The #1 Reason You're NOT SUCCEEDING! (This Will Shock You) | Simon Sinek & Lewis Howes

But it's not about winning. It's not actually about the goal. And so when we beat ourselves up because we miss an arbitrary number by an arbitrary date, and even if you hit the goal, the problem is...

I believe self-doubt is one of the biggest killers to anyone's dreams. So how does someone develop self-confidence and sustain it with the ever going changes and stresses and uncertainties that always come up? Once you reach a certain level, there's a new uncertainty Yeah.

So I think it's ironic that we call it self-confidence. Because I don't, for one, think it comes from the inside. I think our self-confidence comes from the outside.

Right? You mean that's the wrong way of going about it or you think that's where it comes from in general?

We are being misdirected by the name. When we say build your self-confidence, that's the instruction is saying go inside. Look inside oneself. But I think that's a false direction. Children aren't born self-confident. Their confidence is built from their parents and their friends and their teachers, where they're rewarded when they do well and they're pushed when they fail, when they can do better. Simply, you know, we know this, that simply telling kids that they're great all the time actually doesn't build self-confidence it actually does the total opposite.

Right. Right.

And I, for one, I can tell you in my own experience, my own self-confidence 100% comes from the relationships that I have. It's not some deep internal fortitude. You know, a world famous trapeze artist is not gonna try a brand new death-defying act for the first time without a net. So it's the people in my life. It's when I do doubt myself that somebody says, you got this. When somebody says, I believe in you. When somebody says, no matter what happens, whether it succeeds or fails, I'm going to be by your side. That's when I have the confidence to do difficult things. I don't have some natural battery that just Right. You know, that to me is bravado. I don't know about self-confidence.

You know.

Being a huge risk taker is not an indication of self-confidence to me. You know, jumping out of a plane and jumping out of a plane with a parachute are two different things.

Right? Right.

To me, self-confidence is measured and there should be a degree of of doubt. But I think true self-confidence, belief in oneself and belief in one's cause, I could not do the things that I'm doing and I would not have the strength to have made the sacrifices that I've made or continue to wake up on a daily basis to drive to spread this message if I were alone. And so when we talk about building one's self-confidence, I think the mistake that we make is that we look inside. I think the reality is when we're trying to build our self-confidence, We should be looking to our friends, we should be nursing our relationships. When I'm looking to build my self-confidence, the question is, who around me do.

I need to take care of?

You know, the way we bid our self-confidence is by helping somebody else build theirs. It's an act of, we will build our confidence with an act of service. So, I'll tell you a true story. So, I did an experiment. I love doing experiments in my own life. Yeah, me too. You know, I have mad thoughts. I'm like, well, let's try this one out. So, I have a very dear friend who has stuck with me through thick and thin. who she is absolutely profoundly one of the reasons that I am who I am today.

Right.

And I have my confidence in large part because of her.

Right.

She's one of a small group of people who I look at and say, Yep.

Yep.

Good friend.

Right.

She was struggling, like seriously struggling. Oh, let me take a step back. So we decided that we were going.

To.

She was struggling. She was going through some hard things in her life. Career wasn't going the way she wanted. Her personal relationship was struggling. There was a lot of rough.

She was lacking confidence.

There was a lot of rough. She was lacking confidence. And we would get together on a regular basis and I would attempt to coach her. And she'd feel great for the hour after she left me, and then it would very quickly go back to normal. And we'd get back together and I would coach her, and she felt great for the hour after she left me, and then it would go back to normal. And I can't say that there was some profound change being made in her. So I had her brain idea. I went to her and I said, I need your help. I said, I'm struggling. I don't have a coach that I that I love and trust. You've known me for years. I trust you with, you know, with everything. I feel unbelievably safe around you. Can you put together a program and can you coach me? I think you're good at it. And I, it wasn't reciprocal. It was an I'll coach you, you coach me. I said, it's just, I need your help, 'cause I'm struggling. It was legit. It wasn't like I was just making stuff up. You were stressed. It was legit. I could do with the help, and I trusted her to help me. And something profound started to happen. Over the course of just a few weeks, it wasn't even a few months, but over the course of a few weeks, she started to gain way more confidence. Her career started to really move in a more positive direction. Her relationship firmed up. And the more that she was in service to me, the more that she grew herself. So I think self-confidence, I wish we didn't call it self-confidence, because like I said, I think it gives a false direction. The way we build confidence is with. Con means with, doesn't it?

Interesting.

So I have no idea the etymology of confidence.

That's interesting.

Just making stuff up here. But con means with. To confide. Let's look this up because fidelity is something to do with truth. So confide, right? Yeah, look it up with the etymology of confide. Look up the etymology of confidence. You know, to confide is two people, like a conspiracy is a co-whisper. That's what conspiracy is, it's a co-whisper. So confidence is co-fidelity.

Right.

What is it? So let's see if the instinct is matched by the etymology of the word. And which of it isn't? I'm still okay with it. Yeah, you look at it. What does it say? So it comes from late Middle English, confident translations, origins and meaning. Here we go. Unlighted NMLD dictionaries. Got to love it. Where does the word come from? It's about trust or reliance? But what's the actual etymology of the word? Yeah, I'm not going to sit here and waste everybody's time. But it comes from comfidere, and fidere means to trust.

To trust yourself or trust other people.

So, come.

What does come mean? Uh, it means with. It means with trust.

Wow.

That could be with trust with yourself.

I think it's been missed. That's my point. I think it's been, I think it's like a conspiracy require. A conspiracy requires two people. You cannot have a conspiracy with one person. It's a co-whispering. You know, you commit the crime of conspiracy when you tell someone something and you're both in on it. So I think confidelity, confidence is the same thing. I think it's at least two people who undertake the task of trust and reliance.

So she was coaching you and you saw a change with over a few weeks of her confidence built.

Her confidence built.

And her belief in herself.

Her belief in herself. grew when she was in service to helping me, to helping me. And so, and so that goes back to the root of the question, how do you build your self-confidence? Or how do you overcome self-doubt? How do you overcome self-doubt? Help someone else overcome self-doubt.

I love that.

I love that.

Overcome self-doubt by helping, like, and it's not a selfish thing. I'm only helping you so I can. You have to genuinely love and commit to the person, this person that you're helping. you have to genuinely care about their success and their confidence and their lot in life.

So, it's so true, everything comes back to service.

And like I said, it goes back to the origins of humankind, right? Which is we are naturally tribal animals and we actually are at our best when we are in service to each other in a cause greater than ourselves.

The more we focus on what we're lacking, what we don't have, what's not working for us, the challenges we're going through, the more doubt we're gonna have.

Correct.

When we're inwardly focused on what we don't have.

Oh, I wish we'd had this conversation about eight months ago, 'cause I would have written half the stuff in this book.

Well, I'm writing a book on this stuff right now.

Well, 'cause this is what the infinite mindset is all about. A finite mindset is win-win-win, be number one, be the best. Me, me, me.

Win-win-win, meaning win at all costs, not Win-win.

Correct.

Not win-win, win-win. Win-win, win-win, win-win. It's win, come a win, come a win.

Because the infinite game is, you win, I win, the world wins, right? We all win. Humanity wins.

Right, it's a whirlwind.

That's what it is. It's not win-win.

Right, so we are players in infinite games every day of our lives, whether we like it or not. There's no such thing as being number one in marriage. Good luck with that.

Right. That's not the point.

There's no one who's declared the winner of life. And there's no such thing as winning business or winning global politics. But if we listen to too many leaders, they talk about being number one, being the best, and beating their competition.

This was me in my entire life.

Yeah, it's a lot of that.

Until like six, seven years ago when I learned that doesn't work.

And you're an Olympian.

Well, I made the Olympics, but I'm on the Olympic handball team, yes.

On the national team.

Okay, whatever. You're at the highest levels of athletics. And you know this from spending time with athletes, which is individual athletes.

I know, it's all about-- Right.

Where team athletes tend to be a lot healthier. So like individual athletes, when they reach the top of their game, Michael Phelps, Andre Agassi, they become the greatest in the world. The next thing that happens to them is, deep depression.

Right.

Where as team athletes, you win the World Series, you win the Super Bowl, it doesn't like deep depression is not the next thing that happens. Some people, maybe, but not in general.

Yeah.

Not in general. And the, you know, Olympic athletes are such a unique.

And I talked to a bunch of them for this. The gymnasts who are like 16, you.

Have a billion people watching you, you win the gold medal.

Yeah.

Now what? And it is one of the most selfish, finite Pursuits because the entire Pursuit is I'm gonna be number one. And they all say the same thing, I want to win the Olympics. Well, you don't actually win the Olympics, you win one event.

Yeah.

But they all say the same thing, I'm gonna win the Olympics. And then they say nonsense like, you know, I want to inspire all the little children. Not a single one of them on their vision boards has pictures of little children overcoming adversity. They have pictures of them standing on podiums, Hold the medals, hold the trophies, or the vision boards. It's entirely a selfish pursuit. And any inspiration to little kids is just a lucky strike extra that's really good for the press conference. But not a single one of them is waking up doing it for the kids. I drag myself out of bed, I'm running in the rain, I miss Thanksgiving for the kids. Didn't happen, never, on any planet. It was for me. And so there's this Whether they medal.

Or not.

Even if they were medalists, when they're done with the Olympics and their ability to pursue, they spent their entire lives from their childhood to adulthood striving to be number one. And let's be honest, they're not the best. They're just better than everybody else that day.

That day.

Which is really funny to me, right? Which is, you can get a gold medal in pick a sport, ice skating, and you fell in your routine. But if everybody else fell twice... You're the best.

You're the best.

You're the winner. But you're not. You're just better than everybody else in the competition, 'cause it's finite. And finite has known players, fixed rules, and agreed upon objectives. It's only the players. But it's not life. And there's an imbalance. Yes, finite games are very important. Finite games and finite objectives are essential in an infinite game.

Right?

But the infinite game is the context. for those finite games. I need to excel or be the best here in order to X, right? And recognize that this is not the end all be all. The analogy for living with an infinite mindset is not about winning, right? The better analogy is exercise, right? So how do you be a healthy person? Well, you have to eat well, you have to sleep, get enough sleep, you have to nurse your personal relationships, and you have to exercise. If you do some of those things, you'll be healthier than doing none of those things, but you kind of have to do them all, right? Living an infinite mindset is the same thing. There's a series of practices. Do some, you'll be better than none, but you kind of have to do them all, right? And the way the finite mindset fits into it is I want to get into shape. I've been sitting on the couch for most of my life watching TV. I'm gonna get into shape and I have a fitness goal, a finite goal that I can easily measure, my weight. I can look on a scale and I can measure the progress and I've made the goal that I'm gonna lose this amount of weight by this date. And so I commit to a healthy lifestyle. I eat better, I exercise more, I'm getting more sleep and I'm watching the weight fall off and I miss my goal. I don't lose the amount of weight that I wanted to lose by the date time, yeah.

So what?

You're still healthier and you're on the road to being healthier and I can see for a fact that you absolutely will hit the goal later on. And even if you hit the goal, the problem is you can't stop exercising. You have to do it for the rest of your life. That's what an infinite mindset is. An infinite mindset is more like a lifestyle, which is yes, absolutely. Having finite goals is very important. We are absolutely driven by goals. We like measuring things. It is much easier to get into the lifestyle of exercise and the habit of it if I have metrics. Look at the insanity of Fitbits and things like that, which is overdone is actually unhealthy and has adverse- obsessiveness.

Yeah.

But we'll talk, you know, it's not a subject. But the point is it's helping people get up and have a healthier lifestyle. We like measuring stuff. It's just, it's a human thing, right? But it's not about winning. It's not actually about the goal. The goal, goals and metrics are simply a way to help us measure speed and distance. I've lost this amount of weight over this amount of time.

Right?

You cannot run a marathon without mile markers. It's unnerving. The mile markers help me measure how far I've gone, how far I've gone and how fast have I gone. And the metrics we have at work help us measure how far we're moving and how fast we're moving towards a vision that is, for all practical purposes, unrealizable.

Right?

That's the infinite game. There's a context. And so when we beat ourselves up because we miss an arbitrary number by an arbitrary date, But the question is, are we building a healthy organization? And I would rather organizations do all the right things to build a healthy organization, even if they miss arbitrary dates. One of my favorite stories is Gary Ridge from WD-40. WD-40 is a public company.

Huge company.

It's a decent sized company, which is kind of incredible because it's basically oil. Basically what grease is. It's, you know, it's very sophisticated lubricant that was actually made for the, for the space program. But by the way, we talked about, you know, fancy food and their offices for, they just moved into a new office recently. Their old offices were a dump.

Really?

And yet the morale through the roof. Why is that? People love work because it was never about the office. It was about the people.

It was never about the office.

It was about the people.

Right.

Anyway, they have a lovely new office now, but it's still about the people. That's why I said before, it's, you know, is it the food? Well, it depends on the, on the company. Anyway. He was on one of his quarterly analyst calls and one of the analysts said, you, missed your numbers. And Gary said, no, I didn't. I missed yours. Mine are fine.

Wow.

Right?

And that's the point, which is there's nothing wrong with having metrics and goals. Those are very important to human beings. But to what end? What are we serving bigger than ourselves?

Right?

So my analogy is like an iceberg, right? So we know that the majority of an iceberg lies underneath the water. So when there's a tiny tiny tiny bit of the iceberg sitting above the ocean, right? It's the visionary who can see beneath the ocean. It's the visionary who stands there and even though everybody sees a tiny or nothing, they can see nothing. The visionary is able to explain What exists in their imagination only?

Okay?

It only exists in their imagination. And they inspire a few people to join them because like, that's, yes, we can do that. And they start working and a little bit of the iceberg shows. And a few people go, oh, it's gonna work. And so they commit to joining the movement or the company and a little more of the iceberg shows.

Right?

And before too long, enough of the iceberg shows that people can go, this is a real thing. You're not insane and crazy. What you're doing is actually in reality. But the thing is, the vast majority of the iceberg still exists under the ocean. And so what the visionary does is constantly remind us where we're going and how much more we have to do. And though we can celebrate how much we've achieved, how much of the iceberg is sticking up above the ocean, the reality is we have way more work. And when I die, it's still going to be the majority underneath the ocean.

Before the interview continues, if you feel like you're not living your most authentic life, not leaning into your purpose, and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of, I've written a new book called the Greatness Mindset, and I think you're going to love this. Through powerful stories, science-backed strategies, and step-by-step guidance, the Greatness Mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn turn it into your reality. Make sure to click the link below in the description to get your copy today. Okay, let's get back to this video. Was there ever a moment where you didn't unconditionally love yourself? And if so, and if so, when did that shift where you stopped that and you started saying, okay, I appreciate myself because of my contribution and my service and who I am.

What was that shift?

I don't think it was ever I.

Just didn't love myself. There were times obviously, be angry with yourself or frustrated with yourself or think, you know, I'm not doing enough. I mean, I can remember my birthdays, to be honest with you, probably up to my 40th birthday, including my 40th birthday. You have a birthday with a zero on it once you're over past 30, 35, sometimes five years on it as well. People look at their life differently culturally. And I used to think it was bull, but sure enough, I would do it. I remember turning 40 and I was really, really unhappy. I was like, Jesus, I've not done enough. I've not helped enough people. Tens of millions of people at that point already had done all over the earth in 100 plus countries at that point, but it was still kind of stuck in my head. So I would earn the love by over-delivering, change somebody's life. Like, I don't get it because somebody says, oh, I love you, Tony. I mean, I appreciate that, or, oh, you're the greatest. It's got to be my standard. My standard's higher than their standard for me, right? So when I get up and someone's going to kill themselves and it's, they're suicidal and boom, turn around and they're no longer not going to kill themselves, but they're transformed, their life is there. That's when I go, okay, now we've hit the center of what I'm made for. Now, I deserve to feel this euphoric feeling within myself and appreciation. And even then, I still know it's God coming through me. I don't have the delusion, it's just me. But I think sometime after 40, I finally saw the stupidity of it. I accumulated enough that I looked at life with fresh eyes. And I could say by the time I turned 60 a year ago, I noticed it was interesting because my birthday, I didn't have an ounce of it. I was just like, you know, how could I at this stage of my life, when I've had the privilege of serving so many humans in so many contexts, you know, from turning around, you know, guys are going to kill themselves with PTSD, to helping kids turn around, to getting kids off cocaine or adults to, you know, helping people build multi-billion dollar businesses from nothing. And when I've lived this long, I can't go by without hearing half a dozen stories a day or a dozen stories a day from people telling me how Something I did changed their life. So it's not that I'm so smart now, it's just I've stacked it. By the way, though, stacking is the way you can do things. Most of us stack the negative. If you are really angry, it's not usually because it's just the moment. It's that it happened again. You know, it's like if you've ever lost it or overreacted to your kid or to a friend or a business or even within yourself, it's because it happened again. We hit this one, two, three, many point. and then our nervous system overreacts. But what I've learned is you can stack the good. For example, if you're in a state of really strong anger for more than five minutes, your immune system is suppressed between an hour and a half to two hours. That's a physiological fact. But no one had done any study. I started stacking good, like, okay, let me stack a dozen great memories, feel them, see them, experience them. And I felt this biochemical change that didn't just last a half hour, an hour, or 10 minutes. It went on for a day or two. And so I think I've learned to stack the good. So just having the experience is not enough. You got to stack the good to be able to appreciate it. But I think just come back to the main point here from my perspective, which could be completely, it's just my perspective. So I want to point that out. I think the more you find unconditional love for others, the easier it is to find in yourself. And I think the focus is serving and loving, And that's what will get you to the point where you start doing it. But if you want to speed it up, stack all the good you've done, you'll feel great about yourself.

I already know all the comments that are coming through. Thousands of comments tell me, But what about my family that's toxic? What about my partner who is toxic? And how do I love someone unconditionally when they don't respect me? I can't trust them. What about situations like that?

All those reactions are natural human reactions from ego. 'Cause it's all about you, me, me, me, what I'm not getting, what I'm not doing, and that's why you're in pain. And so I'm not telling you like I haven't done this. I've done it too in the past, but it's an old pattern I don't really do anymore. And it used to affect me. Now, not a dominant one, I wouldn't have become who I become. Early in my life, I developed this belief that life is calling not to give me something, life is calling for me to deliver things. For me to bring something to life and I felt the joy that came from not getting but giving and I got hooked on that core pattern and then the pattern of learning so I'd have something to give, which I know one of the things I respect about you, Louis, is that you have that same pattern in you. You're always trying to learn more because underneath it all, you also want to give it. You want it for you but you want to share it, right? And so those patterns help me not be in what they're not giving and all this language, language, Today, people don't understand the power of their language, like toxic. What the hell are you talking about? You've been reading too much social media and thinking about yourself, or somebody raised you to constantly judge everybody else. We live in a culture now where people, you know, you're evil or you're like me. That's basically how it is, right? The whole world, everybody else is immoral unless they do what you do, think what you think, experience what you think. Being a liberal, I was a liberal, right? Being a liberal growing up meant, I would fight for your ability to say and believe whatever you want different than me. Today, now everybody wants everybody to think the same thing, otherwise they're evil or otherwise they could hurt me. Whatever happened to sticks and stones will break your bones, words will never hurt me. We have this whole thing that words are evil, words are action, it's bull, and all it does is make you incredibly weak as a human being, and you're more than that. We all are more than that. But you know what? Like a kid that's never broken their bones, deathly afraid of breaking the bone. But if you're a kid and you're rough and tumble, you broke multiple bones and they heal, you don't have any fear of it. There's so many kids that have been raised to be safe and secure every moment. Anything that's insecure or unsafe, they don't want to be a part of, including language. And what it does is make you incredibly weak and fearful. And that's why there's so many people that are abundant, that are angry all the time. 'Cause they're angry 'cause they're not growing. So don't get me wrong, I know some people are not a good influence. I'm not denying that. I'm just saying you're more than somebody's influence unless you obsess about it every moment and make them wrong so you can make yourself feel superior morally, psychologically or spiritually. That's bullshit. Stop the pattern. We've all done it. Catch yourself. 'Cause if you want joy, happiness and freedom in an extraordinary life, you will not come from blame. Never. There's no pride that comes from blame. I don't mean fake pride where you make sh*t up to feel good. I'm talking about real pride. Pride is something you earn. Like people tell me, oh, I have no self-esteem because my parents used to say this or they'd say that. I'd say, that's such bullsh*t. I'm not saying it's bullsh*t. I didn't say that. I said, that's why you don't have self-esteem. Self-esteem does not come from what people say about you. Self-esteem comes from what you experience about yourself. See, someone can tell you your whole life you're a piece of crap and a part of you can go, you,'re full of it. I'm going to show you. Lots of people have done that. They never bought it. Or someone tell you, you're beautiful your whole life. You go, I'm not really beautiful. So what people tell you doesn't matter at all. It's what you stack. It's what you assemble. It's what you create. It's the habit of what you put in your head. And today I don't blame you because we got a whole culture that's always blaming somebody else for something in their life. But blame is not a strategy for pride. That's why you listen to these blaming people. They're all angry all the time. Listen, if I wanted to blame, I grew up in an environment, I didn't even share it to my mom past, and even then I didn't share. I grew up in a pretty rough environment. My mom was a beautiful soul, but when she drank alcohol and she mixed it with prescription drugs, it was a different creature. And it was a violent creature. And I have a younger brother five years younger and a younger sister seven years younger. and my mom would get nuts, and I didn't want them to get hurt. So I was 5'1 in high school. She'd grab me by the hair and smash me against the wall till I bled. Now, I never shared this, and I'm not denigrating her in any way. I only shared it, like, four or five years after she died, because I was talking to a group of kids in New York City, all without fathers, 80% African-American, about 20% Hispanic out of their group, roughly, No white kids and I'm talking about your biography is not your destiny. And it doesn't matter what you've been through, what you decide now is what's going to control your life, what you decide each day going forward is going to decide your life. And I look at them seeing me, I can read their minds. This big, tall, white, rich guy is going to tell me biography doesn't matter. So I said, you, let me tell you my story. And I told them the whole story way more than I'm telling you. And everyone was crying their eyes out when they were done. I said, look where I am right now. because I wouldn't assemble the story that my past equals my future. The past only equals your future if you live there. If you're using a rearview mirror to guide yourself, you're gonna crash. So what you've been through is horrific. What you've been through is unjust. I'm on your side. But if you hang on to it, you have no future and you have no one to blame but yourself. And these kids, to their credit, man, they just responded to the challenge because they first cried their eyes out hearing all the stories. My mom would think I was lying and I wasn't lying. She poured liquid soap down my throat till I I threw up and I wasn't lying. So it's not the physical abuse, it's the fact that this is the person you love most that's trying to hurt you, that messes with your head. So I could have been messed up for life, but I didn't. Because something inside me says, I'm responsible for this life. And part of that's because I started reading when I was 13, 14, biographies of people, the greatest people in history, and reading their lives and finding out, guess what? Their lives were far from perfect. Some of them had worse lives than I had. But when you have no reference and all you do is go online, you talk to other people, making everybody else toxic and I'm like this and they didn't do that, then you get to have the sh*tty life just like those other people.

Why are they online so much?

'Cause they don't have a life. Don't be one of those. Free yourself from the chains of your past. I'm not saying your past doesn't matter, but listen, my mother, I tell people this all the time, and it's the truth. if my mother had been the mother I wanted to be, the mother she should have been, I would not be the man I'm proud to be today. Because I had to become a practical psychologist way before any schooling, figure out when she gonna go in the mood, how do I change her state, how to protect her from the kids, what do we, I mean, it was felt life and death, and it was to some extent. So I developed skills at such a young age that when I learned things, I just added to my skills, but I had a core pure sense of certainty that I could turn anybody around because it started with my mother. And thank God for her. And she encouraged me in so many ways. She did so many great things. And she loved me, even though it didn't look like it at times.

So.

But if your parents, if the people around you said all the things you thought they should have, if they had just not been toxic, if they'd encouraged you, you wouldn't have any muscle. And right now, you don't have any muscle because you're using that as an excuse if you're thinking that. And I'm not attacking you brothers and sisters. I'm calling to you because I know you're more. Otherwise I'd just keep my mouth shut. You've been hypnotized by a culture of weakness. Now having said that, I'll say one last thing. I know you've got other questions, but it's so important what you asked. Yes, there are people that you don't want to hang out with that will not serve you. But then move on. Don't sit there and talk about it constantly. Don't waste your time. And you say, but what if it's family, Tony? mine was family too. You learn to grow. You go there in my life. Someone can get your goat. If someone can you off, if someone can make you feel less than, that's God coming to you saying, grow. You need some spiritual growth. There's got to be some change in your perception, your belief, your emotions, your spiritual look of life. So that can't happen anymore. And when it happens, like at 61, I've been through so many of those things, and I like to do things in mass. I took big challenges so I'd have to grow more. But then life throws them at you too. When they come, you just go, okay, it's going to have me until I grow. What needs a shift in me so that no longer has an impact? But you know, Jim Rohn used to say, my original teacher used to say, Tony, what happens if I've got a cup of coffee here? And he'd say, what if your worst enemy drops sugar in your coffee? What's going to happen? And I go, well, you have sweet coffee. And he goes, what if your best friend? Your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your loved one drops one drop of strychnine. I said, you,'d be dead. He goes, that's right. Life is both sugar and strychnine, so watch your coffee. His whole thing was stand guard at the door of your brain. But some people take it and go, oh my God, you can kill me. It was a metaphor. These people are not so toxic. They're toxic because you give them energy. So if your mom's crazy and constantly criticizing you and it drives you nuts, just go, that's my mom. That's her way of showing love. And I find a new perspective And no matter what she does, just stay in a beautiful state and love on her and think, boy, think of all that she cares and feels for, all that she's frustrated in life, or all that she's going through that's made her this way. And thank God I don't have to go through this.

I can love her.

It's like your growth is the only limit to your happiness. If you're not happy, you're not growing in some area. And usually it's a place where you're blaming, you're pointing the finger. I don't care if it's government, don't get me wrong, people can be unfair, unjust, that's for sure happens. but you can't control that. You can't make it not happen. What you have to do is become stronger than any of it. So you're free. Freedom comes from growth. Freedom does not come from control. Because control is an illusion. You can't control everybody. No matter how hard you try, you can't control what they think or feel. And not everybody's going to be fair and just. And you, my dear friends, and I have not always been fair and just. Whether we admit it or not, it's just. the nature of being a being, a human being. But we can't make the largest pattern fair and just and loving and powerful and serving and growing until it becomes the dominant thing inside you. And then you experience life as being great, not your great. Life's great because you're living a great path.

It seems like what I'm seeing and hearing from a lot of people that this past year everything has fallen apart for them. Their health, their relationships, their finances, their mission or purpose. and these, you know, their spiritual awareness, like every area of life has been in breakdown mode for some people. Not everyone, some people have had incredible lives and have stepped up to the occasion and broken through on all these things, but I'm seeing a pattern of a lot of people breaking down in many areas. Hypothetical scenario, let's say you could only focus on one thing to get you started. You only have the time and energy to focus on one of these areas, your health, your relationships are all breaking down. down, your finances are failing everywhere. Where should people lean into first to kind of create that foundation so that everything else can start to rise as well?

I think before you answer what to do, you're going to answer why you're there. But my core mission is what I do for a living. It's why I'm here talking to you right now. It's getting people to be free and alive and have the level of fulfillment that they deserve to have. I know they desire, but I also believe they deserve to have but to to have it, you got to do certain things, right? And so you're not in the place of being overweight because you lost your job. So stop the bullsh*t blame. Blame is not a strategy for a meaningful life. Blame is not a strategy for greatness. So you got to resolve that number one. And then your question was, what's the one thing to focus on if you only focus on one? I think it's smart to focus on one thing primarily. Focus on too many can be overwhelming. Other people, it's good to focus on multiple things. It depends on your personality. So I wouldn't presuppose. But then the answer would be whichever thing you're most desirous of changing, whatever thing is giving you the most pain. So if it's your relationship, I go full force on that. Now, in the world we're in today, you don't usually have the privilege of going, okay, I want to work on just being happy. Well, I can train you to be happy while breaking loose. You can sit in this chair and be totally euphoric. But if you do that in a Western culture, people come and take your furniture, right? So you probably have to work on both your business or financial side and some personal side. I would be working on both. And to me, the way to attack that, if you're not sure which area is to start with the body. And I know you can relate to this, Louis, because you and I both share this in common. It's like I always teach physiology first, as you well know. If you change the body, you'll change the emotions. If you change the emotions, you'll change your decisions, you'll change the quality of your life. Because the quality of life is your emotions. It's not what you get. You have a billion dollars and commit suicide. People have done it. Right? You can have beautiful relationships and commit suicide. You can have people loving you and be sad all the time. Our pattern of emotion is our home and you have to upgrade your home. You have to train it and one way to train it is the emotion comes from the way you move, the way you breathe, the way you speak. So if I said to your listeners, there's a depressed person behind the curtain over here and I'll give $100,000 to their favorite if they had to describe their body, their posture, and they're depressed, you tell me. I'll just use the example. What does that person look like?

They're slouched down. They're looking down at their feet. They're not looking upward. Their shoulders are over.

Are they breathing full or shallow, do you think?

They're shallow.

Are they talking fast or slow?

They're talking, if they're depressed, they're probably talking fast because they're not calm.

Well, no, that's usually stressed. Depressed is different than stressed.

They're probably talking low volume, slower than.

And all those physical characteristics change your biochemistry towards this feeling of being depressed and in a depressed state you won't do anything. When I used to be depressed, I don't get it anymore, I just took it out of my life. I even took the language of it out of my life because the words you create create a biochemical response. But when I did that decades ago, because I was like having those thoughts like, Is there a reason to still be here? That kind of crazy in your head. I got out of it by using anger originally. I'd much like sometimes if somebody's really sad or depressed, I'll make them angry and be like, what's he doing? He's making me angry. Because angry is much more resourceful than depressed. From anger, I can get you to laughter. I can get you to taking action. And then gradually I got where I didn't need anger.

It was about growth.

It was about contribution. It was about meaning. So there's like stages to go through. But to answer your question, they should work on both their business side of their life and personal, one of each. And in order for either one of those to work, you need to be in a strong emotional state. And if you start with your body, like, you know, I start every morning in my cold water, start every morning with my workout, I start every morning feeding my mind, right? So there's certain things you got to do physically so you're strong enough to remember the truth. Because remember, fear is physical. You feel your throat or your gut. So it's courage. Courage doesn't mean you're not afraid. It just means you're strong enough you push through in spite of the fear, right? And courage feels different in the body. So when you go lift or you go for a sprint or a strong run or you jump in that freezing water, when you push your mind to go beyond what's comfortable, you feel a strength inside you and that strength will help you to change your body, your emotions, your relationships, whatever. But then the other thing I have to say is model someone who's successful. Don't just do this shit by trial and error. Like find somebody who has what you want, ideally maybe more than one person, two or three, and say, what are they doing different than you in their relationship? What do they believe different than you about relationship? If it's their body, what are they doing? They're not lucky. They're doing things differently. You might be slightly biochemically different, but there's patterns there that you can see. Instead of learning by trial and error, which can take decades you may never learn, Jim Rohn taught me success leaves clues, man. Find someone who's got what you want, study what they do, every aspect of it, and then add yourself to it. That's the pathway to speed of transformation. Now, I've done it. I'm not the only person. There's so many companies that went from worse off than they've ever been in their history to the best off because they found a way to pivot.

If people are listening to this, watching this, thinking about how they can transform their lives and better their lives, what's something over the next seven days that they should be thinking about with their habits to make this happen?

Yeah, great question. I don't even think it needs to be seven days. I think it'd be five minutes. You know, like you can do a lot with five good minutes. Like five good minutes of exercise will reset your mood. Five good minutes of writing will make you feel totally different about your manuscript. It's like now the project's moving forward. Five good minutes of conversation will restore the relationship and, you know, get people back on track. So five good minutes can do a lot. And I think you can scale it down that small and just ask yourself, you know, how can I live five good minutes? You know, how can I, like in a sense, each day is a small lifetime. And how can you live a good life today? That's really all you got to focus on is can I have a good day today? And then you can wake up again tomorrow and do the same thing. And this idea of getting 1% better each day, it's really encouraging a focus on trajectory rather than position. You know, there's so much discussion about position in life. We have all these different ways of measuring our current position. Like what's the number on the scale? How much money's in the bank account? What's the current stock price? We have all these different ways of analyzing what our current position is. And then usually when we get that number, whatever it is, there's kind of some sort of judgment that happens. You know, it's, oh, I'm not where I said I wanted to be yet, or we haven't achieved what we said we wanted to achieve. And what I'm encouraging is to say, listen, measurement's fine. It can be useful, but just for a minute, let's set that to the side and stop worrying so much about our current position. and focus a little bit more on our current trajectory. You know, is the arrow pointed up and to the right or have we flatlined? You know, are we getting 1% better or 1% worse? Because if you're on a good trajectory, even if it's just for the next five minutes, you know, then you're on the path where all you need is time. Like time will magnify whatever you feed it. You know, if you have good habits, time becomes your ally and that trajectory will carry you forward. And if you have bad habits, time becomes your enemy. And every day that goes by, you kind of dig the hole a little bit deeper. And so getting 1% better each day, it's really a mindset. It's an approach. It's less about measuring it, oh, is it 1% or 1.6% or whatever? Like it's not about getting caught up in the numbers. It's about trying to focus on putting yourself on a good path and then letting those days stack up.

In your opinion, why do you think so many people have the habit of being hard on themselves, even when they're improving and seeing the metrics go up on whatever they're measuring?

I mean, it can probably be many different things and I, you know, I don't know all the answers. I think one thing that's common is that the results of success are widely discussed and highly visible. And the process of success is often invisible and hidden from view. You know, like you'll never see a news story that's like man eats chicken and salad for lunch today. You know, it's only a story once it's like man loses a hundred pounds. You know, it's only once it's a result that people talk about it. or like there's never going to be a story about James writes 500 words today. You know, it's like only a story once Atomic Habits is a best seller. And so because the results are the thing that gets discussed so much, and it's not, by the way, it's not that results don't matter. Like I consider myself pretty results oriented. It's just that I think we tend to overvalue outcomes because it's all we ever talk about and we undervalue the process because it's just not It's not compelling to talk about what's going on on a daily basis. So because of all that, I think it can get easy to judge yourself. You know, you could be doing the right thing on any given day. Like I could sit down and I could write 500 words. And that's actually a really good day, you know? But if the manuscript's still a mess and I'm still a year and a half away from the book coming out and I'm seeing somebody else launch a bestseller this week, then it's you start to judge yourself and feel like, oh, they have what I want to have or I'm not there yet or this is still a mess. I've been working on it for months. Like this is never going to get finished. It's very easy to fall into that kind of mindset, and especially if you're focused on results. So I think the shift is partially it just helps to know that.

Working.

On habits day in and day out, focusing on building a better process and building a better system is how results occur. And that is very obvious to all of us as soon as you say it, but man, it's so easy to forget it on a daily basis. and so reminding yourself that most of your results in life are a lagging measure of the habits that precede them. So your bank account is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your physical fitness is the lagging measure of your exercise habits. Your even like silly stuff, like the amount of clutter in your living room is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. So many areas of life are largely, maybe not exclusively, but largely influenced by the habits that precede them. And so if you want better outcomes, the thing to focus on is building better habits. And for some reason, we get into this mindset where we're focused on results and we naturally start to compare and that leads to feelings of judgment, resentment and negativity and so on. And if we can just shift it a little bit and just try to focus on having five good minutes or living a good day, or building better habits, then I think maybe you pull yourself back in the present moment. You focus a little bit more on running your own race and maybe a little bit less on what everybody else is doing.

Love that, man. Focus on your own race. You know, over 10 million copies sold of Atomic Habits. You know, if there is anyone who hasn't got this yet, you guys got to make sure you get this. But I'm curious, for those who haven't got it yet and don't know, how long does it take to form a habit? It seems like there's all these different research. This university says this and this scientific study says this. How long does it take to actually form a habit? And it's dependent on what habit you're trying to create. And are there also also are there different stages of building and forming a habit?

That's interesting. The stages part's interesting. People don't usually ask that. Okay, so. Very popular question, how long does it take to build a habit? It does depend on the habit you're building. So there are a variety of studies that show, you know, if you pick an easy habit, you know, might only take a couple weeks. If you pick something really difficult, maybe it takes six or seven or eight months, like, you know, who knows? But it also depends, like the same habit can take very different amounts of time depending on the context. Imagine one person who's trying to build the habit of doing yoga every day. and they live with a bunch of athletes or people who go to yoga studios or whatever. And then the other person is trying to build a habit of doing yoga every day, and they live with nobody who works out, and they kind of get criticized or poked fun at if they do it in front of them. Well, same habit, but very different situations. And so the environment's going to influence how much friction you're feeling associated with that. And obviously that will influence how easy or difficult it is. So I don't really know that the timing tells you anything. You know, there's all these kind of popular myths, 21 days or 30 days or whatever, and there's not really anything to back that up. But there's also a couple of studies that say on average it's like 66 days or something like that. But again, the range can be quite wide depending on the habit. So I think the true answer, the honest answer to how long does it take to build a habit is forever. Because if it stops, if you stop doing it, it's no longer a habit, you know? And what I'm trying to get at with that is habits are not a finish line to be crossed. You know, they're a lifestyle to be lived. It's something to integrate into your new normal. It's not like, Hey, let me just do this for 30 days or 66 days, and then I'll be a healthy person, or then I'll be productive or whatever. You know, I won't have to think about it anymore. It's like, no, like what we're looking for is a change that you can integrate into your new normal, something you can make part of your lifestyle. And then once it's part of your daily life, great, you can start to look at the next habit and try to integrate that one. And it's a it's kind of this endless process. And maybe that encourages you a little bit more to look for a non-threatening change or a sustainable change rather than just trying to flip a switch.

Yeah.

And it also sounds like a habit is only a habit, and correct me if I'm wrong, if it becomes and is your identity on a consistent basis. And if it's not your identity, then you're not doing it if it's not your identity.

I don't think most researchers would define it that way, but it speaks to this question you asked about stages. And that, that was kind of the first thing that I thought about, when you mentioned that question. So like, let's say, for example, let's just take like a classic habit, like going to the gym and we're working out. So early on, going to the gym is kind of uncomfortable. You know, you're worried about like, are people judging me? Do I look stupid? I don't know what exercises to do. Um, you know, like, I don't know where to put my stuff. Do they have a water fountain at this gym or do I need to bring a water bottle? There's like all these like stupid little questions that you're thinking about. when you're getting started. And it's definitely not part of your identity. You haven't shown up enough to be comfortable there and feel like, Hey, this is just part of who I am. And so early on, the kind of the first stage when you're practicing it, I think the number one thing you need to do is scale it down, reduce the scope, and try to make it as easy and as frictionless as possible to show up each day. So that's probably like stage one is how do I make this?

The opposite of what people try to do when they're like, I'm out of shape. I'm gonna go every day for the.

Next year and I'm not gonna miss a day and I'm gonna chicken and salad every day. Well, and you know what's interesting is, especially for ambitious people, it's really interesting or really easy to fall into that pitfall because when you sit down and you think about the changes you want to make, yeah, it's easy to get excited about that. I think implicitly you kind of, even though people don't say it, the thing that's kind of in the back of their mind is, what can I achieve on my best day? Like how can I get to peak performance, you know? And instead, I almost think it's more useful to ask yourself, what can I achieve even on the worst days? Like what habit could I stick to even on the bad days? Because then if you start there, now you can start to build some momentum. You can show up consistently, you can establish the habit. So that's maybe the first stage is scale it down. The second stage is you start to get some like other rewards associated with it. So you've been going to the gym for a few months and then maybe you start to see a little bit of a change in your body. Or maybe you start to develop some friendships there and you look forward to seeing your new buddy there and you guys fist bump and you chat a little bit and it's just like kind of more engaging. and fun to do it, to go there and, you know, work out. And so these are like other benefits, things that make the habit feel good and they kind of help you show up more and more. So you're starting to get these external benefits that are coming along the way. And then ultimately the, the, maybe the final stage or a later stage is now it feels like it's kind of part of my identity. I go like, this is where I would say. So I've been working out for a while now, and it's probably like the habit that I care most about, like my, in terms of personal habits, it's the one that feels like it centers me, or it's the only time I really get for myself. And so I want to work out now. Yes, of course, I want the benefits of it and the, you know, the physical changes and all that stuff. But what I really want is I just feel good when I do it. You know, I feel like I'm being me, I'm being the kind of person I want to be. And it makes me feel like, yeah, this is the identity I want to have. This is the kind of person I want to be. And so I can get that satisfaction. instantly, like as soon as long as I'm doing one rep, I, you know, I get that feeling. And so that's a reward that comes maybe later. You got to show up a lot before you get to that place mentally. But I think ultimately that's where you're trying to get to. Now, there is, there is maybe one more stage after that, which is the tighter that you cling to your current identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it. and so this is kind of an endless process, you know, like you, we all can sort of think about like, let's say you have a surgeon who they've been doing an operation a certain way for the last 20 years, and they have a bunch of successful patients and cases from that operation. And they just are like, yeah, you know what? I know it works well this way.

And then a new technology, this way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A new technology comes along and they're like, you know, hey, you can do this with robots now or you can do it laparoscopically or whatever. And they resist it because they're like, no, I have a lot of evidence for doing my old way. They cling to that current identity and it's harder to grow. And five years from now, they find themselves behind the curve. Or you've got a teacher who they've been doing their lesson plan the same way for the last 10 years and they don't want to integrate YouTube or some new learning modality or whatever. And five years from now, they find themselves behind the curve. And so the tighter you cling to your current identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it. And it's kind of this endless cycle in the in the early stages, what you want is to foster the identity, to like reinforce being that kind of person because it helps you show up. But then eventually a couple of years from now, the world changes and you need to adapt. And so it's kind of like evolve or die. And you need to continually be retouching or optimizing or refining that identity and your approach. And so that's, those are, there are some various stages there, but those are kind of some of the big ones that I, that stuck out to me.

Yeah. And it's like people who are stuck to whatever fax machines and then it's, you know, then from faxing to email and then email to, you know, cell phones and whatever it is, it's like our grandparents don't keep up with the technology and then we can't call them on FaceTime because they don't know how to turn it on or whatever. So that's interesting. There, it sounds like there's different stages to these habits, and it sounds like when you become successful, the habits that got you here may not necessarily get you to the next stage or season of Accomplishment, fulfillment, success, health. Is that right?

Yeah.

It's interesting because I would say there's kind of like two categories. There are habits that are like timeless that you, the, and we call those the fundamentals of whatever your domain is. You know, like in my case, reading and writing are probably always going to be habits that will serve me as an author, you know? But then there's other stuff, you know, the way that I executed the book launch for Atomic Habits. You know what? Like if I launch another book in 10 years, a lot of those strategies will probably be outdated. And so you need to upgrade and improve, you need to evolve and change. And so there's, there's both the fundamentals that you always need to stick to, and there's just this continual growth and, and learning process that you also have to be committed to.

What is the difference between a habit and a behavior, and which one should we be focusing on more in order to get to where we want to be, changing our behaviors or changing our habits?

A habit is a subset of behavior. It's a pretty narrow subset actually, if you look at the, at the like true scientific definition. So Wendy Wood of University of Southern California is, I think, the world's expert on habit. And she would define it pretty rigidly as something you basically do automatically without almost, you know, consciously realizing you're doing it, right? Like you sort of make the coffee.

In the morning with the coffee maker.

You hit the button, you don't even remember.

You're just like showering your hair, right?

And you're like, did I do the shampoo already? I was thinking about something else. You drop off to work and you don't know how you got there. You're like, what? well, you're on autopilot, right? So that's like, those are the really rote activities, like you hand sanitize if you're working in a hospital. You didn't even notice you did it. Did I do that already? Those are habits. I think there's been a lot of excitement and growth of, like, in the popular press, the idea that a habit is anything that you want to repeat. And I think that would actually, a lot of the things that we think of, and that we talk about casually as habits, are probably more in the category of routines. which is different. Like often it's a, like if you're going to the gym, is it really a habit? You probably remember deciding to go to the gym. Maybe you do it at a consistent time. Maybe you do it a lot. But I would start calling a lot of these things more like routines if you want to talk about the non-academic at any rate. Sure, sure. You know, a little bit like inside baseball. Who cares? But I do think it's interesting there's distinction in the processes that drive one versus the other. I mostly, I study behavior, which is like a super category. It's even above routines or habits where, where, and it's just all behavior change requires different behaviors to happen. Some of them are going to be on autopilot, some of them are going to be routine, and some of them are one time decisions that have big implications for your life. So I actually think having all of those categories in mind when we think about change is really important as opposed to narrowly focusing on one or the other.

So what is the definition of a behavior?

That's an interesting one. What is a behavior? A behavior is an action you take. Really, everything is behavior. If it's inside your head, it's not a behavior. Then it's a judgment. But any actual action you take is a behavior.

Any action you take. So what are the most common behaviors that we have? that I guess hold us back and then what are the behaviors that- okay.

I thought you were going to go with the most common. I was like breathing.

No, the most common behaviors that hold us back and then the most common behaviors of the ultra high performers, successful, you know, in business and sports, what are those behaviors that they tend to lean into versus the ones where people are stuck.

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Trying to ask you questions you've never been asked here.

That's my goal. They're great, they're really great questions. Okay, let me start with some of the most common behaviors.

That keep us stuck.

That keep us stuck.

Yes.

Yeah, I think common behaviors where we get stuck are, and this is like, you know, what are the most common New Year's resolutions? They're to change those behaviors that we get stuck on. so the most common things we get stuck on are things related to our health, right? We aren't making good decisions about what we eat, what we drink, whether we smoke, whether we're physically active. Those are really common points where we get stuck. Our finances, right? Making good financial decisions on a daily basis about how we spend our money, how we save, who we give our money to. Those are places people often get stuck. We can get stuck in bad social loops. We sort of started by talking about relationships, so I think that's another place we get stuck, whether it's we're, you know, not, we feel like we're too shy, we're not meeting enough people, we're meeting the wrong people, we're in the wrong relationships. That's another area where we get stuck. I think education and career are sort of, I'd put them, because they're like one follows the other. And that's another category. Like if you're a student, you're trying to achieve, but we often get stuck on not really studying rigorously and, you know, putting the time in and the focus in, and then that converts to work. Where we're not being as productive as we could be, we're not setting ourselves up for success.

Ultra performers or the elite who are accomplishing all their goals and pursuing their dreams. What are those behaviors that they do really well?

So, I have never gone and interviewed the ultra performers and said, list for me all your behaviors. So instead of answering your question perfectly, what I'm going to do is tell you some of the behaviors that research shows lead to great outcomes. And then certainly I have seen lots of top performers where I go, oh, They're doing it. They're totally doing it. It's great. So I think one of the most important things.

Is.

Like leaning on structure as opposed to expecting to just sort of follow the Nike just do it mantra. And by the way, when you talked about how you're training for your marathon, I noticed you immediately went to all the structures.

Schedule, structure, accountability, coaching, like money into it all. So there's more investment in it. So it's like you've got to show up.

Yes.

That is like for me, it's so ingrained in me that if you want to accomplish your goals, you've got to schedule these things you've got to do on a daily basis and make it like...

Break it down.

What's the daily goal?

What's the daily goal? When are you going to do it?

What's going to cue you to do it? Who's going to watch you?

Everything.

Everything. What's at stake for you?

What's it, you know, at stake for other people? What's the higher purpose that if if.

You don't do this, who are you.

Going to be hurting? And who is literally holding you accountable, right? You've got your coach involved.

So those are the kinds of things. So structure is one of the leading academic, the research that shows which will help you get more results.

Yes, and there's so many pieces of that and like each one of them we could unpack and talk about studies from, you know, okay, a big one is too often people say, I just have this big goal, you know, this big, I think if I set a big audacious goal, And by the way, that's good. It's good to set stretch goals, but then you've got to break it down into the, what are you going to do this week? What are you going to do today? What are those component parts? And people get a lot further. Research by Albin Jura, the late Albin Jura of Stanford, great thinker, did some of the pioneering work on this. We just did a field experiment where we tested with thousands of people who wanted to be volunteering 200 hours a year, and they had committed to that goal, and we found that just Sending them reminders not to volunteer 200 hours a year, but to volunteer four hours a week led to vastly better performance. Just that really simple change even in the way you communicate about this. When you invite someone to start saving $5 a day instead of $150 a month, you get vastly higher take up rates.

Interesting.

Identical. So just little framing shifts where you think about let's break this down into the bite size component Now it's harder to procrastinate on it. You can see how it's doable. It doesn't feel overwhelming.

So you're saying if my goal is to save $105 or invest $105 a month or whatever this is, are you saying it's not the best approach to say, I'm going to invest $105 a month, but I'm going to do $5 a day? Yeah.

So 100, I can't remember what the-- Yeah, it's 150 because it's 30 days roughly in a month.

150, as opposed to saying, I'm going to save or invest $150 a month. trick your brain into saying, I'm gonna invest $5 a day. Right. You're saying by doing that, what should happen?

We should have- Many more people raise their hand and say, I can do this.

As opposed to $150 is too big for some people.

It sounds big. You start thinking like, oh no, where am I gonna have to cut? Like, that's a big, like I'm not gonna get to go out to dinner three times that I thought I was gonna get to go out to, am I gonna make my rent? So you're like focusing on that big category, $150, And this was an experiment that was done led by Hal Hershfield at UCLA with a savings app, Acorns. And they just invited people either, some people get randomly assigned, do you want to save $5 a day or $150 a month? It's literally the identical outcome. They will take $150 out of your account monthly.

Monthly. Yeah.

But framed it differently and you get vastly higher take rates.

Really?

Something like five times more people.

No way.

It just feels doable. Yes.

And it's like anyone can find $5 in their couch or like car, like the change. It's like, I can do this every day, but 150 bucks may be like a big stretch.

Right.

But it is the same thing. And so that broken down goal is really important.

So as opposed, so it's like if you're working out as opposed to saying, I'm going to run, I don't know, 50 miles a week. It's like, that may seem like a lot, but I can run. What is that broken down to? Three miles, four miles, four miles a day, five miles a day. It's more doable than thinking about the big number, right? Yeah. That's interesting. How could you apply that in another area of life, do you think, in terms of fitness, in terms of finances, and what about relationships? I don't know.

I think you can break down most big goals into its component parts. It might not be as simple as literally redoing the math, but it might be, I want to have a better relationship and I want us to spend more quality time together. Let's try to spend a lot more quality time together this year. Well, first you can get more concrete than a lot of. And so say you had a monthly goal, it might be like, OK, I want to make sure that we go on five just us dates a month to have that alone time. You might say that means every Friday plus one Saturday, we're going to do it. And that means once a week plus one week that has two times. Let's go map out when they are. It all becomes more bite Achievable. And this is again, you said you're like mapping out your schedules. These are the component parts that actually add up to achieving your goals.

And I really think of like, okay, what am I going to do this week? What am I going to schedule this week? Not like, I've got all this stuff to do for the next three months. Like, what can I do for the next few days? And what's coming tomorrow? And then, okay, I see the full week and how am I going to manage my time? And at the end of the week, wow, I can look at what I.

Created and I can be proud of.

It and build for the next week.

Yeah, so that's really important.

Yeah, and time's gonna keep passing, and in three months you're gonna look back and say, oh, look at all those steps I took to get to me where I'm at.

Absolutely.

Winning the LA Marathon. I'm just kidding. Completing is the goal. Completing in five hours is my goal. Okay, so that's-- so breaking down structure.

Let me add another super important strategy that I think a lot of high performers use that research supports. and this one I think is vastly underappreciated too. And it sort of relates to what I was poking at earlier, like the just do it Nike, like, no, that's not really right. I think this is really a misconception that's related to that. And this, the idea comes from research by Ayelet Fishbach of the University of Chicago and Caitlin Woolley of Cornell. And what they showed is that if you ask people, when they have a big goal, what approach are they going to take to try to get to it, most people say, like, I'm going to look for the most efficient route. It's all about efficiency. What's the most effective path to that end goal? That's how I go for it. And like a small fraction of people say something different. They say, I try to find a way that I'll enjoy getting to that end destination. Have fun.

Have fun.

So, so you could think about someone who wants to, we've been on marathons, say you're training for a marathon, you know, somebody who's like, I'm going to just Go to the gym and get on the treadmill and grind it out.

Grind it out.

You can make it hard every day.

Yeah.

And another person is like, I'm gonna go on a run with a running group. We're gonna go through, you know, the most, on the most beautiful trails that I know. We're gonna do it together. Maybe I'm even gonna download some great reading material, listening material before I go so that I have something fun in my ears. Those are really different paths, right? Like, this one might be more efficient because you don't have to coordinate with other people. You'll do it every day. You're gonna, like, know exactly your mileage, it's going to be really controlled. But it turns out if you don't enjoy it, you don't persist. And so they've done experiments where they show that if you just actually encourage people to choose the most fun way to pursue an exercise goal or study, they did this with students in math class, giving them fun activities that were sort of going on in the background. You can use markers and play music and of snacks versus just grind it out. People achieve more because they persist longer when they find ways to make it fun to do what's good for them.

That's crazy.

But we misunderstand this. We don't think we need that. We sort of think like, oh, that's kids stuff. Like, I'm just going to push through and we're wrong. We won't ultimately. And that's because of impulsivity, because we overvalue the present experience relative to the long-term gains. It's just how we're wired.

What's the greatest lesson you learned in the last year of working at these two jobs, as you transition out of this job, what was the greatest lesson of overworking what it sounds like you were doing?

That success does not equal happiness. I remember when, I think it was three years ago, I had signed my highest draft pick ever. I had won like woman of the year, you know, had a number one overall pick in softball. All these amazing things happening, made more money than I've ever made. and I remember looking back, I had made a birthday post actually like, oh, here's all the great things I did this year. I remember being like, man, this is the least happy I've ever been. And so I think I learned really quickly that success and happiness, I mean, people try to conflate those terms are very different. You can be successful and not be happy. And so for me, the Milestones don't make me happy. I'm very much a journey girl, right? The journey, it's all about, I want to get there. I want to get there. When I finally hit the goal, it was real anti-climatic for me. It's almost depressing. It's like, okay, I did it. Now what? So it was really a wake-up call. And what I'm trying to do is learn how to be present in the moment when I hit the goal. Be okay with, like, okay, I hit the goal. Let's celebrate it. Like, instead of it going to kind.

Of being like, well, what's next? Like, taking a moment to really take it in.

Celebrating the success and the accomplishment of the years of hard work is so important. It is. But for me, it's always like, okay, well what's the next goal? What's the next step? And that's unhealthy. You need to be able to be okay with celebrating what you've done and.

Taking a moment to live in that moment before going to the next. Yeah, I think success doesn't equal happiness, but I think also you can still.

Be happy and successful at the same time. You can. Exactly. But it doesn't, it's different and people think once I hit success, then I will be happy.

You've got to find happiness separately. Before you become successful, be happy and.

Success will add to it is more fun. really. It's really joy, right? Happiness is about what's happening. Joy is eternal.

How much joy do you feel on a daily basis?

It's something I'm working on. It's something I'm working on. You know, I feel it, but my mom, I watch her. She doesn't have much. She never had much, but she's always just so joyful. She's got two paintings to rub together, but there's no one I've met who just is happier to be alive than her. You know, I look at her and I'm like, she doesn't have anything and I have everything in her mind.

Interesting.

And our outlooks on life are just so different, you know? And so, yeah, I mean, it's something I'm working on. It's not like I'm not happy all day.

What's the greatest lesson your mom taught you?

I mean, she instilled my faith. You know, I'm really blessed to have learned about Jesus from my mom. You know, she gave me nothing else except, you know, how to worship Jesus and how to be a giver. Those are the two things, but I feel like they were the most important gifts of my life.

That's cool.

Yeah.

What about greatest lesson from your dad?

That's a tough one. He's an immigrant, you know, he came over here with nothing and, you know, had to hustle. He definitely taught me, you have to survive. You know, you gotta, no matter what the circumstances are, he kind of taught me to survive. You know, I knew how to survive as a kid. I think Now that I'm older, I'm trying to go from surviving to thriving. Stop living in a survival mode, because I can do that. I can do that well. Learned how to do that. So it's like, okay, now how about thriving? And like you said, living in abundance.

And being okay with spending your money and enjoying the moment. An influencer or a content creator, you're working at a law firm and then representing other personal brands essentially, athletes and influencers. So how do you learn to build your own personal brand? and why is it important for every individual to build their personal brand, whether in a corporation or not?

Actually, I have a whole chapter on this in my book about building a brand. I believe every professional is a brand, lawyers, doctors, et cetera. I think we always look at entrepreneurs and influencers as the people that have brands. Once I learned that we're all brands, it really changed my career. You know, I decided to build a brand because I wanted to get athletes to come to me. I didn't have time to recruit like other agents because I had another job. And so I had to get creative and I thought, okay, if I have a brand where I'm a household name, or when somebody thinks of a sports agent, I'm the first name or one.

Of the first names that comes to.

Mind, then I've done it right. How'd you do that? Man, it starts with picking out your pillars of your brand, right? I think every brand has a few pillars and everything you do falls under those pillars. Like for me, it's sports and it's women empowerment and mentorship. And so when I'm posting on my social media or on my website, anything that is on that page is under one of my pillars.

Yeah.

And so finding what that brand kind of parameters are and then being consistent with it. You know, your followers and your fans, they sign up for something, giving them what they signed up for.

When did you start really going all in on kind of content and building a brand online?

I would say it's been about three or four years when I I started, you know, it was a slow start, but I just, I remember making a decision like, I'm gonna be the first agent everyone thinks of. I'm gonna make a decision. Like, it was very intentional. I'm about to build a brand as a sports agent, and it has not been done. And I think most people probably know of Jerry McGuire, the fictitious agent, maybe one or two agents, but you can't name a sports agent just naturally.

Right.

And so I made the decision. I said, you know what? When people think of that, they're gonna think of me. That's cool. But everyone should feel that way. If you're a baker, you want people to think of you first if they need a cake.

And do you think of like, okay, there's, I don't know, 20, 000 sports agents. I'm just making, I'm just making it.

How many are there?

I don't know.

900 and a few.

Yeah.

Okay. I'm way off. But there's a thousand, let's say, agents. How do you, do you think of, like, I'm gonna lean into my uniqueness? Like. Yeah. Use the differences or the uniqueness of the talents that I have and not try to be like the other agents, but just go. all in obnoxiously on who I am.

Is that what you think of?

100%.

Living in my authentic self every single day. Living in my authentic self every single day. I decided to show up exactly who I am every day. You know, and I think I wouldn't be on this podcast. I wouldn't have a book if I didn't make that decision day one that I was gonna be me.

Right.

You know, I got a lot of advice early on to blend in and I was like, you know what?

I'm not taking that advice. I'm gonna be who I am. Yeah. There's a quote from a woman named Sally Hogshead who says, Different is better than better. And being different is better than better because you're going to be unique, you're going to be stand out, you're going to be a one-oF-A-Kind and you may not be better than the best sports agent at this moment, but you're different and that's better for you than being better.

I agree.

And I think if people can approach that and say, what makes me unique and how can I lean into that more and more? Like for me, I'm a big salsa dancer and I wasn't posting salsa stuff until recently and it's getting the most engagement and comments and people are like, Post more of this. I'm playing guitar with my brother who's an amazing jazz violinist and they're like, Post more of this. These are unique things for me that I haven't always shared and I'm trying to lean into it more and more.

And I think that's You are the secret sauce.

Exactly. No one else can do the talents that you have. The experience you have, the life you grew up from, the lessons, the whatever.

Even if you give them the recipe, if I give you my spaghetti recipe, the exact instructions, your sauce is still gonna taste different. Different. I'm the secret sauce.

You're the secret sauce. Exactly. Exactly. People are gonna be attracted to you. I love this. What's a question you wish more people.

Would ask you that they don't ask you?

Ask?

Oh man, that's a good question. What do I wish they asked me but that they don't ask? How are you? How are you feeling?

How are you feeling?

I'm feeling pretty good. I'm feeling okay. I'm a little tired. I get a lot of questions about how to get in the business and like when I meet people, how to be a sports agent and I think people forget like, hey, I'm a human and you know, more of the like checking in like, how are you doing? Like, we're, you know, you. How's your mental health? How's your physical health? How's Nicole Lynn doing? Not Agent Nicole Lynn.

How's Nicole Lynn doing?

Personal Nicole Lynn.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think people kind of forget about that.

I'd say that.

That's what I'm gonna do over the next 30 days.

Every day.

How are you? Once a week. No, once a week.

Once a week I'm gonna check in with you.

I'm gonna, we're gonna create a list.

Oh my gosh.

Send it to you. August 1st. August 1st. Yeah, we'll give it to you on August 1st, the start of the month.

Gotta have the August one. You can't start it yet.

Yeah, exactly. And we'll do that August 1st. I'm gonna text you. I can do it. Every week, I'm not even having you text me on the weekends when you've completed the week.

Okay.

And I wanna check in on you for four weeks. I'm gonna be like an NFL training camp.

I'm gonna be working out in the hotel.

Working out with the guys, you know?

It's just like, I'll jump in there. Exactly. Kill them. I love this. You've got this book we've been talking about called Agent yout: Show Up, Do the Work, and Succeed in Your Own Terms. People can get it online, they can go to bookstores. Where's a place they can connect with you personally?

Where's the website for more about you? AgentNicolin.com or @agentnicolin on Twitter, Instagram. Where do you hang out more? Twitter, Instagram, or both? I'd say both. Twitter, it's heavy, heavy sports. So if you like sports, Instagram, you'll get mostly sports, but mentorship. I like to post kind of the blueprint of how I am a sports agent. That's cool. You know, if you ever want to get into sports, I put all the.

Tips on my page. That's cool. Yeah, it's fun. And I see my guy Emmanuel and Sarah both on the back praising for you, both friends of mine.

So it's inspiring to see. Gabrielle Union wrote the forward.

That's awesome. Where's her name on it? I know, she's a good... You gotta put her name on the front. I know what I'm saying. Forward by Gabrielle Union. Yeah. You gotta leverage that.

That's good marketing.

This is a question I ask everyone at the end. of our number is called the three truths question. So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical scenario.

It's your last day on earth many.

Years away from now. It's really sad.

It is. The most depressing.

No, you've lived as long as you want to live.

200 years. Perfect.

You lived 200? Clearly.

And then it's your last day. Eventually you gotta call it quits, right? Okay. On this life. And you've accomplished all your dreams. You've lived the life that you want to live. you do self-care every day, you're helping athletes, you're doing all these... Whatever your dream life is and you actually create it. Okay. From here until whenever you pass. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your materials with you or it's got to go somewhere else. So, your book, your content, the things you've said, no one has access to this anymore. It goes to the next place, somewhere else. But you get a piece of paper and a pen and you get to write down three things you know to be true, three lessons This is all we would have to be reminded of you from all of your work and all of your material, these three lessons that you would share with the world.

Wow.

That they would have to use in whatever they wanted to use. What would you say are those three truths for you?

God is real. The second truth is that finding your purpose is the most important mission of your life. And the third, marry the right person. Marry the right person.

Yeah.

Why does that seem to be so hard for so many people?

It's tough. People are always like, how are you so successful? What's the number one thing you can tell me to do? Marry the right person. I couldn't do what I do if I had married someone else.

It would be draining.

Yeah, it's a support system. You're a team. You know, it's a partnership. And that partnership is critical to your success. That's a whole other book.

Right, right.

How long have you been married?

Nine years.

How did you know that it was the right person?

Man, I just knew. Isn't that crazy? I just knew. I was one of those, I mean we dated for like 10 months and then we were married. I'm one of those stories. It's like we dated and like six weeks in, it's like I guess that you're probably my husband. I think you are, you know, and it just Here we are. People thought we were nuts. We're going now on our 10th year.

Wow.

I was like, I think it worked out.

What's been the key to knowing it's a great fit or it's aligned? And then the key to also sustaining it and making sure it stays that way.

Yeah, for 10 years. The sustaining is that love is not enough.

I've been saying that so much lately. Love is not enough.

At all. And you have to make a decision every day to stay married.

Wow.

Marriage is very hard. People don't talk about that. People like to make it look like it's all roses and it's hard. You show up every day, it's like going to work every single day and choosing to love someone. Wow. You know, it's an action. But yeah, love is not enough. You know, companion, compatibility, chemistry. I mean, there's so many different factors here that are important. And I wish I could say it's just all about love and it's not. It's BS.

You guys had all that other stuff though.

You had different. Well, you know, some of it grew over time. We're very different. Some of it grew over time. Some of it was, we're very different in these things and we've got to learn how to live with these differences because no one's changing.

Right, you accept each other. If you don't accept each other, it's gonna be miserable.

If you accept it or leave, right? It's like. And so we made the choice, okay, we're gonna stay. So as we make that choice every day, what does that look like? What does it mean when you wake up every day to make the choice to fight for your marriage? You're fighting for your marriage even when the marriage is great.

Right.

Every day you wake up you're fighting for your marriage. Love's not enough.

Love's not enough. I've been saying that. That's a good sign. I want to acknowledge you, Nicole, for a moment, for your gifts, for everything you've done to overcome from, I mean, getting food at eight and nine that's helped you and your brother to afford your driver's license. It's to just doing whatever it takes to survive and to thrive and to be an example for other people. I acknowledge you for making the big risk, taking the risk to leave something that you've been comfortable with for a long time, which is probably not hard to leave. And to go all in on something that you're really passionate about. I acknowledge you even though maybe you wanted to do it sooner, you did it at the right time for you. And I acknowledge you for not beating beating yourself up. It's like a lot of us beat ourselves up for things we didn't do, we should have done, and you're just like, you know, it's the right timing and it needed to happen this way. I acknowledge you for allowing me to try to bring out of you the things that might be lacking that could support you, that could take you to the next level. Because that's part of my mission, is to help serve people get to their next level. So I acknowledge you for saying you're committed to this, and I'm gonna check in on you.

Please do.

And yeah, everything you're up to, I'm really excited about it. Thank you. It's been great to meet you. Yes.

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me on your show.

Of course, of course. My final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

Oh, man. Definition of greatness. Man, wow. I could just write an essay on what does it mean to be great? You know, I think about greatness. I think about not whether you have what it takes. I believe almost everybody has what it takes. I think people don't think that. I think everybody has what it takes. But it's will you do what it takes? And that's the difference. A lot of people listening, you have what it takes, but will you do what it takes to be great? Greatness is doing whatever it takes to get there.

-The thing is, can you teach discipline? The answer is yes.

How?

You have to have a willing participant. And if the participant's reason why is big enough, if they know I want to achieve X, and the reason why, the motive for their action, motivation, the motive for their action is a reason beyond just themselves, chances are they will do more to achieve that success than if it was just left up to their own. But there are some people that are born with incredible drive. They just have this insatiable drive and they'll just, I'll do whatever it takes for the things that I want. And there's other people that want things but they just don't have this insatiable drive. And this is where, as much as I hated school, I love to use schools and analogies in the game of life, whether it's health, wealth, relationships, career, business, spirituality, fun experiences, you have to decide what level of the game do I want to play at? Is it the grade school level, the kindergarten level, the high school level, the university level, the pro level? Because each one of those levels requires a totally different mindset and totally different skill set. They're building blocks on each other, but if you are extremely talented but you're not prepared to practice and rehearse and drill and fall and fail forward to the next attempt, you will never make it as a pro. you will never make as a pro business person, you'll never make it as a pro husband or wife or athlete or musician. You just never will. So just get used to that if you're not prepared to pay the price. If you are prepared to pay the price and you have the aptitude and the talent, now we're talking about there's some real potential here. And what we don't know is, you know, what's in your heart? Like what is the fire that stirs you that you wake up say, I will do this even when I don't feel like it. I will do whatever it takes to overcome my temptation for mediocrity, my temptation for excuses, my temptation for reasons and circumstances to hold me back. I won't allow those to be in my way. And if you have that within you, you'll achieve whatever you choose. And so the question you asked before is how do you develop that? Start small.

Yeah.

Start small. So if you don't have discipline, show yourself that you can give yourself one command and one follow through. So you know what? Right now I'm going to get up and I'm going to do two push-ups right now. Not like later, now. Can you give yourself a simple command? One sit up. Right now, I'm going to go get a glass of water. You start with something ridiculous. I learned many years ago, reduce it. to the ridiculous. So for a do it to the ridiculous. And I start that. I said, can you do that? Great. Will you? Because that's the difference right there is. That's the razor's edge. The people who can.

Will you?

Will you?

Yeah.

Great.

When?

Now.

Now.

Yeah.

Right. So if you develop that skill and specifically from a brain plasticity, a neuroplasticity perspective, as soon as you do that, you give yourself a command and you take the action. you have just created a neural pattern that you can give yourself a command and take action. Now that may just be one time. Well, what if you did that every hour by putting a little bell on your computer? And every hour, like if you were, if my computer was open, I'd have every hour it would say, it's 12 o'clock, it's one o'clock. And I take 60 seconds just to be in control of my mind. 60 seconds. I don't care where I am. Stop, take six breaths, just get just get centered? Am I on track? Am I off track? Am I doing something I shouldn't be doing versus a high impact activity that I need to be doing? Every hour, I've trained myself to just reset. I didn't always do that. So I just started with one a day, then two, then three. Then it was working so well, I said, great, let's do this every hour. But more importantly is as soon as you become the person who believes in themselves. You see, every thing you do or don't do leaves an imprint on your self-worth and self-esteem scale. And you know it.

Absolutely.

You know it.

Every time you have that cake or that cookie, you either believe in yourself or you don't believe in yourself. Right. Yeah.

Every time you're voting with every decision, you're disqualifying with every negative belief. you're qualifying with every positive, same with behaviors. So you start to get getting aware of am I qualifying myself to move forward or am I disqualifying myself through what I say I want and what I do or don't do over and over and over again because thought patterns become emotional patterns, which become behavioral patterns. And our brains pick up on our thought, emotional, behavioral patterns and says, Hey, you know what? You've done that one enough. I'm just going to make that automatic for you. So all of a sudden, if you're a person who has lots of positive thoughts but you suck at taking action, your brain says, Let me make that a permanent pattern for you so you don't have to think about it anymore. But I'm also going to create some neural tension and I'm going to make you pissed off at yourself now. Now you're going to start talking to yourself about how you don't want to not take action but you're still taking action. And this is where we have this conscious, non-conscious ping pong match going on all the time. Complex. It's actually complex, but it's actually pretty easy to. So if someone's listening right now and.

They'Re thinking, you know, there's a lot of things I want. You know, I want to get out of this relationship or I want the relationship. I want to have a better health. I want to have more money, whatever it may be. And they've been saying that for years and they feel like they've been consuming all the information they need to have, but they haven't been able to take action. Maybe because their why isn't powerful enough.

What would you say should be their first step? Well, the first step is to take one thing. I'm going to go back to one thing and say, great, let me move one thing forward. Why? Because that just changes the trajectory of the same pattern repeating itself. And as soon as you interrupt a pattern and then you repeatedly interrupt the pattern, it's like taking a detour. And as soon as you take a detour one day, you're like, okay, that was okay. But your tendency is to want to go back to what's comfortable. But if you take the detour two days, six days, seven days, we know from a neuroscience perspective, it takes about 66 days to create a solid enough neural pattern that it'll go from conscious effort and thinking about it to a non-conscious pattern that has the beginnings of automaticity happening without your involvement. You're just doing them.

Yeah.

For me, what I do and for myself is I whenever I want to change something, whether it's a habit, whether it's a thought or emotion or behavior, I say I'm going to work on this for 100 days. Not 30 days, not 21 days, not 66, which is right around there. I say 100 days. And then I focus all of my energy just on that one thing for 100 days. Why?

Can you give an example of something you've done?

Sugar.

Sugar.

Sugar. I'm a sugar. Me, too. I'm a sugar. Like, if he was an alcoholic, I'm a sugar. It's so bad.

Yeah.

So I. I go, like, you know, a week, two weeks, no sugar. Then a month, I eat dessert every night. 90 days. Me, too. You know, like a cake and cookie and. And five of them a day.

And then. And then the same way.

I can be very disciplined, but it's either way. Yeah, I'm extreme. I'm an extremist as well, right?

So it's all.

Nothing higher off. It's like no in between.

You have one, you have a dead.

Yeah, I don't have one cookie. If there's only one cookie, I go, no. Can I have like six or seven more? My cookie bills at hotels are $21, not three.

Sorry, keep replenishing.

Yeah.

Oh man.

So you take one thing, just one thing that you know, maybe a little challenging.

100 days.

100 days, just 100 days. So let's say you want to drink more water. 100 days, a glass a day. Conscious effort to one a day, whatever you did before, you'll still do, but one glass a day. So, you know, I started that with my assistance. I want to drink, you know, like four of these a day, you know, like, you know, 32 ounces, whatever the case is. And so every, we got a mug and it's on my desk every time I walk in. And then I have some support from her saying, hey, Remember to drink your water. So just do it. So the first, you know, two, three weeks, I feel like I'm going to drown myself in so much water. Um, but then it's like, okay, now I'm used to it. Now I'm drinking as much water as possible. Cause the habit is there. And one of the rules that I love to follow is the habit is more important than the intensity at first. So don't worry about the intensity.

Right.

Develop the habit. So can you take one minute a day to focus on how you will achieve a goal? Just one minute a day. Can you take one minute a day to focus on your health?

Yeah.

Can you take one day to retrain your brain?

Yeah.

Can I take one day, you know, or one action a day?

Right.

And you start off with something, you know, and reduce it down to just a minute or two minutes or one behavior. If you can get that behavior to be a habit, it's easy to stack.

Right, of course.

It's just like the foundation of a building. Once you have the foundation, if you build it right, you stack. And so every good discipline affects another and every bad discipline affects others.

What do you think about when you have a bad day or when you have a bad moment where you react and you're not on your game, where you're calm in a frustrating moment or someone on your team does something you don't want or traffic or whatever, how do you process that?

Do you have bad days? Yeah, yeah, I have not days, I have bad moments, events. There's when we're, I want to separate like behaviors and emotions. So usually when people say they're having a bad day, sure certain things may have gone wrong or something that they tried to do, you know, didn't work out. All information and experiences are processed at the non-conscious brain first, and then it gives rise to something we call a feeling. So emotions are processed non-consciously the electrical and chemical reaction to that is called a feeling. So when I'm not feeling the way that I want to feel, I don't focus on the feeling. I focus on the cause, the neuroelectrical charge that's occurred in my brain. and in most cases, it's something that you're doing to interpret an event that's causing the neuroelectrical signal causing the feeling. So in meditation, for example, why do you meditate? Well, obviously it's great for a whole host of health reasons, whether it's less stress, less, you know, lower blood pressure, less cortisol, saw release, etc. But the one thing meditation does more than anything else is it gives you the ability to have a pause of awareness so that you sense what's happening at the non-conscious level and what's happening outside of you. So when somebody behaves a certain way, it's processed at the non-conscious level, gives rise to your conscious mind for you to respond. And so when something happens, I like to be able to check in so that I don't react and I have the ability to respond. And if you do that enough through mindfulness, being aware, just being aware of exactly what's going on, then you have fewer and fewer of those times. So, you know, something happened last week. I was in a hotel room and I spilled some water on a shirt that I needed for a wedding that we were going to. And my wife was, oh, fuck, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da serve a solution? Well, we have a misunderstanding of flow of information and the way information is processed. And so the reaction happens again at the reptilian non-conscious level. So every external stimuli, if you get into some of the brain, which again is my passion, is one of my friends, Dr. Evian Gordon, kind of with a great model. He says, you know, the number one thing to understand about the brain is safety and comfort first. So in the environment that you're in, whether you like it or you don't, is irrelevant. Your brain finds that comfortable because it's the homeostasis. But safety first. So any loud noise, any type of real or imagined present or future pain based on the interpretation at the non-conscious level gives rise to automatic feelings. so the signal is sent from the reptilian or lizard brain to the emotional brain and it's only later logically understood if we take the time to be aware of it.

That's why people react so much in traffic instantly.

That's right.

Instant reactions.

Yeah, but here's something you could do quickly. It's called a reframe. So let's say you're driving in traffic and let's say somebody cuts you off and you've been sitting at the same spot for 20 minutes like I did this morning. you know, you're maybe looking down at your cell phone because you have some time because you're parked on the highway, right? And somebody cuts you off. So you could automatically react, go son of a bitch, I can't believe he just did that and just used all of this energy, the cortisol, epinephrine, adrenaline that's flowing through your body and causing stress in your body. Or you can say, well, what if.

That person just found out their dog.

Died and they're really trying to get home quickly? You go, okay, I guess it's okay if she or he cut in front of me.

Right.

Or they just got a call from their mother, their mother fell.

Yeah.

Would you change the way you felt about it? And the answer is, yeah, probably. And the reason because you changed the frame. So you can learn how to create frames for yourself, how you see the world, how you see failure, how you see effort, how you see your habits, how you create frames in advance that actually serve you through awareness and response versus reactivity.

Yeah.

And that is what a lot of people who, for example, I'm going to go back to professional athlete, what do you learn how to do? Respond in a variety of different ways in advance or through practice.

Yeah.

So that when it's game time, you're just unconsciously doing what you do.

Yeah. Especially like, you know, I used to react a lot whenever I felt like anyone was attacking me physically or verbally on the, on the game, in the game, I used to react and on a beat people up and hit people and respond. If I got hit in a weird way, I would always want to have the last say, right?

The last hit.

And my coaches would always train me because I would always get flagged. The person who just. The second person is the one who gets flagged, not the first person who does the foul.

Yeah.

And so I started to train myself and visualize, okay, this is gonna happen in this game. Like, someone's gonna punch me in the nuts, someone's gonna bite me, someone's gonna do this, and I can either be calm and. focus on the next play or I can respond and have a penalty for our team. I started to train my mind seeing it in the future as it already is happening and that really supported me in not reacting.

That's actually one of the best ways. It's a cognitive behavior therapy process where you practice in advance anything good or anything challenging. What's really amazing, some of the latest research on goal achieving, is the ability in the past, I used to teach and also do visualize my goals. Whether it was my body, health, relationships, money, charity, whatever. I used to visualize the outcome. And some of the latest research now shows, in addition to visualizing the outcome, visualize the obstacles. And in the past, when we talk about this law of attraction, no, don't visualize the obstacles. You attract them to... No, no, no. Your brain's way smarter than that. So if you have whether it's a belief that's in your way, a story that's holding you back, a circumstance, references, you know, something that's holding you back from achieving X. So take a look at whatever it is that you already know is holding you back. I don't believe I'm worthy of them. Don't believe I'm smart enough. Don't believe I'm good enough. Don't believe I'm skilled enough. I'm too young. Too old. I'm too this or too that or not enough of this, not enough of that. So address that and say, okay, Here's an obstacle. I'm going to visualize that obstacle being real and I'm going to visualize just moving it aside and me moving towards my goal. The very act of acknowledging that releases the neural tension around. If you do that over and over and over again, what your brain starts to see is, yes, there was a struggle and so it's worthy of me creating this neural pattern around this new effort. Most of what we're doing is we're on autopilot. We're just eking through the day on autopilot. And so the brain loves anything that makes it curious. The brain likes anything novel. The brain likes a challenge. So earlier you were asking me about one of the brain training companies other than ours. They said, Does it work? I said, yeah, it's a workout for your brain. And if you can strengthen the neural patterns of you seeing yourself with an obstacle and overcoming it, What do you think that does to your self-confidence and certainty? Builds it up big time. Builds it up. So if you actually do the work and develop those patterns in your brain, as you're doing the stuff you need to do in the physical world, you just strengthen those neural patterns and that's what becomes your habits. And that's where it becomes really fun because you can develop the habits and the skills that you need that you'll actually take action on versus having knowledge and skills in your head.

Now, I feel like you've been testing things for decades now with all the research and the work you've done.

Yeah.

So, what does your morning routine look like now?

Oh, great.

What's, you know?

So, today was a little bit different except for one thing because I drove from San Diego to LA to be with you. But, I wake up, I pee, I do my meditation 20 to 30 minutes every morning. I don't care where I am in the world. At least, what is on during that time. I do a variety of of different meditations. So there's meditations that I can do where I'm just observing my thoughts. Now a lot of people think, well, I'm not supposed to have thoughts when you meditate. Says whom? There's hundreds of different ways to practice awareness. See, meditation is the art of awareness. Awareness internally, awareness externally, but also the various millions of layers that exist in the physical and the non-physical world. So this morning I did a meditation with some ocean sounds. And so it was about five o'clock. I woke up this morning, sat in my little sofa, you know, with my feet propped up and did a 20 so minute meditation in the dark with the ocean. Just listening to the ocean, just paying attention and going into a trance-like state where after two or three minutes, I disappeared. Like my body was part of air and space. So today was I was using sound to get into that trans-like state. Other days I'll do a mantra, whether it's, you know, a lot of people know transcendental meditation, so it's the OM mantra. So you just take a deep breath in, and then as you exhale it's a OM. And the question is why would you do that? And the answer is anytime you can give your brain a rhythm, it will entrain to that rhythm. That's one. Anytime you could pay attention to your breath, inhale and exhale, you turn off the parasympathetic nervous system. You turn on the parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest and relaxation and your calm state of flow versus your sympathetic nervous system, which is the stress response system of adrenaline, norepinephrine, cortisol, et cetera. So when you get the serotonin and oxytocin and dopamine going, and you're in that state of calmness, you're able to enter deeper levels of consciousness and awareness. So you're able to observe a thought, you're able to hear your heartbeat, you're able to sense different things that are giving are being risen in your body through thoughts that you're having. So you can actually start to see when I have this thought, here's the sensation in my body.

Identity came made of my mind just now. And I'm curious about your research or just your personal findings on shaping our own identity with ourselves, shaping our identity, having an identity, and how that holds us, how that either helps us or hurts us with our confidence and our personal power.

Well, I mean, there's so many different kinds of identities that we can have. I think that when we get, I.

Mean, there's Is it important to have a specific type of identity? Is it important to have a wide range of identities or things that we're into?

Can you tell me what kind of identity you're talking about?

An identity is, you know, I'm a man from Ohio. I grew up in Ohio. I love football. I love park, you know, all these different things that are a life's interest and we identify as.

Well, I think that we, like, The self-affirmation stuff is all about values. And so your identity is your values. And that, I think, is great. Being true to your values is great. The values I'm talking about are not values that need to be flexible. They can be wide, right? But I think that when we get really identified with a certain group or interest, it can get dangerous. I mean, I think first we stop thinking for ourselves. and we start becoming much more concerned about remaining part of the group than.

About our values, our personal values.

Exactly. And so we compromise ourselves to be in the group. And I think that can be really dangerous. Like we're losing our sense of agency for sure, but also might be doing things that are not good, like not healthy for us or for other people. So that I think can be, I think we need to stay in check around identity in that way. Just because it's what most people in the group are doing doesn't mean it's what I need to be doing.

What is something we can do, I guess, to reflect on or give ourselves feedback on a yearly or monthly or daily basis that supports that?

I think, and this is not empirical, this is kind of off the cuff, but I've been thinking about this a little bit lately, like, you know, thinking about what are my identity groups that I chose? Like, what are my chosen identity groups? And, you know, are there things that have happened in those identity groups that I don't agree with, but I didn't do anything to correct it, or I kind of let it slide. Like, how can I keep myself honest about these identity groups?

--Right.

You know, so --'Cause you may like.

The Grateful Dead, but there may be things that happen at the concerts that you don't acknowledge or you don't like, but you don't want to be, well, I'm never gonna watch her or support the Grateful Dead again because this happened.

--That'S right.

--But how can I make sure, yeah, I can enjoy a hobby and an interest --Totally. --And not be the identity of that thing.

--That'S right. And yeah, and so I think that, yeah, there are things that happen at shows that I haven't been liking lately. We talked about this a bit, like people being very territorial in the front space, which is called the pit, about their space and being really nasty to each other. It kind of goes against, to me, the whole sort of essence of that community. And I get angry about it. Part of it feels like righteous anger. I want you to not be that way, but I also need to check myself I don't want to contribute to the anger either. But it also doesn't, because it's imperfect, it doesn't mean that I have to leave it. Because I get into that trap sometimes. I sort of get into the like, oh, there's something wrong, I probably shouldn't do this anymore. And I need to accept that nothing's.

Perfect.

And I'm still allowed to love imperfect things. as long as I'm checking myself. Right.

Does that make sense?

I feel like I kind of, no, it makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. We talked about this a little bit earlier about the kind of fake it till you make it thing, but it's more of like facing it till you make it, I think is what, how.

You reframe or write it.

I say fake it till you become it. Fake it till you become it.

Yeah.

'Cause it's hard to, well, it's, why is fake it till you make it harmful? If it's like, let me just keep.

Faking and hopefully, what'll happen. I think the problem, and it depends on how people interpret it, I realize, but the way I interpret fake it till you make it is kind of like, you know, sort of, you know, the slick salesperson who, like, really does not buy what they're selling, but they're gonna sell hard.

And.

Never and they're going to be faking that they will, yeah, making it might be, you know, being promoted or making a lot of money, but they're still faking it, right? You don't really ever, faking it till you make it means faking it, getting the promotion, and continuing to fake it. Fake it, yeah. Fake it till you become it, and it's also about what you're conveying to other people. Faking it till you become it, the way that I think of this is you're tricking your into believing in yourself, right? You're tricking yourself into, you know, like incrementally be a little bit more courageous.

Every time, yeah.

And eventually you become the person that you are in your mind's eye as your best self, right? So you're not becoming, you're basically, it's like, I kind of think of it visually like, you know, you're this you know, we're, we're not just shells, but think of yourself as a shell and you're sort of half full, you know, faking it till you become it is sort of filling that, filling that shell more and more and more. You're partially, you're partially it, but you're not fully.

You're getting there. Because imposter syndrome is a, is a term that's been thrown around a lot in the last couple years. Yeah. I'm hearing it all the time. Everyone's saying, not everyone, but a lot of people are saying, I feel a sense of imposter syndrome, like I don't belong or I'm not ready or I don't have the whatever.

Right.

For me, I have, I felt like I had nothing at the beginning and I was just like, I'm just gonna throw myself in and if it works great, if it doesn't, I have nothing to embarrass myself because I had nothing. I was living on my sister's couch for a year and a half.

I had no money.

I didn't have a college degree. So I was like, there's nowhere else I can go that's worse than where I'm at. Yeah. I didn't have anything to lose. Yeah. I was just like, I have nothing to lose. so I'm going to throw myself in there and hopefully certain things happen. So I didn't feel like an imposter. I felt like I'm an experience and I need to figure out how to gain experience by learning skills, by finding mentors, by reading, by consuming content and developing more confidence. But why has imposter syndrome been become such a popular phrase? And is there a way to actually overcome it? Or are we always going to kind of feel like imposters if we're constantly growing? Because there's a new thing that next year I've never done that I'm going to try to do that I'm an imposter because I've never done it. So I'm going to feel a sense of, oh, I've never done this, so here we go if I'm growing as an individual, right?

We should always feel it in a sense. Definitely. So I think, okay, to the question about, I don't know why it became, it's again, it's a catchy, it's a sticky, It's a sticky term to describe an experience that's pretty universal. And so it became, it's funny because to social psychologists, it's like a thing that we've talked about since the 1970s. Not that I was talking much in the 1970s, but it was coined in the 1970s. And it's so in academia, it's something we talk about. But it really got sticky in the.

Last.

I do think that I talk about it in the TED Talk. I think that was part of it. I think there were some other books that came out that were talking about it. And it just captures the experience so well of feeling like an imposter in your own life. But the interesting thing is that, well, first the woman who coined the term Pauline Clance, who was teaching at Oberlin at the time in the 70s.

Oh wow.

Yeah.

That's great.

Ohio.

Correct.

Yeah, she's feeling your identity.

Exactly.

She, well, first of all, she said, she says that she, she wishes, she wishes she had not called it a syndrome because a syndrome implies that it's pathological and rare, like it's unusual, and it's actually so not unusual.

It's common.

Yeah, yeah.

They're different estimates, like 75 to 85% of people feel imposter syndrome. Also, women do not experience it more than men. Men are just less likely to openly talk about it. So when it's anonymous, which is a burden, I think, for men. Because they think they're the only ones feeling it.

Yes, they feel alone.

And then women get the burden of being like, oh, you always feel like imposters, right? So it cuts both ways in bad ways. I don't think many people stop feeling it if they keep on trying new challenges. So in my book, I interviewed Neil Gaiman, the amazing author of many, many, many, many best sellers and super award winner. And anyway, Neil really had bad and part of why I interviewed Neil, he's a lovely human, but he's one of the only men who talked openly about having imposter syndrome. And so I wanted to talk to him for that reason. Also, he has a way with words. But he said that in the beginning when he first started writing and was successful, he kept being afraid that somebody was going to come and tap him on the shoulder and be like, are you Neil Gaiman? And he'd say, yes, I am. Say, oh, sorry, you know, we made a We're taking all this back. And then he said he finally got to the point he'd written American Gods, which was like his big novel, he said. Like that was the big grand novel. And he said he thought he'd finally conquered imposter syndrome. And he spoke to one of his mentors and said, I think I finally conquered this. And he said, you, never, I finally conquered writing a novel. And he said, you, never conquer writing writing a novel, you just conquer writing the novel that you're writing. And so next time, so now a lot of his books have been turned into really wonderful television series, and he's a showrunner, right? And that was a whole new thing for him. So he said it's just, it just pops up. You see it on your desk, you're like, oh, there's the imposter, and he'll go away. And so you experience it every time you start something it just goes away faster. You don't get hung up on it. You don't become anxious about the imposter feeling.

And I think the more you're living your life and creating and building, if you can start to reflect on, like, look at all the times I was feeling imposter syndrome and look what I was able to create. And the results I got in the success or the impact that I had from making this thing or creating this thing, I can do do it again.

Exactly.

It's like looking backwards to see the results.

Right, so you have this transferable sense of agency. Like self-efficacy is, I mean, the way it's defined in psychology is like it's your feel, you know, it's your belief that you're able to do this certain thing. Agency is wider than that, and this feeling of being agentic, like, and I think that when you conquer imposter syndrome again and again, that feeling does become transferable. Yes. Right? And you're like, this is a totally new thing, but I've never been part of this rodeo, but I think I'm gonna be able to do it. Right, right, yeah, exactly.

You just know, okay, I've done this before many times, I can do it again.

And if not, I'll be okay.

I'll be all right.

I'll survive.

Right, exactly. I'm curious, I'm a big believer that self-doubt is the killer of dreams. I think when we doubt ourselves, we're not breathing correctly, we're shrinking, we're not taking the actions, we don't have the courage because we're just constantly in self-doubt. Do you think we can ever have too much self-belief?

I mean, geez, that's a tricky question. First, I think what you call self-doubt, I think of as personal powerlessness.

Yes.

And what happens is that it activates what we call the behavioral inhibition system. So it leads us to to be more pessimistic, to be more fearful, to think more narrowly, less creatively, to not take risks, to see people as predators. It inhibits us in every way. Even physically, we can tolerate less pain when the inhibition system is activated. Interesting. Feeling personally powerful activates the behavioral approach system, which does all the opposite. Instead of seeing a challenge as a threat, we see it as an opportunity. Instead of seeing other people as potential predators, we see them as potential allies and collaborators. We feel optimistic instead of pessimistic. Now, you can get to the point of feeling too powerful. And in that case, I think that one of the things that we know that one of the things that happens is that people they're not as good at taking other people's perspectives. So they're not as good at perspective taking when they become real like, and this is a lot about social power. So when people have both social power and personal power, they're not as good at taking other people's perspectives because they.

Mean their feedback or their information or their ideas or.

It's understanding what other people are like. So it's honestly, it's really more about social power. As people gain social power, they're less dependent on others. And so when you have not much social power, when you're at the bottom of the hierarchy, you really need to be able to read other people's minds. You really need to understand what they're thinking because you're dependent on them. And as you gain more power, you're less dependent. And so you're more likely to stereotype people. You're less likely to be able to take their perspective. You just kind of forget what it feels like to be where they are. And so I think that's a problem. You know, I think there's a lot of research on overconfidence versus confidence. And overconfidence is I don't even really fully understand where it comes from. And to me, I don't think it is overconfidence. I think it's a different thing altogether.

It's like ego.

Yes, or like arrogance. An overconfidence, arrogance is often coming from a place of feeling threatened and defensive.

Or insecurity.

And it's a smoke screen for insecurity. So yeah, I say it's a smoke screen for insecurity. And it's a way of deflecting. It's a way of preventing people from challenging you because because honestly they don't find you pleasant. They don't challenge you because they don't like you, not because they believe you, right? So, you know, I always say confidence, not arrogance. Confidence allows room to be wrong. So you can hear people. When you're confident, self-affirmed, you know who you are, you're able to hear feedback. You know, you don't feel like you have to steal the microphone all the time.

Yeah, confidence plus curiosity. It's like being willing to be, okay, I feel confident, but I also have a beginner's mind.

Totally, and if you're confident and you're excited about an idea, you should want that to be as good as it can be. And so, you know, if you're around people who are offering you good feedback, confidence allows you to hear the feedback, which I think is really interesting. So, I love watching Shark Tank. Yeah, it's great. I love reading the body language. Jonah, my son, and I used to watch this, like, when he was younger. He loves reading the body language and guessing who's gonna do well. And I know you've talked to people about the body language of lying. It is so fascinating. I think this body language of arrogance is really... You can read it.

You can feel it.

Yeah, and it's also, you know, body language is also nonverbal vocal cues, like a certain way of speaking, speaking. But it's like, it's when they don't buy what they're selling. If you don't buy what you're selling, nobody's gonna buy what you're selling. If you don't believe your story, nobody's gonna believe your story.

Not at least in the long run.

How do you learn to buy what you're selling? Well, first of all, when people say, well, how do I sell something that I don't believe in? I say, Don't sell it.

Don't sell it.

You shouldn't be doing it. Go find a different vision. I don't think you should. You need to check in with yourself about that. Like, in the whole, like, okay, there are different reasons why we don't buy what we're selling. You could not buy what you're selling because you're actually self-doubt. You doubt your ability to sell anything.

Okay. Right?

And that's different.

Then the product or the vision you have.

Right. Or it's just not interesting to you. It's not something that you would use. to use, but it's not that you think there's anything wrong with it. So there are a number of reasons that you can fix, right? You can learn to understand, well, this product really is helpful and valuable to these other people, and I need to understand their perspective, right? That makes you a more effective salesperson. But there are also reasons that should lead you to go, I shouldn't be selling it.

Right.

So you need to figure out, like, is it because I don't. I don't relate to it or I don't believe in myself, or is it because there's something wrong with this thing?

It's like, if you want to have.

Everything you could possibly want and more.

Then be a good person.

The better a person you are, the.

More likely that is to happen.

That doesn't mean you. That you're completely protected against getting cut off at the knees.