The Simple System I Use To Eliminate Most Problems
Ed Mylett's own problem-solving framework, stress-tested against four archive clips: Tony Robbins on why fear is physical, a world champion barrel racer's 2% chance to live, Amy Purdy's second fight to walk, and Dean Graziosi's hardest six months.
Posted
2 weeks ago
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educational
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57 · 43
Big Idea
The argument in one line.
Most problems don't need a clever solution, they need you to stop feeding them energy, make a fast decision on the 85% that don't matter in five years, and reserve deliberate process only for the 15% that do.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
You're someone who replays a problem in your head for days before acting on it and wants a faster default.
You want a simple decision-making framework you can apply the same way to business, family, or health problems.
You're drawn to personal-development content and want to hear Tony Robbins, Amy Purdy, and Dean Graziosi's stories in one place.
You're going through something hard right now and want language for what you're feeling and what to do next.
SKIP IF…
You want clinical or evidence-based psychology, not a motivational speaker's framework and anecdotes.
You're looking for tactical business or financial advice, not mindset content.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Ed Mylett argues problems need energy to survive, so 90% of your focus should go to the solution, not the problem. He splits problems into two buckets: 85% should be decided immediately with a three-step move (decide, flood yourself with certainty, take massive action), and 15% deserve a slower seven-question process (define reality without blame, get a specific vision, get resourceful, ask what you can learn, what's great, what's not perfect yet, and what you will and won't do to fix it). He ties this to physiology, arguing stress is a bodily state you can consciously reverse. The episode then proves the framework with four archived guest clips: Tony Robbins on fear being physical and building a compelling future, a world champion barrel racer's recovery from a broken neck, Amy Purdy's second medical crisis after losing her legs, and Dean Graziosi's hardest six months after his divorce.
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Weekend-special intro, subscribe ask, and the show returns to "Max Out" with Ed introducing today's topic: how to solve problems better.
00:47 – 21:30
02 · The problem-solving system
Ed's core teaching: problems need energy to live, the 90/10 rule (90% of focus on the solution), the three-step formula (decide, flood with certainty, take massive action), the 85/15 split for immediate versus deliberate problems, the three causes of stress (focus, meaning, physiology), and the seven empowering questions (define reality, get a clear vision, get resourceful, what can I learn, what's great about it, what's not perfect yet, what will and won't you do, how can you enjoy the process).
21:30 – 23:00
03 · Sponsor break: K12 Powered Schools
Ad read for K12 Powered Schools, tuition-free online public school, k12.com/mylett.
23:00 – 45:00
04 · Archive clip: Tony Robbins on fear and a compelling future
Tony Robbins joins to discuss COVID-era uncertainty, why fear is physical (breathing, tension, hormones), the discipline of daily physiology and feeding the mind, and his free five-day virtual event starting January 25th.
45:00 – 59:00
05 · Archive clip: a world champion barrel racer's comeback
A guest recounts a training accident where a horse threw her, breaking her neck (C2, the same vertebra as Christopher Reeve's injury), being given a 2% chance to live, and relearning to walk one hallway lap at a time. The clip continues into a discussion of why chasing multiple income streams too early can be a disservice to a new entrepreneur.
59:00 – 1:14:00
06 · Archive clip: Amy Purdy's second fight to walk
Amy Purdy, the Paralympic snowboarder and double-amputee, describes a new medical crisis roughly two years before this recording, a massive arterial blood clot in her leg that led to nine surgeries and a further partial amputation, and reframes it as stepping into a third version of herself.
1:14:00 – 1:26:56
07 · Archive clip: Dean Graziosi and Brendan Burchard on promises and the hardest six months
Dean Graziosi and Brendan Burchard discuss keeping small promises to yourself as the foundation of self-trust, physical and vocal expression as a performance edge, and Dean's most vulnerable story: the anxiety and panic attacks that surfaced during his divorce, and the single decision, staying friends with his ex, that changed everything on the other side of it.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Problems need energy to survive, so obsessing over a problem instead of its solution is what makes it grow bigger and harder to solve.
90% of your energy, focus, and thought should go toward the solution, not the problem itself.
85 out of 100 problems should be decided immediately: make a decision, flood yourself with certainty, take massive action, and the problem is usually gone.
A flawed plan executed with certainty and massive action beats a perfect plan executed with doubt and little action.
The real test for whether a problem deserves deliberation is whether it will still matter in five years.
Stress is the fear of loss, and it gets created three ways: focusing on the problem instead of the solution, assigning a disempowering meaning to it, and holding a closed, hunched physiology.
You cannot make a good decision from a bad physiology, so changing your body, a walk, a workout, straighter posture, is a legitimate way to unlock a stuck decision.
Blame should never be assigned during problem-solving. It belongs only in the post-mortem, after the problem is already dead.
The presence of a problem is proof you are making progress, not proof you are losing ground, because problems only show up on the road to the next level.
According to the CDC, after age, the second-highest risk factor for a bad COVID outcome was fear itself, because fear changes breathing, body temperature, and hormone release.
A belief is a poor substitute for an experience, which is why immersive events change people faster than passive advice.
The biggest disservice you can do a new entrepreneur is tell them to chase multiple income streams before they've gone deep enough on one thing to survive real failure.
Living the hard way now is what buys an easy life later. Living the easy way now is what guarantees a hard one.
Keeping small promises to yourself, showing up for a workout, drinking the water, saying the prayer, builds a self-trust that other people can feel and that no one can hand you.
You can't transfer to someone else a belief in them that you don't already have in yourself.
Takeaway
A decision beats a perfect plan almost every time.
WHAT TO LEARN
Most problems don't need a clever solution, they need you to stop feeding them attention, decide fast on the ones that won't matter in five years, and save deliberate process for the rare ones that will.
02The problem-solving system
Dwelling on a problem instead of its solution is what makes the problem expand, so redirect 90% of your energy to the fix, not the complaint.
For the vast majority of problems, a fast decision plus real certainty plus disproportionate action resolves it. Waiting for a perfect plan usually costs more than an imperfect one executed now.
Before spending real time on a problem, ask whether it will matter in five years. That filter alone eliminates most of the deliberation people waste.
Assigning blame while a problem is still live drains energy from solving it. Save the postmortem for after it's resolved.
04Archive clip: Tony Robbins on fear and a compelling future
Stress comes from three controllable sources: where your focus goes, the meaning you assign the problem, and your physical posture and breathing. Change any one of the three and the stress drops.
Fear is physical. A tense, hunched, shallow-breathing body produces the same chemistry as depression and anxiety, and shifting your body is a legitimate way to unstick a decision.
A specific, vivid picture of what you want next makes a hard present moment survivable. Vague hope for 'things getting better' doesn't do the same job.
05Archive clip: a world champion barrel racer's comeback
The biggest disservice to a new entrepreneur is telling them to diversify before they've gone deep enough on one thing to survive real failure and learn from it.
Recovery from a catastrophic setback can start with something as small as one hallway lap, when a caregiver believes it's possible before you do.
06Archive clip: Amy Purdy's second fight to walk
Recovery from a major setback is rarely linear or final. New, harder versions of the same test can show up years later and still teach you something the first round didn't.
Living in an old, resolved comeback story can quietly suppress growth if it stops you from treating a new challenge as its own real test.
07Archive clip: Dean Graziosi and Brendan Burchard on promises and the hardest six months
Small, kept promises to yourself, a workout, a glass of water, a prayer, compound into a self-trust that other people can feel and that outside validation can never substitute for.
You can't hand someone else a belief in them that you don't already hold in yourself.
Living the hard way now is what buys an easier life later. Avoiding the hard thing now tends to just move the bill to a later, worse moment.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
MaxOut
Ed Mylett's personal brand and the name of his podcast and philosophy, used throughout as shorthand for pushing performance and mindset to their upper limit.
Compelling future
Tony Robbins' term for a specific, vivid vision of what you want next. He argues anyone can tolerate a hard today if they have one.
Learned helplessness
A psychological pattern where repeated disappointment convinces someone a problem is permanent or personal, so they stop trying to change it even when change is possible.
23:00 – 45:00denseTony Robbins on fear, physiology, and a compelling future
45:00 – 59:00denseBarrel racer's neck-injury comeback and going deep before diversifying
59:00 – 1:14:00denseAmy Purdy's second medical crisis and third version of herself
1:14:00 – 1:26:56denseDean Graziosi and Brendan Burchard on promises, edge, and divorce
The Script
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hey 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 now on with the show welcome back to max out everybody i'm ed mylett and i am so excited about today's program because i feel like it's going to make such a difference in so many people's lives because of all the direct messages i've been getting from people in the max out universe saying ed would you please cover this topic It would make one of the biggest differences in my own life because it's something that I struggle with.
And that topic today is problems, specifically how to solve problems better. And I'm excited about covering it because it's something I struggle with as well. And I love teaching things, frankly, that help me own them and get better at them.
First thing we need to know is let's start out with some basic premises. I'm going to give you some very tactical steps here as we move forward. But problems need energy to live.
I want you to own that. Remember this. Problems need energy to live.
And so the concept should be that we solve problems, but we don't have to pour and deplete ourselves of energy. Because the more energy you give something, the more it expands. We want to be in the max out universe.
We want to pour our energy and expense our energy towards the solution, not towards the problem. So the first thing I want you to write down is 90 % of your energy, focus, time, and thought should be towards the solution, not towards the problem itself. This is a mistake most people make because they expend all the energy into the problem.
They obsess over the problem, the problem. And when you expand energy, it grows to survive. And the problem gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
And the solution becomes more and more difficult. So the first thing is, can you consciously begin to focus? on energy expansion into the solution, 90 % of it into the solution and not into the problem.
What we do is we repeat that problem over and over and over again and we magnify it to the point where we don't come up with realistic solutions and we deplete ourselves as energy towards the solution. And so focus going forward when a problem arises, a challenge arises, that you focus 90 % of your energy and thoughts on the solution and not repeating the problem to yourself.
And again, I want to remind you, we want problems in our lives. They're the one opportunity we have to grow. Without the existence of problems and challenges, there's no opportunities for growth in life.
And so we don't wish for a life that doesn't have challenges and problems, even though it seems like we would want one. Number one, you're always going to have problems and challenges in life. So today is such a great day to begin to accept strategies and a formula and a mindset that'll help you do that.
You're somebody who wants to grow and improve and change in your life and become a maxed out version. and a better version of yourself in every area the only opportunity you have to do that is when problems and challenges arise these are growth opportunities in our life so when they arise it's very important that you see them as an opportunity to grow and again i don't mean that in a rah -rah foofy way it's very true it's important that we distinguish what it means because remember this in other audios i've talked about the quality of our life is comprised of the quality of emotions we live with.
Our life is our emotions, right? If you have the emotions of happiness and joy and ecstasy and peace and faith and passion and intensity and winning, that's a great life. If you have a life that's filled with emotions regularly of depression, anxiety, fear, stress, worry, anger, that's a totally different quality of life.
So our emotions dictate the quality of our life. And so when a stimulus like a problem comes up, we better be thinking it's an opportunity to grow, and we better be expensing our energy towards the solution, or we start to experience the wrong emotions. Why?
Because in our life, emotions come from meaning. Because when problems come up in life, the meaning we take from the event dictates the emotion we experience. And so that emotion dictates the quality of our life.
And so I want you going forward, when a problem arrives, to feel the emotion and take the meaning away that this is an opportunity to grow, to expand. If you look back at your life in hindsight, the problems and challenges you have have all made you better when you solve them.
So those are the keys to begin today. The question is, how do we solve them? Is there a process?
Is there a mindset? Are there some steps that when these arise, I've got a recipe and a formula? And that's what I want to share with you today.
So now I want to start out with a very basic three -step formula to begin with. Then we're going to get very granular and very specific. There are three steps that I always take once I've arrived where I'm ready to take action towards solving problems.
Number one is make a decision. Once you've made a decision, make it. Number two, massive certainty.
Flood yourself with certainty. You can't execute at a high level with self -doubt or a doubt about the process, a doubt about your strategy. Flood yourself with certainty that you know what you've got is going to work.
And then third, take insane action. This is a recipe in every area of your life. I don't care if it's in business, in family, in sports.
Make a decision. Flood yourself with certainty and take massive action. This process I use with the athletes I coach.
I use it with the entertainers, with the politicians, with the business people. I'm always reminding them all the time. I'm repeating them constantly.
Make a decision. people wait around too long for the perfect plan i'd rather have a flawed plan executed with certainty and massive action than the perfect plan executed with doubt and very little action there is no perfect decision make one this will crush most problems we've already talked about spending 90 of our time on the solution and not the problem i'm gonna give you another set of percentages here the vast majority of problems that arise in your life should be solved immediately like 85 of them resolved immediately make a decision massive certainty take action it's gone that means without a lot of deliberation you've got to start to build a habit of being decisive successful people happy people leaders are decisive people and i believe somewhere if there's a hundred problems challenges in life 85 of them should be decided immediately with not a lot of deliberation And then certainty and massive action will eliminate that challenge and that problem most of the time.
It's the people who procrastinate on the problem or ignore it or think it might go away that gives that problem time to magnify, to fester, to grow to where now it's become bigger than it needed to be. Second point, get clear on what this problem really means. Is this a problem that's really going to matter in five years?
Really? Because what we do is, we talked earlier about meaning. What we do is most people, a problem comes up and we begin to flood ourselves when they stack it and stack it.
This is a pattern most people go into and they lose perspective on how really important this problem is. They lose perspective. They get foggy because they've increased their stress level so high that now the problem is difficult to solve because you've lost perspective on really how big of a deal it is.
And so make sure you're very clear. Is this something that's going to matter in five years? Because if it's not one of those types of problems, for the most part, Massive action, 85%.
We're going to talk today about the 15 % of the time where it requires a deliberation and a process to solve it. But don't be conflicted or confused into thinking most of the things that arise in your life. Most of the time your challenge is you're not solving it quickly enough.
You're not being deliberate. You're not being decisive. You're not getting totally certain.
certainty is so huge flood yourself with certainty the reasons it'll work over and over again and then most people don't understand you can obliterate most problems with just massive action what stress really is when a problem comes up is the fear of loss and what you do is you begin to give this a disempowering meaning you begin to feel like you're going to lose something which is why having a process means so much to me because When I know I have a process to solve a problem, I'm so much less fearful of the loss or the stress that it's going to cause me.
And so just know, when you begin to get these feelings, it's where your focus is going that's causing this stress level to rise in you. unnecessarily, and it's probably a pattern you have. We've talked about this a lot in other audios and videos where you have a pattern.
And my hallucination for many of you is that when a problem arises, you begin to focus on the problem more than the solution. You begin to magnify your stress level, make a disempowering meaning, which is this fear you're going to lose something. And oftentimes, it's not even a thing.
Oftentimes, it's you're afraid you're going to lose certainty, one of the six needs. You're going to lose your uncertainty. You're going to lose your significance.
You might lose someone's love, right? You may lose the ability to grow or the ability to contribute, but you begin to focus on what you're going to lose, and that fear magnetizes the problem and causes you stress. Stress is not a great place to live from.
It's one of those disempowering meanings, and it's also a terrible place to make decisions from to solve problems. And the third way you create stress when a problem comes up is physically, in your body, what I call like your state, your physiology. You begin to get tense, don't you?
You begin to hunch over. Your breathing gets shallow. You kind of get closed.
That worry, that feeling we get. You know what I'm talking about. This stress level that you use your body to create.
Listen to what I just said. You're using your body in such a way to magnetize and elevate your stress level. See, that physiology of hunched over, shallow breathing is something that is the same as depression, as fear, as worry, as stress, as pain, as anxiety.
It's the same thing you do with your body to create all those emotions. You may need to check if you do this to yourself when a problem arises. The other type of physiology is like when we're working out, when we're laughing, right?
Ecstasy if you're with your significant other, right? That problem, that, yes, that celebration, that's a different physiology, isn't it? It's your back straight, you're breathing deeply, you're smiling, you're using your whole body, your face muscles, right?
Your face is smiling. There's a certain way you do laughter and joy and pleasure and ecstasy physically isn't there. And so when a problem arises, check your physiology.
You can't make a great decision from a bad physiology. You can't make a decision in stress. And so I'm checking these things all the time.
One of the biggest things I check when a problem arises is my physiology. Because I have a pattern where I go back to that depressed, worried, stress, anxiety physiology. And then I either can't make a decision, I can't execute.
So check that pattern with you. When a problem arises, what do I do physically? This is something nobody talks about.
but you probably get quiet and hunched over. You start repeating those thoughts and magnifying it, and you're using your body in such a way that elevates the stress and gives you a disempowering physiology to make great decisions. So get back to that workout, ecstasy, laughter, joy, passion, physiology.
Just move your body. Do some jumping jacks. Take a quick run.
Take a walk, right? You've all probably had the experience where you've solved problems working out. You've solved problems in the shower.
You've solved problems in a peak physical state. So change your physiology, you can change the ability to solve that problem. Okay, so let's now transition into a very step -by -step process that I want you to utilize when a problem and challenge arises that's not in the 85 % category that should be solved right away, right?
Remember this, worry is a misuse of your imagination. So is stress. So make sure you're taking an empowering meaning.
One more meaning I want you to take away is problems are always an indicator that you're making progress. This is so counterintuitive to what we think. When a problem arises, where our mind will naturally go is, I'm losing something, as I said earlier.
I'm taking a step backwards. But the actual arrival of the problem, its mere presence in your life, is an indicator you're on the road to progress. Otherwise, it wouldn't be there.
It's an impediment to the next level, but it's an indicator of progress. These are all things you must know and believe to be true so you take the right meaning away so you make the right decisions. number one thing you must do define reality what does this really mean what is really happening right now not the story you've already started to tell yourself about what's happening but can you get clear can you step out of your own situation and look at the problem from an independent perspective from an unbiased perspective and define reality what really is the challenge what really is the problem without telling your story about it.
We all begin to tell an immediate story. Here we go again. People always do this to me.
I'm going to lose that. I'd have made a better decision here. And what we do at this stage way too early is we begin to assign blame.
Blame should never be assigned in the problem -solving process. That is post -mortem. That is after you're done solving the problem and it is dead.
The mistake we make is we start to tell the story and whose fault it is. It's my fault. It's their fault.
And what happens is that depletes our energy. It distracts our focus from the solution. And it begins this story that we start stacking ourselves.
So when that tendency comes up in you, that need, that behavior, that pattern, who's to blame? Whose fault is it? This takes you away from the solution.
It does not solve the problem. It magnifies the problem. Always remember this.
we will assign blame when it's over i'm all about the solution laser focused on the solution see the ability to get laser focused on something in life you can obliterate things in life you can achieve such massive things if you begin to build the muscle of eliminating distractions eliminating the stories eliminating the stress and getting perfect clarity on where you really are and the number one stressor the number one distraction is who's to blame what's my story before it's even been solved we want to assign blame that is a distraction don't do it number two you have to get a clear vision of what you want like exactly what do you want when this problem is solved what do you want to be happening different than it is now specifically it can't be a general thing it can't be that you want to eliminate this what is it exactly that i want with specificity with clarity because this laser focus now i can move towards a solution if i'm clear on what it is which is number three
Once I'm clear on what it is, get resourceful. Once you've figured out exactly what it is in number two, the third step is to get totally resourceful about solving the problem. What does that mean?
Who are the people that can help you? The resources, the places, the things, the circumstances, the collaborations. Who is it that you might need to talk to who solved a similar problem in your life?
What are the resources available to you? The more you begin to point out to yourself, I have all these resources at my disposal. the more your anxiety and stress level begins to go down and it's true.
Are there problems like this you've solved in the past? Something similar in the past you've solved or somebody else has solved? Most people get very unresourceful.
They feel like there's no hope, no help. So ask yourself, how do I get resourceful? What are my resources here?
And then the last thing, if I could just say this to you that are people of faith or if you plug into the universe, why don't you embrace the fact and the belief that you're being guided? that there's a blessing happening in your life, or that you can plug into something that's got great answers for you. There's resources everywhere for you.
For those of you that are people of faith, or even if you're somebody who, you don't have a specific religion, but you plug into the energy of the world. Why is it that when a problem arises, we abandon our God, we abandon our faith, we abandon the fact that we're guided, we abandon the higher consciousness that we believe in?
Why is it that when a problem arises, we abandon that? Why don't you believe you're guided? My great resource is my contacts, my friends, my previous experience, maybe the people around me that I can talk to.
But my biggest one is my God. I'm being guided. I'm being blessed.
I'm favored. Plug into that divine inspiration, that divine understanding. If you pray for their guidance or you pray for their help, you pray for their will, right?
And you can pray for the information as well. So begin to feel you're guided. Get super resourceful is the third step.
The fourth empowering question you just ask yourself very quickly, what can I learn from this? People say to me, that's really difficult to do in the middle of the problem. No, it's not.
It's just something that's a habit you've not built yet. What can I learn from this? What's the learning experience?
Because as you're learning as you go, this problem is less likely to repeat itself in our lives. There's nothing wrong with making mistakes. There's nothing wrong with even having problems.
There's a challenge if we continue to repeat the same mistake that causes the same problems. And so what can I learn from this? Now you're leveraging this problem to grow.
Now this isn't something you're just overcoming and putting behind you, but you're using this experience and this challenge to move in front of it, not just get it behind you. There's a big difference in that perspective. What's great about this problem?
That's a difficult question to ask when you're going through the middle of it, Ed. No, it's not. Not if you build the habit.
Not if you begin to think like this. Because what that does is it changes the meaning to you. It puts you in an empowering state and not a disempowering state.
So what is great about this? There are always great things in having problems and challenges, whether it's going to be that you'll be more prepared next time or you're going to put things in place that will prevent it from happening next time or what you're going to learn from it or how you're going to grow from it or who you're going to connect with from it or the other ancillary things that are going to be improved or the fact that it just gives you a challenge and keeps you alive, right?
But what's great about the problem? It just helps you take the right meaning. The more we can get in the right state and the right meaning, the more we're going to be able to do the three things we talked about, which is make that decision, load ourselves with certain and take massive insane action.
Number five, what's not perfect yet? And that question is different than what's great. What's not perfect yet?
And you begin to understand what could make it more perfect. It helps you refine and get more specific and it helps you with your certainty. Number six, what am I willing to do to make it the way I want it?
This is important because there will be things in a minute you're not willing to do. But what are you willing to do? Is it an expenditure of money, time, resources?
calling in a favor with somebody, calling a meeting, willing to call a friend about something. What are you willing to do to make it the way you want it? And that leads to number seven.
What are you not willing to do to make it the way you want it? Maybe there's an extent you will not go to to solve this problem. There's a level to which you will go.
There are things you won't do. It might be, I won't compromise my integrity. I won't lie.
I'm not going to spend more than this money on it or this time or this resource or this energy. This is important to quantify as well because it helps create for us more certainty and it gives us more clarity. I won't do this.
I won't cheat. I won't be unethical. I won't raise my voice.
I won't ruin a relationship over this. It might be with a person at your job or who works for you and they're creating a problem for you. I've had situations like this.
A few weeks ago, one of my colleagues was not holding up their end of the bargain on their work and I wanted to solve that problem. And I thought about how I could grow from it, what was good about it, what I could learn from it. I got resourceful about it.
I decided what I was willing to do. But I also decided what I wasn't willing to do. And what I wasn't willing to do to solve this problem was to ruin that relationship with this person, was to hurt their self -confidence, was to give them more pain and anxiety and worry in their own life because I knew part of that was the reason they were struggling that created the problem in the first place.
Their own pain, their own anxiety, their own worry, their own fears helped create this problem I was solving. and I was unwilling to contribute more to that to solve it. And then lastly, how can I enjoy the process?
Wouldn't it be nice to enjoy the process of overcoming challenges and problems rather than it always being a grind, always being something we hate, always being painful? Sometimes challenges and problems are just painful things we're going to get through. But these questions can empower you to make it less this way.
And so ask yourself that question, what can I do to enjoy this? because the more you can find enjoyment in the process of something that's going to always be in your life just think about this we have this sort of fantasy that if i can get rich enough or i can get in the perfect relationship or i have the best business or maybe if i just don't do anything and i retire someday i won't have problems and challenges in my life now we consciously know that's not true but it's sort of the fantasy we live with and now that i point there you go that is crazy of course i'm always going to have these things so since You have an acceptance that problems and challenges are going to exist.
Isn't it probably important that you learn to enjoy the process of overcoming them and solving them? I think all the time, how can I enjoy this? I think, man, what are all the great things that are going to happen when this is solved?
Whose lives are going to be better when this is solved? And that helps me enjoy the process. I also remind myself this problem is helping me grow.
It's an existence because I'm making progress in my life. So all these things fit a meaning that help us make the best decisions possible. If you're looking for a new path to help your child succeed this year, there's still time to enroll in K -12 powered online schools.
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k12 .com slash mylet. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm so excited about today.
I was thinking about introducing him. There's really not a lot of words to introduce this man. I was thinking about it, driving out here for the interview today.
I've been on the earth 50 years, and I believe this one human being that I'm going to introduce to you in a minute has positively affected and changed more people's lives in those 50 years than any other human being on the spinning earth. And that's a pretty big statement to make. I believe he's affected more lives than any other human being in the last 50 years that I've been alive.
And one thing all the guests on my show have in common, We've all been influenced by this man ourselves, and he's an icon, and I'm proud to call him a friend of mine, too. So, Tony Robbins, welcome to the show again, brother.
Thank you, Ed, for that introduction. I'm waiting for Jesus to walk out here. I'm not going to go that far, because I know you better than that.
There might be a little hyperbole there about me being the most powerful and influential, but I am really grateful to you, Ed, because you and I, we both are driven to find answers, right? In the middle of people's uncertainties and fears. It's one of the things I respect about you.
And I love seeing how much your podcast has grown. Congratulations. Thank you, brother.
Thank you. And speaking of that, I want to go right to it. If I'm going to get you on the show, I want to really help as many people I know and serve as many people as you do.
And you've gone right to it. We're in this time where there's so much uncertainty externally in people's lives. What's happening on with the pandemic?
Masks, no masks, all the political discourse, all this stuff, this noise, this uncertainty. And I think there's so much angst and anxiety in our culture right now. So many people listening to this or watching it right now.
What would you say to them that are experiencing those emotions right now? What advice would you give them? They got to turn off the news.
I know that sounds overly simplistic, but you got to at least turn it off a little bit so you can get a breath. Because unfortunately today, it's hard to turn it off since it follows you. I mean, most people have seen the social dilemma.
They understand that literally you are being tracked in every single thing you speak, say, do, and everything you're going to see. And it's different if you type in global warming and you're one person, you're going to complete a different set of answers than if you type in global warming and you're another person. So we're living in a world where it's hard to find truth.
place you got to realize is you can't control out the outside world. You can influence it, but we can't control the inside world. And if you get yourself overwhelmed, it's because all this is coming at you.
You got to slow it down, stop it. and say, now, what am I going to create out of this insanity? Because that's the great thing that happens.
And I know it sounds optimistic or, and I think you know me well enough. I'm not one of those positive thinkers. I've never been.
I believe in intelligence. I believe in seeing things as they are, but not worse than it is. So you don't try, but then you got to see it better than it is, or you can't make it better.
And then you got to go to work and get the right strategies to make it happen. So for me, it's really slow it down. And everyone needs a compelling future.
What do I mean by that? anybody can deal with a tough today if they have a compelling tomorrow but what's happened is there are a large number of people that after the first run of 2020 we were coming into january and i remember that and people are like all right now it's a new world it's a new life it's gonna it's gonna go great and then you know all of a sudden more people died in 2021 with with vaccines and with all these details that we have and so people are uncertain and now we got omnicron and people are making it like the great plague And if you actually look at the science, the vast majority are showing it's more like a cold or a really gentle flu.
But it doesn't matter. We're tracking everything. Now, if you imagine if we were tracking the flu constantly and where it was.
We don't test everybody, so we don't freak out all the time. So what are you going to do to create a compelling future for yourself? What do you really want this year to be about, regardless of what's going on in the outside world?
You might say, well, Tony, that's easy to say, but they're controlling my business or they're shutting me down here. You can move. You know, you can make new choices.
I know they're not easy ones, but you got to get to the point where you say, I won't settle for less than I can really do, be, share, create, and give in my life for my family, for myself, or what I want for my life. There's a point we got to say enough is enough. And you got to start to take control.
How do you do that? One of the things that you say that I love is fear is physical. And what I learned from you so many years ago that transformed my life is to begin to learn to change my state with my physiology.
Everything in my life starts with my physiology, from my fitness, but also when I'm feeling something I don't want to feel, I try to shift my physiology. And I just heard you recently say this, so I'd like you to speak to it, that fear is also a physical thing. I want you to elaborate a little bit about that.
Well, first of all, if you're concerned about COVID, according to CDC, and I have this in my new book, The number one issue besides age, obviously, the number one piece is being overweight or obese. That is number one.
And just this week, CNN, New York Times, for the first time, two years later, are coming and saying, you can reduce your risk if you take care of your body, right? Do you know what number two is, according to the CDC? Fear.
Because when you get fearful, it changes your breathing, your body temperature, your tension in your body. All these things can create a trigger of reactions, hormones in your body that make you crazy. So when I say fear is physical, here's what I mean.
Fear is physical, by the way, so is courage. Emotions are physical. If you're really scared, have you ever been at that point where you're like freaked out about something and you can't quite fully swallow or you got that feeling in your gut?
But courage is also physical. That's what you're talking about. Like, it's like I trained myself from a very young age that the number one thing I had to do so I would follow through on the things we're talking about here is I had to have a mind and body that were strong together.
that every day i was going to do something to strengthen my body even if it was just 10 minutes or 15 minutes something was going to shift me physiologically to do that and so i you know i get scared or i get frustrated and i go on a run i go on a sprint and i wasn't in shape didn't matter i pushed myself beyond what i was comfortable with i go lift weights and i pushed beyond what i was comfortable with and when you do that everything in your nervous system changes because all of a sudden when you face something and you push beyond the comfort zone you get stronger and stronger even a little bit each day changes things something about a courage that's not you're not afraid because there'd be no need for courage courage is you're scared but you do it anyway yeah and so training your body and you and i both do this right we train intensely because we know this is the resource through which my mind is going to try to make decisions and then the second thing is every day you got to feed your brain your mind because if you don't crap is going in there automatically we all know that right yeah i mean today it's chasing you because we all know the news knows they're not bad people they're good people
They're just doing their job. Their job is make sure they make as much money for their shareholders. And they know one formula works.
And it's pretty obvious these last two years more than ever. If it bleeds, it leads. If it produces fear, more people watch.
It's because we all have a 2 million -year -old brain that's always looking for what's wrong, what can hurt us. Your two million year old brain is not going to make you happy, right? You have to take control of that two million year old brain and start to direct consciously what you want your life to be.
So changing your body radically. by a workout, by a run, by a push, by whatever you're going to do, shifting by feeding your brain every single day, and then making sure every day you're taking some form of action towards a compelling future. Like, what am I going to make better?
If you have nothing to look forward to, you're going to be pissed off, you're going to be frustrated, you're going to be depressed, you're going to be overwhelmed. And in those emotional states, even though you're a smart person and you know lots of things, you won't use anything you know. So to me, the leverage to changing somebody's life is always starting with the human body.
If I started to speak to you and I spoke more at this tempo and I said, yeah, I really think people should get their act together and make this their best year ever. I feel terrible in my body. Now, I'm not saying everybody needs to talk fast or loud like me.
That's my own physiology, but it's kind of trained. But everyone has different gears. And when you're low gears, like you can be in a great relationship.
somebody you totally love and you're both in a great physical state emotional state everything's great you both get a little love from taking the kids to 20 soccer practices and cash flow problems in the business and all that stuff and all of a sudden same love doesn't feel like the same love you still love each other but it doesn't come across maybe you're both stressed out then it creates problems in the relationship so the most important factor in your life is the ability to manage your mental emotional state is the one thing you have complete control of once you learn how Then it becomes just the daily discipline.
And after it's not even discipline, it just becomes habit to say, I'm not going to live in this lousy pace. I'm not going to put up with it. I know what to do.
Let me do it. Let me move forward. But that's why, you know, I do programs and events where I immerse people because, you know, you and I can talk about this to you and it's kind of nod your head.
But if I put you in an experience, I always tell people a belief is a poor. substitute for an experience. You can have a belief about China.
I take you to China, you're going to have an experience. It's very different. So I think human beings need to put themselves more in experiences.
A lot of us today, especially with COVID, being stuck at home and doing business from home, a lot of people are stuck in their head. I tell people, get in your head, you're dead. You're just going in circles.
You got to get that body and that energy moving, and then your head will start to work as well. Okay. So you've all been listening now for say 10 minutes.
There's two things already. Number one, do you have this compelling future? If someone asked you right now, what's that vision for your future?
Second thing is what are you doing in your body to create a change, to anchor things, to change your state? The third thing was Tony talked about his events and I just, I want to get this out on the table right away. One of the most incredible things is you've done events for literally millions of people from every continent, every country on the planet.
And I mean what I said. I'm not saying that because we're friends. I think you've positively affected more lives than any person that I'm aware of.
It's just true. And the fact that you now are offering a free event. It's just bananas to me.
I mean, it's incredible to me. So I think it starts on January 25th, but I want people to know about this because this could be that catalyst to help, you know, create that compelling future and maybe transcend your environment. So tell us just a little bit about that event.
I'll tell you why I did it. I did it, you know, after 2020, about halfway through the year, people were just so depressed. You saw people gaining weight.
People had no clear idea what they're going to do. So I said, okay. I'm going to do an event for the whole world.
Let's just, let's use YouTube. Let's use all the different tools that we can. Let's bring them all together.
And we had 400 ,000 people. And I was like, let me do one for three hours, but I'm not really capable of that. So I was like, we'll do two days, two days for 90 minutes.
And then I made it five days. And the reason I do that is not because I like to talk. It's because you need a certain amount of immersion.
It's like learning a language. If you only learn a little bit at a time, you don't remember it two years later. But if I put you in Rome.
day and night for a month, you're going to come out speaking Italian. So that's my theory. So what I did was I did five days.
We had 400 ,000 people join us. And every day we took a part of their body, their emotions, their relationships. And the goal is get them a new perspective because it's hard to do that when you're at home, but not when you're in this audience literally of almost half a million people.
Last year, we did it again. We had 860 ,000 people that joined me for five days. So I'm doing one final one because I'm praying this is the last of COVID.
But I really want to help people here at the beginning. of the year because you see so many people now are caught up in what i call learned helplessness when you've been disappointed oh you got a gut check but most people pick themselves back up but if you get disappointed enough times there's a point when your brain goes the problem's permanent it's just or it's pervasive because i can't turn my business around my whole life is over which is not true or it's personal there's something wrong with me And so I want to break those patterns and give people a direct experience.
So if you want to join me guys, there's zero costs and you don't have to travel. So it kind of handles the two objections most people have. And it's, as you said, it's coming up on January 25th through the 29th.
five days in a row about 90 minutes each day it's probably going to be more like two hours it'll be more but it's totally interactive it's not you just sitting passively and we're going to cover your body your emotions your relationship your life and get you to have a plan for 2022 here where you really can start to have a compelling future so guys now here we go just so you know if you're driving the car you need to grip your steering wheel a little bit tighter because this is about to get really good like really hugely inspiring if you're on the treadmill at the gym you're about to go from level seven to level 10 like that.
And if you're watching YouTube, this is the part where you bring your kids in the room and you say, watch this, okay? So tell them what happens. You're starting to make your comeback.
Guys, this is one of the most amazing stories you're going to hear. So you're making your comeback and what happens? Well, I'd like to tell you my mantra.
It's going to get rocky. And I'm going to tell you the mantra that my dad told me the whole time throughout my entire career and me being very risky was, whatever you do, don't end up in a hospital because you'll die in there. And, you know, it just kind of rang in my head because I was riding dangerous horses and I was doing a lot of training.
And then I started training around the clock because of the weather and I needed my bills paid. And I'm riding, riding, riding and taking chances that I shouldn't have had to take, you know, just because I was not understanding my growth and I wasn't understanding my contribution. And so I was training really late at night in August in 2009.
And I'm riding this horse that's fine. Everything's fine. We're training.
Everything's normal. My poor staff member was there with her boyfriend, and it was just us lonely at night, lights on in the arena, and I'm going to train this horse. And as I was taking off around the arena, this horse slipped kind of in a mud puddle.
And it was not a big deal. You know, whatever. He slips, and he was feeling frisky.
And you kind of know that when a horse behaves a certain way, he's feeling a little frisky. I should have known better. I should have taken more precautions, but I didn't.
It's what I do for a living. What's the big deal? And I start laughing.
I start giggling. And this horse starts to buck. And when I say buck, you know, horses can play and buck and they can crow hop and buck.
This horse did something that's like a wild instinct. So he reared up when he did. He broke all the bones on this side of my face.
And when he came down to the ground, I'm still laughing. I'm like, okay, whatever. And, you know, in the cowboy industry, you've got to be tough, you know.
And so I start to pull this horse up, and as I do, he hits me in the head again, and I skull fracture in four places. Of course I don't know this. And, of course, I'm not wearing a helmet because that's just not the cool, tough thing to do.
And he begins to buck a little bit more, and I just decide that I'm going to pick a place off over here to jump off. Which is a terrible idea, but I picked a place to kind of jump off and when I did he kicked my feet about 13 or 14 feet in the air and I landed straight down on my head my legs just kind of flopped over and I was unable to move I was paralyzed right in that moment and what a tough place to be in you know because I was in this horrible relationship and in a spot where I'm like, who's gonna save me?
You know, so all I have is my career. If I get hurt, I can't make a living. How am I gonna take care of myself?
I'm in this horrible place. How am I gonna get up? I gotta get up.
And so my friend came over, I was strapped down to a picnic table because I was too cheap to ride in an ambulance. So I get taken in a pickup truck on a in a pickup truck on a picnic table to the hospital and I get there and I start joking with the staff because it's just my way.
And the lady in the front desk, my friend went in and asked for a gurney. And she said, you don't need a gurney. That girl's out there telling jokes.
Quit being so dramatic. So my friend that was a paramedic, they take me in and they finally get me a gurney. I could have walked, I think.
I think I could have. But when I got through the MRI machine and joking with the doctor that was helping me, I kept telling him, you know, Hooters closes in 15 minutes and we're really close now. Like, let's go get some food.
Tell me I have a concussion. Let's get out of here. And he came back in the room.
He said, you have a 2 % chance to live. And he said, it's really been touching to get to know you. But he said, the plane's running and you have 13 minute flight to think about your life.
And I hope that you really take that time. to think about what you're going to do now because you're never going to ride horses again. And I'll never forget getting, I don't know why I remember the guys' names.
They were two guys named Russell that carried me to the plane and had me on this, you know, in the sea collar and strapped to the table. And I get to... Can someone get me some tissue, please?
Someone grab one. Thank you. I get to the hospital room and there's a whole nother story.
in the hospital, but I was told again I have 2 % chance to live, that I would never walk again. The neurosurgeon told me I was an absolute idiot for riding horses.
Thank you. They don't stop. They come down and it's over.
That's beautiful. So I had a second to think, and all I could think of was my dad telling me, you know, you're going to die in a hospital. You can't, don't die in a hospital.
And I'm like, this is crazy superstition that you're going to die in a hospital. And I wake up the next day heavily drugged, obviously, with a halo on. I had a girlfriend in the hospital tell me, they're gonna offer you two scenarios.
You can get the surgery with the box in your neck, or you can get the halo. They're gonna shave your head. You're gonna have holes in your head.
She said, go that way. I've seen this go a bunch of different ways. So when the doctor came in, I started bawling, and I was like, I want the halo.
You know, all I can think of is this cage on my head. I want the halo. At this point I've called my mom and dad and told them that I was an offender bender Because they're with their grandkids in California.
I'm like I'm an offender bender. Everything's fine. It's all fine.
It's gonna be fine And I've got to figure out a way to get out of this hospital. So I get these nurses that come in And I say, hey, how can I get out of here?
Because now I've got this real embedded childhood fear that I'm going to die in the hospital. And I've got a damn good chance at this point with the situation I'm in. It's actually true.
I could die in here. So shout out to all the amazing medical professionals because it's just my own superstition. They did an amazing job.
One came in, I said, I need to get out of here. And she laughed at me and she said, well, you know, when you can walk from one end of the hall to the other, then they'll let you out. But you're not going to do that.
you've got a long time. You need to settle in. You've got about six months.
You're going to be here. So the next nurse came in and she said, she laughed at me and she goes, you know, she's writing. Oh, you've got six months.
You know, you just like settle in. And then the next lady came in really late on shift and she was amazing. And if I could find her, I would give her everything I've got.
She came in and I said, how do I get out of here? I got to get out of here. Like I really got to get out of here.
And she said, well, you walk to the end of the hall and you come back, you can get out. And I said, well, Let's do that.
How do we do that? Wow. She said, well, you got to get up.
And the big risk is, you know, if and when you fall down, you know, you can wiggle your fingers and toes and that's good. But when you get up, it's not going to feel like you thought it was. And you've got all this equipment on your head.
You're going to hit the ground and then you could die. And I was like, well, they've given me terrible odds at this point. So what the hell?
And it was just very cool. This lady. That moment I she has no idea what she did for me because she's just like just well, you know I'm willing to try it She takes the belt and she ties it to the ceiling and I get up and I fall down just like she said I would and then she said if you just put one foot in front of the other You know, you can get down to the end of the hall and it could take you months, but we're gonna try it Wow, it took me about an hour and a half and I got up and down the end of the hall and I took all the people that that didn't believe me you know the lady at the front desk and the nurses that came in and i said tomorrow i'm going to deliver flowers to each and every one of you guys because you didn't believe and maybe i can change your mind because other people are going to come in here oh my gosh and they need to know they can walk and so the next day i gathered up all my strength mom at this point knows that i've had i've been structurally destroyed is what i was told
She got called from actually a newspaper outlet that was interviewing for rodeo publication that had leaked my medical records. So my parents found out in that way. So now I've got to do damage control and learn to walk.
And I told mom, I said, we got to go to the florist. I made him a promise. And so it was a really cool scene to watch all of these people that just didn't believe instead of me being angry.
these people that didn't believe in my journey to just shine a light on it and show them a different way so I went and got floral arrangements for every single person that told me I couldn't do it and I walked in there and I walked to each of their offices and I think hopefully I gave them a gift that they can always have you may not believe how I'm gonna do it but it gave me a lot of clarity too sometimes you're just not asking the right person well you know Wow.
I think everybody should just literally go back and listen to all of this again. Thank you. You make this, honestly, I'm going to tell you something.
This is like such a blessing to be here with you. Thank you. It's a blessing to be here with you.
Thank you. I'm really moved right now. Thank you.
And I'm trying to not get too moved so that I can still ask you questions. It has a happy ending. I know.
It's such a happy ending. But it's a, I know we're going to go to there, but it's a happy ending because of everything you just said. That there's so many things in there that we all have these people who don't believe in us and we're scared.
And they're scared too. They're scared to tell me I can walk down the hall because they know I can't. They're scared too.
And maybe that's true for so many people where you have these people in your life that are close to you that are maybe pulling you down. Maybe they're just scared for you. Maybe they're scared for them and you're going to leave them too, right?
Absolutely. And everything that you have. And I just want to acknowledge you like you're freaking amazing.
Thank you. Like you're amazing. And I just, just to be clear with everybody, this break was very serious, very similar to Christopher Reeve, right?
I mean, not all that dissimilar injury, correct? It's not. It's the same injury.
So when you break your C2, that's what controls your head going left or right. And you have a very, very, very small chance of making it out on the other side. With a lot of neck breaks, this would be the one that you really don't want to happen.
Unbelievable. I'm picturing you there. I mean, you tell the story so well, I can actually picture you.
And I'm so proud of you. You're just remarkable. And everybody that just heard this, I told them they were going to be moved, but I didn't even know until you told it in front of me how much it would move me.
It puts in perspective so many things that I think are big obstacles in my life that really aren't. Sure. And so many things that I think are a really big deal.
And they're not. And that is a big deal. You wake up and wiggle your fingers and your toes tomorrow.
You're going to be like, oh, okay. My gosh. We're all okay.
Just amazing. Man, I'm so grateful for you. I got two things left because we're going to run out of time.
Literally, brother, we've almost been an hour. We could go forever, you and I. But I have to ask you a couple of things because I'm curious about your opinion about this because I've been navigating it.
A lot of entrepreneurs listen to this. or they want to be entrepreneurs. And there's this new thing out there, not new, but there's this adage that, hey, millionaires have multiple streams of income, right?
And sometimes I think myself that that's a fact that's not true. Although it's true that most millionaires have multiple streams of income, my experience is that most of those millionaires got great at one thing first. And then as they became millionaires, diversified their income streams to multiple streams.
Why I ask this is, and I would really like your opinion about it. I see a lot of people doing five, six, seven things, three, four different things, trying to spin all these plates, but not really getting great at any of them. And I almost think to some extent.
That they would be better off if they got great at something. Same time, I understand the world today is a different world than it was 20 years ago. And I really don't know your opinion about this.
And I'm curious as to how you feel about it. Should someone get great at what they're doing? You spoke about greatness earlier.
Are you a believer they should have four, five, six different things going at any given time? I think the... Biggest disservice you could do to a new entrepreneur is tell them that they should have multiple streams of income because they'll never Go deep enough on one thing never go through enough pain and enough failure on the one thing That'll go deep enough to give them the breakthroughs to be able to do that later on in life It's an absolute fact and here's something before I get there.
I want to say something. I love the fact of what This device has done for us that you could log in and listen to Ed right now.
I died I listened to Tony Robbins tapes when I in 1990s, I don't know 96 95 I listened to Tony Robbins tapes and when I got done I ordered his power talk and I'd wait for them to come every month and I was I was searching for you to be able to have access in a second to Ed and Andy Frisella and Tony and and so many great people out there I love that part But the other part where I think it's done a disservice to a whole generation is you think success is easy when it's brutally freaking hard.
It is hard to have the success you want. It's hard to have a jet and freedom and extra houses. And it takes hard work and it takes time.
And there's no shortcut. I don't care what anybody thinks. There's no shortcut.
Maybe you could have bought Dogecoin and you got lucky. That is the rarest thing in the history of the world. Ed and I, I would bet we agree.
I don't even know. Neither one of us probably invested in crypto when all of our friends said to because we didn't know it. We didn't feel it and we missed it.
So I'm so blessed if you did for you. But that's not where true wealth is made. You have to work 50 % harder than you think you do.
You have to get kicked in the teeth more than you think. You have to get questioned by your friends and family and look like the dreamer twice as much as you think. The people you thought were going to support you aren't.
Some people are going to talk behind your back. Some friends are going to leave you. And guess what?
It's worth every freaking penny. It's worth every moment, every disappointment. There was a gentleman named David Kekich.
I met him. He was paralyzed from the neck down and not always paralyzed. I think it was a jogging car accident.
And he had these Kekage credos. It was like a business card that folded out. And one of his Kekage credos to make him positive, most positive guy you ever met, couldn't move anything below his neck was one of them was living the hard way is easy and living the easy way is hard.
So before I answer this about multiple streams of income, I think it's really important. I tell you this living the hard way. makes it easy.
It was hard when my friends were partying every single, I still had fun, don't get me wrong. But when I was getting up at five o 'clock going to work every day, my friends are like, oh, you're crazy. We come from a small town.
It's blue collar. Just, I grew in a similar town as you did. All my friends are going to be mechanics or construction workers.
And if they're lucky, they work for IBM, right? And When they told me that I was crazy for doing it, when I worked seven days a week, when I borrowed money, when I used to take credit cards and apply for 10 at once so I could get the money and use that money and leverage it and go buy a junky piece of property and fix it up every night.
I'd work on cars during the day. I'd drive a tow truck at night and I'd work on my houses at night. I'd put 20 hours a day.
Everybody, my sister, my family, my friends thought I was insane. I was nuts. I was a dreamer.
People without educations, without money, they don't really get there. What were my chances? If you looked at the percentages, you wouldn't bet.
on me if you were in Vegas but I knew I took the hard path didn't know I was but I took the hard way but now I get to be the dad I want I take my kids to school every day I coach Little League I coach softball I can jump on a plane and go to New York and go to my farm in New York and spend time it looks beautiful now but I put the work in none of it was handed to me now I'm not saying me but it's easy to sit on the couch, order pizza, and binge out on Netflix.
That's easy. It's hard when you're 60 and you got diabetes and you can't play with your kids. It's easy in today's world to go hit up the girl you used to hang out in high school and be unfaithful and nobody will ever find out.
It's easy to do now. It's really hard when... The fan and you're alone when you're 70 years old.
I know that might sound harsh, but I think through all of this. So first off, I want to tell you, live the hard way now. Make the smart decisions now so you can live easy and have choices that you want.
You know how many baby boomers I meet that took a job that seemed easy and a nice 401k and they're 62 years old going, I just wasted 40 years of my life building someone else's dream and I have my own. Help me, Dean. And I want to help them, but...
they didn't take the hard way so take the hard way work hard and you think secondly multiple streams of income are absolutely amazing once you crack the code once you have something steady from one thing give you tony robbins for example Number one personal development guy. I don't think anybody will ever reach his height of success.
I don't think anybody will leave the legacy that that man's gonna lead. Do you know he was 48 years old before he invested in another company? And it's because when he was younger, he used to hang out with billionaires.
He coached a lot of these guys. When he was in his 20s, and he was on a jet with really successful people, and they're talking about all these different businesses they have, but they were in their 60s. He was in his...
early 30s and he's like man i'm working my tail off on one business these guys are flipping companies and making billions and a guy said all one of the guys on the plane i think was the second richest man in canada said to him all in your own time, man. Go deep on your company.
When your company is paying, then you can take the money from that company and there'll be a time in your life where you can start investing in other companies. But don't do that until you go deep to know it till it becomes bulletproof. It was almost, Tony was almost 50, Ed, before he started investing in other companies.
Now he has multiple streams of income, but he went deep and mastered what he'd done. And here's the last thing I'll tell you. When you master something, doesn't mean you have to stick with it forever, right?
I mastered real estate. I got really deep. But all those principles I learned in mastering real estate, in hiring people, in running businesses, I took that and they lent great for my next companies.
Yeah. I 1 ,000 % agree. And that's exactly what I did.
I built one thing for a very long time. Then I diversified into all these other businesses. This is one of the best conversations I've ever had.
I mean, just going straight up. Because it's so wide ranging. We started the show.
I told you, I'm not going to tell you what we're going to talk about. I said, we're going to, and it's, we just, you just crushed this. I like asking different stuff.
Right. So, so when I get interviewed, people ask me about, you know, my previous life, like, what was it like before your life is like now I'm curious for those that are listening, they're in this transition period. They've woken up.
Maybe they didn't lose their legs, which by the way, everybody, hopefully this gives you some perspective. You didn't lose your spleen, kidney, and legs. You lost.
a job or a relationship and it's bad, but let's all have some perspective, right? But for me, I'm curious because they want to come out of this. There's the Amy Purdy story that was the one that she became a massage therapist.
Then there's the story that you get asked like right now, which is take me back, you lost your legs. But then since then, you've had a 20 year life of contribution and books and athleticism and speaking and the difference you've made. When you're telling it, Is that an old story to you now?
In other words, does it eventually fade, like you have to recall when you build your new dream and story, or is it just as fresh to some extent as it was before? What's it feel like when you actually change your life and come back from adversity?
Yeah, I mean, you know, of course, at the time that I went through everything at 19, that was the worst and hardest thing I'd ever gone through, right? But then... I moved on and I moved forward and life continued on.
And I went through even other types of hard things, right? So where sometimes, you know, somebody like doing a podcast, somebody will ask me, tell me about the hardest thing you've ever been through. And sometimes it surprises them that, you know, I might talk about my TED talk and how hard that was because that was hard in itself, right?
Yeah, I've gone through losing my legs and having a kidney transplant. That's, you know, nothing can compare to that. we continue to go through challenges and every time we have an opportunity and we're kind of being asked to step up oftentimes those are the biggest challenges we'll ever go through so you know throughout my life of 20 years i mean becoming a professional athlete with two prosthetic legs, that in itself was this crazy journey.
I had to make my own feet to snowboard in because nobody else was making them for me. So like just the, the effort, the effort, you know, that went into that and people just kind of see the accomplishment, right. They don't really see everything, the years that goes on, but you know, behind the scenes and then dancing with the stars, awesome, awesome experience.
One of the hardest things I've ever put myself through. And then now this past year, I've, I've actually, dealt with another major challenge, which to be honest has been more challenging than when I lost my legs 20 years ago.
And, um, and so I've been fighting through that. I've had nine surgeries this year, but at the same time, it continues to teach me things that I didn't learn 20 years ago, which is amazing. It's not like I can flash back on what I learned 20 years ago to help me get through some of the challenges that.
I'll face today, but I learn even more things with each challenge that comes my way. And so I think that's, you know, that's the beautiful thing about life. It's like the longer we live, the more stories we're going to have and the more challenges we're going to have.
So we need to be resilient, you know, if we want to keep going. To the extent that you're comfortable, can you share with us a little bit of what those challenges have been recently, just to the extent you're comfortable? Yeah.
And you know, it's, it's amazing. I'll say it's also made me question everything that I thought I knew previously, actually. So I was, let's say two years ago, living my best life.
I was, you know, just won my second, my third Paralympic medal, you know, to get to that peak of performance with two prosthetic legs, I mean, massive accomplishment for me because I felt it. I felt it inside. I just had to figure it out.
And it took years to figure it out. And then I finally did. I was finally snowboarding at my absolute best and I was strong and I was healthy.
And my husband and I, we bought this beautiful house in the mountains and we're traveling the world. And it's just like, yes, you know, I've worked 20 years, worked so hard to get here. And then suddenly my life flipped upside down.
When I felt this cramp in my left calf, I was actually doing a speech in Las Vegas and I was standing on stage. felt this cramp, didn't think anything of it, flew to Nebraska to do another speech actually the next day and just thought, well, maybe my prosthetic leg's not fitting that well. And the next morning when I was supposed to fly home to Denver, I woke up at about 5 a .m.
in excruciating pain. ripped the covers off, realized that my leg, my calf was like as white as the sheets that I was laying in. And so I scooted to the edge of the bed and kind of hung my legs over the edge and rubbed them like crazy.
My leg was ice cold. It hurt so bad. I instantly Googled blood clot because I travel so much.
It didn't look anything like it. Normally with a blood clot, it's like you're swollen and inflamed and red. And I'm like, no, my leg's actually white and cold and hurts.
And so I got on the quickest flight I could, flew to Denver, went into the emergency room and found out that I had a massive blood clot in the artery of my left leg from my hip down every artery. So basically just a spider web of little blood vessels was keeping my entire leg alive. I knew in that moment that this was major.
This was major. And my leg was purple. Having a prosthetic leg, I mean, first of all, having prosthetics, your legs need to be very, very healthy to walk in them, to snowboard and work out and do all of these things.
That is one thing that I definitely know.
That helped me get to where I'm at today is I've always been healthy. Yes, I have prosthetic legs. Yes, I have a kidney transplant, but I've always been very, very healthy.
All of a sudden, you know, the health of my leg was compromised. And so I ended up having nine surgeries, including one about two weeks ago. Half of them have been vascular, which is basically once an artery gets injured, it wants to shut down.
That's the way that it wants to heal itself. And it kind of goes against. It kind of goes against what you want to believe, because I want to sit here and think, you know, I need my body to heal itself.
Well, it's trying and we're actually stopping it because what it's trying to do is close the artery that is injured. And we're constantly going in there trying to open it up. Right.
And. I will say some incredible things have come out of it. I mean, first of all, just the power of the human body is incredible.
So my body has rerouted. So I've had these closures in my entire femoral artery and then popliteal artery and their arteries below my knee as well. But every time a closure has happened, this amazing little detour pops up in the ultrasound and you see these like branches of a tree, these new like little arteries, which don't always grow.
It's not something that they can predict will happen. You just hope it does. And I've been very lucky that, you know, I now have all these like little arteries taking over what the big arteries were doing.
And so it's been fascinating to watch what my body's been able to do, but it's also been massively, massively challenging. I mean, I've had major surgeries, some of the most painful things I could ever experience. haven't been able to walk for the last two years.
And, you know, it's challenged me in a way that I never, never could have expected. And, you know, at the beginning, it was very hard to understand because I'm like, haven't I already faced the challenge that was supposed to teach me, you know, what we can do in life and what we can do despite our circumstances? Like, haven't I done, haven't I done that?
You know, why does it, why do I have to go through this now? And, I will say, I mean, it's just taught me things that I never learned 20 years ago.
You know, it's not until you get to like the depths of life and the depths of despair that you learn certain things that do help you, you know, not just survive, but thrive. And I feel like I'm able to help others even more so because it's not just, you know, 20 years ago, it was like, yeah, I lost my legs, got my new legs, went on to become a professional snowboarder.
Like, oh yeah, you just kind of put your legs on and go. it felt almost that easy to me. Whereas this time it's like, no, it's not that easy.
This is, you know, this is hard stuff and people go through hard stuff. And, and we, this is when resilience is incredibly important and faith and, and whatever it may be, this is, this is when you need it the most. So I'm learning it.
I'm learning it at a whole different level than, than I did before. Thank you for being willing to share that. One thing I will say to you is that your energy is so magnificent, even though you've been going through this.
And the good news is, is that because you shared this, you've now got several million people going to be in prayer for you. Because I get the feeling maybe you're not completely past all of it, the way that you're talking. And so we'll all be in prayer for you.
Well, that's just a wow. It's an interesting thing on much lower levels, you know, much lower levels. I have to say to everybody that there's such a beautiful lesson you've taught there.
And actually, I'm so grateful I asked that question because I just had this sense like that's not the only story with you. And it's not in any of my notes, but I. Ask it because when we have defining moment in our life, like, wow, someone says, I went through this divorce and now my life's blissful or I went bankrupt and now I'm rich.
I always thought I'd already had my challenging parts of my life. And now, and by the way, my challenges are nowhere near what yours are, but it's such a beautiful life lesson because I remember thinking, well, once I get to this other place where like, I know all this really important stuff and I've been through the real challenge part, the rest of it is like mini challenges, you know, that's just not.
life in general. And unfortunately, or fortunately, at least in my case, a much lower level, it's caused me to be a different version of me. And sometimes when I'm living a really easy life and relying on my old story that I've overcome, it's suppressed my growth as a being as a spirit.
Is that a crazy takeaway from this? Or do you kind of see that? That is a takeaway.
That's my biggest takeaway, I think, from what I'm dealing with right now. Absolutely. I mean, it's forced me to grow that much more.
It's transformed me. And there's no way to go back, right? There's no way to go back to what things were and things were incredible, but this is how things are now.
And I'm learning so much. And, you know, I felt the same way. I went through this massive ordeal and, you know, when I was 19 and it also, you know, it also, It's like I traveled the world and shared my story all across the world.
It's like that was my challenge. And then I found out that, yeah, the more you live, the more stories you're going to live and the more versions of yourself you're going to be. And so I feel like I've stepped into what I call version three of Amy because.
Version one was like normal life, right? Live till I was 20. That's what I thought life was like.
Had these dreams and goals, lost my legs. Version two was figuring out what the possibilities are. Traveling the world, snowboarding, New York Times bestseller, Dancing with the Stars, Oprah, like all these kind of bucket lists, like, can I do it?
Can I do it? Just pushing, pushing, pushing. And then all of a sudden this hits and I'm like, okay, well.
No longer that, at least not for today. So who am I? And I realized I want to help other people live their possibilities.
You know, if I'm not out there doing it, I've learned it. I've done it. Now I want to help others do the same, no matter what circumstances you're facing.
I had no idea we were going to do all this today. And I'm thinking at this time with where humans are in their life, like what, because just so you all know, people have been trying to get me in this. remarkable woman together for quite a while.
And we were both talking before we went on, like maybe I'd said to you right before I said, maybe this is just like God's time, you know? And I really believe that. Like I got a little goosebumps on my little hairless shaved arms right now.
So I got to tell you, it's true. What were you going to say? I have to tell you, I do feel like it's divine as well, because so when you reached out to me to do this podcast with you, I was actually like maybe one day out of the hospital.
And I had this incredible experience in the hospital. So this is just, what, like two months ago. So I decided to amputate my leg a little bit shorter.
I'm still below the knee. Once you go above the knee, that's a really big deal. But just with the fact that my vascular system is working really, really hard to get blood to the bottom of my leg, I decided to amputate my leg a little bit shorter.
So I was in Boston. and had the surgery and was in the hospital by myself for seven days. My grandfather passed away as I was being wheeled into the operation.
And it was just the whole thing was very, very heavy. I'm losing more of my leg, which I didn't want to do. This is the last thing I wanted to do, but I knew it would help.
And then having my grandpa pass and not even be able to hug my family, then going into surgery, waking up in the hospital. And I was there for seven days with not one visitor. Boston's really cracked down on having anybody even visit.
So not one visitor. So I just sat in the hospital by myself for seven days, staring out the window and thinking about my life. And it was fascinating because I never picked up my phone.
I didn't turn on the TV. And so I thought, well, what am I doing all day while I'm in here besides nurses and doctors coming in? But I was just kind of.
looking out the window, daydreaming, visualizing, like just thinking about who I am and who I was and what's important to me. And I got the most. divine download because i got so creative and so excited about life that i had my computer with me and i was typing out that's when i decided to launch my podcast bouncing forward actually launched the trailer while i was in the hospital wow because i i just got so excited all of a sudden like yes like this is what you know i want to share and and it's been so long since i've felt so inspired so deeply inspired and I left the hospital and all of a sudden I got a message from you to be on the podcast.
And I really look up to you. And I really feel like that was, you know, it's when you manifest, right? When you're kind of in that space of like, I'm doing it.
I'm putting the energy out there. I'm allowing, you know, the energy to flow through me. And then you kind of connect with others who are doing the same.
And so you were just kind of the perfect, like, I don't know, like stamp on like, that was. I manifested this moment where I felt so inspired and creative. And then I was just incredibly grateful to do this podcast with you as well.
Oh my gosh. I feel so blessed and so grateful. Like I've never had this feeling in the middle of a show before.
I got to tell you, it's a, it's a, it's a wow. And thank you for being willing to share that. What is something that you could do today, right now, keeping these promises you make to yourself to build the bridge?
I really believe. Those of you that whatever your faith is, but the Bible talks about the body being our temple. But whatever you believe about your faith, I just want to say one thing to you.
I think more change starts with your body and your physicality than you might realize. And I don't care if you're ripped and fit right now, or maybe you put a couple pounds on. Here's what I mean by that.
Fitness, nutrition, hydration. Let's take those three things. Those are areas where you can keep promises to yourself.
And so that's why I started with this fast thing that I broke. Now I'm going to get back on it again. And by the way, it's okay.
If you fall down, you got to get back up, acknowledge the mistake. I could have make a bunch of excuses to you about why. And I worked out too hard yesterday.
So I was starving and my body was craving protein. I had a banana to get any protein, right? So there's no excuses, but see the time that you get up in the morning.
the amount of working out you do if you go in and do the reps or the time on the treadmill that you say you're going to do you are starting to stack keeping the promises you make to yourself if you're going to drink a gallon of water every day and you drink it you're so some of you are familiar with my work at brenda's work you go i already know that already are you doing it What's another promise you could keep to yourself?
So for me, it's exactly that. I start to build this machine called me by keeping the physical promise I make to myself. One, because it changes your physiology.
But two, it is an area you are in control of. You can't control how much money you're going to make this month or how many clients you're going to get or what third party outside of you people are going to do. So start with promises that are inside that you can keep.
okay the second area where i begin to keep promises to myself is in my faith walk in my internal life so for example i pray in the morning you'd be surprised that there's a power to the prayer but there's a power to doing the prayer because i said i was going to do it There's a power to getting on my knees every night and praying.
There's a power to when I walk out, I'm blessed. I live on the ocean. But when I was in my apartment, I had a little water fountain that cost me 50 bucks at a swap meet.
I like to meditate around water moving. When I would do that, there was a power to emptying my mind and meditating, or there's a power to be connecting with God and prayer. But the other power is I said I was going to do it and I did it.
Let me tell you what that does. It tells you you're in charge. You're in control.
You have some domain and influence over your life. Now, all of my faith, no God's in charge. You know what I mean when I say that.
Don't get it twisted. There's a yin and a yang. The parable of the sower and the Bible.
You got to plant seeds. He provides the harvest. Yes, the world will take some with the rain and the wind and the birds and all that.
But you have to plant seeds in your life. And when you begin planting these seeds of the promises you keep to yourself, the harvest is more self -confidence. The harvest is a performance edge that other people don't get.
Oh, she's got some swagger about her right now. She's got a different look in her eye. That eye of the tiger.
She's got a little smirk. She almost knows something I don't know. You ever meet?
Those people, they seem to know something I don't know. You know what they know? They can trust them and you don't.
And when they know they can trust them, they have a different energy about them. And by the way, you can't transfer to somebody that which you're not experiencing yourself. Why does that matter?
If you don't trust you and believe in you, nobody else is going to. Nobody else is going to because you can't give them that trust and belief in you that you don't possess. Too many people, Brendan, are waiting around for someone else to validate them.
Go, hey, you have my permission to succeed now. You matter. Well, so -and -so doesn't believe in me.
Is it that they don't believe in you or is it you don't believe in yourself to the extent yet because you're not keeping these promises if we're being honest as friends? And because you don't have that, you're not transferring that belief to them where they can give it back to you. Does that make sense?
That's so good. Yeah. When your spirit is really alive in you because you're doing prayer, you're having that moment of faith.
And when that's there, you do have a different level of confidence in life. You really do because you can trust yourself and you can trust something beyond yourself. Now you got the double -edged sword, right?
Trust in self, I was congruent. Trust in faith. Something bigger has got me.
Now you have a two -sided trust. You're stronger. And people feel that from you.
They're like, oh, he seems solid. He seems solid. And what I want people to have is that solidity in their week where there's a strength, there's a centeredness, there's a groundedness.
Because performance edge, we always think it's like super high, but it's not about this hype. It's more about being grounded, being strong. And I also want to share for those who maybe you're listening to podcasts, I'd love for you to go to YouTube and watch the riff Ed just did.
Because I'm going to give you one more tip on this performance edge, getting it back. People who are able to maintain their drive over a period of time, they do what Ed just did. It's called leadership communication.
They speak like leaders. They step in and embody. a role model mindset.
They were like, oh, I'm aware people have influence. I'm aware that I have the ability to influence energy. So Ed just took the whole thing and ramped it up.
Well, guess what? The rest of the day, because he had leadership communication coming out of his mouth, he'll literally be more expressive, more driven, more focused. And I tell people all this time, I'm like, hey, you know why you lost the drive?
You're too quiet. You lost the drive to your two questions. Our expression, our voice gives us superpower.
We're human beings with human stories. When we actually start sharing and when we understand we can impact people, because who's the most driven people you ever met? They're always leaders.
Yes. They love the role of being a leader. They love the role of having purposeful influence with other people.
And when you lead, You maintain a different kind of edge because you don't play the victim card. Yeah.
You lead. You have a different kind of edge because you have responsibility that you took upon. You're carrying the mantle that you chose to carry.
You're carrying the torch that matters to you. And you realize that you can help other people. You can serve other people.
You can enlist other people, enroll other people, build other people. And as soon as there's other people in this mix now, as you lead them, Self -expression comes back into your life, like genuine self -expression for a cause, for a mission.
I know when someone's lost their edge, they're less evangelical for whatever their cause is. I know evangelism means something specific maybe in the Christian faith, but I'm using it as a sort of a non -denominational, if you will. It's like when you aren't passionately sharing your cause, your mission, your dream, Like business owners all the time, I can tell when they lost their edge, they'll sit there at lunch the whole time.
Yeah, I kind of do this. And they're trying to be cool now. They're trying to be like, they're trying to be the cool person.
They're trying to be the subtle person. And it's like, no, no, no. You lose the edge of your business if you don't talk about it, if you don't hype it.
If you aren't hyping your business, promoting your business, talking about it with fire, no wonder you lost the fire. You got to be a fire -breathing dragon once in a while about something important in your life if you want to be someone who has that drive and maintains it. Expression is power.
And if you don't express, then what happens is, guess what? You tone down. As you tone down, as you placate, as you go silent, your soul goes, I wasn't born to be a silent soul.
You were given voice. You were given expression. And expression gives you the drive back.
Just like you saw, those who will watch it, Ed, I mean, he almost jumped right out of that chair. And when he lifts himself up like that, I guarantee the rest of his day is more driven. It's why I tell people, if you read the Bible, read it out loud in the morning.
If you have a favorite verse or you have a favorite poem or you have a favorite quote from a book, verbalize, express stronger, express more powerful. That's why when you see a great speaker come off stage, they're like glowing. I mean, they're like, they're driven.
Yeah, you're right. By the way, I got everybody. He's so right about this.
There's this, they're cousins, this idea of selling yourself to dream. Can I just give you all to add to what Brennan was saying? Like, this is going to be very simply put, but I say this to you.
If like, if you and I were riding in the car together right now, you listening to this or watching this on YouTube, can I just say this to you? This is going to sound basic, but no one said this to you in a long time. And I believe this to be true.
You know, you get your edge back. You got to want it. Listen to me really close.
The people that win, they want it more. They want it more. They're hungrier.
They're starving to make it done. And to Brendan's point, the longer you do something, you get a little bit fed. Maybe you're not literally starving.
When you started your business, you were literally starving and that gave you an edge. And the more you get well fed and you got a steak once in a while and a nice bottle of wine. It's just as like this slow asphyxiation to where you just don't want it like you once did.
So if you want to get your edge back, you got to sell yourself the dream. You got to start keeping these dadgum promises and you got to want it again. This next year, I promise you, it's going to come down to who wants it the most.
And that may sound like rah -rah to you, and it is not. I'm just telling you. Hungry people, man.
Like I said earlier, maybe you're an entrepreneur listening to this. Maybe you're a stay -at -home mom. Maybe you're retired.
Maybe you're 15. Maybe you're a teacher. Listen to me.
How bad do you want it? And you've got to get clear on what it is you want to want it bad enough. And this thing I said earlier about your body, don't discount this.
Listen. You make a statement when you walk in a room, if you are physically fit, that says this person should be listened to. This person is disciplined.
And when you walk in a room and you're not, that also makes a statement. Now, let me be very clear. Listen to me as a friend.
You don't have to be muscular or fit or jacked, okay? None of that. I think it wouldn't hurt if you were, but it doesn't matter.
Here's what does matter. The people see you're changing. So if you are out of shape right now and over the next 90 days, you're just a little bit more fit.
You got a little more coloring in your skin. You're a little bit more energized. If people see you changing, making progress, that's infectious.
That's magnetic. It doesn't need to be. the final product of you look like a fitness model on a cover.
That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is you make a statement with your body. Wow, his body, since I've known Brendan, he's lifting more weights, he's more fit.
Right before we went on, we were talking about back exercises he does for his lower back because my lower back's bothering me. Progress is magnetic. And so actually the fact that you're not in great shape right now could work to your advantage because every time somebody sees you these next 12 months, they're like, what are you doing?
That's incredible. Look at the change you're making. And when you change your body and improve your body, it sends a statement to you that you can change anything.
Failure is a great teacher as well. I've never asked you this and we're good friends. Is there a major failure you could share if you were being vulnerable that changed your life?
Dean, any personal, professional, a failure where you went, yeah, that was one of the hardest times of my life. And thank God for it from the standpoint of growth, change, learning, whatever it might be. Well, you know, Ed.
I could share with you business failures that were the most painful thing that you just think it's over. I know you've been there when you just think you screwed up. I'm not smart enough.
Why did I try to play this big game? You know, I'm from a blue collar, small town in the East coast. My dad worked on cars.
His father worked on cars. My cousins worked on cars and I try to play a bigger game. And when it failed the first couple of times, I'm like, see, my dad was right.
And my cousins were right. I'm not smart enough for this. I don't have a degree.
I don't have money. And that voice is always going to screw with you. And I'll just say, we all know we got two voices inside of us.
The one that says, you're meant for more. You can do anything. Go for it.
And the other one says, you're a fool. Why the hell would you try it? And I don't want to overplay something that you already know.
But I just want to say, know that we all have two voices. Mine's still in there. And my voice.
That knowing I'm meant for more just outweighs the other one about 51, 49%. That's it. It's not 100.
So that's a fact. So I could tell you about a couple of those failures that were tough. But if I'm going to be really vulnerable, the hardest experience of my entire life was going through a divorce.
Hands down. And not the divorce itself. My ex and I agreed years prior that our relationship wasn't working.
And we knew it wasn't. But I came from a... Nine divorces.
My dad was married five times. My mom, four. Moved a million times.
By the time I was 20, I moved 20 times. Different stepbrothers, stepsisters. I had a step -grandfather named Leo Rizzo.
The guy took me fishing and hunting, bought me a Mongoose BMX bike. This guy was so awesome. Taught me how to pheasant hunt.
One day I come home from school, our **** is on the front yard. It's like, no more Leo Rizzo. We're getting thrown out of the house, so I lose my step -grandpa.
I passed him for years. I'd almost have tears in my eyes when I passed him because he was like this massive force in my life for six years and then gone overnight. So I think I held on to all that stuff, Ed, and I didn't realize it.
In fact, if you don't mind me being personal, I know we're talking about business and stuff, but I went through such a tough time going through a divorce, and when I dug in, I just stuffed all that down. All that pain. And what I did is just work my ass off.
Excuse my language. I just worked harder than anybody else. And I said, no one's going to mess with my life.
I will be so financially secure. No one's going to throw my stuff out. No one's going to tell me what to do.
I'll be in control of my decisions. I'll retire my parents because my mom worked hard. I'm going to do whatever the freak it takes.
So whenever I failed, I had that big why. So I'm telling you all this not to brag. Just I'm building.
I got momentum. Life's going good. And now all of a sudden, we decide to get a divorce.
And I think all those childhood things that I tucked into a box and put a lock on it. Somebody asked me what happened. I said, the lock came off the box.
And Ed, I went through, I never told another human being. I went through six months of anxiety. I never had anxiety in my life.
I was having panic attacks. I didn't want to get on a plane. I didn't want to get in an elevator.
I was popping a Xanax once a week just so I'd have one night a week that I could sleep. I was so fragmented. And I...
I'm just sharing this for if anybody has ever gone through this with your work or your career or your life or your relationship. It was so unglued that I thought to myself, wow, you made it to 47 years old or 45 years old and all the craziness of your childhood, you're done. This is it.
I was at a point where I didn't think I could come back, Ed. I was just going through the motions. It made me realize my whole life in business, I went after the hard things.
If I failed, I'm like, this is what I'm going to learn. The grit, I'll get through it. This one was crippling me.
I didn't take the same patterns I had in business. I didn't apply it to my personal life. And when I did, I started focusing on what could be the solution.
I'm going to share one more quick thing, Ed. My brain does visual things. And maybe this is somebody who might be going through it.
I felt like my ship was in the bay, but it wasn't the bay I was supposed to be in. It was an okay bay. It was calm.
There was other ships like mine, but I knew I was supposed to be out in the ocean. But between me and the ocean was a storm. This is the crazy stuff my brain was thinking about.
And a million times I put my ship in the storm and it was so brutal that I just turned the ship back. And one day I said, I can't turn back anymore. And sailing through that storm, I honestly didn't think I was going to make it.
I literally thought I was losing my mind. But in that, my brain just kept going, how do I solve this? How do I get out of this pain?
How do I focus on solutions? How do I take all of this and know my better version is on the other side of that? And I wrote down hundreds of things I could do to stop having anxiety.
I did yoga. I did meditation. I went for walks.
I did therapy. All these things weren't working. But collectively, and I'm going to share one last thing, I thought, what's one thing that could solve all of it?
And it was, if I could become friends with my ex, then all my fears of my kids not being allowed to come over, all the craziness my parents went through, they still don't like each other. And I made a commitment to become friends with my ex. And the day I made the commitment, my boat was on the other side of the storm.
We became dear friends. We went through a divorce. They call it conscious coupling.
We're still dear friends. Our kids are thriving. But the only reason I'm sharing that is you know Lisa, my wife now.
My ex is happier than she's ever been. I am madly in love. We have two more children.
We have four total. She is my best friend. She is my everything.
She is my power. She's the one that's, my business has grown. My life has grown.
I never would have experienced that if I didn't go after that pain, that failure. And I thought, I'm just doing, I was feeling stuff like, and maybe this is too personal, Ed, but I was feeling like I'm just my dad. I'm doing exactly what he did.
Like all this crazy stuff came in. And the only reason I share that is because if you're going through it, sometimes you've got to put the ship in the storm. And you don't find the solution until you're in the thick of it.
You don't find the answer. And on the other side is a level, a version of you that you don't recognize. The harder the storm, the more the transformation.
So many people get stuck in a relationship or stuck in a career that's enough. It pays the bills. The kids can go to college, but you're dying on the inside.
I'm going to say, freaking stop. the wheel of the ship and turn into the freaking storm because we have to face it we're either going to face the storm now or at the end of your life like my dad who literally cries every time i see him because he never got out of the bay and i just will not allow that to happen in my life and the hardest one was thinking i was going to screw my kids up and that's the reason and now they are freaking thriving so i hope that all made sense brother come on three podcasts four podcasts ago that's my favorite moment we've had right there thank you
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Ed Mylett opens by naming the mistake he says causes most people's problems to spiral: pouring energy into the problem instead of the solution. He hands over the exact three-step system he uses with his coaching clients, then spends the rest of the episode proving it against four raw, unscripted moments pulled from his own archive.
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A neuroconditioning specialist breaks down mental conditioning into four trainable moves: know what you want, believe you'll get it, guard what you let in, and rehearse the future you're building toward.
A neuroconditioning specialist argues that most journaling only reflects on the past, and reframes writing as a daily rehearsal tool that trains the brain to notice a future it hasn't lived yet.
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