The ONE SKILL You Need to Be SUCCESSFUL

There's something else that's more important than all of that, and it's not the bucket list, and it's not your bank account. It's not the car you drive. It's not even your career choice. Research shows that the number one regret at the end of your life is not having the courage to live true to yourself.

There's been a lot of buzz and a lot of excitement around a lot of your recent work. You know, and I kind of want to start there. Right. Because, you know, a lot of times when I bring on thought leaders, people that have experienced a certain level of success.

People don't under. Well, they don't fully appreciate the journey it took to get there. So I want to go backwards a little bit as we're kind of talking about it, because your journey and my journey, there's been a lot of ups and downs and all kinds of stuff. So like, like tell us a little bit about you.

Yeah, well, I'm an entrepreneur. I started a company out of college. My dad, we sold it to a group in Silicon Valley and went on this roller coaster of a ride where it became part like an Apple Pay before Apple Pay.

Okay.

And this, this is like early 2000s, way before Apple was even talking about phones, much less payment.

Yeah.

And we raised $550 million at a multi billion dollar valuation. And I'm like in my early 20s.

How the heck do you get a multi billion dollar valuation with no revenue?

Well, you know, we had a few pennies to our name, no doubt, but it was all on the technology and the patents. You know, know we had, I think it was called tokenless biometric payment patents, which meant we were the only people in the US and you know, by extension the world was for some of our international patents that you could use somebody's fingerprint to identify them and tie them to credit cards, loyalty cards, anything. And so that was the real value. All the investors were looking at this thing saying this is the future, which it was, but it just wasn't us.

Well, let me ask you this. So obviously, so, so clearly, since it wasn't you guys, there's a story about why it wasn't you guys, right? What's the story? Behind the story or within the story?

Yeah, well, I, I'm living the dream for a long time. I mean, if you've. Some of your listeners have seen the Wolf of Wall street, it was like a scene out of that movie. It wasn't just like 700 employees, offices all over the world. But then when there were Things like models in the office and parties at the Four Seasons and flying first class. And I think I've got this business thing figured out. Not just business. I've got life figured out. You know, I'm ready to crown myself the next Steve Jobs and start my next company, buy an island. All the things due to a series of missteps that we made and some of the core leadership made. When the housing market collapsed, we weren't able to raise more money and we didn't have enough organic growth to sustain it. And the entire thing came crumbling down. All $550 million of cash gone. I think we licensed the patents for, you know, a few million bucks here and there, but pennies on the dollar, There was nothing left, man.

Oh my gosh. Well, how'd you guys recall? I mean, how'd you. I mean, obviously, you know, part of your work is hunting discomfort, Right?

Right.

So I think it's safe to say that was a fairly uncomfortable situation.

Right? It was. And you know, you talk about stuck to unstoppable. I was stoppable. What I didn't realize I was doing, in retrospect it's pretty clear, but my whole identity was caught up in this thing. Who I thought I was, what success looked like, who my friends were, what I could afford, the people I was dating, like all of these things were part of that lifestyle. And I thought that lifestyle was me. So when the lifestyle got pulled out from under me, I tried to keep up this facade of everything's okay. Right. I'm going to continue to live in the penthouse apartment. I'm going to, going to pretend I have money as I send myself into debt. And it, it really was the opposite of what I'm talking about now, which was hiding from the discomfort, you know, the, the shame and embarrassment of admitting to people that, you know, I didn't have anything left. Yeah. The unwillingness to confront the fact that I needed a job. And you know, I played out the sad country song of a story where I end up at my parents house in my early 30s and my girlfriend, who I was hanging on to for dear life, broke up with me. It's like every single.

She was like the last, the last piece of the original thing. I guess she was.

I, I remember talking to her. We're friends now and I love her to death, but you know, I was in a little bit of like crisis survival moment. I was like, well, let's just move in together. And she's like.

And I'm in my parents guest room and it it was like, I make a little bit light of it now, but it was really some of the darkest times, hardest times in my entire life. And it was in that darkness, kind of the abyss of chaos that I found myself in, that I understood the power of discomfort and I had it forced upon me.

Yeah. As did I.

And now. Right. And now I realize that, hey, wait a minute. We don't have to wait until. Life, circumstances, relationships, the stock market pandemics, throw us into the abyss of the unknown. The more we start going out there and hunting some of these things that make us uncomfortable, the better we get at it. And that was really the beginning of building myself back.

Yeah. Well, I'm curious. You know, it seems like when it comes to discomfort or uncomfortable situations in general. Right. Especially extended periods where you're rebuilding or reinventing. Right?

Yeah.

That's either fight, flight, or freeze. Right?

Yeah.

And I'm curious, in this discomfort, were you fleeing or freezing.

Depending on the situation? A little bit of all of those things. I mean, I played this out over a series of years. You know, I'm one of those stubborn people where I'm just like, I'm not going to let go. Right. I'm going to keep up this facade of who I think I am. And, you know, some places I retreated, you know, I. I pulled back from friends, I pulled back from communities.

You know, I. I found myself telling people I was busy a lot. Right. I can't go to that expensive dinner, go on that expensive retreat. I'm too busy. And what I meant was, I'm busy trying to figure out how I'm going to pay rent tomorrow without telling anybody that I need help. Yeah. And so it was like a full survival. I. I wasn't doing so much fighting. Maybe I was fighting, trying to hang on to my identity, but it was more freezing and fleeing from anything that might be uncomfortable. And I see it now totally differently. You know, my new book, Hunting Discomfort, when people see it, they're like, sterling, you got to look at my bank account, my relationships, my business. Right. Like, I don't need more discomfort. My answer is always the same. And I wish somebody had told me this back then, which is, that's not hunting discomfort.

Yeah.

That's living with it. And it's where most people spend their lives and where I spent a lot of years trying to avoid all that discomfort until, you know, I found a little bit of courage to, you know, start really going after it.

Yeah. Well, I think you would also agree with me, too, that when it comes to Discomfort. Discomfort is essentially what propels growth. Totally. There is, there is no growth. Right. There's. There's only apathy without discomfort. You know, I was thinking when you were mentioning, you know, not telling, you know, people kind of, you were busy and you were going through all this.

Yeah.

And the reason you're using. I remember going to restaurants, being invited by friends and family to, you know, not even fine dining restaurant. We're talking like TGI Fridays, right?

Yeah. Right.

A good, a good thing, you know, to have a good drink and then, you know, have some grill club. And I remember several times that I would say no because I knew I couldn't pay for a meal.

Yeah.

And of course I would go there and they would, they would insinuate and they wouldn't know that I, that I was in that, that circumstance.

Yep.

And then somebody, hey, I'm gonna grab, I'm gonna get some extra appetizers. I'm gonna do X, Y and Z. And then they would pick up the check, right?

Yeah.

And I was telling my son not long ago, I was like, he's like, I don't understand. Why are you always picking up the check like when I. Because I, you know, I tend to pick up a check with friends and family just because.

Yeah.

And I told my son, I said it's because I never know who's sitting at the table who can't pay for the meal.

It's very true, you know. Very true.

How did you get, how did you reshape or retool your thought process as it relates to discomfort? Because hunting discomfort is very different than living with it, right?

It is. Yeah. And I found some inspiration. Something my mom said when I was a kid. She said that quote, the way out is through. Have you heard that before?

Uhuh. No.

It's a Robert Frost quote from like the, I don't know, 100 years old, something like that. And you know, when I'm at my parents house, this quote comes back to me and I'm like, okay mom, let's put this thing to the test. And believe it or not, especially given my business of professional speaking and running workshops today, the thing that scared me most at those time was speaking in public or really speaking in any form. Having a conversation like this would have terrified me to no end. And I was all hepped up on anxiety medication, antidepressant medicine, like all the things running from, the things that I. I didn't want to confront or maybe said differently, didn't know I wasn't confronting.

Yeah.

And with that Quote, I said, okay, like I'm not going down like this. Let's test drive this. If the way out is through to me, that means go through the things that scare you, that intimidate you, that you're embarrassed about, that you feel shame about. Whenever I feel any of that discomfort, I need to go through that. What I'm looking for is on the other side. And I. Long story short, I end up applying for this conference in Singapore. I've got no right to do this. Right. Not only do I see myself as a total failure and I'm terrified to speak in public, but I don't know what I'm going to say. It's not like I've got some keto put together. You know, I'm living in the basement at my parents house. So I signed the legal agreement, which I think is critical. When you're going through discomfort, you've got to commit in a way where there's no going back. I call it a step called getting a tattoo. Not a literal tattoo, but look for ways outside of yourself where you can commit to something because it's that commitment that's going to pull you through the difficult times. And I certainly needed it because, you know, months, weeks leading up to this thing, I want to quit. I want to call up and be like, I can't make it. You know, please give me a weather problem, a health problem, a life problem. Right? Like, give me an excuse, any excuse. But that legal agreement that I signed kept me going, kept me practicing.

Yeah.

And I'm not kidding, Steven. I was having heart palpitation weeks out from the event. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't breathe half the time.

I get on the plane, I end up giving the presentation in Singapore. And you know, thank God I practiced because I'm pretty sure I blacked out.

I. That you and I both as, as both as speakers, that the best keynotes are always the one you don't remember.

Yeah, well, I do know I did it, right? There's recordings of it. Yeah. But it was one of those situations where like the world's spinning and I get really hot and you know, I don't know what side is up and words are coming out of my mouth and it's the words for the most part that I practiced, at least in so far as I could recall.

Yeah.

And dude, I get off the stage and I think I bombed. Like I'm covering my eyes like this, hoping like nobody will come up to me. I just want that playing home. I'm hoping they're not going to ask for the money back because I don't have it. I can't afford it.

Right, you spent it getting there.

Exactly. And the conference director makes a beeline for me, looks me in the eye, and he goes, sterling, that's the best talk I've seen in my 17 years of doing this. To your point, sometimes the best talks we don't remember. And yeah, candidly, I'm pretty sure he was in a different presentation. He just wanted to say something nice to me, like, there's no way.

I don't know. I've seen you speak, dude. I don't think that's the case.

Well, I'd like to think I've gotten a little bit better since then. But he did go on to put me in touch with all of his conference director friends, and I had the beginnings of the career I have now as, like, the way out is through my mom's. Right. We just need to have the courage to go through no matter what.

Yeah. No, and I think that's one of the things that I love being about us being friends is, you know, no matter what coincides with stuck to unstoppable all day long.

Totally. Right.

I think it. I think it lands on a life truth that we don't give life full credit for. You know, you'd mentioned the anxiety meds and depression meds. I've done some of that stuff early in my days as well. And I discovered I was doing it to try not to feel the very things I needed to feel in order to take me to another level.

Exactly.

So let me ask you this. So on the medication side, is it safe to say that the medications are nowhere used, nowhere near the amount that they had ever been used before back then?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was. I was taking them beyond what the doctor was prescribing. I was taking a lot of them. And not that I recommend this. I'm not a doctor. My experience wasn't great doing this, but I cut them off cold turkey. When I decided, like, the way out is through, I. I'm like, I'm all in.

Yeah.

Medicines aside, I'm throwing them in the toilet. I'm done. I'm. I'm gonna feel whatever it is that's terrifying me.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I wanted to bring that up because I think it's. It's fair for. I feel like, you know, the United States, for example, there's a. There's a huge population on anxiety antidepressant meds and stuff like that.

Totally.

And I'm not saying I'm not a doctor, and I'm not saying you shouldn't take your meds or whatever. Yeah. I am saying that if the way out is through.

Yeah.

Then by feeling the things that you're terrified of, you're scared of, you're, you're. You're finding difficulty with.

Yeah.

Feeling those very same things. There becomes a time that those things really don't bother you anymore because you've accelerated to a new level. Right. And as a result, you're able to kind of fight with your own emotional state. Because I find that, you know, one of the reasons that people stay stuck is because they're trying not to feel or think about the thing that they need to go through.

Absolutely. Which is a modern luxury, by the way. You know, had our ancestors avoid the discomfort of being cold or hungry or scared, they wouldn't have been our ancestors. Right, right. Like. Like they got to the bottom and solved what was causing that discomfort or at least made steps towards it.

Yeah.

Now, we live in a world today where I don't have to have an uncomfortable conversation with you if I don't want to. I don't have to go stand on a stage if it scares me. Right. I can work through email, I can be entertained through Netflix, and I can eat through UberEats or who's ever going to deliver food at my door. Right. I can avoid discomfort. And in so doing, maybe unknowingly, I'm not getting to the problem of what's causing that discomfort in the first place. As you can get to the root of discomfort, you can dismantle it from the source and you're forever free from it. Which is what I mean when I say hunt discomfort. Go after it, dismantle it from the source, and you're free. Not circumstantially free, but free.

Yeah. Let's break that down a little bit. Because, you know, I'm. I'm like you. I do believe that if you can change the root of anything, you can change the fruit of everything. Like, I'm all about that. So.

Yeah.

How did you, in your. In your thought process and your emotional thought process, get to a place where you were literally hunting discomfort? Because hunting is a strong word. Hunting means you're going after it.

Yeah.

Like, you're like if your life depends on it, because if you don't get it, you can't eat.

Right. Right.

It's not. It's not just overcoming something. It's on.

It's.

It's. It's actually a Stronger word to me than overcoming.

Yeah. Yeah. Intentionally so. It's not seeking discomfort. It's not looking for discomfort. It's hunting and going after. And you know where I started to settle on this very active and intentional and proactive language was I found some research at the University of Michigan.

Okay.

And they were studying discomfort, and they were putting people through physical discomfort. Or maybe better said, they weren't putting people through, but they were studying people with the discomfort. Physical discomfort, like you stub your toe, emotional discomfort, maybe you lose a job, break up with a loved one. And what they found is that no matter what kind of discomfort you were experiencing, physical, mental, emotional. I would add spiritual. But that wasn't in the study. Our brains and bodies process it identically. So much so you can take acetaminophen, like Advil, and it will help you with emotional pain. That's how closely those systems are lined.

It's insane.

And another, like, not a doctor disclaimer. I don't suggest that. Don't do that. That's not a biohack. But what I do suggest, and to the point of your question, there we can take that next step, which is if where we meet discomfort is the same anywhere, we can grow our capacity to deal with it everywhere. Everybody knows if you want to grow your biceps, you go to the gym. Well, if you want to grow your resilience, your courage, your breakthrough results, you hunt discomfort. There's just no other way. And once I learned that, I started looking for discomfort anywhere and everywhere that I could. And that was really the beginnings of it.

Now what? When you went to go hunting for discomfort and you're going in, did you begin putting yourself in specific situations to feel the discomfort, to grow through it?

That's right, yeah. So speaking in Singapore was the first thing, and I didn't really know what I was doing then. Right. It just felt like the way out is through. Let's try this out. But after I started to understand how this works, I look for it in a lot of different places. One, in relationships I had with friends, especially from years ago, where I said, listen, I lied to you for a lot of years. I didn't have what I said I had or pretended to have or anything else. Right. Really uncomfortable in those situations, just to kind of come clean, to tell the truth about those things. I also started to put myself through a lot of, like, physical endurance activities. It started with a marathon, then an ultra marathon, then cycling, the Rockies, shark diving, skydiving. Right. Like anything that would make me uncomfortable, I would Sign up for.

Under that same premise, right? I'm growing the discomfort muscle. And what I didn't really appreciate at the time, like, I was just obsessed with myself at the time, right? Like dig me out of this hole. I'm in my 30s, I gotta do something with my life. I need to find a way not just to dig myself out, but to make sure I never go back there. And unintentionally, my sister's watching me, who I work with now. She runs all of our marketing operations. I wouldn't be doing this without her. She was actually the person I practiced that Singapore talk with a thousand times. She could probably give it to you verbatim and she probably remembers day she does exactly.

But she like kind of caught a piece of it. Not because I told her to, but she's like, okay, let me, let me go after this. And she had struggled with some health things, some eating things, as so many young people do, especially young women. And she said, okay, I'm going to become a bodybuilder. And today she's a world champion bodybuilder.

Wow.

And then some of her friends took it on, some of their friends. And all of a sudden we're in this community of people that have created seven eight figure businesses. They've transformed their jobs, they've transformed their bodies, they've transformed their lives and relationships. I feel like, wow, this really isn't about me anymore. This is about supporting others to achieve their goals. No matter how impossible they might seem, how audacious they sound. I don't care. As long as the laws, physics, don't make it impossible. I got your back.

Yeah. It's crazy because.

I think you and I both know this, and I think this is probably why we're so passionate about it. But we know that the version of yourself that you ultimately want in your life, the person that you admire, you aspire to be, the person that you would wake up and be empowered by or encouraged by or, you know, like all of that is always on the other side of the person you are now.

Right.

And the only way to get there is to this, this discomfort. The crazy thing is I've never thought about attacking it, but when I go back and look at that, go back and look at my life specifically.

Yeah.

What is played a role in where I'm at today in my life is being willing to fight for something when nobody else would.

Right.

Being willing to. I remember Earl, I was telling this, you know, I'm doing a three day event in the near future and one of the things I was telling my team because they were asking me questions about, hey, you know, how scaling and business and all this kind of stuff, which it's like, great, we could talk about that. But let's talk about the underlying current. The underlying current. As I did the things that people said that couldn't be done and I put a lot of focused intensity in there. But in order to do that, I discovered something interesting which is radical transparency or radical honesty. How important is transparent parency and honesty with yourself in ultimately getting yourself started towards this attacking discomfort?

I, I think it's critical. Otherwise you're just kind of pumping up a facade and a facade will never work. It might work for some short period of time, but it's, I feel like it's mainly motivation driven. And I mean motivation. As one of my mentor, Richard Condon says, getting yourself or somebody else to do something you really don't want to.

Do, that's called being married.

Right.

Well, I think motivation might work for a while, but its lifespan is limited. You know, when you get down to something like being radically honest with yourself or something closer to what I would call inspiration, that force is truly unstoppable. And there may be times when you need to push yourself through something, do something you don't want to do, live up to your commitments, like all of those things. But if you're tapped into that source of unstoppableness and inspiration, that greater calling inside of yourself, that's what's going to get you through those things. And I loved what you said. I talk about having your commitments being stronger than your feelings.

Yeah.

And I can't tell you how many people around me told me, sterling, you're never going to make money public speaking. You can't do it, it can't be done.

Yeah.

Turns out, right.

Turns out they were wrong. Right?

Exactly.

Yeah. You know, and what I. But I think that's the case in point is the people who are around you can only see past their own limitations oftentimes. Right. So if, if they're, if they're terrified of speaking in public or they don't have a public spirit or they're not in that sphere of influence, they're naturally going to, you know, basically.

For lack of a better word, teach you or encourage you that, hey, it's not worth it, it's not okay. And for me, I decided to do the exact opposite. My first business, that actually became something. Right. My father tried to talk me out of it because he had had from a place of love, he Tried to talk me out of. At a place of love. He'd had a failed business himself, and he didn't want me to experience the pain of a failed business, not realizing that he and I are different.

Wow. Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

When it comes down to it, it's like, okay, well, what is the next step? Because if. Because to me, radical transparency and radical judgmentality, or if that's even a word. Right.

Yeah.

Are different. Right. You're either. You're either. I find that a lot of people. One of the things I struggle with in the. On the emotional side is they're continually judging themselves.

Yeah.

Rather than being honest with themselves. Did you deal with that at all as you were kind of setting the stage for this?

Tons. And still do. You know, I got really into, I guess you could call it like, growth, personal growth, work, you know, yoga, breathing practices, plant medicines. Like, all those things I got deeply into. And you know where I found it leading me to was to what? Something Carl Jung said. I think most everybody knows Carl Jung is like the father of modern psychology. He said, you cannot change anything until you accept it. Condemnation about not being the right age, not having enough time, not enough money, not the right mentor, not the right father, not the right whatever. Right. Condemnation about any of those things does not liberate. Yeah. It oppresses. And as you can come to terms with things exactly as they are and exactly as they're not, probably most difficult yourself, exactly how you are and exactly how you are not. It's incredibly freeing to be able to move forward. And it's. It's critical in the hunting discomfort system. Right. You need to surrender yourself to it to be able to grow from it. Yeah. So that's. Right on.

Yeah. That's so good. You know, it reminds me of an Albert Einstein. At least I think it's Albert Einstein quote where he says, you cannot solve the. You cannot solve a problem with the same consciousness used to create it.

Exactly. Yeah.

Right.

Right.

So if we, you and I both can agree that consciousness, all of that, the life you have, the life you want, the business you have, the business you want, the relationship you have, the relationship you want is on the other side of discomfort. I know you've actually taken the time to break down some practical steps to make that around. We touched on it. We kind of touched around the thing. But let's talk about the process. Like, what. What is Sterling Hawkins process in hunting discomfort?

Yeah. Well, the first is hunt discomfort. Right. Like, maybe the first step is notice. Right. Where is it?

Yeah.

You know Myself and all of us have built our lives and by extension our businesses to avoid discomfort from a very young age. Why? Well, because it doesn't feel very good.

Yeah.

And I don't know how it is for you and some of the listeners we've got here, but to this day I find myself avoiding it. From the second I wake up in the morning, right? Boom, snooze button. I get up and feel a little tired. Boom, coffee, see stairs somewhere. Boom, elevator.

Right.

Like I am avoiding discomfort and I wrote the book on it. Right. So you do need to like, start really paying attention. Where are you taking the easy out? Where are you seeking comfort? Or where are you living in comfort? Because that's guaranteed to give you the status quo. It's going to give you exactly the same results now. Maybe a slight permutation. A little better, a little worse.

Yeah.

Right. So once you see it, then you commit to it. Just like I did when I signed that. Sign that legal agreement. Right. Find somebody, something outside of yourself to commit in a way where there's no going back. And it could be as simple as, Stephen, I'm going to text you every morning when I wake up and I promise I'm not going to use the snooze button. And I'm going to just confirm that every single day. Right?

Yeah, Accountability.

Exactly. Yeah. Well, and that's the third piece is surround yourself with people that can hold you accountable to that commitment. For me, it was my sister, as I was saying back in those days. But when you're accountable, research shows you're 95% more likely to achieve your goal. Not 70, not 80, not 90, 95%. Now, it might not be comfortable to say, hey, on this day, at this time, I have this deliverable. And we're going to sit down here and we're going to talk about it. But that is what's going to get you your results. So if it's a little bit uncomfortable, you know, revert to step one. You're on the right step on the right path.

I'm going to pause right there on the accountability side because this is interesting. Talk to me a little bit about the importance of choosing the right person to hold you accountable. Because I find that people set out with great intentions a lot and the person they choose to hold them accountable is actually the person who's actually their anti mentor of sorts who's saying it can't be done.

Yeah, could, could be. Well, in the book, I call it Building a Street Gang.

Yeah.

Not because I look like I'VE been in a gang. Like, I don't think anybody counts. Boy Scouts, not me. Right, right. Like, I, I don't call it a personal board of directors. I'm not talking about your bestie, your drinking buddies. I call the street gang. Because it really is somebody that's going to go toe to toe with you and hold your commitment and your growth stronger than your feelings. Yeah. Because early on, especially if you're growing, if you're really going after something, you're probably going to miss a couple of times. And that person cannot just. Right. They can't just placate, like, oh, that's okay, feel better, let's have a tub of ice cream and get a massage. Maybe do that. I'm not, I'm not saying don't.

Yeah.

But they also, most importantly, have to start digging into why. Why did you miss? Did you not take the actions? Were the actions ineffective? Like, where did you go wrong? And as you can dig into the why with this person and they're pushing you for it. Right. Not because they have the answers, but because they can keep asking why? So you start to discover the answers, and that's where the growth comes from. You're going to get better and better and better, and then all of a sudden you're going to start hitting those commitments over time.

Yeah. Well, it reminds me of also that I've always said that, you know, pivot until it becomes possible. Right.

So, yeah.

You know, I'm thinking to myself, I've had lots of folks even obviously, trying to build out a live events business that I stumbled my way into by accident. I have this facility and stuff, you know, trying to create content that's valuable, trying to figure out, you know, who it is I'm, I'm called to serve. All of those were repetitive pivots. And all that while I had people in my ear saying, and people that I love and admire. Right. In certain, in certain aspects saying, well, I told you wouldn't work. Why are you wasting time on. It didn't work this time, it's not going to work next time. Right. And I'm a big believer in a certain amount of pivoting. But I also realized after being through some of your work, that the pivoting itself is actually aiming towards discomfort. The fact of being willing to try again and push yourself toward another level even though you'd already had maybe not the results that you had hoped for.

Right. Yeah. I mean, I think the hardest part of this, at least for me, is giving up the values, ethics, beliefs, Ways of thinking, being, and acting that got me to where I was in the first place.

Yeah.

And you have to give some of those things up. Well, one. In order to grow, but also in order to change.

Yeah.

And when we're talking about no matter what, like. Yeah. I think you should make solid commitments of specific things in specific time periods. And at the same time, I'm not saying just keep ramming your head against the wall doing the same thing over and over again.

Yeah.

Right. Like, you need to be able to change and adjust and grow and pivot where you're headed. Because really what you want is. Is. Is not just a specific result, but you want it. There's an end game. Right. And some of those steps might be different than you originally thought. You just need to give yourself a little bit of grace. You need to accept a little bit of discomfort to change enough to get to where you really want to go.

Interesting. You just put those words together. I find that most people, one of the most discomfortable things is giving them self grace. Why?

Well, I think we're our own worst critic. And we build a facade of a personality when we're very young. Because our dad said this to us. Our mom said that you didn't get the bowl of cereal from your adoptive parents, whatever it is. Right. You made decisions about who you are, what you're capable of, what you're not capable of, what your personality is, where you're going to fit in. From a very young age. And I've got some young nieces, and they can change on the dime. They're happy, they're sad, they're upset here, but they're really ecstatic over there. They like to draw, they like to sing the next day. They don't like any of those things. Right. Like, they change so fluidly. Yeah. But at some point, research shows, usually around five, six, seven years old, we start to lock those things in stone. And we say, I am this way. I am afraid to speak in public. I'm not the kind of person that can do sales.

Yeah.

I'll never be able to create my own business. Right. Like, we decide these things from a very young age, and then we play them out, and then we start to persecute ourselves for it.

Yeah.

And we do that because something inside of us, or maybe something greater than us, tells us that there's more. There's more to who we are. There's more potential, there's bigger places that we can go. And when we are stopped by the values, ethics, beliefs, ways of thinking and Being and acting that we think define us, we're betraying ourselves.

Yeah.

And I think that's why we develop into our own biggest critic. And breaking through some of that is really, really difficult. And that's where, you know, as I was saying earlier, yoga, walks in the park, music, plant medicines, like any of those things that kind of soften the self judgment will help you become a little more fluid, just like my nieces, to be able to change the underlying current. Because as you said, you can change the root, you change the fruit.

Yeah.

I love that. I'm going to use that now. I'll give you credit.

Well, you can't steal everything. I'm just kidding. No, in all seriousness. No, I. No. It's why you and I vibe so much together is because we, I think we've been on similar journeys in different ways, which I feel like a lot of folks that listen and watch the show, from the everyday person who doesn't really care much about building a business to people who are actively trying to scale businesses and build businesses. We try to serve everyone in that capacity, but they all come from a place of something has been holding them back. Nine times out of ten is the very thing they're terrified of doing, no matter what it is as, even as simple as it is as making a budget to get yourself under financial stability. Right. I don't want to do it. I don't want, I don't like doing it. Okay, well, it's holding you back. Why? Like, or you know, investing in a, in a, in this over here and that and that.

Yeah.

It just, it, it boggles my mind. But then at the same time, even with the amount of discomfort that you and I have both gone after and hunted and attacked and tried to grow from.

Yeah.

Even today there's things that I was like, I had to ask myself today. I was like, crap, Sterling's going to get on me. I know he is. Because I am not attacking something. I know I need to be right.

Yeah. Well, you know, it's a mountain with no top. Like even, even myself. My sister will come to me and she's like, you didn't make it to the GY today. Why? Where were you at 7 o'? Clock? And I'm like, ah, did it again. Right. Like, like it never stops. We never stop climbing. But I think one of the reasons we've had a parallel journey and I think many people, if they haven't had that journey, certainly have a call towards something like it. Yeah. Comes from Joseph Campbell's work in The Hero's Journey published, I think in the 1940s. Right. And you know, and probably many people know, he studied all the worlds, religions and wives tales and he kind of culminated them into this Hero's journey, which Star wars and all these incredible films and musicians have played upon and everything else. Well, that doesn't just make a good movie. It's a way to live.

Yeah.

And the Hero's journey is a step into the unknown. And the unknown is the greatest source of discomfort. Yeah. Right. And as you step into that unknown, not only, you know, you're going to go through all the things, the failures, the discomfort, the worry, the self doubt, the challenges, like all those things will come, but it's on that journey that you're going to find people that are really going to support you, that are really going to hold you accountable. And maybe most importantly, you're going to find a version of yourself in that unknown that you didn't know was there. You had some kind of inkling, like there's more to me, I'm capable of more. It's in the unknown. And when you come out the other side, you know, look at us radically transformed. Something I'd look at 10 years ago and be like, impossible. Sterling can never do that. And here we are.

Yeah. No, I love it. Well, and the reality is, is I. I think, here's. Here's what I think, honestly happens to all of us.

Yeah.

I think we all know we're called to be more than we currently are.

Yeah.

And I don't think that feeling ever goes away because I think part of self actualization is the experience that are con. You know, that are, I guess, walked out along the way.

Right.

As a person of faith, you know, I've. I've obviously got it in recently into audio therapy using, you know, certain Hertz and binaural beats, stuff like that, which are helpful. I pray, I meditate. Right. I've found some pretty profound experiences and some pretty substantial meditations which blew my mind.

Yeah.

Almost like out of body. It hasn't really challenged who I am or what I believe. It's actually intensified it. Right. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Let's. Let's talk about the spiritual side of kind of who you like, who you, meaning us are, and why that call, to call to the unknown is so powerful and why we should all take it.

Yeah. I mean, there's so much here.

You know, I think discomfort is driving our behavior beyond anything. You know, on the surface it looks like a facade of. I don't have enough money. I don't have enough time. I haven't met the right person. You know, it's not the right time, given the market. Right. What's actually underneath that is some form of discomfort that you're probably unwilling, unable, or maybe just not ready to confront yet.

Yeah.

And as you can dig into that, that's where unleashing greater potential lies. And I think, to your point, like, we all have some sense of that. Right. There's always more to us. We can always take another step forward. And a good example. I'll just give you a very personal example, if you don't mind, but I found myself.

Like, compelled to work all the time. You know, some people have addictions with women or drinking or drugs, whatever it is. For me, like, I had to work. I felt like if I wasn't working all day Saturday, all day Sunday, all evening. Right. There was something wrong, and I didn't know where that came from. I just found myself working all the time.

Yeah.

Which, incidentally, did not correspond to better results.

Yeah.

Right. It was like I was on a treadmill. Like, working, working, working. Like, why am I never getting ahead in some of this deeper work? Specifically some meditation, some journaling, some deep reflection? I found this discomfort of. My grandmother passed away when I was 13. And really close with her. She's like a second mom. Like, I saw her more than my dad, probably. And I. I never grieved her loss. I'm the oldest of four. I felt like I had to be the strongest. And, you know, I was certainly sad, but I never cried.

Yeah.

And I spent the rest of my life from that moment distracting myself so I wouldn't feel the tremendous grief of losing her.

And when I saw that and grieved at a very, very deep level, all of a sudden I found myself free from having to work all the time. Like, I can choose to work, but I can also choose to go to a movie or to see some friends or go out to dinner. Right. That. That obsession, that compulsion, that addiction no longer drives me and drives my life, at least at the level that it did. And I didn't even know it was there. Wow. Right.

Why'd you discover?

Well, I was saying I did a lot of meditation, some reflection. I worked with a lot of surface kind of.

In those quiet moments.

Exactly. Right. Like, really digging into it and asking myself the question, like, what is that addiction about? And. And wanting the answer. Yeah. Right. However painful it was. And over a series of weeks and months of asking that question, that really started to Arouse. And I found myself really starting to grieve. Like actually grieve in the form of tears and everything else. Yeah. And it took. Once again, the way out is through. Right. Grieving. That gave me a new freedom. I surrendered to that discomfort. That discomfort passed through me. And all of a sudden I've got entirely new results. Not because I have more money or worked harder, but because I hunted discomfort. And now I'm free from it.

Man, that is so good. I'm sitting here thinking about like. So I enjoy working.

Yeah.

Right. That's probably something you picked up on a long time ago.

Totally.

I like, I love what I do. Right. I love serving people. I love helping them establish their awakening or getting to help them get to their next step.

But it's ironic and I never put the two and two together until just now that my grandmother, who actually did the vast majority of raising me, passed away of cancer when I was nine.

Wow.

And then I did. I distracted myself non stop.

Yeah.

Probably all the way up until probably a year ago.

Wow.

And I'm 46 years old. Give you an idea how long that journey's been. And it's just recently that I've. That I become at peace with some level. And I say some level because it's still a work in progress of always being able to be.

Not restless.

Yeah. Right.

And one of the things that. That I think has been part of that and one of the things I think is so powerful and you've mentioned it in a lot of different ways throughout the course of this conversation.

Yeah.

Power of reflection.

Yep.

Right. This reflective tool which leads you to the discomfort that you need to focus on that then causes you to reinvent yourself, which is the hero's journey all over again.

Here we go. Yeah. Full circle.

I love it, man.

Yeah. Well, I. I give you a lot of credit because that takes courage.

Yeah.

You know, especially things that happened when we were younger. Like we didn't have all the filters that we have today to let things in or not let things in. Right. Like as adults, we have a lot more control over some of those things. But as kids like that, you know, it sounds like for both of us, the grief is just gripping. It's overwhelming. You don't know how to process it. You know, for me and some of the times, experiences, it felt like it was going to break my body.

Yeah.

And those things, it's like the monster under the bed when you're a little kid. Right. We didn't outgrow that. We just stopped paying attention to it and the courage it takes to look under the bed or open the closet and go after the deep, dark corners of your subconscious and your unconscious. That's where your results are, and that's where the freedom is. I don't care how much money you have, how much time you think you have, what your relationships are, you go into those places, you free yourself from those ways of limited being, thinking, and acting, you're going to unleash tremendous results all around you.

How has this process shifted you from defining what's important?

Well, originally I thought it was all about the goals. Like, I want to make this much money. I have to hit this benchmark. I've got to reach this milestone no matter what. And I still think that's important. I'm not diminishing that. Yeah. But really, as the no matter what community has grown, I've realized that there's something else that's more important than all of that, and it's not the bucket list. It's not your bank account. It's not the car you drive. It's not even your career choice. Research shows that the number one regret at the end of your life is not having the courage to live true to yourself.

And courage to live true to yourself are things like love, grace, peace, things that, somewhat ironically, no matter what happens in the world, what situation you're in, they can never be taken away from you.

Yeah.

And those are true no matter what. And when you live true to that, those things that are most important to you at a human being level, it's. It's going to transform anything that stands in your way.

Dude, that is deep. I love that. I like that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Well, it's like, you think about it, like, what happens if you bring love to a really difficult conversation.

Exactly. You bring peace into looking at a cash flow that is not angled in the right direction. Right. It starts to shift your thinking and how you're looking at that situation. The possibilities and the potential actions you're going to take from there will just be different. Because you're not operating from a place of survival. You're not operating from a place of avoiding discomfort. You're operating from a place of something that's truly important to you. You're infinite. No matter what you might say.

Yeah. No, I love it. I love it. And I think it's. I think that's a perfect thing to be important to kind of like, look at, because I find that most of us operate from that scarcity zone more than anywhere else ever. Right. Even Looking at a bad P L. Right. Profit, loss statement, looking at one of those. And then you said bringing peace to that decision.

That that peaceful decision is going to ultimately lead to a new possibility. Or you bring scarcity to that and it's going to create fear and anxiety and frustration and overwhelm.

Right. Well. Well, not just that, like the feelings, one part. Right. And any of those feelings aren't good feelings to have, especially when you feel victim of it, but it's actually coloring how you see the situation.

Yeah.

Right. What you think is possible when you're looking at a set of circumstances or a P L from a place of fear versus a place of love or joy or gratitude will be radically different.

Yeah.

And when you. You've got the courage to, you know, look at those scary things and bring some love to it. Not in the intellectual sense, like, not like, oh, I'm going to be loving, but like actually feel it in your heart and then go at it again. You're going to see new opportunities and openings for action.

Yeah.

That you didn't know were there.

Yeah.

And that's where you start to see, like creativity and innovation and determination. That's where your new potential arises. It's in that gap.

Yeah. I was going to say. I mean, that. That's so true. The reality is the more. And this goes back to meditation a little bit. Right. So, yeah, meditation, reflection, I would say digestion. Right. You're digesting the honesty and stuff like that.

But yeah.

One of the things that keeps coming up to me is this. The semblance of being able to live out the life that you want in the moment you're not living it in.

I hate to think about it for the second, but I like it.

Yeah. It kind of ties back to what some would call visualization. I don't really call visualization. I call it realization. Right. Because if you're actively feeling the emotion, you're actually thinking the thought, you're actively present in the moment of a future self, a higher self, if you will, which I'm. I'm an energy slash Jesus guy. So I have all the above.

You know, I'm a. I just find that really interesting because I've. My recent open doors and I've had. I've been very blessed and very fortunate to have a lot of recent open doors.

Yeah.

I was thinking and feeling eight months ago.

Yep.

Talk to me a little bit about kind of your experience in a certain level. Certain level of magnetic pool, if there has been any.

Yeah. Well, let me. Maybe I've got a slight tweak on what you said. Like, I'm all about like reaching into the future and bringing back some of that vision, right? Yep. But at the same time, I think that's already inside you and inside of all of us. It just takes a moment to, to pause, to slow down, to take the sacred pause that the, the Buddhists say.

Yeah.

And be willing to let go of some of the discomfort that is between you and the love, the joy, the gratitude that is inherently already inside of you. It's, it's not like when you get somewhere, when you can do something else, like whatever that end goal is, fantastic, shoot for it, work towards it, all those things, commit to it. Right.

Yeah.

But that, that state, that human state of, of grace and love and joy is right here, right now.

Yeah.

And as you can let go of what's in the way of that, then you're going to be able to, you know, take some of those steps forward towards that goal much more effectively. Does that make sense?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. Something tells me if you and I had a cup of coffee sitting on a couch, you and I would probably be sitting there for seven hours. Seven or seven or eight hours.

Yeah, no doubt. Maybe longer. We do like a couple day retreat somewhere. Reflecting, meditating, all the things we, we're.

We'Re building something called elite retreat. We're happy to have you out there. Right.

So we would love it.

Well, look, in the few minutes we got left, I, I've been asking this recently to all of my guests and first of all, thank you so much for investing your time with us. I know you could have done a lot of other things, but myself and the audience are gonna be better because of the conversation. But something I've been recently asking is what is your definition of stuck?

Being unwilling to let go of the beliefs you have about one of three things. Yourself, others, the world. If you're unwilling to let go of some of those things and being willing to see not that you're wrong, but something else might be true. You are the definition of stuck. You won't be able to move.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I love, I love that. That's the first one I've gotten. That one. Yeah, I love that one.

Well, I also want to say thanks for having me on. You know, it's always such a blast to spend some time with you and really grateful for the opportunity, so. Anytime.

Likewise. Well, I got, I got one more for you and then, and then we'll definitely got to make sure everybody knows where to connect with you and get the book because it's. It's great. I bought. I bought several copies myself and passed.

Thank you for that.

You know, but. And that question is, is on the other side of stuck, I've always said is unstoppable. Right. So what is your definition of unstoppable?

I think it's just the opposite of what I said. Being willing to embrace new beliefs about yourself, others of the world and step into those things.

Yeah.

And when you're willing to do that, literally nothing can stop you. Not the pandemic, not the economy, not your significant other. Like, you are unstoppable because you have the ability. You've cultivated an ability to change.

Love it, dude. All right, dude, before you get out of here, you have to tell us how we stay connected with you and how we find the book.

Awesome. Well, sterlinghawkins.com I've got all my stuff there, all the social media I'm on, and you can find links to the book right there. It's available anywhere great books are sold.

Rock on, dude. Man, I appreciate you big time.

Likewise. Thank you. I hope you liked that video.

And if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here.

At the end of the day, you need to make decisions that make you feel good and that are in harmony with your highest goals and your very best self.