Next Level Pros - #19: Thriving in Adversity: How to Succeed When the Going Gets Tough

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Founder Podcast, where we explore the journeys of some of the most successful and inspiring entrepreneurs from around the world. I'm your host, Chris Lee, a serial entrepreneur with a passion for building and growing businesses. Throughout my career, I founded multiple nine-figure businesses and learned a thing or two about what it takes to succeed in the world of business. I want to share those lessons with you by searching out the coolest guests on planet earth and have them share their own incredible stories. But this podcast, it's not just for entrepreneurs. It's for anyone that's

Starting point is 00:00:36 looking to be inspired by these stories of people who have overcome incredible odds and create something truly remarkable. So join me on this journey as we explore the fascinating world of entrepreneurship and meet the founders that are shaping it today. Let's dive in. What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Founder Podcast. As you can tell, today is not a normal day. I'm coming in sweaty. I'm coming in a little out of breath, but I had a message that I wanted to share. And that is, where does your mind go when you're struggling, when it's hard to find the motivation, when you're caught in the moment of doing something extremely hard? As entrepreneurs, as humans in general, life is difficult.

Starting point is 00:01:22 Got a lot going on, right? There's so many demands on our time. We're trying to raise a family. We're trying to buy a house. We're trying to pay the mortgage. We're trying to pay the car bills. We're trying to put food on the table. We're trying to show up. We're trying to bring everything we can to our job. Maybe sometimes we're just trying to get by, whatever it is. Life is difficult and it is extremely hard at times to be able to put forth your best effort. And so today I was in the middle of a workout. So I just came here directly from my workout. If you guys don't know, I am in my home studio and right on the other side of this wall is my amazing gym.

Starting point is 00:02:03 And it's where I like to go to war every single day. And I'm a big believer that the physical manifestation, what we go through every day physically allows us to get through everything else that we're going through from a mental standpoint, from a financial, a spiritual relationship. The demands that we put on our physical body is ultimately going to allow us to overcome these different things. And so today, I was lifting legs, you know, and for anybody that lifts weights, everybody knows that typically leg day isn't the best day. And it's funny, I've gone through different phases where I'm like, okay, leg day is the best day, try tricking my mind or whatever it is. But it is difficult. You're working some of your biggest muscles. You're out of breath. As you can tell, you're sweating. You got, you got all this stuff. I'm not a big sweater, so don't have like a ton of sweat all over my, my shirt. But if I,

Starting point is 00:02:55 for those that are listening to this on the audio, I am sweating, but you go through this difficult time and it's like, man, I don't want to do this. I don't feel like doing it. I got all these different excuses and these excuses translate over into every single thing that we do in life. Right. I don't I don't feel like investing time into my relationship right now. I just want to bed. I just want to scroll, do the death scroll here on Facebook or TikTok or whatever or YouTube, whatever it may be. Or I would so much rather be hanging with the boys or with the girls than with my spouse. I would so much rather be doing this than investing in the relationship or then knocking one more door or selling one more account or filling out one more piece of paper. I would much rather do X, Y, or Z. You know exactly what I'm talking about. We've all been there. We get there on a daily basis where we just don't feel like it. So my question to the audience is, what do you do? Where does your mind go when things get difficult, when things get hard, when you just don't feel

Starting point is 00:03:59 like it? And so for me, what I found to be the most effective, some of you guys have heard me talk about discipline on some previous podcasts and talking about when I get to that point and I have all these excuses. And the interesting thing is the better you get, the better the excuses get, right? Because you try sacrificing the greatest thing for something that's good. So your mind's like, well, this is a good thing. You should go and do it. And in turn, you're sacrificing something that's way better or whatnot. And so you're always going to have these great excuses.

Starting point is 00:04:26 Whenever these excuses come and things get difficult, I always ask myself two questions. One, what am I supposed to be doing right now? And as long as I've created the perfect normal day, and if you guys haven't listened to my perfect normal day podcast, please go back. Listen to the perfect normal day. It's a phenomenal way to schedule your life. Basically, you should know at any time what you should be doing on a day-to-day basis. You need to be a slave to your schedule. As Grant Cardone talks about the blank whiteness on a calendar, that's when you're looking at the devil eye to eye. So you have to figure out a way to know exactly and schedule out your life,

Starting point is 00:05:04 live that perfect normal day. So one, what am I supposed to be doing right now? And two, am I physically able to do it? Because mentally, you're not going to be there. But, you know, that's the easy thing, right? Like that's, that's easy to say, okay, am I physically able to do one more rep? Am I physically able to knock one more door? Physically able to fill out this paperwork? Am I physically able to invest time with my relationship? You know, the answer is always yes. Like you are physically able to do it. And so then you just got to pick up and do it. So today we're going to talk about how you just pick up and do it when you answer those two questions. What am I supposed to be doing right now? So then you realize what's the most important thing. And then two, yeah, I have no physical constraints. So I just got to get through this mental barrier. How do I overcome the mental barrier? The mental barrier, there are a few things that I love to draw on during a mental barrier. One are my deep and dark times in my life, the times that I have failed, right? The time that I filed bankruptcy, the time that the starting quarterback position was taken from me

Starting point is 00:06:01 as a junior, from a sophomore, the time when nobody thought I could do this, or when I was starting businesses or knocking through snow in the middle of December to try to sell an alarm because I desperately needed money to be able to pay my bills. Those are the dark times that I remember. And I'm like, okay, that is where I've been before. And I've been willing to do the suck. I've been willing to like, what's different now? Why can't I just get there? And so when I see this dark, then I start remembering the haters. I start remembering all the people that doubted me, that thought, that told me, hey, just go back to school and get a real job. Go, stop knocking doors. You're just chasing a dream. Go and become a doctor. Go

Starting point is 00:06:46 and do the safe and secure, right? Like I hear all these haters, all the people are like, you're an idiot. Why are you so X way or this way? Like I start playing these things. David Goggins talks about how he literally creates a mixtape of his haters, of comments from his social media. He creates a mixtape of him reading these negative things. And I believe that the negativity, the pain is probably one of the biggest motivators to be able to overcome any difficult situation in your life in the moment. Remember the pain, draw on the pain and remember yourself like, all right, nobody thought I could do before and I was able to do it. Or another one of my common things is when I set goals, when I say, okay, I want to accomplish X for like, for example, a 12% body fat, right?

Starting point is 00:07:40 That's a target that I want to go towards. And then I know that the system is showing up every single day in the gym, eating right at at the dinner table and doing these different things. And so once I go through like the goals and the processes and what it's going to take, the question I ask is, is this going to be hard? OK, I want you to ask yourself that question. Is this going to be hard? And if the answer is yes, you say, OK, how hard Is this going to be hard? And if the answer is yes, you say, okay, how hard is this going to be? Why are more people not accomplishing whatever the goal is? Why are more people not at 12% body fat? Well, they're lazy. They're this, that, and the other. So if they're lazy and this, that, and the other, and they're not 12%, what is it going to require from me? It's going to require extreme discipline, extreme ownership. It's going to require showing up at the gym every single day. It's going to

Starting point is 00:08:27 require pushing the cookies away at mama's dinner table. It's going to require X, Y, and Z. And then you're like, ask the question again, like, is this going to be difficult? Absolutely. It's going to be difficult. Then when you're in the moment, you need to remind yourself, okay, what is my goal? My goal is to be at 12% body fat. Did I think it was going to be easy? No, I didn't think it was going to be easy. Yes, so I knew it was going to be hard. Yes, I knew it was going to be hard.

Starting point is 00:08:58 This right now, what you're feeling is the hard, okay? It is so much more, it's so much easier to deal with hardness and difficulty in the moment. If you remind yourself, I expected to feel this. This is what I was looking forward to. This is what I committed to this. This is not something above and beyond that I wasn't willing to sacrifice when I had this goal, when I was dreaming, when I was a spreadsheet millionaire, when I was thinking, you know, I want to have $10 million in the bank account. Was it going to be difficult? Why are more people not doing this? And the best part about like when you go through this exercise, then you realize, okay, I can do this. I'm physically able to do it. I committed to do this. And you begin, you put in one step and forward and you're like, I don't care what I feel like I can do the next rep. I can do the next door. I can do the next spreadsheet. I can fill out the next paperwork. I can play catch with my kids. I can do this in the freaking moment. All right. And so as we start, and then you start building habits,

Starting point is 00:10:12 then you start getting used to doing difficult, and then you get in the deeper and the darker and the more pain to be able to push to the next level. One thing I always like to remind myself when I'm setting goals, when I'm trying to go and accomplish something big, I love big barriers of entry. I love pain. I love things that are difficult. Why? Because I know that most of society will not overcome that barrier of entry. Most of society will not do difficult things. Most society will run from pain. Okay. And I do not want to be like most of society. These are other things that I like to remind myself, like, Hey, is fat man X or poor dude Y doing this right now? Well, heck no, he's not. So why do I want to go join him on the sideline?

Starting point is 00:11:00 And when I could be engaged in the pain, doing the difficulty right now. Hopefully this serves you today. I wanna hear in the comments what it's about. Guys, if you aren't following me on social media, at Chris Lee QB, QB meaning quarterback. For you guys don't know like the whole story. Once again, I was a quarterback. I lost my job.

Starting point is 00:11:21 I've drawn on that pain my whole life. It is literally my username. It is literally like so many different things drawn on that pain my whole life. It is literally my username. It is literally like so many different things that I am the quarterback of life. I'm going to take advantage. I'm going to be a leader. If you're not following me, please follow me on Chrisley QB. Follow me here on this platform. Subscribe, do all those good things. Guys, I'm going to continue to produce incredible content. I got some amazing guests that are going to be coming down the pipeline. You're going to be stoked. And one other thing I just want to encourage for those of you guys haven't seen the sound of freedom. No, I don't get an affiliate link. No, I don't get paid. Please go and see it. Spread the awareness of what is happening with children and human trafficking throughout the world. that we shine a light on these cockroaches, rid them of our society so that we can thrive together as society.

Starting point is 00:12:07 Go and do something difficult today. Until next time.

Next Level Pros - #19: Thriving in Adversity: How to Succeed When the Going Gets Tough

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