Stop Wasting Time! THIS Is Why You're Not Successful Yet (And How to Finally Break Through)

27:00it's seeing someone's giftedness seeing someone's talent seeing someone's truth and man do they feel like the light is really on them when you do that the surface compliments of you're awesome you're amazing you're incredible that means nothing that means especially if it can be used for anybody right it's almost like if the sentence could be said to another person and it land it's not specific enough it's not if you if you pictured everybody's got a flashing sign on their forehead that you said, make me feel special, make me feel amazing, tell me something unique about me to me. If you just pictured that, it's literally what's flashing.

27:37You just did it. We're just talking about it, right? You just did this. He sits down in a meeting. You're like, let me tell you, he's the best in the world at this, right? And by the way, it's true. So it resonates. So the people that you do that with, you'll be connected to them in a way that maybe a handful of human beings in their entire life are. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. All right. Welcome back to the show, everybody. So as you know, every single month we get to spend time with the great Brendan Brouchard.

28:12And today is that day of the month for all of you. And it's one of the most downloaded episodes we do all year are the monthly episodes with this man. And this week, I'm so excited. By the way, he is the founder of the greatest personal development app of all time called Growth Day. If you go to growthday.com forward slash ed, you can get all the information you need to change your life right there and do it affordably. And today you get to spend some time with both of us for free, which is awesome. And so today we're going to talk about, by the way, welcome to the show. First of all, my brother, it's great to have you back as you spend time with us here every month.

28:45I'm more and more grateful every time we do it. It's an honor. And man, this time of year to be together, it's so inspiring. It fires me up. So thank you. Yeah, we were just talking off camera about sincerely how fired up we are about the world, about life, about this being a time in history that could end up being one of the greatest times of all time to change your life. And what we're going to talk about today is a couple habits and thoughts that can help you do that. So today is all about self-confidence and accountability. And Brendan's written the book, you know, high performance habits.

29:16And so he's done studies and data and has numerical evidence to kind of back some of the things we're going to talk about today. But if you want to know more about self-confidence, you want to know more about accountability. Here we go. I guess for the next 35 minutes with the two of us kind of rifting back and forth on this topic. So let me start with you because you study this really, really deeply. I want to talk about the accountability part first because the part you and I were actually talking about off camera. talk about the concept like why do you think it's so important and why does so many people avoid wanting to be held accountable i love that man i've really struggled with that coaching people for 20 years because you know as coaches you and i both help find somebody's breakthrough they discover it they get clarity on a coaching call they tell us their plan they're fired up.

30:09They feel champion mode. They're excited. And then next Monday, they don't change. And then they change again and they don't change again and they don't change again. You're like, what is going on? And what I discovered, which is so almost counterintuitive, is that people suck at making commitments or setting goals or making big decisions because to do so requires and invites judgment. Wow. Judgment. People hate judgment. If you had an expectation and you didn't do it when you were a kid, your parents got mad at you. If you were at school and you didn't do what you were supposed to do, the teacher got mad at you.

30:53When you feel like you're failing and somebody knows about it, It feels like they're judging you. It feels embarrassing. To judge oneself is terrifying to most people because you put your butt on the line. You say you're going to do it. You say you're going to be accountable. It's it's hard to say you're going to be accountable. Most people won't even say their real commitments. They won't make bold decisions because it invites so much self-judgment. What if I find out I really wasn't ready? What if I find out I wasn't willing? What if I find out I'm not capable? What if I find out I'm not good enough?

31:32What if I find out by setting this goal, going after this thing, acting confident, that when I go to hold myself accountable, I end up judging myself as inferior? So if that's a risk, why even take it? I don't want to feel bad about myself. Ed, do you want to feel bad about yourself? well you know of course not you know you don't and i think that all things that seem to be working in people's lives though there's some form of accountability like you and i were talking about my friend andy frisella and he's created the 75 hard program and one of the things that comes with that is hyper accountability every single day there's things you got to do but every single day you got to post a pic online you got to post every day you're accountable not just to yourself but to the public at large whether that's two people who follow you or 50 million people who follow you, you're accountable.

32:22And I think that accountability for a lot of people, it's like a clock kind of running in the back of their mind, man, I got to get this thing done because I've got a report. And you said something that surprised me. When I think of accountability, I think of someone else holding me accountable, almost me submitting to, I guess you'd call it their judgment or their assessment. So do you think that, is it different when someone, I recommend when you make a goal, express it to somebody that holds you accountable, that you've got to say, hey, I did it or I didn't do it. Do you not agree with that?

32:56And is that why you said holding yourself accountable? Or do you think self accountability is the most important, but it should be backed up and supported by accountability to another person? Yeah, I think accountability is the most important thing for success because we have to stick to our personal commitments and our commitments to other people. and what I'm trying to get to is the reason because I think everybody listening to you and I right now they know accountability is important in their life but they don't know why they don't hold themselves accountable got it the reason people don't hold themselves accountable is because there'll be self-judgment what if I don't measure up to what I wanted and there's social judgment what if other people who I said I was going to do this thing to and I don't follow up what are they going to think of me?

33:44So I do think there's both sides. There's self-accountability, often just called personal accountability. And that is holding yourself accountable to a standard that you have set. And then there's the accountability to other people. I promised you this. I said I was going to do it. And now I have that social or peer pressure. They're both really important, but I'm here to tell people, if you don't set up accountability in your life. And if you find yourself over and over, why am I not being accountable to the standards or the goals or the discipline or the habits I said I was going to do? I promise if you dig there, I promise you, you will find that you don't like how that judgment feels by other people or by yourself.

34:29And what you need to do is go, oh, I'm probably harsh on myself. And I've probably I've been harsh on myself so many times. I've developed a pattern of not liking myself when I try to do hard things because I judge myself so unfairly, so impossibly, so perfectly. And if instead of self-harsh judgment, I could give myself grace and adopt the learning mindset. So, you know, we talk a lot on the show often about health and energy, vitality, strength, wellness. You know what it comes down to more than anything I found out after about a thousand interviews? food like what you're putting in your body you cannot out train a bad diet what it really comes down to is what you're eating and you know what we all want to eat home-cooked food that's why i love hello fresh and it's delicious food like i i've never had any more healthy food in my life that tastes this good they got 35 high quality protein different meals you got glp1 friendly ones you got mediterranean they got all wholesome ingredients none of the bad stuff that you put in food but the other thing that i like about them is you know what you can get seafood on there now for no upcharge.

35:34There's three times the amount of soup food on there. My favorite, by the way, is the ribeye. So go to hellofresh.com slash my let 10 FM to get 10 free meals plus a freeze willing knife, which is$144 value on your third box offer valid while supplies last free meals applied as discount on first box new subscribers only varies by plan.

35:55Jesse Itzler:So good. So good. So good. Spring styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now And they're up to 60 % off Stock up and save on Rag & Bone Madewell, Vince, All Saints And more of your favorites How did I not know Rack has Adidas? Why do we rack? For the hottest deals Just so many good brands Join the Nordic Club to unlock exclusive discounts Shop new arrivals first and more Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free Great brands, great prices That's why you rack so i have this discipline i have this goal i have this dream i'm going to keep myself accountable and i'm going to check in on myself or i'm going to get that daily streak as you referenced with you know like 75 hard or growth day these are daily streak activities if i don't do that streak or if i don't do that habit instead of punishing myself judging myself or letting other people be mean to me or feel like they're being mean i'm just going to go I didn't make it that time.

36:55What's the next right action of integrity to get back velocity, to get back momentum, get curious instead of mad at yourself. If you're a person that you just don't hold yourself accountable, you probably get mad at yourself too often. And being mad at yourself doesn't feel good. Give yourself grace and curiosity and get a little momentum towards it. momentum feels good. And that's the switch mentally for people. We got to get you mentally feeling good about accountability versus being mad at yourself all the time. If you're mad at yourself all the time, no wonder you're not fulfilling commitments.

37:35It feels too bad. 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 the show, everybody. Well, I wish this was in person, but it'll still be fire today. I'm with, there is no better motivational speaker of all time. That's what you all know him for. But I got to know him a little better. And I'm going to tell you one thing about him. I don't know a better man. I wish I was around him more so I could tell you more stories. But I will tell you this.

38:07When my book came out, very few people stepped forward and said, hey, brother, how can I help you? And this man stepped forward in a way like nobody else did and helped me in ways that I will never forget till the day I die. His support for me and my family. And as great of a communicator as he is, I admire him. I look up to him as a husband, as a father, as a friend, and as an entrepreneur as well. But particularly as a man of faith and as a husband and a father, I know no better man than him. And I could give somebody no bigger compliment man to man than I'm giving him right now. So ET, Eric Thomas, welcome back to the show.

38:41I love you and it's great to have you here. What's up, fam, man? I love you as well. and um yeah you know it's a lot of entrepreneurs a lot of people in the business world you know but when you run across a couple people man who share the same you know values that you share you know trying to leave their mark on the world you know and so yeah likewise man just coming to the house the first time I remember my wife still talks about it uh in Laguna Beach she's like hey before we die you need to give me a house a beachfront house I was like okay I'll try you You know, but you could do it, you know, just the way your family was, man.

39:19And thank you. Love and support. It's just been rich. And there are opportunities I've had and business things that I've done, you know, because of this relationship, man. And I'm I'm grateful for, you know what I love the most? It's while it's public, you know, it's private. You know, it's not one of those things where you have to walk around and be like, boom, boom, boom. You know, so I'm just grateful for you, man, publicly and, you know, privately, bro. Thank you, brother. you've been around lots of highly successful people and you are one and one of the things that I think most people don't know is the level of work required of effort meaning like I don't know I I think if someone spent the last five years with me in business and they I'm not trying to brag but like if they thought they worked hard there's levels to this game or like in the speaking game you and I talked when the the stuff hit the last couple years there's just levels to the work ethic and the grind the things you got to do you look at a Steph Curry in basketball oh he's such a gifted shooter actually he's not actually it's the grind actually Tiger and Jack Nicklaus the amount of golf balls they hit actually Judge and Otani in baseball you have no idea the amount of work and even in coaching you and I've been around all these great college football coaches I think it's one of the hardest jobs in the world there's a level to where Saban played at, Dabo Sweeney, who I know you've been with.

40:39So I think most people are like it about, and you talk about this a lot, maybe they have 50%, 60 % of their capacity or effort. And that is not going to get it done, no matter how much you sit around and do other things that serve you. There's a level to this thing, and you've been close to it, and you are at it. Talk about that for a minute. Look, I want to say this to everybody that's listening. Here's what I think would be the easier thing to do. Just lower your expectations. i'm just being real like you know when i was with ed and he was doing the book launch i'm just being real i did a book launch it would probably 70 on that level in terms of i wasn't just in the rub don't get it twisted i'm not a good guy okay i'm god makes me a better man i was in the room learning i wasn't i promise y 'all i wasn't just in there talking i listen to me i don't even know if ed knows this after before i did my thing and after i did my thing i was all the way in the back sitting down i didn't know that i was all the way in the back of the room with a pin in the pad i didn't know that like studying like yo e bruh this is being real you're not on this level like you're not you're not one you're not on this level in terms of like maximizing you know your network like you're not you're not you're not on that the the space that we were in listen to me I don't know if I told you this, but your guy, he ended up helping me, what would you call it?

42:09Like renovate the church and put beautiful signing on it. He don't even live here. I did not know that. He didn't even live here. Wow. He helped me. He made some phone calls. He called up. He's like, if I got to leave Charlotte and come down there, I got you. But I'm going to try to find somebody. This is what I'm talking about, y 'all. like so i was in the building learning seeing who ed was connecting with then connecting with them afterwards so here's my deal when i was in the room i had to say to myself e if you want some of this stuff ed got e you're gonna have to gotta raise your game some so you got an option you can even go hey me being in the room with ed and watching what ed was doing this this is strictly for recreational purposes.

42:54You feel me? It's like, hey, this recreational purpose, bro, go ahead and get out of here. Or AE, God showed it to you. He showed it to you. He showed you a level. Are you ready? And so for me, it was like, absolutely, I'm ready. So I just want to say this to you guys. Either lower your expectations because you don't have to do everything you see other people do. You don't have to do it. You could just go, man, it's like going to a basketball game. You're not trying to suit up and do what Curry does. but when you look at it you kind of thinking oh he human like i'm human so i can't watch yourself okay watch yourself you might not want to put them sneaks on you might not want to get in that gym and when i saw it do when i went back i was like okay e number one you got to get more organized so like you got passion you got energy but what you saw at ed you saw a system you saw structure you saw people over here and people over here and people doing it and people in the back and when you get in people in the parking so it's like even when you get to the crib from a speaking standpoint you you definitely give it 1000 but from a structural standpoint you're not giving 1000 then i look at the packages in the dick and i was like e you don't got so y 'all might have saw if you watched it it was a group in here there was a group out there and then the level of men that was on stage who are also dominant in their particular area for i was with people who i've only seen in a podcast i only see these dudes on social media i've never been in a room with them before i was in a room with them and so yes you know i had to come home not necessarily get up earlier not necessarily grind physically harder but i had to take my mental game to another level i had to take my systems game to another level i had to this is a grind that you probably don't know i had to remove people which hurts to bring in a different group of people to take me where i wanted to go because i realized a group that was with me phenomenal group of humans phenomenal group of people they probably would get to heaven before i get there but in order to take me from number four to number one they weren't necessarily the people that could do that so to end's point I personally went home and did an evaluation on ET.

45:09I personally studied ET and said, yeah, you got it going over here. But this seed is an apple seed, an orange seed. This is not a watermelon seed. And these seeds that you're planting will never get you watermelon. So, yep, you got some dynamic. You're posting every day. You're putting out dynamic stuff. But that will not get what you saw Ed do in terms of systems. and so you got to come home and your new grind is system i don't know what your grind is but i'm telling you i had to start reading books i had to go to conferences i had to shift what i was watching online i had to shift who i was following great humans great people they were only going to help me sustain this energy they weren't going to help me with the structure here's what i realized e nobody's better than you but there are some people who's got better systems than you and so if you want to see growth you got to start grinding on the systems level so don't i don't want you to get what ed said and you miss it you like oh i gotta get up earlier i gotta grind maybe you don't have to get up earlier to accomplish what you've already accomplished but to get this done you do have to make some adjustments and that's what the grind look like and that's what the hustle look like and can i say this ed i'm mad i don't even know if i ever said this before but sometimes and I don't know if you've experienced this, sometimes, bruh, you putting up 40 with 30 rebounds and you like whatever, and then you go somewhere and God shows you.

46:38And I was talking to my son the other day and he kind of was hurt because he was like, dad, you know, you acting like I'm, and I said, hold up, I'm sorry. You putting up 30, you putting up 10, but the 30 points and the 10 rebounds have nothing to do with the assist. You don't get credit for assists because you scored and you got rebounds. They don't take your points and go, well, we're going to put those over and rebound. They don't take your rebounds and go, we're going to put those with your assist. And when I left you, you know, there was a part of me that was like, God, you want me to do more?

47:13You want me to do more? Am I not grinding enough? He was like, absolutely. And every seed you planted is going to grow. But you just looked at what Eric was doing and you saw there was a gap. so you have a choice to make here you got rebounds you got points but the assist son you at zero so what do you want to do and there was a there was a moment where i had to go you're not overwhelmed you're just rising to the level that god is asking you to rise oh my gosh there's no anxiety yeah the bible said be anxious for nothing but in all things through prayer and supplication make your request known to god but there was a 30 second boy was like man god how am i gonna be blessed when i he said how one that's your boy so you can just call of course then i had uh rory in the back interview me god like yo you don't have to do it you could just and then just and i did just that my relationship with rory you know went from a person that you know respects him to sitting at his feet to listen to the podcast to studying you guys and i can honestly say after that event system wise you know i've gone to another level so to me that's what it looks like when your expectations your dreams your goals and your grind match and if y 'all not ready to work it doesn't make you a bad human just lower your expectations gosh that's so it's so good and that idea of the grind i want to say one thing everybody when he's talking about rebounds and points the application of that for you is this is that if you're average you keep giving yourself credit for the things you're already doing.

48:50But if you want to be extraordinary, you got to go, what's the thing? Like the power of one more in the book. I talk about your one decision away. I think all of you listening to this right now, if I can be honest with you, you already know what it is. You know, the thing you're not doing, you need to be doing that would change your life in your business. You already know what it is. It's having the guts, the courage, the faith to call the shot like an ET's case. I'm going to go back. I need to work harder. I got to get more systematic. Maybe I could even work less hard if I put these systems in place for you It might be something you are doing or that you need to stop doing to get your life to the next level 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 We have all the links in our show notes.

49:33You'll never miss an episode that way now on with the show Welcome back to max out everybody. I'm Ed Milet today's show is gonna be ballistic So, I'm sitting next to the real-life Dos Equis man, one of the most interesting people I have ever met in my life. This man has a resume that is too long to even start the introduction with today. And we're going to talk about that today, like life resumes. But to start, put it mildly, this is someone who started the company Marquis Jet. He ends up selling that to Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. Started a water company that he sold to Coca-Cola. He's run 100 miles in one day before.

50:07He's a father of four. He's married to one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in the country, and Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx. And most importantly for me, he is one of the most giving and generous people with his time, his information, and his energy that I have ever met in my life. And I'm literally, look at this. I'm getting goosebumps because I've been really looking forward to the day. So everybody, this is Jesse Itzler. Jesse, thanks for being here. Thank you so much, man. I appreciate it. Have we had good conversations off camera? Yes. It's so good. I wish we were recording the whole time.

50:36So, you know, the thing I didn't say, too, is I also think you're one of the greatest speakers in the world, too, from the stage as well. So any of you looking for speakers, this is a guy that you ought to be talking to. So you're going to get a flavor for that today. So let's help some people. Let's do it. Let's do it. So we can go all the way back to the beginning. I want people to know a little bit about your background because I think one of the things that fascinates me the most about you is your willingness to do things that you're not prepared for. I think going into the unknown, it seems to be one of these things about you that's very unique, but also is a trait that I see in people that win at really high levels.

51:09So talk a little bit about, we could start with any of the businesses you've had, but did your upbringing at all prep you into being this sort of type of person you are? When you grew up, did you know you were going to turn out this way or no, not at all?

51:23Jesse Itzler:I always was dancing to my own drum. My parents gave me a really long leash, which was a great gift for me growing up. They let me do whatever I wanted to do within reason. And I always, you know, all of us, we always come against this wall of fear. You know, this crazy wall of fear. And you can either go to the wall and turn around. You can go through the fucking wall. And I was, I always, every time I went around, turned around and went back home because I was too scared, I had crazy resentment. Or crazy guilt that I wasn't able to do it. Regret, not resentment. Yeah. Regret. Yeah. And every time I went through the wall and got to the other side, it was so addicting.

52:01Jesse Itzler:And I was so proud of myself. So, let me just give you a quick example. When I was growing up, I grew up in New York City or in Long Island in the 80s when breakdancing and rap and all this stuff was happening. And I was really into breakdancing. I don't look like it, Ed. But, you know, get some cardboard out here, man. You need to do that. Mike, get some cardboard. Okay. And I decided that like I could make more money probably if I went to Washington DC, you know, because the kids in Washington DC couldn't be as good as the kids in New York. We invented this whole genre. So I got my friend Myron, who's my partner.

52:34Jesse Itzler:My sister just got a driver's license and I convinced her to drive us to Washington DC. And the whole drive down, I was having all that self-doubt. Yeah. You know, at a young age, 14, 15 years old, like what if the kids are better? What if no one shows up? What if we get booed? What if we go there and I stink? And so I was almost talking myself out. I was building the wall of doubt up brick by brick in my own head. And when we got there, we went to a little bank in Georgetown. And we set up a boombox in a parking lot of a bank. And we hit play. And my friend started spinning on his head. And he passed it to me.

53:10Jesse Itzler:And the crowd gathered around. And ultimately, after I did my thing, more people came. I took my hat and I passed it around. And we made about$200. I paid my sister for the gas money and then Myron and I split$82 $41 each and this guy you know he's counting up the money and he's counting up the money and he gets all the money And then he sprints over to me and he gives me a bear hug and he goes Jess we're fucking rich and What what the reason why we were rich is because on that particular trip Despite all the fear this young little kid that was so scared I went around that wall and I realized I could be rewarded and I was like I want more of that I was doing Writing sports songs after the Nick song.

53:56Jesse Itzler:Yeah my partner we set up a company to write theme songs for professional sports teams and I did that for a year and a half and we sold that company to a public company called SFX dude And it was the gentleman that owned SFX that had a timeshare on a jet that invited us as guests and that's how we got exposed to the world of private aviation. So you're flying on this jet. Was it the first private jet you'd been on? Oh, yeah. So you're on a private jet and you take this flight and rather than just enjoying the flight, you get off the flight and go, what? No, first I walked on the plane and it was like the scene in The Wizard of Oz when everything goes from black and white to color.

54:30And I was like, people fly like this?

54:34Jesse Itzler:We want to fly like this. And we literally were like, let's start a private jet company so we can fly privately because we definitely can't afford it. That's crazy. And we were like... But did you know anything about jets? Did you own a jet? No. Nothing. So you knew nothing about jets. You didn't own a jet. But I knew that if we wanted to take two or three trips a year to go skiing with our friends or take our college friends on a trip or my partner had a family and he wanted to go away for Thanksgiving, we knew that if we had a need for, not for hundreds of hours, but for maybe 25 hours, there's got to be a lot of people like us.

55:06Jesse Itzler:And that's really where the idea started from. It's like, how can we make flying privately a little bit more affordable, more to the masses? And how can we solve the problem? Like, how can we eliminate all the pain points of owning your own private plane? Like, you know, the pilots, the scheduling, the maintenance, all that. And provide all the benefits. And that's what we created this 25-hour jet card called, which ultimately is called Marquee Jet. Okay, so let's talk about this. So here comes the note-taking time, all you entrepreneurs out there. Because there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there that have these ideas.

55:36So that's great that you had the idea and brilliant, but idea to execution to business to profitability to selling it is a completely different idea altogether. How in the world do you end up somehow getting net jets to allow you to use their jets somehow to do this card, right? How the hell did that happen?

55:57Jesse Itzler:Well, first of all, we thought about what's the fastest way to get from point A to point B. Okay, that was the starting point. Okay. And we realized that we needed airplanes, obviously. You can't have a private jet company without airplanes. And for us, there were only a couple of, there was only two games in town or one game in town. It was NetJets owned by Warren Buffett. They had 650 planes in the fleet. So we were able to get a meeting through a couple of phone calls. And in the meeting, we got thrown out of the first meeting in like 12 minutes. They're like, the CEO was like, there's no way we're giving two kids access to our airplane.

56:32Jesse Itzler:You got thrown out of the first meeting? We got thrown out. He literally said, they literally said, there's no way we're giving two kids. He said, that probably didn't break a thousand on their SAT, which we talked about, which pissed me off. I got a 980. You got a 980. Just so you know, in the history of interviews. So he's 980. This is so wonderful. So you end up being on the same label as Young MC. I end up being a paid for free backup dancer for a few weeks for him. They were laughing their asses off. I know right now, rolling their eyes. He gets a 980 on his SATs. I'm in the high sevens. I'm a 780 SAT and we've both ended up becoming very successful entrepreneurs.

57:10This should give everybody out there hope who thinks their prior resume somehow dictates their future resume. And that's not the case whatsoever. And so you get kicked out. He literally quotes your SAT score back to you.

57:23Jesse Itzler:I'm not giving you guys 20 or 29 years old access to my airplanes. And our starting point is we have to convince them. We have to have a lot of conviction. We're the business plan. They're betting on us. And the question we asked ourselves, I think the starting point for any entrepreneur when you're going to give a pitch, what's in it for them? What's in it? What are we going to say to convince them that they want to do business with us? And for us, it was like they were catering to a much older demo. And we were 28, 29 years old. In my music business, I had access to athletes and entertainers just from the videos and just being in the scene.

58:01Jesse Itzler:I lived in New York. I was connected to that world. That was my demo and age group. So we offered the ability to attract much younger athletes, entertainers that we said, look, if these guys are introduced to your fleet, they're going to be customers for the next 50 years. And think about the lifetime value of that customer. Give us a shot. If it doesn't work, there's no harm, no foul. and they said, you know what, we'll give you guys a shot. So the second meeting they say, we'll give you a shot. Put up your own money. You guys, we'll give you guys a shot. Okay, and now, this is one of my favorite stories of all time, literally of all time.

58:35So now you get a yes, which is just incredible. The idea to get in there to pitch, to get kicked out, to come back in to get a yes. Now the issue is though, you have no clients. So that theory sounded great. By the way, a lot of people, entrepreneurs listen to this. They got kicked out, they got rejected the first time, they've got an idea. Now they're in business, but they got no clients. And by the way, we really didn't have a business plan because we didn't know anything about the space.

58:59Jesse Itzler:And to present a business plan, they could have been like, well, we're not looking for that. We were the business plan. It was like, we're going to make this. Look me in the eye, Ed. I'm telling you, we will make this happen. Give us a shot. I mean, those weren't the exact words, but that was the spirit of it. Let's stay on that for a second because I think this is huge, man. People buy into people. They buy into stories and people. They don't buy into PowerPoints. You know, PowerPoints are just words. And we had a passion and a conviction around the idea because we knew we can make it work. We knew if we had the chance that no matter what, we were going to work 21-hour days, we're going to make it work.

59:37You and I are both involved in a business together that we'll talk about at the end. And that's exactly what we both did in this case. We bought into the people. It's like so super true. But you have this thing that I think to the extent that someone has this thing I'm going to ask you about before we get into how you end up getting your first client, which is the best story of all time. But I think all successful people on some level, and to the extent you are successful is the extent you have this thing, which is that you're willing to step into spaces you are ill prepared for. So it seems to me like you're willing to, you kind of think like if I get my foot in the door, then I'll figure this stuff out, right?

1:00:11Whereas what most people do, and this is killing you, by the way, I won't step into the door until I'm completely prepared, which is a total fallacy anyways as an entrepreneur, for sure, or wanting to become a rapper or have a music career or an artist or anything great. If you're waiting for a threshold of, I need to be totally prepared, then I'll step in the door, you will be on the other side of that door the rest of your life. So talk about that. You have this sort of thing about you. You'll figure it out once you get in there.

1:00:37Jesse Itzler:Yeah. Well, first of all, nothing happens if you don't get into the door. So you have to figure out how to get in the door. And I've always trusted the process that I'd be able to figure it out. But like the common thread throughout my journey as an entrepreneur in everything is I had no prior experience in anything that I did. And for me, that was the greatest blessing. Because for me, it meant rip up the playbook. No one taught me how to do it. So the whole industry was operating the same way. And I always say to my employees, Sarah, my wife does the same thing. You know, if no one taught you how to do your job, how would you do it?

1:01:09Jesse Itzler:Like if you ripped up the playbook and you said, like, how would I treat my customer? How would I go after and pitch this? That's where innovation comes from. That's where innovation comes from. Everybody else in the space, they were doing the same playbook. All the brochures looked the same. And we didn't know anything. We didn't know anything. So for us, it was a greatest blessing. So I think experience is overrated. It's important, but it takes so damn long. Yes. You know, and like if we would have waited to get three years on the line, there would have been four other jet companies, and we would have never have done it.

1:01:41Wow, that's so true. You've got to start the process.

1:01:44Jesse Itzler:As an entrepreneur, I think the number one thing is start, you never have it all figured out. It's never the right time. You never have enough experience. But if you let that slow you down until you have, it's the right time and the right experience, come on man, the world's so fast. So you're telling me you did not know a lot about the rap game before you got in it. You didn't know a lot about the writing lyrics game before that, you didn't know a lot, just listen to this everybody, you didn't know a lot about the coconut water business before you got in it, the jet business before you got in it, or the NBA before you got in it?

1:02:15Jesse Itzler:I would say nothing. Literally nothing. I wouldn't say not a lot. I would say nothing. It's incredible. Yeah. And look, you know, I was fortunate. You know, we were able to, as soon as we were able to afford to bring in people that knew more, we were able to scale it. You know, but we started everything very small. You know, we always thought really big. And once we got momentum, we were able to ramp it up super fast. The only way that I could really find, you know, I had to go where wealthy people were. And I heard about this conference called TED in Monterey, California when they were first starting out that was attracting all these tech guys and well-off folks, et cetera.

1:02:50Jesse Itzler:So my partner's like, you gotta go to the tech conference in Monterey, California. So I think I connected through Chicago into LA. It's a five-hour car ride to Monterey, California. It was a 16-hour journey. And I get there, and as soon as I get there, everybody, it's like Fort Knox. I didn't have a credential to get in. No way. So you couldn't go anywhere near the conference. So I'm like, man, I just flew 16 hours. I can't go in. I'm so frustrated, but it smelled like there was a sale there somewhere. So I'm like, let me go into the little coffee shop over here and try to figure this out. And I'm sitting in the coffee shop and about 20 minutes into my sitting there kind of thinking, God, how am I going to do this?

1:03:28Jesse Itzler:A wave of people with credentials come in and they're ordering lattes and muffins. And I realized that they must be on coffee break from in between speakers at the tech conference. So they're all ordering lattes and muffins, lattes and latte and muffins. And so the next morning, I show up at 5 o 'clock, first one there, as soon as they open, and I buy every single muffin. I control all the muffin inventory in Monterey, California. I bought every muffin. And when the first wave of folks come in, they're like, come up, have a latte and a muffin. Like, you can have a latte, but we're all out of muffins.

1:04:00Jesse Itzler:And as they would walk out, I would say, excuse me, actually, I have the muffin. My office here, we have all the muffins. Would you like a muffin? No, no, no, yeah. What do you do? Next thing you know, I'm in a conversation with someone. He's like, and he asked me what I did. And I said, well, I have a private jet company called Marquee Jet. And a guy who just sold his company called Half.com to eBay. And he said, well, I'm actually interested in a private jet. Would you mind if I sit down and talk to you about it? And I was like, absolutely not. I'm like, please sit down. You can have two muffins.

1:04:34Jesse Itzler:And we started talking, and here's what's interesting. And here's how I built my career. He ended up being my first customer. Unbelievable. And, but he was the key because I serviced the hell out of him. Anything he wanted. Carried his bags. If he was going to Mexico, shock and awe. Here's a book of places. Here's a reservation. Here's where you can snorkel. Like, that's not the business I'm in. I provide time on jets. No. That's what everybody else was doing. This is what we're gonna do. Here, I see your family's going. Here's a floaty thing for your two-year-old. And they would get that. And I just serviced them.

1:05:09Jesse Itzler:How was the trip? Can I help you? Here are your bags. And he was my source of referrals. There you go. And then the next guy came in. Same system. Same thing. Same thing. Same thing. And what was interesting about Marquee Jet. Wow. You know, it wasn't that we built this amazing company. You know, it was an amazingly successful venture. Clearly. And, but that wasn't the gold for me. The gold for me were the people that we flew. because we flew 4 ,000 of the who's who of entrepreneurs, CEOs, athletes, entertainers, and I was like, wow. Here I am, I'm 30 years old. I was obsessed with meeting these people and learning about their daily routines.

1:05:51Jesse Itzler:So what I would do is, I would say like every conversation was like, what time do you get up? What do you eat? How do you spend your time? How do you live rich? How do you do this? What's a vacation look like? And I would take all these habits from these winners at the highest level and start to incorporate them in my life. And the things that worked, stuck. And the things that didn't, I got rid of them. And over time, built this system. You mentioned in the beginning, like your life resume, built this system that works for me. And as I've evolved, now I have four kids, my system evolves. because I can't have the same system as single Jesse, 40 years old and no kids, where I have the freedom to do what I want.

1:06:34Jesse Itzler:Now I have way more responsibilities with my family, so the system evolves. So that was the gift. Wow. See, for me, for someone listening to this, and I already know what they're thinking, this is literally like an inside peek to an absolute master class of how to do these things right here, everybody. And I just want to illustrate two points you made, and I want to make sure that I say them correctly. The first thing is that all of the most successful entrepreneurs I know, and obviously you're at the top of that list because there's been multiple wins. The reason I want you all listening to what Jesse covers and his social media and his content is because he's not only a mega successful entrepreneur, and also successful as a father, successful as an athlete of sorts, successful as an author, he's also had multiple wins.

1:07:19In other words, it wasn't a one-hit business wonder. This is a formula that has worked for him that he's replicated into many different business ventures. And you said something brilliant. The unique thing for the ones I see is they create an experience for their customers that is completely different than everybody else. I don't care if you're a personal trainer at a gym, you own a dry cleaners, or you own a jet brand. It's the experience. Because if they don't enjoy the experience, it's not mind-blowing. They're not going to refer you to anybody, and your business can't go viral. It can't multiply, correct?

1:07:46Jesse Itzler:I always ask myself this one question. would I recommend myself as fill in the blank? Would I recommend myself as a dad? Would I recommend myself as a business partner? Would I recommend myself as a coach? Would I recommend myself as a boss? And if the answer is no, why? Like why? Why wouldn't I recommend myself? And I always tell people like, people call up like my kids are going to their first job. What would be the one piece of advice? Make yourself irreplaceable. Make yourself irreplaceable. If you have that relationship with the customer, if you're so important, you're incredibly valuable.

1:08:23Jesse Itzler:Wow, that's brilliant. But it's true. And I ask myself a lot of questions. I ask myself a lot of questions. And that's one thing I always ask myself. Let's say I go sideways with someone for some reason. I don't very often. But if I do, would I recommend myself? What did I do? And very often, I'm okay with it. And if it's something that I did, then I want to get in front of it and apologize or address it internally so it doesn't happen again. You mentioned something about success. And, you know, everybody has multiple definitions of success. If you ask 100 people, you might get 100 answers. But you touched on something I think is important to the listeners.

1:09:05Jesse Itzler:And to me, I have a lot of different definitions. Success isn't being good in one bucket. It's not about, like, I made all this money. You know, and I know, oh, it's easy for you to say. No, success is not about being good in one bucket. It's about being good in all the buckets. All the buckets. It's about being a good dad. It's about being good to your employees. It's about giving back in the charity bucket. It's about doing the right thing when you do it. It's about standing up for something that you see is wrong. That's success. When I see people that are mega wealthy, they're just fucking wealthy.

1:09:39Jesse Itzler:No, they're just wealthy. That's not what it looks like. And you don't have to be wealthy. if you're struggling in one area you can still be good in all the other areas you can't spiral down because success the way you look at it isn't happening well then go be successful in the other buckets and fill up your plate and then what it does too by the way like i could feel you coming at me with that because you feel so strong about it your physiology change too but what also happens is when you and you talk a lot about this but when you get wins in other areas you get life momentum. And people just, I did a training on this the other day, but like you're, to me, I look at you, I go, okay, look, the thing he said about associating with these people and their habits, I didn't have a jet card company, but I joined the club where I could meet these kinds of guys.

1:10:24What is your schedule? What's your workout routine? How do you eat? What do you think about? How do you talk?

1:10:27Jesse Itzler:I'm sorry to interrupt you. Your habits, you're getting me all fired up. Everything comes around your day. We're talking about all these successes. They took years. Yes. Years. I remember walking into the president of Coca-Cola about the Zico thing. He's like, it takes eight years to build a brand in this country. Of course, there's get rich quick things and now it's a little faster, but it takes time. But the foundation of that is your daily habits. It's creating winning habits, winning routines, and a winning mindset. That's the formula. It is. There's no way around it. It is. It doesn't happen without that.

1:11:03One of the unique things for me, because I completely agree, one of the things that you need to do about you and I is we both will be creating this content for a while and then when we looked at each other's stuff, we're like, my God, we so believe the same things. We say it a little bit differently, but we so believe the same things. One of the unbelievable things about social media or podcasts like this is that you kind of can peek into what you had at Marquee Jets doing this. If someone follows you on Instagram or follows myself, you get access nowadays to something you and I never had. You can get access daily to some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world or fitness people or parents or people of faith or whatever your area is through digital connection now.

1:11:45It's not the same as live, but it's incredible the information you can tap into now.

1:11:49Jesse Itzler:You are my virtual mentor. No, you are. I mean, I'm in tune to what you say. It resonates deeply with me. You're in it for the right reasons. Like there's a lot of reasons why the things you say they really have stickiness with me. But to millions of people, you're a virtual mentor, and that's exactly your point. We didn't have that growing up. Our mentor was my dad and anyone in my small town. Yeah, me too. Don't you think part of your life, Jesse, you got some life momentum going though, right? I mean, the journey is, I think it's the most, I mean, you're a young man, but I think it's the most remarkable journey that I've, of anybody I've talked to.

1:12:26Because of the breadth of different areas. It's just bananas to me. That 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. One of the things that popped up when you were talking earlier is that low point in your life. I feel like people can talk to you until they're blue in the face. Like, get up, get going, do the thing that you want, you know, make, you know, do the thing that you need to do. Yeah. What did you find in you that actually brought you out of that? Right? Because, I mean, I may be wrong, but I don't think it was the people talking to you, was it?

1:12:59No. It was just starting to take the steps. It was like, and this whole thing about one more is a real thing. It was just like, look, here's what I'm going to do. In spite of how I feel, I'm going to operate out of what I know I'm supposed to do, not how I feel. I'm going to finally, here's where I was. I was a very average person. Here's why I was average. How I felt is how I acted. That's how most people are. They feel great. They do great. They feel bad. They lay around. And in that moment, I'm like, I don't feel good. I've had a pattern of not feeling good. If I'm going to wait around until I feel good to take some steps, this ain't going to happen.

1:13:32But what if maybe if I take these steps, then I'll feel good. And so slowly but surely, I'm like, I'm just going to make these contacts. I'm going to make these calls. I'm going to go see these people. And I just started taking steps. It's not always what you do on the days you're motivated that separates you. Because everyone does well. It's what you do on the days you're not motivated. And so for me, it was like, I'm going to take steps towards my potential, even though I don't feel like it every day. And you go, well, that's easy to say, not hard to do. Actually, it's not that hard to do. You just have to do it.

1:14:00You have to actually get up, get dressed, put your clothes on, and take steps towards it. And then what I would do is I'd like little promises. So I was just a mess. Like I had no self-confidence because I had a reputation with me of not doing stuff I said I was going to do. So I started going, how can I rig the game so I do what I say? This sounds really stupid. I'm going to tell you what I did. I'll take you back to when I'm 23 years old. I'm going to set my clothes out the night before for the next day. Simple thing I don't have to think about in the morning, something I can control doing. I'm going to make my bed in the morning.

1:14:32I'm going to get up at 6 a.m. I'm going to do some meditation and prayer when I wake up, and I'm going to go to the gym. And I actually started setting my clothes up, getting up at 6 a.m., stuff I could do. I said my prayers and my meditation, right? I did the things I said I was going to do. And all of a sudden, now when I said I'm going to make 10 calls, I'm like, I could do that. Then when I said I'm going to make$1 ,000 this week, I could do that. 10 ,000 bucks this week, 10 ,000 bucks this day. So it started with small stuff when I didn't feel like it. And I rigged the game on stuff I could completely control.

1:15:04That's amazing. Cause it's a lot of people think it's, you know, things turn on immediately for them. They see you, who you are today. Not, not the, I laid my clothes out guy. I see you as the guy that you are today, which is, which is the hard part for most people to see. Cause it's not inspiring. It's the before and the after. I'll tell you one more thing. We go a couple more minutes. I'll tell you the one thing I have a, you don't know this story, but like I wanted to look rich when I wasn't. And so I wanted to, I thought no one's going to take me seriously. This is a true story, brother. Okay.

1:15:31They're going to laugh already. My family. I wanted to drive a Mercedes. I thought no one's going to take me serious in my business. I'm not driving a Benz. So there was this thing called a penny saver back in the day. It'd be like a glorified Craigslist now. And I'm looking for convertible Mercedes. This is so true, dude. You don't even believe this. And you know what this is, but all of a sudden it's 60 grand, 60 grand, 60 grand. It says Mercedes 600 SL parentheses, kinda. I'm like, tell me more. And what it was was a Chrysler LeBaron. Oh, hell yeah. Kit car with a Mercedes body on it. So kit cars have welded other car bikes.

1:16:07This thing was two feet too long. Interior was a LeBaron. You know, the heat blew constantly. This gets way better. I drive down to Dana Point. I meet this lady. And I say, tell me about this kit car. She's like, look, it's$5 ,000. and it's wonderful. Only about half the people won't know it's real. And I'm like, I'll give you four grand. She goes, I'll take it. So she takes the four grand from me and she goes, there's one catch I didn't tell you. I swear to you, brother, this is true. She goes, it's actually not welded on there. I said, what do you mean? She goes, I said, how's the kit on the car?

1:16:41She goes, it's Velcroed. And I go, what did she just say? Say that again because she's already got it. She goes, it's Velcroed on there. But most of the car stays together pretty good. I said, the machine I'm going to drive 60 miles an hour is Velcroed together. She goes, you don't have to worry when you're driving fast. She goes, but when you drive up to a stoplight, don't stop too suddenly because the front left headlight will fly out into the intersection. And dude, more than a, I have a good social media following. If there was social back in the day, I would be the most viral MF-er of all time because more than a hundred times in my life, in this dude's life, that headlight went out in the intersection.

1:17:19I had to get out of that car, stop the four-way traffic, grab my headlight. You mentioned people watching. What the hell is this dude doing? I would grab my, the Velcro's hanging out. I would go grab my headlight, run back to my car, Velcro that sucker back on and jump back in the car. But about 30 of the times I was so rattled, I shut the door too hard and it would fall off. And people are honking, trying to make their left turn. I'm trying to put my door back on the car. Dude, I swear to God. And I drove that car for four years. I made$770 ,000 one year driving that car. I swear to you. And it got stolen the fourth year.

1:17:56It got stolen. And the dude that stole the car got one block from our house and just left the car with the keys in it. I swear to you, I got pulled over in that car by the cops because they thought it was stolen and that's all because it was like wrong license plates so i went from a velcroed mercedes to a global express jet in a number of a decade or two doing the stuff that's in my book i swear to you that is a hundred babe is that a hundred percent true yeah she's like yeah she had to drive that might be one of the most incredible

1:18:31yeah oh you said the wife i would send the wife to go get the dadgum deal and then at the same time, man. We were so broke. We were so broke. I bought her a Mustang when her other car got repossessed and the doors didn't work, so she had to go through her trunk to get to the front seat. So here's this power couple you see on Instagram. I'm driving a Velcroed car. Her car, everywhere she goes, she has to climb through the trunk and crawl into the driver's seat. Is that awesome? Dude, that is so awesome. That's the truth. See, this is what we're here for, guys. This is the real Ed Milet. This is the real story.

1:19:06This is this is this helps everybody understand that. Look, doesn't matter where you're at right now. Go buy a Velcro Mercedes because that's a starting point. It doesn't matter. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. And my let. Welcome to the show. Welcome back. Welcome back. It's great to be here, man. Do what I'm looking forward to the most. So good to have you. Your book is amazing. The power of one more. Thank you. Love it. I'm not at all surprised now for people that haven't read it For people that feel like they're wasting their time.

1:19:44They're not getting the results they want What is one thing that they could be doing right now that would turn things around for them? Well, actually doing one more so, you know We always talk you and I both about self-confidence and the fact that building self-confidence is the process of keeping the promises You make to yourself and if you lack self-confidence You've got a relationship and reputation with yourself. That's not very favorable And so the baseline way to get self-confidence is you keep the promises you make to yourself. But in life, as you know, we don't get like our goal. We get about 25 % of our goals.

1:20:12But we ultimately always get our standards. Long term, you will get your standards. So the question becomes, what's the standard need to be then? And that standard needs to be you keep the promises you make to yourself and one more. So if you're going to do 30 minutes on the treadmill every day, you don't do 30 minutes. You do the 30 minutes, you do one more. You're going to make 10 contacts in a day. You don't make 10 contacts in a day. You do the 10 contacts and you make one more. Now what happens is you start stacking up those one mores. You're going to tell Lisa you love her every day. You don't just tell her that.

1:20:37You tell her one more time every single day. So you start stacking up mathematically all of these one mores. You've just done more so you're better. But you've changed the standard of your life. And you've built this superhuman type self-confidence that I not only do what I say I'm going to do. I do one more than I'm saying I'm going to do. And that's something almost nobody's willing to do. So I'm going to get things almost nobody's going to get. So that's one thing initially everybody can do. Yeah. So you are one of the sweetest guys on planet Earth. like in real life. Thank you. But also in real life, you're one of the most intense guys, which I really respond to.

1:21:06So my journey as an entrepreneur was toughening up. I was super weak as a kid, way whiny, like definitely did not push myself. And my parents love them to death, but they didn't know how to push me either. And so I really, when I went to college, my mom assumed I was going to fail because I was so profoundly lazy. And so hearing you in the book talk about like pushing to the extreme, You actually use the word extreme multiple times. I do. And that to expand your capabilities, you have to go into the extreme. Talk to me about that because right now I feel like that's an incredibly unpopular message.

1:21:41It is. And at the same time, it is true. Thank you. And by the way, you talked about it on my show. So there's a part of the book where I talk about extremity expands capacity. Until you push something to the extreme, you don't really stretch your capacity to do it. And so for me, I already know at this point in my life, we know what we're capable of at one point. So how do we change what we're capable of? And that's with extremity. That's with pushing it to the extreme. I have another chapter in the book where I call it, Do One More Inconvenience. This is something that if we could train ourselves to do, our entire lives would change, which is that do the inconvenient or difficult thing in your day or in your life.

1:22:17Human nature is to avoid that. You call it being lazy, but it's just to avoid the inconvenient. Napoleon Hill says in Think and Grow Rich, which I love, he says, on the other type of temporary pain, you are introduced to your other self and that other self produces another life. So what we have to change, I think to some extent is our relationship with pain. I'm willing to pursue pain. I'm willing to pursue discomfort and do the inconvenient thing because on the other side of that, I have extended my capacity. I've literally changed who I am by getting on the other side of that. And so for me, I am always trying to find the inconvenient thing to do because it's not my nature either.

1:22:55I have to build all these habits like you do because left to my own devices, man, I'm Netflix and pizza and Cheetos. I really would be. People say to me, man, you just seem so hardcore. People think this about you as well. No, actually I'm not. And so I've had to develop these mindsets, the strategies in the book, the ways I think, my habits. There's a whole chapter on how to build habits in the book because I'm not that way. I'm not overly disciplined, but I've learned to sort of change my relationship with pain. Even in the gym, but even in a given day, you know, for me, I chase the thing that's inconvenient because I know on the other side of that is where all the stuff lies that I want.

1:23:31And so that's, you know, this old notion of, well, you know, do get out of your comfort zone. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about pursuing the inconvenient in a given day because that's the pathway to your bliss. That's the pathway to your happiness. Why is that? That's super counterintuitive. Well, it's the pathway to your bliss and your happiness because when we're doing things that aren't convenient on a very regular basis There's a part of our spirit. I believe in our soul that knows we were born to do something great that knows we were born to grow And when we begin to settle in our lives, it's like I had a conversation this morning with a friend of mine Who's a parent?

1:24:05They're having some parenting issues and they're like, well, yeah, you grew up with an alcoholic dad So that was child neglect and my parents got divorced. That was child neglect But i'm not neglecting my kids. This is just this morning. Really good friend of mine I said, I think you should rethink that. And I said, there's an insidious form of neglecting your children. And she goes, well, what is it? And I said, it's not pursuing your potential and your dreams. That's a form of neglect of your children. You're installing the software in them that it's okay to settle. Because they're watching you.

1:24:31Because they're watching you. And almost everything in life is caught, not taught. You don't teach lessons to people. They catch lessons from you. And so you're neglecting that child when you're not pursuing your potential, your bliss, and or your dreams in your life. That's a form of neglect. So if it's neglecting a child when we do it, it's a form of self-neglect when we do it to ourselves. And so that's why it's counterintuitive not to do inconvenient things. But the reason it's a pathway to bliss and happiness is intuitively we know we're neglecting our spirit. We know we're neglecting our soul.

1:25:02We know we're neglecting our potential when we're not chasing it. And there's no way that we can simultaneously be blissful and at the same time know that we're somehow treating ourselves less than we're worthy of. I have a growing hypothesis. I'm super curious. So when I hear people like you talk about this stuff, I'm going to say 99 times out of 100, there's been a physical transformation that they've gone through. Obviously, your physique isn't saying, I know what it would take to achieve your physique. I don't have your physique now because I don't want it, because I don't want to put that level of energy into it.

1:25:31I'm honest with myself about that. But I have transformed my physique. Sure has. And so I know what that takes. And that, I didn't think a lot about it at the time, but that coincided with me getting better at being an entrepreneur because I realized, I saw what you were saying, that as I did one more, as I pushed myself, as I did the things that were inconvenient, as I reached for the extreme, as I began to model myself after something other people said was crazy, right? Oh, that guy's too big. Oh, what are you doing? That's crazy. But I really got obsessed with it. Yes. And in doing that and going to the gym and pushing myself and being uncomfortable, I remember one time getting trapped under a weight and I was like, fuck, I don't, how am I going to get out of this?

1:26:14And by being in those situations over and over and over, you begin to realize, oh my God, like I actually change as a result of this, which lets you believe that you can change your mind in the same way. Yes. How important do you think it is for people to deal with the body, to push themselves to have a transformation there? Well, brother, I love you because we think so similarly. Catalyst for change for me all my life has been in my body. And the reason for that is it's something that I actually have some measure of control over. I can't control the external result. I can't control every time how someone's going to respond to me, what the market's doing, whatever it might be.

1:26:51I can control, like you and I were talking off camera, what I'm putting in here, what I'm putting in this pie hole every day. I can control my amount of hydration. I can control the training in my life. And so for me, the catalyst for change, frankly, I was 221 pounds big and not fat. And, um, but I knew the book was coming out and it was writing the book and the catalyst for me to get in the most peak state I could do is to do something extreme. And so the extreme thing I did is I said, I'm going to weigh 180 pounds in 90 days. And I, I got down to 177 and I did that through, you know, intermittent fasting, caloric restriction, changing my cardio, but it was an extreme.

1:27:24While you were working on the book? Well, I wasn't. The reason I did it is I knew that if I could transform the internal parts of me, that the external results I was going to produce would be that much more extraordinary. And so I'm constantly - You just gave the chills. Yeah. Well, by the way, and you've done it as well. It's not like I'm going to do this every single month of my life or even every single year of my life. But to your point, if you're sitting there and you're thinking, I can't change things. It's like, I don't have the capital. I don't have the relationships. I don't have the this or the that.

1:27:48You do have a body and you can change that. There's things you can do to move it differently, treat it differently, potentially be more kind to it. One thing I'm doing, I'm 51 years old, man. I've never stretched in my life. I've never done yoga in my life. These joints and tendons are sick of me beating them up. And so one of the reasons I got a little lighter, a little smaller, a little bit less taxing on it, and I'm giving myself the gift of great stretching, great yoga. I'm doing massage now. I'm doing things to be kinder to my body as well. And this may sound really hokey and cheesy. I find myself, this is a strange thing to word it, but I find myself being a little more gentle with myself.

1:28:24When I'm so aggressive in the gym all the time. You know, there's a, there's a transfer of that even in my life where I'm so aggressive and intense on myself, which I love that part of me, but like I've had 51 years of that. And so now I'm like, you know what? I'm a little more kind to my body, a little bit more gentle with it. And I find myself, you know, when I give a speech, usually I'll beat myself up. I could have done, you do the same thing. I should have done this. I should have done that. Leave a meeting, leave a podcast. Why didn't you say this? And I've just beat myself up all my life, just like I do in the gym.

1:28:52Recently, I find as I treat my body differently, I'm treating me differently. I'm like, that's okay, bro. You got the next one. That wasn't so bad. I'm sure you still made a difference. I've never said those words to myself in my life. Because I've always thought if I let go of this beating myself up, that's part of my recipe, part of my formula. The truth is I've probably been successful in spite of the way I've treated myself, not because of it. That's interesting. I don't know that I agree. And as you're describing that, I'm so intrigued how you're going to answer this question. Do you think that you can do that now because you have pushed yourself so far so hard?

1:29:26Or do you wish that you had gone back and done things the way you're doing them now back then? I wish I had done both. I wish I've had the extremity part of my life where I'm pushing myself to that point of past what I think I'm capable of. But then I also wish that I wasn't so hard on myself, man. Like I've spent a lot of years of my life. I've never of years of my life, I think, at my own expense, makes me emotional to say it. I don't even know where that's coming from. At my own expense in the service of other people. And I think I had this delusion that I had to be almost suffering in order to produce bliss for other people.

1:30:07And some of that software was probably installed to me when I was young with my dad being an alcoholic when I was young. And so no, brother, I know I could have pushed myself and been one intense beast and still been a little bit more kind to myself. There's a more beautiful and elegant way to get to the results that I wanted. I totally know what you're saying, that there's different seasons of your life. And it's easy to say when you got a couple hundred mil in the bank and all that other stuff, like, you know what, I'm going to stretch now. I'm going to get a massage. It's a little bit different than that.

1:30:35So one, I think your insight about what you learn to do to be the peacemaker in your family to read your dad to figure out where he was and that you were still so generous to him as well as to the rest of your family to take his hand to and you talk about this in the book so i highly encourage people to read it but you would take his hand and try to shift his mood and that really trained you to to be somebody that could read people and help change their state which i think is incredible but where the way that i see it is that you've earned you've earned the right and i'm going to back up in a second but you've earned the right to get to that position because you know you can fall back on discipline the habits all that stuff where because what i'm thinking is okay if i'm 24 and i'm encountering ed my let for the first time and i i have this glimmer of like oh maybe i can do something more with my life that guy really does and this is projecting because this is where i was but that guy probably really does need to go hard first.

1:31:36And he needs first to learn to be tough, to be a badass. Like for me to transform my physique, I had to imagine my wife being physically assaulted. It was the only way I could show up and put in the work. You got leverage on yourself. Exactly. And if somebody had been at that moment telling me, no, no, no, you need to be kinder, gentler. It's like on balance, you're right. And if you're talking to me when I'm in my fifties, a hundred percent, But in the beginning, I wouldn't have been able to be so nuanced. And so I guess what I'm saying is with what you've done and accomplished, you understand the nuance.

1:32:09You understand how important it is to do all of that and to sacrifice yourself doesn't make sense. I think you're right. I think we agree. So I think you know yourself. What's your default place? My default position has been all my life to try to earn things. I conflated when I was young. The only time I got love from my dad is if I achieved something, if I did something. If, Dad, I got an A. Dad, I hit a home run. Dad, I won the spelling bee. So I conflated achievement and pushing myself with love. So I know me. I know that part of me is sort of my default place to go. My default place is to do this.

1:32:44I think you have to know yourself. I think if your default is to not do those things, then yeah, giving yourself a break and being kinder and gentler is the absolute worst thing that you could do to yourself. In my case, man, it's been a lifetime. I was never a child. I was never a little boy that five-year-old I was literally not a child my dad would you know this from the book five years old I got two skills in life man one is I can communicate the other one is I can be present and read people the president read people's really Simple I had three sisters and a mom and when my dad would walk through that front door at five years old this Beautiful little boy that I was I would have to look up at this man and quickly figure out was he drunk or sober?

1:33:21What was his body language like? How was he walking? Was his tie tie? Was he slurring his words? If it was drunk, dad, sisters need to get upstairs. Mom, go take a shower. And then the man of the house, me at that time, would take over and like you said, grab my dad's hand and change his state. Dad, I hit a home run today. Dad, I got a 96 on my spelling test. And so I never afforded myself or was afforded to be a boy in my life, to ever really have a bunch of peace or bliss in that life. And my dad got sober and you know that and he was my best friend. But that part of my life was taken from me.

1:33:51I never had it. So I don't have to be, I don't have to worry about Ed Milet's, you know, drive or ambition or any of those other things. I got to worry about this dude hurting himself, you know, metaphorically, but actually theoretically too, in any possible way. And so you just got to know yourself. If your default is you'll cool it, then you know what, the worst thing you could do is give yourself a break. You're wired like me and you beat yourself to a pulp all the time. And you think you can do that. And at some point in your life, you'll fray. And there's just a part of your brain, man. The neural parts of our brain are telling us, man, can you give me a little dopamine?

1:34:26Can you give me a little hit of something blissful? Can I celebrate this a little bit? Can I be a little bit more kind to myself? Because if you don't do that, eventually you've trained your brain that you don't want to do those things. Yeah. I think learning to love yourself is critical. I always tell people in my back pocket, I have detachment at all times, like a Buddhist style detachment. Because at the end of the day, The only thing that matters is how you feel about yourself when you're by yourself success money All those things ultimately are irrelevant if you hate yourself and you're rich.

1:34:55You're still gonna have a terrible life

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