The School of Greatness - Develop a Superhuman Level of Self-Confidence and Re-Engage with your Imagination w/ Ed Mylett EP 1274
Episode Date: June 1, 2022Ed Mylett is a highly successful entrepreneur who has blended his unique experiences with a diverse set of practical strategies that have made him one of the most sought-after inspirational speakers i...n the world today. With a strong desire to help people, Ed began sharing his inspirational and performance strategies live and online. In four short years, he amassed more than two million Instagram followers, wrote a best-selling book, and launched a popular weekly podcast, The Ed Mylett Show. Be sure to check out Ed's newest book, 'The Power of One More."In this episode, you will learn:How to gain superhuman self-confidence. How to operate from your imagination. How to adopt the ‘one-more’ philosophy. Why you should chase difficult, inconvenient things.For more, go to lewishowes.com/1274Andy Galpin on Weight Loss, Stress Management, and Reversing Your Age: 1247Dr. Joe Dispenza on Healing the Body and Transforming the Mind: 826Gabrielle Lyon on How Muscle is the Key to Living Longer: 1267
Transcript
Discussion (0)
You are the only human being with your combination of gifts that you were given, whatever they are, and your experience.
And real human beings help real human beings by being...
Welcome to the School of Greatness.
My name is Lewis Howes, former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
Thanks for spending some time with me today.
Now let the class begin.
There's something unique about you, Ed, that's no one else.
And I'm not saying this because you're here.
I don't think I've said this to anyone on the show.
There's something unique about you that I don't think I've ever experienced around anyone else.
There's an essence, there's a presence,
there's a power, a command, an authority,
a humble confidence.
There's like this essence about you.
Thank you.
And I'm really curious,
what do you think made you you?
What were the elements growing up
that made you all the things you are now was
it the you know pre 13 kind of everything that happened with your
parents was it stuff more from school was it a relationship that really kind
of flipped these things on for you what were the elements early on that made you
this commanding kind presence today, thank you for that.
Thank you.
That's nice to hear.
Because by the way, I love people that have that combo.
I love people with a lot of self-confidence, a lot of humility.
Because people with a lot of humility that have no self-confidence,
you're kind of dragging them through life as a friend.
Someone with all their self-confidence, no humility,
they're going to burn out.
They're going to make a mistake.
They're not curious.
They don't grow.
I think even the reason I'm in the personal development space, why do I believe so much that people can change?
I watched my dad do it.
And then in my case, I had to learn these things, man,
to be like a baseline functioning person.
So my default personality is insecure.
Even today?
Even today.
Come on.
Very much.
Really? Very much. How is that the fault you wake up
and you say i'm a nobody or what what's wrong i like this i'm fooling everybody really if they
really knew you know uh pretty some imposter syndrome mixed with just like tremendous i was
bullied as a kid my dad was an alcoholic i wasn't a real big guy the only thing i wasn't good in
school the only thing i was good at was sports.
A lot like with you, you were a great athlete.
So my default is tons of insecurity.
So that's probably never gonna go away, the humility part.
So the part that I've worked on really hard
is the self-confidence part.
And so I've got all this stuff in the book on those tips
and what have I done to build it?
Because I had to get there just to get to baseline. And then I'm like, this stuff
works. What if I refined it and made it my own and started to build these other strategies and
stuff? So the confidence part is the thing I'm always going to have to work on. Even today,
even with all the success and the massive show and the big businesses and all the homes and
everything that people see. Yeah. The truth is, what else do you need though, to feel more confident? I don't need other things. It's an internal game. I don't need
other stuff. In other words, the, the stuff is really fleeting and temporary. So I don't need
another, you know, I bought an Island lately, you know that, right? Like when I bought this Island,
it didn't give me, they didn't make me more confident. It just was something that I've
always wanted to be able to do. I I it's not stuff what needs
to happen for me is that I'm most confident when I'm living in my intention which is to serve
which is to like help other people when I'm not doing that um Wayne Dyer when I met him really
really young told me you're going to change the world Ed Milet and I'm like and he then he I'm
sure he said this to a lot of people but he he complimented me. I met him on a beach.
We watched the sun come out together in Maui.
Yeah, I was running on the beach.
That's where he lived.
Yeah, I was running on the beach.
What was he like?
I never met him.
Incredible.
So we became a dear friend of mine, but I'm running, you know, you get up before the sun comes up.
I'm running on this.
I'd won this incentive trip.
And there's this bald dude running towards me with this hairy back.
I'll never forget this sweaty, hairy back.
And it was so long ago because I had a Sony Walkman on. Wow. And and he had one and he ran by me. I go, that was Wayne Dyer. And I said, Dr. Dyer, you changed my life. And he had this deep voice like mine. And he pulls it and
he goes, well, I doubt that. And he goes, I bet you changed your life. But he goes, how did I
help you? And then he walked towards me and we'd get emotional. Like God's been so good to me. We sat on this beach together and watch the sun come up for about an hour and a
half and about an hour into it, he goes, you're going to change the world. And I'm sure he said
this to a lot of people. And he's like, and it's, you're very talented. You're brilliant. You're a
good communicator, you know? And he goes, and that's not the reason why. And he was writing
a book at that time called The Power of Intention.
That's a great book.
Great book.
Incredible book.
And he goes, you really intend to help people.
And he goes, all these things with your father and your upbringing and all that, Ed, he goes, that's all made you.
And he goes, you have such a heart to want to help people.
And he goes, would you do me a favor if we never meet again? And we ended up meeting many times.
I said, yeah.
And he said, never link your confidence to your ability.
Because I know you struggle with your confidence.
If it's predicated on your abilities or your achievements,
you're always going to be chasing it.
He goes, but if you'd link your confidence to your intentions,
man, do you have beautiful intentions.
And that is something I knew about me.
I know I have a good heart.
And I've never forgotten that.
So when I do a podcast or a speech, I just connect to my intent, you know, and it's, it's been the one thing that's brought
me confidence. Cause if you said, Hey, you gotta be confident cause you're great. Or you got a
house or you have a plane. I go, yeah, but yeah, but, but if you go, you gotta be confident cause
you have beautiful intentions to help you. But I go, I'm about to list you. You might be right.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's where my confidence comes from. So as an athlete, I gained confidence from results, from actually getting the result
of becoming better.
That's one way to get it.
I was not good.
And then I put in the effort.
Yep.
And all the mistakes or the failures or the feedback, whatever you like to call it, gave
me the lessons and taught me how to get better to accomplish the result that I was looking
for.
Achieve the goal, win the game, or just improve my abilities.
So what I'm hearing you say is also link confidence to intention.
Some people say link it to the effort, right?
Like the effort that you show up, that you just keep showing up.
And others talk about the results.
Should we be thinking about it?
I call it the holy trilogy in the book of self-confidence.
What is this?
But the confidence trilogy is faith.
So if you're a person of faith, no matter what you believe in,
it's amazing to me how people that believe in energy, quantum energy,
or they believe in they're a Christian like me.
I believe in both, by the way.
But whatever their faith is, that they have it on Sunday.
They have it in Bible study,
or they have it when they get together with their friends or when they meditate. But somehow when they walk into a business meeting, they're alone. So why are you alone then, but you're not alone
these other times? So I'm never alone. So that's number one. Number two is my intention. And third
is my associations change my confidence. But here's the biggie. If you don't have self-confidence,
here's what you have. You have a really bad reputation with yourself. You have built a habit of not keeping the promises
you make to yourself. We've all heard this before, but there's a level. I have a chapter in the book
called One More Standard. Here's how I built what I would call almost superhuman confidence in spite
of my insecurity. Think about that. Superhuman confidence in spite of my insecurity. And it's
exactly what you just said. It's an effort play. If you don't have self-confidence, you've never kept the promises you make to yourself.
Check that box. If you have self-confidence, you've started to keep the promises you make
to yourself. If you want to have superhuman self-confidence, you keep the promises you
make to yourself and one more. So if I'm going to get up and I'm going to work out, I'm going to do
10 reps in the gym, I do one more. If I'm going to do 45 minutes on the treadmill i do one more if i want to make 10 contacts in a day i do that and one more if i'm
going to tell my daughter i love her every day i'm going to do that and one more and so that higher
standard because in life we don't get our goals we get our standards long term and so if your
standard is one more starts what starts to happen is you go i'm willing to do things other people
aren't willing to do and i combine that that i have great faith great associations and i intend to help people
this is a formula to build wonderful self-confidence and never lack humility when you
have it so when did you learn this one more mindset was this from your dad early on or was
this from my dad so we talked about this you know a little bit earlier but my dad had these
couple theories he would always say to me and so one was when he got sober he gave it one more try
he was going to stay sober one day at a time and then my dad there's no dreaming in my house
there's no like my jet you know i've had i've been blessing like multiple airplanes right in my life
my jet was in almost walking distance of my dad's house he's never been on any of them wow and i
would say to my dad i would say hey let's go let's go play golf in Maui. Let's go. There's these great golf courses in the
ocean. And my dad would say, well, why would I go all the way to Maui to play golf with my favorite
person? My son, when we can play here in Chino, it's not about there. I want to be with my son.
So this, my family had none of that stuff, but my dad knew I was a dreamer. And my dad would always say, you know, I was one decision away from changing my life the whole time.
One choice.
And he'd say, Eddie, you're not as far away from these dreams as you think you are.
And I'd say, really, Dad?
And he'd go, no, you're actually a lot closer than you think.
But because you think it's so far away, you behave in accordance with that belief system.
And it always keeps it that far away from you.
So how do we bring our dreams closer to us? The first thing is, that's a great question. The first thing is you need to believe and know that you're one decision, one relationship, one meeting,
one book, one thought, one something away from a completely different life. And when you know that,
when you, then you begin to look for them. And so in the second chapter of the book,
I have a thing in the book called the matrix. And your matrix is your reticular activating system in your brain. It's the filter for your
entire life. Okay. And this filter reveals to you the world that's in front of you. Again,
example of it is I just, I like what Musk is doing. So I just bought a Tesla. I drove it here
today. I got a Tesla too though. Model X or what do you got? I got a plaid. Okay. Wow. It's a good
one. Nice. And so I bought this plaid.
And all of a sudden, man, everywhere I go, there's Teslas.
You see them everywhere.
Oh, yeah.
I'm like, whoa.
I see them everywhere.
Another one.
Three lanes over, other side.
Freaking Tesla.
This is crazy.
They were always there.
Why didn't I see them before?
Because they weren't part of my RAS.
So the key thing I teach you in the book, how to slow down time and create the matrix
of your life.
When you make the Teslas of your life, those
relationships, those meetings, those thoughts, those encounters, you can very easily do this,
but there's a process of repeated visualization you do that's not complicated. It's chapter two
of the book and it will shift you. The other component too, I have a chapter in the book
called become an impossibility thinker and a possibility achiever. Here's how most people's
frameworks, they don't have an RAS program. They're not intentional. So they keep getting, if the things most important to you are your worries,
fears, anxieties, problems, bills, you will continue to have people, places, and things
revealed to you that confirm it. And if you operate out of your memory and your history,
if this is your pattern, your framework, you will continue to find those things. You need to learn
to operate out of your imagination and your dreams. This is a different framework for life
Imagination is different than dreaming imagination causes you to create dreams and thoughts that never happen when you imagine something
You create a space once you have a thought this is powerful
When you have a thought you create a space that did not exist in the world before you had that thought and that space is now
exists and the way your brain works and your life works and the universe works is it tries to furnish that
space. Whether it's a negative or a positive thought, it starts to hear things it wouldn't
hear. That's why like when you're in a crowded room and they say, Lewis, you can hear Lewis
auditorily over all the noise. Why? It's in your RAS. It's why you see the Tesla. Okay. So the key
thing is being able to operate out of this imagination. Why is imagination so important?
When you were a child, three, four, five years old, you were probably happier than you are right now.
Why?
Two reasons.
A, you were closer to God.
You had just been with God more recently.
And two, you operated out of your imagination.
You didn't operate out of a history and a memory because you didn't have one.
And slowly over time, by the time you were 10, 11, 12 years old, loving people installed their limiting thoughts and beliefs, their software into you.
Because most things in life are caught, not taught.
You catch them.
Wow.
And so now you're starting to operate out of history and memory.
And you repeat it.
And your RES begins to see the things that reinforce that history and memory.
And your RES begins to see the things that reinforce that history and memory.
And so you basically have the same life over and over again with a different cast of characters in a different environment, but the same emotions.
You have the same emotional home.
My dad used to say to me, every call, bro, till the day he died and I'm 50 years old, blah, blah, blah, whatever we're talking about.
Last thing he would always say to me, be careful.
Be careful.
What the heck? And I'd go. Be careful with what? I don't know. I never knew.
But what is that programming from the time you're eight years old? Be careful. Hey, go to school,
be careful. So with that, it operated out of this fear thing, right? Oh, I need to be careful. I
need to be careful, but don't make this risk. Don't take that business. Don't start a podcast.
Don't get on that stage and speak. Don't do this. Don't do that. You say that to an already
unconfident, insecure person. He meant it lovingly. By the time I'm 50, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Be careful. He didn't even know he was saying it to me. But what was he doing? He was installing,
God bless him, his limiting beliefs into me as a little boy. So a lot of these things that you
believe, you were defenseless when you started to believe them. They were installed in you by
loving people who were around you. And even though your life may look differently, your emotional home, the four, five, six emotions
you experience pretty regularly might be very familiar from your parents, one or two of them.
Right. And so you need to look at your emotional home. What's your most powerful emotion and the
emotion that you wish you could let go of? Love is the most powerful emotion in the world.
We will all do everything for love. If there were more love in the world, the way we treat one another, the way we express our thoughts, you know, you'll do anything for love, right?
So love is by far my most powerful emotion.
It's like I love you.
And like when I just saw you, we didn't just hug for like one second.
And you do this better than I do.
I hold people.
I make it uncomfortable because I just want to hug and love on people. But it's not uncomfortable, bro. Right. Because the reason
you're so successful is you truly do love people. Yeah. And you come from that place. And I know
we're bigger dudes and like, like that's a beautiful expression of a man. A real man is
capable of real love. That's a sign of real strength. So that's the most powerful one.
And then for me, I know the emotion that I wish I didn't have. It's chaos. Really? How often do you experience
chaos? Less because I'm aware of it. But I'm going to tell you all the time till about five years
ago, even when we first met. Why? I used to even say this, man, I operate great under chaos. Man,
you should see me operate under chaos. Most people can't handle chaos. I'm calm under pressure.
Well, the reason for that was I grew up in an alcoholic home.
So I'm very familiar with chaos.
It became a very familiar emotion.
And what we do is we gravitate towards the familiar emotions in our life,
even if they're not ones that serve us.
And I don't think there's negative or positive emotions.
I say this in the book.
There just are.
Fear isn't negative.
Fear in abundance is negative.
But some fear, being afraid to do this podcast, to some extent, causes us to prepare.
So a dose of it, it was given to us in the caveman days, so T-Rex didn't eat us, right?
So some fear is good.
Some anxiety is okay.
Some frustration, some anger is appropriate.
It's to the dosage level.
And we get these four or five of them.
For me, some chaos is okay. It's fun. It's exciting. It's exhilar dosage level. And we get these four or five of them. For me, some chaos is okay.
It's fun.
It's exciting.
It's exhilarating, right?
But getting it every day, every week, every month, all the time.
And so how do you get rid of it?
Well, one way you get rid of it is just be awareness.
When you have an awareness of a thought, it loses its impact and power over you.
It almost becomes like this.
I'll do it.
I'm like, I'm doing it again, aren't I?
I'm doing the chaos.
Everything's great right now.
All the houses are paid off. My kids are happy. Married to a great woman.
Got great friends. I'm doing the chaos thing again, aren't I? You dummy. You're doing it again.
And it kind of loses its power over you. So I have a chapter in the book called One More Emotion
and how to take an inventory of the emotions you have. And so, yeah, man, mine's definitely love.
And the one I don't want is chaos because chaos causes me to act out of anger and frustration. It can depress me. And your intentions are not
going to be as pure. It's a gateway emotion. Chaos is my gateway emotion to the ones I don't want.
Chaos gives me stress. Chaos gives me anger. Chaos gives me frustration. Chaos gives me fear.
So it's a gateway. What is the result when you create from that space of chaos?
It's funny.
I have found the ability to externally create something pretty productive.
Right.
But stay with me on this.
But the process in getting there is destructive.
The process in getting there is not beautiful.
And I used to think in a lot of successful people.
It's like forcing your way to get the results.
Almost through force.
Yeah. You know? And I still do it sometimes. I'm thinking people. It's like forcing your way to get the results. Almost through force. Yeah.
You know?
And I still do it sometimes.
I'm thinking of a situation this week where I did it.
And I used to think, well, that's a superpower though because I've created all these external.
Look what I made.
Look what I did.
Yeah.
And I'm doing it because of that.
The truth is I did it in spite of it.
You did.
And there's a lot of things in our lives that we have linked to our formula, our recipe of success that we hold on to that you've done in spite of those things, not because of those things.
So you're 51 now?
I am.
When you were 40, on a scale of 1 to 10 of the self-confident happiness joy scale, 10 being like you loved yourself fully, were peaceful you had an abundant mindset you were
had inner peace you know joy one being you hated yourself you were miserable you're in chaos 24 7
where were you on that scale at 40 okay the real answer is probably a three okay of happiness
and but if you met me i could convince you that it was probably an eight. That you were super happy and you had it together.
Probably a three.
And since your father passing, where are you now?
Probably a nine.
Really?
Yeah.
And I no longer feel the need to convince you because I've learned that this has already
existed within me.
I didn't have to go get it.
I just had to allow myself to experience it.
And it took me a long time to treat myself in such
a way that I allowed myself to feel these things that have always been there. I had them when I was
a little baby boy. I just lost them along the way in these patterns and programs that were installed
in me and my experiences. And I got to share something with you, brother, that just dawned
on me. I wrote this whole book. uh two weeks ago i had this i just
this is just for me and you but everybody can hear it sure and it i've always tried to disqualify
myself i've always you're not this why is that it always shocks people even people that know me
really well they're like not you i have that but there's no way you have it right yeah you're too
confident too talented too and i don't know that i'm too talented, but I think I can fake it pretty well. And I disqualify myself because,
you know, the truth is that maybe for a while,
everything that I got that was love when I was a child
only came when I achieved something.
So I started to conflate early on in my life,
recognition and significance with love.
In other words, my dad would love me if I hit the home run.
My dad would love me if I get straight A's.
And so then when I would feel these things.
But something really amazing.
And also like I'm really big at holding myself.
I love to beat myself up with mistakes I've made.
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I did this, I did that, I should have done this, I didn't do that.
And I've always thought these mistakes, these weaknesses of mine disqualify me
from being happy or helping people. And this amazing breakthrough, the one decision that
changed my family forever is my dad's decision to get sober. And it changed my family forever.
I'm talking to you because my dad made that decision. And I've always been so proud of my
dad for that. But this is just two weeks ago, 3.15 in the morning, I wake up, I'm crying. And I wake Christiana up. I go, babe, someone
helped dad. And she went, what, honey? I said, someone helped dad. She goes, what do you mean?
I said, babe, I never thought about this. And my dad's darkest, worst moment of his life
in some coffee shop or some room somewhere, some precious soul helped my dad's darkest, worst moment of his life, in some coffee shop or some room somewhere,
some precious soul helped my dad.
Reached out to him, talked to him.
Talked to him and got him sober.
Wow.
And I said, babe, that's not the powerful part.
And I have no idea who this person is, but I wonder if they know the difference they
made in Max and Bella's, my children's lives or your life or the millions of people I've
helped, that one decision they made.
And she goes, oh my gosh.
I said, I never thought about this beautiful human being.
Always gave the credit to my dad,
but some stranger helped him.
And I said, babe, this is the bananas part.
Do you know what qualified them to help my dad?
Their messed up life.
They were an alcoholic.
They were a drug addict.
Little did that person know the things
they were the most ashamed of, the biggest mistakes of their lives when they were using drugs and
drinking and stealing. That was qualifying them to change my dad's life. And all of us, we run
around carrying these bags of, I'm not qualified because I made this mistake. I had this bankruptcy.
This relationship didn't work. I did this thing you don't know about. I'm so ashamed of.
And that's why you're qualified.
See, this relationship didn't work.
I did this thing you don't know about.
I'm so ashamed of. And that's why you're qualified.
That's the thing that qualifies you.
Yeah.
The humanness in you.
You are the only human being with your combination of gifts that you were given, whatever they are, and your experience.
And real human beings help real human beings by being vulnerable and transparent, saying, I know where you are.
I've messed up worse.
I've made greater mistakes. I felt more. I know that depression. I know where you are. I've messed up worse. I've made greater mistakes.
I felt more, I know that depression.
I know that anxiety.
I know that shame.
I know what that feels like.
That beautiful soul who was a drug addict and alcoholic,
they didn't know all those mistakes they're making
were leading them out of their heart.
And they finally got to a point where their intention
was to help my father in the lowest
moment of his life. They changed my dad's life and their changed mine. And maybe me and you
were changing a few today because of that person's mess. It's crazy. Is that crazy?
That's amazing. I know. I know. Love them and thank them. That's amazing, man.
Where's the biggest wound in the last few years that you've had to realize still wasn't fully healed for you?
That if it was on a deeper mending process, you'd be able to go to the next level.
Is there something that has come up that you've realized or paid attention to that you're like, I thought I healed that fully, but it's still kind of there.
And maybe it's holding me back from more love, more peace, more service, more.
I'm great at giving love to people. I've never, very rarely ever allowed myself to receive it.
Really? Yeah. Even with your family or friends or. Yeah. I love them, but me allowing myself just to
go, they love me.
I've never said that out loud till right now. Wow.
Once I'm really worth it,
then I'll get around to having it.
I'll get it, but I don't have it yet.
What would it take for you to be really worth it?
Well, that's the thing is like,
there's that line keeps moving.
Yeah, okay.
And so that line keeps moving.
I wanna do that.
I'm worth a million, okay,
but not till 10 million, till a hundred million, till.
The line moves.
And what,
where it's been healing for me lately is like,
I'm worthy of it now.
Yeah.
I've always been worthy of it.
And the truth is the right type of love has no conditions on it.
Like my children,
I love them unconditionally.
There's,
there's literally nothing either one of them can do to make me love them less or more.
And I tell them that all the time.
You get this or that.
I can't love you more and I can't love you less.
My daughter could, worst case scenario, I mean, never.
She could literally end someone else's life and I'd be like, all right, where is it?
Let's bury the body.
You know, like, I mean, like, that's just, you love your children unconditionally.
And then I realized something in my faith.
God loves me even more.
He's always loved me even more.
He's made me in his image and likeness.
And for all of you that are listening to this, you were born to do something great with your life,
but that's not the condition to receive love.
All this achievement, you and I are both about a max out.
You're about greatness.
The highest form of maxing out in greatness is to give and receive love. Yeah.
But you didn't receive it that well. No. think lately i'm like i feel you thank you i accept that when
someone compliments man i always go yeah but you know you're and lately i go i'll take that thank
you i'll take that thank you and for at first it even felt a little insincere disingenuous
but i've had many more moments the last since my dad died candidly since
my dad died I'm like I'm robbing him yeah I robbed myself of that and I'll tell you what happened
right before my dad died we had a conversation and my dad said to me um I'm so proud of you
wow and I love you so much and he goes I said dad he goes no I want you to listen to me and he said this to me he goes I can't believe God gave you to me as my son wow and I felt holy cow I felt
loved and I went he's felt that way all of his life why did I wait till his last breaths to
receive it and I'm not going to do that again in my other relationships I'm not going to wait till
they're gone.
My dad's impact, you and I were both talking about our dads.
My dad's impact is far greater on me now
than it was when he was gone.
And you don't need to wait for that.
You don't need to wait around for that in your life.
You can receive it now.
And I allow myself to receive it much more often now.
There's probably nothing that you regret
that you would change differently in your past
about situations because it's made you who you are. But let's just say you were going back to before you got married. Is there anything that
you would do differently with yourself in the relationship or as you were starting to have kids
about emotions, connection, intimacy, receiving, giving love? Is there anything you'd change?
Tons. The biggest one is my lack of presence. I was always in the future, which is a good place
to be. I'm not a guy who's in the past a lot. Because then you're innovating, you're resourceful,
you're creating something from nothing. It's powerful.
I'm not a past guy, but I'm a future guy. But the truth is the best people are able to be in
the present and still operate, be in the future, but be present in the present time.
And I didn't do that very well.
There's a lot of times, man, when my kids would do things.
And now Christine goes, do you remember when Bella?
And I'll go, I don't remember.
She goes, but you were actually there.
But I wasn't.
So would I change that?
Yes.
I should have given myself the gift of being more present where I was.
And I do that very well now.
I'm very much a present person.
You turn your phone off after you get home and you put in your car or whatever you do.
You spend 10 minutes closing things out and then you go in the house and you connect.
Yeah, I do.
Yeah.
I have strategies for it because I know me.
And then anger.
You were angrier then?
Way more.
I'm an intense dude.
In fact, people who see me now on social that knew me back then would be like,
wow, man,
you've really changed.
I just thought
that my intensity
and even what moved
into anger
was strength
because I saw it in my dad.
Because it got results.
Certain results.
And I think I modeled
it a little bit.
My dad was a yeller
before he was sober
and even a little bit after,
truth be told.
And my dad would operate,
my dad could go to anger
pretty quickly. And I used to think that's what a man did. told. And my dad would operate. My dad could go to anger pretty quickly.
Yeah.
And I used to think that's what a man did.
I've watched my dad in many physical fights,
many angel games.
I watched my dad inside of the freeway.
I watched, we came out of church one Sunday,
St. Dennis Catholic Church in Diamond Bar.
Some guy said something my dad didn't like
in the donut line.
Whoa.
And we got in the car
and my dad calls the guy over to the car and he says, hey, what did you say? Bam. And headbutts the guy at church in the
parking lot in front of all the other parishioners. Right. So I think I modeled a little bit. I didn't
do anything like that, but I modeled, Hey, anger, men, men can do that thing. You know, don't
disrespect me, you know, that whole thing. And so I had a lot of that when
I was young. Like, don't, you know, I'm going to assert my authority. And as I got older,
it's almost become funny to me. And what the change for me was having kids. I'm like,
if someone ever spoke to my daughter or my son the way that I have talked to some of these people
that have been around me. And for someone like you that knows me now, they'll be like, there's
just no way, man. No, man, I really did really did i really said things i regret i really did things that
were out of anger too often and and um i don't like that guy he hasn't been around for a while
but every once in a while he'll rear his head a little bit he can be there once in a while but
what makes you angry today anytime i see someone operating out of anger i think they're afraid
yeah and so for me it's's when do I get angry?
I got angry today.
Today is, I said recently I had one of those episodes.
So my show got posted today and someone on my team posted it incorrectly and it wasn't on YouTube.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
And so my default when that happened was anger.
Who did this?
What happened?
I know the feeling, right?
Of course.
But what was I really?
I was afraid. I was afraid the show wouldn't do well. I was afraid it would be embarrassing. I
was afraid the guest was going to be upset with me. So when I operate out of anger, it's always
fear. I'm always afraid. But what about back in the day when you're hard on people? I was afraid
I was going to be broke. I was afraid we were going to lose the business. I was afraid this
situation was going to happen. I was afraid someone was going to shame me. So I'm going to
get in front of it and be angry with them. So for me, anger is just a manifestation of fear.
And when I see it in other people, men or women, I have empathy for them because I know they're
afraid. And I really do believe that. I think anger is always a result of some type of fear.
What do you think is the biggest things that hold all of us back from achieving our dreams faster?
Three biggest things. Well, one is the proximity to it hold all of us back from achieving our dreams faster? Three biggest things.
Well, one is the proximity to it.
We really do believe it's further away.
Like we honestly believe this thing is like a 20-year thing.
And so because we believe that, we keep it there and we miss out on these, you know, possibilities in our life.
The second one is I have a chapter in the book called on equanimity.
I say one more level of equanimity.
Equanimity is our ability to be calm under duress.
So I said earlier,
slow things down. The greatest athletes that we admire can slow things down under pressure.
They're calm. If you think of a Tom Brady, who's everybody's example in this age is that when it's the noisiest and the crowds, the craziest, and it's the playoffs and it's the highest stakes
for the average person, everything speeds up and they lose control good friend of both of
ours Michael Chandler fought this last weekend and it's a great win great win and normally Michael
he's one of the greatest fighters in the world but when he has been in duress in some of his fights
things speed up and he starts to do this Brawl mode and I watched him in this fight things
started to not go his way and he slowed things down and he started to show some
equanimity under duress. And that's when things slow down and we can perform at our best. So the
second thing I would say is equanimity. The third thing is I have a whole chapter in the book on the
way you manage time. And this is just, there's so many heavy things in the book, but the idea that
still people manage a day in 24 hours is hilarious to me that this archaic concept that a
day is 24 hours is bananas like the 24-hour day was just made up by somebody about the sun and
the earth going around each other building you know 100 million years ago or whatever it was
and this is before there was electricity there were cars there was the internet there was a
smartphone so you're going to tell me i should measure my day the same duration of time i
calibrate time when the same dude didn't have the internet. Well, I used to have to do a project in high
school. We'd have to go to the encyclopedia, go down to the library and research for hours. And
hey, my kids can Google something in 10 seconds. Now I get, I can text message you instead of
mailing you something that takes a month to get to you. So I've shrunk my days. My days now are
from my first day is from 6 a.m. to noon.
In that day, it's called a mini day.
6 a.m. to noon, I get into that day, whatever I want.
Some days are chill.
Some days are faith.
Some days are working out.
But the amount, we've all had that morning where we go, I got done more this morning than I have in three weeks.
I know.
Right?
So why can't that be every day?
And it is, I can tell you.
So my first day is 6 a.m. to noon.
At noon, the clock goes off.
We're in day two.
And I reevaluate really quickly for five seconds. What just happened? What did I do? What do I need to do more of? Next day is noon to 6 p.m. to noon. At noon, the clock goes off. We're in day two. And I reevaluate really quickly for
five seconds. What just happened? What did I do? What do I need to do more of? Next day is noon to
6 p.m. I'm going to get the same amount of business, contacts, faith, fun, whatever it is in that
ecstasy in that day. Third day is 6 p.m. to midnight. It's a third day. This gives me three
days in one day. I get 21 days a week. If I get 21 days a week, you get seven, stack that up over a month,
a year, five, 10 years, I'm going to smoke you in life, right? And I've bended and manipulated time
so that my accountability is different. It's not the end of a day or end of a week or end of a
month. It's at the end of a basically a six or eight hour window. That's interesting.
And other people respond to you differently because what is scarce is valuable. People
begin to respond to you differently when your time scarce is valuable. People begin to respond to you differently
when your time is more scarce, when it's more precious.
And so it's completely changed my life the last 25 years
running many days as opposed to 24 hour days.
Huge.
Yeah, so those three things.
You're probably one of the best enrollers I've ever met.
Enrollment for me is the key
to really accomplishing your dreams.
Enrolling yourself that you're confident enough
and have the skills and the tools to develop
what you need to to have what you want,
the relationship, the career, the business,
the life, the health, but also enrolling others
in your vision, in your dreams.
Where did you learn this skill of enrollment?
Of saying, I've got this idea. It's in the future.
Most people think it's 30 years away. I think it's three months away, which seems impossible.
And I'm going to call these five people and convince them essentially, but enroll them in
a vision that they didn't even know was a possibility in their mind. You're going to
speak this vision into them, into their souls. And then they're going to say, yes, vote for you,
sign up for something, listen to something, interview with you, pay to speak or whatever
it might be, give you lots of money, all these different things. How did you learn the art of
enrollment? Okay. That's a great question. And in the book, I have this whole chapter on leadership
and vision, but like you asked the best questions, bro. I love you. So two ways, one, a couple of
very special coaches that I had in my life that were great visionaries.
And for some reason, I've always been fascinated with great orators.
So I did my dissertation in college on Dr. King.
Oh, wow.
Whatever your politics are, I think two of the great orators of all time are Ronald Reagan
and John F. Kennedy, both of the different parties.
I just think they're tremendous orators.
And they were great at painting these big
visions. And then I read a book called Selling the Dream a long time ago, written by a guy named
Guy Kawasaki. And he's the guy that basically helped like Apple with Macintosh. Selling the
Dream? Selling the Dream. And he's a really unique dude. Yeah, I've met him a few times. Yeah. And so
what the book's premise was this, is that great leaders are evangelical about their cause.
They're evangelists.
And they do that through public preaching.
But they sell a big enough dream so that the dreams of all the people within their stewardship can fit inside the one they're selling.
So even for you with this whole media empire you're building, one of your big roles, man, is to sell a big enough dream for everybody that gets around you.
Guests, vendors, advertisers, the guys that work with you, the ladies that work with you,
that it is so big and so compelling that all of their dreams and visions for their life can sit
and fit inside that one. And then the key thing is to repeat it over and over and over. Most leaders
get tired of hearing themselves talk. And by the way, this is true as being a mother or a father.
As a father, my job is to tell a baby, we're going to do something awesome as a family. I know,
dad. No, we're going to do something awesome. You're amazing. You're a
superstar. I know, dad. Doesn't matter. I'm telling them over and over and over again.
Most leaders think, I got to say something new to these old people. But the truth is,
you need to say something old to new people. Keep saying it over and over and over again.
Sell it big. Look at all the people you admire in your life they're
visionaries who are evangelical about their mission and their cause not necessarily the
money or the cause what's the cause think about oprah winfrey think about martha stewart think
about dr king think about mother theresa think about any leader think about steve jobs you watch
old videos of steve jobs he wasn't selling megabytes. I've asked Wozniak
several times, tell me about Steve. What was he like? I said, by the way, why did you name
the thing Apple? Just curious, man. What a weird name for a company. Back when companies
weren't, he goes, well, you know, and Wozniak is almost like a savant. He goes, oh, well,
really two reasons, Ed. A, came early in the phone book. So we wanted people to find us
early. And Steve said, said apples made him happy.
And so great evangelists learned to link their cause and their mission to people's bliss.
You can look at an old YouTube video of Steve Jobs and he's rolling out a Mac.
He's not like, here's the speed.
He's like, isn't she beautiful?
Wouldn't you like look at her curves?
Wouldn't she make you happy to take her home?
He's selling happiness in an inanimate object.
McDonald's, number one seller of food in the history of planet Earth.
Happy meal.
Happy meal.
Number one, older real estate.
They don't sell food.
They sell happiness.
Right.
Their number one meal is a happy meal.
Their mascot's a clown.
It has nothing to do with food.
Yeah.
But they're in the evangelical dream selling happiness business.
What's the number one thing they sell in there? Coca-cola you get a coke and a smile yeah happiness so
great entrepreneurs great parents great people have this energy where they're selling you a
dream that's big enough that you can fit inside it and the dream at the end is happiness. That's the formula. Oh, man.
So why do you think people are stuck on, I'll never be able to be good enough to accomplish
what I want.
The dreams are not possible for me.
What keeps them stuck though?
What keeps them stuck is this false belief system that their past is their future.
So they're operating out of an operating system of their memory and their past.
So how do we let go of the past?
Well, we have to create a compelling future.
In other words, you're not going to let go of one thing until you've grabbed onto the
next.
You have to create a new future.
You have to create a future in it.
And by the way, it's okay that you don't believe all of it initially, as long as it becomes
repetitive and we begin to take steps towards it, right?
So for me, I still have stuff from my past that's there, but this future is so big.
And by the way, some things are okay.
People go, why do you still work so hard?
Well, I want to create.
There's still a little part of me that doesn't want to be broke.
There's still a little bit of fear.
But you're not broke.
Yeah, but you've interviewed some of the most successful actors, entertainers, so have I.
And you get them privately and sometimes on your show they go, are you afraid it's going to go away?
They go, yeah, I am.
That's why I work so hard.
So there's an element of that that's okay. It's creating this vision for your life. That's
compelling, but there's this other thing. I love thinking, grow rich. It's one of my favorite
books of all time. It's next to my scriptures, my favorite book, but you don't just think and
get rich. You have to do things. And by the way, rich can mean more bliss, more happiness, more
peace, but you don't just get those things by thinking. There's some things you have to do. But the most powerful part of Think and Grow Rich, man, is he has this part,
he says, can you survive the temporary? And if you can survive the temporary, he says, on the other
side of temporary pain, you get introduced to your other self. And that other self, he doesn't say
this, but that other self produces that other life. And so here's what happens for most of us.
We think everything's permanent. And because we think it's permanent, we make permanent decisions
based on temporary conditions. Even our bodies, other than our souls, are temporary. I was with
my dad holding his hand when his body ceased to exist anymore. His soul exists still. But if your
body isn't permanent, your problem isn't, your pain isn't, you need to create
a different relationship with pain in your life.
The idea that you're going to avoid pain, I have a chapter in the book called One More
Inconvenience.
Chase difficult, inconvenient things.
Like what?
Like what is something you're chasing that's inconvenient?
In a given day, the phone call you don't want to make, the meeting you don't want to have,
driving out here, there's a friend of mine who I'd like to help me with the book. It's incredibly uncomfortable phone call for me. It's the thing I don't want to have. Driving out here, there's a friend of mine who I'd like to help me with the book.
It's an incredibly uncomfortable phone call for me.
It's the thing I don't want to do today.
I don't want to bother them.
It's inconvenient.
And for me in my life, the inconvenient thing on the page is the one that now jumps off the screen at me that I must do. For most people, their relationship with the pain and the inconvenience is to avoid it.
Avoid is most common.
Yeah, but if you could say to yourself, on the other side of this is this other self.
And so whatever your pain is right now,
relationships just ended financially,
something that's difficult for you to do,
maybe you're trying to lose weight, whatever it might be,
on the other side of that temporary pain is the other self.
I have a thing I gotta say to you last minute on this topic.
In the book, I have this part about pinata. And what
most of us as humans don't do is we don't understand compound pounding, the relentless
pursuit of something. You're making what I call invisible progress in your life. Like your show
has gone boom. Everyone goes, wow, Lewis went from 400,000 to millions of subscribers. He's
the number one guy. That didn't just happen this year. This is our 10th year. You were compound
pounding on this sucker when no one was doing this. Exactly. But here's the pin one guy. That didn't just happen this year. This is our 10th year. You were compound pounding on this sucker when no one was doing this.
But here's the pinata thing.
I go to this party.
It's five-year-olds.
I didn't even want to go to the party.
It's five-year-old kids.
I'm like, what am I doing here?
But as a good friend, they have a pinata.
We've all been to them.
First kid gets up, hits the heck out of the pinata like 100 times.
Nothing happens.
No candy comes up.
Next kid gets up.
Whack, whack, whack.
Nothing.
Next kid, whack, whack, whack.
These three now quit.
They're gone.
Another part of the party.
There's three or four kids left.
Everyone's losing interest.
Everyone's pounding on this thing.
What they didn't know is each of those blows was breaking down the pinata, although there was no evidence it was true.
The last boy gets up.
I swear, actually, it's a little girl.
Last girl gets up.
She goes, wham, hits it one time.
Bam, all the candy comes out.
And everyone celebrates.
In people's lives.
So was it her blow that broke the pan
No, it was the cumulative shots
Most people don't wait around for the candy
Yeah
They quit before the candy comes out of their relationship of their body of their business of their bliss of their meditation
It takes time but you're making invisible progress
If you ever start to get down or know what to do,
give yourself credit for the compound pounding you're doing.
You're not sticking around long enough
for the candy to come out.
And that's what you need to be doing
if you're gonna change things.
What's the most inconvenient thing you had to do
in the last, I don't know, 10 years that was like,
oh, that created the biggest breakthrough
in your business or life?
This, being a public person.
Really?
Yeah, speaking about-
Because you didn't do this for a long time.
Never.
You resisted it for, until like five years ago, right?
Yeah, about five, six years ago.
This, when you're so insecure and you're so shy,
which I know is still weird for people to know,
because I can be, when I'm with a friend, you get this,
but I'm really introverted. And like I'm on the friend, you get this. But I'm really introverted.
And like I'm on the road, I get room service.
You know, I stay in.
If I was at a mall and we went to high school together, I would love to say hello to you.
I'm probably going to duck into a store and hide just because I don't know.
It's not that I don't love it.
I do.
I remember I was just saying this to someone coming out here today.
Oh, Rob Dyrdek and I were talking.
We're driving out here.
And he goes, man, it's a lot of work having a book.
And I said, yeah.
And I go, but you know what, bro?
I remember when no one wanted to read what I had to write.
So I'm really, really grateful for it.
At the same time, that part of expressing myself and being open and being vulnerable.
And by the way, I do it in droves now.
I fully embrace.
If you watch my social media or me, I'm like, hey, man, I'm having a bad day.
You know, this is not one of these.
This is a day I'm not doing crap that's in my book. You know, I didn't do anything that's in the book today. And so I, uh, I've embraced it fully and I love it. But the most
difficult thing for sure was, um, expressing myself publicly and public speaking, anything
public, public, public. And yet I'm, you know, You're an incredible public speaker. One of the best. Thank you. I thank you. And it was usually on the most inconvenient thing on the other side of it
is not just your other self, but your greatest gift is revealed to you. And so for me, most of
my greatest gifts have been revealed of me doing the really uncomfortable, inconvenient thing.
On the other side of it, I meet this version of me. I'm like, the whole time I could have been
a really good speaker.
This thing I was the most afraid of
that I thought I sucked the most at
might be one of my greatest gifts.
Right.
And it's nuts.
I get a lot of this from you,
like overcoming the fears, the insecurities, the dreaming.
This stuff is what excites me.
But a lot of people also want to learn
how to make a lot of money. Sure. Or they want to learn how to make a lot of money, or they want to learn how
to build their business, or they want to learn how to accelerate the growth financially, right?
They want to get out of a scarcity mindset into an abundance mindset financially. What would you say
if you could only share three things that you could do, or if you could take away everything
else and you could only do three things to build a business or generate wealth. You had to strip away all the other skills or
assets that you had, but these three things you could only do to get you as much as you
possibly wanted. What would that be for you? Okay. The first thing is that you have to identify what
you're great at doing and stop trying to play life at the things that you're mediocre at doing.
So I know what I'm
good at doing. And there's a very limited group. So it made it easy to pick from. It's not like I
had 80 things. I'm good at like really two things. I've made hundreds of millions of dollars with
these two things. And ironically, let me say this to you also, that thing you're great at may have
been born out of your biggest pain. Absolutely. So, and this is a gift that you have as well,
but one of my major gifts is my ability to read people and to be present with them.
Why?
I had an alcoholic dad.
Yeah.
When he would come through that front door, I had three little sisters and a mom.
And this five-year-old little boy would have to look up at his hero.
Is he drunk or sober?
Is he walking?
Is he slurring?
Is his tie tied correctly or is it loose?
How's he moving?
How's he talking?
And if it was drunk, Dad, I need to get my sisters upstairs
and Mom should go take a shower.
If it was sober, Dad, we're great.
But I would have to read this man.
And so that allowed me to learn to be present.
It's a terrible way to learn to do it, but I did.
Then the second skill would kick in.
I can talk.
I would grab his hand.
And my sisters would go upstairs and say,
Daddy, I hit a home run in the baseball game today
I got a 90 on my spelling test. How was your day? What did you do? And I would talk and change his state
And as I grew up those two gifts have made me a lot of money in business my ability to be present and listen
My ability to talk. So what are your gifts? What are two or three?
It could be your nurturing skills your intellect your problem-sol solving your intensity your passion your calmness your peace your humor whatever it is the second
thing that i would say is that you have to get in the business of truly caring about people i know
that sounds real generic but people matter things don't when i worked at the orphanage and i walked
into the orphanage that changed my life and i know you know know that story. My little boys were 8 to 10 years old.
Here's what they wanted from me.
I want everyone to hear this very carefully.
Get nothing else out of the show than this.
If you only get one thing.
These boys needed someone to love them.
Care about them.
Here's a big one that almost no one does for another human being.
Believe in them.
And then just show them how to do better.
Yeah.
We say it again.
Love, care, believe, and show them how to do better. When I left the care believe and show them how to do better when i left the orphanage and went into business i figured out they weren't unique
every human ed how do you coach the top politicians or ceos love them care about them believe in them
and then show them how to do a little bit better at whatever it is so that's number two and then
the third thing is you have to become obsessed. You have to become obsessed.
This has to become an obsession of yours.
You know, our obsessions become our possessions.
And the truth of the matter is that most of you don't understand the effort, the time,
the focus, the obsessiveness that's required to do something great with your life.
You want to do something great, you better be great at it.
Greatness rises.
So if you can get really good at those three things, listen, why are you so good at this?
Why is it missing? You're great at this. The, the, the whole idea of greatness is the
concept of the show, but you have to get great and you have to be intentional and you have to
be obsessed. And if people knew behind the scenes, this seems very easy, but I know your schedule.
Yeah. I know what you've put into this. I know what the time is. I know what the relentless
pace is. I know what the focus is and how much you think about it. I know this has to be something that's just infectious.
And when people get around you, it emanates and there's an energy and there's like, this person's just going to will this to happen.
And when you have that, you have to be cognizant of your energy.
You're always making people feel something.
So take control of what they're feeling.
And so I think just most people dramatically underestimate the amount of obsessive, crazy, relentless focus it takes
to be great at something.
Yes.
And then they go, whoa, I don't want to be that out of balance or control.
Then you don't want to be great because there's going to be a period of your life, not out
of balance, but where some things take priorities over others.
That's not a lack of balance.
Nothing's like this all of the time.
And by the way, the hardest working you've ever been, the most crazy focus
you've ever been was the happiest you've ever been in your life. You go back. Well, when I was
studying for my master's degree or whatever, you're like, weren't you crazy focused? You were
busy all the time. If you're a mother and you're carrying this baby and it's the hardest thing
you've ever do is carry this baby. Plus you had a job and you're bringing this person. It's the
happiest times of your life or when you're the most, you feel out of control. You're the most obsessed is when you're the happiest. It's this just flawed
belief that if I do nothing, if I just have, ah, I'm going to be super happy. You weren't, there's
plenty of ahs. I meditate every morning. I pray every morning. It's what gives me the energy and
clarity of mind to do something great. But this notion that that brings bliss, that nothingness, doing nothing, no expansion of
your being, no contribution is going to make you happy.
This is a flawed belief.
You're literally moving from the very things that will make you happy.
This notion that you're not growing and expanding, you're not contributing, you're not evolving.
Your spirit was born.
All the cells in your body
regenerate themselves. Your digestive tract is brand new every six months to a year. Your lung
tissue regenerates. Your skeletal system regenerates about every six to eight years.
Like you're constantly being reborn all the time internally. So externally and in your heart and
your soul and your spirit and your brain, you should be as well. These are the things that make us happy, not just doing nothing.
Right. Having a purpose, having a mission and intention.
It's what gets you up. It's what you were born for. That mission, by the way, may be
to serve other people and to bring peace to them. Great, but have something.
I mean, you're at a stage right now, 51, you're going into the 50s decade.
You've accomplished so much.
You've made so much.
You've got the homes.
I've been to a lot of your homes.
I've been in a plane of yours.
I've seen the lifestyle.
It's an amazing lifestyle that you've created for yourself.
You had nothing.
You had a vision in your mind, and then you got yourself to that vision. Yeah.
What excites you for this next decade?
What are you thinking about
now that you have everything externally, let's say?
I'm sure you want to create more and build more,
but what is the main mission
for the next nine years of this decade?
I want people,
bro, I'm so glad you said this.
I believe all this stuff's connected.
I'm not like this as an entrepreneur,
but sometimes I come across that way.
I believe entrepreneurs and business people in general
are the change agents in the world. I don't believe it's going to come from a political
movement. I believe that entrepreneurs like ourselves are the people that are going to
change the world. And I believe the planet's at a tipping point. And I think that we're
trending in a direction where we're people, so many people feel invisible. So many people feel that they lack something.
There's a lack of kindness and gentleness and love, particularly expressed by business people.
Business people in general the last 30 years have contributed to this in a major way.
The brutal nature of business, the cutthroat nature of it.
And I think the next 10 years
that entrepreneurs, hopefully people like myself that are in the thought leader space,
can begin to show people that entrepreneurs are the ones who can bring the most love and change
and solutions to people's lives. And for me, because I do have this platform, I want everyone
to feel seen. I want people to know you do matter. That person, that alcoholic and drug addict
that helped my dad mattered big time.
And you matter.
And we need more people to come to you and say, you matter.
And here's the actual reasons why you matter.
It's not just a saying, you matter because of this.
And I wanna give people the tools
and the resources to do it.
I really would love to think that when I'm done,
that all of us collectively have turned the corner
on this way we treat one another in the world.
Concerns me so deeply, man,
that my experience every single day with most people
is that we have a lot in common
and that we really do wanna love and care for one another.
And that sometimes success gets in the way of that.
The financial pursuit gets in the way of it.
Some of these thought leader entrepreneurs
that are so aggressive about money, money, money, money, money.
And I don't mind that
because I think that that money can do a lot of good,
but I believe there's a more beautiful
and elegant way to get there.
I don't think business has to be brutal.
I think that there's an elegant and beautiful way
to create wealth in your life and bliss
that there's not a lot of examples of, and I intend to be one of those examples.
And for those that want to become more entrepreneurial, but maybe have that fear of
believing in themselves, would you say there's a shift in the mindset between scarcity and
abundance when it comes to money?
Like, do you remember a time when you didn't have any?
Yes. And then it started to shift and it started to really roll. Was do you remember a time when you didn't have any? Yes.
And then it started to shift and it started to really roll.
Was there like a shift in the mindset or what?
Yeah, I was raised thinking that wealth people
got their money kind of through some ill-gotten means.
And that, you know, that maybe it had to be a little bit
cutting corners or shady or something to get money.
Some illegal stuff or whatever, yeah.
Yeah, just, you know, maybe just hurt people
to get it is what I thought. And so, yeah, I started to have, when I started to make some
money, I used to, we, Christiana and I, when we were kids, we actually live on the actual beach.
I used to walk on with my wife when we were in high school. I know, isn't that crazy? In Laguna.
And I would say, babe, I'm going to get you one of these houses someday. And she goes, you will?
I go, yeah. How? I don't know yet, but I'm going to get you one of
these houses. I would ask my dad, I go, dad, who are these people that live in these ocean? Who
are they? Like Martians? Who are they? My dad would go, I don't know, but man, I wonder how
they got there. You know, I don't know. And then what I would do is I'd go touch my dream once in
a while. So like on a weekend, I'm a big believer. I love when you do this. Yeah.
You move towards what you're most familiar with, right?
So I would go, hey babe, let's go.
If I make 12 sales this month or X, Y, Z, we're going to do one night at the Ritz Carlton
in Laguna Beach in Dana Point.
And we'd go down there and get the valet and I'd give the dude my keys and feel like a
big shot.
I had like five bucks to tip him, you know?
And then we'd check into the hotel and she'd go get a massage and I'd go play golf.
Then we'd hang out at the pool and have a nice bottle of wine.
Just one night, every 60 days, touch it and then go back.
Then we'd do it again.
Then we'd do it again.
Then we'd do it again.
All of a sudden, I became familiar.
You do it every week.
Your mind starts to become familiar with this dream, right?
And then I'd meet the people that were there.
I was like, these are actually pretty nice people.
But a lot of them are very kind.
Many of them are very charitable. Not all of them. But you know what? Not all of the a lot of them are very kind. Many of them are very charitable.
Not all of them.
But you know what?
Not all of the broke people I know are very kind.
In fact, these are just human beings that have solved people's problems,
that are willing to take risks, that are willing to dream.
And so the more familiar I became with my dream and the people associated with them,
the more I became comfortable, the more I thought I belonged there.
Over time, you begin to believe you belong in your dreams when you touch them periodically. And so for me,
it just was this periodic shift of actually a lot of them have helped people. A lot of them make a
difference. And you know that as well. You've interviewed some of the richest people in the
world and not all of them are great people, but about the same percentage that are broke are good
people that are rich are good people. What's the one skill you would like to develop in the next nine years?
I'd like to develop the skill of more presence.
And I want my meditation abilities to expand.
I'm a pretty good meditator.
But I think there's another level I could get to of emptying my mind more regularly.
I would like to be able to do that.
I would like to have the skill of being more comfortable in public environments.
I'm good in them, but a lot of people can relate to this.
I'm very drained when it's over.
Yeah, I know the feeling.
You know?
Yeah.
And I'd like to be charged up by being around people more than I am drained by it.
And it's not that I don't love them.
I do, but there's an element of me that's working at it.
And it's because my love for people is off the charts. I know you can relate to this. You have so much energy when you're on stage. You bring, you know, working at it. And it's because my love for people's off the charts.
I know you can relate to this.
You have so much energy when you're on stage,
you bring, you know, all of it.
All of it.
So do you, right?
You know what that's like.
And so I'd like to have that ability to enjoy that more.
And I think probably the pathway to doing it though,
is my meditation.
And so for me, it's just, I want to grow that part
of my life and that muscle.
That's powerful, man.
I'm so excited about this book. I got to dive into some of it. I want to grow that part of my life and that muscle. That's powerful, man. I'm so excited about this book.
I got to dive into some of it.
I want to get to the rest of it though.
Thank you.
But The Power of One More, The Ultimate Guide to Happiness and Success.
I can't recommend enough to buy a few copies of this.
Give it to your friends.
Do a book club and share this out on social media.
The Power of One More.
It's going to be a very inspiring book for
you. It's going to help you transform the way you think, your emotions, your actions. So make sure
you guys get a few copies of this book and make sure to support Ed. Follow you on social media.
You've got an amazing podcast. I had a great time when I was on there. You have some incredible
people and you ask amazing questions as well. So make sure you check out your show. Social media,
you're mostly on Instagram and YouTube.
You on any other places you like to go?
I'm on Twitter and Facebook and all that,
but my podcast is on all the platforms too,
all the audio platforms.
Yeah, but nmyled.com is where they should get the book?
Yeah, you can get your book anywhere.
Go anywhere books are sold.
And if you go to thepowerofonemore.com,
there's great tools on there that'll help you with the book,
enhance the experience of the book. And it's a heavy on there that'll help you with the book, enhance the experience
of the book.
And it's a heavy book.
I'll be honest with you.
There's a lot of tactics and strategies in there.
So if you want to read a heavy book that'll really help you, it does not lack for detail.
I love this, man.
How else can we be of service to you?
Oh, brother, I want to see you keep changing the world.
I want you to continue to grow.
I'm so proud of you.
I love you.
You're the future.
Thanks, man.
And I mean, you know, I told you I got in here today. I love you. You're the future. Thanks, man. And I mean,
you know, I told you I got in here today. I just watching you shine makes me so happy.
Thanks, man. And I just want you to be enjoying and loving your life. And the way that everybody
can help me is just be kinder to people and be kinder to yourself and really, really begin to
operate out of your dreams and your imagination. If you're a praying person, those dreams and your
imagination are a form of prayer and they can be answered.
Absolutely.
This is a question I've asked you before.
It's called the three truths.
So imagine it's your last day on earth
many years away.
You get to accomplish everything.
You're the best meditator in the world now.
You're more present, loving,
all these things.
You've accomplished everything
and you've been the man you want to be.
But for whatever reason, it's the last day and this could be any time in the future.
And you can't leave behind the wisdom that you've shared.
The books, the podcasts, the videos, it's all gone for whatever reason.
Hypothetical.
But you have three things you can leave behind.
Three lessons to the world.
This is all we would have of your wisdom.
What would those three truths be for you?
One, there's a God in heaven who loves you
that made you in your image and likeness
and his image and likeness.
So there's a God in heaven.
Two, you were born to do something great with your life
in big ways and small ways.
Just like that person who helped my dad,
they thought that was a small thing.
It may not be on Instagram,
it may not get 20 million likes or views, but you were born to do something great. I'm going to say that to you
again. You, you were born to do something great with your life. You are not average and ordinary.
And the third thing is this, there's a power to doing one more. And if you'll do one more,
your one decision, one relationship, one meeting, one encounter, one thought, one podcast interview, one book away from a completely different life.
You don't lack vision.
You lack depth perception.
You think you're further than you are, and you keep keeping it in that distance because you think it's so far away.
You're one more way.
I'll give you the last example of it.
I played golf two weeks ago with this dude.
Everyone says, you've got to meet this dude.
He's similar net worth.
I show up to
the first he goes man ed my latin big fan i can't wait to spend the next five hours talking about
you i go that ain't how it's gonna work bro i already know about me i want to know about you
and he goes well i can tell you the whole thing on the first t i go give it to me you gotta hear
this lewis he goes 1986 i loaned a guy 50 grand so did my best friend i said you both own a 50
grand he goes yep he goes a week later my friend cold feet, asked for the money back. I kept the loan. It turned into $750 million.
Holy cow. I said, come again? He goes, 750. I said, who'd you loan that money to?
Jeff Bezos. Holy, Matt. I said, come on, man. Are you serious? He goes, yeah. I go, man,
you really were one decision away, one relationship away from totally changing your
life. He goes, yeah. Now, that's an extreme example.
I don't have one of those.
But I'm a series of those one mores in your life.
And so is everybody listening to this.
So you're one away, one relationship, one meeting, one person, one thought away from changing your life.
That's a good story.
Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Ed, for the way you constantly show up.
You're such a giver to so many people.
Thank you.
To myself, so many of our peers, my friends that are friends of yours as well.
Every time I'm around you, there's an energy that you bring that is infectious in a positive way.
Thank you.
And just your way of being instills belief in other people.
You do it with me.
You do it with so many other people.
You do it with people that are just listening or watching
that don't get to experience you in person.
So I really acknowledge you
for the constant transformation you're on.
And I really am inspired by the model you've developed,
you know, as a human being.
So I just really appreciate you, your friendship,
your generosity, your message, everything about you, man.
And hopefully I can,
I gotta play golf with you someday.
I haven't played in years.
I've played like once in five years.
You'd probably beat me right out of the game.
I'm not that good, man.
But it'd be fun to just hang out.
Yeah, me too.
Hang out and have some lemonade.
Yeah, that's what I drink, lemonade.
Lots of lemonade.
But I acknowledge you, man.
I appreciate you.
And I'm very excited about this book and the message
and your ability to serve so many people
for the rest of your life. Thank you. Final question. What's your definition of greatness? My definition of
greatness is that your life matches your vision for it, that you create a life that matches your
vision for your life. And that's greatness. No matter what that looks like for you. I have a
sister who I think lives greatly and she's blind. My middle sister, Andrea, is blind and she's a school teacher.
She can't drive. She can see some stuff, but she can't drive. She can't grade papers,
but she spends her entire life using the gifts God gave her, that formula I gave earlier
of serving other people. Her gifts are, she's a fourth grade Christian school teacher
and doesn't make a lot of money. And she's living in greatness. She's living in greatness.
and doesn't make a lot of money.
And she's living in greatness.
She's living in greatness.
And she's taken her nurturing skills, her patience, her ability to teach, her height.
She's 4'11". So she's the same height as all the students.
And she's living greatly.
And so she's living her dream.
And to me, that's living in the service of others, using your gifts to serve them.
And your life matches your dream for your life is living a great life.
And my sister's a great example of that.
So Andrea Ward, who used to be Andrea Milet,
is living a great life and she'd be a great example.
Wow, that's beautiful.
And Milet, appreciate it, man.
Love you, brother.
I love you, man.
Appreciate it, man.
Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you enjoyed today's episode
and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links.
And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well.
I really love hearing feedback from you guys. So share a review over on Apple and let me know
what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately,
I want to remind you that you are
loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.