§ 01 · The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Ed Mylett opens cold from a stone-fireplace cabin shot, then snaps to his podcast set and promises the three steps of mastery — and then never quite lets you go for ninety-one minutes. What looks like a single teach turns into a six-guest swap-meet of compounding ideas, all orbiting the same claim: invisible progress is still progress, and the people who win are the ones who keep swinging at the pinata after everyone else has quit.
What the video promised.
stated at 00:12“Today, I can't wait to share with you what I call the three steps of mastery.”delivered at 05:00
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 00:12
01 · Cold open
Cabin/fireplace b-roll, Ed welcomes the weekend special and teases 'our first guest' — except the first guest is Ed himself.
00:12 – 05:00
02 · Three stages of mastery
Ed lays out the Awkward → Mechanical → Natural model. Personal story: 17-year-old busboy at The Whole Enchilada having nightmares about chips and salsa, then mastering it within a year. Now learning to ride horses at 50 and living the awkward stage publicly.
05:00 – 09:00
03 · Reps + awareness
The bridge from awkward to mechanical to natural is repetitions and awareness — most people love the 'art' of mindset but skip the 'science' (the math of more reps, more course-correction). 'All the money's made at the natural phase.'
09:00 – 13:00
04 · The pinata parable
Invisible progress / compound pounding. At a kids' birthday party seven kids whale on a pinata; the fourth-year-old who finally breaks it didn't do the work — the cumulative blows did. Most people quit one swing before the candy comes out.
13:00 – 28:39
05 · James Clear — Atomic Habits
When making plans think big, when making progress think small. The British cycling team / Dave Brailsford / aggregation of marginal gains. 1% better per day compounds 37x; 1% worse decays to near zero. Identity-based habits: every action is a vote for the person you want to become. The two-minute rule: a habit must be established before it can be improved — master the art of showing up.
28:39 – 32:22
06 · Eric Thomas — discipline yourself
ET on knowing his family history of addiction and laziness, getting up at 3 AM to 'catch the greats' because he started behind, why he never drank or smoked, why he eats mostly vegan despite loving fried chicken — discipline now or pay the diabetes/walker price later.
32:22 – 41:14
07 · Alan Stein Jr. — Kobe & the unseen hours
Alan's 2007 Nike Skills Academy story: Kobe's 4 AM workout that was already in progress at 3:30 AM doing basic pivoting drills with no ball. 'I never get bored with the basics.' Kobe's logic: do three workouts a day because everyone else does two; while they're driving in, I'm driving home from #1. The unseen hours.
41:14 – 52:00
08 · Jim Kwik — learn how to learn
Jim's broken-brain origin story (TBI at five). The most important 21st-century skill is learning how to learn. Forgetting curve: 80% of a podcast/book/seminar is lost within 48 hours. Two-column note-taking — left side capture, right side create — with three obsession questions: How can I use this? Why must I use this? When will I use this?
52:00 – 59:53
09 · David A. Arnold — the comedian's craft
Standup David Arnold on grinding 150 sets across 30 cities to build one hour-twenty special, recording every set, then never running the material again — comedians see life through a different lens, can't turn it off, even text-thread about dead friends within minutes. Greatness as inability-to-escape-your-craft.
59:53 – 1:31:17
10 · Jay Shetty interviews Ed — The Power of One More
The flip: Jay Shetty is the host, Ed is the guest, promoting his book. The vision/depth-perception lie ('we think it's further away than it is'). His alcoholic father's 'one more day' sobriety. The qualifier paradox — what shames you is what qualifies you. Operating from imagination vs. history+memory. Comfort creates self-care, discomfort creates self-respect. Kobe's last gym night (a week before he died) and Ed's resolution to hug his daughter one more time every day. Closes mid-conversation on living the season instead of forcing it.
Visual structure at a glance.
Named ideas worth stealing.
01:00list
Three Stages of Mastery
- Awkward
- Mechanical
- Natural
Every pursuit moves through these three stages and you cannot cheat the system. The bridge between them is repetitions + awareness + course correction. 'All the money's made at the natural phase.'
Steal forany 'why you should keep going' video, any onboarding-to-mastery framing for MCN+ or LFB Line
09:00concept
Compound Pounding / Invisible Progress
Cumulative reps break the pinata even when no single blow is visibly working. The candy comes out one swing after everyone else quit. Frame your daily reps as deposits even when the bank balance hasn't moved.
Steal forweekly content recap email — 'this is the rep that didn't look like it counted'
14:26concept
Aggregation of Marginal Gains
British Cycling under Dave Brailsford — 1% improvement on everything (lighter tires, ergonomic seat, hand-washing, white-painted trailer to spot dust, fabric in wind tunnels, custom pillows on the road). Five Tours de France in six years after winning zero in 110.
Steal forthe perfect open for any 'small daily change' content; transplant into the $6 Stack story (1% cheaper, 1% more owned, every month)
18:20model
1.01^365 = 37.78x
1% better daily compounds 37.78x in a year; 1% worse decays to near zero. Math is not life but the asymmetry is real.
Steal forthumbnail/title gold — the exact number is the hook
22:20concept
Identity-Based Habits
Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. Make the bed → 'I'm clean and organized.' Write one sentence → 'I'm a writer.' Don't fake-it-til-you-make-it (which is belief without evidence — delusion); let behavior lead and become undeniable proof.
Steal forKilling Excuses character work — every Joe Lee rep is a vote against Joe Lavery
25:00concept
The Two-Minute Rule
Scale any habit down to ≤2 minutes (read 30 books a year → read one page; do yoga 4x/week → take out the yoga mat). 'Mitch' lost 100+ lbs by going to the gym for five minutes a day before he ever added a sixth — he was mastering the art of showing up. A habit must be established before it can be improved.
Steal forMVP-shipping cadence — 'open the editor for 2 minutes' is the version-1 habit before any feature build
34:10concept
Never Get Bored With The Basics
Alan Stein on Kobe's 4 AM workout: thirty minutes of pivoting drills with no ball. 'Why are you the best player in the world? Because I never get bored with the basics.' Even if you don't love them, love what they produce.
Steal forthe antidote to 'leadership fatigue' — say the same things to your audience again, the basics work
39:10concept
The Unseen Hours
Drew Hanlon's phrase. 'If you wanna perform well in front of millions, you have to be willing to put in millions of reps when no one else is watching.' Kobe + 3:30 AM warmup that wasn't even counted as part of the workout.
Steal forany build-in-public content — the unseen hours ARE the build-in-public, just inverted
48:20model
Capture / Create Note-Taking
- Left column: capture (the facts/quotes)
- Right column: create (your impressions, questions, applications)
Verbatim notes are the WORST — you don't know what's important. Split the page; left brain captures, right brain creates. Plus three obsession questions for the right side: How can I use this? Why MUST I use this? When will I use this?
Steal forredesign the way Joe's transcripts/dossiers are structured — every mod-watch dossier IS this two-column structure
51:00list
Three Questions to Convert Knowledge to Action
- How can I use this?
- Why must I use this?
- When will I use this?
Jim Kwik's mantra. 'Reasons reap results.' Stack onto every podcast/book/conversation you absorb.
Steal forpost-skill-invocation checklist for any Claude Code session: did I name how, why, and when?
57:55concept
Practice Until You Can't Get It Wrong
Nick Saban quote Ed repurposes: 'We don't practice until we get it right. We practice until we can't get it wrong.' Plus 'complexity is the enemy of execution' (Tony Robbins, maybe).
Steal forthe LFB Line copy — promise outcome that can't get it wrong, not outcome that just gets it right
1:05:20concept
History+Memory vs. Vision+Imagination Operating System
95% of humans operate from history/memory; 5% from vision/imagination. Children are happier because they have no history to operate from. If you create from imagination you're not tied to the moment's outcome.
Steal forthe front half of any 'why nostalgia is a trap' content; pair with sobriety-anniversary content
1:00:33concept
The Power of One More
Thomas Edison: 'When you feel you've exhausted all options, remember this — you haven't.' One more rep, one more call, one more meeting, one more day not drinking, one more hug. The qualifier paradox: what you're most ashamed of is what qualifies you to help your past self.
Steal fortitle pattern for any 'one more X' video — it's a complete content genre
1:26:10concept
Comfort → Self-Care, Discomfort → Self-Respect
Jay Shetty's reframe Ed loves: comfort gives you self-care; discomfort builds self-respect. You don't trust yourself by saying it; you trust yourself by taking the meeting you didn't want to take.
Steal fortwo-line thumbnail copy / Killing Excuses cold-open
1:18:30concept
Standards Over Goals
Ed prefers standards to goals — standards are what get you the goal. Also: check in with yourself monthly on what fills you NOW (recognition → contribution, in his case) so you don't keep chasing an obsolete dream.
Steal forquarterly self-check for solo founder cadence; could be a Mod Producer runsheet template
Lines you could clip.
11:00
“We all know the answer. It was the cumulative blows to that pinata.”
12:00
“Most people quit one blow away from getting all the candy in life.”
15:40
“When making plans, think big. When making progress, think small.”
22:20
“Every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”
28:20
“The heaviest weight at the gym is the front door.”
35:10
“Why do you think I'm the best player in the world? Because I never get bored with the basics.”
40:00
“If you wanna perform well in front of millions, you have to be willing to put in millions of reps when no one else is watching.”
57:57
“We don't practice until we get it right. We practice until we can't get it wrong.”
1:01:40
“You're one relationship away, one meeting away, one conversation, one podcast, one interview, one new thought, one new emotion, one new tactic or strategy away from completely changing the trajectory of your life.”
1:26:10
“Comfort creates self-care, but discomfort creates self-respect.”
1:11:20
“What if the hardest things of your life are the very things that qualify you?”
How they spent the runtime.
Hook length12s
Info densityhigh
Filler8%
Things they pointed at.
13:34bookAtomic Habits — James Clear
14:14channelJames Clear (guest)
14:30channelBritish Cycling / Dave Brailsford
33:00bookRaise Your Game — Alan Stein Jr.
33:05bookSustain Your Game — Alan Stein Jr.
33:20channelKobe Bryant
34:40channelNike Skills Academy (2007)
39:20channelDrew Hanlon ('unseen hours' term)
41:15channelJim Kwik (guest)
42:00channelDalai Lama
42:05channelRichard Branson
51:00bookSimon Sinek — Start With Why
57:55channelNick Saban (Alabama)
58:10channelSebastian Maniscalco
58:20channelDave Chappelle
58:20productDavid A. Arnold — It Ain't For The Weak (Netflix special)
59:00productDavid A. Arnold — Pace Yourself (tour)
1:00:33channelThomas Edison (quote)
1:00:40bookPower Of One More — Ed Mylett (book)
1:06:18channelJay Shetty Show
1:17:34productNBC TV show 'Change' (Ed)
1:28:20channelTony Robbins ('complexity is the enemy of execution')
How they asked for the click.
08:33subscribe
“Let's MAXOUT! Send me a text message — 714-916-9144 (EM Ed Mylett)”
Soft, recurring lower-third overlay rather than a hard scripted ask. Plus an early 'Leave a Comment — what part of this interview resonates with you?' card around 04:16, and the description-box subscribe link. The mid-roll segments don't pause for explicit CTAs — the whole video is a top-of-funnel show for his book, his text list, and the channel.
Word for word.
HOOKopening / re-engagementCTAthe pitchmetaphoranalogystory
00:00HOOKHey, everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Hit that like button, and be sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel so you never miss my show. Whether it's Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday, here's our first guest. Welcome back, everybody. I love doing the max out program two point o. And today, I can't wait to share with you what I call the three steps of mastery.
00:20HOOKSee, there's three stages that you have to go through in order to master something in life. And oftentimes, we quit in the first stage because we don't realize it's just a natural progression to getting good at something. And so in any pursuit you have, if you wanna start a new business, a new career, you wanna learn to swim. Like, right now, I'm picked up the hobby of riding horses.
00:40HOOKThat's a unique thing to do at 50 years old. And so I'm addicted to it, but so it's kind of a new pursuit of mine. So whether you started a new business or you're in the middle of a business you've got or you got people in your business who are newer or you're trying something new, it's very easy to beat ourselves up or really not understand that there are three stages of mastery, and and it's just mandatory. You're gonna go through them. You can't cheat the system. And so in the three stages of mastery, let me tell you what they are, and then I'll break them down for you. There's the awkward stage at anything you begin to do. The awkward stage. And if you do enough repetitions,
01:15HOOKyou can move to what I call the mechanical stage. And then from the mechanical stage, eventually, you move to what I call natural stage. Everybody looks at you. She goes, ah, man. You're incredible. You're a natural. Like, whatever you do for a living right now, if you've been doing it for a long time, the first day on your job, I guarantee you, you were awkward.
01:29I guarantee you everything about it was awkward. Where to go? The people's names? What to call things? Where to all of it was completely awkward, wasn't you? Probably even a lot of people, their first night of their job, they'll have a nightmare that night. I remember my first job was I was a busboy at the whole enchilada restaurant, and I didn't know my bang job
01:46at the whole enchilada was really simple. I cleaned up your table, and I brought you your chips and salsa. That's really the whole job. And for some reason, at 17 years old, it freaked me out because I had to walk up to people's tables and say hello, and I'm a super introvert. And I remember going home at first, and I go, I can't do this. It's just too it's too much for me. Chips and salsa
02:08cleaning up their table. It just overwhelmed me, which is pretty hilarious. And I had a nightmare that night, like a nightmare of the job. Like, everyone wanted new chips. We need more salsa. We need more chips. And he would relate. I gotta you gotta clean up our table. You live. And I have this horrible nightmare of this very pretty simple job that I had.
02:27And so what I was, I was in the awkward stage of that job. And if you had come back about six weeks later, I'd bust a bunch of tables. Now I know where the salsa is. I know where to go in the back and get the chips. I know where they warmed them. I kinda got my little how are you guys this evening? I'm Eddie. You know, I got my little wrap down. It was mechanical. I knew the mechanics of it, but still I was slower than most.
02:49I couldn't carry the drinks and the chips on the plate the right way, but I you know what I mean? Like, it was mechanical. I knew the mechanics. I know where to clock in, and but he came back a year later, man. I was natural. I'm flipping chips. I'm spinning them on my head. I'm the difference you know what I mean? Like, the salsa. Hey. Good morning. Good to see you. Good evening. Hey, mister Jones. Welcome back. I'd seen all the I was natural. So you walked in there. I was like, this guy's a natural busboy.
03:15Well, the truth is that's true in everything. Right now, I started to learn to ride horses. Right? First day out there, I you don't think about these things. I'm like, what type of horse is it? I didn't even know the breed. I didn't even know the word. What do you call a female horse? What's a bridle? What's a halter? How do you put a saddle on them? What side do you get on the horse? The left or the right? How do you get off the reins? Are you riding western or English? I'm like, I have no idea. I guess western. I was totally awkward. And people that are horse people, they're just like, it's all natural to them. Right? They get on the horse. They ride. They saddle it up. How do you back it up? How do you stop it? Like,
03:49it's crazy. Right? But now I've been doing it for, like, I don't know, six months. I've ridden quite a bit, and now I'm kinda mechanical. I know how to put the bridle on I know how walk it with the halter. I know how to put the bridle on the horse. I know how to put the saddle on. I know where to get on. I know how to and I'm pretty good. But if you watch me and you were really experienced in riding horses, you go, he kinda gets it. He's mechanical. The mechanical stage is like this.
04:12CTAYou ever go to, like, a wedding or you're at a club or something, and the person's got the dance moves down, but they kinda dance to the lyrics and not the beat? You know what I mean? Like, you're like, the guy's got the moves, but it's just there's something. He's got the mechanics, but I think he's dancing to the words and not the beat. You know what I mean? That's the mechanical stage.
04:33CTABut eventually, you see somebody, they're like, oh, they got the rhythm and the beat. That's the natural stage. So the question is, how do you move from awkward to mechanical? You ready? Repetitions and awareness. Repetitions and awareness. So no matter what you do, you gotta do more and more reps
04:50CTAat it, more and more experience. And as you're getting that experience, being aware of the things that worked and didn't, getting coaching, getting feedback, course correcting, and improving. Success is not complicated.
05:05So no matter what it is you're doing, if you're an athlete and you're listening, you've had to switch positions. You were on the offensive side. Now you're on the defensive side. It's not that playing defense isn't for you. It's that you better do a lot of reps. You better have a lot of awareness. You better watch a lot of film. You better do a course correction.
05:21So you do it through repetitions, awkward, enough reps, you and awareness and course corrections, you'll move to mechanical. And then from the mechanical phase,
05:30it's the same process. More and more and more repetitions, more and more course correction and awareness until you become natural. And in business, all the money's made at the natural phase. Oftentimes in business, the money is predicated upon your ability to get natural and your ability to train other people at their jobs or crafts to become natural as well.
05:50What's most incredible to me, if I can be candid with you, is there's an art and a science to being successful at anything, and most people love the art, the mindset, the thinking, the thought processes. They love the art form of it. What do I need to think? What do I need to vision? What do I need to dream?
06:09Subconscious mind, meditation, blah blah blah. Most people don't have a tolerance for the science part. The science part's real simple. It's math. You gotta do more reps. If you're in business, you gotta do more calls, more emails, more appointments, more meetings, more setbacks. You gotta do the reps to move out of that awkward stage. The awareness, the course correction. Now you're mechanical. You wanna get from mechanical if you're in business. You wanna get great at business. You wanna become the best ever. More reps.
06:37More course correction. More awareness. You become natural. You pick up golf. You wanna play a great golf game? You better get out on the driving range and hit a bunch of balls, and you better have someone videoing you, and you better get course correction and have awareness. And if you do enough reps, hit enough balls with enough correction, with enough awareness,
06:54you'll become mechanical. When you start playing golf, it's real simple. How do you hold the club? Your baseball grip, overlap grip. What's the grip? Right? How long should your clubs be? Where's your backswing? What's a swing plane? How do you come through the ball? What's your right hand do? Your left hand, your look. There's a lot to it. You watch someone start to play golf. It's crazy to watch, isn't it? But if they do enough reps, they do enough learning, they learn, they get enough coaching and correction, they can become mechanical.
07:17Then you watch people play mechanical golf. They got a good golf swing, but it's then eventually they become natural, they play their game. If you're gonna play the game, you have to have a tolerance for the repetitions. So one of the reasons that we don't do the reps is we stop is because we don't give ourselves credit for what I call invisible progress.
07:32Invisible progress means this. There's such a thing as what I call compound pounding. Compound pounding means basically this, that as you're hitting an object over and over again and you compound the hitting of that object over time, you break it down. Right? But what most of that progress is invisible. We don't see it. So as we're in the awkward stage and we're doing the reps, we're making progress, but it's usually not visible to us. Or if we're in the mechanical stage, we're doing the reps. The compound pounding of doing it over and over again is happening, but we can't see the progress. So what most people do is they quit before they get natural at anything because there doesn't appear to be physical visible progress. Most of us wanna see progress to believe it's happening. But the truth is in life, in most things, even in a loving relationship,
08:20CTAa lot of the progress is happening invisibly. Certainly true in business. So let me give you the best example of it. I wrote about this in my first book, but long time ago, I was at a I went invited to a birthday party for a young person, and I didn't really wanna go to it because they were so young and my kids were grown. But I went to the birthday party because of a friend of mine, and they had a pinata for the birthday boy.
08:42CTAAnd so if you all know what a pinata is, it's very interesting, but, like, basically, kids hitting a pinata with a bat. Right? And it reminded me of business so much because you get there. What do they do? They blindfold this poor little kid and then spin him around and hand him a bat like a weapon. Right? So the kid spun around. He has no idea where he's going. He's just kinda flailing away. Can't even find the pinata.
09:02That's how most people that start out in business feel, by the way. They're just flailing away. They don't even know where the target is. They're just swinging. Right? Just like this little guy, and I'm watching him going. There's an analogy here for sure. So finally, there's a course correction and an awareness, and the dad points the little guy at the pinata even though the blindfold's still on. So he still can't see it, but now he's at least pointed in the right direction. That's what that awkward phase is like. And now he's wailing on the pinata, hitting it and hitting it and hitting it. He's getting more and more tired. This pinata is not breaking.
09:32Right? So finally, he goes, I quit. Why? There was no visible progress. So then what they do, they take the blindfold off. Amigos and plays on the swing set. They grab the next little pit kid. It was a little girl. Same thing. They blindfold her. She's like a new person in business. She's flailing away, not even hitting the pinata. She doesn't even know where the target is. Right? Finally, she gets course correction,
09:53makes an adjustment, some awareness, and she's wailing on this pinata. No candy comes out. There's no progress, so she quits. You could picture it. You've seen this before. Next little guy gets up. He hits it five, six, 10 times. He quits. Next person gets up. She quits. After about seven kids have hit in this pinata, the only person left is the little young, little four year old little boy.
10:16And everyone's quit because there was no progress, but what was happening was all the reps were happening even though there was no visible progress. So all the reps were happening. So this little four year old gets up. They put the blindfold on him, spin him around,
10:32and he takes one swing. Bam. Hits the pinata. All the candy comes out, and all the kids come running from the swing setback, and everyone's celebrating and getting all the candy. Let me ask you a question.
10:46Who broke the pinata? Was it the final blow by the four year old, the one shot, or was it the cumulative blows that everybody took hitting the pinata along the way that ended up eventually breaking it down? We all know the answer. It was the cumulative blows to that pinata, the cumulative repetitions
11:05that were breaking it down over and over even though you couldn't visibly see the progress. And see, in life, most people will quit in their pursuit of their dream before the candy comes out because they don't see visible progress. Even though the whole time is happening as you're moving from the awkward stage. You're doing the reps. You're course correcting. You're aware. Now you're in the mechanical stage,
11:31and you're course correcting, and you're aware. And you keep hitting the pinata and doing the reps of your life, of your dream. And then the natural stage, most people will quit on their dream before the candy comes out even though progress is being made. Most people quit one blow away from getting all the candy in life. My recommendation to you is life is a lot like that pinata. You're making more progress than you think you are. Keep hitting the pinata of your life and know that as you do this, you're moving from stage to stage to stage. And then if you do it long enough, the metaphorical candy of whatever that candy is for you, the money, the success, the award, the recognition, the acknowledgment, the emotion, the relationship.
12:13. The question is, will you keep hitting the pinata of your life doing the reps until the candy's there, and will you be there to collect the candy and celebrate? From now on, whatever you're doing, go, this is okay. It's where I'm supposed to be. I've only done 10 of these. Of course, I'm still awkward, or I've only done 45 of these. Hey, Ed. How many does it ma how many does it take? It's different for different people.
12:34HOOKThe question is, do you have the determination, the relentlessness, the resiliency to stay long enough to move through all three stages until you get paid? So the question just becomes this. Are you determined enough to do the reps? Are you determined enough to do the course correction and have the awareness to move through the different stages? And my wish for you is that you become natural as soon as possible. The sooner you do the reps, the sooner you do the course corrections, the sooner you have the self awareness, the sooner you become natural,
13:00HOOKand we're off to the races and having blissful success in our life. Welcome back to the show, everybody. Excited to talk to this gentleman today because his work's fascinated me for a long time. The reason his work has fascinated me for so long, I went through this string for a while where so many, what I call high performing successful friends of mine, would say, have you read Atomic Habits? Have you read Atomic Habits? I'm talking about athletes, business people, entertainers, and I'm like, the heck is Atomic Habits?
13:27HOOKAnd I finally find out there's this guy, James Clear. Turns out he's written this book. Like, 5,000,000 people have bought it. And I'm like, well, why have 5,000,000 people read this book on habits? Because, you know, you're supposed to have them. And then I read it. I'm like, ah, it's not one of these, like, have a habit book. It's like how your brain works, how to create habits, how to eliminate bad ones,
13:46HOOKand physically why in your brain you can do these things and why it's so necessary. So I've wanted James on for a long time. We finally put it together. I'm so grateful to share him with all of you today. So James Clear, welcome to the show, brother. Hey. Thanks for having me on. Great to talk to you. Yeah. And I don't wanna just talk habits today. I'm gonna talk about some of your productivity hacks as well. Sure. Your work, Rose, is
14:06HOOKI I think I'd call it groundbreaking because I don't think anybody's really approached habits the way that you have. But let's let's back up a little bit just for a second because I I think it's important for people to understand this concept you teach that, you know, everyone's always talking about taking massive action. You take massive action towards what you want. You're like, yeah. You should do that, but
14:26your concept of getting 1% better is much more believable for most people. And so just address that for a second. Why why 1% better every day, and how does a habit do that? Sure. So first of all, I think there's no reason that you can't be really ambitious. Right? Like, I consider myself to be a very ambitious person. I think it's just that you're oscillating or switching between these two modes. You know? Like, when you're in planning mode, when you're in strategy mode, sure. You can be very ambitious ambitious and be very aggressive and,
14:57you know, stretching yourself and reaching. But when it comes time to take action and execute, you have to scale it down to something that you can achieve that day. You know, like the in in one sense, the biggest unit of time you could ever do something is about a single day because then you got to go to sleep, you know, and then you have to wake up again and do it the next day. So unless you're playing you know, at some point, there's a limit. You can only stay up for forty eight hours or seventy two hours, like, you know, and then you break. So
15:21that's the largest possible unit that you could ever do a single thing in. And I think more realistically, most of time, the truth is, you know, you got about an hour or maybe you got two hours to work on this, then you got to go move on to something else. So we don't have big chunks of chunks of time available to us. We need to scale things down into
15:38pieces that we can actually work on and execute. So the way that I think about it is when making plans, think big. When making progress, think small. And getting 1% better each day is a way to encourage that. The story that I like to tell, and this is something that I kinda kick atomic habits off with, it's the story of the British cycling team. And, you know, for many years, British cycling was very mediocre. They had never won a Tour de France, which is the premier race in cycling. They had won a single gold medal over, a hundred year span, and they brought this new performance coach in named Dave Brailsford,
16:10and he had this concept that he called , the aggregation of marginal gains. And the way that he described it was the 1% improvement in nearly everything that we do related to cycling. So they started looking at a bunch of things you would expect a cycling team to focus on. Like, they put slightly lighter tires on the bike or they designed, like, an ergonomic seat for the riders. They had the riders wear a little feedback sensor, little chip to see how each individual responded to training, then they would adjust the practice schedule.
16:40But then they started doing, like, these little 1% changes, these small improvements that nobody else was really thinking about. Like, they hired a surgeon to come in and teach the riders how to wash their hands to reduce the risk of catching a cold or getting the flu. They have this big trailer, like a semi trailer that carries a lot of bikes in it to major events, and they painted the inside of that truck trailer white so that they could spot little bits of dirt and dust that might get in the gears and degrade the performance of the bikes.
17:07They had two different types of fabrics. They've got, like, indoor racing suits and outdoor racing suits, and, uh, they tested those fabrics in a wind tunnel, and they found out that the indoor fabric was lighter and more aerodynamic. So they asked all of their riders to wear that fabric. They even had all their, uh, different riders test, you know, like a bunch of like, maybe a dozen different types of pillows,
17:25and then they see which one led to the best night's sleep for each person. Then once they figured that out, they brought that on the road with them to hotels for the Tour de France and so on. And, uh, you know, Brailsford said something like, if we can actually do this, right, if we can actually make all these 1% improvements related to cycling, then I think we can win a Tour de France within five years.
17:45He ended up being wrong. They won the Tour de France in three years, and then they repeated again the fourth year with a different rider. And then after one year break, they won three more in a row. So after having never won for, like, a hundred and ten years, you know, they win five of the next six. And I like to use that story as an introduction to this idea of getting a little bit better, making these 1% improvements
18:05for a couple reasons. The first is it shows you that excellence a lot of the time, maybe we can even say most of the time, is not actually about radical change. It's about a commitment to accruing small improvements day in and day out. Secondly,
18:20and I think this is also crucial, it encourages you to focus on trajectory rather than position. Right? There's a lot of discussion about position in life. How much money is in the bank account? What is the number on the scale? What is the current stock price? What are the quarterly earnings? It's all this measurement around our current position. But what getting 1% better each day encourages is to focus on your trajectory instead. Am I getting better? Is it the arrow pointed up and to the right, or have we flatlined? Am I getting 1% better or 1% worse?
18:49Because if you're on a good trajectory, all you need is time. Right? If you have good habits, time becomes your ally. You just need to let time work for you. But if you have bad habits, time becomes your enemy. And every day that clicks by, you kind of dig the hole a little bit deeper. And so it's very much at the core. It's about encouraging you to focus on trajectory rather than position. How did you get the 37.78
19:10times better? Like, where'd that ratio number come from? Yeah. Yeah. It's just it's just math. Right? So if you get 1% better each day for a year, so 1.01 to the three hundred and sixty fifth power, then it gets 37 times better by the end of the year. If you get 1% worse, point nine nine to the three hundred and sixty fifth power, then you drive yourself almost all the way down to zero. Zero. Now,
19:32you know, look. Real life is not exactly like a mathematical equation. Right? Your habits are not exactly like this this formula, but I do think that it highlights an important concept, which is the difference between making a choice that's 1% better or 1% worse on any given day is relatively insignificant. Like, it's very easy to dismiss, And this is, think, one of the things that makes it underappreciated
19:56or underestimated. You know, like, is the difference between eating a burger and fries for lunch today or eating a salad or, you know, going to the gym for thirty minutes or not? Well, on any given day, not a whole lot. You know? Your body looks the same in the mirror at the end of the night. Scale hasn't really changed. It's only two or five or ten years later that you turn around, and you're like, oh, you know, those daily choices really do add up. And I think you see this pattern again and again throughout life. Like, take knowledge, for example.
20:24The person who always reads for an extra ten minutes each day. Well, look, reading for ten minutes a day does not make you a genius. Right? It's very easy to dismiss. But the person who always does that over five or ten or twenty years, yeah, really meaningful difference in wisdom and insight. Productivity is the same way. You know, like the person who gets one extra task done each day.
20:44Doing one extra thing does not make you an all star. But again, over a ten or twenty or thirty year career, that can be a really meaningful difference in output. So this pattern shows up again and again. What starts out small and relatively easy to dismiss compounds or turns into something much more significant over time. The biggest word, bro. I don't think most people take into account you and I are both college baseball players, good ones, but neither one of us were, you know, surefire first round draft pick Major League players.
21:10And I think most people don't take into account in their, like, the compound effect. I don't think they understand it in money. I don't think they understand it in their bodies Mhmm. Both positive and negative. I don't think they understand their identity or in just in inhabits. The compound effect in life of allowing small things to stack up over time has a multiplier effect.
21:29And one of the things that I feel like in your work and by the way, your work is I'm all we're we're a few minutes in here, I'm like, this is so good. And the reason is is, one, I believe most people believe they can get 1% better every day. I don't think most people believe that they can completely transform everything in one big leap. I think there's a multiplier, though. Do you agree that between doing the right things 1% or just better habitually every single day, not only you actually making deposits of doing things correctly or better, there's a part of your identity that starts to change over time about how you view yourself that I am that guy who doesn't eat the hamburger and fries when he can choose to eat the other one. And you stack those
22:06choices and behaviors up over time, and you start sort of believing maybe you deserve something that you didn't deserve prior. Isn't there a factor of that, don't you think, as well? This is a a huge part of kind of my philosophy in book, this idea of what I call identity based habits. But, essentially, the concept is, and this I think this is the real reason that habits matter. The the surface level reason that habits matter is they help you be more productive. They help you make more money. They help you lose weight and get fit.
22:33And look, habits can do all those things, and that's great. But I think the deeper reason that they matter is that every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become. And so when you perform these small habits, when you take these little actions, you're casting votes for a certain aspect of your story or a certain element of your identity.
22:53In a sense, every time you perform a habit, that's how you, like, embody that aspect of your identity. So, you know, when you make your bed in the morning, you embody the identity of someone who's clean and organized. Or if you write one sentence, you embody the identity of someone who is a writer. And this is why it can be valuable, you know, even to, like, do one push up. It's like, no. That does not transform your body, but it does cast a vote for I'm the type of person who doesn't miss workouts.
23:19And eventually, as you build up evidence of that story, as you start to cast more votes for that identity, you have, like, actual proof to believe this. Right? This is I think this is a little bit different than you'll often hear something like, uh, fake it till you make it. And I don't necessarily have anything wrong with fake it till you make it. It's asking you to believe something positive about yourself,
23:39but it's asking you to believe something positive without having evidence for it. And we have a word for beliefs that don't have evidence. We call that delusion. Right? Like at some point, your brain doesn't like this mismatch between what you say you are and what you're actually doing. And so my argument is to let the behavior lead the way. To start by meditating for one minute or doing one push up or writing one sentence and letting that be undeniable proof that in that moment,
24:06you were a meditator or an athlete or writer or whatever it is. And, ultimately, I think this is the real value that habits provide, which is they reinforce your desired identity. Boy, this is so good, brother. So good. I don't know why I'm just meeting you now because our our overall belief system about change is is so very, very similar. And, you know, I wanna we're gonna talk a bit about how to actually begin to establish habits. But before we do that, I wanna talk about the concept of establishing one because you said something about the one push up. Reading or listening to something you're talking about about the guy who would go to the gym for just five minutes and work out and leave. And you said something about this casting the vote for who you wanna be or who you're going to be. That was powerful. Right? But you're saying before a habit can be and I don't wanna quote you incorrectly, but I want you to elaborate on it. Because this is profound to me. I mean, it's obvious, but if you if you don't step back and get away from it and look at it, you just really don't realize the truth of it. Before a habit can be improved,
25:04it has to actually be established. Mhmm. And I think what happens is you tell me what you think. Beginning of the year, I'm gonna lose 50 pounds. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna eat then it's it's I'm gonna I'm gonna starve myself to 500 calories. So it's not a 1% improvement. Or I wanna get up earlier. I'm get up two hours earlier starting tomorrow instead of get up fifteen minutes earlier.
25:25Mhmm. Right? Get up get up a minute earlier. So talk about it from a just the the concept for one to just they can take control of their life right now by just the establishment of a habit. Right or or right?
25:40Yeah. Definitely right. I so one of the concepts I talk about in the book is this one of the strategies is this idea of what I call the two minute rule, where I encourage people to build a habit that takes two minutes or less to do. So you take whatever you're trying to do, read 30 books a year, becomes read one page, or do yoga four days a week, becomes take out my yoga mat.
26:01And sometimes when I mention that idea, people resist it a little bit because they're like, okay, buddy. You know, I know the real goal isn't just to take my yoga mat out. I know I'm actually trying to do the workout. So if this is some kind of mental trick, then, like, why would I fall for it, basically? Well, I tell the story of of this guy, Mitch, that you mentioned. This guy who I met I talk about him in Atomic Habits. He went to the gym. He's lost over a 100, kept it off for more than a decade.
26:26And when he first started going to the gym, he wouldn't stay for five longer than five minutes. He had this little rule. He had to leave after five minutes. So he'd get in the car, drive to the gym, get out, do half an exercise, get back in the car, drive home. And it sounds ridiculous. Right? It sounds silly. You're like, obviously, he's not gonna get the guy the results that he wants. But if you take a step back, you realize that he was mastering the art of showing up. Right? He was becoming the type of person that went to the gym four days a week even if it was only for five minutes.
26:55And this gets us to that deeper truth about habits that you just mentioned, this idea that a habit must be established before it can be improved. It has to become the standard in your life before you can optimize it and scale it up into something more. And, you know, I don't know why we do this. Like, we get very all or nothing about our habits. We're like, we're so focused on finding the perfect business idea or the best workout program or the ideal diet plan
27:19that we spend all our time theorizing and researching and looking for a better way. And instead, if we could just master the art of showing up, even if in the beginning it was less than what you had hoped to do, you're establishing a foothold. You're building some small progress that you can advance off of. And it reminds me of Ed Latimore has that great quote where he says, the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door.
27:44And, man, there are a lot of things in life that are like that. You know? Like, the the hardest part is getting started. The hardest part is establishing the routine even if it's a lower level baseline than what you ultimately hope to achieve. But the reality is if you can't become the type of person who masters the art of showing up, even if it's just for five minutes,
28:01then it doesn't matter how good the plan is. It doesn't matter how great your theory is. And so I think the two minute rule pushes back on that perfectionist tendency a little bit and just encourages you to master the art of showing up. For someone listening to this, talk about routine because if you want everyone wants to be free. Yeah. One of the challenges, they act free before they are. Yeah. You know I mean? Like, you you there's a certain amount of disciplines and routine and habits and rituals you gotta have that could get you free at one point. Talk about that for a second. Yeah. I'm gonna say honestly, man, you know, I I came to the realization one day, and again, love my biological father, you know, much respect much respect for the person that raised me.
28:39But I realized at some point, when I looked at my family's history, I was like, some things I don't want. Mhmm. There's some things I want, but there's some things I don't want. And then I I remember having to say one day to myself, like, yo, you are your father's child. Like, yo, even though you didn't he didn't raise you, even though in the beginning you guys had, you know, whatever little stuff y'all need to get through, eat. Don't lie. You are lazy
29:03at times. You know what I'm saying? Like, eat, you are super social, and you'd rather talk than work. You know I'm saying? I just had to grow up one day and just be real with myself, and just say, eat. The only way you're gonna be successful is you gotta discipline yourself. Yeah. You know, when you look at when you look at a horse, I'm talking about a thoroughbred,
29:21it still needs that what is that thing called that they put on it? I'm talking about. It it it still need he needs that without the you know, you can't you you gotta control him. You know, he got a lot of Jews, got a lot of energy. He can go for it, but you you gotta you gotta hone that. Yeah. And so I realized, like, yo, e, you'd sleep in. You'd play video game. Don't lie to yourself. You you are powerful.
29:41But you have some vices. Yes. And you have some vices that'll take you down a crazy road. Like, you are your father. You are your grandfather. You are your mother. You are your grandmother. Like, it's real. And so I started saying, okay, E, you gotta discipline yourself. And this is for me. This ain't for everybody. I started getting up at 03:00 in the morning. It was like, yo, you're have to get up a little bit earlier because you didn't finish school. You didn't take care of your business. So you can't get up the same time another man who gets up, who handle his business. So you need to get up at three. If you're gonna catch the greats, you gotta get up at three. You gotta go to bed earlier. This is why I said,
30:13I never drank or smoked because the men in my life who did it were extremists. I had an uncle who died cirrhosis of the liver. You know, I had other uncles who drank, and and my father, bless his heart, but he was strung out on drugs for about fourteen years, and I was just like, yo, E, you can see that they don't know how to do it casually. Like, they ain't social drinkers. Like, they ain't social on something. They taking it to a whole another level. And so for me, it was like, you gotta discipline yourself.
30:39You're not gonna die if you never know what alcohol tastes like. But if you taste it, you might have the same experience they had. So you just gotta discipline yourself. You know, I do vegan most of the time. You know what I'm saying? And I tell people all the time, I love fried chicken. I love macaroni and cheese. I love a lot of dessert. But in my family, it's diabetes.
30:56So it's like, yo, Eve, if you do what they do, then you gonna get the results they got. So you yeah. Chicken is good, and macaroni cheese, the way my grandma make it is great. And, yes, the pound cake is phenomenal, but if you wanna be with Didi for the next thirty, forty years, and you wanna be able to walk, you know what I'm saying? You don't wanna be on the cruise. I was just on a cruise, and they a couple people, you know, was on the motor scooter. Know what saying? People with the canes and the walkers, and I'm not mad at them. I know what But I'm like, I don't want that. I wanna be able to walk at 60 Yes. At 70. I wanna be independent at 80 if I can be, so I'm gonna have to make some sacrifices
31:28now for the long run. I would drink pop every day if I could. Is everybody hearing this, though? Like, I mean, listen. All of us that wanna win. Like, you already said, like, I gotta get up at 03:00 more if I'm gonna catch the grates because I started with some deficiency. Absolutely. Successful people are very self aware. Like, they don't BS themselves. Yep. Right? Like, I have laziness too. Absolutely. I love laying around. I love sleep. Yeah. No. But before I wouldn't have got to sleep here if I if I was just me. I had to get these rituals and habits and disciplines,
31:59HOOKand people think sometimes they listen to me, and they were so intense. Like, these these dudes are freaks. Yeah. I'm not a freak. No. I I don't But you know why they say that? Because it makes it easier for them to say, I can't do it if they freaks, then I can't do it. That's their out. You're exactly right. I'm not gonna give you that out, neither are you. Like, I'm lazy. I gotta get up early. I gotta get up because if I don't get up by, like I get up at 04:35. But if I don't get up by then, I will be in bed at 08:00.
32:22HOOKI have to get up. I have to move my body. So I'm with you a 100%. Welcome back, everybody. I wanted to have Alan on our show for a long time. I was just telling him this off camera. I wanted to have him on because he's got a really unique perspective and an upfront view to some of the key performers in the NBA for many, many years. And he's taken the lessons he's learned from these high performers,
32:41HOOKand he's distilled it down in information that everybody can use as an entrepreneur, as a father, as a mother, as just a human being. And, uh, he communicates it in a very unique way. We're gonna go very deep today on performance, on your game. His first book I read, which is called raise your game. The book that's out now is called sustain your game, high performance keys to manage stress, avoid stagnation, and beat burnout.
33:05HOOKI think everybody listening to this needs some help right now in the world with stress, stagnation, and burnout. So, Alan Stein, welcome to the show, bro. Oh, man. It's so awesome to be here. My pleasure. Finally, man. You know what I wanna start out? I wanna start out with Kobe Bryant. Yes. So Alan's work with everybody from people like Kobe to Kevin Durant to Steph Curry
33:24and many, many companies and business leaders as well. But you tell this great story. I think it's around a Nike camp or something like that with Kobe Bryant that just blew my mind that I think just personifies greatness and high standards. So tell us that story. Sure. Well, I mean, it absolutely changed my life. So I had a chance to meet Kobe in 2007.
33:43It was the first ever Nike Skills Academy, and they were building a series of camps around their signature players who, of course, at that time, Kobe Bryant was atop of that mountain. Yeah. And flew out to Los Angeles here, La La Land, to work that event. And I had a chance to watch one of his really early morning workouts, which Which is legendary. Absolutely legendary. And for folks that are familiar, those have a start time of 4AM.
34:05And, you know and of course, the most impressive part of that is you're talking about a guy that had already reached the mountain top. You know, he's already a surefire hall of famer, multimillionaire 10 times over, NBA champion, MVP. I mean and he's still up in the off season putting in that type of work. And and I remember being, as a younger coach, being shocked at the simplicity of what he was doing. Um, I mean, he spent the first thirty minutes without even having a ball in his hands. He was doing basic pivoting drills and footwork drills. Uh, and his workout lasted for a couple hours. And I remember vividly at the end of this workout going up to him and saying, Kobe, I don't get it, man. You're you're the best player in the world. Why are you doing such basic drills? And I'll never forget it. He gave me a really friendly smile and a wink, but he said in a really serious tone,
34:50why do you think I'm the best player in the world? Because I never get bored with the basics. And and that changed my life. That changed my perspective. You know, I I went into that workout expecting to see some sizzle, some sexiness, you know, some flash. And he just was routinely drilling down on the basic fundamentals.
35:08And, you know, ever since that day, that has been my core philosophy for performance, is never getting bored with the basics, and working on mastery of the fundamentals during the unseen hours. Really good, bro. Like, we're right there already. We're getting into the good stuff. So Absolutely. Because I think there's a thing in leadership that's leadership fatigue. We get tired of saying the same things over and over again even though we should.
35:30I think in business and life, there's just a fatigue of the mundane of doing the things that actually work, and we move away from them. And sometimes the greatest people in the world just don't allow themselves to suffer from the fatigue of the repetition. Yeah. True? Abs absolutely. And you hit the nail on the head. That's incredibly insightful. I think we can readily acknowledge that the basics, if you allow them to, can be monotonous Mhmm. Can be mundane,
35:53and can get boring Mhmm. Unless you have that type of approach to them. Yeah. Even if you don't love doing the basics, you need to love what the basics produce for you, which is basically creating that foundation to which the rest of the house is built. Yeah. And guys like Kobe, they never leave them, and that's that's the key. And the the beautiful part is, it's not saying that you don't also graduate to do more advanced techniques and so forth. It says you never leave the basics. And Are they like the building blocks to allow you to do the great things? Right? Like, the fundamental things, the footwork in basketball.
36:24It's the communication or presenting skills in business. It's the vision stretching capacity of a leader. It's the the the generosity and kindness and gentleness that requires from a parent that we have to do over and over again and show that love. Right? It's it's the repetition we get bored of. I don't know who was at it first. Maybe it was Tony Robbins. I'm not sure. I say it all the time. I sometimes I think I said it first. I don't know. But the complexity is the enemy of execution.
36:49That oftentimes, we try to complicate things in our life, and then we have an inability to execute. True? Absolutely. Mhmm. Simple is smooth, and then smooth is what gets it done. And, yeah. Of course, in a game like basketball, for your listeners that follow, it's it's footwork, it's shooting mechanics, it's how well you handle the ball. You know, we all know those are the basics. So the the first step for anyone trying to improve performance in any area of their life, first of all, is to admit that the basics work. But then second, it's having the humility to acknowledge that doing the basics every day is not easy. But what you have to do is get crystal clear on what are the basic fundamental building blocks of whatever it is you're trying to improve. If you're trying to improve your marriage, what are the handful of fundamentals
37:29that will go into a nurturing relationship? If you're trying to be a more influential and impactful executive, what are the handful of things that you and you could go down the list. Whether you wanna be a musician, an artist, anything in between, you have to get crystal clear on what those basics are, and then you have to commit towards working towards them relentlessly
37:47during the unseen hours to work towards mastery. Unseen hours. That's the other part of the story that fascinated me. So as I understand it, you ask him the day before, can I come watch this workout? Mhmm. And he goes, yeah, 04:00. And it wasn't 4PM, it was 4AM. Yes. But you I'll I'll let you share this, but you're like, well, I'm gonna impress this guy and get there early. So there's a 4AM workout, but what happens tell him what happens when you get there and you get there Well, yeah. And I arrived today early because I believe you're making a good first impression, and I believe that getting places early is is a sign of respect to the person that you're gonna meet. And, you know, as a young coach, I'm thinking, what could be better than me leaving my mark and impressing Kobe?
38:25If So he thinks he's working out at four, I'm gonna be waiting for him at the gym at, you know, 03:30AM, and he's gonna be blown away. Instead, I arrive at the gym and can see the lights already on, can hear sneakers squeaking and a ball bouncing from the parking lot. I walk in at 03:30 in the morning. He's going through a warm up. He didn't even count that as part of his workout. Gosh. That's So he's doing that at 03:30 before his workout actually started with his trainer at four. And Bro, that's crazy. And he went on for a couple hours, again, sticking to the basics and just drilling down. And, you know, he's one of those guys that really understands the concept. You know, if you wanna perform well in front of millions, then you have to be willing to put in millions of reps when no one else is watching, which is how we define the unseen hours. And that that actually I I stole from my friend Drew Hanlon, who's an NBA skills coach, Mhmm. He's the one that came up with the term unseen hours, and I conveniently borrowed that, and I use it everywhere because, uh, I really believe that success in anything, eve even the success of your podcast
39:20is predicated on the due diligence and the research that you do on each guest before the mics go hot. Very true. Right. And that's , and that's what a lot of people they don't see. That the standard is different. Right? So, like, this idea that a 4AM workout look. Let's just be really honest. You and I you know the NBA a lot better than I do, but I know professional sports, and most dudes are coming home around 4AM in the NBA oftentimes. Right? Not starting not having a workout at 4AM, and then to know that, no. It's not 4AM. He was you're there at 03:30. He had already been warming up for twenty five or thirty minutes before.
39:52There's just a different standard Yeah. I think with the elite performer. I think a a elite mother has just a little bit standard than an average mother. I think an elite executive. They just set a different culture of standards around. That's gotta be part of it. Right? Absolutely. And I don't know if you know the reason that he did the workout at 4AM, but it parlays perfectly into your new book, you know, just do one more. The reason Kobe does that, he understands that e even the most aggressive,
40:16uh, players in the NBA, they're gonna get in two workouts a day during the off season. Mhmm. Uh, first one is usually around nine or 10AM, and then they'll take a lunch break, and then they'll come back at three or four. So his mindset was, if everyone else in the league is gonna be doing two workouts a day, I'm going to do three, because I'm going to do one more than they're doing, and the only way I can squeeze that in is if I get up and do it at four. So when he's coming home from his first workout,
40:41his competition is just waking up to go in for their first workout. So then he's doing his second workout while they're doing their first. And then it's it's the compounding interest effect of, if I do this every single day in the off season, for not just years, but in his case, decades, he said no one will ever catch me. Because every time I I wake up, I'm gonna do one more than you're doing. You'll never catch me. And I think that's part of what gave him that, you know, that mamba mentality. Welcome back to Max Out, everybody. I'm Ed Mylett. Let me ask you a question before we begin today. Do you have any sense right now, like, you feel like you're just overloaded
41:14HOOKand you're overwhelmed with information in your life? Maybe you're having a hard time getting focused. You get distracted pretty easily. Maybe your concentration sort of suffers a little bit, your memory issues. Well, my guest here today is an expert on optimum brain performance, on learning, on learning quickly, and on maxing out your capacity to think and perform in your life.
41:35HOOKAnd it was really born out of some tragedy, out of some some difficult events out of his childhood. He's turned those tragic events into becoming a world renowned expert on brain performance. And today, I'm really blessed because I've been chasing this guy for a while. I've wanted him to share his brilliance with you, the audience, and I'm I'm grateful that he's here today because we're about to change your life and change the way you learn, think, and perform. So my guest today is the great Jim Quik. Jim, thank you. Ed, thank you so much. I've been looking forward to this so much. Me too, brother. We've been we've had great conversations off camera,
42:07and I'm so excited because I know there's some shows I know that we do that are inspirational, and then there are shows I know that are going to inspire, but also by the end of the program, people's lives are just measurably better, and they can perform better. And today is heavy note taking. You're driving in the car, you're gonna wanna hear it, but you're gonna wanna get back and listen to the video or something too to write the notes down we're gonna cover. So let's just go back just a little bit because I wanna give people context
42:31because I really believe life happens for us, not to us. Oh. And it's the meaning in our life of the events that happened to us. Not the event, but the meaning we take from it. And so you've become this world renowned expert. You've worked with the Dalai Lama, Richard Branson. Right? Some of the highest profile celebrities in the world, most successful business people.
42:50But it's ironic that that was founded out of a boy with a broken brain. Right? And that was because you had fallen and hurt your head. Is that right? Like a five year old or tell us that story real quick. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I just posted this on Instagram today. I said, difficult times could define us, they could diminish us or they could develop us. Mhmm. You decide.
43:09Because ultimately, we do decide. Mhmm. And, yeah, when I I know I'm such a big fan of yours. Thank you. And follow of your work. I and first of all, before we get started, I I appreciate everyone who's watching this. And what I love is you are the person you are on and off camera. Oh, thank And that that that means a lot to me. You know, your humility because you're so accomplished. And so, the reason why I'm excited about this is because I think this message we have to talk to people about Mhmm. Is is so important because your brain controls everything. Yeah. Right? When people see me on stage, they'll see me have a 100 people stand up and I'll memorize all their names as they introduce themselves or a 100 words or a 100 numbers that they give me forwards and backwards. I've seen this man have a 100 people give him two numbers out of sequence and he'll repeat back a 100 people's multiple numbers like this. And here's the thing, I always tell people I don't do this to impress you, I do this to express to you what's really possible. Mhmm. Because the truth is every single person that's listening and watching this could do that and a lot more. Oh my gosh. The thing is we weren't taught. Mhmm. You know, if anything we were taught a lie that somehow our our capabilities, our potential,
44:13our memory for instance, our learning abilities, our intelligence is somehow fixed like our shoe size. Yeah. And it's absolutely not true. We've discovered more about the human brain in the past twenty years than the previous two thousand years combined. Mhmm. And what we found is we've grossly underestimated our own potential, own capabilities. Mhmm. That's And the thing. It's just because we weren't taught. And I really think the nature of the work that you do, that I do, that our community is really backing Mhmm. Is about transcending.
44:38Mhmm. It's about ending the trans. Wow. Transcend, end the trans. Ending this massive gnosis in media, in marketing that's telling us that we're broken. Yeah. That we need to be fixed. Mhmm. That we're not enough. Mhmm. And I feel like that is what holds us back. You know, this this illusion if you will. Yeah. That real better, Margaret? Did you feel that way as a little guy? You know, when I was five years old, as you mentioned, I had this accident. Yeah. Head trauma, brain injury, traumatic brain injury.
45:05After that, my my parents said I was never the same. Know, I became extremely shy, introverted. Mhmm. I had learning difficulties. I was labeled. And a label is tough. Right? Yeah. You know, when you're put in special classes, um, I couldn't understand things. My my teachers would repeat themselves four or five times and I would pretend to understand. Yeah. Like sometimes we do as an adult, because we have this impostor syndrome. We always wanna Yes. We wanna look good. We don't wanna ever make a mistake, which I feel like also holds us back. Mhmm. In this space, the things you teach
45:33can affect someone's life like this, and that's what I love. So can we talk about some of those things? Absolutely. I mean, I'm I'm I'm just fascinated. I'd like look at me. Right? We only have an hour. I wish we had 17, but you said if there was one skill to master in the twenty first century. Yes. In your opinion, it is what? What would you say? Your ability to learn faster. To learn faster. I really do believe that if there was, let's say let's say there was a genie Mhmm. And they could grant you one wish, anything you want. Yeah.
45:58People would wish for more wishes. That would be the hack. Right? You'd somebody Aladdin's gonna be one wish, you ask for more wishes. But if I was a learning genie and I could help you learn any subject, any skill, you know, anything, what would you want, what would you wish for? You would ask to learn how to learn.
46:17I did a program at Google and I remember hearing this from the chairman said, the amount information that's been created from the dawn of humanity since human beings walked the earth through the year 2003, which is only about a decade and a half ago Mhmm. That amount information is now created every two days. Oh my gosh. 48 online. Think about the blogs, the podcast, the social media, that much content. Our brain, they say we use such a small potential of it. Yeah. We use all our brain k. But some people use it more efficiently than other people. But you talk an awful lot about the way we were learning a hundred years ago is still the same way we're taught to learn. And a simple thing you said, because almost everybody listening to this
46:53well, know they are. They're listening to this podcast. Right. They're taking notes. Sure. They they go to seminars. They take notes. They're reading books. And just a simple difference in the way we take notes even. Right. You have told, I didn't even realize this, but you're this is an old way to take notes. There's a different way to experience even note taking. Can you give some tips on that? So I I recommend everybody takes notes Mhmm. Of this specific episode
47:16because it boosts retention. People don't realize this. There's a learning curve but there's also a forgetting curve. Mhmm. Science is saying that within two days, just forty eight hours of listening to a podcast, reading a book, going to a conference, getting a coaching Mhmm. 80% of it, up to 80% is lost. Incredible. And that's, you know, as somebody who's investing time, energy, treasure into something True. To lose all that, you know, so you wanna be able to
47:40to hold that on. Okay. And so, one of the ways of doing it is by taking notes and we did a whole episode on proper note taking and really one that's more brain friendly. Okay. Most people and what they found is the worst way of taking notes actually is verbatim. Which is the way I take notes. Yeah. Verbatim full full transcription and study this you know at universities because they test people. Mhmm. That people take word for word. And one of the reasons why is because there's just so much information. Right? You have 18 pages of of word for word. You don't even know what's most important. Mhmm. But they found the best way of actually taking notes were were more on keywords and and relevancy.
48:17So for example, one of the ways of taking notes that I recommend is taking a piece of paper and putting a line straight down the page. Okay. And on the left side what I'm doing is I'm capturing information. Okay. Capturing. So, we could talk about how to remember names and how to read faster and how to Okay. Learn skills faster, how to change your habits. That would be on the left the left hand column. You're capturing information. Okay. But on the right side, instead of capturing, you're creating.
48:40What does that mean? It means that you're writing, you're creating and you're building on this. Mhmm. You're putting your impression. So essentially, on the left side, you're taking notes, but on the right side, you're making notes. And there's a clear distinction, right, between just capturing information and actually creating the creative process. Why does that matter? It matters because
48:58if you're first of all for focus, a lot of people when they're listening to something their mind will go somewhere else. They'll get distracted. So here, instead of it going somewhere else, it goes on the right side of the page which is let's say left side right brain brain. Left brain, right brain. Left brain's more logical and words and language and linear
49:16but on the right side is your imagination, it's your creativity. Right. So your creativity could go there. The other thing is it forces you to ask questions. I believe that questions are the answer. I think it's the essential for understanding, for critical thinking, for focus Mhmm. For learning. If you ever wanna read something and you Let's say people feel absent minded. Yes. They forget where they put things. Their wallet, their purse, their their
49:39keys or if not their keys, something larger like their car. You see the people end up finding Yes. They forget where they parked their car. They read a page of the book at the end and forget what they just read. They'll get a name from somebody and they'll just forget it right away. Yes. One of the ways to insulate that is to ask questions. Right? To ask questions about something. So for example, when I'm taking notes, I'll capture information on the left side, but on the right side, I'll write questions I have about what I'm learning. Mhmm. I'll ask myself questions like how I'm gonna apply it. You know what Mhmm. My the biggest challenge I have with the self help
50:08personal development industry is that there's this massive lie that's being spread saying that knowledge is power. Yeah. Thinking is the process of asking and answering questions to yourself. That's why left and right page here matters. Everybody stay with us on it. That's all thinking is. That's all thought is. Exactly. And you're capturing your thinking. And even the greatest minds out there, they they journal. They they're always creative. Mhmm. You know, you think about Leonardo da Vinci or Marie Curie, like, they had their journals are worth fortunes. Yes. Right? And it's it's interesting asking this question. Is it because they were geniuses?
50:40And when I say genius, I don't mean IQ. Yes. Mean they're exceptional in their field. Yes. Right? Whether it's sports Yes. Whether it's technology, finance It's a form of genius. Relationships, interpersonal skills, interpersonal communication. Is it because they're geniuses that they're taking all these notes or is because they're creating all these notes that make them geniuses. Oh, oh. Right? And so it's interesting. And so I like to journal. Mhmm. I think that that's extremely important. The the questions though to take knowledge into an action, three main questions I obsess about. K. Number one is how can I use this? K. I ask this all the time because I don't learn for the sake of learning. I learn for the sake of some kind of benefit from me or somebody I care about. Just so I'm with you. This would be the right side of the page as I'm taking some notes. I'm I'm taking notes and I'm but I'm obsessed about it. So even I'm not writing it down, even when I'm having a conversation with somebody or listening, I'm in a con how can I use this? Okay. And this is the creativity part. It's like, wow. These are all the ways I could use this Okay. And apply this. The second question I ask religiously
51:35is after I ask how can I use this, I'm asking myself why must I use this? Mhmm. Why must I use this? Yeah. Because here's the thing, a lot of people know what to do, they don't do what they know. You can't come up with one reason, you're not gonna remember. Mhmm. Because reasons reap results. Okay. Reasons reap results. Reasons reap rewards. Mhmm. Right? Simon
51:54cynic, start with why. Yes. Right? Always get into this. So ask yourself why and the questions make a that makes all the difference. So first question, how can I use this? That's And the creativity. Come up with all these ideas. Why must I use this? The reasons why. And then the third question I ask a lot is when will I use this? I think one of the most powerful productivity performance
52:16tools there are are calendars. Right? It's like our that app, calendar app or if you keep a physical calendar, that's important because if it's not there, it's not real. Right. Right? You schedule this in and then it becomes real and it's gonna happen. What does it look like when you start creating material all the way to the special? Mhmm. How many hours go into this? Are you when are you writing? When do the concepts come up? How many how many sets do you have to do to where you're like, this is tight now? I own this. This this is the creative process to have one special. I because think the other thing that's underestimated is just the amount of precise
52:47grinding and working required to become outstanding at what you do. -Yes. -That part of the process. Yeah. That's a great question. You know, every every comedian is different. Some comedians would like to go, I don't write nothing down. It's all you know, I'm not that person. I'm not that good. I my bits come from being in the moment and living and having the experiences. Okay. You know? But are you in the experience, miss Kurisha? Are in the experience going, this could be a bit? Yes. Okay. I'm all I'm comedians are very,
53:15you know, introverted people. We we we're very on top of everything we're thinking and feeling. Mhmm. Like, everything. Like, all the information that comes at us, as it's coming to us, we're evaluating and giving our opinion on it in our head. -Mm -Like, so any interaction with you, my wife, the any like, constantly, that's just where I'm at. Right? And so, like, for me, when I started going out and working out for,
53:39uh, to do NA for the week, I went I think we did, um, I I wanna say we did 30 cities, which is comedy clubs, and, you know, I I do five shows a weekend. Mhmm. So you take that 30 times five, it's about a 150
53:56sets. Right? A hour and twenty minutes is normally what I'm on stage doing. And Wow. You know, you do this again and again and again, and I record all of my material. I record every set that I do. And I go back, and when I'm on the treadmill or I'm in the gym the next day working out, I listen to it. So I can go, oh, that's good. Nope. That's no good. I don't need that. Get that. Like, it's work. It's a process. And that's I do it again. It's reps. It's like, you know, it's like how you get tone. Again, again, again, again, again. Like, that's literally it. I think the tolerance for that is for very few people, brother. I mean, it's in everything. Like Sure. Even salespeople that are listening this right now, like, do you are you that on your presentation? Are you that on your clothes? Are you that on your nuance? I even watch you where you go,
54:36even some of your My laugh. Some some of your transfers of your laughing and the rhythm and how you keep it together. Chappelle bump bump that mic on his leg. Right? Like Mhmm. These are little things that if you're watching the best of the best, you should be breaking them down in the subtleties of what they do. Sebastian Maniscalco will go My friend. Go very long. Me too. Won't go that very long until he moves his body a particular way. Right? Like, he's not a standstill guy. Right. So but in every career, it's the precision. It's it's Nick Saban for Alabama says, we don't practice until we get it right. We practice until we can't get it wrong. That's right. And it's just a different standard of the best. And and and, David, you guys, is the best. Thank you. For me right now, it's the best set that I've watched, maybe ever, but certainly as long as I can as as long as I can recall. That that you know what? I tell, like because I teach one of the largest stand up comedy classes in the country. I didn't know that. And I've been doing it for ten years, and I stopped doing it during the pandemic.
55:32Uh, I have well over 300 plus people on my waiting list, and I'm about to do a seminar, which I haven't done it in two years. I'm about to do it in, like, next month, and we're just doing two days, and I miss it because I love talking about the art of stand up. You know? And one of the things that I tell people when I do my stand up, it's it's my it's it's in my muscle. It's in my muscle memory. Like, when I start to do material and I start to tell stories, I'm in a certain place when I hit this joke. When I'm like, there's it it becomes that
56:03where it's locked in, but there's still enough room for me to be David. There's still enough room for it to be the same, but it's a little different. Yep. Yep. You know what I mean? And so, like, even now, like, working on I'm working like, the night I did, it ain't for the week. That night, I have not done any of that material since that night. Is that right? Not one joke. And the next day, the next week, I was on to and I'm doing a new tour called Pace Yourself now. And I've been out. We're doing 30 more cities. Go see them. And I literally
56:31have not done what? And I'm doing a whole new hour and twenty minutes. Now, this is the benefit. This comes from having done stand up for twenty eight years under the radar.
56:43Mhmm. Nobody's seen me. Yeah. So they all know that I'm like this this caged animal that's been working forever, and now I'm finally getting a chance to run out in the wild. It's amazing to me. Know? It's one of the best stories ever because it you know, although you have had this financial success you were talking about Sure. This notion of all this time under the radar to be that good. Now let me ask you this. By way, one little lesson he said there, I just want to add everyone just so everyone's listening.
57:09I think you have to be obsessed. So like it's real comedy is really never off for you. Like you're with your family, you're present. Right. Yes. But like you're still looking for your craft in it. I can't help it. Right. That's the greats at anything. I can't help By the way, you entrepreneurs, there's healthy obsessions in life. Sure. And like so no matter what I'm ever doing, when I'm watching someone do something, I'm watching them speak. I'm I'm looking for a business clue. I'm watching a television screen. Like, that strategy would work in this business I've got. It's never far from me. I'm always amazed by people say, I wanna be the best, or I wanna be great, or I wanna be a millionaire. Yes. Yet they're willing to escape their craft for long periods of time. No. I can't do Me either. And then I'm on vacation. I'm still sort of in my mode,
57:50looking at people, picking up stuff. That would be inspiring. That might be a business I could solve. That problem with this product is always there. Yes. Always. As when you because it's who you are. Yes. And you can't when it's when it when what you do is who you are, you can't turn it off. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I can't like, my my family knows when they're around me. They're like, here he goes. Dad,
58:14don't start. Like, if I pull out my phone and start texting while they're talking, they're like, don't uh-uh. That's not gonna be a bit. Like, they know when it hits me in the moment, like because I I see life through a diff comedians, we see life through a lens that civilians do not. Mhmm. Yep. That's just how we're why I've been wired like that now. I the more so, unfortunately,
58:37the more tragic it is, the quicker comedy comes to us. Like, we've had friends who have died in the in the in the comedy community that passed away. If you were on some of these text threads Seriously. With us comedians, it's dark. Right away. Like, everybody's waiting for how long before we can like, how long do we just can you see the funeral home behind you in the rearview mirror? Yeah. Let's go. Like, we start. Like and then knowing that the comedian who passed away,
59:06if they were here, would be on that thread. They'd be laughing their ass up quickly. Yeah. I remember It's just who we are. I remember when Norm died. Yes. Like, immediately, good friends of mine. I was on some threads with them. I'm like, wow. This quickly. This is right. Jeez. My god. No time. Gambling right now. Bob Saget, who I had a chance to work with, same thing. Yeah. Like, right away. Exact that but it's just because it's in us. It's who we are. And if you are a salesman,
59:29if you whatever you do, if if you work if you're a trainer, if you are a nutritionist, you see life through a different lens. I love that.
59:39HOOKYou just like, you you somebody will bring you a what could look like a beautiful meal to me, and a a nutritionist will look at that and go, all the sodium. Look at all like, they'll something I will never see. Yep. Exactly right. Yep. Those are people that are great. Those are people that are great. That's I'm just telling you, there's no site this this whole thing in personal development right now, it's like you need to be present where you are. Yes. I completely believe that. Agree. That doesn't mean, like, you you probably have this too, even with my kids. Like, I do sometimes. I need to consciously put this phone down Oh my gosh. And just be in their presence. Sure. But at the same time,
1:00:11HOOKI'm I never I never escape who I am even in those moments. I might not type it that minute. I'm going, now this would be something inspiring. And I gotta hold on to it. Like, I'm just I'm sorry. I'm not it's not coming off. I think people take this stuff too literally where they like escape their business or their craft. Like, this is part of like, I don't when I'm dead, I would like to be remembered for some of these things someday. Right? This quote by Thomas Edison said,
1:00:33HOOKwhen you feel you've exhausted all options, remember this, you haven't. I love that. That's the power of one more. Power of one more. And so I have lived this book in my life. Like I have lived this mindset and it has changed my life because I've always been just one step away, one habit away, one mindset away from this amazing life that I'm grateful and blessed to live. Well, that's the truth. Right? You're right. And I think the great lie in life is that I pick you know, some scriptures say, well, where there's no vision, the people will perish.
1:01:06Whatever your scriptures are. Is it really? Do you have no vision? If you ask the average person, you wanna be happy or sad? What's your vision? They'd say, I wanna be happy. You wanna be rich or poor? Most people say, I'd like to be rich. Do you wanna contribute or make no difference in the world? I wanna contribute. Do you want beautiful memories or no memories? I want memories. So there's a vision. Our issue is depth perception.
1:01:24We think it's further away than it is. And because we think it's so far away, Jay, we create patterns and behaviors in our life that perpetually keep it there. Oh. And that's what we do in our life. But what if that's the great lie of life? And what if the truth is that you're one relationship away, one meeting away, one conversation, one podcast, one interview,
1:01:46one new thought, one new emotion, one new tactic or strategy away from completely changing the trajectory of your life. And everyone that you and I know that we both work with that we're blessed to work with in our lives. The truth is it was one decision, one meeting,
1:02:02one extra rep, one more phone call, one thing they did that changed their trajectory. Then the question then becomes, how do I do it? Mhmm. And so the strategies are in the book. But conceptually, that's a 100% how you change your life. Yeah. And you're you're so right. I I was thinking about this this morning.
1:02:19Last year, I had a double hernia surgery on the front. Like, so I couldn't walk for about a month. And when I say I couldn't walk, I mean, like, I literally couldn't move. Oh my gosh. It it was like I was like, I felt like I was teaching myself to walk again. Like, that's how it felt. It's really interesting what you just said about how we perpetually push it far away. I would wake up every morning
1:02:42and my mind or my initial mindset was like, it will be gone today. Yeah. It must have gone today. Like, today it will be fully healed. I'll be fine today. And I would wake up and I wouldn't be. Mhmm. And I would feel like healing was so far away. Yes. It would be like 80% away that I was missing out on the 1% change since yesterday. You got it. Since yesterday, I made 1% change. I was I wasn't feeling the same pain in my nerves. I was able to be flexible by 1%
1:03:13more. Yes. And I was missing out on all of that because I was so obsessed with how far I was. That's the journey. And the thing And what happens is when you live with an expectation that these one mores exist, the reticular activating system in your mind filters them into your awareness. I call it the matrix in the second chapter of the book. When you wake up believing, hey, I'm one decision away. I'm one meeting away. One relationship away. That's not hokey. Your mind begins to filter the people, places and things into your awareness. You develop something called sensory acuity.
1:03:43You hear conversations you weren't hearing. We've all had that experience where we're on an airplane, I can't stop hearing these people over here. Or you walk in a loud room, but you can hear your own name auditorily over all the other names in the room. That's because it's important to you and it matters. You see things. And so when something becomes important to you and you believe it to be true,
1:04:03the RAS goes to proving it for you. Mhmm. And where I learned this, ironically, I talk about in the book, is my father was an alcoholic and had tried to get sober many many times. And I'll never forget it, Jay. We were driving to a baseball game of mine, and my dad started crying. I'd never seen my dad cry before. And he pulls the car over, and he still isn't looking at me, but he's crying and he says, Eddie. And then he turns to me and he goes,
1:04:26I'm gonna try to get sober. And I'll never forget this brother. He goes, one more time. Wow. And I said, really, daddy? He goes, I'm gonna give it one more try. And I said to him, I said, why would this be any different this time?
1:04:42And he said, never said this to me before. He goes, because I I love you and you deserve a father you can be proud of, and you can't be proud of me right now. And I think every great thing we do in life is one away, but it's also born from love. To talk about your book, when you love people or you love something so deeply, if that love is greater than what the obstacles might be, now you got a shot to do it. Then my dad gets sober. He comes home from rehab. I say, daddy, are you never gonna drink again?
1:05:10And he said, I can't promise you that. I can promise you I'm not gonna drink for one more day at a time. Wow. And he lasted the rest of his life stacking those one more days up. And so I know the power of one more. And, Jay, the other thing, I also know humans can change. I watched my hero do it. I watched my dad live my first fifteen years. So I'm in a lot of fights. Wow. Lot of lying, lot of difficult times. And then I saw this man transform.
1:05:36And in life, we're most qualified to help the person we used to be. Mhmm. And what we think in life, and I hope everybody gets this, we think the things we're most ashamed of, embarrassed by, our divorce, our bankruptcy, or maybe we've just always been average and ordinary. This disqualifies me from being successful and happy. What if that's not true? What if the hardest things of your life are the very things that qualify you? I'll give you an example. You know, my dad got sober? Somebody helped him.
1:06:03My dad was gonna take his life or lose his family, and I didn't know who it was till months ago. Some precious human being whom I didn't know. In my dad's darkest hour of his life, Jay, said, I'll help you. I'll help you. Little did that person know, I'd be his son, and I'd help millions of people, and I'd be on Jay Shetty Show, and we both helped millions of people. And the more ironic thing that this person helped my dad is what qualified them to help my dad. They
1:06:28were a drunk. They were an alcoholic. They at one time were a drug addict. They at one time were lying and stealing and living in the shadows. The very thing that person probably figured that disqualifies me from having a successful life was the one thing that did qualify them to help my dad. So if you're listening to this and you've had something you're ashamed of or a failure or a setback,
1:06:49you're most qualified to help the people you used to be. Yeah. And that person, that alcoholism they suffered with their drug addiction helped my dad live those one more days forever. Oh, that that is the best explanation I've heard of how pain turns into purpose. That's right. The thing that brought you down, that broke you down, that made you feel like you were losing everything
1:07:11That's right. Gave you back everything when you used that to serve the people that were struggling with it. And then there's then there's a purpose. And you know, if you can survive the temporary pain in your life, and all pain is temporary. I watched my father pass away last year. He was in tremendous pain. Even our bodies are temporary. Only our souls are permanent. Mhmm. If you can survive the temporary, on the other side of temporary pain, you need another version of yourself,
1:07:35another insight about yourself. And that's why it's so important to grow as a person because the more we grow and become a new person, we can help those that used to be like us. That's why you and I are so addicted to growing and learning and we're curious because if you used to be a broken person and you no longer are quite as broken, you can help broken people. If you used to be broke financially and you no longer are, you can help people. Whatever you do for a living, At one time, you didn't know about it and now you do. You can help those who need to know about it. And so you're immensely qualified
1:08:03if you understand the power of doing one more. Oh, I love it. I love it. Tell me about so let's say, and you probably come up against this all the time. A lot of the people say, okay, I'm gonna practice that. I'm with you Ed. I love you and Jay. I'm I'm listening and I go, yes, I'm gonna practice the power of one more. Mhmm. Now, I find and this is why you're so great at teaching this because you're not teaching it as
1:08:26a a gimmick, a glitch, you're like a little a little affirmation. This is like real it makes sense, like it works. Mhmm. People get so tied to the result You're right. That when they try it the next day and the sales meeting doesn't go their way They give up. Or the pitch doesn't go their way, they go, ah, it doesn't work. Yeah. It doesn't work. Mhmm. Why didn't it work and how should we respond when we fail or get rejected the next day? Didn't work because you're so attached to the outcome. I coach a lot of athletes. I know you do as well. And one of the things that's a really nuanced thing in life, it's great to have goals. You should have goals. I wanna do this or that. But in the moment of execution, you have to separate from outcome in the moment that you're executing
1:09:05and just be present and exist. I talk about this in the book. Here's what I would say. If you're gonna win long term, ninety five percent of people have a operating system in their mind where they operate out of history and memory. Oh, I like And about 5% of humans operate out of vision and imagination.
1:09:24So the reason we're so much happier, I believe, when we're children is we have no history and memory. So we operate of imagination and dreams and vision. But at some age, some people it's five years old, some it's eight, some it's 18, some it's 28. They create a history and that history then becomes the operating system. So even if they take on a new behavior or tactic, they're operating out of a pattern of thought and belief that's historic and memory based. And so the number one thing I would say is begin to operate out of your imagination again, out of your vision again. Create from that place. If you create from that place,
1:09:58now you're not tied to the result in that moment, you're giving yourself space to imagine and create something new in your life. That I've never heard that in that language, man. That is so powerful. Thank you. You're so right about us kids, how we don't have any memory or history, so we don't have any blocks, we don't have any limits. And begin to listen to the people around you. People say, hey, you're the product of who you hang around.
1:10:19How do I know if they serve me or not? Here's one way to just deduce this, because they could be beautiful people who care about you, and they might even support you. But when you're with them, what are you you ever have those friends you're with them you're like, you remember when? You remember. You remember. Remember that party? Remember that thing? And if your friends are constantly bringing you to the filtration system of memory
1:10:41and history all the time. Think this through. How often are those friends saying, hey, what are you working on now? Where are you going? What's your vision? What do you want to create? And maybe that sounds hokey, but you and I have some of the some of our both our friends have the most amazing histories and you can't get them to talk about them. No. You have to work because what are they still doing? Yeah. They're talking about now and where they're going. Yeah. Their viewpoint in their life is being present
1:11:05and having a vision for the future. Yeah. A formula for misery, a formula for lack of creativity, lack of productivity is constantly being history and memory. Yeah. Even if it's good, it doesn't serve us. And for most of us, it's not good,
1:11:20and we keep living from it or trying to move away from it. Create a new future. Don't move away from the past. Create a brilliant, imaginative, curious, vibrant vision for your life. Oh, I love that. Yeah. We're always trying to create the same past Yes. As opposed to a new future. A new future. And I find that what's really interesting about that, all the studies show that nostalgia
1:11:43makes us believe that the past was more phenomenal than it actually was. If you remember that party you went to a college, it's better in your memory than it actually was. If you actually could have gone back and remembered how you felt hungover and why you broke a bone or whatever happened, but now in your memory, it's beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Right? So our memory also is slightly warped of the past. No question. It can make things feel much better or much worse sometimes. No question. But what's what's really coming out for me right now is this idea that it's it's something you said a couple of moments ago and and it sparked a thought for me. I remember the story that Vanessa Bryant told about Kobe Bryant after he passed away. Mhmm. I was fortunate enough to interview him around three months before it before his tragic passing
1:12:28and she told this story and she said that Kobe would play through every injury. He would play through every pain. He would play through everything even when the doctors and his coaches would say stop playing. And she asked him, she said once, why he still plays. Right? Again, going back to our curiosity
1:12:47Yes. Not assuming you know your partner. She asked him, why do you still play? And this is just her and him. There's no cameras. There's no she's telling this story, but at the time, it was just them two. He said it's because
1:13:01there's someone who's paid for a ticket today. They saved up, and this is the only time they're ever gonna be able to come. Maybe a son's maybe a dad's brought his kid, maybe someone's come to the game, they're a lifelong fan and they came today and today's the only day they're gonna get to see me and if I say I'm injured they won't get to see me. So So I'm gonna play so that that person That one person. Gets to see me play, and then he goes and wins. Yes. And it's like, that's love. That's love. That's what you were saying. Love for something is in the present moment also. Right? Love is not just for the past. And it's funny how important one day is, man. When my dad got sick, my dad got cancer.
1:13:42When he first got sick, he goes, hey, my dad was a dude. He goes, look, I'll fight this one time. Okay? I'll do your little chemo and your surgery, but I'm not gonna pour poison into my body. I'm not gonna lose my hair. I'm not gonna deteriorate. I'll give this thing a shot once. If it doesn't work, I'm out. That led to eight years of him fighting it. Wow. Chemo, radiation, proton therapy, surgery, surgery, chemo, experimental chemo, and he did lose his hair and he was in pain. And I'd say to my dad, I'd say, dad, you're suffering so much. He said, you wouldn't suffer. He said, no Eddie, I'm in pain,
1:14:13but I'm not suffering. I I choose not to suffer. And I'm not suffering because I get to see my grandkids again. And I said, said, dad, why are you doing this? And he said, you only understand the power of one day when you're threatened with never having another one. I'll do anything for one more day. Get to be with you one more time.
1:14:34Give your mom a kiss one more time. Maybe I'll see one of my granddaughters get married. And he goes, I'll do anything for one more day. The beautiful thing is I was actually with Kobe a week before he passed away. We were in the same gym. Our daughters played volleyball.
1:14:49And ironically, that day, I watched Kobe walk out of the gym. There's only a couple dads left. It was late at night. He stayed and I stayed. And he had his youngest daughter in his arm, and he was rubbing his other daughter's back. And I remember taking note of it because I was with Bella at the other end of the gym, and I remember thinking, I don't hug Bella enough.
1:15:10I need to hug no joke, bro. It's in the book. I went, I gotta hug Bella one more time every day. Not just once a day, plus one more time every day. My daughter's gonna get extra hugs because Kobe does that. What if I could have said to Kobe when he got in his car, Kobe, you have one more week, brother.
1:15:30Tell those that you love you, love them. Get it right. Whoever matters to you, make it right. Call your dad. Make it right. Call your mom. Call your family. What if the day before you could have said, Kobe, have one day left.
1:15:44And my dad, same thing, I was with my dad when he had one day left. I was with my dad when he had one hour left. I was with my dad when he had one breath left. And when we begin to think of our life that way, the power of right now and having one more moment and one more minute is so beautiful. It's so blessed. It's so big. It's so amazing. Why would we spend that minute in history?
1:16:07Why would we spend that minute in the past when we could be fully present and creating the future? And so, you know, think most people think, Jay, everyone else is going to die. I think they just they just I'm never I'm not going to die. Or they go, I'll get around to being happy. I'll get around to making my masterpiece of my life. I'll get around to my dreams. I'm gonna get around to fixing this relationship that's broken. I'm gonna get around to feeling those emotions.
1:16:33And then it's another day and another day and they keep it in the distance until there are no more days. And I don't care if you're 18 years old listening to this, 28 or 48. We don't know if we have one more day or a hundred more days or a thousand more days. But we know this, there'll eventually be a time where we don't have any more days. And so why would we spend the ones that are coming looking at the past? And so my dad really taught me those lessons in watching him pass away, and that's why I have so I have a whole thing in there of how to get twenty one days a week, run mini days. I get twenty one days a week. We still measure time bro, like it's 1,900.
1:17:10Think about 1,900. If I want to get you a note, I'd have to write a letter out, stick it on the back of a horse's butt in eighteen fifty, thirty days later you get it. That was a twenty four hour day. Now I can text you in two seconds. We measure time the same way. Yeah. So I teach you how to change your time so that you can make that day its maximum
1:17:27bliss. It's maximum productivity. What's what's one more that you're working on right now? Right now, I'm actually it's an interesting season of my life. I have a TV show that, you know, that I did with NBC that's called change that I think is, you know, has a chance of getting picked up. But my one more that I'm working on right now for me and my life is my peace. And so there's this guy Jay Shetty that's a friend of mine that
1:17:52introduced me and my family to meditation. And I'm giving myself the gift of I don't just do it in the morning now. I've given myself the gift of one more time every single day of just emptying my mind Mhmm. And trying to be fully present. And it's been work for me. I've got that busy type of a mind, but I have found that my peace
1:18:12in my life. Most of us, Jay, have all these goals of things we wanna do, and they're wonderful. And I believe in doing that. I think standards are more important than goals because and I teach you in this book, how to set the standards that'll get those goals. But we really don't but we really don't want the jet. We don't want the hit song. We don't want the amazing relationship. We don't want the million dollars. We don't want the we want how we think it'll make us feel.
1:18:37And what if we began to become more intentional and outcome oriented about the things we feel in our life? And it took me a while, but now that I'm older, when I feel strong, when I feel blissful, when I feel peaceful, is when I produce the physical things that I want, not the other way around. And so my one mores are more emotional focus. Most of us, then I'll come up for air here, have an emotional home. There's three or four or five emotions we experience on a regular basis. I write about it in the book.
1:19:04And no matter what happens, we find a way, even if they don't serve us, to get those emotions. If your emotional home is fear, anxiety, worry, depression, anger, You find a way every week to get that emotion. But what if that emotional home could become bliss and peace and joy and creativity and ecstasy?
1:19:23And so I'm working on one more beautiful emotion for my emotional home, for me it's peace. I love that. I love that answer, man. It's it's good to hear about what you've been saying, like, we're not living in the past and you're like, in the present, but to have you answer that question, that peace is your presence. Like, that's what you're looking for. Right. That's that's the present and it shows that you're using this like it works. You're doing it time and time again. And I love what you said. It moves from the physical things into the subtle, into the emotional, into the the deeper. Right? I think that's so profound.
1:19:54What was that one more that if you didn't do it, you wouldn't be here today? What was what was one of those ones that like, like that was the one that convinced me apart from obviously your father that you were like, if I didn't do that, I wouldn't be Ed Mylett today. I wouldn't be maxed out life. The first the first business I built was a financial business and I had had some success, Jay.
1:20:13Like a lot of people do in life, and then it went backwards. And sometimes when you get up the flagpole just a little bit and you come back down, that's an emotional difficulty. It could be a relationship that was good that's gone or maybe it saves some money, it's gone, maybe you lost a bunch of weight and got fit and you gained it back. For me, it was my business. And I called my dad, he was a pretty wise guy now that he was sober.
1:20:33And I because could tell you, man, I do one more rep in the gym. I haven't done 10 reps on a bench press in thirty years. I've done 10 plus one more a lot though. I haven't done forty five minutes on a treadmill, I've done 45 plus one more minute. 10 contacts a day, never. 10 plus one more. But the biggest one more was actually something else. I called my dad and I said, hey, dad. It's not going. It the business is crashing.
1:20:56And I'm I'm running out of money. Our power was turned off. Our water was turned off, Jay. I had to take my wife every morning. We'd lost our house. We're living in an apartment now, then the water got turned off. You can't cook. You can't bathe. There was a apartment building. We had an outdoor shower at the swimming pool, and I'd have to were newlyweds, and I'd have to get up every morning, walk down there, and I'd hold a towel up while my wife took her shower every day outdoors and brushed her teeth.
1:21:23And then she'd switch and hold the towel up for me, and I'd walk back up to the apartment and I was so emasculated, so ashamed, so embarrassed.
1:21:34And I was living a nightmare selling a dream to everybody every day. We can do this. A lot of entrepreneurs, people can relate in their life. And and anyway, I called my dad that night and I said, I I I think I need to pack it in. I need to go get a job and just I'm this success thing is not
1:21:54is not for people like us. And my dad goes, Eddie, you don't have to decide you're never gonna quit. He goes, just don't quit for one more day. See how you feel tomorrow.
1:22:05I go, dad, he goes, just don't do it for one more day. And I got the next day and I still wanted to quit but not quite as much. And then I went one more day and one more day and I found myself about thirty days later, I didn't wanna quit anymore. And thank God the one more I did was I went one more day without quitting. And I'm so grateful I didn't quit on my dream. Oh, Ed. Wow. That is like
1:22:25Oh my gosh, man. Like, you just everything you're just dropping right now, I'm just like, I hope everyone is taking notes. If you haven't been taking notes, I want you to take a screenshot right now of where we're at right now because that's what you're gonna have to listen to again. So take a screenshot, share it, tell everyone to go to this segment, listen to that over again because I think what I'm hearing, you know, is that this is this is a lifestyle. Like, this is a mindset, it's a lifestyle, it's a everyday,
1:22:50every moment way to live. This isn't just in the big business you're building. This is me telling my wife I love her Yeah. One more time. This is me making sure I message my mom one more time. It's me making sure that when I'm sitting here with you, I'm always gonna have to ask you one more question because I will never end. You keep giving so much No. But you keep giving so Well, that's what you just said. It will never end. Mhmm. I think that people feel like they tried a lot
1:23:16and then they start building up resentment and like pain and bitterness Mhmm. Towards that path. And a lot of people also that I know,
1:23:26they just think that there are some people who are meant to be I agree with this. And then there are some people that are not meant to be. That's correct. And they carry that with them and it comes from this like, oh, yeah. You were meant to be this or that person was meant to have it, but for me, this is where and I heard that kinda come up in what you were saying to your dad, doesn't happen to people like us. Yes. How does this rule, how does this principle apply to someone who's in that Brother, best question ever. Because I grew up with no you have alcoholic dad or a drug addict or maybe you come from divorce or maybe your parents just didn't love you enough, whatever it was, didn't tell you they loved you enough.
1:24:03It's hard to have self confidence. I was a little guy, I got bullied in school, and I just and even at this age now, bro, I I if I'm being completely honest, self confidence we all teach that it's, you know, part of keeping the promises you make to yourself. But what if you raise the standard a little higher? Keep the promises you make to yourself plus one more.
1:24:24Because for me, self confidence didn't come easy. I think in life, ultimately, you're gonna get what you believe you deserve. And if you're wound up wired like me, I didn't think I deserved a lot. I didn't even have a dad who could stop drinking. Right? I wasn't six foot four. I don't have an incredibly high IQ.
1:24:43There's nothing really that impressive about me nor were people very impressed with me most of my life. So that was my pattern. That was my history. That was my memory. And so the only I could wait around until I developed tremendous self confidence or I could begin to do things every day that were small. They're not major.
1:25:03And over time when I did those one more calls, that one more meeting, that one more book I read, that one more podcast, not only am I doing more reps so the likelihood of me being successful is bigger, but I started to convince myself I'm doing things other people aren't willing to do. Maybe I deserve things other people aren't gonna get. And slowly but surely,
1:25:24I started to convince myself I did deserve it based on what I was doing, not necessarily the caliber of my talent. Yeah. Yeah. That was the difference. Yeah. You you just There's a thought I've been having recently and it's that comfort creates self care. Mhmm. But discomfort
1:25:41creates self respect. Oh, boy. I love I love That the one more discomfort every day Yes. That's where self respect comes from. Yes. You don't Great term. Yeah. Don't you don't start to trust yourself or build self esteem or believe in yourself because you just say it to yourself. It's coming what you just said. You go out there and take one more meeting and see what you learn. You go out there and take one more risk, one more discomfort.
1:26:07And I guarantee you, if you have a successful or happy friend, whichever how you would determine that, and you ask them this, they'd tell you that we're right. Yeah. They would tell you, gosh, that's right. Yeah. It's right. And the difference between winning and losing, happiness and sadness is so small. It's almost it's almost scary to talk about. But the good news is I think I kinda know what it is and it's this one more. Absolutely. The people that I know that are the most successful and happy Mhmm. Have more uncomfortable conversations. Agreed. They have more uncomfortable days.
1:26:36They have more discomfort in their lives. Yes. Totally hear that. But selected discomfort. But one of the other things that I'm asking from now, I'm like going into like the people that I know that Sure. That I'm I'm thinking about, I'm just gonna see their faces Yep. And and I want them to know that I'm asking for them. A lot of the time, one more
1:26:54in the wrong direction That's right. Can also be really misguiding. Mhmm.
1:27:02Sometimes, people and I know you're a person of faith too and so so we can touch on this. Sometimes we're climbing the mountain and we keep doing one more Mhmm. But we're actually going further away from who we are, who we wanna be. Yeah. Our faith, our partners. Right? We've we know people who've built
1:27:22multi billion dollar companies but lost their kids. That's right. Or they've become famous and rich but they've their partner cheated on them. Yeah. You know, like We know a lot of those. Stuff. And you know people who didn't do all of that, that's happened too. Like, it's it's both ways. How does one use one more and make sure it's in the right direction? Such a great question. I I'm doing this now regularly because I've made some of those mistakes of just and what I do is I check-in with myself one more time. Meaning, it's important to ask yourself what matters to me now. See,
1:27:54if you we had this conversation twenty years ago, the things that mattered to me then are so different than what mattered to me now. But a lot of us keep operating out of what used maybe you've achieved or pursuing a dream, and it's really truly no longer your dream. It's no longer your dream. It's when I was young listen, if we're gonna do a podcast, you say, hey, I need you on the show. People are gonna love you. You're gonna get recognition. You're gonna get you're gonna get all this acknowledgement.
1:28:21And that would been my hot button, my need. You know, I believe in the six human needs. My need was significance and recognition and there's nothing wrong with that. It's wonderful. And so that's the button to get me to move would be significance recognition. Well, I've been blessed the last thirty years or so of my life to have a beautiful abundance of significance and recognition.
1:28:42It's no longer what fills me. Now, you get me to do an interview, you go, hey, I really think we could help some people. My big button in my life now is contribution. There was another stage in my life, it's still there, but hey, if you go there, you'll grow. I still wanna grow, but I know me now. Right now, I'm in a season of my life that's contribution, it's giving, it's what fills my heart. And I think it's checking in with yourself one more time. What matters to me now? What do I want now? What's important to me now? What season?
1:29:13You're in a season where you need to rest. Maybe your spirit and everything about you is telling you, hey, it's time to feed you again. It's time to recharge. If that's the season, then answer that call. Don't play out of a past playbook. And so for me, that's the season I'm in now. And I'm sure that in five or eight more years, you know, there'll be something else. But I regularly, on a monthly basis, you recommend it in your book so beautifully about your relationship.
1:29:37Checking in, you have these strategies you teach about weekly, and monthly, and quarterly, and yearly with your partner of checking in with them. I also recommend you check-in with yourself. What matters to you now? And so for me, it's a matter of checking in now so that I don't lose my family in the pursuit of my business or lose me. Yeah. Lose me. Who am I anymore? And I've had times where I'm like, who I I this doesn't feel like me anymore. Yeah. And I had the at least the ability to at least acknowledge that and and make a change. Yeah. And I love that you brought up seasons because I feel like
1:30:11no one and on planet earth, we don't have the power to change the season. Yeah. But you have the power to live the season well. That's right. You can either be in the right now. It's been raining right wherever we are. It's been like pouring down with rain. There's always effort. You could carry an umbrella. Well, you can tell how I'm dressed. I'm definitely not dressed in my usual gear. Right. Because I'm dressed for the rain. I'm I'm prepared. Yes. Because that's all I can do. I can't make the rain switch off. I can't stop it. Right? Like I I can't do that. Yeah. And so I love hearing that you're just learning how to thrive in the season. And so if your season's telling you to rest, you can't force the season
1:30:47CTAand you you have to live it through. You have to experience it. You do. I think you have to remember one thing, man. I think it's as easy as a person to forget this. And I just would love to say this because you have such an amazing reach.
§ · For Joe
Steal the mashup-show format.
Modern Creator playbook
A weekend special doesn't need a new shoot — it needs a thesis that re-frames a stack of existing interviews into one promise.
- Pick a single thesis you can defend (mastery, discipline, identity, the power of one more) and stitch 4-6 previously-shot guest segments around it. The host wraparound (5-30 sec between segments) is the only new footage you need.
- Open with a sub-3-minute solo teach (Ed's three-stages framework) so the title's promise gets delivered before any guest shows up — the rest of the video becomes proof, not setup.
- Use word-pop block captions on every conceptual beat (AWKWARD, MECHANICAL, NATURAL, COMPOUND, AWARE) — it's free retention furniture that doubles as your B-roll thumbnail bank.
- Run a recurring lower-third CTA overlay (text 'MAXOUT' to the phone number) instead of pausing the show for a hard ask. Capture the click without breaking flow.
- Steal the deck shape for an MCN+ Weekend Special — same six-guest mashup but the guests are clips from Killing Excuses / Sip Ship Sell / Mod Producer / JoeFlow streams Joe has already filmed. The thesis is 'Own Your Stack.' Same exact format.
- Title weakness is the open lesson — Ed's view-count is light for his channel. 'How To Master Anything (6 Greatest Minds Agree)' would have outperformed '3 Steps to Master Your Craft and Make More Money' — promise the synthesis, not the listicle.
- Hand-cut between segments at high-energy beats (Eric Thomas '3 AM,' Kobe '4 AM warmup,' Jim Kwik 'forgetting curve') so even shuffling kept attention; the show never lulls because no single guest holds the floor more than 12-13 minutes.
§ · For You
What to actually do with this video.
If you're trying to get better at the thing you do
Every guest in this 91 minutes is making the same argument from a different angle — invisible compounding is real, and the only person who beats it is the one who keeps showing up after the visible progress has stalled.
- Name the stage you're actually in right now (awkward, mechanical, natural) for the one thing that matters most this year. Pretending you're further along is the most expensive mistake on the list.
- Pick the smallest possible daily rep — Jim Kwik's two-minute version of the habit — and treat it as a vote for who you're becoming, not as the workout itself. Showing up is the entire skill at week 1.
- Add a Capture/Create page to your notes. Left column: what they said. Right column: how can I use this, why must I use this, when will I use this. If you only do this with one podcast a week you'll out-learn everyone who 'consumes content' passively.
- Once a month, ask: what matters to me NOW. Your old goals were built for a person you don't have to be anymore — recognition, money, even the dream itself can age out. Recheck before chasing.
- When you want to quit, don't decide forever — decide one more day. Ed's father didn't get sober for life; he got sober for one more day at a time, for the rest of his life. That's the trick.
- Find the person you used to be and help them. What you're most ashamed of (the divorce, the bankruptcy, the addiction, the awkward years) is what qualifies you to be useful — not what disqualifies you.
