The Ryan Hanley Show - Make Your Health a Competitive Advantage in Business

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comUnlock the secret to unparalleled business success through the surprising intersection of executive fitness and peak performance. ✅ Join over 10,000 newsletter subscribers: https://go.ryanhanley.com/ ✅ For daily insights and ideas on peak performance: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhanley ✅ Subscribe to the YouTube show: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanleyConnect with Dan GoYouTube: https://youtube.com/danfounderX: https://x.com/fitfounderWebsite: https://www.dango.co/ In this stimulating exchange with Dan Go on why top professionals often let their health slide and the substantial impact this neglect can have on their work. We dissect goal-setting in fitness, drawing parallels to business objectives and the significance of probing questions to reveal true motivations for a healthy lifestyle. Throughout the conversation, strategies are presented for applying the same meticulousness and passion professionals show in their careers to their personal health goals.One might not immediately connect the value of coaching in business to that of personal wellness, but it's a link we cannot ignore. Alongside Dan, we explore this overlooked synergy, discussing some resistance towards health coaching, possibly due to ego or misconceptions, and how embracing it could be transformative. Mental health, often sidelined, takes a prominent role as we advocate for its prioritization with the same dedication as physical health. Furthermore, we touch on the nuanced relationships with food, fitness, and the often-misleading nature of social media advice, advocating for a personalized approach to one's wellness journey.The episode wraps up with inspiring personal stories of transformation and the profound impact of adopting an abundance mentality. I recount my path from a challenging low point to a series of positive life changes, emphasizing intentional living and reshaping our reality through purposeful actions in family, health, and personal development. Dan and I urge listeners to consider how intentional shifts in perspective can forge profound outcomes, inviting everyone to embrace the insights from our dialogue and embark on their own journey toward happiness and success.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today, we have a tremendous conversation for you, an interview with Dan Goh. Dan is an executive fitness coach, and I've been following Dan for a long time on Twitter and on YouTube. I've listened to many of his episodes. I've read a lot of his articles.

The way he approaches fitness is pragmatic, it's practical, and it is set up specifically for high-performing individuals who are struggling to keep their fitness and health in line with their business performance. And I just enjoy Dan's philosophy, the way he goes about it, his nature. And this conversation takes so many different twists and turns as we approach this topic from multiple directions. As you know, as I've said on this show for years, health is a competitive advantage in business. And Dan is the guy to get us there. I appreciate

you for listening to this show. I love you for listening to this show and whether you're listening to it on Apple, Spotify, or whatever, or watching it on YouTube. If you're not already subscribed to the show, and if you have comments, questions, things you want to add, come over to YouTube, leave those in the comments. I collect all those comments. And on some of the solo episodes, I go in and answer those. And if I can even get our guests to come back and answer some of those, I do that as well. So I love you guys. Let's get on to Dan Go. Dan, so excited to have you on the show, man.

Thanks for taking some time out today. I appreciate you for having me. Enjoy the conversation that we just had previous previous to this good laughs all around so i think this is going to be good yeah i uh sometimes you know you start a podcast you start talking to somebody you know you never know are you going to click with that person you know that whatever what it's going to be and then you start having a conversation you're like oh crap i wish i had hit the record button that was that was really good but But it's all good. We can get into that if we want to. For everyone listening,

I've been following Dan for a while on Twitter. Love the stuff that you put out. I found an article that kind of, I was like, man, I want to talk to him about this. Reached out. You accepted the invitation to come on the show. But then I found another article that I want to use the crux of our conversation. So for those listening, they know I work with a lot of executives. I work with a lot

of startups. And for years now on this podcast, I have been sharing the idea that health is a competitive advantage. And I've told my story around 2017. I had a health issue and I completely refocused my health and fitness and made a priority and it's changed my left to 25 pounds, et cetera. Okay. But despite me trying to bang them over the head with that for years, so many people neglect their fitness, their health and they don't associate it to how they actually perform in business. And one more little contextual piece of information is,

I actually did a keynote on Wednesday down in Dallas. It's around, I call it, it's about how do we finish projects? And I have this little format, it doesn't matter. And afterwards, I'm standing there kind of decompressing and a guy walks up and he said, in high school and college, I was a baseball player. I was fit. You never had to ask me twice to get to the gym. I was constantly there. I was constantly working out. I loved how in shape I was, et cetera, et cetera. He said at 38, I'm like 50 pounds overweight.

I can't get myself going. I don't like the way I feel. I can't change my habits. And my answer to him, and this is where I want to kick it to you to see what you would say. And then where we go with this. My answer to him was in my limited health knowledge was the difference was you don't have a goal today. Like there's no why pushing you or because pushing you to get to the gym in college, it might've been be a starter on that team, find a woman, get laid, whatever your priority. You had a priority that kept you going back, and today you don't have that priority. Now he's a very successful business guy.

If that gentleman had walked up to you and said that same thing to you, how would you start to address it with him being that he essentially would be, from I understand your target market. He's an executive who's struggling to get himself in a position where his fitness matches his business performance. Very first thing I would do is ask questions. That's the most important thing. Coming from a coach's standpoint, it's one thing to tell someone what they, you know, quote unquote, should be doing. It's another thing to use questions to guide what's already inside of that person. So you're right. He had a goal most likely before is like, he's playing high level baseball. He wanted to keep himself in shape. He wanted to be his athletic best.

Now that may change. And that probably has changed in terms of his motivations. I would ask him first, it's like, okay, so why do you want to get in shape in the first place? And then you go through kind of like his surface level answers. I just want to feel more confident. I just want to feel better about myself, like all this kind of stuff. Then you ask him, okay, so why does that stuff matter to you? And then I would keep on kind of like extracting and trying to peel this onion of getting to the core reason why. And once we get there, we understand what the motivation is. And the thing about motivation is very fleeting, too.

So you have this window of opportunity to really act on it. But once we find the core motivation, then we have the ammo necessary to be like, okay, well, cool. Then what are we struggling with right now? What do we need to do in order to turn the ship around? What's the destination, right? Like a lot of times people are like, I want to get in shape. Well, if you say that you just want your business to be successful, what does that mean? Right? You actually, when we deal with, or when I deal with entrepreneurs, I deal with people who are very targeted in the metrics that they are trying to accomplish in their business. But when I ask them about their bodies, they're so vague in general. Oh yeah, I just want to get in shape or I just want more energy.

Well, how do you quantify that? Because the brain works in such a way where you have to really be exact about where you want to end up. And that's the thing with entrepreneurs. It's kind of like they don't take the brain that they have with their businesses towards their bodies. They kind of treat it like an amateur rather than a pro as opposed to what they do in their business. So what I try to do is I try to find out what the core reason is, what the core why is. And then afterwards, we try to treat their business like they almost treat their or not. Sorry. We try to treat their bodies almost like they try.

They treat their businesses and we try to make it in that language so they understand. And then they turn this whole getting in shape thing from this process that was maybe kind of like, I don't know what I'm doing and whatever to an actual objective process that you can understand. So that's probably the first thing I would do. First and second thing is what's the destination what's the why behind it i actually feel bad that he asked me that question and not you now also i think i had speaker brain you know like that first half hour after you get off the stage and yeah you you want to answer people's questions but you're you have nothing you have nothing left to give us oh well he's saying like give me advice give me advice and then our automatic is like all right here's the advice this is what i did yes you know and and that's that's totally cool i mean that's

totally fine it's uh it's what he asked for um i just realized that through kind of like the whole years of coaching is like telling people to do one thing is is actually just like one thing but most most of the times like people actually have the answers inside of them. They have to come up with the answers themselves through really good clarity through really good question asking. And then once they get there, then they're gonna be like, they have ownership over like what they do, at least as opposed to someone saying like, you do this, you do that kind of thing. Yeah. And I, it's funny. It's funny how when something is outside of your domain, like I do something very, very similar. And like, I love the Socratic method, which is what you just described.

But like, let's just do a waterfall of whys until we start to get to a place where we're really touching into what's happening. And like, if I'm working with a startup founder, et cetera, that's like second nature. And then almost all other things in my life, I'm just like, do this and walk away. It's just funny how domain knowledge is like that. And I guess that kind of goes to my next question, which is, is that kind, is that the issue with health and fitness for, for a lot of these business professionals who haven't yet taken it? They, their domain knowledge is in how, whatever they're executing in their business.

It's in our nature as humans that we just don't naturally apply that to other things. I would imagine that once one of your clients works through this process with you, it feels very similar to things they do in their own business. But they've just never even thought on their own to apply that same process to their fitness. Something that I realized a lot is that things that are obvious to us are not obvious to others. So it's easy for me to stay in here and be like, Oh yeah, you could just like put your business and treat your body just like you do your business when there was such a disconnect because I've, I've worked with a lot of people and it's kind of been this like subconscious thing that I've already done. So I do feel that, you know, people like yourself, people like myself, like coaches should be a tool to guide them to that. It's not like they can automatically be like, well well i measure what i manage so you know if

i measure like the metrics in my business why am i not measuring the metrics inside of my body it's it's just so easy easier said than done and also something that i realized too is that through the exposure of of doing business uh business owners actually become more objective about each and every metric that happens in their business. So if sales go down, they're not going to be like panicking and be like, Oh my gosh, like they're going to be like, okay, cool. What's the cause? What's the thing that happened? And the thing is they don't really take that same mindset with their bodies because they have not been focused on their bodies as long as they have with their businesses. So they step on the scale and they see themselves doing everything that they

should have been doing. And they're up two pounds. They start freaking out. They're saying like, this diet sucks. I'm not getting anywhere, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they haven't been exposed to the emotions that you need to be exposed to when you're transforming your body. It's much like kind of like doing a startup in a sense, especially if you're just like starting or restarting. So you have to get through those emotions. It's better if you have like a coach or at least like something to guide you to tell you like what you should be doing. And along that process, you should be learning a lot about yourself as you learn lessons from building up a business to whatever size that you want it. You should actually be honing in the lessons that you're learning from

transforming your body. Uh, these are both, uh, these are actually just like these kind of, uh, these external processes that are masked that are really, uh,

masking the true process, which is self-development and developing yourself as a person. Yeah. It almost comes as second nature, it feels like, or it's just an accepted practice that most entrepreneurs, executives, et cetera, having a business coach, having a board of directors, having an early mentor, finding an early investor who acts as an advisor to your company, it almost comes as second nature to them. And then so many people fight having a fitness or health coach.

And I think this also goes for mental health as well. The best piece of advice that I've ever gotten ever was from a mentor of mine. About five years ago, I was on my journey of taking control of my health and my fitness, and I started to do that. But my mental health, I had never addressed my mental health. And he said, he said, go find counselor, someone who's not, you're not related to, isn't a friend, someone completely removed from your life, and pay them every two weeks and just sit down and just, just sit down with them every two weeks for the rest of your life. That's what he said. He goes every two weeks, the rest of your life, sit down with that person. Just consider a life expense. Just put it in your

budget, make it a life expense, good, bad. Everything's amazing. Everything's terrible. And, and just talk to them. And that has quite literally changed the course of my life. And again, I think about it, like that makes sense to me, business makes sense to me, and I still fight the idea sometimes of having, and I have had some fitness coaches, but like I fight the idea

of just having somebody with me all the time. So do you feel like, why do we fight this? Is it because it feels like something, particularly to fitness and health? Is it because it feels like something we should be able to take on ourselves? Is it an ego thing? Is it a lack of just knowledge? Is it feel, is there some sort of stigma around having a health or fitness coach that keeps people from engaging? Does that make sense what I'm asking you? Yeah, I think there's a couple things at play. So number one thing is that you're going to get coaching

for the thing that you want to get better at and the thing that you prioritize. And most times when entrepreneurs are thinking, like, where should I get a coach? It's obviously going to be for their business because that is like the number one thing that they prioritize in their lives. Now, what are other things that they prioritize, but they don't really think that they need a coach in, whether it be relationships with their wife or husband,

whoever it is, being a parent, their health. They think of these things as like these natural processes that just happen as a result of you going through it when they really should be treating it as something that you can actually learn and get from A to B a lot faster than just trying to figure out on your own or just trying to read books about it. And also like, I think when people think about coaches, they think a lot about like the educational aspect of things. Okay, what am I going to learn from this coach and, and all this kind of stuff, especially when it comes to fitness, everyone kind of thinks that they know everything already,

especially if you're on social media, it's like, okay, well, I've just like, let's look at 10 reels that told me not to eat vegetables, not to eat meat, and not to do all this kind of stuff. And now, now I'm, now I'm educated, right? But it's not necessarily like that. The way I look at coaches is like this amalgamation of yes, the right, it's actually the right education for the right time of where you are at that very moment of time. It is implementation and it's accountability. It's like, it's not enough to know you must do.

And that's what coaches do. It's they hold you to the fire of the thing that you said that you were going to do. And if you don't do it, that's where the accountability comes in saying, okay, why didn't you do it? Right. And, and that's why I think coaching works so well, especially when it comes to like this fitness field is because you have someone there who's telling you what the right thing is to do at the right time. And I'll use a story for this. So one of my clients in the past, uh, I'm going to say over the past 14 weeks, he's dropped like 50 pounds off of his body. Incredible. Took himself from 36% body fat down to 23% body fat. Now he's asking me, I was like, okay, Dan, now what,

what are we going to do? What next? Well, I told him, I was like, okay, Dan, now what, what are we going to do? What next? Well, I told him, I was like, based on where we are at this very moment, I think we have this opportunity to be able to get to 19 to 18% body fat based on the trajectory of where our weight loss is at this very moment. We can continue this on for another like six to eight weeks, but over time, what's going to happen some things that I've seen is the symptoms of being on a diet for way too long, you get hungry at these weird times you eat foods, or you eat a meal, and you're still hungry after you eat a meal. These are signs that your hunger hormones and your appetite hormones are coming

back and starting to bite you in the ass a little bit. So when that happens, what's going to happen is, is that we're going to up our calories. We're going to keep ourselves within this variance of weight where we're at. We're going to take advantage of these calories and use them to build muscle. So I tell this story because a lot of times people think that fitness and also weight loss is like this kind of like simple process. You just eat less and move more. And it's kind of like telling someone to build wealth by just spending, you know, spending less than you earn. I mean, it's a trite statement, but it's much more complicated than that. You probably know this through like startup coaching as well. So we have to understand that every single thing that matters to us, especially like

health, even relationships, it's much more complex than we think. And going back to that example that you used for the therapist as well, I too get therapy. Every single time I'm about to get therapy, I'm like, why do I have this in my calendar? I don't even think that, like, I want to cancel, but I've done it enough times that i know that after i'm done that call i know i'm going to be put on the right path i'm going to feel so much better it's just like before you get onto i'm like i'd rather do business i'd rather just like yeah you know great stuff and whatever it is so so it's kind of like this thing it's like you don't necessarily you don't necessarily know the value until you actually kind of go through it. And I think that's kind of like this disconnect between people

not getting coaching in this specific area of their life. I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't agree with that more. I think with all things in the word that I actually heard you use a couple of times in there is nuance that that aspect of, of almost everything is so important. We, we, we see these reels you're, you talk about, uh, there was a reel of Dana White saying Gary Brekka changed his life. The next, the literally the next reel was Gary Brekka on stage saying something. And then the next reel was by Elaine talking about why everything Gary Brekka on stage saying something. And then the next reel was by Elaine talking about why everything Gary Brekka said was ridiculous. And it was like one, two, three in a row. So it's like, if you're not, if you don't have someone in your life who can address the specific

nuances of, of your lifestyle, of your goals, of your body composition, of your tastes, of, of what you're willing to sacrifice to get to that place, right? Like someone may say, I want to drop X number of pounds, but I'm unwilling to not drink alcohol on the weekends. Okay, like how do you figure out how to do that, right? You need someone who can understand what you're trying to get to.

But if you're just going through reels, you know, at one minute you're like, you hear Dana White, he looks amazing. You know, he's just this bull kind of guy. And you're like, through reels, you know, at one minute you're like, you hear Dana White. He looks amazing. You know, he's, you know, just this bull kind of guy. And you're like, wow, that looks great. And you hear, then you hear the guy literally talking. You're like, there he is. I'm going to follow what he says.

And then the next guy is telling you all that stuff. And that's when you're like, what am I supposed to do? And those nuances are important. We assume they're, seemingly assume they're important. Most people, most successful people assume and understand that nuance is important in business. But I think everything else that you mentioned, our mental health, our relationship with our spouse slash partner is incredibly nuanced.

Our kids relationship, our relationship with our children, if we have them is incredibly nuanced. And why wouldn't then also our relationship with food, exercise, fitness, health, why wouldn't that be nuanced? And I just don't think you can. I think you can get small tips and inspiration from generic social media stuff. I don't think it's a bad thing. And we were talking a little bit about that before. It's not a bad thing. Even Alex Ramos, the other day on an interview that I was listening to with the woman, Chris Williamson said, I scroll Instagram and like motivational quotes. You know what I mean? He's like, I like them. They, they make me feel good.

That's great. But if you live your life by those, you're, it's very difficult to hit the mark. It just, it's not tailored to what you need. And that is so incredibly important. Yeah. I look at people like puzzle pieces and especially the clients and each client is going to be so different based on a number of factors. I mean, we'll, we'll name off some, like what's their time commitment, right? Some clients like to cook food. Other clients don't even know how to turn on their stove. Some clients love to work out. They love spending three hours in the gym every single week.

And that is like, I need this. And there are other clients where they're like, I am so allergic to the gym. I hate even being here. I feel like I'm being looked at and watched. And the thing with like getting all this like information, this, this kind of abundance of information, especially from social media is number one, it's not necessarily vetted for your situation. It's, uh, it's kind of like you're getting it as like this, this kind of like,

steady stream of just different thoughts. And I think that's cool. You know, it's good to have like, you know, guys who disagree with each other and kind of like who, who give you a little bit of like a challenge in terms of like what you're thinking. But at the same time, if you're doing that, and you're scrolling, and then that is like the only place where you're trying to educate yourself and you're trying to piece together this plan, that's supposed to be working for you and you alone. I don't think it's a good strategy. And I wouldn't, I mean, like if I wanted to build a business, like I'm not going to go on social media and just look at how other people are building businesses because they're all optimizing for something different. This reminds me, I was at this, I was at this dinner and to put things in context, like I optimize for impact and reach. That's like the thing I optimize for, especially when it comes

to like social media. And I was, I was talking to this guy, I just met him first time. He knew what I was doing or he knew what I did. He found me on social media, all this kind of stuff. So when I sat beside him, he was like, here's all the ways that you can monetize your audience. Here's what you should be doing to monetize and make more money and make this and make that. I never asked him for advice, mind you, just like unsolicited, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the thing is, is that he's trying to optimize me for the thing that he wants, which is money. And I'm, I'm not, I like money. I think it's great. But I do think that the way in which I'm making money is a little bit more conducive to like what I want to do in the longterm, which is really just like impact and, and love of fulfilling life, like creating really cool shit. Right. So, so over time, I just like extricated

from myself from that conversation. But that's the thing is like, when you're on social media, it's like, guess what? Even looking, even if you follow me, it's like, we optimize for the thing that we want. My whole thing is like, get your body to a level that's avoiding a preventable disease, feel good, look good, and do so in a simple way that fits your lifestyle. For other people, they're like, get a six pack, be at 10% body fat. Oh no, you got to gain enough muscle. So you're always going to be to over 200 pounds at like 8% body fat. And they're just making you optimize for their goals and their subjective idea of like what success means to them, especially when it comes to health.

When the reality is, it's like, you got to ask yourself, okay, what do I really want? And who is the person that's going to best help me get to this place? If you're a hammer, everything's a nail, right? Yeah. That's what it is. Yeah, I completely agree. I completely agree. And it's funny. So what I do is very similar. I have no intention of building my YouTube channel for max ad revenue and all this kind of stuff. Like I want to help people. I hit a certain point in my life where I found that a few – I found that in general, working towards becoming the best version of yourself, whatever that looks like for you based on your particular goals, that journey seemingly leads to a more satisfying, content, happy life. I don't love happy because happy is more derivative,

but it just does like, and whatever that looks for you. Right. And again, so, and getting that message into the world and trying to be a positive influence versus, you know, to, to fight against all the negative is, is my goal. And it's funny, I will have people come up to me and they're like, well, you know, are you selling affiliate links through your email list? And I'm like, no, no, I don't do that. Mostly if I create something I think is really awesome, I just tell them about it. And you know, I try whatever, but you know, the idea is like, no, I'm not doing that. Like I have things, I have a way of making money. I like those things. Those things seem to impact people in a very positive way. And I want to do more of those things and get better at those things.

But I don't need 19 streams of income to be happy. And I do think that that is a very, I think this idea of being careful where you get your advice until you know why you're getting it and how it's being framed for you. And if it's being framed specifically for you or through someone else's filter is really good. I mean, I do, I couldn't, that that's very important. I hope everyone listening takes that note down. Like understanding why someone is sharing that, sharing a piece of advice for you is

just as important as the advice that you're actually receiving. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm very happy that you brought that up. I think it's important. I always ask this question. I think it's a great question to ask ourselves too. It's like, what are we optimizing for? So let's just say we're getting someone into a program and he's like, okay, well, when I get my weight down from 220 to 180 pounds, okay, cool. That's, that's the outcome. That's the destination. But what else are we optimizing for? Most people, they optimize to get to, let's just call it weight loss. We'll, we'll stay there for a second. They optimize to get to the weight loss result, but they don't

optimize to keep the weight loss result, right? It's like, I will do this unsustainable thing. I'll drop 2040 pounds and however long and I will do so in a way that is not conducive to me even wanting to live this lifestyle by that time I'm done with it. The biggest question I get asked every single time is like, you know, okay, well, Dan, what happens? You know, after the after you lose the weight, what happens after we get there and whatever? I'm just like, well, I mean, getting there is one thing, keeping it is another. And the goal is not necessarily to try to control this outcome. I think I say this all the time, and it sounds like it flies in the face of what I'm talking about, but it doesn't. So it's like, you don't have control over your weight. You don't have control over even how much money you make. You don't have control over what people think about you. You don't have control over how many likes you're going to get on a specific post when you put it out there, but you do have control over your behaviors. You do have control over the way in which you react to things. You have control over the foods that you put into your mouth.

You have control over the behavior of actually going to the gym and working. You have the control over looking at your KPIs and making sure that you are making progress and taking steps. These are the things that we do have control over. And I'm so glad that you said the whole idea of fulfillment and happiness. I think a lot of times we get so much anxiety by trying to control these outcomes when the reality is that we should be putting focus into the behaviors. And a lot of times when we get a client into like, you know, let's just say a program, our main, or our main kind of question is like, okay, well, what type of person are you becoming as a result of reaching this destination? Right?

Because it's not necessarily like you doing all these tactics. Yes, it may get you there, but, but more so if, have we set up a plan that is going to be conducive to your lifestyle and the way that you love to live it while still keeping the result that you have achieved for yourself. So it's like, okay, well, if you're not optimizing necessarily for weight loss, what are you optimizing for? You're optimizing for behavior change you're optimizing for making the right decisions when you are eating meals you're optimizing for being the strongest version of yourself when every single time you're hitting the gym trying to like eat that up a

little bit trying to see what you're made of that's and reaching your full potential that's what you're like optimizing for so so i think it there's kind of like this whole kind of, uh, focus totally on outcomes, but it's an over-focus. It's an over-obsession because if you're so focused on the outcome that actually creates more anxiety, the farther you are away from it, as opposed to just focusing on putting like one foot in front of the other every single day and focusing on those actions for those days. Have you ever read The Gap and the Gain by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan? I've heard about it, but I haven't read it. No, it's super fast.

I don't know if you read it. I'm not trying to not trying to give you advice because I'm now optimizing. I'm talking about my own life. You should read this. Yeah, you don't. You're not a real now. Yeah, no, no. But but so this the whole idea of

this, it's actually comes out of the work of Dan Sullivan. And then Dr. Benjamin Hardy, who also wrote 10 X or two X, he kind of turned us into a book. Okay. The concept is exactly what you just described and the way he frames it. And I just, I couldn't agree with you more. And it's basically like so much. So what he, so what most people do is they have this thing, right? 220 pounds and trying to get to 180. And all they think about is, well, I'm only 218 and I'm only, you know, and I'm still, I'm still 30 pounds away and I'm still this. And all that difference between where you started and where you're trying to get to, that's all anxiety.

And what he says is instead measure down. So go, I lost two pounds this month. I lost seven pounds this month. I lost. And now And now all you're talking about are the positives, right? It's a way of reframing your execution so you're always mentally wrapping your head around the positives. me and um abigail schreier who just came out with a new book as well i haven't read it yet but i read the synopsis of it and was basically like the more her her whole argument is that like particularly she was talking about like like post-modern therapy in which we're constantly talking about our problems and she's like even though there is a positive to addressing and dealing with your problems if you're constantly talking about them all your brain hears is the reinforcement of problems. And you're essentially like compounding those problems in your head versus what you just described, which is focusing on the activities, the coming home and going, sweetheart, I did nine pull-ups today.

Like I couldn't do nine pull-ups a month ago. That's amazing. Right? Like that. Now you feel like a pimp. Like you come home and you're like, you know, sure. Is there some 22 year old banging out muscle ups? You know, like, it looks like a, like a, like a crazy person. You can't even understand how he's doing it. Sure. But you got nine pull-ups today and you couldn't do that a month ago. And that's so incredibly positive and satisfying and focusing on that, it just, it moves you forward. It keeps you coming back. And I feel like we get lost in the, what we're not doing

and we forget all the things that we are, if that makes sense. Sorry, my microphone is, unfortunately. Hey, can you hear me? Great. Okay. Yeah. You're all good. My bad. We got to cut that one out. What's the, what was the last like 30 seconds that you talked about? No, you're good. So, uh, what I was saying is, and I'll just cut it to your answer, but what I was saying was, um, uh, uh, you know, we, we, we go to the gym, we get nine pull-ups. We weren't able to do that. Maybe the kid next to us was doing muscle ups like a, like an animal. Right. And instead of focusing on the fact that I can't do that, focus on the coming home and telling your family that you got nine pull-ups, you couldn't do it before, right? It's, it's holding that positive,

that, that the growth in your mind, it reinforces the positive activity versus focusing on where you're not, which maybe your goal is to get to 15, you know, and, and that by, by holding the positive aspect of our growth in our mind versus focusing on not being at our goal yet reinforces the action much more than the desire to get to the goal, if that makes sense. It reminds me of the curse of the type A individual where they're always looking at the grass on another person's lawn as opposed to their own. And also, it is like whatever you focus on expands. That's the principle. So if you're looking in the mirror, you're going to the mirror and you're looking

in the mirror and all you're doing is just like grabbing onto your belly and be like, I hate this or looking at certain parts of your body where like, I don't like this and I don't like this. And I don't like that. It really just like creates a way of which you're just expanding those problems as opposed to seeing like the things that are actually working for you. And it's so easy, especially like in this day of age, like where we are so focused on kind of like the bad things that are happening around us. It's even made double worse if you hang around complainers the entire time energy vampires and and what we think about expands so i like to say especially for like a type of individual there's this little thing that we do which is like hey every single

day before your day is done write out like every single win that you had from that day. And then people are like, I had no wins, man. This is actually kind of like, it annoys me. It's an external thing that annoys me a little bit. So I go out, I talk to, uh, I talked to almost like anyone, if I'm in the grocery store, if I'm in like, you know, butcher shop and I'll ask them a question. I was like, Oh, what's the highlight of your day? And then it'll be like, just drawing a freaking blank. Like I've never gotten, I maybe gotten like one answer or at least a good one that I would consider to be a good answer out of all the like 50, a hundred times I've done this. And the thing is, is that we're so bogged down with the things

that aren't as opposed to the things that are. So I get people to do this little exercise, which is just like recount all the small and big wins that have happened in your day. And what happens as a result, when people do this is they look at, they look at their day and they're like, I actually won a lot more than I lost today. Whether it was doing a workout, whether it was choosing the healthy meal, whether it was, for some people, like, some people will actually make a massive gain in their business. Whether it's, like, closing a million-dollar deal or whatever it is, it will totally gloss over them. And they will not even think about it past the event that happens. They have to remind themselves, oh shit, I closed that million dollar deal today. I remember,

I just totally forgot that. And then it's just like, to us, we're just like, how do you forget such a thing? Because we are so mired and we're so trained to be focused on what we don't have as opposed to what we have in the first place. And I do think that the more that you focus on the good that's happening in your life, the more that you're inviting the good to happen as well. I, this is not proven by science. Okay. This is not, this is anecdotal, but I do feel that we do admit like a specific frequency based on our thoughts and based on the ways in which we feel. If we are feeling in a certain way that shit's always bad and I'm always gaining weight and

all this kind of stuff, that's what you were attracting into your life. As opposed to, hey, what's up? I dropped like two pounds off the scale. Fuck. Good job, Dan. Or I did one I dropped like two pounds off the scale. Fuck. Good job, Dan. You know, or I did one more pull-up than I did before. I just hit a PR in my incline bench press. Boom. The more that you kind of focus on that, the more that you're kind of inviting that stuff to happen. So I totally get what you're saying. And that's kind of like the whole crux

of using our minds to our advantage. For me, it's like, I feel that reality is malleable and it's different for everybody. I can put two people in the same room, similar people, and give them the same situation. They will come out with two totally separate perspectives on what happened to them. And what most people don't realize is that that is our superpower. We can use a perspective that makes reality malleable to be for us instead of against us. And I really wish that people would actually use that not just for their health and bodies, but for like every aspect of their lives. It's easy to say hard to do, but the more that you do it, the easier it gets just like lifting weights at

the gym. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. Everything, the resonance of energy, all that kind of stuff. I, the only thing I would say on top of that is if you are in a place today where you feel like you're not there, guys, this is a learned, this is something you can learn and practice and get better at. I, I hope no one listening takes this. And I think if you're a long time listener, you know this, but I, and I won't speak for you, but for me, like up until 2017, when I had my kind of, I call that, that was like, I had a kind of an awakening moment where I said, I need changing. I was that way. It was, I'm not making enough money. I'm not getting in enough stages. You know, I'm not signing enough clients. This person has the, and it was all negative where I'm not, what I don't have. And, and it led to all kinds of things. And when I, and it was funny, you said there's, there's all kinds of, you didn't

go down this path, but you made this comment that there's these ancillary benefits, uh, and I'm paraphrasing, but there's ancillary benefits to this work that you don't necessarily see. And one for me is I'm a much better father today. Like not even close, like on another planet quality father today because of the mental, physical, et cetera, work that I have done. And it's taken me years. And like, I feel like I'm a pretty good dad today. Like I, I'm, I can be present. I'm connected. I give them their space. But at the same time, I, you know, all the things that I, you know, how I want to be

a parent, how I personally want to be a parent and how the relationship I have with my kids. It is as good as it has ever been. I hope it will continue to get better. But the path that I was on in 2017, if I didn't make these changes, I don't know that that would be true. And I don't love when I look back at the type of parent that I was in 2017. I don't look at that person and go, I was doing a good job then. I don't believe that I was. So my point is, and I would have never saw that coming.

I didn't make any of those changes to be a better parent. I made those changes because I was face down on the floor drooling on myself. Like I, you know what I mean? But because all this work, you start to see that positivity, that connection, those qualities that you're building into yourself leak out into these other parts of your life that just, you wouldn't have guessed, but become these amazing surprises that, you know, I value immensely. Can I, can I maybe, I'm going to assume, and then you can, you can, you can challenge me on this assumption that the main change that you made was a mental choice to see things in the way that serves you. So this is like one of the things that I've seen with entrepreneurs. I can't go to the gym because, you know, I got to do stuff in my business. As opposed to you, I'm probably going to throw it out there. It's like, I need to go to

the gym in order to be more effective for my business same situation different perception yep and and it's so easy it's so easy especially on social media it's so easy to like look at what other people are doing look at what other people have and be like why am i not there and like all this kind of stuff well like guess what it's like like you have your own journey. And you have to honor that. And part of the journey is making a choice based on what the world means to you, what these things mean to you. I had this, I had a friend who came up to me, and he was just like, Dan, when I was like broke and hustling and trying to like make things, I was the happiest I've ever been. And then he's like, yeah, now he's making a good amount of money, a very good amount of money.

I just don't feel that happiness anymore. And I didn't really say this to him at the time because I had to think about this for a second. And when I thought about it, I'm like, hey, the only person that changed was you. So as you made more money, you became less happier and you chose to become less happier. Not because of the things that you did, not because you made more money and because of what you're doing. It's because of the way in which you're perceiving the things that you're doing. It's so easy, especially as we get older. How old are you right now? 43. I'm 44. I find this divergence of people as you get older, where it's like you can do what most

people are doing right now, which is becoming more pessimistic, more cynical about the world and everything around them and being more bitter. As opposed to like a very small percentage of people who are getting more optimistic, who are getting more happier, who are, who are looking at the world, not necessarily through rose colored glasses,

but they're looking at the world in the sense of like, Hey, like how is all this stuff happening for me as opposed to the world happening at them? And, and I, and I do this thing with my daughter. Actually, I'm holding this right now. No, shoot. I'm not. Yeah. It's right here. Okay. So, so there's this rock that my daughter gave me. It's like this magic rock. I call it a magic rock. Yeah. And every single time you know i see my daughter i you know we touch it together we touch the rock together okay and once we touch the rock we're like it's a great day yeah we just say to each other it's a great day

i love it also and also it's like the world is taking care of us right the world is taking care of us so i mean just by touching touching this, it acts as like this little totem for ourselves to like maneuver our minds in the way that we want to maneuver it. And then once you say it's like, it's a great day, then you will look for reasons why it's such a great day. And it's all a choice. And the thing, like you said before, it's like, it's really hard, especially if you're starting from like rock bottom and you're like, everything sucks and you're complaining about everything And you're stuck in this kind of like rut a little bit. It's really hard, just like going to the gym, it's really hard to go to the

gym when you're just starting out. That is like the most, that's the hardest part of going to the gym is like when you're just starting out to get that momentum. But just like anything, like the more you work it out, the stronger the muscle gets. But we have to make a conscious choice to say, we want to choose this way of life. We want to choose this way of thinking. And then once you start to get these, you know, sort of quote unquote results as a result of thinking that way, then you become a believer, but you won't believe it until you start thinking that way and start looking for reasons why to think that way. Yeah, I completely agree. I think that you could apply the ritual or ceremony that you have with your daughter to so many things. And one of the things that I found or kind of reclaimed was my faith.

And I don't put that on anyone else. That's what I did. And I have friends who, you know, maybe other religions or just a lot of atheism out there, which is, again, everyone makes their own decisions. But they'll question, you know, why? And they're like, yeah, it's not real. I'm like, if I believe it's real, it's real.

You and your daughter believe that by touching that rock, it turns everything into a magical day, great day. That means it's true because you believe it. That's what matters, right? And that doesn't have to be true for anyone else for it to be true to you. And that is what I believe the beauty of the universe is or the beauty of whatever we're living in is, is that you, if you believe it, it is actually true. You are creating a great day because you had this moment of connection with your daughter and how many people walk past their children every day and they never connect with them. Yeah. They keep them alive. Yeah. They have a house, they pick them up from school or

whatever, but they don't ever have that connection. They don't create that thing. And that to me is so incredibly important. You know, I had – I don't know what you would consider this guy. He's a guy I know in business. I don't even particularly like him. But I was talking to him one day, and this was kind of just after – this was like 2018-ish. And he said to me – I was talking about something. Something happened.

I made some progress, and then something happened. I was kind of just bitching, you know what I mean? And he looks at me, and he's like, you know it's not supposed to be easy, right? And I was like, what do you mean? He goes, everything's supposed to be hard, and when you learn to love that, everything will make sense. And I like sat back for a second.

And I was like, I kind of like, I had to like marinate on that thought for a second. All of a sudden I came back and I go, wait a minute. Just like your buddy who was broke and when he was the happiest working hard, the hardest parts of my life are the parts that I find the most satisfaction enjoying, right? Being a good parent, being a good partner, growing my business, helping people or having these are hard things, really hard in some cases. And they're also the things that I find them that I am drawn to the most, right? Like, like working out, wearing out is not supposed to be easy. And my hardest workouts are the workouts that I walk out of. And I think this is true for probably everybody, right?

You do the hardest workout. You absolutely obliterate yourself. And you walk out of the gym and your big old smile on your face, shoulders are back. You're like, what else am I going to do today? Let's go do something else, you know? And like, but we've been like programmed somehow. And I don't know

that I'm smart enough to not a deep program people, but we've been programmed somehow to believe that it's supposed to be easy or that the goal is eventually things are easy. And I'm like, if you can just retrain your brain to, Oh no, no, it's supposed to be hard. And therefore everything's good because it's supposed to be this way. This is exactly the way it's supposed to be. And in our growth and journey through accomplishing those goals, taking those Hills, there's so much positivity that comes out of that. I, I agree with that. And I, I'm going to throw something on top of that, which, uh, I've learned from, uh, from a friend, this guy Ali Abdaal,

and it's the concept of, okay, well, yeah, it's going to be hard, like everything. You're going to have to struggle, figure it out. How can we make it fun? How can we make the hard thing fun? Because everything that we enter into, it also is, like, molded by our perspective of what we are doing. And I'll use the same examples. Like, we can be doing the same exact task while one person is, like, really stressing them out.

And another person is like, oh, this is, like, really cool. Like, it's kind of hard. But, I mean, like, I'm having fun with this. So I think that the perspective that you bring into the, let's just say the gym or whatever you do at work, it can be molded to like, yes, it's, it's going to be hard. And also, hmm, how can we make this like fun for ourselves? How can we actually revel in this a little bit and enjoy this process and then again just like anything it's like our minds our minds are actually like the best and worst things in the world where it's like if you give it like the a horrible command then it will go and seek out a horrible outcome for yourself why is this always happening to me? Oh, well, guess what? It's always going to fucking happen to you.

You know, exactly. As opposed to giving it commands and actually, and actually setting like intention with the thing that you're doing. That's like, okay, well, our minds are these goal seeking mechanisms.

So why not? We use that to our advantage and give it the right intention. So let's just say a person like hates going to the gym. Well, okay, cool. What's a form of exercise that we can enjoy that we can do on a regular basis? Let's like start off with that. If they ever do go into the gym, okay, how can we make going here fun for us? Maybe it's like in the beginning, it's like, okay, I'm going to go in and I'm just going to like play around with all the machines. And I'm just going to try out all these machines.

I'm going to do them horribly. I'm not going to judge myself for it. And then eventually, especially for like high driven, high achieving type A individuals, it's like, okay, well, cool. How can I like do a little bit more than I did like last week? Right. How can I, that's actually the thing that I find with a lot of my entrepreneur clients. It's like, they make it fun by like progression.

So if they're adding like another 10 pounds of bench press or they're adding another 10 pounds of squat, that's what makes it fun for them. And that's what gives them this like, this kind of like this fulfilling prophecy of every single time I'm going to the gym, I'm just going to be creating all these like little wins for myself. And it all comes from like this fulfilling prophecy of every single time I'm going to the gym, I'm just going to be creating all these like little wins for myself.

And it all comes from like this idea of perception. And I will say something that you said earlier, which I'll kind of like point out, which I found fascinating, which is like you said something like you were at a place where it's like, I'm not making enough money. I'm not getting up on enough stages. And then then when you said that to me i was just like those are all incredible problems those are all so good imagine me being stressed about getting on more stages. Holy crow. That's a great life.

I know. I know. It's funny. It's funny. And I want to be respectful of your time and that of the audience. And we actually didn't talk about anything that I wanted to talk about, which is perfectly fine. What's one thing you want to talk about? We could do it like super quick. No.

Okay. You have this list. I'm going to direct everyone to it. All right. So show notes, guys, or just go to Dan, okay. You have this list. I'm going to direct everyone to it. All right. So show notes, uh, guys, or just go to, uh, Dan's website. I have it linked up. Uh, we'll hit them at the end. You have this article that for me, uh, things I'm doing at 44 to avoid regret when I'm 74,

there's a whole bunch of lit items on this list. One, one thing someone's listening to this. They're completely bought into everything we said. And they said, you know what? I get it. I'm going to do one thing. What would be the one thing from that list that you would give them as a starting spot? It can be a starting spot, whatever. I know there's, there's like 19, 20 things, but what would be the one? The one thing I would say is, uh, is actually what we are talking about right now which is the idea of making reality malleable for yourself choosing your perspective on and being intentional but every single thing that you

do is going to dramatically change your life and dramatically change your approach especially to the things that matter most to you. And I'm not talking about making money. That's important, but I'm talking about how you are being intentional with your children if you have it. How are you being intentional with your spouse if you have one? How are you being intentional with your body and your perspective of what a healthy body means to you? What does the gym mean to you? What does healthy eating mean to you? It's not a boring thing. It's if you change your perspective to being like, I feel really good after I eat a super healthy meal. That is a perspective that you get to choose.

So make reality malleable for yourself and be intentional with the type of reality that you're creating. And then once you do this, your reality is going to change. And the best part about it is, is that you made the choice. It wasn't made for you. I love it. My man, where can people get a hold of you? Learn more about what you're doing? Just engage with your content. Where are all the best? Where's the best spot? Dango.co or just search my name on Google and you'll have everything there. Except for there's like this place called Dango Cake Lab because in Chinese, my name means cake. I don't know why my parents did that, but Dango. But yeah, other than that cake place, all the other links all point back to me. So go there. It was incredible to have you on the show. I appreciate your time. This has been wonderful conversation and I wish you nothing but the best, my friend.

Thanks, man. Thanks, man. Hope, make it look easy. Hey, stand up guy, boom, ten toes. Big body pull up in a range rose. I can chase the whole game when I say so. I pull up, shut it down, yeah, they know. Running this game ain't a thing for me. I never switched up, no change in me. The only thing changing this season. Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible? It's not. With the one-call-close system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call.

This is the exact method we used to close 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast. Based in behavioral psychology and battle-tested, the one-call-close system eliminates excuses and gets the prospect saying yes more than you ever thought possible. If you're ready to stop losing opportunities and start winning, visit masteroftheclose.com. That's masteroftheclose.com. Do it today.