12 Life Lessons That Will Change Everything for You

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1:49This is The Ed Milard Show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So grateful you decided to join me again this week. And what we're going to talk about this week is 12 lessons of truth from my life. And what I'm going to do every so often on the show now is I'm just going to do random life lessons that I've learned in no particular order and not even any particular category, but just things in my life that I believe are truths or lessons that I've learned that I would just share with you. You know, the more and more I get messages from so many of you that say that you, you know, enjoy me as sort of a father figure in your life.

2:24Now, it's a little bit strange when it's somebody that's 45 or 50 years old and I'm barely older than you that I'm a figure. But having said that, I do enjoy sharing life lessons with you. And sometimes I feel obligated on the show, but they all have to be in a particular order on a particular topic. And the more we've done surveys with the audience, they tell us, listen, we just want the lessons. These lessons I share with you are not because I'm some guru or I've got everything figured out. They're usually from mistakes I've made. I think there's nothing wrong with making mistakes in your life as long as you don't make the same ones twice.

2:53And so these are just lessons from my own life of things i've done well and things I haven't done well That can save you a bunch of heartache Stress worry and frankly time if you'll uh listen to these lessons and so Lesson number one for this week is drop the weights of your life That one of the ways in life to get ahead is not always adding or doing something different or more But it's dropping things that don't serve you dropping people that don't serve you behaviors and thoughts that don't serve you So many people, frankly, in relationships are stuck in useless or toxic relationships because they're afraid to be alone.

3:29And they stay in a relationship because it's the known. And being without anybody is so scary for most people that they keep the weight of that relationship. And so there's these weights in our lives that hold us down. And I've learned in my life all of the different keys and tactics to becoming more successful or happier or wealthier or building a bigger company or a bigger brand often are about dropping the weights. You know, I have a very good friend who's an influencer who was stuck in an elevator very well-known influencer And she was stuck in an elevator several weeks ago and I ended up talking to her after she got out but she was in this elevator evidently for hours and When she got out we were talking about you know, there was closed environment and these other things and it got me to thinking about elevators And the weights and you know when you get into an elevator, you don't even think about it You just walk into it, don't you and you press a button and you go up 30 floors like a rocket ship, right?

4:18It's seamless. It's easy. It almost doesn't require any thought. You walk in, you hit the button, there could be five, six, seven of you in there. Doesn't matter if there's a thousand pounds or two thousand pounds of people in there. That thing takes off like a rocket ship to the 30th floor, wherever you're going, 35th floor. How does an elevator actually work? What actually happens in an elevator is there's a counterweight at the top that actually weights the elevator. And when you hit that button that weight begins to drop and you go up so as that counterweight drops it's sufficient weight that when you drop it you increase and go up much higher and the truth of the matter is that's a lot of times how life works that when we drop these weights there's these in the elevators there's these big weights at the top like plates of weights and when you hit the button they drop and you go up and in life it's that way most of the time as well that if you'll drop the weights of your life, it's almost effortless that you begin to climb and go higher.

5:17It won't even require all that much thought. So you've got to evaluate in your life from time to time, what's the weight holding me down? What's the thought? What's the emotion? What's the loop I'm in? What's the habit I have? Or what's the person? Is it this friend that's weighting me down? Is it this significant other that it's just time to evaluate whether this is one of those plates and can I ever go up if they're constantly waiting me on the other end? And the answer is probably not. You probably can't. That thing is not going to go up until that weight is dropped. And so that's lesson number one.

5:53Lesson number two, you will be much happier when you forgive and stop blaming other people for your issues. Yep. Too many people in your life are being blamed for the results you're getting and it's none of their fault, particularly your parents. Let go of that. Let go of the blame. Let go of the criticism. Let go of using them as an excuse for where you're not. And you'll be a lot happier human being when you forgive and you stop blaming other people for your issues. I say this to you as a friend, but maybe you're not even blaming other people for your issues, but you just haven't forgiven somebody.

6:24When you don't forgive somebody, it is you drinking the poison of that lack of forgiveness, not them. And when you forgive, truly forgive, you don't have to forget, but when you forgive in your life, it's like dropping one of those weights from lesson number one. sometimes the grudge we hold the debt we hold against somebody the acts we have to grind the blaming we have is or are those weights in our life and i've just learned in my life that i've had a lot of people do wrong to me you live long enough you're going to a lot of people let me down or hurt me or taken from me just like you have and i've learned that that is part of the process of life and the more you hold on to this stuff the more it's one of these weights in your life And so you're giving yourself the gift of increase by climbing the more you drop the weight of holding on to that forgive people And on top of that you better stop blaming anybody else for where you are in your life Because I can tell you it's not their fault Where you are you've got your own choices your own life your own decisions to make and it is your life It's an internal game not an external game.

7:26That's number two number three If you continue to wait for the right time, you're going to wait forever And you're going to waste your entire life stop waiting for the right time stop waiting for timing to be perfect it's never going to be the right time you're never going to be completely ready in my life when i waited too long to make decisions to buy something to invest in something i waited too long to call a shot i wasn't decisive enough i was waiting for all the things to be in place or the kids to get this or the family to get that or this or that and the truth of the matter is if you continue to wait for the right time you will wait forever and you will waste your entire life it's never the right time in fact almost always the best time is now not in everything but in most things i have learned now is better than later and so stop waiting for the right time it's not going to come around conditions aren't going to be perfect and everyone goes well the timing was just right usually when you look back it's because you took a decision took an action immediately immediate massive action even by the way a flawed action an action that's not perfect is usually better executed now than perfectly executed later.

8:33And so stop waiting around, stop delaying. I say all the time that the adversary in our life, the devil uses four D's to get us off of our dream, off of happiness, not who we're capable of becoming to shrink our expansion as a person. And one of those four D's is delay, getting you to delay. Most people in their life, you know, the Bible says where there's no vision, the people will perish. As I've looked at it more closely and I've lived now almost 54 four years, I think most people do have some type of vision for their life. They'd rather be happy than they would be sad. They've got a vision to be rich instead of poor.

9:09They've got a vision to give instead of not be able to give. They want a vision of having memories and great emotions as opposed to a life with no memories and no emotion. So it's not the lack of vision, but it is a vision issue. And the issue is depth perception. We think our dreams are further away than they are. And because we believe that we've created thoughts patterns habits and behaviors that perpetually will always keep it that far away It's a depth perception issue Stop waiting around for the right time Lesson number four i've learned in my life Apologize more often and then don't repeat the same mistake Not enough people just say i'm sorry One of the things I admire in a leader is when they acknowledge they've made a mistake.

9:54I apologize I got that wrong, but I had the right intention. I'm going to get it right the next time. In politics, wouldn't you love to see more politicians go, hey, I'm sorry, I messed that up. You know what? But my intent was right, but I got this decision wrong. I'm going to fix it and get it right the next time. In my life, when someone has sincerely apologized to me, it almost always drops the weight. Now, by the way, the most sincere apology is to not repeat the same behavior again. That's a real apology, not just the words of I'm sorry. But I have to tell you in my life, the times, the very few times where someone has hurt me or done me wrong or made a mistake or even in my business messed up and said, hey, can I talk to you for a minute?

10:37I'm so sorry. This is my fault. I apologize. And I won't do it again. And then they don't do it again. We're so much closer than we were before they even made the mistake in the first place. I love them and respect them more. If they were my leader, I would follow them more. And so build the habit when you make a mistake of owning it and telling somebody that you're sorry. Several weeks ago, a friend of mine and I were doing something and I teased him in front of the group. I made a joke. And I do that with my friends often. You do that when you kind of rib one another. And anyway, I could tell that it bothered him.

11:15And I asked him about it. I said, hey, did this bother you? When I teach you, he goes, oh, no. And I said, yes, it did. No, no, no, no, no, no. And it probably was something maybe it shouldn't have bothered him, but it did. And so finally, the next time we talk, which was that evening, I said, hey, I want to go back to something. Did that bother you when I was teasing you in front of the group? And he's a dear friend and he goes, you know, it shouldn't have, but yeah, I think it did. And it's my fault. I said, no, no, no, let's just stop right now. I'm so sorry. You know, I love you. I would never intentionally want to hurt you.

11:45And I'm very sorry. And I could see how that would hurt your feelings. And I will not do that again. And I love you. I'm very, very sorry. And do you know that he called me back the next morning and said, you know, no one's ever apologized to me that sincerely. It wasn't even that big of a deal, but we're closer now because of it. And I sincerely meant the apology and I sincerely won't do that again. I sure will do my best to not, you know, some friends you can tease, right? And some friends you can't, some friends you can give a hard time to and joke about stuff and some you can't. and then you have to know the person.

12:15And in that case, he just doesn't like it. And it hurt him. And I don't want to hurt people. And so I feel like we're closer because I apologized. Think of the people in your life who have sincerely apologized to you, if they ever have, and then didn't repeat that thing again. How much you love them and how much closer you are to them. Apologize more and don't repeat the mistake.

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13:42life lesson number five you will lose 60 to 80 percent of your friends when you upgrade your life just take it from me when you upgrade your life and you change and you expand just get ready you're going to lose 60 to 80 percent of your friends some people will tell you're gonna lose 99 percent of your friends but i have found as i upgraded my life that meant some people were going to be leaving my life and these are just some of the hard truths you know i always use this proverb on the show the Chinese proverb it says if you want to know the road ahead ask those coming back and I'm fortunate in my life that I've been down a lot of different roads and had some measure of success in many different areas and some failures and some others and I can just tell you straight up that as you upgrade your life you're going to lose 60 to 80 percent of your friends now you will inherit some new ones but part of that climb that's going to happen I tell you that for a few reasons so that when you do lose them or they do disappear or they become further away or more distant that you know that that's part of the process of upgrading your life and that some people are going to be in your life for a season we have this thing i was talking to the lady who cuts my hair the other day and she's much younger than me and she was talking about how she's not as close with some people that she had gone to high school and college with and i said you know one of the things that we naively believe when we're younger is that so many relationships are permanent in our life but as i've watched my friends get older into their 70s and 80s their friend circle, I'm going to talk about this in a minute, gets smaller.

15:08And so a lot of relationships in your life, we have this romantic notion that everyone in our life, all of our friends, we're going to be together forever. And the truth of the matter is that's not true. And it's okay that God sends people into your life or you into their life, oftentimes for a season of their life or several seasons, but maybe not every season, maybe not your entire life, especially as you upgrade and change and grow, things are just going to get attracted to you that are different. And part of that process is some people aren't going to be in your life anymore. The other reason I tell you this is I think some people are afraid to grow in their life and change and really climb because they intuitively know it may mean they're going to lose this person or these people they love and care about.

15:56And so because of this love and caring for this other person or group of people, they subconsciously sabotage their progress and success because they don't want to leave these friends well the truth is not all of them will leave and you will not leave all of them but if they're real friends they're going to cheer for you and support and want to grow alongside with you to some extent and if they're not that's just part of the journey do you really want to repeat the same life with the same people the same conversations the same vibrational frequency the same thoughts, the same memories, the same emotions for the next 50 years or 60 years of your life?

16:32The answer is no. So just know you're going to lose. These are just lessons of life from a guy further down the road coming back. You're going to lose a lot of your friends as you upgrade your life. Accept it, know it, and when it happens, realize Mylett told me that was going to happen. Ed Mylett mentioned this to me. And that's my next lesson. Number six, as you age, your circle is going to get smaller it's just true as i've gotten older and older my friend circle has gotten smaller and smaller i don't know anybody frankly who has 80 good friends at 70 years old i know they have a few and so as that circle may get smaller you will get closer to people you will get closer but i'm telling you that as the years go on the circle doesn't get bigger, it gets smaller.

17:20And quite honestly, it's a beautiful thing. I look at the friend circles as multiple circles. There's the ones that are really on the inner circle of your life. And then there's ones that are sort of in the middle or the outer circle. My outer circle, as I've gotten older, is much bigger. My distant relationships, my sort of connections, my friends that I talk to every year or two, that circle is gigantic. My middle circle is actually a lot bigger as well. these are people I've got a pretty you know surface relationship with when I'm with them I enjoy their company they enjoy mine if they ever need me I'm there if if I need them I believe they would probably be there we interact in that way that's somewhat distant but much closer than people in the outer circle and then there's that inner circle and that inner circle is the one that I believe that gets smaller as you get older when you're in high school if you're lucky that inner circle you can have 6 10 15 20 people in it maybe even in college maybe even into your 20s But by the time you're about 30 years old in life that circle ought to include people that want to grow with you Want to climb as well want to contribute want to give share your values share your standards, right?

18:29Share a belief in you not just a love that are Excited when you make progress not envious or jealous And they're like-minded And the more you expand your mind and expand your being and expand your faith and Your standards become different It's just natural that the people closest to you that group will shrink And so as you age your circle will probably get smaller next lesson People matter things don't I'm, just going to tell you the most precious thing in this life is other people Not things now. I want you to have great things. I've been blessed. I've been I've had some of the nicest homes in the world.

19:08I've been blessed to have multiple different jets. I've had a lot of money flow into my life nice clothes and watches and great dinners and all of those kind of things. And the way I grew up with when I was very young, my family on welfare, you know, physical material things are cool. And there's a lot of that flash on social media and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it as long as it doesn't matter the most to you. Those things can actually make you happy. People say material things don't make you happy. Sure they can temporarily, but it lasts a month or so. But what fulfills you as other people.

19:42What fulfills you as that inner circle. What fulfills you as your family. You know, that inner circle that I talked about that gets smaller, more than likely it'll come back to being your family and one or two other people. When my dad was passing away, he said, bring me my family. He wanted his children around him and his wife, his grandchildren. And so that small circle will be family a lot of time, even the ones you get sideways with. right and maybe one or two three other people people matter they're precious focus on people by the way if you focus on people and building people up and leading people and serving people you'll get all the things you want but when you worship things instead of god when you don't value god's children and you value the possessions on this earth you have an empty hollow life and it'll never fill you up.

20:39People matter. God's children matter. Focus on people, helping people. When you feel helpless, get helpful. Serve other people and you'll have a great life. Life lesson next. You don't need 100 mentors. Stop trying to find so many mentors. Stop looking outside of yourself so often. Look inward. Most of the answers are within you. Find one or two, maximum three mentors whose work you really follow, that you believe in them, that they're your jam and don't be listening to hundreds of different people. The thing with technology now in social media is, first off, you don't know who's real or who's legit, who's actually built a life, who's actually wealthy, who's actually got a business, who's actually developed something, who actually helps people and who doesn't.

21:23Because it's very difficult to tell on social media to distinguish between who's who. I mean, a lot of people that give a lot of the advice that are out there have not built incredible lives on their own. They're just giving advice. So you don't need hundreds of them. Pick two or three and follow their work. I'm not saying don't listen to other people. I read 50 to 100 books a year, but mentors different. Their philosophies, their way of doing things. You don't need hundreds of them. It gets noisy. It gets confusing. One person will tell you, you should leverage a bunch of debt. The other one will tell you over here, don't use debt at all.

21:52One over here will tell you, you got a cold plunge. The other one goes, nope, don't cold plunge because that messes up all your muscle growth after you work out, right? This one over here is going to tell you to eat a ton of protein. This one over here is going to tell you that, no, too much protein, you don't use it in your body anyway, and animal fats and blah, blah. So there's all this noise, right? Like pick two or three, listen to their work, focus on it, focus inward on yourself. You do not need hundreds and hundreds of mentors. Your social media feed is loaded with too many people, quite frankly, that don't know what they're talking about, that talk about it very well.

22:25pick two or three and follow them and i think you'd be much greater served in your life and much more focused and clear remember this clarity is focus and complexity is the enemy of execution the more complicated something is the more messages you have it's much more difficult to execute clarity equals focus and focus equals success

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23:38The pie is not finite. It's infinite. And so when you root against somebody, that is an energy that will come back your way. When you gossip and talk badly about people, it feels good in the moment, doesn't it? And when you're done, you almost know you've done something you shouldn't do. It almost always makes you look small. Whenever I'm in the company of somebody who wants to share a negative to me about another person, I know ultimately, eventually, they will share a negative about me to another person. You're not in some inside exclusive club when people gossip to you. that now you're exempt from their gossip.

24:16I know it feels that way. They're telling you so much about so-and-so and you're like, well, they must really think I'm special to tell me something negative about that person. And they'd never do it to me. Quite the contrary. They do this with everybody. They do this with everybody. Hey, listen, this needs to stay between you and me. But no, it doesn't stay between you and me. They've told somebody else and they will do it again. And so trust me when I tell you, rooting against people is one of the great mistakes in life. sincerely celebrate other people's success. And this isn't easy because we're competitive and comparison is normal.

24:48But when you truly, that's why I tell you, you don't need hundreds of mentors. You need to work on you. It's why I tell you people matter, right? I'm telling you all of this because they all link together, even though they seem like they're not. And when people really matter right to you and you love people, I can tell you very clearly, you're not going to want to gossip. Tearing someone else's building down does not make yours taller. It feels good when you do it. Hey, I got some inside scoop. Or why does she say it like that? What is he thinks he's she terrible vibrational frequency. Terrible.

25:23You reap what you sow. Be that person, by the way, who not only doesn't do it, but walks away from it when it's happening. And if you really want to elevate where I've gotten most of the time in my life now, by the way, why do I tell you this? I was somebody who would gossip. And then once I sort of said, I'm not gonna do it anymore. I was certainly somebody who was a receptacle for it. In fact, it got to the point where I thought they think so low of me that they think it's okay to gossip to me about other people. And then I started to do this thing where I would just kind of like, and I would kind of get out of the way.

25:55And now I've gotten to the point where I go, Hey brother, can I just, can you just do me a favor? I don't want to hear anything like that about him, right? Or anybody else. It's just not how I vibe. It's not how I get on. That's not my life. I don't, I don't participate in that kind of dialogue. look, you're a great dude, brother. I think you're probably better than this, but I'm not the dude to talk that way about other people with. And I've gotten to that point and I just keep my energy as pure as I possibly can. And it served me. Okay. So it's going to come back on you. If you do it, stop doing it.

26:25Life lesson number 10, you are one decision away from changing your life. I talk about that in the power of one more, but it's a fact. If you're listening to this right now or you're watching it you're one decision way by the way good or bad you could have things really rocking and rolling right now and you make that one decision and it goes the other way right so this is not just for the positive it can also be for the negative but if things aren't going your way right now you're one choice one decision one new thought maybe it's this list i've gone through of the 10 things you go that's the one decision i gotta make i gotta stop gossiping or you know what that one decision is i gotta stop waiting or that one decision is i'm gonna drop that weight.