How To Grow Everyday & Do The Hard Thing!

24:08They took the best professor at Stanford, won all these awards, had him teach my exact content as a contrast group, word for word, but without the things I do to change biochemistry. And he's still got 300 % increases in retention that he's never seen before on the content. But mine was 3 ,000%, right? And his wore off after, I think it was eight weeks, and mine a year later was still producing the results. So 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.

24:47And 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. And 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 to here at 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.

25:18It'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. But 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 the 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 yes it's a neurochemistry and a biochemistry and so if you want to find those states of being, it's a biochemistry.

26:10And 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.

26:43This is important stuff for you guys. That 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. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Welcome back to Max Out. I'm Ed Milet, and I'm so excited to bring you the program today. The man to my left is literally one of the most interesting men in the world. and at least for me, I can tell you that for today, it's been something I've been looking forward to for a long time to pick this big brain of his. You probably recognize his face, and most of you know his name.

27:14This is Rob Dyrdek, and this is a guy who, at 16 years old, dropped out of high school. He founded a professional skateboarding league. He's been a professional skateboarder. He's got 21 Guinness World Records. He's a media stud. He's a rock star in the entrepreneurial space. He's a branding master, but most importantly for me, This is a guy who's a tremendous husband and a great father and we're gonna pick his brain about how he's accomplished all of those things here today So thank you for being here brother. Thanks for having me I you know, I've seen it in video and how to experience what it's actually like to be here live It's it's so much more beautiful and remarkable than I could ever imagine.

27:50Thank you, man I appreciate that for all the achievers though And for me like I just want you to know something that you take You mention it, but I gotta be honest with you. It's one things you're supposed to say to me I don't think I personally and 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 one. So stop Appreciate this moment for a second man. It's not coming back again, you know And I you and I are talking about your kids at their ages and you know oh, 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 ten?

28:33And I didn't, you know, and I wish I could go back in those moments. Think 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 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 close as you're developing this life and creating a plan for how I use my time and my schedule.

29:33You 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 we're gonna 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 was gonna be five minutes was turned into a little long phone call we actually together talked about these things yeah but these very topics are what you and I discussed when we first connected of all those stunts you had though I'm just curious because it leads to life we're gonna go into life stuff now so you had to deal with the the the tiger chases 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 like they're trained i don't give a crap sharks in the ocean on but he was biting my neck and they kept saying put it down put it down because i was the it oh you know what i mean like i'm like is this guy supposed to be doing this like dude they're a millimeter away from some artery like dude there's just come on man that's crazy 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 train 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 it was right north but then for me it feels good to be able to say it you know what i mean 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 totem pole you've climbed up, the flagpole, all those things.

31:42But I want to 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, I think it's Laird, on the Sea-Doo into riding the wave. Yeah. Okay. And so you ride this wave and you crash and you thought you were going to die. Yeah. Of all of them, is that the one that you were the most sure you were going to 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.

32:14I'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 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 shark 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 whoa 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.

34:24And you understand that for this moment in time, you have to put everything you have into making sure that you do everything for this to work. It's a different level of mindset, right? Because your life is on the line for this moment. And it's so much easier when you're facing it. and you go 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 i 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 so 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 yeah you're about to die here you want to remember this 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 and 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.

36:37So you're like, of course you could do it, Rob. Like he just looks at me. He's like, you're a stunt guy. You can do this stuff easy. He thought I died for sure. And he just, we are done. He 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 the joke was like, man, you don't want to get to the edge of your man level because you really lose some layers of your man level if layers got to give you mouth to mouth.

37:09Oh, my gosh. Yeah, right. But, yeah, 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 do is you just kind of surrendered, right? And then, thank God, you popped up. 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 insane. So imagine it's midnight.

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39:34Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. Welcome back to Max Out with Ed Milat. I've got to be honest with you. I so wish we were recording everything that we just did off camera because we've had one of the greatest interviews I've ever done, and we haven't even started yet. So I'm so excited to have this gentleman to my left here. This jacked-up dude right here to my left is a Super Bowl champion.

40:06See that thing right there? He's letting me wear this for the interview. That is his Super Bowl ring, everybody. He's a pro bowler. He is a guy who dominated his position in football. And by looking at him right now, you're thinking, This dude was a tight end for sure, right? Maybe it was a defensive end, but actually this is a punter in the NFL and has the all-time Super Bowl record in a Super Bowl for punting that we're going to talk about. He's dominated the fitness space post his career. He's a great father, five children, right? And one of the guys, one of the few people that I follow on social media to inspire me to get my day going, to get my life going.

40:39And 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. So let's talk about this. Are you telling me that even that day you make the Saints, you're not feeling great about yourself? Oh, my gosh. 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. And 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.

41:13because in training camp you have 103 people on your team and they trim it down to 53 so he's 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 oh 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.

41:50I'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 of all time. 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 uh i don't belong like let's pack the bags and go home i always learned um you know it's it's the imposter syndrome like like right now i played in i played 10 nfl year 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 um some playoff games in there i played about 175 nfl games yeah and i puked 175 times before the game.

42:33You'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, and 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.

43:03Yes. 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? Well, 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 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 that want to live the life that i'm living but i'm here to tell you right now i made 15 million dollars 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 and 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 You love the person that's looking back at you, which is honestly, I'm in the infancy of actually being myself.

44:31I love that you're trying to. 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 it's 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, my 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 yes 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 all need that that affirmation from from other people but I've had so much affirmation in my life and I'm not telling you this to you know but to seem any certain type of way.

45:21But 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. Now 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 were in your Super Bowl ring or people You know you taking a bunch of kids shoe shopping because they can't afford it And you wanted to go back to school in Newark, New Jersey with brand new kicks because you know how much confidence that gave you and 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.

46:42We get it from drugs. We get it from alcohol and You know or lifting weights. 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 You know when I worked out I feel better for a brief amount of time and then once those adorphins roll off It's just like I hate my senior. 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.

47:24When 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 because I'm going to be an amazing friend to you. You know what mean yes 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 yeah or accept any gifts from them until i could see myself it's harder work to put the other face on bro it's hard to be steve weather for you to be straight 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.

48:16And it wasn't like I was some, you know, Super Bowl quarterback or quarterback. I was like 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. You 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.

48:47Because 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 contracts. There's nothing's guaranteed. And so that's why they call it the not for long league. You know what I mean? and I was just super blessed and super forced and 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.

49:19I felt achieved in everything in that industry but I wasn't happy with myself. Yeah. 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. A 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.

49:49And 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. We don't give it to ourselves. But like you. That doesn't hit me like right in between. 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 to bring them dinner.

50:20I am the one to visit them. I'm the one who sends the text. And you don't either. And you don't either. We're tattooed. I'm buff dudes. And you know. I can hide all my tattoos. And by the way, and guys, like many times, everybody, when you see mega achievers, we are hiding things. And 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. 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.

50:56There's no maybe. do and there's no maybe yeah you you speak it into existence i will have such a massive influence people forget that i ever touched the football you look at every like all the different things that we keep referencing the different achievements that i make and i like i want to make sure that people know like we didn't come on here to talk about the different things that i achieved we came on here to talk about different the different things that i've achieved and the way i felt about myself despite all of those things there's two different types of happiness there's there's instantaneous happiness it comes from you know sex or drugs or food or or those or you know buying a new watch buying a new car but as quickly as that happiness comes into your life is how quickly it will fade but the thing that that you figured out and the thing that that i'm really starting to to kind of come into is is framework happiness and that comes from being proud of yourself and the only way that you can truly be proud of yourself is to set high lofty goals and regardless if you achieve them or not it's not about the prize it's about the process and the person that you become while you're on that pursuit to get that goal and i completely missed that part of the puzzle because i always tied my my self-worth to the result because i was conditioned that way you go into the nfl and we have a game on sunday night or on monday night you come in the next morning ed and then the only time that that little laser pointer ever goes over your jersey you're freaking seeking down in your seat because you know that red dot is not over your jersey number because you did something good because when you're a professional and you're the best in the world at what you did not that you don't deserve to be acknowledged but you're expected to be the best in the world so when you go out there and you set a super bowl record you don't necessarily deserve to get acknowledged they're going to pinpoint what you didn't do perfectly because that's what coaches are supposed to do they're not here to be like hey hey ed dude you did a really good job showing up for your workout this morning.

52:48You did all your reps, all your sets, and you did a good job. You finished second in all the sprints. I know you're not the fastest guy, but your effort level was wonderful. No, they're going to be like, Ed, why didn't you win all of the sprints? You know what I mean? And so it conditioned me to focus on what I didn't do perfectly and discard everything that I did wonderfully. And so I took that mindset that got me into the NFL and then propelled me further into the NFL of the elite. And then once I retired from the NFL, because I didn't feel like there was anything else that I could achieve that would fulfill me and turn off the hate machine.

53:21Then I went into an entrepreneur and be like, you know what? I need to build something for myself and something that's mine, like my business and my achievement because I had 52 other teammates and I love them to death, but I want the next Super Bowl that I win to be mine. And then, you know, I write an ebook for a 12-week arm training program that took me from 16.75 inches when I retired from the NFL to 19 inches 94 days later. And I took five months to learn how to do the graphics on my own, to learn how to put it into an e-book on my own, to learn how to embed videos and the text on my own.

53:58It took me five months. But I went through the process of learning to do it for myself. I made a million dollars with an arm training e-book by myself with no business background in seven months. Amazing. Amazing. You want to know how good I felt about myself? Pretty freaking bad, man. You know what I mean? Because you continually think like, well now I'm gonna do it for me and I'll own the success. And I never did that. Yes. And so you fast forward another year and a half later and I'm sitting in this chair right now and all of the other entrepreneurial successes that I've had, I've never owned any of the wins.

54:34And I've taken complete ownership of all of the losses. Why? Do you think that you thought, I wanna understand this, because I know what it was for me. I'm still trying to understand this. Well, do you think that you thought, Let's talk about it. Let's explore it for a minute. Because I'm learning this about me too, right? So do you think that you thought, I'm just asking, I don't know. Do you think that you thought, well, if I celebrate this, I'll lose my edge and my drive? Yeah, I do. I do. The only time that I ever partied or I ever, you know, had drinks after we won the Super Bowl was when I was paid to show up at a club or when I was paid to go to speak to a law firm in Manhattan, dude.

55:10I made a lot of money in like two weeks just doing that. And all of that affirmation felt wonderful. But like at a certain point, you get desensitized to it and you just couldn't wait for all of it to be over. And I'm like, man, I waited my whole life and I made so many sacrifices. And I sacrificed thousands of hours away from my family and thousands of hours away from my friends. And I missed out on a lot of partying and a lot of drugs in college. You cheated yourself out of all that. I cheated myself out of all that for this, and this doesn't make me any happier. And by the way, what it arrives to everyone is that eventually you will find drugs and alcohol.

55:48Because here's what happens. When you're achieving and you don't celebrate your wins, it's like a high you're chasing. And so there's no dopamine that hits your brain. So then you go, it needs to be a bigger one. It needs to be a bigger one. There was nothing bigger in the NFL. That's what I left. You got it. And that's the part. So you're the perfect example because you almost can't achieve more. So this is happening for someone out there when I made my hundred grand I cheated myself when I bought my first house I cheated myself when I got my promotion at work I cheated and you keep cheating yourself from these celebrations You just realized that the ed that all of these things that require so much sacrifice I'm talking thousands of hours of sacrifice You know tons of money in order to to be able to Afford all these different training modalities and all these different specialists and I have a hyperbaric chamber at my house I mean, dude, you name it, and I have utilized it as part of my training routine, at least for a little bit.

56:41And the stakes get higher, the demands grow just as much, and the satisfaction decreases. And so, like, where do you turn from that? Well, you tear your ankle up, and the doctors put you on pain pills, and then you get addicted to OxyContin, and I went down that road. And then, you know, getting off of that when the season was over was like a movie, you know? Like the only thing that made me feel better. And I know a lot of people out there, this is like a big deal. People addicted to painkillers. The only thing that would make me feel better was taking like a hot bath because my skin would stop crawling.

57:14That was a great conversation. 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. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I have an icon here today. Maybe the most perfect time ever to have the perfect person at the perfect time I have sitting across from me right now. And, you know, when I got into personal development, everywhere I would go, this man's name would come up. I'm sitting at a Dodger game with Larry King one night, and I'm describing what he was. You know, Brendan Burchard. Everywhere I would go. And I thought when I heard your name, this dude must be in his 60s because he's a legend already.

57:49And then when I got to research you and get to know you, I'm like, man, this guy's even younger than I am. And then we did a podcast together which just blew up and went all over the Internet. And I'm like, I'm going to have him back on again. So, Brendan Burchard, welcome back to the show. Ed Milat. It's an honor, man. It really is an honor. Now, let me ask you, 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. 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?

58:18Yeah. 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? It's like, well, it's how you deal with people. That's a habit of interaction. So always just 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 these small habits or atomic habits or automatic habits or unconscious habits. Those are valuable. Those are very important. But high performance requires deliberate habits.

58:52A 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. It's never going to be, 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. 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%.

59:32They 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. High 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.

1:00:08They're not high performers. They wouldn't qualify. So what do they do? It's different practices, we call them high performance habits. So 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 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 every meeting because that's seeking clarity.

1:00:57So high form, we should see clarity more often. 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. It's not even, I mean, you're talking to a handful of humans who can do this.

1:01:37Thank 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. 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. Yes. I mean, it's stunning. It is stunning.

1:02:10The 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 out 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. 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.

1:02:55So 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. And 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, this is huge for everyone, that they do on things every day that move the needle. 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, you got to sometimes do stuff that moves it, right? Like I'll give you one small example.

1:03:31My 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. And 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 okay. 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?

1:04:06I 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. In 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 get move the needle more often. Another phrase of that is, 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, Brennan, yeah, Ed, you're right.

1:04:40This is overwhelming. There'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. Efforts of impact. Bingo. Needle moving things. So when you look at their calendar each day, it's not, are they 100 % high performing all day? Look, they got to answer emails. They got to reply to dumb DMs. They got to take that stupid call once in a while. We think they're perfect. No, it's just that 60 % of their effort is directed to activities that actually make an impact. They got to do 40 % of administration or household work too.

1:05:16It's just that most of their effort, 60%, is geared towards 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.

1:05:52Your habits are like, I checked the box. I 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, um, 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. 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.

1:06:29And 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 Superman. 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 60-40. 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. You're right.

1:07:01I 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 aren't 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.

1:07:30Life. 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 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 so you can track your high performance habits and other well-being 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 All this stuff.

1:08:17And 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? Man, 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. Right. They're in a different like they're they're using their time. You know, some people hate driving.

1:08:53They 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 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. And 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.

1:09:31These 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? It's how much does that person think about improving that thing? It's the practices of growth, right? The great Olympians who you work with and I've worked with and the people who are, you know, the highest level CEOs and they're thinking.

1:10:08You'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 all the left and the right there. There's a difference. Are you thinking growth? Are you thinking gossip? We just change your life. My 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.

1:10:37I mean, literally less than one millionth of 1 % of the time. 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. I love that. I love working out for theirs. 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.

1:11:07Like 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. Some 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. Like 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?

1:11:41God can't get in, right? You block 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. You'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.

1:12:08And 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. and it's good. And ideas come to you. I 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. I was in a place of openness, of self-awareness. And so if you want to become a high performer, you have to place yourself there.

1:12:37You 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. And 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? And I know 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.

1:13:08I've loved today. And I got one more question for you. 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. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at GoodToKnowFacts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit GoodToKnowFacts.org.

1:13:46This episode is brought to you by Marshalls, where you never have to compromise between quality and price. The buyers of Marshalls hustle hard, working to bring you great deals on brand name and designer pieces. Because Marshalls believes everyone deserves access to the good stuff. Visit a Marshalls store near you or shop online at marshalls.com. That 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. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. All right, everybody, welcome back. Fired up.

1:14:20I 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. Then I found out she followed all of my friends and peers except me in the personal development, business, self-help space, whatever you want to call it. I think that this is one of the most talented artists in any craft on the planet today. and that's why I wanted her here. Stay here. I mean it. 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.

1:14:55She has a hugely successful podcast with her husband, Tom Segura, called Your Mom's House. She's got another podcast called Where My Mom's At. And I cannot wait for this hour because I want to know you, and I want you to help a bunch of people. So, 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 autobiography, The Magic of Believing. The Magic of Believing.

1:15:30Read 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 choices. 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. Right? And they don't teach you this in school, really. And it makes me nutty. Like, you can choose. Everything is a choice.

1:16:08Everything. And read a book. And it makes me sad, other than, of course, the power of more. Hello. That people reading is like, guess what? Humans have existed for thousands of years and we've had this luxury of writing it down. If 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... 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 and... It's a lot right now. I'm gonna like, I will.

1:16:44Yeah. I don't know about what. I don't know what. I hope it's this stuff. You think so? I think this is, so here's what I think. Yeah. I think that like you've been given all these amazing talents and your talent has given you this platform where you are well known now. And 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, 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. Oh man. And in your case, there's a version of you and me and about 99 % of the people that are listening to this.

1:17:17Some 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? Like, what's going to 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.

1:17:50I 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. Is 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.

1:18:29There'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 when 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. Yeah, I want to give them the gift of the 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.

1:19:13What 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. And 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 about 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.

1:19:58Give 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. I 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... Yeah. 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.

1:20:29Anyway, I fell down the stairs, broke my ankle in four places. And I had, I didn't even know it at the time. I 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. I've never done... 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.

1:21:04And apparently it's a terrifying amount that they gave me. Because that's what they're like. Usually 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 that it happens for a reason. I hate that. That's Pollyanna nonsense.

1:21:41But I think if you attribute meaning to tragedy, attribute deliberately, then it's redemptive. And 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 like they're the only things that really matter my husband you know 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 gonna stress out.

1:22:46Right, right. Been there, dude. Me too. Yeah. I'm not gonna try to cling, ugh, like I did. Cause 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 kinda 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, the greatest blessings are our children and our families, and yet you still want to be able to provide for them and do significant things.

1:23:27But 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. 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, 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?

1:24:00What'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 to, but what I'm able to give my kids now. They're 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. Yeah. Yeah, you have to see the bit for it to make total sense, but...

1:24:37Uh, 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. Me too. That's why I was raised believing.

1:25:13And 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. Oh, yeah. I had a really huge blessing happen that I was with my dad when he died.

1:25:48I was in the room with him. And it's weird where all this is going here today with you and me. But when I was with my dad in the room, 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. You do it with Tom. I do it with my wife. We do it with our kids.

1:26:28There'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. Yeah, 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. Yeah, 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 This is a man whose life's about to end.

1:27:03Kind 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, 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. I will be him.

1:27:37What 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. Listen to this is like all the events, maybe you should evaluate what they all, the things that don't serve you, what do they mean?

1:28:08What 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, 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 gonna 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. And in a very beautiful way, you honored your mom in that special, and your dad.

1:28:47You 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 no. 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... I don't hate you, man. I ain't mad at you. Because the anger...

1:29:23we all go through it. And like, also one of my pet peeves about the self-help movement is like, just be happy, be happy. It's like, 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, I'm not mad at them anymore. Because once you become a parent, And you're like, oh, okay, yeah, I got it. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify.

1:30:02We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. I started the Max Out program so that I could bring you people in their lives who have maxed out particular areas of their life or that I'm fascinated by. and I was telling this gentleman to my left I made a list of people that I personally wanted on my program because they fascinate me, they inform me, they inspire me and so this gentleman to my left just to give you a background this this guy parlayed a 990 SAT score into a multi-billion dollar company that he built it grew 57 ,000 percent the first three years so I want you to get your head around that he was named by Success Magazine last year is one of the 25 most influential entrepreneurs on the planet.

1:30:45Secret Entourage in 2016 named him the Entrepreneur of the Year, and he has built multiple companies into brands, and those are things I'm very impressed with, 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, and so 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.

1:31:16I've been on his program, and now finally I get you here. And frankly, being on your program impressed me even further with you, the level of dedication and preparation and how much you care. And I just know both of our audiences have wanted to see you and I together. And so 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 such. 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.

1:31:58And 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, I didn't show any signs of promise, to be really fair. And my own mother, when I left for college, 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.

1:32:32So 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 gonna 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 gonna be rich. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that.

1:33:04Always, 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 gonna do something, which is actually super dangerous. Most people just thinking about the fantasy of what they're gonna 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 yeah 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?

1:34:06So 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. And not only because of the wealth that you've accumulated, but because of, 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 how do you get from a 990 sat into usc how i got into usc itself this 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 and you're a good cheater i was a good cheater and and this is one thing i will say people talk about network and they talk about charisma and all, it's just real.

1:35:03And 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, but 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.

1:35:35So I turned 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. And 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. and so it just became this sort of unlikely pairing but to give you an idea of like how weird this kid was and but we're still close to this day so he 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 gotta 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 so but I always believe 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 but at the time it really felt totally justified.

1:36:50And 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. But 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 went you were gonna you want to be a filmmaker yes right very much 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 So I went to USC because my dad had a friend who made almost an off-handed comment.

1:37:47My 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. I applied to one state school and then to USC, and that was it. 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. 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.

1:38:19I'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 orient you to like what it's going to be like. And they show you pictures and all this stuff. And 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. Your heart dropped. What do you mean? Literally, my heart dropped through the floor. And I was like, oh, God.

1:38:45And 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 was the beginning of like real panic. So what did you do? So I go to USC and I'm like, somehow I'm going to 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 going to 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.

1:39:15Do 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.

1:39:43And 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 wanna get into film school. And he said, Tom, SAT stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test. It's supposed to tell me how well you'll do on college. You've already missed the freshman class. You're not gonna 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.

1:40:20So 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 gonna 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. and I got, if it wasn't a 4.0, it was like a 3.95 or something. 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.

1:40:51So 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. I 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, so you have two classes that are like testing you to see where you're at as a filmmaker.

1:41:23And 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. And 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.

1:42:02So 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 and I was chosen as one of the four. 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. 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.

1:42:36I 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. I'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. Wow. So that leads into the darkest period of my life. So I graduate, and you would think, hey, but you worked so hard to get into film school.

1:43:08Why 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. So 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, 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.

1:43:39I'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 that room. Got 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 happen 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.

1:44:41I'll see you next time.