THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Unlock Your Potential by Removing Subconscious Patterns for Success

Episode Date: March 1, 2025

Are You Running on Autopilot? Break the Patterns Holding You Back! So many of us are stuck in cycles—repeating the same thoughts, behaviors, and reactions without even realizing it. What if you could identify the subconscious patterns that are limiting your success and replace them with ones that propel you forward? In this mashup, I sit down with some of the most accomplished minds in personal development, business, and sports—Tony Robbins, Brendon Burchard, Stephen A. Smith, and Mark "The Undertaker" Calaway—to uncover the habits and mindsets that separate the elite from the average. Tony Robbins shares how gratitude destroys fear and anger, and why shifting your physiology can instantly change your state. Brendon Burchard breaks down the difference between automatic habits and deliberate habits, revealing why true high performance requires intention, not just repetition. Stephen A. Smith explains why mastering your business and knowing your worth removes emotion from negotiation, making success a data-driven game. And Mark "The Undertaker" Calaway reflects on self-criticism, discipline, and how he stayed on top for decades by constantly evaluating his own performance. The key takeaway? Success isn’t about talent alone—it’s about the patterns you run every single day. Are your habits serving you, or are they keeping you stuck? The most successful people in the world aren’t waiting for motivation or luck; they’re choosing their emotions, training their minds, and installing new, empowering patterns in their lives. What You'll Learn in This Episode: ✅ The hidden subconscious patterns running your life—good and bad ✅ How to break free from worry, self-doubt, and limiting beliefs ✅ Why your physiology directly impacts your mindset and performance ✅ The role of deliberate habits in reaching the top 5% of performers ✅ How to detach emotions from success and make data-driven decisions ✅ Why constant self-evaluation is the key to sustained greatness You are NOT your patterns—but your life is the result of them. The good news? You have the power to change them right now. If today’s episode gave you an "aha" moment, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Let’s rewrite the program and create a life of intention, joy, and unstoppable success. Thank you for watching this video—Please Share it and get the word out! What part of this video resonated with you the most? Comment below! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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You're going to get a free tuition free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also. So go to growthday.com forward slash Ed that's growthday.com forward slash Ed. I've got this condition where I don't feel pain. You're a superhero. This is how intense Nova Kane sounds. Oh, wow.

Imagine how it looks. Is there more? Yeah, big time. Nova Kane, forming theaters March 14th. This is the Ed Mylet Show. Hey everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylet Show on Apple and Spotify.

Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Today we're going to talk about patterns. Yes, every human being almost runs like a software program in their mind and they run these patterns of behavior, patterns of thoughts, patterns of words, patterns of performance. And most of these patterns run in our lives without us being conscious of them. And they steal from us our ability to be happier, to be more joyful, to produce at the highest

levels, to engage with people the right way. And they create for us oftentimes in a life a disconnect between what our beliefs are and actually how we behave. We call that cognitive dissonance oftentimes where we believe one thing but we often behave differently and that's because sometimes our patterns can even override our thoughts and oftentimes in life if we can just become conscious that we do have these patterns we begin to evaluate them and be aware of them we can identify them when they rear their head and we can overcome them. We can create new patterns that serve us and so the first thing I'm here to tell you today is that you do run a series of patterns in your life. You have a

pattern of behavior, you have a pattern of producing results. There's certain stimulus that cause these patterns to happen for you and unless you begin to evaluate them and be aware of them when they happen, these patterns begin to really take control of our lives. For some of you, even as I say this, you're nodding your head in awareness, you're sort of aware. I fall into these patterns of when something happens, I begin to think a certain way, it creates another thought and another behavior, and I find myself running this same story again.

Or if I get into a disagreement with somebody, a pattern kicks in. Or if I have a failure, a pattern kicks in. If I have a success, a pattern kicks in. And so, if we can become aware of these things, it's a breakthrough in our lives. I think today could be one of the more powerful programs I've ever brought to you.

It's just becoming aware of what some of these patterns are. Now before we get into those, I wanna talk a little bit about what you really want. Often in life, just choosing the emotions we want. We've talked in a lot of my programs about the caliber of our life has everything to do with the caliber of the emotions we experience on a regular level. We are our emotions and so the first thing I'd ask you to do is to start to use the power of choice in your

life. Yes you get to choose your life, you get to choose how you feel, not other people. There's these illusions in life. We really can't control anything other than our own thoughts, our own behavior, our own patterns. really can't control anything other than our own thoughts, our own behavior, our own patterns. We can't control what other people do, say or think. And it's this illusion of control, oftentimes, that we can somehow manipulate other people or manipulate situations that cause us

to fall into these patterns. But what we do have the power of in life is we have the power to choose. And I say this to you because I'm somebody just like you. I struggle with the different patterns I have. Some of them serve me, some of them don't. I sometimes engage in thoughts that don't create the right emotions for me that don't serve me.

I know what it's like to be frustrated and angry and depressed and down and lost and fearful and worried. Worry is a big one for me. I love to fall into the pattern of worry when certain circumstances begin to happen. It creates a trigger and a pattern in me and man do I love to worry. And so I give you these tools and resources because these are things I too struggle with. I've been able to overcome them by just being aware and choosing. And so the first

thing is the power of choice. Finish this sentence for me. I choose to be blissful rather than blank. I choose to be blissful rather than blank. What would your answer be? One of the emotions I challenge you to experience more of in life is bliss. We are the calibration of maybe the five emotions we experience on a regular basis and so if you're experiencing depression, frustration, worry, fear, anxiety, pain on a

regular basis you're gonna have one life. If you're experiencing bliss and fulfillment and ecstasy and joy in your life and contribution, recognition and significance, if you're experiencing love, you experience those emotions, you have a totally totally different life We have the power to choose which emotions we want to experience and so I love the emotion of bliss I love the word bliss as you know, I have an audio that's out called blissful dissatisfaction That's a critically acclaimed and a highly downloaded audio and video on being both blissfully dissatisfied audio and video on being both blissfully dissatisfied, dissatisfied, desiring for more, but in a current state of bliss. I love the word bliss because of its definition.

Its definition in Webster's is perfect happiness or joy. I love that. Webster's also says some of the synonyms for bliss are joy, pleasure, ecstasy, delight, happiness, euphoria, heaven, paradise, cloud nine, utopia, Eden. These are all synonyms for the word bliss. I like how all of those sound. Those are the noun versions in the dictionary of bliss. The verb, the action of being blissful according to the dictionary is to reach a state of perfect happiness typically as to be oblivious to everything else. Wouldn't

that be amazing? To be in perfect happiness and be oblivious to everything else. That's the verb or the action of being blissful. And the antonym according to Webster's to bliss is misery. And the last thing we want to be is feeling misery. So it's the antithesis of misery. So I choose to be blissful rather than what. What if you could choose every day to be blissful? But oftentimes we don't choose to be blissful because we choose to be right. We choose to win. We choose to be significant. We choose to be in control. We make choices to try to experience other emotions. And by the way, all of these other emotions are typically outside of our control. Winning is outside of our control.

Dominating is outside of our control. All of these things are something we can't control and we choose them over bliss. But what if you just made a conscious decision right now? I choose bliss. I choose to be blissful rather than blank. And it's being aware of the other things you choose so that you can be conscious. When you go to choose those things, you go for bliss instead. And by the way, not making a choice is a choice. A non-decision is a decision. If you don't choose consciously to begin to experience the emotions you want, okay, for me bliss is very important, joy is very important, peace is very

important, contribution is very important, connection is very important. What are the five emotions that if you could choose them you'd experience on a regular basis? Just take an inventory of that. You don't have to be perfect, they may change, there may be eight, but what are five ones right now? Say them out loud to yourself. What are the five ones you'd want? Is it love? Is it ecstasy, is it joy, is it passion? Is it intensity, is it focus? Is it peace, is it faith? What are the emotions you would choose?

If you could choose five emotions and begin to tell yourself, I choose to feel blank rather than this. And when you just begin to become conscious of that choice, you've already moved ahead of 99.9% of the world who just responds and reacts and goes into pattern mode all the time. So just choosing gives you an advantage.

And by the way, once again, not choosing is a choice. You've decided to go into your pattern. You've decided to let other people dictate to you your emotions. You've decided you have no control over your life by not choosing. So choose. I'd rather be blissful than blank. I'd rather be joyful than blank. I'd rather have ecstasy than blank. What do you choose rather than? So now let's discuss these patterns for a second. Why do we have these patterns? You have patterns because they serve you. There's a payoff to every pattern. And by the way, you say, well no, because you know one of my patterns is I slip into worry and then I'm completely unhappy.

How's that a payoff for me? It's a payoff for you because it's predictable. It's become your home. And so you don't have any pattern that doesn't give you a payoff. Well no, because when things don't go my way, I become combative, I become argumentative, that's my pattern, then I get in a disagreement in my relationship, and then I say things I don't mean. How's there a payoff there for me? There's a payoff because it gets you what you want.

Even though you don't know it, it gets you out of the conversation. It gets you maybe to avoid your own responsibility. It gives you the disconnect that somehow you're more comfortable with than dealing with the problem. But I promise you, every pattern you have, both healthy and unhealthy, you have them because there's a payoff for you. So the key to a happier life, the key to a more successful life, is to evaluate our patterns and when we see them happening, begin to step outside of them and create new ones that serve us.

And so what are some of the patterns you have, for example, that don't serve you? So for example, when a difficult situation arises, what is your pattern? What pattern mode do you go into? Do you become more resourceful, more focused, or do you become more fearful, worried, and you begin to make excuses?

When you get into a disagreement with a loved one, what is your pattern typically? Do you become more combative? Do you listen less and talk more? Does the pattern begin, you understand what I'm saying. Do you begin to run this program that you run in such a way that it puts you in a state you don't wanna be in?

When adversity strikes, when someone puts you down, when there's a hater, what pattern mode do you typically kick into? Do you start to repeat other negative thoughts? Do you replay videos in your mind of other people who have also said negative things to you in the past? Or other thoughts you have about yourself that are lonesome and you begin to stack these thoughts? Oftentimes, one person says something to us negative and it creates this pattern we run doesn't it? When we begin to think of another embarrassing moment, another person who saw something negative, we begin to

create other negative thoughts about ourselves to stack it and you say how's there a payoff for me in that? Because it's what you're used to. It pays you off by reassuring you you're right you're a loser, you're right you're not gonna win. There's a payoff because guess what? Now you don't have to do the real work because you were never won anyway because you're this terribly unprepared person.

So that's your payoff. And so you have these patterns, don't you? Now some people, their pattern kicks into winning. When someone puts them down, they start to buck up. They start to get resourceful. They start to feed themselves positive thoughts. they're aware of it that's there and they begin to go into a hyperproductive positive emotion mode. Yes they do, believe it or not. When adversity strikes for some people, they go into a fearful mode,

they begin to think about all the things that could go worse and worse and worse and they depress themselves and that pattern creates the very situations you fear. The same is true when we're successful. Sometimes some people when they become successful, they go into a pattern when they begin to sabotage themselves and slow down and stop the behaviors that got them there. They begin to believe their own press clippings, that they've arrived, they don't have to do the work they used to do. Maybe they begin to fall into patterns where they get their relationships out of sorts

and that's their pattern. Life starts to go well in business, my pattern is every time life goes well in business, I start having issues in my personal life. And they sabotage the business success with their personal life. And that's a pattern they run. If it's happened more than once to you, it's not coincidental, it's a pattern. In my fitness life, you may say, every time I start to get super fit, it seems, then I get ill, then I don't go to the gym for a week, then I start eating poorly, and I'm

back to where I was. If it's happened more than once, it's a pattern, right? And so begin to evaluate these patterns you have that don't serve you, and simply begin to choose to create new patterns, more empowering patterns. Patterns that give you the emotions and the results you want to have in your life. You will be amazed at how many patterns you have. Your response to adversity, fear, success, mediocrity, criticism, strife in a relationship, your nutrition, your faith, all of the different patterns you run.

There is such power in beginning to separate and identify these patterns when they begin to repeat. Even as I'm saying it, I can feel you nodding your head. My gosh, I do have a pattern when I'm successful. Every time I climb up a little bit, I start this pattern where I sabotage or I start to believe too much or my relationships go sideways. Every time I start up a little bit, I start this pattern where I sabotage or I start to believe too much or my relationships go sideways.

Every time I start to get more fit, I somehow get ill or I somehow miss a day at the gym or that's the day my car breaks down. Every time I have a pattern where I accumulate more money, I fall into this pattern where I save, save, save, and then I spend it all on something I shouldn't. Or then I do something with money I shouldn't have. Or it seems like every time, then a repair comes up or something with my kids.

You're falling into these patterns. There's massive power in beginning to understand that's not who you are. I've done enough training with you. If you haven't listened to my previous work, please go back and listen to it. You are not your possessions. You are not your accomplishments. You are not what other people say you are. You are not what you look like and guess what else you're not, you are not your patterns but your life becomes a combination and a result of your patterns. The great thing about us is that we can change these patterns if we identify them. The pattern has no power over you once you know it's a program and a pattern running. The minute

you start you go Mike I'm doing it again, aren't I? I'm doing this thing I do every time I accumulate money. I'm doing the same thing every time me and my spouse get in a disagreement. I'm doing the same thing every time I'm starting to feel loved by somebody and I push them away. Every time things start to go bad financially, I spiral. Every time there's adversity, I do the same pattern

where I start worrying. Every time I get fit, I do the same pattern. When you begin to see these things you begin to go, my gosh, this isn't who I am. That's not your identity. There's a difference between your identity and your pattern. And the more you begin to build your identity, as I've talked about my other audios, and be aware of patterns, and then simply ask yourself, when this comes up again in the future, what pattern would serve me? What pattern can I take control of?

What would be the steps I need to take that will create the bliss I want, or the win I want, or the production I want? What would the pattern need to be? The pattern immediately, by the way, stops when you identify it. The pattern only hurts you when it runs unconsciously. The pattern loses all its power over you once you see it.

It's gone. It can't continue to run once you're aware of it because all of a sudden you're like, I know what I'm doing, here I go, and you can begin to identify it and make a shift. So this is so critical. Start to ask yourself, am I running one of these patterns? What are some of the ones I typically do that serve me?

And what are the ones that don't serve me? And what we do in our life is we compare too much. And so remember this, you're working on your identity, okay? Everybody wears what I would call like a mask, a public mask or even a social mask. It's the person they present themselves to be. You do it too, I do it as well. It's the person everybody thinks we are and so it's the person we reveal to the public. It's not whom we really are, it's not our real thoughts, our real behaviors, our real hope. Everybody wears this public mask or this social mask

I call it where they're, it's who they want everybody to think they are. It's the best put version of themselves. And if you're not careful, you begin to compare your own real identity with other people's public mask. And this begins to create a pattern for you. Don't compare yourself. Most of the people you see on social media, or even in your personal life,

or even when you go to lunch with them, or see them at work, they're wearing what I would call a public mask. It's the best possible version that they can put out to themselves and oftentimes what we do in life is we compare our real identity that we're working on and we're growing to their mask and that's not fair to ourselves at all. Any comparison doesn't serve us and it's oftentimes this comparison when you're in a

disagreement with somebody. It's the mask they're wearing compared to the identity you have and then you begin to run a pattern to respond to it It happens in in fitness in relationships in money and in business Remember you're in charge of controlling your own identity and growing your own identity and being aware of the patterns You have that do and do not serve you not comparing yourself to someone else's public Representative it's just the representative they're putting out there. It's not who they really are and it's not something that you need to be aware of because it's not something you can control. The more you can begin to delineate in life between things I can control and I cannot control would be to the extent that you're

more productive and you're happier. You can control your own thoughts, your own emotions, your own identity and your own patterns, not other peoples. So speaking of these payoffs we talked about earlier, how can you begin to get the payoff you want from the new empowering pattern? And so a couple questions I want you to ask yourself today because we do want more bliss. Since that's my word, I'm assuming you want more bliss after you've heard all the synonyms, and I know you want the antithesis to misery. So assuming you want more bliss in your life, decide to have it and take some actions towards getting it.

So let me ask you a question. What are you doing currently to create more bliss in your life? What are the actions you're taking to give yourself more bliss? You are intentionally seeking more bliss because bliss is gonna lead to more wealth, more abundance, more fitness, more faith, better

relationships, more happiness, more peace, more wins, more success, more recognition, more significance. So what are you consciously doing now that you've chosen bliss? What is the consistent action you're taking to create more in your life? What are you doing to give yourself bliss? Is it acknowledging victories you have? Is it giving gifts to other people of your belief and your hope? Is it lifting other people up? Is it taking a bath, getting a massage, taking a walk, going for a workout, winning, achieving, knocking goals off your list? What are the things you're doing to create bliss in your own life, number one? Number two question I have for you. What are you doing doing to create bliss in your own life, number one. Number two question I have for you,

what are you doing to intentionally create bliss in the lives of the people that you care about? Because this is the pathway to getting more of it ourselves. The more we begin to give other people bliss, the more we begin to consciously make choices that give bliss to other people in their lives, the more we begin to experience it in abundance ourselves. So what are you doing to help other people win, other people contribute, other people

get significance and recognition, other people have more peace and ecstasy and joy and passion in their lives. Because once you begin to create it for other people, when you're intentional about it, you'll have more of it yourself. These are the patterns that I'd like to see kick in for you. That when they kick in, you begin to run a pattern in a program that leads you to bliss, leads you to a win, leads you to increase and also leads to it with someone in your life. That if you do have a conflict with somebody that you run a pattern that eventually leads, maybe it's

understanding them, maybe it's confronting them, maybe it's talking about it. It's not always when you're in a disagreement that you lead to a win, that you must win this, that you must overcome the fact that they think this of you. What if you were consciously choosing, every time you got into a disagreement with your spouse, this will eventually lead to more bliss? At least that was your outcome. Now the steps you take,

it's probably gonna be ugly in the beginning, you're probably gonna have to some understanding, you may not even agree on everything. But if your intention is that it leads to bliss rather than you winning, rather than you controlling them, rather than you making it go away, rather than you running a pattern. If when you're beginning to succeed in business, if your outcome is more bliss, more winning, you'll run a pattern that does more of that. If in your fitness you're getting fit past

where you've ever been before and you're making a conscious decision, how can get more bliss out of my fitness rather than running this other pattern of sabotage? Let's see the circumstances may be the same there may be some ugly patches But you're now consciously choosing to run a program and a pattern that leads you to bliss to victory To the win to fulfillment whatever the emotion is you choose, just making that choice gets you there, gets you closer to it, makes it an outcome. We are not as human beings doing enough conscious choosing of what we want in our lives. So what are you doing to create bliss in your own life? What are you doing to create bliss in other people's lives? And how blissful are you to be around? Just ask yourself that too. how blissful are you to be around? Just ask yourself that too.

How blissful am I to be around? How joyful am I to be around? How much are people winning when they're around me? Whatever the emotion is you choose. How much of that do people experience when they're around me? People are great now because there's all this stuff in personal development about choosing to win, choosing your outcome, choosing your schedule, choosing your habits. I'm the master of teaching this. Go back through my content. Nobody puts out more specific content

in teaching people the tools of how to choose the right habits, the right rituals, the right thinking, programming your brain. I do that at a level far beyond anybody out there. I'm not one of these influencers who just repeats mindless memes all the time, or I don't repeat the same sayings over and over again. I don't just tell you very basic things

you could read in any book or go to any seminar. I go very deep, very tactical, very strategic, but having said all of that, no one's talking about choosing the intentional emotion we want, which is why we do all this stuff in the first place, so that when the stimulus happens, the win or we want, which is why we do all this stuff in the first place. So that when the stimulus happens, the win or the loss, the adversity or the success,

the disagreement or the tragedy, consciously choosing in that moment to chase bliss anyway, that it may be a while till I get to it, but this pattern I'm going to run, the choices I will make, the decisions I choose, even though there may be some bumps between there, the end result is going to be more bliss. Choosing that emotion as your outcome and remember not choosing it is a choice. You've chosen to let an unconscious pattern run and you know

where that's gotten you. It's gotten to where you are right now listening to this. Whatever it is, good, bad, or indifferent in your life, your current level of happiness, of joy, of success, of fulfillment is exactly what you think you deserve. It's exactly what you think you're worth. It's a hard thing to accept, but in our lives, we are getting out of our life right now exactly what we believe we're worthy of, exactly what we think we deserve. Our life is a direct reflection of our identity which is the thoughts, concepts, beliefs, values, and worth we hold true to be about ourselves. And so as hard as it is to accept we're getting out of life right now what we

believe we're worth and we believe we're worth it because of these patterns and our identity and our lack of choosing to have what we want. Not just the material things, not just the body fat, not just the body weight, not just the amount of money, not just having the relationship, but choosing the emotion we want. The level above all this stuff I discuss

and the level way down here where the people just cover the basic stuff, then there's what I've been covering. The highest level is to choose the emotions we want to experience and to begin to run patterns that serve us and eliminate the ones who move us further from them. The final thing I want you to ask yourself today is we're talking a lot about these choices. I want you to evaluate for a second what these patterns are you're running and when they begin to rear their head, just identify them and begin to make decisions and choices that create a new pattern.

It's as simple as it is. It's not that complicated. You fall into these patterns because there's a payoff. So as long as you begin to identify it when it's happening and you begin to create a new pattern that leads you to the choice you've chosen, which is the emotion you want. See, because these patterns you run that don't get you there, the minute you choose the emotion you want, you're conscious about it and intentional, you can't run this pattern once you identify it.

And the power of choice is critical in our lives. I want you to think about something right now. What are five of the most important choices you've made in your life? Just think about that for a second. Begin to list them off in your head. Five of the most important choices you've made in your life. Maybe it was a decision to get involved in a particular business or to leave a particular business.

Maybe it was a decision to get involved with a particular person or to become uninvolved with a particular person. Maybe it was a friend that you chose to walk across the room and meet and it changed your life. Maybe it was a friend that you had to walk away from in order to improve your life. What are the five most important choices of your life? Just think about them for a second. And if you altered those five choices, good, bad, or indifferent, how different would your life be today? Because I'm a believer that there's everyday choices we make that when you stack them up, they make a massive difference in our life. But I'm also a believer that there are between five and ten,

a handful of moments in everybody's life, that if we make the proper choices in those moments, the complete trajectory of our life changes. And I think as you just asked yourself that question, you may say, there haven't been five, there's been two. What were they? complete trajectory of our life changes. And I think as you just asked yourself that question, you may say, there haven't been five, there's been two. What were they? And how'd they alter the direction of your life?

Good, bad, or indifferent. A lady that picked me up a few weeks ago, an Uber driver, wonderful woman, but she was an older lady, and it was late at night when she picked me up, and I asked her why she was doing what she was doing. It wasn't that she was driving for Uber because that's a choice and I have a lot of friends that do it, that love it, it's extra money, they've done it in retirement, but I just had a sense that maybe she hadn't chosen it because she was

complaining about her back and that she had had back surgery. I thought that's an interesting choice to be driving at 11 o'clock at night and her back was sore and she shared with me that she had chosen to leave a spouse earlier in her life that she wished she'd stayed with. And that it was a choice that altered the whole direction of her life. And I said, well, how did it alter

the direction of your life? And she says, well, my ex, I moved away from my ex and my son wasn't around his father very much. And she said, I had no idea how that choice would impact him, but she said the reason that I'm driving here and I moved is I lost my home. And I lost my home because my 18 year old son one night chose to have a couple drinks and he had had three drinks at our house and I was at work and my son chose to take the car out of the driveway and he chose to drive and two blocks from our house he hit a

family and killed somebody while drinking and driving. My son was a good boy he had always got good grades and he made the choice to do that that night and he's in prison he's serving eight years in. And I lost my home over the legal expenses, and we've moved to Las Vegas, and now I drive an Uber because that's what I've got to do just to support my family. And it made me think, you know, she said, the choice to leave my husband really affected my son.

And I thought, yeah, the choice your son made really affected his life. Those were two life choices that both of them made that altered the direction of both of their lives. His choice, that good boy made one choice that altered the direction of his life. And I think if you evaluate, there may not be something that dramatic,

but there's been probably five choices if you're my age, if you're in your 40s. It's probably been five major choices of your life. Maybe it's who you decided to marry or not marry, a relationship you got in or out of, a business you started or didn't start, something you left or began, a friend, a house you bought or didn't buy,

an investment you did or didn't make, a decision you made in your fitness one way or the other. Maybe it's stopping using alcohol or using too much alcohol. The first time you tried a drug that you're now addicted to. I don't know what those choices are. But those handful of choices alter the direction of your life. And I want you to begin to become conscious of choosing the emotions you want because

they will alter the choices you make every single day in the small choices. They will also alter the decisions you make on the five big ones in your life. If you're very clear about the emotions you want to experience, if you're very clear on the person you are as you build your identity, if you have those two things wired, I'm clear about the emotions I want to experience, and I'm clear about who I am and my identity

and my worth and what I'm worthy of and what I deserve, they will guide you in making the right choices in the small ones and the big ones. They will guide you towards the right patterns. The answer to changing these patterns, the answer to making the right choices is perfect and specific clarity on the emotions we want to have in our life on a regular basis and on who we are and our identity so that we produce the lives we believe we deserve that we're worthy of. They will be your compass in making the small and big choices. They will help guide the patterns. If you're somebody who's

addicted to being blissful and happy and you begin to run a pattern and program that you know doesn't lead you there, it sort of blows it up. It's like a virus in the program. You'll be aware and you can't run it. You begin to choose to create new patterns. If you've got an identity of somebody who's worthy of great relationships and abundance and success and peace and fitness and health and all of the great things, if that's your identity, you won't be able to run patterns that lead you

in this place on a regular basis. There is something called cognitive dissonance which is when we begin to behave in a way that's not consistent with our thoughts. And the antidote to that is both of these things combined. It's the ability to begin to choose consciously the emotions we want, combined with our identity. When you're conscious of choosing the emotions

you want to experience, and you're completely conscious of choosing who you are and what you're worthy of deserving, you have to act in congruence with both of those combined. One missing from the other can cause us to make poor choices. Both of them missing is a choice not to choose and will lead us into pain and mediocrity, worry, fear and all the emotions we don't want. Having one of them in place will guide you to a decent destination. But when you have both combined,

the identity and the choosing, the conscious intentions for the emotions you want, you begin to have great choices being made in your life on a very regular basis. Not every day, not every time, not every moment, but enough of the time where you make progress towards your dreams. Progress towards the man or woman

you're capable of becoming. And when you have the combination of these two things, these patterns begin to change. We begin to replace them. So I'd ask yourself today, what are the patterns you're running that don't serve you? Begin to be aware of those patterns. Know who your real identity is.

Get conscious of choosing bliss over blank. See those patterns when they're happening. Interrupt them. Continue to work on your identity. These two things combined I think are the critical components to making the decisions and the choices in our life. So when we look back, I don't want you to end up in your 80s or 90s and regret the choices you made. I want you to go back, I put it through what I call the rocking chair test, that someday for all of you who I love so much, who I believe in so much, I want that rocking chair test for you, for you to pass it. And that is, I'm proud of the choices I made. My life wasn't perfect,

I made some mistakes, but I chose the emotions I wanted. I worked on my identity, I created patterns that empowered me and the people around me. And you know what, by and large, I'm proud of the choices I made in my life. I'm proud of the man or woman I've become. That's how we know we've had a great life. I don't want you to be in that rocking chair someday and regret the choices you made.

Regret the patterns you ran and that you just unconsciously went through your life without choosing the direction of it, choosing the decisions, choosing the emotions, choosing to be the man or woman you're worthy of, choosing the life you deserve. The final piece of the puzzle today is, what are the three to five choices you must make

in order to create the life you want? Right now, what are the choices you must make? The big ones, the people that need to be in your life or out of your life, the patterns you will no longer run again, the choice perhaps to work on your identity like you never have before. Evaluate what the three to five decisions are you've made so far in your life that have taken you a certain direction or what are the three to five you need to make in order to change your life and take it in the direction you want. These patterns will lose their

power over you. Your identity and your conscious choice will begin to take charge and I know you're gonna have more happiness and produce more results and have a much better life. And that's what I wish for you. So I have a funny feeling that today impacted you on a deep level because we all have these patterns we need to look at. We all need to consciously choose the emotions we want and I have a feeling that it made a difference in your life. If I'm right about it, please share the program. It's free. All right, pants I'm wearing, pretty comfy, fit me really well. Can't show you quite on the camera here and if you're on audio wouldn't matter anyway. Guess

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slash US slash Sport. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, 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. If you listen to this show, you listen to this show because you want to have an happier, more fulfilling,

more successful life, more than likely. And I have as a guest here today for the third time on my show, I'm so honored. The living of all the living people on the planet, the person who's helped the most people do that. And I'm honored to call him a friend. So welcome back. We're going to do that together today. Mr. Tony Robbins. Welcome back to the show. Thanks, brother. Good to see you, Ed. I want to go to something you said, use the word imagination earlier. And in my book I wrote about this. I'm just curious as to, I don't want this to be Pollyanna either because I know you and I are both very

tactical and strategic, but I want to go to that for a minute. So I have this theory that, you know, I think children are happier than adults for the most part, cause they operate out of imagination, vision, dreams. That's their prism. And at some age, it could even be very young for, if you go through childhood trauma or whatever it might be, but at some age, almost all people, 99%, start to operate out of history and memory.

And that's sort of their filter or their pattern of their life. It's history and memory. And I am asked often, how do I break that pattern? I think this all begins when you have fear, you go to history and memory and then they're telling you what to believe. How does one begin to operate out of their imagination? Imagine new skills, imagine a new life, uncover their version

of their own genius. How does somebody do that? Tony, what's a skill or a strategy that you would recommend to somebody says, I need to flip from this history and memory, these patterns I have to creating new ones. And I think that starts in your imagination. How does somebody do that? You have to shift your physiology first. If you try to paint a compelling future, why are people depressed?

One of the main reasons people are depressed is they don't have a compelling future. In other words, you can deal with any tough today if you have a compelling tomorrow. Anybody can do that. But today people think, oh my God, I can't go outside. Oh my God, all my choices are taken away. Oh my God, we're all gonna die in 12 years

because of an environmental crisis, which is total bullshit. But there are people that have been taught this and there are kids today that are saying, I'm not gonna have children because this is the world I'm entered into because they have no compelling future. But if you try to paint a compelling future

when a person is in a lowered energy state, it won't work. They'll just reject it because in a lowered state, your brain goes into survival mechanisms and the survival mechanism you're always looking for what's wrong. What do I have to fight or what I have to fly from or what I have to freeze and hope it don't hurt us? That's the part of your brain that's two million years old and it's well wired, but we don't have a saber-toothed tiger to deal with. So now we worry about what people say to us, or will we have enough money or what's somebody's going to write about you in social media? And we have a similar reaction. The way you overcome that is the way you drive your nervous system. So I'll

give you an example. When I was at my worst, and I was in a place where I gained 38 pounds and I was feeling sorry for myself, and I come home one night, literally, I ran out of gas on Pacific Coast Highway in Venice. I had a little apartment down there and I didn't run out of gas because, you know, I forgot to fill the tank. I literally had no money. I pulled over, locked the car and prayed it didn't get towed because it's towed me 50 bucks. I didn't have 50 bucks.

And then I walked a couple of miles home and I lived there on Pacific Avenue, 2516 Pacific Avenue, part and three, if you ever want to go by, I did recently. It's getting funny. But anyway, I walk up the stairs, there's a sun setting and there's a note typed and stapled on my door. And I don't know if you've ever had the joy of having one of these experiences in your youth, but it basically says you've not paid your rent, remove yourself and your things. If you don't pay within three days, the sheriff will take your stuff and you

will lose everything right. So I open the door, I go into this place and I lit a candle. And I didn't light it because I was spiritual, I lit it because I also not paid my electric bill. It's a true story. I'm reading by candlelight my eviction notice is how low I gotten. And then if that wasn't enough, I get this banging on the door and I got three locks because I haven't paid anybody right. I'm looking through and it's a friend I'm not seeing in a couple years. And I got and then if that wasn't enough I get this banging on the door and I got three locks because I Haven't paid anybody right I'm looking through and it's a friend I'm not seen in a couple years and I got a beer belly on me

I've grown out, you know this shaggy little beard and I just in the worst shape Open the door partial. What do you want? He's like Tony? It's me, you know, I let him in he goes in my house Which is this little four to square foot bachelor apartment. You can't even turn around I'm cooking on a hot plate on the trash can. I'm washing my dishes in the bathtub. And so after he left, I was so humiliated. The whole thing, it's just like, I got to do something. I didn't know what I was doing then,

but now I understand what I did. I hit rock bottom and it's like, who I am is more than what I'm living spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically. So I'm old enough to have had a Walkman. I think you might've had one at one time. Absolutely. And you gotta really love your music in those days, right? Because you had one cassette in there. So I took this group called Heart and I put in this song called Bear Kuday.

I said, I'm gonna run this beach till I spit up blood. I'm just, and I did, I ran as hard as I could. And when I thought I couldn't do anymore, I ran harder. And I got to the end of it. And I had left this journal on the ground. I drew a line down the middle. I wrote everything on that list that I really hated that was in my life, which was most of my life. And then everything I was committed to changing. And I didn't have all the skills and tools I had today, but I had changed the ignition. It's like you got the greatest computer in the world. There's not enough electricity.

Your screen's going to be messed up. Without that energy change, you're really not going to make the change. That's why everyone who comes to one of my seminars, you know, it's a physical experience. You're not sitting on your ass for, you know, 12 hours. You're going 12 hours a day for three or four days. Now people are at home in a hundred countries and they're going full tilt like they're in a stadium for full time. And all of a sudden their energy changes. Well, in that place, now we can start to create this compelling future. Now we can start to make the end.

Your nervous system says, I'm ready. Stanford did a study. They came to me during the pandemic. That's fascinating. They said, Tony, we had two people go through your date with Destiny, a little six-day seminar I do. And they said they are both clinically depressed and they have no symptoms of depression.

We never seen anything like it. What data you have on this? I said, well, I have thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of testimonials. You go, no, but like scientific data, I said, that's not my focus. They said, do you mind if we did a study? And then they showed me something fascinating. 40% of the people that get treatment for depression, and by the way, depression has gone through the roof since COVID and since all those limitations, I know, you know, suicide's gone through the roof and it's horrific, but only 40% get better through treatment of drugs and therapy, right? SSRIs, you know, Prozac, Zoloft, all these things,

right? 60% don't get announced better. Of the 40% that get better on average across the meta studies, they finally get about 50% better. They're half as depressed as they were. Now, some people get totally better, some not at all, but that's the average. I said, that's not much better than a placebo. They said, you're right. I said, well, what's the best you've ever seen? They said, two years ago, Johns Hopkins did a study where they took people for 30 days of psilocybin,

magic mushrooms, and therapy for 30 straight days. They got results that were four times greater than they'd ever seen in history. 53% of the people 30 days later had no symptoms. Never seen anything like it, but psilocybin's illegal. It's not really duplicatable. So they said, what if we modeled their study? We'll use the exact same criteria,

but we'll have you with no drugs and have your people go through the seminar. We'll send people in that are clinically depressed and so forth. And so they did it. And the study with the results were so profound, they sent the data out to two different organizations blinded to get the data back because they wanted to make sure it was accurate before they reported it. 100% of the people 30 days later after date with destiny had no symptoms

of depression. But even better 19% of those people had suicidal ideation none had suicidal ideation 11 months later 11 months after one week They changed so much their negative emotions had dropped 72% their positive emotions up 51% And now this last week two weeks ago I did another date with destiny and they did a study with 750 people with the largest study of its type But why does it work? Because we're not only helping people shift the way they perceive the world,

like you don't experience life, you experience the life you focus on. If you're focused on things that piss you off, you have to be deleting the things you could be grateful for. If you're grateful, you're deleting things that could piss you off, right? So by changing their beliefs and values, they do this, not me, there's a huge shift,

but it's also the biochemical change. So they track my body for three years and they found crazy shit. Like, you know, you know, cause you're, you're an athlete, but you know, I jump a thousand times in an average program on one day and I weigh, you know, 285 pounds every time I come down, it's four times your body weight. So imagine a thousand pounds times a thousand jumps. It's a million pounds of pressure. So I did my bone density and they go, these are humans. You know, this is great athletes. This is you and everything like is like I'm a gorilla from

just a demand, right? If you've been running with a friend and you can't talk anymore, it's because your lactate is at four. I'm at 18 and still speaking. Here's the most interesting thing. They track my audience and me and they found something really fascinating. There's a group that does studies on like Tom Brady on the Tampa Bay Lightning that's won multiple times and the, you know, the what he called Stanley Cup. And they found there's a place biochemically that people who are under stress perform at the highest level to why they win. And they call it the championship bloodstream. And what happens is your testosterone surges.

So you have this incredible drive, but your cortisol, which is the stress hormone, drops to the ground. So you think so clearly. That's why Tom Brady's down by 14 with two minutes left and he comes back to win, right? Well, I produced that in my body, but what's even more fascinating, if you know about mirror neurons, everybody in the seminar literally,

because they did it with people around the world at home, and they mirror neurons exactly the same biochemical change. That's why a year later, the change is there. If I said, where were you on 9-11? Everybody knows, even in foreign countries, they'll remember who they were with, what they saw. But if I say, were you on 8-11? Most people don't know because information without emotion is barely remembered. So I make sure those are merged and that's why we get these lasting changes. So it's not enough to just understand what to do or paint a compelling future. There has to be a shift in your identity and the way in which you feel

physically and that's why the combination is so critical. Okay, I'm going to tell you something I've never said out loud anywhere and I haven't told you this, so by the way, thank you for calling me an athlete. And the reason I say that to you is I purposely adopted that identity at something you did. And, and I was an athlete, I was a college athlete, as you know, but then I sort of, I gained weight too. And people ask me all the time, you know, cause I have been through several of

these winters like you have as well. I'm fit. I'm sure there's a vanity aspect to it, a wellness, a health aspect to it. But for me, it's my, it's, it's my neurochemistry being where I want it to be so I can make choices. My imagination is open. I am in flow state. This has been the most critical thing. And for years, it was really just fitness people that were fit, not business people. But you had an event, you would, you don't do this anymore. You probably candid culture today, but I don't know if you remember, but I was very young. I'd gotten a little bit out of shape and back.

We're in Maui at one of your events and you and I didn't know each other then. And you did this thing where I've never said this before, but I want you to know this. You did this thing where you basically had the women in the room sort of ranked or lined up by their financial status. Do you remember this? Yes, I do remember that. The dudes, the dudes, it was their fitness. And, and do you remember doing this?

Of course it's true. Cause guys think they're hot when they're like in a beer belly. Women can be totally beautiful and they're hard on themselves. Right? Yes, yes. But it changed my freaking life. I'm on this call with you. We're doing a podcast because of this moment. So he has the women sort of say which guys are fit and then the fittest dudes get to walk up on the stage. Well, I'm young. I should be crushing this room at the time, right? There's a bunch of dudes in there that are in their forties and fifties. I'm like, I don't know, mid twenties, early twenties, and I don't get picked. And then you're

going to see the dude and watch the ladies in the room cheer for the hot guys. And I wasn't picked. And I remember going, this is never going to happen to me again. And it wasn't, it wasn't just that I wasn't picked. It's like, you aren't living the things he's teaching and you need to change your physiology on a regular. This was an indication that my physiology wasn't being shifted on a regular basis.

It wasn't one of my patterns to shift my physiology. I want everyone listening to this. You have to have a pattern of shifting your physiology. It's in those moments, your genius flows, your imagination flows. These skills and tactics start to happen. And it also, I want you to speak to this. I just want you to know that. I credit that with you with that experience 150 years ago. And I want everyone to know this,

but I also want people to hear this. I want you to speak to this if you would. I think the other thing that you and I, with the people that we see that are higher level achievers, they're preparation freaks. You and I are prepared today, you're prepared, but they have a lower threshold of what they think they need to know higher level achievers. They're preparation freaks. You and I am prepared today, you're prepared, but they have a lower threshold

of what they think they need to know in order to step into action. That's true. Right? And so how does one build that? Cause there's a lot of people going, okay, I got to overcome my fear. I got to move my physiology.

I've got to anchor the right emotional state in, but man, I'm just ill prepared. And you may be, that may be true, but you think you have to be so prepared that you never move, you never take action. And now it'll be 2024 and we'll be on another call and you're gonna wanna get going again. So how does one build that resourceful, aggressive,

whatever you wanna call it nature to go when they don't know everything? Well, you gotta first see what's preventing it. What's preventing it is everyone has the same two deepest fears, all humans. I don't care, I've dealt with the greatest athletes in the world, multi-billionaires, you know guys in prison, you name it, kids. We all are afraid we're not enough at some point. If you feel like you're not young enough,

strong enough, old enough, mature enough, funny enough, rich enough, something enough for someone who you really want to be enough for, it brings up an even deeper fear which is if I'm enough, I won't be loved. And love is the oxygen of the soul. If a baby is not kinesthetically loved, they develop what's called failure to thrive syndrome. We are a unique species in that love is our competitive advantage. If you're born as a baby and there's no mother or father there, you're a lizard, you live. But if you're a child, you die.

We need each other. We have a long dependency on each other. Some of the longest animals other than primates are like whales that are dependent for a year. But five years, 10 years, these years, 35 years, some people are still dependent on their parents to make sure things work for them. The great fear of mime with my kids. But the point is that fear that we're not enough is what's getting in the way. And you don't get over it.

You got beyond it. And the way you get beyond it is you just train yourself. And as you just said, that's why in the seminars, it isn't just the content. It's putting you in a state where the content can land. And when you put yourself in that state on a regular basis, those flows happen. Now you want daily practices as well. So you know, every day I've got a variety of daily practices, but one of those things I jump in freezing cold water every day,

I think, you know, but I don't do it because I like it or I want it. There's never a day I look forward to it, but I don't hesitate. I don't negotiate with myself. It's both physically great cause it flushes your blood and your lymph system completely. If you're like a million bucks coming out of it, going in it is painful as hell. But it's like, I don't say in a minute when I'm ready,

or maybe tomorrow. It's like, I say go, we go. So it's a mental training as well as it's a physical training. And when you do that over and over, and then you say, I'm going to do this, your brain doesn't negotiate. You've trained your own mind.

A lot of people have these discussions in their own head back and forth. And that's just a habit. All these things are patterns. I get up and I do my priming, which is putting myself in a state for just 10 minutes, a form of meditation, but it's a directed meditation. I think of three things I'm grateful for about a minute each and I live them. I don't remember it over there. I get on the roller coaster as it's going down and feel it. And I get associated to what I'm most grateful for because gratitude destroys the two emotions

that mess up your life, which are fear and anger. You can't be angry and grateful simultaneously. You can't be fearful and grateful. So I train my nervous system every day to start with that. Then I do this form of a prayer of blessing. Then I do this three to thrive, which is a minute each on what I really wanna make happen. But I don't think about making it happen. I see it as done and complete. And I train my brain to feel celebratory in that area. And in 10 minutes,

I've changed my body. I've changed my mind. And then my third discipline is I usually text or call someone to leave a message of sincere acknowledgement because I like to start my day to brighten somebody else's day but I don't ever bullshit. I don't go, oh you're cool. I'll go, listen I saw last Thursday, you know in the meeting you did this and this and this. I just thought that was so amazing. I just want to thank you for being that kind of person. And so it starts my day with momentum, physical momentum, mental momentum, relationship momentum. So there's disciplines like that. Then there's my workout just like you, right? You know, you have your workout that-

You look great, by the way. I pump and I make sure in that workout, I do something that's incredibly difficult so that I'm always pushing a little bit stronger, getting a little bit better in some area. And then what that does is it creates a foundation that when winter's here, you go, give me winter, bitch, you know, bastard.

I'll rip through this shit. I don't care what it is you want to do, I'm ready. But most people, you go, give me winter, bitch. You know, bastard, I'll rip through this shit. I don't care what it is you want to do, I'm ready. But most people, you know, they're living their life in front of a screen, a lot of people today, they're living at home, right? Their shoulders are down, they're breathing like this, they get distracted by all the things around them. There's no energy really on a vital level.

And then so what happened, there's no stimulus from being at the office for some people anymore. And so what happens is people's lives have gotten down to a low level of energy. If you forgot everything else that I teach you skill-wise, financially, emotionally, business, all those tools, but all you did was constantly increase the strength and energy in your body as a resilient source,

you're gonna find the answers, whether I taught them to you or somebody else, you're gonna make up the answers. Guys, this is a hundred, yeah, I get going to find the answers, whether I taught him to you or somebody else, you're going to make up the answers. Guys, this is a hundred. Yeah, I get sorry to interrupt you, but I have to say this. It's so this is true what he's telling you. Okay, not that you need me to second something Tony Robbins is saying, but he's right. I've lived it. He's 1000% right. Do

the things we're talking about. These will make changes for you. The other thing he added to that that I must say that is brilliance is that when you are feeling helpless, get helpful, help people. He had a video out recently that you recorded you about the feeding the families this year. You were so emotional. It moved me because I know how this is the richness of your life is helping other people. It's the same in mine. And I think people think, well, once I get over the stuff I need, then I'll do these things. That's what they think they think once I get my own stuff handled, then I'll be that person. No, you you'll get that stuff handled when you're that

person. And I'm writing, I just want to say one thing about you with that morning message. The FBI did this study recently, I know you know about it, where they're talking about the releasing of hostages. And how do you get a hostage release? And is it when someone's taking a hostage, is it the fact that you meet their demands that actually you get the hostages back? Actually, it's about the same whether you meet the demand or you don't. Believe it or not, there's a 2000 times greater likelihood of the hostage being released if the person who took the hostages believes you understand why they did it. That's right. That they feel seen.

And one of the things when if you want to be seen as a person, see other people. I have this thing I do, Tony, I'm writing a book about it right now. Let me tell you about you. I love doing that with friends. Let me tell you about you. But something he said, not you're awesome, or you're cool, or you're something really true that they go, that is true. I did do that.

I do have that. So I just want to acknowledge the brilliance of what he's sharing with all of you. I'll tell you a two second story about that. It's interesting. I remember when I was going to my 10 year high school reunion, when I was in school, I was really a driven kid and I was not popular. I was popular with certain girls, more like more friend girls than anything else. I had like all the cheerleaders on my side, I became student body president, but I ran in like a real thing. I went to all the different groups and said, what do you want to do?

And I went to the principal and I said, I don't think this will work, but I think I can make this happen. So it taught me that if you're sincere, even if you weren't popular, that you could have the kind of impact. It was it was a real shaping experience for me. And so, but I remember I had some guys specifically that were older than I was that were competitive with me and were really brutal. I was five one, they were like, my head nose guard was six six and he just would brutalize me,

come and pour milk over my head. And so now my tenure high school reunion comes up. And so I'm gonna be what, 28 years old. I've become pretty successful. I've got books and I'm having impact around the world. And I've been seen all over the world. So I'm getting ready to go and I got kind of, I don't know, I got really uncomfortable.

And part of it was I realized, I don't know if I even relate to any of these people. I don't know if they'll even remember me or anything else. And I remember calling my mom and my mom was an interesting character. And rarely did she have advice, but she, I was talking to her, I was driving to the car up there. And I always imagined I'd go up there in my limousine and you know, I'd have the three women in my life that would be there, whatever that was, you know, it was my picture

is a stupid boy, right? And you know, I had a limousine at that point was funny as hell, but I didn't take it. I took the least expensive car. I drove myself and I'm talking to my mom on the phone And I said she goes I said what are you doing? I said I'm going up my 10 year high school reunion and she goes wow She goes you feel funny if something funny about you right now. That's what I mean funny She goes I know what it is. You were so different in high school And you're thinking about you're not one of them and you're going up there. She was so intuitive And I said, well, I guess yeah, I think you're right. you're not one of them and you're going up there. She was so intuitive. And I said, well, I guess, yeah, I think you're right.

She goes, honey, you know, one seminar, you touch more lives with people than your entire high school of a couple of thousand people. She goes, you know, look what being different got you. And I remember after you hung up the phone, I realized, you know, I'm so focused on, well, how will I connect and all this bullshit, which I never would think normally because normally I'm thinking about how to give I'm not like, how will I connect and all this bullshit, which I never would think normally, because normally I'm thinking about how to give. I'm not like, how do I receive? And so I started thinking I was driving up there about the

people I might bump into, and some of them that actually kind of tortured me at the time. And I thought, you know, I'm gonna get fascinated by their lives. I'm not here to talk about mine or tell them how great it is. I'm not gonna do that. And I remember, you know, you go to your high school reunion, I don't know if you ever did this, but they have the old picture of you when you're in high school and I had, you know, hair down beyond my shoulders. And, you know, and I was this little guy.

And so I walk in and I never forget the first guy that comes up to me. He didn't recognize who I was. And he looks his eyes were at the level of my chest here with my side. And he goes, Tony, he looks like this. There was a guy that used to torture me, right? It was the guy. I was kind of hard on you. I was kind of rough. to torture me, right? It was the guy. I was kind of hard on you. I was kind of rough. And I said, you know what? I deserved that.

I had a really bad mouth. I didn't have much respect. And I was telling me about you. And I spent the whole night going around talking to people about them, nothing about me. And I had the best night. Because it's like, if you really focus on others, you disappear. It's like, I used to have these long mission statements and change the earth and all that. Now my mission state is really simple. How can I help? It's like every day I get phone calls from people.

Somebody's got cancer. Somebody's, you know, I've done so much in the health area. Somebody's got something in their business. Somebody knows somebody's got a challenge. That's like, how can I help? And nothing makes me more grateful. So I think people, as you grow, you know, hopefully you and I are at a stage of life where we can mentor people because we've been through so much crap, you know, overcome so much.

And my hope is that the people that listen to you that listen to Ed personally, I endorse Ed as a friend because Ed lives this stuff. I mean, there's very few people that live it. It's one of those I love you and respect you. You work out, you train, you do this stuff. You're not somebody just interviewing other people. You're somebody who live it. And it's one of those, I love you and respect you. You work out, you train, you do this stuff. You're not somebody just interviewing other people. You're somebody who lives it. And that unfortunately is rare. But when you find those rare people, you want to learn from them because we all become like who we spend time with.

And the good thing about a podcast is you get to spend time with somebody like Ed. I think it's fantastic. Today is about really the longest tenure WWE superstar in the history of the organization. My guest today is The Undertaker, aka Mark Calloway. So Mark, thanks for being here, brother. No, thanks for having me, man. I'm excited. One of the things that I noticed about you, brother, on that 30-year arc was how hard

you are on yourself, how self-aware you are, particularly as it opens, I won't give the whole thing away, but it opens up with your match with Roman Reigns. And you were injured at the time, and maybe not at the top of your game. And to watch you watch you back in that video, it made me emotional.

I was out on my balcony alone, it was like 11 o'clock last night and I literally got tears in my eyes because I so admired your self reflection, your awareness and your desire. Even at that time you're probably 52 probably in your 50s already, right? He's 55 years old guys and if you're watching YouTube, look at this man's physique, right? But talk about that, like setting that standard for yourself, being aware, you setting the highest standard

for yourself, not Vince, not someone else, but you. Yeah, I'm my toughest critic and I always have been. You got everybody telling you through the course of your career, especially when you're coming up, oh man, you're great, you're this, you're that. And I mean, yeah, that's fine. But you have to, you've got to take that and you have to put it aside. And it's like when I, when I watched him back when I was coming up and I watched my matches back, good, bad, indifferent, I always had to watch them alone because I didn't want any feedback from anybody else saying, oh

man, that was, that was great. That was, I mean, how did you do that? That was so cool. I wanted to watch, even on the good stuff, I wanted to watch and see what I did wrong. I wanted to know what, okay, in that situation, what could I have done better to make that match better? And that's like I said, that's how you continue to grow. The Roman match at WrestleMania, that match better. And that's like I said, that's how you continue to grow. The Roman match at WrestleMania, that was tough.

And what was so good about the doc was that was the actual first time that I watched it back. Being later in my career, I was at that point when I watched it back, I was pretty much done. I was just like, I can't my body's give out on me. I can't. And I give out on me. I can't. Um, and I have to start thinking longterm after 30 plus years. And, uh, so that was, that was really raw and, and real,

because I knew, I knew, I knew it was going to be tough to watch. Um, and then having to do it in that environment with cameras on me and it was yeah. And out of character too right? I mean, we had a character right? So you got what you got is Mark thinking in his head like you know there's a lot of things that I wanted to say obviously that would have been bleeped and edited because I was so disappointed. And not just disappointed for me, I was disappointed for Roman in that sense. I saw that.

Because it was my opportunity to give him something that was going to push him, you know, that was going to push him to a higher level. And I didn't deliver on that. And I can't make excuse. Yes, I was banged up and beat up, but I was there. So, you know, I have a response in my mind, I have a responsibility. If my name is on is on the page, then you got to go. And I was just I got, I knew when I knew in January that I was physically, I was physically not going to be at my best, but it was too late at that point. Like I'd already committed, it's already

down. This is what's going to happen. And I was scrambling trying to figure out how to, you know, how I was going to make this work. And it just, I yeah I was thoroughly disappointed and then there we go then the documentary kind of gets rolling because initially you know initially it was just I had those guys there to cover that weekend. Oh is that right? That's all it was going to be? It was all it was going to be because I said because I thought that was going to be it. Yeah. The stuff with the hat and the coat, everything in the ring, all that was that was just raw and real.

And. Yeah, so I just I'm not going to get another chance to catch this stuff backstage and my interactions with my peers and Vance. And I just wanted that and not knowing what we were gonna have, but I knew that I wasn't gonna have no chance to get it. Yeah, guys, I gotta tell you, Mark's being humble. I don't care if you're a WWE fan or not. If you're a fan of achievement, of redemption, of comebacks, which a lot of people need right now.

Learning about a beautiful marriage and how it can make a man stronger. You should go watch this. I gotta tell you, the last ride is I watched the entire thing and the thing that the reason that the show is called Max Out and Mark persona, you talk about maxing out a career. That's the definition of Mark's life in the WWE as the Undertaker. He's maxed out that career and I have a funny feeling he's not done which we'll talk about at the end but But I got to tell you all something. What he's describing

here guys, this not believing your press clippings thing, not buying into all the rah rah and hype and accolades you get. I talk a lot about is your will to win for sale. And yeah, people can lose their will to win when they lose, but you can lose your will to win when you win. In other words, enough accolades, enough money, enough success, it buys your will to win when they lose, but you can lose your will to win when you win. In other words, enough accolades, enough money, enough success, it buys your will to still want to get better. It buys your will to want to improve. The thing that I love about Mark and watching him was you can't buy this man's will to win.

And I think that's linked to the 30-year plus career. The other guys, the accolades, the success, the access to different things at some point stole their will to prepare. I'm not doubtful that you didn't get off track a couple of times, but you kept getting back on track. And I got to ask you, because even as you're talking, it's a little odd for me to talk to you as Mark, because I think unlike, this is why the last ride so interesting too, you've done very few interviews ever, not as the character. Did you take that to the extreme? Like I'm just, I ran into you in an airport when I was very young.

I'll tell you about that in a minute. But like you were in character at the airport when I was there. We were at a baggage claim guys, and I don't know how old I was, and Mark and I aren't even that far apart in age, but I was on like one of my first business trips. I was at a baggage claim. I never came, I didn't say anything to age, but I was on like one of my first business trips I was at a baggage game. I never came I didn't say anything to you but I watched you interact with the fans first you had your bag with you for about 40 minutes brother and You've probably done this hundreds of times and I watched you talk to every single fan take every single picture

Shake every single hand and I watched him look them in the eye too. And I said, I like this dude But you look like the undertaker, not with the eye makeup on, but it seemed like you were kind of halfway in character. Am I crazy or did you do that in real life when you went out? I don't know, I live this thing. I really did, when I started and this character was so unique, especially for the time period,

Jens had all these over the top, these all over the top characters and he gave me this, the original likeness, the name was all Vince's brainchild and he gave it to me and he said this is your opportunity and so I took it from there. So you So when we developed, when I started developing the character, I was like, there's only one way that this is gonna work. And it was a lot simpler back then because there, there wasn't cell phones and people recording

everything that you do. But I said, I've got to be this for this to work. I can't be that on TV and then be at the airport in a Hawaiian shirt, you know, slapping high fives. And it was too big to me. It was too big a disconnect. And there was a lot of opportunities that I was presented with early on that I passed on. Like, people that I was presented with early on that I passed on

like people thought I was absolutely nuts, but you'd have to realize that this was my passion like Being a professional wrestler being with the WWE that was that was me right there. I mean, that's what my focus was and Yes, I had opportunities to go and do a lot of different things, but in my head, like, okay, this is my passion. Now how am I going to go off and do this and be this completely different character and then come back and expect people to buy into what I was doing? There's just all the elements of being the greatest. So he's being humble, but he's the greatest of all time. He's the most respected guy in the locker room, most longevity.

By the way, he's not gonna tell you this, kind of known as being involved in maybe three of the top three matches of all time also has one guy in common, him. And you guys, forget what you do. You're an engineer, listen to this. You're a school teacher, listen to this. You're an entrepreneur. There are elements that he's giving you that are the pieces to being great and one of them I'll help him say this because he's got so much humility is his loyalty. It's his loyalty

when he's saying he passed on things let me be specific he passed on movie roles and things like that that he could have done out of character. There were times where he was offered more money to leave the organization like other guys did that were hot and he stayed and was loyal. And I think loyalty is a very undervalued commodity in becoming a leader. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Who's your support system?

For me, it's my family and friends. And you know, one of the things I get asked often is what are all 800 people that have been guests on your show have in common and not all of them have this in common but the thing that would surprise most people that many of them have in common is they've been to therapy including myself that's something most people don't talk about you know therapy can help you from things like you're working through some trauma from childhood or a difficulty that you're going through right now but it could also be just to get clarity of thought a sense of direction in your life talk out loud about your goals and dreams or your issues and problems with somebody.

Therapy from BetterHelp is helpful because you can do it online. And if you don't vibe with your therapist, you can switch out any time and get one that you do work with well. You can access a diverse network of 30,000 credentialed therapists, a wide range of specialties and easily switch, like I said. So build your support system at BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.ed.io to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHELP.com.ed.io. That's BetterHelp.H-E-L-P.com.ed.io. This is Carry the Fire. I'm your host, Lisa LaFlamme. Carry the Fire, a podcast by the Princess Margaret Cancer

Foundation featuring inspiring personal stories about what happens when world leading doctors, nurses, researchers, and their patients come together to ignite breakthroughs. Carry the Fire launches Monday, January 27th, wherever you get your podcasts. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far.

Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify links are in the show notes. Now onto our next guest, Brendan Bouchard. Welcome back to the show. And my let it's an honor, man. Someone says, I kind of got all that. I kind of know where I'm going. I know what I want to do. I'm pretty damn focused.

I got that obsession thing you're talking about. And you did high performance habits, which separates the really high performers from the ones that perform pretty well, right? And so someone says, I want to be the damn best at whatever I'm doing. I'm opening a chain of dry cleaners. I'm training horses.

I've got to, I'm going to be the greatest mother in the history of the world. Whatever the thing is, what separates, I know there's a whole book that's been written on this, but give us a few things that people may not think about that separates people. Go, I am focused, I am on my mission. What could separate me?

What are some of the things that I must be doing to be the best? Yeah, first always frame that as habits. It has to be habits. A lot of people think it's just mindset. Like mindset is a habit of thought, right? It's like, well, it's how you deal with people. That's a habit of interaction.

Like, so always just like realize it's a habitual pattern or practice that you're doing. But what separates people is not the habits that everyone wants to talk about in the popular literature books. It's like, you know, these small habits or atomic habits or automatic habits or, you know, unconscious habits. Those are valuable.

Those are very important. But high performance requires deliberate habits. But deliberate habit means you kind of have to force yourself to do it. It's not easy. It's not automatic. It's not tiny. It's not automatic. It's not tiny.

It's like, you know, it's like that's going the extra mile thing. It's never going to be easy. You're never going to condition it to be automatic. It's like, no, it's the tough work of life to go to another level. You want to be at the top. It's really frigging hard. It's hard. You have to accept that.

And so what we did is we studied, we said, what is that difference maker? We spent a million dollars on research. Gosh. Like the largest research study that's ever been done on high performers worldwide, 90 countries, 90 different countries that we surveyed the highest performers. These tend to be not the top 15%, they tend to be the top 5%. And the difference between the top 15 and the top 5% is this. It kind of falls

in the definition of high performance. High performance means succeeding over the long term in any industry or endeavor or whatever, while still maintaining positive wellbeing and relationships. I wanna hear about this. How do you, what high performers have answered is how do you succeed over the longterm without wrecking your health,

your mindset, your positivity and your relationships? We know lots of successful people, but they ruined all their relationships. We know successful people, they ruined their health. They're not high performers, they wouldn't qualify. So what do they do? It's different practices, we call them high performance habits, so you mentioned these people,

they already have clarity clarity developing clarity and Constantly revisiting to become clear every day. What is my intention? What is my intention? What is my intention? That revisit of clarity is Supremely important to them revisiting it. Yes, not not setting a goal on January 1st and forgetting it. It's literally consistent. It's literally consistency in intention. Like every day you hear about high farmers, they look at their goals. Every day you set your intention.

When I work with Oprah, she taught me, every meeting you have with Oprah, she starts with, what's our intention of this meeting? Every meeting, because that's seeking clarity. So high formers just seek clarity more often. Second habit is generating energy. They generate the energy they want to experience in life and they want other people to experience.

They're not waiting for joy, they're not waiting for happiness, they're not waiting for positivity, they generate it. They are so much more conscientiously designing the energy around them. And you feel it, right? By the way, everyone should know this. It is, I would say, in the very top keynote speakers on earth today.

Like what you can do on stage is unbelievable. It's not even, I mean, you're talking to a handful of humans who can do this. Thank you. And what you do is you generate and move the energy, the room way more consciously than the average speaker. The average speaker is kind of insecure a little bit. Doesn't mean you don't have insecure doubts up there. What it means is he's moving the room.

Like he's taking him on a wild ride. He's generating the energy. That's the difference between an underperforming speaker and a high performing speaker. Good point. Another piece is the productivity piece, which I know is so basic, but most people are so unbelievably not productive.

Yes. I mean, it's stunning. It is stunning. The average person is losing an hour a day to Facebook or Instagram, and then watching four hours television. That's five hours a day of consumption. If you can turn those five, let's say one hour,

let's say, no, no, we're talking high forms. If we can get you one hour a day back, one hour a day of focus back, that's 30 hours a month. Crazy. That 30 hours a month, that's seven hours a week. Well, that means you got an extra day. That's an extra eight hour workday that you got. That's an unfair advantage.

So getting people their focus back in a world that has the highest paid engineers in the world paid to strip your attention away. So you consume versus create and be and live, that is a primary differentiator right now. How about, stay on that a minute. I so agree with you, and the more I've started to coach people

and I actually get into their lives, how, not only do they waste time, but how little time, Brendan, and this is huge for everyone, that they do on things every day that move the needle. That's it. Like move the needle in your company, move the needle in your relationship,

move the needle in your body. It's like you're just doing little things all the time. You gotta sometimes do stuff that moves it, right? Like I'll give you one small example. My relationship with my children. They're both away at college. I have great relationships with my kids, but they're both away at college, I have great relationships with my kids but they're both away at college and I'm busy and they're busy and there are days where we just text. Their mom's on the phone with them all the time and I

thought am I moving the needle in this? It's okay I did what I'm supposed to do today I'm communicating with my kids. I know that sounds very you know organized or methodical but does that move? Does Bella know I love her a lot more when she gets my text message? Does Max know I believe in him a lot more? What would move the needle? I gotta call them. Now this may sound silly to all of you but I'm trying to, the most high-performing thing I could do in my relationship with my children is to call them. In a lot of relationships, the text doesn't move the needle. The call moves the needle.

The thing in your company that you're doing all these little, what's the thing that gets the big account, that moves the account, that creates the most leverage, that get, move the needle more often, right? Yeah, another phrase of that is, another exact phrase of that is efforts of impact. So in the research, high performers, this is great for all those who are like,

oh my God, Bren, they got to add, you're right, this is overwhelming, it's a lot of stuff to do, oh my God. Well, the research showed in 90 countries around the world that high performers spend 60% of their week there, efforts of impact, needle moving things. So when you look at their calendar each day, it's not, are they 100% percent high performing? Look, they got to answer emails.

They got to reply to dumb DMS. They got to take that stupid call once in a while. We think they're perfect. No, it's just that 60% of their effort is directed to activities that actually make an impact. They got to do 40% of administration or household work too. It's just that most of their efforts, 60%, is geared towards what moves that needle,

gets that significant impact. What a powerful question to ask yourself if you're listening to this. In whatever area you pick, pick your area, your relationship, your company, your money. How much of your time is efforts of impact? Moving the needle stuff. And if you just tweak that by 11%, 16%,

how much different would your life be three years from now? One year from now? This is why you listen to the show everybody. It's like, I got something there. I'm not moving the needle off enough. I mean, your habits aren't efforts of impact. Your habits are like, I checked the box. I did the text, I did the email.

I made the call, I made my contacts. I drank my protein, I had the water. You did the text, I did the email, I made the call, I made my contacts, I drank my protein, I had the water. You did the stuff, but how much of it moved it, right? Yeah, it's so easy. So it's like start with what I said first about that hour day of distraction. And I always tell people, if I could get you three more months of advancement this year,

would that make a difference? They go, oh my God, yeah, three more months. I go, great, that's an hour a day. Gosh, one hour a day, seven hours a week, right? Over the course of the month, that's 30 hours. That's basically a whole work week, really. And then you apply that by 12 months. It's like, we just got you 12 work weeks back

for one hour a day. So we're not asking for a lot. And then the joy is, I thought it was the 80, 20 Pareto principle. It's like, oh, like 80% of the time I gotta be, I mean Superman 80%. No, you don't even need Superman 80%, try 60. It's nice.

It's so good, but back to the data shows you say. The data shows, this is a 60, 40. I was like, oh, that's a relief, you know, cause I was wondering all these other people. Cause you think all these successful people, they've got a million assistants running around doing everything and- You're right.

I tell my kids all the time, I've been telling them since they were little. I said, when you grow up a little bit, you're going to find out, everyone says winning is hard. Okay. I get all that. Well, I tell my kids all the time, the more, even once you get into college,

you're going to figure out, you're not competing against that many people. You're really only in life competing against yourself, but you know what I mean when I say that. And now that they're there and they're like, dad, you're right, like some kids don't even go to class every day. Some kids don't study at all someday.

I'm like, you're gonna figure it out that it's a very small group of people that do things in their life that are efforts of impact on a very regular basis. Life, if you wanna change your life right now, it is really possible. You could really do it. You really could do it.

Is there anything else you wanna add to it? Cause I feel like I interrupted you on that. Is there any other area of high performance people? I know there's a bunch, but give us one more. Practices of self-awareness. This is why everyone loves growth day. And I didn't know, I knew it would be powerful. I didn't know it would be this powerful at all.

You know, we wanna make the world's number one mindset journal. So that's in growth day. We wanna make the world's number one mindset journal. So that's in growth day. We want to make the world's number one habit tracker. So you can track your high performance habits and other wellbeing and achievement habits in the app. And then it gives you recommendations. We built in the goal setting tool with reminders.

So you can remind yourself and push notifications to yourself to meditate, to work out, to flirt with your wife, you know, all this stuff. And those were just coming from the research and also high performers just telling us what they do. They journal, they meditate, they pray, they think. They're doing more practices of self-awareness to figure out themselves.

You know, like a lot of people go to the gym, but a high performer go to the gym and you say, what are you thinking about at the gym? My man, I'm thinking about my goals the gym? I'm thinking about my goals. And I'm thinking about that deal. Man, I'm thinking about that date night with my wife this Friday. Oh yeah.

Right. They're in a different, like they're using their time. Some people hate driving. They hate a car trip. Other people, they're like, oh man, that's my lab. Put me in that car. I'm gonna drive, I'm gonna think about the next dream, the're like, oh man, that's my lab. Put me in that car, I'm gonna drive, I'm gonna think about the next dream,

the next vision, the next sale. I do. Right? I love driving. That's practices of self-awareness. You are thinking, right? I think therefore I am, you know. This is so good. This time that they spend ruminating,

thinking, envisioning, and brainstorming, it's significantly bigger than the average person. And so in growth, they've said, we're gonna build the tools to enable that. And that became the most popular thing in there. I thought the most popular thing would be have, you know, we've got the biggest motivational speakers. These guys search 50,000, $100,000 of speech, you know,

Mel Robbins and Jenna Kutcher, lots of our friends in their teaching. And they're popular and people love that because we're live every week with them. But it's the tools. People love to think about their life and they love to track it, and they love to look how to improve it.

And that's the high performance edge. The ultimate performance edge isn't talent, right? It's how much does that person think about improving that thing? It's the practices of growth, right? It's how much does that person think about improving that thing? It's the practices of growth, right? The great Olympians who you worked with and I worked with and the people who are, you know, the highest level CEOs and they're thinking.

You're right. They're thinking and they're thinking about growth. They're thinking about success. They're thinking about impact. Instead of thinking about what she wear at that dinner last night. Did you see her on that internet? Did you see what he does?

Do you hear what they're doing? Oh, those people over there and oh, the left and the right. There's a difference. Are you thinking growth or are you thinking gossip? We just change your life. By gosh, brother, this is so good. You know, it's funny, it's the absence of things in your life you're unaware of, but like,

you just described me, I don't ever spend any time on that stuff. I mean, literally less than one millionth of 1% of the time. Me too. And I love, I'm addicted. I have an addiction to thinking about growth. I have an addiction to thinking about that next scene, that next emotion, that next thing. I can, I literally am addicted to it.

I actually love shutting the car door alone. So I'm like, all right, here we go, brother. It's your lab. I love that. I love working out for the rest. I love taking a walk on the beach for that reason. I love it. I actually love the end of my day.

I love getting into bed at the end of the day and just reflecting on the day and then dreaming about the next day. Like I love that stuff, right? I don't always love waking up because you're in a different brainwave state at that time. But I love when I go to bed at night and dreaming and you're right on the money, man, with that stuff.

Okay. And you have practices that force you to do that, right? Yes. You go to the gym and you're thinking about those things. Some people pray or they meditate or they journal and that's where the... See, you have to put yourself in that place to open the gate or to what I always say, to be able to receive. Yes. If you're filling your brain with a bunch of stuff that you're downloading from social media, then who can't download into you? Gosh, that's so good.

God can't get in, right? You've blocked the antenna with a bunch of gossip. So good. And a bunch of garbage. You gotta stay in an open state. Where are you in open state? You're in open state in a seminar, in a conference. You're in open state when you're driving.

You're in open state in the shower. You're open state in bed. You're open state at the gym. You gotta stay in that open state so that you can receive guidance as much as you also can envision it. Because some of the best ideas might not even come from anything you and I just said,

but because someone is listening to this podcast right now, they're in an open reception. And that open reception, all of a sudden, they've got that new business idea. They're like, where'd that come from? You were in a learning environment. You were in a self-awareness practice. That's what podcast listening really is when it's good,

and ideas come to you. I listen to your podcasts almost every day that I work out. Thank you. And when I'm listening to it, I get all these crazy ideas. It didn't come from what you said or the guest. Right, it's uncorrelated, you're open. I was in a place of openness of self-awareness.

And so if you want to become a high performer, you have to place yourself there, you have to do the thinking, the rumination, the dreaming, the visioning. And when you do that time and time and time and time again, again, it becomes who you are. You don't have to force it anymore. It just becomes who you are.

That's brilliant, by the way. One of my favorite things at the end of the day, actually my favorite thing is my prayer time. And I do it on my knees. And I have just, people say to me all the time, is it a lot like when you're really tired and I know actually really look forward to that time because sometimes my prayers are four minutes and sometimes they're 45 minutes depending on how open I am what I'm receiving what I'm getting I've loved today and I got one more question for you by the way everybody

make sure you go to growthday.com or go to the growth day app and get it your you will thank me grateful to have Stephen A Smith on the show today. Stephen, welcome brother. Ed, honor to you man. Thank you for having me. How you doing? I'm doing good. You also, I've heard you talk about that time and you kinda, here's what I see happen

to a lot of people in life. And I know you see this, you see with athletes, you see with colleagues of yours. They kinda start to believe their press clippings a little bit. Or they have like an overestimation of how far down the road or how untouchable they are. You know what I'm saying? And I think in that case you're saying is yeah

You'd go out in public and everybody knew you so you're like hey I must be doing well, but you didn't even know your own metrics your own data and People the fall of most people is they get some success and they start to believe it and they start to think they're gonna Have it forever, and they don't do the things they did that gets them there. They don't have the same level of ability. Don't you think there's nuance? I think there's a nuance. The people that I really admire in my life that are really good friends of mine, they have this nuance and it's difficult of tremendous self-confidence combined with some level of humility and the people that I know with a ton of humility with no confidence, they don't

ever get around to doing anything because I don't have any confidence and the people I know that have a bunch of confidence but don't nuance it with some humility, they can fall because they're the ones that'll make the mistake. Maybe they don't work like they once worked or their attitude, like what you've described with you, their attitude is maladjusted because they have some overestimation of where they are. So I'd like you to talk about that. And then secondly, the fact that you knew after that you were going to eventually need

a team of people around you and I don't think enough people take for granted surrounding themselves as good people. So what about humility and confidence in the team? Well I think it's important to point this out. First of all, you're not wrong with anything that you said. Humility definitely is an important component that we all have to be sure that we have. There's no doubt about that and the absence of it can lead to your downfall

when you think you're bigger than what you are, because nothing annoys people more. I mean, particularly in the world of business, because they have the metrics, they have the expertise, they have the data. So in their eyes, they feel they definitively know exactly what you are. And if it doesn't coincide, your belief in you

doesn't coincide with their belief in you. And their belief in you is significantly less than you look like a fool in their eyes. So that's important to point out. But I think that over time, certainly when there's an absence of humility and that can lead to our downfall, I think the thing that needs to be prioritized

and focused on is the hazard of not mastering the business you chose to be in. When I went to the negotiating table just a few years ago and everybody was talking about this huge contract that I got from the ESPN, where I deserved credit for that was the fact that I learned my business. I didn't go in there with emotion. I didn't go in there with emotion.

I didn't go in there thinking about people screaming my name in the streets or being on billboards. I went in there with their definition of what makes or what qualifies as success. What were my ratings? What's the revenue that I brought in? Now, obviously, they hold those things close to the vessel. Specific numbers you don't always have as it pertains to revenue generated, but you certainly have ratings every day and you can certainly decipher what kind of money you're

bringing in from a ballpark figure. So when I went to the negotiating table, here's what mastering my business did for me. Nothing was personal. I wanted what I wanted. Whatever they didn't want to give me, they didn't want to give me. Whatever argument we had, it was based on the data. It was based on the intel.

It was based on me defining what words should be based on nothing but numbers, not emotion. And as a result, I got to depersonalize everything. It wasn't racism holding me back. It wasn't prejudice. It wasn't a particular boss that didn't like me or whatever the case may be. No, this was their definition of the analytical data they had gathered versus my definition of it.

Let's talk, let's have that discussion. And as a result of it, there was no bitterness, there was no hostility, there was no anything. This is what I believe I'm worth. This is what I believe I deserve. This is what you believe I deserve. Let's get on, let's have this conversation and see where this takes us.

And so from the moment that that transpired, it taught me a very, very valuable lesson. When you're focused on your business, there's so much weight that customarily is on all of our shoulders that just goes away. The personal, the perception of things, the insinuations, wondering about what's personal and what's business,

wondering about what the next person is making compared to you. You know, like I'm in now, it's the year 2023. I'm seriously told I'm the number one talent at ESPN. I am not paid like the number one talent at ESPN. Some, there are others that are getting paid more than me, okay? I'm not bitter. I'm not upset.

Do I think I'm underpaid? Yes. Do I think I deserve more? Yes. Am I coming for more in the event that I end up staying at ESPN slash four of this thing? Yes. But there is no animosity because the people that they brought on board that are getting paid are worth every penny.

They're great at what they do. They bring revenue to the table. They assist in the product flourishing. There's no animosity. There's no bitterness. There's no, oh, I deserve it because they got it. It's none of that. It's that it was my turn when I got my deal.

It was their turn years later when they got their deal. And then my turn will come around again, and those things could be revisited. Because I know that what I'm going to table to the table with is what my worth is, at least in a ballpark way. And when you do that, because you mastered your business, suddenly you depersonalize stuff. And it's easier to be humble at that particular moment in time, because you're not worried about others trying to humble you.

Therefore getting your back up and motivating yourself to stick out your chest and blogey about who you are and what you're worth and where you stand and what your chest and blogey about who you are and what you're worth and where you stand and what your cache and stack is. You ain't worried about none of that anymore because you have the facts and the facts and the numbers support your belief in you. You don't have to do that.

And everybody starts speaking the same language and then you're unified in terms of what the agenda is all about and then we're just talking business and that's okay. I love that. You know what? So many people, you have to be in broadcasting, so many people waste energy worrying about what other people are doing or what other people are getting. They do it on social, they do it in business, they do it in entrepreneurship. Like it's just the people that I know that are the most successful you guys, athletes, business people, entrepreneurs, entertainment folks, they, they, they know they have a finite amount of energy and focus.

And every time they deploy some to some other human being, they know they're reducing it on their craft and what they can create and what they can do. Don't waste your energy, hating, worrying, focusing on contemplating what someone else is getting or doing. Just go get yours and focus on yours. I will add this component if you don't mind. It's very very important to say to your audience out there. When you are a black person, it's very difficult to do at times because you do feel times because you do feel there is an inequity being exercised. And it's difficult not to pay attention to that. My advice is it's even more important when you're Black

to focus in on mastering your business, the business of you. Because we're more apt to personalize it. We're more apt to see an ad and say, I see you getting this and I'm not. I wonder what that's about. We're more apt to do that. But far more often than not, we don't have the data back up our belief in ourselves.

And so we lean on what someone else is getting compared to what we're not getting because we need some form of justification. Whereas if we mastered our business, like we just finished talking about, then we don't have to worry about that because now it's in the table with numbers that are undeniable.

When I say first take has been number one for 11 years, Ed, I'm not lying, the data's there. It's a fact. So I'm not worried about, oh my goodness, inequities and this is not fair and all of this other stuff. Whatever. I have the numbers that say I kind of deserve to be treated fairly. So let's talk about that. This is what my definition of fairness was in yours. And that's without bringing anybody else up. This is the Ed Myron Show.