THE ED MYLETT SHOW - How to Force Self-Discipline onto Autopilot | Ed Mylett

Episode Date: October 3, 2026

Self-discipline isn't something you're born with. It's something you can build until it runs on autopilot.  This weekend I pulled together some of my favorite conversations on the one trait that changes everything. I open with five rules I've carried with me for over twenty years. They're the mindsets behind Tiger Woods and some of the most dominant athletes who ever lived. I've read them thousands of times, and they've shaped how I think about work, pressure, and what it really means to win. Then I sit down with Mike O'Hearn, who started training at eight years old and is still getting better nearly four decades later. Mike tells me where his chip on the shoulder came from and what gets him out of bed at 3 a.m. Tim Grover, the man who trained Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, settles a debate I've always wondered about and explains why the greatest are never satisfied. Dean Graziosi went from a small blue-collar town to building one business after another. He pushes back hard on one of the most popular pieces of advice in entrepreneurship. Alan Stein Jr., who has spent years around elite NBA performers, shares research on visualization that blew my mind. I share what visualization did for my own baseball career. I close with something I feel deeply about: what conformity really costs you and why the lonely road is worth it. Here's what you'll gain from this episode: The Dominator Mindset: The five rules that separate the greats from everyone else, and why they're mindsets, not just behaviors. Decades of Dominance: What it takes to stay at your peak long after most people have quit. The Never Satisfied Standard: Why the true greats work harder after they win, not before. Go Deep Before You Go Wide: A take on building wealth every new entrepreneur needs to hear. Train Your Mind First: How visualization and the right kind of stress can raise your game. Color Outside the Lines: Why the life you want is waiting outside the picture you were handed. Sometimes all you can see in front of you is smoke. Don't look at the wall. Keep your eyes on where you're going and drive right through it. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈⁠ → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ➡️ ⁠INSTAGRAM⁠ ➡️ ⁠FACEBOOK ⁠➡️ ⁠LINKEDIN⁠ ➡️ ⁠X⁠ ➡️ ⁠WEBSITE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. While I measure time differently, I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6 p.m. And my third day, 6 p.m. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different

than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time too. and you definitely can't afford to waste it, waiting weeks on a big bank for capital. Your best bets to work with my friends at Cardiff, they know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day.

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Real growth, fast funding, Cardiff, borrow better. This is the Edmiler's show. Hey, everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Edmilet show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show.

You want to know what the five rules are? I'm going to give them to you. These are the mindsets, not just the behaviors. These are the mindsets of a self-disciplined person. So here we go. here's what he says. Here's the article, by the way. Do you believe I still carry this thing?

Here we go. Number one, genius is 99% perspiration. Perspiration. I had to hear that. I had to have someone give me permission to work really, really hard. Now, what they do in this article, by the way, is they interviewed other dominators. So they interviewed Martina Navratilova, the great tennis player. They interviewed Joe Montana, the incredible quarterback football player.

They interviewed Wayne Gretzky, the great. hockey player of all time, all talking about Tiger and their similar mindsets. So this isn't just tigers. This is the dominator mindset. Ninety-nine percent perspiration. It begins all the dominators agree with good old-fashioned hard work. There's no magic pill, no such thing as effortless grace. At this level, talent is a given. But Tiger works harder than anyone out there, and that's why he's kicking butt, says tennis great Martina Navratilova, winner of 167 women's titles, including a record nine Wimbledons. Every great shot you hit, you've already hit a bunch of times in practice.

The vast majority of athletes have a much lower tolerance for preparation. It's not the pain. It's simpler than that. Listen to this. It's not the pain. It's simpler than that. Practice can be boring, says Joe Montana, who led the San Francisco 49ers to four Super Bowl wins in the 80s.

A lot of guys say, yeah, I watched two hours of game film last night, and that's enough. but they're not really studying what's going on. They may as well have been watching television. Tigers habit of pounding golf ball after golf ball long into the twilight, often during tournament play, has already become part of his legend. This was 23 years ago. During his so-called slump earlier this year, Woods claimed to be working on something special for his new swing in the Masters.

People rolled their eyes until he won the Masters. Montana, like Woods, understands that such preparation pays off biggest and critical situations, moments when a bout of nerves could disrupt even the most basic play. Dominators can be wondrously created when they have to be, but they're also geniuses of simplicity. In his famous fourth quarter drive to beat the Super Bowl champion Bengals, Montana threw nothing but short passes. No big strike, no fireworks, and no mistakes. No matter who you are, no matter how good an athlete you are, were creatures of habit, says Wayne Gretzky, hockey's leading score and four-time Stanley Cup winner, the better your habits are,

the better you'll be in pressure situations. I think I said that. I think I said that about 10 minutes ago. When I said, under pressure, you react reflexively. And so although these great people that you see have these unbelievable geniuses and creativity, what they really are are greatest of the fundamentals, and they grind, and they hit more golf balls than everybody else, they throw more passes, they watch more game film, they make more contacts in business, they talk to more people, they see more people. And that number one rule gave me the permission and the habit of I've got to become self-disciplined if I'm going to be a dominator. And these are habits and rituals and routines. Everybody on the PGA tour could hit golf balls. There's nothing special about that.

It's who hit the most with the most intention, with the most focus. Tiger Woods did. And that's why Tiger Woods became Tiger Woods and everybody else became everybody else. So if you want to become aspirational level four, these self-disciplined mindsets and thoughts, in addition to the structural things I said earlier are the keys. How good is this? By the way, thousands of times I've read Tigers' rules on domination. Number two, let the other guy get nervous. Gretzky and Woods have one more critical thing in common, an almost creepy ability to keep their cool. Believe it or not, the bigger the game, the calmer I got, said Gretzky. The dominators let the other guys flinch, the other guys get nervous and that becomes a weapon on their behalf. I was comfortable because other people were nervous,

says Yankee Great Reggie Jackson, Mr. October, a title he earned with a startling spring of playoff runs, including the 1977 World Series in which he homered a record five times. Sooner or later, you're going to rush and you're going to make a mistake. And I'm not going to do that. That helps explain why Woods playing in a gentlemanly sport where the rivals directly can't affect each other's play has nonetheless become known for rattling his opponents. being paired with woods is akin to when the disciples tried to save their boat during a storm only to be distracted by the sight of Jesus walking on water. You're not only aware of his superior skills, you're also dealing with a whole new set of variables,

such as bigger galleries, ooze and oz, et cetera, et cetera. So, listen, guys, what about you, your peers in your industry? Anybody getting nervous? Anybody worrying about you? Anybody up staying late at night thinking how they're going to compete against you? do you get people under pressure to crack and flinch? Are they not concerned about you at all? See, in business, not only did I want to have the hardest work ethic,

but I wanted people to think, man, I got to be at my egg game to beat this dude. I wanted the people around me that were on my team to want to rise up to the standard that I was setting at any given time. I want everybody else to get nervous and flinch, and under pressure, I was cool and calm. You remember this, self-discipline, one of the things that comes with it is in a sense of emotional control. you don't get too high and you don't get too low. See, self-disciplined people maintain emotional control. That's what they're saying in number two here.

And I've learned that skill. I used to get very up and very down. Well, listen, when you're very up, your discipline's crack. Right. And when you're very down, it's very difficult to be disciplined. But when you can stay somewhere in the middle, up and down, maybe 20, 25%, it allows you to stay self-disciplined in those moments. Number three, don't just dominate, intimidate.

Yeah, Tiger has repeatedly said that intimidation isn't a part of his game, but that's once he's on the course. He's thinking about nothing but his own shot making. Sure, once he's on the course, but what about when he's getting dressed in the morning? I love this, by the way. It's no coincidence that Tiger often pulls out a blood red sweater on his Sunday charges, just as it wasn't by coincidence that Dale Earnhardt preferred dark sunglasses and drove a black and white stock car that looked like a 200-mile-an-hour pirate ship. Reggie Jackson during the 77 World Series was the last Yankee every day to take batting practice. Just before the Dodgers took the field, he claims he didn't care if they noticed, but you could tell he was watching. Before one game, Reggie crushed about 45 out of 60 balls over the fence. That night, he walked on four pitches in it first at bat and then hit three home runs.

Bob Gibson, the ferocious pitcher from the St. Louis Cardinals, took intimidation a step further. He wouldn't even talk to guys on the other team, especially if they were hitters. says Gibson, who had a baffling 1.12 ERA. So here's what I'm saying here. This is what this means. You have to have the mindset that you are not going to think like everybody else, that you're going to think differently. And I'm letting you weigh on the inside here of self-discipline.

This is deep, deep, deep, deep into it. But if you keep thinking like everybody else thinks, right, you're not going to be great. And I know this stuff isn't always pretty to hear, but I'm going to tell you right now, this is what winning is. These are the little subtle thoughts. When you're, hey, good to see you, good to see you.

But in your mind, you're like, they ain't getting to me. They don't have to play it at this level. They don't know this game. These are all the things. You start doing all this stuff. Plus what I said in the very beginning, eliminating the distractions, scheduling the right things. You've got to be kidding me.

Moving needle activities next, the big stuff, starting with simple practices that build self-confidence and build momentum. How about number four? This is huge, guys. Have a sense of the historic. You hear that? Do you have a sense of the historic that what you're doing is something great? I tell my family since we were, they were little kids, say the Milets are going to do something awesome.

The Milet's going to do something to do something psycho as a family. We're going to do something incredible. In business, I tell my colleagues, we're going to do something so amazing. You guys aren't going to believe when we get there. We're doing something awesome. This is a team of destiny. This is a company. The Milet's a family of destiny.

In a sense of the historic. This gives you a context to what to be self-disciplined. Does that make sense? Why be self-disciplined if it's never going to mean anything? That's the problem. One of the reasons we're not self-list is it's never going to mean anything. Who cares? No one's going to notice.

It's no big deal. What I do doesn't matter. It does matter. It's just your dad-gum lie. It's just the story of you. It's just your family name. It's just your reputation. It's just what they're going to talk about when you're gone.

It's doing something historic. So whether that means you're going to win a World Series, or a master's golf tournament or just be the one in your family and change your family forever, you've got to have this sense that you're making history. Because by the way, you are. You're making some type of history. If you're a faith-based person, you know someday you're going to account for. There's going to be a history of your life. And even if you're not, you've got to believe somewhere along the road there's some record of your existence. So you're making history, so you might as well have a sense of it. and we have a sense that that history is going to be great instead of average and ordinary,

you begin to automatically become compelled to be self-discipline. If you lack self-discipline, there's nothing compelling you to have it other than wanting it. But if you have a sense of the historic, that's totally different. So he says this, do you have to win the big ones to be a dominator? It's a subject of eternal debate amongst sports fans, but it shouldn't be. Tiger is the proof. he's at the head of a heavenly crew of athletes, not because he's won five of his past six tournaments,

but because he's won five of his past six major tournaments, every athlete says he wants to win major championships, but Tiger doesn't just want those moments of glory. Listen to this. He has an innate sense that he can't be a legend without them. In our lives, there's going to be a bunch of every single day meetings, every single day encounters with people, and they seem inconsequential.

But when you have self-disciplined in these meetings and in these encounters with people and your relationships and business, in the gym, whatever it might be, on an everyday basis, every once in a while, there's going to be a big one show up. And you're ready for it when it happens because it's your habit. It's because it's your discipline. But when you aren't day-to-day prepared, here's the truth in life. When you're doing something historic or when it's a big meeting, most times you won't know it until years later. later. But if you look back at your life right now, the person you're married to is probably a

chance meeting, right, or something you weren't even sure was going to be significant to be. The business you're in, the company you work for, probably you weren't even planning on working there or even being in that business. See, our dreams often show up in life in packages that we don't picture that we didn't dream of. And so it's that day to day staying ready and being ready until the important meeting comes, the major appointment comes, the major relationship comes. I always say that you're one more meeting, one more decision, one more relationship, whatever it might be, one new emotion, one podcast away from changing your life. But the hook is you will never know when it's actually happening.

You will not know when it's happening until it shows up. So you're not going to know when it's the big one. You'll only know after you've done it. Now, there are times in life you're like, this one really matters. You will not feel the pressure in this one really mattering when you've been great day to day and self-disciplined all the way along the way. You've heard great athletes say it's just another game. It's not just another game, but the great ones can perform just like it's another game,

just like it's another meeting, just like it's another appointment, whereas the average ordinary are the ones that fail, feel the pressure because they haven't been disciplined consistently throughout their life or their business or their fitness, and they blow the big one. And it's true in life. The difference between winning and losing is so small, it really is almost too scary to talk about. If I look back in my own life, the very few occasions and meetings that took the massive difference in my life, it is scary to think about had I not shown up and performed in that meeting or I had not done the right thing on that first date. It's amazing even in your own life, isn't it?

And so that's why day to day being ready, day to day having self-discipline, day-to-day having these habits and the mindsets to go with them matter because you never know when it's coming. And the fifth one, this is big. This is why a 52-year-old is this fired up today talking to you. Ready? Never ever be satisfied. Never ever be satisfied. Most athletes work the hardest when they're trying to reach the top. So to most business people.

Once they can get to that $100,000, they worked hard. Once they get to that million dollars, they've worked as hard as they can work. The great ones work even harder after they get to the $100,000. Harder after they get to the million. Harder after they're famous. harder after they've got a big following, harder after they get that promotion. They work harder in their loving relationships after they've got the one that's the one. But most people work hardest to get them.

And once they have them, they don't work as hard to keep them or to grow it. The great ones work even harder after they get what they want, who they want. Wouldn't you love to be in a relationship with somebody who works so hard to get you? And then once they got you, worked even harder the rest of your life to keep you. keep loving you? Wouldn't you love in business someone who had a goal to get to a million dollars or $100,000? And when they got there, they worked even harder. But we all know in life, that's not true for most people. But the great ones, the dominators, the goats, the self-disciplined people, they work even harder when they get there. So most athletes work the hardest when they're trying

to reach the top. But Tiger has seemed only more committed to improving his game since leaving the competition in the dust. Woods won his first masters by the largest margin in history in 1990. but he knew that he wouldn't reach Jack Nicholas Mark of six green jackets without a jolt of his game. So he spent the next 18 months literally retooling his thunderous swing. And it goes on to give you more and more examples about that. Talks about Michael Jordan in here and compares him to Michael Jordan. But I want you to think about that in your own life, those are you listening to it. How hard did you work when you were totally broke?

And now that you're not, do you have that same hunger and work ethic? How hard did you work to lose that first 20 pounds to get in pretty good shape? But are you working even harder now to get the ultimate health and vitality in your life? How hard did you work to get your spouse or your girlfriend or your boyfriend in your life? Are you working even harder now to love them more? Because that's what the dominators do. That's what self-discipline is. And so these five steps of the Tiger Rules.

By the way, they wrote this article in 2001. They didn't know who Tiger Woods was going to turn out to be. Turns out that this is like literally for me, almost like a business Bible in some sense. because all of these things proved to build the greatest golfer of all time, or at least one of the two. And I watched this man in his sports life, not in every area of his life, but in his sports life, implement these five things over and over again. And that's how he's come back from car accidents and unbelievable situations and still

won the masters a few years ago on basically one leg, one a U.S. Open on a broken leg. It's incredible. And these are the people we look at and go, they're so self-disciplined. They're so amazing. Maybe you think that when you're listening to me sometimes. And now you know, naturally I'm not. But I do have some steps and some strategies that I've shared with you today. Technical steps.

That's the science. And then there's the art. And the art is the mindset. The art is the thinking. So today I've tried to give you the best of both worlds, the science of self-discipline and the art form, which is the mindset. And I hope that it's inspired you to make some of these changes today and to share this with as many people as you can.

I really feel good about what we covered today. In fact, I want people that I love. I want my kids to hear this. I want people that I know that want to win in life to hear this today because I know that it could really be transformative so many of you. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify.

Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. Where some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. Welcome back to Max out with Ed Milet. I'm so fired up today.

I have one of the great fitness icons of all time right here. Yeah, you, big boy. Yeah, you can tell from looking at us which one of us is the fitness icon. I'm photoshopped. Yeah, I've been telling everybody today, please Photoshop me into this picture, so I look at least half his size. But you can tell who's sitting next to me, he doesn't really need an introduction.

Four-time Mr. Universe, Titan from American Gladiator, one of the dominant people in the history of bodybuilding. right there that is Mike O'Hern so Mike thanks bro thanks for being here thank you man so good to have you this is beautiful let me just say this for for everybody my fans and everybody this house is amazing and so I hope we do show this through the day we will and I just don't bore you no you're not gonna bore anybody you're more important than the house but thank you man for being here so everybody knows well most people know all of the achievements

you've had when I was reading through Mike's bio to introduce them I was thinking for a minute like how would I even read all these things we probably can't cover all of them but I want to go back before everybody knew you just for a little bit okay okay okay because you come from a place where it's probably at the most predictable place for someone to become an actor one of the top bodybuilders of all time it's not you know I doubt it was predictive when you were a kid right so tell them where you grew up and how you grew up so I think this would be interesting for all of you to know this it's interesting you say that because at the time when I

was growing up I had mentors that were the best in the world you did I did okay how old you talking nine 10 11 years old Yeah, yeah. So it's, I guess you would say I was bred to do this lifestyle. But I grew up in Kirkland, Washington. I loved it. It's a beautiful place. It is beautiful. Costco, probably because of our family. Who's there? I come from a family in nine. So, yeah. Where are you in the nine? I'm the little one. You're the baby of nine? Yeah. Really? Usually, okay. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. I'm the baby, and that's another thing that helped create something. bigger because of the fact that you know if you got older brothers you get in your ass kicked that's for sure I had older sisters kicking my ass and so I'm like wait a minute I I need to start becoming something and so our family is very

athletic okay mom dad mom was a martial artist dad was a football player bodybuilder dad bodybuilder yeah yeah so he's into the weightlifting the whole family in front of me was weight lifting and I'm talking about my sisters doing martial arts doing all that. Where these mentors come in? Who are they? Like when that happened? It was shortly, I started lifting at eight years old.

And I started competing in martial art tournaments by 11. And my first power lifting meet or Olympic lifting meet was actually at 13. And then power lifted at 14. And I was already on stage competing in body building at 14 years old. And before that, I was already, when I was really little, by 9, 10, and 11, I was already running half marathons. And so I was thrown into this pretty darn young. Pretty early.

So you were bred. Do you believe in, I'm curious about this. I always hear this. This guy's genetically gifted. Is there such a thing? Or is that just like something people who don't train hard say? It's, there are guys that are genetically gifted. Are you one of them?

I would say my family has good genetics. I wouldn't say we're the most freaky genetics. But I would say this. It's the consistent. Consistency in the work ethic of knowing the little chip on the shoulder or whatever that was And growing up with the idea that I wasn't genetic Okay, because I see me who I am I mean I see you pictures when you're 18 when you were a big guy already at 18 years old, right? I mean

these were probably me at 14 seriously. Yeah, you were already that because you've been lifting since you were that young You're already that big at 14. Yeah, and one of those things is don't lift when you're young Well, it's actually builds bone density and connective tissue. So So that's a complete life. Yeah, it's, we've learned so much in 40 years. It's amazing. This is important because so many of my followers have kids that are athletes that are young and they don't lift weights for that reason.

I hear this all the time. That's not true. Yeah, it's not true. I recommend and- Obviously, look at you. How tall are you? On 6-3. Yes, it didn't hurt your growth.

No. And my whole family lifted and they're all tall people. So one thing that I think I learned when I was really young is, is the continuous building day in and day out because my brothers and sisters were all all. ahead of me. Okay. And so when I started training, my goal was to beat them, obviously. Yep, first. It didn't matter if it was martial arts. I didn't want to lose power lifting or bodybuilding. It didn't matter what it was. I wanted to compete, you know, and be better than the next person. So that was bred into you competing. Ready for you start. Do you, uh, did you want to be a professional

bodybuilder? Was there an age where you went, I want to be a bodybuilder or I want to be a a martial artist. Was there an age that you pick one? Because you're an athlete. You're not, you don't, you're unique because you're not just this kind of bot. We were talking about before. you're not just a bodybuilder. Like, we're going to talk about this a little bit later, but like you're an athlete who is a bodybuilder, right? And I know bodybuilders are athletes, but you're an overall, like even the American Gladiator stuff

when you're tight. That would be normal bodybuilder could do that show. You had to be a great athlete to be on that show, right? So did you pick bodybuilding, or was it just, you just wanted to compete and you were good at that? It was always athletics first. Okay.

And then everything stem off of that. So can I power lift and then do it well enough to where it didn't interfere with my athletes? Could I bodybuild and could I do it well enough to where it didn't interfere with my athletics? Because the ultimate goal, I mean, obviously I grew up with Arnold and Bruce Lee and I wanted to be a combination of both. Wow. I didn't want to be just Arnold and I didn't want to be just Bruce Lee. I wanted to be both.

I basically wanted to be a superhero, a comic book superhero. And that's kind of what you're known as now. Like that's literally how people refer to you. That's sort of ironic that you became these things. So there was an age where you were like, I'm going to be somebody. Yeah, I was nine years old. Wow. Yeah.

Do they raise you? No. No. And I came from a great family in a sense of they both worked and then they both said, listen, we got nine kids. You're going to help out. You're going to get paper routes when you're 10, 11, you know, start working. And you're going to be held responsible for your actions.

And I look back in mostly today's day and age and how people are raised and how you have to be a certain way politically correct and stuff. it's amazing that we're going to lose all that grit. You're so right. Oh. Yeah. Oh, it's, and I know, we're going off for a second, but just the way people respond to a post tells me how their mind is.

And when somebody sees something and go, oh, aren't you going to hurt yourself? And I'm like, yeah, you're right. Yeah. They don't even realize I've been doing front squats for 40 years heavy every single day. And it's like, you guys, their minds are so, I hate to say, just, week. No, you're right. And they get weaker and weaker. And the same with me when I make post. I know it's the same thing. The way you respond to things is so reflective of your mindset, man. I totally buy that. I totally do that. So was there a point, like this guy's done

539 fitness coverage? I mean, just imagine that for a second. He's the most covered person, the history of fitness of bodybuilding, by far, right? By like a mile. Right behind Arnold. It's just me and Arnold. Okay. And Arnold Schwarzen. And his hero, right? So let me ask you this. So was there a turning point? Was there like a point? So you're in Washington? You're in Washington? Washington? Yep. Okay, what was the point? Where did this thing flip for you?

When did you start to become you? Was there a first cover? Was there a bodybuilding competition? Was there something that happened? Well, I was discovered by Joe Weeder. Didn't know that. I was already competing by 14. I was winning shows.

So it wasn't just I was competing, but I was winning. And so I had that mindset of, okay, I'm different than everybody else. I'm doing something here that nobody else can do. I'm doing it light years in front of people. And so it's funny, you'll understand this. It's weird. People go, how the heck do you get that big when you were that young? Yeah.

Well, at 14, before puberty, I was 176 pounds on stage. Okay. A year later, I was 272 pounds. And people are like, wait a minute, that's not feasible. It's called puberty, guys. Oh, my gosh. Everybody had it. Oh, my gosh.

But I took advantage of it. Oh, my gosh. So. You took advantage of all that growth from all that test. All of it. People don't understand that when they see a picture, they go, oh, you've been training for a year. I've been training since I was eight. That's amazing, man. So during my puberty years, during that year and year and a half, I did gain 100 pounds. And my strength, obviously, it was already strong, but it went through the roof. I was competing by the time I was 17. I was already in the magazines. Were you really? Yeah. So I was already competing against men by 17 because my dad says enough of the kid stuff.

Wow. He says, compete against the men. And so by 17 years old, I started doing the open shows and open power lifting me. You're on stage with a 30 year old guy. Yeah, at 17 years old. Yeah, at 17 years old and I was competing in martial arts against the men instead of kids. And it was just one of those things that it's, he suggested, but I'm the one that made the choices.

And by watching my older brothers and sisters do right things and then wrong things, I kept going baby step. I can take everybody. they make a mistake, that's another day that I get ahead. Every day that we would go and skip school and go play football. But then they would be drinking beer during the playing football. And I'd be like, I'm playing football. Wow.

I want to do this. And then I'm going to go home and train. And I just kept that kind of... You've always been this sort of beast monster training freak. So here's what I want you to get about it. The reason I started in the beginning is because this is the most impressive thing about Mike to me, is that he's even more dominant now. Are you 48 or 49?

49 years old. So I want you to think about this. He's on state, he's starting lifting when he's eight or nine, but he's on stage with men when he's 17. And this man has been able to continue to compete, but not just compete. He's at his peak and dominating into his late 40s. I want you to think about that just for a second. In any endeavor, I don't care if you're in business, if you're an athlete, if you're an entertainment, to be dominant that late for that long to get better.

So I want you to talk to people about what are some of the keys for you in doing that? Because it's incredible, right? Like, you're bigger, faster, damn stronger now, it seems, right? So how is that the case? Is it just choices over time? How does someone dominate long term? Because everyone watching this, you've probably had a win or two. You wanted something in business.

You won a contest. You were at the top of a board somewhere. You did pretty well in your sport. You're talking about multiple decades of domination, right? So how do you do that? I want to know how you do that. It was the idea that I was different, and I wanted to prove something, and I wanted to be alone.

alone. I want to be alone because by the way most people are afraid to be alone. They're afraid to, absolutely. I just want to tell you this because I work with a lot of athletes, as you know too, right? The thing they're the most afraid of is being alone, is standing out, of being alone, of being unique. That's a, so don't, that's nothing that you should take for granted in yourself. I don't want to interrupt you, but just that phrase, brother. And by the way, just think about all the guys you even train with. How many of the, because you're the alpha of the alphas, right? Even the dudes you train with, and they won't like this when I say it, but you're the alpha of the office.

My guys won't like that. But most, because you're one of the guys, but you're not. You're not one of the guys. You don't want to be one of the guys. Tiger Woods doesn't want to be one of the guys. That's why you don't ever want to tour like Tiger. Everybody likes Phil. Everybody likes Tiger.

Because Tiger doesn't want to be one of the guys. I don't want to be one of the guys in that sense. So you're willing to be alone and you wanted to be alone. I think that's interesting. It's growing up with dyslexia and put into special classes. Were you? Set me in a different way. Because in my family, a lot of us in the family grew up with dyslexia, but they

handled it well I didn't that was my chip thought it was a bad thing didn't realize later in life yeah it's the greatest thing that ever happened to me and I wouldn't even be why why was it good oh my gosh it goes because you grow up with something like that it already starts building you you're already in a competition with with the world or yourself and growing up in special ed and instantly going I want the one percent these people here that are special and I'm going to protect them against all these bullies because it was young.

I was young and fighting every day because, you know, kids. And it's like yesterday. It feels like yesterday. But you got kids teasing the special kids, special ed kids. All the time. Not special in the sense of like, oh, God's chosen ones. No, no, no, no. And now they can use social media to do it to each other,

which is even worse. Yeah. But I felt honored to be able to fight for them and stick up for them. And if you're teasing the kid in the world, wheelchair, I'm hitting you. You're getting you. But is this chip stuck with you for 20 years?

I'm still the 14 year old that walks in the gym. You know when people go, how do you get the motivation to go train every day? I don't have motivation. I got passion. I love. I got passion. I believe this.

I need to wake up in the morning. And people go, why do you train so early? Tell them what time you train. I train at 4 a.m. I get up at 3 a.m. and I'm in the gym. And this is not something I've done the year. This is what I've done my whole life. Your whole life.

My whole life. We started early because of paper routes. You get up early, you do the paper routes. I'd train, then I'd go to the school. But it was one of those things where it set me up, and it's still that passion today that I love the fight. I love the fight every day, and I love the gym, and I love going in there with the banter and all that stuff

and training with the guys and outlifting them or doing whatever I do. But it's, you've been in a fight. And anybody that's been in a fight, a street fight, You hear nothing else. All you're hearing is the hits in the head or you hitting the guy. And no matter how much they're yelling at you, you hear nothing. Yeah.

And I can get to that place every time I work out. And there's something there. And I'm like in a fight with myself in that moment. And I love that. And I love off that. That's crazy. Because I'm going to tell you, whether I've interviewed, it's such a running theme, man. Athletes I've interviewed, business women I've interviewed.

But one of the running themes they all have is they have a way to get themselves. I think I do it myself, but they have a way to get themselves in a state of competing still long term. Like, they still find a way to compete. There's something to compete for. I don't care who they are, what their industry is. That's sort of, like, there's like four times already you've referenced either fighting or competing. Like, that's in your genetic makeup, right? That's cool to hear that others do that.

Bro, it's the common line. It's wild when you meet somebody else that's successful in what they do. And there's that the bonds of what, that's cool. It's cool. I love that. The other thing you have, though, and I want to talk about this next, is the other thing they have that you have in, like, abundance. Like, I train and I'm fit, and we're basically the same age, right? So more than most people, I have a deep appreciation for what it would require to be you, right?

Because I don't have that in that realm. I'm fit, but there's a level of dominance that you've sought and found, right? And so it's little decisions that you make in disciplines, right? So talk to them a little bit, like you mentioned your brothers and sisters drinking. You've ever had a drink? Never had a drink. Never poured alcohol in his body and his life. I mean, just think about this.

How about your eating habits, right? Like, just talk to them a little bit about, I don't know. This is annoying, though. This is annoying to people, because it's one of those things you can't beat the guy that never gives up. Yeah. I'm that guy. I'm the guy that's never missed a meal in 40 years. What do you mean by that?

Honestly, honestly, it's annoying to them, but I don't believe I got the greatest genetics. I don't believe I was gifted anything physically. I don't even the next guy. I don't eat in the next guys. I don't eat it. What I believe is that I just don't miss meals. It's not something that, I guess the only way that you can relate to it is it blows my mind that people go to work for somebody else from 8 in the morning till 6 at night and that's

how they live their lives. And the only reason I say that is because people say to me, how do you train at 4 in the morning? How do you go to work for somebody else and make them ritual? You're just staying average. I don't get it. And for me, I wake up at 3 in the morning, still today, and I'm excited. And I'm like, let's do this.

I can feel like you are. Right, right? The first time we talked to the phone, you're like, you need to get in the gym with you, man. I'm like, okay, I go early. I go at 5. He goes, well, man, we're in at 4. And he's like just pumped about it, you know? And I'm like, I know what it's like to go to the gym every day.

He's done this every day for freaking decades. And he loves it. Right. That's the passion. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Milet show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show.

notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Welcome to the Ed Mylett Show. I have been looking forward to doing this program for a long time ever since I've read this book and I could do a big introduction for this man but I thought I'd read what Kobe Bryant said about him. And so this is the gentleman sitting to my right. Tim Grover knows more than anyone about the mental side of sports and I would amend that and just tell you life, life, business, success overall. This book is a blueprint for discovering what you're capable of achieving, getting results, you never imagined, reaching the highest level of success, and then going even higher.

And so that is Tim Grover, the author of this incredible book that we're going to talk about today, Relentless. Tim, thanks for being here, brother. Thank you, partner. Appreciate you. Thank you. So good to have you here. One of the things I told Tim before the interview, this Relentless and his program,

his relentless program as well, I was telling him before the interview on this topic we just were, there's so many of you that have children that are at that teenage years and they're thinking about their sport or college or the rest of their life, I see. I so strongly believe the sooner in life someone begins to learn to think like this, the easier it is to develop those habits. And so at the end when we promote this, or even Tim's book and his program, really encourage

you to get your children at the right age involved in this and learning to think like this earlier in life. Their lives will be so much better earlier if they learn to think this way as opposed to the way the world's teaching them to think right now. So I want to make sure that I've told you that. In just a few minutes, we're going to tell you how you can get access to his program. We're getting, you know, I keep saying it, but we're getting too. soft. Everyone talks about, you know, nobody moves anymore. We're getting unhealthy. Listen, we have

access to some of the healthiest foods, all the diets out there, all the knowledge. There's more gyms opening now than ever before, and why is your obesity rate going up? You have the knowledge. You know, you know, hey, if I eat this, this is what's going to happen. If I eat this, this is not going to, but people want to make excuses. You know, all my, you know, I got a slow metabolism I'm big bone at all the no you're eating too much all right let's stop make stop making excuses all right there are people out there that do have those conditions sure okay we can't we over complicate that we over complicate things move more eat less equals weight loss there you go yeah and I'm pretty sure

most people's bones aren't much bigger than other people's bones they're not that's just that yeah they're not really these people say it's completely nonsense your bones are not bigger than my bones yeah But it's an excuse. They've heard that somebody. That's so true. Yeah, I can't lose the weight because of it. It's the same thing.

You know, when you're competing at something, it's not, why was Michael and Kobe who they were? Tom Brady, Dwayne Wade, Wayne Gretzky, Muhammad Ali, Floyd Mayweather, all these guys. Not because of their physical gifts. Yes, that had a lot to do with it. It's up in here. It's up in here. And we can all, listen, we're not going to learn. to fight like Floyd. We're not going to learn to play basketball like Michael. We're not

going to be able to do these things. But you can all think that way and whatever you're doing. You can all take that action. You can be that cleaner in whatever you want to do. It starts, it starts and ends up here. It's time to recharge this and reboot this. Is there a difference at all? I'm just curious because you work with both of them. Just a sports thing. You indulge me. What is a difference between Kobe and Jordan? Was there a difference in the two because there's tons of similarities is there a difference in the two I always say this Colby worked out harder Michael worked out smarter is that right yes with they both they were extremely hard but Michael was always Michael was

always small Kobe was it was this constant push push push push and we had to kind of even when you reel them in okay you'd get a call it you get a call at 3 a.m. in the morning he said what are you doing it's 3 a.m. I'm sleeping That's what you should be doing. Right. Let's go back to the gym. Really? All right.

And I'm like, no, it's really not a good idea. Well, here's the thing. Even if I tell him it's not a good idea, I still got to go to the gym because he's going to show up at the gym. No kidding. He's a freak. He's going to show up at the gym. Were they the two hardest workers?

Yes. You know, your most successful individuals are, it doesn't happen by accident. Right. It doesn't happen. Listen, there's a lot of talented people that succeed at nothing, at absolutely. at absolutely nothing. Now, when you have that individual that's talented, you have that individual that knows how to work hard,

all right, and they have the intelligence, okay? And this is key, this is key, because this is what's missing now with individuals. All right, you have the talent, you have the intelligence, all right? You know how to compete. You don't have the resiliency. The resiliency. You don't have that.

When failure comes kicking you, comes kicking your ass, you crumble and you fold. All right, you crumble, you got to have that resiliency over and over again. But at some point, that resiliency has got to turn into something. All right, you know, people talk about all the time, oh, you build so much character from losing and, you know, from failure and all that. Listen, at this point in my life, I've got enough. I've had enough losing.

Yeah, me too. I've had enough character. All right. I've learned more from my wins. I just don't even think it's true. You always learn more from your wins. You always learn more from your wins. You're cool.

See, here's the thing. You cannot say this. All right. A cleaner never calls himself a cleaner. And you know why a cleaner never calls himself a cleaner? Because he's never satisfied. Yeah. Another individual can call themselves a cleaner.

That statement you just made tells me right now. Don't let this go. you are a cleaner. You'll never admit it. Your wife will never admit it. Okay, but somebody else then say when they see that, he's a, he's a cleaner. I appreciate that. But you're never going to be sad. It honestly doesn't feel like it. Yeah. It just honestly doesn't. And it never will. It never will. Because guess what? When it does, you're no longer cleaner, you're a closer. Right. You move backwards, right? You move backwards. And that's, and that's, and it happens. You get a lot of individuals that make that stage, they go from closers to cleaners.

And they just, it's too intense. Yeah. I watch it all the time, man. It's too intense. And you see them, they see them, you see them go back. You do. You see you go back. Like, listen, you're, you have, you're built a certain way. Okay, you work out to have this physique.

I work out to look this way, okay? Your wife, everybody else does. What happens if you stop? We know. It goes. You got it. Your body goes back. You don't have those arms.

You don't have those shoulders. You don't have those guns. You don't know long. or have that waste. Your body wants to always convert back to be uncomfortable. So true, man. Okay. So true. And we say this all the time, you got to get, you have to be comfortable, being uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way.

Now on with the show. Welcome back to Max Out, everybody. Today's awesome. I just reached out to this man. I said, hey, brother, I think the world needs a little bit more of Dean and Ed. And everywhere I go, people bring up the time that we've spent together on our other show as one of their favorite, if not their favorite show that I've ever done. And this man here is a friend of mine. But beyond that, I just want to, you know, he's an incredibly financially successful person.

We were just talking about some of the great things happening in his life off camera. I think he's one of the most articulate and brilliant people in all of the entrepreneur, life strategy, personal development space. And he approaches it in a way that's different than everybody else. There's a kindness that exudes out of this man, a gentleness yet strength that no one else has. He's also somebody that many of the other people in the space go to for personal advice and for counsel. He's just a good man. He's a great husband. He's a wonderful father.

and I count him as a friend and somebody that I admire greatly. So Dean Gratiosi, thank you for being here today, brother. Thank you for that beautiful introduction. I feel the same way about you, Ed. We met each other a little bit before the podcast, and it was like we were bonded brothers forever after that. And it was a great show, and I still get hit up on a regular basis. I know you do.

There was something magical about that show because we get hit up all the time about it. So it's good to be here with you. Man, I'm so grateful for you. I got two things left because we're going to run out of time. Literally, brother, we've almost been an hour. We could go forever. you and I. But I have to ask you a couple of things, because it's, here's about your opinion about this, because I've been navigating it. A lot of entrepreneurs listen to this, or they want to be

entrepreneurs. And there's this new thing out there, not new, but there's this adage that, hey, millionaires have multiple streams of income, right? And sometimes I think myself that that's a fact that's not true. Although it's true that most millionaires have multiple streams of income, my experience is that most of those millionaires got great at one thing first, and then as they became millionaires diversified their income streams to multiple streams. Why I ask this is, and I would really like your opinion about it, I see a lot of people doing five, six, seven things, three, four different things, trying to spend all these plates, but not really getting great at any of them.

And I almost think to some extent that they would be better off if they got great at something. Same time, I understand the world today is a different world than it was 20 years ago. And I really don't know your opinion about this. And I'm curious as to how you feel about it. Should someone get great at what they're doing? You spoke about greatness earlier. Or you believe they should have four, five, six different things going at any given time. I think the biggest disservice you could do to a new entrepreneur is tell them that they should have multiple streams of incomes because they'll never go deep enough on one thing, never go through enough pain and enough failure on the one thing that'll go deep enough to give them the breakthroughs to be

able to do that later on in life. It's an absolute fact. And here's something before I get there. I want to say something. I love the fact of what this device has done for us, that you could log in and listen to Ed right now. I died. I listened to Tony Robbins tapes. In 1996, I don't know, 96, 95, I listened to Tony Robbins tapes. And when I got done, I ordered his power talk and I'd wait for them to come every month. And I was searching for you to be able to have access in a second to Ed and Andy Fasela and Tony and so many great people out there. I love that part.

But the other part where I think it's done a disservice to a whole generation is you think success is easy when it's brutally freaking hard. It is hard to have the success you want. It's hard to have a jet and freedom and extra houses. And it takes hard work and it takes time. And it's there's no shortcut. I don't care what anybody thinks. There's no shortcut.

Maybe you could have bought Doja coin and you got lucky. That is the rarest thing in the history of the world. Ed and I, I would bet we agree. I don't even know. Neither one of us probably invested in crypto what all of our friends said to because we didn't know it. We didn't feel it and we missed it.

So I'm so blessed if you did for you, but that's not where true wealth is made. You have to work 50% harder than you think you do. You have to get kicked in the teeth more than you think. You have to get questioned by your friends and family and look like the dreamer twice as well. much as you think. The people you thought were going to support you aren't. Some people are going to talk behind your back. Some friends are going to leave you. And guess what? It's worth

every freaking penny. It's worth every moment, every disappointment. There was a gentleman named David Kekich. I met him. He was paralyzed from the neck down. And not always paralyzed, I think it was a jogging car accident. And he had these Kekaj Kretos. It was like a business card that folded out. And one of his Kekaj Kretos to make him positive, most positive guy you ever met and couldn't move anything below his neck. One of them was, living the hard way is easy, and living the easy way is hard. So before I answer this about multiple streams of income,

I think it's really important, I tell you this. Living the hard way makes it easy. It was hard when my friends were partying everything. I still had fun, don't get me wrong. But when I was getting up at 5 o'clock going to work every day, and my friends are like, oh, you're crazy. We come from a small town, it's blue collar. I grew in a similar town as you did.

All my friends are going to be mechanics or construction workers, and if they're lucky, they work for IBM, right? And when they told me that I was crazy for doing it, when I worked seven days a week, when I borrowed money, when I used to take credit cards and apply for 10 at once so I could get the money and use that money and leverage it and go buy a junky piece of property

and fix it up every night. I'd work on cars during the day. I'd drive a tow truck at night, and I'd work on my houses at night. I'd put 20 hours a day. Everybody, my sister, my family, my friends thought I was insane. I was nuts.

I was a dreamer. People without educations, without money, they don't really get there. What were my chances? If you looked at the percentages, you wouldn't bet on me if you were in Vegas, but I knew. I took the hard path.

Didn't know I was, but I took the hard way, but now I get to be the dad I walk. I take my kids of school every day. I coach little league. I coach softball. I can jump on a plane and go to New York and go to my farm in New York and spend time.

It looks beautiful now, but I put the work in. None of it was handed to me. Now, I'm not saying me, but it's easy to sit on the couch, order pizza and binge out on Netflix. That's easy. It's hard when you're 60.

and you got diabetes and you can't play with your kids. It's easy in today's world to go hit up the girl used to hang out in high school and be unfaithful and nobody will ever find out. It's easy to do now. It's really hard when you're the fan and you're alone when you're 70 years old. I know that might sound harsh,

but I think through all of this. So first off, I want to tell you, live the hard way now. Make the smart decisions now so you can live easy and have choices that you want. You know how many baby boomers I meet that took a job that seemed easy and a nice 401K,

and they're 62 years old. old going, I just wasted 40 years in my life building someone else's dream and I have my own. Help me, Dean. And I want to help them, but they didn't take the hard way. So take the hard way, work hard and you think. Secondly, multiple streams of income are absolutely amazing once you crack the code. Once you have something steady from one thing. Give you Tony Robbins, for example. Number one personal development guy, no one, I don't think anybody will ever reach his height of success. I don't think anybody will leave the legacy that that man's going to lead. Do you know he was 48 years old before he invested in another company.

And it's because when he was younger, he used to hang out with billionaires. He coached a lot of these guys when he was in his 20s. And he was on a jet with really successful people. And they're talking about all these different businesses they have, but they were in their 60s. He was in his early 30s. And he's like, man, I'm working my tail off on one business.

These guys are flipping companies and making billions. And a guy said, all one of the guys on the plane, and I think was the second richest man in Canada said to him, all in your own time, man. Go deep on your company. When your company is paying, then you could take the money from that company, and there'll be a time in your life where you can start investing in other companies. But don't do that until you go deep to you know it till it becomes bulletproof.

It was almost, Tony was almost 50, Ed, before he started investing in other companies. Now he has multiple streams of income, but he went deep and mastered what he'd done. And here's the last thing I'll tell you. When you master something, doesn't mean you have to stick with it forever. Right? I mastered real estate. I got really deep. But all those principles I learned in mastering real estate and hiring people and running businesses.

And I took that and they lent great for my next companies. Yeah. I, uh, 1,000% agree. And that's exactly what I did. I built one thing for a very long time. Then I diversified into all these other businesses. This is one of the best conversation I ever had. I mean, just straight up.

It's because it's so wide ranging. It's, we started at the show. I told you, I'm not going to tell what we're going to talk about. I said we're going to it's we just, you just crushed this. That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Edmielette show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way.

I mean, you live in a space where there was a lot of other people that came through that could have done something big. Yeah, there's no question. By the way, and I think successful relative to what, right? Like, I think both you and I are pretty good at this deception thing. Like, people do it in reverse. So some people deceive themselves into thinking they're further ahead than they are, right? They're constantly, you know, they always want to tell you how well they're doing.

and they're sort of deceiving themselves, and that deception leads to lack of activity, drive, desire, blah, blah, blah. You and I do the reverse. I deceive myself I'm further behind than I am. I know you do this too because we've talked about it. I love deceiving myself. I love deceiving our company. I love being, I love deceiving the team because I want us to feel like we got.

Malcolm X has his great quote. He says, that which you do not hate, you will eventually tolerate. I'm a big believer. I got to almost despise where I am right now. And I do. So I'm kind of the king of deception with myself. So I don't feel that successful. You understand what he's saying, okay?

He deceives himself. Okay, most people that I meet, like, I'm doing good, really? Compared to what? Correct. Okay, if I tell you, hey, a guy says to you, he's living the dream. Yeah. You like that? I don't like that.

Every person that's ever said that to me, I knew he had already pulled off the side of the rope. 100%. I'm living the dream. I'm like, what dream is this? Yeah, literally, it's funny. One of my top guys at our firm a few weeks ago, one of my favorite people, probably one of the most talented guys in my company. I won't say who he is because he might be watching this.

But he said that to me. He goes, I just wanted to share with the world how amazing and incredible my life is and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I told him, I said, when I was at your level, I couldn't stomach it. I couldn't handle it. I couldn't live on that kind of income. I didn't want to live my life like that.

And I said, it scares me that you think somehow this is the dream. And then, of course, he kind of corrected himself and backstop. But the fact is, I'm constantly deceiving myself. And it's not even, it's really, I really do feel that way. Like, I really don't feel successful. I'm not, I don't think I'm a failure. Yeah. But I do measure it up against the highest version of me, my highest expression.

As opposed to what? As opposed to measuring yourself against other people. That's the biggest thing people do. They're so obsessed with other people. It kills them. They think about what are they thinking about me? What are they going to think about me? What are they saying?

And then they measure themselves against other people too. And I don't think, I mean, I've been around you. You're a powerhouse, but neither one of us are, I think you were talking about Einstein at the break. Neither one of us have a super crazy off the charts IQ. Yeah. I sure, no, you don't. So I've talked to you for enough. I know for sure you don't have a couple times.

He keeps taking shots out. Well, it's obvious. They're watching. They know. They sing you. No, but the fact of the matter is you didn't get where you are. No, but you didn't get where you are because of some gifted gigantic intellect. I can't wait to meet your wife, though, man.

No, but it's the fact. Both of us didn't get there because of some unbelievable natural giftedness we have that just produce success, right? So I don't measure myself against other people because they've got gifts that are different than mine. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But you've done unbelievable with what you've had. Okay. And I agree with the statement you made in the first segment, which was,

this middle class thing. Yes. I got enough food. I got enough, you know, I got enough, I got enough money. I got a car. I got a bike. It can be very easy to become to see by it's good enough. Well, here's what it is. For most people, you have to ask yourself this too. Most people, this is what's different about you. I just told you this the other day. The thing that impresses me the most about you is that the more successful you've become, the more you've been fed, the hungry you are, which is irrational. Most people, the more they eat, the less hungry they are. The freaks of the world, they'll make it successful, somehow the more they're fed and they get hungrier. So the question now for a guy like you and that they're asking, when's enough enough?

How many times have you been asked? I've been asked that a lot and there's no such thing for me because I'm not trying to get to necessarily a place or just an amount. I have goals. I want to be a billionaire. I have these things I want. But I'm not trying to just get to destinations. I'm trying to see where I can get as a man and every aspect, my body, my spirituality, my family, my finances, my influence, my ability to communicate. And here's for most people. This is what I love about you since I took this shot at your limited intellect. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hey, we all have a limited intellect. Don't kid yourself. No, you're right. I can recognize it in others because I suffer from it. But, and here's what it is. Most people's will to win is for sale. It's for sale. Most people's will.

Will is for sale. They can be bought. I can't be bought. So if we give you just, most people, if we gave you just enough money, if there's a certain dollar amount, you'd stop working hard. We'd give you a title. You'll stop working hard. We give you a car or a plane or a house.

That's the book, bro. That's the book. Is that the book? Yeah, that might be the book. That is the book. Your will to win is for sale. That's right. And I decided once I realized that because I watch it happen with people in their body and their finances and their family and their faith, whatever it is, I'm not for sale.

So there isn't a place you're going to buy me. You can't get me. There's not a stop, a place, a destination where you're going to get me to relent to quit. I want to improve. That doesn't mean I don't struggle with my motivation from time to time. Yeah, yeah. Doesn't mean I don't get confused or down. Of course I do, but I'm not for sale.

You can't buy me. And you know this, too. We see our friends of ours. Even guys in their 60s and they sold their company for blah, blah, blah, and now they golf nine days a week or whatever, you know? That's fun, but they're for sale. They were bought. You were for sale.

I'm not for sale. Tell me about, I mean, Ed Milette today, you got, I mean, I know you don't like to brag or anything. He's got a plane. He's got four or five homes. How many homes you got? I have, God, Lee, man. How many homes you got? I have five houses.

Where are they? Okay, Laguna Beach on the sand in Laguna Beach. Okay, okay. I got Palm Desert. Palm Desert. I got two hours away. Yeah, I got, oh, I got my, I got one in Diamond Bar, where I grew up. Where's Diamond Bar?

Diamond Bar. How far is that from your main house? Not that far, an hour and a half away. Okay, an hour and a half, you got a third home. I got a place in Hawaii. Four. Yeah, and I got a place, and my favorite place is in Cordillane, Idaho. Five.

On Lake, which is heaven on Earth, just so you know, the most beautiful place on there. Why does anybody need five homes, though? They don't need five homes. Why do you have five homes? I'm okay, I give you a good answer for it. I did it. One, I wanted to enjoy nice things, but it was part of my dream early. I wanted to hit those places.

But here's the other reason. I don't like traveling, and I don't like feeling like I'm on vacation. So I wanted to buy houses where I could live on vacation and work. So I can be in the most beautiful places of the world. I can get the sand of the ocean and the beach. I don't have to go to Fiji to do it. I can grind and work from my house, my backyard. So it feels like I'm on vacation, but I'm not living on vacation.

I want to waste those days traveling and taking two weeks off. You know, you meet these guys out of Cabo. I don't do that crap. I live on a good to go to Cabo. business reason or some break. But I understand the Laguna thing. It's the other four homes I don't understand. Well, okay, you don't want to have the details, but one of them my mother-in-law lives in

because they couldn't afford to keep their house, right? The other one is I'm going to build on it eventually someday, and Cortalane's my dream place, man. I just like... And Palm Desert is at a place called Big Horn, which I'm going to take you to. I think it's the best golf club in the world. So when I do want to go golf or I do want to entertain or I do want to get my vision stretch. And here's the other thing, last thing.

I got to... But you're questioning all these homes yourself. I don't question. What I questioned. is whether I should own them all cash, because I have no debt on any of those homes, and I wondered whether I leverage them if I could. I don't question having the house, but let me just say some. The other thing is, there's a lesson in this. These places have brought me into associations and meeting people that were further ahead of me in my life and stretched

me. And so getting in the environment, changing my environment to be around people that were further ahead in some of the games of life I wanted to be in has had a huge impact on me. So a couple of these homes have paid for them damn selves just by the people I got around. Very short intermission here folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. Welcome back, everybody. I wanted to have Alan on our show for a long time. I was just telling him this off camera. I wanted to have him on because he's got a really unique perspective and an upfront view to some of the key performers in the NBA for many, many years. And he's taken the lessons he's learned from these high performers. And he's distilled

it down in information that everybody can use as an entrepreneur, as a father, as a mother. as just a human being. And he communicates it in a very unique way. We're going to go very deep today on performance, on your game. His first book I read, which is called Raise Your Game. The book that's out now is called Sustainer Game, High Performance Keys to Manage Stress, Avoid Stagnation, and Beat Burnout. I think everybody listening to this needs some help right now in the world with stress,

stagnation, and burnout. So, Alenstein, welcome to the show, bro. Oh, man, it's so awesome to be here. My pleasure. man and I've been doing the show for a long time you know the the truth that you're spitting here is uh remarkable to me and the application of it well here's how they people need to apply that so once again and I'm so glad that you brought up the point that well I may use basketball examples because that's where I've spent most of my life folks need to take these and figure out how they can

you know apply them to their situation so step number one is figure out what what does winning look like to you or what does success look like to you again this could be in your marriage This could be, you know, in your business. This could be for something you're doing in your community. But figure out what does winning look like. Now, of course, in the game of basketball, which Simon Seneca has said is a finite game, and I'm a big fan of Simon's work, is a finite game. We have unanimously around the globe agreed that the team with the most points on the scoreboard

when the final buzzer goes off is the winner. Life, relationships, business, it's a little more ascetic. It's not as clear. How you might define winning in business might be slightly different than maybe one of your friends or colleagues. But that doesn't matter. You just have to get crystal clear on what winning looks like to you. And then you need to figure out what are the measurable building blocks, the bricks, if you will, that will allow me to reach that goal.

And then once you have that North Star, take your eyes off of it and just focus on the bricks. Think about a GPS, which most people need to navigate the world these days. I don't know how I survived without one beforehand. But you need to know two things. You need to know where you are in the moment, not where you were five minutes ago, five days ago, or five weeks ago. So you need to know where you are right now and you need to have an end address. Where am I going? Those are the only two points you need.

And then once you have those two points, you don't need to worry about either one of them. What you need to do now is pay attention to the directions and listen to every turn that you're supposed to make. And of course, the beauty with this analogy is if you're like me and kind of directionally dysfunctional, you're probably going to take a wrong turn. And then what happens? It reroutes. It just reroutes. So the GPS doesn't get angry at you.

It doesn't call you an idiot. It just simply reroutes. and it puts you back on that course. And that's ultimately what all of us should be trying to do is pursue our North Star by focusing on the steps and directions it takes to get there. And when you misstep or you make a wrong turn, don't get upset over it. Just move to the next play and take the next direction to reroute.

It's really, really good. And I think oftentimes people feel lost. And that's why this clarity of what success looks like to you or the blueprint that you want is really so important. The other thing that happens is people get tired. I think it's the second chapter of the book. You talk about stress management. You talk about energy management as well.

And that's a big thing in our culture today. I think people are tired. I don't think they manage their energy very well. I watch this, even a basketball analogy, I watch certain teams that, you know, I think, well, they're tired. And I watch friends of mine in business and life. They just seem tired to me.

So what is energy management and what are some of your keys for it? Well, we need to make sure we're protecting both time and energy. And as we know, I know you've said this on many previous shows. You know, obviously time is our. most precious resource because that is finite. Whenever that's done, that's done. We don't have any more of it. Energy is something, though, that we can actually replenish. And a lot of that has to do with our routines and our self-care. Are we making the time to fill our own buckets, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually so that we can keep that battery, that internal battery

of our lives as close to 100% as possible? You know, most people would freak out if they look down at their iPhone and saw their iPhone had three or four percent juice left in it. They'd immediately start looking for a plug or a mofi or something, but they allow themselves to go down to three or four percent and they don't seem to do anything about it. And then you're just running on fumes. And there's no way that you can be your best self or make a maximum contribution to the things that are important to you if you're doing that. So part of it comes down to our discernment of what are we going to invest our time and energy into? And this goes back to just two simple words, yes and no. What are you saying yes to and what are you saying no to?

You know, as a self-diagnosed people pleaser, this was one that was really challenging for me most of my life. Me too. Because I love saying yes. It feels good to say yes. I want to help as many people as I can. But I've learned that when I say yes to one thing, I am by default saying no to something else. If I'm going to say yes to investing this hour with you, that means this hour in time cannot be invested anywhere else. Now, this happens to be a wonderful investment of my time, one I'm very happy to make.

So am I. But we have to be very careful of what we say yes and what we say no to. so we have to have some discernment. And for me, I've learned to be able to say no respectfully with tact and to be polite. If something is not a good fit. And how do we know if it's a good fit? Is it in alignment with the North Star that you're pursuing? If you're asking me to do something that is taking me away from that North Star,

then it's most likely not the wisest investment of my time or energy and I'll politely decline. If what you're asking me to do is an alignment, then it's probably a great investment of my time and energy. So being able to step back and use our core values and use that North Star to design our lives and design our schedules and design what we're going to say yes to yes to feelings and emotions. If you're just saying yes and no to things based on your mood or how you're feeling, there's no consistency in that. What a really good point because you know what? I have a hard time saying no. And oftentimes it is just based on my energy rather than out of my values or does it fit into the vision of what I'm trying to create and what I'm trying to do? And that stays, I want to stay on that word vision. You know what surprises me is how little people talk about visualization and how much of it I do

and how much of it happy and successful people, both happy and successful people that I know, spend in doing so. And so you talk about, it's not a lot, but you talk about in the book visualization. And I'm wondering any keys you would have for that and also the importance of it because I think most people don't realize you're visualizing all the time. Yeah. It's just what are you visualizing? Yeah. Right? And I think most people are visualizing their fears, their worries, their to-do list, the stuff

they've got to get the kids to soccer. I got to go work out. I got whatever it might be. But are you taking control of what you're visualizing in your life? Because I think ultimately our minds move towards what it's most familiar with. Absolutely. And so you talk about it in the book, and I don't want to use my version of it, but how do you feel about visualization and anything about it you want to share?

One of the words that comes up in a lot of your shows and a lot of your work is intention. So we have to make sure we're very intentional with what we're visualizing. There were a few different research studies, and I reference them in the book. The one that I like the most from a visualization standpoint was they took three different groups and they were going to have them shoot free throws. And these weren't professional players by any means. These were just regular weekend warriors. And in the three groups, the first group, they got tested on the first day, and then they practiced

for 21 consecutive days and then they took the retest 21 days later. Second group took the test on the first day, did not touch a basketball, but only visualized making free throws for the next 21 days and then took the retest. And then the third group tested on the first day, didn't practice and didn't visualize, and then retested on the 21st day. I got to hear this. I think most people would realize the group that didn't practice or visualize there was no improvement. In fact, they had a slight decline in their ability. But the part that blew my mind was the group that visualized was only a couple of percentage points less than the group that actually practice. So by actually sitting with your eyes closed and visualizing

making free throws, it's almost as good as being able to practice. And that, that blows my mind. Now, I think we can also agree that the best thing to do is to do both is to get in repetition, you know, purposeful repetition as well as visualize. I visualize before every single speaking engagement. Every engagement I do, I always arrive the day before and I request to see the room the day before I'm going to speak. I want to get a feel for what it's going to look like. I visualized before I came in here with you today. I watched several of your other guests on YouTube who were in this studio. I knew what this room looked like before I set foot in here, which gave me a certain level of comfort that I wasn't going to walk into anything that I hadn't

prepared myself for. And one of my favorite quotes that I learned from a mentor of mine is make preparation your separation and that I want to be as prepared as possible for everything that I do. And that will also lower stress. Yeah, Ben Newman was telling me this Sabin quote where he says, you know, most teams practice until they get it right. And he says, here at Alabama, we practice until we can't get it wrong. Yes. And it's just a different standard of preparation. And I'm the same way, by the way.

I try to do all of those things. And I'll give you an interesting on a visualization. I'll just share with you. It'll take me a minute for the audience. But I got hurt my sophomore year of college and I couldn't play. And we had a team psychologist at the time. He ended up being killed. And I use a lot of his work to this day.

He was in a car accident. I use a lot of his work. And I get a lot of credit for it because he was so cutting edge even back in those days. And he said, Ed, here's what we're going to do. And I hit 215 my freshman year. Terrible year. That's terrible. And then I sat out because I was hurt.

The next year I hit almost 380. And I wasn't any better of a hitter. What happened was he taught me to visualize and we'd sit behind the batting cage where the other guys were popping some up, ground in the double play. He's missing a few. He said, Ed, you're going to hit a line drive up the middle thousands of times. And he made me focus on my visualization. So he goes, Ed, all right, visualize you hitting the line drive at the moment. I go, I got it.

And he'd go, okay, really? Do you? And he would make me hyper visualize. He'd say, Ed, where's the camera? I go, what do you mean? He goes, well, how are you seeing it from what angle? Is the camera in the center field, like on TV, over the pitcher's head, shooting in? Or is it from the batters box, your view out?

And I go, I don't know. And he goes, well, then you kind of should know. And I go, okay, actually turns out the camera's on me. I'm looking out at the picture. He goes, great. Not everybody has it that way. He goes, can you see the release point? Can you see the stitches on the ball?

Can you see the rotating? And it got to the point where he go, what is it? And I say, it's a curve ball. He goes, how do you know? I could see the dot on the stitches. Right? And then I could see, I got to the point where he'd make me work. I could see then the stitches coming in.

I could see the ball hit the bat and the stitches re-rotating backwards the other way, right back over the guy's left shoulder. I just got to share this with you. So I come back. I'm a 215 hitter. The first day in BP, first pitch throw to me is up and away, and I swat at it and hit a line drive up the middle. Next ball, down and away.

Line drive up the middle. And I think it was 28 straight hits. My teammates are like, what's going on with my let? Line drive up the middle every single time. Then I popped one up and I hit like 16. more up the middle. I had not swung a bat in six months, but the upside to that was I didn't have any negative experiences from actually swinging the bat. And the subconscious mind really doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's imagined. I share this because your work is so

good, bro, and the people that are listening to this, if you would start to visualize and then get better at it, refine it, see it more clearly. Can you slow it down? Can you speed it up? Can you add color can you add sound and the more you get good at visualizing you're going to change your damn life the better you get at this so i just wanted to add second it and add to it that i have a real life experience and to this day things like getting to the studio and visualizing it i do that crazy stuff too because it's not crazy all right chapter five never heard it said this way using stress so usually people are taught avoid stress minimize stress and you have strategies for that in the book as well but sometimes you're almost like hey dance with it using

this stress? What does that mean? That goes back to something we said earlier. It's kind of the difference between viewing something that's making you nervous versus viewing something that gets you really, really excited. I mean, I've, I said to you before off hair, I'm a huge fan of your work. You've had a massive impact on my life. I could have been nervous coming in here and to meet you for the first time and sit. But instead, I was excited for this opportunity. And those, they can have very similar feelings. You can have, you can have the butterflies in your stomach, you know, and I don't remember who said that originally, but if you ever feel butterflies in your stomach, just get them all lined up in the same direction so that they can work, we can work for you.

But we do. We need, we need to have some stress in our life. If the stress is overwhelming, then you'll be completely debilitated. If I was completely overwhelmed with stress right now, this wouldn't be much of an interview. However, if there was zero stress, I'd probably be bored and there wouldn't be much of an interview. So we want just enough to keep us sharp. It's very similar to fear, you know, fear in and of itself keeps us safe. We want to have some fear. If not, We just walk in the middle of traffic or we just juggle knives or do something foolish. But if we have too much fear, then we become paralyzed and we can't actually do anything. So, yeah, these things help, they help keep us sharp.

So we want to have a little bit, be on a little bit of edge for the things that mean the most to us. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I am so excited about today's topic.

I've wanted to record this episode for about a week now. I'm finally getting a chance in the studio to do it with you. What we're going to talk about today is actually, what do you need to do to fulfill your dreams and your potential? And I want to start out by saying something to you. You're going to have to decide in your life that you're going to be different, that you're not going to be like everybody else, that you're not going to be a part of the crowd.

Everything in our culture today is trying to make us all the same, put us all in the same box, take what I call the crowded road of life as opposed to the lonely road of life, the road less traveled. And I've done a show on that before, and people ask me if I would go deeper on it, so I will today. And so today we're going to talk a lot about the mindset that's required to do something great. And the first decision is to accept the fact that you're going to be different. You're going to be criticized.

You're going to have haters. But not only that, you're going to feel very alone oftentimes on the journey. And you're not going to feel like a lot of people understand you. And it's making a decision up front that I'm okay with not being like everyone else. I'm okay with not being part of the pack, that I want to be different. I want to stand out. You know, it's a difficult decision to do that, especially when maybe you don't have the confidence yet to do it.

But at the end of your life, you're going to regret the fact that you didn't go for it, that you didn't try to do something different and unique and follow your heart, follow your own path. If you're a person of faith, we know that each of us was made individually in God's image and likeness, whatever your faith might be. and that there's an individual plan for our life. And so if there's an individual plan, an individual destiny for our lives, why would we try to take pages out of everybody else's book?

Let me say something to you up front, okay? Conformity to me is the ultimate form of cowardice. Let me say it again. Conformity is the ultimate form of cowardice. Meaning when you just decide to conform to what everybody else expects of you, what everybody else is doing or what they think you are, what they think you should be doing, or they're limiting beliefs about you, their small minds. See, small-minded people, God bless them, will constantly try to project their smallness onto you to get you to shrink. And then what happens

is most people end up being a coward in life. It's what it really is, where they just begin to conform. I'm going to do and say what you think I should do and say. I'm not going to speak my mind. I'm not going to stand up for what I believe in, I'm not going to try something outside of the box because I might fail and then you'll criticize me. And even when I'm trying, you'll probably criticize me. And even if I win and succeed, you're probably going to criticize me. You ought to just decide right now and understand something. Okay? Let me say this to you. You're going to get criticized the whole time. You're going to get criticized when you try. You're going to get criticized if you fail. And believe it or not, you're going to get criticized when you win. Because what people that are losing in their life do,

is they criticize people. And the reason they're critical of other people is it's the only time in their life that they feel like they have any power or any value that they're even noticed. So because they're in the pack and they've conformed and they're on the crowded road, they don't ever stand out.

They don't ever get noticed. And so if you're not ever going to do that and you're being a coward, which is to be like everybody else, well, what's the one way out of that cowardice is to be a bully, is to be a critic, is to sit on the sidelines and poke fun. or tell people how they ought to do it better when they're not doing anything.

And you've just got to decide in your life. I know I'm being a little bit more intense than normal today. You've got to decide in your life that you don't want to take advice from these people. You don't want to think like these people. And by the way, many of them are really great people. Just at one time, they just decided. You know what? I'm just going to color between the lines in my life.

I'm just going to color right in between the lines like everybody else, which I'm going to talk about in a minute. And so what ends up happening, Gandhi has this great quote that I've been really working on lately. Gandhi said, I will not let you walk through my mind with your dirty feet. And too many of you are letting the people around you walk through your mind with their dirty feet. And it's polluting your brain. It's polluting your thoughts. It's creating negative belief systems, limiting belief systems.

And you know what? Your own confidence, your own strength, your own self-esteem is going to come from you. You have to understand something. when you try something in your life, okay, or you attempt anything in your life, you're either going to become wise or you're going to become wounded. And too many people, once they start to try, become wounded. The failure wounds them, the setback wounds them, the criticism wounds them. They're owned, by the way, sometimes the people walking through your mind with their dirty feet are you and your own thoughts. And by the way, the reason I know this is I very much have done this

myself. The guy walking through my mind most of the time with his dirty feet is this dude right here. And I've learned something. I don't have to believe everything I think. In fact, I don't anymore. Most of the stuff I think, all the studies say, I've said this in another podcast, 80 to 90 percent of our thoughts are negative. These aren't my thoughts. Those aren't God's thoughts. Those are somehow very, very wounded man's thinking, not a wise man. And I'll ask myself that when I have these thoughts. Is this a wise man's thoughts or a wounded man's thoughts? You have a wise man's thoughts. You ask yourself that, these negative thoughts that you're having, these limiting thoughts that you're having, is that the wise woman's thoughts or the wounded woman's thoughts? And if it's the wounded woman,

stop listening to her and start talking to her. Sometimes in life, you've got to stop listening to yourself so much and start talking to yourself. And it's all your responsibility. Listen, it's not called friend esteem or stranger esteem or mom and dad esteem. It's called self-esteem for a reason, because you have to be the one to believe it. And listen to me. the fact that you're listening to my podcast or watching, it means this. You're starting to grow. And maybe you've been growing for quite a while. And by the way, if you're outgrowing people, it makes them very uncomfortable with themselves. And then because they're uncomfortable with themselves, they become dream stealers. Because here's what happens. You getting bigger makes them

feel smaller. And so the consequence, what a lot of us do is we decide to shrink ourselves and get smaller so that they can feel bigger or safer with us around. Let me say that to you again. you getting bigger makes them feel smaller. And because you're a good person, whether it's your boyfriend or girlfriend, your spouse, your friends, your parents, whoever it is, what you do because you're a good person is instead of still getting bigger, you decide you will get smaller so they can feel bigger or safer with you. And what ends up happening is you shrink your dreams.

And we shrink our lives. We shrink our energy. We shrink our capacity to fit in. and we make all these other people around us comfortable. And what I want you to do is, I want you to make some people uncomfortable in your life. There's nothing wrong with making people feel uncomfortable. And if you're going to do it, see, to me, that's courage.

Courage is being willing to make other people uncomfortable. Remember this. Sometimes I had to say this to my family, pardon my progress, but I'm going to be making progress over here. Right? And eventually, they might get on board, and they might not get on board. But I want to know that at the end of my life when it's over,

that I've given it everything I've got. That I didn't shrink myself because I was a coward. I didn't shrink myself to please small-minded people around me. That my capacity to grow, my capacity to read, my total commitment to a personal development program, my total commitment to a self-improvement program, I started out as a very young man in my early 20s with absolutely no self-esteem, no confidence,

confidence, no communication ability whatsoever. And I started the journey of self-discovery, self-improvement, and personal development. I started out as a terrible reader, but I found myself, at least I could read a book a month. And then I got to a book a week. And I got up to where I was reading sometimes 50, 60, 70, 80 books a year. And these were like mentors to me. When I read books, it's like this author is personally speaking to me and mentoring me, pouring into me. Man, if there was a podcast like mine back then, my gosh, I'd be glued to it. I mean to brag, but like, I would be glued to it. There's this great Chinese proverb that says, if you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back. And to be able to listen to my Thursday episodes or the people I interview on Tuesdays,

these are people who have the directions because they're coming back. I think I have some of them. But I know this when I started out because I didn't have a lot of confidence. Man, every once in a while, the cowardly me would come back in. I would shrink my life, shrink my dream, shrink my belief, right? Those voices were that those dirty feet were running through my mind. And then a few other people had their dirty feet doing it to me as well. Between the rest of us, between them and me, it was like a stampede in my mind all the time. And I didn't want to make people uncomfortable. I still, to this day, at 53 years old, I'm a people pleaser. I don't like to offend. I don't like to hurt people. If I have strife with somebody in my life, like I can't sleep

until I fixed it. I'm just wired that way. Many of you are. But I've learned, that if I've made a mistake in how I've treated somebody or spoken to them, then it should bother me and I should fix it. But if the mistake I've made is trying to do something great with my life, the mistake I've made is trying to change my family tree forever, the mistake I've made is trying to be happier and grow. If the mistake I've made is trying to give to other people and contribute and create great memories in my life, then guess what? That's not a mistake. And I'm not apologizing for that. I've got one life. You've got one life. And it's time we have the courage to get after it and take the lonely road and not have this cowardice, this cowardly way

about us where we just conform to what everybody else is doing. And I can tell you, I think I know where it comes from. I think it comes, believe it or not, all the way back when we were little little kids in our coloring books. Remember how much we were trained over and over again to color between the lines? And I was always a terrible color. I'm left-handed. I've got no coordination skills this way. You go look at my old coloring book. They're just terrible. But we're trained as children. Color between the lines, Sarah. Color between the lines, Bob, color between the lines, stay between the lines. And we're over and over and over. This is reinforced to us to stay between the lines. And there's a lot of great things about school,

but coloring between the lines, sitting in the same way, fold your hand, all these things. What ends up happening is we begin to get older, we literally start to only color between the lines in our life. We don't want to get outside the lines. And I'm going to say something to you. All great people color outside the lines. All the people you admire, what do you admire about them? They colored outside the lines in their life. They didn't stay a conformist. They didn't stay with some predetermined picture. See, here's what a coloring book is. Here's the picture. Now, you just fill in the one I gave you. Color between the lines. And that's what most people do in their life. The world hands them. Here's your picture. This is what you get. This is your life. This is the one

you're handed. Stay between the lines. Don't you very outside those lines. Don't you get outside of there. And what happens is that we have this thing that's now wired into us once we're adults. Oh my gosh, I'm outside the lines. I better get back. I'm outside the lines. I better get back. And it becomes something in life where I've never been out here before. I need to come back. I'm misbehaving. I'm going to get in trouble. I'm not doing what I was trained to do. This isn't what I do. And I can tell you that's why there's so few people in life that win, but I can tell you the decision they've made. They've made the decision that they're not coloring within the lines anymore. And so my challenge to you today is to have courage, is not to conform, but to create, is to decide

in your life that you're not playing within these lines somebody else handed to you, that you're going to design your own life with God, your own story, your own pictures, and that you're going to pick up a new pen, a new crayon, you're going to start coloring a whole new picture of your life. and when you begin to do that, it's going to be uncomfortable at first. And by the way, some of you've said, Ed, I've done it. And you know what? Now that I'm listening to say, I'm back between the dang lines again. I was outside.

I had some failures and setbacks and I ran back within the picture they gave me. You've got to stop this tendency of running back within the picture that everybody gave you, shrinking your dreams down, shrinking your life down to fit between these lines, some artificial lines that everybody, some strange, a random person, I guess, gave you. But I could tell you this. I don't believe you were created to stay within those lines. I don't think you yet have any idea what your potential is and your capacity. But what I can tell you is you begin to expand your capacity and you start really getting out there.

You'll be surprised how far you can go. The people that I know that are successful, myself included, if you think I am, for me to look back now how far I've come, my gosh, it's amazing. You'd have told me all these different things would happen. It blows my mind. But the reason that that happened is I finally started building a habit of I'm not shrinking to make you comfortable. And by the way, I'm not going to shrink to make me comfortable. I've got incredibly comfortable at being uncomfortable. In fact, this is probably not great to admit, but when I go too long just kind of laying around being comfortable, I start to get uncomfortable.

I start to get uncomfortable not doing difficult things. People ask me all the time, why do you do cold plunges in the mornings? Is it the anti-inflammatory properties? Is it, I don't know. No, not really. In fact, there's some data that says the longer you do it, the less that has an impact. I don't even know if that's right.

But that's why I do it anyway. The reason that I do it is it's hard. The reason I do it is it's difficult. Successful people, happy people, do difficult things. Unhappy people, and I believe unsuccessful people, have a tendency to not do difficult things. There's this great story. My firm at one time, we sponsored Carl Edwards.

He was a NASCAR driver, very successful one for a long time. And I asked him about driving a NASCAR. And I'll never forget what he told me. I said, what's the hardest part? And he goes, well, there's obviously the physical toll that it takes on you, Ed, and obviously the mechanics of knowing how to drive the car correctly and all those things that I don't understand of being a top athlete in any sport. But he said the most difficult part is when you're driving,

and there's a crash in front of you and you're doing 150 miles an hour and all you can see is a smoke cloud all you can see is a smoke cloud and he said and what you got to do is drive right through that cloud you got to drive right through it and he goes and it's scary because you don't know what's on the other side

you could be going headlong into a car that's already crashed at 150 180 miles an hour bam and you don't know and you got to drive through the smoke anyway I never thought about that before he goes oh yeah there's a wreck in front of you and there's ever the smokes everywhere he goes you just got to drive right through it and he said the other thing is when there's an accident he goes you know you're up against the wall and you're driving

he goes your tendency when you're driving you got you're doing 150 or 180 or whatever they do the wall's a millimeter away he goes you can't look at the wall because when you look at it you drive right into it you end up gravitating right into it he said you got to keep looking ahead ed you can't flinch when there's an accident in front of you you can't flinch where there's smoke and you can't see what's on the other side you got to drive right through it. And I remember it firing me up thinking, man, that's life. Man, that's success. Sometimes you can't see where you're going. You're going to drive right through it, not knowing what's on the other side and have the faith and the confidence. And when you get to the other side, you will

figure it out, that there'll be a blessing and a gift, that you'll be protected. And that's what I mean by the conformity is cowardice, right? It takes courage to go through that smoke cloud. And then you've got to keep your eye on the prize. When you're driving 150, 180 miles an hour and inch away from the wall, don't look at the wall. Don't look at the wall. Look ahead where you're going. And so many of us in life, even once we get it going, we start looking at the wall. I know I'm going to crash. I know I'm to crash. It's so close. And we start looking at the things we don't want and we manifest them. We literally, I believe thoughts are magnets. And what you think about most regularly, you attract to yourself. I believe that. I believe it, especially if you do it repetitively, especially if I can be

candid with you. And I may this sound outside the lines for you, but let me just say this. I love being outside the lines. The more you begin to become successful and vibrated at a high frequency, the more you really need to protect your thoughts. Because when you're vibrating the highest frequency, you tend to draw things to you even more rapidly and more regularly when you're at that frequency. Okay? And so it's important that you not look at the wall in your life. That wall is an artificial line in the coloring book of your life. And when you begin to look at it, you decide to conform or hit it. but when you look ahead at where you're going, when you're focused in the present moment,

see, I could tell you this. The other reason I love to cold plunge is it so, dadgum, cold, it forces me to be fully present in that moment. You get into a cold plunge, you can't be worrying about your problems in that moment. You are fully focused and getting through those three to five minutes or however long you sit in there. For some of us that are crazy people,

it's some of the few minutes every day we are fully present, right? And I can promise if you're doing 150 or 180 into a smoke cloud, you're not worried about your grocery list at that time. You're going right in there fully present in the moment. And it's the most alive you ever feel in your life. See, total focus, you'll feel the most alive in your life. If you look back at your life, some of the most chaotic, busy, difficult times were your happiest.

And you may not have realized it at the time, but when you're in college, cramming for finals. And I ask you to go back to those days, all the stress, you had a job and you're going through college, let's say, if you had that. Some of the happiest times in your life. Some of you mamas, those days where your eight months, your pregnancy and you're, is it one of the difficult times in your life, yet one of the most blessed times in our life? See, when it's really busy and we feel the most out of control and we're driving through that smoke cloud, we're coloring outside those lines when we're the happiest. And when it's easy and cruise control and we're just kind of shrinking our life down to conform like everybody else, it's when we're the most miserable. That's why there's this thing that's inside of you right now saying, I'm supposed to be somebody.

I'm supposed to do something great with my life. I'm not exactly settled where I am right now. You're not settled right now. You don't feel settled in your spirit. You don't feel settled in your spirit because you know there's more abundant faith for you. You know there's more people to help. You know there's a dream and a life waiting for you out there, even if you're in a great one right now.

You've got this sense about you that there's another place for you to go. There's more people for you to help. There's more people for you to serve. If you're a believer that you want to serve God's kingdom in the biggest possible way you can, whatever that thing is for you. And I can tell you I know where that lies and that lies outside the lines. And so today I hope you decide

that you or no one else is ever going to walk through your mind with their dirty feet and that you've decided that you're not going to conform and that you're going to do something awesome with your life. I'm giving you full permission. In fact, I'm begging you.

Color outside the lines because that's where all the people that you want to help are waiting for you. All right, everybody. God bless you. Max out. your life. Across Canada, hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $26 an hour. Employees also have the opportunity to grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training

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