Kind: captions
Language: en
in this episode of impact theory i
explore mindset with four guests who
have achieved amazing things by gaining
further insight into themselves tai
lopez grinding and working hard and
hustling
is not what you optimize for it's pain
jay williams my game had to change
and i had to be open enough and
vulnerable enough to accept the fact
that my game had to be different in
order for me to be effective david bayer
don't let not knowing how prevent you
from spending time getting additional
clarity or imagining because that's
actually what's required to happen in
order for you to know how tim grover
think about the times where everything
was going wrong what kept you going that
was your dark energy the biggest thing
i've learned if i could be 18 again
i wish somebody had told me
basically nobody knows what they're
doing
even the adults you think you know
everybody's lost and the world's the
blind leading the blind so the ultimate
adventure to me is not just like bungee
jumping or something like that or going
to the amish it's
trying to get insight and see life as a
puzzle and your goal in life is to seek
the adventures that piece
the puzzle together so that at the end
of your life you like kind of get get it
you kind of get it i feel like most
people don't get what life is like think
about it's like what is life like
why
do are we driven with some basic
instincts what's the purpose you know i
like evolutionary psychology so all
these things have kind of led me down
this bizarre
place and here i am with you all right
so i know that you actually have a
definition of the good life around the
four pillars what are the four pillars
and how does it play into everything
so yeah i always say health wealth love
happiness like kind of in that order if
you're not healthy
you won't care about anything so i
figured health is the trump card and
then
the thing the reason i put money second
over love it doesn't mean like
you should try to get rich before
love if you look at maslow's hierarchy
of needs a classic kind of way to be
happy there's five levels to maslow so
the bottom one is physiological or
physical needs have to be met food
shelter water the second one is safety
you have to feel safe the third one is
love
and
because if you don't have physical
and safety right
you don't care about love and if you
don't believe me look up the number one
reason people get divorced it's
financial issues
so i just figured
money doesn't bring happiness
but the absence of money brings
unhappiness this has been proven all
over and over daniel conman nobel prize
winner he said you know if you make less
than 72 grand in america he's found your
happiness suffers because your stress
goes up so i figure
you don't have to be wealthy when i say
wealth it doesn't necessarily mean like
forbes list it means you have to have
your physical needs met and you have to
have a margin of safety some money in
the bank account if every paycheck
you're freaked out
your love life is going to suffer and
then the the top two of maslow's
hierarchy of needs then become you know
respect and then the last one the
highest pinnacle is like a higher
purpose or people called spiritual so
health wealth and then love and then if
you get those three that's how you get
happiness
like happiness there's so many books now
about happiness there's a good one
called happiness hypothesis by jonathan
height but at the core thing to me
happiness is like soup
it's like if you make chicken noodle
soup but you forget the chicken it's not
chicken noodle soup
if you forget to put the broth in it's
just chicken
and noodles if you forget the noodle so
that's what i mean
like happiness is a compilation of a
whole bunch of stuff you do right
so i think
i haven't found a better way to think
about it so how do you go about like
give us some tactics how do you
tactically optimize for them do you
attack them sequentially uh do you
call make real-time calls about like oh
i'm a little low on happiness or love or
whatever like how do you play that yeah
well like i said i don't optimize for
the last one i try to get the first
three right steve jobs said he didn't
want to be the richest man in the
graveyard
you know do you want to be the richest
man in the graveyard
i want to be
the happiest man on the way to the
graveyard and some of that you have to
postpone pleasure a good investor is
somebody who postponed present pleasure
for future gain and you can do that you
work hard in the day it's some stuff's a
pain in the butt your i built lots of
you know businesses i know what it is to
be an entrepreneur i'm saying
i know that chess move and what i'm
telling you is two chess moves past that
chess move
optimizing your life for hustling and
grinding
is like optimizing your life around
going p
no p is something you have to do it's
not the goal you don't go
you know my goal is hit the toilet seven
times a day no but you have to do it to
survive so grinding and working hard and
hustling
is not what you optimize for it's pain
why would you optimize for pain
but as in this it is a necessity
and
if you look at actual scientific
explanation of what makes you successful
it is not just hard work if that's true
construction workers would be the
wealthiest people in the world waiters
and busboys they work harder than the
owner
the most scientific psychometric
personality test is called hexaco it's
more accurate than
big5 which used to be it's much more
accurate than myers-briggs infj entp all
that stuff so hexaco
tests you on 26 facets of your
personality and one ohm's called
conscientiousness and it's been proven
over and over by scientists
conscientiousness is the most correlated
with business success defined
conscientiously so yes so then it
divides into four sub-facets
organization perfectionism diligence and
prudence so the real truth is hard work
is 25 of the formula because diligence
is known in the common language as hard
work okay so if you just think diligence
alone will get you success you're like a
basketball player that thinks you'll
play in the nba because you could shoot
free throws
ah
there's you ever seen the best free
throw shoes in the world they're old 70
year old men who shoot underhanded but
they don't play in the nba because the
nba is not all about free throws
so nba is scoring defense free throws
maybe is one component rebounding assist
there's a lot of components so the other
three you have to get good at the first
one is perfectionism people
you have to know how to double check
your work it's that simple it doesn't
mean you're always a perfectionist but
it means when it's important when you're
a pilot of an airplane
double check before you go they if you
get on a plane you hear the pilots
double checking the co-pilot going you
know hydraulics and the guy goes
hydraulics that and that's why planes
don't crash and it's called six sigma
it's three defects per million your goal
in business and in life on the important
things is to make three mistakes per
million transactions and the only way
you do that
is by being a perfectionist in terms of
double checking so that's 25
the next one is organization i can't
tell you how much better my life is and
anybody watching this will be if you
wake up every single day
and you take 10 minutes i have yellow
notepads sitting all around my house i
got that from bill gates bill gates bill
microsoft at 17 by locking himself in a
hotel room with six yellow notepads and
he wrote out the whole basic code for
dos and things that built microsoft okay
he became the richest man in the world
18 years straight because he was
organized enough to lock himself in a
room
and think through his day and so what i
try to do and whenever i do this i have
a great day whenever i don't
i notice it
be organized a little bit 10 minutes i
actually have this little couch thing
outside of my shower and i put a notepad
by it i take a shower when i wake up i
walk over to that i kind of sit there
and i just write out i mean it can be as
little as three main projects you want
to get done that day so organization is
the other 25
so now and then you have diligence which
is hard work hustle
and perseverance but the last one is the
kicker
and this is what i was talking about the
rewiring that has to happen the last one
is something called prudence scientists
call this prudence prudence is the
ability to make the right decision and i
can't tell you
how many entrepreneurs and
non-entrepreneurs
even me at times too i'm not
special i'm lumping all of us in this
because of our upbringing society
our goal is let's say our goal is like
that camera right there so let's assume
that's north so i have this compass in
my brain
and my goal is to go right there let's
say it's a mile away so north what
happens if society my upbringing in
school wired my compass exactly
backwards so i think let's say i can't
see that camera but i know i want to go
north so i pull out my my compass
and it points that way so i just take
off walking and i do it in an organized
fashion i do it in a perfectionist
manner i'm perfecting my steps in my
posture i'm also working on you know
hard work and hustle keep walking
towards your goal well the truth is if
you go south when you should go north
you could have gone one mile but the
earth is about 24 000 miles in
circumference so you get to walk 24 000
miles and you'll come up on the back
side and you will get your goal that's
most entrepreneurs the average person
takes 20 years to become a millionaire
ninety percent of businesses fail within
the first five years 80 to 90 depending
on what statistic
most people i did the math once the
average american has 60 000 saved by the
time they're about 60 years old
so my answer i did the math you can do
this with the simple financial
calculator everybody in america your
parents everybody you know will be a
millionaire
if they live to 160.
at 160 years old if you take 60 grand at
age 60 and you give it a decent return
on investment eight percent 10 percent
you'll be a millionaire at 160. but the
problem is
the great philosopher i think was
aristotle or socrates said the problem
is
art is long
but life is short
the art of living and getting to your
objective
is long but it doesn't have to be it's
long if your compass is backwards so the
whole point of what i'm saying about
adventure at the beginning is
i'm trying to take myself and point it
to the true north
and you have to learn that from books
and mentors and life experience and
listening and finding in-person mentors
and all those things they help adjust
your compass and most people are going
to get what they want just about 40
years longer and that i live in beverly
hills trust me you go downtown beverly
hills
there's other people like i have i like
to collect cars it's not so much i've
always liked cars it's not a
materialistic show-off thing like a lot
of people think my grandma said i love
cars when i was one i used to try to
turn the car on in the garage
you go to downtown beverly hills
full of ferraris the most ferraris per
capita in anywhere in the world
every one of the guys is 80 or 90.
why you want a ferrari at eight or nine
you want a walker you get we gotta walk
you into your ch
and then you're gonna get in a ferrari
you know how dumb you look to me at 90
you want to be playing with your
grandkids and i've wondered like why the
heck is everybody 90
in this town
excluding people who inherit their money
from their dad but and i realize we're
set up for failure because we think
we're going north but we're going south
that's why 50 of people who get married
divorced 80 of businesses fail that's
why
30 of americans are on
some form of antidepressant medication
that's why 60 70 percent of people are
overweight i mean in a way we're kind of
[ __ ] but
are there like key principles though
that you can use to turn that compass so
north actually points north yes first
one is just like alcoholics anonymous
admit you're lost and that one's hard
for people you tell people
even for me sometimes i want to think
i'm smart and i got it all figured out
and sometimes i'm like wait a sec i'm
still lost
and that that the acquiescence the the
admittance
of the fact
that you're still lost it gets you on
track a lot faster
so if you're watching this and you feel
lost it's better to just sit down and be
like i'm lost because the day you admit
you're lost
is the day you allow yourself to be
found by people who can give you a tip
but what's what's the equivalent of that
because obviously if you're an
entrepreneur nobody's looking for you so
that's the they are though
who is they are they're you go to barnes
and noble people selling their books
they're looking for you as a customer so
read read i mean
the fact that people argue with me on
this reading thing and people argue with
me about mentors no just use your own
gut feeling is that how you learn
english when you were two years old you
use your gut feeling to start
conjugating verbs no you learn from
other people you learn manners you learn
language you learn all things valuable
you learn to drive from another person
so it doesn't make sense you learn life
so books are just
the mentors
who maybe are dead now you wanna learn
about steve jobs he ain't alive to teach
you but you can learn through
accumulated wisdom and that's why trust
me i meet i
very few powerful businessmen i've ever
met
um don't read a lot warren buffett who i
think is the best businessman by far in
the world has
duns he has 75 companies that he pretty
much runs 200 billion in revenue he
reads eight hours a day he reads 600 he
said he slowed down in his old age he
only reads 500 pages a day bill gates
goes on reading vacations mark
zuckerberg just start started a reading
once a week book club on facebook and
already got a couple million uh
followers and now with audio books
there's no excuse you got youtube videos
let this thing run in the background and
it's better if you can find it i mean
better than books is in person mentor
that's why i do a podcast
tom is on my podcast you're a smart dude
i learn from you like i learned from you
today i liked your angle on how to get
in physical locations if you launch a
physical product you want to get it in
stores don't be thirsty
like i said casanova said be the flame
not the moth let them come to you and
that's what you did with quest and now
you sell 1.5 million bars a day that's
good so if you can pick up one gold
nugget whether it's from in-person
mentor whether from a book you become
very wealthy in knowledge very quickly
one nugget a day
one nugget a day it's like charlie
munger warren buffett's business partner
said step by step you get ahead but not
necessarily in fast spurts but you have
to prepare for the fast spurts by
learning step by step so when the day
comes and i launch a physical product i
will hopefully be smart enough and
humble enough to be like
i gotta sit down i've never launched
a company that did 1.5 million bars
i can download in one conversation with
you
like you want to become like a super
computer you just download smart crap
from smart people and you pick and
choose like some people are like ty i
don't agree with everything you say i'm
like good i don't agree with everything
i said
like a year later i'm like wait i was
wrong i actually saw a
very intriguing piece of content that
you did where somebody was trolling you
on twitter and in a move that confused
the [ __ ] out of me you decided to call
him on skype or whatever i said let's
let's debate live right now and you did
and you kept asking him a question that
i thought was so spot on which he kept
refusing to answer but it was
hey you're engaging with me i'm creating
all this content about how i've done
what i've done and instead of going huh
you actually have done something that's
pretty interesting you're heckling me
instead of being intrigued by my results
yes
and that to me was very interesting and
that that like switch in people's minds
it's either on or off either they look
at somebody else and they go whoa this
guy is doing something right like holy
hell
or they try to find a reason to um
shut you down not listen to you
discredit you whatever the case may be i
thought that was pretty interesting um
talk to us a little bit about that how
often do you see that in people and do
you ever see that mentality in people
who are successful
like drake says
if you don't have haters you ain't
popping so welcome to the world you
wanna pop you're gonna get hate um
it's interesting
this is fascinates me the more
successful beyond my wildest dreams of
my success
the more they ask me questions the last
time i saw elon musk i've had some very
interesting conversations with this guy
he's one of the smartest guys i've ever
met elon musk
uh we've talked
i'm not a close friend of his by any
means but we've talked at he goes the
same things he loves hollywood he's
always at red carpet things i go to
so we're in the bathroom and he comes
and i said hey you know elon er we
talked about books last time he goes oh
yeah i remember you you're the social
media guy goes i got a question for you
man
do you think i should use snapchat to
grow tesla
so
i was like
okay he goes i know you know about
snapchat tell me so i started talking to
him
20 minutes later
it was a game of thrones premiere 6 and
i go
what do you think after i gave my long
diatribe he goes
i think you're wrong but thank you and
then he walked off
and i was like this guy is so smart i
realize you talk about checkmate
i was an idiot because i should have
flipped the conversation to get him to
teach me for 20 minutes he walked in the
room knowing what he knew i knew what i
knew
but he i gave him all my jewels and he
walked away with them like a smart guy i
see people making fun of the kardashians
i'm like you gonna make fun of the
kardashians look kylie jenner the
youngest kardashian in the last 18
months has done 400 million dollars in
revenue on lipstick kits and various
makeup things with kylie cosmetics put
that in perspective l'oreal maybelline
massive brands it took them 50 years
as an organization with thousands of
employees to do what kylie jenner did
by herself at 20 at 18. you're gonna
laugh at the kardashians
do you have to agree with everything
that kardashians no
but
like abraham lincoln said
i learn from everybody even if sometimes
it's what not to do how did that notion
of
you have to be crazy to be great find
its way into your mind uh first i've
seen it on a multitude of levels um
you know it was really funny
my rookie year you get so damn excited
because you're playing against these
guys that you've been dreaming of
[ __ ] playing against your entire life
right you actually cross over jordan
right uh well yeah i i did even though
he he dropped multiple buckets on me
and then told me how he was going to do
it which was impressive because he was
40 years old
it still pisses me off to this day i
don't know if you can tell um
but i remember we were playing against
the lakers tom and we were out here in
l.a and um
you know look i always try to outwork
people right that's just how i made my
mark so the game was at seven i was like
you know what i'm gonna come to the
staples center because we're playing
this one the lakers had kobe and shaq
okay this is this is like the
championship lakers so you know i'm
gonna get there at three o'clock and i
want to make sure i make 400 made shots
before i go back into the room and then
i sit in the sauna and i get ready for
the game
so
you know get in the car
get to the gym get there and as i'm
walking onto the court who do i see i
see kobe bryant
already working out and i'm like okay
that's kind of cool it's kobe
what's up kobe you know
and uh you know so i put my sneakers on
and do you ever get lost in what you do
where you end up like wait it's been an
hour and a half
i'm just i'm here i'm in it so once i
set my foot across that line i started
working out and so i worked out for a
good hour hour and a half and when i
came off after i was done i sat down
and of course i still hear the ball
bouncing i look down like this guy's
this guy's still working out
he was working out for like it looks
like he was in a dead sweat when i got
here and he's still going and it's not
like his moves are nonchalant or lazy
he's doing like game moves you know um i
sit there and i lace my shoes i'm like i
want to see how long this goes i'll sit
out there and watch
25 minutes and it got done i was like
okay i think i've seen enough go play
you know come back
get in the sauna get ready for the game
that game he drops 40 on us
okay
and after the game is over i'm like i
have to ask this guy like i have to
understand like why
why he works like that right so after
games i'm like hey kobe like
why why were you in the gym for so long
he's like because i saw you come in
and i wanted you to know that it doesn't
matter how hard you work that i'm
willing to work harder than you wow
and he's like just don't hold there's
there's nothing wrong with that like i'm
not saying i dislike you as a person
you just you inspire me to be better
right and it was the first time i
started to see this level of
competitiveness where i said
i need to start doing more right wow
like and and everybody that i've been
around my life who's been uber
successful and i'm not talking
monetarily even talking spiritually
my girlfriend says something to me that
really inspires me okay because
i think as i
as i got lost into my career and i want
to jump the story but as i get lost into
my tv career i had a tendency to put all
my energy and my time into that almost
to make up for what i felt like i lost
before okay
and
she said you know if you were to
allocate a percentage of the energy that
you put into your career into yourself
and learning more about yourself and
learning more about yourself in
relationships you'll be successful and
it was the first time i had to sit back
and say
wow that's it's really powerful
because i think a lot of people when you
start addressing other things you get
mentally tired
right when i address tv i don't get
mentally tired this is what i do right
but when there's an unknown something
that you haven't felt like you mastered
i don't i'm unsure about it when it gets
frustrating like who are you going to be
are you going to be that person that
wallows in their self-pity are you gonna
be the person who says you know what
okay i did this wrong i did that wrong
but how can i be better and i think
that's what i talk about that relentless
mentality to want to be better at just
life in general
what is up my friend tom bill you here
and i have a big question to ask you how
would you rate your level of personal
discipline on a scale of one to ten if
your answer is anything less than a ten
i've got something cool for you and let
me tell you right now discipline by its
very nature means compelling yourself to
do difficult things that are stressful
boring which is what kills most people
or possibly scary or even painful now
here is the thing achieving huge goals
and stretching to reach your potential
requires you to do those challenging
stressful things and to stick with them
even when it gets boring and it will get
boring building your levels of personal
discipline is not easy but let me tell
you it pays off in fact i will tell you
you're never going to achieve anything
meaningful unless you develop discipline
right i've just released a class from
impact theory university called how to
build iron-clad discipline that teaches
you the process of building yourself up
in this area so that you can push
yourself to do the hard things that
greatness is going to require of you
right click the link on the screen
register for this class right now and
let's get to work i will see you inside
this workshop from impact theory
university until then my friends be
legendary peace out
how hilarious that you would use the
word relentless so
you and i have a mutual
a deep friend for you i'm sure and a
very strong acquaintance for me in tim
grover
somebody who's had a massive impact on
my life but obviously pales in
comparison to what he's done for you
talk to me about tim his notion of being
relentless what that means to you
and your own willingness to endure an
ungodly amount of suffering
uh that would be an understatement with
tim
first off he is brilliant he's beyond
brilliant and it wasn't the physical
part that was arduous it was it was the
mental
and just to set the stage for people he
was the guy that trained you post injury
when it's like i'm really serious about
this i'm gonna go all the way i go to
the best of the best tim grover yeah and
you know tim had trained michael jordan
he trained kobe bryant
but i think a lot of people get lost in
the fact that he trained them physically
he trained these guys mentally too and i
know for me
you know my leg i have atrophy on the
outside of my left leg okay this muscle
here since i lost my nerve i it's gone
away
and i have droplet
so
my game had to change
and very much like life you're used to
doing one thing at 21 is different than
when you're 35 years old right right um
and i had to be open enough and
vulnerable vulnerable enough to accept
the fact that my game had to be
different in order for me to be
effective right
but like i said earlier it's so hard
when
my brain sees things and my body before
i guess this is a gift of being an
athlete to that caliber
it
right i see it gone right if i bring the
ball down the court and there's a screen
coming you know to your right and you
glance over if i see your eye glance
within that split second i'm gone right
because i see you take your eye off of
me so now some of my games changed at 21
years old now sudden that first step is
like it's molasses
it's non-existent right so
now
am i willing to say i'm not that fast
anymore i have to work you into the
screen i have to take my time i have to
actually come off shoulder to shoulder
i have to use my body more to create
separation hey my jump shot wasn't the
best i have to be a better shooter
because i don't have that explosion
anymore and a lot of people say hey that
seems pretty easy but to mentally accept
that i'm a different person now
and to help other people see him a
different person
was was challenging and the major part
that was the most difficult was
seeing myself
so as an athlete
i was used to people looking at me in a
state of awe
all right and it was something you kind
of you thrive for you're working your
entire life for
so when the kid or when somebody was
would come up to me they're like oh my
god tom like your show is amazing right
and you're used to that affirmation of
what you do you're like all right it's
worth me putting the time whereas that
look for me changed and it looked really
made me depressed too because it was a
look from oh my god you're amazing to
the look of
oh my god i'm so sorry right or
what what happened or used to be that
guy before you you messed up and people
don't say things maliciously they say
things more so because they're it's
awkward and they want to start a
conversation and those things would
drive me insane
and tim forced me to talk to him about
those things it was the first time i
started having conversations i'm like on
the court
i'll be on the court doing a drill and
he's like you have dropped foot
and also and i would attack the drill a
little bit more
and that you know next drill he was like
you know what you see that guy you were
good
and i would let's get up more shots so
he he started to find ways to motivate
me
and started to take the anger out of the
equation for me too
and that was a that was a hell of a
first step in the process of me
rebuilding who i was as a person
so i'm wearing this shirt in particular
for you because there are people
that know how to leverage the darkness
there are people that know how to
leverage the anger tim is definitely one
of them yes you've said that you've
always played better angry
what was your mental talk
in those times where
the the level of pain which you go into
great detail in the book the level of
pain was like i was squeamish just
reading about it i mean it's just crazy
i can't imagine i guess sweaty just
talking about i'm sure i mean
when you have to do years of that kind
of painful stuff as nuts so what are you
doing like self-talk how are you
harnessing like the the dark side like
how did you tap into that did you and
tim work on that was that something that
was part of the game plan
well we had conversations about
different things um which obviously
you know for me at that time i was 23
years old right so it was the first time
i was even have conversations and and to
a degree you know i think this comes
from
being at a school like duke when you're
always
you're always in you know in the face of
the media you learn how to say the right
thing right okay um you don't
give people your honest feedback
you kind of give them the rhetoric
and i think even when i started going
through therapy
um
i had a lot of a lot of rhetoric right
um
because i didn't i didn't want to i
didn't want to face it
i
have you had a bad dream and you wake up
and you're married right yes and you see
your wife and you're like
okay that was a dream right right
i think for a long time for two or three
years i thought i was living a [ __ ] up
dream
and i kept waiting to wake up i kept
waiting to wake up tim was the first
person that forced me to talk
to talk just to talk and it's amazing
when you just open your mouth and you
start saying how you really feel about
stuff i mean think about how many people
really say how they feel virtually
nobody exactly and i think tim was the
first person i actually started to have
like full transparency transparent
conversations with right i was like
i don't like the person i was he's like
what do you mean i was like
i cheated a lot on my girlfriend i lied
a ton i was consumed by money i used to
gamble i never gambled um
you know i would say things just because
it was the right thing to say
not that i was maliciously a bad person
right i just never even thought about
what my actions were i was too busy
moving
and tim forced me to stop
and um i still stopped myself to this
day
and you stop yourself from what focusing
on who you don't want to be and focus on
who you do want to be i i just i press
pause in life sometimes and i think it
helps um i i recalibrate to try to get
out of an obsessive thought yes or just
to you know even to get out of funks
whatever whatever maybe you know i'm a
firm believer in that you have to find
balance in life right so they're gonna
be times where your your journey's going
to be down here and it's going to be
tough um and the same when things get
high you know you sign a new deal or you
have you know you have to be able to
keep things in perspective and i think
sometimes when i stop i force myself to
assess okay what are the where are the
benefits you know where the negatives
how can i how can i turn this negative
into a positive all right let me make
sure that i don't get too high and i
continue to keep my head down and work
harder because i i want to achieve more
if it's not for me for the people that
work for me or for my girlfriend or my
mom deserves better so i try to find
that one thing because i'm very goal
oriented
that i need to work towards and once i
achieve that it's another goal and i
don't want it to ever stop because
that's what life should be
agreed do you think of yourself as young
or old
i'm old
interesting um
i lived a life that has been different
not for better or for worse it's just i
feel like i'm old soul
it's interesting i ask because
i'm intrigued to i think what your story
is and i'm going to reveal myself in my
world view in this so
i'm reading your story you want to make
the comeback
and because the way the book is told i
didn't know if you make the comeback or
not right so i'm i don't follow sports
so i didn't know like does this guy like
go back to the nba and crush it like
he's like super famous now or um
or do you not and
there's no hints of it
in the beginning of the book so it's
like unfolding for me in real time and
and then when you don't make it and
there's the second attempted suicide but
i know that
like you're
i i have the framework of what you do
post basketball so i didn't know if it
was basketball injury basketball and
then post or just basketball injury and
then post but i know what you do post so
i'm like okay this works out somewhere
like at some point he gets back on track
and i am utterly convinced
that
and i don't believe things happen for a
reason by the way which i know you and i
are diametrically opposed on that so
yeah i don't believe but i believe that
there's so
much meaning
and power to be taken from anything that
happens so to me looking at like okay i
watch this kid nobody gives him enough
um accolades for how good he's getting
and he actually understands the nature
of getting good it's about practicing
it's about showing up it's about putting
in the work it's about doing more than
other people are willing to do he goes
to college at duke not impressed with
himself in his first season but oh dear
god
kills himself over the summer to really
get spectacular comes back crushes it
could have gone direct to the nba feels
a sense of obligation which i think is
beautiful and even though there's no
question you could have made more money
by going into the nba financially maybe
that was a better decision but i'm
imagining you at the podium and
everyone's like begging you for another
year and you give it to him yeah and i
think it's [ __ ] beautiful man i think
that was a gift to that town it's why
your jersey now hangs in the rafters
like you did something beautiful for
that organization i think it's
incredible you do that you go into the
nba it's all turning to [ __ ] people are
smoking weed like before games they're
it's like a total mess you're becoming
somebody you don't want to be
but by the end of the season you figure
it out and crush the last 19 games if
i'm not mistaken and everybody's like
whoa the person you're becoming you're
about to become an all-star
and then like it's a [ __ ] movie
that's the moment that you have the
accident you have to rebuild we've
already talked about that
but your mind has been consistent
through everything okay
the vast majority of humanity if i take
your life and i just take a million
people and i crush them through that
like the percentage of people that come
out the other side is virtually none so
for you like it's the way that i think
of the inner cities the inner cities
consume most of the people that it
touches and they either literally die
young or they just go on to do nothing
but every now and then you get jay-z
and you go
god for the right person like this
pressure cooker is
it it's the pressure that makes the
diamond right so because a i think that
i'm gonna live forever truly uh and i
understand a lot of things have to
happen for that to be true but i extend
that to you you're even younger than i
am so you're going to live forever it's
going to be amazing so now i want to see
okay i know what this guy's been through
i know the diamond that his mind has
become like what awaits all of us on the
other side of that
so
that's why i was freaking out reading
the book when you're when you literally
try to cut through the word believe and
can't by the way um
what do you set huge goals for yourself
now yes every day and let me let me
address one other thing that you said
that i find fascinating because i think
it's uh it's an epidemic within our
culture um you know in the american
culture it's so it's so funny um like
the comeback right
when i was when i wanted to write my
book
i got turned down by multiple publishing
agencies if you're like well
like you didn't come back right you know
um and i think that's like the american
like through the american scope of how
we look at things like what did it come
back and crush it and and that's a
comeback story i'm like [ __ ] no like i
came back mentally right like that's a
story like that's that's a story that
should be cherished for
younger kids out there for older people
out there it doesn't matter you don't
have to come back and do what you did
before and do it exponentially better
you have to come back
better as a person and and really value
that process like that's a comeback like
that's that should be an american story
so yeah i think my my goals are a little
bit outlandish for myself i want to own
my own media network one day man um
that's where i so that's what we know i
came out i was like hey this is like
godson right like i you know i i have a
two bedroom apartment in new york i you
know my mom comes and unfortunately
there's a there's a big camera in the
room and there's lights and she's like
she's like are you filming me while i
sleep and i was like no but now i may
because it may be interesting content
you know um but like i i think about hey
how can i
how can i be bigger and better and i
think about now how can i break outside
this mold of just being a college
basketball analyst that's how i got my
foot in the door tv right but i'm
infatuated with the process of tv
because as you know it's amazing when
you have to be vulnerable to talk about
issues that a lot of people aren't
willing to talk about on tv like there's
a there's something special about that
so if that's me having conversations
with you know somebody i'm interviewing
or me being lost in you know telling
dialogue
i i love it like i'm it's my passion
it's my new basketball court i've heard
you talk a lot about the idea that
basically whatever happens is what is
meant to happen and in terms of the
leverage of coaching somebody like me
that would never work because i don't
believe in an omniscient god so i'm like
there are just too many things where the
outcome is just bad it's it was all bad
but
i think that you're very right that you
can always reframe it and find something
good out of it so you can find something
good out of terminal childhood cancer
right but i would say objectively that
one falls into my human suffering bucket
i'm going to say no that's just pretty
bad you can learn something from it no
question you can reframe it absolutely
sure so how are you able to have a
breakthrough with somebody who is an
adult who like me doesn't believe that
everything happens for a reason like is
it just reframing are there other tools
like what do you lean on yeah so what do
you believe in in other words in in your
context in the container that you've
created because you're creating it right
like we don't know if there's a god we
we assume there's a universe we're sort
of in it i mean we call it the universe
but that's just language right we're
just making up names for [ __ ] so um the
the question would be do i go back to
einstein if he actually said it which i
think he did uh which is you know the
most important decision you make is
whether you live in a friendly or
hostile universe so that perspective is
a belief in how the human being
technology works in in in other words
whatever you believe because of the way
this whole structure and system works
and and how meaning then creates emotion
and and
neurobiological chemical cascades in
your body right like all this stuff like
you in that sense without even getting
really woo you're creating a reality
right i agree so then the question would
be what do you what do you believe in
drives everything because you know for
me i look at more as a mathematics i
don't i use the word god but what i
believe is that intelligence itself
right unbound intelligence
is all there is
and that unbound intelligence when you
say is all there is what do you mean
like the very fabric of space time sure
like if you talk about space-time or the
ether or the hindus call it the akasha
or the fifth element or in the beginning
there was a thing right uh for me it's
in it's intelligence and it's
mathematical and it's expression uh and
so i believe in math right if you go
back to um like euclidean geometry right
there's a very like kind of spiritual
concept around all of these things and
looking at things like sacred geometry
and how how something is expressing
itself and these really deep
sophisticatedly intelligent patterns
right which one
could suggest is just chaotic like it's
the way that this all unfolded it had to
unfold this way because it was the only
way it could all work or it's supremely
intelligent so so the first thing i
would want to do is understand what do
you believe so that then we can have
this conversation within that context so
what do you believe
uh i believe purely in evolution so
whether that is divinely started or not
because i will be the first to admit
there's something that i don't
understand and it is something big and
it leaves me an awe and wonderment and
so i am deeply moved by the mysteries of
the cosmos like that [ __ ] to me is so
beautiful and so the the states of awe
or compassion or connectedness or like
you don't have to pitch me on that i'm
in man it's just i don't think that one
i don't think that what makes this
experience beautiful or or even useful
is that it is all happening exactly as
it was meant to happen i feel like hey
something put
the the expansion of the universe the
expansion of species started and it all
has to obey the laws of physics okay
cool so now operating within that i find
so much power in going how does the mind
work so what is it that that i can
grab hold of what are the levers what
are the dials i don't need them to be
divinely inspired and they certainly can
be either way is fine by me like i don't
have a a
dog in that fight
it is simply i just need to know the
truth and so what i have experienced
thus far tells me that
people in in some pretty beautiful ways
grapple with spiritual concepts as a way
to like make sense of everything sure so
love it respect it don't have any beef
with it
the concepts that have an equal amount
of beauty for me come down to biological
truths and so once i understand the
biological truth and i can understand
the way that synapses um exist and work
in the brain and the way connections are
made the way connections atrophy so that
i can make something atrophy sort of at
will i can make new connections at will
by doing things practicing something
eating it and so once i understand those
levers then i can start pulling so a lot
of the things you talk about i feel like
yeah that's super powerful we agree on
the thing without agreeing why the thing
exists sure that makes sense yeah
absolutely so that's sort of the
framework with which i operate yeah you
so we're going back to this question
right that i think i think you're
alluding to this idea where i believe
that life is working in infinitely
intelligent ways for our greatest growth
our greatest prosperity our greatest
evolution that at any moment it's a
moment of perfection right that that
that it is supposed to happen and so um
so in that we can we can live with
acceptance we can live with surrender we
may not actually see it in the moment
how it's working for us uh but we can
choose to trust that it is if we want to
um looking back last statement you made
i agree with
like totally you can decide to
view this as something that is working
for me right how the tony robbins
question i love this how's the worst
thing that ever happened to you actually
the best thing and that reframe just
asking a different question changes
everything so i'm with you on that it's
a choice yeah i think it's important for
us to
you know take a forensics approach to
our own lives to like
observe deeply to discover what we
believe is true for ourselves went so
far in my life when i look back
over every single experience that i
thought was a tragic experience at the
time of course because of cause and
effect it's been the same part of the
journey of the things that i cherish
most of my life
um
so so we get to create those frames
right and and what i would suggest is
those those frames do become our reality
they they do become our experience
because of the way the technology works
right i mean at any moment in time i
read some something recently and the
numbers always change
but they were talking about the part of
the brain that pays attention right the
reticular activating system and
something like 88 of what's going on in
any given moment you're not paying
attention to like i'm not paying
attention to your wrist right now it's
still in my way right it's a beautiful
wrist
but
you know that that which we tend to pay
attention to is aligned with what we
believe and so that's all we get
so if you want you know more happiness
if you want more wealth if you want
deeper relationships if you want to have
more joy you want to have more fun you
want to you know achieve your full
potential and really make an impact in
the world then what's really important
is to get clear on what that could look
like for you and to make sure that what
you believe is congruent with that
outcome because if what you believe is
not congruent with that outcome just
neurophysiologically you're working
against yourself
right yeah talk to me about the power of
clarity one of the few people that i
hear talk about this and i think it's so
[ __ ] important
yeah so like where to start with the
power of clarity we talk about a number
of things right the power of decision
the power clarity the power of gratitude
the power questions
most people know what they don't want
but they don't know what they do want
you know if you say to somebody what
what what do you want they'll spend
maybe 10 seconds sifting around and then
start telling you exactly all the stuff
that they don't and so it's it's
important to have clarity on what you
want to create to have clarity on the
type of partner you want to have in your
life to have clarity on
the things that you want to learn
because
i believe that clarity is intimately
connected to imagination so as we're
getting clear on something we're
beginning to see what that thing is
right that we're getting more clarity on
and and we now know there was a study
done in in
2009 at harvard where they brought in
piano players to play the piano and they
studied what parts of their brains lit
up and then they just had them imagine
playing the piano and the same parts of
the brains lit up and there's a study
after study after study that shows that
the brain doesn't know the difference
between imagination and reality so
as you're getting clear around something
you're actually building neural networks
as if that image or that experience had
already occurred i mean this is really
powerful because
so often people don't know how to
achieve something and because they don't
know how they don't spend a lot of time
getting additional clarity they don't
spend time imagining what the future
would look like with that thing or being
that thing or creating that thing
because it gets stuck on the how
and
what i would suggest is that if you're
willing to invest time in getting
clearer around something or imagining
you build neural networks that represent
the memory of an experience that has not
happened yet that's [ __ ] powerful i
mean we're talking about like next level
mental technology because
if you had experienced the thing already
would you know how to do it
so what i would suggest is that it's
that change in the neural networks of
your brain that you can achieve through
clarity which is part of this kind of
imagination category i mean dispensary
talks about it with meditation and
visualization other great teachers talk
about it in in this way you're able to
start building
neural networks of experiences that have
not happened yet that i believe then
give you access to the thoughts the
ideas the perceptions and if you want to
talk about like creating the
synchronicities that actually close the
gap between that future and the present
moment all right say that in like a real
basic [ __ ] way like give it to people
in like [ __ ] ground ground don't let
not knowing how prevent you from
spending time getting additional clarity
or imagining because that's actually
what's required to happen in order for
you to know how
yeah that that i like your your whole
notion of getting
don't let
the indecision right yep be born out of
the fact that you're not sure how this
is all going to play out right so i
thought that was so powerful like to
start moving and in the moving in
getting the clarity some of it will come
to you and moving forward some more of
it you talk about
it's like people get stuck because
they're not clear so but but getting
more clarity people get paralyzed by not
knowing some kind of
never attainable omniscience around the
topic
and so they they stop right they move
into indecision they move into some form
of procrastination and the way you get
more clarity is the same way you drive
in fog you've got 10 feet of clarity the
way you get 10 feet more is to move
forward 10 feet right
you're never going to know right we're
all looking for this sort of um i heard
one of your guests uh recently talk
about how fear is wanting to have a
predictable outcome around an experience
that you've never had before right
and that's what we're all looking for
but that's not the way that it works you
get as clear as you can then you take
action and more clarity unfolds for you
how do you help people unwind the fears
around that is it all attacking the
beliefs like what are you really worried
about i'm worried i'm not good enough
that kind of thing yeah for us it's
really looking at what is the thinking
that's causing the emotional response
which is fear and knowing that what's
actually happening and again this is
just what we're suggesting what's
actually happening is you've activated
neural networks that represent a
dissonant concept and your nervous
system is experiencing that dissonance
is fear your nervous system is telling
you it's not true
it's not true that you're not good
enough it's not true that you need to
get it all done it's not true that
you're going to end up living under the
bridge it's not true any of those things
aren't true
walk me through the journey to
discovering all of this stuff so
were 10 years ago were in addiction but
you
rock it i mean look i only know the sort
of external side of your story so i
wasn't there so i'm sure it wasn't as
easy as
one would believe seeing how far out of
that you've come
but like what were some key points on
that journey
like a few moments that felt like well
this is like a lightning rod moment were
there those or was was it just sort of a
gradual stacking of mild insights what
did that process look like and how did
you keep yourself going
so i was
in the depths of my addiction
like i remember about three weeks before
i realized i had a problem which is
amazing uh to see that it i had these
experiences and didn't realize i had a
problem until three weeks later
it was the last time i was ever going to
buy pot
uh bought it from my pot dealer smoked
it on my
back porch
uh had still had a bag left after
rolling a joint filled the bag up with
water so that i wouldn't smoke it took
it the whole foods and dumped it in the
garbage can
and three hours later was back at whole
foods pulling out of the garbage can and
drying it out on my back porch right
okay that's addiction
it's addiction and so um you know in in
the beginning it was just about trying
to figure out how to
untether myself from these addictive
patterns of behavior and i started
working that 12-step program and uh and
in about three or four weeks after i
started working a 12-step program i go
to the airport you know you have those
like book moments like a book decides
it's developing a relationship with you
and like i go over i grab this book off
the shelf and it said awakening the
buddha within on the on the back of the
book it had the four noble truths of
buddhism it said life is full of
suffering the suffering will happen to
you there's a way out of the suffering
and the way out of the suffering is the
eightfold path of virtue and i don't
know what the eightfold path of virtue
was i'm like but it's more efficient
than twelve steps they only have eight
um so i start i read this book and i'm
like wow the things bill w was talking
about in 12 steps are very similar to
what buddha was talking about and then
an employee left a book on my desk
called kingdom principles by miles
monroe and i was like christ is saying
the same thing then i went to barnes
noble and i kid you not on the second
floor of the barnes noble i walk over to
a section that i didn't know existed
called self-help and think and grow rich
was sitting on the floor and i just
happened to pick it up read the back of
the book bought the book so my journey
began right
and
yeah it was a gradual progression it was
picking up these individual distinctions
it was it was realizing that we're
always in sympathetic or parasympathetic
it was realizing that that my emotional
responses were being dictated by my
thoughts not by the actual experiences
uh it was starting to to to to become
more self-aware through the work that we
did i mean carol and i went to india
three times did really deep intensive
work there what what does that mean when
you go to india we're in an ashram yeah
we were at an ashrae more like a
university it was like a five-star
ashram and and so are we taking classes
yeah taking classes doing breath work
meditation
um some of the breath work we did there
was really really really deep
and it allows you to
tr
like get into the parasympathetic like
what are the
being wholly unfamiliar with this kind
of training um oh you've never done
breath work i have but like through
sam harris or so listen
this is i'm because i'm i'm aware of
when i get into tom's uncomfortable
world at this point now so like my
my you know i don't know what i can give
you my theory about what happens with
the breath work that we did yep but you
know i experienced what it was like to
be a turtle i had a conversation with
krishna are we talking like true true
like dmt induced kind of things yes but
just breath
right i'm assuming this is in meditation
yeah how long breath takes a breath okay
uh is the breath work different because
i know you've done a lot of meditation
is there um a different experience to
breath work versus meditation is it
actually like a where you're getting
hypoxic or something yeah it's a very
active breath work right that do you
know wim hof's method i've done wim hof
smith is it something intense like that
we are yes but for an extended period of
time okay and at that point
what i think happens is we begin to
detach from the mind
and
then these other
experiences show up right i mean i had
never really contemplated what it was
like to be my mom's you know tortoise
but for whatever reason that's what i
experienced right and as you begin to
experience these things you know
experiences change the brain
right in fact the only way you change
the brain is through experience right
like moment by moment by moment we're
recording right what's going on and
we're built we're either reiterating the
neural networks that are there we're
building new neural networks or pruning
out old ones and so these are
experiences so you know to what extent
there's value to experiencing being a
turtle i don't know but i've had the
experience
so it's in here now um and so you know
and a lot of people use plant medicine
for that right exploring different
experiences or dmt
um so yeah we've been on a we've been on
a a journey of personal exploration
and the one thing that that we started
to see
consistently as we were working with
people around their beliefs
which we believe
create the quality of their life moving
forward in every area like i can sit
with someone
and
hear what they believe and tell them
what their life looks like i could get
real creepy and follow someone around
for three days without them knowing i
could sit down and pretty much tell them
what they believe right your beliefs
dictate your destiny and that's not some
you know
quotable right it's it's the fact that
it's at the core of behavioral
psychology right your beliefs dictate
your thoughts dictate your emotions
dictate your actions to take your
results which reinforce your beliefs
and what we consistently saw was that as
we first started giving people
permission
to change their beliefs by realizing
their decisions
right the beliefs are just decisions and
that you could just decide something
different and the whole machine would
start recalibrating around it and
reorienting around it if you were
willing to give yourself permission to
make a new decision about
life or money or relationships or
whatever it is
but then after that we consistently
started seeing that the quality of the
of the belief was that as we actually
worked with people they would say oh
it's actually not true
oh i see that it's not true for me it
doesn't need to be not true for me but
as we worked with them with our
methodology they would go wow
it was it's not even true
and it was never true back then
my dad was just well-meaning and wanted
to help me build a better mission san
juan capistrano he didn't tell me i
didn't know how to do it right
right
and so as we saw that then we started
finding even faster ways right now you
got to be open to it you got to be open
to the idea that anytime you're moving
into a primal state it's only being
caused by your thinking and the quality
of the thinking is that it's not true
even though in the moment it's really
true for you
how to bounce back from failure this is
one of my favorite topics
on the planet because this is really how
you're going to separate yourself from
everybody else the people that can
leverage that failure to
learn from that
to improve their skill set and go on to
be successful are the ones that
ultimately build the life that they want
to lead the ones that are emotionally
devastated by failure are the ones that
end up in a death loop and they never go
anywhere so without further ado let us
dive into your questions number one
i feel like i've always been able to
bounce back pretty easily from setbacks
and even pretty big failures then in
september within a short span i lost
almost everything the women i planned on
marrying left me for what seemed to be
no reason at all the company i had
worked for all year for 11 plus hours a
day doing sales found a loophole in my
contract and didn't pay me for the work
i had done all year leaving me broke and
nearly homeless several close friends
showed their true colors and betrayed me
and i had sacrificed my faith in the
pursuit of these goals i sat there after
the hardest year of my life completely
empty-handed feeling broken i had never
been depressed before but i felt it very
keenly then i held on to the thought
that i would get through it i always do
as i look back months later the
depression is basically gone but i feel
a profound sense of negativity i have a
feeling of
deep set failure that i'm trying to
overcome almost like the childlike
enthusiasm was lost and now i'm a grumpy
old man at the age of 23. people talk
about overcoming failure in the short
term could you please talk about
overcoming it in the long term and going
from failure to failure without a loss
of enthusiasm okay
this is amazing
so
i want to talk about jocko willing's
idea of no matter what life throws at
you the reaction is good
i lost my job good my woman left me for
no reason good people took money from me
good
all of it good once you
flip that switch in your mind like even
now that gave me the chills just
thinking how powerful
the reaction to the world's most
negative news
to say
good yeah good
now you have to come up with a reason
why it's good
and
the reason that it's good is because you
know
that the only way to think about failure
quote unquote failure is like ai
artificial intelligence okay an ai
it's not
called failure it's called a sample okay
you try something so if you've ever seen
the video of ai learning to play the
video game breakthrough the old atari
game it is hilarious you see this paddle
squiggling around like crazy the
obviously the ai has no idea what it's
supposed to do so all it's programmed to
do is get a high score but it doesn't
know what gives it a score it doesn't
know am i supposed to move the paddle am
i supposed to hit the ball is the ball
supposed to you know break through the
blocks at the top and so it just like
does these random ass movements and then
finally it'll hit the ball and then
finally the ball breaks a brick and then
finally it finds the most efficient path
to break all of it now let me tell you
in my 20s i don't know about you but in
my 20s i was a mess in my early 20s i
was so
lost
frustrated
afraid
insecure
overwhelmed
paralyzed i mean it was
it was a dark period in my life
that's the nature of your 20s now in my
20s as old as this is going to make me
sound in my 20s the internet barely
existed so
we certainly didn't have youtube there
wasn't people putting out content that
would allow me to recontextualize my
world the fact that you already know the
quote that success is going from failure
to failure to failure without a loss of
enthusiasm you were so much farther
ahead than where i was
now i'm going to use an analogy
of love if i may
one of the things i find most
interesting about love is that
in love
you are opening yourself up to being far
more easily hurt
when you are in love it's a very
vulnerable state you have opened
yourself to somebody you've given
yourself over in a way to that person
and now you are far more easily hurt
they know your insecurities they
could weaponize them against you
and when heartbreak comes along
it's very tempting to turtle up
and to protect yourself
but then you're closed off from the
things that make love valuable in the
first place the very thing that makes
love worthwhile is being able to be open
like that to somebody to be vulnerable
to somebody and the thing that makes
love so extraordinary
is that even when you get hurt
the people that can open themselves up
again and approach somebody
without the baggage of previous
relationships are the ones that end up
finding
that
beautiful relationship that ends up
being worth the vulnerability and worth
the sacrifice and
speaking from experience ends up being
the single greatest thing in your life
now if you learned nothing from the
heartbreak
i understand why it's scary to go into
the next thing
but the idea here the very way that we
bounce back from failure is by
looking
exclusively
at what we can do differently
and when you look exclusively i'm not
saying other people didn't do something
that maybe it's
maybe any rational person would say it's
all their fault maybe the list of things
you gave us is literally you were just
the world's unluckiest human being
but the reason that we're going to say
good
the reason that we're going to look at
this like ai and samples the reason
we're going to remind ourselves that
success is going from failure to failure
to failure without a loss of enthusiasm
the reason that we're going to think of
that love analogy and be willing to open
ourselves back up
is because we're going to figure out
what we could have done differently
we're going to see what can i improve in
my skill set what did this catastrophe
reveal
about my strategy
and whenever a strategy
yields a result
different than the desired result then
you know the strategy is by definition
wrong
and i want you to own that doesn't mean
you're a bad person okay but it does
mean that your strategy wasn't working
go back to ai right it's wiggling around
it finally realizes oh i need to hit the
ball okay cool so now i'm going to track
the movement of the ball and i'm going
to adjust my paddle to be there okay
cool i got it oh i actually see that
hitting it on the sides is far more
advantageous than hitting it in the
middle because once i clear a path on
the side then the ball can bounce around
on the top and destroy bricks far faster
than any other strategy
okay amazing but you had to first have
the reaction that that failure was good
good because it revealed
the flaw in my strategy
and because i'm playing the long-term
game
i'm going to open myself back up again
i'm going to allow myself to be
vulnerable again i'm going to
let the wound hurt as much as it needs
to for me to learn the lesson
no more not going to beat myself up over
it i'm not going to end up in a death
spiral of shame
but i am going to
recognize that i could do something
different the next time and get a
different result
that
to run the same strategy and expect the
result to change is as einstein said the
definition of insanity
so
that's what you have to do here you have
to recognize
that
this thing that you consider the worst
thing that ever happened to you with the
change of framing is actually the best
thing that ever happened to you and if
you change the question that you ask
about this
and say how did this help me
what did i learn from this or what could
i learn from this
and how can this improve my strategy
moving forward then all of a sudden the
frame of reference changes the emotion
the way you feel about it the dark
energy that's around it begins to change
because you're stoked right this is good
all right i'm going to learn something
from this and it's going to be xyz and
maybe you only get incrementally better
and you try again and maybe you fail
again and you get incrementally better
and all of a sudden if your life is
anything like mine your 20s were getting
kicked in the face over and over and
over be getting a little bit better at
blocking a little bit better at avoiding
and then finally in your 30s you begin
to find your footing and then you turn
into beast mode late 30s early 40s and
now
you feel like you can really
move the world
it's exactly what it feels like when you
understand how your own mind works how
the minds of others work and just sort
of the nature of the world
it's really incredible but the only way
to get there is to flounder around
to make horrendous mistakes and say good
all right next question
every time i face a challenge and feel
like it is no longer possible to
overcome it so like i already failed i
completely break down i cry about it and
then i'm stuck with a feeling of
disappointment in myself for at least a
week afterwards i slowly but surely
regain my resilience how can i shift the
limiting belief that failure is bad and
therefore avoid such an intense reaction
and how can i stop putting so much
pressure on myself to do everything
perfectly okay so what's wonderful here
is we're now dealing with the physics of
the human mind and my obsession is to
get people to understand
that you are having a biological
experience now why do i want you to
understand that you're having a
biological experience because i want you
to understand that the brain reacts a
certain way
and you can actually insert yourself
into that and
change your
approach
framing
the way that you react and in changing
those things you will change not only
the way you feel but the outcomes that
you're able to get and so i want to
introduce you to victor frankel and
cognitive behavioral therapy so viktor
frankl said between stimulus and
response is a gap
and
how we choose to react in that gap will
determine the rest of our lives now if
you don't know viktor frankl he wrote a
book called man's search for meaning
he wrote that book after getting
released from auschwitz okay this is a
guy that survived multiple concentration
camps and
he was a neuroscientist
and his ability to explain
what is happening inside the mind of a
human during something that catastrophic
is breathtaking and when you realize
that a guy that went through something
that just seems unimaginable for a human
being to
endure
says the way that you endure it
is to one find meaning in your suffering
so why am i going through all of this
what do i expect to see on the other
side of in your case
shortening the window okay this was a
big thing in my life
learning to emotionally soothe
whoever emotionally soothes themself the
fastest is gonna win because you don't
waste the week spiraling out of control
right so if for me it takes three
seconds to emotionally soothe and it
takes you a week you can imagine how
much more progress i'm gonna make in a
year than you're going to make
okay so
viktor frankl says we've got that gap
for you that gap may be very very small
and now what we're trying to do is widen
that gap now how are we going to widen
that gap we're going to widen that gap
with cognitive behavioral therapy
cognitive behavioral therapy is beyond
the scope of this
video to go into all the sort of details
about it but i will say one of the most
important things that's talked about in
cbt is pattern interrupting
so
you know that these patterns aren't
serving you you know that spending a
week derailed not feeling resilient is a
waste of your time so now when you feel
that
lack of resilience the emotional
distress you're going to interrupt that
pattern now i'll give you an example in
my own life so
for me i don't allow myself to feel
overwhelmed and as dumb as that sounds
it works
extraordinarily well so as i can feel
that you know that sense of like
like agitation like you can feel your
brain like speeding up and you can sort
of feel yourself like escalating and
moving towards panic
in that moment i say first of all i
bring my chin down
and i furrow my eyebrows and i say i
don't do
overwhelm
and by saying that phrase it interrupts
the pattern
and the reason i know that works goes
back to this idea of you're having a
biological experience and i know
that there is nothing either good or bad
it is thinking that makes it so right
shout out to mr shakespeare there's
nothing either good or bad but thinking
makes it so it isn't what's happening to
you it's what you think about what's
happening to you so i'm not overwhelmed
[ __ ] because i don't do
overwhelm and now all of a sudden by
reminding myself i don't do overwhelm
now i may take things off my plate i may
decide no matter what's going on right
now i'm going to sit and meditate i may
remind myself that breathing from my
diaphragm will
physiologically whether i want it to or
not
if i do it long enough it will move me
out of the sympathetic nervous system
fight or flight into the parasympathetic
nervous system rest and digest that is
physiological
and so i'm going to do those things now
that doesn't mean that i'm wired
differently than anybody or that i'm
doing anything you know particularly
special but it interrupts the pattern of
escalation that i've gotten into because
i'm thinking that this is bad i'm
thinking oh my god i've got all these
things going on i'm never going to be
able to handle them there's so much
pressure what the [ __ ] am i going to do
and in that moment what i do is remind
myself i don't do overwhelm so for you
it may be reminding yourself i don't
spiral out of control for a week i don't
allow that in myself
what i do is i meditate what i do is i
remember failure as part of the process
what i do is remind myself that like
artificial intelligence i need these
samples i need these moments of failure
this is exactly why i need an
anti-fragile personality my very
identity is tied up in learning okay
that's a huge thing
when you tie your ego to being the
learner now all of a sudden the pattern
interrupt becomes i'm the learner
i don't mind that i failed nothing to
spiral out of control about i'm going to
learn from this and i'm going to keep
going in fact i want to know what can i
learn from this what's the lesson here
and when you change your framing and you
look at that and you take advantage of
victor frankel's gap
and you fill that gap with i'm the
learner i'm going to get better from
this what can i learn
everything else is going to take care of
itself
all right
question three
hi tom i took the plunge and dove
straight into entrepreneurship after
completing my junior college at the age
of 18 without any job experience i'm 25
this year and none of my ventures have
taken off or succeeded i've started
looking for a job this year and was
rejected even for entry level positions
as a founder i did not acquire many hard
skills how to use specific software
program etc as i had to work on the
higher level strategy and management
while running my own startups i'm stuck
and unsure of how i can translate my
failed startup experience while i seek
out new employment opportunities i'm
terrified that i've wasted seven years
bumping into walls with no results to
show and it's too late to start from
scratch okay so first of all there are
many things that we're going to want to
do here
much of it is going to be reframing so i
don't know maybe you really didn't
develop skills and maybe you were
floundering for seven years and maybe
you really did waste that time
probably not true
but the most terrifying way for you to
approach this question is as if that is
true that you really did quote unquote
waste those years because that's never
how i would think about it but we
certainly found things that didn't work
right so thomas edison talks about i
didn't fail 10 000 times which
supposedly is how many filaments
he tried when trying to invent the light
bulb
he said i didn't fail 10 000 times i
simply found 10 000 ways that didn't
work and every attempt discarded is
another step forward okay so you just
spent seven years
putting
things to the side that you know aren't
going to work a bunch of attempts
discarded cool you're now seven years
ahead of everybody else now you may be
approaching the job market in the wrong
way you may be applying for jobs that
require hard skills but i'm telling you
look if
an entry-level position depending on
what you're trying to go into if it's an
entry-level position like i'm trying to
be an entry-level doctor with my you
know seven years of startup experience
this is never going to work or i'm
trying to be an entry-level coder that's
never going to work right there are
certain things that have really hard
skills and you're going to need those
hard skills go learn them right so
learning this stuff
takes time and energy but that's all it
takes
time and energy okay it's what i call
the only belief that matters if you put
time and energy into learning a skill
into getting better you will actually
get better at that skill okay i'm not
saying it's not hard but who the [ __ ]
cares like it drives me crazy that
people focus on it's hard yes it's hard
getting good at [ __ ] is hard
outperforming other people is hard but
if you want to win you've got to do hard
[ __ ] so you're going to have to lean
into this you're going to have to get
good so anyway the fact that people get
weird that learn to code has become like
some sort of weird
thing i don't understand if you want a
job at something that requires a set of
skills go get that set of skills that's
just that [ __ ] simple
so your seven years may have been a
total waste of time in the
acquisition of skills towards the job
that you want now
but unless you just spent the last seven
years staring at a wall
you have a treasure trove of learnings
that you'll be able to pull from so now
this is a question about how you're
approaching the job market not a
question about
whether you wasted those seven years
so we have to frame this in such a way
that we understand what the value of
those seven years was how we can
articulate that value to somebody as we
begin approaching the job market and
getting good at pitching yourself is a
skill
and it's not necessarily going to come
easy but i have a gut instinct that the
real problem that you have is just how
to interview for a job how to explain to
people what it is that you're good at
because
the hard knock life of an entrepreneur
is
man the amount that you're learning is
so crazy
leadership working with people um
how to create momentum
starting from scratch and getting your
first customer i mean it's really an
extraordinary skill set so find the
right thing to approach from a job
perspective um
practice articulating what that is walk
into the interview armed to the teeth
with how you can help their company do
way more work than anybody else applying
for that job and you will get a job this
is where you can learn on your
entrepreneurial skills harder than
you've ever done in your life to show
people the kind of value that you can
bring
so
the last thing i'm going to give you on
that is this idea of starting from
scratch i want you to use the brain in a
vat thought exercise i do this to myself
all the time every time i can feel i'm
about to get stuck in this loop of like
um
you know how have i learned the right
things am i pointed in the right
direction do we just spend a year
pursuing something that was stupid
i'm never going to get that year back
i remind myself it's entirely possible
in fact i actually am a brain in a vat
it just so happens that the vat is my
skull
and my brain is creating an artificial
reality
i'm not saying we live in a vr world but
i am saying your brain never light never
touches your brain sound never touches
your brain and yet
you have this sense of sound and sight
and touch and feel and all that stuff as
if it were outside of you when a reality
is being created in this virtual
environment your brain so what if i were
just a brain in a vat somewhere and all
of my memories are fake and that i
actually just came online seven seconds
ago
that thought experiment is so powerful
to me because it reminds me oh my
memories can work for me or against me
they're just the background that i need
to give me the context to move forward
so if this is really just about context
right which is all memories are
it's just context then while i can't
change
the memories i can change how i think
about the memories
and so i'm going to
recontextualize those seven years as
being my 10 000 hours of getting good at
something and now it's like cool they
weren't failures they were lessons and
now what i do with those lessons is up
to me i'm a television presenter and got
two offers to host those shows both
producers were impressed and gave me
offers on the same day both unknowing
that i applied elsewhere i picked one
and respectfully turned the other down
where i turned them down they moved on
with a new presenter i was told to come
sign a contract with the production team
the following day upon arrival they
postponed until they went silent on me i
have been extremely demoralized by this
i am now struggling to find work it's
depressing and frustrating all at the
same time how do i move on okay
this is like one of the key insights of
my life
you should only ever
do
and believe
that which moves you towards your goal
so
will
feeling badly about
making what may have been a legitimate
mistake maybe you handled that poorly
maybe you should have taken the other
job or maybe you should have waited to
tell the other people no until you'd
actually signed on the dotted line right
super powerful lessons you're probably
going to handle this differently in the
future
but will beating yourself up over it
holding on to it kicking yourself
thinking what a dumb you are is that
going to move you towards your goal if
it does then do it but my gut instinct
is it will only serve you as much as it
will give you the impetus that you need
to ask yourself what should i do
differently the next time
that is powerful spiraling out of
control because you made a mistake is
not powerful in fact you need to be
decisive in life you made a [ __ ]
decision it didn't work out such is life
it just goes like it goes so now we need
to find a way i am constantly asking
myself how can i get control in my hands
so that i'm not waiting on somebody else
right you could go right now start a
youtube channel you don't have to wait
for legacy media to give you the thumbs
up you have a phone get on your phone
record yourself if you can add value to
people then you can build an ecosystem
so two things we're gonna reframe right
it's a key part of bouncing back from
failure we're gonna reframe that failure
there's powerful lessons to be learned
looking forward we're only gonna do and
believe about ourselves that which moves
us towards our goal so we're not going
to sit there and think what an idiot we
are because it's only going to slow us
down
negative energy psychologically it's not
putting you in the best place okay and
then we're going to realize hey we can
keep applying cool go do it yeah yeah
like become the best interviewer ever
get more jobs keep going it's a numbers
game and we always have the other option
which is to build a following for
ourselves but we retain that control
we're always looking for what we could
do differently we're not putting the
power in somebody else's hands
word
next
i always thought the moment i would fail
i would trust the process i am in and
just keep going until i win but the
moment i failed everything crashed for
me i failed an important exam that would
get me into medical school and now i'm
doubting my chances of ever getting in
it's so easy to have faith in yourself
when you haven't felt how it's like to
fail and failing hard on the ground my
question is is the pain that comes with
failing worth it if your chances of
getting the victory only a few
percentage oh my god
pate
pate where do you find these this is so
good
okay so here is a concept
this is a really hard reality to face
when we are young
we can become
anything
but as we age
we become something specific
and there's a death in that
there's something that really bothers me
about that that
legitimately i have the chills right now
it that [ __ ] haunts me
and so i understand what you're saying
i get
go through the darkness with me here for
a minute i'm going to pull you back out
on the other side i promise
that does suck
and
i have a friend
who
failed to get into the college of his
choice which would have moved him to a
different city
and the thing that kept him from going i
mean it's a whole story it's too
heartbreaking for words stupid
and
he ended up not moving and because he
didn't move the course of his life in my
opinion changed forever
and i remember thinking
why didn't he
if that's what he really wanted
why didn't he try what alex banayan
calls the third door
you didn't get in the first door fair
enough right the just sort of knock
knock knock anybody there
you didn't get in the
window right or the second door
but there's always the third option
of
going so ham
whatever it takes by hooker crook
to get in like when you read alex's book
and the things that he did
to
get an interview with larry king
the warren buffett one is a great
example he wanted to ask a question at
the warren buffett every year holds the
um
the conference where shareholders get to
come and they get asked questions
he works so hard to figure out because
there's they do it in an arena there are
different microphones all over the arena
and he figured out that certain places
get called on more frequently than
others he got like five or six friends
that all had or maybe even bought shares
so that they could go do this and
each of them had the same question each
of them went to the like five or six
most likely microphones to get picked
and he went and one of them ended up
getting to ask the question
and that's the third door like doing
things
that nobody would believe that somebody
would do to think that hard about the
problem to understand it that deeply and
this is the thing about magic so i've
studied magic at the magic castle i'm
obsessed with magic now why am i
obsessed with magic for one reason
what makes magic work
is far more impressive than it being
true like harry potter style magic
it is that somebody has worked so hard
on something
thought so far in advance
on something
gone so far out of their way to plant
something
that when they pull it off
it's easier to believe that it's magic
than it is to believe that they went
through all of that rigmarole so for
instance i have
seen um
i think it was david blaine
have somebody pick a card
and then there's a it was basketball
players famous nba players and over off
on the side there's basketballs
and
he has them pick a card any card they
want and they pick the card
and then you know he does the things i'm
going to find your card and all that and
he's like you know is this your card no
it's not and then of course that's a
plant and in the end he says oh actually
i know where your card is
go grab one of those basketballs he
doesn't even tell them which basketball
to grab
just go grab one of those basketballs
they grab a basketball this [ __ ]
stabs the basketball with a knife pops
it right there and pulls out a card
now
it just seems impossible to think that
he went to a basketball manufacturer
and had them make basketballs with a
card in it that he could get you to
choose it's called a force in magic
where you lead somebody to pick a given
card
you force them to pick the card you want
them to pick you put that and he may
have picked two or three different cards
and maybe he had them in different
places
in the gym
and depending on which card they picked
he'd send them to whichever grouping of
basketballs he wanted them to pick and
he knows okay you know that's the ace of
spades that's the king of hearts like
queen of hearts things that are like
most likely for people to pick and then
when you cut it you just you can't
imagine your brain doesn't even go to
that
place but that's
what you have to do when you've had a
tremendous failure to recognize that
you've got to get so hardcore
that people would sooner believe that
it's magic than that you just work that
hard
but that if you do that
you really can achieve whatever you want
in life so
this thing has kicked you in the teeth
it's made you believe that maybe the
thing that you wanted just isn't
possible and
because of that
when you failed it feels like your whole
world view has crumbled
but in reality
there are many things that you could
point yourself at that you could learn
to love as much or more than that other
thing and i say learn to love on purpose
everything is a process love passion
skills all of it is a process but also
there's still that opportunity to get
into the third door so you didn't get in
the obvious way
but there is a way
and if you believe
that medical school is the right answer
for you now we need to find out what's
that path
so i did this with film school i didn't
get into film school the first time that
i tried and all the teachers or sorry
the counselors when you go see them usc
film school you are more likely to get
into harvard law statistically it's not
about intelligence just the number of
people that apply versus what gets
accepted you're statistically more
likely to get into harvard law than you
are to get into usc film school and so
every counselor was like hey you're not
going to get in and this is one of the
they didn't say words like that they
said the exact word you are not going to
get in stop taking classes like you're
going to get in just the odds are so
stacked against you there's no way and i
just thought
i'm going to get in
because everything in my life is pointed
at that and so i found out who was on
the admissions committee and i found out
that he offered you could join him for
lunch because he was also a teacher you
could join him for lunch if you were a
student in his class so i took his class
and i went to his lunch and i was the
only person there which i still to this
day cannot believe that more people
didn't take him up on it and i joined
him for lunch and i said look i have one
question i didn't my s.a.t scores were
really low i got a 990 they wanted a
1300 scores are all different now but
you get the gap was [ __ ] huge
and
i said what do i need to do with sat
scores this low
and he said oh sat scores just tell us
how well you're supposed to do in
college you've already missed the window
to get in as a freshman you have another
opportunity as a incoming junior just
get really good grades if your grades
are higher enough then you can get into
film school when i say that i
nothing else in my life existed for two
years i didn't drink i didn't go to
parties i didn't even date i didn't do
anything but study because i knew that i
needed to get good grades and i ended up
getting like a 395 or some crazy [ __ ]
and so when i reapplied i got in just
like he said i would okay that's the
third door finding out who's the
gatekeeper what do they actually want
there are other ways to get into medical
medical school let me tell you now it's
just a question of do you want it bad
enough to work so hard that when you
pull it off people would rather believe
it was magic than just really hard work
because if you do and you do those
things then my friend you will get in
failure is only permanent if that's what
you choose to believe
reframe it recognize you have power
recognize you have control over what you
do and recognize that if you leave
people in awe and that my friends is
your job the only way to really have
mind-blowing success in life is to set
the bar ridiculously high
and then surpass
all expectations
and that's when it looks like magic and
that's when you'll get what you want
that simple don't buy into failure it's
just a lesson
all right
last
my question to you is how do i bounce
back when i find out that my mom doesn't
believe in me oh my god i can already
tell you how to answer this one i'm
emotional when it concerns my mom i can
deal with relatives or friends but i'm
struggling because it's my family who i
love very much and she is the center of
my universe it's a knockout punch and i
know and i don't know how to deal with
this and this has created a very toxic
environment in my home p.s i lost my
father almost a couple years ago and
it's just been me and my mom ever since
also moving out isn't an option because
she is completely dependent on me please
help oh my god my life was tailor-made
to answer your question okay so first of
all when i left for college my mother
quietly assumed i was going to fail now
she admittedly did not say you're going
to fail but she assumed i was going to
fail my father-in-law once i'd already
graduated but i wanted his blessing to
marry his daughter he said no because he
didn't believe that i was going to
become anything now somebody telling you
that they don't want you to marry their
daughter because they don't know that
you're going to be able to take care of
them that is a pretty direct way of
saying hey kid i don't believe in you
i've often said
the greatest gift
anyone can ever give you
is doubt
it isn't belief
your mom is working for you your mom is
giving you the best thing that she can
give you
here's the thing
the reason you i have the chills the
reason that you need her to believe in
you is because you don't believe in
yourself the reason you don't believe in
yourself is because you actually
aren't
good enough
yet
now
your obsession
your mission
should you choose to accept it
is to become good enough
to get so good that nobody can stop you
you can't be denied that booze can't
block your dunks
let that be
the driving force
when in your darkest moments
you have that reminder that there are
people who don't believe that you can
pull this off
80 of your time should be spent in the
light the beautiful things you want to
do your self-belief focusing on you're
improving over time
spend the vast majority of your time
there
but there are going to be times dark
moments are coming for you and
ironically when you feel broken when you
feel like you couldn't possibly go
another step
it's
proving
them wrong not letting them be right
which is dark energy man it's the dark
side right but the dark side is powerful
that's why it's so seductive we're not
going to spend a lot of time there
but we're going to recognize its power
and you can love your mom and still want
to show her and maybe one way you can
think about if you want to put this into
the beautiful side that
that's your mom who doesn't believe in
herself which is why she can't believe
in you she can't see it for herself so
she can't see it for you
and so
showing her
just how much is possible by just day
after day focusing on getting better
it's okay to not be good enough yet
you're the average human right don't
believe that you're special i don't
believe i'm special i think i'm
hopelessly average now when people look
at me as an after picture they think i'm
being falsely humble but they didn't see
me in my 20s i was a mess
the reason my mom quietly assumed i was
going to fail is because i was on a
trajectory to fail the reason my best
friend assumed i was going to
marshmallow my way through life that's a
quote is because i was marshmallowing my
way through life the reason my
father-in-law didn't think i was going
to succeed is because i didn't have the
drive to see my ambition through these
people had not misidentified me i just
wasn't good enough yet
and so
i took that on and said cool
i love my father-in-law he's an amazing
human being he was always very kind to
me he was very transparent that he
didn't think i was on the right path
my mom
my friends
my father-in-law
they were right
but i could change i could get better
and so i just became obsessed with
getting better so we don't need to
convince mom we don't need mom to cheer
us on
we know it is a fact of the human
existence that if you put time and
energy into getting better you will get
better
now
it is true you cannot make a racehorse
out of a pig
but you can make a really fast pig
so maybe this thing that you're pursuing
you're never going to be the greatest in
the world at
but even
ten-folding your life would make your
life unrecognizable
and
i will say that somebody who shows up
every day for years and years and years
and years and years sincerely pursuing
improvement
won't 10x our life you'll 100x your life
by improving your skills it's that
simple you're just going to be improving
your skills and suddenly you turn that
lack of belief you turn that failure
into being a guiding light for other
people right when i said i wanted to
become an entrepreneur my family thought
it was crazy they thought i was risking
everything what was i doing
and there were times i wondered about
that had i just made my life my wife's
life miserable right that her father was
right and i really was gonna make my
wife's life hard and i did quite frankly
for years
being married to me in the beginning
meant poverty it meant clipping coupons
it meant
having to track a 2.99 rental of a movie
back when that was the thing
and
in my dark moments
i worried that they were right
but in my dark moments
i just focused on i'm not going to let
them be right
and i only need one belief
and that is that if i put consistent
time and energy into improving my skill
set if i'm honest with myself about
where i am
what i need to do to improve i actually
will improve
and so i started saying the following
phrase to myself
don't
judge yourself through the lens of a
moment
judge yourself through the lens of a
lifetime
and maybe a more practical way to think
about it is
look at your life in three to ten year
tranches
in any one day you still feel like a
loser right
but when you look back over three years
and you think hmm
i'm a lot better than i was three years
ago when you think about who you were 10
years ago like if your one of the
earlier questions was asked by somebody
who's 23 10 years ago they were 13.
were they capable at 13 of what they are
now not by a long shot i mean the the
radical nature of the change would be
staggering
from 13 to 23. when i think about who i
was at
34 right i'm 44 now if i think about who
i was at 34 oh my god like the amount
that i'm able to do now that i couldn't
do then is truly staggering
and even looking back three years ago
it's staggering
so
recognizing
that
you don't need people to believe in you
you need only believe in a simple fact
about the human
brain time and energy put into getting
better will yield improved skill set
skills have utility they allow you to do
things in the world whether your mom
believes in you or not whether anybody
believes in you or not if you get good
enough you will win it's that simple
the way when i was reading your book the
idea that seemed self-evident to me is
that
you can't opt out of playing the game so
life the human experience
and i suppose the only way to truly opt
out would be suicide so let's set that
aside um you can't opt out of it so
you're going to play and so now it's
just a question of if i'm right that the
human mind has a subconscious process
that's running that rewards you for
pursuing getting better at something and
punishes you for not having purpose not
pursuing anything
and you can't opt out of the game now
you're either going to feel good or bad
based on whether you pursue something
and
when i introduce people to you there's
sort of two camps there's people that
read you watch you listen to you listen
to you see the things that you've done
the people that you've helped
and they are transformed by it and it
gives them the chills the way that it
gives me the chills and then there's
other people that are like i focus on
the dark side it's dark energy like oh
this is crazy
and
honestly there's a an ache in my heart
for people that
that discount that that
have not sort of looked in the mirror
and embraced the reality of the human
experience as far as i can tell which is
you will be subconsciously rewarded for
going after this leveraging every tool
you have including the dark side which
seems just so obviously real even if
it's just taking a cold shower it's what
you said every tool you have
and most people will not use every
single tool they have
why is that
because they're afraid they don't know
how to control it they don't want to
acknowledge it they're afraid of being
judged they want to stand out
they want to be different
they want women to acknowledge them
but they have so much doubt
of what greatness
and the unforgiving race
actually requires
to win over and over again we all have
fear
we all have fear but these individuals
have so much doubt
we were before
we started this
you were talking about oh i was watching
um one of your past interviews i was on
tv and people you were like they were
like oh man you come out on you come
here and you're never nervous you've
been doing this for so long and you have
no fear and you're like no every time i
come out here i don't care how how many
shows have you done now over the years
hundreds hundreds
there's always a fear
to sit in here but you never have any
doubt
right
never have any doubt of what the outcome
is going to be those individuals that
won't tap into everything that they have
and there's a so the dark side is
just because of the way i phrase it they
think it's this evil and it's this bad
thing and it's not
it's not think about the times
where
everything was going wrong
nothing was going right
what kept you going
what kept you going when there was no
friends around there was no family you
were in that place
what
kept you going
all right that was your dark energy that
was your dark side
and
think about this
when does a new day start
at midnight
is it light or dark out
dark
so if you if a new day
starts in the dark
why
why are you afraid to have use your dark
side for your new beginnings
whoa whoa
it's not an evil thing it's an evil
thing if you don't recognize it
it's an evil thing if you allow it to
become destructive if it's an it's an
evil thing if you use it for excuses
but if you harness it
it takes you to places
that you
you couldn't even imagine
and every single winner in all folks in
all forms of life
they may not talk about it but they've
all tapped into that energy
the light energy the dark energy
the subconscious energy the conscious
energy they use
all they use everything
they use everything
and in order to have winning winning
requires you to do
and use
everything because
you don't know one day if when
not even a day
you don't know from minute to minute
if winning is going to wear a halo
or it's going to meet you with things
and if you can't deal with the halo you
definitely can't deal with the fangs you
can't deal with the fangs you can't deal
with the halo
and they may require different energy
they may require different energy
yeah the um
the thing that i'm obsessed with is
getting people to understand that
nature
has given you tools i won't say whether
they're good or bad tools but rage is a
tool
anger exists for a reason aggression
exists for a reason and
there it feels different and so i
understand how the word sort of light
energy dark energy come to be
um star wars has always been such a cool
take on sure that where there's there's
a seduction to the dark side and there's
there are moments of time where that's
going to be the thing that you need in
that moment to get you through
i try to spend 80 of my time in the
light and think of the beautiful things
that i'm trying to create in the world
and that keeps me going until it doesn't
and then when it's dark and i'm scared
and i'm broken and just exhausted
in those moments
it's thinking about the people that
actively want me to fail it's shifting
over into an aggressive energy it's
shifting over into rage and if you think
about how you would react if somebody
attacked the ones you love it wouldn't
be with diplomacy it would be with
ferocity yes and to me it's like
acknowledging that millions of years of
evolution have led to the moment where
in a moment of crisis
what presents itself to you is
aggression is dominance is rage is
attack
and
if in those moments people view that as
a thing to not be touched a tool not to
be used
uh that to me is a mistake
it's a huge mistake people say you gotta
attack your goals
all right
but you gotta
you gotta control your feelings
they label us with all these different
things
that
when it's to get what we want
it's always got to be in a positive
light a positive light a positive light
but when you have individuals like you
said that trying to attack you
that attack you personally
that attack your
work ethic
that attack your success
that are trying to take away
everything that you've worked so hard to
get to get
are you only going to use the light or
are you going to use your aggression are
you going to use your controlled rage
are you going to use those things to
protect you
and if you haven't
acknowledged your dark side and you
haven't tapped into it and
realize what it is and acknowledge it
just like winning has no loyalty and
winning doesn't know your name
it's gonna say hey
i don't know who you are
to me anger is what
is a reaction to what somebody else said
to you
it creates an emotion
all right
the dark side turns your anger
into controlled rage now you're in
control
you're in control
now
how long can you stay in control
that's the difference are you going to
burn out right away all of a sudden you
just let out all this rage or do you
know how to control it and place it in
the right places
not only to win the battle
but to win that war
and we literally have a war going on
every
single moment
it may not be out in here but there's a
war that goes on in here
all the time with ourselves
all the time
and you can't win that war with only
light you can't
and i agree so
ferociously that it's one of those
things whenever i talk about it people
get super weird there is a
high level of discomfort that people
have around that idea
um but i think that it's so powerful
that failing to use it is is sort of an
acknowledgement of of sort of lowering
what is possible yes yes and the people
that get uncomfortable
usually have the darkest sides they just
don't they just they've never had
they feel like they're getting caught
they're like they're trying to hide it
they're like and all of a sudden they're
like whoa
somebody just he's just talking it
i didn't know anybody else was like this
there's a lot of people out there like
this and we only people only get
acknowledged
for it for all the destructive behavior
that happens they don't really get
acknowledged for all the all the good
that that's that happens with it and the
people that have the ability to tap into
that and get to
not only
help themselves but help everybody
around you so to me it's really a
question of meaning and purpose when i
think about so lisa and i obviously
paused for a very brief second and said
okay we've now had the kind of financial
success we said we'd never work again
um
on something that we didn't love if we
hit this sort of dollar amount
and
luckily before that i had realized that
this is really just a game of
neurochemistry it really it like life
full stop is just how you feel about
yourself and your life when you're by
yourself
and so i knew i needed to engage in
something that mattered and this is why
talking to you is always so powerful to
me
is
you've got this setup where meaning and
purpose matters
without it there will be
not not just uh something missing in
your life it will be a sucking wound of
a void like
you with everything you have you must
address it and if you look at the opioid
opioid epidemic um pandemic
basically that is what happens when
people have no meaning no purpose in
their life they fill it with something
neural cocktail right so
um i knew that i needed to re-engage but
when i think about
engaging in a way that gives me the
neurochemical cocktail that i want it
really is going really really hard for
something
and i can acknowledge that that does not
seem completely universal some people
don't have sort of the the level that i
have to take it to and like i'm obsessed
but it is if people look at me and
they're sad right at how hard i work and
how much i've given up for what i love
i will flip that and say the reason they
think that is because they don't know
what it feels like to pursue something
that hard and even though i know winning
doesn't know my name doesn't care about
me there's no loyalty
the pursuit
of real glory like just the pursuit of
it is in and of itself unintoxicant and
is
thoroughly joyful most people don't want
to even get in the race
because what you just explained to them
they're afraid of it
they're afraid of success they're afraid
of how good that's going to feel because
it's something unique to them it's
something different it's something they
want
it's something they want to pursue
but in order to get in this unforgiving
race
you're going to have to leave a lot of
things behind
you have to leave a lot of you have to
leave a lot of people behind you're
going to have to leave a lot of feelings
behind you're going to leave a lot of
emotions behind
right so
the best way to describe those
individuals
is
and this is why
you have a hard time i won't say
relating to them but just um
understanding their thinking
because we relate to people in different
ways all the time is those individuals
their feelings
are stronger than their mind
and
you're
and for us
our minds are stronger than our feelings
so
you think about the success that you had
previously
right
your feelings could have said
you don't need to get out of bed anymore
you literally if you chose every single
day
you're like
your feelings could have said
why do you have to work more
stay in bed
all right
your mind got you out of bed every
single day because your mind was
stronger than your feelings because you
knew
what your real purpose was where your
real win was even though you won
previously
that may have not been
your
actual
pursuit of the win that you wanted you
you won that one and you're like what's
next there's always a next see your mind
was stronger than your feelings your
mind
allowed you to make that decision
feelings
make people overthink
over
should i do this should i not get in the
race
it's going to be too hard so they
already talked themselves out there to
talk themselves out of it
most individuals your mind
will make a decision
say we're going to we're going to do
this
your feelings always make suggestions
you always they're always giving a
suggestion they're always kind of
analyzing things they're trying to see
is try to see
what what's happening what what's going
to go on
all right
when you fail
your feelings
give you excuses
your mind makes you more resilient
you've given up a lot personally to play
this game to strive for winning you told
a story in the book that i hadn't heard
before which
really
hit me
which is uh you were packing to go yes
and your daughter walked in
tell us that story this is this is tim
grover in a nutshell to me the
unflinching here's the truth of it don't
have to play if you don't want to but
here's what it costs if you want to play
and
yeah
so
my
work
when i was working with my professional
athletes it required me to do a lot of
traveling a lot of leaving at short
notice
and this story gets me every time
so when people say
it didn't hurt
it still hurts
i was packing for a trip
my daughter walks into the room
she says daddy
why do you travel so much
i said sweetheart this is i provide for
the family this is how i take care of
you and mom
this is how i put food on the table
she looks at me
says daddy if i eat less
will you stay home more
now people would think
[Music]
in a fairy tale
or most people were that i unpacked my
suitcase
i'm not going to take this trip
let's go grab some ice cream or let's go
out
i kept packing
why
i had to set an example for her early
of what it meant to win
and what you have to leave behind
sometimes
in order to pursue
what's unique to you
and
i wanted her to understand
that
this is who i am
i can't be anybody else
i always want you to see the real dad
the real person
and i want to set an example for you
and
i was fortunate enough that
those sacrifices
that i did make early
i had a conversation with her later on
to tell her why i did all those things
in the middle of the conversation she
stopped me
she goes i get it
i understand
she saw the results
she saw how it brought us closer
together
she understood
my dedication
to my craft
and what it took to excel
and what it took
to be different
and what it took to stand by unpopular
decisions of others
knowing that
every successful person that i've met
every successful person that i know
had to make those decisions
over and over again
that affect
other individuals that are so close and
so dear to them
all i'm trying to do is remind you that
you are never
ever ever
ever a victim unless you choose to be
everything in your life will change
you're always in control even if that's
a lie and i don't care if it is because
the second i give away my power to
somebody else i'm no longer in control
and i refuse to do that