DO THIS For 7 Days To Manifest The FUTURE YOU WANT! | Ed Mylett

How do we bring our dreams closer to us?

The first thing is, that's a great question. The first thing is you need to believe and know that your one decision, one relationship, one meeting, one book, one thought, one something away from a completely different life. And when you know that, people a lot of humility that have no self-confidence, you're kind of dragging them through life as a friend. Someone with all the self-confidence, no humility, they're gonna burn out, they're gonna make a mistake, they're not curious, they don't grow. I think that, I think even the reason I'm in the personal development space, why do I believe so much that people can change? I watched my dad do it. And then in my case, I had to learn these things, man, to be like a baseline functioning person. So my default personality is insecure.

Even today.

Even today. Come on.

Very much.

Really?

Very much. How is that default?

You wake up and you say, I'm a nobody or what?

What's that? I lack this. I'm fooling everybody. Really? If they really knew, you know, pretty some imposter syndrome mixed with just like, Tremendous. I was bullied as a kid. My dad was an alcoholic. I wasn't a real big guy. The only thing I wasn't good in school, the only thing I was good at was sports. A lot like with you, you're a great athlete. So my default is tons of insecurity. So that's probably never gonna go away, the humility part. So the part that I've worked on really hard is the self-confidence part. And so I've got all the stuff in the book on those tips and what have I done to build it? 'Cause I had to get there just.

To get to baseline.

And then I'm like, this stuff works. What if I refined it and made it my own and started to build these other strategies and stuff? So, the confidence part is the thing I'm always going to have to work on.

Even today, even with all the success and the massive show and the big businesses and all the homes and everything that people see.

Yeah.

The truth is, what else do you.

Need though to feel more confident?

I don't need other things. It's an internal game. I don't need other stuff. In other words, the stuff is really fleeting and temporary. So, I don't need another, I bought an island lately, you know that, right? When I bought this island, it didn't make me more confident. It just was something that I've always wanted to be able to do.

But.

It'S not stuff. What needs to happen for me is that I'm most confident when I'm living in my intention, which is to serve, which is to help other people. When I'm not doing that, Wayne Dyer.

When I met him really, really young.

Told me, you,'re gonna change the world, Ed Mylett. And I'm sure he said this to a lot of people, but he complimented me. I met him on a beach. We watched the sun come up together in Maui. Yeah, I was running on the beach. That's where he lived.

Yeah, I was running on the beach.

And we ran together. What was he like? I never met him. Incredible. So we became a dear friend of mine, but I'm running, you know, you get up before the sun comes up. I'm running on this, I'd won this incentive trip and there's this bald dude running towards me with this hairy back. I'll never forget this sweaty hairy back. And it was so long ago because I had a Sony Walkman on.

Wow.

And he had one and he ran by me. I go, that was Wayne Dyer. And I said, Dr. Dyer, you changed my life. And he had this deep voice like mine and he pulls it and he goes, well, I doubt that. And he goes, I bet you changed your life. But he goes, how did I help you? And then he walked towards me and we lit, I get emotional. Like God's been so good to me. We sat on this beach together and watched the sun come up for about an hour and a half. And about an hour into it, he goes, you,'re going to change the world. And I'm sure he said this to a lot of people and he's like, and it's, you're very talented. You're brilliant. You're good. communicator, you know? And he goes, and that's not the reason why. And he was writing a book at that time called the Power of Intention.

That's a great book.

Great book. Incredible book. And he goes, you really intend to help people? And he goes, all these things with your father and your upbringing and all that Ed, he goes, that's all made you. And he goes, you have such a heart to want to help people. And he goes, would you do me a favor if we never meet again? And we ended up meeting many times. I said, yeah. He said, never link your confidence to your ability. 'Cause I know you struggle with your confidence. If it's predicated on your abilities or your achievements, you're always gonna be chasing it. He goes, But if you'd link your confidence to your intentions, man, do you have beautiful intentions. And that is something I knew about me. I know I have a good heart and I've never forgotten that. So when I do a podcast or a speech, I just connect to my intent, you know? And it's been the one thing that's brought me confidence. 'Cause if you said, Hey, Ed, you gotta be confident 'cause you're great or you've got a house or you have a plane, I go, yeah, but, yeah, but. But if you go, you got to be confident, 'cause you have beautiful intentions to help you, but I go, I.

Might have to list you.

You might be right.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's where my confidence comes from.

So, as an athlete, I gained confidence from results, from actually getting the result of becoming better.

That's the one way to get it.

I was not good, and then I put in the effort, and all the mistakes or the failures or the feedback, what I like to call it, gave me the lessons and taught me how to get better to accomplish the result that I was looking for. Achieve the goal, win the game, or just improve my abilities. So I'm hearing you say, also link confidence to intention. Some people say link it to the effort, right? Like the effort that you show up, that you just keep showing up, and others talk about the results. Should we be thinking about it?

There's two, I have a whole, I call it the Holy Trilogy in the book of Self-Confidence.

What is this?

But the Confidence Trilogy is faith, have confidence. So if you're a person of faith, no matter what you believe in, it's amazing to me how people that believe in energy, quantum energy, or they believe in, they're a Christian like me, and I believe in both, by the way. Yeah, but whatever their faith is that they have it on Sunday, they have it in Bible study, or they have it when they get together with their friends or when they meditate. But somehow when they walk into a business meeting, they're alone. So why are you alone then, but you're not alone these other times? So I'm never alone. So that's number one. Number two is my intention. And third is my associations, change my confidence. But here's the biggie. If you don't have self-confidence, here's what you have. You have a really bad reputation with yourself.

Yes.

You have built a habit of not keeping the promises you make to yourself. We've all heard this before, but there's a level. I have a book chapter in the book called One More Standard. Here's how I built what I would call almost superhuman confidence in spite of my insecurity. Think about that. Superhuman confidence in spite of my insecurity. And that's exactly what you just said. It's an effort play. If you don't have self-confidence, you've never kept the promises you make to yourself. Check that box. If you have self-confidence, you've started to keep the promises you make to yourself. If you want to have superhuman self-confidence, you keep the promises you make to yourself and one more. So if I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna work out, I'm gonna do 10 reps in the gym, I do one more. If I'm gonna do 45 minutes on the treadmill, I do one more. If I wanna make 10 contacts in a day, I do that and one more. If I'm gonna tell my daughter I love her every day, I'm gonna do that. and one more. And so that higher standard, because in life, we don't get our goals, we get our standards long term. And so if your standard is one more, what starts to happen is you go, I'm willing to do things other people aren't willing to do. And I combine that, that I have great faith, great associations, and I intend to help people. This is a formula to build wonderful self-confidence and never lack humility when you have it.

So when did you learn this one more mindset? Was this from your dad early on or was this?

It's from my dad. So we talked about this, you know, a little bit earlier, but my dad had these just a couple theories he would always say to me. And so one was when he got sober, he gave it one more try. He was going to stay sober one day at a time. And then my dad, there's no dreaming in my house. There's no like, my jet, you know, I've been blessing like multiple airplanes, right, in my life. My jet was in almost walking distance of my dad's house. He's never been on any of them. Wow. And I would say to my dad, I would say, hey, let's go play golf in Maui. Let's go, there's these great golf courses in the ocean. And my dad would say, well, why would I go all the way to Maui to play golf with my favorite person, my son, when we can play Arancino. It's not about there I want to be with my son. So this, my family had none of that stuff. But my dad knew I was a dreamer and my dad would always say, you, know, I was one decision away from changing my life the whole time. One choice. And he'd say, Eddie, you're not as far away from these dreams as you think you are. And I'd say, Really, Dad? And he'd go, no, you're actually a lot closer than you think. But because you think it's so far away, you behave in accordance with that belief system and it always keeps it that far away from you.

How do we bring our dreams closer to us?

The first thing is, that's a great question, the first thing is you need to believe and know that you're one decision, one relationship, one meeting, one book, one thought, one something away from a completely different life. And when you know that, then you begin to look for them. And so in the second chapter of the book, I have a thing in the book called the Matrix. And your Matrix is your reticular activating system in your brain. It's the filter for your entire life. Okay? And this filter reveals to you the world that's in front of you. Again, an example of it is, I just, I like what Musk is doing. So I just bought a Tesla.

I drove it here today. You got a Tesla, too, though?

You did a Model X or what do you got? I got a Plaid. Okay, wow. Plaid.

It's a good one. Nice.

And so, I bought this Plaid and all of a sudden, man, everywhere I go, there's Teslas. They're everywhere. Oh, they're everywhere. I'm like, whoa, I see them everywhere. Another one. Three lanes over, other side of the road. Freaking Tesla, this is crazy. They were always there. Why didn't I see them before? Because they weren't part of my RAS. So the key thing I teach you in the book, how to slow down time and create the matrix of your life. When you make the Teslas of your life, those relationships, those meetings, those thoughts, those encounters, you can very easily do this, but there's a process of repeated visualization you do that's not complicated. It's chapter two of the book and it will shift you. The other component to, I have a chapter in the book called Become an Impossibility Thinker and a Possibility Achiever. Here's how most people's frameworks. They don't have an RAS program. They're not intentional. So they keep getting if the things most important to you are your worries, fears, anxieties, problems, bills, you will continue to have people, places, and things revealed to you that confirm it. And if you operate out of your memory and your history, if this is your pattern, your framework, you will continue to find those things. You need to learn to operate out of your imagination and your dreams. This is a different framework for life. Imagination is different than dreaming. Imagination causes you to create dreams and thoughts that never happened. When you imagine something, you create a space. Once you have a thought, this is powerful, when you have a thought, you create a space that did not exist in the world before you had that thought. And that space now exists. And the way your brain works and your life works and the universe works is it tries to furnish that space, whether it's a negative or a positive thought. It starts to hear things it wouldn't hear. That's why like when you're in a crowded room, and they say, Lewis, you can hear Lewis auditorially over all the noise. Why? It's in your RAS. It's why you see the Tesla, okay?

So the key thing is being able.

To operate out of this imagination. Why is imagination so important? When you were a child, three, four, five years old, you were probably happier than you are right now. Why? Two reasons. A, you were closer to God. You had just been with God more recently. And two, you operated out of your imagination. You didn't operate out of a history and a memory 'cause you didn't have one. and slowly over time, by the time you were 10, 11, 12 years old, loving people installed their limiting thoughts and beliefs, their software into you. Because most things in life are caught, not taught. You catch them. And so now you're starting to operate out of history and memory, and you repeat it, and your RAS begins to see the things that reinforce that history and memory. And so you basically have the same life over and over again with a different cast of characters, in a different environment, but the same emotions. You have the same emotional home. My dad used to say to me, every call bro, till the day he died and I'm 50 years old, blah, blah, blah, whatever we're talking about, last thing he would always say to me, be careful, be careful. What the heck? And I go, careful with what? I don't know. I never knew. But what is that programming from the time you're eight years old? Be careful, hey, go to school, be careful. So with that, it operated on this fear thing, right? Oh, I need to be careful, I need to be careful, but don't make this risk, don't take that business, don't start a podcast, don't get on that stage and speak, Don't do this, don't do that. You say that to an already unconfident, insecure person, he meant it lovingly, by the time I'm 50, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, be careful. He didn't even know he was saying it to me, but what was he doing? He was installing, God bless him, his limiting beliefs into me as a little boy. So a lot of these things that you believe, you were defenseless when you started to believe them. They were installed in you by loving people who were around you. And even though your life may look differently, your emotional home, the four, five, six emotions you experience pretty regularly, might be really familiar from your parents, one.

Or two of them, right?

And so, you need to look at your emotional home.

What's your most powerful emotion and the emotion that you wish you could let go of?

Love is the most powerful emotion in the world. We will all do everything for love. If there were more love in the world, the way we treat one another, the way we express our thoughts, you know, you'll do anything for love, right? So, love is by far my most powerful emotion. It's like, like, I love you. Then, like, when I just saw you, we didn't just like people. We didn't just hug for, like, one second. Yeah.

And you do this better than I do. I hold people. I make it uncomfortable because I just.

Want to hug and love on people. But it's not uncomfortable, bro.

Right.

Because the reason you're so successful is you truly do love people. Yeah. And you come from that place. And I know we're bigger dudes and, like. Like, that's a beautiful expression of a man. A real man is capable of real love. That's the sign of real strength. so that's the most powerful one. And then for me, I know the emotion that I wish I didn't have, it's chaos. Really?

How often do you experience chaos?

Less because I'm aware of it, but I'm going to tell you all the time till about five years ago, even when we first met, why I used to even say this, man, I operate great under chaos. Man, you should see me operate under chaos. Most people can't handle chaos. I'm calm under pressure. Well, the reason for that was I grew up in an alcoholic home. So I'm very familiar with chaos. It became a very familiar emotion. And what we do is we gravitate towards the familiar emotions in our life, even if they're not ones that serve us. And I don't think there's negative or positive emotions. I say this in the book. There just are. Yes. Fear isn't negative. Fear and abundance is negative, but some fear, being afraid to do this podcast, to some extent, causes us to prepare.

So a dose of it, it was.

Given to us in the caveman days, so T. Rex didn't need us, right? So some fear is good. Some anxiety is okay. Some frustration, some anger is appropriate. It's to the dosage level. And we get these four or five of them. For me, some chaos is okay, it's fun, it's exciting, it's exhilarating, right? But getting it every day, every week.

Every month, all the time.

And so how do you get rid of it? Well, one way you get rid of it is just to be awareness. When you have an awareness of a thought, it loses its impact and power over you. It almost becomes like this, I'll do it, I'm like, I'm doing it again, aren't I? I'm doing the chaos thing. Everything's great right now. Yeah, yeah. All the houses are paid off, my kids are happy, married to a great woman. Got great friends. I'm doing the chaos thing again, aren't I? You dummy, you're doing it again. And it kind of loses its power over you. So I have a chapter in the book called One More Emotion and how to take an inventory of the emotions you have. And so, yeah, man, mine's definitely love. And the one I don't want is chaos.

Because chaos causes me to act out.

Of anger and frustration. It can depress me. And your intentions are not going to be as, I guess, pure. It's a gateway emotion. Chaos is my gateway emotion to the ones I don't want.

Chaos gives me stress. Chaos gives me anger. Chaos gives me frustration.

Chaos gives me fear. So, it's a gateway.

What is the result when you create from that space of chaos?

It's funny.

I have found the ability to externally create something pretty productive. But stay with me on this. But the process in getting there is destructive. The process in getting there is not beautiful. And I used to think in a lot of successful... -You're forcing your way.

To get the results.

-Almost through force. And I still do it sometimes. I'm thinking of a situation this week where I did it. And I used to think, well, that's a superpower though, because I've created all these external-- Look what I made, man. Look what I did. And I'm doing it because of that. The truth is I did it in spite of it.

You did.

And there's a lot of things in our lives that we have linked to our formula, our recipe of success that we hold on to that you've done.

In spite of those things, not because of those things. Like anything in life, things happen for you, not to you. That injury happened for me. It certainly didn't seem like it at the time. But it got me out of that and into something like what we're talking about now that completely changed my life. So yeah, but yeah, I want to be an athlete for sure.

All my life.

All your life.

That was my mask. And then when it exactly. And then when it ended, your identity.

Was like, who am I, right? Yes. Lost.

Yeah. Like a lot.

You and I were just talking before we went on.

Yeah.

We know our professional athlete friends were their career changes. I went into a, like anybody, like whatever your dream is, when the first one ends, it doesn't happen, whether that be a relationship, it could be your marriage. It ends. It was a dream, right? Or a business venture or sport. I went into a pretty good depression. And how old were you at the time? 21, 22. And I ended up, you know, it's because people always see the after, like the house or whatever houses or whatever the material things are. But I ended up bad, man. I ended up depressed. I ended up moving back at home with my parents. I was living in the same. I remember I was living in this, sleeping in the same bed I grew up in with the same teddy bear, the same posters on the walls. Going back in time, like six years, I'm back where I was, totally unemployed and couldn't find work, didn't have the motivation to get up and find a job, just sort of eating out of their fridge and laying around all day. So that's where I was many, many years ago after baseball.

And did you finish college as well? I did.

Finished college.

Got my degree.

And then we're back home for a bit. Where was home? Home is Southern Cal, Diamond Bar, California is where I grew up.

Where is that?

Border of LA and Orange County. Okay. Kind of middle America. About an hour away or what?

Yeah, probably if there's no traffic, we could get there in an hour today.

Right now it'll take us three hours.

Chino Hills area?

Right there.

Yeah.

In fact, right next to Chino Hills.

Corona, Chino Hills.

Yeah.

How do you, yeah.

That's my girlfriend's from. That's why I know that. She is? Yeah. I lived in Chino Hills for about eight years.

Wow. Yeah. After I became relatively okay in business. Wow.

Yeah.

Amazing. I know that area. That's cool. So you stayed at home for a while and then did you instantly get into the financial services or think I'm.

Gonna be, you know, selling life insurance and these type of services or what was your, what was your vision? Last thing I ever wanted to do was be in the financial service. I have no background on that, no degree in that. No, I didn't have any interest in it. and I knew nothing about it. So, no, another blessing happened. Another thing like God's favor, right? So, I'll give you the reader's digest version because it's everything. When you realize things in your life happen for you truly, especially in hindsight, everybody knows it in hindsight, right? If you look back at any disaster, tragedy, most people look back five, 10 years later, they go, that happened for me. That was actually a good thing. And so, I was unemployed. I couldn't find a job. and my old man, my dad, was the best dad role model you could ever have in your life. Hard working man, good man, better man than me, has more integrity than me. He's the best man I've ever known. But when I was growing up, my dad had a drinking problem. And so my dad had gotten sober recently and he was going to these meetings and he comes home from one of his meetings and says, there's a guy at my meeting who can get you a job. And it's right down the street in San Dimas. you're going to be working with kids. Doesn't pay anything at six bucks an hour, but you're going to get this damn job. So show up there tomorrow morning, 8 a.m. Ask for Tim. So I walked, I drive down there. It's a place called McKinley Home for Boys. Little did I know that would alter my entire life. That was the most significant thing that happened to me. And so I walk in there. I said, I'm Ed Mylett. I'm here for the job. They're like, what job? I'm like, I don't know. Just my dad told me to show up here. Yeah. I need to ask for Tim. They're like, we have no idea who the hell Tim is. What's his last name? I said, I don't know his last name. And they're like, so you showed up for a job that you don't know what it is and you don't know who it is that's hiring you. I'm like, here's what I know. He's an alcoholic. I'm like, oh, Tim. Yeah, we know that, Tim. And so they bring me to the guy and he says, you,'re hired. Let's go. Like literally shakes my hand and you're hired. And he introduces me to these eight boys that were my boys. They were seven, eight and nine years old. and basically I lived with these boys, these precious boys, and we ended up adding a few more. My boys were all wards of the court. They were all molested by family or parents were in prison. And so they had no family. And so my whole life changed. All of a sudden these became, I'm this 22 year old guy, these guys become my sons. Wow. And I did holidays with them. I did birthdays with them.

I lived with them.

Literally in a home or like a boarding dorm. McKinley is a massive campus full of children that have been displaced from their homes that live in individual like cottages.

Like a foster care facility.

Massive though.

Really?

Yep. All boys. It's in Sandimas here and it just altered my life man because I'd been an athlete, had a huge ego, had that mask. I wanted to compete, I wanted to win, I wanted attention, I wanted recognition. First time literally in my life I went, wow, I love helping people. I love making a difference and my boys were just come from horrendous situations. And so just, I always say this all the time. And I have those eyes, too. You have them. I think sometimes kids who grow up with some dysfunction, they just have different eyes.

Yeah.

They just have these eyes that are, these boys all were different, but they had that same eyes. They're just like, man, love me, believe in me, you know, care about me. And I had those eyes because I grew up in an alcoholic family, and my whole life changed. I just went, wow, I love I actually love helping people and being involved in people's lives. I didn't know that because everything was, you're great, you're great. You know what it is when you're an athlete, right? Everything's about you. You're amazing. Free dinners, free this, you're a stud. All of a sudden, I wasn't a stud. And all of a sudden, it wasn't about me, it was about these 10 boys that ended up being 10 of them. And it just altered my life, man. And so after that, I ran into the financial business that I ended up in, but I would have completely flunked out of that financial business had I.

Not been with my boys for those years. I was there for two years.

Two years. Yeah, man.

Eight hours a day type of thing.

Or sometimes more, sometimes 16, 18. I think about, I'm not kidding you, I think about my boys and my experience there. Two of them are still very close with me every day. There's a moment where I reflect on that. It altered me completely. Like what I wanted to do. I always wanted to be famous and rich and successful and now I just wanted to serve.

I wanted to help.

Little did I find out I could get rich and famous and all that other stuff I thought I wanted through serving. people, right? And so, just altered me, man, big time. Wow. Yeah.

That's a powerful story.

Thank you.

How are those kids doing now?

Have they... One of my boys is gone. He was killed. One of my boys. And, the rest of them are all, you know, stand up members of society. Two of my boys, I would say, have become very, very successful men. My boys were all... I saw all the stuff that comes in that environment too, like the over medication. I'd be handing them these pills and I'd watch them normal and then them change their states change them get slow and sluggish and it was it's it's a it's a it's a it makes you appreciate the things in your own life that you have. Oh, someone always has it worse and you just know that here's what I found out ironically those kids aren't different than other people in the sense that every single human being want you to love them and care about them and believe in them. Even the most macho dudes in the world, the way you connect is that you just love that person and care about them and believe in them. The most famous pro athlete buddies of both of ours. The reason we're people, how do you know these guys? How are you friends with them? Because I don't worship them. I love them and care about them and believe in them. And even they want that. They're no different than my nine-year-old boy at McKinley. I figured out all humans want to connect. All humans want love and connection. All humans want you to care about them and believe in them and help them. And I've just not forgotten it. Like all of a sudden, I went, it's not just these boys. I could do this with my business partners, with my clients, with people that I meet, with guys like you when I meet them. And so I'm always just conscious of even a stud like you, all the attention you get, the fame, all that. You still want people to love you, to believe in you, to care about you, to help you.

Right.

First thing you said to me, how can I help you, man? What can I do for you? What can I give? How can I serve you? It's just a rare soul, right? And so you, I gave you a bottle of champagne. By the way, what's really good that you don't drink, because you have no idea how damn expensive that bottle is. It's a really good bottle. So anyway.

That's cool, man. I really like that. And so how did the transition from working with these kids to financial services come about? Did someone scout you and recruit you.

Or, Basic, I was working there. Well, my best friend ended up being best man at my wedding. His dad had left his job to go to work for the company at the time and said, Hey, I think your background in athletics, you're competitive, you know, you seem to, you know, like people. I think you'd be good at this. And so I kept my job at McKinley and part time I started in the financial services industry and started to build a team of people and started to get my licenses and that transition. And I struggled like every upstart entrepreneur does.

It takes like three to five years until you really get a few clients.

You know, in any business. I don't care if it's financial services, tech, dry cleaners, entrepreneurs, the first five years is just full of false starts. You get it going, then you don't. You get it going, you take a step forward, you take three back. It's constant false starts. It's constantly thinking you have it going. It's constantly negotiating in your mind the price you're paying. Is it worth it? Should I quit? Should I give in? I'm constantly, I spent the first five years daily contemplating quitting all the time. It wasn't fun. And there's just a part of you, I think, in anything you're doing when you're struggling, is this really for me? Is this my destiny? Should I be doing this? And we misread failure from some sign.

You know, is this a sign I.

Shouldn'T be doing it? You know, is this a sign I am, you know, not cut out for this? Instead of looking for signs that you can win, right? And so I spent the first five years literally trying to find ways to quit, trying to find ways to get out struggling and struggling and struggling and I went broke. I lost a car. I had the water turned off in my place. I, you know, I bought my first house. I ended up having it foreclosed on eventually. So I'm not that house with the unicorns that you saw, right? Or my beach place. Like, that's all the after. People don't realize that there were just years and years of, of grinding and struggling and worrying in the beginning. And then, then I made some mental changes and some shifts that altered my life then again.

I've always tried to disqualify myself. I've always, you're not this.

Why is that?

It always shocks people, even people that know me really well. They're like, not you, I have that.

But there's no way you have it, right?

Yeah, you're too confident, too talented, too...

I don't know that I'm too talented, but I think I can fake it pretty well. And I disqualify myself because, you know, the truth is that maybe for a while, everything that I got that was love when I was a child only came when I achieved something. So I started to conflate early on in my life, recognition and significance with love. In other words, my dad would love me if I hit the home run. My dad would love me if I get straight A's. And so then when I would feel these things, but something really amazing, and also like, I'm really big at holding myself. I love to beat myself up with mistakes I've made. I did this, I did that. I should have done this. I didn't do that. and I've always thought these mistakes, these weaknesses of mine disqualify me from being happy or helping people. And this amazing breakthrough. The one decision that changed my family forever is my dad's decision to get sober. And it changed my family forever. I'm talking to you because my dad made that decision. And I've always been so proud of my dad for that. But this is just two weeks ago, 3 15 in the morning, I wake up. I'm crying. And I wake Christiana up. I go, Babe, someone helped a dad. And she went, what honey? I said, Someone helped a dad? She goes, what do you mean? I said, Babe, I never thought about this. And my dad's darkest, worst moment of his life. In some coffee shop or some room somewhere, some precious soul helped my dad.

Reached out to him, talked to him.

Talked to him and got him sober.

Wow.

And I said, Babe, that's not the powerful part. And I have no idea who this person is, but I wonder if they know the difference they made in Max and Bella's my children's lives or your life or the millions of people I've helped. That one decision they made. And she goes, oh my gosh. I said, I never thought about this beautiful human being. Always gave the credit to my dad. But some stranger helped him. And I said, Babe, this is the bananas part. Do you know what qualified them to help my dad? Their messed up life. They were an alcoholic. They were a drug addict. Little did that person know the things they were the most ashamed of, the biggest mistakes of their lives when they were using drugs and drinking and stealing it. That was qualifying them to change my dad's life. And all of us, we run around carrying these bags of, I'm not qualified because I made this mistake. I had this bankruptcy. This relationship didn't work.

I did this thing you don't know about.

I'm so ashamed of. And that's why you're qualified. That's the thing that qualifies. the human this in you. You are the only human being with your combination of gifts that you were given, whatever they are. And your experience. And real human beings help real human beings by being vulnerable and transparent saying, I know where you are. I've messed up worse. I've made greater mistakes. I felt more. I know that depression. I know that anxiety. I know that shame. I know what that feels like. That beautiful soul who was a drug addict and alcoholic, they didn't know all those mistakes they were making were leading them out of their heart and they finally got to a point where their intention was to help my father. In the lowest moment of his life, they changed my dad's life and their changed mine and maybe me and you are changing a few today because of that person's mess.

-It'S crazy.

-Is that crazy?

-That'S amazing.

-I know.

I know.

Love them and thank them.

That's amazing, man. Where's the biggest wound in the last few years that you've had to realize still wasn't fully healed for you? That if it was on a deeper mending process, you'd be able to go to the next level. Is there something that has come up that you've realized or paid attention to that you're like, I thought I healed that fully, but it's still kind of there and maybe it's holding me back from more love, more peace, more service.

More I'm great at giving love to people. I've never very rarely ever allowed myself to receive it. -Really? -Yeah.

Even with your family or with friends or... -Yeah.

I love them. But me allowing myself just to go, they love me. I've never said that out loud till right now.

-Wow.

-Once I'm really worth it, then I'll get around to having it. I'll get it but I don't have it yet.

-What would it take for you to be really worth it?

Well, that's the thing is like there's that that line keeps moving. Yeah, and so that line keeps moving.

I'm worth a million, okay, but not till 10 million, till 100 million.

The line moves and where it's been healing for me lately is like I'm worthy of it now. I've always been worthy of it. And the truth is the right type of love has no conditions on it. Like my children, I love them unconditionally. There's literally nothing either one of them could do to make me love them less or more. And I tell them that all the time. You get this or that, I can't love you more and I can't love you less. My daughter could, worst case scenario, I mean never, she could literally end someone else's life and I'd be like, all right, where is it? Let's bury the body. You know, like, I mean, like, that's, it's just, you love your children unconditionally. And then I realize something in my faith, God loves me even more. He's always loved me even more. He's made me in his image and likeness. And for all of you that are listening to this, you were born to do something great with your life, but that's not the condition to receive love. All this achievement, you and I are both about a max out, you're about greatness. The highest form of maxing out in greatness is to give and receive love.

Yeah, but you didn't receive it that well.

No, and I think lately I'm like, I feel you, thank you. I accept that. When someone compliments me, I always go, yeah, but you know, you're, And lately I go, I'll take that, thank you. I'll take that, thank you. And at first it even felt a little insincere, disingenuous. But I've had many more moments since my dad died, candidly. Since my dad died, I'm like, I robbed myself of that. And I'll tell you what happened. Right before my dad died, we had a conversation and my dad said to me, I'm so proud of you.

Wow.

And I love you so much. And he goes, I said, Dad, he goes, no, I want you to listen to me. And he said this to me. He goes, I can't believe God gave you to me as my son.

-Wow. -Holy cow.

I felt loved and I went, he's felt that way all of his life. Why did I wait till his last breaths to receive it? And I'm not going to do that again in my other relationships. I'm not going to wait till they're gone. My dad's impact, you and I were both talking about our dads. My dad's impact is far greater on me now than it was when he was gone. And you you don't need to wait for that. You need to wait around for that in your life. You can receive it now and I allow myself to receive it much more often now.

There's probably nothing that you regret that you would change differently in your past about situations because it's made you who you are. Let's just say you were going back to before you got married.

Yep.

Is there anything that you would do differently with yourself in the relationship or as you were starting to have kids about emotions, connection, intimacy, receiving, giving love? Is there anything you'd change?

Tons.

The biggest one is my lack of presence.

-Really?

-I was always in the future, which is a good place to be.

I'm not a guy who's in the past a lot. -'Cause then you're innovating, you're resourceful, you're.

Creating something from nothing. -That's powerful. -Yeah, I'm not a past guy. But I'm a future guy. But the truth is the best people are able to be in the present and still operate, be in the future but be present in the present time. And I don't, I didn't do that very well. There's a lot of times, man, when my kids would do things Now, Christine goes, Do you remember when Bella? And I'll go, I don't remember. She goes, But you were actually there. But I wasn't. So, would I change that? Yes. I should have given myself the gift of being more present where I was. And I do that very well now. I'm very much a present person.

You turn your phone off after you get home and you put in your car or whatever you do. You spend 10 minutes closing things out and then you go in the house and you connect.

Yeah. I do. Yeah. I have strategies for it because I know me. And then anger.

You were angrier then?

Way more. I'm an intense dude. In fact, people who see me now on social that knew me back then would be like, wow, man, you've really changed. I just thought that my intensity and even what moved into anger was strength because I saw it in my dad.

Because he got results. Certain results.

And I think I modeled it a little bit. My dad was a yeller before he was sober and even a little bit after, truth be told. And my dad would operate, my dad could go to anger pretty quickly.

Yeah.

And I used to think that's what a man did. I've watched my dad in many physical fights, many angel games. I watched my dad side of the freeway.

I watched it.

We came out of church one Sunday, St. Dennis Catholic Church and Diamond Bar. Some guy said something my dad didn't like in the donut line. Oh. And we got in the car and my dad calls the guy over to the car and he says, Hey, what did you say? Bam! And head butts the guy at church in the parking lot in front of all the other parishioners, right? So I think I modeled a little bit, I didn't do anything like that, but I modeled, hey, anger, men, men can do that thing, you know, don't disrespect me, you know, that whole thing. And so I had a lot of that when I was young, like, don't, you know, I'm going to assert my authority. And as I got older, it's almost become funny to me. And what the change for me was having kids. I'm like, if someone ever spoke to my daughter or my son the way that I have talked to some of these people that have been around me, and for someone like you that knows me now, they'll be like, Just no way, man. No, man, I really did. I really said things I regret. I really did things that were out of anger too often. And I don't like that guy. He hasn't been around for a while, but every once in a while he'll rear his head. A little bit. He can be there once in a while.

What makes you angry today?

Anytime I see someone operating out of anger, I think they're afraid. And so for me, it's when do I get angry? I got angry today. Today is a, I said recently I had one of those episodes. So my show got posted today. And someone on my team posted it incorrectly and it wasn't on YouTube.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. And so my default when that happened was anger.

Who did this?

What happened? You know the feeling, right? Of course. But what was I really?

I was afraid.

I was afraid the show wouldn't do well. I was afraid it would be embarrassing. I was afraid the guest was going to be upset with me. So when I operate out of anger, it's always fear. I'm always afraid. But what about back in the day when you were hard on people? I was afraid I was going to be broke. I was afraid we were going to lose the business. I was afraid this situation was going to happen. I was afraid someone was going to shame me, so I'm going to get in front of it and be angry with them. So, for me, anger is just a manifestation of fear. And when I see it in other people, men or women, I have empathy for them because I know they're afraid. And I really do believe that. I think anger is always a result.

Of some type of fear. The identity we have and how sometimes when we start to see some momentum, we'll sabotage it to go back to the identity we think we're in. we see growth, we see an opportunity. Wow, I can't believe this person wants to interview me or I could get to on this show. Or I remember going on Ellen the first time and being like, who am I to be on this show? And was terrified.

I'm sure.

And it took a minute to kind of get in the flow and be like, you know what? Don't sabotage this. Just enjoy it.

Right.

Just like, do the best. And that's all I can ask for.

That's so true.

And you get better every time you get into those situations. But I think a lot of us sabotage and just stay stuck in the same spot.

Well, the hard part about that, too, is that So right. So there's this governor on our lives. And it is a governor and it's a it's your identity. It's this internal, it's what you think you're worth. It's what you think you deserve. And the problem for good people see, we all know someone right now in our life or we have who's not ethical, who's not a good person who's winning. And you're like, I can't believe they're getting it right. Why can't I? I'm a good person. I treat people well. I'm honest. Here's the reason why, by the way, the unethical person eventually karma You reap what you sow, comes home to roost. But if you're a good person, this is so important people understand this, because it took me a long time. A good person in any endeavor will only take from it what they think they deserve, what they think they're worth. In other words, if there was a pizza here, you're a good person, you don't take all 12 pieces. A good person thinks there should be an equitable distribution.

I'm a little bigger, so I might.

Take seven or eight, you know, and.

I would arm wrestle you for it.

Then you would beat me. I don't know about that. You're a moose. But long story short, what is is that a good person will not take more from the table of life than they think they're worth or they think they deserve. And so you have this governor on your identity. So what happens is it's like a thermostat. Our lives get going. We start doing really well. If we're a 75 degree and our life gets to 85 and 90 degrees, unconsciously we go, we don't know we're doing it. We start to cool life back down to get it back to where we're comfortable the reverse is also true. When things start to go really bad and you're broke and you're struggling, you find a way to heat your life back up to what you think you're worth and you deserve. So the way we alter our life is sure we got to alter our behavior and our relationships and our circumstances, but the only way it's permanent is that we alter that governor, that thermostat, and we start to believe we're worth 85 degrees of life, 95 degrees of life, 110 degrees of life. And there's ways we can alter that. How do we alter it? A couple different ways. A One is what you just said, is that you put yourself in circumstances that are demanding of you past what you think your capacity is. And when you succeed at them, you build a new water line. You do. You throw yourself out there past where you're comfortable and you do an 85 degrees behavior and you knock it out of the park and you go, your brain starts to believe it repetitiously when you start doing that, you build a new line. Now you're 85 degrees. That's number one. The second way, though, is association. if you're around people and whatever that endeavor is, if it's a sport you're in or if it's a business or your faith or your peace, if you begin to associate with people who live in that space at a higher temperature than you, through Association, you get heated up.

Yeah.

And so if you're an athlete, for example, you're a 70 degree athlete, and you start training all the time with 85 and 90 degrees, your identity through osmosis goes up. If you're a person who's trying to improve their faith, in their life or their personal peace about them. You all know this. You've seen it when you start to hang around people that are a little bit more peaceful than you or meditate a little bit more through that association, over time, the thermostat changes in that area. And so it's both behaving in a certain way and then your associations usually change.

I believe that. I trained with the USA national handball team for many years and there were great players on our team, on the USA team, but a lot of them weren't at a world-class level. and so I was playing with good players, but they couldn't teach me new things, right?

Yeah.

So I decided I was going to go to Spain for about a week and a half to play with one of the top professional teams in Spain, because I just wanted to see if I could play with them and what it was like to train at that level. And, man, it was just the level of intensity was so high with these guys. The training, the lifting, the on-court experience. It was so much faster. It felt 10 times faster. And it got me, you know, first two days I was like, what am I doing? And just messing up, dropping the ball, you know, messing up constantly. But then towards the end, I was like, Man, I could play on this team.

Yeah.

Like I can be on this team and they offer me a contract to play the whole season. Really? Now I was just doing so much of my business that I couldn't stay for the next four months in Spain. So I came back, it's about four years ago, four and a half years ago. It was that recent? Yeah, about four years ago. Wow. Because I want to be able to play professionally in Spain. and I just had too much going on here that I, that I brought it back. But right when I came back, it wasn't in the right move, though. Yeah, it was the right move. And right when I came back and I was playing with the team again, I just felt like another level. Like, I felt another level of confidence, proficiency, Effectiveness. I just felt like I was at another level.

Well, you combined both. You did both of the things, right?

Surround yourself with people.

You surrounded yourself. And so you're at a different level of Association, and you extended your level of play by having to play at their level.

Right. Yeah.

You both things. So boom, you're altered.

And in 10 days, like my confidence went up a whole nother level. And I'd been playing for four or five years already. That's incredible. Just like 10 days of a shift. I can imagine playing a whole season.

I'd be a completely different player. And that's why, like things that like, is why I love your content too, because I think also the way you do that is associating at distances. So like when I read a book, I don't just kind of read the words. I pretend that I'm living with that author for that week. And I'm associating with that author. Like they're my friend during that week. I don't just read their words. I try to associate with them for the full value to affect me. That's why the programs you offer, the books you've written, that's another way to alter identity, because unless you just read it for the content. But if you read it to associate with Lewis, you read it to associate with Napoleon Hill, you read it to associate with Wayne Dyer or whoever it is that you're reading, that's when it.

Can really alter you.

It's just a slightly different perspective on following someone on Instagram or going to a program or reading is just associate with them, call them your friend. because, and this is the last thing I'll say on that, the highest form of influence that we have isn't like associations. It's friends. If you think about it with your kids, right, if you have children, who do you really worry about them hanging around? So their teachers, their teachers are associations, mentors, right? That's a mentor. And they sculpt them and shape them and help improve their lives. But who really do they behave like? They behave like their friends. And so I don't want mentors. I want friends. And so even if I'm reading one of your books, you're my, like when I met you, I was already familiar with you. I felt a kindred spirit ship with you, like because I had already, I already was your friend, even though you didn't know it. Yeah, yeah. You were my mentor. Mentors are school teachers. I want friends. And so even if it's from a.

Distance, even if I have to pretend it, that's where I let the influence happen to me, change my identity. Yeah, that's cool. I'm curious now, again, you started the.

New industry in the financial services, young.

Agent, 23, 25 years old, however old you are, right in there. getting your, you know, going to class to get your licenses and all these things. I remember doing this as an intern for Northwestern Mutual Life. Yeah. I can't remember what they were called now.

They tried to hire me too.

Did they?

Yeah. I was almost with work for them.

And man, those classes just, it was hard for me to study in those things. It took me, I had to, I passed on the third try.

Me too, three times.

And if you fail on the third one, you have to wait a year or something, right?

Yeah.

And I was like, I was like sweating.

Me too.

So you did that. And then when did you really start to realize like, oh, I'm actually making some money. Like I'm taking off, I'm building like my agency within this company and oh, I'm not poor. Like I made a hundred grand and now I'm doubling that and it's growing.

That's a great question because I made a hundred grand my third year, but I was still poor. And so it's interesting that you say that because I thought, wow, when I get to a hundred grand, then I'm really going to be rich. You know, then I'm really successful. But I didn't equate taxes and putting money back into my business and my overhead and those things.

And you're buying suits and you're buying.

Other stuff that's like. Exactly what it was. Like I then had to have all this. I got to tell you the funniest thing. I wanted to look rich so badly when I was young that I couldn't. You're not gonna believe this. This is a true story. I could not afford a real Mercedes. And at the time, there were these kit cars out. So I found on Auto Trader. Now remember this. I'm buying my suits. I'm trying to look successful on this young goofball. entrepreneur. And I found a eight thousand dollar Chrysler LeBaron that had been converted into a Mercedes-Benz 500 SL. I swear.

With a kid.

With a kid on it. Except this thing was so poorly put together. It was Velk. I'm not kidding you. It was a velcroed on. So, remember, they stripped down a LeBaron, the inside still LeBaron. And the frame. I'm not kidding you. The frame of the car was a velcro together kit card. I spent eight thousand bucks on this.

Wow.

And I drove that sucker to clients houses with my agents trading him. And the best thing about this car is the most embarrassing two years of my life. Because first off, it was about three feet longer than a real Mercedes. So people who really knew Mercedes, when they would drive by me on the freeway, they're pointing at me and laughing. I'm just driving along in my cheap, you know, men's club suit. But when I would stop at stoplights, I would stop at a stoplight. If I stopped too soon, the front light would fall out of the car. Oh my God. The Velcro would come off and I'd have to get out of the car at the light, pick the light back up. Velcro it back onto the car at the intersection. And a constant battle with this thing falling apart as I would drive it. Picture this. And so I finally, quick story, I get pulled over in Lodi, California. This cop pulls me over and I've got all my agents where to retreat. So I've got like 15 cars behind me. I'm driving my Mercedes that they all think is a Mercedes.

Right.

And I get pulled over and the cop pulls me over. So all my agents pull beside me on this country road and they watch the cop kind of interact with me. me. And all of a sudden, the guy goes, get out of the car. I said, why am I getting out of the car? He goes, you know exactly why you're getting out of this car. Imagine this. So you saw Coeur d'Alene in the beach house. That's not the real me at the time. This is me, right? This is where I start. It's like he gets me out of the car. He handcuffs me. He puts me in the back of my car, and all my agents are watching. I swear, man. And so finally comes over, he goes, you know why you're back here? I said, I have no idea. I wasn't speeding. I didn't run. stop sign. He said, this is a stolen car. We ran the plates. I'm like, did they not title the car when I bought it?

And then it bought 20 minutes later.

I'm back the car. Oh, my gosh. The plates say this is a Chrysler LeBaron. Except he's looking at a Mercedes. So I finally call the cop over the car. I go, officer, he's got three police officers now with him, three cars. I go, sir, that's really not a stolen car. I swear. He goes, stop it. It's a Chrysler. You know, I He said, Sir, if you will go pull on the door of my car, if you'll just pull the door, it'll come right off. It's velcroed on there. He's just staring at me like, Are you, is this a, is this turning into a DUI? I'm like, no, sir, really? That's not a Mercedes. Wow. It's a Chrysler LeBaron. And I watch him walk over with the other officer. They look at the car. They kind of look at each other and he goes, boom. And he pulls my door off the car and he holds it up and all the officers fall out laughing on the side of the road. and he's spinning my car door in his hand and he comes back over and gets me out of the car and sticks the door back on my car and I drive off into the sunset. So, I was a fake it till you make it big time. You've never had that story on your show. That's good.

I like that.

You've never had that story on your show. That's a true story.

What do you think is the biggest things that hold all of us back from achieving our dreams faster?

Three biggest things? Well, one is the proximity to it. We really do believe it's further away. Like we honestly believe this thing is like a 20 year thing and so because we believe that we we keep it there and we miss out on these, you know, possibilities in our life. The second one is I have a chapter in the book called On Equanimity. I say one more level of equanimity. Equanimity is our ability to be calm under duress. So I said earlier, slow things down. The greatest athletes that we admire can slow things down under pressure. They're calm. If you think of a Tom Brady, who's everybody's example in this age, is that when it's the noisiest and the crowd's the craziest and it's the the playoffs, that's the highest stakes. For the average person, everything speeds up.

And they lose control.

Good friend of both of ours, Michael Chandler fought this last weekend and it was a great win. Great win. And normally Michael, he's one of the greatest fighters in the world, but when he has been in duress in some of his fights, things speed up and he starts to do this brawl mode. And I watched him in this fight, things started to not go his way and he slowed things down and he started to show some equanimity under duress. and that's when things slow down and we can perform at our best. So the second thing I would say is equanimity. The third thing is I have a whole chapter in the book on the way you manage time. And this is just, there's so many heavy things in the book, but the idea that still people manage a day in 24 hours is hilarious to me. That this archaic concept that a day is 24 hours is bananas. Like the 24-hour day was just made up by somebody about the sun and the earth going around each other, building, you know, 100 million years ago or whatever it was. this is before there was electricity, there were cars, there was the internet, there was a smartphone. So you're going to tell me I should measure my day the same duration of time I calibrate time when the same dude didn't have the internet.

I used to have to do a.

Project in high school. We'd have to go to the encyclopedia, go down to the library and research for hours. And hey, my kids can Google something in 10 seconds now. I can text message you instead of mailing you something that takes a month to get to you. So I've shrunk my days. My days now are from my first day is 6 a.m. to noon. In that day, it's called a mini day. 6 a.m. to noon, I get into that day whatever I want. Some days are chill, some days are faith, some days are working out. But the amount, we've all had that morning where you go, I've got done more this morning than I have in three weeks.

I know.

Right? So why can't that be every day? And it is, I can tell you. So my first day is 6 a.m. to noon. At noon, the clock goes off. We're in day two. And I reevaluate really quickly for five seconds. What just happened? What did I do? What do I need to do more of? Next day is noon to 6 p.m. I'm gonna get the same amount of business, context, faith, fun, whatever it is in that ecstasy in that day. Third day is 6:00 p.m. to midnight.

It's a third day.

This gives me three days in one day. I get 21 days a week. If I get 21 days a week, you get seven, stacked it up over a month, a year, five, 10 years, I'm going to smoke you in life. And I've bended and manipulated time so.

That my accountability is different.

It's not the end of a day or end of a week or end of a month. It's at the end of a basically a six or eight hour window.

That's interesting.

And other people respond to you differently because what is scarce is valuable. People begin to respond to you differently when your time is more scarce, when it's more precious. And so it's completely changed my life the last 25 years running many days as opposed to 24 hour days.

Huge.

Yeah. So those three things.

You're probably one of the best enrollers I've ever met. enroll. Enrollment, for me, is the key to really accomplishing your dreams, enrolling yourself that you're confident enough and have the skills and the tools to develop what you need to, to, to have what you want. The relationship, the career, the business, the life, the health, but also enrolling others in your vision, in your dreams. Where did you learn this skill of enrollment, of saying, I've got this idea. It's in the future. Most people think it's 30 years away. I think it's three months away. which seems impossible. And I'm going to call these five people and convince them essentially, but enroll them in a vision that they didn't even know was a possibility in their minds. Yes. You're going to speak this vision into them, into their souls, and then they're going to say, Yes, vote for you, sign up for something, listen to something, interview with you, paid to speak, or whatever it might be, give you lots of money, all these different things. How did you learn the art of enrollment?

Okay, that's a great question. And in the book, I have this whole chapter on leadership and vision, but you asked the best questions, bro.

I love you.

So, two ways. One, a couple very special coaches that I had in my life that were great visionaries. And for some reason, I've always been fascinated with great orators. So, I did my dissertation in college on Dr. King. Oh, wow. Whatever your politics are, I think two of the great orators of all time are Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, both of the different parties. I just think they're tremendous orators and they were great at painting these big visions And then I read a book called Selling the Dream a long time ago written by a guy named Guy Kawasaki. And he's the guy that basically helped like Apple with Macintosh. Selling the Dream.

Selling the Dream.

And he's a really unique dude. Yeah, I've met him a few times. Yeah, and so what the book's premise was this is that great leaders are evangelical about their cause. They're evangelists. And they do that through public preaching, but they sell a big enough dream so that the dreams of all the people within their stewardship can fit inside the one they're selling. So even for you with this whole media empire you're building, one of your big roles, man, is to sell a big enough dream for everybody that gets around you, guests, vendors, advertisers, the guys that work with you, the ladies that work with you, that it is so big and so compelling that all of their dreams and visions for their life can sit and fit inside that one. And then the key thing is to repeat it over and over and over. Most leaders get tired of hearing themselves talk. And by the way, this is true as being a mother or a father. As a father, my job is to celebrate. We're gonna do something awesome as a family. I know, Dad. No, we're gonna do something awesome.

You're amazing. You're a superstar.

I know, Dad. Doesn't matter. I'm telling them over and over and over again. Most leaders think, I gotta say something new to these old people. But the truth is you need to say something old to new people. Keep saying it over and over and over again. Sell it big. Look at all the people you admire in your life. their visionaries who are evangelical about their mission and their cause. Not necessarily the money or the cause. What's the cause? Think about Oprah Winfrey. Think about Martha Stewart. Think about Dr. King. Think about Mother Teresa. Think about any leader. Think about Steve Jobs. You watched old videos of Steve Jobs. He wasn't selling megabytes. I've asked Wozniak several times, Tell me about Steve. What was he like? I said, By the way, why did you name the thing Apple? Just curious, man. What a weird name for a company. Back when companies were, well, you know, in Wozniak is almost like a savant. He goes, oh, well, really, two reasons, Ed. A, came early in the phone book, so we wanted people to find us early. And Steve said, Apple's made him happy. And so, great evangelists learned to link their cause and their mission to people's bliss. You can look at an old YouTube video of Steve Jobs and he's rolling out a Mac. He's not like, Here's the speed. He's like, Isn't she beautiful? When you look at her curves, Wouldn't she make you happy to take her home? He's selling happiness in an inanimate object. McDonald's, number one seller of food in the history of planet Earth. Happy meal. Happy meal. Number one, older real estate. They don't sell food, they sell happiness. Their number one meal is a happy meal. Their mascot's a clown. It has nothing to do with food. But they're in the evangelical dream selling happiness business. What's the number one thing they sell in there? Coca-Cola. Will you get a Coke and a smile? Happiness. So great entrepreneurs, great parents, great people have this energy where they're selling you a dream that's big enough that you can fit inside it and the dream at the end is happiness. That's the formula.

Oh man. So why do you think people are stuck on I'll never be able to be good enough to accomplish what I want. The dreams are not possible for me. What keeps them stuck though?

What keeps them stuck is this false belief system that their past is their future. So they're operating out of an operating system of their memory and their past. So how do we let go of the past? Well, we have to create a compelling future. In other words, you're not going to.

Let go of one thing until you've.

Grabbed onto the next. You have to create a new future. You have to create a future in it. And by the way, it's okay that you don't believe all of it initially, as long as it becomes repetitive and we begin to take steps towards it, right? So it's, for me, I still have stuff from my past. that's there, but this future is so big. And by the way, some things are okay. People go, why do you still work so hard? Well, I want to create. There's still a little part of me that doesn't want to be broke. There's still a little bit of fear. But you're not broke. Yeah, but you've interviewed some of the most successful actors and entertainers, so have I, and you get them privately and sometimes on your show they go, you.

Afraid it's going to go away?

They go, yeah, I am. That's why I work so hard. So there's an element of that that's okay. It's creating this vision for your life that's compelling. But there's this other thing. I love Think and Grow Rich. It's one of my favorite books of all time. Next to my scripture is my favorite book. But you don't just think and get rich. You have to do things. And by the way, rich can mean more bliss, more happiness, more peace. But you don't just get those things by thinking. There's some things you have to do. But the most powerful part of Think and Grow Rich, man, is he has this part. He says, Can you survive the temporary? And if you can survive the temporary, he says, On the other side of temporary pain, you get introduced to your other self. And that other self, he doesn't say this, but that other self produces that other life. And so here's what happens for most of us. We think everything's permanent. And because we think it's permanent, we make permanent decisions based on temporary conditions. Even our bodies, other than our souls, are temporary. I was with my dad holding his hand when his body ceased to exist.

Wow.

His soul exists still. But if your body isn't permanent, your problem isn't, your pain isn't, you need to create a different relationship with pain in your life. The idea that you're going to avoid pain, I have a chapter in the book called One More Inconvenience.

Chase difficult, inconvenient things.

Like what? Like what is something you're chasing that's inconvenient? In a given day, the phone call you don't want to make, the meeting you don't want to have, driving out here. There's a friend of mine who I'd like to help me with the book. It's incredibly uncomfortable phone call for me. It's the thing I don't want to do today. I don't want to bother them. It's inconvenient. And for me in my life, the inconvenient thing on the page is the one that now jumps off the screen at me that I must do. For most people, their relationship with the pain and the inconvenience is to avoid it. Avoid is the most common. So if you could say to yourself, on the other side of this is this other self. And so whatever your pain is right now, relationships just ended financially, something that's difficult for you to do, maybe you're trying to lose weight, whatever it might be, on the other side of that temporary pain, is the other self. I have a thing I gotta say to you last, man, on this topic. In the book, I have this part about pinata. And what most of us as humans don't do is we don't understand compound pounding. The relentless pursuit of something, you're making what I call invisible progress in your life. Like your show has gone boom. Everyone goes, wow, Lewis went from 400,000 to millions of subscribers. He's the number one guy. That didn't just happen this year.

This is our 10th year.

You were compound pounding on this sucker when no one was doing it.

He'S doing this.

Exactly. But here's the pinata thing. I go to this party, it's five-year-olds I didn't want to go to the party. It's five-year-old kids. Like, what am I doing here? But as a good friend, they have a pinata. We've all been to him. First kid gets up, hits the heck out of the pinata, like, a hundred times. No candy comes up. Next kid gets up. Whack, whack, whack.

Nothing.

Next kid. Whack, whack, whack. These three now quit. They're gone. Another part of the party. There's three or four kids left. Everyone's losing interest. Everyone's pounding on this thing. What they didn't know is each of those blows was breaking down the pinata. Although there was no evidence it was true. The last boy gets up, I swear, actually it's a little girl. Last girl gets up, she goes wham, hits it one time, bam, all the candy comes out and everyone celebrates. In people's lives, so was it her blow that broke the pan? No, it was the cumulative shots. Most people don't wait around for the candy. They quit before the candy comes out of their relationship, of their body, of their business, of their bliss, of their meditation. It takes time, but you're making invisible progress. If you ever start to get down or know what to do, give yourself credit for the compound pounding you're doing. You're not sticking around long enough for the candy to come out. And that's what you need to be.

Doing if you're gonna change things. First off, self-confident people. So how do we build self-confidence? Because that's what you're belief, okay? When I meet somebody self-confident, here's what I know about them. They've built a reputation with themselves. So they don't need to build a reputation with other people, okay? so if you're really- what do you mean by that?

They honor their own word? You got it. Yeah.

The key to self-confidence is really simple and this is absolutely, I've trained hundreds of thousands of people. I've spoken to millions of people around the world. I could tell you this. The self-confident people I know, whether they are athletes, school teachers, mechanics, parents, stay-at-home moms, you name it, they have a pattern of keeping promises they make to themselves. The groundwork of beginning to build self-confidence is to begin to keep the promises you make to you. And that's why it's important to begin to even make small promises. If you're going to get up at a certain time in the morning, not only do it, but then give yourself credit. Say, I did what I said I was going to do. If it's in your diet or your fitness, don't just eat the healthy foods. Go, I'm doing what I said I was going to do. You begin to build this reputation. If you're constantly being influenced and moved by what other people think about you, it means there's a deficiency in wisdom. what you think about you. And so the key is not some, you know, esoteric belief system. It's a pattern of keeping the promises that you make to you. That's the groundwork of self-confidence for sure. And it is a pattern. When I meet people that lack confidence, I think, let me serve you. Let's begin to keep the promises you make to you. You're so worried about there's this addiction to other people's approval in the world, right? It's the greatest, the greatest addiction today. It used to be drugs. Before then it was alcohol. There's all these addictions, sex addictions, whatever. The number one addiction in the world today is the addiction to other people's approval. And that's because we don't approve of ourselves or we don't feel a spirit, a universe, a God that we believe in that approves of us. And so my confidence comes from both my faith and in the fact that.

I keep promises I make to myself. That's the groundwork of all confidence.

Yeah.

How did you develop this sense of.

Belief and confidence early on then when you were failing in the financial services? Yeah, it was I had to separate from outcomes.

And so you weren't getting the results.

Yeah. I was not, everything for me initially was contingent upon outcomes and results. And I know there are people in our space that say, hey, get your money. You got to get this. You got to do that. And that's easy to say because they've already built tremendous self-confidence. But most people watching that go, okay, but how do I do that? And so I had to start to take some solace, some confidence in the fact that I was behaving in a way requisite to eventually produce success, right? and so I started to give myself credit. I started to work on my identity. I started to read the right books, listen to the right things. And for me, it starts with my body. Like, I couldn't control what other people would say to me, but I could control that I got up and worked out. I could control that I moved my body. There's something that we've both learned from Tony about just literally moving our bodies physically changes our state. And, like, everybody hears that, but I actually do it. I really believe it's hard to get depressed. It's hard to not believe in yourself. I was at the gym today, I was watching this couple of very odd dudes, they were just sort of really dancing and the first part of me was like judging them, like these guys are so weird, you know, in public. But then I thought, you know what? That's not right. These guys are in a great joyful, blissful state, right? These are not depressed guys, these are not guys lacking self-confidence. So often the way we move our bodies can change that too. And so the answer for it was I started to keep the promises I made to me separated from outcomes. There's nothing wrong with having goals and outcomes. But if your outcomes and goals define you, whether you get them or you don't get them, you will have a hollow life. In other words, if you're defined by the goals you achieve, you actually get them and you think that's going to make you happy and define you, you're going to lose. And if the other hand, if you constantly define yourself by the fact that you aren't achieving your goals and outcomes, you're going to lose both of obsessing over outcomes will lead to a pretty hollow existence. But if I can, if I can be from a place of my intent, my behaviors, I finally figured out my intentions are good. I'm a good dude. I'm a good person. And you know what? I'm trying to do good. I'm trying to improve my life. I'm trying to help people. And I keep promises that I make to myself. Both of those things were the stimulus for me to be in, because I'm a naturally, I think you're probably this way too. I'm a naturally incredibly insecure person. I think everybody has insecurities. I think I was dosed at birth with more of them than a normal person. Sure. I'm introverted. I'm shy. But all of those things, I think growing up in a family that had some dysfunction just added to my insecurity. And so usually when you meet somebody who's incredibly confident, like the people would think you and I are, I always know they probably came from a further place. These are people who really had to work on themselves. I really had to do this stuff because I was so low on the totem pole in terms of self-esteem. I had to really figure out how to change this stuff. So, and what ends up happening is like any muscle you build, I built a pretty big muscle of self-confidence over time because I had to train it so badly. Yeah. Yeah. Over and over.

Wow. What was a time in your life that you felt like you weren't a good person? Or is there a time? I want to assume that there.

No, absolutely.

What was that? If there was, what was that time and what were you going through?

Great question. Many times I felt like I'm not a good person in.

In. and.

My temper gets the better of me. And I think if I look back at the early part of my career, in fact, I was so harsh on people, so critical of people. And then once I had children, I.

Started- you- demanded results probably.

Not only did I demand results, but in all candor, I was mean and demeaning and harsh and people who have powerful tongues for the positive typically that's a double edged sword. They can use it to be very hurtful too. And so when I was young, I would ransack the room and I hurt people. And so very much so early in my career, if you asked me, was I a good dude? No, I was too hard on people. I once I had kids, I thought I remember one night my son was a baby and I had one of those nights where I sort of just destroyed a couple people in a meeting with my words. Yeah. And I thought, if someone ever talked to my son like that, I was in the car driving home. I thought, what if someone spoke to Max the way I spoke to this man? It's wrong with me. It was horrible. This is a human being. And so I think I've become so the other way, as you know, I'm very encouraging. I try to be very kind and generous because I haven't always been. I've seen the results. I know what it looks like on someone's face when I've heard them. I don't. Makes me. I. I don't ever want to. Yeah, I don't ever want to do that to somebody. so that was a time where I wasn't a, a good person. I think times where I short change my friends or family on being present with them. In other words, I have to work really hard at being present when I'm with people because I am a busy person.

Right.

And you got a thousand people who are texting you and calling you. You need support. Right.

Like you do. And so the most important gift I can give, we can all give another person, is to be present, to be engaged with them. Yeah. And so there are times even now where you know, my children will leave the room and I thought, I missed that moment. That wasn't good. That wasn't a good dad.

I made them feel like whoever was.

On my phone was more important than them. We all make those mistakes. What I do now have though is I acknowledge it and see it pretty soon. I know I'm going to see it. I'm aware of it. I think really successful people, not materially, but just in terms of happiness, are incredibly self-aware. And when I was young, I was not self-aware. and as I've become older and met more people and had great friends and mentors and experiences, I think I've become more aware of myself and my deficiencies. I have tons of deficiencies. I'm just really aware of them so they don't hurt as many people as they used to.

Yeah. Okay, the first thing is that you have to identify what you're great at doing and stop trying to play life at the things that you're mediocre at doing. So, I know what I'm good at doing and there's a very limited group so it made it easy to pick from. It's not like I had 80 things. I'm good at like really two things. I've made hundreds of millions of dollars with these two things. And ironically, let me say this to you also, that thing you're great at may have been born out of your biggest pain. Absolutely. So, and this is a gift that you have as well, but one of my major gifts is my ability to read people and to be present with them. Why? I had an alcoholic dad.

Yeah.

When he would come through that front door, I had three little sisters and a mom. And this five-year-old little boy would have to look up at his hero Is he drunk or sober? Is he walking? Is he slurring? Is his tie tied correctly? Or is it loose? How's he moving? How's he talking? And if it was drunk, Dad, I need to get my sisters upstairs and Mom should go take a shower. If it was sober, Dad, we're great. But I would have to read this man. And so that allowed me to learn to be present. It's a terrible way to learn to do it, but I did. Then the second skill would kick in. I can talk. I would grab his hand. and my sisters go upstairs and say, Daddy, I hit a home run in the baseball game today. I got a 90 on my spelling test. How was your day? What did you do? And I would talk and change his state. And as I grew up, those two gifts have made me a lot of money in business. My ability to be present and listen, my ability to talk. So what are your gifts? What are two or three? It could be your nurturing skills, your intellect, your problem solving, your intensity, your passion, your calmness, your peace, your humor. whatever it is. The second thing that I would say is that you have to get in the business of truly caring about people. I know that sounds real generic, but people matter, things don't. When I worked at the orphanage and I walked into the orphanage that changed my life and I know you know that story, my little boys were eight.

To ten years old.

Here's what they wanted from me. I want everyone to hear this very carefully. Get nothing else out of the show than this. If you only get one thing, these boys needed someone to love them. care about them. Here's a big one that almost no one does for another human being. Believe in them. And then just show them how to do better.

Yeah.

Let me say it again. Love, care, believe and show them how to do better.

When I left the orphanage and went into business, I figured out they weren't unique. Every human. And how do you coach the top politicians or CEOs?

Love them, care about them, believe in them.

And then show them how to do a little bit better at whatever it is. So that's number and then the third thing is you have to become obsessed. You have to become obsessed. This has to become an obsession of yours. You know, our obsessions become our possessions. And the truth of the matter is that most of you don't understand the effort, the time, the focus, the obsessiveness that's required to do something great with your life. You want to do something great, you better be great at it. Greatness rises. So if you can get really good at those three things, listen, why are you so good at this? Why is it that You're great at this. The whole idea of greatness is the concept of the show. But you have to get great and you have to be intentional. You have to be obsessed. And if people knew behind the scenes, this seems very easy, but I know your schedule. I know what you put into this. I know what the time is. I know what the relentless pace is. I know what the focus is and how much you think about it. I know this has to be something that's just infectious and when people get around you, it emanates and there's an energy and there's like, this person's just gonna will this to happen. And when you have that, to be cognizant of your energy. You're always making people feel something, so take control of what they're feeling. And so I think just most people dramatically underestimate the amount of obsessive, crazy, relentless focus it takes to be great at something.

And then they go, well, I don't.

Want to be that out of balance or control. Then you don't want to be great because there's going to be a period of your life not out of balance, but where some things take priorities over others. That's not a lack of balance. Nothing's like this all of the time. And by the way, the hardest working you've ever been, the most crazy focus you've ever been was the happiest you've ever been in your life. You go back well, when I was studying for my master's degree, whatever, you're like, weren't you crazy focus? You were busy all the time. If you're a mother and you're carrying this baby and this hardest thing you've ever do is carry this baby, plus you had a job and you're bringing this person. It's the happiest times of your life or when you're the most you feel out of control. you're the most obsessed is when you're the happiest. It's this just flawed belief that if I do nothing, if I just have, ah, I'm gonna be super happy. There's plenty of ah's. I meditate every morning. I pray every morning. So it gives me the energy and clarity of mind to do something great. But this notion that that brings bliss, that nothingness, doing nothing, no expansion of your being, no contribution, is going to make you happy. This is a flawed belief. You're literally moving from the very things that will make you happy. This notion that you're not growing and expanding, you're not contributing, you're not evolving, your spirit was born, all the cells in your body regenerate themselves. Your digestive tract is brand new every six months to a year. Your lung tissue regenerates it. Your skeletal system regenerates about every six to eight years. Like you're constantly being born all the time internally. So externally and in your heart and your soul and your spirit and your brain, you should be as well. These are the things that make us happy, not just doing nothing.

Right.

Having a purpose, having a mission and intention.

It's what gets you up. It's what you were born for. That mission, by the way, may be to serve other people and to bring peace to them. Great, but have something.

I mean, you're at a stage right now, 51, you're going into the the 50s decade. You've accomplished so much. You've, you know, made so much. You've got the homes, the plan. I've been to a lot of your homes. I've been in a plane of yours. I've seen the lifestyle. It's an amazing lifestyle that you've created for yourself. You had nothing. You had a vision in your mind, and then you got yourself to that Vision.

Yeah.

What excites you for this next decade? What are you thinking about now that you have everything externally? Let's say I'm sure you want more and build more. But what is the main mission for the next nine years of this decade?

I want people, bro, I'm so glad you said this. I believe all this stuff's connected. I'm not like this is an entrepreneur, but sometimes I come across that way. I believe entrepreneurs and business people in general are the change agents in the world. I don't believe it's going to come from a political movement. I believe that entrepreneurs like ourselves are the people that are going to change the world. and I believe the planet's at a tipping point. And I think that we're trending in a direction where we're people, so many people feel invisible. So many people feel that they lack something. There's a lack of kindness and gentleness and love, particularly expressed by business people. Business people in general, the last 30 years have contributed to this in a major way. The brutal nature of business, the cutthroat nature of it. and I think the next 10 years that entrepreneurs, hopefully people like myself that are in the thought leader space, can begin to show people that entrepreneurs are the ones who can bring the most love and change and solutions to people's lives. And for me, because I do have this platform, I want everyone to feel seen. I want people to know you do matter. That person, that alcoholic and drug addict that helped my dad mattered big time. And you matter and we need more people to come to you and say you matter and here's the actual reasons why you matter. It's not just a saying, you matter because of this. And I want to give people the tools and the resources to do it. I really would love to think that when I'm done, that all of us collectively have turned the corner on this way we treat one another in the world. Concerns me so deeply, man, that my experience every single day with most people is that we have a lot in common. and that we really do want to love and care for one another. And that sometimes success gets in the way of that. The financial pursuit gets in the way of it. Some of these thought leader entrepreneurs that are so aggressive about money, money, money, money, money. And I don't mind that because I think that that money can do a lot of good, but I believe there's a more beautiful and elegant way to get there. I don't think business has to be brutal. I think that there's an elegant and beautiful way to create wealth in your life and bliss that there's not a lot of examples of and I intend to be one of those examples.

How did you learn how to present with passion or persuasion? Because the greatest speakers get people to move to action.

They do.

They have some type of call to action that they hook people with and they take them from one thought or belief to another one.

Isn't that true?

And I'm assuming that's something you've been able to do if you're speaking on all these big stages and if you've been able to enroll people in your vision.

Wow.

I love that word.

Right.

I mean, that's what a persuasive speaker is. It's someone who enrolls them in a new belief.

Wow.

Or taking action. Right.

Yeah.

How did you learn how to do this and.

Yeah, well, by the way, that is really profound, the way you said it. And I love that question. And I'm gonna actually start to produce. I'm not just saying this. I actually am consciously going to produce. this content coming forward with some specificity because I think it's probably one of the more misunderstood and desire people really want to know how to do that, whether it's in a group with your family for three people or in front of 300 or 30, 000. And so there's a few things. I'll give you a few things. First off, I sucked in the beginning. And I could tell you stories about how bad I was, but that would take up too much time. But horrendously bad.

On stage.

On stage. So I started to. So, I so bad because your insecurities are magnified by every eyeball on you.

Everything. So I was what did I forget to say?

Oh, I forgot. I mean, I would literally completely blank out. I've been so nervous speaking, brother, that I could not read my notes. My vision was blurred. So not only could I not think of a thought, I couldn't get my eyes to tell me what I had written down. So I've been that kind of nervous before. And so it's changed over time. But what you just said is you enroll people in their so there's three ways people speak. I'll just give you a couple things. This is true if like even you and I are just talking. The first type of speaker takes energy from the room. So they feed, people say the speaker feeds off the energy of their room. Okay, that's an amateur. If you're constantly having to feed their energy, starve them of their energy, you're not affecting them. You're just performing. And so there's a lot of speakers you watch, they're like, that was funny, that was this. I got nothing out of it. And that's because they they fed, they stole your energy to be successful when they spoke. Okay? So that's one type of speaker. When I say this, everyone's gonna go, that was that great speaker I saw. So an ineffective speaker is like a warm bath. They took your energy, they performed, you got nothing out of it. The second type of speaker, it's a really great speaker, is they pour energy.

Back into the room.

So you feel an energy, that transfer of energy that I said earlier, right? So they transfer their energy, experiencing to you, you can almost vibrate, you can almost feel it, right? So a great speaker's conscious of transferring energy, you can't transfer that to me, that which you're not experiencing. But what I try to be is level past that. And the level past that is, and I don't always do it, but when I do do it, it feels beautiful, okay? And that is to be in a state of inspiration. Inspiration is to be the root of that, to be in spirit. Move off of motivation, which is their motives. Inspiration an inspirational speaker touches you spiritually. You feel something different in your heart. You enroll them in your spirit. And so the way to do that. So the first speaker takes energy. Second speaker pours it into the room. The great speakers, the great communicators, pour their energy into each person in the room. So I'm conscious when I speak of pouring energy into each soul in that room, not just the room, each person, whether that's 10 or 40, 000. I'm conscious. It's just a thought of pouring energy into each person that they're feeling it. I pray about it. I think about it. So I want, that's a massive transfer of energy. So much so that when I've given a good one, I could go sleep. I'm not kidding you for 10 or 12 hours after. I've depleted myself of every energy reserve I have. Seriously. That's why Tony Robbins is so incredible. You and I have talked about that because, and by the way, I consider him to be a great speaker because every person feels an effect from him, not just just the room, right? And so that's the other thing. And then last thing I'll give you, give you a little tip for speakers. Plan how you're gonna finish. So the number one thing speakers struggle with is they don't know how to finish. They know what they're gonna say in the beginning because that's what they're the most nervous about. But they never plan the end. And so if you ever watch a speaker, you're like, okay, they're struggling that they always think they gotta finish on a high. I gotta finish, I gotta finish. You know what you need to do? You just gotta finish.

Yeah.

Okay, pop it up. Pop it up. Like when you watch a stand-up comic, their last joke's not always their best joke. you just remember they were funny. And so when you're speaking, don't worry so much about I got to finish on a high. Know how you're going to finish though, because what happens is you can have a great speech for 20 minutes and the last five minutes you're just struggling and stammering and it just depletes the entire energy you gave the room because you're just trying to finish. And so when you're writing your talk, be conscious of writing the finish first, then fill it backwards. Everybody else writes the beginning and the middle and they're kind of like, I'll get around to finishing It's gonna be so good, they forget that part. So always write the finish first.

Love it, man. That's a good tip. That's a great tip. What's the thing you're most proud of that most people don't know about you?

My easy is my two children. My family includes my wife too, by the way. And she's the one most responsible for my children. I'm a good dad. She's a world class mother. My children are what I'm the most proud of and I don't feature my family a whole lot on social media because they didn't sign up for all this. In fact, the reason you didn't know me a girl, even though I've done all the speaking, is I finally made a decision to be a public person because I love my privacy because I am introverted. I just decided to serve people to change the world. I got to be willing to give that up, but my children don't. And so I show them, but not that often. But my children are, my son is, this morning, I got up and my son was gone already to the golf course in dark. because he wanted to be the first guy there. He's gonna hit all the golf balls. He's a super successful guy in school.

And he's just a good man.

He's just. How old is he? My son is gonna be 16 tomorrow. Wow. Gonna be 16 tomorrow. And my daughter. Champagne for him, you know?

Yeah.

No, that's not happening. And my daughter is 14 Bella and they're just amazing. They're my life. And so that's cool. They're what I'm most proud of that.

Most people don't know about either of them. But you will know them someday.

Yeah, of course.

They're gonna change Of course. What has kids taught you about life and business and everything you're up to?

Yeah, well, they're my reason. So my reasons change too, right? But I think it goes back to the same things as before for me. But like something happened to me when I had babies, man. It changed me. It softened me. It's pretty strong, dude.

I don't know if it softened this.

Those are squirt guns now, man. But it did soften me in that I'm living for something different than me. I want you to have that someday, by the way, because living for you is great, but living for other people and being conscious of the fact that they're part of my legacy and that everything I do, this is what changed for me. They watch everything you do. Everything. I drive fast. I drive fast, right? I drive too fast and my son's getting ready to get his driver's license. I can already tell I've set a bad example doing that. He's observed that. So, what it did is it made me realize everybody's observing everything. And so, I'm more conscious of little things that I do because I've got children and I'm more conscious of the long lasting impact of everything I say and do. Because that could happen if you and I were at a restaurant right now and we have a particular interaction with the server, you know, that changes our whole life. one way or the other. And so I'm conscious all the time of what I say and what I do and the impact it's gonna have because there's this ripple that goes out into the universe, that goes out into the world. Before I had kids, I didn't think about any of that stuff. And now I do.

Yeah, I don't feel called to have kids yet, but I have a million dollar whole life insurance policy on me for the future.

Do you really?

Absolutely, yeah. Because I am thinking about that in the future and I want to invest because I was in that business. I was like, I need a premium that's low, you know, that I could, like, you did. Exactly. So I've been paying that for, like, eight, nine years. He's such an interesting guy. Yeah. So I'm, I'm thinking about other people. Even though I don't have that yet, I'm thinking about, well, even if it.

Doesn'T happen now, my family's gonna have money. They're gonna have assets. They're gonna have things. When you're a dad, by the way, so I'm a dad. I meet men, and I sort of Define them by what kind of father are they or could they be? That's why I just told you that, like, and people that know you that follow you would say this, too. Everyone watching this that knows you, you'd be an amazing father because you're so selfless.

Right.

You always put other people first. Even the way you're doing this interview is different than most people, brother. Yeah. It's never about you. It's always about the other person.

Right.

That's what makes a great dad. So I pray that it does happen when it should, if it should. But you're, you're dad to a whole bunch of people that follow you, too. Right. But, yeah. But you're, you'd be an amazing father, like, like Honestly, brother, like there's not, not everybody is cut out for that. Not everybody should be a dad. There's some people out there that are moms and dads that probably shouldn't have been and we're dealing with their kids now, right?

So there's an effect on that too. You're gonna be an amazing one. Yeah, and part of me feels like it's gotta be a calling, like I've gotta have such a deep desire for it.

Yeah.

And I feel like it's, once I hit 30, I started to feel a little bit when I was around babies, I was like, oh, I looked at them differently. You did? Yeah, I started looking, and still today I'm like, God, that baby is really cute. I'm thinking about it differently, but I'm still not like this I need this now. I want this now. So I'm setting myself for the future so that I'm protected. They're protected, covered, you know.

Is it that you're already doing that?

Already doing it. That's wonderful. Because I observed my father and he bought life insurance policies on all of us kids when we were, you know, one years old or whatever. Is that right? We all had it in policy and put more money into it when we were teens and, you know, it kept growing.

Yeah.

That's fascinating.

Yeah.

And so he kind of instilled that.

Observation about life insurance, whole life insurance.

Cash value, you know, everything.

Yeah. And you're real disciplined. You and I have talked about other things off camera, but, like, you're real serious about your, your disciplined saver of money.

Yeah.

Like, you're not a extravagant spender and. Right. You know, and neither nor am I. Everything I have is cash. I don't want debt. The Bible says, oh, no man, nothing. And I just believe that firmly. I don't want to carry a bunch.

Of debt and a bunch of stress in my life.

Yeah.

Contrary to what you hear from most people out in our space, too. A lot of people are like, leverage the debt and use this to buy other stuff. I don't think, I don't think there's anything wrong with leverage, except I don't believe you should leverage depreciating assets. So you shouldn't leverage a meal. If you go eat it, it's gone. Now you're paying debt on it. I don't think you should leverage vehicles if you can help them because there's just no reason to leverage stuff that's going to go down.

But if you want to leverage stuff that's going to appreciate. Yeah, I see. That's a decision. Homes, real estate. Yes. Things like that. Businesses, whatever. Exactly.

What's one question that you wish more people would ask you in general, whether it be on an interview or just in life that they don't ask? They don't ask me enough about the balance between drive and happiness. In other words, and they struggle with it, but they're unwilling to ask about it. It's this concept that I call it, I said this to you before the interview too, but they don't ask enough about how can I be happy where I am now and still be driven? Because I think there's a lot of people that, there's a lot of people who are listening this that are like, I'm really happy and I don't have a lot of drive or there's people that have a lot of drive and they're not very happy. And I recently been talking with this a lot. It's like, I think that we should be living in a state of of blissful dissatisfaction. And what I mean by that is that you can actually be in complete bliss and happiness now and still have drive and desire and be dissatisfied. In other words, people think, well, if I'm dissatisfied, I'm not happy. Not true at all. Because if we were eating a great meal, great steak, right? That first bite is blissful. But it doesn't mean you're not hungry for more or more aggressive analogy. If you're making love to your partner, right?

Are you only satisfied?

Are you only enjoying it at the very end? Or is that a blissful experience as you're waiting to be satisfied?

Right?

So the point is that there's a way in life and you can live in your life in blissful dissatisfaction. I do. I live blissfully dissatisfied. I'm in this aggressive pursuit of wanting to be the next version of me, to meet the next version of me, to someday, the end of my life, I want to shake hands with the man I could have been. I want to be very familiar with that dude. when I'm done. I want to shake hands and go, Hey, I know you. That's the guy that I was most capable of becoming. The worst end of my life would be to meet this man I was capable of becoming and we'd be complete strangers. Who's that guy? I want to have been always in pursuit of that man. If you're a woman, that woman. But I want to enjoy getting there. And so I want to be in a state of bliss but dissatisfied simultaneously. And not enough people ask me how to do that and can I do that?

That's the one thing I would say. Got it, got it.

I love it, man. I feel like we could be talking for hours on this stuff. This is powerful stuff. What's next for you then? You've achieved a lot of financial wealth. You've helped a lot of people in your business make money. You've spoken all over the world in front of large audiences. You've got a large audience online. What's the next chapter for you? What's the next version of yourself that you want to become?

Yeah, I think about that all the time. So the first thing is that I want to expand my relationships with more and more good people like you. I want to add, it's time for me to add some new really close friends to my life. But on a very specific scale, I have some financial goals. I have some things I would like to do there. But I want to take the things that I've been doing in private with my company and with private companies for many years. And I want to expand that around the world. I want to take this message of how to develop self-confidence, how to chase the real version of becoming the best you. I want to collaborate with people who are better than in certain spaces too, and bring what I can to the table. I know how to build self-confidence. I know how to teach people how to be persuasive. I know how to live happy and dissatisfied at the same time, right? I know how to accumulate things in our lives that we want, but I also want to collaborate with people who are better in those spaces than me. There's things that you're just better at than me. And even when we were meeting before, like I want to learn from guys like you too. And so I want to take that to the world. That's the next version for me is to be frankly, more public than I've been. I've done it in private. And I just think the world needs people who have really done something to teach people how to do it. And there's very few people in the space. You are one of them who come from a place, honestly, where they just really want to serve people. I'll figure out if I got to monetize this or how to monetize it. I told you before we got on, the thing I love about you is you started out with how do I serve people? Right? And you figured out how to make a living doing it.

Right.

And getting successful financially. and so I come from a different place. I've already sort of had that financial part. I just want to serve people, man. I want to be inspirational, but I want to give people tactics and strategies to live better, not just get all fired up and not know how to do it. And there's really only a few people in the space that I think are effective at doing it. And so it just, here's what I found out.

It juices me, man.

I don't get tired of it. I'm working more hours than I've ever worked. You know, I've certainly, you know, adjusted some other parts of my life. I'm not a six handicap anymore because I don't play a lot more golf.

Right.

You know, I want to spend my life helping and serving people. And so I, it keeps me younger, keeps me, yeah, keeps me happy. So that's good.

I love it. I love it.

The biggest problem people have is they think they're not supposed to have any. And problems are the fuel for growth, right?

And so, like, if you don't have.

Any problems, you're either a liar or you might call them challenges. It feels better. I understand that. But, you know, anybody who doesn't have problems is either totally asleep at the.

Wheel or they don't have much of.

Any kind of a life.