A Breakdown Can Be A Good Thing | The Mindset Mentor Podcast

Rob Dial explains why personal breakdowns—confusion, chaos, feeling stuck—can fuel growth, comparing them to muscle fibers tearing during workouts. He built his company from solo in 2015 to 27 people by cycling through breakdown and rebuild, using tools like a quarterly 14-day business push and his Iron Mind program, which enforces six daily disciplines including cold showers, meditation, and journaling.
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Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob. Dial, and if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. If you're out there and you want to receive an email from me every single Monday morning with some tips and tricks on how to make the best mindset that you possibly can, I send out an email every single Monday. And if you want it for free, go to mondayemail.com and sign up once again, mondayemail.com and sign up there. Today I'm gonna be talking to you about why a breakdown is actually a good thing. Now, just to preface this, I'm not talking about a mental breakdown and getting into depression or anxiety or any of that stuff. I'll dive deeper into what I mean when I'm talking about a breakdown. But before I do, I wanna talk to you and kind of have you think of a visual. Okay? Think of going to the gym and one of the times where you have just work so ridiculously hard at the gym, where it's just like your muscles are burning. Like, I remember one time specifically, I was in LA Fitness, and I worked my legs out so hard, I couldn't walk out of the gym because I couldn't stand up anymore. Now, I could have possibly taken it too far, but I remember sitting there and I was literally sitting on the benches watching people play tennis because I was like, I can't stand up. Like, it literally hurts too much to stand up. At that point in time, I took my muscles and to the point that there was nothing left of them, right? And if you think of yourself kind of like a muscle, a muscle, in order for it to grow, has to be broken down. What you're actually doing when you're working out a muscle really hard is you're making microscopic tears in the muscle so that therefore, when the muscle regrows and actually heals itself, it regrows stronger. And so when you're putting these micro tears in it, you're literally, in a way, destroying the muscle in some sort of way. There is a destruction of the muscle. Now, if you want to create bigger muscles, you essentially have to destroy the current muscle that you have in order for it to create a new version of itself, right? You literally have to destroy that muscle for it to come back stronger. And one of the best ways to do this is to lift until absolute failure to lift and lift and lift until you cannot lift anymore for that day. And then at that failure, you've Gotten to the maximum capacity of the muscle. Now is the muscle destroyed forever? No, it's not destroyed forever. It will rebuild itself and it will rebuild itself stronger. A muscle does not grow if it is not broken down in some way though. So if you go into the gym and you lift over and over and over again, the exact same weight over and over and over again. Some reps, some sets, some weight, your muscles not going to grow. You have to go heavier and heavier, more weight, more weight, more weight, and it eventually breaks itself down. A muscle does not grow if it is not broken down. There's not a break down in the muscle fibers. And so then obviously after breaking it down, you have to, it has to be followed by rest so that the muscle will actually be able to have time to grow. This is where we're at when we have our own breakdowns. Once again, I'm not talking about mental breakdown. I'm talking to the point of, of like confusion. I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what's going on. I don't know where my life is. I don't know what's happening. Sometimes that point can be one of the most important points of your life. If you find yourself at that point, like I don't know what the hell I'm doing with myself, that could be one of the most important points of your life. If you're at confusion, if you're at breakdown, if you're at I don't know what the hell's going on, Sometimes things need to be broken down completely in order for those things to be able to rebuild into a stronger version of itself. AKA you need to break down in some sort of way, or the version of you that exists right now needs to break down in some sort of way in order for you to be able to grow into a better, stronger version of yourself. And so if you find yourself at a breakdown sometimes, if you find yourself at just absolute confusion, if you find yourself in a point where it feels like chaos, you have found that the maximum of what your current self can do. Notice what I say, not what you can do, what your current self can do. This is a good thing. This is a really good thing. Because you found what you're capable of, you found what the current version of you is capable of. And if you want more, if you see more potential, there needs to be a breakdown of something that needs to go, that needs to be let go of, that you need to get rid of in order to make way for something better in Order to make way for a new version of yourself, in order to make way for certain habits and traits and qualities and aspects of yourself to have room to grow and to actually be a trait that you now have. But most people, when we're not aware of this, and I found myself in this many times over the course of my life, when we're not aware of this, we can feel that confusion, we can feel that chaos. We can feel that breakdown and be like, holy crap, this is a really bad thing. And we think that it is. And we think, oh, my gosh, this is too much. I need to back off. Because your brain is a protection mechanism, and your brain signals danger, danger, danger, danger. But there is no danger that's in front of you. You've just reached a point of breakdown. And that's why a breakdown can be good. And so one of the things that I do when I coach people, I teach coaches how to grow, coaching businesses. And one of the things that we will always do is we will do something about once a quarter called a push. And it's two weeks of working harder in their business than they ever have. They eat, sleep, and breathe their business for 14 days straight. Why? Because your mind is like a plastic bag. When you pull a plastic bag, it will never go back to the same size. And so if we can say, hey, I normally do this much outreach in a day, and then over the next 14 days, the person's like, I'm going to do three times that amount of outreach, way past what they're comfortable with on the other side of those 14 days. We call it a push for a reason, because you're literally pushing yourself. We used to do this when I was in my first sales company. We do 14 days straight. Just eat, sleep, and breathe your business. Expand yourself where you're just so busy working, you can't even think about your fears. You can't even think about your limiting beliefs. You can't even think about your uncomfortableness. What happens is at the end of those 14 days, they grow their businesses to points that they've never thought possible. And when you push and you push and you push and you push and you push, what happens is after the first two weeks, people are like, man, I'm really uncomfortable. And I say to them, I'm always like, there should be a point where you want to quit. You should probably want to quit every single day. But you've got to push past. You got to push past. You got to push past that. And most of them express at some point in Time that it's getting hard for them. And that's good. That's a good thing. Why? Because it's not hard for them, like in who they're going to be. It's hard for their current selves. It's hard for the self that they currently have. And in order for them to grow themself and to grow their business into another version of themselves, they need to break down parts of themselves that are not supposed to be there anymore. The fears, the limiting beliefs, the lack of action, whatever it might be. And if they do it for another four weeks, eventually that massive action starts to become normal. So what was completely out of their capacity in their own mindset becomes normal. So if you're a business owner, try this out. Say, hey, 14 days, I'm gonna just eat, sleep and breathe my business. I'm gonna put every single ounce of energy that I have. We used to call them money making vacations. Go on a money making vacation, then just tell everyone that you love, hey, for the next 14 days, I'm gonna work as hard as I possibly can in my business. You know, tell your kids that you'll see them after the 14 days if you have to, whatever is you got to do. And just see if you can find another level of yourself past the breakdown. Because you're going to get to the point where you're like, screw this, I don't want to do this anymore. Screw this, I don't want to do this more. Screw this, I don't want to do this anymore. You know, when I do, the exact same thing happens when I do at the beginning of the year. Every single year, I do a thing called the iron mind 30, where for 30 days straight we have six pillars we have to hit every single day. And it's, you know, there's cold showers, there's no alcohol, there's specific diet that they need to stick to. It's journaling, it's meditating, it's working out every single day for 30 days. In some people. Most people want to give up at some point in time. And you know, that's where we really want to support people the most. But I've had people have gone through the iron mind 30 for 30 days. They've lost a ton of weight. And then at the end of the year, they send me a message and they're like, rob, I just finished the iron mind365. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. If you love this video, please hit the like button. It helps more than you know. And if you want to see more videos like this, this, hit the subscribe button so that you could see some more and get notified the next time I post. How cool is that? Where they do the all six pillars for 365 days an entire year and they're like, I'm a completely different person now. Was there some confusion probably that happened throughout the year in doing this? Absolutely. Was there strong resistance? Absolutely, 100%. Was there probably some breakdowns from the old version of themselves that had to die off? Yes, absolutely. And so, you know, I can think of this for myself as well, where if, like, if you're constantly pushing yourself, you're constantly growing, you're constantly trying to become better, there should be moments in your life where you realize the person that you are now, you years ago could not do what you do. Like, you're a different person. You're the same human with the same name, but you're a completely different person. You. You know, like, if I look at my business now, I started my business by myself seven years ago, and I grew it and I figured it out and I grew it and I figured it out and there was so much uncomfortableness. There were so many times where I doubted myself. There's so many times where I wanted to quit. There were so many times where I thought, I don't know if I can do this anymore. Right. And when I look at the version of myself in 2015 that started this business, I could not run the business that I have now. There was many versions of myself that had to break down and die off for me to build myself into the version of myself that I am now. When I was by myself in 2015, I could not run my business that I have now. We have 27 team members. We're hiring seven more in the next two weeks. We're gonna have 34 people on a team. Rob, who is a fully solo entrepreneur in 2015, could not run a 27 going to 34 person company at all. Rob in 2015 could not run this business. There's no way. There's been a constant breakdown and rebuilding process of me to get to where I am in 2022. Now here's the important things you also have to realize. I know that me right now in 2022 cannot run my business in 2014. Not because physical dates are not there yet, but because of the fact that I am not capable of running the business that's doing three, four, five times in revenue. What it is now, who has 100 employees instead of 34? Because there's a constant breakdown and rebuild. A breakdown and rebuild. A breakdown and rebuild. And that's why a breakdown can be a really good thing. Most people back away when they start to feel those feelings. But for you, you're here, you're listening to this because you want to grow, because you want to get better. And so you have to realize when you feel that feeling of, like, confusion, chaos, possible breakdown, you got to remind yourself, this is a very important time in my life. I've got to push through and I've got to become better from this. Right? It is a constant expansion of who you are, Right? The past seven years of growing my business, it has been a constant expansion of who I am. That's how you need to be. That's how your life needs to be. I bet every single one of you listening right now, you don't want to be the same person 10 years from today that you are now. But if you get to the point where it's uncomfortable and you back away from, you will be the same person because you're staying in your comfort zone. What you need to do is you need to find your edge and push through. And usually that edge feels like confusion. Usually that edge feels like breakdown. Usually that edge feels like, what the hell am I doing? Usually that edge feels like, I don't think I can do this. Usually that edge feels like, there's no way I'm going to get past this. And at that point, when you get to that point, you have found your capacity of your current self, push just a little bit past it, push just a little bit further. But that's the point where most people tend to give up. I know that I've done that years and years and years. I've done this over and over and over again where I've gotten to a point where it feels uncomfortable and given up. And gotten to the point where it feels uncomfortable and given up, gotten to the point of uncomfortable, and we have given up. I'm sure you've probably done it hundreds of times as well. We've all done it. But we've got to have the mentality of, when I get to that point, I will push past it. When I get to that point, I'm going to push past it. And when you get to that point, you've got to think to yourself, okay, take a couple deep breaths. I'm at a good point in my life. It's never comfortable. It's not comfortable at all. I've never been in a breakdown point and been like, yay, this is amazing. But I can remind myself, okay, this is where growth comes from. Growth doesn't come from just reading books. Growth doesn't come from just doing what's easy. Growth comes from pushing yourself past the point that you are comfortable. And you must be constantly reminding yourself of this episode. When you get to that. If you need to highlight this episode and save it for when you do have one of those breakdowns or confusion moments, the points where it gets too hard, come back to this and let me remind you that you're at a really important time of your life. Remind you that you are at your edge. You've got to push just a little bit further. It's just like a muscle. It's got to burn, it's got to hurt, it's got to be uncomfortable. But if you just remind yourself over and over and over again, you're going to find yourself at a point 10 years from now when you've pushed a little bit past it, a little bit past it, a little bit past it 10 years from now, you will not be recognizable with the person that you are currently right now. And like I said, most people will give up. Most people will tell you to give up. Most people will support you in your giving up. If growth is the absolute focus for you, then you must understand that at the point of breakdown is the point of most growth. When you work out and you're at the very end of your workout and you're literally struggling to finish those, that last set is the most important set of your entire workout. The entire workout is just prepping you for that very last set where you destroy the muscles, break them down so they can rebuild themselves. So you must remind yourself when things get hard, a good thing. When things don't feel comfortable, it's a good thing. When you feel like giving up, but don't, it's a good thing. And you remind yourself of this over and over and over again. And eventually you'll get to the point where the uncomfortableness starts to feel fun. You get to the point where the uncomfortableness feels like, hey, here we are again. We've done this before. We know what to do. Let's keep going. And that's what you want. You want to be able to build yourself into the person that seeks the discomfort, that seeks the breakdown, that seeks the burning, that seeks the confusion, that seeks the chaos. Because when you do that over and over and over again, you're constantly expanding yourself. And the only way that you can be a different person a year from today, 2 years from day 5 years from day, 10 years from today is if you seek the discomfort, if you seek that expansion in yourself. And when you do that over and over and over again, you will eventually be a completely different person. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in at robdial Junior. R O B D I A L J R and I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.
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