THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Life Changing Steps To Conquer Self-Doubt & Unlock Your Confidence

Episode Date: June 7, 2025

👇 SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL - so this show can reach more people 👇 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIprGZAdzn3ZqgLmDuibYcw?sub_confirmation=1 Click the Link Below to Subscribe to my email list to MAXOUT your life (all value, no fluff) https://konect.to/edmylett 💥 Get my exclusive Monday Motivation training in GrowthDay, the world’s #1 app for advanced mindset and personal development. Visit https://growthday.com/ed. This show is sponsored by GrowthDay. Are you letting self-doubt run your life—or are you finally ready to fight back? In this Mashup episode, I’m pulling together life-changing conversations with some of the most mentally tough, spiritually grounded, and relentlessly committed leaders I’ve ever sat down with: Stephen A. Smith, Michael Chandler, Leila Hormozi, Ryan Hawk, and of course, you're going to hear from me too. Every one of us shares a common thread—confidence wasn’t something we were born with, it was built brick by brick through the actions we took and the beliefs we rewired. I open up about the painful origins of self-doubt, how those voices in your head? They were planted there by someone else—and they don’t belong to you. I break down the actual steps I use to build real self-confidence, the kind rooted in keeping promises to yourself, stacking small wins, and giving yourself credit where it counts—your intentions. Because if you don’t believe you deserve to win, you’ll never claim the life waiting for you. You’ll hear Michael Chandler talk about faith over fear in the literal cage fight of life, and how preparation—not perfection—is what fuels his self-worth. Leila Hormozi shares the raw truth of managing anxiety and using fear as a compass, not a stop sign. Stephen A. Smith brings fire as he talks about owning the stage, mastering your craft, and never negotiating with your commitments. And Ryan Hawk drills into the leadership side of confidence—why your environment and the temperature of your inner circle are everything. This episode is loaded with real talk, real tools, and real breakthroughs. There’s nothing surface level here. It’s about how to overcome the lies you’ve believed and step into the version of yourself that already exists—you just need to meet them. What you’ll learn in this episode: - Why self-doubt isn’t yours to carry—and how to eliminate it - The process I use to build unshakable self-confidence - Michael Chandler’s mindset for stepping into the cage with nothing to lose - How fear is often a mask for your next breakthrough (Leila Hormozi) - Why your inner circle either lifts your thermostat or cools it down (Ryan Hawk) - Stephen A. Smith’s killer mentality: “The audience is waiting to hear from me” This episode isn’t just about confidence—it’s a roadmap to reclaim your identity, your purpose, and your belief in what’s possible for your life. Now it’s your turn to take action. Thank you for watching this video—Please Share it and get the word out! 👇 SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL👇 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIprGZAdzn3ZqgLmDuibYcw?sub_confirmation=1 ▶︎ Visit My WEBSITE | https://www.EdMylett.com #EdMylett #Motivation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So hey guys, listen, we're all trying to get more productive and the question is how do you find a way to get an edge? I'm a big believer that if you're getting mentoring or you're in an environment that causes growth, a growth-based environment, that you're much more likely to grow and you're going to grow faster and that's why I love Growth Day. Growth Day is an app that my friend Brendan Burchard has created that I'm a big fan of. Write this down growthday.com forward slash ed. So if you want to be more productive, by the way, he's asked me, I post videos in there every single Monday that gets your day off to the right start. He's got about 5,000, $10,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with

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You're going to get a free tuition free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also. So go to growthday.com forward slash Ed. That's growthday.com forward slash Ed. Advantage Gold is giving away a free copy of Rogoff's book to anyone who schedules a one-on-one precious metals appointment. You'll discover why gold is becoming the number one hedge against a global currency ship and

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Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Today we're going to talk about how to build unlimited self-confidence. And the reason that I'm covering this topic today is probably more than any other topic I've been getting asked lately about the struggles people are going through with self-doubt, not believing in themselves, negative thoughts about themselves. And I believe the solution to self-doubt is to build something bigger than that doubt, which is to build our self-confidence.

And one thing to know about the fact that you doubt yourself is one, I struggle with it as well. One of the reasons I've had to go learn to build all these tools for myself is because in my life, my baseball career, my academic career, my business career, my speaking career, I've been riddled with self-doubt. That creeps up all the time in our lives. Am I enough? Am I good enough?

Do I deserve this? Is this something that's part of my destiny? Should I be doing this? If you're a religious person, I believe the adversary, if you believe in the adversary, I believe the adversary's greatest tool that he could use against you to get you to lose in your life is to get you discouraged and doubting. These are two of the most chaotic things that the adversary can do to us or that we do to ourselves in our own minds is to get ourselves doubting, to get ourselves discouraged because you

can't win when you doubt and you can't win when you're discouraged. What I found out though about self-doubt is that you don't overcome it, you build something bigger than it, which means you build your self-confidence and the greater and greater your self-confidence get, it minimizes the impact self-doubt has on us. Now why is that so important? It's important because you have to understand one thing about the doubts and the negative thoughts you have about yourself. As hard as this is to accept, these are not your thoughts. You weren't born doubting. You weren't born discouraged. You weren't

born thinking negative things about yourself. Those were thoughts that were placed in you and given to you by an external source at some time in your life. It could even be our parents. Don't do that. Be quiet. Sit down. Be a good boy. Be a good girl. Maybe it was criticism you received as a little one that you may not even remember to this day. It could have been a school teacher. It could have been ridicule at school from other children. But when you were young in your formative years, these negative thoughts about yourself were planted in you by an external source. That's so powerful to understand because these things you think you believe about yourself that

have become really true to you, you don't even really believe they were not your original thoughts, but the power of belief is so incredible in our lives. It's so insidious because when we have a belief about something, even if it was given to us by somebody else, our mind goes to work on proving to us that this belief is true. A belief is almost like this table right here, just the top once we get it. And what our mind tries to do is it tries to build legs under the table to reinforce that belief. So, if somebody told you you weren't enough, or you weren't smart enough, or pretty enough,

or fast enough, or strong enough, or you don't come from the right place or you're not in the right culture the right race the right religion the right height the right IQ as a young person or you were put down and these beliefs were given to you what happens is your mind tries to prove beliefs true so it finds references so once you think it your mind finds an example of your life where you weren't enough another one where you weren't enough you weren't smart enough you weren your life where you weren't enough, another one where you weren't enough, you weren't smart enough, you weren't pretty enough, you weren't handsome enough, you weren't strong enough. And it finds these references and it builds like a leg and multiple legs under table and

pretty soon you can't move it. And it's stuck in there as a firm belief. That's why we have to guard our beliefs so preciously because our mind goes to work on finding these legs, these references, which are real experiences in our life to prove to us that that belief is true. And so although you may believe it to be true about you, these doubts and negative thoughts you have, these were not your original thoughts. That's a powerful thing to understand because you weren't born this way. You weren't born doubting. You were born perfect. You were born believing you were going to do something great.

You were born happy. You were born believing you were gonna do something great. You were born happy. You were born believing you were gonna do something special with your life. As a baby, I promise you, you had no negative self-talk. You had no negative self-doubt. These are external sources. So important to know because those thoughts aren't really who you are. They're somebody else's thoughts. They gave you because of how they felt about themselves. And so today we're gonna talk about how to build self-confidence and how to eliminate self-doubt. So how do we build this self-confidence?

The process of building self-confidence is actually very easy, believe it or not. Self-confidence is self-trust. Self-confidence is building a reputation with yourself that you keep your word to you, that you keep the promises you make to you. When I meet somebody who has a ton of self-confidence, I don't look at that as somebody with a big ego. There's a difference. Somebody with self-confidence has a reputation with themselves that I do the things I say

I'm going to do. That's where self-confidence comes from. When I meet someone who's not self-confident, I know this is someone who has consistently made promises to themselves they've not kept. They've started a diet and done it for a while but not kept it. They've made a commitment and goals to go make a certain amount of money in business and they started down the road but then they didn't deliver on it long term to get up at a certain time of the morning and then they don't do it. And so they have a process and a habit in their life more

often than not of not keeping the promises they don't make to other people. They don't keep the promises they make to themselves. And so the cool thing is self-confidence is an internal game. You do not need external accolades, external admiration in order to build self-confidence. You don't need any of those external forces. It's all done internally. You control this and you control this by beginning today to keep the promises you make to yourself and you have to stack the deck in your favor, stack the game so you win. It's not good enough just to keep the promises you make to yourself. You must acknowledge it when you do it to you to give yourself credit to create confidence, momentum is what I call it. So whether that's

setting the deck where you're going to get up a little bit earlier, you're going to make a certain amount of phone calls, your business, a certain amount of appointments, you're going to eat a certain amount of calories little bit earlier, you're going to make a certain amount of phone calls to your business, a certain amount of appointments, you're going to eat a certain amount of calories in your fitness, you're going to spend a certain amount of time with your children or your parents, and you begin to do these things you say you're going to do. You say simple things like, I'm going to lay out my clothes the night before I go to bed every night, before I go to sleep so when I wake up that decision's made for me. And believe it or not, the fact that you just do something that simple that you then deliver on begins to build confidence.

You say, I'm going to stretch in the morning when I get up, and you do it all of a sudden. I'm not going to check my phone for 30 minutes. All these habits I teach. When you just begin to do the things you tell yourself you're going to do, you begin to build self-confidence, which is this reputation with yourself. So ask yourself a question right now. What is one thing right now, one promise I can make to myself that I'm going to begin to keep starting this minute and begin to do it? It could be how often I'm going to pick up a book and read it.

But you begin to stack things you commit to do and then you deliver on them and you acknowledge them to yourself. You're in the process of building self-confidence. Why is that so important? Of all the athletes I coach, when my athletes are performing at their peak level, they're at their highest self-confidence level. In fact, I love when I watch some of the athletes I coach get interviewed and they kind of do this aw shucks, humble routine in their pro-skate interviews. Yeah, you know, just part of the team, you know, I got a lot, could have done a lot better today. But inside, I know these people are incredibly

self-confident people. Any of you athletes listening to this, you know this, the great athletes you know have incredible amounts of self-confidence. You have to believe in you when it's a battle, when you're a hitter against a pitcher, or when you're a quarterback against a defense, or you're a defenseman in the NHL against their best offensive player, or you're a golfer and you have to make a nine-foot putt to win a tournament, right? You better have self-confidence. In fact, the separator, more often than not at the highest level in sports, is not they're a better shooter or a better putter or throw the ball a little bit faster because everybody

throws hard in the major leagues nowadays it seems, right? That separator's their self-confidence. It's true in being a parent. It's true in being a business person. It's true in every area of our life. The separator at the top levels is self-confidence. So now you have that first thing that you're going to commit to, that you're going to deliver on. Now what I would ask you to do that now that you've done that is if you really want to build self-confidence, can you begin to extend that list of five, eight, and ten things that you are going to begin to do that you commit to you? That you're gonna do every single day to begin to stock that self-confidence

That's gonna change it now. Let's go back to the self-doubt for a second self-doubt is the inverse of that I don't trust me. I don't think I'm good enough These are thoughts placed from the outside inside your mind the minute you acknowledge that that's not my thought that someone else's That's not you begin to eliminate I call it like scratching the CD. When I begin to have negative self-talk, negative thoughts, I literally picture, and I'm old by the way, but I picture an old record player or a DVD and I just scratch it. I scratch it, that thought gets scratched. I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not good looking enough. I'm not fast enough, strong enough, I'm not prepared enough. Once they enter, that's not my thought, that's something someone gave me when I was a kid

and I scratch it and I literally say to myself, scratch it, scratch it, scratch it. And over time, it's like a DVD or a CD or a record player, over time that thought can't be played again in your recorder when you scratch it enough times. So I literally picture scratching and I say scratch it. I experience self-doubt, I experience negative thoughts and I scratch them, I scratch them, I scratch them and over time it almost becomes funny. It's that thoughts impact on me starts to be minimized over time. Every time I scratch it, I picture scratching it like a DVD or a record or a CD and I say it to myself, scratch it, scratch it, scratch it.

And what it does is it acknowledges the thought, it loses its power over me, the first time it's still got some impact on me, the second time it might, but the fourth, fifth, seventh time, all of a sudden that thought just doesn't have the impact on me anymore because I acknowledge it's not mine, I've scratched it and over time my mind just doesn't want to play that song anymore, doesn't want to play that movie anymore. And so that's how I begin to eliminate those over time my mind just doesn't want to play that song anymore It doesn't want to play that movie anymore And so that's how I begin to eliminate those thoughts in my mind I build up my self-confidence and I scratch myself doubt There's also this misconception from people that you are certain things

Meaning some people have this misconception that I am what I possess In other words, I am my possessions. And so they link their self-confidence to their possessions. And so they're constantly trying to acquire more and more possessions, thinking that's where they get their self-confidence from. That's how they're defined as a person. I am my possessions. Couldn't be further from the truth. It's a hollow way to try to gain self-confidence by possessing things nothing wrong with going for material possessions I have all kinds of them, but I don't link my confidence to those possessions

Nor am I deluded into thinking if I could just possess more things then I'll feel better about myself So this is a mistake. There's a flawed thought number one flawed thought I am my possessions second flawed thought I am my accomplishments. Second flawed thought, I am my accomplishments. In other words, my self-confidence is only linked to what I accomplish. So because I haven't accomplished certain things, I don't have that certain title, that certain award, that certain recognition, I don't believe in myself. I'm riddled with self-doubt. I'm defined by my accomplishments. The difficult thing about that is now all your life you're gonna have to accomplish more and more and more in order to feel self-confident

and eliminate self-doubt. You are not your accomplishments. You are not your possessions. You are you. You are perfect. You are beautiful. You were born to do something great with your life. If you're a person of faith like me, you believe God made you in his image and likeness and wants you to do something great with your life. Not that you are your possessions, not that you are your accomplishments. And this is the social media insidious influence it has in our lives. People think, I don't feel good about myself, I've got this self-doubt. The gateway to me feeling more self-confidence is if I could possess more things, or if I

could accomplish more things. Yes, having nice things will make you feel better about yourself. Yes, accomplishing things certainly is a reinforcement for self-confidence, but it's not the pathway to getting it. The pathway to getting it is doing something great with your life where you keep the promises you make to yourself and acknowledge this self-doubt, this self-thought, this negative talk isn't even mine. It was given to me when it was impossible for me to defend myself as a child. And maybe it even happened in adolescence and probably some of those instances have happened for you as an adult.

And these ones as an adult are like that thing I said earlier. Oh, it's another time I reinforce the table. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not prepared enough. I'm not the right race. I'm not the right gender. I don't come from the'm not the right race, I'm not the right gender, I don't come from the right kind of family, I don't have the right education.

And we find these references as adults to reinforce these self-doubting beliefs we were given by somebody else as a child. Flawed belief is that you are your possessions, you are your accomplishments. Third flawed belief, I am what other people say I am. Wrong, you are not what other people say you are, good or bad. I see too many people that if someone says something negative about them, they believe that's who they are. This is the flawed third belief. I am my possessions, I am my accomplishments, and you know what, or I am what other people say I am. Let me be clear with you, you are not what other people tell you you are.

It wasn't true when you were 18 months old, five years old, or 55 years old. You are not what other people say you are. So stop letting that dictate your self-confidence or fill you with self-doubt. And for the record, you are also not the good things people tell you you are all the time. Don't live for likes. Don't live for likes, don't

live for comments on your social media, don't do things in your life just to solicit someone saying something great about you. It's a cheap, shallow, hollow way to try to gain self-esteem and self-confidence. It's fleeting, it's short-term, and it's needy. In fact, the fact that it is a necessity for you to get liked, to get people to say good things, to get comments on your social media, or to do so in your presence, indicates a lack of self-esteem and self-confidence, because we know self-confidence is an internal game where we keep the promises we make to ourselves. The fourth type of flawed thinking is I am what I look like. In other words, if I don't look a certain

way, like what the magazine says I should or social media says I should, if I don't look like these people I shouldn't have self-confidence. And that's ridiculous. I can tell you straightforwardly, you're beautiful as you are, especially the ladies listening to this or watching this. The world is constantly trying to get you to believe you're not enough, you don't look right, you should lose this weight, you should gain this, this should be smaller, that should be bigger, whatever it might be. They're constantly messaging women, you're not enough, you're not enough, you're not enough. You are what you look like, and this is true for men as well. Let me tell you straightforwardly, you are not what you look like. You are your soul, you are your spirit, you are your gifts, you are the contributions

you make, you are your intentions. You are perfect as you are. That doesn't mean we don't want to look better, doesn't mean we don't want to get into shape, but we want to do that to feel better about ourselves, not for the accolades from other people. We want to do that to feel healthier and stronger and be the ultimate version of ourselves. But by no means does that mean you're not perfect as you are. By no means does it mean you are defined by what you look like. You are not defined by what you look like. You are defined by the content of your character, the way you treat other people, and the difference you make in the world. So the

four flawed thoughts that I see most right now is I am my possessions. No you're not. I am my accomplishments. No you're not. I am what other people tell me I am and say I am good or bad. No you are not. And fourth, you are not what you look like. These are flawed beliefs that lead right to self-doubt and away from self-confidence. So the things we need to do to change our self-confidence is A, keep the promises we make to ourself and B, very important, we must begin to give ourselves credit for those things when we deliver on them. I want you to remember this as well, there's a power to the way we use the two B's, our brain and our body. See self-confidence can also be

a state, a physical state. It's very difficult when you're moving your body, sitting up straight, breathing deeply, right? You're in that physical strong state of being, right? Right after a workout, during a workout is when we feel our most confident because our body's at a peak state. One way to generate self-confidence is to move your body into a strong state of being. Move your body. Literally movement creates confidence.

If you think about some of the peak times of your life, whether that be the fun time you may be having with your partner physically, intimately, or laughter, or peak performance running, right? Or your great accomplishments. Yes! There's a commonality to the way our body is moving at that time. If you think about the times when you're the least confident, it's usually when you wake up in the morning, isn't it? It's the most down, the most fearful, the most anxiety, or before you go to bed at night. These are two times most people experience the most amount of self-doubt is right before bed

and right when they wake up. Isn't that interesting? One of the reasons is because of how we're moving. We're laying down, we're hunched over, our breathing is shallow, there's no physical movement whatsoever. This creates a state of self-doubt right before we sleep, right when we wake up. Or if you're just kind of depressed or sick, self-doubt starts to kick in doesn't it? Right? If you ever had an injury and you couldn't move like you'd like to, that stagnation of the body begins to create self-doubt and strips us of our self-confidence. So moving our body is a gateway to self-confidence and then our brain as well. We have to take control of our thoughts, we have to scratch the negative ones when they come in and replace them with great ones.

Now I don't believe self-talk works all the time, but I believe saying, I am strong, I am good, I intend, I'm a good man, my intentions are pure, I'm a good person, I make a difference in the world, I'm kind, I'm gentle, I'm generous, I'm strong, I'm faithful. Beginning to repeat these thoughts to myself and these words do generate self-confidence. I keep the promises I make to myself. I'm a man of my word. Begin to talk to yourself and think these thoughts when you combine your brain and your body. Scratch the self-doubt. You lose those four stupid beliefs. I am my accomplishments. I am my possessions. I am what other people say I am or I am what I look like. These are completely flawed beliefs. We scratch those, we scratch them, we understand the process of stacking self-confidence in our

life, we know we are the content of our character. And lastly, give yourself some credit, will you please? And I'm going to tell you where to give yourself credit. And that is in the area of your intentions. A lot of my confidence comes from the fact that I keep the promises I make to myself. I know my self-doubt or thoughts that were given to me when I couldn't even defend myself as a young little boy. I know that I'm not my accomplishments. I know I'm not my possessions. I know I'm not what I look like and I know I'm not what other people say I am. I understand the process of building self-confidence. I scratch the negative thoughts of my life, but I can tell you this, the last place I get my confidence from is my

faith and my intentions. See, I know I intend to do good. Not enough of you are giving yourself credit for your inherent goodness, and I mean this. You're special in that regard. You're special in that regard, you're perfect in that regard. Just ask yourself, what are your intentions? As an individual, as a man or a woman, do you intend to do good in the world? Do you intend to want to help people? Do you intend to be a light in people's lives? Do you intend to make a difference? Do you want to live a good life where you've helped change the world and change other people's lives? Have you ever just asked yourself that? Do you've helped change the world and change other people's lives?

Have you ever just asked yourself that? Do you? Because if the answer to that is, you know, I don't spend enough time thinking about how good my intentions are. I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to do bad things. I don't want to take advantage of others. I really intend to do good. You know what? You need to give yourself more credit for the power of your intentions. intend to do good. You know what? You need to give yourself more credit for the power of your intentions. There's a power in life of giving ourselves credit just for the intentions we have. Just ask yourself that. There's two types of people in life. There's the people who intend to do harm, to take advantage of people, to cheat, to cut corners, to cause hurt to others for what they think will be their own gain. Then there's people who want to be a light. They want to make a difference.

They want to help. They want to contribute. They want to be somebody. They want to honor their God. They want to make a difference in the world. And their intentions are good. Too often in life, people with great intentions don't give themselves credit for how beautiful and wonderful those intentions are. And so today just take this inventory of all the things

that are wonderful about your intentions and then just take an inventory of your faith. As a person of faith I know that I'm favored. I know that God wants me to do good in the world. I know that I was made as image and likeness. There's a power to that. There's a comfort to that, there's a confidence that comes from that. Kind of a swagger. See, people aren't smirking at me anymore, I'm smirking at them. See, I know I'm not what I look like, I know I'm not my possessions, I know I'm not my

accomplishments, I'm not what other people say I am. I understand the keys of keeping the promises I make to myself. I understand scratching those limiting beliefs. I know I intend to do good. I don't always do good. I make mistakes all the time. I'm not a deity. I'm not a god. I'm a man. But I intend to do good. And my guess is, so do you. Start to give yourself a little credit just for your intentions. Know you're perfect as you are. And then begin to take these massive action steps. The final piece of the puzzle is this, is that you have to believe you deserve to win and sometimes it's not just that we think we're good

but that we've done so much we must be worthy of winning. See there's this adage in life, good people in life won't take more from the table of life than they think they're worthy of and they deserve. See, in business sometimes, short term, we've all seen this, someone with bad intentions can get ahead, short term. But you always reap what you sow, karma is always a real thing, and eventually the people that take shortcuts,

that cheat, that hurt other people, that have ill intent, the world, the universe, God sort of finds a way eventually to get them where they're supposed to be. But good people will never take more than they think they're worth, which is why the mandatory requirement for good people to win is they believe they deserve it. They believe they're worth winning. And sometimes it's not just who we are that we need to believe in, but what we've done in this sense, that sometimes you've got to outwork everybody and you've got to be willing to do the things nobody else is willing to do so you begin to convince yourself, man I'm doing all the things everybody else is unwilling to do so I deserve to get the results other people aren't going to get.

I'm doing the things other people aren't willing to do. I'm paying a price that's so much greater than other people that I'm worth it, that I deserve to get results they don't deserve to get because I've been willing to do the things they've been unwilling to do. So the last piece is often self-confidence can just frankly come from out working everybody and convincing ourselves, man I've been doing the things nobody else is willing to do. I deserve to get the results nobody else deserves to get. And that's a shift in building self-confidence. This next clip features Ed Milet appearing on The Learning Leaders Show

with host Ryan Hawke. One of the questions I get, Ed, from sometimes leaders who are a bit earlier in their career, and they're high potentials, though, you know, you could tell. They're going gonna be something but for some reason they don't believe that yet they lack they either have some imposter syndrome a lack of confidence maybe it's through not having enough experience I'm not really sure yeah I think this is hard but one of the skills if someone said and I am struggling developing confidence in my earlier part of

my career. I see you and you've done all this amazing stuff over the past couple of decades. What are some ways that someone a bit earlier in their career could create and develop confidence for themselves? Great question. I have a whole chapter two and I think three on confidence and identity, which are different things. So self-confidence is the process of keeping the promises that you make to yourself. So when I meet somebody that lacks self-confidence,

they've not built a reputation with themselves where they keep confidence. That's one type of confidence. Now let's talk about the leadership part of it. You've got to start to surround yourself with people that live at a higher temperature setting. Your identity is like a thermostat sitting on the wall. It sets the temperature of your life. So if you're a 75 degree or of let's say leadership or wealth or improvement, when you begin to acquire the skills of 80, 90, 95, 100 degrees and you're climbing the corporate ladder but you don't change your thermostat setting, you will unconsciously find a way to cool things back down to what you believe you're worth and you deserve. That's that

imposter syndrome and so you've got to work on your identity which is who you're surrounding yourself with at any given time. The second thing is this, this is huge. When I was a young man, I met a guy named Wayne Dyer, famous personal development guy and he told me, Mylet, you're gonna change the world, Ed. And I said, what? He goes, you're gonna change the world. And he said, and not because you're a good teacher, you're smart or you got a great voice or whatever, because that stuff's nothing. He said, you're a good man. You intend to serve. I have a whole chapter in this book, brother, on linking your confidence

to your intention. So most of you are going, well I don't know all the answers. My favorite leader goes, I don't know the answer to that but I'll get it for you. My favorite leaders also say, this is one of the things that lacks in politics in the United States in both parties, hey I was wrong. I made a mistake. My intentions were good but I called the wrong shot here or I handled was wrong. I made a mistake. My intentions were good, but I called the wrong shot here or I handled that wrong. Forgive me, I'm gonna get better next time. That's how you endear yourself to people,

thinking you need to know everything. Think about this, Henry Ford starts Ford Motor Company. Right? He didn't know everything to start that company. He didn't know everything to get into. Who's gonna fix the cars? How are they gonna ship them? Where are they getting the tires?

Think about what he didn't know. There's no dealerships because there's no freaking cars. Steve Wozniak's one of my dearest friends. He founded a company called Apple. They were gonna be a board company. They had no idea there'd be an iPhone or iPads. You grow into these roles. What you have to link your confidence to is your intent. My intent is to serve. My intentions are to serve people. I'm a good man or a good woman and that goodness should prevail. Remember this as a leader, you're always making people feel something, always. So I have this in the book. You got to take control of what they're feeling. If you think they need to feel that you're an expert

all the time and you have every answer all the time. You do not understand leadership. What they need to feel from you is that you love them, care about them, believe in them and can show them how to do a little bit better or will get them around someone or the answer for that. Love, care, believe and show them how to do a little bit better. You do not have to have all the answers. That's the imposter lie. You don't have to have all the answers. That's the imposter lie. You don't have to know everything. You have to intend to serve. So even when we did the show today, I've got a few more of these today. I am totally present with you and totally confident we're going to do a great job. Not because I have every answer, because I don't but I intend to help you help these people listening today and so I show up pretty damn confident

that I know my intention is to do this and that's where my confidence comes from and then I've got a whole thing in there on association in that thermostat setting that'll help you as well but that in and of itself is a huge breakthrough for a lot of leaders. You write on page 87 about your inner circle auditioning your inner circle Can you share how we talked a little bit prior to recording about John Gordon? You know one of those guys who's become a good friend of yours who's been on on this show a few times The I remember John Calipari when he came on the show the coach at Kentucky talked about

You've got to have your kitchen cabinet and had the importance of that kitchen cabinet, which is, this is similar, right? Your, your inner circle. What does it mean to you to audition your inner circle and share the importance of those, those select few people? The people that I surround myself with live at a higher thermostat setting to go back to that analogy in the area I need help in. So like John Gordon, for example, was faith for me believe it or not, not business. I'm done, my thermostat setting in business is real high. So for me, I've got Phil Knight in that circle right. I've got some you know, really

significant business people in that circle. In my faith circle, I want to add men that are in the business world who live at a high 100, 150 degree because I believe through proximity, they heat me up from 75 to somewhere to where they are. I know this is true. For example, fitness. If you're around someone who's super fit every single day and you're not, you can't help but eventually eat a little differently, think a little bit differently, train a little bit differently. So when I'm interviewing someone from my inner circle, they don't have to have all of

life figured out. They have to have the area that I need them in figured out. It could be in marriage, right? You're in the corporate world, there's all this, maybe there's travel, there's temptation. I just had Jeff Foxworthy, the comedian on my show. Be like, why'd you have Jeff on? He's hilarious. That's not what I had him on. Jeff has this thing where he says, hey man, when I traveled for the last 30 years of my life, he goes, I know me man. He goes, I've never cheated on my wife but I like ladies and the reason I've never cheated on my wife is I put myself in situations man where I can't. So on the road, I don't go out. I get room service because I don't want to be. He goes, I'm fine in a bar but I have a drink. I'm all right. I have two.

I don't know. Three, who knows? So I don't put myself in those situations. Jeff's in that circle for me on marriage, right? I got other ones in my financial, I got other ones in my fitness. I just had Phil Heath, seven-time Mr. Olympia on my show. He's in my damn fitness circle. So I want people that live, people don't have to be perfect. They have to be great in the area you want growth in. And so John Gordon is in that faith area for me where I've traveled with John. We gone to UFC fights. We've done different things. The conversations with my circle in John's group when you're in Las Vegas at a UFC fight, I promise you are very different than what most men are doing in Las Vegas when they go and that's why

that's so powerful for me. So how about the real goods? How about the, um, you know, the old quote, how to, how to get a great wife, deserve one, how to get a great friend, deserve one. So what role do you, cause I'm sure tons of people want you in their inner circle. What role do you think you play for those whose inner circles you're in? That's a good question. You probably would have to ask them that. I'd like to think that I show up in a lot of those circles though. I hope I show up in the father circle, the business circle, the integrity circle, the faith one. I think that what I bring to most people is that, and I learned this from my dad, my dad would, I don't know how, I've made lot, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars on very limited skills brother. But the ones that I have, see the key to success in the corporate world or in

any world is truly identifying your own gifts and using them to serve others. But here's the thing that leaders don't get, you got to identify other people's gifts. You got to get great at going, wow this is what you're great at and then link it to the task you want them to do because the two or three things someone's great at, they know they are and when you can say, hey, I see this in you and then link it to what you want them to do, now you're leading them. Hey man, you care so much or man, your math skills or your problem-solving or your intensity or your work ethic, they go, you know what, I do have crazy work ethic. That's why you're gonna prevail in this company and you link it to what you want to do. Identify the gifts.

My gifts are really simple, man. I got two or three. My main gift though is my ability to read people and be present with them. Where'd that come from? When I was five, my drunk dad would come through the front door. I had three little sisters and a mom. And a five-year-old little boy would have to read this man. Which dad's coming home? Is it drunk dad would come through the front door, I had three little sisters and a mom, and a five year old little boy, I'd have to read this man. Which dad's coming home? Is it drunk dad? And I'd read his physiology and how he would talk. Is his tie loose? Is his hair messed up? Is he slurring? How's he walking? And this little boy at five years old, I'm studying this man and I go, it's drunk dad. My sisters need to go upstairs, mom should go take a shower and then I'm gonna talk to dad and change his state, which is my second gift, my ability to communicate. If it was sober dad, we'll go in the backyard and shoot some hoops.

So this skill, this adversity I went through gave me this main skill in my life that in business it's my ability to read people, identify their giftedness and communicate with them in such a way. I'm really limited other than that. I have two or three other things I'm pretty good at. I'm an intense dude, I'm a competitive dude, I care but I've taken my gifts that God gave me or that the world developed in me or both and leveraged them and you got to get good at this in leading people. Their giftedness and don't make it generic. Oh you're a superstar, man you're a rock star. No, no, no, no. What exactly is my gift? Two or three of them. Link it

to my career, link it to what you want me to do and now you're leading me like almost no one else and last thing I'll say, when you truly identify someone's gifts that work with you, you're on a list of less than three or four people in their entire life who have ever told them that maybe the only one you become someone they revere forever when you point out the greatness in them. Yeah. I have this mindset of like a talent scout and have always be looking out for it and making sure that they know it. I mean the two people that come to mind immediately,

my high school football coaches, Bob, Greg, and Ron Oliver because they made me believe before I believed and I'll never, ever, ever forget that feeling of, and then you kind of become something and I always point back to them. And like now I see the power that we can, we can do that for other people. We should really be intentional about that. I think that is a really powerful way to go about it. You just worded it brother.

Most people would say it was a coach or a teacher or a parent. In the power of one more, here I am shamelessly promoting and here's the reason that I'm promoting this. I want you to get the book. But I say about leaders man, there's three chapters on leadership. There's four types of people in life. One, they're not motivated at all. That's the masses. Then there's motivated people or motivating leaders. They get you to do things based on motive, which is good. Do this, you get a bonus. Do this, you get the card. Do this, you get the award. Powerful way to lead people. Low level but it works. Third is inspirational. You move people. The root of inspiration is to be in spirit, to move people with energy, to move them in a way that's higher than just motives and that's a great

way to lead. Very few leaders get there. The fourth level is rarefied air and that's to be aspirational where people aspire to be like you, right? Most great leadership things are caught, not taught. They watch it in you and they see it. This is true for me as a dad as well. Your coaches were to the point where you wanted to prove them right. You wanted to be more like them. You wanted to live up to the belief they had in you. They were aspirational leaders and that's the difference between greats and the pretty good ones. Alright everybody, right over there off-camera is my element drink. I've been super obsessed with my hydration lately. I find my energy is better. My skin's gotten a lot better.

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slash my let and get a free sample pack with any purchase. That's www.drinklmnt.com slash my let. These statements and products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or condition. The man who shaped US monetary policy just released a bombshell book called Our Dollar Your Problem. In it, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff warns the US dollar's dominance is under attack and if the US dollar falls, your savings could be at risk. That's why Advantage Gold is giving away a free copy of Rogoff's book to anyone who schedules a one-on-one precious

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I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far be sure to follow the Ed Milett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Michael Chandler, welcome to Max Outt. Thank you so much man, I really appreciate it. It is a blessing to be here. Okay, question. You said something, there's so much depth to you. Earlier you said, I'm not training against the dude necessarily that I'm fighting next, I'm not even training against the dude that I spar with.

I think so many people that want to be high achievers compare themselves to the person in the cubicle next to them or in their current office, you know, or in the local area, as opposed to the standard, the best possible standard. So could you just speak to that a minute about training to a standard compared to just the opponent or just the sparring partner or just what's in the gym that day because

that holds us back as well true true yeah and I think it's I mean for me people ask them they're always asking about my opponent my opponent he's this tall he's got these attributes he's got these accolades and without sounding cocky like I'm not like I'm looking past the opponent truthfully I can tell you this with a hundred percent certainty that I don't need to be I don't need to train to beat that opponent I just need to be the best version of myself that night inside the octagon I need to be the Michael Chandler with zero hindrances zero zero second-guessing, zero fears,

and only faith and excitement about becoming my best self. If I can get done with that fight, get my hand raised, and have zero regret about my performance, knowing that I performed at the highest level that I possibly could that night, then there's not a man on this planet that can beat me. And I truly believe that. So, and I, so my prayer before the fight isn't God give me the victory or God let my opponent stumble. My prayer is God, just let me perform like I trained and let me perform in a manner that is consistent with the way that you see me God. And that is consistent with my gifts and my abilities that you've blessed me with. Because like I said, I truly believe that in that moment,

if I'm inside that octagon and that cage door closes, if I perform at my best, I'm not going to lose. And this isn't like, and this isn't kind of the hoorah, well, you gave it your best, so you really didn't lose even if you didn't lose. This is, you know, like they say, well, if you gave me your best, you didn't lose. You know, that's true in a lot of senses, but also I'm more just saying that if I can go out there and get in that flow state, there's nobody that can beat me. And I truly believe that. So, so how do you get, how do you make sure that you perform that way? Well, you can't ever make sure with a hundred percent certainty we're going to have bad days. We're going to have off nights. We're going to have bad performances no matter what. But number one, never being afraid of having

a bad performance. Number two, being okay with the uncertainty that's about to ensue. I mean, you can't really think of a career more volatile than mixed martial arts. Being inside of a cage, locked inside of a cage, being tied on to a tornado, you have to be okay with the uncertainty that's about to happen. And for me, I always say, you know, win, lose or draw, I, I'm going to be okay, because my God still loves me, my family still loves me, and I still love me. And the hardest thing was, I always knew my God loved me, I always knew my family loved me. But that hardest part was, and I still love me. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but you have to be okay with the uncertainty that's about

to happen. And I talk about every area of life being willing to embrace uncertainty and run towards it. On the other side of uncertainty is everything you want. Best relationship you've ever had, there's no certainty to it, right? There's no certainty of that at all. Any great victory, anything you've ever done, you have to go through the uncertainty barrier. Everyone's saying your comfort zone, forget all that comfort zone, you got gotta go through complete uncertainty. You, the other thing too, for me, I don't know if you relate to this or not, I'm just curious, that I love me, third one's my issue too.

And I've gotten a lot better at that over the years. And one of the reasons I, normally overly hokey, here I am with one of the toughest men in the world, but one of the reasons that I would not give myself love or affirmation or permission to like myself even if I'm being completely candid, like actually like myself. So everybody knows is to me I had to be perfect. And if I wasn't perfect, I didn't I wasn't worthy of really liking or loving myself. And perfect is a cop out standard. Perfect is impossible. But I've kind of heard you

talk about this a little bit too. This notion of the perfect fight or the perfect sparring session or the perfect husband, right, the perfect man of faith. Well, you're gonna miss that one every time. So if that's your standard, you have wired yourself for misery and then it stumbles into, at least for me,

kind of this cycle of lack of confidence because I'm not hitting the promise I made myself, which was perfection, because self confidence is keeping the promises you make to yourself. So I'm just curious how that plays with you. 100%. And that's, you know, I think especially whenever you get not to get overly, you know, overly spiritual about it. But when you when you truly believe that god you know rick warren's purpose-driven life that's that's what everybody wants right how do i find my purpose whenever you feel like you've found your purpose and i i truly believe that mixed martial arts being put on a platform through mixed martial arts is my purpose so i found my purpose so it's

god ordained so if it's god ordained then okay i gotta be perfect right because this is the gift that i'm trying to get god and god deserves, we all know God deserves a perfect gift when really he's looking down on us saying, you're all flawed individuals, I made you perfect in the image of myself, but you are made perfect through the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross, right? So we're striving for perfection and that's really truthfully, if I'm being honest,

why my first loss happened. So I go out and yes, I win my first, I beat Eddie Alvarez. I become the number three guy in the entire world. Everybody's saying Michael Chandler is the next big thing. So immediately, okay, I'm the number three guy in the world. Everybody wants me to go win the UFC title when I'm done with my Bellator contract. Media is talking about me award after award. You know, this guy is the next big thing. So what do I say in my human brain? Okay, now I got to be perfect, right? Before I was just trying to go before I was just shooting off the cuff. I was working hard. I was doing

things right. I was living, living the champion lifestyle. But now that I am the champion, now I got to be perfect. So what did I do instead of instead of taking my training to the next level, it went down in the dumps. Because just as you said, every sparring session was another opportunity to be imperfect. You know, I could win four minutes and 58 seconds of a round, but it was that two seconds that I lost that told me in my mind, I lost that round. I could have hit a guy a thousand times with the best combinations in the world, but I got popped once with a jab and immediately my mind said, Michael, you're not perfect yet. You know, I could

lift a thousand pounds, but well, Michael, you're not perfect because that guy over there can lift a thousand and two pounds, you know, so I gave, I started, I started living in this jail cell inside my brain of perfect. And there was, it was impossibly perfect. And it wasn't until my mentor, Chris Patterson, talk about instead of trying to be perfect, why don't you just focus on success? Because success can be gained 1%, 1%, 1% every single day. And over a long career, you know, I can joke about it now, but it took me 12 years to become an overnight success. And all of a sudden, I'm Michael Chandler, UFC lightweight number four in the world, probably going to win the UFC title here in the next calendar year. But it took me 12 years to become this success named Michael Chandler,

right? So I just needed to start, just stop putting so much pressure on myself to be perfect and just put the pressure on myself and the friendly pressure on myself to be above board, to be, to be excellent, but not be perfect. There's, there's a lot of different things that we can strive for that are just below perfect, that allow you just enough grace, just enough leeway to still love yourself through your trials, through your bad days. Because let's be honest, man, it doesn't matter. You speak to a lot of high performers, millionaires, billionaires, the people at the highest level, they have their bad days, they have their ups and they have their downs and it's in those downs.

It's in those bad days where they can continue to motivate, continue to see through the mud, see through the muck towards a brighter future, knowing that the sun really, the sun did go down today, but it will rise again tomorrow and our best day could be tomorrow. Even if we had a bad day today. This is one of these shows, brother brother I will listen to back several times. So one of the things that's really true is when I started to really work with you know what everyone would call you know higher elite performers or whatever it was this is many many years ago

I come home and think to myself man these are very human beings you know like I was struck by their humanity I was struck by their frailties, I was struck by their, some of their weaknesses and it actually gave me hope. I think that's what you're doing right now. And we've all heard this thing like comparison is this is deadly game to play, compare with another person, the worst comparison is to perfection

because that's a standard you're gonna miss every single time. You've literally wired yourself for pain. I'm just curious about fighting in general. By the way, I love Chris Patterson. I just wanna make sure I stick that in there. In fact, that's how you and I met. Let me ask you this question.

I'm just curious, is there fear before a fight for you? In other words, 10 minutes out, you're going to go in there. This is the thing about fighting that I think people just forget because it almost looks like a video game when you're watching it on TV for guys, right? I've had the pleasure of being in the cage a little bit myself. And so I know what it's like, not like you do,

but there's another man in there. You can't hide, they close the door, Michelle Watterson said on the show, you know, and there's you and another man. That's the ultimate form of combat. It's the ultimate form of you dealing with you, ironically, as you said. Do you have fear in those moments

or is there no fear because of confidence, because of faith, because of preparation? Or what do you do with the fear if you do have it? You know, I actually, there is no fear of the physical. You know, could I get injured? Of course. Could I break a bone? Could I, you know, even worse, could I end up,

could tonight be the night that my career just ends, career in the injury? Of course, those things could happen. But once again, as I was alluding to earlier, if you're afraid of that uncertainty that's about to happen, if you're afraid of that physical aspect of the fight, it's going to be tough because you're not going to be fighting in that flow state. You're not going to be fighting at your at your top level. Me standing across a wrestling mat or standing across a cage from another man, my size doesn't scare me. The biggest fears that I have are, you know, going out there and performing at a subpar level and not just subpar, but, you know, a really bad level, right? You know, we've all had those moments where we, you know, you get back in your car after a meeting or for me, go back to the locker room after a fight and you just take a

deep breath and take a step back and say, what just happened? Like that was such a bad performance. And I've had those and those are the worst, that's the worst feeling in the entire world. Because for a mixed martial artist, you know, we only get two, maybe three opportunities a year to showcase our skills in a cage in front of millions of people. So there's so much riding on that one performance. But I've gotten to the point where once again, going back to no matter what, win, lose or draw, my God still loves me, my family still loves me, I still love me. And because I've gotten to that point, knowing that once again, leaning on the fact that I'm not going to be perfect

just trying to be successful you know if I would have hang my hat hung my hat on a couple losses that I had in my past I never would have got here to become the overnight success who is Michael Chandler in the UFC right you know it took a took a long time for me to get here but I I'm the battle-hardened veteran I'm galvanized by the road that I took you You know, I was a new name to a lot of people when I made my UFC debut back in January at UFC 257. But I was not a new name to the true MMA fans. I was not a new mixed martial artist,

a new professional fighter. For me, all roads had led to me being backstage at that UFC 257. But it's almost a weird parallel because before I felt like I always had something to lose. When I was fighting a Bellator, I was fighting a lot of guys who I was supposed to beat in the first round. There was almost no way to win or it be a positive outcome unless I went out there and finished somebody in the first round. And you're talking about fighting world class. They're still world class athletes. they still train every single day they're still across the cage for you wanting

to rip your head off just like you want to do the same but i was always fighting guys who for the most part were ranked below me yeah and i had to go out there and have a dominant performance so i could go out there and if i beat someone in the second round people always say well you should have even the first round you're you're michael chandler you're supposed to be that much better than them whereas this was also a beautiful thing at UFC 257. I was fighting Dan Hooker, the number five, number six guy in the world. I had nothing to lose, you know? And so it was a, that was a beautiful feeling having nothing to lose because I

would venture to say that the guy, the underdog is, is so in such more of an advantageous situation because they have nothing to lose compared to the guy who was on top, who has everything to lose compared to the guy who is on top who has everything to lose every single time he steps into an arena. And I got to that point UFC 257 and luckily for me I'm going to be an underdog the next fight probably an underdog the next fight so you're going to see the best version of myself for sure the next couple fights. I was going to say to you I want you to remind yourself of that no matter what situation you're in because you're exactly right in every situation it's the illusion of loss that causes us to underperform. So if you

can always not give yourself this bogus illusion of loss, even if you're the world champion and anything you do, even if you're the best when I'm on a speaking ticket and there's 10 other speakers, but everyone maybe assumes in that case, potentially, I should dominate that stage when I speak. I don't let myself think that there's an illusion of loss coming if someone, if I don't live up to my game because that's when I slip. I've, that idea, that subpar fight, I just had a subpar engagement recently.

But for me, every time I've had one of those what just happened moments, if I'm really self-reflective and it's really self-reflection, there was something in my preparation that I could have done better. It's always back to me. Like you said earlier, it's really self-reflection. There was something in my preparation that I could have done better. It's always back to me. Like you said earlier, it's not my opponent, especially in business. It's always preparation. How much of your confidence, and when in this particular situation,

there were a couple things where I said to myself literally, what just happened? No joke. And by the time I got on the plane to come home, I'm like, I know exactly what happened. I'm BSing myself. Here's what happened. I took a little bit for granted this one area that's my big strength. I didn't need to work on that preparing for this. Turns out I did. Right. And so is that for you, usually the answer to what just happened and how much of your confidence is linked to preparation? Being, Being the small guy from the small town who had to always fight, scrap and claw his way to being seen by the coaches or being seen by the team, I had to be the hardest worker in the room.

You know, I talk about the walk-on mentality. You know, I walked onto University of Missouri, there were 16 guys in my class. Only two of us ended up becoming All-Americans. And one of them was going to become an All-American. His name was Raymond Jordan. He was a state champion from New Bern, North Carolina. He was my roommate. He was destined for big things. He was a full-ride scholarship guy. But I was the walk-on guy. I was the guy who the coaches didn't look at for a whole year, didn't say a word to for the whole year. So, you know, me being the naive young guy, but I was the walk-on guy. I was the guy who the coaches didn't look at for a whole year, didn't say a word to for the whole year.

So, you know, me being the naive young guy, I had to outwork everybody. I was the first one to practice. I was the last one to leave. I was putting in the extra reps. And although that might sound a little bit, I guess, maybe insecure to a lot of maybe people listening right now, you still have to have

that walk-on mentality, that mentality that says, even though I've gotten to where I am now, even though there's a couple zeros in my bank account, even though I got this name, even though I have this account, even though I have this level of success, I have this level of platform, you still have to be working every single day like you're a walk on. So for me, my preparation is the most important part I I know for a fact that if I step inside the cage, and there is doubts about my preparation, I'm never ever going to perform at a at the highest level. Now I might win the fight still I might win the contest, so to speak. But

there still will be that some self reflectinging of, you got kind of lucky because you slacked in this area, you slacked in that area, and that's, I think, what a lot of high achievers do. They hold themselves to a higher standard, not the perfection standard. That's where you fall into that valley of trying to be too perfect, but that level of excellence, am I excellent in all these areas that I need to be excellent in? And if that answer is no, then chances are, you're gonna be in a spot that you're leaving yourself open

to having failures and having loss. I just think it's amazing that when you walk into an octagon, you walk into the cage, by the way, I'm gonna take this from you myself. God still loves me, my family still loves me. I still love me. Everybody listening to the show should be writing that down or watching the show. That would be a mantra you give yourself the gift of on a very regular basis. What a beautiful reminder as you're going into combat. It's just amazing. That's what you're saying to yourself. Okay, physical. When I look at you and I, you know,

I'm around a lot of athletes, I see a superior physical specimen. And even as you've gotten older, I look at you six, seven years ago, I look at a dude now, this is a superior physical specimen. And I, for a lot of my self-confidence, just comes from my physicality. I'm not the same as you, obviously, but I think self-confidence can come from moving your body. It's one of the first places everybody listening or watching this can transform their self-confidence because it's something you can control. You can't control a sales call or a close or the amount of money you've got, or even how someone's treating you in a relationship.

Is there something specific you've done the last two or three years? Is it heavier lifting? Is it incorporating more weights? Is it, you know, like in Brady's case, it's all this plyometric stuff he's doing to be more pliable. What is it for you that's made you, I mean, maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe you were physically better before, you look physically better to me now. Am I right about that and what's the difference? I think you are right about that. I think when I got into the sport, I was already gonna be more athletic or stronger physically than a lot of people because of my my wrestling background. Division one wrestling in my opinion is the hardest most physically demanding sport in the entire world. So when I was going to come from division

one wrestling into the sport of mixed martial arts where these guys have just been training mixed martial arts I knew for for sure I was going to be faster than them, stronger than them. I wasn't going to have great striking. I wasn't going to have great submissions or submission defense necessarily, but I was going to be a good athlete coming from wrestling. Since then, I've always trained to become the best athlete I can possibly be. And it was actually interesting that you say that because there was a young football player from MTSU here in Nashville.

I was training with my trainer and he asked my attorney, he said, Hey, Jay, hold, if you've never fought before, how do you train a fighter? And I love that I heard it because I wanted to hear his, his, uh, his response and his response was, well, we're just training to become a better athlete. Because I say, if I can be the better athlete in, in the cage that night, it might not win me the fight for sure, but it will put me head and shoulders above my opponent when it comes to speed, quickness, changing angles, closing the distance, strength, picking a guy up, putting him down, and cardio. The only one who is undefeated

is father time, you know? So eventually there will come a time when that clock ticks for the last time and okay, it's time for me to be done fighting. fighting. I just don't have it anymore. So the more I can turn back the hands of time by doing explosive more plyometric movements the better and taking care of my body. You know I it'd be crazy I've been training now for 12 years and probably only about the last five or six years have I been doing body work every single every single week. I get I get body work by a massage therapist, a highly knowledgeable physio body worker who understands the body. And I lived in back pain for a really long time and I discovered a product called the SoRight. I realized my psoas muscle from running, jumping, kicking, doing all these things was hindering me physically. And also I just woke up in pain every single day.

So I had a low back pain at all times. So I started lengthening my psoas. And then you- Is it protocol, Michael? So right. Okay. P-S-O-R-I-T-E, I'll send you a few of them. Because I believe you've heard David Goggins talk about it.

I actually spoke about it on the Joe Rogan podcast. Because everybody, you speak to anybody, what's the one thing that hurts everybody? Their back always hurts. And I think right now I'm sitting at a desk right now in this chair, and my psoas is being crunched down and we've got didn't design our bodies to sit for the crazy amount of hours that we do. Or if you're in sitting in, you know, beautiful Southern California traffic, you know, you're sitting in your car, it doesn't matter how nice your car is and how beautiful the leather is on the seats, you're still sitting down in a non-optimal position.

I think when it's affordable, people need to investigate more of this bodywork stuff. I've neglected that all my life. I've done pretty good with nutrition, I've trained really hard, I've not done enough bodywork, and I know that there's a dollar amount, although I have sponsors on my show

with little different gadgets and different things that do help you with that. I'm not plugging the sponsor, I'm just telling you guys the Theragun is something that's really made a difference for me and I'm not plugging the product. I'm just saying that's a form of bodywork. The other thing I want to just say to everybody too, this is one of my favorite conversations of all time bro which I knew it would be, but the fact that you define yourself as an athlete as much as you do a fighter and I just want all the business people or moms or dads out there what if one of the definitions one of the terms you gave yourself is you were an athlete you can be an athlete at

any age I actually call myself that like it's one of the words I use in my affirmations is I'm an athlete I think about that I think though I think more athletes are attempting to become business people if you look at the LeBron changes and the Michael Chandlers and the Tom Brady's are good examples of they're becoming business people more business people need to become business people. If you look at the LeBron James's and the Michael Chandler's and the Tom Brady's are good examples of they're becoming business people. More business people need to become athletes. That's the future. That's the present of where we are. So totally agree with you on that. Okay, gotta ask you about maybe my favorite thing I wanted to talk to you about all the time that we've you know known one another and by the way we're going a

little longer brother sorry it's just so good. I love it. I love it. But the last part I wanna ask you about is your faith. Because you're a sinner saved by the grace of God, just like I am. And I don't want anybody thinking either one of us are perfect people because we're not. And neither one of us have all the answers. People say all the time, you just got all the answers. And I said, no, I have all the mistakes

and I can save you on your life with all the mistakes I've made more than those, more than I just some you know, You know the Yoda of answers, but my faith has been central in my life. It's given me the most comfort I love it. The first thing you say is God still loves me. How important is that to you in your life? Overall pre pre and post your fight career. I'm just curious I mean, it's the it's the most important part because it's the wellspring by which everything else flows from.

I think the overarching theme of this entire talk that we've been having, even though we haven't even said the actual word too much, but the word is gratitude. Operating in gratitude, realizing the gifts that I've been given, realizing that to give anything less than my best every single day is to sacrifice these amazing life that God has given me. Man, I got every single thing. I don't have a

lot, but I'm not missing a dang thing, you know. I'm not missing a thing in my life that I need and all of that is by the grace of God. All of that is when I think about the young Michael Chandler coming from High Ridge, Missouri, God, every single person, every single setback, every single up, every single down, every single door that stayed closed, every single door that opened, God had me in the palm of his hand

all the way through it in the entire time. And if you can, and I do this often too, even just visualizing the hand of God. It looks just like my hand, right? Because we were made in the image of an almighty God. But I see myself, the young Michael Chandler, the middle school, Michael Chandler, the high school, Michael Chandler, who had all his doubts and insecurities. And then the high school, the college and high

school wrestler, Michael Chandler, who just wanted to win medals and wanted to be put on, put on the top of that podium. And then now the fighter, Michael Chandler, who just wanted to win medals and wanted to be put on the top of that podium. And then now the fighter, Michael Chandler, the father, Michael Chandler, the husband, Michael Chandler, all of these things I can see, and I can see him all the way through my entire life, knowing that there's so much comfort and there's so much rest in God having me

in the palm of his hand. And it's such a humbling feeling. And I think when you really pull yourself back from a 30,000 foot view of, man, there's been some tough times, and man, there's been some tears shed, and man, there's been a lot of dark, sleepless nights, and there's been some rough roadblocks. But all of those things, Romans 8.28, everything worked out for the good of his people. As you said, I by no means am any better than you or anybody else listening, but we are sinners saved by the grace of God.

And it's that humbling feeling of knowing that you don't get what you do deserve and you do get what you don't deserve every single day and every single season. And now arguably, you know, every single thing I've accomplished so many of the things that I wanted to set out to accomplish. And I still have so many things left to accomplish. And all of them are tied to my faith and a faith in an almighty God who is merciful enough

to see me through the tough times. And he is gracious enough to continue to bless me even when I look and say, man, why the, how the heck did this work out for me? You know, and it's just such a beautiful thing. And I'm just so grateful for the opportunity that I've been given. And I feel like I can take this thing to the top only because I live in a constant state of gratitude. And truthfully, if I can just help other people live with a little bit more gratitude knowing that their best days and their blessed days are out ahead of them because a guy like me who comes from a small town who I was taught to do small things that somehow I've touched

every every corner of the globe somehow because God's given me some amazing gifts that that hopefully a few people can be inspired by my story and all of it all of it ties back to my faith. I'm so grateful for you bro and I'm really proud of you. Thank you. This has been an absolutely remarkable conversation. I knew that when you and I got together and did this in front of everybody that it would be special but I mean this I just want you to know I'm so proud of you. I'm so grateful for you. I'm grateful that I got to share this man with the millions of people that I love so much in my audience. I started out by saying that only your special athlete, but you're a special man. And everybody saw that on full display today. Your calling is even beyond fighting. It's this,

it's this platform. It's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And then someday it's going to be all of this based on that platform. But you stepped into a state today, brother, that was a championship level state. This show is sponsored by better help. So, you know, guys, men today face immense pressure and they got to be able to perform, provide, they got to keep it all together. I know I'm a guy, right? And stuff isn't easy. So it's no wonder that 6 million men in the US suffer from depression every year. Think about what I just said. 6 million men admit to suffering from depression every year. My hunch that number is more like twice that. And it's often not even diagnosed by most

people. If you're a man and you're feeling a little bit of stress the weight of the world on you, maybe you should look at therapy. And if you're going to look at therapy, take a look at BetterHelp. I can tell you, I've had therapy in my life. It's made a big difference. With over 35,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash ed show. That's better h-e-l-p dot com slash ed show. Hey guys, so I had a very popular podcast come out a few weeks ago where I talked about I did a spring cleaning in my closet. I have to tell you something, after I got rid of all that stuff, I was like, well, I've made room for the new. I got to get some new clothes. And I went right to Quince. So when you see these cool shirts I'm wearing or some of the slacks I've got on,

I got some new beach shorts for the summer as well. That's all from Quince. Thank God for them because Quince has all the things you really want to wear. They got organic polos. They got European linen bin shorts. They got comfortable pants. Work with everything from your backyard hangs to really nice dinners. And what's really great about Quince, which is why I went there, I like

to save money. Everything there is 50 to 80 percent less than what you'd find in similar brands. No joke. I love me some Quince. So elevate your closet with Quince. Go to quince.com slash ed for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince.com slash ed to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash ed. Very short intermission here folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Be sure to follow The Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. My guest today is my son from another, I don't know, you say son from another mother, is that right? I guess so. I don't know. Michael, welcome to the show. What's up dad? Man, it's uh, thank you for the kind intro. You're, you are the man. Is there a part of you though that has imposter syndrome,

if you're being candid with the audience, that you do come from humble beginnings, you have had ups and downs, you are, you know, coming off of, you know, you haven't had a six fight win streak even right now, if we're being candid, right? So is there a part of you that has to overcome these mental demons, so to speak, of believing you belong, believing you can win, that I think most people people struggle with or have you passed that stage of your life? I think I definitely still have a certain degree of it, but I think I've gotten to the point where it's been revealed to me enough through life, the course of life that the older you get, the more people you come into contact with, the more people you train with or you're in business with or you watch their work ethic or you watch how they live their lives, both in front of the camera, behind the camera, behind closed doors, in front of the public. And you start to really look around and take stock and think, you know what, I do think that the golden diamonds was was was reserved for God's people, not the devil's bunch. You know, I

do think that the good among us are supposed to go out and capture those things. And before it used to be like, Yeah, but you don't deserve it. You don't you know, you don't deserve that. And if you do get that, well, what's gonna happen? Maybe, maybe you're gonna start rubbing people the wrong way. And I think I've gotten over that and realized, man, if you don't have a bunch of fruit on the back of your cart, you can't pass it out to people.

If you've got nothing on your cart, you can't pass it out to people. And I do think I have a duty to be successful because I can then use it to change people's lives where until I got to a certain point, it was like, well, I'm a little bit afraid. You actually were the first person I heard talk about the thermometer, right? And I was that guy.

Like, I'm okay with the thermometer getting to here, but I'm a little nervous if it gets too high and that thermometer just keeps getting higher and higher and higher. And I'm getting okay with it each time. So I do think I have a little bit of a degree of that as, you know, once again, you keep leveling up. Every time you level up, now you're into a new realm. So of course there's a little bit of it, but you say, wait a second, I've been here before. Let me watch how this plays out.

And at the end of the day, when I laid my head on the pillow at night, I know that I deserve it. I'm the one of those guys who deserves to, to go and capture that because of the way that I live my life. That's exactly right. You've earned this. And by the way, everyone, a little bit of everything in moderation is actually good. So a little bit of imposter syndrome keeps you what you see in this young man right here, humble, keeps you training hard,

reminds you I better outwork this dude because maybe I don't have everything they have. A lot of imposter syndrome will cause your thermometer to turn the air conditioner on and you'll cool your life back down. So a little bit of it is not, you don't have to eradicate all of your imposter syndrome will cause your thermometer to burn the air conditioner on and you'll cool your life back down. So a little bit of it is not, you don't have to eradicate all of your imposter syndrome, you have to eradicate that it's your dominant thought, but to have that in the back a little bit is not all that bad. I have it, which is what causes me to prepare for a speech or a podcast. It's what's caused me to save my money because I don't believe all my press clippings, I don't believe I'm always going to win, everything's entitled to me. And so it's a healthy thing to some extent. Let me ask you this. I was watching some fights, you know, preparing for, you know, our work

and, and my son's like, dad, these guys are so good. And, you know, I've, I've hit bags and spar and you, you know, all that part of my background. And I said, Max, the different thing that you don't realize, cause it looks like a video game when you watch people fight is they're getting hit and still throwing punches back at the same time. That's the one thing I think when people watch any sort of combat, whether it's Mikey's sport in boxing or yours, they just underestimate how difficult it is

to absorb punishment and return it. It's one thing to just dole out punishment into a bag, right? Or to hit mitts. It's a very different thing. And that's really, I told my son, I said, Max, that's the game of life. The game of life is everything looks good at the seminar. When you read the book or listen to the podcast,

it's sort of like these offensive strategies, but the people that I've seen win, and I want you to talk about this in fighting it in your life, the people that I've seen win, they have this very special ability to absorb a punch and still throw back, and that's the separator in life, and it certainly is in sports as well. So just speak to that, Michael. I mean, metaphorically, you do it in there. And by the way, you may want to be the greats at all time at doing that. This is a dude who almost out on his feet can still knock people out better than anybody that's ever probably been in the sport, or at least one of them. But what about that fact of life and actually in the sport, literally? Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting because I do think metaphorically, right, there's a lot of similarities there.

But even realistically, I think from a physical standpoint, I think sometimes it's easier to take the blows inside of taking huge shots inside of a fight and keep coming forward where because there's not as much of an ego involved because I'm not really worried about what how everybody perceives the punch that just landed on me. Whereas in life, in business, in our relationships, we have a failed account or a failed relationship or we have a setback here, immediately everybody stops and thinks, looks in the mirror and says, what's everybody else thinking around me? You know, whereas in mixed martial arts, I don't have the time and I call it a luxury.

I think I have the luxury of not having any time. If I sit and I dwell on that one punch that just landed in it and it rocked me and I start thinking about what the people in the nosebleeds are in the front row or are thinking about that shot that just landed the second, the third, the fourth are going to come and the knockout is going to ensue. Whereas in life, a lot of times we are stifled and stymied so much by we take one blow, we take one shot, we take one setback, and we're just worried about everything else with instead of just, you know, the definition of persistence is continuing in the course of

action with complete disregard to previous failures and future opposition, right? So in life, we stop and we think way too much about what's everybody else thinking or how is this going to look on social media? What are the what are the press clippings going to say? Like you said, like there's so much to it. And I've gotten really good at and this happened to me when I came to the UFC, like you said, I was outside the UFC, relative obscurity, I trained hard, I was a good athlete, but I wasn't a famous athlete. Then all of a sudden you come over, you're the biggest free agent signing maybe in UFC

history, and everything doubles and five times the following and five times the interviews and five times the platform. And all of a sudden you're like, wait a second, I better get used to public criticism very quickly or else I'm going to, this thing, this ship's going to sink. So I've just gotten really good at realizing, man, no matter what, this is my race that I'm running. And I love you. But it's still my race. And I love my wife, my kids, and I love my coaches, but this is still my race. And if I

can just focus on me, and know know that if I just keep moving forward, and if anything, we don't follow people because of their successes. We follow people more even for their failures because they were able to overcome something. People love us. People love a comeback. And that's what my story, my whole story has been about. I am a blueprint for how you get knocked down, get back up and keep moving

forward and then somehow end up in the biggest fight of the last decade. and keep moving forward and then somehow end up in the biggest fight of the last decade. By the way, he's also has a future in my space, in the personal development, motivational coaching space, as you could tell, because he's got this insane ability to articulate his thoughts. Okay, a couple more things. Separations in the preparation. I don't know if there's a more finely trained athlete on the planet than you right now. I mean, in any sport, this dude's a specimen. He trains his ass off. Um, do you like to train or do you do it because you know, it produces a result and how important in anything someone's doing,

particularly if maybe they think they lack something is to gain their confidence from the prep, from the preparation. they lack something is to gain their confidence from the prep from the preparation. I think, I think I love, I do love to do it because you ever ask yourself like what's the alternative, you know, what is the alternative? I do think I use the word easy lightly because I'm sure the audience is like, dude, I watched the training. It looks crazy. But for me, it's easy. My heart is different than your heart and different than hard for everyone else. Me thinking about doing some of the things that you do, that sounds crazy to me. But to me, maybe working

out as hard as I do half the audience is like, man, I would die in the warm up. But it's become not easy in the sense that it's not hard every time I do it. But it's what I do. It's not who I be, but it is what I do. And I'm pretty darn good at it. And I do know that it produces results. And I do think, you know, going back to the imposter syndrome or going back to the self-sabotage and going back to the temperature gauge, going back to my self-concept or my lowly self-concept that I used to have, if back when I was 14 years old, I didn't get into hand-to-hand combat thinking,

okay, I'm not that talented, so I have to outwork everybody. And I've been able to take that now for the last 28 years and I've never ever lost it. And I've won world titles. I fought for the world title in the UFC. I have fought Madison Square Garden twice, fight of the year, debut of the year. I've got all of these different accolades, but still the cornerstone always is me remembering that little 14 year old boy who walked into Northwest High School and knew that I had just started wrestling and everybody else had been there for years and I need to outwork all these people or I'm never going to get to where I'm going and I still have that as a 38 year old in the sport, 28 years in the sport. So I look at it like I am grateful that I have these two capable arms

and these two capable legs to be able to do what I do. And I look at it as a blessing that I train here in Deerfield Beach, Florida, and there's two gyms connected to each other. There's a physical therapy clinic in our same entrance, we share one and I see people coming in in wheelchairs. I see people coming in with cerebral palsy and I see people coming in with really bad

injuries, car accidents, paralysis, all these different things. And I know it sounds a little bit dark to think about, right? But I am so blessed to be able to do what I what I get to do and every single one of those people would would give anything I am so blessed to be able to do what I, what I get to do. And every single one of those people would, would give anything to trade one week of this well enabled body, to be able to live in this well enabled body. And I, I really always have looked at that blessing that most people are, have, they can talk about depression or they can talk about anxiety and sadness and all of these

different things, but we have so many things to be thankful for that we just gloss over and overlook and just keep moving forward and I think that's where it is knowing I cannot work everybody taking my gratefulness and my gratitude for the abilities that I have and the opportunity that I have and thinking about the alternative the alternative is me going to get a job somewhere and I love what I do and I get to do it every single day. It's my producers I guarantee you are just their mouths are open right now because right before you got here I recorded a podcast, it'll come out after this one, but I talked about focusing on what you possess as opposed to what you

don't have and then having perspective questions about the fact that someone's got it worse than you. And when you're actually able to do those two things and focus on what you have as opposed to what you're missing and focus on the fact that you're blessed to have what you do have that someone's got it worse, it's just amazing. Then you go say this. How much is your, two last questions, how much is your growth on you? Like most people can tell from listening to you now, but I want everyone to know. Spann works very hard on himself. Like Michael in his downtime, I'm not his only friend in this space. Michael will attend events, he's read the

books, he listens to the podcast, he'll speak at these events as well. He's worked very hard on the internal him and there's two elements of that. He's a man of very strong faith but he's also worked on his mind, worked on his thinking, worked on himself, worked on that thermostat setting. How much of that aside from all the physical training do you attribute to the fact that you're going to be in the octagon on the 29th with McGregor? I think it's got, I mean it has everything to do with it. I mean really and I made this, you know, I made this realization years ago when you were talking

about, you know, if for the people that don't know, I went 688 days without winning a fight. And for a lot of people, that's a, that's a death sentence for an MMA career, you know, going from world champion in Bellator to losing three fights in a row, thinking that at any point in time, I was going to get my walking papers or get a, get a phone call that I was going to get cut

from the organization. And in that time, I realized I was doing all the physical work. If you're my coach and you tell me to run through that wall, I will run through that wall. No questions asked. And I will do it harder and faster and better than every single else behind me. But what I wasn't working on was my mind and what I wasn't working on is this self-image. And I was letting that get away from me. All I was doing was building up a bigger, faster,

stronger subpar version of the man that I was doing was building up a bigger, faster, stronger, subpar version of the man that I was really created to be because inside of here, inside of my mind was so it was lacking and it was so important, but it needed to be revealed to me. And that was a thing too. If a bad thing happens to you, but a good thing comes from it and you become a better person, a better man, a better father, a better husband, a better, a better human being. You got to ask yourself, was it really a bad thing if a good thing comes from it? And I think I look at that point in my career and realize that was the catalyst in the springboard that was going to catapult me. That was the winding of the spring and it was a painful winding of the spring.

It was, it came with tears. It came with self-doubt. It came with embarrassment, overwhelming embarrassment, but it was that coiling of that spring that eventually springboarded me to becoming the next version of the man that I needed to be. And yeah, I mean I just I've always been I've always just been curious and admired people like yourself who are trying to make the world a better place, admitting their flaws, showing and wearing their heart on their sleeve, and talking about the struggles that you have gone through and how there's a lesson in every single loss. And, you know, I've been very blessed with so many great friends, and I have a duty to them to continue to be a part of that community. I have a duty to my family and I have a duty to myself. And most importantly, I have a duty to my Almighty God who created me, not just to be good,

not just to be that little boy who was gonna play it small and think that he doesn't deserve great things and think that I could just barely get enough and barely get by and live paycheck to paycheck and nobody knows my name. I was commissioned and and I have this conviction is deep conviction to know that I was created to do something extraordinary. And it took years

and years and years and I just want to keep on adding to that. And when people say the sky is the limit, you know, it's a it's a term that we use. But at some point, you start to believe it. And you and you believe it not because of the bitlies and the Bugatti is in the boats and the watches and the, all the material things, but it's the things that people that you make people feel just with your presence and with your, with your words and your voice.

And that's what I want to be able to do. And now we've got the biggest, the biggest platform we ever could have asked for. And the sky is the limit. I'm really, really excited today to discuss success and entrepreneurship with my really good friend. She's an entrepreneur. She's the co-founder of acquisition.com.

So Layla Hermosy, welcome to the show. Wow, that was more than I expected. Thank you, Ed. What about, because I know the answer to this a little bit, what role does fear play in your life? Like what's your relationship with fear? We were talking the night we had dinner and you're like, I'm gonna start going really bold on my social. And you're like,

I have some trepidation about it though. You know, there's going to be some criticism. There's going to be, you know, this or that about me. And I wonder just like, what's your relationship with fear? I have an interesting one. I'll share mine after you, but like when I say fear to you, what, what thought do you have when I say that? Fear is always present when I'm doing something worth doing. And I think that I've learned to look at it. Like fear is just the unknown, right? And so we catastrophize it. And for me, coming from where I've come from,

and I think just the things that I've had to do to manage myself, I would say that, some people default to anger, some people default to sadness, I default to fear and anxiety. And so, for a really long time, I feared fear. I used to have panic attacks. And after I would have the panic attacks,

I would be terrified of having another, which would perpetuate me in the cycle of having them. Even so far as five years ago, I had one, and this was a big moment for me. It was, I was running the company. I had three events coming up. I had my leadership team quarterly the next day. And I was just like reeling on this issue that had

just occurred with an employee. And I just had a full blown meltdown, like panic attack, like body, like shaking, all those things. And I realized afterwards, because I felt terrible, I started judging myself, I started saying, what's wrong with you? Like, this can't happen again, don't allow this to happen again. And I wanted to run away from it. I wanted to not be in any situations that would trigger it. I wanted to get as far away from anything that I associated with it as possible. And what that did for a short period of time was show me how small my life could be.

Because if you allow that fear, fear controls you whether you succumb to it or not, right? And so it's like by trying to run from it, it is controlling me. And so what I realized is I watched my life for it was a matter of weeks. I just felt like canceling all of my meetings, doing things just like I can't work this much. Like it's what's like causing these panic attacks. And I did a lot of work on myself after that. I read probably every original book on psychology that I could. And I realized that I was running in the wrong direction.

I need to run towards it. And so it's like, every time I feel scared, I just lean in, I just go right into it. And I just immerse myself in it. I'm like, we're gonna be friends with fear today. Like sometimes I literally imagine it, hearing it in my purse with me, because people say all the time, I'm sure you hear it too,

they see the things that we're doing that are bold and they see the success and they think fear must not be present. And I'm like, no, no, no. Fear is present. I just also have courage, which is to act despite fear. And I've trained myself now over time to realize that I have been able to diffuse my behaviors, AKA separate them from my feelings, meaning I can be terrified and still speak on stage.

Half the time when I get up to speak on a huge stage, I can't even, like, my mouth is cotton. But I've realized I can still talk. It's like, okay. You know, I was nervous to get on this podcast. I was like pitting out. But like at the end of the day, I think I've realized that whether it be in my marriage, whether it be in relationships I have, whether it be in the business, the more that I just go head on into it, you train yourself and you teach your brain that it's not something to be scared of.

And so the irony is that the only way to rid yourself of fear is to just do the exact thing you're scared of. Oh my gosh. I have to tell you that's so profound. I'll share something personal with you then that acknowledges what you said. I am a very fear-based person and it's, I've run towards it all my life. I have never, I've had friends say, I had a panic attack. I'm like, what is a panic attack?

How do you even get to that? And I had, this will be surprising to you, my audience, but I had one about three weeks ago. Like a real one. Like I'm like, oh my gosh, I think this is what everyone's described to me before. And I couldn't get out of it. It just, it was like, I'm like, kind of what you said, I'm like, I think I'm melting right now. What is the, I'm Superman. What is happening right now? Right? Yeah. And I'm going to tell you why it happened. And it's exactly what you said.

My gosh, that was so good. For one of the first times in decades, I allowed some fears I had and I was hiding from it. I wasn't running towards it. I'm like, I'm rich now. I don't have to do this anymore. I can avoid it. And what I did that I want you to speak to, I don't know if you do this or not, when I run towards the boogeyman, it's like, I almost like end up dancing with him a little bit. I'm like, all right, we're here, let's just go. I've done this before,

I'm built for this, we'll get through it. I'll learn something even if I'm not any good. And it'd be, fear actually has created adrenaline in me that's got me to perform at a high level. Speaking's a great example of that. I'm afraid every time I speak, but when I run towards it, I go, I'm running into this fear. Man, I'm loaded with like superhuman, Holy Spirit adrenaline pumping through me. And it's almost like this fear

is somehow like a turbocharger on me. When I hid from it, which I hadn't done, it was like kryptonite to Superman almost, right? And what happened was, I'm because I was hiding from it, I made the problem bigger than it was. When I run towards it, it almost shrinks when I run towards it. Do you have that tendency at all or do you think people have that tendency to make problems bigger than they are? There's this phrase that I heard a long time ago and it stuck with me because I feel like it resonated so deeply which was fear is a mile wide and an inch deep and I have just never encountered a situation in my life where that has not been the case, that the moment that I see this, what it looks like,

this very ominous lake, right, which is my fear, and I'm gonna step in, I'm gonna drown, it's like I take the first step, and then I realize it's like, it's just a puddle. Like, that's it? That's what's controlled my life for the last three years? I didn't make content for four years after Alex telling me to try and make it because I was so terrified of being judged online. I hate even saying that it's embarrassing because it's like I literally can run a $200 million

company, but I don't want to make content on Instagram, right? But like the moment that I made it and I posted it for the first time, I was like, that literally degraded my self-respect for three years. Because when I avoid the things I'm scared of, I respect myself less. And so it all ties together. And the thing that I've come to realize, I'm like, every time something has started with fear,

it has ended with confidence. And so when people want to know, how do I become more confident, you conquer your fears. It's like, it's that simple. I always look at it like I'm collecting my fears and they're fueling me to be that confident person that I want to show up as. Grateful to have Stephen A. Smith on the show today.

Stephen, welcome brother. Ed, honor to you man. Thank you for having me. How are you doing? I'm doing good. The other thing that strikes me is this notion of confidence though. And you know, you've interviewed for everybody

from Michael, everybody, Michael Jordan, LeBron James. You talked with everybody. And I've always believed there is a direct correlation. I mean, between confidence and performance. And I watch it with you. There's a, look, there's an energy about you. I said swagger when I started, but really what it is is there's a confidence. There's a, look, there's an energy about you. I said swagger when I started, but really what it is is there's a confidence.

There's an air of, you know, I've earned this, you know, I'm gonna keep earning this every single day. I've put the work in. And when athletes lose their way, I work on the mental games of a lot of different athletes. When they lose it, people ask me all the time, what do you work with when you're on the mental games with most of the athletes you work with?

You know what the truth is? Confidence. Yeah. Separators typically come, someone goes in a slump. It's their confidence level. So how has that played in for you? And what would you tell the world here about that topic of confidence? How you actually build it? What are some of the things to build confidence and how correlated is confidence to produce

and even results for you? Well, first of all, I think it's important to know what you sign up for. Like for example, before we started doing this interview, you let me know what this podcast is all about and what you strive to do, what you strive to achieve with your interviews and what you strive to achieve overall with the podcast. It's mastering you and what you do

and in my to use my language, knowing what you signed up for and fully embracing it. You have a lot of athletes for example, because as you pointed out, I cover many of them, where the true, truly great ones are the ones who've accepted a long time ago, this is what I signed up for, this is what's required to exceed at a very high level.

And this is what I'm going to do. Kobe Bryant, the late Kobe Bryant, God rest his soul, who was a friend. He sat up there and pointed out, he didn't negotiate with himself. If he said he was getting up to 530, he was getting up to 530, it was non-negotiable because he had already made that commitment

and he wasn't going to compromise the commitment. He understood what he signed up for and from a physical perspective, there's a window. And when that window closes, it closes and it's okay because everybody can't do what they always did physically. In my chosen profession, well, I happen to be able to do this for years to come. And so my confidence comes from the fact that

I have a passion for what I do. I know I'm knowledgeable about what I do. And now it comes down to my ability to convince you to see my truth more than your ability to convince others to see your truth. And I always believe I'm going to win. I never, ever, ever go into any scenario in terms of a debate format as it pertains to sports television and think that I am inferior to anyone.

I do recognize the fact that there are those who came before me, whose knowledge for the world of sports is far more extensive than mine because I can read about something, but they were there. I can talk about somebody, but they talked to them. I understand the different advantages that they may have or whatever.

But when it comes to communicating with the audience, although that's relevant, it's not applicable to convincing them to see your side. It's not enough that you spoke to them. It's not enough that you were there for an event in person. What matters is your presentation, how you articulate your thoughts, why you feel the way that you feel,

what you want to convey to an audience, the man in which you choose to convey your thoughts, your perspectives, your belief to that audience, and what level of substantive foundation you have to back you up. Those things supersede your presence in somebody's face or at an event. And that's where my domain comes in

because I've spoken to many people myself and I've interviewed many people myself. But the other side to it is that I have a perspective that I think is relatable to the audience out there that I've targeted, meaning I know who the audience is. I know who's listening to me. I know who's talking about me. I know who's tuning in to watch me or to listen to me.

So I'm armed and ready and dangerous as hell Who's talking about me? I know who's tuning in to watch me or to listen to me. So I'm armed and ready and dangerous as hell when it comes to that because practice favors the prepared mind. And I was ready to go before the cameras ever came on. That's my mentality. And as a result of that, I'm never fearful. I never look at myself a second fiddle.

I literally, for better or worse, look at everyone else on a platform with me as if they're in my way because the audience is waiting to hear from me. That is the kind of mentality I have every single day that I'm in front of the camera. I love it. I watched you the other day.

We don't have to get into this thing, but I just want to say this to acknowledge how true is what you just said. I watched you with Jay Williams the other day. You guys got into it. I know you know what I'm talking about. And this is a guy that played basketball at a pretty very high level.

Had he not got hurt, probably would have been a Hall of Fame basketball player. College player of the year, national champion, number 12 overall draft. Jay Williams is the real deal. Absolutely real deal. Absolute real deal. And I watch you go toe to toe. This is the Ed Myron Show.