Ron Malhotra: You Need To Think About What You Think About | The Business Blast Podcast #519

Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by WagsMedia. WagsMedia provides you with everything you need to generate more customers and grow your brand. Head on over to wagsmedia.com, W-A-G-S-M-E-D-I-A dot com, to enter a contest where you can win a free, done-for-you custom website valued at $2,500 for a limited time only. Now let's jump into the episode. Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Ron Malhotra with us. He's a wealth specialist and the CEO of The Successful Male. So welcome to the show, man.

Pleasure to be on. Thanks, Tyler Wagner.

Of course. Thanks for hopping on. We appreciate it. We'll dive into the first one. The first question I have for you, Ron, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

Well, it sounds very, I guess, cliché when I talk about the fact that most of my passion for what I do comes from the fact that I've been broke, I've been frustrated. I've been disconnected. And for me, the biggest transformation happened when I learned more about myself. So, you know, as you know that the education system teaches you how to make a living, but it doesn't really teach you how to make a life. And for me, all of my transformation happened when I started to ask myself the right questions. So today when I train people, I teach people, I first of all, I say to people, that if you want the right answers in life, you've got to ask yourself the right questions. And so there's a massive shift. My whole life has changed because instead of just seeking answers, I first ask myself the right questions in life, the most important and most pertinent questions in life. And so if there's one thing I can say to people is I say, well, you know, if you ask the wrong questions, you're going to get the wrong answers. And the challenge in life is to know what the right questions are. Yeah, that's been the biggest shift in my life there.

I think— I don't know who said this, but I think there's a quote. It's something like this out there that's like, yeah, you're— the quality of your life is in direct correlation with the quality of the questions you ask.

Yeah, and that's 100% true. Absolutely true. I found that to be— and when I think first time I came across that, I think my mind had just— my mind has— would have just dismissed it because I didn't quite comprehend what that meant. But now having lived it and having understood the implications of asking good questions, I know exactly what it means now.

Yes. And the next one I have for you is what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?

To me, it is the fact that your psychology has a bearing on your quality of life. And the net worth that you're going to create financially more than any other factor. So it's not your intellect, it's not strategy, it's not the amount of money that you already have or the money that you make. By far the primary contributing factor that is going to impact the way you live and the amount of wealth that you create is how you think. Now, most of us have been conditioned and taught what to think. So we, we have been conditioned through our education system in regards to what to to think, but how to think is a skill in itself. And one way to describe it is to, number one, be aware about— are you able to think about what you think about? Because most people— not most people, everybody has a program running inside of them, me included. The question is, is the program serving you, or is it deterring you from getting what you want in life? And there's only one simple way to know that. You look at your results, you look at your circumstances, and you ask yourself a very simple question: are these circumstances conducive and consistent with what I want? And if the answer is no, then you have a program that's running inside of you that wants something different to what you want. And so for me, um, you know, I say to people that the— you've got to understand how your mind works. Um, it, it, it has phenomenal implications on how you live, on your relationships with yourself and others, your awareness, and most importantly, your, your net worth. Now, why your net worth is important is because the more money you have in life, the more options you have, the more control you have, and the more you have the ability to contribute. And a lot of people don't realize that. So, um, so that's, that's to me, I would say that that's the, the most important thing that I've learned, um, is that your psychology is the primary driver of everything that happens in your life.

So something you said in there, I'd like to dive a little deeper on it. I think it's very interesting. So it's like you have to be able to think about what you think about. So I think in like, I learned this somewhat in like meditation, being able to almost like watch your thoughts is kind of how a meditation I listened to describes it. So like, but I think for a lot of people that's very, very difficult and could actually sound like impossible to some people. So like, if somebody wanted to actually like think about their thoughts, and I know this could be very difficult, or maybe you have an easy answer to it, but what would you tell them? You know, because I've always found it hard to like explain this to people.

It is. And look, in theory it's quite simple, but it's— this skill is only acquired through practice like any other skill. But it is so important that people put time into practice this skill, because this skill more than any other skill is going to impact your life in a positive way once you've developed it. So it's certainly, it's simple in theory, but it's not easy. It's a difficult one to master. And I think for me, you know, we've all got a program running inside of us, and most of the times the program's controlling us. And so we are just going about engaging in thoughts and feelings and actions without really a realization of what we're doing. Now, for example, you know, You know, I started to observe patterns about myself. So I— what the training that I did, what it did for me was it took me from being the program and it took me to the next level where I started to observe the program. So I stopped— so I was still the program, but I could now start to observe what I was doing. And then at the third level, I became the architect of the program. And so those are the levels of transformation. And Like any other skill, if you want to climb Mount Everest, you have to train for it. So there is no easy way. And what I have found is that people will put in a lot of effort and time into training themselves for skills that will increase their income, or skills that relate to their profession and their occupation, but they spend very little time upskilling themselves in the area of thinking. And it's absolutely worth it. Now, it's not easy, but that doesn't mean that you should give up. You've got to keep trying it. And so one of the ways that I did that was I started to slow down what I was doing. So this is a simple tip, but very hard to implement because we do get distracted and we do get caught up in our life. But the fact is, if you start to slow down what you're doing and you start to just reflect— so that the art of self-reflection. So I— a lot of people say, you know, what makes you successful in life is experience, but it's not experience that makes you successful, because if experience made you successful, then anyone that's more experienced than us should be more successful than us, they should have better results than us. But we know that that's not the case. We know, we see a lot of people that are older than us have had more life experience, or maybe they may have even had more experience in a particular industry. That doesn't necessarily mean that they've got the success. The difference between those that become successful and those that don't, in many cases, the people that became successful, they had the experience, but more importantly, they evaluated their experience. So they took the time to reflect on what they were doing. So I'll give you a quick example. Most people, if they were to walk into a party and they were introduced to two people— let's just call one person Benjamin and let's call the other person Jack. Benjamin is the guy next door. He is the, you know, he's an easygoing guy, you know, he's just the most relaxed and chilled out friendly person. And then you got Jack. You find out the host of the party tells you that Jack is a billionaire. Most people would be more comfortable hanging out with Benjamin. Very few people who are determined to succeed and have a drive and ambition would go and want to spend time with Jack. That is because a lot of people will make a subconscious determination that Jack is maybe not a nice guy, or maybe that Jack is a greedy guy, or maybe Jack exploits people and that's why he is where he is. So we make these sorts of judgments very, very quickly, and those judgments And those perceptions are unconscious in most cases, but they drive how we think and how we behave. I'll give you another example. I had a— I've got a friend of mine who, um, you know, she, she said— she rang me one day and she said, Ron, there's something going on with my life. And I said, what's happened? She said, well, last year I made about $200,000, and once I got to $200,000, my pipeline dried up. I had no more clients. And then I started to find that from— I couldn't go beyond $200,000. And this year the same thing happened again. Once I got to $200,000 in my income I got— I had this lawsuit against me, and I'm now finding that I'm having to pay a lot of money to the lawyers. What is going on? Why can't I get beyond $200,000? And I said to her, I said, look, you know my response. I'm going to say that there's something in your psychology. She goes, but I don't think that's the case, Ron, because I actually have a lot of positive associations with money. I grew up around a dad who was very financially motivated, so I don't think I have any limited beliefs about money. I said, are you sure? She said yes. I said, okay, well, you know what? I don't know what to say to that. And we just kind of, you know, we hung up and that was it. 2 weeks later, I saw her share a post on Facebook, and the post said that a retired Australian pensioner makes $12,000, $20,000 a year, and a retired Australian prime minister makes $250,000 a year. 'If you think this is unfair, share this post.' And she shared it, and that's how I saw it on my timeline. So the post, again, just to repeat, the post said, 'A retired Australian pensioner makes $20,000 a year, and a retired Australian Prime Minister makes $250,000 a year. Share this post if you think it's unfair.' She shared the post, so I picked up the phone and I rang her, and I said, 'Hey, what's that about?' She goes, what? I said, you just shared this post that said that an Australian retired Australian pensioner makes $20,000 a year and a retired Australian prime minister makes $250,000 a year. Share if you think it's unfair. Do you think it's unfair? She said yes. I said, right. She goes, what? I said, well, think about this. You rang me a couple of weeks ago talking to me about the fact that once you get to $200,000, you can't seem to go beyond that point. 'And you said to me you have no negative associations with money.' She said, 'I don't.' So I said, 'Okay, let me ask you a question. What if this post said that a retired Australian pensioner makes $20,000 a year and a retired Australian prime minister makes $80,000 a year? Would you then think it's unfair?' And she said, 'I probably wouldn't.' Right. I said, 'Okay.' I said, 'Then does that possibly mean that you think $250,000 is a lot of money?' Do you attach a lot of significance to that number? There was a, there was a bit of a thought pause, and she said, where are you going with this? I said, well, think about this. It's not— you think $250,000 is a lot of money. You attach a lot of significance to that particular number. When we attach some too much significance to anything, it kind of starts to fall outside of our possibility zone. And the way the mind works is that the, the moment you're in proximity to a, a, an event, a person, or an amount that your mind perceives to be outside of your possibility zone, what it does, it automatically and unconsciously gets you to engage in behaviors where you end up sabotaging your situation. Again, there was a long pause. And I felt like the maybe— I— how I explained it didn't get through. So I said, I said, think about a time when you were maybe younger and you were in a bar or a nightclub and you spotted somebody that you thought was really attractive, and your second thought was, that person is really attractive, but maybe they're out of my league. Can you think of a situation like that? She goes, yep. I said, tell me, did you— have you— can you think of a situation where you spotted a person like that but you decided to approach them? And she said yes. I said, what happened? She goes, I stuffed up, I screwed up. I said, why do you think that happens? Why is it that we are so comfortable and in our element when we're around people that we're not attracted to? Yet the moment you take a confident person and you place them in the proximity of a person that they deem to be outside of their league, what happens to our behaviors? Why is it there's such a disconnect? Why do we become so incongruent? Why do we, why do we stuff up in our speech and our body language? Why does that happen? It's because psychologically your self-image doesn't match what you're about to do. And so when she understood this concept, she was like, wow. And I said, this sort of stuff happens all the time. People are constantly making snap judgments about what is in their possibility zone, and you can see that playing out by the type of opportunities they reach out for. Why is it that majority of job applications are at the average income level. That's because people decide themselves that that's the, the, that's the level that I'm capable at. And they've made those determinations without fully examining why they're making those decisions. And that's the concept that I'm talking about, that that's unconscious thinking. So wherever you see a person who is in a situation that they don't like, with, with, in a relationship that they don't like, in living in a house or in a, in a suburb that they don't like, making an income that they don't like, in an occupation that they don't like, You've got a person who is unconsciously making decisions, because how can a conscious person who knows exactly what they want end up in a situation that is not to their liking? So that's the concept that I explain to people, is you've got to think about what you think about. You've got to reflect, and when you reflect, things will start to become evident to you, and you'll start to see the connection between your results and how you've been thinking or not thinking.

Yes. That was the most well explained I've ever heard in my life.

I gotta give it to you, dude.

That was incredible. That was all like, you tied all 3 scenarios together. And actually the one like going up to somebody else attractive is like the most like that just like puts the bow on top because then it really, it really hits you. It's like, whoa, that is the psychology behind it. Like that just like That's— that was awesome.

Isn't it interesting? And we're so charismatic and so cool around people that we're not attracted to, right? And the moment you take the same person and you put them in the presence of somebody that they deem to be very attractive, it just— I don't know what happened. And you know what it is? It's just we don't— most of the times we have an image of ourselves in our mind, and what we don't realize is that over a period of time, people evaluate us on our own perception of ourselves. And most people don't have a very healthy perception about themselves, and that comes from not knowing how powerful we are. And that's why it goes back to the first question you asked me. One of the most important things you can do in life is to ask yourself the most important questions. And I can share those questions with you if you want, but, but that's where it starts.

Yeah, please share.

So the first thing, I guess, for me, when I, you know, I had the trappings of success, so from the outside people perceived me to be quite successful. I had, you know, I had the assets, I had a beautiful home. People would walk into my home and say, this is my dream house. Um, you know, I had, I had the positions, I had the titles, uh, I looked good, um, spent a lot of time at the gym, um, I wear good— I wore good clothes, you know, I had $2,000 suits that I was wearing, $3,000 suits I was wearing when I was in my early 30s. And so I had all the trappings, and from the outside you would, you would go, well, this guy's got everything going on, except that I was always unhappy. I was always, I always felt disconnected. I had no confidence. I always felt like I had to chop and change who I was to try and fit in with the crowd. I always had this little bit of passive aggression. It didn't take much to make me angry, and I couldn't understand. I was, and I started to feel even guiltier about the fact that I've got everything. Why am I being so ungrateful? Why am I constantly irritated? And it was only after a few years I started to make the realization that I was not connected with my own self. I didn't know who I was. I had absolutely no idea who I was. I was defining myself based on my occupation, and I thought to myself, what if this gets taken away from me? I have no identity. But people would define me based on my name, my culture, my nationality. And I thought to myself, geez, I didn't pick any of those things. I didn't pick my name, I didn't pick my nationality, I didn't pick my culture. So who am I? I've got to find out who I am. And I've just— as much as I would have liked to have thought that I picked my occupation, the fact was my choice of occupation was based on cultural and media conditioning. It was based on media influences. It was based on what I thought was going to make me matter. So I was making all of these unconscious choices, and that's why even though I had the external trappings of success, I really wasn't fulfilled, and I certainly was not— I, I wasn't feeling— I was feeling powerless inside. And I realized it was because I hadn't asked myself the most important question. The first most important question I asked myself was, who am I? And who I am should not be defined by my, my name, by my occupation, by my culture, by my nationality. Why? Because I didn't pick those things. So then I said, I'm going to find out who I am. And how— who I am should be defined by my purpose My passion, my strengths, my values, my goals, and my mission. But I've got to become very clear on these things. These are the hardest questions you're going to ask yourself. The second question I asked myself was, what am I? So I've been told I'm a human being, right? We've all been told we're human beings and we are basically social animals and we have this thing called intellect. But what if that's not true? What if there is more to us than we realize? What if we indeed are very creative and we have these amazing powers that we're not aware of. I wanted to know, what am I, right? What am I? What is this species called a human being? Because why have we got all these capabilities? Why can we do things that other species can't do? How can we create cities and architecture and engineering and inventions and discoveries? How come? And why do we even have the desire to do these things? What am I was the second most important question I asked myself. The third was, why am I here? Is it just a random incident that I was just born just so I can consume as much as I can for the next 80 years and then die? Surely I felt that there may have been a purpose. Why have I got these natural inclinations? Why have I got these natural desires? Where do they come from? So I started to ask myself these questions, and some people may dismiss them as being esoteric or spiritual in nature, but for me they were very relevant. I was like, how can I— why am I here? Is this just a random occurrence? Is everyone's life just a random occurrence? Then the fourth question I asked myself was, what kind of legacy do I want to leave? How do I want to be known in the world? What is my life sentence? And I encourage people when I teach people, I said, what is your life sentence? People go, what do you mean? I go, one line. What do you want people to say about you when you're dead? One line. Because if you can get that right, that becomes your North Star for the rest of your life, how you live for the rest of your life. And the fifth question I asked myself was, what do I do to be all that I can be? How do I engage in endeavors? What kind of life do I want to live so that I can be all that I am meant to be? When I started to ask myself those questions, of course I didn't know the answers to any of those questions in the beginning when I started to ask myself those questions. But now, now that I know those answers, what it's done for me, it has created this level of confidence that nobody can shake. The outside world, the outside influences, what's happening in the economy, other people's criticism, opinions, attacks, what happens in my industry, what happens in the marketplace— none of it affects me because I've become so grounded. That's one of the first things I say to people is, before you do anything, before you decide what kind of business you're going to start, before you decide what kind of book you're going to write, You've got to know this stuff first. You get this right, the rest takes care of itself. This is the foundation upon which you build your life success.

Yeah. Wow. Yes. I could not agree more. I am going to say to the audience, I'm going to be asking myself these questions because that is awesome, man. That is a beautiful framework. Well, I feel like you kind of answered some of the questions I would have asked already, so I'm going to skip down. And maybe you could go a little deeper into this one because you kind of spoke about it, about how you used to be, you know, unhappy. But on the outside, it looked like you would have been happy at the house, the suits. But in your opinion, like, what is the key to happiness? Is it, is it like living by the answers to those questions, or how would you describe it?

Well, this— there's actually been research done on this. And for me, happiness is a consequence. It's not an objective. So I don't seek happiness. Okay, what I seek to do is to live a life well-lived. And to have a life well-lived, there are 3 things that a person must do. Um, and the first thing is you've got to find out what your life's purpose is, and you've got to commit yourself to it. There's been countless successful men and women who vouch for the fact that once you know what your life's purpose is and you commit to it, everything changes. It unleashes creativity, energy, and inspiration that you didn't know you had. The second thing you have to do if you want to seek happiness— and again, keeping in mind that happiness is a consequence, it's not an objective. The objective should be to live a life well lived. The second thing you've got to do is to maximize your potential. And you're never going to maximize your potential if you have a lot of hidden beliefs, limiting beliefs about who you are, what you can do, your capability. So you've really got to find out. That goes back to my second question: what am I? You've got to know when you are. I don't have the time right now to go into that, that sort of conversation at this stage, but I can tell you most people have absolutely no idea about how powerful they are. And I know this because I have taken people who felt completely powerless in life, and once they started to tap into this, they realized how powerful they actually were. So the third thing is to make— commit yourself to making some sort of difference. Once you identify what your life's purpose is and you're constantly pouring into yourself, your objective should be to pour into others. When you start to do that, the sweet spot where your passion and purpose come together, and then you use that, you package that passion and purpose to add value to others, that is the sweet spot of success. Most people will never get to taste it, not because of circumstances or environmental influences or political or economical influences. It's because people themselves are not seeking the answers. You see, you're not going to find the answers if you're not seeking them. It has to start with you. Most people's problems are self-inflicted. When I say this, people get very annoyed with me and they go, what are you telling me? You're telling me that I— this happened to me, I caused it myself? And then I explained to them that in the short term, things can happen to you, but in the long term, your circumstances are always mirroring exactly what you think and the decisions you've been making. And I'm not blaming you. It's not about fault. Let's get rid of the— let's get rid of the word blame and fault And let's replace that with responsibility. You are responsible. Who else is responsible? You are responsible. Because here is a question: if your circumstances resulted in your situation, then every other person who has gone through the same circumstances would have the same result as you. We know that that's not the case. Some people experience a disability and they're broken by it. Other people experience a disability and they start breaking records. Is it the disability, or is how you responded to the disability? Same thing with poverty. You see, some people say that I grew up in these circumstances, and because of this, I have no hope, I have no ability to be able to rise. Yet you see that some of the most powerful people in the world who had a massive impact on the planet came from backgrounds of poverty. Again, it is not the circumstance, it's our response to the circumstance that dictates our results in the long term. So for me, it's about if you want to live a fulfilled life, identify your life's purpose. Do whatever you have to do to find out. Don't just put 3 hours in and go, I don't have the answers, I'm going to give up. Most people haven't even put in 6 months of self-reflection to find the answers. You will find the answers if you put enough time into it. Second, find ways to consistently maximize your potential. The reason is very simple. You are Most people are not playing even to a small percentage of their potential. When you actually start to find out how much potential you have, you don't want to be like this unused battery. You want to make sure you're all used up by the time you're dead. And there's a lot of reserves left in people, I can tell you that. And the third is to find a way to make a difference, because when you take your gifts, your passion, and your purpose, and you package it to add value to others, the experience is so holistic and purposeful, that you, you can't— you're going to feel fulfilled. And that to me results in, in happiness. So I don't chase happiness. I don't chase— because problem with chasing happiness is we start to chase pleasures, and we, we don't understand that pleasures only provide us with short-term gratification. They will never provide us with a long-term feeling of fulfillment. And so that's why it comes back to those three things.

Totally. Well, listen, so if you're open to it, and we'll have to see, let's see how the audience responds. I think we'll get a good response, but I'd love to have you on for a longer episode because I feel like this is, we've dove in pretty deep, but we could go deeper. So I want to, I want to end it here with that. And I appreciate you coming on. And the last question I have for you is, where is the best place for people to find and/or connect with the online, I have a feeling they may like to do that.

The best platform is LinkedIn. I'm quite active on LinkedIn and so find me on LinkedIn. You'll have the— my name's Ron Malhotra, M-A-L-H-O-T-R-A. And even you can check out my website, ronmalhotra.com. I'm all about magnification of life and educate people on success principles, wealth principles, and influence principles because they are the 3 biggest contributors to a magnified life.

Perfect, man. Thanks again for hopping on.

Thanks, Tyler. Appreciate it. The podcast you just heard was published with Anchor. Got something you want to say to the creator of this show? Send them a voice message using the Anchor app, free for iOS and Android.