TRICK YOUR BRAIN To Do The Hard Things FOR SUCCESS! | Mark Drager

Decide that you have to do this whether you think it's possible or not, to go find people who are going to help make it happen and then build a framework, number three, that holds you accountable.

I want to jump right into it because I've been, as a friend, I've been incredibly proud of your journey, that you just finished up the hunk. The chunk challenge.

The chunk to hunk challenge, yes.

Right.

You see, the first part of. The first part of the pandemic, I went from. I went from hunk to chunk, and then I had to go back from chunk to hunk. That's how it worked.

Well, look, you know, on top of that, you know, I. I know because we're, you know, we're fairly close. How. How much work went into that. But I'm curious if you had any epiphany specifically, straight out of the gate about the number one thing that keeps people from doing the very hard thing. Because, I mean, that was a very hard thing. So what did you learn as part of that process?

Well, let me quickly explain. So for people who don't know, I, in my life, have lost a total of £70. So I was, you know, I was of the old diet where it's just like, if your shirt got tight, you just got a bigger size. And then when you ran out of sizes to go up in. I'm Canadian. We just went shopping in America. It's like, oh, oh, a large here is a medium down there. Oh, I'm a medium, you know. No, but you hit a certain point where, like, I'm getting into size 40 pants, you know, I'm hitting, like, 240 almost. And it's just. I felt terrible. And I couldn't, you know, walk up the stairs without being winded, and I couldn't tie up my shoelaces without holding my breath. And the belts that I had to wear to hold my pants up cut into me while I was sitting in my truck and going to weddings. I hated, because I hated the thought of having to put suits on and stand. Like, try and stand.

Yeah.

Suck it in a little bit all the time. And then when photos would come, you know, like. And you get. I got a lot of this kind of stuff from audio listeners, a lot of double chin and triple chin and things like that, and I just hated it. And so I started losing weight over the course of two years, got into it, lost some weight, lost some weight, lost some weight off and on this and that. But the Chunk D hump challenge was, you know, I'm the Host of the We Do Hard Things podcast. And my team said, mark, you got to do hard things. You got to do something really hard. And I'm like, okay, well, what's really hard? And ultimately it was, you know, I pulled this photo when I started losing weight, this inspiration photo, someone's before and after, and I thought I could look like that. And I never got there. I never got there. And so I went, you know what? I'm going to try and get there. I'm going to try and lean down, I'm going to try and lose weight. I'm going to try and get six pack abs at the age of 38. And so that was the chunk dog challenge. It was supposed to be 90 days where, you know, I did what my personal trainer told me to do. I did the workouts, I did the eating plan, I did everything. And right away, lesson number one, boy, was it scary to just come up with the idea and say yes, and then to tell people about it and then to go out and find coaches and then to pick a date and then to say, March 1st, this is happening, and then to tell more people about it. And honestly, like a few lessons, one, I say this often. If I could have done it alone, I would have done it already. I needed those coaches. In business, how many of us go, like, you need your CFO because you're not great with numbers, or you need your operations manager because you suck at systems and processes. We go out and we find these people. Yeah. When it comes to our health, when it comes to our wealth, when it comes to our happiness, we don't want to hire people. We think we got to do it all alone or we should be able to figure it out or whatever it is. And so lesson number one, decide that you have to do this whether you think it's possible or not, to go find people who are going to help make it happen and then build a framework number three, that holds you accountable. Those are the things I learned right away.

Well, and I want to jump into something really fast because.

I was fortunate enough to be part of the journey, you know, to, to witness it, to be behind the scenes both here and on clubhouse and different places and, and hanging out with you behind the scenes. And, you know, there was a. There was a pivotal moment in, in the challenge where your mutual, your good friend Evan Carmichael pushed back on you a little bit. And I want the audience to understand kind of the concept of why he was pushing back and what made you decide to make a change to the challenge. And in the moment because I think it'll help a lot of people because I know that standards at the end of the day are driving basically the decision making and the actions behind that. So for everybody, I'm going to let you explain it because obviously you were the one that lived it, but explain everybody what happened, why it was important, what you learned from it.

Yeah, well, listen, when I said it was supposed to be 90 days, the reason I said it was supposed to be is because it turned into 120 days. It went from a three month challenge to a four month challenge because the first few weeks were really hard. It was a really big adjustment not being on a meal plan to being on a meal plan, eating with my family, to not eating with my family, working out five times per week and then adding, holding those five times per week in terms of hiit workouts, but then adding another hour per day of strength training, like a really big adjustment. And so I wasn't good at it. Wasn't good at it. Couldn't stick to the meal plan, couldn't eat everything they wanted me to eat. Didn't have enough time to make everything, didn't have enough time to eat everything. It was day 17 where I sat down one evening with my coach really defeated and I said.

This is not what I thought it was going to be. And we talked it all through and he said, you know, Mark, do you just think we're not listening to you? And I was like, no, I don't think you are listening to me. I don't think you realize how hard this is. I don't think you realize how much time this takes. I don't think you realize how busy I am. And he said, this is what you asked for. This is what you wanted. This is what you have to do.

Oh, that was a big lesson. This is what I asked for. I want the outcome. But now I'm going to complain about the time or the work or the effort. Right. And it hit me, right? I was working through a book by Trevor Mowat at the time called It Takes what it Takes. Hit me. It takes what it takes.

Yeah.

My coach reminded me, this is what I asked for. This is what I signed up for. I want the outcome. I better do it.

Yeah.

And so then things got more serious, you know, for that was March 17th. Things got more serious. More serious. More serious. Well, flash forward to the end of March. My friend Evan, as you mentioned, wasn't really paying too much attention to this thing and he's starting to go back through my IG Stories and my posts. And he goes, wait a minute. The first 17 days, you weren't doing what you were supposed to do. You weren't following the challenge. And I said, no, I was so hard and all of these reasons and I wasn't into it, but I'm into it now. Don't worry. He's like, you got to restart the challenge. And it did not make sense to me. It did not make sense to my coaches. It does not make sense to most people. Most people will say, well, like, listen, you know, it's not about perfection. It's not about being perfect. Right. And that was Evan's point. Mark, you need to restart the challenge because you committed to 90 days this and you didn't do it for the first 17 days. And I said, well, I'm learning. I'm not going to be good at it on day one. He said, then start again. You committed to 90 days. And I said, no, I didn't commit to 90 days. Within the 90 day challenge, I'm supposed to arrive at the final destination as the completed person. And he said, you committed to 90 days. Just hitting the point home. And it took me probably four days to figure it out. It took a lot of mental gymnastics for me to understand, but he saw something that I didn't see. You saw something, Steven, that I didn't see. And it took me a long time to kind of see it.

Yeah.

Was that I set a bar or standard for myself that I was not hitting. And everyone in my life would give me a free pass because I was doing really difficult things. But the question isn't whether others would give me a free pass or whether I was learning or not learning or any of those things. It's really about, am I living up to the standard that I want to live up to. The thing with a goal is, it's not about the goal. It's about becoming the person you need to be to hit that goal. And so I had my eyes set on day 90. Evan had his eyes set on the person that I want to become.

Yeah.

And so it was a really big shift, a really hard lesson, really challenging, because honestly, you know, I had a lot of momentum, I had a lot of people having my back. I had, you know, the first 30 days of the challenge before I did the reset, we had a plan, we had a content strategy. We had a plan, we had an arc, we had, like, there was a lot of things behind the scenes that were going to happen. And when I reset it, I felt like I alienated myself against Those who were supporting me, my coaches didn't like it, didn't want to do it, and didn't agree with it. My wife was not too happy with it. A lot of things. A lot of things. And then. And then the Next, you know, 45 days, it's just working in darkness, working in silence, working away. Didn't have, you know, we. We really stepped away from the content strategy. We stepped away from the spectacle. We stepped away from all those things, and it just became the grind.

Yeah.

You know what I mean, man?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Grind.

Oh, yeah, the grind. Yeah. I'm very familiar with the grind. And a lot of different avenues of life, for sure. You know, there was, you know, I was, you know, for those who don't, those who are watching and haven't or. And listening, because obviously we might have both. For those of you guys who aren't already following mark and his YouTube channel and the We Do Hard Things podcast, you must. And just as. Just as much, you guys need to be checking out his clubhouse program called We Do Hard Things on Clubhouse, because it's one of the fastest growing groups on the channel, as far as I'm concerned. That being said, that's where the conversation actually happened. You and Evan were going, we're having a one on one, and you were sharing, letting everybody share into the environment. And I remember listening to that conversation, and on one token, I'm hearing Evan's sincere concern for the standards in which you were setting for yourself and I dare say the love of a friend. And on the other hand, I could hear your response like, look, I've been working hard, I'm doing it kind of thing. And it was a very interesting conversation to witness. But what I actually felt was more powerful was in about three days, maybe it was two or three days, but it happened really quickly after that. You decided to restart the challenge. You went ahead and said, you know what? Not only am I going to do hard things, I'm going to do really hard things, like restart the challenge. And I know that it came at a personal cost, at least for a short, short burst, if not a long burst, specifically. But one of our mutual friends mentioned in that room specifically this phrase that he referred to as a seat at the table, that Evan was trying to get you a seat at the table. And once he said that, I heard something in your voice change. I'm curious, from Mark Drager's perspective, once he said, getting a seat at the table, what did that feel like? What did that mean? Why was it so pivotal?

Yeah. So, I mean, the recording is on YouTube. If you go over to my YouTube channel, I don't know what episode it was of the channel. You could go, we recorded it. We released it. You can hear Stephen. I mean, the most impactful thing that was actually said was by you. And what you said was something. And I'm paraphrasing was something like, mark, this is what love looks like. I was like, that was more impactful than the seat of the table to me. But the seat of the table is. Is the idea that it's the short code that my friend Evan and I have, and I think it's something that we all need. It's this idea that there is a table, a group of people, and you can pick them out, you can think about who they are, but there's a group of people that you aspire to be, like, to be peers with, and they're above you. I mean, they're above you right now. And there's always a seat at the table. Most of us don't pick out a table, a boardroom table, a group of people that's five or 10 levels above where you are right now. You just. You just don't. Because you don't think it's achievable. You don't think it could be done. Instead, what we do is we actually place ourselves with people who are a little bit behind us, because then we're the heroes and we look good. Yeah, but you don't want to be the smartest person in the room. And so we use this code because it's like the seat at the table. And when. When Joshua said that, it was because I was focused on this challenge. Evan was focused on the person I need to become. What Joshua was pointing out is Evan was focused on the person I need to become to hit that five or 10 levels above where I am now. So my peers, my future peers at this table would not do what I was doing. They would not make the excuses I was making. And if anything, if they saw me and I was their peer, they would pull me aside and say, mark, what are you doing? Yeah, you doing here, man? You're. You're better. No. Than this. You are above this. You're one of us.

Yeah.

So that is not a trick that I use, but something certainly, you know, that I've. That I've learned. You know, I had on my podcast, Dr. Benjamin Hardy. I don't know if he's a doctor or not. Benjamin Hardy, PhD.

PhD means doctor.

He wrote. He wrote, personality is impermanent. And who not how. And he has a new book called the Gap and the Gain in the Gap, the gap in the game coming out. Really, really smart guy. But he talks so much about future casting and the importance of being able to frame who you should be, who you will be, who you need to be in the future and then just own it and then start acting that way. That is the seat at the table.

Yeah, no, I love that. And one of the reasons I love it so much is because, you know, there is this element of people in the economy, the marketplace and everybody's celebrating the success, you know, the fancy car, the fancy house, being on a big stage or whatever. You know, that to most people that is the epitome of awesomeness. Right. I've discovered, and I think you discovered as part of this process that the greatest discovery in the process is the power of sacrifice. Sacrificing the thing that you need to lay down in order to pick up the thing you need to carry on kind of scenario. And as your friend and as someone who gets to see like connect with you on a regular basis, it was, it was, it inspired me, right? I had to look at my own life and say, okay, where could I be doing better? Where am I not going through? Where am I not keeping up with the standard in which I promised my team or promised the other people that we've been engaging with, the communities we've been building together and stuff. Where am I falling short? And I don't know that you knew that you were doing that, but by restarting the challenge, you were actually a beacon of hope to people like myself, saying I'm going to be my standard, whatever that standard is. I'm going to put in the work, I'm going to put in the sacrifice, I'm going to develop the relationships, I'm going to eat the meals, I'm going to do the workout, I'm going to have the card conversations with my family, all of this kind of stuff to build up that. The reason I think that is so important, one of the reasons I wanted you to share that story is because I think the number one reason people often get held back are because of excuses. We allow ourselves to have an out. We allow ourselves to have an out. So I want to, I want to really hit hard on the excuse side of things. Like what do you think leads to excuses and what do you think leads out of excuses?

Well, I mean, listen, excuses is a really harsh word, but that's what it is. Grown ups don't make excuses, right? Kids make excuses. Grown ups have reasons and reasons are very rational. We can give ourselves all the reasons why, you know, we don't, we don't want to wake up at a certain time or listen, I used to wake up at 4am every single day. I don't wake up at 4am every day anymore because at the last three weeks, the challenge, I realized that I wasn't getting enough sleep for my recovery and my coaches wanted me to sleep more. So I started sleeping until five. Sleeping in, right? See that? Sleeping until five. And there have been some days where I set my alarm. Today I set my alarm for 4 o'. Clock. My wife gets up at 10 to 4 because she works. She has to be at work for 5am and I just went, I know I'm supposed to do my run at 4:15. I'm kind of tired. I'm just going to go ahead and sleep for another hour. I need another hour. Right? My coaches tell me I don't sleep enough. I need more sleep. Is that a reason? Is that an excuse or is that me not living up to my standards right there?

To me, it's the standard side.

No, I'm not living up to my standards. I set my alarm for 4:00am I woke up at 4:00am I, I was tired and I actually pushed everything back to give myself more sleep. So this is the difficult thing. This is where we all need to kind of find our comfort zones because I could have gotten up at 4am and there I am, bleary eyed and I would get up and I would go do my run and then I would come back and I would have my meetings, because my meetings start at 5am I'd have my meetings and I would have been further ahead on my day. And I probably would have been pretty proud. You know, deep down inside I would have been like, I would have been like, I got up at 4am but instead, now what I'm doing is I'm admitting to you, I got more sleep. I don't know if I needed it or not, but it felt good. I didn't get up at 4am so I can't really be proud of that. I could just. And this is Evan's point, this was the point of the challenge. If I'm not going to get up at 4:00am, don't set your alarm for 4:00am Set your alarm for 5:00am you're going to get up at 5:00am get up at 5:00am yeah. If you're going to set your alarm for 4:00am, you're intending to get up at 4:00am do it.

Yeah.

Because now all day, I'm wearing the fact that I didn't start off my day when I wanted, how I wanted. I didn't get my cardio in. I had to push that till a little bit later. Started my meetings, my meetings went long. My strength training didn't start on time. Finished my strength training late, got to my run late, got here and all of this stuff. And so it's just like I can trace it back. I can trace back my entire day and all of the weird bumps along the way simply to the fact that I didn't get up when I said I was going to get up.

Yeah.

And I have a reason why. I have a reason why. My coaches told me I need more sleep. I wasn't sleeping enough. Right. I didn't feel good in the time. That is the problem we all have. If you think about all the areas of your life and you think of all the little passes you give yourself, all the little sneak. Sneaky things here, quiet things there. Last night. Last night I went over on my macros for my fat. Now, I am on a really strict diet right now because I went crazy after the challenge. We could talk about that, but I went over. I knew I was going over. I'm sitting there eating the tablespoon of natural peanut butter, and anyone would go, like, natural peanut butter? What are you talking about? Like, that's one of the. That's healthy. Right. Like, I know the reasons. Right. It's got leucine or whatever, which is a great anti. Blah, blah, blah. To help with muscle repair with. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not a nutritionist, but I know that it's good for me. But I know that I wasn't supposed to eat it and I ate it anyway.

Yeah.

And that makes me feel bad.

Yeah.

Because I'm not hitting my standard. It makes us feel bad. We don't even realize. We all do it so much. We don't even realize that it's making us feel bad. We are not proud of ourselves. We're not proud of the outcome. We're not proud of the actions, and we do it anyway. That's what low standards gets you.

No, no. For sure. You know, if you think about it, you know, I was just thinking to myself a little bit that when you set out to the standards, even we'll just take waking up a 4am thing. All right? So the. Your nutritionist and your. And your coaches tell you, hey, you need more sleep.

To me, the waking up and then deciding not to do that. Right. To wake up at 4:30 or 5 instead and not holding yourself to that standard is one thing, but the flip side is you could have done both. The flip side is you could have done both by going to bed earlier.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

No, I know, I know. Because here's the thing. The standard isn't. And this was Evan's point. This is where it takes, like, a few days to, like, wrap your mind around it. Right. Evan's point isn't to be perfect. Evan's point is to do the things you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do them, how you say you're going to do them. And if it's not working, you adjust.

So my coaches say, mark, you need more sleep. Fantastic. So I should be setting up my day so I don't get up until 5am or I go to bed earlier.

Yeah.

And that's it. That's the change. The change isn't to wait until the moment when you feel like it. To wait until the moment where it's like, ah, this is scary, difficult or hard. It's to do the things you say you're going to do. And if they're not working, you adjust.

Yeah. I mean, if you look at the top. All right, so everybody talks about the top 1%. You know, top 1% earners, top 1% performers, top 1% achievers, top 1%, top 1%, top 1%, the 1%.

You're there. What does that feel like? Man.

It'S difficult. Let's put it that way. We do hard things. That's right. We do hard things well. So the number one thing is that I see that the 1%, all. So there's lots of different things that the perceived 1% have as a common denominator, but in almost every case, I can't think of one offhand that doesn't kind of reflect this. There's this element that you give your word, and whatever you give your word to, you honor that word, even if it causes you pain. The reason I wanted to bring this up and the reason I wanted you to continue talking about it is because I feel like most people who are trying to go from stuck to unstoppable, right. They're. They're. I'm not making progress. I want to be making consistent progress on a regular basis. Let themselves have the excuses, let themselves have the distractions that keep them from actually determining, defining, or creating the ultimate outcome, and then they don't have the diligence or the pursuit or the wherewithal to really, to really, truly, truly pay the price. I've always said, you know, it's one thing to say, hey, what I want is blank, right? Why I want it is blank. It's a whole nother thing to say, what am I willing to sacrifice to obtain it, right? And one of the things I loved about the challenge and one of the things I love about your entire personal brand as a whole, whether it be clubhouse rooms or whether it's your YouTube or whether it's the podcast in general, we do hard things is a battle cry. You know, I've been telling my team long before you and I ever met, you know, I had this young man, Connor, that you've briefly had interact with, you know, that works for my team. And I've always been telling me, you know, he's had a year where he's, he was struggling. I can't get my, I can't get stuff done. I can't do this, I can't do that. I said, stop telling yourself you can't. I said, your number one problem is you're not doing the hard work first.

The people who achieve great things, just like you just went through, do the hard work first. They do the easy work last. People who are stuck do the easy work first and never get to the hard work, which is why they're stuck in the first place. You know what I'm saying? How difficult was it for you to really hone in and focus and not be taken off course by distractions either with family, food, friends, like, what types of distractions came at you as you were trying to focus in on this challenge?

In the challenge itself, it was really easy. It was black and white. I do it or I don't do it. I have a certain number of days. Each day I would wake up and I would go to my IG and I would start to first I was counting up, you know, day 13 of the challenge, day 18 of the challenge, and then at 45 days, I was counting down 36 days left, 25 days left, 12 days left. And by the last 10 days, it is a bit like a vacation. You know, when you're on vacation, you're like, I have a 10 day vacation or I have a two week vacation or if you're lucky enough. And then just like that, it's over. And you're like, where did the last two weeks go? So in the challenge, towards the end, I was like, okay, like, this is going to be over. Before I know it. And the reason why it was easy within the framework of the challenge is I either did it or I didn't do it. Either did my strength training. There was one night where I have dinner with Evan once a month, and I didn't get my strength training done before the dinner. I ran out of time. So guess what? I usually go to bed at 8:30, 9 o'. Clock. We didn't finish our meeting till 9:30, so now I'm like, oh, gosh, I'm, like, falling asleep. Guess what? I still had 45 minutes of strength training and core to do, so I went upstairs in the dark, put on some music, and got it done. Yeah. 15. I'm going to bed. But let me tell you, did I feel good?

Yeah.

Did I feel good? Did I feel good about it? Because. And even now, I'm getting goosebumps because I'm just like, mark, you did that. Yeah. Because here's the. Here's the thing. By the end of the challenge, I was asking myself this question. Who does this? Not like, who does this? You know, like, kind of thing, but it's just like, who does this? Like. Like, nobody does this. Who's. The last two days of the challenge, I'm on 1100 calories per day. I don't drink water for 24 hours, so that way they could dehydrate me just to get myself, like, really photo ready. And it's summertime, right? It's right before it's the end of June, it's hot as hell, and I have to go out and run a 5k. So now it's like 7:30 in the evening. I'm running a 5k on 1100 calories, not drinking water. And it's just like, as I'm doing this, I'm passing the through the park with these moms and these dads and these soccer kids and all of this stuff. And as I'm passing, I'm like, you guys, look at me. You guys all look at me right now. Look. Look at me. Because I'm doing. You don't even realize who does this. No one does this. And that made me feel good.

Yeah.

Within the challenge, within the framework, I did it or I didn't do it. I had to do it, so I did it.

Yeah.

Since July 1st, man, it has been such a challenge. So hard, such a backslide. Old me coming back Old, like, forgetting what pride feels like, forgetting what standards are disappointing myself, finding, like, old habits that I haven't done in two or three years. Just like that back in my life.

And it's been really hard, man. It's. It's harder right now than it was in the challenge because the challenge was this artificial framework allowed me to accomplish a tremendous amount of progress very quickly. You know, Tony Robbins says, you want to learn Italian, move to Italy. Right. You want to learn Japanese, move to Japan. Immerse yourself. Yeah, I immersed myself and then real life came back.

Yeah.

So that's a whole different set of lessons. But, you know, boy, did it feel good to do it. And I didn't think I would hit the levels that I hit. I didn't think it would be possible for me to do what I've done.

And yeah, I mean, like, really, honestly, the greatest lesson that I've learned is when I was doing the challenge, most people did not like it. You know, like, my kids didn't like it, my wife didn't like it. My 7 year old daughter came up to me one afternoon towards the end and said, daddy, you don't smile anymore. And she said, after the challenge is done, are you gonna smile again? Like, oh, yeah.

Ouch.

Oh, that hurt. And so since then, I'm like more fun and I'm more loose and all of these things. But. But the truth is, it's like I felt so good at the end and so proud and so capable in a way that I've never felt confidence that I've never had in my whole life in aspect of my life. And I really loved what I was able to accomplish. And that confidence carried so many other areas of my life. And since the challenge ended, what I realized is that I should never do anything or allow anyone to sacrifice that.

Yes.

And so if this thing of eating well and working out and looking good and being feeling good and liking the clothing and being able to show up with confidence, if this bleeds into every area of my life and helps me become a new version of me, then I cannot allow anyone's timetables or judgment or anything. I cannot sacrifice that because when I give into that, I lose this thing I tasted.

Yeah.

And you talk about the 1%. We normal people. We normal people. I classify myself as the normal people. We look at these, these 1 percenters and we go, we go like, wow, they do such crazy things. But. And the 1 percenters just wish, just, just hope and dream and wish that, that you could just normal people, you could just understand if you just do this stuff, it's so good. The benefits are so great. Please just try, Try it.

Do it.

And that gap of that gap of lack of understanding only comes once you've done it. Now that I've lost 70 pounds, now that I've gotten fit, now that I've learned how to diet and I've learned that I can run for 10km without stopping and my heart isn't going to explode and that I could just go and go and go and go. And just because it hurts doesn't mean you have to stop. And all these lessons I learned, anyone.

Can learn, oh, absolutely.

Everyone can benefit from, but they will not believe me until they've done it.

Yeah. Yeah.

And that's. That's the secret. The secret is, once you've done it and you've proven to yourself that you can do it, every other wall in your life, you should be able to break through the way you did this thing. And the challenge taught me that. And now I'm trying to protect it because I will not allow myself. My morning routine now is five hours long. I feel very guilty about committing 20 hours per week that I feel like I should be working to getting up, eating, hydrating, doing three or four workouts a morning. That's what I'm still doing. I feel guilty about it, but I'm not going to sacrifice that 20 hours. I'm not going to give it away because this is so important to me. Now that I've tasted it, I don't want to give it up.

Yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned that. I think, you know, you know, coming from my background, where I'm at today, every time I got a chance to taste a greater possibility, it may be a little bit hungry for the next possibility. And I don't mean like chasing, like, you know, just chasing a pipe dream. I mean, like, you know, I did that. Wow. Huh. I wonder what else I can do. It's almost like the first time I ever went to Hawaii. I did it completely, not by accident, was an incentive trip. And I go to Hawaii and I barely get there, and I get off the. The bus and I. I'm. We're getting it when I get off the bus, get off the airplane, come through the open breezeway in Maui, go get on the bus to go head towards the hotel. And then, you know, I'd never literally been out of North Carolina at the time, maybe Florida. I didn't. I hadn't been off the east coast for sure. I look out in the distance, sun setting on the water. Well, breaches up in the thing. Tail comes down like, almost like waving at me. And I keep telling people a lot of times they're asking, at what point did you. Did you begin to break through the limiting beliefs and stuff like that? I said that the moments that I can literally put my finger on where I learned it was possible. It was possible, you know, and I know that you've tasted that now, and I love seeing it because it's funny. I guarantee you, everybody needs to go back and watch mine. And Mark's first interview we did together on Stomach stuck to Unstoppable. And it was a great interview, like, we had a blast, as we always knew. But I guarantee you will see a very different Mark in this particular podcast, in this particular episode, because of what he's been through. And. And you're right. I want everyone.

Nine months, man. It's only been nine months.

Crazy. Like, it's like you can do. You can literally do anything if you'll just do the work. And people are, you know, are constantly giving themselves out. Well, I don't. I don't have enough money. I don't have enough resource. I don't have enough friends. I don't have the right mentor. I don't. I don't. I don't.

I don't.

I'm like, at some point in time, you got to rip off the band aid and say, enough's enough. I'm going to do the work.

You feel that, too, though, right? Like, you, like. Like, even at your level, even with what you've done, this is like. This is the silly thing is I thought for years I didn't work out because I. Because working out was uncomfortable and I didn't like it. And all I've heard from people who work out is how addictive it is and how great that makes them feel, all this stuff. And I was like, well, I guess I'm not one of those people. What I didn't realize is no one likes working out anyway. And if they feel great. Yeah, right. We look at successful people and, you know, you talk about, like, you know, what you can do in nine months, and you just need to put in the work and they make excuses, make excuses, make excuses. Don't get me wrong, you do all of that stuff, too, internally, but do you. You just don't let it stop you. I suppose. Right? Yeah.

I mean, I've just, you know, for me, I can only speak for me, but my entire life has been an uphill battle. Right? My entire life, you know, broken home, homelessness, all that junk that I've had early on. And the only way I've been able to overcome very difficult things is by doing very difficult things, even when I didn't want to do them right. I'm excited because, you know, you're going to be joining me along with 13 other amazing speakers here at Transform. You live in the very near future in October. So whenever you're listening to this, folks, you may have missed the boat.

October 21st, you better be here.

Let's go. But you know, this is, this is a, this is an event that people will never fully understand what kind of work goes in behind the scenes to make sure that they have a life changing transformational experience. Right? And there's been several times throughout the process, I'm just being candid with you that I'm like, I don't know, man. I don't know if I want to invest that. Invest that. I don't know if I want to do this. I don't know if I want to do that. And the reality is, is that I finally sucked it up and said, you know what, their transformation is more important to me than my own and I'm going to make that a reality. So, you know, we started talking about kind of the scenarios and you and I have had some off, you know, off air discussions about just making sure it's just an amazing event, right? All of that is stuff even now, even right now, that I don't always want to do. Like we were talking off camera ahead of time. I was literally in the concourse area of our live event center flipping a TV upside down because the image like posted wrong. Like you know, just silly stuff that I know I've got to do. And if you're going to get transformation in your life, whether it's life, business, body, it doesn't matter. You're going to have to do the stinking hard work first period. It's going to be the stuff you don't want to do. It's going to be with. You're probably going to have to avoid people who have been holding you back. You talked about your network at the beginning of the show, about your accountability partner. You had an entire network of accountability partners. You had coaches, you had Evan, you had your wife. Like you had an entire network of people holding you accountable. And I think people underestimate that. You know, I want to touch on one thing with a little bit of time we got left, and that is you brought it up about middle of the show, about the feeling of kind of backsliding or going back into bad behaviors.

I don't know if this is going to be encouraging or not encouraging. Whatever But I've discovered that it's okay to fall down as long as you get the hell back up.

Ah, I love it. I love it because I had to learn that lesson. So if I could just. If I could. I don't know if you have a question or if I could just run with it, but.

Yeah, run, dude.

Listen, July 1st was the first day of freedom for me. So you got to picture this, right? So I started losing weight in. We went to Disney In February of 18, I think. I think it was February of 18. We went to take my wife to Disney, kids to Disney. We look at the photos and we're like, this is us. This is who we've become. And I've shared some photos on Instagram. I mean, it's just like, I just. I don't even look like me. I don't look certainly any way the way I look now. And we had spent so many days walking, we were like, okay, this is it. This is the start of it, right? Like, we just. We're walking, we're walking, we're walking, we're walking. Great. When we go home, this is the start of it. Let's go. And so we start to lose weight. So I'm on, you know, Tim Ferriss four hour body, so slow carb diet. Immediately move from slow carb diet to keto. Stay in keto. I mean, you know, in and out of ketosis, but stay on a keto diet. Maybe dirty keto, but stay on a keto diet for a year and a half, including over a year of zero cheat days. So I'm teaching myself. I'm pretty good at being disciplined when it comes to, like, saying no to ice cream or popcorn corn or I don't eat that or I don't eat that. But within keto, lots of room to screw up. Going way over on carbs or whatever it is by the time the challenge ends, like, a few things. I hadn't had, like, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in three years. I hadn't had a beer in two and a half years. And because I was so used to keto and living off of fats, but on this challenge, I'm like super carb. Like, low fat. Carb, carb, carb, carb, carb. I'm just craving everything. I'm craving cookies, I'm craving cheesecake. I'm craving. I'm just craving all the everything. So in my head, to get through the challenge, I was like, July 1, July 1, July 1, I get to eat. So for the first few days, after the challenge, I got so sick the first day, the last day, the first day off, I ate so much food, I drank just two beers. And it made me feel so ill that in the middle of the night, I thought I was gonna have to go to the hospital and have my stomach pop. I felt so ill the next day I woke up and I was like, let's do this again. And I. So I think I ate like 25,000 calories in four days or something.

Oh, wow.

Something ridiculous. And that was cool. I was giving myself a four day window. It's time to get back into it. But it was hard. It was hard to get back into it. And I'm craving stuff and I'm cheating here and I'm cheating there, and I'm letting myself down. And the reason I tell this whole story is, is the way I see it is being at a peak, right? You're climbing a mountain, right? And you hit the peak, and boy, does it feel good to hit the peak.

Yeah.

You're standing on top of the mountain. You're looking around, you're like, I am at a new height. I'm at a new level. I'm a place I've never been before.

Yeah.

Now, when you start to backslide, it's like sliding down the hill. You're tumbling down the hill, you're going towards the valley. If. If you start to fall, like halfway down the hill, and that is just the start of you returning back to your old life. Boy, is that a scary thing, right? Like, if. And that was the feeling. The feeling of helplessness and lack of control I had was when I was backsliding. And all these old habits are coming back and I'm not feeling good about myself. If that is the start of me returning to being £240 and going back to my old life and all my old habits, then. Then I'm kind of freaking out because I'll like, I'm now out of control and I'm ashamed and I'm embarrassed and I won't talk about this. But if I pick myself up and I stop the backslide and I say, hold on.

I have learned a bunch. I have higher standards. I am not going to go back. No way in hell am I going back. And I start to climb back up, then when you're down, you've only caught me between two peaks. Like right now, I don't know, six pounds heavier than I think I want to be, maybe even a little bit more. I'm gaining more muscle mass than I planned to so you have. If you look at me now versus a month ago. I was leaner a month ago and I liked that. I had different definition and I liked that. But Steven, you've only caught me between two peaks. Right? A few weeks ago I was tumbling down the hill without control. I had no idea where we were going. I had no idea. It was like life was over. I was going to be £240. I was going to hate myself again. None of my clothes would fit. Reset. Let's start reclimbing back up again. And now you've only caught me between two peaks and that's a much better place to be.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, the reality is there's a difference in perfection and excellence. Excellence is a constant pursuit. Perfection to me is a, is a falsehood. There's, there's no such thing as perfect. You know, there's, there's I and I. I've decided a long time ago that I'm not going to hold myself to a perfect standard. I'm going to hold myself to a experiential level of excellence. I'm going to just chase it. Right. I want to see how much my, how much my life can mean to others before I leave the earth. That's, that's, and that's, that's my measurement. Like I have no definal. I need to change. I need to transform billions of lives or I'm not comparing myself to other people. And I think that's one of the things I enjoyed about watching your journey is I felt like you, you kind of lost a lot of the comparison game. You know, it was, it was really good to see you shift into. I'm going to be the most amazing mark I can be, period.

Yeah, yeah. And there was a bit of it. I mean like, I'm not going to lie, like I was pretty proud of my progress but still by the end, disappointed with the final results. Now, now listen, you know, like my final, my final weigh in was like 100 and I don't know what was. 165 pounds. I think it was. Now that's with. I really count 172 as my real weight because I lost seven pounds in three days for the final weigh in because of the lack of food and the hydration and all of that stuff. Like we were playing games for photos and I understand that but, but I'd gone from like 236 pounds three years earlier to 165 pounds. I don't know where I am right now. Somewhere in the high 100/70s. I went from 172. I'm 178 on my last weight.

What's your high?

What's your high? Nine.

So, yeah, so once. The 170s is actually not a bad weight.

No, no, listen, listen. What? Even 172, like, in high school, I was 182. Right. I had had this wristband around my wrist for two years because I wanted to hit 182 in this challenge. I was able to do that. But. But it's not about the scale. It's not about your weight. It's not about any of those things. It's just about realizing. Yeah, we're on this journey.

To get what you want takes an incredible amount of discipline and focus.

Yeah.

At the same time, I'm learning more and more that discipline is not a real thing. Yeah. Willpower is not a real thing. These are not. These are not things. People do not have discipline or don't have discipline. They have systems, processes. They have habits. They do it whether they feel like it or not. The night that I worked out at 9:45, it was not discipline that made me work out. After my meeting with Evan, it was not discipline because it just wasn't. It was like, oh, if I don't do this, I know by the end of the challenge, there's going to be that day that I didn't do what I said I was going to do. Yeah, boy, will that ruin the entire challenge? Because every time that, like, I'd be talking about this with you, and you'd be like, oh, you did this for 120 days. And in the back of my mind, I'd be like, that was that one day that I skipped stuff, and it would just ruin it. It would ruin it for me. And so that's. I think, the real secret. The secret is you can, in a matter of three, four, five, six weeks, you can transform your business, your life, your income, if you just dedicate an incredibly insane amount of focus and time on it, if it becomes your only priority, trust me, you ask my wife, you ask my kids, my health became my priority above anything else.

Yeah.

And I saw a huge amount of gain. And then now I'm learning outside of this framework how to keep it, how to maintain it, how to still make myself proud. And that's just a different challenge.

What's. It's a different. It's a different system. It's a different. There's. There's the.

You know, really. I want to go back, man.

Secretly. Well, I mean, if you know what it takes to do it. I want to go back. Yeah. I don't know if your family will let you do it so quickly, but.

Takes what it takes.

It takes what it takes. Well, dude, I love hanging out with you, as I always do. Guys, if you guys have not checked out Mark and his own podcast on YouTube or any of the places that carry podcasts, if you haven't checked him out on Clubhouse, there's a room almost daily, if not daily, called the we do hard things group that you need to check out. He brings on amazing people recently, Les Brown. Gosh, you've had so many. Evan. Evan joins all the time. I pop in as often as I can, and we always have a blast. You can always learn a ton. You guys have to check out more. Mr. Draeger. Draeger. Where can everybody else find you, homie?

Well, I mean, best place to connect with me is on Instagram. Just. It's Mark Draeger or you've already hit. You've already mentioned everything, but first, I got to say, Mr. Scoggins, dude, you have been instrumental in a few ways. One, you poured into me early on, and you continue to pour into people, and so I thank you for that. And anyone who's in the audience, you need to know just what this man does behind the scenes, because you may see the finished product, but I'm lucky enough to be able to be behind the scenes a little bit.

Thanks, man.

You have such a big heart. I cannot wait. I cannot wait until October. And so if you're listening to this before, for October of 2021, you need to check out transferyou.

Yeah, transferyoulive.com transferyoulove.com and then the third.

Thing is, like, all along, man, two ways you always help me. One. One on one shoulder. I'm just like, man, nothing but love. And I feel like there's a brotherhood. And I just. I love your support. And on this other shoulder, I'm like. Secretly, I'm like, take this, Goggins. Come on, man. Keep up. Keep up. Let's go.

I can't keep up with you, man. You're doing too many amazing things. I'm over here working behind the scenes scenes for a live event. You're out there.

Oh, I will be honest. I look at your ig and I'm like, damn, man, he's good at this. Let's go.

Oh, my gosh. All right, brother. Well, I love you to death. We'll have to do this again real soon. Anytime. All right. Take it easy, buddy. See you. If you love that interview, go ahead and check out this next one right here. If you feel like that and you truly, truly believe that you have infinite inherent value and you do breath work, and you're using positive mantras, breathing in and exhaling the negative mantras, just doing those, that'll change your life.