TES 064 - Using Adversity to Succeed with Anthony Trucks

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey, everyone, Mel Abraham here, the author of the number one best selling book the Entrepreneur Solution and the founder of Thoughtpreneur Academy, where we get a chance to teach you how to capture what you know, the wisdom, the ideas in your head, capture, package and monetize it. And in this episode, I get a chance to speak to an amazing, amazing individual, but also a good friend of mine, someone that I've had the opportunity and the blessing to share a lot of time with. Working with him at events and being kind of colleagues in the entrepreneurial space and even getting a chance to understand ourselves. Personally, I think you're in for a tremendous treat with this friend of mine. Anthony Trucks is with us today. If you don't know Anthony, you need to get to know Anthony. He's got an incredible, incredible journey, incredible story that allows you to start to realize that adversity is just a circumstance and that you rise above it. And he went from foster care to the NFL. He lived a life that's worth telling a story about. And since that time, since his time in the NFL, he's an entrepreneur. He's had numerous successful businesses. He's an entrepreneurial coach, he's an international speaker, an author, a consultant for. One of the greatest roles he serves, though, is a father of three and an incredible father at that. I've seen him with his children and how he cares for them. He teaches entrepreneurs what it means to trust your hustle and to get out of your own way to get success in your business and your life.

And no one in the world does it quite like him. He had an incredible, you know, experience and background to bring to bear on that. And the other thing that hopefully he'll tell us a little bit about is this is a guy who gets it. He gets it that this isn't about all acquiring, accomplishing and achieving, but it's a lot about giving. It's a lot about giving back. I've seen a number of posts from him, a number of things where he's going into other countries to literally use football or use entrepreneurship or to use some of his story to help youth. To help youth see possibilities, see a different way of living life and coaching them along that way. And I think that when you're being given a gift, and I think that the ability for us as entrepreneurs to live a life of our own design is a gift. It's an opportunity, yes, it's a responsibility, but it's a gift that we ought to embrace wholly, but also realize that we need to give it back. And Anthony certainly does that.

Welcome.

Welcome to the show, Anthony. It's a blessing and an honor to have you here with me.

Thank you, Mel. Man. I'm about to bring you with me to give us little intros. I don't know if I've ever heard intro that good yet.

Don't ask me to do it again. I don't know what I said.

It was recorded, so we're good. We'll get it later.

Do me a favor. You know, I kind of gave my slant on it just because I know you and the time that we spent together. But the audience may not know you. Give us kind of a quick glimpse of who you are, kind of the journey. And.

I think I kind of know the answer to this. But did you really expect to be here at this point in your career, in your life, as you go through here?

No. You know, it's odd is I get that question actually, more times than I would expect to, because I guess most people, it's not so much the same framing. But how'd you get here? Like, how'd you end up here? Right? Because for me, I grew up in foster care. My very first memory is my mom giving me away to foster care. And life starting out completely horrible, not caring that I even exist. And it made me feel completely unworthy. Foster youth in America, we're set off for failure. I found out recently that 75% of inmates in any prison are former foster youth. 2% ever graduate college. Statistically, I'm not supposed to do very well, but, like, that was my first memory. And it kind of, like, left me in this place of feeling like I'm worthless. But I rolled on to different parts of my life. And it's odd, I found this really close connection to entrepreneurs and business owners because essentially, what I look at, like, I became kind of an entrepreneur when I was three. When I was given away, I got to this point where I was just wandering the world. I felt like I was on an island didn't know what tomorrow. I was scared. Completely felt lost, which is kind of the first feeling an entrepreneur gets you to jump into the space. I don't know what tomorrow brings. I got this business idea, and my mom pushed me in that space. But as an entrepreneur, our hearts push us there because a lot of us go in to make an impact, leave a legacy. About 11 years of craziness of life, starvation, torture, and beatings and stuff. That really was horrible. I got to a point where I had kind of a second moment, entrepreneur feels, which is I got to this place where I was chalking up football because I just got a chance to play football. I couldn't play because I wasn't adopted yet. My adoptive mom was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And then my brother, he went to the military. So I'm kind of just wandering around in life, and I was literally about to give this thing that I loved. And this girl in class, my English class, says to some girl, next, repping, no idea. I'm listening. Because the reason I'm so bad is because I'm in foster care. And I was like, that sounds ridiculous. That sounds horrible. And made me start thinking about, like, is that how I'm going to be 20 years from now, 30 years from now? And it gave a complete shift, and I went home and I worked. I worked my butt off and getting better at football next year. I got pushed to varsity as a sophomore, got a chance to play in college on scholarship. I went to the NFL. And that second moment is the one we have this dream that we want to bring into the world as a business owner, entrepreneur, or we're in a business and we're struggling, and we just don't know what to do. So sometimes we chalk it up like I was about to. And what I learned was my company's message way back then. I didn't know it back then, but I hustled, I grinded, I worked, and I got the success. And I think a lot of us as business owners or aspiring business owners, we don't comprehend that we have a lot of tools, right? Someone could teach you to do something. We have the techniques of how to do it, but we like the technician sometimes. And that's where the whole message of trust your hustle boils down to is you got to hustle. But if you don't trust your hustle, it won't happen. So I did, and it pushed me to a lot of places in life. I didn't comprehend the ability I gained back then to make me Successful later on because I did get a chance at the NFL to open a business which was a gym, ran for six years, became a six figure consultant just to kind of like, kind of try out some new thing and became successful. I was like, this is really cool. And then I got unfulfilled and it was this thing where I woke up one day, I just didn't feel like I loved this gym I had, I didn't love the consulting. And I ended up in a seat in a Brennan Burchard event. And I was at Eckford's academy and I was just kind of sitting and listening and it really just started to have like, I got that same feeling of love for something new again. And I started having this like internal shift. But it wasn't until like I think moments in life have these big catalysts. And it was April 15, 2014 and I was sitting in a hospital room and I was holding my mom's right hand as she took her last breath. And it was one of those moments where you start to think about, why are we here? What are we doing? It just made me question, how am I who I am? The statistics don't boil up to me being successful. I had a business that went past the whole five year realm of 95% fail. I got a chance to play in the NFL somewhere that few human beings get an opportunity to play. And so statistically, like I don't exist. Like you write on paper, like he shouldn't actually exist. And what I realized was because my mom, she impacted me. And this woman had left her this world after 17 year battle with multiple sclerosis and she couldn't fulfill her life and live, she couldn't walk, move, talk. And I started thinking like she impacted me so I could then go and venture off. And I started thinking about who do I want to work with? And I realized that people like the fact that we can do this and talk is because an entrepreneur, someone had an idea and a vision and they wanted to bring into the world. Like it was more of not a quick but an impact and a legacy. And I realized for me, like I want to impact those people because of the impact was left on me, I can actually do it. So my sole purpose is to impact people who impact people. So that allows me to reach more people with the compassion I have, which is I just want, I want to live life and be happy. I am so incredibly grateful for my health, for my kids, for people like yourself in my life. And that's all I need. I don't need a bunch of money. I just need relationships. And so for me, if I can help teach other people to do that, it makes my life feel like I did something on this planet.

So huge. Anthony. I mean, it's so cool to hear Solution Nation to really think about that journey. And it's easy to just flippantly say, great story.

Let's go back for a moment and look at this. I mean, statistically, like you said, the odds are against you. But the thing is. The thing is that all statistics fit in this, like, spectrum of maybe it's a bell curve, but that doesn't mean you're required to be in the belly of the bell curve. And I think society has a tendency to push us to the belly of the bell curve. And the belly of the bell curve is mediocrity. And it's not a place to live. I mean, I can't imagine, and I know for certain you don't do it, Anthony, but I can't imagine that. We're waking up in the morning going, yeah, today I think I'm going to be mediocre.

Yeah, not at all. That's never the goal. At least for me. It's not.

No. And the fact is, is that it takes one. I mean, there's so many things that I think we can take away from that one is that statistics don't matter.

And it's really easy to say, well, only a few percent make it to the NFL. Well, why shouldn't you be that few percent?

Yeah.

There's no reason that just because it's a few percentage points, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be in that category. And then I think the other thing to realize is that, and this is where I think it's really important, I start to think about what you do and what I do and some of the stuff with thought leadership and thoughtpreneurship. And in thoughtpreneur Academy, I said, it only takes one. You had this woman that came into your life, that came into your life by choice. She adopted you, she took you under her wing, she loved you, she cared for you, she nurtured you, she guided you, and she gave you the fuel to go on to turn around and say, here's someone who took care of me that didn't have, in the end, had a challenge with her voice, challenge with her mobility. But I'm going to carry on the lessons I learned, and it impacts just one, just one soul on this planet, then that's good enough for me.

That's it. Yeah. That's really it. I think we can be the one. I think what a lot of people don't comprehend is the reason those statistics take place is because we think about them as we live our life. Like, oh, well, I'm supposed to be. That's what the numbers say. But the reality isn't tied to that. The reality is I have to just think differently, and that makes me separate.

Absolutely. So let me ask you this question about that. What would you say? Because I know that we've. Both, you and I have lived with this and had to battle with this, but what would you say to someone that would come to you or someone saying to someone that you're coaching? Why should you. Who are you to step up and try to lead this charge?

Yeah. And I think that's where. I don't know if there's someone that gives you permission. There's not like, someone that says, like, oh, you're the one that's supposed to do it. It's like, you just decide you are. Because it's a whole thing. If not. If not me, who? If not now, when? And for me, it was a decision of. I just feel like I'm supposed to. What's cool is when I got past the initial thought of, like me, it was like, I'm doing this for somebody else. Well, now what it boils down to is I'm now doing this because I want to make sure that. That I take this message that was given to me and push it out into the world in a space that just seems to need it. And then there's validation past that. Once you get past myself, people are like, holy crap, thank you. And I'm like, well, if there's a thank you out of this, I'm supposed to be doing this. So I continue to keep pushing forwards.

Beautiful. I mean, it's so, so true that, you know, I was on an. Someone was interviewing me, and they asked me a similar question, and I said, who are we.

To withhold.

That one word that. That one person needs that's going to.

Change their life that you might never meet?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So cool. If, you know.

If I talk to one of your closest friends or some of the people you worked with, customers, and ask them, you know, what you stood for in their eyes, you know, what do you think they would say about you, about Anthony Trucks? The Anthony Trucks?

Yeah, they would. I don't know. It's funny because everybody thinks I'm always happy, always smiling. I'm incredibly happy, like, all the time. I don't have many off days. But one thing I know they would say is, like, I care. Like, I genuinely do care. Like my employees and my staff, they're like my family. I had my gym and I ran it for a long period of time and love them. I'm very big on trying to teach people how to get better out of their own way. Like, that's really. People ask what I do. I teach people to get out of their own way. And it all starts truly internally. But as philosophical and like lovey dovey as it sounds, it's not really me saying, love yourself, believe in yourself. It's me teaching you how to do things so that you can actually feel that for yourself. Because that, I believe, is where people actually have changed. When they apply something new to their life, they get this change. Like, oh, crap, I can do that. Well, now you feel better, you feel more powerful and you feel like, you know what? I can take the next thing on and the next thing on. And so that's, for me, is what it is. Want someone to always leave my presence being better. I don't know if it's five minutes I met with you, 30 seconds I met you. But if you saw this face, I want this face to be able to pop into your head and be like, you know what? Good humans actually exist still.

Absolutely. And you live that. I know just from the first time that you and I met that you lived that, that you really kind of take that on. And, you know, I look at this and in this context of when we look at this solution nation, you start to ask yourself this, what are the micro, I call them micro successes. That kind of those mini successes that life's like this relay race. And then every time you get a little bit of success, you keep on going. The challenge we have is that we are horrendously great at beating ourselves up and airing dirty laundry. And we're horrendously bad at celebrating someone's success.

Yeah, it's weird.

No matter how small it is.

Yeah. And sometimes ourselves, I think when it comes to other people's success, sometimes their success holds a mirror to your lack of it. And then you beat yourself up even more and even more. And so for me, I also look at, like whenever you beat yourself, there's a dove study that was done. It was like a video like they did, where they asked a person, hey, describe yourself to a sketch artist. And a person would describe themselves and they'd have this picture. They'd have somebody they knew come in and describe the same person and they would show the two pictures. The one that was described by the person themselves was always like this ugly one. The one described by somebody else was always beautiful. And it was this thing where you start looking at, well, why do we look so much at our negative? Why are we always just focusing on the bad things we have? I think for me it boils down to a lot of us, like my whole company of the message trust your hustle. Like trust is an emotion. And what I found is that like you talk about the successes, emotions are driven from actions. Whether it's a good action or bad action. You feel good because of something that happened, right? You feel bad because of something that happened, even if it's just the way you perceive it, but it's an action. And for us what happens is we have these things that happen, that life just happens. And we look at the negative things. So what it does is we see only that it builds this negative trust. So when we start saying, can I chase that? Can I do that? Can I be the non statistic, our body says, well, we failed at this, like probably can't do anything else. So we shut down. When the reality is if you can perceive it differently, new filter and see this past. And you know what? I learned this from that and this from that and this from that. Well, now you can start seeing this hope and a possibility of just having something new take place and you go forwards and you have a success. And as you have success, well, now it builds a new positive trust. So the more you go down the road, the farther you get. It's like, well, you know what? I got these 10 things done. I could probably take this next one on. It's a little bit higher. And so you keep climbing and climbing and climbing and you get to this point where it's like me right now, I creepily, I closed my gym and ventured in this new world. And I did it because I just trust my hustle. I trust that I don't know at all what tomorrow I'll bring just like I didn't as a kid. But I know I bring me like I bring this guy that's just I'm a figure outer, like I'll figure it out when I get there. That's what works. It's only because I've had it happen in the past because I just took a leap, got success and I trust myself.

So true, so true. And I think that's why I believe that we all need mentors and coaches and, you know, masterminds, people in our lives because.

We have our nose against what I call our nose against the tree bark. We can't see ourselves. We can't value ourselves. And a coach, a mentor, or some of these folks that are in our lives, they get a chance to take the mirror behind you and show you other facets that you don't appreciate and you don't know. I mean, that study is an amazing, amazing study because it's really easy for us to highlight our negatives, to feel inadequate, and look at that. And so to have someone that goes, no, you. You got this, man, that was really good.

It's a new perspective.

Huge.

I tell people, perspective precedes enlightenment. Like, we have enlightenment of these. Aha. Moments of like, oh, like, I didn't think about it that way. And you get that from just looking at something a little bit differently, which is somebody that's a mentor gives you, like, hey, I see what you're seeing. I get that. Look at it like this. Oh, right. The new perspective precedes that enlightenment, which helps you move forwards.

So, so, so true. Dang. Yeah. This is cool.

So. And I know that you're a hustler. Question is that if you look back on your journey, if you look back on the path, and I can already just. In our short conversation, I see patterns in you. And I'm. I'm one of those. Look, I'm an accountant by trade, so it's. I'm trained to recognize patterns, whether they're behavioral or numeric in things. But what are the three habits that you think contributed most to your success?

Oh, man, there's a lot of them. One of them is just like, I'm grateful. I think it's a humongous thing to be grateful. Like, every day I wake up and I know where I could be. I know exactly where I could be, which typically wouldn't be a good place at all. One of the big things is I'm very ethical and more with how I operate. Everybody always asks me this question of, how did you get through? Who was your mentor? And for me, I tell them, my mentor, my guidance, besides, my faith was right. Like, right. It's just it. And people are like, what does that mean? I say, well, at the end of the day, like, there's things you know are right and wrong. We as humans know right and wrong. Our body, like, physiologically, we know, could feel right or wrong.

Absolutely.

Problem is, what is usually wrong feels right. What is usually right feels wrong. Like, it feels like it's hard. Like, being honest. You find 20 bucks giving it Back. Like that's hard, right? It feels awkward, but that's the right thing to do. And for me, I just, I go right all the time and, and it leads me to a place where it's like, even if it may have done something that somebody else wouldn't do or it's harder to do, I end up in a place where I can go to sleep every night, comfortable, wake up every day knowing I'm going to give back to the world a positive way. I have no dark holes. I'm really a big believer in what you do in the dark comes to the light. So I don't do anything in the dark. I just do. Right. And then the third one for me is just consistency as a human in all aspects. The way I treat people, the way I treat my kids, the way I speak, the way I think, it's just how I hustle every day. I think consistency is where people fail to comprehend, is the determinant between success and non success. You start something and I don't get quick success, I got to do something else. Oh, be consistent because you'll learn a lesson along that journey that nobody else learned because nobody else kept going when you did. And that becomes a huge separator for people.

Stay on the path. Stay on the path. I remember doing a post one time about.

The fact that so many times people look at other people, they'll look at our mutual friend Brendan Burchard, they'll look at you, they'll look at different people and they go, oh, they're so gifted. But you know what? They've been gifted. Yeah, maybe there's a gift, there's a talent there. But at the same time, what they really have been gifted with is the gift of discipline, the gift of staying on the path, staying on the journey. To sit back and say, no, I, I know that this is right. And this whole idea of living a right life, I think is huge. I agree with you. I think we innately know right from wrong and yet we still make choices that are.

Incorrect. I mean, I look at it and say there's two of the most important decisions we can make in business and life is what am I going to stand for and how am I going to show up? And if we get that dialed in, the rest of it's easy.

Yeah, true. Just take care of what comes.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So really cool. And I think that there's a lot to take away in this. No matter whether you're starting a business in a business or just living life, that.

May help you Out. The fact of the matter is that we're going to hit obstacles, we're going to hit challenges, whether it's health, whether it's work, whether it's financial, whether it's relationship. Relationships. It's how you deal with it that's going to get you through it.

Yeah, that's life, man. Life is what happens between your plans.

It certainly is. I mean, as soon as the ink is dried on the plan, guess what changes again.

Yeah, you got to figure as you go. And I think sometimes people are afraid of it changing, and if you get good at changing, you're fine. Like, I always ask people, like, what's something you're phenomenal at? Like, oh, like, I'm good at making lumpias or, you know, I'm good at painting. Right. Okay, well, all of a sudden, you're ready to paint. What would you do? Or your paintbrush broke. What would you do? Like, you find a new way to make it happen, because you just figure it out, and the more you do it, the more skilled and confidence you have in doing that when it happens. So just start to plan and work the plan, man. You cannot see what's around the bend until you start walking the path.

It's. Brian Tracy calls it the corridor principle. The opportunities that you have today are because you got out in the corridor. They're not because you locked yourself in a room and a box. And see, so if you're really looking at opportunities, I mean, the reason you and I are talking today is because, trust me, coming from the accounting profession, I could have been in a box. Sure, you know, was because I was willing to get out of my own way, get out of the corridor. And all of a sudden you start to see these other doors of opportunity, of friendships and colleagues and ways to have an impact and live a bigger purpose, a bigger dream, and. All right, but if I stayed in the room, I would have never seen it.

Yeah, some people are scared of what's outside. They're more fearful of the unknown than they are of what could actually happen. They only look at, what if this bad thing happened? Like, yeah, but what if this amazing thing happens? You couldn't even comprehend it's true.

And I wish they would take it one step further and look at it and say, because I truly believe that very few things that we every. Very few choices, very few things we do in our life are ever terminal. I mean.

We can screw things up. We can do that. Look, the first webinar I did, I didn't know the webcam was on and I didn't have a shirt on.

That's great.

Yeah. But once you get to that level, it's also like, I think the big thing, too, is you can do that and talk about it, and then the next thing is you connect to humanity as people. Like, people do these things, Right. The next level of people that are in our space, it's like, hey, I'm not perfect. I'm just better at this thing than you might be. And I'm gonna help you in this area. Right. And when you can accept that not trying to be perfect all the time, people connect to you. And part of being able to connect you is accepting and owning your failures, your setbacks, and just, like, look at them the right way, the good perspective.

Absolutely, absolutely. So looking back now, what's the biggest hurdle that you kind of had to get over and get out, get around? And how did you do that to get you where you're at?

Oh, man. One of the greatest. This is a weird one. One of the greatest gifts that I hated at the time. And it literally led me to sitting in a parked car waiting for a store to open by rat poison one night. Like, it was too dark placement. And I was like, if it wasn't for gps, I'm not here right now. It was. My ex wife had an affair. She's my high school sweetheart, mother of my three kids. She's the only woman past my mom that I really had this deep, deep, deep love for. And having grown up through what I'd grown up through, a connection to women for me, is incredibly powerful. So when she took my family away from me, which is my family, the first family I had, my kids, by having this affair, it just left me dark. That was the biggest catalyst for me to just growth. And not because. Not because of anything more, but it just opened my eyes to me, is the biggest thing. It forced me, if I wanted to feel better, it forced me to start thinking about, who am I? And, you know, yeah, you get pissed because she did what she did, and they tore the family apart. But then the biggest thing that really opened every door was how could this be my fault? The moment that I, like, I stepped back and said, where did I play a role in this? That became like this humongous, like, oh, crap, look at my entire life, you know, like. Because, yeah, she made a horrible decision, but somehow I got us to a place with her. Obviously, that left her point to make a decision, right?

Yeah.

I was like, oh, okay, well, there's some fault in this. And then on top. That's like you start looking at, well, if that's what she was dealing with, you know, or I was dealing with, like, how could she like deal with this? Was it done maliciously to me to hate me? Like, no, she was just trying to do the best she could to fulfill her needs, you know, and they start seeing that and it's like, oh, well, that's the case. Like how many people in this world are dealing with the same thing? So at this point, like, I have a great deep care for her as a human for everybody else. She was here watching Move with the kids just yesterday, you know, hanging out. Because I don't hate her in any way because I feel her heart and what was going on. She was left in a place of feeling separate from me, feeling neglected, and she did what she did. Then other people that say negative things or rude things or do bad stuff, it's like my first thought is like, what are they struggling with? Like, well, they may be mean to me and mad at me, but great, happy people. I've never seen an incredibly happy person like being mean to anybody, you know. So that mindset shifted and then it allowed me to start looking at me and started looking at how I communicate with people. Started reading, you know, self help books and personal development type stuff. And I'm still a guy's guy. Like I'll still go catch a beer and watch a football game. Like I'm the dude's dude. Most of my guys are alpha male guys, right? But I'm the guy that can openly talk and express my emotions. And I think it became as complete, completely freeing thing. I'm free. Like I'll tell you everything about me. I have no problem. I don't, I don't care what your judgments are because I realize that a good person really cares about me is not really going to make me feel bad about it, you know. And when you get to that place of not caring about the judgments, like you don't care about people, you just don't care about the judgments because you know, where they actually hold weight, which is a person's life, the battle they're dealing with themselves. Because I was in that place at some time before and life opens up. That's why I'm incredibly happy. Because I'm free and I can provide that kind of free to other people.

So true. So true. It's what I call the nightmare gift. I mean, and we all have those throughout our life. And you know, yours was the breakup with your ex wife. And I know with me, one of them was the partnership breakup for me. And you know, in the moment, it's so emotional, it's so tormenting, it's so horrendous that you don't even know how you're going to go on. But I think you said something that is really, really powerful.

I've talked about it a number of times in my presentations and actually recently in a broadcast. And that is.

You looked inside yourself and said, I had something to do with this. I mean, it would have been really easy to strictly just point the finger at her and say, you did this to me. You did this to me. You did this to me. But you were willing to be vulnerable. You were willing to say, I don't know what it is, I don't know how it is, and I don't know how big it was, but somehow I contributed to it. And when you do that in life, you regain, I really believe you regain the power to change and shift things in your life. If we go around blaming everyone else for our woes, then we are, well, we're playing the victim and we don't feel like we've got the ability to do something about it. And that's the only way we are going to find our ability to grow. And that's what came out of this.

And if not, you do repeat that same thing because you'll keep using those life actions. Every time you're in a place of decision or a place of living your life, you'll fall back to that same role. And so I can get a new girlfriend, I can get a new wife. I'll do the exact same thing. It's not until I realize, hey, I messed up here, that I'll change things. And I'm active in the moment. I mean, always my. I'm always monitoring my own brain.

Yeah.

So I'll be active in my life moments, thinking about, hey, how much of you is that past guy right this moment? How are you responding? Like, I had a conversation with somebody yesterday online and I just, I responded emotionally. I wasn't like rude or condemning anything, but it was like this thing where later I was like, you know, I apologize online. Like, you know what, that was childish. It was immature. I apologize. I'm not perfect. I'm human. But I can monitor myself, go back and have the ability to be vulnerable enough to admit my mistakes. A man. And now, oddly enough, like, we're like, somewhat cool. It's like he's like, hey, if you ever want to, if you're in the area, hit me up, we'll grab a bite to eat. Like, awkward.

Well, it's like in the old days when you used to get in a fight in elementary school and then you became best friends.

Yeah, that's what it boils down to. But it's because he's also, I would say, an evolved guy. Like, he's thoughtful. Right? So. And it's like, it allows, when you have that kind of space to be you, but then also to communicate a deeper level and say, you know, I'm sorry. It's accepted. It's not, like, abrasive. Like, I feel good because we both learned something. Even if it was, like, the way it went about. We both learned something because we're in a place to learn it.

So true. So true. I mean, there's so much.

There's just so much wisdom and experience that's coming through here, Anthony. I mean, it's just amazing what we're getting. I mean, I think that the lessons, you know, business or life, they're universal and being able to be vulnerable to be that in that space. I mean, it's really easy for, Especially in this social media world, to, you know, I believe that in some senses, social media has de. Socialized us. We've gone from a place where connection is confused. I mean, context is confused with connection.

Yeah, true.

And we're starved for connection. We're starved for that real, deep connection. And so we can use systems and we can use processes and we can use social media, but we need to connect with the humanity of each other. And it's really easy for someone out there. I mean, you've done it. I know. I do it. I'm on Periscope and I see.

The trolls. I guess they call them that. Come on. And they just start typing things. You're ugly. You're this. And I'm going to.

Yeah.

Yeah. All right, dude, come on, man. You know.

Yeah. I had one guy said he typed in 6, 6, 6, Satan. I was like, man, you're having a bad day, aren't you, bud?

That's what happened, you know, with me. I go, you know, someone said something online, and I said, yeah, class act, buddy. You know, you just kind of go with it. And, you know, if we took that. If we took that to heart each and every time, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing. We'd crawl in a hole and be afraid of our own shadow.

Yeah, I think that's because it's. I think I would. I don't know if you 100% agree but it's bigger than you. The thought for me is like, we get to a place where everything becomes bigger than us. It's like, what I do, the message I have, like, the trust your hustle message, it's not like it was. It was put in me, but it's not mine, if that makes sense. I'm just the one leading the charge. I have the torch, and I'm careful. I'm gonna pass the torch on everybody else. And I think when people say those things, it's like, yeah, I could get mad, like, you're attacking me, but that's just me. And this isn't about just me. I'm not on this Facebook live for just me. It's the people that are going to get something from this.

Well, that's what's driving me. Because how many times do you sit back and go, yeah, I want to go and do a broadcast, you know, and you're real excited. I mean, there's times. But, you know, by chance, if that one person needs to hear that message that day, I gotta get on there and do it. And if technology, if the advancement of technology has given us the gift of being able to permeate geographic lines and to connect with people, then we ought to use it for the positive, for good, to transform people's lives as best we can. And I'm with you, my friend. I really think that that's where we need to focus and on that journey.

Agree. That's what I'm doing every day. That's why I do these things when it's like, my dates are thin, my mind is thin. But I realize that there's, like, right now, someone's watching this that neither of us have ever seen or met before. And the person watching is going to get something truly like, help them change them. And what if I decided not to do this? What if I decided to sleep in or postpone, like, all these weird little things that happen? But this person could be the catalyst that changed something amazing for our entire world some point in time later.

You know, I just look at.

I don't know. I'm not an overly religious guy, but I certainly believe that there's higher power and spiritual and all of that. You know, I don't. I don't. Also, I don't believe in coincidence. I mean, I look at just like. Like just meeting my. Meeting Stephanie, my wife, my beautiful bride, how that was, how she was placed in that spot. I was gonna. I was gonna change my flight. For those that don't know, I chased her down in an airport, basically. So, yeah, another story for another time. But. But the fact is, is that she usually doesn't fly. That day I was going to change my flight. You know, we've been running around the same circles almost and geographically for a lot of time. And in that moment, for that, that 10, 15 minutes, we ended up in each other's lives.

Yeah.

And my life's never been the same. Now she's probably going to say the same, hopefully.

And I think that we get that opportunity to affect people's lives and when we get ourselves out of this and up here, we can affect lives and Lord knows, globally, society and humanity needs it more than.

I mean, that's why the course I created is tied so specific to community. And I mean, I grew up without community. I grew up being passed around like an animal. I think that what you kind of said was dead on. What I tell people all the time is like, you know, what happens in the world? How do you get these amazing opportunities? I say, well, the problem is we all have these amazing opportunities. I truly believe from a just me seeing life, that life has this amazing plan worked out for us. We just got to be there. The problem is we mess it up. We mess it up with our judgments of another human being. We skim that space because what if you saw her like, oh, I like her shoes, or like, you know, she just being like anything or just, you were in a bad emotional space. Right. But I think when we are open to the world, the world providing something, we just like, yeah, head out of the phone, just do that. Or it comes in a form of something that scares you a little bit or that makes you question a little bit. But like that. I believe the fear hides the amazing breakthrough. So for us, I think, yeah, life has these great possibilities, right? Some guy in the airport meets a woman, she changes life. That happens for everybody all the time. We're put in a place to have it happen. But I think we mess it up.

We do, we do. We become our own worst nightmare all the time, man. So let me ask you this. We're kind of shifting gears a little bit. But if you start to look, I mean, with what you've been through, what you're doing now, looking forward in the future five, 10 years, where do you think we as a society, as a humanity should be spending our time to be able to have the greatest impact, if you will? That next million dollar idea?

Yeah, I think it's virtual reality. I mean, you're already seeing people like, you know, do virtual Reality like seminars they put, they can put a person up on stage. And I think for us, like you have the phone, 360 cameras, you can like be in that space and move your camera and see everything. And I think that is where we're moving because you can basically put a mask on and be sitting in a chair and moving around an entire open space. So I think for us it's going to be the next level is like virtual reality because you're going to have like 3 billion new people online. And if I want to hold a meeting or I want to hang out with somebody, like I can, hey, I can give you a call. We can both put a little virtual reality things on, have the cameras there. We could hang out and talk in space. Like it's a whole different monster that's been progressing for years. But I think the next like five to 10 years, it'll be something that's unique and completely. I think there'll be technology and hardware that changes the entire world. So that's my.

For those that, that are old enough to remember the old George Jetson cartoon, I think that ultimately a lot of that stuff is coming, coming to bear. They're coming to reality.

Yeah, definitely. It's gonna be, I think quicker than we even know. It'll just sneak in here and all of a sudden it'll be like all sitting like this. We could be sitting here doing this. Or you could have a camera. Like you probably could just right now get a camera. They have these 360 cameras. Put it in front of you and somebody could be in your office with you. They could turn around with their head and they could see the back of the back of your office. Like that's what can really happen now.

So imagine we don't want them to do that because I haven't cleaned the whole office.

Yeah, I'm in the middle of my like separate room or my studio. I'm like, I have my filming in my lights and everything, you know, but that's pretty much what happens. And I think that that's the next five to ten years is that kind of connection and then some.

So how, how is, you know, this is the tech question kind of, you know what's kind of what technology tools? Because I know you're, you're kind of a digger, finder, kind of find some things, you know that technology tools are taxes that have you used to build your productivity to get things done better, quicker, faster, more efficiently.

Well, you know, it's kind of old school, new school mix is how I do it, but I'm a systems guy. Like, what I do is I write everything down in a spreadsheet. Like if I have something to do, right? For example, I have a podcast just like you that I do. And I can get a podcast from sending an email out, having someone on the podcast and out to them loaded in six different places in less than an hour if I really wanted to. Like, it's just bang, bang. And it's because I just, I write every step I do down, then I do that. I'm like, well, what if I did this, emerge this, or fix this? And what I do is I then get it all streamlined and then I find technology that allows me to do multiple things at once. And so it could be a click of a button where I just hit a button, load something, and it goes like five different places, right? So think my, like my hacks, my productivity thing is I want to make something as streamlined as possible without having to do anything more than a couple clicks and make it happen. And most people, this is the way to do it. They'll lug that around, they'll do it forever like that. It's slow for me. I'm like, how can I always improve this to where I can get my thing? Is this in the space I'm in, if I can get more quality content out than anybody else, I'll flood it and I'll actually be seen as better. Or more people know me because I have more opportunities to be seen, more consistent content. The problem is people say, well, I got to do a podcast and it's gonna take X amount of days to do it. Or I wonder, like, I do a video every single day, and people I tell I do it, they're like, how do you do it every single day? I got a system that does it in, honestly, about seven to ten minutes a night.

Yeah.

Filming to ending, to post it in six places. And so when I can do that, like every day, I think every week I have 13 new videos that go out into the ether every week. So I'll get like, you know, hundreds of things done when someone may have gotten 50 or maybe 100. And that's all because the systems and utilizing technology. And as it comes out, I'm not married to the technology or married to the process. If something new comes out, I'll check it out. If it can replace something, boom, take it out, put it in. Always fine tuning.

Beautiful. Beautiful. Is there a technological tool that you're using that allows you to do that? What are you using?

My Cell phone, that's the biggest tool, to be honest. There's not one simple thing. I think a lot of it ties to the software that's out there. Like, right. It's like I use blabs. It's one thing. I use my podcast or I use apps, like specific apps that have my phone. So I'll kind of just always keep my out for new apps or new different, like pieces of software that comes out. But it's really tied to the hardware and what you choose to do with it. And I look at kind of like, how much use can I get out of one piece of equipment. Yep. Because I could take my camera, get an SD card, film it, plug it in my laptop, edit it up, then put it up on some spot load. It goes, all that. Or I'm gonna say, how can I get this one thing to do all of that in a couple minutes? That's how I did it.

The funny thing is, I tell people, people ask me, how do you get so much done? And I look at them, I go, it's because I'm inherently lazy.

What? I said, I'm inherently lazy. So I gotta find better ways. I gotta find productivity hacks that allow me to get stuff done because I don't want to do things the hard way. I wanna find the better way.

Yeah. And I think another thing, if I want to say a software tool or take whatever is technology, it's. I take courses, man, I take a lot of online courses and see what I'm capable of doing. Because there's my. Also thought is the only thing that hinders me and my growth is my boundaries of what I think I can and cannot do, which is all based nowadays on technology. So it's like, I used to play football. So I think, okay, there's boundaries in this football field, but what if the boundary was outside the stadium? How much more can I operate and do and run around? And so for me, it's like some people, they know of two or three things, those work for them. But that's your boundary now. And so if I expand my knowledge and keep learning and keep trying things, well, now my boundary expands at a parking lot, expands outside the stadium, and goes from there.

So true. So true. We. We get. I had a conversation just the other day with someone who said, we get caught up in, in this, the education system, and they think, I got, I got my degree, so my education's over. And I said, no, your degree process is over. Your education never stops. Never does it never stops. And so I look at it. And it comes from all kinds of places, which kind of leads me to this. This next question. And we've got just one other question after that, and so is the resource question. You know, what is one book that you believe had the biggest impact on you that is still relevant today?

Yeah, the. The first book I really read in this space was the seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It. It, for me was like, it's kind of. It's pretty analytical. Like, it's very straightforward. It's not, like, philosophical. Yes, he ties some concepts in, but it really. The way it was structured and broke itself down. It was like, for me, this. Like a humongous. Like, it was a new window that got wiped clean. Yeah. Oh, I'm in control of this. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Like, I do. I have a mission statement for my life. Like, how do I communicate? One of the things I love. My favorite chapter is Seek first to understand.

Yeah, huge.

I mean, I use that concept every time I talk to somebody now. And so in doing that, it allowed me to say, oh, there's more. And then it started having me, like, look for other books that I read. Man's Search for Meaning, and then ventured into reading, like, the motivation Manifesto, you know, and I read your book as well. So it's like all these things kind of. I venture out, and what happened was, if I didn't read that book, I don't think that I comprehend how much more wealth of knowledge there is that gives me so much more control of being happy in my life.

So good. So good. So here's the doozy question. If you could travel back to day one of kind of your beginning on this entrepreneurial journey and had 15 minutes with yourself, 15 minutes to kind of have a conversation about the lessons that you kind of acquired.

Having a conversation with hopes to try and save you some mistakes and heartache, what would you tell yourself going back?

Man, I feel like I have an answer for this, but I don't think the answer that I typically would use would suffice here. I think for me, if I was to go back 15 years.

I would just say, like, really? Like, trust your hustle. Really? It would be kind of how I would say it. I know there's a lot that most people would say. Like, I'd say, hey, pick this stock. Right.

But I think the sad part is a lot of people want to change something. And I had a guy send me a message. I'm really sorry about your past. Someone should tell you that it's not okay for it to happen. I said, yeah, you're right. It wasn't okay for it to happen. But the truth of the matter is really, for me, I don't like what happened, but I appreciate every moment of it. I am who I am. I have my filter that lets me see the world the way I see it. And because of how I see the world, that creates how I feel about myself and feel about the world. I was go back 15 years ago and just give myself a better push. It would be just trust your hustle. Because there's moments, I'm not gonna lie, it's moments where I didn't grind, I didn't push, it happened. But I think I don't want to tell myself about the future, but I want myself to learn the lessons along the route. I think you can't learn the lesson if you're not in class, period. So I don't want to remove myself from class. I just want to be like, when I'm sitting in class, can I get a better textbook? Like, what is it? Just pay attention, aunt. Just pay attention, man. That's it.

Sweet. All right, all right. So this is so cool, Anthony. You've got so much that I think you can share with our audience, my audience and people. It's so amazing that. So if someone wants to find out a little more about Anthony Trucks and what Anthony Trucks is doing, where can we send them? Where can we let them go? To find out more easily, go to.

Anthonytrucks.Com or go to renewuniversity.com which is. They're both spelled just how they sound. Trucks is T R u C K.S. and renewuniversity.com Beautiful.

Beautiful. Anthony, I cannot thank you enough for being part of the show. Being part of this is a gift to the solution nation and the whole community. And you're a blessing in my life and my family's life. And so thank you. Thank you for being part of this.

You're welcome, man. Thank you.

Let's rock this thing, huh?

Sounds good, man. Count me in.

Cheers, buddy.

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