This PEAK PERFORMANCE MASTERCLASS Will Change Your Life TODAY! | Stu Massengill

What has worked out is in any situation I go into, whether it's a conversation, whether it's a business deal, whether it's something with sales, like in anything I do, my key philosophy is how do I just add value, Value, value, value.

You have overcome in such a short window of time so much and have done so much. I'd love for you to share a little bit about your kind of your origin story, your backstory. Because you don't see someone with your youth this far ahead in the thought leadership space and working with people like Tony Robbins and other people, you just don't see that it's rare, it's unique. So I'm very curious to know how you found yourself there.

Yeah, well, thank you so much and I'll give the quick version, but I basically grew up in traditional family, I guess is what I was used to. Right. Two parents, older brother was very fortunate to grow up the way that I grew up, but within a good family dynamic. I kind of grew up as like the shy, quiet, sort of like introverted sibling. I had a brother, he was social. And then I was like kind of the one that just wasn't as pocket.

Yeah.

And so for me, I kind of just went throughout my life I was told, you go to school, you get good grades, you go to college, you get better grades, you get a high paying job, yada yada. And eventually when I was 19 years old, I was introduced to the network marketing profession. And for me it was four years. The next four years I pursued it and it was one of the biggest life changing experiences in my life. And just for me, it was really the introduction to personal development, you know, that you can grow up one way, for example, as a shy, quiet, introverted person. And through skills, through growing yourself, you can turn into an incredible communicator that can open so many doors and change your life. And so I did that business for about four years. We were very successful in it. And then long story short, things kind of changed pace and I ended up leaving that. And that's when I kind of went through this place of feeling lost. I guess you could say like one of the most lost I've ever felt in my life of just why am I here? What's my purpose? And so my outlet was I'm going to find myself through traveling. Right. It's like kind of that cliche thing people say, go travel and you'll figure out your life. And so I went and traveled. I planned to go to New Zealand for seven months. Long story short, two Days into it, was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

How old were you?

And it was two days before my 24th birthday.

Goodness gracious.

Okay. Sorry about that.

I was just kidding. Yeah. So I. Thankfully, because I was so immersed into personal development and growing myself and working on my mind when I got the cancer.

I believe I reacted to it unbelievably well. I think most people, you're in a foreign country, you're at a little hospital in Queenstown, New Zealand, where there's definitely not a doctor for what you need a doctor for.

Just got leftover Vikings.

Exactly. And so, for me, I took it rather peacefully. I'm a big believer everything happens for a reason. It happens for the right reason at the right time. And so I flew home and basically had six months of surgeries, recoveries, all this stuff. I'm healthy today.

Yeah. So, you know, definitely happy to say I beat the C word, beat the cancer. So went there, and then after that, again, kind of got into this process of, okay, my health is good, but still, I don't know what the heck I want to do with my life. And that's kind of when I realized that all the skills I'd been learning over the last six months, several years, were all the key skills I needed to actually open doors in my life for any opportunity that I really wanted to create. And so, for me, I used some of these communication skills I built to work at Vans for a little bit, the action sports company, and then eventually realized in that process that I love action sports, and I'm a big fan of doing those things. But at the end of the day, I really love helping people. And I'm sure something similar to you. Right. It's like you have someone that says, you've changed my life. It's like nothing will ever beat that for me. And so that's when, kind of what brought us to where we are today. I realized who's the person that's the number one in this business, Tony Robbins, with everything he's done. And so for me, it was, again, using those communication skills, using the networking skills to kind of find my way into working with Tony Robbins. And so now I'm a coach for Tony Robbins. And then on top of that, I have my own podcast called Finding Direction, which you were just on, which was.

Amazing, by the way. We had a blast. We had such a blast.

Yeah.

And if anybody wants to check it out, I don't know if I could swear on here, but it was kick a episode. It was great. And so that's Kind of in a nutshell and maybe a three minute little segment. Me and my background and kind of a little bit about my life.

Yeah, One of the reasons I wanted to do that is because you're such a phenomenal young man. I can say young man because I'm almost twice your age. So it is what it is. Right. But no, I mean, you're such a phenomenal young man. I mean, you've already done so much, you've already overcome so much. I mean, not many people have to confront cancer such a young age. Not many people choose to confront it in a way that could, you know, that is going to build them up or take them forward. You know, a lot of folks, when they, when they hear the Sea World C word, they go into shutdown mode. My life is over. I gotta get my fares in order and that kind of scenario. And you know, I'm a big believer and don't stop fighting till you have to, until you're, until it's done kind of thing. You get knocked down seven times, get back up the eighth. Right. So I've seen that in you and you know, in studying your content and studying everything you're about, you are 100% after service like you really are, which is such a, it is such a interesting place. I think it's one of the things that separates you from a lot of thought leaders that I'm in contact with is with your youth. There's already this experience and wisdom that you don't normally find combined with that youth. Normally you're like myself and you have to bump your head for 20 plus years before you figure out, hey, maybe I shouldn't do that anymore kind of thing, you know what I'm saying? So of all the principles and things that you've used to build yourself to this state, to this state. Okay, what do you think the number one technique you're currently using to kind of hold yourself accountable but also keep yourself moving is?

Yeah, I think it's kind of in alignment with what you were touching on there is one of the biggest things I've learned as a philosophy in my life is anytime I go into a situation or a scenario and I'm trying to get something, I'm trying to go create a deal to see what I can get, or I'm trying to go.

Do something where I can get something, I've realized that that has not really ever worked out very well in my life. And what has worked out is in any situation I go into, whether it's a conversation, whether it's a business deal, whether it's something with sales. In anything I do, my key philosophy is how do I just add value, Value, value, value. Like, how do I give so much value? Whether it's a conversation with someone in line at a grocery store that you never know what that could turn into. Maybe it's a business pitch I'm doing. You never know what that could turn into by adding enough value and by having that sort of philosophy. There's a couple things I've noticed that happen on the back end. It's like one, there's this thing called the law of reciprocity. And you're probably familiar with it, right? It's like anytime you give, the universe must give it back to you, right? And it may not be I'm going to help this person, so they're going to help me back. It may be you help this person and someone else you never even thought of all of a sudden sends you a message and says, hey, I randomly thought about you. I know you're in this space. Can we do a deal? Right? So it may come in a different way, shape, or form. And so that's one thing I've noticed from having that philosophy. And then the second thing is that as you continue to give to people, and this is what. This is one of the most beautiful parts, this is why I think it's almost addicting, and I would say maybe you could agree, is that when you lead with adding value and giving and pouring into other people, you are more fulfilled.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Go ahead, bud.

I was just saying you have so much more fulfillment in your life. And I think that's really a huge part to life, is you could be so successful, so incredibly rich, so wealthy, but if you're successful and you're not fulfilled, is my guy Tony says that's the ultimate failure. And so it's like if you lead with giving and adding value, you're going to get success from it because that's the universe. And you're also going to have the fulfillment.

Yeah. Rock on. You know, it's funny when you. When you start looking at creating a lasting legacy, most people, and I, and I use this loosely, but most of us don't go through the process to actually develop within us the ability to move from selfish selfishness to selflessness. And it. It takes time. It's an intentional hunger. It's an intentional hunt. It's something you have to go after like your life depends on it. And when you're talking about adding Value and adding value and adding value. As one who has went out and accomplished things to buy things and to get things. I've tried to tell. I've tried to tell my young man Connor that's with my team a hundred times because he's, he's, he's, he's like, you know, he's got big dreams. Knock rock on. You got big dreams. I want to help you achieve them.

Right.

But it's like what you're seeking is not going to. It's not going to bring the joy that you think it'll be. Like you might have some limiting fun, you know, buying a new sports car, putting the top down when it's a nice beautiful day outside, when it's low humidity and stuff like that, which in North Carolina only happens like six days out of the entire year.

Right, right.

That's gonna be fun. You know, there's gonna be other days when all of a sudden now you have to drop the car off because you have to go back and do something else and you can't tootle around and stuff like that. You know, there's buying the big house. Then you realize, oh crap, I gotta clean this big house. You know, there's all these different.

I'm serious.

I mean, these are all the things that you don't. They can do account, you know, but. But when you have someone come up to you and I had this recently, I know this has happened to you and I've seen Tony do it several times. A lot of folks too. And it's nice to be in that same genre where we're adding a value that you can literally save a life. Someone comes in broken, they've forgotten who they are. They have no idea why they here. They have no idea what they're supposed to do about it. They're. To your words earlier, they're. They're lost in a moment in time. Not knowing that that moment in time is just a moment in time. It's going to be something that if confronted will be over in a blip or if it's left unchecked, will literally last a decade or more. And for me, I know for you too, when you look at that, you see these, you see folks and they have this, I call it the great Aha. It just, it just clicks. They're like, that's why I do that. That's why I do that. How important have you discovered with all the folks that you work with? Because I know you're one of Tony's top coaches.

How many people that you've come in contact with, that you've worked with, how have they. Just a low sense of self awareness that's probably holding them back more than anything else. Is it a large percentage? Small percentage?

Yeah, I would say it's unfortunately a large percentage. And I think the reason, and this was kind of like the beginning of my story as well, is we grow up in kind of this society that almost doesn't want you to have awareness. You know, it's, you go, you go to school, you get good grades, and what do you do in school? You learn to talk when you're spoken to. Right. If you raise your hand and you speak out when not spoken to, that's a bad thing. Right. And there's all these things that, like, they've done studies where your creativity when you come in as a kid is. You got so much creativity, so many things, and as you get into school, slowly, little by little, they're sort of chipping that creative. The creativity of you away. And then eventually you get into college and then you're taught, how do you work for someone, how do you check in, how do you accomplish a task? It's like, I think the reason that there is so much of that awareness is kind of because of the society that we're in, which is unfortunate because it's a large problem. It's not the smallest of problems, but I would say there's definitely a good amount of people that don't have the awareness. I do work with a lot of people that they've found me because their awareness is a little bit more. Right. You know, if they're listening to your podcast. Yeah, they got a little bit more of the awareness. Right. So I would say some people have it, some people don't. But unfortunately, I think there are more that don't have the awareness than do.

Yeah, you know, I was thinking back to, you know, recent. That was a fairly recent article.

They do it about every two years. It was done in 2017. It was done again at the early onset of 2020.

And it was a Harris poll that.

Said 67% of people in our American economy, if you will, because they only surveyed.

Americans.

Would say that they're lost, frustrated.

Lonely, confused, feel like they lack hope, like they have these type of. They use words to describe themselves, like.

I'm depressed, I'm anxious, I'm fearful, I'm lonely, I'm desperate.

They use words like that. And at the end of the day.

One of the things that I discovered.

Is many of them are in that.

Place because they are unaware, because.

It'S been my experience that those who are unaware are easily controlled.

And to your point about our American.

Economy, it's a buy, it's a get it now, pay for it later kind.

Of mentality, which always leaves us chasing.

And then chasing the wrong things in such a way that it's a drastic distraction.

Now, I know one of the things.

That you teach a lot on is focus and the importance of focus. In what way can someone find focus, and what ways can someone amplify focus so they can stop being distracted and not be controlled or easily manipulated anymore?

Yeah. I would say one of the quickest ways that you can do this is to simply understand that every single day, you are always making three decisions, every single moment of your life, most of the time unconsciously. But the three decisions you're making is, number one, what am I going to focus on? And then number two, what's the meaning that I give that? And then ultimately from that meaning, what is it that I'm going to do? So it's like, for example, you could look at the COVID pandemic, right? COVID pandemic happens March 2020, and two people, same exact situation. Let's say two people both live in a studio apartment, not in a relationship. They both hit Covid. They're both stuck in their house right now. One person maybe goes, oh, my God, I'm stuck in Covid. And the focus is that I'm gonna be by myself. There's no one here around me that I'm gonna be lonely. That's one. The other person's focus maybe is, we're shut down. Maybe this is an opportunity where I can be by myself a little bit more, maybe work on myself.

Yeah, right.

Maybe read a little bit more books, maybe listen to a few more podcasts, right? Find a way that I can start to grow myself, because it looks like I'm going to be stuck in this house by myself. The meaning they take from that one, the meaning is, I'm going to be lonely. I'm going to be depressed for this next year and year in quotations. Who knows how long the pandemic is going to continue to go? But the other person, the meaning they take from it is I'm going to have all this time while I'm stuck in my house to improve the quality of my life so that when things do open up one day, I'm a better version of myself. And then ultimately, the action they take from that. Right. One, the depressed person could be sleeping in a lot, eating More junk food. Right. Not taking care of their health, which, obviously that starts to dribble into everything. And then the other person, the ultimate action they take from it is they maybe read a little bit more. Maybe even though they're trapped in their house, they get outside and walk twice a day. Right. So it's always understanding. First and foremost, you're making three decisions every day. What are you focusing on? What's the meaning? What's the action? And you can simply ask yourself today, if you're kind of in one of those places of depressed or lonely, ask yourself, what am I focusing on? Am I focusing on that there's no one around me, or am I focusing on that there's zoom? And I can now see everybody, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Different folks. So I think that's a quick way you can shift it.

No, I love that. I love that.

And for so many different reasons.

One of the reasons I love that.

Is because when you look at people as a whole who would describe themselves or lost or stuck in almost every single circumstance, it's simply the way they're looking at things, right? Was it Wayne Dyer, Dr. Wayne Dyer used to say that when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Right. You know, and you just.

You just described that so eloquently that I think it gives people hope.

You know, so many times, when you.

Look at this entire initiative of life transformation, life mastery, life strategy, people aren't actually using a strategy, a blueprint, a framework, a process.

You know, I am where I am.

Today because other people taught me principles which gave me promises. They taught me frameworks which kept me on track, and then they taught me to forgive myself easily and amplify myself greatly.

When you're working with all the folks that you've been working with over the last several years.

How important are key relationships to those people? Because it seems like if they're not. If people aren't being hung up by their focus and distractions, they're being hung up by the people in their inner circle, people who are. You know, I heard this yesterday. In fact, I was.

On a different podcast I was listening to, and in fact, it was T.D. jakes, Bishop Jakes. He said that he was describing. He was describing this instance where someone in the hood and he used the inner city, the underprivileged someone in that geographic environment learned to read, and he got beat up for it.

So how important are relationships. How important are relationships in your inner circle to actually life transformation and scaling your life?

I would Say one of the single most important decisions.

There'S all these different sayings, right? Birds are the same feather flock together. If you look at the five people you hang around with, take everybody's income, combine it divided by five, that's probably what you're all making on average. And it's like you become who you surround yourself with. You hang out with five people that are getting into trouble all day, you're probably going to get in trouble. You hang out with five people that are building successful businesses, you're probably going to start to do that. And so what I would say is 100%, wherever you're at in your life, you want to take like an audit almost on the people you're surrounding yourself with and ask them like, are these people that are lifting me up, are these people that are cheering me on, are these people that are saying, these are some of the dreams you have, like, I know you are going to do this, I cannot wait to see you do this. Or are they people that are growing? Like, you're going to try to be successful, you're going to try to do this thing and you think you can do that? Like, you need, you need to take a massive check on your life and see who are those people that are around you, what are the conversations you're having with them, what are the things you are talking to each other about? Because the relationships you have in your life will dictate the future you have. And one of the things Tony used to say, and I think this is articulated so beautifully, is he says, you are a direct reflection of the standards of your peers.

Yeah.

And it's like you look at, for example, people in, let's say the military, they have such high standards for themselves in the military. They do unbelievable things. Like you hang out with, if you're a Navy seal, right. You have the highest standards in the world and you perform like no other because that's the expectation of your peers. And then sometimes what happens is a Navy seal, let's say, will leave right from being a sail, they'll retire and all of a sudden their life changes significantly because now the standards of the peers that they have around them are, are no longer as high. And so I would say single handedly, one of the most important decisions that you make in your life is who are you surrounding yourself with? And if they're not the people that are going to take you to where you want to, where you want to be in the life you want to create, ask yourself, who are other people? And then what you can do if you're going, well, I don't really know a ton of those people or anything like that. If we go back to what we spoke about earlier, add value. Who are people around you that are playing at a higher level that you can say, hey, hey, can I add value to something you're doing at your business? Can I volunteer? Can I? What is some way you can add value to them? And by adding value to them live, reciprocity kicks in. You can build a relationship there, you can nurture that relationship. And also, boom, now you're starting to play at a higher level because you're surrounding yourself with higher players.

Love it, man. You know, when you look at this entire thing, you know, one of the biggest struggles that I had trying to.

Break free myself, okay. And to kind of put a cherry on this, on this relation, on this, the importance of relationships things. The people that I was surrounded with were not economically savvy. They were not relationally intelligent, they were.

Not emotionally whole, they were not mentally sound. And I don't mean that in a rude way. I mean, like they were constantly what seemed to be battling demons kind of kind of scenario, right? And as a result, you kind of bleed your way into that. And the very first principle that I used to kind of break free from that was to constantly be seeking to increase my value. So you mentioned earlier with this whole Covid thing, right? You know, Tony and Dean Grazio had Dean Graziosi on not even a few days, like a week ago. And one of the things that he and Tony and you guys have done is created this massive movement, 800 plus thousand people, right? On this last. On the. On was it KBB and all this kind of stuff. And then you've got. The last UPW was incredible. And you know, what I love about Tony and what I love about the theology that Tony's taught is there is always the change your approach. He's like, okay, we can't do live events in person. Fine. How do we put 10,000 people in a room? Okay, well, great. You know, and you kind of rebuilt around that. But, you know, so there's this element of increase your value. Okay, so I'm a person, I'm hungry. I hear what you're saying. I identify with what you're saying. I know I need to change, but when I go to do that, the person I love most, my mom, my dad, my husband, my wife.

They'Re the very ones telling me that I can't do it. And I have to go into that house every Single day knowing that I can't. Knowing that I'm going to hear, you can't do it, you shouldn't do it. It's too big for you. What would you say to them for people who are in that situation? Because I think a large majority of the people.

Are not just limiting by their own beliefs, but limiting by beliefs of the people that place them on them, so to speak. So how would you help somebody out of that particular circumstance?

Yeah, so it's interesting. There's a statistic. They did a study at Stanford University and they found out that 50% of our patterns are formed by the time we're five. So our patterns and beliefs are formed by five. 50% and 95 are formed by the time we're 18 years old. So just like you said, the reason you are the way that you are is because you grew up in the house that you grew up to an extent. Right. You had parents that said, you can do this or you can't do this. We believe in you, or you're never going to accomplish anything, or you're really creative, or that drawing was awful. And all these things we're told as we grow up ultimately shape who we are. Now, two things that I would say that you can do to start shifting if you're in that place where you have the people around you that are just not supporting you, is I would say you want to massively, massively, massively begin practicing gratitude in your life. And this is something I wake up every single day, I write down 10 things I'm grateful for. And what it allows me to do is regardless of if I'm having a phenomenal day, a phenomenal week, or the worst day or week of my life, whether it's the day I'm getting cancer or the day that I've closed a big deal, every single day I'm waking up and saying, what are 10 things I can be grateful for? Some big and some small? And what I would say is that as you are in this situation with your parents, there are probably some things you can be grateful for. Right? Maybe they put food on the table for you every single day of your life growing up. Maybe they helped you go through school. There's so many things you can be grateful for. And if you start to have gratitude towards them, it's going to be easier for them to let you develop into the person that you truly want to be, because they don't feel that there's this hate or that there's this intimidation or that. Yeah, that there's that there's this anger heated up about them. That's going to be one thing that's going to allow them to support you a little bit more. And they may still not support you in a huge way, but that's going to be a step in the forward trajectory direction. And the second thing I would say, and this was a massive aspect of something that changed my life, is I was doing some work with Tony. And one of the things that he shares is. And I'll give a quick example. So I was in network marketing for four years, had some of the most incredible relationships. We did several million dollars in business. It absolutely changed my life. But the moment that I left doing that business, I lost so many close friendships. I lost so many relationships. I lost in that process, a lot of close relationships from growing up because I was like, you're either doing this with me or we're not friends.

Yeah, it's the cult mentality, unfortunately.

Yeah. And so when I left, I had all of this.

A little bit of, like, anger or frustration in that. You know, I put four years of my life into this, and all of a sudden, I don't have these friends anymore. Like, all this loss that was sort of.

Because they weren't in it for you. They were in it for the experience or the. Or the building of the business, so to speak.

Yeah. And as soon as that. As soon as we're no longer doing that, I lost everything. And so what I was starting to feel was, you know, all these bad things from these people, these relationships. And one of the things that Tony taught me that was so powerful is he is. He said, if you're going to blame them for all the bad things in your life, then you got to blame intelligently. And if you're going to blame them for all the bad things, then you got to blame them for all the good things, too. And I started to realize that I blame them for the loss of friendships. I blame them for four years of my life, feeling like it disappeared. But what I didn't blame them for was in that four years, I became such an incredible communicator in my life. I learned how to speak in front of audiences of 10,000 people. I learned how to create incredible relationships with people. I learned how to network incredibly well. I learned all these incredible skills that have shaped who I am today. I learned about the personal development industry. And once I started to blame them intelligently, it allowed me to really move forward from that. So I would say again, if you're in there and your parents are saying, you can't do this, you can't do that. Maybe blame them for the bad things, but maybe you also blame them for. Maybe you have this ridiculous drive in you that is birthed from them being. I'm going to show you exactly what I can do because you told me I can't. And maybe that's something that you need to begin to blame them for.

That's funny you say that. That was the experience that I had early on. I just went when my father made the comment about, you know, kind of, skagens don't get ahead, they get by kind of thing. And again, I've been saying it a lot recently on different. Different episodes, different podcasts, because it's. It just became real. And I was like, oh, my gosh, that was totally a limiting belief, and I was totally an anchor, and I got to rip the anchor up kind of thing, you know? But when you look at all this.

My fire of what I think led me to ultimately push through and become successful. In fact, the. The evidence of creating resilience and perseverance came directly from. I feel like I'm worth more, and I'm willing to take the chance to find out.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? And when I went through that process, I was kind of like, you know, and I'm just trying to put myself in everybody else's shoes as they're kind of sitting in their environment now, because it's really hard if you're married to that person. It's really hard if those. Those people are your parents, because these are people that you are enduring, you know, that, you know, in many, like my father, for example, I know he loved me. He was trying to say it out of love. He didn't fully understand it, what he was really saying.

Right.

You know, but I like the blame concept. I would say, all right, so you got the blame. Blame him for the good, blame them for the bad. You got that concept. So you have. So you have balance.

Yeah.

How do you walk away from the blame shame, condemnation game altogether? What's the next step of that journey? Because I find that so many people were hung up in the blame shame and condemnation. Either they shame themselves or they're blaming improperly, as you mentioned a second ago, or they're constantly beating themselves up with past mistakes. What's the. What's the next stage?

Yeah, I would. It's funny, the thing that pops into my mind is, again, I spent a lot of time with Tony, and one of the things he says is that I. I'VE shared with him as well, is that, like, you get to a certain point in your life where.

You gotta own your life, I guess you would say, right? It's like, yeah, maybe you grew up and this wasn't good, and that wasn't good, and you had to go through this crap. And. And.

Whatever you go through, like, yeah, the most empathy goes out to you for. For maybe you're listening to this and you've gone through the crate. You're like, stu, you don't even understand what I've been through.

Yeah.

And I empathize with you. But I think at one point. And this is what Tony shared with me, at one point, you got to go, okay, well, I'm. However old I am, and I got to start owning my life. And whether that means that maybe I have some things that I really want to accomplish in my life and my parents don't support that, at the end of the day, it's probably one of the most difficult decisions you'll ever make in your life. But I think if you can start to step into that version of who you truly are, and if your parents continue to say this, that, and the other, maybe you even come back to them later and you have that blame conversation with them and you go, you know what? I always blamed you for this and that and that. You said this to me and you did this to me. But what I never blamed you for was I never blamed you for all the good stuff. And as you start to do that, I think what you'll notice in those people, whether it's your wife, whether it's your parents. Yeah. Is their. Like, I can't even put words to it.

Yeah.

I promise, there's probably going to be some tears that come from the conversation, but they're going to have. They're going to feel such a weight released. A weight release. Right. Because they may be blaming themselves that the story they had in their life was they were never good enough. They could never do this, and the only way they know to live their life is. Is to put it on to you. If you come back to them and say, hey, I do blame you for all the bad, but I also blame you for all the good. I think. I think, again, I can't even put words. Should I have goosebumps in it that I think the release they're going to have from there is going to massively change that relationship you have with them. And then regardless, at the end of that, again, it comes back into stepping into, all right, I'm a Grown man, I'm a grown woman. What do I really want my life to look like? And sometimes making harsh decisions from there.

Yeah. I think far too many of us don't see ourselves as a creator. We see ourselves as a bystander.

To your point. And I think, you know, fortunately for you, you took the accountability side, the responsibility side, the ownership side, very early in life. It took me much longer. I'm just being candid with you, you know, But I finally realized that at the end of the day, that the best person I can bet on is myself. Right. That doesn't mean I'm gonna make all the right decisions that I have it all figured out. In fact, when I was a teenager and I knew it all, those are the days that I missed because I knew everything when I was a teenager.

Right.

So, you know, so when I'm going through all this, I'm thinking. I'm just trying to think about, you know, when it. Like when my parents. One of the things that popped in my mind when you were. When you were talking about this is both my mother and the father. The one question I never asked myself was, what causes them to think and feel the way that they do? Like what. Where did. Where did that start? And the other thing that I didn't take into full account was how much.

Their own limiting beliefs. I say it this way.

That which somebody articulates towards you, meaning it's.

They're.

They're throwing it. They're. They're casting a limiting belief towards you.

Yeah. They're projecting onto you.

They're projecting. Right. In almost every case, if they project that on you, they're saying that very same thing with 10 times intensity within themselves, to themselves.

And I learned that by watching my parents suffer. And, you know, I mentioned earlier with my dad having that comment, skagens, don't. They get by? And I go out and I bust it for five or six, seven years, and all of a sudden, I start to have traction and then start to build momentum, and momentum became wealth, and wealth became this and that and da, da, da, da. About six or seven years in, my father, which is the first person to say, don't do it, came back to me and said, I can't believe you did it. I'm so proud of you.

I'm dead serious. And my mother did the same thing in a different kind of way. But when that happened, it gave him hope to try. So he started later in his life because someone took the chance, took the challenge to go out and make something of themselves, come Hell or high water, whatever we're going to do, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to keep going, I'm going to keep changing my approach. I don't have a road to go back on kind of scenario. You know, five or six years in, after enough hard work goes by, I've discovered that the very, the very same people that are the haters in your life now will be the very same people who will be your raving fans moving forward if you keep moving forward as a whole. You know what I'm saying? So talk about a little bit about the power of the limiting belief itself.

Where's your understanding of where it's formed and how we conquer it?

Yeah. So I think touching on what we spoke about earlier, all that beliefs are, is we have experiences in our life. We ultimately form a story from that, and from that story, it happens enough that ultimately we create a belief. And so for me, I guess again, I was this shy, quite introverted person. And as I've started to go down this rabbit hole of personal development, you start to uncover things about your life that you weren't even conscious about, right. It's a lot of the time it's your unconscious affecting you. And so first and foremost, my recommendation to people would be just take the deep dive down the person with them rabbit hole. Because you're going to uncover things in the unconscious that you may go, you know, you don't know what you don't know. That's a saying that's changed my life. Right. And so for me, what I came to discover ultimately was when I grew up, I had this one experience and I had a couple of these, but this was one that stuck out where I was driving to a baseball game with my, my dad. And it was my baseball game. I was like little league, probably 10 years old or something like that. And I'm driving to the game trying to talk to my dad. And as soon as I try to talk to him, he goes and turns up the volume of the baseball game on the radio. And for me, the belief I got from that was when I speak, nobody wants to hear what I have to say. When I speak, it equals pain. And ultimately, when I use my voice, good things don't happen. And that was one time it happened. But again, I would be in my house, baseball game would be on, football game, I would talk, you know, and my dad, he's an incredible human. He never, if you ever asked him, would say, oh yeah, the belief I was trying to put in my son's head there was. He uses his voice, Good things don't happen, right? The belief or what? Maybe what he was doing is. Maybe it was the World Series. Like, I don't know. I was 10 years old, I wasn't really paying attention. Maybe it was his favorite team playing their rivals. Like, I really don't know. But what happened in that moment was I began to form. I began to have an experience that said, when you communicate, bad things happen. And eventually that happened enough times in my life where I just went, okay, when I communicate, it's going to hurt, so I might as well just not communicate. And so that's how one of my limiting beliefs was shaped. Now, what's a really interesting experience that I take people through, and it's a little bit more of a deeper experience, but to kind of give a high level view of it is it's like if you look back on your life and I'll just walk through my own experience, I could ask myself, what were three to five experiences I had where when I communicated as a kid, or even in my childhood or teenagers or growing up, incredible things happened. And one of the experiences that jumped back at me was when I was a kid, my brother and I would build forts, and oftentimes it was my idea. And I'd be like, hey, we're going to get the pillows and we're going to put the sheet over the chairs.

Grab the chairs, let's go.

Yeah. And it's going to be this like unbelievable thing. And it was my idea. And when I shared that we built this fort and to this day, it's something we talk about. And so when I started to look back at my life, I went, wow, there are experiences in my life that I could have pulled the. That I could have pulled the story that when I communicate, beautiful things happen. And that could build the belief of communication equals beautiful things. And so again, it's a deeper process that you need to go into to really shift some of these things from a neurological level. But I think even growing the awareness around whatever some of the limiting beliefs you are, if you can begin to ask yourself what were experiences I had, knowing that most of my beliefs were formed as a kid, what are some of the beliefs that formed this, and maybe what are some of the opposite experiences I had that could shape the inverse of that belief. And I think if you even start to do a little bit of that work, you're going to start to move in the forward trajectory, in the forward direction, and that's going to help you Start to shift some of those things. But a lot of them really are to kind of fully answer your question. Just they're answered when we're little and they're answered not intentionally. So we have to put in the work to say, if I have beliefs that were formed unintentionally, let's do the work to form beliefs intentionally to shape the person that I really want to be.

Yeah.

I've always discovered that awareness breeds intentionality. Intentionality and then brings commitment. So no matter what it is. So I'm aware now that I have a limiting belief or I have a negative and see to me, the symptom of the like. So we talk. I like to talk about plants. I don't know why I talk about plants. I don't even have a garden. Right, right.

But.

But if the limiting belief is man, I don't know why I'm trying out. I never make it. Okay. That is a, what I refer to as a thought. Right. That's directly tied to some limiting belief, some experience, some level of meaning that we talked about earlier.

It takes an aware mind to bring the subconscious to the conscious. Takes awareness to go say, why did I just say that to myself?

Is that really what I want to pursue? Is that really what I want to feel like? Heck no. And then I'm a big believer. Punching fear in the face. I mean, just literally smack it. Right. So if, if it comes in a whisper, I go at it with a shout.

Right.

So if it comes in, it's like, I'm not enough. Like, yes, I am, you know, and kind of bow up kind of scenario. And that's where that awareness breeds the intentionality that I love so much that you just articulated so well. You know, when it comes to life mastery, is there a.

Two or three step framework that you would use, bar none, that kind of governs limiting beliefs and overcoming fears and emotional states and stuff like that? Is there an overarching framework that someone could say, hey, I can jot this acronym down so I can begin to work on some stuff?

Yeah, I would say a couple different things you could do. I don't have an acronym, but a couple different things you can do is if there's some area of your life you're looking to focus on. First step would be what's an area of your life you want to focus on? Whether it's finances, whether it's health, whether it's relationship, whether it's business. And then the next question you want to ask yourself is what's currently holding you back from getting to, let's say, your fullest potential in this area of your life, or what's holding you back from getting to a level 10, 10. And then what you'll begin to notice is as you go into this process, you may have, I always share, go for three to five. What are three to five things that are really holding you back from getting to this next level in this area of your life? And then two things that you want to do is you want to begin to build leverage on yourself, okay? Because if you have enough leverage, you can change anything in your life. And so two ways you build leverage is we, as humans, we either move towards pleasure or away from pain. So one thing you can begin to ask yourself is, what has this thing really cost me in my life?

And asking yourself, in this thing, has it affected my business? Has this affected the relationships? Has this affected my kids? If I have kids, has this thing that's holding me back? Has it dribbled into other areas of my life? And most of the time, what you're going to notice is that every area of our life affects every area of our life. And ultimately it's called wholeness.

Right? And what you'll notice in this process is you're going to start to build up enough reasons on why this is costing you too much pain to continue to hold onto this belief. And some people, again, may not move away from pleasure or may not move away from pain. They move towards pleasure. So the second part of that exercise is you want to ask yourself if you were to eliminate this thing that's holding you back, whatever it is, and ultimately you want to understand that it's a belief system. You may go, the reason I'm not here is I don't have the knowledge, I don't have the skills, I don't have the talent, I don't have xyz. Ultimately, that is really just a belief system. Yeah, man, that's really just belief system, Right? And so if you could eliminate that bs, you want to ask yourself, what would life start to look like in the next three to six months? And then what I always encourage people to do is for five minutes, maybe turn a little bit of music on, but just turn a little bit of music on for five minutes. Don't let your pen leave the notepad. Just write, write, write, write, write and write. What would life really look like in three to six months if I could totally eliminate this belief system? And then what you're going to begin to do is you're going to begin to build. Now Leverage in the positive direction. And after that you can have leverage on what are the painful things that are going to happen if I don't shift this? What are the positive things that are going to happen if I do shift this? And then ultimately what you're doing is you're building enough leverage. And as a guy, Jim Rohn, you're probably familiar with Jim.

Oh yeah, we know what Jim.

Right. And what he used to always say is, you don't need more. You don't need more.

Actions, you need more reasons.

You need more reasons. If you have enough reasons, you'll do anything. Right. If you have enough reasons on why you must do something, you'll accomplish anything. So I would say that's kind of the layout of asking yourself, what are these beliefs? How do we start to shift these beliefs? And then ultimately to kind of put a cap on this at the end, you could ask yourself, what is a new belief that I could put in place of this? And ultimately most of the time what happens is it's actually the inverse belief.

Exactly, exactly. I love it.

I'm so glad you shared that. I think it's really important. I think people, oftentimes it's all about focus. They're focused on the wrong things, so they're heading towards the pain that they're trying to avoid.

Right? Yeah.

Or they're not focusing on the area of their life that they really need to change and they really need to face, hey, maybe I shouldn't be in this relationship. Maybe I should stop spending as much money as more money than I have. And you know, it's so strange to me that life mastery really comes down to principles and fundamentals. You do the principles and fundamentals well, you're going to have an amazing life. Especially if you do it consistently. Right. When you start looking at keeping things going and staying ahead in the right direction with a couple minutes we got left. You know, I know you're a big fan of priming and setting and setting up your day. Setting up your day the right way. Now priming, you know, there's lots of different ways to do priming. Tony's obviously got one that he's kind of like, it's good. It's a breathing technique and everything built into it. What does priming meant to you and how does it help someone stay on track?

Yeah. So priming, to break it down really quick for Everybody, it's a 10 minute exercise. The reason it's 10 minutes is because if you don't have 10 minutes, you need 20. Right.

And so what it is, is you do a couple breathing exercises and within it you're spending three minutes asking yourself what are three things you're grateful for? You spend three minutes feeling the energy in your body and sending love out to three people or more. And then ultimately you spend three minutes, or three minutes and 33 seconds, if we were precise, on what are three things you want to create in your life. And the goal in this process is to visualize them, right? So this is all in closed eye process. It's to visualize them as if you're in, as if you are physically in the vision. You're not looking at it from afar, but you are physically in it. And what I would say priming has done for me is every single day, whether I'm in a different state, whether like a physical different state, or whether I'm in a different mental state, whatever's going on in my life by priming in the morning, it allows me to bring this sort of centeredness to my life. It allows me to instantly be grateful the rest of my day. Because I know, and we spoke about it earlier, it's like there's this quote, it says the person that's the most happiest in the world, they're not the person that goes to the moon, they're the person that finds happiness in someone's smile every single day. So the gratitude allows me to, no matter big things or small things, to be grateful because I have air in my lungs at the end of the day, my eyes woke up like, holy crap, today's a good day. And then sending love to people, feeling the energy, that kind of just allows you to restore anything that's maybe going on. And you can, you can create that process and send love out to anybody around you that is going through something. And again, right? Law of reciprocity. Even if you send energy to people to help give them love and healing, whatever they're going through, that's going to come back to you. And then the third part, visualization, what that does for me is it keeps my hunger alive every single day I'm visualizing. And once I accomplish that, the cool part is I get to add something new to my three, right? And then I'm always having something that it's like so close, so centered to me because of this process I do every single day that I'm. That I'm hungry, I'm willing to put in the work, I'm willing to work the extra hours, I'm willing to do whatever it takes because those visions are so close and so real and so yeah, priming, it's, it's huge in my life.

I'm glad you spent a few minutes talking about it's one reason I want to ask you about it because you know, there's a. If you go search YouTube or search the, you know, the digital world, very few people will take the time to sit down and talk about it, talk about how it benefits them, but more importantly how it's kind of what the, what the fundamentals are again. The principles and the fundamentals are where everything changes, where all that stuff comes from. Dude, I have loved hanging out with you. You're a one sharp cookie, man. I can't wait to see you. I just continue to blow up and blow up and blow up. I'm glad to be a lot like connected to you alongside of your journey, man. Where can everybody find you and find out more about what you're doing?

Yeah, well, first and foremost I just want to say right back at you man, thank you so much for having me. And your personality, your charisma, your spirit is just beautiful. So thank you so much for having me. I've thoroughly enjoyed this, enjoyed having you on the podcast. If people want to get more info, I would say the best place they could probably go is I'm on Instagram. Stu Massengill. Last name is kind of tricky. First name's S T U M A S S E N as in Nancy G I L L Stu Massengill. And if you want to find me on Instagram, that's probably the best place. And if you send me a message or anything like that, I'm very responsive. So I'll get back to you. And yeah, if I can add value to anybody, help any of you that are listening to this, please reach out and I will do anything to help you.

And if you're having a hard time finding Stu because you can't spell his last name, just search my friends list, type in Stu. He'll pop up.

There we go. There we go.

Look dude, I have loved it, man. I can't wait to do this again. And you're definitely a repeat offender on my show anytime. Dude, I can't thank you enough, man. Thank you so much for coming on.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Steven.

Alright, take care everybody. See you. Dude, I told you that kid was a rock star, man. I tell you what, it just goes to show that you're never too late or never too early to experience fulfillment and transformation. But before we do that, I want to invite you to go to my Instagram page @stevenscoggins and simply click on the link in the bio. Why? Because I've joined forces with Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi in the Own youn Future Challenge, and it's completely free. Not only is it free, but you're going to hear from the world's foremost thought leaders, including Tony Dean, Lewis Howes, Mel Robbins, Brenda Burchard, and so many more guys. You have to go there and check this out. It's totally free. Help join the Own your Future Challenge. And in the meantime, if you love that interview, I know you're gonna love this one right here. So check it out.

But I think the limitation and the limiting factor that most people put on themselves is by subconsciously or unconsciously comparing themselves to someone else.