Barbell Shrugged - Mike Bledsoe: The Hardest Thing I Ever Had To Do In Business — The Strong Coach #19

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, I have a big announcement to make, and it's a special show. The show is special because Danny Rios, the head coach for the Strong Coach, is interviewing me. And for the announcement, I didn't see it coming until it was right on top of me. Last month, during one of our training camp for the Soul Retreats, I spent five days listening to my heart while co-facilitating our students to get in touch with theirs. There was a battle. The battle was between my heart and the mind. And the mind had been dominating for months until a single moment. It hit me like a ton of bricks.

Starting point is 00:00:37 In that moment, I knew. I knew that it was time for me to step down as CEO of the Shrug Collective. It was time for me to forge a new path. the Shrug Collective. It was time for me to forge a new path, to take my life and business in a new direction. I am putting more of my attention into the strong coach, into Enlifted, and into Training Camp for the Soul, into human development, to dig more into human performance inside and outside of physicality, to dig into the relationships between mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of this experience. The Bledsoe Show will continue on my own channel,

Starting point is 00:01:15 and it will still be aired on The Shrug Collective until the end of June. You can join my newsletter at thebledsoeshow.com to stay up to date on what I'm up to. I'm handing the direction of the company to Doug Larson and Anders Varner. Doug has been my partner for over a decade now and Anders for over a year. These guys have done an amazing job of supporting me and making the Shrug Collective happen. I trust that they will make it better than ever, taking it to new heights. I love both these men and will continue to support them to achieve their goals and reach all those that I know need to hear their message. I thank Chris Norman, aka CTP, for planting the seed of podcasting in my head so many years ago and making it happen, making the show truly stand out as a work of art. To the late Chris Moore, for bringing heart and thoughtfulness into the conversation.

Starting point is 00:02:07 Without these two men, this would have never happened. I am forever honored to have served with them. And to you, I thank you for supporting us for over seven years now, for tuning in, sharing, and sending your kind words of encouragement. This has been a true pleasure, a journey of epic proportions. And now for the show. Enjoy. Right on. Hello, everybody. This is Danny here doing season two of the Strong Coach podcast. It's a privilege to sit here with Mike Bledsoe. I've spent countless hours listening to

Starting point is 00:02:46 this man on podcast, and it was an honor for him to interview me for season one of The Strong Coach, and I would have never fathomed that I would be sitting on this side interviewing him on his own podcast. So thank you, Mike, for giving me this opportunity. Yeah, this will be fun. Good opportunity for me to answer some questions for once. Awesome, man. Yeah. One of my favorite things to do is to listen to you being interviewed in other shows. So to have you being interviewed in your own show, I know it's going to be a special one. And really how I want to start this conversation is by using a lot of the principles that we teach in the program of The Strong Coach. And I want to reverse engineer where you're at

Starting point is 00:03:33 now in your life and really take people back to what got you to where you're at the moment and what were your whys and what you're doing now. You're doing some amazing work. I've been very fortunate to be part of it. Training Camp for the Soul was one of those programs that I was a part of. Completely changed my life. The Strong Coach program just absolutely changed my life as well. And really, I've been part of your journey

Starting point is 00:04:02 on the other side as a customer buying training programs, business solutions, seminars, and all of it has given me amazing results. So really tell us, Mike, what is it that you got going on right now? interesting because it's 2019 and I really, I've known for a long time, I've been in business for 11 years. And what I know is that growth never happens in a linear fashion, right? And, you know, that's something we can intellectually understand and talk about. But in real life application, when it's day to day, when you wake up in the morning and you go to work, and a lot of times it's easy to lose sight that that's true. And when the times are low and the times get tough, it feels like, you know, you'll never, like, there were times where I felt like I would never get out of it. Like, this was it, and it was hard to see beyond that one specific

Starting point is 00:05:14 day. And what's really cool about in the space I'm in now is, I think a big part was simply having that experience of having highs and lows. And now when I do have lows, it's more of, oh, I think a big part was simply having that experience of having highs and lows. And now when I do have lows, it's more of, oh, I know this won't last forever. Because I remember when I thought I was at my lowest, and then I got lower, and then it got high. And I go, oh, okay, I see the trend here. But where I am now is I had a really big low in, I would say, 2016 and 2017 were really big low years. And being the leader of an organization and of a podcast and all these things, there was this need for me to always be positive.

Starting point is 00:06:06 And so I wasn't being inauthentic. That's actually how I get through the times that are really tough. It's like I have a conversation with myself that I'm going to get through this no matter what. And I've been through some really crazy shit in my entire life, as I know you have too. But going through those hard times and going, oh, I'm going to be positive, but also to the people who I'm working with is remaining positive and saying, hey, we're going to get through this.

Starting point is 00:06:37 We're going to get through this. But in 2016 and 2017, towards the middle of 2017 I ended up in a position in my business where I had to fire almost basically my entire team except for one person and we had the owners of the company and And I actually, in that year, between 2016 and 2017, I even asked two business partners to step out of the business and to buy them out. And then in 2017, I ended up having to fire the majority of the team, let all them go. And that was the hardest thing I ever did in business. And it definitely felt like it could be the end of everything.

Starting point is 00:07:39 So at the end of 2017, all that had come, and I realized that the business would be okay. I realized that the business would keep going even if we were running on fumes. But the other big realization I had was, and I had a lot of reflection around, why did it get to a point that it did? Why did we go from making a really good money and having a really good business? What did I do to create a business that was not sustainable? And so, and a lot of it had to do with, I needed to make those mistakes so I can now run a really good business now

Starting point is 00:08:24 and do things. I needed to make those mistakes so I can now run a really good business now and do things. I'm doing things again. They're very similar to the way I did things in the past, but I'm doing them a lot leaner, a lot cleaner, and everything's a lot easier and faster now. But yeah, last year I took some time off and I said, I'm just going to let the business run on fumes. I'm going to reduce how much money I take, uh, home. And, uh, my wife and I sold all of our stuff and we traveled around. And while we were traveling, I started creating and I was committed to, um, creating only out of inspiration. And that meant that I was not going to create something in business simply because it made money because what had happened previously, one of the, one of the

Starting point is 00:09:14 core, one of the things at the core of, uh, what created some type of financial pinch in one way or another. I think that's really common in most businesses and most coaching businesses is there's not enough money, so now I got to charge less for this, or I got to make some concession here or there or I have to do something that's slightly outside of my value set. It's just like 1% outside of my value set, but week after week, that all builds up. Yeah, and when I look back on my career, I saw that, um, that what, what was at the core of any issues that I had in business was, uh, that, uh, I was behaving from a place that there was not enough. There was never enough money. There was never enough, uh, time and energy and all these things. And so, and because of that, a lot of my behavior in

Starting point is 00:10:27 building my businesses was not necessarily at inspiration. There was, there was a lot of inspiration involved for sure. I would say that out of, out of most businesses, I'm probably someone who over my lifetime has behaved mostly at inspiration, but there were moments of scarcity that were peppered in there that created, uh, problems long-term. And so, uh, my commitment was I will behave only out of inspiration. And even if I'm broke, even if there's a $0 in the bank account, um, I do not want to create a product or sell something or anything like that unless it is something that it's like I truly like I can't stop myself. There's something inside of me that needs to get out. And so 2018 was really cool in that there were three things that emerged from that place of pure inspiration and desire to help people.

Starting point is 00:11:28 One, the first one being training camp for the soul. Uh, I had attended a retreat with a knot and, uh, I had, uh, it was a, it was a very pivotal moment in my life. It was, it was, I would say in the top three things, top three moments in my life that really caused me to question everything and to choose a life that was more in alignment with what I really wanted. And I wanted that for other people. And so after attending her retreat, I immediately offered my services to help her do it and make it better and make it fuller. And we were, so in 2018, it was, I was committed to not building anything, but I was allowing myself to create. And so what I mean by that is like building has this really heavy, this, when I think about building, I think about a lot of structure, you know, building has this, this really heavy, this, uh, when I think about building,

Starting point is 00:12:25 I think about a lot of structure, you know, building a business, building something that has a lot of structure creation, um, is something more of a, it's more of a playful act. It was like, you know what? I don't even know how much money this will bring in. Um, and in fact, uh, it's probably not even scalable. Um, you know, I don't, I'm not considering, can I make a lot of money at, at this in the future? Those are a lot of things that I, that I used to, uh, I used to have a filter for business. Whereas like, if I can't go big with this, I wouldn't do it at all. But in 2018, I didn't care about the scalability or the ability to, to grow the business one bit, uh, because I was only acting

Starting point is 00:13:05 out of inspiration. And so a consideration like that would really get in the way. And I, uh, uh, so in 2018, it was the first one was training camp for the soul. And then, uh, the second thing, um, happened to be, uh, what ends, what has now become Enlifted. And that was because I was traveling around. I was hanging out with my friend Mark England, and we were chatting. And we actually, right after training camp in Seoul, we started planning workshops on the East Coast.

Starting point is 00:13:40 We scheduled some workshops. We called them flow-stated at the time. I was actually part of the... You went to the first one yeah the rough draft it was amazing we had the rough draft at my house was it december uh for some reason i want to say december 19th i have a weird memory like yeah yeah so it was december of 2017 we actually did a we had a rough draft we were just hanging out and like fuck it let's put together a workshop so we did that and we realized that that workshop that there was something like we had some chemistry and something that the two of us could offer people that was really valuable and then we booked a

Starting point is 00:14:17 few retreats on the East Coast and I what again I wasn't trying to make it anything it was I just want to explore and create and be inspired and have fun. So when we were doing those workshops, I realized that, uh, we were only, we were just like at the very beginning of a discovery process of what he and I could do together. Um, so that conversation started back in the spring of 2018 of me and Mark talking to his business partner, Adam, and going, okay, I think we have a course. I said, there's a course for athletes

Starting point is 00:14:56 that the three of us can really put together. Adam is Mark's business partner. And we convinced Adam to fly over from Thailand. We go, look, we'll all meet up we're going to rent this uh we're going to rent this mansion in the desert for a week just to get it started and then we ended up being we worked together for about four weeks total it was split by Burning Man but we set that we set that up and say i want to say it was april um uh march april mark and i started talking about creating a course for athletes mindset language things like that and we set

Starting point is 00:15:35 the dates and then in may i had the inspiration to start the strong coach and i really didn't know what it would be all i knew is that I was interacting with coaches while traveling, and I go, oh, wow. I see I'm really inspired to help people. I see gaps. I see there's holes in the game here, and I want to help. And so that was actually the the Strong Coach was the easiest, or I would say the second easiest thing.

Starting point is 00:16:07 Training Camp for the Soul was the easiest because I simply plugged in with what I was doing. But with the Strong Coach, I had the idea. I had the idea on a Wednesday. I spent the weekend building a landing page. For those of you that don't know what a landing page is it's a single page website um with uh with a call to action which was apply so so what we have i said that's still what we have that's right that's right it's it's not the exact same version but

Starting point is 00:16:38 it's pretty simple um actually when people listen to, we will have updated our website by then. And if not, fuck it, who cares? Uh, and it was simple. It was really simple. I spent very little money. Uh, and what I did was, uh, at that point I was working about one day a week and just simply spending time with my wife. And I told Ashley, I said, well, I'm going to be working for the weekend. I'm gonna be working all weekend on, uh, building this landing page. She said, go for it. And so I spent two days

Starting point is 00:17:10 dialing in the copy, you know, the words on the page and trying to get some pictures up there. Um, I wasn't prepared to do it, so I didn't really have the assets to make it look the way I really want it to look. But again, if it works, it works. I try not to get too picky because I tend to be picky. And I put that up. And then that Monday morning Bledsoe show, I said, hey, this is what I see in the industry. This is what I think can be different. If you're interested in working with me to make this shift, then go to thestrongcoach.com and hit the apply button. And so people did, you being one of those people. I was so pleased to see your name pop up.

Starting point is 00:17:53 And yeah, I recruited six people in for a beta program. And I didn't really know what I was going to charge in the long run. At first, I was thinking eight weeks. It's become 12 weeks. And in fact, today, I still need to update you on some new insights I've got around how we're going to run it in the future. Right on. But that was really – that was 2018. That was the year of creativity and play and I was just throwing shit out there to see

Starting point is 00:18:30 what would stick and I had a lot of fun it was a lot a lot of fun and what was really cool is all three things stuck and and I think they stuck the way they did

Starting point is 00:18:50 because it was from inspired action. And it was from a place of genuinely wanting to help people. And putting the dollars, taking that consideration of being able to scale into a really large business in the backseat. And so coming into 2019, I realized I, I have three projects that are all three different businesses that deserve a lot of attention. They deserve to be seen by a lot of people they deserve They deserve, and people deserve to be exposed to the information

Starting point is 00:19:27 and the growth that they can get from participating. And so what's really cool is taking the year off in 2018 where I was not thinking about business, not thinking about building anything massive, an empire, anything like that,

Starting point is 00:19:44 because that's where my mind tends to go. And coming into 2019, I go, okay, now I get to have the joy of building structure for these creative projects. So I've created some things that are really fucking cool. I got to collaborate with some amazing people, yourself included. And now it's time to build a business a really strong structure around all these things and start thinking about how to scale these things um and uh because now that it's been created it's now my duty to get it in as uh to as many people

Starting point is 00:20:20 as as possible because when people are when people, good things happen for them. Gotcha. And going back to the three projects that are now having a major impact in people's lives, let's take it back to the first one, Training Camp for the Soul. What is your why behind that program and what got you to want to continue pursuing and scaling that specific project? When I was going through that program, man, I did the program because I was curious. I saw some people work with Anat who leads the retreat,

Starting point is 00:21:14 and I saw them have really big positive changes in their life afterward. So I was curious. And so it was halfway through the retreat. I was experiencing more connection to myself, um, and more acceptance of myself. And my mind had completely gone clear. My body had completely relaxed. And I could see myself and I could see the world in a very different way. And I've never had the experience of seeing the world that differently and having that much of a transformation in my own consciousness without the use of psychedelics. I had only had

Starting point is 00:22:08 glimpses of what it was that I was able to stabilize in this 3D, 4D world that we live in, and we did it with no substances. It was conversations and different techniques. And all of a sudden, I felt alive in a way that I never felt before. And it was obvious that it was there to stay. It wasn't one of those things where like, this is fleeting. This was a whole new understanding

Starting point is 00:22:47 and a whole new knowing in the world. And halfway through the retreat, I realized that everything that I'd been doing up until this point was good. And this was the highest level thing that I could be involved with that would impact people in a really big way. I realized that if more people were exposed to the work we do at Training Camp for the Soul, the world would be a better place. People would be acting more out of inspired action and less out of this mode of scarcity and fear.

Starting point is 00:23:28 And yeah, it's really powerful work. I've had interest in making the world a better place and having a global impact for a long time. And there's two ways you can go about doing that. You can have a global impact by serving a billion people, you know, like an apple, you know, uh, apple does that. Um, or you could have a global impact by, uh, impacting a small amount of people to a really large degree. And so, uh, for one, I really like to aim at leaders in the fitness industry. So that would be coaches.

Starting point is 00:24:09 And so what I told Anat in that space is I had already, before I even attended the retreat, I had her speak at one of my events a year and a half prior. And she had shifted all of her attention to working with people in the fitness industry because I had given her a bunch of people in the fitness industry yeah and so she was shifting her whole business model to work that way and then there I am going I am the conduit to the fitness industry for you and um I I could say you, I could say I could go after different types of influencers in the world. But, you know, I come from the fitness industry. I'm a coach.

Starting point is 00:24:52 I've been a coach. These are the people who I can help the most. And people come to coaches when they need help. When they're unhappy with their lives, they find a coach to help them break through to whatever it is they need to have. And if I can get more coaches and more influencers in the fitness space who people look up to for advice, if I could impact them in a way that allowed them to be more free and impact them in a way that allowed them to be more helpful and come from a place of abundance themselves and from a place of

Starting point is 00:25:30 inspiration. Instead of desperation, I know the world is going to be a better place. And so there was no question in my mind whether I wanted to be a part of Training Camp for the Soul with a knot. In fact, what she was running was called Journey to Love. And I said, let's call it something else. And so a week later, I had the name. And then added a few different things to it. And, of course, my own energy into the mix. And it's become what it is

Starting point is 00:26:06 today. And, um, man, it's, uh, I mean, you know, you've gone through it. Uh, it's, it's so powerful. And again, if we could get my, my goal is we can only work with six people at a time. So our goal right now, we've already got, we're filling up already for 2019 for that retreat. And we can only do it. I can only do it every two months. I've got other projects going on. And even if not, it's, it can be, it's a heavy week.

Starting point is 00:26:33 So we can't do it too frequently. So, um, we're going to, my goal this year is to get it so dialed in and so systemized that we can bring other people in to help facilitate. There's got to be a way that this type of work can reach more people. I don't know how that is going to look, but I'm starting to get a glimpse at the pieces we're going to need to make it happen. Absolutely. And that's something that I'm experiencing working with you is you're teaching coaches and teaching methods that are very scalable. If I didn't go to training camp for the soul, I wouldn't be able to comfortably do the work I do with a strong coach. And really what it was, it allowed me to have that freedom to express myself and fully play. And that's something I didn't have before. So it really did get me back to, it got me to creation mode fully.

Starting point is 00:27:33 And also it got me into that mind, that abundance mindset. So, and it's something that now I'm able to do for others. So it is very scalable in that manner. Awesome, Mike. In the conversation of Enlifted, I know a lot of this arise from the program Procabulary, a program that absolutely rocks. And you mentioned how you and Mark England worked together to create this program. Tell me more about this program and how you see it fit in the world.

Starting point is 00:28:13 Yeah. You know, when I first met Mark England, I interviewed him. It was two years ago. And I knew I had been studying language myself before I had been, I had been, um, studying language myself before I met him. Um, but not to the level he had gone. I mean, I was, I was maybe a year or two into my journey. He's, he was already a decade into his. And when I met him and I, I go, okay, I see what you're doing. I like you. Let's hang out. And then when I got his course and I started going through it, I was blown away how simple it was because most people that are in the conversation around how words create our reality tends to be abstract and it tends to

Starting point is 00:29:01 be very philosophical. And there's even some organizations that are doing it pretty well, but it takes some days for it to sink in for people. And what really hit me around what was going on with Procabulary is how easy it was to have really major cognitive shifts and creating cognitive development for people. I mean, if you don't know the, there's all sorts of, there's all sorts of realms that we could, we can develop ourselves as human beings and cognitive development is one area that, um, that I think that if we, if we go far down that path, life gets easier and better very fast. And so when I went through that course,

Starting point is 00:29:51 I go, oh, this is some of the most powerful stuff I've ever been exposed to. And it's so simple and easy and fast. So fast forward, you know, we've been hanging out for a year and a half. Fast forward, I go, and we, when hanging out for a year and a half fast forward. And I go, and we, when we interviewed Mark, we sold a lot of vocabulary, you know, and it did really well for the people who purchased it, but still, it was still a language course for athletes,

Starting point is 00:30:18 or it was still a language course. And the course is called core language upgrade and i've studied a lot of marketing and what i know is is that nobody gives a shit about upgrading their language unless they already understand the importance of language and how it impacts their entire world and so i said look no one cares about upgrading their language let's create a mindset course for athletes. Because what language does, because we think in words, the words that we are using help us organize our mind and allows us to direct our attention differently, depending on, yeah, your words direct your attention.

Starting point is 00:31:06 I'll state it like that. And if you simply understand that concept, that words direct your attention, I hope that you can connect the dots between how that would make, how that would improve an athlete's experience in and out of the gym. There's a lot of mindset training out there. make how that would improve an athlete's experience in and out of the gym is, uh, there's all these mind, there's a lot of mindset training out there. There's a lot of mental toughness. I would say the majority of the mindset training for athletes I see out there is more mental toughness or visualization. Um, and I've taken sports psychology before. Um, I'm not saying I don't have a degree in sports psychology, but I know some shit. I've

Starting point is 00:31:47 seen some shit. I know some shit. And I've worked with some of the top athletes and I've been exposed to some of the top like special operations guys in the military, things like that. So I get that conversation. And then, but I but I go you know we could really help athletes by creating a course that speaks directly to their situation and so let's take this language technology that Mark

Starting point is 00:32:16 and his partner Adam have created and let's make it fit the athlete's mindset the lifestyle all that so what I was able to bring to the table was I know what's going on inside my own head. I know where I came from. I've worked with thousands of athletes. I understand their mindset.

Starting point is 00:32:36 I can tell what someone's thinking by how they talk. Between body language and their language, the words are coming out of their mouth. I can put piece together a lot very quickly. And the more experience I have, the easier and easier it gets. I can almost look at somebody now and go, oh, okay. So, and Mark comes from an athletic background. He was an MMA fighter. And so, we getting, putting that course together has been extremely rewarding.

Starting point is 00:33:07 It was a lot of fun. It was the first time I had collaborated with people where we were all on the same page the whole time. And it was a really exciting process. What was really cool for me to do, both training camp for the soul and in lifted were collaborative efforts. And then with a strong coach, that was what was really cool about building that initially was doing most of it on my own in the beginning. That had its own reward. And one of the reasons I did the strong coach on my own was because I needed to integrate a lesson. I got a training camp for the soul.

Starting point is 00:33:47 And part of that was, is that, uh, I am, I am good enough to, to do things by myself. If I need to, I don't need to rely on other people for their knowledge necessarily.

Starting point is 00:33:59 It was more of a, I am smart enough. I have the knowledge to help people. And so it was really cool to do that, not from a place of being a lone wolf, like I can do this all by myself, fuck everybody else, but from a place of, no, I feel good about what I know. I feel good that I can be beneficial to other people. And I don't need to rely on someone else's credentials or anything like that. So it was the Strong Coach initially was really great for me to do on my own,

Starting point is 00:34:28 which has now become a collaborative effort because we now have a whole team working on it. And it was good for me to do that first and then roll into working on Enlifted with Mark and Adam in the fall because now I had the magic of feeling good about what I know I can bring to the table while also honoring what they bring to the table and being able to collaborate. And so it was really, really fun to build that course

Starting point is 00:34:57 because, man, we were committed to making it less than 10 minutes a day for 21 days. And we had to cut a ton of shit. We had to cut a lot of stuff that was really good. And there was even some things we started to build and realized that it would be a little much for people. Do we really want to hit someone that hard? Because the way of the Unlifted athlete that course is really layer one level one and you know we're going okay this is where this is where most athletes are in the gym right now

Starting point is 00:35:36 okay let's nail that layer then if they complete that we can take them to the next layer. So we're already thinking about, we already know what level three, what that content is going to be. And so it's really cool being in a place, having the experience that we have now, and going, oh, we know where level three is. And we know what we need to say in level one so that we can stair-step people to level three.

Starting point is 00:36:01 And if people get to level three, that's going to be some Jedi shit. Gotcha. Yeah. And I could share from my experiences people to level three and if people get to level three that's going to be some jedi gotcha yeah and i could share from my experiences uh with working with language and training camp for the soul uh the paradigm that um we talk a lot about the strong coaches your con your context in life creates those feelings those feelings create those thoughts those thoughts create language those language create actions um those actions create habits. Over time, you get your results, which equals your life. Really what training, what vocabulary did for me,

Starting point is 00:36:33 it allowed me to start noticing my language and seeing the things that I was saying, what that was creating in my life. So that was super powerful. Going to training camp for the soul, that really allowed me to sit down with my feelings. Yeah. And now noticing what those feelings, what stories were being created in my head, and now I have the opportunity to change the context around those feelings.

Starting point is 00:36:59 Yeah. And so I'm catching things now way before it even starts becoming a habit. Or a thought. Or a thought. Yeah. Yeah. And so my life has completely changed by being part of this courses and this program.

Starting point is 00:37:16 So it's really magical with the work that we're doing. I've never experienced any work like that. So thank you for those contributions and for your work that we're doing. I've never experienced any work like that. So thank you for those contributions and for your work. You're welcome. Let's take it to the Strong Coach. Yes. So the story that I remember is you were floating around and you had this vision of creating a course for coaches

Starting point is 00:37:41 from everything that you saw. Yeah, I was literally floating around because I was in a float tank at Zero Gravity in Austin, Texas. And what was funny is I was having fun. I was just enjoying myself. I was playing. It was May. I had already been to Costa Rica and France and Sedona. And I was literally traveling the world

Starting point is 00:38:07 and playing like a kid. And I was not thinking about doing anything. I wasn't thinking about creating anything. And this was the first time I was, you know, 36 at the time. And it was the first time in my life I wasn't thinking about what I'm working towards or what I'm going to do next or, you know, what am I competing in or what, uh, what am I, uh, you know, whatever goal I had was the first time I was, I was living like a, a goalless lifestyle where, you know, my, I guess I could say my goal was to take care of myself. My goal was to spend time with my wife. These were goals that were not very much so achievement-based. You would never know if you got there or not. It's like, I'm going to be healthy, and I'm going to build my relationships.

Starting point is 00:38:56 Oh, how do you know you got there? Who the fuck knows? So, yeah, I hopped in a float tank, and I float at least once a week when I get the chance, and even on the road. And, yeah, I hop in a tank, and I expected it to be like most of my floats, which is deep relaxation, maybe some realization, some time spent in the void, you know. And then, like five minutes into a 90-minute float, the idea for the strong coach came in. I'm going, okay, well, cool.

Starting point is 00:39:31 I'm going to let that idea go. Usually, an idea, I was in a float tank last night. I get in. There's something that's on my mind. It's just barraging me. Then, 10 minutes into my float, it completely vanishes because I go, oh, I've been holding on to this. I can let it go. And so this idea for the strong coach comes in.

Starting point is 00:39:51 I go, oh, that's a neat idea. I'm going to let it go. And it didn't. It was – and I wasn't dwelling on a single idea. I wasn't like, okay, I'm going to create a program. It was like, oh, I'm going to create a program. Oh, that's interesting and then the rest of the float then the 85 next minutes were spent basically uh it was as if information was just flowing inside of my head it wasn't anything i

Starting point is 00:40:20 was creating it was more of it was simply appearing with new ideas constantly. New ideas were just popping in, boom, boom, boom, boom, one after another. And it, I wasn't, it wasn't one of those, you know, I think all of us think about our ideas, but how this was different was, um, I wasn't circling around the same idea. It was fresh for 90 minutes. I felt like I had read two or three books in that 90 minutes. And I walk out and I go, holy shit. I've got a major insight. And my wife, she floated too.

Starting point is 00:41:03 We both get out of the tank. She goes, I had a major insight too. my wife, she floated too. We both get out of the tank. She goes, I had a major insight too. I go, oh. She goes, tell me yours. And I told her about the strong coach. She goes, that's awesome. I go, tell me about your insight. She goes, oh, I'm supposed to be coaching people in relationships.

Starting point is 00:41:17 I go, that was mind-blowing. That was, I don't know what we can call that we can call it divine or whatever you want or you can call it a coincidence but we we both were called to do the type of work that we're meant to do in the same moment the more and more that uh i've just been experiencing life none of what we has, there's a reason to all of it. And a little bit about when I met Mike, I hit him up on Twitter. This is the first,

Starting point is 00:41:51 the only time I ever used Twitter to shake his hand and go meet him. And he gave me some words of advice then. And so where I sit right now and the work that we're doing and everything that's happening in my life, it's no coincidence. Everything that is happening is meant to be happening. And it's a belief that I take now.

Starting point is 00:42:12 Life is here to serve us. And whatever life is delivering to us, it's here for a reason. And it's up to us to take those opportunities or not. Yeah. Going back to the strong coach, what happened after that float session? I've seen the evolution from what it is now. Yeah, I mean, that's when I, you know,

Starting point is 00:42:35 the next day I go, oh, I've got to build out this landing page. And there was no lag. There was no question. There was no, oh, is this for real? Should I really do this? It was immediate action. What was really cool about that moment was one of the things that I challenged myself to do when we were traveling was I was in the habit of being the lone wolf I was in the habit of not asking for help or in asking for support and so one of the challenges I had for myself when traveling was to ask to stay with people

Starting point is 00:43:17 instead of just Airbnb we did Airbnb it a bit but we were like oh we're gonna ask for help we're gonna ask to stay with people and so we happen to be staying with the cashews Michael cashew and Adi cashew and what was cool about having this realization and maybe this contributed or whatever um all that's perfect and we were staying with Michael and Adit and I had, they had both been a part of my mastermind and they were both years before, years before back when I ran masterminds, they were both part of my mastermind and they both joined my mastermind when

Starting point is 00:44:01 their coaching businesses were tiny. They were average at best. They were just what most people have as a coaching business. And I met both of them. I liked both of them. And I invited them to the mastermind. And I coached them over some time. And both of them, we were staying with them.

Starting point is 00:44:28 And both of them were running extremely profitable and high-impact coaching businesses. And that's who we were staying with. And I go, isn't it funny how I went all over the place in business, but the people who I enjoy spending time with the most are other coaches. And the people I enjoy helping the most are coaches. And that's who my relationships end up being with. Even if we're not in a business relationship, that's who I simply want to hang out with.

Starting point is 00:45:04 And it was really cool. It was a really good confirmation that that's who just who I simply want to hang out with and it was really cool it was a really good confirmation that that's where that's who we were spending time with and when I shared with them the uh the vision they were both super excited and and supportive and uh and helping me make it happen and and simply just being you know being there and being on the the first of the strong coach. I interviewed both of them. So it was really cool. It was really cool that that happened. Uh, so we launched a beta program. It was eight weeks long at six people go through it and I learned a lot. And so we did, you know, I said, okay, well we'll launch a round two and I'm just going to keep refining

Starting point is 00:45:41 this process. I'm going to keep refining it and uh and uh I considered running it all by myself and just keeping it as a small coaching business where I was the only coach and I would uh I would deliver it and keep it nice and nimble because at the time I didn't know if I wanted to go back into running a bigger business again. Uh, because when, uh, I mean, we were, we were making really good money a few years ago, but I was managing a lot of people. There was just, there was the bigger the business gets, the more, uh, the more there is to do. There's a lot going on.

Starting point is 00:46:28 And I really wasn't sure if I wanted to have a lot going on again. I was like, you know what? I could be working with five to ten people per month or five to ten people at a time, and I could make plenty of money to put in my pocket and live a very comfortable life. I can make good money working with very few people. I don't need to try to impact 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 people to be happy and comfortable or financially comfortable. And, and, um, but I, and I don't know exactly what hit me when, but I started contemplating. I go, okay, I think I want to bring someone in to help me, help me coach in the least.

Starting point is 00:47:15 Maybe I don't, I don't know if I want to make this really big or not, but I'm going to at least pull someone in to help me coach. And within the week you and I had a coaching call and you you out you said hey i want to help you with this and i go okay cool um and so i go all right well danny's gonna help me we met that day that and it was actually a goal that i created from the strong coach yeah we collaborate with others and yeah yeah we had a, we had a phone call that morning, and I said, well, why don't you just drive up this afternoon? Because we live 30, 40 minutes away from each other.

Starting point is 00:47:51 Why don't you just come up, and then we'll start. We'll see what's possible. And so we started planning from there. And yeah, as the months went on, I realized that I think part of it was working with you and really going, oh, wow, this is – I really enjoy working with people who are excited to do this work and so um as it's grown as as it's gone on we're we're working with people who are excited about it and so that that makes it easy that makes it easy to want to make it big and at some who knows i don't remember exactly at what point we were like, fuck it. We're going to impact 100,000 coaches. And when we decided to do that, I realized, oh, I'm building something big again.

Starting point is 00:48:54 Yeah. And I feel really good about it because we have a team that can do that. And it's going to feel good. And it's going to feel good. And it's going to be easy. Absolutely. There's definitely going to be long hours and a lot of work, but it doesn't have to be forced. And it doesn't have to be hard.

Starting point is 00:49:18 And what I'm experiencing now, and this is the beginning of 2019, is I'm getting to build, I'm excited to build businesses that impact a lot of people and I am excited to collaborate with people and I'm excited to be challenged in my capacity to do all of it.

Starting point is 00:49:43 And I was journaling this morning and there was two words that really came out journaling. One is delegation. I see that the only thing that limits me from being able to do more is my ability to delegate well. And then the next thing was discrimination. And I think most people hear discrimination and probably their mind runs to like racism or. I feel something in my body. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like a, or, you know, like based on, you know, discrimination, gender and race.

Starting point is 00:50:25 And I think that that word definitely is associated with like these really negative things. But I think that it's a politically charged word for one. But for me, I go, you know what? I think that there are some words in our vocabulary that we're afraid to even approach. And going back to the language conversation is the word discrimination has all these negative connotations around it, right? You said even your body seized up a little bit. And I go, discrimination is a very useful tool. Not when you're looking at somebody of different races,

Starting point is 00:51:11 like, I'm not going to work with them because of this. Yeah. And maybe setting proper boundaries is a better way of putting this. But it's knowing where you're going in life, knowing where your business is going, knowing what your vision for your life is moving forward, and surrounding yourself with the people who are going to help you get to that vision. And you should discriminate your time and energy

Starting point is 00:51:40 and attention and all these things if there are people who are not supporting, you know what I mean by discriminate, discriminate against people who don't support your vision, you know, cut them out of your life. Um, it doesn't need to be like a harsh, like, fuck you type of thing, but you can do it gently. And, and, you know, maybe you don't hang out with that person on saturday that you were going to hang out with but um yeah so the two big words that came out with me were we're delegate and discriminate and maybe i'm getting myself in trouble by saying that who knows i just journaled

Starting point is 00:52:16 about it this morning so i know you'll fine-tune it as you keep going this is this is just going to be triggering for people people are like oh i don't feel good in my body when that word comes out. Hey, folks, it's just a fucking word. And it is a word, so it can be powerful. And what I mean by it's just a word is that you can change your relationship to words. It doesn't have to mean what society has told you it has to mean. So, uh, I do realize that some people's minds aren't nearly as flexible as others. That might be a little bit of challenge. Um, but yeah, just really, um, you know,

Starting point is 00:52:59 a better word might be, um, it also starts with a D. I'm into Ds today. What's the word I'm looking for? I'm not thinking of it right now. It's all good. Yeah. It'll come. Being part of the process of you building the Strong Coach,

Starting point is 00:53:21 what was really cool to see is how you created this amazing program from thin air. And you had this idea, you knew where you wanted to get started. And I saw you connect with six clients that you were working with, being part of that. Essentially, you knew you had certain things that you wanted to cover. You just didn't know exactly what the order was. And the way I saw you do that was you created the first module, which is vision casting and really creating a powerful vision for people's lives. And then from there, you just communicated and found out what was the coaches needed and just build a program around that. And oftentimes what happens when people are attempting to create something, they overthink things and it really allows them to not put it out in the world because it stays in their head.

Starting point is 00:54:20 And so it was a really cool experience to see you, uh, create something and allow others to be in creation mode, which has allowed me to continue adding onto the program as well and, and, and connecting the dots for myself and see what else is possible. And, and so, uh, you know, from this conversation, uh, from where we started, a couple of things that have come up were abundance, creation, and really how to cultivate those. And those are things and principles that we teach in the program and that you could continue. There's layers to all of this. And you could continue cultivating this. The biggest thing that I've realized for myself is that I oftentimes get in the way for this abundance and creativity to come to life.

Starting point is 00:55:09 So all of this pieces that you have going on with the Unlifted Athlete, Training Camp for the Soul, and the Strong Coach, all are very amazing tools that really allow people to have freedom within themselves and to fully express themselves in every single way. And we're seeing it with our coaches. We have a mentorship program within the Strong Coach. If somebody signs up for a program, you will forever be able to be part of a program by reteaching the curriculum.

Starting point is 00:55:41 We believe that when you take something in, you take about 50% in. When you're reteaching it, you're believe that when you take something in, you take about 50% in. When you're reteaching it, you're going to take a lot more in. Me teaching the module, we're starting round six of the program. Each time we start the module, I learn something new and something new. And I'm not getting any new information.

Starting point is 00:55:58 All it is that in the process of reteaching it, I've learned a whole bunch. So I really see everything that you've been working with and the people you're collaborating with. It's programs that keep empowering within themselves. And I see a very, very bright future for all of this coming together. And I really encourage anybody, if any of this conversation with any of the programs that Mike has going on, to take this opportunity to invest in yourself and put that energy in your life. Because for me, it has allowed me to make decisions that I couldn't even fathom.

Starting point is 00:56:38 And actually, I would think about them, but that's where it would end. Because then my self-limiting beliefs on i can't do it my reasons will come up on why it wasn't possible and now anything's possible so we are going to reach 100 000 coaches um the way of the unlifted athlete is going to impact hundreds and thousands of athletes and and the work the powerful work that training camp for the Soul is doing, I know it can be scalable. And I know that the influence that you're having on those individuals, they're going to move on to amazing things in their lives because I'm watching them.

Starting point is 00:57:17 You become a little family. I get excited for the next round. I start following the people that are going through it because they're going to have that same experience that I had in that cabin that completely changed my life. So, um, I really want to thank you for, for, for you diving deep in the work that you've done for yourself because that shit's not easy. It's not easy. It's, it's, you're, you're, you're putting light on oftentimes what we call this dark areas of your life that now I, now I see them as a, as very beautiful things.

Starting point is 00:57:50 They're just part of you and, and really changing your relationship around that. So, uh, I know for the, the things that you created, uh, in your life, uh, have come from oftentimes your greatest creations come from your pains and and i know that the way you've been showing up and everything you've endured to create all of this hasn't been easy and and so i just want to acknowledge you for that because you doing that work has impacted my life and we're impacting a lot of people in the process and uh uh really everything is possible once you start healing yourself and taking care of yourself and, uh, it starts

Starting point is 00:58:32 reflecting and the ripple effect continues on and on. So, uh, yeah, man, thanks for, for that big ripple effect you're having on people's lives, including my own. Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate that. I want to touch on something you said. Yeah, when I started the Strong Coach, when I was in the flow tank, I did get a lot of information about what the type of impact I wanted to have on coaches. I knew the impact that it needed to make on the fitness industry as a whole,

Starting point is 00:59:01 but I didn't know what week 2, 3, four, five, six, seven, eight were going to be in modules. And you're right. People, when they're inspired to do something like start a new business or start a new coaching program or whatever it is that you're thinking about starting, I think a lot of people get stuck on exactly how it's going to look, you know, from point A to point B. And one of the things we do teach is to not focus, to, to focus on the result that you're looking for and focus on where you want things to be in the end and to let go of the how and really put your attention on where you're going instead of how you're going to get there. And for me, that's had the most powerful results in my own life. And the clients that we work with, it's, they are reporting, you know, that's, that's how

Starting point is 01:00:00 we run our program. And they're reporting the same experience of going, holy shit, I was so attached to the how for my entire life. You're the first people that ever gave me permission to let go of the how. And now things are happening at a pace I couldn't even imagine, right? And so for me, what that requires is an immense amount of trust in myself as we're building the program I go and then you notice I say as we were building the program so I was trusting that I would be able to show up perfectly for the coaches that were in the beta program I trusted that after week one I would get feedback that would allow me to create week two. And so a big part of that is trusting that I knew that I could help people. And I knew that I would do whatever it took to get the result of helping the coaches.

Starting point is 01:00:57 And even if I didn't know the answer, if I go, oh, wow, they are obviously needing help in a direction which maybe I am not that knowledgeable in. Well, I got a whole week to figure it out. You know, I will figure it out. Luckily, I knew it all. And we laugh at it, but we really do. When you start trusting yourself and trusting in life, those answers come to you and everything becomes much easier. The material,

Starting point is 01:01:30 I don't know, maybe you could tell me. In my opinion, the material was, I would say 10 to 15% of it felt like it was cutting edge and most of it seemed like it was very, it's very principle based

Starting point is 01:01:43 and it's the fundamentals. And I, I really, you know, the more experience I have, and I think every coach knows this when they're working with athletes is most athletes would benefit as an athlete if they spent more time on the fundamentals and the same with coaches and the coaching business. So I'd say 85 to 90% is fundamentals, but then there's about 10 15 percent of cutting edge shit in there uh what was your experience going through did you feel like it was all cutting edge or or yeah what do you think uh one of the coolest things was uh watching you and me experiencing having my mind blown away by simplicity it's remove this word out of your sentence and all of a sudden

Starting point is 01:02:25 the way I relate it to something completely changed I create this mantra and all of a sudden I'm showing up differently I'll give you a perfect example I own a gym and a year ago around this time this is where our gym was most financially successful I had a bigger team and I over

Starting point is 01:02:50 complicated things. And I essentially didn't know exactly what to do. And the gym took a hit. We we lost members. I fired a bunch of coaches and going through this whole process of strong coaching, just really seeing how very small, simple principles in communication, in business that you just overthink because oftentimes you're in the way of things. And start using those small little things like your language and speed of implementation. And everything that we teach in the program has allowed for my business to have success. I don't longer work in the gym anymore. That was actually a two-year goal that you challenged me to make a one-year goal. That magically happened in six months. And I was getting in the way of the business growing. I had too many responsibilities.

Starting point is 01:03:56 And really once you start simplifying things, so you could take this from a very micro level, from watching you just correct my language and just have my mind blown away. Uh, you could adapt the same principle to keep things simple. What really is working, uh, and,

Starting point is 01:04:13 and getting, uh, getting people those results and going back to those fundamentals, the fundamentals of business, uh, fundamentals of communication, uh, fundamentals of,

Starting point is 01:04:21 of everything really has allowed, uh, for my personal life. And I, and I'm seeing it with the coaches that we work with. For some reason, we like to make things complicated. And the results that we get from that are complicated. So keeping things simple allows a very smooth transition through all of it. I've watched myself through life go through cycles of complication

Starting point is 01:04:47 and then simplification. Or we could say, and I like to differentiate the words complicated and complex. Complex is good. Complicated creates chaos and there's conflict. And I like to think about, complicated is creates chaos and there's conflict. And,

Starting point is 01:05:05 uh, I like to think about it. We tend to go complicated, complex, simple is, is the cycle is complicated. Oh, I need to remove some things.

Starting point is 01:05:17 Um, or we, I don't know if it goes comp complex. Usually I think we, we, we are going for complexity. Like I love complexity. That's probably why I like language and business and movement.

Starting point is 01:05:30 Because I see how they all work together, which is a complex thing. But you can't take something complicated and make it simple. But you can take something complex and make it simple. True. So if something's complicated, you usually need to cut some shit away. Complex, it likely needs to make it more simple is to see where you can refine and just state it in a much simpler way. And it needs to be simple to the people who are receiving it and not necessarily from the

Starting point is 01:06:05 person that's coming from but yeah it's it's interesting me teaching me creating the strong coach and teaching it um speaking of fundamentals is i learned a lot teaching it and it was as if i was i didn't even it was one of those things where I started, I was like, I want to help coaches. And then I didn't even realize I was creating a coaching business at a time that I was teaching coaches how to create a coaching business. I didn't even, I wasn't even thinking about teaching coaches how to create a coaching business. I wanted to make coaches better coaches, period. And then when I got on the phone with the coaches, I realized their inability to run a strong

Starting point is 01:06:46 coaching business is what's actually getting in the way of them being good coaches if your business is fucked up you can never be a good coach and so I go oh well this is obvious well I know business business is actually pretty easy for me at this point I've been doing it for a while. Um, I've also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in education around it. I go, this is going to be a really simple package. In fact, and what was funny is as I was teaching it, I was going, I have lost sight of, you know, the reason 2015, 2016, 2017, and my own, uh, business, my coaching business, got so complicated was because I lost sight of the fundamentals. And as I was teaching the strong coach, here I was an empty slate for myself in regard to I really didn't have any business going on at the time. Here I am going.

Starting point is 01:07:44 What's funny is people are probably watching from the outside and going yeah but you had the shrug collective and all the stuff i was like that shit was running on fumes yeah um it what what you see what you're perceiving and what's happening in the background um oftentimes are very very different um and you know if he went over to ask me, I've been like, Oh yeah, it's, uh, we're, we're just kind of like doing it. We're not really making a lot of money. I wasn't going out and telling people that we were, we were crushing it or anything like that. Um, but teaching the fundamentals and the coaching business, it was awesome for me to be building my coaching business while teaching other people how to build their coaching business because it was a constant reminder and as you were saying um we retain best

Starting point is 01:08:31 what we teach you know uh hearing is one thing writing it reading reading it's one thing hearing it is one another thing writing it down you'll remember more teaching it you're gonna understand it and remember it best and so here i am teaching the fundamentals that i had learned over the previous decade and i was simplifying it into the most simple terms i could come up with because i want to create 30 minute modules that that uh communicate yeah these complex ideas in the very simple terms that are very manageable for people to put in place and I'm going, I've complicated things. I now as I'm building this business, I'm going to keep shit simple and we have. We've kept

Starting point is 01:09:16 it pretty fucking simple. In fact we all had a meeting two weeks ago and I had conversations In fact, we all had a meeting two weeks ago. And I had conversations with a consultant last week and a few other people. And they pointed out to me how we were complicating it again. So it's a constant. It's not a, oh, now I've got the principles and I've figured it out. Because the mind, the human mind, likes to make things complicated.

Starting point is 01:09:48 And so that will externalize into our world for sure. And so we've already begun doing it, making it a little more complicated. And it's fine. It's fine. It's perfect. So it's because we're trying to make it better. Yeah. Right?

Starting point is 01:10:00 We're trying to make it better. And sometimes, oftentimes, the first two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight ways that we are trying to approach it, there's a simpler, easier way to do it. And so I met with a consultant last week. I'm hiring a new coach on Friday, a new business coach on Friday. Tomorrow on Thursday, I'm going to a business conference, and I've got a two-day conference in Dallas next week that's a business conference. I'm not done learning. I still need help. I still want to learn from people who are doing it really well.

Starting point is 01:10:44 It's like, who's fucking crushing it? And I'm going to learn from them. And so I say this because I know there's a lot of people out there, there's a lot of coaches out there that are like, I got this, I got this. I'm like, man, I've been doing this for 11 years now, and things are going really well in my business we're crushing it right now strong coaches is becoming a uh a movement and it's really taken on a life of its own like it's it's grown faster and and gotten more traction than i it wasn't because of my efforts. It was because of the results that have been

Starting point is 01:11:26 gotten and the community that we have, um, that we've built and, uh, yeah. So no matter where you're at, you know, going and learning from people who are crushing it is a good idea. Absolutely. And something that I want to bring up is you mentioned a rough estimate of how much money you've spent in yourself and growing yourself personally in business, professionally as well. Really what people are getting in the Strong Coach is the very best that you've learned from this investment. So by making a very minimal investment, not only do they get a community, uh, they're getting amazing information that you've, uh, learned, developed and utilizing your businesses in the

Starting point is 01:12:17 past 11 years. Uh, it's, it's to me is, uh, there's no program like it out there. There's absolutely no program like it out there. So it's for any of the coaches that are hearing this, and that is the number one thing that people have, the issue they have to sign up for the program is the financial reason. And oftentimes what it is, it has nothing to do with the money. It's how you value that. One of the things is, like, you don't know how to receive that money yet to invest in yourself. However, though, you make that investment, you level up, and now you could repeatedly do that over and over again.

Starting point is 01:12:57 So it's one of those things that it's once you take the leap, throw your hat over the fence, figure out how to make it happen, the rest of your journey will start delivering those results. Yeah, most people that aren't getting the results they want in their business, it's primarily because they are not taking action. They simply aren't taking any action. They think about it, they talk about it, but they don't do the thing. Um, and fear gets in the way or whatever. Um, and, uh, when you, when you spend money on something, you're making a commitment. So it's, you know, if you spend a hundred bucks, that's about a hundred dollars worth of commitment. You know, if you spend a thousand bucks, it's about $100 worth of commitment. If you spend $1,000, that's $1,000 worth of commitment.

Starting point is 01:13:47 Everyone knows that they spend $300 on a pair of sunglasses. They never lose those motherfuckers. Yeah. Right? But the $5 pair you pick up at the gas station, they're gone the next week. Yeah. I've also seen it go the other way around.

Starting point is 01:14:01 But people are trying to keep up with those sunglasses or, you know, not drop their really expensive phone or whatever. But I was having a conversation, I'll bring this back

Starting point is 01:14:12 to coaching. I had a friend staying with me recently who's a coach. He runs a coaching business and he was,

Starting point is 01:14:22 he was saying, oh, his coaching business was at, you know, X amount of dollars. And he goes, yeah, I'm looking for a coach. And actually the, I go, well, what's your budget? And he tells me, oh, my budget's a thousand bucks a month. And I go, oh, okay. And so immediately I was ruled out of the equation.

Starting point is 01:14:42 I go, well, um, I don't coach people at that rate. And we got to talking about it. And a day goes by. That night, that night we're talking at dinner. And I was talking to him and I go, I go, I go, you got to spend more money than that. You're like, your business is at this point. You have to spend more money than that on a coach because the type of coach you need to get to the next level costs more money than what you're willing to spend. So you're stuck.

Starting point is 01:15:22 You're going to be stuck where you're at until you can get, or it's just going to take a long time. You're going to have to try to figure it out on your own, which means it's just going to take a longer amount of time and you'll make more mistakes, whatever. And if you're happy with that, that's fine too. There's nothing, you don't have to get a coach. It's just going to take longer. And so I, but I'm sitting there and i had just that week i'd talked to a uh the guy who

Starting point is 01:15:49 i was considering to hire as a coach and the price tag was uh more than i've spent and i go okay well and i was like man i was going back and forth i'm like uh you know technically the money is in my account. Technically I can make it work, but it would really challenge my budget. I don't have this in my budget right now. And if I spend this money, it's going to take from somewhere else. I'm going to have to cut something else in order to make this happen. And so I'm sitting here in my own mind thinking,

Starting point is 01:16:22 maybe I should hire this coach, maybe I shouldn't. You know what? I think I know what to do. I got this. And then I'm talking to him and I'm giving him this advice. And at the end of the conversation, I go to bed that night and I go, all right, I'm hiring a coach. And what I had said to him was,

Starting point is 01:16:44 you've got to be paying a coach more than what you're charging other people if you want to go to the next level. And here I am, I go, you know what? I have a health coach and it's a pretty penny for that, but I'm not spending more on my health coach than what we charge people for the Strong Coach program. And I go, okay, I'm not investing in coaching

Starting point is 01:17:14 at a higher level, which means that the Strong Coach is going to be right where it's at. It'll stay at the level it is, and it'll experience growth at the rate at which I'm growing, as you were saying before. So the strong coach will grow at that rate

Starting point is 01:17:31 which means that if I don't have a coach and I'm not going after things, it's going to be slower. I'll go, you know what? Me hiring a coach isn't even about me. It's about the strong coach. It's about Enlift me. It's about the strong coach. It's about Enlifted.

Starting point is 01:17:47 It's about Training Camp for the Soul. I know that when I spend the money with this coach, I'm going to be able to show up at a whole new level for all these things. And what made it really exciting is even if it was only the strong coach, I'd be excited about it. But knowing that I'm going to be, because I'm going to experience such a difference in my own life,

Starting point is 01:18:07 I get to, every aspect of my life is going to level up. It made it one of those things where it went from, man, I'm not so sure about this. If I get this in my budget too, excited to spend the money because the result is, I have no idea what it's going to look like. Because that's how it works. That's what is possible. You don't, you don't know how it's going to look when you, when you hire a coach, but on the other side, it's always, I've yet to regret it. So yeah, absolutely. Uh, so I

Starting point is 01:18:36 know one of the reasons why, uh, a lot of people follow you and, uh, admire the work that you do is because you're a visionary is you have a vision that's uh some people can even fathom uh to create uh a couple things that kind of blow my mind is like you're gonna live to 170 i totally believe you by the way you should yeah and uh another thing that you've mentioned to me is like at 40, you're going to create that your life's purpose work. Right. What else is happening for your future? Fill us in, Mike.

Starting point is 01:19:12 Whatever is that. What's funny is everything up to 40 is just practice. Yeah. Awesome. You know, because you look at people in their 20s and they're doing shit and they're like getting so stressed out about it. And, you know, I'm 37 now. I look at people who are like in their mid-20s or they're 22. They're just out of college and like, I don't know, man.

Starting point is 01:19:32 Should I like – should I move to a different town? I'm like freaking out. I'm like, dude, I've moved towns like five times. It's not that big of a deal at all, you know. And, you know, you ran out of money. Who cares? You're only 25. It's not running out of money at 25 or being $5,000 in debt.

Starting point is 01:19:49 You know, I'm not going to advise people go in debt, but it's like going, it's like, it's not that big of a deal. It's not that much money. It seems like it because you have no experience with it, but it's, it's comical. But you know what? People who are 45, 50 years old are looking at me at 37 and fucking having their own little chuckle as well yeah so uh but i um i yeah i i've done a lot of visioning i've been i've had enough experience i have interacted with a lot of people who know more than i do about a lot of things. And the conclusion I've come to in the last year,

Starting point is 01:20:25 about year, year and a half, is I see myself around 39 or 40 really falling into, that's when a lot of things will come to fruition. So there's this, it will give me enough time to, there's this book called Mastery by Robert Green. And I think there's one thing he highlights in there is a lot of times you learn three different things.

Starting point is 01:20:55 Like it takes about seven to 10 years to obtain mastery in these different areas. And they may seem like they're not connected at all but then 20 30 years later it's obvious that this person was meant to have mastery in these three different areas so they could culminate into this one amazing thing and having that knowledge really gave me a lot of patience and i go with myself and i go you know what i have attained mastery of a few different things at this point yeah and uh and it's going to take me a few years and like, this is all going to fit together. You know,

Starting point is 01:21:29 there's this whole health and fitness thing. Got that down pretty good. I've been focused on that since I was about 13 years old. Uh, this, uh, whole business thing, doing that for a decade.

Starting point is 01:21:40 Yep. It's all communication thing. This whole media thing. Been doing it for about seven years now. Another year and a half, two years. What's that going to look like, having put all those pieces together? I feel momentum, and so it feels good. I feel it too. Others feel it. It's contagious. Mike, where can people find more information about the Unlifted Athlete, Training Camp for the Soul, the Strong Coach?

Starting point is 01:22:08 All right. Tell us how to change our lives. If you're an athlete, if you're anybody, if you're an anybody or a nobody, go to unlifted.me. That's spelled E-N-L-I-F-T-E-D dot M-E. I'm going to try and buy that dot com at some point. Somebody's sitting on that shit. Go to unlifted.me. I'm going to try and buy that.com at some point. Somebody's sitting on that shit. Go to

Starting point is 01:22:28 enlifted.me. The course is The Way of the Enlifted Athlete. We priced it so that everybody could access it. It's worth way more than what we priced it at, but we are going for a volume play here. We want to impact everybody. You're a

Starting point is 01:22:44 coach. You want to take your shit to the next level. TheStrongCoach.com If you're not convinced by now, I don't know what we can do. And then, if you want to do the deep work, if you want to go with that flashlight and look into the deep, dark

Starting point is 01:22:59 parts of your soul and come out the other side, a light, fun person who cares. Who cares who you come out the other side a light fun person who uh who cares who cares who you become on the other side you're gonna enjoy it there's no way to predict what it's gonna look like uh if you wanna do that go to trainingcampforthesoul.com we actually have a uh we now have a uh a free meditation so if you want to get a taste of what it's like to work with a knot and me, you can go download a free meditation at trainingcampforthesoul.com. Awesome.

Starting point is 01:23:32 That's it. Thank you, Mike, for this opportunity. Thanks, Danny. Absolutely loved it. And looking forward to some more conversations. Appreciate you. All right, folks, you know the drill. iTunes, Stitcher, wherever. Positive comments, five-star reviews. And if you're a coach, go over to thestrongcoach.com. Hit the

Starting point is 01:23:54 schedule a discovery call to get on the phone with Danny. Find out what your next steps are to take your game to the next level. And if you're an athlete and coaches as well, if you want to get into the Enlifted program, go over to enlifted.me slash shrugged and you get on the list to get early access. That's enlifted.me slash shrugged.

Barbell Shrugged - Mike Bledsoe: The Hardest Thing I Ever Had To Do In Business — The Strong Coach #19

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