Episode 74 - David Bush Peak Performance Coach Lives An Extraordinary Life To The Highest Level

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. You guys are going to hear me say extraordinary quite a bit this week. That's because I had the honor of interviewing the extraordinary author of Live an Extraordinary Life. And his extraordinary story truly defines that word. Growing up, playing professional football was his only dream. Reaching that goal was the only thing that mattered to him. When things got hard, he got scrappy to make his dream a reality. His brother, who was in sales, taught him how to make a list, pick up the phone and dial for dollars. And when that didn't work, he went face to face to visit teams in person until he got a yes. Not only did he land a spot on the professional football league, Arena Football, but the skills he gained along the process are actually what made this experience priceless. What I love about this guest is how relatable his story is for everyone. We all have dreams and aspirations, but many of us assume we aren't good enough or no one will want us. Instead of just climbing to the top of the mountain, we begin descending prematurely. Today's guest proves that extraordinary things are possible if you go all in with the right mindset and shift in perspective. He continues his legacy by coaching others on how to transform their lives into extraordinary ones. It's an extraordinary pleasure to welcome David Bush to the show. Hey, David.

Hey there. How are you?

I am doing great. How are you doing?

This is a beautiful day. I can't wait to have a little time with you today and talk through some extraordinary ideas and strategies.

I love it and I love the use of the word extraordinary. Since I've been introduced to you, we just. I just was recently introduced to you by a friend of mine who happens to be your brother. And, and I got your book in the mail and I've literally been using the word extraordinary ever since you've come into my life. And I love that word. It's such a fantastic word.

Well, if you were ever to get a virus, this would be A good one is to have the extraordinary virus where you just can't get rid of it. Once you understand it, it really think has a lot of potential and so many different aspects of our life, right? Health, life, career, success, relationships. Wouldn't, I mean, I don't think that any of us would not want an extraordinary life, extraordinary health, extraordinary relationships. So yeah, we'll have some fun today.

I'd love you to start off and just tell the listeners about you and your story.

Well, yeah, so I grew up in Southern California, grew up middle class family. My dad was an entrepreneur, owned an auto body shop and yeah, grew up in a family that was loving that, you know, had big dreams, had desires and we thought about living extraordinary lives. And compared to the rest of the world, I guess you could say we were living extraordinary lives, but always had our, our eyes set on living extraordinary lives to the highest level. And that doesn't necessarily mean opulent wealth, power and privilege. It's more along the lines of making a difference and living not just a successful life, but living a significant life. And so I grew up as a big kid and my parents used to say I was kind of like a trash can. You could step of my foot and my mouth would open. And unlike my brother, I ended up becoming a big kid that graduated high school £327 and was blessed with some natural athletic ability and strength. And so I did really well in football. And from a young age I wanted to play professional football, but I didn't get a lot of college scholarships because I went to a really small private school in California, kind of under the radar, but followed my dream, went to junior college and willed my way into a all conference offensive center position. And then I got a scholarship to the University of South Dakota and chased a dream. And the dream was to play professional football. And it was the one thing that mattered the most in regards to being a successful person or living that extraordinary life. It was that one dream. I was kind of monomaniacally focused on accomplishing it. And I ended up getting a chance to play in this thing called arena football and got a chance to play with the now professional hall of Fame quarterback, Kurt Warner. I was the offensive center who hiked him the ball. And just kind of a funny crazy story if people know Kurt Warner story I was there, I lived it. The movie that he just released, American Underdog, that's my story too, because I was right there with them. I remember being on the team and having the success at that level and then seeing him rise up and take his life to the next level. And, you know, I like to tell people that my story changed when Kurt left and went on to the NFL. I ended up suffering a career ending, lack of talent, and had to move on with my life and didn't have the aspirations to continue to play football. So I moved into the corporate world and I started chasing another dream. I wanted to become a peak performance coach. I wanted to become a people farmer. And so I became a passionate entrepreneur who helped other people to get healthier and get wealthier and to really change their life. And here I am almost rounding the age of 50 and for the last 20 plus odd years, I've been in the area of peak performance coaching and had a blessed opportunity to help a lot of people to design and live extraordinary lives. And here I am talking to the famous Stacy Lauren. I mean, goodness gracious, I've. I've come a long way, Stacy.

That's incredible. There's so much in that that I want to explore more. And the thing that is interesting, that when I read your book, it was so amazing to me, the story of how you even started playing for arena football. And I thought maybe we could just explore that more because there's a lot in that story of you persevering and you going outside the box to do what you did to even get to that point. Do you mind kind of going through that a little bit more?

I think there are certain moments in a person's life where they have a decision to make, to choose to live the extraordinary life or choose to live the ordinary life. And, you know, I had a. I had a passion where I wanted to play professional football. I just had one problem. Nobody else wanted me to. Nobody else was calling me and saying, hey, would you play for us? I wasn't drafted. I wasn't recruited. I was. You'd think at £300 I would be a good sized person, but I was only 6 foot 1 and, you know, in the NFL and the Canadian Football League, the World Football League, which was an international football league that paid people to play, they all wanted people that were 6 foot 4 and above, and I was not. And so I was, you know, trying to figure out how I was going to make it happen. And so that was my first sales job, Stacy. I picked up the phone and I started dialing for dollars. I started calling people and asking them if they would be willing to give me a tryout. And I called every team in the NFL, every team in this Canadian Football League, every team in the world Football League and every. Everybody in this thing called the Arena Football League, which it started back in the 80s, I believe, and it was just becoming more popular in the mid-90s. It was beginning to get more television coverage on ESPN and ESPN2. And so I didn't even know what it was. It was indoor football on a 50 yard field, and you played both ways, and it was just. It seemed like you went to a circus and a football game broke out. And that's all about all I knew about it. But they paid people to play, which would make it professional. And they oftentimes would say that if you got into Arena Football League, then you could end up having a chance to play in other leagues and grow your opportunity. So it's kind of like a farm system for professional football. And so I started calling out to people and I got an opportunity to get a tryout for the team, the New York Albany Firebirds. And I asked them how I should get out there, because I was thinking they were going to make arrangements for me. And they said, well, however you want to get out here, fine, we'll. We'll give you a tryout. You just fund your way to get out here. And I was like, well, wow, I don't have much money. I was a college kid, but I had gotten some money for graduation. So I basically just said, well, if I'm going to go do this thing, I might as well go do it. So I bought a plane ticket and flew out there. And when I arrived, which is a very similar scenario, I think, with most people that want to go out there and do something extraordinary, or they want to be something extraordinary, they want to have an extraordinary business. There comes a point in time when you have to face extraordinary competition and you have to face the fact that there are other people out there that want it just as bad as you do, if not more. And they may be more talented, they may be prettier, they may be stronger, they may be faster, they may come from a better family, go to a better school. And that's what happened to me, is I ran into some competition that was bigger, faster, stronger, or at least I thought that they were. And the mind does a terrible thing if you allow it to. And I allowed myself to get scared, and I didn't do a very good job. I had a terrible tryout. And after the tryout, the coach came up to me and said, david, you probably was a pretty good small college football player. That's the way he referred to me, because I went to a smaller college, wasn't the Power five Big name college. And he said, you'd probably be best if you just continue to move on with your life. And I was like, ouch. But that was the dream that was shattered right there. And I had a choice to make of whether I was going to listen to the naysayers and the critic or I was going to believe in the dream that I wanted to achieve. And I was going to go all in because I had an opportunity to be a graduate assistant and I could get my master's degree and have it paid for. I had a pretty good plan B, Stacy, and it was attractive. And hearing the professional coach tell me that I wasn't good enough, I felt like he knew what he was talking about. But I also had this dream inside of me that I couldn't live without pursuing at my all out best. And so that's what I chose to do is I chose to give away my apartment and basically pack up my truck. And I decided to go all in and follow my dream and kind of did the Rudy Rudiger from the movie Rudy if you've ever seen it. But I just basically showed up and I went to the next town that said that they'd be willing to give me a tryout. And it just happened to be Des Moines, Iowa and got a tryout. But this time I had a different attitude. I was all in. I didn't have a place to sleep that night, so I needed to find a place to get on a team. And because of that commitment and because I was willing to do something that other people aren't willing to do, that's what we call the extraordinary. Going above and beyond what's usual, regular and customary. Because I was willing to go outside that comfort zone and do something scary. I played really well. And the coach said to me afterwards, he said, you know, we don't really have a spot for you right now, but we like you and we would like to stay in touch with you. And I just said, hey, could I stay here and work for free until you're ready for me? And he said, well, you would do that? Said, yeah, I'd do that. And so I ended up working for free, got a job at Office Depot and ended up doing some odd jobs and practice with a professional football team. And even then the players on the team weren't really excited that I was practicing because I wasn't on the team. And they knew that if I was on the team, one of them wasn't. And so I had to go through that opposition and that Competition. And two weeks later, both of the guys that played my position went down to injury. I tell you, I had nothing to do with it. I just took them out at the legs. No, I tried to hit him with my car. No, none of that stuff. It just. Sometimes it just works out that way. And I got signed to a professional football contract. And I can remember like it was yesterday walking out and loud screaming indoor football fans with loud rock music and these spotlights and walking out on that field, Stacy. Of knowing that I was this far away from quitting and walking away from it. But I decided to go above and beyond what was usually regular and customary. And my total story was changed. Now my son is a football player. He's in his senior year. He's got a football game tonight, as a matter of fact, his second football start as a quarterback. He hadn't started at quarterback and he really wanted to. My good friend Kurt Warner, he gave him a pregame speech last week. It's amazing to be able to know that a football hall of Famer is now coaching your son on how to live his dream. And all that would have been for loss or for a loss if I would have not gone and done something extraordinary. So that's a little bit about the football dream story.

There's so much about that that I love because I think there's so many other people that when they're in that situation and they're not having someone scout them out, that they would have said, okay, I guess this isn't for me, and would have just moved on to whatever else they were going to do. But instead you, you said, dialing for dollars, you're calling and hustling your way onto a team. And then that even wasn't enough. You then went out physically to go try out and realized what was wrong at the one place when you tried out with the mindset and then fixed it and then went to the other place. I'm really wondering, though, how did you even come up with that idea of just calling the teams? And where did that even come from?

There's a great quote out there. I'm not sure who the author of it is, but it's the experience of others compresses time and people do what people do. I love those two quotes because they say so much about what we can learn from other people and how we can accelerate our own journey. And that's what I hope, that my journey will accelerate the journey of other people, because they'll hear about my story and I can compress time of Lost time of helping them to get on with it. And I had actually heard Les Brown, if you're familiar with Less Less Brown did a public broadcasting special on pbs. And he's got this great quote, you got to be hungry, and you got to be hungry for success. And I was hungry for success. And he had made a. Or told a story about how he became a radio deejay. And he didn't have any experience as a radio dj, but he just kept asking, and the person that was running the station said, no, we don't not going to hire somebody that doesn't have experience. And he said, what if I decided to work for free? And I remember him saying that, working for free. And they said, you do that. And he said in his speech, he said, anybody can have any job they want. All you have to do is be willing to work for free. And if you work for free, you'll stand out so much above the competition. They'll find. They'll find an opportunity for you. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that you can go out there and knock on the door of Apple and say, well, can I work for free? But you'll find somebody that if you're willing to work for free and you're willing to trade time and effort for experience, you'll find another person that sees it in your eyes that you're hungry, and you'll find an opportunity where other people would not find an opportunity. And that's where I got the idea from. And my brother was in sales, and so he had kind of shared with me what to do, kind of make a list and just start picking up the phone and calling people. And taught me about the value of rejection and how it would make you better. But he also taught me the law of large numbers and said, if you talk to enough people, somebody's going to say yes. You just got to go find the yes and take the nose and not get discouraged by them, which they were very discouraging, by the way. I don't recommend it for the weak at heart that doesn't have a lot of passion for your dream because it'll turn you off quite regular quite quickly if you don't tune your mindset into it.

I think there's something even bigger about what you did than just regular sales because you're selling yourself.

It's like, literally one of the hardest things is, you know, all the defects. You.

Exactly how do you remember how you got through that? When people are saying no? Like, how did you not take that personally?

Or did you Well, I think that, as you, Jim Rohn says, is that repetition is the mother of all skill. So if you've ever seen the movie Tommy Boy with Chris Farley, and he starts out in the sales world, when he first hears the no, he's like, alrighty, then, okay, let's go. And he gets up and walks away. And then what happens is he learns to understand and ask questions. So when a person said no, I'd say, does that mean never? Or are you saying right now it's not a good time? Could I follow up with you in a couple of weeks? And what would happen would be, is that they'd say, no, we're good. And I'd say, could I follow up with you in a couple weeks? And so then they'd say, sure. And then what would happen is that the one thing that's constant in every person's life is change. And so what was not available, the window was not open at that particular time. But as their players got hurt and they're looking for players, the window of opportunity maybe gave a little bit of a crack open. And in my situation, if I would have told them, well, I'm not coming there unless you fly me there, I may have not gotten through the window because the window wasn't open far enough, or there wasn't enough of an opportunity where they were willing to pay me to come through the window. They would have paid somebody else that's a known name from a known college with maybe a little bit more of a vast history of success. But I didn't have that. And so I had to make up with it what I lacked in skill and experience and exposure. And I had to be willing to do something extraordinary to get my foot in the door or to open up the window and climb through it. And that's what I. And that one experience, Stacey, is what really kind of taught me that that principle could be used in any aspect of life, whether it's a relationship, whether it's a job, whether it's a dream, whether it's. When I ended up losing £100 13 years ago, and I grew up as a big kid, I never knew what it was like to feel healthy. So, you know the phrase that people say nothing tastes as good as it feels to be healthy? I could argue with that because I never knew what healthy felt like. So I didn't really understand what that meant in terms of. Because I knew food that tasted really good and I had no problem eating a lot of it because that was my whole life history. And that was. Who I kind of identified with, was this heavy person. But then a good friend of mine challenged me to get healthy with them, and I ended up going through a process of losing £100. And it was really just the same concept. I was willing to go above and beyond what was usual, regular, and customary. And through that same concept, that same philosophy, I found extraordinary success in the health and fitness aspect, which then kind of opened up my mind, like, what else could I do? If I could do that, I could do so much more.

Yeah. What's really coming to my mind is just how lucky every. All the people that you've helped now and impacted with your coaching experience and with your book and all the things that you're. That you're doing now and how lucky they all are that you did not get immediately drafted for an NFL position because you wouldn't have the same grit and personal. Well, you might've had it in a different way. We don't know. But the way that things have worked out, it's almost this. This thing was set before you. I just. I think that's so amazing because you wouldn't have had to be able to think so quickly in terms of making those phone calls and seeing how to say, hear the no and be okay with it, move on and deal with rejection and just that scrappiness that you. That you've lived your life. I think that's amazing.

Yeah. I think that people. I hope that they. They capture this concept, is that things are happening for you, not to you. And it's really easy to go into the drama triangle and to become the villain or, you know, to tell yourself, I'm not good enough. I've been good enough. I always do this. I always screw it up. Or to become the victim of your circumstances and. Or you could flip the script. Right. I love that perspective, is that the facts are the facts. Our perception on the facts is what completely changes our life. And that's really the difference between people that live extraordinary lives and people that live ordinary lives is the ones that live extraordinary lives just shift their perspective. They see things happening for them. So I believe that my lack of recruiting, my lack of exposure and all the things that was happening for me, not to me, and I could get really negative. I said, why did. Why doesn't. You know, why didn't I get an opportunity to go to play for a major school and get all that exposure? Why didn't that happen to me? Because if that would have happened for me, I never would have had an opportunity to Go through that valley and find success from the valley, then to be able to look down and be able to find other people in the valley or the people that are camping out in their comfort caves and inspire them, because they. They probably wouldn't have heard it from another person. That was. That whole phrase is that the, you know, person that's born on third base and they think they hit. They hit their way there is that some people are born on third base. They didn't actually earn their. Their opportunity to get to third base. They were born there. For me, personally, it was a challenge, and I don't want to repeat it. It's like, it was hard. It was hard to go through all that stuff, but it's become such a blessing in my life and the lives of other people that I wouldn't want to trade it for anything.

And it's interesting. I literally. I'm in the middle of writing the do the Thing book right now and dissecting from the interviews and, like, a formula basically, on how people can do the thing. And one of the things I was writing, I think it was yesterday, was about the guy that I have this podcast based on. It's like he built the platform that this podcast is based on. And he. I had interviewed him, and he had dyslexia when he was growing up, and he. It's hard to read. Never really liked school, and his mom used to listen to NPR in the car, and he got used to just hearing audio, basically. And that's how he realized he learned the best. And then, lo and behold, years later, he ended up creating this platform that this podcast is based on. And he's the one that pushed me over the edge to start the podcast. And there's so much in these kinds of situations of things working for you, because, yeah, being having dyslexia, he could have meant that to mean something else, right. But he instead realized what he wanted to do with that. And I just feel like there's so much in that, that. That perspective shifting to be able to take what's coming at you and then see what you can do with it. And what.

There's. There's a. There's a doctor, Dr. Daniel Amen, I think, is how he pronounces his name. And he has this concept around automatic negative thoughts, which so many of us have these automatic negative thoughts. And he says, you got to raid the ants. And the RAID acronym is you got to recognize you're having a negative thought and acknowledge it by writing it down. And then ask the question Is there any other way of looking at this that could be a positive perspective versus a negative? Because the negative just comes naturally, which I think is probably one of the best coaching exercises I've done with people is just asking them the question, okay, you've. You've had this situation. You're kind of sharing with us your challenges or your circumstances. So let's recognize it and write it down. Just write it out in whatever phrase you're thinking about it, and then acknowledge it. And then ask yourself the question, is there any other way somebody in my same situation or my same circumstances could have a positive perspective on the same facts? And then he talks about initializing a response that's a positive response of how you could think about your negative circumstances or your negative thoughts in a positive light. And then he says, decide to take action on that positive thought, and then it'll reinforce. And so in a situation of fear, somebody may say, well, I'd like to start my podcast. I'd like to write my book, but I'm not very good at English. I'm not very good. That was my story. I wasn't a very good writer. I wasn't very good at school. I didn't go to play school. I went to play football. You know, that was my thing. So when I thought about writing a book, I thought, my goodness, that's. That'd be terrible. But I recognized it, I acknowledged it, and I asked the question, is there any other way somebody could look at this and have a positive perspective? Well, if somebody like me could write a book and it could be enjoyable, what would that say to other people? Maybe that would inspire other people to want to write a book. And then I initialized a response, and I asked the question, how could I. How could I write a book? And you know that there's people out there who specialize in helping people to write a book, that if you're not very good at it, there's people out there that can help you to do it. So I actually found help. It's a book that I was able to get help to organize my thoughts. And even though it reads like it's from my voice, it was coordinated by somebody that has English professional English training to English writing training to be able to guide that narrative. And I just decided to take action on it. And here I am with the book and a planner and a published document where other people. There's. I think there's like 3 million people a year, Stacy, that actually decide to write a book. And I think that it's less than 3,000, actually complete it.

Wow.

That's extraordinary.

Amazing.

So I.

Extraordinary. That is definitely extraordinary. I love that word.

It's gonna be like a drinking game every time we say the word extraordinary. Have another glass of.

I also. I wanted to go back to the book in a minute, but I wanted to hear. Because I know the listeners are hearing about the hundred pounds you lost and definitely want me to go there. So how. So you had a friend pretty much that said, hey, let's do this together, or he said he wanted to help you, or how did that go?

Yeah, he had actually gone through a healthy lifestyle coaching program, and that's how he ended up finding his success. He ended up losing 50 pounds. And it just inspired me to want to do what he did. And I was kind of like, if Kevin can do it, you know, like, why couldn't I? I'm just competitive. Guys, friends, whatever. And he said, I'll help you to do it, man. I'll. I'll. I'll guide you through the steps that I took. And we basically did it together. And it was really just based upon installing healthy habits into your life and doing it one at a time. So starting with, how are you thinking? Because if you're thinking like an unhealthy person, it's hard to be a healthy person. You have a hard time eating healthy, where you're thinking like an unhealthy person. Because if you think, I have to eat whatever, or I can't eat, and you have that mindset, you have an unhealthy mind. An unhealthy mind will not achieve what a healthy mind will. And so he started to kind of help me to adopt some language that was different. And then just starting out with eating small, balanced meals, you know, I used to say, why? I need to eat more. I'm a big guy. I need more. But when I started to eat healthier and smaller quantities more frequently throughout the day, and I was creating a calorie deficit that was less than my body was burning, I was beginning to burn through fat. And I started out with very simple structure, and I didn't do a rigorous exercise program. I incorporated exercise after I started to think healthier and eat healthier, and then before I knew it, I was starting to see success. And then I started thinking about how did I maintain my energy levels? And, you know, it's. They used to say, eat right and exercise. It sounds so simple. But when you have so many different things, it's almost like if you. If anybody's ever been Trained how to play golf. There's a lot of little things to think about and if you try to think of all of them, you might not do any of them. But if you think about one of them and do what they call habit stacking, where you add one habit and over time you start building the consistency because it matches your motivation level. And then you add another habit and then you add another habit. And if you act consistently on microhabits, you'll start building the macrohabit and that'll oftentimes be something that's more sustainable in the long run. So, you know, 13 years later, and.

Here we are and how did you guys. It sounds like you were accountable to each other. How did that structure look like? Or what? What did that structure look like?

Yeah. So every week I had quick coaching call. It wasn't very long. It was five to 15 minutes sometimes. And I had to answer three questions. I didn't have to, but it was what I committed to. And the three questions were, what did I lose in pounds, inches, unhealthy habits, cravings. But I had to report things that I lost that were wins of the week and then things that I learned. So if I didn't do things as perfectly that I wanted to, I, I shared learning experiences. I found that there are certain people that are food pushers in my life there. I found that were certain people that were sabotagers and they would sabotage. Oh, come on, you can have one. It's not going to kill your diet. Well, I'm going to start Monday. Let's just start Monday. You know, they just start pushing you to make those unhealthy choices. They're those unhealthy accomplices that drag you into unhealthy crime. And then I started to just realize that there were things that I. There's a. There's a great quote. Mark Twain says that it's not what we know that gets us into trouble. It's all the things we know for absolute certain that just aren't so. So that I may just remind everybody for that. It's a jotter downer. If you've ever had a jotter downer, this is one of them. It's not what we know that gets us into trouble. It's all the things we know for absolute certain that just aren't so. And there's a lot of things in my life that I was choosing to believe. And if you just write out the word beliefs, you can circle the three letters in the very middle of that. And most of us Stacy are believing in a lie. We're believing we're too old to exercise, we're too old to lose weight, we're too old to change careers, we're too far in debt, we're too whatever. And we're choosing to believe in those lies. They aren't true. Because if we go back to that raiding the automatic negative thoughts, we could recognize it, acknowledge and say that's not true for everybody. There's other people that think different. We could initialize a positive response and we could decide to take action on the positive response, which is what I did. At the age of 35 years of age, I decided to take action on some positive thoughts and it radically transformed my life. I mean radically. I had never been that healthy in my entire adult life for 35 years. I'd never been healthy in 35 years. Into the process I changed. And I've seen people that have gone through the process because I've encouraged other people. Now I've gotten trained on this health coaching philosophy and I've trained other people to go through this process. And I've seen people that are 80 years of age. I mean, at 80 you're thinking there's no way we're going to teach old dogs new trick. And I've seen 80 year old people go back to be high school healthy again because they had a reason to do it and they had a process and they had accountability. So the three questions, I didn't finish that, but I answered the question, what did I lose, what did I learn and what am I looking forward to? It's amazing how the power of those three questions can give you great guidance. And then usually when I gave them those responses, then he would give me some perspective and he would give me some resources that would help me to achieve whatever was next or to prepare for whatever's next. So like going into the weekend, you know, this is what I'm looking forward to this weekend. My son's playing in his high school football game and he would say, well, what's the plan? What's your strategy for eating healthy or being exercising over the weekend if you're traveling? So he would just help me to be more prepared and have a plan. And it's amazing how successful we can be when we have a plan and a partner that's there to support us. So I'm a big believer in having a coach and it's something I talk about in the book quite a bit is having a, having a coach in your health and your life and your leadership and Your business and your relationships doesn't have to be a formal coach, like where you pay money, but having somebody or some group of people that are guiding and encouraging and holding you accountable, and it's crucial. We're so distracted these days.

Oh, definitely. What do you think is the biggest thing that helped you with losing the weight?

Well, I think that the, the biggest thing was having a reason why. You know, nothing changes until you have a reason of why to do something. Because how to do it is overwhelming. Right? I mean, anything, whether it's starting a podcast, I mean, writing a book, you'll get burned out on doing the do if you don't have a good enough reason to do it. So having motivation, intrinsic and extra extrinsic motivation, having that inner drive, that purpose or that meaning, and then also having those extrinsic measures that motivate you, whether it's family, friends, a trip, you got to have something that's something you can buy into. And what I found was, is that you had to have a reason beyond just losing the weight. Because once you lose the weight, then what keeps you going? So you have to have something that's out there in the future. So rather than having a, a weight loss mentality where your, your focus is losing weight, you need to focus on your desired outcome. So what is it that you really want to be, do and have? And are you focusing in on the reasons of why you want to do that? That's first and first and foremost. The second thing was a plan. Jim Rohn has one of the greatest quotes of all time. He says, if you fail to create your own plan, chances are you'll fall into somebody else's plan. And guess what they got planned for you, Stacy? Not much. But in reality, they have a lot planned. Like if you look at the fast food industry, It's a multibillion dollar year industry. When you walk into McDonald's, McDonald's knows what you're going to order before you know what you're going to order. On average. They test it, they study it like rats.

That's insane.

They have test sites where they watch people. They know where your eyes are going to go. They know what you're most likely to order. They have a plan for you. They have a marketing plan. So anytime you order something, and they said, you know, would you like some appetizers? We hear some drink specials, they're giving you their plan before you even come up with a plan. So if you go out to eat and you don't have a plan, chances are you're going to fall into somebody else's and guess what they got planned for you? Nothing healthy. Most likely they're going to give you what's going to make them the most profit. So you got to have a plan. And there's lots of different plans that you can choose that match your dietary restrictions, your dietary preferences. If you told me that I had to go vegan, that was beyond my level of motivation, right? So you got to match your motivation to a plan that works for you. And I found that that's personal. You can't just do what your sister did. I mean, you can start there, but you may have to evolve it and modify it and customize it to something that matches your personal preference and your personal commitment level. And then the last piece is you gotta, you gotta have a partner. You gotta have somebody or some people that you can be around. Because we live in an obesiogenic society. 74% of Americans are overweight and obese. And that's just the weight factor. And I'm not saying that is all about weight. I'm just saying that being overweight and obese is the mother and father of all disease, cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, I mean, you name it. There's 750,000 people a year die from heart disease and there's 100 million diabetics and pre diabetics. So there's a ton of people that are struggling with lifestyle related diseases. And all of that could come back to their weight. That's a very big indicator of it. But if you start looking at the fact that it's extraordinary to be healthy, if you're ordinary, you're 30 pounds overweight, the average female in American, 30 pound overweight, that's ordinary. And if you're okay with it, and if that's your extraordinary life, I'm not here to tell you that it's not extraordinary. I'm just here to tell you that you have a higher level of predisposition to lifestyle related diseases if you are 30 pounds overweight compared if you're at a healthy weight, if you're not exercising right. 60% of Americans are exercising for less than 10 minutes a day. Exercising is part of your creativity, it's part of your energy levels. And so how could you live an extraordinary life if you're not? And I don't mean like doing CrossFit and doing like running a marathon. I'm saying if you don't find a way to use your muscles, you will lose your muscles. And when you Lose your muscles, that's when you get injured, you burn less calories, so you start gaining weight. So you got to find some people that are going to inspire you to want to be active. Going for walks, going for hikes, doing things that are hobbies and lifestyle activities that would define your extraordinary life.

Definitely. The people that you're around are def. What is that? The five people that you're around.

It's power of association. And what they found is you can do Google searches on this. Obesity is a virus and it spreads like a virus. It's a pandemic, similar to the coronavirus because it spreads from person to person. And you think I can catch obesity from my friends and family members? Yes. If your body genetically has a predisposition to being overweight and obese and you're not practicing the habits of health. Healthy mind, healthy nutrition and hydration, healthy movement and exercise and activity, healthy sleep and energy management, healthy surroundings. Meaning that if I came into your home today, could you be convicted of a healthy person? Could I look at your cupboards and your refrigerator and your closet and your bedroom and all the things. Could I convict you of a person that lives a healthy lifestyle? And if there's evidence that demanded that verdict, then you probably have a better chance of you have a much better chance of living a healthy lifestyle than if I came in there and found evidence of an unhealthy lifestyle that could be. Where are your tennis shoes? They're buried in the closet somewhere. Where's your workout outfit that doesn't fit anymore? I don't like to wear that. And I don't like looking myself in jeans in a pair of shorts or a shirt in a pair of shorts. Okay, well, then that has a higher likelihood of being unhealthy than healthy. And so there's so much to that. Social. I mean, that's one of the big awarenesses of the learning aspect that I learned, Stacy, was I didn't realize the environment that I lived in. I didn't realize that I lived in an environment that consistently drew me to be less active and eat more calories. I didn't realize that the food industry changed to a level where I was consistently capable of eating more calories, less quality nutrition than the people that lived here 50 years ago. And, and then once you, and once you realize that you are in an environment that promotes an unhealthy lifestyle, then you start to realize it requires me to create an environment. And you can create it. I mean, it's extraordinary. That's why less people are Doing it because it's easier to go with the flow. But like I talk about in the book, if you just go with the flow, you're gonna go over that waterfall of an ordinary life. It's common whether it's surgery, whether it's the, the medication or whether it's premature death or it's some other type of lifestyle related disease that makes you hobble or makes you not able to get down on the ground and play with your kids or grandkids or do fun things and go out and I mean I'm almost 50. The number of 50 year old men that are playing sports or my brother has these stand up jet skis. They go way too fast and they require a tremendous amount of stability, equilibrium and getting up on. There's not a lot of 50 year old men that can get on a jet ski and stand up on it and take off. And I probably couldn't have been one of those people if I didn't make some decisions in my life 13 years ago to say I want to be healthy and active when I'm older, I got three kids, I want to be able to travel, I want to be able to go do things. I want to go snow skiing, water skiing. I mean I, I still water ski almost 50 years of age. And there's a lot of people that gave that up 15 years ago because it just, they weren't able to keep up. And that's where I think that the ordinary life begins to creep up in the form of complacency, is that we just slowly start stepping out of life. We start slowly climbing down the mountain of chasing our dreams and we get caught up in this comfort cave or we get caught up in the valley of complacency. And then something happens in our life and then we start going down that river and then bad things happen. And that's in all areas of life. It's not just health, it's in relationships, it's in your career. You start getting comfortable or complacent, pretty soon you start getting replaced, competitors start coming in. A lot of different things can happen that are negative if you're not climbing to that next peak or that next goal that you'd like to accomplish.

Yeah. So, so much good in that. It's amazing. I was also wanting to see if you could you share more for the listeners about your coaching program and like peak performance and also your book.

Yeah, you bet. So for more information, the easiest thing you can do is just go to the website, the extraordinarylife.com and there's videos. There's great little downloadable resources. There's a free download of the Extraordinary Planner and the 90 Day Challenge, and you can utilize that and watch the videos at no cost. And if you'd like to get a copy of the book, there's the the book and the Planner. The Planner is a 8 and a half by 11 document that walks you through the extraordinary life planning process. And then the book is really all built around the six commitments to help you to live an extraordinary life and live your dreams and change your world. But in terms of the. The process is that for people that want to start getting clarity of what an extraordinary life is, we really start off by helping them to focus on what are you feeling called to do? What are you feeling a stirring in your heart or in your soul? I mean, what are some of the things that would really mend your heart or really make you happy or make you feel fulfilled? What are some of the things that are breaking your heart right now? Just helping them to guide their way through that process helps them to clarify what they're being called to do. And we break it down into different categories and then we challenge them to clarify what their dreams are. What are some of the things. And again, dreams, vision, fantasy, whatever you want to call it, but beginning to think about life at a very high level. And I don't know about you, Stacy, did you grow up in a house where dreaming and goal setting was taught or there was an example of it, or did you pick that up later in life? Or have you never been a goal setter? I'm just curious.

I learned it through. It's funny, I just found the. I sent it to your brother because I was so excited. I just found like all my Zig Ziglar audio cassette tape and the Tony Robbins book. So I did it all through books and the little cassette tapes back then. That's how I learned everything from when I was younger.

I mean, personal growth, personal development, or having a person in your life that maybe spoke empowerment into you, maybe believed in a dream for you. My family was really big on, on football because my grandfather played football and was successful at it. And out of the 11 grandchildren, I looked a lot like him. And so that was kind of my calling just because of what I look like in the family that I grew up in. But a lot of people are going through life and I just, I call it like they're sleepwalking through life. They aren't actually looking to where they want to go and dreaming about where they want to Go with their eyes wide open. And so there's this great visual of there's four different types of people out there. There's the person out there that's got their eyes closed, and they're just. If they're doing anything, they're dreaming about fantasies. They're not actually actively seeking out what they want. They're just in their mind living in a fantasy or wishing that they were living a fantasy life. And that's not to say that that's good or bad. I'm just saying that that's one version of a person. The second version is a person that they're dreaming. They have eyes open, but their eyes are staring down at the street. They're looking down at the ground, and they're oftentimes looking at what they have done in the past, or they're looking at things that are very concrete. They're not actually thinking about things that are out in the future that may be challenging, where it might be, considering where it's pressing them to have to be more, do more, learn more. And so there's people that are looking down at the street, and they're focusing at the street level. And then there's people, their eyes are focused up and they're looking out into the distance, and they're looking out into the future and their vision, casting of the things that they want to be, do, and have. And then there's these crazy people that look up to the sky and they dream in the sky, and they dream at the heavenly level. Henry David Thoreau said, have you built your castles in the sky? Good, that's where they should be. Now build the foundations underneath them. And so we can awaken a person to just start the process of opening their eyes. And if we can get them to start thinking about some things that they want to be, do and have, whether it be at the ground level or at the street level or at the heavenly level. We challenge them to kind of. And we give them a whole list of things that they can kind of pick as dream buffet. You could put things on your plate. What would you put on your plate? And then we challenge them to prioritize them as what are the things that you absolutely, really want and you really have to have. And then start organizing them in a prioritized list, like, I have to, I want to, and maybe I'd like to. And then we start talking to them about what it might look like to agree to make hard choices. Because every dream, every extraordinary act that you want to accomplish is going to require a Sacrifice. So what are the sacrifices? What are the hard choices? And, you know, people oftentimes say, well, that's hard to do. Well, you were built to do hard things, Stacy. You can do this. You know this, and you studied this. So I'm preaching to the choir. But for the people that are out there that are saying, but that sounds hard, well, if it was easy, everybody'd be doing it and it wouldn't be extraordinary and you wouldn't be as fulfilled to do it if everybody was doing it. So agreeing to make hard choices, and then we encourage them to decide to fail forward rather than seeing failure as a person or as an event that leads to catastrophe or look at failure as a bridge. So if you're not willing to fail your way forward, like John Maxwell wrote in his book Failing Forward, you're not going to find yourself in a successful spot. You have to be willing to embrace failure. And you have to expand your perspective by learning more and becoming more. And then you have to resolve to achieve your goals. You have to have this resolution inside of you to press on even when things are meek and things aren't very, very positive, because that's where extraordinary opportunities oftentimes show up. We like to say, I think it's Tony Robbins, it says, you got to have a breakdown before you have the breakthrough. So when people resolve to do something, they. They're willing to go through the tears and the frustrations to have the breakthrough. And in terms of our program, we've got a different strategy. We've got a virtual option where you can just plug into the virtual resources. We've got a coaching program where you can meet one on one with somebody over the phone or on the Internet that can guide you through this process. We also have a health coaching program where you can meet one on one with a health coach if you have an interest in getting healthier. And maybe life planning and extraordinary life is really not what you're focusing in on. Maybe it's just taking off 10 or 20 or 30 pounds or more and you want to get some structure back into your life. And then we're starting mastermind groups where we're getting mastermind groups together where we can get together on the Internet and collaborate and share ideas. And then we're also going to be doing some events. So check out the extraordinarylife.com for more information and we'll look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you so much, David. That was. I just can't wait to dive into even more of your stuff. I mentioned to you your Book reminds me of a book that made a huge difference in my life when I read it in college. And I felt almost the same thing as I was reading yours is, wow, this is unbelievable for people to be able to. I think what you do really well is you're painting a visual in your mind as you're reading. And I think that's not like you don't get that from lot of books. This one is. You literally have the visuals to look at, but then also it's giving you a visual which I think connects it even deeper.

That's awesome. Well, I appreciate the feedback. And you know, Jim Rohn said the book you don't read won't help. And so, you know, if you're looking for, looking for a book, it may help you. Yeah, I'll give you 100 money back guarantee. If it doesn't help you, I'd be more than happy to give you your money back because the book is not about making money. It's about making a difference and making an impact. And I think it will make a difference and an impact in your life. And if it doesn't, pass it along, give it to somebody else. Maybe it'll give it make a difference in impact in their life.

So you have one piece of advice for the listeners on how to do the thing. What would it be?

Absolutely 100% shift your perspective. It's your, your perspective determines your path. Your, your perspective determines your pace. Your perspective determines who you partner with. And as you see it is how you'll do it. And so, you know, I love the, the exercise and I put this in the book and it's the exercise where you take out a pen and paper. And if you don't have a pen and paper and you're just listening to this, try to assemble these letters into a statement and then try to tell me what the statement is. And if you can have, if you can write it out, it's such a great visual to do. It's a great visual to teach your kids or your employees or your staff or whatever. But go through this process. And the process is write these letters out from left to right. O P P o r T u N I t Y I s N o W h e r e Give it to you one more time. O p P o R T u N I T Y I s n o W h e r e When you spell that out, it says two different things. And your perspective determines your path. And so I challenge you to read that out or spread that out and just it may take you a couple times of reading it before you actually see it or you may need some help. We might want to just give them the answer, Stacy, because some people may not ever see it, but it is totally a perspective shift on the exact same circumstances, the exact same letters and the exact same sequence says two totally different things. It all depends on how you read it.

Love it. And just say your website one more time before we say goodbye.

The extraordinarylife.com okay.

Thank you so much. This was incredible. Or extraordinary? This was extraordinary.

It's extraordinary. Fantastic. Well, thanks for having me. And I'm looking forward to reading your book too.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the do the Thing podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. But even more, we hope you'll be inspired to do the Thing. Do you have a burning question on Doing the Thing that you'd like answered? How about an inspiring do the Thing story of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear all about it. Just leave us a voice message at do the Thing callcast Co or email us@helloothethingpodcast.com.