THE ED MYLETT SHOW - The Most Overlooked Habit of Highly Successful People!
Episode Date: May 31, 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 emai...l 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. What’s the one habit nearly every high achiever forgets… but can’t succeed without? In this special Mashup episode, I brought together four of the most impactful voices I know—Coach Prime (Deion Sanders), Rob Dyrdek, Dean Graziosi, and Dave “Heavy D” Sparks—to crack open a truth that most people overlook: the uncommon habit of observation. This isn’t about hustle or grind. This is about a whole new way of seeing, feeling, and living—one that can transform the quality of your decisions, relationships, and inner peace. I start by sharing how simply becoming an observer—of people, of moments, even of a single leaf—has increased my gratitude, my focus, and my intensity. Rob Dyrdek breaks down how becoming the man he wanted to be before meeting the woman of his dreams was the real game-changer. He didn’t wait on love—he prepared for it. Dean Graziosi shows us what real fulfillment looks like and how chasing the American Dream without connection can leave you empty, no matter how much you’ve achieved. Then Coach Prime gets raw about leadership, hate, faith, and the difference between being a leader and being a dog—and why you have to know who you are right now, not just who you used to be. We go all in. From the mechanics of presence to the power of holding a hug just two seconds longer, this is a masterclass in self-awareness, connection, and growth—and the kind of success most people never talk about. Here’s what you’ll learn from this episode: - Why observation is the hidden key to gratitude, influence, and sharper decisions - How Rob Dyrdek became the version of himself he needed before love arrived - The truth about success without fulfillment, from Dean Graziosi - What separates a leader from a dog, in Coach Prime’s unapologetic terms - Why holding a hug for six seconds might change your brain—and your relationships - The reason paying attention to your breathing can change the entire trajectory of your day - How staying connected to yourself unlocks better conversations, better performance, and better outcomes in everything This conversation isn’t about doing more—it’s about being more. Being more present, more aware, more real. Because if you can’t connect with yourself, you can’t connect with others. And if you can’t connect, you can’t win—at home, in business, or in life. So hold the gaze, feel the breath, and never forget: the real edge in life comes when you slow down enough to actually see it. 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
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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?
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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
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That's growthday.com forward slash Ed.
Hey, it's Ed Mylett.
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This is the Ed Mylett Show.
Hey everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show.
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.
This week, one of the questions that I got was, Ed, do you have any strategies that you
can suggest to me on how I can improve the overall quality of my life, including gratitude?
And by the way, everyone's asking these things that I don't hear from everybody else. And so I want to give you some things that you're not going to hear everybody
from everybody else. So listen, I want you to write this topic down. I want you to write this
word down observer. The quality of your life will increase dramatically if you begin to believe
and act like an observer in your life.
I want you to think about that just for a second.
Observe really means to notice or perceive.
One of the reasons we lack such gratitude or even happiness
in our life is it's all happening so fast.
And so we've lost sensory acuity in our life.
What it means is that there's just information and stuff
happening all the time.
We're busy, our phone, our laptop, our computer, our TV, our Netflix, the meetings we have, the calls we have, our family,
the obligations, the travel, whatever it might be, work. We just don't have time to observe.
And so everything just happens quickly and we don't get any of the juice out of our life.
And as a result, that's very difficult to be grateful. One of the ways that I define myself now is I'm an observer.
What I mean by that is I'm an observation. I'm in my life as a participant. It's going to get
pretty deep. I'm in my life as a participant every single day. I'm in my meetings. I have my phone
calls. I have my family. I have my workouts. I have my dreams and the things I'm achieving.
But if you're not careful, all the speed of that, all the busyness of that,
achieving. But if you're not careful, all the speed of that,
all the busyness of that, you don't see anything. You don't feel anything. You don't experience anything in any depth.
The depth of experience is the quality of our life. And so,
I don't know, maybe about a decade ago, and probably a lot
more about five years ago, I started to call myself to
myself, I'm an observer of my own life.
I'm an observer of humanity. I'm an observer of other people's lives.
And so the more I started to condition myself to be more observational, to notice more,
to perceive more, maybe I even slowed down just a little bit. The depth of the gratitude in my life, the depth of my ability to make decisions, my discernment, my intuition, frankly, my intellect, I have tapped into a superpower, but becoming more observational.
but becoming more observational. It's all, I'm gonna give you examples and the teachings in a second.
It's also caused me to be more grateful, more present, more peaceful.
Yet at the same time when I need to be even more intense and competitive than I've ever been before.
That's because I'm in my life. Most people are just in their life.
And they never are aware of it. They never observe it. Observation
causes awareness. The happiest people, and by the way, the people that I love to be around the most
in my life, are the most self-aware. I think it's one of the reasons I love stand-up comedians so
much, so many other of my friends, because they're so funny, because they're so self-aware. They also,
many of them use observational comedy.
They observe things about life that we miss every single day.
And then when they pointed out, it's funny.
Am I right?
That's the only thing, really most comedy, a lot of comedies are observations.
Like, well that I, I, we just miss it, but it's there.
And so when a comedian tells us a joke about something, we go that way or even
take, don't take comedian, take in your religious services. Any of you that practice your pastor or priest
or rabbi or whatever it might be will point something out. And it's something that you
should be seeing and observing every day in your life, but you just miss. And then when they point
it out, you go, yeah, that's obvious. So I want to talk to you a little bit about this for a minute.
Number one, start to show more respect for people.
What do I mean by that?
What I mean by that is put your phone down.
When someone walks in a room, put your phone down.
When you go to dinner or lunch with them,
don't put it on the table.
Put it in your bag, put it in your purse, put it in your lap.
Leave it in the car.
This forces you to become more observational and present
with people and when you do that it changes your life. So I become observational of these various
things. I'm gonna teach you how to do it. God's stuff. I observe God's stuff more into a level of
depth that I never did and this is gonna sound hokey but I'm gonna give you some insights in it.
I spend more time when I go outside and I hold my gaze at God's beauty
longer. It's not that you don't walk outside and see a beautiful field or a stream or even
a building that one of God's creatures was an architect created, but you hold it quickly.
I've started to observe, this may sound really weird, but I did this this morning. I walked
out behind my house. There's an ocean out there, which I can observe God's beauty there,
but I did something much more simple. There's a, like, I wish I could show you. Well, I kind of
could. I don't know if you guys can see that right out there. If you're watching on YouTube,
there's like a garden above my water feature there. And I just walked out there and I sat there for a
few minutes and I just stared at one leaf on one tree. And I kind of forced myself to
observe it longer than I might. Just one leaf. I narrowed my focus down to one leaf and the
nuances of it and the crevices. And I started to notice the different color in it and where it was
cracked in one place. And I held that gaze for a good minute.
Very different than normal.
And she goes, oh, there's a tree.
And then I moved to another one,
another tree with a different leaf on it.
I spent some time observing it.
I was much more present with myself,
much more present.
I then walked back in the house
and my family was having breakfast.
Instantaneously, I was more present.
And when I walked in, I paused for a second and I held the gaze and I watched my family.
And the beauty of them.
My precious son's home from college.
So is my daughter.
They were both actually in the kitchen at the same time.
They said, hey, what's going on guys?
I stopped. I just held a gaze. It's a way what's going on guys. I stopped.
I just held a gaze.
It's my only son.
It's my only little girl.
And I watched him for a little bit and I appreciated them for a little bit.
I let myself feel love for them just for a little bit.
Just for a little bit.
Filled me with gratitude. So I'm grateful for that.
There's all these things around us all the time that if we just held the gaze a little
longer and stopped looking around, not just put our phone down, that's basic, but just
became fully present with a leaf, with a building, with a water feature, with a piece of...
I do this lately where I stare at my hand and I just notice things about me that I've never noticed
before. You know, most of you aren't familiar with your own hand. If I showed you your hand in a
picture, the inside of your hand, you're probably
not even familiar with where the lines are exactly. I think that's my hand. I'm not sure
it's my hand. Well, if I don't even know that about me, what else don't I know about me?
That's a pretty basic thing. I've been so busy, man, my gosh, I went decades and never
looked at my own hand. I mean, I see I have a hand, but you know what I mean? That depth of observation causes you, by the way, to vibrate much faster and higher frequency.
It causes you to have more gratitude and appreciation.
It causes you to be more present with other people.
I'm going to tell you right now, your decision-making, your thought processes, your ability to control
your emotions are exponentially connected to your ability to be observed and
be present. And this is a skill. It is a talent and it is not easy. I want to also tell you
what I observed that's changed my life. I take time every day now to observe my breathing.
You take for granted your breathing every single day, but if it stopped right now, you
end. It's probably something to pay attention to. So if I can get quiet and just pay attention to my breathing and hear myself and feel myself breathe,
I'm much more self-connected.
I'm much more grateful.
I'm much more centered.
I'm much smarter instantly.
Instantly, I'm stronger and smarter and more present.
If you can't be present with yourself,
you have no way in the world of being present with other people.
You're like, hey man, I'm busy.
Number one thing in business, the ability to build rapport
and connect with people.
If you can't connect and build rapport
and connect with yourself, you can't do it with other people.
People say to me all the time,
your interviews are just different.
In fact, Ed, I see some guests on one show,
I see them on yours, it's a completely different conversation. Why is that? I think it's
my ability to be present with them and connect with them because I'm connected with myself.
So I ask a smarter question in the moment. I can feel something and energy from them that others
don't feel and they feel from me.
Now that makes a good podcast, but it also makes a good salesperson.
It also makes a good mother.
It also makes a good everything.
And so it's something that I really work on.
So I perceive God's stuff.
Art I perceive architecture.
My breathing is a huge one.
Just for today, give yourself a gift. Just for a second right now.
Feel yourself breathe.
Remember that guy?
Remember her?
She's been there all the time.
You. Busy you. Distracted you.
She's been there all the time. Pay a little more attention to her. Pay a
little bit more attention to him. It'll help you pay attention to everybody
else. She's with you all the time. He's always been there. There's only been two constants in
your entire life, God and you. How much attention do you pay to each of you?
You got to give yourself that gift. It's why you're not happy. It's why you're not more
productive. It's why you're not more influential. It's why you're not richer. It's why you're not more productive. It's why you're not more influential. It's why you're not richer
It's why you don't have the emotions you want. It's why you don't have the body you want
It's why you don't have the things you want whatever the things are that you're lacking
It comes down to self-awareness presence and connection with oneself and one's maker
I pay attention to humanity
One thing I do a little bit more of than I've ever done in my life is when I walk into places, I observe people.
I observe people. I walk into a restaurant, I'll watch until they come up to me. I'll watch people. And even when they do come up to me, while they're talking, I observe them.
I'm present with them. I look at their face. I wonder what their story is. I wonder what their history is. I love to people watch when I'm not noticed and I'm alone in an airport or somewhere. And I love
just to watch God's creations, these precious humans. I know this may sound hokey, but I
do it a lot. And I pray for them. I'll people walk by me on the street. If they don't recognize
me, I'll peace be with you. I just have that thought. This connects me to people. This gives me gratitude
and depth. I don't want to be a one-dimensional human being. I want to have multiple dimensions
and experience multiple emotions. And the way I do that is I observe. It sounds corny, but I love
if there's stars out at night just to observe and take the time and notice them. You've all done this
once or twice in your life and it's just felt good.
You can give yourself the gift of that every single day.
Something I do kind of semi-regularly is I just look at me in the mirror and notice things about
me that are aging or that have changed. But I like being present with me. It makes me more comfortable with me.
I never liked myself before.
I never liked myself.
I built muscles on my body and made millions of dollars and new famous people did all these
things to sort of hide from me.
That's not a way to live.
Pay attention to your breathing, pay attention to people, pay attention to humanity, pay
attention to God's stuff. Pay attention to people, give them the respect, show up on time, show up early.
Hold your gaze with someone longer.
When you see them.
Hey man, how are you? You know what you do? Hey man.
How are you?
And hold the gaze a little longer. Hi sister. What are you doing? Hey man, how are you?
And hold the gaze a little longer.
Hi sister, I love you.
When you walk into your office, just hold the gaze a little longer.
Ask the question and listen.
Just another tick.
How are you?
No, man, how are you?
See the difference?
How you doing, buddy?
All right, my man.
It's supposed to, hey, man, how are you?
Hold the gaze and listen.
It's good stuff.
That's how I sold so much.
That's how I got so rich.
It's not why I did it.
It's why I got the biggest podcast.
It's why people think I'm the best or one of the best speakers in the world.
So if you're thinking, hey man, this is spoofoo.
This is business too.
How are you?
You okay?
What's going on?
What do you got that you're excited about?
And listen, and here's a biggie.
This was a hard one for me.
Hold the hug longer when you see somebody.
Hold the hug. I'll give you some data.
After a six seconds in a hug, the brain starts to release oxytocin and serotonin.
Before that, it doesn't. So if I hug you, hey, what's up? Right?
Or hey, it doesn't. So if I hug you, hey, what's up? Right? Or hey, it's nothing.
If you hold the hug for six seconds,
your brain now floods, starts to release by the way,
serotonin and oxytocin into both of you.
Oxytocin, you're getting pleasure from that.
People get addicted to this.
You're getting pleasure from that.
It also increases your immune system and reduces depression.
If you can hold the hug for 10 seconds, you get what they call a serotonin oxy flood.
A flood. So you're not only giving yourself that gift if you can do it,
but you're giving yourself the gift to other people.
What I'm basically saying here on everything is, if you could just hold the gaze a little longer,
if you could pay attention to your breathing a little more, if you could just take a flower or a book or your hand or something and just get present with it
and notice the different things, become an observer and noticer of things. If when you hug somebody,
all the data tells us hug it for six seconds, you both get the gift. You wait, if you do four
seconds, you don't get any of it, hold it for two more seconds. And you get this flood of oxytocin and serotonin.
That's just one of God's greatest gifts.
It's basically the gratitude chemical.
If you want more gratitude.
And so I know this is not stuff you think,
my man, my tattoo jacked up, you know,
super rich guy that's podcasting, listen to him now.
He's talking about holding hugs longer
and looking at flowers and staring at
his hand and paying attention to his breathing. And yeah,
because the question was, Ed,
what is something that I can do to have more happiness,
success and gratitude that most people never talk about?
So I could give you the normal list that everybody else talks about that I've
talked about,
or I could start on Thursdays to give you stuff
you don't hear anywhere in the world.
And it's this.
And so, and that's why right now I can shift gears
and get super intense, because I'm fully present.
I'm fully self-aware in the moment.
Doesn't mean I always am,
but it's helped me control my emotions.
It's helped me control my thinking, my intellect,
my relationships, all of it.
And overall, be a more blissful, peaceful human being,
a more connected one.
If you really wanna know the truth,
so many of you pray every single day,
but you're just checking the box.
Can you be present in that moment
and have an appreciation and gratitude
for this beautiful time you're connecting with your maker?
In my case, my savior.
Can you just get a little bit more of the juice? Because here's what you're thinking, I'll get around to that man. That's cool. I'll get around to that once I'm successful. I'm telling
you, you won't be successful if you don't. You won't be. These are the things that have taken
an average ordinary man like me and built a pretty good life. I've got bad days. I have ups and downs. I have emotions. I'm human. I think
I pretty much share that on Instagram all the time. I want to experience the bad emotions.
Whatever you think is bad. I don't think they're a good or bad emotion. They're just our emotions.
Right. I want to have all of them. I want to be present for them. I want to observe them. I want to be aware of them.
I don't want to just go through my life busy grabbing, accumulating stuff and thinking someday when I'm old, I'll get around to it.
And what I found out was I started doing this young and that's how I got all the stuff. But at the same time, you can't love yourself if you don't know yourself.
And you can't know yourself if you don't spend any time with yourself. And so you got to spend
some time. Man, it's such a great gift is to walk outside and go, what can I observe? Or even in
your office, what can I observe? You know that before I started this zoom, I'm like, I want to
make sure the background's together. This is a true thing. I want to make sure the backgrounds together.
I've done a million zooms from where I am.
Can I tell you something? I started this and I went.
What is that belt buckle? If you're on audio, it doesn't matter.
But there's a what is that belt buckle?
Oh my gosh. That's when I won that golf tournament with Milwaukee.
Do you know how many zooms I've done and that thing's been there the whole time?
I've never noticed it once. It's right in my spatial awareness and I haven't noticed it. What
does that say? Right? So then I got up and before this we started and I'm like, I stared at the belt
buckle and I'm like, oh, Wyatt Earp, I remember that term. And then there's a sign that we won
it and they put this thing on our locker. And I remember the shot I hit to the 18th green. That was a crazy good seven iron I hit and then
Milti had to make the putt from like six eight feet and he drained the button. We jumped up and
down and hugged everyone cheered and we won this golf tournament. It took me all the way back to
that moment of total bliss and it's only because I noticed it finally but guess what that did for
me then I'm like crap man that was a victory I win stuff I'm a winner forgot we won that sucker
man I've been winning stuff forever right and it changed my state it reminded me I win it reminded
me I'm supposed to win it reminds me good things happen to me because quite frankly this morning
a bunch of bad things happened.
And I had to record two podcasts today. And I sat in here for like an hour
before I recorded the first one,
thinking how can I deliver?
Man, I just don't have the juice today.
I don't know that I wanna do it.
Someone wants me to talk about gratitude
on a day where my day just started out crappy.
And it was one small observation
of the belt buckle over my head on zoom that
I didn't just take note of. I got up and looked at it and it took me into that moment and
it completely shifted me something that simple. So observation changes everything in your
life and let's go back to that golf shot I hit.
You know, it required me to hit that golf shot at that time, and I'm not a great golfer.
This is just a golf tournament.
But you know why I had the capacity to hit that golf shot?
My best golf shot under that most pressure.
Because I was fully in that moment.
I had fully appreciated that moment.
And I took it all in.
By the way, I can tell you,
because I remember before I hit the shot,
I was debating, is it a six or seven?
I threw the grass up in the air and I can tell you right now,
I can see that grass kind of just dropped down right onto my shirt
and didn't blow over me.
I can see those blades of grass right now.
I remember going, now the wind's not blowing that bad.
I think I can hit seven and I remember I stepped back.
I took one practice swing. I had a bad back seven. And I remember I stepped back, I took one practice swing,
I had a bad back then, like my back feels pretty good. And I got over that shot fully present,
fully in the moment. My golf ball says max out on it, and the M was facing me. And I remember
just keep your eye on the M, hit the M. I noticed the smallest possible observation. And right when I hit that thing, I knew it was clear.
And he had a good golf, he went, gave me that compression sound.
I'm like, that was a good one.
That was a good one.
And there was about a hundred people, 150 people gathered around the green.
And I remember when it landed, must have been a good one.
Milton Eagles has a good one.
Right.
We're all the way back to that moment, that moment. And she must have been a good one. Milton Eagles has a good one, right?
All the way back to that moment, that moment and just the nothing golf tournament.
It's just a simple example
of observation, being fully present, controlling and being paying attention
to my breathing, by the way, in that moment, too.
And then executing all the way back.
I don't know that was 15 years ago.
I've done probably 2000 zooms in this seat all the way back, I don't know what that was, 15 years ago,
I've done probably 2000 zooms in this seat and never noticed that belt buckle
sitting right up there until today.
Because I'm an observer and I wasn't having a great day,
I turn and look, there's the belt buckle.
And I'm like, I'm gonna go observe more of it.
I'm gonna take the nuance and the detail, not a glance.
I'm gonna hold the gaze a little longer.
And as I held that belt buckle up to me and I looked at it,
it took me right back into that moment of when we won,
completely changed my state. That's why this stuff matters.
So hold the hug a little longer, give people the respect of showing up,
notice and perceive a little bit more, pay attention to your breathing, notice God's stuff, notice architecture, notice
people, notice humanity, hold the gaze, take in more detail, get more of the juice
and all of the juice you want in your life of the other things are much more
likely to happen as a result. The man to my left is literally one of the most
interesting men in the world. This is Rob Dyrdek.
Thank you for being here, brother.
We had a mutual friend.
I won't say who it is, but it's a very well-known dude.
This was a long time ago, too.
And your show was on in the background.
I was at his house.
I'm like, this dude's hilarious.
And the guy checked me.
He goes, just so you know, he's not just hilarious.
This dude's special.
This dude's like a freak.
He's like a super, super successful guy.
As a business guy, I'm like, yeah, right.
Then I started to research. I'm like, yeah, right. Then I started to research and like, oh my god, now having
the conversation, I like, I get it. You know, I understand why. Let's talk about
Briana for a second though. So you said something, man, that's just like blew me
away because I think it's true in business, it's true in family, it's true
in fitness and everything. You said that you were kind of one kind of a dude, live in a certain way,
and that you knew that you needed
to become a certain version of you
in order to attract the spouse, the mate,
the life partner that you wanted in your life.
And I think that's true like in business,
we have to become that person too.
So tell them about how you did that
and what you were thinking.
You know, I would almost equate it
the same way that I was saying earlier,
where I was just doing all of this different stuff
thinking that one was gonna show me the way.
I would think that I was thinking
like eventually I would find the right woman
that would make the right man that would make the right man.
You know, like.
Make you the right man.
Right, you know what I mean?
Like that sort of idea.
And I just knew that at the same time
of sort of this revolution of mindset of like,
no, you need to start to be the person
that you want to be.
And I think that ultimately it allowed me
to create the narrative and the storyline of like this if
the perfect woman for me should love the way that I am not wish that I
could change to be the way they wish I was if you you will. And to me, I tried to create that in all aspects of life.
So when I did finally found her,
because God brought her right to me,
you know what I'm saying?
It was like, man, it was like,
I did a year of really in this deep mindset,
kept telling every one of my friends, you have got to be like this.
If you want to find great love,
you've got to prepare yourself for great love.
I mean I was like preaching it and they were just,
so when she showed up, they were like it worked.
It wasn't like, it wasn't like, oh Rob,
like he's a, I preached it so loud and so pure to to every single one of them on how they needed to act
and if you really wanted to.
And it was, I kid you not, every single one of my friends
I had preached it so much that when I would introduce
or as it happened, you know what I mean?
Like, I get really like, can you believe it?
And the trippiest thing about it is, you know,
you, there's all these expectations and thoughts
and excitement that comes into, like,
thinking you met the one, right?
Now, let reality set in, right?
Like, oh, it's this, and imagine now the opposite is
the reality of your love and life is actually 10 times
better than you could have ever envisioned when you
laid out the most perfect scenario.
You're such a good guy too, you know, the other thing
you won't say about yourself, but everybody that knows
you that knows me, it's just, the first thing they don't
tell me is about your brilliance or your success.
It's not the first thing they tell me.
They say he's just such a good man.
He cares about people so much
and that's why this is so real.
And which is ultimately, you want that.
You know what I mean?
Like you also like,
you want that to be part of your reputation
and ultimately why people respect you.
You know what I mean?
I want to be respected for like being like the man,
the father, the husband, the family man,
like someone working, I want like to be respected
for the way that I live life and the type of person I am
as opposed to what I simply achieve.
You know?
Yeah, yeah, I think you are.
I think you're becoming that and I'm proud of you and we're just getting to know each other. I want you are. I think you're becoming that. And I'm proud of you.
And we're just getting to know each other.
I want you to do one thing for me though.
I want them to know this about you.
I think all people should be,
I think people matter, things don't, right?
I have that philosophy.
And I think you're amazing at like creating moments.
And I'm not talking about like shark attacks
and jockey and a horse or anything.
I'm talking about like life moments.
Like you're conscious of creating moments.
So within this structure of your life,
which you are like in your businesses,
you're very systematized, you're very, you need that.
You want that.
Yet you have this complete freedom
to have all these magic moments.
So like, just real quick,
I wanna go through a couple with you
that I just know about.
Like your first date with Brianna wasn't even normal.
Didn't you like go rescue puppies or something on a first like is that right or yeah look so look
I mean you take this for granted that's not a normal first date look no you
don't know that wasn't it wasn't intended to be that way it was you know
just just taking a shot right yeah and we had we had we met via DM on Twitter,
the Modern Way That Love Forum.
And she was posting about like these,
you know, a big thing that had been going on
is like this kennel was getting,
they're euthanizing all the dogs in Bakersfield.
And so, you know, I was texting her and you know asking her you
know would you like to hang out this weekend you know what do you have in mind
to do and so I was thinking it was in Ontario or somewhere close I was thinking
let's go rescue these puppies we can drive out there and I'm like it's like
six hours away but I still you know what so can we take a helicopter to
Bakersfield,
rescue these puppies, you know what I mean?
Just being all slick and funny, so funny.
And like a half hour later, she was like, sure.
I don't know, she was like, perfect.
And I'm like, what?
I'm like, that was kind of a joke.
And then I got, can somebody get me a helicopter?
And we never spoke on the phone, anything,
like, you know, first time we met was like,
you know, like picked her up and drove straight to
the airport and jumped in a helicopter
and got to know each other by flying to Bakersfield
to rescue some puppies.
And look, and I was so deep, and now we're in a moment,
okay, now we're in a moment, okay?
Now we're in a moment, and throughout that flight,
I was like, not even a question,
this is who I meant to marry and spend the rest of my life,
so it's instant for me.
So I'm like, since this is so instantaneous,
I'm like, we gotta get a puppy to remember this by,
but it's still like first date,
like you still wanna try to get this puppy
into this helicopter right now,
like the fact that we did not actually
rescue a puppy that day is still something I'm proud of.
So you did not get a puppy that day.
We did not.
But then like you repeat this,
like these moments,
like and by the way, there's dudes who go,
well I can't afford a helicopter.
Just do something special, man.
Just find a way to make a moment,
make a memory, right?
Take a walk.
Yeah.
You know, do something.
I mean look, I went, yeah.
You just took another helicopter
right on your anniversary though.
Yeah, much sketchier one that she was not happy with.
When we get in this tiny one where I was like,
I didn't even think about the first one.
Was such a long trip.
It was a more sizable, manageable one.
We get in this like somebody's backyard copter.
We take over there.
But look, again, it's, let's go have fun.
Yes. over there, but look, again, it's, let's go have fun.
Like, I am, my success is not predicated on trying
to achieve some sort of financial milestone
that I can do anything other than live an amazing life. And being able to surprise her with a helicopter trip
to Catalina, you know, having the kids taken care of
and like she doesn't know what it is and then like,
oh, then this super unique adventure
where we land on the top of a mountain.
I don't know if you've ever been there,
but you gotta land at an airport in the sky, 1600 feet.
They take a 40 minute drive down a sketchy road
to get to the town. Super weird and driving by Bison because they did a movie in the sky at 1600 feet, then take a 40 minute drive down a sketchy road to get to the town.
Super weird, and driving by Bison,
because they did a movie in the 20s
and left all these Bison over there.
It was just this.
It's Catalina, right?
Yeah.
It's like, have you ever been to the, okay.
I have a helicopter over.
Look, I've never been there, I don't even know what it was.
But for us, that should be what life's about.
It's like, go on, go experience just a 12 hour adventure.
You know what I mean?
We left at four, came back at eight the next morning,
had to take our daughter to the pediatrician,
I had to go do meetings all day, right?
Like it's still.
That's amazing, brother,
how you navigate these different spaces.
And it's such a fun, great experience.
And I think not only do I set the precedent for it
in our life and whether it's like
every occasion I try to put that level in,
it fought into it.
You do it every morning.
You do it every morning with your little ones, right?
And I wanna add those experiences long term
for the kids too, you know what I mean?
So that there are moments that they can look back
and that their dad is, you know, I'm not a normal dad.
I'm a little bit nutty, you know?
And that, how that ultimately,
I'm pretty disciplined and militant
with the children from a structure standpoint,
which does include full-fledged, full-scale singing
every single morning at like the highest level.
Dancing, sometimes I'll make him just like dance
before he gets out of bed, you know,
like and hit him with the positive reinforcement
of like been drilling in his head over and over,
he's happy, he's like I'm happy, I'm happy.
Strong, strong, smart, smart, healthy, healthy.
And just self-belief.
Of just, you can do anything because you believe in you.
Say, I believe in me, I believe in me.
It's amazing.
It's, let's give them this beautiful house of love
and peacefulness and then just try to guide them
to have belief in themselves and help nourish that,
because at the end of the day,
it's the only way you ever do anything.
It's like even when people call it experience,
experience is just gaining knowledge to believe
that you can go achieve something at a higher level.
And your only, your pursuit,
why you stay in lanes that you fully understand,
because you believe you can do it
because you understand it well enough, right?
And when you take that step out to learn something new,
you have to be sitting there with some doubt
on whether or not you could do it
because you've never done it before.
You don't have a foundation of belief.
But if your life is about taking risks
and you believe that you can figure anything out
along the way, you take that leap into that new thing
in a system of how you create belief to make sure
that you can, irregardless of whatever that may be.
That's what I mean, people watch this,
two of the more successful entrepreneurs
under the age of 50 in a room together.
And then like, you know, what do you do with your families?
He gets up every morning and sings with his,
I dance with my daughter every morning,
I show her a move in the 90s every morning,
I told you that.
And you do your sayings with your kids,
and mine with my son, as you're a leader,
you're a gladiator, you're the greatest of all time.
He's been hearing that since he was a little boy,
my daughter is that she's a superstar,
and she can do anything, hugs not not drugs. I do these things.
Everyone there, you know, they're at the age where they roll their eyes now, right?
But the fact is we both do these things where we do this wacky crap with our kids.
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professional. 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. Here's an excerpt I
did with our next guest. So my guest today really doesn't need an introduction, but I'm
gonna give him one and I think he's the most feared football
coach by other coaches on planet Earth today.
Maybe maybe maybe in the history of college football.
Nobody wants to mess with this dude or play against him coach
prime Dion Sanders.
Welcome to the show my friend.
Thank you for being here and I love that introduction.
I got I'm gonna recording this so I'm gonna, we're recording this.
So I'm gonna wake up every morning. This is how I'm gonna wake up every morning.
I'm gonna just play that intro and then I'm gonna get up.
Yeah, he has this chapter in the book. I want you to get the book and read it,
but he basically says, make confidence your natural odor.
You just need to read this chapter you guys, on confidence. It's really, by the way,
I read this book like this
like I got it late and I read it like this there's another thing I want to ask you about because I
never really I've heard these terms I don't even know the distinction between them the next chapter
in the book he says are you a leader or a dog and this applies to life not just football what's the
difference between a leader and a dog? See coaching you normally see the sea on the chest and captains.
I reserved that for the military.
I reserved that for the police force and all that and I have a heck of a respect.
I don't think it should be a guy with sea on his chest and captain, especially
now in the NFL.
You got a quarterback that has the sea on his chest.
Now he's leaving because he wants to
get paid more for another team. So how can your captain abort the ship and abort the plan? I don't
like that. I have leaders and I have dogs. Every leader ain't a dog and every dog ain't a leader.
I don't expect the dog to be the leader. And I don't expect the leader to be the dog. I expect
you to be you. And just because you walk in the front and just
because you talk the loudest and just because you make the most money, that don't make you
a leader. A leader is that thing that Janiece Acquire that you have that's infectious, that
makes people want to follow you, that makes people want to listen to you, that makes people
want to read your books, that make people want to just find out more about you and Google you.
That's that thing that you have that you don't have to walk in the front. You don't have to,
because when I played the game, believe it or not, I never made speeches to my teams I played for.
I never called everybody up and say, okay, this is what we're going to, I never did that.
I led through action and I led through consistency. I didn't lead vocally. I led to action
and consistency because you got to understand I was coming in football late because I was playing
baseball. In baseball I was one of the young guys because baseball players go up to age 40. I was
still a young pup in most of the teams that I played for and playing two sports. So I wasn't there the full time as well. So I was never the guy that they would have put a C on his chest,
but I was a leader. But the dog is that the eight person that that you never mistake a dog for a
cat. You never mistake a dog for a person who won't swing first. You know, that dog is that guy who's gonna swing first.
Yeah, he gonna have a one foot back up,
she gonna take her earrings off
and you know, she gonna put Vaseline on her face
and you know, she ready.
She brought some tennis shoes that say,
you can get the grip, she gonna take off the heel.
Like, that's the dog that he's ready to get down
no matter what, he's a dog.
And in life, sometimes you to be both man and sometimes you
got to be both. Sometimes when you call a meeting with your staff, not only you got to be a leader
but sometimes you got to be adult and some of us are equipped with being able to hit a switch and
to be both but some people are not but you got to know who you are at this age and stage in your
life. It would be you would be a fool not to understand who you are.
I think I have a year of eligibility left. I don't know how many 52 year olds you're signing
but I would love, I probably still play strong safety or something. I would, I would rather go
down the wall right now. What is a, but I just, I gotta tell you like there's such substance to the
book. Like he's obviously like this amazing communicator,
but man, that's a separator in life.
It's like, you can say all these pretty things,
but at some point you got to walk it too, right?
Like you got to walk the walk as a leader, right?
And you think your kids pick up on this with you,
not just like, obviously you walk in a room,
you got cachet, you're the go, right?
So there's something to that.
Like this is coach prime and my God, you get the chance to be around the greatest of all
time at something.
But I got to think after like a month or two, you're the coach.
Like they got to see you currently walking some type of a walk as a leader.
And I feel like a lot of leaders, even parents, like, well, at one time I did this, so you
should just learn everything I say now, right?
But I think you have to be relevant
in your leadership currently as well, right?
You feel that way for you?
100% correct, 100% correct,
because what I did is what I did.
Today's kids are more into the now,
like everything they're looking at on social media
deals with the now.
They may recollect it and go through your page
and see what you did yesterday,
but they only looking at that to establish the consistency,
are you that guy now that you were yesterday
and the day before?
So, what people are looking for is reality
because we have such a fake and a false
world that everybody could go purchase what they want to look like they want
to feel like they want to be who they want. Everybody could go purchase that
now and everybody is attracted to authenticity whether they believe it or
not and everybody is opposed to authenticity, whether they want it or not. Because the most successful music acts or celebrities
that can sing or rap or whatever, they're authentic.
We feel like we know them, like we can touch them
and they allow us to know that they've made mistakes.
Nobody's looking for Mr. or Mrs. Perfect anymore.
They're looking for flawed people that will stand up
and say, you know what, I did that, man.
That was me, okay, that was me.
I did that, I messed that up.
But guess what?
Guess what I learned from that mistake?
Oh my God, thank God that happened to me
because I would never take that left again.
I'm just gonna stay right.
So if it wasn't for that left,
I wouldn't even know what the right.
I love the hate.
You know why I'm attracted to the hate?
Because if it wasn't for the hate, and I wouldn't know what love feels like. I wouldn't know what the right... I love the hate. You know why I'm attracted to the hate? Because if it wasn't for the hate, Ed, I wouldn't know what love feels like.
I wouldn't know what love looks like. I wouldn't know what love was about if I didn't receive the
hate because I know that ain't love. So this has to be. Wow. When you get hate, Coach, do you ever,
because you do get it, you're lightning rod for it. You even had another coach this year
say some stuff that you leveraged it really well though. We won't
go we won't go into all that stuff that happened but like boy I was watching you
the week of that game I'm like oh man thank God you won that game too but like
I remember the week of that game going oh boy this dude made a huge mistake
saying this stuff about coach Prime and his mom. Do you ever though look at that and distinguish
hate from like valid criticism? Do you do you ever listen to somebody that's
being critical you go hey any of this apply to me do I need to make a change
here is that valid you do you allow that to guide you at all or no? Why would I
listen to my critics when my
critics have critics? I'm gonna listen to a critic who has a
line of critics. Ain't no way because some of those people
are criticizing you to just get your attention.
The last thing I heard about attention that you had to pay it. You got to pay attention.
So that's a fee. That's going to cost. So if you're not going to pay that cost for my attention,
I'm not going to give it to you because my attention ain't free. My attention ain't free. My attention ain't free. You're gonna have to pay.
You're gonna have to pay attention.
Every time I do an interview,
when I do an interview coach, I always go,
that'd make a good Instagram clip.
We've had like 11 of these already.
Like in a good interview, you get like one,
you're like, that's gonna be the clip.
I don't even know what clip I'm gonna use
in this thing right now.
It's so damn good. What about your faith? I want before the interview gets too far away,
I like want to ask you about your faith. Like I watched you as a player. I feel like there's
just some point in your career and I don't I'd like you to talk about when it was or what it
how it was. I mean, it certainly seems deeper to me. Now it is.
Yeah, it is because I will. Yeah, that's why I tell people to be careful
who you have as a role model.
Because most of us were models just playing a role.
I'm just giving you the picture that you wanted to see
because it's really not me.
I'm not prime time, I'm Dion.
You don't care about Dion because you care about prime.
So I got to give you prime.
But the thing about it,
both of them has an expiration date.
And it's not, they don't equate to one of them.
They're not gonna die at the same time.
One is gonna die, the persona is gonna die
much quicker than the person.
So what you're trying to kill is the persona
because you don't really know the person.
And I got lost trying to satisfy you all with the persona.
And I began to be suicidal. I mean, I'm on the top of my game on the top of the world, several different commercials.
And how in the world can I be so hard in the world? Can I not want to be here?
Well, I was going through a tremendous divorce and my kids were stripped away from me.
And those are the only two people that I felt like loved me
in my whole life, because they was genuine.
Like these are my kids, they came from me.
I know they loved me because I know you don't,
I know you don't, I know you don't.
You love what I'm capable of doing for you,
but you don't love me.
But you know why you don't love me?
Because you don't know me. And let me go don't love me? Because you don't know me.
And let me go through this a little bit so you understand right where we were,
right where I was parked at the time. I'm in a 15,000 square foot house, but never feeling at home.
I have hundreds and hundreds of suits, but I can't cover up the pain. I got 500 or more pair of shoes, but I can't take a step in the right direction. Several cars parked in the driveway exotic
from old 64 Chevys, but I ain't going nowhere. You mean I'm sleeping in between two and three
women, but nobody is satisfied. And I'm sleeping on a five to $10,000 bed, but I ain't
getting no rest. So you're going through all these emotions and all these
challenges and you're just not happy. Like I'm three for four and I'm still
going to commit suicide after the game. So all this stuff came to a head where I
finally had to get on my knees and say, Lord, take me man, I can't do this no more.
I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't stand it,
I can't stand the life.
And it's not that, see, I've never smoked in my life.
I've never been high, I never drank, never tasted alcohol,
stop using profanity when I was 19 years old.
So it wasn't those vices, it was other vices, but it wasn't those vices,
but I just didn't have peace and I didn't have joy. And I knew God was calling me, but I didn't
want to be hypocritical because I despise that someone saying they this and not this. I despise
that. So I was trying to clean up before I go to the Lord. It ain't no way you could clean up before you go to the Lord. You got to go to the Lord to get clean.
I didn't know that. I didn't understand that. So finally, you know, after going through hell and
child and tribulation and attempting to commit suicide, I had to surrender and give it all to
him. That was the place. But you know what broke me, what almost broke me and hurt me that
when I came out and told the world about this is what I was going through, this is what I was
dealing with, they didn't believe me. I'm like, so you think I'm going to tell you all this,
what's the game? I already got money. So what am I gaining? Like what I already got fame. What am I
gaining to tell you that I've accepted the Lord? I'm tired. I'm always broken. What am I gaining to tell you that I've accepted the Lord?
I'm tired, I was broken.
What am I gaining?
And I wish somebody would have told me
that my most critical people would have come from inside,
not outside, the church folks.
That was my most critical persons, not the sinners. The sinners was like, hey man, God bless you, man. Tell was my most critical persons.
The sinners was like, hey man, God bless you, man.
Tell me how you did it.
Tell me how you stopped that Lamborghini for going 200.
Tell me how you slowed everything down.
It's like, yeah, the church folks are like,
oh, ain't no way in the world he could do that.
So no, no, what you're doing is talking to yourself.
You telling that if you had all these things
that you can do it, because you said I can't, because you're doing is talking to yourself. You're telling that if you had all these things, that you can do it because you said I can't because you think about the things
because the things had me, I didn't have them. How do we become more fulfilled? I can tell you
that I believe the pathway to fulfillment is by contributing to other people, being in service to
other people, chasing your passion and your purpose in the service of other people leads to
fulfillment. Let me tell you the pathway I think to contributing to other people and truly fulfilling
your purpose because if you can match being happy with all the short-term things you want to achieve
in your life, achievement can be a destination, achievement can be a level, achievement can be a
promotion, it could be a certain amount of money, it could be an accomplishment, it could be a home,
it could be whatever it is is Achievements make us happy
Contribution matched with achievement is fulfillment. And so I want you to take an inventory the most fulfilled people I know
Use the gifts they were given in their life
Towards the service and contributing to other people. I want you to hear me people say I just don't know what my passion is
I don't know what my purpose is
Your purpose is often found through identifying what your giftedness is and then how you can use those gifts to serve other people.
And so it's hard for most people to give themselves any credit, but let me tell you something. You were born with natural gifts that were given to you that are special to you. You see the gifts of other people, see certain gifts put you on TV. Good looks, unbelievable athletic ability, right?
A great singing voice.
These are the gifts that can put you on television.
So most of us think those are the most important gifts in life, or only the ones we see on
television.
See, and then we think because we might not possess those specific gifts, we are not gifted.
Let me say to you very explicitly, you were born, and I know this, with unique special
gifts that are just yours. You were born for a reason. You were born to make a difference. When
you were a little boy or a little girl, there was a time in your life where
there was somebody who believed in you. They looked at you like you were special.
They knew you were unique. Maybe it was a parent or a grandparent or a school
teacher or a coach or an auntie or an uncle, but they looked at you a certain
way and you just knew they knew you were special.
They saw what I call the Christ in you.
They saw the gifts in you.
And maybe as you got a little bit older you've forgotten what that feels like.
But I can tell you it was the greatest feeling in the world.
In fact, if you pictured that person's face right now that made you feel that way, you'd
have begun to almost get emotional because they made you see the gift in you.
They may not have known what the gift was, but they made you feel special. Your uniqueness,
your specialness is these gifts you were given. And by the way, be very aware of
what they are. Your gifts could be your nurturing ability, your kindness, your
intensity, your passion, your voice, your looks, your art skills, your ability to
problem-solve, your listening skills, your speaking skills, your peace, your looks, your art skills, your ability to problem solve, your listening skills, your speaking skills,
your peace, your faith, your concern,
your physical strength, right?
Your ability to write, your ability to think,
your ability to care, your ability to be there for people,
your work ethic.
There are literally thousands of gifts,
and I promise you, if you begin to ask yourself some deep questions, you begin to understand your desire to help people,
your intentions, your sense of humor, your patience level, you have all kinds of gifts
that you were given but there are two or three or four that are yours and if you identify
what those two or three or four gifts are and you begin to use those gifts in the service of other people
You will be ultimately fulfilled in my case
You know
I feel like my gift is that I was born with the ability to articulate I was born with the ability to learn
I was born with the ability to just deeply care and believe in people
God was good enough to give me the ability to kind of communicate those words in a way that's easy to understand
And so I've taken some of the gifts my my couple, my two or three, I don't have 50, I'm not
better than you, but I've sort of identified some of the gifts I have as I love people,
I care about people, I'm pretty good at speaking, right?
I want to make a difference, I intend to serve.
And so I've taken those skills and I've used them to serve other people in my life and
it fulfills me. It's not work to me. And so I've taken those skills and I've used them to serve other people in my life and it fulfills me.
It's not work to me.
It makes me fulfilled.
My house may make me happy short term, my jet might,
but I can tell you what fulfills me is making a difference
in the lives of other people
and it's what will fulfill you as well.
It's dropping this notion as I've said in other audios,
you are not your possessions.
You are not your accomplishments.
You are not what other people say you are, good, bad, or indifferent. You are not your possessions. You are not your accomplishments You are not what other people say you are good bad or indifferent
You are not those things and you are not what you look like
You are your gifts
You are these two or three or four things. This is the basis of who you are or these gifts
This is the true you and when you begin to do this when you begin to utilize those gifts and service of other people, you become inspirational. Yes, you. You inspire people. See, the root
of the word inspire is to be in spirit. When you are in spirit and serving people with
the gifts you were given. Mike, who's filming this right now, one of his great gifts is
his patience, is his artful eye, is his ability to see the right setting like we did today when we're shooting here.
It's his concern to make me look good. It's the pride he takes in his work.
These are some of his natural gifts and now he's found them and we've partnered together.
His gift and my gift and the gift of my team to serve you.
This will begin to fulfill you in your life. All of you have those gifts.
And so when you begin to identify what they are and the service of other people, you will begin to fulfill you in your life. All of you have those gifts. And so when you begin to identify what they are in the service of other people,
you will begin to change your life. That is who you truly are. That is when you
begin to experience those emotions that serve you, that begin to transform your
life. If you want to be happier and if you want to be more fulfilled, go achieve,
go accomplish, go chase those things, but do things every day that feed these
emotions that you want, not the ones you don't want.
Root out the emotions you don't want, pursue and chase the ones you do, and
begin to use those gifts to serve other people and fulfill your purpose in being here in the world.
I'm gonna give you ten things that I want you to be more of. I want you to embody more of in your life.
I want you to take an inventory, the man or woman, if you could be more of these ten things they will deliver to you more of these
emotions. Number one, I want you to be unique. I want you to be special. See I
believe the opposite of bravery is to conform. Conformity is the opposite of
bravery. You don't need to be like anybody else. Stop trying to be a part of
the group. Be unique. Be special. Be you. Celebrate the uniqueness that is you. Yeah, you may take some criticism. You've
probably taken it in the past. Every time you've tried to be yourself, you've
taken a little criticism. But I can promise you, one of the gateways to more
of these positive emotions is to be unique. Be special. Be you. Number two, be
love. Yes, be love. I know that may sound corny,
especially to some of you guys that are listening to this,
but just be more loving.
I think you'll find the more love you put out into the world,
and I don't mean this in some fluffy way, I'm serious.
The more you love people, the more you smile,
the more you truly love in life,
the more you get it back in your life.
Number three, be truth.
Just honor your truth more often.
And even in the difficult times, be honest and truthful with people.
Number four, be kind.
One of the rarest things in the world today is just a kind person.
Just taking the time to be more kind to people.
We need more kindness in the world.
The more kind you are to other people, the more those emotions come flooding your way.
Number five, be beautiful.
And I mean it.
Be beautiful. Begin to celebrate your way. Number five, be beautiful. And I mean it, be beautiful.
Begin to celebrate your beauty.
I know for some of us that's difficult
because we're aware of all the things
about us that aren't beautiful.
The more you just be beautiful,
I can tell you the more you begin to accept you
the way you are, that you're perfect as you are,
it doesn't mean we don't wanna look better,
it doesn't mean we don't wanna improve our condition,
be healthier, be stronger, look better.
But the bottom line is, if we can't begin to love how we look now, we're not going to love how we look at any point.
We're never going to love it. Just be more beautiful now.
Number six, be moving. You must always be moving your body.
See, the great emotions come from us when we're moving our body.
See, emotions are physical as well. They're a physical thing.
You know how you feel when you're working out or you're in that special moment with
that special someone and privacy?
You're moving your body at that time, aren't you?
Laughter is a movement.
See, emotions are movements.
It's a state of being.
The more you're breathing deeper, the more you're moving your body.
Moving your body creates positive emotions.
Stagnation, laying down, hunched over, all these emotions, sitting at your desk too long
every single day, laying in bed, laying on the couch, not moving, driving in the cars,
when all the negative emotions hit, you'll find that when you're moving, running, moving
your body, exercising, just getting in a peak state, being conscious of your posture and
your physiology and moving yourself, you'll find it's almost impossible to experience
the negative emotions when you're moving and the positive ones come flooding in.
Number seven, be growing. As we've talked about previously, either growing or dying in your life,
a growing person is experiencing the positive emotions of life. A person who's not growing,
they start to experience depression and fatigue and fear and anxiety. Be growing all the time.
It's a gateway to all the positive emotions in life. Number eight, be silly, be playful. See,
you were the happiest probably when you were a eight, be silly, be playful.
See you were the happiest probably when you were a little little child when you were playful
and you didn't care what everybody thought about you.
Start to have more childlike enthusiasm in your life.
Be silly, be willing to look bad and look goofy.
The happiest people have more childlike emotions, more childlike enthusiasm.
We all get older and we get buttoned up and we want to look a certain way and present
our certain selves and think there's a way we're supposed to act all get older and we get buttoned up and we want to look a certain way and present our certain selves and think there's a way we're
supposed to act all the time and we lose the inner child and from there we lose
the emotions a child gets to experience. Number nine, be forgiving. Forgive people.
It will set you free and open you up to all the positive emotions of your life. If
there are people you need to forgive, do it. It's your lack of forgiveness that's holding you back from getting these positive emotions. It's
holding on to this thing you're holding over somebody, even though you think they may deserve
it. If you don't forgive them, you've blocked yourself, you've cheated yourself from all
the joy, all the peace, all the passion in your life, as you're holding on and not forgiving
somebody. That lack of forgiveness is giving you the anxiety and the stress and it's blunting your
access to the best emotions.
Be forgiving.
And then number 10, be courageous.
Be bold.
The most courageous people in life experience the greatest emotions.
They take risks.
They overcome adversity.
They put themselves in uncomfortable situations.
They show courage. They step in when needed
They're people's heroes in their life
They do things they're afraid of on a very regular basis courage is not the absence of fear
Courage is taking action in the presence of fear
I promise you the more courageous you are the more you are opening yourself to the best emotions in life
These ten things these ten steps these 10 ways of being are gateways to the positive emotions in our life and when
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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. What ends up happening, Gandhi has
this great quote that I've been really working on lately.
Gandhi said,
I will not let you walk through my mind with your dirty feet.
And too many of you are letting the people around you walk through your mind
with their dirty feet and it's polluting your brain.
It's polluting your thoughts.
It's creating negative belief systems,
limiting belief systems.
And you know what?
Your own confidence, your own
strength, your own self-esteem is going to come from you. You have to understand something. When
you try something in your life, okay, or you attempt anything in your life, you're either going
to become wise or you're going to become wounded. And too many people, once they start to try become wounded. The failure wounds them,
the setback wounds them, the criticism wounds them. Their own, by the way, sometimes the people
walking through your mind with their dirty feet are you and your own thoughts and by the way,
the reason I know this is I very much have done this myself. The guy walking through my mind
most of the time with his dirty feet is this dude right here and I've learned something. I don't have to believe everything I think. In fact, I don't
anymore. Most of the stuff I think, all the studies say, I've said this in other podcasts, 80 to 90%
of our thoughts are negative. These aren't my thoughts, those aren't God's thoughts.
Those are somehow very, very wounded man's thinking, not a wise man. And I'll ask myself that when I have these thoughts, is this a wise man's thoughts or a wounded man's thoughts?
You ask yourself that, these negative thoughts that you're having, these limiting thoughts that you're having,
is that the wise woman's thoughts or the wounded woman's thoughts?
And if it's the wounded woman, stop listening to her and start talking to her.
Sometimes in life, you got to stop listening to yourself so much and start talking to her. Sometimes in life, you got to stop listening to yourself so much and start
talking to yourself and it's all your responsibility. Listen, it's not called friend esteem or
stranger esteem or mom and dad esteem. It's called self-esteem for a reason because you have to be
the one to believe it. And listen to me, the fact that you're listening to my podcast or watching it
means this, you're starting to grow and maybe you've been growing for quite a while. And by the way, if you're outgrowing people,
it makes them very uncomfortable with themselves. And then because they're uncomfortable with
themselves, they become dream stealers. Because here's what happens, you getting bigger makes them
feel smaller. And so the consequence, what a lot of us do is we decide to shrink ourselves and get smaller
so that they can feel bigger or safer with us around. Let me say that to you again,
you getting bigger makes them feel smaller and because you're a good person whether it's your
your boyfriend or girlfriend, your spouse, your friends, your parents, whoever it is,
what you do because you're a good person is instead of still getting bigger you decide you
will get smaller so they can feel bigger or safer with you.
And what ends up happening is you shrink your dreams and we shrink our lives, we shrink
our energy, we shrink our capacity to fit in and we make all these other people around
us comfortable.
And what I want you to do is I want you to make some people uncomfortable
in your life. There's nothing wrong with making people feel uncomfortable and if you're gonna do
it, see, to me, that's courage. Courage is being willing to make other people uncomfortable.
Remember this, sometimes I had to say this to my family, pardon my progress but I'm gonna be
making progress over here, right? And eventually,
they might get on board and they might not get on board but I want to know that at the end of my
life when it's over that I've given it everything I've got, that I didn't shrink myself because I
was a coward. I didn't shrink myself to please small-minded people around me, that my capacity
to grow, my capacity to read, my total commitment to a personal
development program, my total commitment to a self-improvement program.
I started out as a very young man in my early 20s with absolutely no self-esteem, no confidence,
no communication ability whatsoever and I started the journey of self-discovery,
self-improvement, and personal development.
I started out as a terrible reader, but I found myself, at least I could read a book a month, and then I got to a book a week. And I got up to where I was reading sometimes 50, 60, 70, 80
books a year. And these were like mentors to me. When I read books, it's like this author is
personally speaking to me and mentoring me, pouring into me. If there was a podcast like mine back then,
my gosh, I'd be glued to it. I would be glued to it. I don't mean to brag but like,
I would be glued to it. There's this great Chinese proverb that says,
if you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back. And to be able to listen to my
Thursday episodes or the people I interview on Tuesdays, these are people who have the
directions because they're coming back. I think I have some of them.
But I know this when I started out because I didn't have a lot of confidence, man, every
once in a while, the cowardly me would come back in, I would shrink my life, shrink my
dream, shrink my belief, right?
Those voices were that those dirty feet were running through my mind and then a few other
people had their dirty feet doing it to me as well.
Between the rest of us, between them and me, it was like a stampede in my mind all the time and I didn't want to make people uncomfortable. I still
to this day at 53 years old I'm a people pleaser. I don't like to offend. I don't like to hurt people.
I if I have strife with somebody in my life like I can't sleep until I fixed it. I'm just wired that
way many of you are but I've learned that if I've made a mistake in how I've treated somebody or spoken to
them, then it should bother me and I should fix it.
But if the mistake I've made is trying to do something great with my life, the mistake
I've made is trying to change my family tree forever, the mistake I've made is trying to
be happier and grow, if the mistake I've made is trying to give to other people and contribute
and create great memories in my life
Then guess what? That's not a mistake and i'm not apologizing for that. I've got one life. You've got one life
And it's time we have the courage to get after it and take the lonely road and not
Have this cowardice this cowardly way about us where we just conform to what everybody else is doing
And I can tell you I think I know where it comes from.
I think it comes, believe it or not,
all the way back when we were little, little kids
in our coloring books.
Remember how much we were trained over and over again
to color between the lines.
And I was always a terrible color.
I'm left-handed.
I just, I've got no coordination skills this way.
You go look at my old coloring book, they're just terrible.
But we're trained as children, color between the lines,
Sarah, color between the lines, Bob,
color between the lines, stay between the lines.
And we're over and over and over,
this is reinforced to us to stay between the lines.
And there's a lot of great things about school,
but coloring between the lines, sitting in the same way,
fold your hand, all these things.
What ends up happening is we begin to get older.
We literally start to only color between the lines
in our life.
We don't wanna get outside the lines.
And I'm gonna say something to you.
All great people color outside the lines.
All the people you admire, what do you admire about them?
They colored outside the lines in their life.
They didn't stay a conformist. They
didn't stay with some predetermined picture. See, here's what a coloring book is. Here's the picture.
Now, you just fill in the one I gave you. Color between the lines. And that's what most people
do in their life. The world hands them, here's your picture. This is what you get. This is your life.
This is the one you're handed. Stay between the lines, don't you veer outside those lines, don't you get outside of there
and what happens is that we have this thing that's now wired into us once we're adults,
oh my gosh, I'm outside the lines, I better get back, I'm outside the lines, I better
get back and it becomes something in life where I've never been out here before, I need
to come back, I'm misbehaving, I'm gonna get in trouble. I'm not doing what I was trained to do.
This isn't what I do.
And I can tell you that's why there's so few people in life that win but I can tell you
the decision they've made.
They've made the decision that they're not coloring within the lines anymore.
And so, my challenge to you today is to have courage, is not to conform but to create,
is to decide in your life that you're not playing within these lines
somebody else handed to you.
That you're gonna design your own life with God.
Your own story, your own pictures.
And that you're gonna pick up a new pen,
a new crayon, you're gonna start coloring a whole new
picture of your life. And when you begin to do
that, it's gonna be uncomfortable at first. And by the way,
some of you have said, Ed, I've done it. And you know
what? Now that I'm listening to you say, I'm back between the
dang lines again. I was Ed, I've done it. And you know what? Now that I'm listening to you say, I'm back between the dang lines again.
I was outside, I had some failures and setbacks
and I ran back within the picture they gave me.
You've got to stop this tendency of running back
within the picture that everybody gave you.
Shrinking your dreams down, shrinking your life down
to fit between these lines.
Some artificial lines that everybody,
some strange, a random person I guess gave you.
But I could tell you this, I don't believe you were created to stay within those lines.
I don't think you yet have any idea what your potential is and your capacity.
But what I can tell you is you begin to expand your capacity and you start really getting
out there.
You'll be surprised how far you can go.
The people that I know that are successful, myself included, if you think I am, for me
to look back now how far I've come, my gosh, it's amazing.
You'd have told me all these different things would happen.
It blows my mind.
But the reason that that happened is I finally started building a habit of I'm not shrinking
to make you comfortable.
And by the way, I'm not going to shrink to make me comfortable.
I've got incredibly comfortable at being uncomfortable.
In fact, this is probably not great to admit, but when I go too long,
just kind of laying around being comfortable, I start to get uncomfortable.
I start to get uncomfortable not doing difficult things.
People ask me all the time, why do you do cold plunges in the morning?
Is it the anti-inflammatory properties?
Is it? No, no, not really.
In fact, there's some data that says the longer you do it,
the less that has an impact.
I don't even know if that's right, but that's why I do it anyway.
The reason that I do it is it's hard.
The reason I do it is it's difficult.
Successful people, happy people do difficult things.
Unhappy people, and I believe unsuccessful people,
have a tendency to not do difficult things.
There's this great story, my firm at one time,
we sponsored Carl Edwards, he was a NASCAR driver,
very successful one for a long time.
And I asked him about driving a NASCAR,
and I'll never forget what he told me. I
said, what's the hardest part? And he goes, well, there's obviously the physical toll that it takes
on you and obviously the mechanics of knowing how to drive the car correctly and all those things
that I don't understand of being a top athlete in any sport. But he said the most difficult part is
when you're driving and there's a crash in front of you and you're doing 150 miles an hour
and all you can see is a smoke cloud. All you can see is a smoke cloud and he said and what you got to do is drive right through that cloud. You got to drive right through it and he goes and it's
scary because you don't know what's on the other side. You could be going headlong into a car that's
already crashed at 150, 180 miles an hour, bam and and you don't know, and you got to drive through
the smoke anyway.
I never thought about that before.
He goes, oh yeah, I mean there's a wreck in front of you and there's ever the smokes everywhere.
He goes, you just got to drive right through it.
And he said, the other thing is when there's an accident, he goes, you know, you're up
against the wall and you're driving.
He goes, your tendency when you're driving, you got you doing 150 or 180 or whatever they
do, the wall's a millimeter away.
He goes, you can't look at the wall because when you look at it, you drive right into it,
you end up gravitating right into it. He said, you got to keep looking ahead, Ed. You can't flinch
when there's an accident in front of you, you can't flinch where there's smoke and you can't see
what's on the other side, you got to drive right through it. And I remember it firing me up thinking,
man, that's life. Man, that's success. Sometimes you can't see where you're going.
You gotta drive right through it,
not knowing what's on the other side.
And have the faith and the confidence.
And when you get to the other side,
you will figure it out.
That there'll be a blessing and a gift,
that you'll be protected.
And that's what I mean by the conformity is cowardice.
It takes courage to go through that smoke cloud.
And then you gotta keep your eye on the prize.
When you're driving 150, 180 miles an hour, an inch away from the wall,
don't look at the wall.
Don't look at the wall.
Look ahead where you're going.
And so many of us in life, even once we get it going, we start looking at the wall.
I know I'm going to crash. I know I'm going to crash.
It's so close.
And we start looking at the things we don't want and we manifest them.
We literally, I believe, thoughts are magnets.
And what you think about most regularly,
you attract to yourself.
I believe that.
I believe it, especially if you do it repetitively.
Especially if I can be candid with you,
and I made this sound outside the lines for you,
but let me just say this, I love being outside the lines.
The more you begin to become successful
and vibrate at a high frequency,
the more you really need to protect your thoughts.
Because when you're vibrating the highest frequency, you tend to draw things to you
even more rapidly and more regularly when you're at that frequency, okay? And so,
it's important that you not look at the wall in your life. That wall is an artificial line in
the coloring book of your life. And when you begin to look at it, you decide to conform or hit it.
But when you look ahead at where you're going,
when you're focused in the present moment,
see, I can tell you this,
the other reason I love to cold plunge
is it's so dad gum cold,
it forces me to be fully present in that moment.
You get into a cold plunge, you can't be worried
about your problems in that moment. You are fully focused
in getting through those three to five minutes or however long you sit in there.
For some of us that are crazy people, it's some of the few
minutes every day we are fully present, right? And I can promise you, if you're doing 150 or 180 into
a smoke cloud, you're not worried about your grocery list at that time. You're going right in
there fully present in the moment and it's the most alive you ever feel in your life.
See, total focus, you'll feel the most alive in your life. If you look back at your life, some of the most chaotic, busy, difficult times
were your happiest. And you may not have realized it at the time, but when you're
in college cramming for finals and I asked you to go back to those days, all
the stress, you had a job and you're going through college, let's say if you
had that, some of the happiest times in your life. Some of you mamas, those days
where you're eight months, your pregnancy and you're, is one of the happiest times in your life. Some of you mamas, those days where you're eight months
of your pregnancy and you're,
this is one of the difficult times in your life,
yet one of the most blessed times in our life.
See, when it's really busy and we feel the most out of control
and we're driving through that smoke cloud,
we're coloring outside those lines when we're the happiest.
And when it's easy and cruise control
and we're just kind of shrinking our life down
to conform like everybody else, it's when we cruise control, and we're just kind of shrinking our life down to conform like everybody else,
it's when we're the most miserable.
That's why there's this thing that's inside of you
right now saying, I'm supposed to be somebody.
I'm supposed to do something great with my life.
I'm not exactly settled where I am right now.
You're not settled right now.
You don't feel settled in your spirit.
You don't feel settled in your spirit
because you know there's more abundant faith for you. You know there's more people to help. You know there's a dream and a life waiting
for you out there even if you're in a great one right now. You've got this sense about you that
there's another place for you to go. There's more people for you to help. There's more people for
you to serve. If you're a believer that you want to serve God's kingdom in the biggest possible way
you can, whatever that thing is for you. And I can tell you I know where that lies and that lies outside the lines.
And so today I hope you decide that you or no one else is ever going to walk through your mind with their dirty feet
and that you've decided that you're not going to conform
and that you're going to do something awesome with your life.
I'm giving you full permission.
In fact, I'm begging you.
Color outside the lines because that's where
all the people that you want to help are waiting for you.
My dear friend that's here today is the co-founder of mastermind.com along with his partner and
friend and my friend, Tony Robbins. Dean Graciosi must be here today. So Dean, welcome to the
show brother.
It's always so good to be here with you.
By the way, that leads me to kind of my first question. We're going to talk about the event
quite a bit. And by the way, guys, you to kind of my first question. We're going to talk about the event quite a bit.
And by the way, guys, you get a chance to have an event with Dean and Tony,
which by the way, I know they're not going to do a lot more of these, you know,
take advantage of it. Um, we'll talk about the event as we go forward,
but these are, if you'd have told me growing up,
I could get access to Dean Graciosi or Tony Robbins and just sign up and I'm
there. I'd be like, are you kidding me? I mean, be something,
be an automatic no brainer. And the reason is, Dean, is my first question. You know, Tony talks a lot about sort
of the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. And when I look at you, I look at
someone who over the years has gotten a lot better at the art form of fulfillment. And so many things
about social media right now
are hustle and grind culture, which you and I,
no two people hustle and grind more than you and I.
But I'm not so sure that they're,
I mean, I think there's a lot of success happening,
but I don't know how much fulfillment's happening
in people's lives.
And so if I had to open up with a question and be,
what would you say to somebody who feels like
they're maybe having some success, but they're not fulfilled?
Ah, what a great question.
And kind of why we're leaning down the road
of the game has changed, because I think it really has,
because success without fulfillment
is probably the biggest failure of them all, right?
I see, you and I do have a lot of history,
and we have a lot of similar backgrounds.
My dad's still alive at 87 years old.
And I watched my dad chase a lot of things in his life.
And at 87, I watch him, he's really sad, deep down.
And I give him love on a regular basis
and take care of him.
But he's sad because he chased success,
even though it didn't really come to him,
but he missed out on fulfillment
He he missed out on being connected my sister and him haven't talked in 20 years
He didn't talk to his brothers and sisters now
I'm not trying to get on a personal note
But I get to witness with a man who's at 87 who's one of the smartest people I've ever met my dad
And I watch when he talks to me and he looks in my eyes and he'll tell me he loves me now
He never told me as a kid, you know old-school tough Italian guy from the East Coast
but he tells me now and his eyes fill up with water and a
Hundred times a hundred percent of the times him and I talk now we're together, you know least every week and
I just watched a life without fulfillment
And I get to be Tony Robbins partner
I get to do this for a living and And I get so many, I see so many people chasing success.
And one of the things I want to share is we're, when you're chasing success,
especially through a career and a career mindset, we're never taught the art of
fulfillment.
We're never taught that we could find something with purpose.
We never taught that we could be passionate about what we do.
We're taught to balance work and play. Work and life, right?
We're supposed to say, you know, shut it off at five o'clock.
How does that work, Ed? Do you walk in the door at five thirty and go,
OK, honey, I'm leaving at the door? No.
And the only reason we're taught that is because most of the time we're taught to do
something we really don't love in a career we really don't like.
And then we're taught to shut it off and be somebody different at home and maybe
watch football on a Sunday and have a couple of Scotches every night to just
numb it rather than work life integration.
I think COVID had a big, uh, shot in the arm of this is people were realizing,
Hey, I'm doing okay financially, but I don't like my life.
I'm not happy.
I'm not fulfilled.
I'm looking around corners.
I see somebody at dinner and they're smiling. I think they got a better life than me because inside I'm not happy. I'm not fulfilled. I'm looking around corners. I see somebody at dinner and they're smiling
I think they got a better life than me because inside I'm miserable
And I think that's I think that's what one of the things you do so well and and I loved
Loved listening to every word of your last book. I mean because I know you so well, like I said
but
Helping people realize when you can find that balance of a career or a business and working on the best version of you
That's where life is and I think that's why Tony and I have been you know screaming from mountaintops
Is this is the time because we don't get a second chance and maybe it's because I'm in my 50s mid 50s
That and Tony's in his mid 60s. It's like we just want to shake people and say don't settle you can have both
you know what the the thing about what you've been doing too,
which is really teaching people
how to take their knowledge and express it,
and they can monetize it,
but they can also serve people when they do it.
And one of the pathways to fulfillment for me,
and you can talk about the event
as you answer this question,
but I'd like you to answer the question directly too,
is that I think if you're not feeling fulfilled, perhaps it's that you're not really becoming the fullest expression
of yourself or the expression of yourself that you want to be.
And I think so many people, maybe they've got a little bit of money, maybe they don't
even have it.
They think, well, if I get the money, I'll feel fulfilled or if I get the relationship,
I'll feel fulfilled.
What I've found is I've gotten older. If I look back at my last 30 years, different things make me happy.
But one of them that almost always delivers fulfillment for me is when I feel that I'm
expressing the versions of myself that are the most beautiful, that are the most proud,
that are the most giving, that are the most generous.
And even the parts of me that I'm the most afraid to express, I find bring me the most fulfillment in my
life.
And I wonder if that lack of fulfillment is correlated to a lack of expression of who
somebody truly is, what they know, what they feel, what they believe, what they value,
what they stand for.
What do you think?
Such a good way to frame it.
I think you're spot on. I want to ask you something. The
American dream. Do you think, I brought that up, we had a team meeting and everybody under
35, we had a meeting with about 12 of us. So I want to ask your opinion on this. I brought
up the American dream. I just brought it up. I said, do you think it still exists? Is it
still alive?
And what does it mean?
And I have to say the people on the team under 35 is like,
oh, no, you know, I don't know if the American dream
that might be controversial.
And people over 50 are like, yeah, that is the thing
our parents and grandparents came to this country for
or worked hard for.
I had never seen something so, you know, opposite.
And by the younger
kids on my team, I say younger kids that are 35, they're like, I don't think you should
bring that up. I was like, wow, is that what we are as a society that we can't talk about
the American dream? Because my definition, I'd love to know yours, Ed, my thought of
the American dream, wherever you live in the world, is living into your full potential. Like knowing you're meant for more, right?
But actually doing something in your power to achieve it.
Right?
And I think, I don't know how that could have gotten
a bad name, maybe I'm blind or naive to it.
But I think what you're saying is like,
a life lived without tapping into that full potential you have
or at least trying I think is the saddest life ever.
And to me it just looks like, hey, fight for it.
Do whatever it takes.
You want to call it the American dream.
You want to say you're living into your full potential, whatever it takes.
I just know if you leave, if you leave gas in the tank at the end of your life, right?
I love, I think I watched you say one time if you had a cell phone at the end of your life, right? I think I watched you say one time, if you had a cell phone at the end of your life and
God played you a video of the man you could have been or the woman you could have been.
Won't that be the most horrific thing on the planet?
And yeah, I do think that's sad.
I got to tell you, the version of the American dream for me, to me, it means freedom.
And that's freedom to express yourself, be yourself.
And if those things, like I have a sister who I think is incredibly fulfilled
Andrea my middle sister, I think all three of my sisters are but my middle sister. I'll tell you about her Dean really quickly
She had lost her vision many years ago. Most people know that she had gone blind. She's diabetic retinopathy
And so she had lost her vision and my sister doesn't make a lot of money. She's a Christian school teacher.
But I think she has a very rich life and a very fulfilled life, particularly now that
she can see again and she can teach again.
And the reason is, is that she chose something that was the fullest expression of her soul,
of her spirit, of what she wanted to be.
And to me, the American dreams got conflated the last few years.
And the reason it's a controversial topic is the American dream now appears to be about wealth affluence, influence, materialism, and we've
made that the dream. And because that looks like the dream through social media and reality shows
and these different things, the controversial part of it is most people believe those things are
reserved for a very select group of people, which in point of fact may have some validity to it. Not everybody's going to be worth a hundred
million dollars. Not everybody's going to fly private. And when we've made that the
prize, it becomes controversial because not everybody thinks they could get that. And
by the way, the truth is not everybody wants that, but everybody wants to live authentically.
Everybody wants freedom to be and express who they are, to create, to build something,
to give something.
To me, that's the American dream.
And I do believe that's alive, but I believe we've conflated what it means.
In other words, if it doesn't pay you five million bucks a year, that's not the dream.
And for some people who are listening to this or watching it, their dream is the material part.
And I think there's a freedom to express it that way as well.
But I think a lot of people feel pressured like,
I don't want all these things everybody else wants,
but I'm supposed to want them.
And now I'm conflicted internally
because I don't truly want all the material things.
And because I don't truly want it,
I'm probably not gonna produce it
because you have to be obsessed
with whatever you want in your life.
And it's not a real obsession to me.
And so to me, what's happened even to me recently is like,
I've been willing to say, you know what?
Those were my other dreams.
I have new dreams now.
I've re-audited my life and what matters to me now.
And it's okay that those things change.
Here's the other thing it's okay for in life, to change your mind. To say, I used to me now. And it's okay that those things change. Here's the other thing it's okay
for in life, to change your mind. To say, I used to believe that, I no longer do. There are things
I used to teach, I don't teach anymore because I've changed. I get it. And so in my mind, yes,
I believe it's alive. I just think the real dream should be the fullest expression of your soul
in your heart. If that dream means you want to live in a cabin in the mountains and explore nature all day long or serve in your church full time
or work in a nonprofit or make a hundred million dollars or teach something like what we're going
to talk about in a minute that you believe is valuable that can improve other people's lives.
Like these are things that I think we need to create a space again in the world that says,
what's your dream? Not your parents, not your sisters, not social medias,
and not even what yours was five years ago. Five years ago. I mean, listen, for me, and I'll shut
up and I'll ask you this, 25 years ago, one of my major dreams would be incredibly wealthy,
to be comfortable, to take care of my family, to be financially independent.
My dream was less to be incredibly wealthy, better said, I didn't want to be poor. I didn't want to, I didn't want to struggle financially. I didn't want to not be there
for my family. Well, now that that's sort of been achieved, it's not really, financial
success is not a major dream of mine. Contribution is.
Here's a clip of Ed Milet appearing on the Heavy Checklist Podcast. Because it seems like a simple statement, right? Like it seems very like, you know, yeah, winning's great.
But what does winning really mean and what is fun?
And I think in your book, you start to dive into,
you watched certain friends and associates go this way
in the pursuit of fun and happiness and success.
And it didn't work out quite how they thought it would.
Well, and so have you.
So I say winning is more fun than fun is fun.
What is winning?
Winning is just reaching your potential
at whatever it is that you're doing, right?
And I've had all kinds of friends in my life
just go for short term stuff.
They wanna go to the club, they wanna go have fun,
they wanna chill out.
And to me, that might sound good for like 15 or 20 minutes,
but to me, winning, reaching my potential.
By the way, winning at having fun,
like maxing out my laughter,
like we were doing before we started here today. Every area of of my life, I do, the reason I wrote the book is really simple.
My dad died.
And when it happened, I learned all these lessons from my dad.
I know a lot about how the brain works.
I know a lot about the spiritual stuff, the physical stuff.
And it occurred to me, man, like I'm next.
Yeah, I don't know when my life ends, but I know I'm the next my let man to go. Yeah. And so I wanted to write a book for my kids and my great grandkids that this is what I know
about being happy and successful. And one of the things I know is that chasing short-term
fleeting fun in every area, even our scriptures all tell us this, the cheap stuff of life,
the cheap things that are easy to get are hollow. And the hard things, I have a chapter in the book
called One More Inconvenience, doing inconvenient,
difficult things that build character
is where real fun is.
And to me it fires me up to know that
because we're in a culture now
that doesn't celebrate that anymore.
We're in a culture that celebrates cheap, short term fun,
whatever you wanna call it.
Well, I think fun and fulfillment are synonymous here. This is the type of fun that we're talking
about. Feeling fulfilled is fun. Going out and partying on the weekend, that may be fun
for a minute, and you might have a great weekend and then whatever else happens after that.
But fulfillment, influence for good, and accomplishing things that other people
haven't accomplished before, that's real fun.
It is real fun.
And the other thing is this, you learn something about yourself.
This may sound really serious for this, but Napoleon Hill says in Think and Grow Rich,
by the way, I love Think and Grow Rich, other than scriptures, it's my favorite book.
But the truth is you don't just think and get rich.
Right. There's stuff you got to do.
So I wanted to write a book about what do you think and what do you do congruently
that produce a result. But one thing I love that he says is he says if you can survive
the temporary, the temporary pain, the temporary issue you're going through, that on the other
side of that pain you get introduced to your other self. And that other self produces another
life which is more fun. And so for me me, no matter who's listening to this right now
or watching it, listen, you might be going through
something temporary right now, okay?
It's painful, it's difficult, you're having a setback,
you're not on your A game right now.
Everything in life is temporary.
Being, other than our souls, being with my dad,
I was literally holding my father's hand
when he took his last breath.
And it occurred to me even in those moments, like,
wow, even our bodies are temporary. Nothing you're going through is permanent. Yeah most people
start making permanent decisions in temporary conditions in their lives
because they don't have the tools, the thoughts and the actions to take and I'm
like I need to write a book. You know humans need to know these things.