How To Grow EVERY DAY : Do The Hard Thing

23:30So there is a science to changing your conditioning. So you can do it rote by incantation, do it rote by having new rituals. There's so many ways you can do it. But the most powerful way I know of is total immersion, where we engage your biochemistry and your emotion. And what's so cool about it is time disappears. You know, when you ask people, what's a long time? Some people say a century. Some people say two minutes, right? A long time is anytime you're not enjoying yourself. You know, a minute can feel like eternity if it's a horrible experience. But if you're having a great time, time disappears.

24:02And you know, even the events, we go 12 hours a day, literally around the world. when I'm doing my events here, like the last event I just did here, Date with Destiny, we had people in 195 countries. So it's every country in the world. We had like, we'd start here at 10 AM. It's already midnight in Australia. They go from midnight to about one in the afternoon for six straight days in a row. And we lost 1 % of the people, give you an idea. It's that engaging, right? They're in a whole different time zone. It doesn't matter. They're in the zone and our biochemistry has changed. And so that's why I love books.

24:35But the reason I still do seminars is because there's nothing like an immersion experience like that. Now people can do it from anywhere on earth or they can come in person and do it too, because now that COVID's over, we do both. Yeah. And that's by way, this event at join Tony 100.com, I want you to go. It's just, that's because you have immersion over three days. Here's what I just want you all to do. So I'll give you my simple language from that success, bliss, achievement, ecstasy is a biochemistry. It's a neurochemistry and a biochemistry. And so if you want to find those states of being, it's a biochemistry.

25:08And so just for a lot of you, something really simple to do when you're training physically, if you work out, you run, you walk, these are times where you should be anchoring your goals and your visions of your life. When you're in that elevated state of neuro and biochemistry, it's just a much more powerful anchoring and conditioning for you to create a change in your life. And so elevated emotional or physical states and anchoring the things that you want in your life, your visions and your goals and your ambitions, now you're anchoring the biochemistry and the neurochemistry. The likelihood of those things happening and repeating themselves becomes that much higher.

25:41This is important stuff for you guys. The man to my left is literally one of the most interesting men in the world. This is Rob Dyrdek. Thank you for being here, brother. Thanks for having me. I've seen it in video and now to experience what it's actually like to be here live. It's so much more beautiful and remarkable than I could ever imagine. My goal is to be known for the life that I created, the life that I lived, and the way that I systematized it and built it that ultimately people could replicate in their own lives in the future. Yeah, the example's going to be bananas. I actually admire the diversity of your success.

26:20It's been a lot of fun. I mean, it's like... Brother, come on. And I'll tell you another moment too. Man, after I got attacked by that shark, yeah because i'm like this is so dumb like this isn't even this isn't even gonna be good like why am i doing this that's every stunt every stunt it's like this isn't even that this is so dumb and afterwards like no one in the world but i remember swimming up off of the looking down on the on that boat and stopping as i was swimming up and there's like 50 sharks swimming around telling myself just look and soak this into your mind because you will never be back right you know in and i have that uh to go along with the great photo of that like shark on my arm you know what i mean like but that for all the achievers though and for me like i just want you to know something you take you mention it but i gotta be honest with you it's one of things you're supposed to say to me i don't think i personally i'm an achiever and i enjoy my life and i you know people come to me for advice on how to live better but i think i could do a better job of telling myself hey man stop yeah what you've said the flight to catalina the shark thing like stop i think achievers have to do that once they're all stop appreciate this moment for a second man it's not coming back again you know and i i you and i were talking about your kids at their ages and you know it made me think did i appreciate all those moments when they were two when they were infants when they were three when they were eight and 10 and I didn't, you know, and I wish I could go back in those moments.

27:52Think about it too, though. You think about how optimized you are as a man today versus when they were born. True. Right. And the lucky thing for me is I had evolved to a place where being super efficient and using my energy for what I'm only passionate about and having clear goals and vision for life is the foundation that I started with for the family. So I've never missed a pediatrician appointment. I've rarely, I've never missed waking them up very rarely when I'm gone or putting them to bed. Right. And that's by design. That's by moving out of a fantasy factory in downtown and living in Hollywood to a home in Beverly Hills and an office in Beverly Hills and being super We're close as you're developing this life and creating a plan for how I use my time and my schedule.

28:48You know what I mean? Everything is systematized around full balance. I take my first meeting at 11 a.m., my last one at 5. It never changes. I don't compromise my schedule and my time with my family and wife in my pursuit, right? I fit it inside it, you know? Whoa. So say something about that. So I want to get into this life thing now because I love the word about optimizing your life. Since the second we talked, the first time we talked, it was going to be five minutes, it was turned into a little long phone call. We actually together talked about these things. These very topics are what you and I discussed when we first connected.

29:24Of all those stunts you had, though, I'm just curious because it leads to life. We're going to go into life stuff now. So you had to deal with the tiger chasing you down and mauling you. That to me, even for me, I don't know why, that's even scarier than the shark thing for me. Seeing that sucker run after you, dude. They're trained. I don't give a crap. Sharks in the ocean aren't. But he was biting my neck and they kept saying, put it down. Put it down. Because I was the it. You know what I mean? I'm like, is this guy supposed to be doing this? Dude, they're a millimeter away from some artery.

29:58Like, dude, there's just, come on, man. That's crazy. I'll say the scariest thing of all of them was jockeying a horse for a race. like that was the scariest of all of them because the car stuff you're in a cage okay like you're covered in the mesh here trained tiger like when you're on the back of a horse going 40 miles an hour like if you you when you can barely if you get shot off that thing you're basically in a like a car wreck yeah with no car right like that was the scariest are you hearing what we're saying to each other right now like you know it was scarier than getting bit by a shark it wasn't the tiger very much right north but then for me it feels good to be able to say it it's like i don't think about it so often but then just even talking about comparing them and thinking about it and the fact that i own that as a highlight forever it makes me happy yeah and it's also like hey man look being on tv all that long for some people would be scary staying at the top that long can be scary you know not wanting to fall off the the totem pole you've climbed up the flagpole all those things but i want ask you about one of the stunts you did because I think like at least for me it would cause me to do a little reflection so of all of them you did the one that captured my heart the most was the one where Laird drags you on the um I think it's Laird on on the Sea-Doo into riding the wave yeah okay and so you ride this wave and you crash and you thought you were gonna die yeah of all of them is that the one that you were the most sure you were gonna die in the middle of I'm curious no I mean it's the only time in my life that I was dying so tell me about what happened there and what it did to you i'm you know the trippiest thing about it too is like it was pouring rain and i swear the moment i stepped in the water to do it it stopped raining and a rainbow went right over it right and i'm like what's what like it was freaky enough and we're like what is going on like it was just this freaky sort of moment in time so it like already had this like weird tone and if you can imagine like and then like some of the local hawaiian guys were like asked where i was doing uh getting towed in and they were like oh it's real sharky out there right so i'm like sharky yeah so after the shark thing or before like this is this is way after but it doesn't when you're doing like you know go getting a bahamas reef shark with a metal thing like it's super controlled when you're laying on your back in the deep ocean and all you can think of is like sharks coming up from underneath to get you i didn't even i wasn't worried about what was going to happen in that wave i just wanted to get up so that i don't get attacked by a shark right and and if you can imagine this you know i've grinded a 20 stair handrail and flipped a car ramp to ramp and and done all these crazy stunts and you face them you face the danger on getting towed into a giant wave it's behind you so like you like i'd never surfed before it's literally the only time i'd ever surfed in my life you had never surfed never surfed before and it was like the first wave i ever searched was like 18 feet right and so it's the most peaceful amazing like you know because you can't see it and like you're like wow you know what i mean like what do we and and then it's like a house crashes on you and you don't like you can feel something coming you can start to hear it and then just wham and now you're in like this fight everything in you to just get to the surface right so i was like you know it's really weird management of emotions and experiences as it as it's related to when you get into kill mode for stunts right because you have to shift into a mindset of like where you basically you get to a deeply calm place because you literally nothing else matters and you understand that that for this moment in time you have to put everything you have into making sure that that you do everything for this to work it's a different different level of mindset right because you're it's a it's it's your life is on the line for this moment and it's so so much easier when you're facing it and you go go go you know and in this one so as i did it and fought back up and then i want to get out of the water i want to get back up you know all this it wasn't as bad right so it was like it was like okay it got up pretty good like that didn't you know it's still water you know i got spun around but it wasn't too bad okay let's let's try to get a bigger one right like so you get into that zone and now the problem was I got a bigger one and one right behind it.

34:33So not only did I get annihilated, but then as I was like trying to find the surface, another one came down and now I'm so deep and have no idea where the surface is. And, you know, believe it or not, this is a viciously vivid memory just out of death. Wasn't trying to, hey, you got to remember this. You're about to die here. You want to remember this. You remember it? Hold on to this one. You know what I mean? No, no, this is like, you was like, like I, like eyes open, spinning. It was just all white. And I just remember kept trying to push to what I thought was the surface. And I kept going nowhere and the light kept changing.

35:15And I kept trying to find what I think was the surface. And it all kept looking the same, regardless of where I went. And I was, could not, no more breath, no more breath, no more breath. Like as far as you can hold, as far as you can hold as far as you can hold as far you can if you can't you can't you can't you can't and right as i like had to like pass out to take the breath like i popped right up and then he come flying and he was so freaked out right because it's all fun and games you're laird hamilton you're gnarly you literally don't even have the gene like to even be scared of like water you're like literally aquaman so you're like of course you could do it rob like he just looks at me is like you're a stunt guy you can do this stuff easy he thought I died for sure and he just we are done you've ripped me out of that threw me on the back we are done like he was so freaked out you know and you know of course we made that whole episode we wrote that episode around testing your man level yeah and we had decided I had reached it yeah you reached it and that's bananas joke was like man you don't you don't want to get to the edge your man level because you really you really lose some layers your man level if layers got to give you mouth to mouth.

36:24Oh my God. Yeah, right. But yeah, that, that was. I think if people rewound that and they were listening to your description of what it was like during that time, some people feel like their life's in that place right now, man. Like they're just, everything looks the same. They can't get out of it. They can't get out of it. Really what you eventually, you just kind of surrendered, right? And then thank God you popped up. I, that's my favorite story, by the way, of all the stunts is to think that you, that was the one where you thought you were dead. I mean, that's, it's insane. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

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37:47Privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. Next up is a little song from CarMax about selling a car your way. You want to sell those wheels. You want to get a CarMax instant offer. So fast. Want to take a sec to think about it. Or like a month. Want to keep tabs on that instant offer. With OfferWatch. Want to have CarMax pick it up from your driveway. You want to get it done to it. You want to do it. So, want to drive? CarMax. Pickup not available everywhere. Restrictions and fee may apply. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Be sure to follow the Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify.

38:28Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. This jacked up dude right here to my left is a Super Bowl champion. And I have a funny feeling that today will be a life-altering conversation for many of you. So, I'm so excited you're here, brother. This is Steve Weatherford, everyone. Thanks for being here, man. That means a lot to me, man. I really mean that. Are you telling me that even that day you make the Saints, you're not feeling great about yourself? Oh my God. So this is a good section. We didn't talk about this, just so everybody listening and watching realizes we didn't talk about this off camera.

39:03And it's funny that you said that because the day that I realized that I actually made a pro football team, I walk into the locker room and they rearranged everybody's locker. Because in training camp, you have 103 people on your team, and they trim it down to 53. So, these are a lot of the buddies and friendships that you made during training camp. The guys are gone. They're gone. And so, I walk in, and I'm looking for where my locker used to be, and it's moved. And now they moved it to numerical. And so, I'm number seven. And so, I look to the right of my locker, and it's number five, Reggie freaking Bush.

39:33Oh, my gosh. I look to my left, and it's Drew freaking Breeze, number nine. And I'm like, I'm thinking to myself, Ed, I'm like, I don't belong here. Oh my God. Yeah. Like literally, that's the first thing I said to myself that like, I don't belong here. I'm in between the greatest, one of the greatest college football players of all time. And Drew freaking breeze. One of the greatest NFL players. Right. So it's, and I'm in between them, man, dude, this is a lot of pressure, but it wasn't, it wasn't a, I don't belong. Like let's pack the bags and go home. I always learned, you know, it's the imposter syndrome.

40:13Like right now, I played 10 years in the National Football League, and we have 16 games a year. So let's say, you know, you include some playoff games in there. I played about 175 NFL games, and I puked 175 times before the game. You're not serious? 100 % serious. And I actually shared a vomit bucket with Chris Snee, who's in the ring of honor for the New York Giants. We shared a puke bucket before the game. And he was one of the greatest at his position that's ever played in the NFL and especially for the Giants. And we shared a puke bucket. No way. Like, I want to have a conversation with him now that I feel like I have a higher level of consciousness.

40:53And I actually, like, really see myself who I am. You have no idea how much, like, self-torment I've caused myself. And I've been able to take that self-torment and turn it into achievement. Yes. But every single achievement that you get, you know, you're 108 pounds and then you get to 200 pounds and that doesn't make you feel any better. And then you make it onto the varsity and that doesn't make you feel any better. And you thought it would. So you were talking about continually pushing the point of happiness past the cognitive horizon because it's just like once I get here, I'll be happy. And then you get there and you're like, well, you know what?

41:24But then once I get here and then for people like you and me that are just like disgustingly ambitious and motivated for life and for impact and for income and for influence, you look at all those things and be like, how are you not happy? Right. Like you set a goal, you achieve it. You set another goal, you achieve it. Not to say like I haven't had a ton of failure and a ton of bad decisions and spent a couple nights in jail during that process. but I feel like it's really, really pertinent for me to share that on this podcast because I know there's a lot of people out there that want to live the life that you're living, that want to live the life that I'm living.

42:02But I'm here to tell you right now, I made$15 million kicking a football for a living. I made another couple million dollars as an entrepreneur. When I walked away from that, money doesn't make you happy. A marriage won't make you happy. Having kids won't make you happy. Winning a Super Bowl, a Pro Bowl won't make you happy. A 10-year career won't make you happy until you look in your and into the mirror and you brush your teeth and you love the person that's looking back at you which is honestly I'm I'm in the infancy of actually being myself I love it you're trying like 22 days that I've been able to look in the mirror while I brush my teeth and some days are a little bit easier than others because you have to think about it I'm finding 30 years of instincts of hating myself so I was just like if I look at a new goal that I set within my business or a new fitness goal that I set for myself or a new family goal that I set for myself.

42:47My instinct is to go to a place of self-hatred in order to motivate myself to achieve that goal. And I'm almost kind of like, I'm trying to like reprogram the system to, to pursue those things from a place of love of myself. And like you kind of alluded to it earlier, and this might be the only time I ever disagree with you that, you know, we, we all need that, that affirmation from other people. But I've had so much affirmation in my life and I'm not telling you this to seem any certain type of way, but I've had so much affirmation in my life. It's desensitized myself to it so much so that I don't believe any compliment that anybody ever gives me, or at least I didn't used to.

43:29Now when people give me a compliment, I have to stop my instinct of like schluffing it off to the side or giving that acknowledgement to somebody else and actually accepting that gift from people and believing it for myself. but that's a scary place to live because you can't escape your own mind you got it you know so whether it's it's the depression that sets in after achievement because it didn't make you better and it didn't make you feel better or maybe it gave you a brief break from hating yourself and as soon as you leave that ecosystem of people telling you how wonderful you are or people wearing your super bowl ring or people um you know you taking a bunch of kids shoe shopping because they can't afford it and you want them to go back to school in newark new jersey with brand new kicks because you know how much confidence that gave you when you got new kicks whatever any of that stuff it might make it might put a band-aid on the gunshot wound for the time being and make you feel like you can cover your wound and feel a little bit better but at the end of the day when you go sit in your car by yourself and you're driving home the hate machine turns back on because I'm like now I don't feel any better about myself so it's like it's the difference in between there's two types of happiness there's the instantaneous happiness that we get from from food we get it from sex we get it from drugs we get it from alcohol and you know or lifting weights and so my entire life up until about three weeks ago was filled with chasing the high chasing the high of achievement chasing the high of uh of you know when i work out i feel better for a brief amount of time and then once those adorfin's roll off it's just like god i hate my you know yes and i didn't even really realize that i was fueled by hate up until you know going through this process called hardcore leadership that Shanda Sumter put together and she's a friend of mine and she just, she saw the pain in me, you know, but she also saw like the beauty and the love and the tenderness and the sensitivity that I have, that I give to people unconditionally, but I don't ever accept it.

45:23When people love me back, I don't accept it because I don't love myself. And so I've given my wife, I've given my five kids, I've given my friends, like new friends that I'm making like you, like I'm giving you the greatest gift ever. Cause I'm going to be an amazing friend to you. You know what I mean? And the reason that I can be an amazing friend to you and love you and support you and everything that you're doing is A, because I believe in you. Thank you. But I've stepped into myself. Yes. And so I finally can truly love people unconditionally. I couldn't fully see my friends or accept any gifts from them until I could see myself.

45:56It's harder work to put the other face on, bro. It's harder work to be Steve Weatherford than to be right to it because i can show up here yeah and like i've never ever shared this with anybody ever before but i've i ended up winning the walter payton man of the year philanthropic award the most philanthropic guy in the nfl and it wasn't like i was some you know super bowl quarterback or quarterback i was like the the least respected position in football but i was able to earn respect because of my work ethic i was able to earn respect because of my philanthropy and the way that I genuinely and authentically showed up for people.

46:32You know, if one of my teammates got hurt, I was the first person to go to the training room after practice and be like, hey, can I drive you home? You know, like, hey, can I take your kids to daycare the next day? Because I knew how much physical pain and emotional pain that they were in. Because when you're in the NFL, man, you're only as good as like your last play. And if you can't play another play, then they'll discard you. Yeah, you're done. There's no guaranteed. There's no guaranteed contracts. there's nothing's guaranteed. And so that's why they call it the not for long league. You know what I mean?

47:00And I'm just super blessed and super fortunate, so thankful that I was able to play at the most elite level long enough to achieve every single goal that I had set out for myself in addition to being able to not walk away from the game when I wanted to. I skipped away from the game. Like I was happy. I felt achieved in everything in that industry, but I wasn't happy with myself. Yeah. You know? It's amazing someone like you, because there's people watching this. There's a nurse watching this right now, right? There's a school teacher. There's an entrepreneur watching this. And they are connecting.

47:32A lot of military people watch this, man. I know, because they always tell me, like, dude, you need to go on Ed's show. I love it. He's going to love you. Even people that don't know you and kind of don't really know me, they're, like, asking me to go do your show, because they know that you're going to crack me open. And it's not even something where you've even had to try. No, because I love you the way you are. Yeah, you see me, man. I do. And what's amazing about you, bro, and that you have this gift, many of you too. People, the beautiful part of being wired like you are, and I'm wired this way too, is that we have such great empathy for others.

48:06We don't give it to ourselves. Oh, yeah. But like you. That doesn't hit me like right in between. Right, is it? It's sick. It's like, so many of you are watching this. You're like, I always, I am the person who kind of cares for people. When someone's sick, I am the one who bring them dinner. I am the one who visit them. I'm the one who sends the text. And you don't look like it, though. And you don't either. and you don't either. We're tattooed, but I'm buff dudes. And you know, I can hide all my tattoos, but by the way, and guys like many times, everybody, when you see mega achievers, we are hiding things.

48:34And so, because what this show is really about, isn't you maxing out your wealth, although I want you to have it, maxing out your career. When you have it, I want you to max out your bliss. I want you to max out your faith. I want you to max out your giving. I want you to max out your love for yourself. And maybe Steve, honestly, Maybe you're going to get through to people in a way that nobody else can. There's no maybe, dude. There's no maybe. I speak it into existence. I will have such a massive influence. People forget that I ever touched the football. You look at all the different things that we keep referencing, the different achievements that I make, and I want to make sure that people know we didn't come on here to talk about the different things that I achieved.

49:12We came on here to talk about the different things that I've achieved and the way I felt about myself despite all of those things. Thanks. Brendan Brouchard. Welcome back to the show. And my let it's an honor, man. It really is an honor. Someone says, I kind of got all that. I kind of know where I'm going. I know what I want to do. I'm pretty damn focused. I got that obsession thing you're talking about. And you did high performance habits, which separates the really high performers from the ones that perform pretty well. Right. And so someone says, I want to be the damn best at whatever I'm doing.

49:45I'm opening a chain of dry cleaners. I'm training horses. I've got a, I'm going to be the greatest mother in the history of the world. Whatever the thing is, what separates, I know there's a whole book that's been written on this, but give us a few things that people may not think about that separates people go that I am focused. I am on my mission. What could separate me? What are some of the things that I must be doing to be the best? Yeah. First, always frame that as habits. It has to be habits. A lot of people think it's just mindset. I'm like, mindset is a habit of thought, right? Right. It's like, well, it's how you deal with people.

50:18That's a habit of interaction. Like, so always just like realize it's a habitual pattern or practice that you're doing. But what separates people is not the habits that everyone wants to talk about in the popular literature or books. It's like, you know, these small habits or atomic habits or automatic habits or, you know, unconscious habits. Those are valuable. Those are very important. But high performance requires deliberate habits. A deliberate habit means you kind of have to force yourself to do it. It's not easy. It's not automatic. It's not tiny. It's like, you know, it's like going the extra mile thing.

50:53It's never going to be easy. You're never going to condition it to be automatic. It's like, no, it's the tough work of life to go to another level. You want to be at the top. It's really frigging hard. It's hard. You have to accept that. And so what we did is we studied. We said, what is that difference maker? We spent a million dollars on research. Gosh. Like the largest research study that's ever been done on high performers worldwide. 90 countries, 90 different countries that we surveyed the highest performers, these tend to be not the top 15%, they tend to be the top 5%. And the difference between the top 15 and the top 5 % is this, it kind of falls in the definition of high performance.

51:30High performance means succeeding over the long term in any industry or endeavor or whatever, while still maintaining positive well-being and relationships. I want to hear about this. How do you, what high performers have answered is how do you succeed over the long-term without wrecking your health, your mindset, your positivity, and your relationships? We know lots of successful people, but they ruined all their relationships. We know successful people, they ruined their health. They're not high performers. They wouldn't qualify. So what do they do? It's different practices. We call them high form of habits.

52:06So you mentioned these people, they already have clarity, clarity, developing clarity and constantly revisiting to become clear every day. What is my intention? What is my intention? What is my intention? That revisit of clarity is supremely important to them. Revisiting it. Yes. Not, not setting a goal on January 1st and forgetting it. It's literally consistent. It's literally consistency in intention. Like every day you hear about high performers, they look at their goals. Every day you set your intention. When I work with Oprah, she taught me every meeting you have with Oprah, she starts with, what's our intention of this meeting?

52:45Every meeting. Because that's seeking clarity. So high performers just seek clarity more often. The second habit is generating energy. They generate the energy they want to experience in life and they want other people to experience. They're not waiting for joy. They're not waiting for happiness. They're not waiting for positivity. They generate it. They are so much more conscientiously designing the energy around them. And you feel it, right? By the way, everyone should know this. Ed is, I would say, in the very top keynote speakers on earth today. Thank you. Like what you can do on stage is unbelievable.

53:23It's not even, I mean, you're talking to a handful of humans who can do this. Thank you. And what you do is you generate and move the energy, the room way more consciously than the average speaker. The average speaker is kind of insecure a little bit. It doesn't mean you don't have insecurity or doubts up there. What it means is he's moving the room. Like he's taking them on a wild ride. He's generating the energy. That's the difference between an underperforming speaker and a high performing speaker. Good point. Another piece is the productivity piece, which I know is so basic, but most people are so unbelievably not productive.

53:56Yes. I mean, it's stunning. You know, it is stunning. The average person is losing an hour a day to Facebook or Instagram and then watching four hours of television. That's five hours a day of consumption. If you can turn those five, let's take one. Let's let's say. No, no, we're talking high forms. If we can get you one hour a day back, one hour a day of focus back, that's 30 hours a month. Crazy. That 30 hours a month. That's seven hours a week. but that means you got an extra day yeah that's an extra eight-hour work day that you got yeah that's an unfair advantage yes so getting people their focus back in a world that has you know the highest paid engineers in the world paid to strip your attention away so you consume versus create and be and live that is a primary differentiator right now how about stay on that a minute I uh so agree with you.

54:56And the more I've started to coach people and I actually get into their lives, how not only do they waste time, but how little time, Brendan, and this is huge for everyone, that they do on things every day that move the needle. That's it. Like move the needle in your company, move the needle in your relationship, move the needle in your body. It's like, you're just doing little things all the time. You got to sometimes do stuff that moves it, Right. Like I'll give you one small example. My relationship with my children. They're both away at college. I have great relationships with my kids, but they're both away at college and I'm busy and they're busy.

55:30And there are days where we just text. Yeah. Their mom's on the phone with them all the time. And I thought, am I moving the needle in this? It's OK. I did what I'm supposed to do today. I'm communicating with my kids. I know that sounds very, you know, organized or methodical, but does that move? Does Bella know I love her a lot more when she gets my text message? Does Max know I believe in him a lot more? What would move the needle? I got to call them. Now, this may sound silly to all of you, but I'm trying to, the most high performing thing I could do in my relationship with my children is to call them.

56:07In a lot of relationships, the text doesn't move the needle. The call moves the needle. The thing in your company that you're doing all these little, what's the thing that gets the big account, that moves the account, that creates the most leverage, that move the needle more often. Another exact phrase of that is efforts of impact. So in the research, high performers, this is great for all those who are like, oh my God, Brendan, yeah, Ed, you're right. This is overwhelming. It's a lot of stuff to do. Oh my God. Well, the research showed in 90 countries around the world that high performers spend 60 % of their week there.

57:09Efforts of impact. What moves that needle gets that significant impact? What a powerful question to ask yourself if you're listening to this in whatever area you pick, pick your area, your relationship, your company, your money. How much of your time is efforts of impact moving the needle stuff? And if you just tweak that by 11%, 16%, how much different would your life be three years from now, one year from now? These are this is why you listen to the show, everybody. It's like, I got something there. I'm not moving the needle often enough. I mean, your habits aren't efforts of impact. Your habits are like, I checked the box.

57:43I did the text. I did the email. I made the call. I made my contacts. I drank my protein. I had the water. You did the stuff, but how much of it moved it, right? Yeah, it's so easy. So it's like, start with what I said first about that hour a day of distraction. And I always tell people, if I could get you three more months of advancement this year, would that make a difference? They go, oh my God, yeah. Three more months. I go, great. That's an hour a day. Gosh. One hour a day, seven hours a week, right? Over the course of the month, that's 30 hours. That's basically a whole work week, really.

58:20And then apply that by 12 months. It's like, we just got you 12 work weeks back for one hour a day. So we're not asking for a lot. And then the joy is, I thought it was the 80-20 Pareto principle. It's like, oh, 80 % of the time I got to be, I'll be Superman 80%. No, you don't even be Superman 80%. Try 60. It's so good. It's nice. That's what the data shows, you're saying. The data shows. It's a 64 day. I was like, oh, that's a relief, you know, because I was wondering, all these other people, because you think all these successful people, they've got a million assistants running around doing everything.

58:50You're right. I tell my kids all the time, I tell them since they were little. I said, when you grow up a little bit, you're going to find out. Everyone says winning is hard. Okay. I get all that. Well, I tell my kids all the time, even once you get into college, you're going to figure out you're not competing against that many people. You're really only in life competing against yourself, but you know what I mean when I say that. And now that they're there and they're like, dad, you're right. Like some kids don't even go to class every day. Some kids don't study at all someday. I'm like, you're going to figure it out that it's a very small group of people that do things in their life that are efforts of impact on a very regular basis.

59:20Life. If you want to change your life right now, it is really possible. You could really do it. You really could do it. Is there anything else you want to add to it? Because I feel like I interrupted you on that. Is there any other area of high performance people? I know there's a bunch, but give us one more. Practices of self-awareness. this is why everyone loves growth day. And I didn't know, I knew it would be powerful. I didn't know it'd be this powerful at all. Uh, you know, we want to make the world's number one mindset journal. So that's in growth day. We want to make the world's number one habit tracker.

59:49So you can track your high performance habits and other wellbeing and achievement habits in the app. And then it gives you recommendations. We built in the goal setting tool with reminders. So you can remind yourself and push notifications to yourself to, to meditate, to work out, to flirt with your wife, you know, all this stuff. And those were just coming from the research and also high performers just telling us what they do. They journal, they meditate, they pray, they think. They're doing more practices of self-awareness to figure out themselves. You know, like a lot of people go to the gym, but a high performer go to the gym and you say, what are you thinking about at the gym?

1:00:27Man, I'm thinking about my goals. Man, I'm thinking about that deal. Man, I'm thinking about that date night with my wife this Friday. Oh, yeah. They're in a different like they're they're using their time. You know, some people hate driving. They hate a car trip. Other people, they're like, oh, man, that's my lab. Put me in that car. I'm going to drive. I'm going to think about the next dream, the next vision, the next sale there. I mean, I do. Right. I love driving. That's that's practices of self-awareness. You are thinking. Right. I think, therefore, I am, you know, this is so good. This time that they spend ruminating, thinking, envisioning, and brainstorming, it's significantly bigger than the average person.

1:01:12And so in growth, they said, we're going to build the tools to enable that. And that became the most popular thing in there. I thought the most popular thing would be have, you know, we've got the biggest motivational speakers. These guys charge$50 ,000,$100 ,000 a speech. You know, Mel Robbins and Jenna Kutcher, lots of our friends in their teaching. And they're popular and people love that because we're live every week with them. but it's the tools. People love to think about their life and they love to track it and they love to look how to improve it. And that's the high performance edge. The ultimate performance edge isn't talent, right?

1:01:46It's how much does that person think about improving that thing? It's the practices of growth, right? The great Olympians who you worked with and I've worked with and the people who are, you know, the highest level CEOs and they're thinking. You're right. They're thinking and they're thinking about growth. They're thinking about success. They're thinking about impact instead of thinking about what she wear at that dinner last night. Did you see her on that Internet? Did you see what he does? Do you hear what they're doing? Oh, those people over there and oh, the left and the right there. There's a difference.

1:02:16Are you thinking growth? Are you thinking gossip? We just change your life. By gosh, brother, this is so good. You know, it's funny. It's the absence of things in your life you're unaware of. But like you just described me, I don't ever spend any time on that stuff. I mean, literally less than one millionth of 1 % of the time. Me too. And I love, I'm addicted. I have an addiction to thinking about growth. I have an addiction to thinking about that next scene, that next emotion, that next thing. I can, I literally am addicted to it. I actually love shutting the car door alone. So I'm like, all right, here we go, brother.

1:02:45I love that. I love working out for there. I love taking a walk on the beach for that reason. I love it. I actually love the end of my day. I love getting into bed at the end of the day and just reflecting on the day and then dreaming about the next day. Like I love that stuff, right? I don't always love waking up because you're in a different brainwave state at that time. But I love when I go to bed at night and dreaming and you're right on the money, man, with that stuff. Okay. And you have practices that force you to do that, right? Yes. You go to the gym and you're thinking about those things.

1:03:13Some people pray or they meditate or they journal. And that's where the, see, you have to put yourself in that place to open the gate or to what I always say, to be able to receive. Yes. if you're filling your brain with a bunch of stuff that you're downloading from social media, then who can't download into you? God can't get in, right? You've blocked the antenna with a bunch of gossip and a bunch of garbage. You got to stay in an open state. Where are you in open state? You're in open state in a seminar, in a conference. You're in open state when you're driving. You're in open state in the shower.

1:03:43You're in open state in bed. You're in open state at the gym. You got to stay in that open state so that you can receive guidance as much as you also can envision it. Because some of the best ideas might not even come from anything you and I just said, But because someone is listening to this podcast right now, they're in an open reception. And that open reception, all of a sudden, they've got that new business idea. They're like, where'd that come from? You were in a learning environment. You were in a self-awareness practice. That's what podcast listening really is when it's good. And ideas come to you.

1:04:10I listen to your podcast almost every day that I work out. Thank you. And when I'm listening to it, I get all these crazy ideas. It didn't come from what you said or the guest. Right. It's uncorrelated. You're open. In a place of openness, of self-awareness. And so if you want to become a high performer, you have to place yourself there. You have to do the thinking, the rumination, the dreaming, the visioning. And when you do that time and time and time and time again, again, it becomes who you are. You don't have to force it anymore. It just becomes who you are. That's brilliant, by the way. One of my favorite things at the end of the day, actually my favorite thing is my prayer time.

1:04:43And I do it on my knees. And I have just people say to me all the time, is it a lot like when you're really tired? I actually really look forward to that time because sometimes my prayers are four minutes and sometimes they're 45 minutes, depending on how open I am, what I'm receiving, what I'm getting. I've loved today. By the way, everybody, make sure you go to growthday.com or go to the Growth Day app and get it. You will thank me. When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information.

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1:05:58That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. I reached out to this woman to be on my show after I experienced her work. And I haven't done that in probably two years. I was telling her, I said, I want you to come on my show. She has a special out on Netflix right now called Mom Jeans, which I've watched four times, including last night with my kids. And we were literally belly laughing, falling over. And I cannot wait for this hour because I want to know you and I want you to help a bunch of people.

1:06:29So, Christina P., welcome to the show. Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. For anybody listening to this, I think the most powerful tool that changed everything for me was my mind. This is everything. And I know you know this, because we've read the same books. Phyllis Stiller, I read in one of her autobiographies, The Magic of Believing. The Magic of Believing. Read that book. And I started to read that when I was like 28. But before that, I had read existentialism in philosophy class. And what is that about? Self-determinism. You can choose your life. This idea is radical. Sartre, choose.

1:07:07choices and I went, oh, you're right. Life can push me around or I can move the ball. And to me, this is the biggest lesson that I try to teach my boys. Hey, man, if you don't take charge of this whole thing, it's going to take you away like a current. Man. Right? And they don't teach you this in school, really. Yep. And it makes me nutty. Like, you can choose. Everything is a choice. Everything. And read it. Read a book. And that makes me sad. other than, of course, the power of more, hello. Um, that people reading is like, guess what? Humans have existed for thousands of years, and we've had this luxury of writing it down.

1:07:44If you've got a question, it's in a book. Not Wikipedia, bro. Not this Google. The whole thing, homie. Cover to cover. Focus. Read. Use your mind. This will save you. Why don't you write a book? I know. I've been, um... You know why? It's a lot right now. I've got two kids I'm trying to raise, and my husband is... Yeah, and podcasts. It's a lot right out. I'm gonna like, I will. I don't know about what. I don't know what. I hope it's this stuff. You think so? So here's what I think. I think that you've been given all these amazing talents, and your talent has given you this platform where you are well-known now.

1:08:20And I just feel like you could write a book about how you're funny, or you could write a book about all that, but the truth of the matter is you're like really, you're, the guy was on my show recently said you're uniquely qualified to help the person that you used to be. Ooh, man. And in your case, there's a version of you and me and about 99 % of the people that are listening to this. Some version. Maybe not to the extreme of having a parent who's schizophrenic like you had or an alcoholic like I had, but there's something where they just don't feel right about themselves or they don't have direction or they just, does life have purpose?

1:08:52Like, what's gonna make me happy? Why aren't I happier? And I think that, like, that's why it's incumbent upon us to always grow because then there's another person you can go help, the one that you were before you grew. And so for me, that's why I keep working on me is like, I want to be able to help someone who, the one that was me when I was 15, the one that was me when I was 18, the one that was me when I was 30, the one that was me when I was 40. I just had a guy in here that very, very successful young man at 32. Well, I had that too. And I also know that doesn't fulfill you. And I know when I'm looking at him, I know what he's really wrestling with this.

1:09:22Is it worth it? Like what will really make me happy? And so I want to grow through that. And in your case, like you've had such an amazing, I knew within about 10 minutes of watching you that you've had a different life. I just knew because let me say something about you. People feel energy and like you can make me really, really laugh. But what you really do is you make people feel emotion and, and, and you're doing it today. There's a part at the end of her special, everybody, where she talks about this ketamine trip that she went on. And I want to go back and forth here, but it's one of the most, I don't know why I really, when I speak, sorry, I get emotional on this.

1:10:08When I speak, what I attempt to do when I'm speaking is to give people who I really am, but also not just one emotion. I want to give them the gift of multiple emotions and also like the contradiction in them. So if at some point I can have them crying and really thinking about their life and then wanting to run through a wall and achieve, or in your case, laughter, and all of them, I feel like I've done a service where I've moved that human. What is incredibly rare to do is to do both in like one moment. Like in the same moment somebody's feeling reflection and sadness or empathy and also laughter.

1:10:47And this bit you do about the ketamine trip, I've watched we've talked about different when you have tons of friends in comedy and I have some I've never seen that before there's this there's this moment in the end of your special where it's some of the most amazing art I've ever seen before because at the same time that people are moved So emotionally by what you're talking about and watching you be emotional the next second they're laughing and then they're back to this other moment So just a little bit. Give them the gift. I want them to see the special. But now they have a pretty good sense of what you went through as a child.

1:11:25I mean, they have 1 % of it. You have a pretty good sense you've turned this around, which we'll talk about in a little bit too, and where your life is now and the lessons you've learned. But like, let's go there just for a second. So... Oh, that moment? Tell them what happens. Oh, my God. So... So I fell down the stairs, getting to my kid at 2 in the morning. I just come back off the road. I was so tired. I was like sleepwalking. My baby's crying. And as a mom, you know, you're just like, I think it's my baby. Anyway, I fell down the stairs, broke my ankle in four places. And I didn't even know it at the time.

1:11:57I thought I could just get up, so I called my husband. I was like, babe, get over here, help me. And he's like, oh, you can't get up. You're broken, homie. So I get into the ambulance to put fentanyl, you know, all these drugs. They straighten me out. But before they straighten my leg out, they give me ketamine. Have you ever done it? I have. It's pretty amazing. You've done the therapeutic kind. Yes. I want to do that. Because what they did is they give you enough to dissociate you so that you don't remember it. And apparently it's a terrifying amount that they gave me. Because that's what they're like.

1:12:30Usually people are screaming when they give this to you. But, Christina, you were sitting there smiling the whole time. So anyway, so they give me this ketamine, and I have this wild trip, basically. And the crazy part is that happens in real life, and I'm looking for an end to my special. And I was like, oh, that's the end of the special. That's the end of the special because it was my realization that everything that had happened to me, I don't buy this shit that it happens for a reason. I hate that. That's Pollyanna nonsense. But I think if you attribute meaning to tragedy, attribute deliberately, then it's redemptive.

1:13:10And also this whole ride of just trying to become a successful comedian and then I have my children and then you're like oh it doesn't matter I saw my kids faces literally so you're not going to make me cry I'm just talking about it you know when you're like oh this is it this is all that matters all this other stuff can go away tomorrow and my kids don't care that I'm famous they don't give a s*** and they're the only things that really matter my husband the unit yeah now you're getting me crying man um but i i often think back to that ketamine trip when i'm getting hung up on nonsense like show business and i'll be like oh but it doesn't matter this is what i learned like it matters don't get me wrong i don't want to be broke tomorrow i don't want it to all go away tomorrow but i'm not going to stress out right right been there Me too.

1:14:11Yeah. I'm not going to try to claim... like I did. Because didn't you find there was a time in your career where it's all you cared about? Yeah. It's a really difficult thing to teach, because you should have goals and outcomes, and it's what's made us successful when we didn't have some. But at the same time, it's kind of letting go of an outcome and letting things come as they might that actually brings us the most joy, because the things that are the greatest blessings in life aren't things we have to force through force, like our families. They're the things that, you know, that are the greatest blessings are our children and our families.

1:14:45And yet you still want to be able to provide for them and do significant things. But I also think you said something and I want you to stay on that story is that it's not the events of our lives that define us. It's the meaning we attach to the event. And if you can attach the right meaning to something or a meaning that serves you or change the meaning, you can change how you feel about it and ultimately change how your life works. And it feels to me like almost in that trip you were on that the meanings shifted a little bit for you. Yeah. Yeah, because I saw my parents and I was like, I can see this person is a big bad villain and I'm the little girl or, hey, what can I glean?

1:15:22What's the lesson here? Because I'm the mom now. And you see your broken parents as toddlers. I really see them as children now who just didn't get enough love, who didn't get what I, well, what I didn't get too, but what I'm able to give my kids now. So I just flood people and everybody walking around. You know, I don't get mad at people nearly as much as I used to because you're like, oh, you just didn't get love. Like, oh, you... your mommy, your daddy. But you actually on that trip, like, thanked your mom and your daddy. I did. Tell them that a little bit. Even though I want them to see it.

1:15:56Yeah, you have to see the bit for it to make total sense. But, uh, yeah, I end up thanking them and forgiving them in the trip. And, you know, I think, for some reason, I'm thinking about my mom's fur coats, because she hoarded, like, jewelry and, like, fine items. I think she was convinced that World War III was coming soon, and she had to, I have to trade these things to get across the border, you're going to need... You know, she wouldn't put her money in one bank. It was in several, like, that kind of nutty stuff. But now that I'm wealthy, and I always was, like, rejecting wealth, I was always like, rich people are bad.

1:16:31Me too. That's why I was raised believing. And it's nonsense, because guess what? Poor people are bad too. It's the same deal. And actually, rich people can do really good things to help a lot of other people, and your wealth is a blessing on many, many people. So anyway, the fur coat thing too, I was like, yeah, what's so bad about owning a fur coat? It doesn't make you a bad person. Right. It doesn't. Unless it's the only thing you care about. Yeah, I'm watching you right now. That's garbage. I still think you're working through thinking about what all those events of your life meant, just as I'm watching you.

1:17:05Oh, yeah. I had a really huge blessing happen, that I was with my dad when he died. I was in the room with him. And, um... It's weird where all this is going here today, with you and me, but when I was with my dad in the room, uh, I got to see... I got my version of the ketamine trip, to some extent, because when I was with him, I was literally holding his hand just a little while before he passed away, but because he wasn't able to talk, and he's just... It was actually wonderful to this extent. I got to just look at him. Like, you don't... Even with your parents, you have a dynamic. There's like this thing you do with people in your life.

1:17:47You do it with Tom, I do it with my wife, we do it with our kids. There's just like this pattern of how we kind of just interact with each other. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever done this with your kids or with Tom. Might be different with Tom, but... You ever just watch your kids sleeping? Oh my god, like every night. Right? It's different. You see them differently. And even your spouse, if you just see them sleeping, it's just different. They're not talking, they're not being them. They're just them. And my dad, I had these hours with him. It was just him. And I got to thinking about, like, I got to think about him as a little boy.

1:18:22This is a man whose life's about to end. Kind of like what you've done. And I'm, he's an old man now. And I remember him when he wasn't an old man. I remember him when he was, looked like my age, right? I remember when he was even younger than that. And I could go back and think of him. I wonder, my dad at 10, my dad at five, my dad at two. And there's this love you can have, even for someone who didn't treat you perfectly the whole time that you have this sympathy or this empathy for them. And I just think he's just, he's a man that had a life and he did his best to live it his best way. and then I start thinking about myself.

1:18:56I will be him. What do I want when I'm him, when I'm there? What do I want to have achieved? Who do I want to have helped? What do I want to have felt? What emotions do I want to have had? What memories do I want? We're off air. You're talking about taking your kids to, if you're blessed enough that you could take them somewhere on a vacation. And like being in that moment with my dad gave me a different meaning to him. Gave my life a different meaning. And that's just a real powerful thing for everybody listening. This is like all the events. Maybe you should evaluate what they all the things that don't serve you.

1:19:28What do they mean? What did your divorce really mean? Right. What did this experience with what having your children really mean? What did this person who hurt you? What did it really mean? If you can change the meaning. Yeah. You can really ultimately change how you feel and then you'll take different actions in your life. And when my dad passed, I literally you're doing this. I thought oddly, I'm going to honor my dad. I'm gonna talk about him more. I'm gonna talk about what I learned from him. I'll talk about how he hurt me. Put it in my book. It's in my book. All my speeches lately involve my dad.

1:20:00And in a very beautiful way, you honored your mom in that special and your dad. You started out by telling the truth, right? But you honored him. Did it ever dawn on you that you were doing that? No. Yeah. It's unconscious. No. No. I think now... Look at you right now, and he's stawning on you. No, because, yeah, I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess I... No, because when you create something, it's all really unconscious. You just kind of throw stuff out, and then you hope there's a through line, and, like, what's that gonna be? And what I really wanted to express as well as honoring, I think, now that you mention it, is just that I'm not...

1:20:40I don't hate you, man. I ain't mad at you. Because the anger... We all go through it. And, like, I... Also, one of my pet peeves about the self-help movement is like, just be happy. Be happy. Look for the joy. It's like, no. And no. Sometimes the suffering, and you did a great podcast about this recently, yeah, about the suffering that must come in order to have the joy. Yes. The suffering. And I just didn't want to leave people thinking, like, I'm this rageful adolescent, because I'm really not mad at them anymore. Because once you become a parent, you're like, oh, okay, yeah, I got it. Me too.

1:21:16I'm mad at my dad sometimes. Yeah, but some days, yeah. I'll think of something. I'm like, I can't believe he did that to me in some situation. But my overall view of him isn't that way. This gentleman to my left, just to give you a background, this guy parlayed a 990 SAT score into a multi-billion dollar company that he built. And we're going to get into your head about how you did that. But I'm overwhelmingly impressed with Impact Theory, which is an organization that he and his wife, Lisa, started the last few years that is really making a difference in the world, just like his company Quest Nutrition did.

1:21:49And so, Tom Bilyeu, thank you for being here today, brother. Thank you for having me, man. I'm so excited to be here. We flipped the script before. We flipped. I've been on his program, and now finally I get you here. Were you like this young? So I know you didn't have the best SAT scores in the world, but I've been around you enough now. I consider you a freak, which is a compliment coming from a guy like me. No, no, no. I take it as much. I think you know what I mean. You're uniquely driven and wired to pursue greatness and to make an impact, no pun intended, in the world at a level that most people have not yet realized they're capable of, even though they are.

1:22:25And so did you know this young? If we went back and looked at this kid who grows up in Washington state, was there already these obvious insights and clues that you were going to turn into this guy? What were you like as a young guy? No, there definitely were not clues. So when I was a kid, my, I didn't show any signs of promise to be really fair. And my own mother, when I left for college, like she, I almost chickened out and I was like, I don't want to go. I want to just stay home. And she was like, no, no, no, you need to go. You need to go pushes me out of the nest. And then literally every day since she's tried to claw me back.

1:22:59So one day, like, I don't know, three or four years ago, I said to her, mom, like you were the one that kicked me out. Like I wouldn't have left if you hadn't pushed me. So why did you push me? And she said, with no malice whatsoever, I just always assumed you were going to fail. Oh my gosh. And now that was, she had never been like, always my biggest cheerleader, always rooting for me, telling me I could do it. But quietly just inside, she was like, you didn't show any drive. So the one thing I will say is I was grandly ambitious. I always said, I'm going to be rich. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that.

1:23:31Always, always, since the time I was a little kid, but I didn't have the drive to see it through. So I really, really was an empty dreamer when I was a kid. And it was learning to hate that in myself, if I'm completely honest, and to not allow myself to be an empty dreamer, to force myself to get the skills to actually execute against it, to not be in any way, shape or form pacified by saying I'm going to do something, which is actually super dangerous. Most people just thinking about the fantasy of what they're going to do gives them some partial sense of, oh, I've done it. whereas I stopped letting that be okay for me which largely came down to embarrassment I felt around my wife working when I had no job and that was the time she was my fiance at the time but that was when I really started to go okay you've made a lot of promises to this woman and you're not on a path to keep any of them well okay our stories are unbelievable I did not know that and our stories are unbelievably paralleled I was in the same situation by the way where I was sort of an entrepreneurial unemployed guy while she was paying our rent, right?

1:24:33So I relate to that too. How does, I'm just curious. I want to make sure I just, I think you're one of the great American business stories. Wow, man, thank you. And not only because of the wealth that you've accumulated, but because of, and this word's overused, but it's so true with you, because of the impact you're making in the world because of your success. That's what I admire. As you know, that's what I'm trying to do with the Max Out program too, and just with my life. So what I don't get is this connection. So just help me understand it because you know that I know your story. I'm fascinated by it.

1:25:01How do you get from a 990 SAT into USC? How I got into USC itself, this makes me a little sad. This is one part of the story I wish were a little different. I cheated all through high school. So the one thing that, yeah. So I graduated in the top 10 of my class. You were a good cheater. I was a good cheater. And this is one thing I will say. People talk about network and they talk about charisma. It's just real. And so I was nice. And that got me a long way. I remember in seventh grade, so one of the guys I would later cheat off of in high school becomes my absolute best friend in the universe.

1:25:39But he's on the spectrum, right? The autism spectrum. And in seventh grade, he wouldn't talk to anybody. And so I turned around one day and I was very outgoing at that time in my life, which I consider myself now just a dyed-in-the-wool introvert. But at that time, the role in the family that I played was the jokester. So I was used to getting laughs and getting my self-esteem from my ability to make people laugh. So I turn around to him in seventh grade. I point at him and I'm like, my mission in this class is to get you to talk. And so inside he was thinking, oh my God, somebody actually cares.

1:26:13And so then it became like we just started attracting to each other. And he is still to this day probably the smartest person I've ever met. Wow. And so it just became this sort of unlikely pairing. But to give you an idea of like how weird this kid was, and we're still close to this day, so he talks of himself like this. My mom said, if he doesn't start acknowledging me when I say hello to him, he's not allowed to come over anymore. She would literally say straight up to his face, hi, and he would say nothing. It was super weird. And so I was like, dude, you just got to say hi back. And so he credits me with teaching him like social skills, and I credit him with helping me graduate high school, basically.

1:26:49So, but I always believed graduating literally. And I always believed that I could do the work, but that other things were more important to me. So I told myself a total bullshit story, which was that, Hey, I could be working and earning these grades, but I'd rather like learn how to be, how to talk to girls and how to like socially engage it. It's total BS. I'm well aware of that now. Uh, but at the time it really felt totally justified. And I was like, They're not teaching us things that are going to help anyway. Nobody can answer why algebra is going to be useful to me. And so I just felt like that was fine.

1:27:24But when I went to college, day one, I said, okay, I'm going to be taking on a massive amount of debt. I'm learning the thing that I love. This is what I want to do with my career, so I better actually know how to do it. So the phrase that I repeated in my head over and over and over was ARF, sink or swim. I will not cheat, not even one. It doesn't matter. Either one of those is acceptable. The only thing I care about is that I do every bit of work myself. And so, and I stuck to that. So my grades in college are reflect, and I did better in college than I did in high school. And you didn't, is this true that you want to be a filmmaker?

1:27:57Yes. Right? Very much so. But you didn't know that there was a difference between USC Film School and USC? Dude, welcome to growing up in Tacoma. So first of all, like nobody really knew how this all worked. So I went to USC because my dad had a friend who made almost an offhanded comment. My dad was like, oh, my son wants to go be a filmmaker. And the guy was like, oh, USC is the best film school in the world. And so my dad comes home and goes, I hear USC is the best film school. So I was like, well, I guess I'm going to USC then. Literally, I didn't even think beyond that. It is the only film school that I applied to.

1:28:29I applied to one state school and then to USC and that was it. Oh my gosh. And I got into USC and I just thought the way college worked was you tell them what your major is, right? People talk, you declare your major. Right. So I thought, cool, I'll go declare my major. and then in the prep, so I've already committed. I've already said I'm going to USC. I've turned down the other offer that I had at the state school. It's done. I'm going to USC, taking the financial aid package, all of it. Then they come to your town and they, they orient you to like what it's going to be like. And they show you pictures and all this stuff.

1:28:57And I'm so excited. And then I don't know if I asked a question or if it just came up and they said something about how to get into the film school, it's a separate application process. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean? Literally my heart dropped through the floor. and I was like oh god and so then I was like what are the requirements and they said well we'd like to see a 1300 on your SAT and I was like what do I do now and that that was the beginning of like real panic so what did you do so I go to USC and I'm like somehow I'm gonna figure this out and you have mandatory counseling and I go to the counseling and they look at what I've signed up for and I've signed up for film classes like I'd already been accepted to the major and they said Tom listen right now you're gonna end up spending a fifth year at this school because statistically you are more likely to get into Harvard Law than you are into USC Film School.

1:29:42Do not do this. We see people do this every year. Get out of these classes, take normal general education requirements. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm going to get in. I'm going to get in. And it's the one time in my life where someone looked me point blank in the face and they said, you are going to fail. Like, it's not a question of if you are going to fail, you are going to spend a lot of money. And they were doing it from the position of like, look, I don't want you to waste the money. But they were so aggressive about it and there was something in them telling me that I couldn't do it that was like I'm definitely doing this and so I found there was a guy that was on the admissions committee who offered like you could go join him for lunch and so I went he made the offer to like a class of 350 people and I was the only one who showed up and I was like how is this possible so I say to him look I got a 990 on my SATs what do I do I really want to get into film school and he said Tom, SAT stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test.

1:30:33It's supposed to tell me how well you'll do on college. You've already missed the freshman class. You're not going to get accepted then. So you can only get accepted as an incoming junior. But as an incoming junior, I don't care about your SATs because I have two years of college to look at. So he said, if you don't want me to worry about your SATs, just get good grades. So I said, cool. For the next two years, all I'm going to do is get good grades. I didn't date. I didn't party. I didn't drink. I literally didn't leave my dorm room. I worked. I put my head down for two years and I just worked.

1:31:03And I got, if it wasn't a 4.0, it was like a 3.95 or something. So it's never that clean. Like I want my story to be, Hey, I learned that if I just put my head down and work my ass off, I can get whatever I want. That is unfortunately not what I learned because I believed at the time you're either talented or you're not. So I wasn't in film school to become a filmmaker. I was in film school to learn the technical side. How do you turn on a camera? Where do you put a light? things like that. But I thought you either have the ability to tell a story or you don't. So I believed myself to be a natural filmmaker.

1:31:32I just believed I had talent. And so I go to film school and everything is proving. So first I gamble, right? And I take all the film prerequisites, even though they tell me not to, I get into film school. So that feeds my ego. Then second, my, so you have two classes that are like testing you to see where you're at as a filmmaker. And I smash it. First class, smash it. And your second class, you have to team up. And basically, everybody wants to direct. And anybody that wants to be a cinematographer that's good, all the directors are fighting for them. And so, not only did I get the cinematographer everybody wanted, but I got to direct.

1:32:06And then, we killed our film. It was amazing. So, now I'm like, I'm the shit. Like, literally, every egotistical belief that I had about myself being naturally talented is just happening for me. It's effortless. I'm not even putting that much energy into it. I mean, other than the physical production, which is exhausting. But I'm not like trying to be more artistic. I'm trying to learn how to turn on cameras and stuff like that. But I'm just a naturally talented filmmaker. Okay. So everything in college is leading towards only four people in your class get to direct a senior thesis film. So all the people, everybody else crews, but four people get to direct.

1:32:40And I was chosen as one of the four. Wow. So literally the narrative in my head is I am naturally talented. You either have it or you don't. And I have it. And I'm very grateful that I have it. Okay. And then I make my senior thesis film. And it is the most catastrophic, horrific, crash and burn, embarrassing thing I've ever gone through. The class is making fun of me. They're cutting up reels of my film to make a joke out of it. I mean, it was abysmal. Oh my gosh. And in that moment, I realized the cold hard truth. And this is, when I tell this story, people think, oh, now he's just being hard on himself or being overconfident.

1:33:12I'm telling you right now, I didn't have talent. And so in that moment, I realized, I don't know how to tell a story. So whatever natural talent looks like, I didn't have it. It was so bad I stole the master from the school. No way. Yes, because I never wanted it to be seen again. So that leads into the darkest period of my life. Okay. So I graduate and you would think, hey, but you worked so hard to get in film school. Why isn't that the ringing narrative? And it just wasn't. The ringing narrative was you thought you were talented. You're a fool. You don't know anything. And I couldn't afford to furnish my apartment.

1:33:45So I was literally laying on the floor of my apartment. I had an air mattress, but I was laying on the floor of my apartment. With a degree from SC. With a degree from SC, taking every remedial job that I can get because now my ego is so crushed. Smashed. I need to be the smartest person in the room. It's like the only thing I have left. Well, at least I'm naturally smart. So I just put myself in dumber and dumber rooms, which means I'm making less and less money. I'm selling video games retail at one point. I mean, it was really bad. You're putting yourself in dumber and dumber rooms so that you were the smartest person in the room.

1:34:13Got it. I wouldn't interview for a job unless I knew this person at some point in the interview will say, why are you interviewing for this job? You're better than this. It's interesting to me the takeaways you have from experiences because in life, it's not the experiences that have to us, it's the meaning we take from them. And it's interesting to me that even you getting into film school, even your takeaways are deeply unique and very self-aware. This is the Ed Mylan Show. you