Dhru Purohit Show - 5 Powerful and Inspiring Quotes for Anyone Looking for Motivation and Perspective with Antonio Neves

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker and WHOOP. We’ve all gone through phases where we feel lost or stuck. It might be that you don’t know how to reach a goal you already have in mind, or maybe you don’t even know what your next chapter looks like. Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with his good friend Antonio Neves, and they both share their top five quotes to help anyone who is feeling stuck or needs a perspective shift to finally make progress on the things they care about most. Antonio Neves is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and speaker known for helping people get unstuck and make their next move with confidence. He is the founder of Allies of Growth, an international private membership community that helps married professionals with kids springboard their career, money, health, relationships, and more, and hosts The Antonio Neves Show podcast. In this episode, we dive into:    -How reading and associating yourself with smarter people creates momentum (4:43) -Not judging yourself and your circumstances when times get hard (13:21) -Being disciplined and accountable to the things you need to do daily to make your goals a reality (21:57) -Reducing the noise around you so you can hear your inner voice (30:22) -Why fear is a true indicator that you are moving in the right direction (37:56) -Demanding the best of yourself (42:34) -Understanding that you don’t have to have it all figured out and going with the flow (49:52) -Being open to differing opinions (55:43) -Letting go of things and people that weigh you down in order to achieve your goals (1:04:13) -Taking personal responsibility (1:16:04)    For more on Antonio Neves, follow him on Instagram @theantonioneves, YouTube @theantonioneves, and through his website, theantonioneves.com. Get his book, Stop Living On Autopilot, here.  Apply for Dhru's Executive Assistant position here. This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker and WHOOP. InsideTracker provides detailed nutrition and lifestyle guidance based on your individual needs. Right now, they’re offering my podcast community 20% off. Just go to insidetracker.com/DHRU to get your discount and try it out for yourself. WHOOP is a personalized digital fitness tracker and health coaching platform that monitors your physiology 24/7 and provides personalized recommendations based on what your body needs. For me, it's been a game-changer to optimize my sleep and improve my fitness, performance, and overall health. To get yours, go to join.whoop.com and get 15% off your membership with code DHRU15. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So many people tell you what they want to do. They tell you who they want to be, but their actions don't match what their goal is. The unwillingness to be accountable to do the things you need to do every single day to make some of those goals become a reality. Welcome to the Drew Proet podcast. Each week, we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is my dear friend and,

Antonio Neves, and today we're both sharing five of our favorite and top quotes to help anyone listening. This could be you. Anybody who's feeling stuck right now in life. Anybody who feels like they need a perspective shift. Anybody who's looking for a little kick in the butt motivation to finally start making progress on the thing that they care about most. Now, a little bit about Antonio, he's an entrepreneur.

bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and a world-renowned speaker known for helping people get unstuck and make their next move with confidence. Antonio is the founder of Allies of Glory, an international private membership community that helps professionals upgrade the areas of their life that matter the most. And that's what today's conversation is all about. It's all about giving attention to the areas of your life that matter the most by hearing some of these quotes that Antonio and I have to offer for. some of the top ones that are out there based on our readings, learnings, and just a bunch of different stuff that we've sorted through. Now, one more thing, Antonio is the author of four books, including his most recent one, has been on the podcast to talk about it before.

Stop living on autopilot. Take responsibility for your life and rediscover a bolder, happier you. Antonio also has a podcast. It's called the Antonio Neves show, where he reminds people that no matter where they stand today their story is far from over. This was a fun podcast to record. Antonio and I have been good friends for 10 plus years now. He's part of my men's group that meets pretty much every Thursday morning here in Los Angeles called Man Morning. And a big part of that group's intention is to get men together in brotherhood and to walk and reflect and ask each other interesting

questions or to share great quotes that get us to open up about the areas in our life that maybe we haven't had a chance to talk about. Maybe there's a business idea that you're sitting on that you want to start, but you haven't had the courage to share it with anybody yet. Maybe there's a book that you want to write, but you don't know what the topic is and you need to reflect a little bit more. Maybe there's some new fitness goal you want to aspire to. We all have something that's brewing inside of us, but feels a little stuck or needs more

attention. And this men's group we have is really good at helping all other guys in the group kickstart that journey. So we wanted to bring a little bit of that energy to today's podcast. So hopefully we have some quotes that can help you kickstart where it is that you want to give love and attention to. Stay tuned. Antonio, welcome back on the podcast. It's a pleasure to have you here. We're going to jump right in. We have a fantastic episode for people today. Today's podcast is both of us sharing five inspirational, motivational mindset and maybe even some funny quotes that are specifically designed to help anyone who's feeling like they need a little bit of a

perspective shift, who's feeling like they're a little stuck in life and they need a little kick in the butt for somebody who wants just different take on what they're going through. So leaving today's episode, my hope is, and I want to get your take on it before we jump in and get into the first quote that we have here today that you're going to share. My take on today's episode is that my hope is that when people are done listening it, they're going to be fired up for whatever they're going to be fired up for whatever they. feel matters most of them in life. Yeah, I'm with you.

I think this is for folks who've been maybe in a funk for a little bit. They've been in a rut, maybe on cruise control, the way life can get at you. It's for those individuals that need a reset or a reboot. If there's someone that's listening to this or watching this right now who's been figuring things out for a long time, you know, you talk to folks and say, how are things going? You know, figuring things out. If you've been figuring things out for far too long, this is the episode. These are the quotes that are going to help you.

stop figuring things out and instead start taking action so you can build momentum and see some real tangible results, not just feel better, but things that are tangible that you can see happen right in front of you. Awesome. Well, let's jump in. Let's help people stop living on autopilot. That's the name of your book. Yeah, man.

And share the first quote with us. All right. This one is money right here. We're starting with magic by one of my favorite people in history, Will Rogers. You know, we live nearby. Will Rogers Beach. Will Rogers State Park. Will Rogers for folks who don't know was a brilliant actor, a cowboy, a humorist. And he was just

phenomenal, was a newspaper writer, et cetera. So he has this quote right here and is, a man only learns in two ways, one by reading and the other by association with smarter people. A man only learns in two ways, one by reading and the other by association with smarter people. I think this one is really specific to what we're talking about because I find that when people get in a rut, if they get in a funk, one thing they tend to stop doing is learning. Of course, after we tend to in high school, maybe college for some folks, our formalized learning stops. But I think when we stop learning, we stop growing. And that's for a lot of people right now, for folks who may be a little bit in a funk, feel like they're in a rut or stuck, ask yourself, when is the last time you learn something? The cool thing about learning is you can do by listening to a podcast like this, right?

It's free. You can watch a great YouTube video. You can take an online course. You can read 10 pages of a book every single day. Learning is a game changer to create momentum. And one thing if I could add into that is that I really like the first part of the quote. And as much as I love podcasts and you're a fan and I'm a fan and I have a podcast and you have a podcast too. What's your podcast called?

The Antonio Neff Show. There you go. There is no substitute for reading. right there's no substitute for reading that doesn't mean that everybody has to go out there and read but there's no substitute for reading when you get into a book when you get into something even if you're just reading a couple pages of the time it's unlike any other medium and i love the fact that that was highlighted sorry i cut you off reading just five 10 pages a day is game changer you'll get through so many books people are always like how do how do you read so many books 10 pages a day before you know you'll be through so many books in the course of a month or a few months

Now here's an amazing part as well, the second part of this. The other, by association with smarter people, the association with smarter people, you've talked about it on this podcast. We have a group that gets together every single week called Man Morning. At 7 o'clock in the morning, we get together, we talk about life, we talk about business, we talk about relationships, so many other things. And those moments when we get together that for me have been a game changer in all aspects of my life. Again, I found personally, and I'll speak for myself as well, when I follow myself in cruise control or living on autopilot or stuck, one thing that I tend to do, and I know a lot of people do this as well, is they tend to isolate. They start disconnecting from others. And again, when you isolate, when you disconnect, you are no longer growing, you aren't moving forward. So we have to have something, in my opinion, on our calendar on a regular basis, whether in person or even virtually, where we regularly get to get face-to-face.

with one another. And what's even amazing about getting together in groups like that is some of my most profound moments in group settings are moments when I didn't even say anything. I just listened and participated as a listener, as an observer. And I think if people have those ongoing moments that are on their calendar weekly or biweekly to meet up with other people, whether there's one person or a group of people, they'll find that it'll have a positive impact on their life. I truly believe it. You know, on the topic of not, you know, you don't always have to necessarily be talking, even if you're feeling like you're in a funk and you're not ready to talk about what you're going through, because a lot of people are in that place. I've been in

that place before. There's just something powerful about listening to what other people are going through. And, you know, sure, there's one type of hangout, which is meeting up with friends to gossip or just shoot the shit about, you know, random stuff. Nothing wrong with that, no judgment. But what we're really talking about here is an intentional opportunity for people to just open up and share what's going on in their life. And even if you want to be a little bit more private right now, hearing the stories of what other people are going through is a reminder of a few things. Number one, everybody's going through something. I'm not alone.

When your nervous system feels stuck, when you feel like you're not sure what decision to make, when you're not feeling inspired to take action, often there's this feeling where you're so zoomed in on just your own narrative. And when you hear the stories of what other people are going through and how they're doing the best that they can, which you also are doing the best that you can, There's part of your brain that starts to get a perspective shift. And I'm not the only person going through that, which by the way, makes your nervous system feel at ease. It's not all about me.

You know, Reverend Michael Beckwith has a great quote. It's not included in my list over here, but it's something I'll just toss in. A person wrapped up in only their story and only themselves makes for a mighty small package. When you're so wrapped up in your own narrative, when you're so wrapped up in your own narrative, when you're so wrapped up, and the only thing as you can see is just you, when the only thing you can see is just your own limited experiences and how life isn't working out for you and what went wrong for you,

you become small in this world. And what helps you become big is perspective. One of those two ways of getting that from that quote from Will Rogers. Shout out to, you know, that great actor and philanthropist reading and getting perspective. Yeah. And just lastly, what I've learned in my life

is sometimes our biggest breakthroughs can come when we help others, right? When we're helping someone else, our biggest breakthroughs can come from those moments. So like, just go give, be of support, be of service, and straight up magic can happen. And sometimes it's just asking somebody how their day's going, fully listening to them. That's a huge opportunity. All right, I love it. Quote number one down. This episode is brought to you by Inside Tracker. You know, I just turned 40 this year, and I can honestly say I've never felt better. So many people have a fear around getting old. because they think it has to come with chronic disease and deteriorating mental and physical health.

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Right now, InsideTracker is offering my podcast community 20% off. Just go to insidetracker.com slash drew. That's D-H-R-U to get your discount code and to try. out yourself. That's inside. I-N-S-I-D-E tracker, T-R-A-C-K-E-R dot com slash D-H-R-U for 20% off today. You know what's been a game changer for me as far as my fitness goes, my daily performance, and my overall health? Sleep. But, you know, sleep is not as simple as just closing your eyes and hoping for the best. The quality of your sleep is ultimately what matters the most, which is why I love wearing my WOOP device.

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Just go to join.wop.com. and use the code Drew 15 at checkout. That's join. Dot W-H-O-O-P dot com and enter the code D-H-R-U-15 at checkout for 15% off any Woop membership. Now, this is somebody that's been on the podcast before, and I was catching up with some of his writings in preparation of these quotes that I wanted to bring to the table. And there was a passage from his new book called Healing by Young Pueblo, who's been on the podcast before, prolific on Instagram,

always sharing these incredible quotes. And here is a quote on maturity that I really enjoyed that I brought to this episode. So it's a little bit of a passage. Maturity is when you can finally ride the ups and downs of life without getting tossed around by them. You don't expect everything to be perfect. You know change is a constant.

You don't judge yourself when times get hard. You live in gratitude. You enjoy the good when it's here. You know, what stood out for me from one of this, from this quote, Antonio, is the idea, especially of not judging yourself and your circumstances when times get hard. Things are always changing. Times are going to be tough and especially the more you take on in life, often the more challenges come your way.

It's just a byproduct of you doing more things. And when you can step away from judging yourself, that is a sign of maturity, which is also a sign of a perspective shift. You know, the first part here in this quote is maturity is when you can finally ride the ups and downs of life without getting tossed around by them. There's something about maturity, which isn't just with age, although often with age comes perspective because you've had a lot of different experiences. there's a sense of real maturity is understanding that there's going to be ebbs and flows. It's not wishing that things were different. It's not pretending that all of a sudden you meet the right person, let's say you're single right now. And oh my gosh, when I find the right person to be in a relationship with, when I finally get married,

when I finally make that million dollars, when I finally have this X, Y, and Z thing happen, everything's going to be okay. Mature people know that even when you have those things and those things can be in life and you can celebrate them, still other stuff will come up and you appreciate both the good and the bad because this two shall pass in the journey. What comes up for you when I read this passage? Yeah, first, I'm thinking back in the previous chapter of my life when I work in the television industry. I did a lot of live TV and it's always fascinating that when you're doing live TV specifically, you never know what can go wrong. And when something goes wrong, you can get

frustrated, you can get mad, you can get angry, or you can learn how to ride the wave and adjust as things aren't going the way you anticipated. And I think you, we also learn so much about ourselves when those emotions aren't necessarily going the way we want them to go or those waves as well. Also, as you were talking, I think about that maturity, when you come to that place in life, when you acknowledge that I don't have to let my emotions get the best of me. I don't have to react big to something like this, even if I was darn wrong or it's not, I'm not having my best day. I get to choose how I respond. It makes me also. think about like that moment in life when you're growing up. And remember when you were a kid and

you would stub your toe or you'd fall down and you hurt yourself and our immediate response normally is to start crying, right? But there's that moment as you get older and you mature when your pain threshold increases and you stub your toe or you hurt yourself really, really bad. Well, you don't cry. You don't, you just, in your brain, you're like, damn, that hurt. But you're just like, damn, that hurt, but you're not reacting big. And I think also what you're describing is this notion of having standards over emotions. I think a lot of us don't think about what are our standards. Like, what are the values?

What are the things that we stand for? Most people, if you ask them that question, what are your standards? They can't tell you them. Now, when we have clear standards, those three to five things, those values that we stand for, amidst all the turbulence, the emotions, we react, not based, on this, we back, react based on our standards. So that's what I think about. What's an example of like standards in your life, if you wouldn't mind sharing or just somebody you've worked with before as an executive coach? One standard is kindness. So even in the midst of a situation where

you may be pissed or you may be ticked off, whether that's with a business associate, whether that's with a friend, whether that's with a stranger or with your partner at home, you know, if you always choose kindness, right, first and foremost, I think discipline is a really, really, really great standard. I have a great quote coming up, by the way, about discipline. Having discipline, knowing that we're going to do the things that we say we're going to do regardless of what's happening out there. So those are a couple examples of standards, right? I love that one about kindness because the last part of this quote, this passage from the book Healing by Young Pueblo, shout out to him. You can find him in the show notes is you don't judge yourself when times get hard.

You live in gratitude. So kindness is not just about our, our outward kindness towards other people. There's a lot of people that are pleasant to other people. There's a lot of people that are outwardly kind to other people. And yet, if we could see their own thoughts about themselves, like little thought bubbles above a cartoon character showing what they're thinking,

we would see that they are so hard on themselves. And the harder you are on yourself, the more likely you are to be in a funk. And then some people get hard on themselves for getting hard on themselves, especially if you're pretty aware and you're kind of, you know, you're in the awareness of, you know,

mindset, personal responsibility, all this good stuff that we're going to be talking about today on today's episode. You're like, shit, there I am again being hard on myself and now you get hard on yourself.

I'll never be good enough. I'll never be somebody who achieves anything. I'm never going to get this project done. And that's just old voices. They're not your voice. They're old voices. It's a voice of apparent. Yeah.

Even well-meaning, but it could be apparent. It could be the voice. voice of authority figure in your life, like a coach, could be a teacher who once said something to you, could be a bully or even a friend who saw a good trait you had, but then said that you'd never be good at this other trade that you didn't have. Whatever it is, these are all old voices, and they're a byproduct of the ego. They're not your inner voice. They're not your inner guidance. So when they come up, don't try to force them away.

Just observe them. You know, the Buddha said that if you're sitting in a pond and there's a bunch of ripples that are out there, you don't get rid of those ripples by trying to smash the ripples with your hand. When you smash the ripples with your hand, you create more ripples. Instead, if you just sit still, you observe the ripples. They'll slowly start to go away on their own.

and that's the power of not judging yourself when times get hard. Yeah, and briefly, I think it's great for you to acknowledge, like, where is this old story coming from? Where is this old voice coming from and to challenge those? We have young kids, my wife and I, and we try to teach them some empowering statements that can use going back to those values, some affirmations they always have with them. Before they go to bed every single night, we provide these affirmations that we all say together as a family.

We say, I am strong, I am healthy, I am loved, I'm a comment, I'm a comment, and I'm a conversation. conqueror, I am a child of God, I am a Neves. And when we say that to them, repeat that to them every single night, it is just instilled in who they are. So even the moments when they're having a tough time, and I will say, what are our affirmations? What do you need to remind yourself of right now even during this challenging time? Of course, we're going to give them a hug, and we're going to love them, love them and console them during challenging times, but we remind them of those affirmations of who they are. So hopefully down the road, when we talk about what voice am I hearing, they're hearing that voice when they were a kid, being reminded of who they.

are. Yeah, I love that. And for those that think like, okay, our affirmation's real, does this feel like, you know, wishy-washy, you know, L.A. spirituality or this, that. It's like you have to understand you're already listening to affirmations. You just didn't choose them on purpose. You're listening to those old voices. Again, those examples that I shared with you, that authority figure or the parent, whatever, you're already listening to those. You're just not present to the fact that you're choosing them. They're automatic because your nervous system has said, well, this was somebody who knew more than me at the time, and they were telling me why life was the way that it was,

and I never questioned it. So, all right, I think enough about that quote. All right. We got our second quote over here. I'm going to pass it back over to you. I hope you buckled up right now, Drew. Here we go, all right. This comes from Ronnie Coleman.

So Ronnie Coleman is a bodybuilding champion and like former Mr. Olympia. Like, I think eight times he won Mr. Olympia. Like this straight up, Google Ronnie Coleman. You'll see some amazing stuff about this guy. A recent documentary came on about him recently as well. So check that out. But here's a quote from Ronnie Coleman,

former Mr. Olympia bodybuilding champion. Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights. Let's think about that. Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights. What comes up for you when you hear that quote? So much, because so many people in this life tell you what they want to do.

So many people tell you what they want to achieve. They tell you who they want to be, but their actions don't match what their goal is or what their vision is. You know, I've worked as a coach for over 10 years now, and it's so fascinating to work with individuals. And you see them come in with a clear vision of what they want to do, but the unwillingness to be disciplined and to be accountable to do the things you need to do every single day to make some of those goals become a reality.

Now, we can talk about everything from making more money. We can talk about getting in better physical shape. We can talk about eating healthier. We can talk about having a better relationship with our spouse, et cetera. And the question is, what are you doing today? to get closer to that goal. I think the reason why people get overwhelmed when it comes to goals and visions they have for themselves

is they're looking at it from a lag measure perspective. So when I say lag measure, a lag measure is I wanna make $250,000 this year. So they only focus on the $250,000. Or I want to lose 25 pounds. They're focusing on the 25 pounds. What they should do instead, instead of focusing on that lag measure, lag is coming later on the 250,000,

or the 25 pounds is focused on the lead measure. A lead measure is the actions you will take every single day to accomplish that goal. So a lead measure for making that $250,000 can be, I need at minimum to make five sales calls a day. I have found historically if I do at least five sales calls a day, it generates X amount of revenue a week, a month, etc., that will lead. Law of averages. Law of averages.

It goes back to the weight, right? you're going to lose weight. You have to look at your behavior, what you're consuming, what you're doing on a daily basis from a dietary perspective, from a physical perspective, et cetera. So the question is, are you willing to take the steps that are necessary? And most people, a lot of people, like you said, a lot of people don't want to lift no heavy-ass weights. Listen, your perspective could be interesting because obviously you're an expert in the health and wellness field. And I know over the years, so many people have come to you for your support where you're guidance from your consulting to learn from you and your expertise. And I'm sure you've probably

given so many people, not just advice. You've probably given so many people the exact blueprint. Do X, Y, and Z, and these will be your results. And I'm curious what percentage of people in your experience have followed the blueprint you've given them. Yeah, well, first I'll say that I like to go on record that I'm definitely not an expert in the health and wellness space. The most that I say is I'm a little bit of a Sherpa who can guide you to the experts that are out there. That's the role that I'd love to play. But regarding that blueprint and people taking action, it's the same thing for me in my own life when I'm starting something new.

When I'm starting something new and it's tough and it's difficult, somebody could tell you exactly what you need to do, but you need to understand firsthand how to actualize it and make it reality. And oftentimes that could be as simple as does. your schedule match your goals. Does your schedule? Are you even blocking off time to think about this thing? Even if it feels like it's so far away,

are you blocking off time to even think about it? Are you blocking off time to even meet with people? Are you blocking off time to even put in some energy? We all have aspirations. We all see things that people have externally. Bodybuilding is a good example because, you know, I have no aspirations to be a bodybuilder, but some people look at that and they're like,

man, this person is like super muscular. In that same way, somebody might look at like somebody's status financially and say, wow, this person has X amount of millions or whatever. I want to obtain that. And I think that two important lessons that are there is that we forget about the daily habits that they put in. What do you call it? The lag.

The lag measures are at the end result. And result. Lead measures are the day. Lead measures. We forget about the daily habits that they put in. And the second thing is we also look, we also underestimate. that it's not the thing that we're trying to get in our life, but it's who we become going after the thing.

Because even if it doesn't work out, the discipline that we're bringing into our life by attempting something, the learning that we're bringing into our life by attempting something, who do you have to become? When I was younger, I had all these arbitrary goals,

just things that I just thought that, wow, that sounds good, that's somebody else's goal, I'm going to have that goal. What I totally did not anticipate, is the person that I end up becoming by just going after things was so much more valuable than the things himself. Do you ever feel that way? 100%. Let me give you an example. I did this program. It's called a 75 hard. You can Google it.

You find some information on it. Andy Fersilla came up with it. And so basically this program for 75 days, you're doing two 45-minute workouts. One of those workouts have to be outside. You're You're drinking a gallon of water. You're sticking to some type of diet, right? You're being consistent with it. You're not drinking any alcohol. And you're reading 10 pages a day. And you do that for 75 days.

Let me tell you something. It's a lot easier doing it in Southern California than I'm sure in the winter somewhere else. But who I transform into over the course of 75 days, physically, I have a picture on my Instagram page. Yeah, the physical transformation in just 75 days. was no joke, those two workouts a day, the sicking to a really clean diet, no alcohol, et cetera, drinking a gallon of water today, oh day. Physically, the transformation was, wow, mentally, how I showed up, like who I became in that process, the drive, the non-negotiables. I wasn't negotiating with myself. I think a lot of us, we negotiate with ourselves, like,

every single way, am I going to work out? Am I going to eat good today? We had these conversations with ourselves. But what was fascinating by doing this program was that the decision was already made. I no longer was negotiating with myself. And for me, that was pretty profound as a person that is really good. Like I can interrogate myself well, like I'm a lawyer and improve my case why I should eat unhealthy or why I should have that drink or why I shouldn't work out. But it changed my mentality of not negotiating anymore and doing what I say I'm going to do. Almost in a way I'm hearing that there was freedom found within the structure. The structure created so much freedom.

And I think we forget that sometimes, you know, in my book, Stop Living on Autopilot, I remind people that sometimes, you know, winging it is easy when you're well prepared. You know, for over 12 years, I was a journalist. And I, you know, interviewed everyone from former heads of state to top CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs, Grammy, Oscar award winners, et cetera. And like you, you know, you do your due diligence. You do your research, right? And you have all your questions you want to ask.

But because you've done so much prep, you know, that interview you can take a different tangent or go a different direction and you can quote unquote wing it because you are so prepared. So putting in that work is a game changer. I love it. All right. We got plenty of quotes to go through and I believe we have an hour left to record. So let's jump into it. Here is my second quote. This is from Derek Sivers, a serial entrepreneur, founder of a company called CD Baby, sold that for a bunch of money.

And it's just really more of a philosopher. He's got some great TED Talk. that I'll link to in the show notes. And this is a quote from his most recent book. Most of what people say and do is unnecessary. Most talk is just noise. The English word for noise comes from nausea. Say nothing unless it must be said.

People will appreciate your silence and know that when you speak, it must be important. shallow rivers are noisy deep lakes are silent you know the reason that i wanted to share this quote and i'm not proposing that everybody be a buddhist monk and they only speak when is necessary i think that there are plenty of reasons to speak to make somebody feel comfortable to make to be more friendly to be at a cocktail party to engage in dialogue and other things but what i'm really taking away from this quote is that sometimes sometimes sometimes Sometimes in our life, we remove noise by not contributing to the noise, by being more mindful in our speech, in our actions.

And when we do that, it's a good way to have us focus in. You know, the first part of the quote that I'll read again, most people, most of what people say and do is unnecessary. Most talk is just noise. The English word of noise comes from nausea. When we're trying to reduce the noise in our life, when we're trying to get unstuck because we feel like there's too many things to do, one way, and this is like a hat, think of yourself as an actor and you're trying out different roles for what's needed in your life at that time. I think having a toolbox, I think having a tool a toolbox with a bunch of different tools inside of it that you can tap into is a great way to

break free and get yourself out of a game plan that wasn't working. So if your normal state is to always be sharing your goals with everybody all the time, but you're not making progress on it, maybe try on the hat just temporarily of not saying much about it, being more focused, being more internal about it, or having maybe a few close confidants that you could talk about it with. It's not that everybody has to do it. It's just that it's worth trying if our goal is to reduce noise and clutter in our life so we can focus. Yeah, you're sure that a couple of things come up. It's one, I think back to early in my life when I spoke probably way too much and I did that for a variety of reasons, but primarily I think I was seeking validation at that time.

You know, you speak to get to get validated in those things, and that can be dangerous. A second, I think about silence from a different perspective as well as a coach when I work with people, whether they're executives or business owners, et cetera. I've also found that when I'm coaching, silence is an amazing friend as well. Like if you want to have an amazing conversation with a friend with your spouse, somebody in your community, sometimes just allowing some amazing silence to happen after you ask a question. If they don't answer right away, gives them some space to actually breathe and to share something profound with you. I found that as a journalist for so long as well. Early on in my career as a journalist, I regularly found myself trying to fill up all of the silence. But the silence is where the magic can happen.

and that person will share something pretty magical and profound if you give them the space. I think great therapists do that. Where I find some friction with that quote personally. Tell me, tell me. I want the friction. That's the reason that we're having the conversation. And not that he was specifically speaking about this is in this day of social media, especially if you're working some type of public light like you and I do.

It's fascinating. Whereas I always feel this urge that I must share something on social media, whether that's on Instagram or YouTube or Twitter, etc. We feel like this constant need to regularly share. And the truth is sometimes I don't want to share anything. I'm not in the mood. And that's why I think it's a go, behoove me to hire someone to do all that stuff for me.

So I'm not the one hitting publish on all these videos. But where I feel some friction with that is only because I can see how challenging this can be in this day and age when everyone is pretty much in Western culture, has been handed a phone to broadcast. their voice to give their opinion. Everybody obviously is a life coach nowadays. Just go on Instagram or everyone can tell you how to make money. Everyone's a health expert all of a sudden, right?

So that's where I think it's fascinating where we need to be quiet. You know, we got more yapping going on than ever before. Yeah. And one other thing I think about with this quote is removing the noise around us, especially first thing in the morning. You know, there's something special about first thing in the morning, regardless of what time people wake up. I'm an early riser. My wife likes to sleep in a little bit, sleep in in the standard sense of compared to where I'm at.

She functions way, by the way. Like I'd spend like a whole conversation with her to be like, you do better when you sleep in. You're an entrepreneur. Just adjust your schedule. You'll be so much more productive. Shout out to my wife who's probably not listening, but I hope she is. And so whatever time you wake up, that first couple hours in the day, we're very, subjectable. We're very influenced. And if we're surrounded by a ton of noise, that includes this

podcast as well, but more so, I'm more talking about the news. I'm more so talking about television, things that maybe aren't intentional, things that don't have your best, your best intentions in mind. We surround ourselves with so much noise that we can't actually hear the signal inside of us. What is that inner signal? that inner voice saying inside of you, what is that gut instinct saying, whether it is you want to write a book, whether it is you have something interesting to share,

whether that's, you have a new vision for your role inside of your company that you work at, whether that's a vision for a new company that you want to get started on. What is that signal inside of you? And can you pause, at least for that first few hours in the morning,

can you pause the noise so that you can hear what it is that you're meant to hear from your own signal? Yeah, and I think the quickest way, folks, can do that is by using an old school alarm clock, right? We all use, you know, pretty much our cell phones for our alarm clocks. What happens? We hit, turn, snooze off or turn it off and immediately we're in social media or we're in email or something like that. And the universe is

telling us what they want from us versus us to your point, taking that pause, that deep breath, the journal to meditate, to walk around the block, walk barefoot in the grass, whatever, to get clear on what's most important for us for that day. If nothing else gets done today, we can talk about intent. If nothing else gets done today, what are the three things? things that must get done. If you do that right at the top of the morning, that dictates the flow and the way your day is going to go. You'll be able to stiff arm and kibosh those things that are coming in because you are very clear about what you want out of the day. Last thing is I have to remind everyone watching and listening to this that your email inbox is not your to-do list.

Right? Your email inbox is not your to-do list. That's another episode. Yeah. And other people's priority is not your to-do list either. It can be part of that. Sure. But it can't dictate the thing. So only way to get clear on that is listen to the signal inside of you. Only way to listen that signal, we got to quiet the noise around us a little bit. All right. Let's go into number three, the third quote that we have. Number three. Now, this comes from Pima Choderman, children from her amazing book when things fall apart. By the way, if anyone is going through an extremely challenging time right now in their life in any regard, the book when things fall apart by Pima Children, not to be confused with another

astounding book called When Things Fall Apart, is an amazing, an amazing read. So Pima Chodren says, and when things fall apart, fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. Read that again. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. That one always hits me. That has a lot of late.

layers in it. There's so many layers, there's so many different angles we can take with that. But, you know, depending upon how you define fear, right, when you actually are starting to pursue something that you want, we can start to feel resistance. We can start to feel that fear are trying to hold us back, telling us maybe to back away. This also makes me think about, you know, a great quote by Fritz Perils. He found something called Gestalt Therapy. And he said, fear is excitement without the breath. Fear is excitement without the breath. We're not breathing.

We're not fully basking. We're not being in it. We are tightening up, not being in flow in that moment. So when I read fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth, that's one of those reminders for me to keep moving forward, even in the midst of fear, even in the midst of trepidation, whether that's professionally, whether that's physically, et cetera, and to question our fear. I think one thing we don't do enough is to question our fear,

to question our doubts, right? When these things show up, we need to be a lawyer. We need to interrogate them and say, fears, are you true? Doubts that are coming into my brain? Are you true? Are you just trying to hijack and there's some self-sabotaging going on? So I think this one has a lot to do with self-sabotage. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.

tell you what comes up for me is the reminder that we all know this and we need a reminder all of us every day multiple times a day sometimes we think based on sort of the disnification right of storytelling is that heroes or call it the marvel of vacation you know we always see these stories of superheroes heroes we we read these glamorized biographies of people uh the glamorized biographies of people uh the glamorized ones, not the real ones. If you read the real ones, the biographies of people, you see that people took their fear along with them on the journey. They had fear and what they were working on was so important. What they were doing was so necessary for their mission, their journey, whatever it is that they were trying to do, that they made a decision that they

just have to take fear along with them. This idea that fear just goes away. The idea that we have to conquer our fear before we can take action is probably one of the biggest misconceptions in mindset. So understanding that take your fear along with you, you have fear right now, you're working on something, great, take it along with you, just take it with you, just still make progress, still take action, take the fear along with you because this idea that it's going to go away and then you're going to take action, it just doesn't work that way. and plenty of people that are way smarter than me,

way smarter than you, way smarter than the person who's listening, way more intelligent, have accomplished a lot. They've been in that exact same situation and they've dealt with way more fear and they've still had to take it along with them. Yeah, if anything, as I'm hearing you talk, I'm thinking that fear can be a true indicator that you're actually moving in the right direction.

If you're not feeling that fear, if you're not regularly finding the edge, if you're not stretching yourself, you're not pushing yourself, right? Maybe you aren't, you know, moving forward. But I think fear can be the indicator that I'm moving in the right direction. I love this quote as well. If you're not close enough to the edge, then you're taking up too much space, right?

And I think that invites fear on that journey. So I like your advice to bring fear along on the journey and just to expect it. You go to those motorcycles that people ride, they have a little compartment in them, they have dogs in them sometimes with the goggles on. We can put fear in there and just ride away with it. Just take it with you. It's a companion on the journey. Don't expect it not to be there.

I love that. All right, that was your third quote. I'm going to go into my third quote here. And this is from one of the best stoic philosophers. In fact, the one that really introduce stoic philosophy to Marcus Aurelius, which a lot of people know, a great emperor of Rome, and one of the most famous stoics that are out there. And this individual, I always mess up the pronunciation of the name, but epitetus. Epitetus.

Epitetus. Epitetus. It's a short quote. And by the way, for anybody who doesn't know, and I'm not the most well versed on this, I know Ryan Holiday has a lot of content on this area, and there's great videos on this on YouTube. Epitetus was a slave who got into philosophy and started writing down these quotes that ultimately his writings and teachings ended up in the hands of the emperor, Marcus

Aurelius, and led to this major, you know, publication of, of stoic philosophy that influenced not just that region and time in Rome, but for many generations on. And of course, we get to enjoy too. So the quote says, how much longer are you going to wait to demand the best of yourself? Ooh. How much longer are you going to wait to demand the best of yourself? You know, one thing I've noticed, Antonio, is that,

when you spend time with elderly, right, people who are older, I like to visit, I've gone with one of our mutual buddies, Mohit, who's part of our man mourning, him and his wife, and we've taken some friends with us near of and stuff. We visit a senior citizen home and spend time with people that are there. One thing that you realize is there's a very clear divide in the individuals that are there that are present at this facility of the people who are still waiting and you know it always feels a little harsh to be able to talk about you know senior citizens or this or that or whatever but I think young people get into the same thing so it's just an analogy you know don't take offense to it there's people that are still waiting when you are 80 years

old 90 years old and pretty much you've lived you know the vast majority of your life if there's not this sense of personal responsibility of like, you know what, even today at whatever age I am, no matter what happened before, I'm going to still show up the best that I can right now. If there's still not that sense, what you see is this behavior and this behavior is trying to revise the past. I saw my grandfather do this firsthand. When you have no more time for the future, when you're young, you're like, in the future, I'm going to do this.

In the future, I'm going to do that. In the future, I'm going to do that. In the future, I'm going to do that. When you're older, you have the same thing, but it's about the past. Oh, nobody supported me in the past. Nobody did anything for me. And listen, those things might be true. But if you're using them as all the reasons and excuses that still today, you can't show up as your best sense of self, you have still not embodied that quote.

You're still waiting. So both older people are waiting. There's a great incredible book. It's called The Five Regrets of the Dying. Yes. Right. I've talked about in this podcast a bunch. Did some episodes.

We'll link to it in the show notes. Older people are waiting by revising. revising the past, but also younger people, it's more obvious that they're waiting one day in the future, I'm gonna start showing up. And really, this isn't about achieving that top line goal that you might wanna bring into your life. This is about demanding that today,

I'm gonna show up the best that I can, which also means when I mess up, I'm gonna forgive myself. That's also showing up and demanding the best from yourself. This is really not punting on the, excuse that I'm not going to show up my best self. Yeah. Read their quote one more time for me. How much longer are you going to wait to demand the best of yourself?

That hits me on so many different levels personally. When I think about as a professional, when I think about the father that I am, when I think about the husband that I am, the friend that I am, like, you know, having again, going back to those standards we talked about earlier. So that one hits me like emotionally. I love it. Every time you read a quote, it makes me think of another quote. And the quote is a Spanish proverb, and it's tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week because what do we do? We put everything off until tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. I'll start the diet tomorrow. I'll start reaching out to friends tomorrow. I'll start working harder tomorrow. I'll start applying. We can give you so many examples.

Tomorrow's often the busiest day of the week when all we have is today. You know, in my book, I write about life altering. events. We've all heard about people Drew who have those life-altering events of having to file for bankruptcy, or they get served divorce papers, or they find themselves in a tragic car accident or something like that, or maybe they get diagnosed with a terminal illness. And it's only then, once they have that life-altering event that they choose to make better decisions to live the life they say they've wanted to live, right? Those life-changing events. And I think what a reminder for all of us as I hear that quote that we are the life altering events that we've been waiting for.

Like we are that. We get to make that choice every single day and what an amazing responsibility it is to do so. So to your point, we have to ask ourselves, what's the key things we can do today to be that person if we don't reach those goals, as you mentioned, not to be hard on ourselves, but to not just commit, but recommit the next day. We talk so much in society about commitment, but I think I have to remind myself that commitment isn't a one-time thing. Like we have to recommit every single day to what we say is most important. And that one is one that I personally needed to hear and I'm going to take that with me. Yeah.

And I want to share one last item. You know, sometimes people here demand the best of yourself and they think their version of perfection in different areas of their life. That means eating perfectly, going to the gym every day, being the this, the that, all that stuff. there's no way that one human being can do all those different things. What we're talking about when we're talking about demanding the best in ourselves is really a mindset that we're going to show up, that every day we're going to show up and we're going to be present to what it is that we really need. One of my favorite books is called The One Thing by Gary Keller.

And inside of that book, one of the reasons I love it is that it's a roadmap for actually taking action on the most important thing in the major areas of your life. And the central message of that book is that doing, too much. Running around and trying to do everything is actually one of the things that's keeping you from making progress on actually what you genuinely are telling me right now is the most important things for you. The things that will completely not only change how you show up, but could change your family tree, your family legacy, whatever it might be. So for anybody who is stuck in that idea of like doing it all, that's a book recommendation that I'll throw out there. I've also done a couple

episodes where I've highlighted some of the teachings in that book that we can link in the in the show notes okay all right I think we're on number four number four let's do it all right this is by one of my favorite poets a Pulitzer prize winning poet by the name of mary oliver and the quote is keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable I think, and I'll speak for myself, I think we think we know how things are going to go. We think we know what the road is going to look like, what the outcome is going to be, whether it's in our work, whether it's in our relationships, whether it's with our money, every category we can think of in our lives.

And at some point, we stop using our imagination. And at some point, we stop dreaming. at some point we can stop being bold and we can stop being courageous like we once were. There's this great interview in the New York Times back in 2016, and they were interviewing two business owners that started a business in New York City in the 1990s. And at some point while they were talking about this experience of starting the company, one of the business owners said basically something to the tune of, oh, man, I missed the old New York. And he was talking about what New York was like in the 1990s, when it's a little bit different

than it is today, et cetera. but his business partner corrected him. And what he said was, he says, you don't miss the old New York. What you miss is the old you, who you were during that time. I think we can all go back to a certain time frame in our lives when we were still dreamers, when we still had vivid imaginations, when there are so many different things we were going to do right in our lives. But then at some point when life got in the way and different responsibilities, that that dreamer got put.

pushed away, that imagine, you know, we got to accept what real life is like now, et cetera, and that person slowly but surely can go away. So this, for me, is an invitation for all of us to ask ourselves, what are some of those dreams that we still have inside of us? Yeah, when I hear that quote, I also hear like, you don't have to have it all figured out. In fact, if you have it all figured out, you could be stifling your growth. Yes. And that could be even on a super small level of you don't have. I just recently did a podcast on the power of really having intentional friendships in your life and some of the research in that category and how human connection, social relationships, friendships are one of the top predictors of longevity

that's out there. And there's people out there that will feel anytime I've talked about the subject of even on a simple level, like, I can't even imagine what it would look like to have supportive friends in my life. Wow. I just don't either live in a place where I think that those people are there. I've never had those people previously. When you've already decided, the crazy thing is your brain is like a detective. It will go out and it'll go on the hunt to look for evidence to prove you right.

So if you don't have any room for the unimaginable in your heart, that literally anything could happen maybe in this category or topic or area. if you don't have that room, that means that you've filled up your cup with a bunch of other stuff. And if your cup is full, nothing else can enter. So the second that somebody starts to be kind to you and talk about wanting to hang out or other stuff, you're going to immediately chalk it up on the topic of like, you know, friendship of somebody who's struggling to make real friends, which is a real issue that a lot of people have, you're going to be like, well, these don't last anyway or we're just going to, I'm going to get busy

and they're going to get busy. You assume the worst instead of leaving some space for the unimaginable. And that just means to be open. That means don't decide. That means don't already have a game plan necessarily. Or you could have a game plan, but don't decide the outcome of how it's going to go. You know, as a startup investor, you know, I invest in a lot of startups. The number one thing that I look for in the CEO and the team is how comfortable

and likely are they to pivot. Can they say we got it wrong? We're going to take this other direction. Versus the ones that don't have any experience pivoting, think that their entire plan that they're presenting me in this deck and roadmap is going to work out exactly the way that it's going to work out. Those are the people that get stuck

because they're not open to other possibilities and other signs from the universe. Yeah, just briefly, it makes me think about, you know, my wife and I are very different individuals and I'm thankful for that. I'm very much a planner. I'm very much structured. I'm regimented with the things we're going to do.

And I'm so thankful for her because she keeps so much room in her heart for the unimaginable that we were in Italy not long ago on vacation. And I had this itinerary for what we were going to do, our plan. And as we were driving, she's, hey, we should get off here. Let's go check out this town, this community. And my brain just would not compute. My brain is like, this was not on the itinerary. This was not the plan.

but I got over myself and we exited somewhere we didn't plan on exiting and Drew let me tell you something. It was the most fantastic thing that could have happened being open to go with the flow with the unimaginable to see what could happen. And because my wife has that room in her heart for that, it created such an amazing experience for us, for our families, for our memories, etc. Right. So if you do have that person in your life that's encouraging you to do that now and then every now, then be open. I thought you said we took the exit and man, we had a shitty time. Hey, I'm not going to say it always is going to work out.

It's not always, but sometimes, but sometimes it does. Yeah, little room, a little room. Doesn't mean you can't be a planner. Doesn't mean that you can't do this. We're just talking about keeping a little room for the unimaginable. Yeah. All right, Antonio, my next quote is actually related to a little bit of the times that we're in right now. and especially regarding politics or advocacy or just people being ramped up about anything,

which is pretty much everything these days. School, how school is being implemented, how politics is happening. Advocacy in my world is really a lot of this is around companies and food and like people's feelings on pharmaceutical companies. And this quote has been something that's really helped me find peace, but yet, still take action on the things that I believe in. So it's from a gentleman named Naval Ravikant, whose brother has been on this podcast before

and has written a great book. We'll link to it in the show notes. And here's what the quote says. Never attribute to conspiracy what is more easily explained by incentives and incompetence. I'm going to read that one more time. Never attribute to conspiracy what is more easily explained by incentives

and incompetence. You know, we're recording this and the political landscape that we live in the U.S., some people would say it's never been more polarized. And I think that one thing that's very important for people,

regardless of their belief systems, where they see themselves on the aisle, even if you see yourself like, hopefully like me, as somebody who's nuanced and looks at every situation as independent, part of what helps me understand

that a lot of times we think that negative behavior or actions from a group, a person or an industry or a politician that somebody that we don't agree with, we see a whole conspiracy in it. And listen, I'm not saying they're not conspiracies that are out there. There's been a lot of ones that have been proven to be real. Most notably, the biggest conspiracy in our lifetime that has turned out to be true

was the whole revelations of Edward Snowden and the reporting done by Glenn Greenwald showing that in fact the government did have a vast surveillance that was not only happening on, you know, actual individuals who were genuinely a terrorist threat, but they were surveilling way broadened that. And even our own politicians didn't know about it. So that's an example for anybody who says like conspiracies, like, no, they're all bullshit. No, there are some that end up turning out to be true. But in most situations, it's simply incentives, which is making money or holding on to power, or my favorite one, incompetence.

I can't tell you how often things that we think are a big conspiracy theory when you look under the hood are just people who don't know what the fuck they're doing. And I think it's an important reminder

because people get so worked up. Again, on the left, on the right, they attribute and they want to make another group the other. They dehumanize them. And one of the ways that they dehumanize them is they make them seem

like this particular group you know, this president, all his allies or this other formative president, all his allies are in a shattery room in the dark deciding everybody's fate and future. It's not often that way. It's often just people wanting to have some short-term incentives like making money. And more importantly and more likely, just straight up incompetence. When you understand that, you stop burning out by taking everything so personally in our world, Antonio, people have a lot of strong opinions about GMOs and pharmaceuticals and the processed food

that's out there. And many people feel like it's this grand conspiracy. And I've seen a lot of people who consider themselves to be activists get completely burned out because they're fighting this conspiracy, which they're never going to win, right? If they truly have the power to control all this stuff, you think that you're going to be able to do anything instead of, look, this is just bad designed, bad incentives and incompetence, I'm going to continue on my mission, but I'm not going to lose out on my happiness and joy that allows me to appreciate life while I also make progress on whatever thing that I, that matters. So this quote, a little bit of a shift from the quotes that we've shared before, but I think an important thing for a lot of people, especially in my podcast audience, to

hear. I like the quote. I like it specifically because in this click-based society, we are led to believe the first thing we click or the first thing that somebody tweets or that that cousin or, that shares an article with us about something that can be typically extremely polarizing. I believe all of us, you know, in society have much more in common with one another than things we have not in common with one another. When you share that, you know, my brain goes to, I feel fortunate that I studied journalism and I was a journalist for so long. And so what I invite people to do as I invite myself to do the same thing is to get curious when you're hearing about things, whether they're conspiracies or different things that are going on, you agree with or you disagree with, instead of accepting every. at face value, I invite you to put your journalist cap on, to get curious about it and ask some really, really great questions. You can start with the who, what, when, where, and why.

And just by asking some of those and uncovering some things, you'll learn a lot of information and learn that there is a lot more nuance in different categories and different subjects than you would think there are. Obviously, very few things are actually black and white. Now, does that mean you're going to agree with the other person on the other side of the table? Maybe be not, but you may have a better understanding of where someone is coming from. I love if I have a disagreement with someone or if someone has a different point of view on something than I do, I want to learn more about their point of view. My first thing isn't to alienate them.

I want to say, tell me how you came to that conclusion. Tell me how you started thinking that way without attacking them, without making them feel like they're inferior or they're an idiot. I generally want to learn because that will help me. And I want to share the exact same information as well. I find myself in the work that I do in a lot of rooms when I can tell you, I may be on the different page with some folks on certain topics. But does that stop me from creating connection, from having a great dinner,

from building rapport, finding some common ground on what we do agree on? No. So I just invite people to get curious and to ask more questions. I don't think we make too many statements nowadays. We don't ask enough questions. I love it. And I'm just going to double down on one other thing I said. Anytime you see yourself making another group of people, the other, which by the way, everybody does this. Again, talking politics, both sides of the aisle will do this. And there's a group of people that are really fighting. You know, one byproduct. I don't think that this current state, I have a little bit of a different hot take on their current state of polarization. I think the beautiful part of, of so much of this polarization is you finally have a lot of independent voices speaking up in all different aspects of science, podcasting, politics, people who are speaking up. Yes, they're in the

way minority, but they're speaking up because they realize that if they don't speak up and talk about how both sides and whatever category have, you know, their faults or other stuff, but here's a better direct path to actually get to what the people really want, then then we're just going to be worse off as a society. So I've seen so many people step up and I've talked about a few of them in my newsletter and different things like that. Doctors that are, you know, their approach to like everything that happened during the pandemic, you know, podcasters that are out there that are willing to hear controversial thoughts, other opinions on things to make help people understand the nuances in different topics. And so I think that's the best thing that's come out of this period of massive

polarization is that more people are speaking up because they realize they have a duty to. I agree. And hey, in this day and age, I'm, I support. support free speech, even if someone is saying something that I may disagree with. I think we're getting to the point where we are really trying to stifle certain dialogue, certain conversations that are happening right now and what people would call progressive places, whether it be a university campuses or podcast or television shows where guests who had different opinions typically would always be welcome to share. And now people are boycotting of this person is coming on. So it can be dicey. So I'm with you. I'm glad people are speaking up.

and having the courage to do so because it's not always easy, that's for sure. All right. I'm off my soapbox. Let's get into quote number five. Quote number five, I like your soapbox, by the way. Quote number five, here we go. This is from the most amazing, the most amazing writer, Tony Morrison. And this is from her book, Song of Solomon.

If you haven't read a book by Tony Morrison, please take some time just to read some of her books. check out some of her previous interviews she's had over the year. She's now deceased. God bless her. Great documentary on her work recently came out as well. Tony Morrison. And here's a quote from the book, Song of Solomon. You want to fly.

You got to give up that shit that weighs you down. You want to fly. You got to give up the shit that weighs you down. I mean, there's not much more that really needs to be. said on that, right? There's a lot of shit weighing so many of us down that's holding us back. You talked about earlier, different stories in our heads, old stories, right? Different voices in our stories. People telling us what we can or we cannot do, right? Limiting self-beliefs, etc. We can go back to the quote you shared about when we can start living life we're supposed to live,

right? Us being that life-changing event and that life-altering event. But one of the key ways we only can do that is if we give up some of the shit that weighs us down. And I think it's a great opportunity for all of us to audit, you know, to audit our lives and ask yourself a simple question, does this bring me value? Does this make me better? Or does this make me worse? Does this make me feel bad? We can look at it with the activities that we do. We can do it with the friends that we spend time with? I love to ask this question. Think about the five people you spend the most time with and ask yourself the simple question, do they make you better? Do they make you better or they okay with you being in the status quo? It's amazing sometimes, you know, we talk so much about community.

It's amazing sometimes that sometimes the people who end up supporting us the most actually know us the least. And sometimes our success, our happiness can cause friction with what we think are good friends in our lives. Especially family. Especially family. Family knows you the most. Yeah. You know why?

Because it holds up a mirror most times to what they are not doing in their lives as we're achieving, as we're self-actualizing. And if I could add one other things to that, like when I was younger, I kind of was a little bit of a fuck-up. And yeah, I got good grades and other stuff, but I wasn't taking care of like my responsibilities and other things like that. I would like try to weasel out of stuff, whatever. So my dad had a view of me based on that behavior. And until I show them something different. Now, once I decided that I needed to be a different person and I really got into the work of Tony Robbins and I started changing my finances, I got into the work of Dave Ramsey. I had to prove to my dad that I was different, but he saw me in this old way.

And that's not his fault. He just knows me that way. He's protecting himself. And I had to show him by having a track record that I could be responsible, that I could take care of things, especially because I dropped out of college. And I had this whole vision of what I was going to do and create this company. and yes, I created a company, but it struggled. It had, I would be up for a little bit, then I'd be down for a little bit. I'd be up for a little bit.

I'd be down for a little bit. And I wasn't honoring my word, not in terms of creating a company, but just honoring my basic sort of word that's there. So what was important to me, piggybacking off of those five people you spend time with, spending time with people in my life who were willing and open to seeing the new version of me, willing to remind me that, sure, okay, yeah, you take responsibility for how you were showing up before, right? but you are now different. And they're reinstating that enough, until I have enough sort of momentum that my rocket ship can kind of get into space.

Yeah. People are thinking about version 1.0 of you. And like, yo, I'm 2.0. Things have changed. I've upgraded the software. I've been doing the work, right? But it's their right to feel that way. Is they right?

And like you said, and to your point, in a way, like you said, you had to reintroduce yourself. Yeah. To your father. Absolutely. Show him that track record, et cetera. And that we can do that as well. But I think all of us right now, we can think about some of those things that weigh us down, right? And if you want to know, those things weigh you down, just think about them and see if they make you feel heavy or if they make you feel light.

If they energize you or they take away energy from you. What's an example of something in your life right now, right? Because I think that part of what we're talking about with all these quotes here is that you can understand it. And these are reminders. We're not telling anybody, first of all, none of these are our quotes. we're not telling anything to people that they don't already know or they haven't heard before, but these are reminders. And by the way, even for people who are in this space, you are a coach and an author and a speaker.

You need these reminders. I need these reminders. I'm a podcaster. I'm a business person. I've created a bunch of different companies. I need these reminders constantly. So we're all going through this. So off of this original quote.

And can you repeat it one more time? Sure. You want to fly. You got to give up the shit that weighs you down. What's an example if you don't mind being a little vulnerable right now, just in your life and anything you want to pick. It's up to you. What's an example that even though you know all this stuff and then I'll go after you, you still have something in your life that's kind of holding you down? Is there anything that you feel comfortable talking about?

Anything in your life right now in some category, some area that you're trying to make progress on that you're just like a little stuck on it, right? I'm happy to go first. I have one if you want me to go first. You go first. Okay. So I'll share one. Okay. I have been holding off on hiring an assistant for like at least three, four months now.

Even though I know I need an assistant, I've had an assistant previously. They were great. She was great. Shout out to Yali, who we promoted and she's working in a new part of our company and recipes. She has a great newsletter she puts out for Dr. Hyman called Mark's Kitchen. And even though I know I've needed an assistant that I'd be way more effective. There's plenty of tasks that I'm involved in being a CEO of multiple companies that have about 70 employees. There's so many little things that I'm doing that I know is irresponsible for the company.

The company would not want me at my hourly rate or whatever, right, even though I'm a part owner. I should not be doing these things. And the reason for the longest time that I was holding off on it. And I've gone through this before, but, you know, still our old insecurities come up. And the shit that's weighing me down is still this feeling of like, am I deserving? Somehow this idea that an assistant just for me, for my stuff, and most of the work they'd be doing is half of it would be working on, you know, my podcast, right? Other half would be general admin, VIPs, keeping in touch with people, scheduling, telec, you know, all that stuff, executive assistant. There's some component that sits there for me, which is like when I was young, I was told.

that you have to put in the hard work. Yeah. Right. It wasn't any one person. It was just a societal thing and that you have to do it. Everything was you. You got to do it. You got to put in the work. And somehow I turned that into when I started becoming an entrepreneur that if I'm not

the person directly doing it, that somehow I'm not doing the work. So in my head, there's a bunch of old thoughts, ideas, whatever, authority figures, whatever, that somehow I've turned on the idea that having. my own assistant is either a cop out, is lazy, is some aspect of it. And yet as I speak it out loud to you, which I did with a few friends, I was talking about it in Italy when we were all hanging out together and I've chatted about it since, it's ridiculous, right, when you say it out loud. Yet still, I know that it was weighing me down until I finally last week posted the job posting, which, by the way, if anybody in this podcast, this wasn't a call out to a, uh, a,

job application on the podcast, but if you're interested and you think that you're right fit, I'll link to them the show notes. I'd love to take a bunch of applications. But that's an example of where I was delaying, even though it made no sense and it was weighing me down and it was making me less productive. And I was caught in this whole cycle and loop where I was just in these old thoughts, old stories that weren't serving me. Well, well, thank you for sharing that first or foremost, we can relate on that as prior to coming over here, I was definitely doing some activities that were not beneficial for my company, some booking of travel, different things, et cetera.

I equally had assistant that I lost early last year, and I've been doing a lot of that on my own, which does not behoove me, my business, my creativity, et cetera. I think personally something that's critical for me, that's been a challenge for me, you know, coming from the really blue-collar roots in Michigan, you know, I was the first person to go to college and earn a degree. In a way, I've always felt a certain amount of guilt

for my, my quote-unquote success, for things I've been able to do, things I've been able to experience with my family. And I found sometimes with my community back home where I'm from, whether those are some friends or family members, et cetera,

I don't share enough of what's going on in my life. or I demure because I feel a bit of guilt for what I've been able to experience, what I've been able to do, whether that's a vacation or whether that's, it's not always monetary base, but those are things that are coming up right now, whether it's the home, different things, etc. So I've always felt a little bit of a guilt that I got away or I escaped. And I think early on in my career, I think that's made me play a little bit small. early on in my career, I would find a good amount of success and I'd find ways to bring myself

back down, find some success and bring myself back down. Upper limiting? Upper limiting, you know, obviously read the best look, the big leap by Gay Hendricks. I've been able to break through the upper limiting and be able to go on a nice trajectory up. Still, that guilt that, you know, I got away, it still resides in me a little bit and it can be heavy at times and it can actually, you know, manifest by me not sharing. And then I feel like I'm bottling things up with your family in particular. It also can mean, I don't go home as often.

My wife recently said, why don't we go back to Michigan more often? And I'm like, ah, we should go somewhere else. I find every reason not to go. But that's where my family is. That's right, you know. And you love your family. You care about them and you want to spend time with them. But like everybody, we all have these small little things. I call them like, emotional splinters. Even if they're so small, it could be the biggest pain in your finger or the biggest pain in your ass,

depending on where you have that splinter. And it's not that we have to rah, rah, rah, go out there and fix it today. It's just that we want to bring some awareness to it. Yeah. And just talking about it, just saying these things out loud, like you said, talking about it right now

with you has been an awesome game changer and it helps me recommit to, you know, spending that time with family, releasing that guilt, loving myself, appreciating myself, all these things that I'm great at supporting others and doing in my work. It's no irony that the work that I do of supporting others, many times the work that I've done over the course of my life to support myself as well. So even again, saying these things out loud, having conversations like this with friends, even though we're doing it in a public venue,

it's so helpful and healing. I love that, man. Thanks for opening up and sharing about that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. My last quote here, and then we'll go into some concluding thoughts. we have for the episode today. This is from another executive coach, somebody in your world who mostly works with startup CEOs and companies. And his name is Jerry Colonna. Yeah. And he has a great quote.

I've shared it before on this podcast and I wanted to conclude with it because I'm big on the whole topic of personal responsibility, personal introspection and understanding what role we play. Because if we realize that we're part of the problem, that means that that that the solution is also part of us too. If we're not part of the problem and everything is everybody else's fault and everything else is, you know, this organization's fault or this person's fault, the reason that we are the way we are, it's the biggest victim mentality because that means you genuinely can't do anything

about it. And if you constantly are complaining about the world, this is all my buildup before I get into the quote, you're telling your nervous system. you're telling your brain don't even try it's not worth it every complaint that we have out there now listen there are genuine criticisms that are there that we can have towards things there can be even criticisms that are genuine and beautiful that improve the relationships around you you know the worst relationships are the ones where they don't give each other feedback and you know beneficial criticism to help them be better on both sides so the quote that I want to share is

again by Jerry Colonna and the quote says, how have I been complicit in the things that I say I don't want in my life? I'm going to read that again. How have I been complicit in the things that I say that I don't want in my life? You know, first of all, what is complicit? Complicit just means you're part of the problem. It doesn't mean that if something super traumatic or terrible has happened to you, obviously we're excluding out like acts of sexual violence and random acts of violence,

which are in the world. There are crazy people in the world. There are negative and, you know, terrible people in the world. We're removing all that. We're not talking about if something bad happened to you that you are responsible for it. We're talking about that if something bad happened to you, you mentioned in the case of divorce. You were somebody who was served with divorce papers. Okay, maybe your partner initiated it.

But if you don't understand what role you played in it, are you really going to be able to move on and be a better person? Even if it's a limited role. If you don't understand what role you played in that bankruptcy, if you don't understand what role you played in your office environment being toxic, If we don't understand what role you played in your kids being addicted to one thing or another. We have to understand the role that we played in the things that we say that we don't want in our life. If we can't find that little sliver, we are removing ourselves from any opportunity to change things. That's why this is one of my all-time favorite quotes. It's a quote.

It's a tough quote to hear, right? Because it makes us take responsibility. for our experience and take accountability. We're so good at pointing fingers at everyone else, but very rarely do we point the fingers at ourselves and ask the most powerful question, what role have I played in this? What can I learn from this?

We're really good as humans of saying things like, oh, this happened all of a sudden, or this happened out of the blue. Very rarely do things, disease, or bankruptcy or divorce or big complications happen out of the blue or all of the sudden. They happen over the course of time, but unfortunately what we're doing,

we're not acknowledging these things. We're turning a blind eye to these things. We are distracting ourselves from these things. And of course, in many ways when that's happening, it's kind of like if you had a can of soda and you're shaking it nonstop over time, you just keep shaking it. And one day, one day, probably on the day when you're wearing all white,

when you don't want this to happen, that thing's going to explode on you. And that's your out of the blue moment, right? that all of a sudden moment because we've been ignoring it for so long. It leads to that big explosion. I think the opportunity that we have is for folks to do what we're doing right now. It's to be able to confide and connect with others and to have these conversations and to go in open with the willingness to learn, to go, hmm, instead of hmm, right?

That willingness to wonder to remind ourselves that no one, I mean, no one who has accomplished anything of significance did it alone. Neither should we, but it goes back to what we talked about at the top, how good we can be at isolating and disconnecting from others. When we really need to do is to connect and to have conversations like this, whether it's just with a group of colleagues or friends or if it's professionally with a coach or with a therapist. But I got to remind folks, remind myself not to do it alone. And yes, sometimes that means you have to be willing to write a check, right, for that therapist, for that coach, for that group coaching program, for that community membership, et cetera. Because, yeah, the one thing that's in common with all of our

challenges and problems is us. But also the same thing. We also think, just to flip the script real quick, one thing we don't do enough as well is when things are going good, ask ourselves what help be allowed in ourselves to allow these things to go good, right? We have to look at the flip side of that as well. But we play a role in all that. Antonio, this has been great. Let's just some concluding thoughts, you know, for folks who are listening and then a little bit of how they can keep in touch with you. One, for me, this was fueling. This was fun. I think people should do this yourselves, get together with a group of friends. And you know what? Yeah, you can play cards of humanity, but guess what? How about on a night when you get together, have everyone bring

three quotes and go around the room at dinner or around the coffee table, whatever, outside and backyard and talk about these three quotes and your thoughts on it. I mean, it's fun. Like, this is great. So this has been cool. And I invite people, to do the same thing. And I'll also chime in on there is that if you're not big into quotes or your friends might think that's weird, how about just some questions to get to know each other better? Yeah. You know, some questions.

You know, our man morning group that meets, you know, most Thursdays, we kick it off with a question of the week. And when we don't have a question, I love our default question, which you borrowed a little bit from the group summit series, is tell me in life right now what you're celebrating. And tell me in life right now what you're navigating. What are you proud of and want to celebrate and want to acknowledge? Sometimes we don't give ourselves the pat on the back. Oftentimes, I find the people that are hardest on themselves are also not the most celebratory of the accomplishments that they've had.

Sometimes I have to just hold my wife's hand and she's got to do this for me too and just go up to her and hug her and say, that was a big moment. Let's just acknowledge this for a second. And she does that for me too. I really appreciate that. So, you know, what are you celebrating? What are you navigating? You know, just some questions to create a little bit of a deeper connection and get people to open up. Yeah.

You know, we opened up talking a bit about, you know, folks who could be in a bit of a rut or in a funk or feeling stuck. And I think a powerful question I want to end on for people. And it comes out of the bookstop living an autopilot is, if your life was a movie, what would the lead character start doing to turn things around? Today. Today. We all know that moment in a movie. It is a pivotal moment when the lead character is going to. succeed or fail and they have to make a pivotal decision in that moment today to turn things around.

I think we all know that one thing we can do in our relationship, maybe in our career, with our finances and health, to start turning things around just for today. There are a lot of great questions in the bookstop living on autopilot. Check that out. For more about me, head it over to the antonio Neves.com. You can learn more about my community, allies and growth and so much more. Yeah, actually just a little plug about your community, online community, if people want to be a part of it. Yeah, we talk so much about, you know, having community, people that support you, that encourage you, that are excited to see you when, that know what you're going through.

So I have this community. It's called allies and growth. And basically, this is for married professionals with kids to come together to continue to grow on a regular basis with master classes, to learn from amazing experts. And yes, I'm calling you an expert, an expert like you, to have ongoing weekly challenges. All these key things that on a regular basis are going to help you level up and upgrade your career, your finances, your relationships, your health, everything across the board. That's allies of growth.

You can check all that out on my website. Amazing. We'll have all those links to everything that we mentioned in the show notes. Antonio, this was such a pleasure. And like on a friend to friend level and as content creators, this was also a lot of fun. It didn't really feel like a lot of work. It felt like just get to have a great conversation with a friend. So thank you for that.

Can't wait to do it again.