least you get that much of a taste. You know what I'm saying? You know, maybe you can't eat a whole elephant, but you could take a bite of elephant, and you can see, and then maybe after a bite of elephant, you decide, I don't like elephant, you know, so, Adam, this has been great. I'm going to wrap this up because, you know, we kind of covered. We got the issue on the table, and the idea is that's why we talk about winning, you know, because next time, hopefully, if I could remember, we'll get in and we'll talk about why it, you know, you hear all the time not to quit. You know, Well, I didn't quit. Yeah. Not quitting is not good enough, folks. Not quitting is. You got to go from not quitting to winning. And I don't mean winning a championship, but you got to shift the thing in your life to where, like Adam says, you're starting to accomplish today, something. Something that's going to move you a little closer, get you on track, you know, before you can go fast, you got to get on the. On the road. You know, if you're trained, you got to get on the track. And so we've got to get you on the road to greatness, the road to winning if. If you're not on it already. And so that happens with a lot of steps, a lot of organizing. Get this in place, get rid of this, whatever. But it's not good enough. Hopefully, I'll remember to talk about this. It's not good enough not to quit. You got to push it to the step where you start winning, and then once you start winning, you can build momentum. And so, Adam, that's what we'll talk about next time. We're gonna kick it off with that. And so what, you know, like right now, give it. Give everybody. You're in a countdown. Like, you've done this all your life. You know, it's just been a, you know, a side thing. You've done and got friends all over the. The thing is, you can get rewards other than just going to the gym and Pumping arms. You got friends all over the country. It turned into a clothing business. You'. You've had experiences, you know, you've. From this thing, you know, experience you now the number one guy in the wwe, who is Adam, you know, Big Adam. What's his. Yeah, Adam Scher. What's his big name? What's his name? Braun Strowman. You're getting ready to go out there for a few days before because you're countdown to a competition. You get to go out there and train in Venice. And I said, you know, you'll be able to keep your meals and your routine. And you said, yeah, that's like. That's like my home base, the Venice Gym. You've been out there with Charles Glass and all of the guys, you know, training out there. But, you know, from. From the side, things you're interested in, folks, that could turn into radically enrich your life. But it. It doesn't matter if other people are interested. It matters if you're interested in it. You get started on it, and then who knows where this goes, but from that, you got Kevin, who is Q, who's got the number one assault rifle company in the world, right?

Yeah. The unpossible Q. Kevin Britain.

Yeah. And you got invitations all over the world to go hunting when you get time to do this, that the other. But folks, it goes beyond like, oh, I got to do this. I got to go to the gym today, you know, or I've got to do this or what? It's a matter of you do those things that can open up incredible doors all over the place. And it happens to you gradually. This is a fun, fun thing. It happens to you so gradually, you kind of take it for granted. You don't realize, oh, not everybody's got this, you know, I know people, I've been places, I've done things. And it all started with, you know, you're. You're 12, 13 years old, and you want to go to the gym and start lifting weights, you know, we get you a trainer and, you know, and so. And you learn life lessons that you can apply. You learn life lessons that you got to learn somewhere, folks. And maybe you can only learn these things with your hobbies, with your recreational things, or doing things with your kids, but they're out there because to win in all these areas, you've got to learn these lessons, you got to make these adaptations, and life is a slap you right in the face. If you don't pay attention, life is going to rub your face in the mud for as long as you'll put up with it. And so you got you to start learning how to fight for yourself. But Adam, let's wrap this up. No, I want to just give him a taste of what you've been doing for this year since January. And you just follow your instincts. But this year you decide, okay, I don't want to do the strongman. I want to get back into the bodybuilding because my arm is back from tearing the tendon. And so what have you been doing? This, you know, you've been training down this this year, but you're in a thing where. Tell them about your, your schedule.

I get up around 5 or 6 in the morning, walk for about an hour and do my workout and eat and get that over with before I get my day started so I don't interrupt anything else. And then in the evening, after everything's said and done before, you know, I'll walk another hour at night, but. And then change my diet around quite a bit. But, you know, like, one day at the time, it's just, you know, whatever, you know, one day at the time is all you can do. Take it one day. You can't lose, you know, you can't lose 20 pounds of fat tomorrow, you know, but you can take steps daily to get, to get to that point eventually.

And going through that gives you a confidence and a toughness and gets you to where, you know, you say at some point, you know, you've done enough. You say, you know, I deserve for some good things to happen to me. I can't control it, but I know that I put myself in a position where it could happen. And so anyway, thanks so much. You have a. We do this at all of our calls. I'm going to have you give the final word. Adam.

Well, I think that's probably my final word. If whatever you're going for, don't look at the long term, look at what you can do today, as much as you can do today to get to that next goal. Take one day at the time. Don't get overwhelmed and just focus. Like you said, all you can do is all you can do, but all you can do is enough. And only you know, if you did everything you could do today, only you know the answer to that. You know, you can, you can lie about it, you can tell people about it, you can pretend, but when you get home at the end of the day, look in the mirror, you know, if you did everything you could do that day that you're supposed to do to be on track for that goal you're headed for.

And then tomorrow you can do a little bit more and you can start to build momentum. And you know what that is? That's winning, folks. You start to take control of your life. Okay, thanks so much. If you enjoy this, folks, you can come see us over at my website. The links are in. The will be down there. You know the whole drill about liking and clicking and this and that and the other. So I'm not gonna waste your time on that. But we got a community on winning. The big hitter community. Check us out sometime. So, Adam, until next time, we will be talking. Goodbye.

All right, see you. Thanks.