Kind: captions
Language: en
a lot of the times my biggest competitor
is my mind it's our biggest competitor
is really ourselves
cynicism is always going to try to get
you
and it's your job to navigate around
that cynicism how because they're like
nipping dogs at your feet
they're not important
there's another gear that kicks in where
when you push yourself beyond what you
think is capable you suddenly realize
how capable you are and you're able to
just keep pushing and cranking and
something magic happens it's like almost
like in your brain something happens
that just takes you to another level of
what you thought was even possible for
you sometimes it's not even about what
choice we make just make a choice and
commit to it and go and dive in because
we can look up and days weeks months
years can go by and you can go
i've been tiptoeing around here not
committing to anything for so damn long
i'm missing
[Music]
out i started swimming at the age of
three um it was kind of just a
convenient babysitter putting me into
sports you know while my parents both
worked and worked long hours so then
after school program going swimming or
gymnastics or basketball or whatever
sport it was in the season
really became um
it was it was my
babysitter but then it became my way of
life and my great passion for so many
reasons
and uh
you know it's to me it's like
being a part of sports is like the air
you breathe or the water you drink it's
i couldn't live without it it informed
who i am in so many ways and i love that
you started the conversation with this
because
i feel like sports gives you
a type of work ethic that you carry into
your life and especially for young girls
because we're so objectified and
trivialized that you realize when you're
working in team sports what your body is
actually made for and um
and you have to train your body and you
have to work your body hard and you have
to mind over matter and get into that
part later but also as young girls
working together for a common goal and
supporting one another in their
strengths and picking each other up
you learn how to support other women
and so
there are so many things um you learn
how to persevere um through all types of
adversity through
pain and through what losses you know
i've never seen a loss is
a negative because it's such an
opportunity to grow
and i know this is a very long-winded
answer to your question
but
without sports as a young person
without
the ability to learn myself again
physically and mentally i don't i would
definitely be a different person than i
am today
yeah that that i completely understand
when you approach the body
to get to the mind to me that's when
like really interesting things happen
i've always told people there's two ways
to get to the mind the mind to me is
ultimately the game that we're playing
you can go directly to the mind which i
would say works for
very very few people
another way to get to the mind is
through the body so whether that's
learning that you can get stronger
learning that you can get faster that
you can improve your skill set it
becomes much easier to believe that
change is possible
which gives you the energy that you need
to push when something gets difficult
it's like oh i've seen this with the
body and now if i can believe that the
mind works in the same way
then i can tackle a pursuit like you've
done with acting which i i have to
imagine people would rank as one of the
sort of most
impossible to
to get into it just seems so
insurmountable the odds of coming from
you know a trailer park in bellingham
washington to having a star on the
hollywood walk of fame i mean it's like
it's the classic story
what i'd love to know is when does your
mom begin whispering in your ear this
notion that you can become what you want
it's just going to be really hard is
that as soon as you started swimming
was it later like when does that become
a thing
it was as early as i can remember um
i think my mom
first of all i know the best gift you
can give a child is to tell them they
can do anything they want as long as
they work hard enough
it gives you that gift of believing in
yourself
um
and
i
i don't even remember at what age she
told me i it was just kind of a common
mantra
um
and
it was really
cant was the bad four-letter word in our
house
uh
and i love that and it was also i
remember my gymnastics coach we had a
big sign on our wall um in big block
level uh letters up on the wall that
said
can't means
won't and won't means push-ups
and so kind of from all
all areas from my home life to my sport
life it was
the common mantra and i just tried to
carry that into my
i do carry it into my life all the time
now and instead of saying i can't
i try and find a way to persevere um and
and a lot of the times my biggest
competitor is my mind it's our biggest
competitor is really ourselves
and um
i'm i'm competitive because i'm a leo
and i i like a challenge um but really i
think overcoming that obstacle of your
mind is the number one thing
to tackle in in in pursuing your dreams
and your goals
one thing i'm very curious i actually
don't know how you're gonna answer this
so i've i've heard that you're very
competitive um and not just with
yourself with other people what do you
think about that do you think it's
important or maybe useful to be
competitive with others as well or do
you think no no you should keep it
entirely aimed at yourself
well one thing i'd like to say
is that
i think for a long time people use the
word competitive as a negative
especially when it was
um
you know uh towards a a female
um it was if men were competitive it was
deemed a good attribute and
characteristic and for women it was kind
of a negative
and i was told my whole life well you're
really competitive and i took it
poorly because clearly it was i think
meant as that until i started realizing
what a great
thing it means that i'm always trying to
improve myself
and
even if that's not what the person meant
i feel like when i look back for
instance
when i was swimming or that one kid in
school or two kids or three kids or ten
kids um that were better at something
than you
it's so important to try and work
towards pushing yourself it gave you
something to work towards and so i was
constantly observing what they were
doing
that made them able to be faster or
um whatever it was that that what that i
was trying to achieve
and that is so important
to um to see it um to respect it and to
work towards it um i always go to that
when i was training for million dollar
baby i was thinking of that
the runner who finally broke the four
minute mile and
i remember
thinking that after he was able to do
that how many people did it just shortly
after it's because they saw someone do
something that was deemed no longer
impossible and they said i can do it and
so that is super important to be
competitive with other people because
they're the ones that pushed us out of
our comfort zone that we didn't even
know we were living in
hillary i agree with that so
aggressively and yet it i i have said
things like that in the past and it gets
a pretty controversial response like
people
um they don't like the idea of competing
with other people but
like you i feel exactly the same that
i'm not wishing them bad i don't think
less of myself if i can't win i want to
play against the best of the best and
see like how good this can be and fall
in love with the process of like pushing
myself and like just how far can i take
this and to me that exhilaration of
allowing yourself to be competitive to
really try to win um in an honorable way
in in an exciting way in in in a way
that fills arenas with people that want
to see that level of like human
performance
that to me is like the juice of how far
you can push the human animal
exactly and if you think about it from
that aspect it's about respect it's
about respecting the person that is
doing something that you want to achieve
that's beautiful and that's what makes
the world better
because if we all stayed in that comfort
zone and said oh let's not compete with
each other to be better at whatever it
is
then no one would ever grow and no one
would
find vaccines to help save lives or go
to missions to mars or
whatever it may be
and that to me is the most inspiring
about human beings or the people who are
constantly breaking through the status
quo
they blow all of our minds like you said
they fill arenas and i think the
negative naysayers are really probably
just a little bit jealous and they're
not going to like to hear that hey guys
hope you enjoyed the episode brought to
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alright enjoy the episode
[Music]
i believe that because of
my family's commitment to
the purity of the arts we we always
we just didn't ever want to be caught
not being professional and not being
good at what we were doing ever that was
more of a shame
to our group
as a family unit than it was anything
else even in fooling around improvising
at home or creating humorous skits or
skits and you know you
you you either own that idea or you
don't and uh we just had to that was our
survival mechanism was to be as good as
we could at what we were doing you know
or don't do it there's a side to you
though that it's going to be hard to put
into words what i'm going to try and
then i will get to a question at the end
of this bear with me sure great so
seeing you on oprah
i've seen enough oprah to
get a sense of like where she is with
you and she was so effusive with how
much she loved you and just felt like
there was something special and she had
a connection to you
countless actors have said very similar
things that that you
lift the setup that that you have this
playfulness the spirit about you um
dude 40-plus years in the industry
i'd literally expect you to be cynical
and so the fact that you
aren't
i don't buy is accidental so i'm curious
like what you've done how you've stayed
you've had ups you've had downs in your
life outside of this you've had loss
like heartbreaking loss
and yet literally sitting across from
you where i'd like to think you couldn't
fake me out
i can feel the like
you actually love what you do and and i
i mean that in a big way you the way you
were you were kind when you were
changing the lighting you were [ __ ]
up like holding signs and saying like is
this working it's not like you were just
telling other people to do it like
there's a
you're you're involved in your own life
i don't i don't know there's a joy
there's a joy of
creating and that's free
whether you write or play music or act
that's free the joy and you can splurge
on that joy
uh everybody can you just have to give
yourself permission it's like wizard of
oz you know you click your heels you
always can go home when you can always
create something you know if we were if
it was just the two of us and you know
we finished talking and i said you know
let's draw some pictures man or let's
you know let's make a little movie or
you know we could find something to do
that might heighten the
awareness of being alive
cynicism is always going to try to get
you
and it's your job to navigate around
that cynicism how because they're like
nipping dogs at your feet
they're not important
cynicism is value-less
in my book i have no time for it
i will be patient with it to a degree
and then i have no patience for it
and i would love for you to have
actually witnessed
me on phones trying to make something
happen and eliminate all the naysayers
on the phone let's say seven
well you know this from being in
business seven people are on the on the
phone and three of them are lawyers and
two of them are managers and three of
them agents and i can like radar who are
the people that are not for this
and i detected
whatever the person's name is could you
please remove yourself from this phone
conversation because if you stay on
we're not going to make this deal
you get down to the people that want the
show to go on the road you got a deal
you have to get rid of the people who
don't want to play the same game as you
do
dude go go harder on that so one of the
number one questions i get asked is okay
so in in sort of myspace whatever that
is you hear a lot that you're the
average of the five people you spend the
most time with okay so you say that
enough which i actually really believe i
also think it extends to ideas
but you get people saying okay but
there's people in my life they're not
lucky enough that it's an attorney or a
manager or somebody it's their mom it's
their cousin it's whatever their boss
their manager and they have that person
in their life and they can't just get
rid of them do you have methods for
dealing with yes you handle them and you
have to go if you
love
brother sister mother father friend
a business associate
whatever degree you are committed to
them and you don't want to
do that they're different than just a
professional
person that's uh assumed a
a beingness in your
group
that it's easy to
eliminate if they're not wanting you to
survive but if you have people that you
deeply love and you can't feel
comfortable about that you find a way
and it's artful you have to find a way
of handling each of them so everybody
goes away
feeling happy and not antagonized about
your dis pleasure with them
so you know i could make up examples but
you know if you have someone who you
know let's say
i'm creating this idea but
some parent that doesn't want their kid
to play violin
okay and they're antagonistic you know
you've got to be an accountant you've
got to be an accountant
you go okay
dad
i love you
but
if i become an accountant i'm becoming
what you want me to be
and i have a good chance at having
a not so happy life let me ask you a
question do you know the difference
between someone who crushes big goals in
their life year in and year out and
someone who can't seem to get ahead
[Music]
what is up my friends tom bill you here
in my opinion there are seven strategies
that you must use in order to achieve
any goal the more of them that you can
take action on the greater the chance
that you'll achieve your goal i say that
the difference between someone who is an
overachiever and someone who fails to
hit their goals is that the overachiever
does everything they can possibly do to
be successful i said a second ago that
there are seven strategies you must use
to hit any goal i'll be teaching them
later this month on a live workshop
called how to make any goal stick great
news is it's a process it can be taught
and you can deploy it in your own life
you can register for this workshop by
going to this link i'll tell you though
right now quickly what they are first
extreme clarity and focus the average
person fails to achieve their goals not
because they didn't put an effort but
because they don't actually know what it
is they're trying to accomplish they're
not focused on exactly what they want
second massive excitement and motivation
there are two things that motivate us
pleasure and pain most people don't
properly leverage pain and negative
emotions which means that they're only
half as motivated as they could be or at
least only using half of the tools of
somebody else that finds their way to
success
third is desire
fourth is massive pressure and this goes
back to that idea of negative emotions
if you use it the right way fear of
failure can actually be a very useful
thing
fifth coming up with the right strategy
sixth avoiding the trap of overthinking
rather than taking fast aggressive
action and finally evaluating your
progress building grit and adjusting
your course that loop is critical in
fact that last part is what i call the
physics of progress if you fail to do
that you will never make progress all
right these are the seven steps that i'm
going to walk through in much greater
detail on my live workshop how to make
any goal stick so go to the link on your
screen or click the button below to
register alright my friend i will see
you soon take care and be legendary
peace
[Music]
even if i fail at being a violinist at
least i failed on my own terms
and i failed doing something i loved
so
you got to let up on my dad or brother
or sister or whatever that character is
that has a counter intention to you you
have to
get with them and get real and say look
it's my life it's not your life and this
is how i need to do it you see so
there's ways of handling you know i gave
the first example i gave you is a
high-end
example because you're trying to close a
deal
but there's many examples whether
someone wants to be a baseball player
but their parents want them to be a
football player it doesn't even matter
if it's the wrong sport
you see it's not your sport
you know and i've watched people do this
my whole life i've watched them
you know you're wow you got to be a
professional
football player for six months
why didn't that work out
because i never liked i wanted to be a
baseball parrot well what
what happened
they said well my dad
wanted me to become a football player
and i was really going on his wishes she
was going to go hmm
so if you had to redo history you'd say
would i have told dad at that time
look you know you
i'm just enjoying this more than that
can you let up on me so there's all
these interesting increments of
how you give yourself permission and
navigate around people that are counter
your intentions
you know and then sometimes it doesn't
matter sometimes you go i don't really
care which way i do this or that and you
acquiesce to just keeping peace
and and good good roads uh
good will
and and it doesn't matter so much other
times it matters a lot
because it's your personal destiny
speaking of people being contrary to
your wishes was anybody weird about you
dropping out of high school to pursue
acting uh only my dad for a minute and
then when he saw that i could make a
living at it he let it go like a hot
potato really all he cared about
was
that i could
survive in life and he wasn't sure
without a diploma that i could
and i was saying
in my mind i was saying i'm not a
scholar
so therefore i'm going to do luggage
handling at laguardia or i'm going to
become
what i do best act sing and dance
so dad let me get i'm 16 i'm chomping at
the bit let me out of the stable my
mother
she had no problem she said let him go
thank god he's got a target
what he wants to achieve he's already
got a manager an agent
let him go
you know and finally i made a deal with
him and i said well
again keeping the peace
i said what if i just took the year off
and and possibly even did homeschool so
i didn't miss any you know credit
he said yeah that lasted about a month
you know i sent him my assignment
you know and then i started to make
money and then he started to see how
well i could do
uh so he was more you know he's six kids
working class
he wanted to make sure i was gonna be
okay
so his was much more pragmatic mine was
much more no i want to put my bets on my
abilities
that you guys have left me so
beautifully have
and nurtured since i was born you know
you know my parents would sit there you
know in those days everybody smoke he
had a cigar my mother had a cigarette a
glass of wine and they would watch me
for three hours lip sync records and
improvise and imitate people and
whatever
and they would look he's something isn't
he boo you know he
look i can you believe how they made me
feel like i was god's gift to the arts
so it's like really dad
you you encouraged all this love of my
performing and now i want to do it he
just wanted me to be protected by a
diploma
i don't know how much that diploma was
going to protect me
you know when you're auditioning for
the terence malik film right you seem to
have done okay without it yeah i would
say
the jury's in
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[Music]
talk to me about the power of doing the
work of work ethic why does it matter
it doesn't you know it's interesting it
sometimes it happens without it but i
don't think it sustains without it um
and what i learned is
you know it's like even with um shazam
like i decided
two years prior that i wanted to be a
superhero i was like i want to be a
superhero i want that to happen
so i'm just going to start training for
it and so i started training i started
learning taekwondo i started learning um
capoeta and i just started training with
the trainer like five sometimes six days
a week for like two years straight
and
then it just happened you know and it
was interesting because i fully expected
it to happen but i think sometimes we
are more comfortable
hoping and praying than than when it
actually happens
um and so i just learned very early that
for the things that i'm wanting and
believing
i just have to do everything possible
that's within my power and there's some
things that aren't within my power and
that's where i trust god but what is it
within my power it's
whether it's getting the proper sleep
rather it's learning your lines whether
it's researching the character rather
it's watching movies for reference
rather it's picking a subject matter a
person to study or
working out or eating healthy or you
know whatever it is that you need that's
going to make you better at what you
want to do it's doing every single bit
of that that you can possibly do and
going above you know not just doing
just enough to get by but going above
and um and then after that it's like if
it's supposed to happen it will happen
and chances are if you do the work it
likely will happen talk to me about
going above this is an area for me that
i think is where all the juice happens
yeah people either
do enough as you say or they really go
above and beyond and the way that i
explain it to people is your job
whatever you're trying to be great at
your job is to leave other people in awe
and nothing else will do because that's
the nature of the human animal the only
thing that they're
going to remember is something that
really hits them and really leaves them
with that moment of like whoa
how has that served you and how do you
get to that level
um
mental toughness
as my my trainer mike t would say you
know when we we first started working
out for the first year he would always
say there's going to be a point in time
where that mental toughness kicks in and
i didn't know what he meant
and what it meant was when you've done
everything that you can do and you
really
have put in the work there's another
gear that kicks in where
when you push yourself beyond what you
think is capable
you suddenly realize how capable you are
and you're able to just keep pushing and
cranking and something magic happens
it's like almost like
in your brain something happens that
just takes you to another level of what
you thought was even possible for you
rather it's physically emotionally
spiritually whatever it is there's
another gear that we can tap into when
we push ourselves
more than we think we can
and i don't mean push yourself and make
yourself get hurt but i mean just like
you know pushing past um
pushing past everything pushing past
your fears pushing past what you think
you're capable of pushing past
what people say you can do
and i do think that is where the magic
happens and and i think that's when you
feel your strongest and you begin to
start to uncover
um
that there's more there than you even
realize
and that's just the start that's just
when you start to uncover it you know do
you know david goggins
no oh my god i think he would love him
to death so he when he was born he said
he believed that he was the weakest man
god ever created wow and he was abused
just the abuse was crazy
and he grew up as the um only
african-american in a neighborhood
entirely of white people and they were
like
uh like 20 miles or something from one
of the a major um chapters of the kkk so
he grows up they're spray-painting
horrific stuff on his car and his
binders everything and just realizes
nobody's coming to save me and he says
one day he just decided he was going to
become the toughest man alive and so he
ends up doing the most ridiculous
training ever he goes through his only
person to make it through four different
elite um special ops training so he does
delta force
he does seal training he does buds um
hell week three times gets through it
twice which is crazy they're air force
rangers and
just like transforms himself body and
mind and he said in all of that and
being pushed like that well past his
comfort zone like you're talking about
he clicks into that point where he
realizes exactly what you were saying
that you're capable of so much more than
you think yeah and so he said when
you're like broken you can't go another
step yeah so you're only 40 of the way
to your actual capacity right
like that always gave me the chills and
it's just that most people don't end up
ever
pushing themselves like that right so
how do you
get yourself psyched enough because to
tap into that zone that you're talking
about like your body your mind is
screaming yeah stop yeah go in the
opposite direction yeah so how do you
get yourself there well first of all
that just inspired me to go even further
to me it's just um
that there's got to be more you know and
i don't know how i necessarily tap into
it it's just i start to feel
that when my mind and my body is
screaming if i push just a little bit
further and then when i push further i
realize that i can push just a little
bit further and i just keep going as far
as i can and once i know that i can get
to this level the next opportunity i
have i start pushing past that next
level and um
i don't know i guess it's
i don't want things to be the same i
want to continue to go to the next level
i don't ever want to get comfortable and
say this is good this is enough i want
to be
satisfied and thankful with this is good
this is enough but i don't want to get
comfortable in the sense of like i know
that i can access more and i again i
want to access everything that there is
for me to get until there's nothing left
you know dude i love that so much like
that is the driving force in my life is
to be at the same time to be like i love
my life i'm way grateful but it's me
versus me
and i want to see like how much more can
i do so when people ask me like what's
the purpose of life for me the answer is
very simple how much of my potential can
i turn into actual skills like how much
of this can i ring out where i'm i'm now
able to do something today that i wasn't
able to do yesterday because i was very
disciplined and i came and i showed up
every day and i pushed myself and i got
to the point where i didn't think i
could give any more and i pushed a
little more and then the next time i
come back and i'm like hey yeah remember
where you were and you didn't think you
could do any more and now you did a bit
more and that like continual push
there's something about that i really
respond to people that have that hunger
and my question to all of them
is how do you stay hungry when you've
been as successful as you've been i mean
your your credits alone if all you do is
look at what you've done in the
entertainment industry which truly is
only a part of what you've done but even
if i just look at that it's already
insane you could rest and say well i've
done it i've had number one box office
hits i've acted with some of the biggest
names on the planet it's like you're a
part of franchises that are going to be
remembered
so it's like how do you stay hungry
i feel like i'm just starting
i don't know something about it i just
feel
i feel like i've been doing it forever
and i feel like i'm just getting started
and i don't know
why i feel that way i just
am excited about what's next and i don't
think but i do think there is truth to
like you know we often think well if i
just accomplished this just that and the
other then you know that'll be good and
then you get there and i think everybody
pretty much always realizes is that once
you get there you're like oh man okay
well if i just accomplished this this is
that then i'll feel you know and i think
that
um sometimes it's an endless cycle in a
negative way for some people
because they think once they accomplish
those things they'll be happy and then
sometimes it's a positive cycle for
people because it's just about
continuing to elevate
for me i don't know i just feel like
there's so much i want to do that i
haven't done yet
and there's so many
[Music]
so many different things to tap into
that i haven't even begun to scratch the
surface
[Music]
part of it
is don't
worry don't give a damn about the
awareness don't get objective don't hop
out of yourself and say how am i being
received early
the best work i've done and i am very
aware of that but then the best work
i've done in my career is when my head's
down in the process and it is completely
a subjective experience and i don't give
a damn what you think about it or what
anyone else thinks about it and i sure
as hell don't give a damn about the
result
because i'm in it and i'm so in it that
the last day of shooting
they yell at rap and i go okay i'll see
y'all tomorrow morning for the
tomorrow's work and they go no it it's
over like we finished film shooting rap
there is no tomorrow then i'm like
become objective for the first time so
in many ways and i think especially
today not just in enacting a career but
in all of our
careers athletes
everything is with so much
room to be objective what are we on our
phone there's a jumbotron immediate
response when we put something out
we may be becoming too objective or
measuring too aware giving too much
credence to awareness of oh how am i
perceived
you know kids these days it's what they
put out
how it's received if it's got enough
thumbs up they have a good day if it's
gotten a thumbs down they have a bad day
so their entire
our being and our attitude and how we
feel about ourselves is more reliant
we're letting it be more reliant on what
other people think about us today than
ever before
i say leaning to the subjective i don't
give a damn about what anyone else
thinks i've done it but but i'm gonna
chase down and do what's true is to me
and then it's time to pop out sometimes
and
read your reviews or
have a look at the jumbotron or watch
that watch that performance on playback
it's okay but but but if you're thinking
about the result or thinking of in the
third person too early i don't believe
you do near as good or true of a job
in the first person subjectively that
you could do
why do you pursue things that scare you
why seek the role that's hard
because it cost me something
because it cost
it comes with a price it's a bit of that
line don't pick a fight kit it's not
really a fight unless you can lose it
it's not really you know don't it's not
really a risk unless you can lose the
fight
i feel more alive in them i have an
experience in the making of them i'm
nervous every day i come to work
i feel like when i nail a day and i
knock it i know i did i feel like yes i
i have a measure at the end of the day
like you set out to do something you
prepared for it you had intention and
you did it and maybe even became found
some magic in the day that i sleep good
knowing that i accomplished that day in
uh building the architecture of a
character's arc through a story and if i
could put the whole thing together and
it comes out the whole one-whole
performance turns out to be a beautiful
song an original song of that character
then i'm like yes and i know that i was
highly responsible for that i was not
solely responsible but the most
responsible for that and that gives me
pleasure
that gives me gratification that makes
me feel gives me significance that gives
me confidence
if i don't pull it off
and i do have a day where i'm like oh no
you did never
and it was my fault i'd still i would
rather with these kind of roles i can
look in the mirror and go so guess who's
responsible not pulling it off
you kind of in the same way when i go
guess who's responsible pull it off i
like knowing who you and and and and it
was also again work that challenged the
vitality of my life dramatic roles allow
you the actor to have as high of a
ceiling or as low of a basement from
love to hate from happiness to pain
as that particular actor wants to bring
to it
that's what's inherently beautiful about
dramas okay you're the part you're
playing the role how does how how is are
you going to emulate that person through
yourself
um
that is a vital thing that i feel that
makes me sweat that makes me sleep
better at the end of the day that gives
me a sense of accomplishment i'm like
yes i did what i intended to do i
prepared for it was ready oh the day
didn't go out i thought it was gonna go
but i i called audibles along the way
enrolled and still told the truth on my
man the character that gratification
feels good i mean you said you actually
seriously considered going back and
teaching fourth grade or becoming a high
school football coach and so
when people think about matthew
mcconaughey oh yeah i remember he used
to act but now he's a fourth grade
teacher
it
for you to step into that space be like
i i didn't need to leave that space
because i was okay being the high school
teacher or the fourth grade teacher i
didn't need to leave you know the
wrestling match because i was okay
losing the wrestling rules right it's
just like accepting those challenges is
why you've survived for so long in a
business that eats people up faster than
the nfl
well how many times do we think is our
first thought
oh well if i did that if i became that
fourth grade teacher that would be a
demotion or a demotive move in my life
no it wouldn't have been it would not
have been
i'm glad i didn't have to do it now in
hindsight but that would not have been a
demotion
i would have
found certain value
that was going to fill my soul in that
room in that role
that i was not finding doing the work i
was doing in in hollywood so
it would not have been a demotion it may
have been perceived as one
but
i i i look i've got and i've got friends
and trust me i've done it myself
you know that
lose a job and then get another one but
won't take it because it's less salary
than maybe the one they had before
and all of a sudden find themselves
three four five six seven eight years a
decade later going they're still stuck
they didn't do anything they're still
saying like no i'm gonna find that thing
and i'm going you missed a decade man
just go do that one that you love to do
that maybe was gonna pay you less
because you'd at least been building
something through the day and who knows
what that would have led to
maybe that would have led to something
where you're getting paid five times
more than you were
doing something else you love even more
uh so a lot of times i say this in the
in the book sometimes it's not even
about what choice we make just make a
choice and commit to it and go and dive
in because we can look up limbo sucks
we're all in limbo now with covert limbo
sucks but sometimes just go i don't know
what to do i'm just going to do this one
i'm just going to do it if i do this to
the best of my ability sometimes that
lens somebody sees us do that and they
come up and they go you're actually more
qualified you're overqualified for this
job you should be doing that you're like
yeah that's what i really like to do
they'll see it but put ourselves in a
position right because you can look up
and days weeks months years can go by
and you can go
i've been tiptoeing around here not
committing to anything for so damn long
i'm missing out
what's up everybody tom bill you here
quick question for you how many times
have you sat down in your life to write
out a list of goals and said yourself
for real this time i'm gonna make every
single one of these happen and i will
not quit if you're like most people you
set a lot of goals but you don't achieve
all of them in fact you may not have
achieved any of them great news is i
don't care if you are the highest
achiever in the world or if 2021 has
beaten you down hard what i know for a
fact is that humans are wired to adapt
and no matter how difficult the previous
year or years have been you can find
your path to fulfillment and achieving
your goals look my friend trust me
learning how to stick to your goals and
achieve them again and again is a skill
and you can't learn it you can master it
and when you do it will serve you for
life great news is it's a process like
anything else 2021 has been hard for a
lot of people so i'm going to be going
live later this month to host a workshop
on exactly how to run that process
called how to make any goal stick now
you can go to this link or click the
button on your screen and get free
access to this live training and when
you register i'll send you a bonus class
from impact theory university to get you
started all right see you soon over at
the live workshop and until then my
friend be legendary take care
you talk about us being in limbo right
now and i know your obsession is values
values in your own life values to pass
on to your kids values for us as a
society
to take away and you gave a commencement
speech at your alma mater that i thought
was
awesome and it felt a bit like a dry run
for the book because so many of the
themes carried into green lights
but man really really truly first of all
the book is amazing and i i really mean
that the commencement speech was amazing
some of the the values that you talked
on
i think are so powerful especially right
now
the world isn't fair it's never going to
be life isn't easy don't want it to be
which i thought was really interesting
you're going to have to earn
your way forward and that we should want
it that way
what are some values whether those or
others that you think people
will get more out of their own life if
they embrace
that there's a responsibility
to freedom and that there is freedom in
responsibility
you know and that earn your way there
we remember the stuff we earn the stuff
we experience more than what the teacher
tells us or what someone gives us for
free
we just do we broke a proverbial sweat
on it whether it was mental or physical
or whatever we we built it we we
understand we felt how we got it how we
achieved it how we got what we wanted
those stick with us whether we forget
them intellectually they were written in
our lineage and they build resilience
and they and and they build
a healthy true optimism going forward to
know that oh no i've worked for
something before and achieved it delayed
gratification
oh there are choices i can make today
for myself that will pay me back later
in life mailbox money as we call it
entertainment industry um roi
there are specific personal choices we
can make and they're worth considering
look i'm all for hedonism i'm all for
immediate gratification too sometimes
it's like yes dude it's halloween eat
all the candy you want go for it it's
not gonna become a habit day to day
there's certain nights where you're like
hey guys tonight we're gonna blow it out
the walls are padded and we got nothing
we're off work on monday let's go you
know i mean certain times to say that's
okay
but
there's you know i
where is the selfish
choice this the selfless choice where is
what we want actually what we need
whether it's what we need actually what
we want
where is the best choice for me the best
choice for we where's the best choice
for we the best choice for me that's the
place
i believe the hunt talk about honey
holes that's the real place to go
forward in trying to find
tea ourselves up for those green lights
in the future and although i and i mean
the simple things let me bring it down
to a really simple one
you drink coffee
i do
do you
prepare your coffee put it in the filter
and pour the water in the coffee maker
the night before
not for myself but ironically i do for
my wife
because you're teeing her up for what
a green light the next morning correct
so she doesn't have to come in and go
where's that filter she can just come in
and go
press the button you're giving her a
gift to her future self you're making
something easier for her it's a very
simple thing but it's a great little
simple metaphor so there are choices we
make if you're going to say right now
i'm going to lie cheat and steal to get
what i want and i got it
i got an immediate green light
for me
that's a battery-powered green light
that's not a solar-powered green light
why
because
now everywhere i go i gotta look over my
shoulder to see if someone's there that
i lied cheating stole from and when i'm
doing that i'm stealing who's time my
time
now i'm not freedom i'm not free i don't
have the freedom i didn't create freedom
in my future because i chose to be it
make an irresponsible act that
i left crumbs
i've now got reasons to look over my
shoulder and the more things we do to
create in our in our future that we got
to look over our shoulder the more of
our most precious thing we have in our
life's time that we're stealing from
ourselves
so
it's not puritanical it's just like it's
actually self-serving it's a very
selfish choice
um
and and i'm a fan of the word selfish
i've read it helped redefine it um but i
believe that there are selfish choices
we can make that are the most selfless
that there are selfless choices that
we can make that are the most selfish
choices those two are not a
contradiction and we see them that way
um responsibility of freedom and the
freedom in responsibility life's more
than just straight saturdays with as
much cake as you want to eat it just is
you will see how long you last doing
that
if you really do it you won't last that
long um there we we responsibility is is
appreciation of a past it's building of
a lineage it's investing in ourselves
it's investing in something we started
to build yesterday that we want to take
into tomorrow
there's a response that gives us freedom
so to actually have true freedom we have
to take certain we have to be
responsible more responsible for certain
things for ourselves who we are
constantly investigating and
interrogating our better selves to say
i'm going to be a little bit better at
this tomorrow knowing that we never land
we never we never there's no there's no
ta-da moment
and that is one thing i think we all got
to watch because we all are so result
oriented oh if i keep doing this i'm
going to get to that place of pure
enlightenment i'm going to go tada
[ __ ]
i know you don't
can it be a small ascension of evolution
yes
but there's no tadaa moment we're always
chasing
yet and if we can get comfortable and
understand and laugh at and and be ready
to work hard the fact that
we're all just
if we could just say we're all just
achieving our way to the unachievable
and that's as good as it gets
and that's pretty damn awesome
that's the honey hole
that's the third time i've said that in
this talk but i love that word