THE 4 HIDDEN ENEMIES OF SUCCESS

0:28So, hey, guys, are you frustrated with where you're at right now?

0:33This is The Ed Myron Show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. So I'm really excited today to talk about the obstacles to our dreams. You know, it's very common on podcasts and self-help shows or personal development, entrepreneur shows, to talk about, you know, making your dreams come true. The journey success, morning routines, daily habits, you know, scheduling, journaling, mindset, all of these things. They're all very important. I cover them every week on my show. But what about the obstacles to success? In other words, if we knew what the objections are or the obstacles are to making our dreams come true or making progress, if we knew what they were in advance, we could probably reduce them, maybe eliminate them, but at least reduce the impact that they have on us.

1:18Yet no one really talks about these things. Like, what's going to get in my way? You got this big vision for your family or to change your body or to start a business or take your business to the next level, whatever it could be. what's in the way? You know, what are the things that are going to stop? What kills most dreams? What are most dream stealers? What are most things that block people from getting to their potential? But for me, once you're aware of something, oftentimes it loses its power over you. Even if you have a, you know, in your own personal behavior, you have this tendency to go to anger or worry or frustration.

1:52You know, just being self-aware, go, I'm doing that worry thing again. It loses like 80 % of its power over you. So awareness is such a powerful weapon in the tool bag of success. And so what I want to talk about today are what I call the four D's. A lot of people have their D's. Different speakers do. My friend John Gordon does. John Maxwell does. They'll list these sort of acronyms or letters. We're going to cover four D's today that I believe are the obstacles to success. A couple of them may be obvious. And I think at least one of them will be something you've probably never heard before. I've talked about it briefly on one of my previous podcasts, but I want to kind of take a deep dive into this today.

2:29If I could be, you know, a little bit since we're saying deep, if I could go deeper with you, you know, as a person of faith, I believe there's an adversary. Some of you might call it the devil. What's the weapon the adversary uses against us to get us off our game, to get us not to chase our dreams to potential, to get us not to get in a place in life where we could change other people's lives and contribute to our charities or our churches or our families the way that we'd like to? And so if you're a person of faith, whatever your faith belief is, if you believe there's an adversary or a devil, if you don't believe in any of that, but you believe there's, you know, low vibrational frequency and high vibrational frequency, and that when you're successful, you're operating at a high vibrational frequency, what gets us to operate at a low vibrational frequency?

3:12First thing is this, truth always vibrates at the highest frequency. And so I'm a big energy person and I'm a person of faith. And so I look at it both ways. I really believe the adversary is trying to get us to operate at our lowest vibrational frequency by telling us lies. And God in our lives is telling us the truth about us, which vibrates at the highest possible frequency. And so I think there's four weapons that the adversary uses against us to steal our dreams or to get us off our dreams or our potential or our vision, our future. And so or you could just look at it really basic, very simple.

3:50what are four things that are objections to me getting to who I want to be wherever they come from and so I want to go through them with you today and uh and I think it's important that when you see these happening and coming you can identify them that's not from God that's from the adversary that's not a high vibrational frequency that's a low vibrational frequency that's not true that's a lie about me and so here's the four weapons that I'll just say that the adversary uses against us for us not to have our dreams. And there are four D's. The first D is if I'm the adversary and I want to get you to quit on your dream and not chase who you could be, not help the people you want to help, not make the difference in the world, not reach your potential, I'm going to use the weapon of discouragement against you.

4:33I'm going to try to get you discouraged. If I can just get you a little bit discouraged, you'll flinch. You'll question things. You'll lose confidence. You won't believe you're worthy. So if I can discourage you, give you some setbacks, give you some trials and tribulations, have somebody let you down or hurt you or take from you. And I can just get you discouraged because discouragement is really the opposite of courage to encourage is one thing to discourages the other. So this is with people. I can get haters. I can get critics for you. If I can get, if I can load you up with a failure, if I can load you up with, you know, the worst type of discouragement doesn't come from a hater.

5:09the worst type of discouragement comes from someone that you know loves you if I really want to get you off your game I will get a parent or a sibling or a spouse to say listen I'm telling you this because I love you and what you're doing is not going to work or here's why it's not going to work or here's why it's not the right time and I discourage you I remove courage from you rather than encourage you and so when now when something happens in your life and it discourages you. No, this is a weapon of the adversary. Discouragement is a weapon that the weak use against the strong so that the strong don't prevail.

5:47It's really true. And it's a lie. It's an indication of a lie. Now, what actually may be happening is true, but the impact it has on you is magnified into a lie. And then it gets you to reduce your vibrational frequency. And all of a sudden, you know what I mean? You're not moving with that swagger, that cachet, that confidence that you need. If I could just get you to move a little bit. People ask me all the time with the professional athletes that you work with, whether it's a UFC fighter or a golfer or a major league baseball player, NFL quarterback, whatever it might be. What do they want to work with you on?

6:23And oftentimes, believe it or not, the main thing they're working on is their courage, is their confidence, is their worthiness. Because if they can get into a slump, if they're an MLB hitter and they get into a slump and they're you know one for their last 20 they get discouraged their vibrational frequency drops their confidence drops and all of a sudden this gifted talented amazing athlete can't perform at their peak level because they're discouraged does this make sense so this happens in every area of our lives that the weapon of discouragement can take the best in the world and reduce them to very average and ordinary or below that because they've been some evidence.

7:02It's a lie. You think about it. If you're a professional athlete, you've hit 50 home runs in a season before. All of a sudden, you're one for the last 20. This discouragement will get you to believe you no longer can hit. You were never that good. It was always a fluke, which is, of course, a great lie. You've already proven it otherwise. So for you in your life, it's a lie when you're discouraged. God did not make you to be discouraged, did not make you inferior, did not make you less than capable. But the adversary wants you to believe that, right? By the way, failure wants you to believe that.

7:33Forget the spiritual part of it for a second. Failure wants you to be discouraged. Success wants you to be encouraged. So from now on, when you see the first D, which is discouragement, know that that's a weapon of the weak. Know that that's a lie. Know that that's there as an obstacle to get you off your game. And if you can overcome these four Ds, you become successful. So the first thing is when discouragement hits is to be aware of it, to rid it out, to call it for what it is, to know what it is. And by the way, what something discouraging really indicates is that you are on a path to something great.

8:08The adversary wouldn't be attacking you if you weren't trying to do something great. Failure wouldn't be trying to chase you if you weren't on the way to being successful. So the very presence of a discouraging circumstance, a discouraging event, a discouraging conversation, a discouraging mindset is indicative that you are on the path to doing something great. Let me be candid with you. I have discouraging situations happen all the time in different areas of my life, whether it be someone lets me down or I hear they've said something bad about me or I make a mistake or I have a setback or a failure or three weeks ago's podcast didn't get the downloads I thought.

8:48I'm like, oh, the shows. that discouragement is trying to get me to not be great and the very fact that that's happening means i'm on the pursuit of greatness so the first d is discouragement that's a weapon of the adversary it's a weapon of the devil it's a weapon of the weak it's a weapon of failure however you want to look at it and it's a lie low vibrational frequency remember truth vibrates at the highest frequency so hey guys as you know i've partnered up with my good friend brennan brouchard who's created the greatest personal development system that has ever been designed called growth day there's everything from journaling to accountability programs live messages every monday from myself and other influencers there's an opportunity for you to get courses that would cost thousands of dollars completely for free it's incredible go to growthday.com forward slash ed and check it out second weapon if i can get you off your game and I'm the adversary.

9:46You know what I'm going to use against you? Doubt. If I can get you doubting, if I can get you riddled with questions of whether I'm good enough, whether it could really happen, whether it's possible, whether it's worth it, whether I can trust, whether I'm clear, whether I'm crazy, whether I'm an imposter, if I can get you doubting, I got you. There's no way to perform at the highest level in life in the presence of doubt. You might be to perform okay. But if you're out there doubting, flinching, questioning, you've all been having someone sell you something before having you. And you can tell they doubt their belief in what they're doing.

10:26They doubt their belief in themselves. You've all had a test you've had to take or one of your precious children's had to take and they doubt whether they can do well. You know, an athlete going up doubting whether they can perform their toast. So doubting is a weapon of the adversary. Doubt is a lie, right? Doubt is a lie, okay? Someone who knows they can do something, believes they can do something. That's truth. People say to me all the time, you know, I love my children. I don't know why they're not doing better in school or why they're not happier. And one of the tips I always tell people is every parent loves their children.

11:03That's like a ticket into the game. But do your children know that you believe in them? do you sow belief into them if you have a spouse that you want to be you know doing something they're not doing maybe stepping up financially stepping up and starting a business loving them is great and it's mandatory but do they feel that you believe in them and of all the things i don't do very well in life and there's a long list of those one thing i do very well is i believe in people and i find reasons to believe in people i'm looking for their giftedness. I'm looking for the gifts God gave them so that I can truly authentically believe in them based on something that's true about them.

11:43So I'm looking for belief. I'm not looking to doubt. I don't mean trust. I mean, believe in their ability to do something, believe in their goodness, believe in their ability to perform. Great leaders don't just love people. They believe in people. And as a consequence, when they believe at a high level that vibrates at a high frequency, they transfer that belief to the person they're leading. The child they're leading and that person is now infused with belief and lots of belief riddles out doubt. So the antidote to doubt is belief. Now, when a believer in their faith doubts, it really means they're not connected to their faith because you wouldn't be doubting your ability to do something.

12:23You wouldn't be doubting your greatness. You wouldn't be doubting your favor if you were truly operating in faith. And so again, it is such a strong weapon of the adversary of the devil of the weak it's a weapon of failure if you believe in nothing spiritually because it's a lie when you're doubting it's a lie when you're believing it's truth you were born to do something great with your life you were born with your own unique giftedness and talents that maybe you take for granted because they're not you know we look at Beyonce well that's a gift look how beautiful she is look how she sings or look at LeBron you know six eight six seven 360 dunk of basketball, man, that's an obvious gift.

13:02And those are obvious gifts. They're incredible. Those are great gifts. Maybe you've seen a great speaker go, wow, what a gift. Yeah, that's a gift or a talent, but there's lots of other gifts that are equally important. The gift of discernment, the gift of kindness, the gift of generosity, the gift of toughness, resiliency, math skills, problem solving skills, beauty, humor, intellect, nurturing ability, kindness right strength equanimity peace under pressure there's all kinds of gifts that people have that they take for granted because they've had them all their lives and they just don't think they're that special and when we're not connected to our giftedness okay we doubt so doubt is a lie doubt is a weapon of the adversary doubt is a weapon of the weak and doubt will kill your dream.

13:49So when you're feeling doubt, see it for what it is. It will lose most of its power over you and know the antidote to this is I've got to believe. If you're leading somebody in a business or you have a family that you're leading and they're doubting what they're really necessary, what's really necessary for them is more belief. You've got to feed their belief, feed their belief, feed their belief. This will read out doubt. The third weapon that the adversary uses to get you off your dream or that life will use to get you off your dream. We've got doubt, discouragement, and then delusion. Delusion is seeing things for what they aren't.

14:29Usually delusion is making you believe two things. Number one, making you believe a problem is bigger and worse than it is. And what we do is we do something called thought stacking. When we get a problem, we repeat the problem over and over and over and over. You ever do that before? Thinking, well, I've thought about it 20 times. I don't have the answer. If I think about it another 623, I'm sure I'll come up with an answer, right? I know I've done that before, but what it does is actually makes you delusional. You actually begin to believe things that aren't true and it makes it bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

14:59The other type of delusion can come from ego, where you believe something about yourself that you're better than you are, meaning that your ego takes over. I'm not talking about a gift. I'm talking about you start believing your own press clippings. You start believing you're so incredible. I've seen so many people get delusional on their own success. They get high off their own success that they end up making stupid decisions like a drunk or high person would make, not off of some substance, but off of their own success. Their previous success makes them delusional thinking, well, this is just going to happen forever.

15:28Now that I'm this successful, it's autopilot. Everything I touch turns to gold. That's delusion. The other type of delusion is this problem's the end of the road for me. It's just so huge or it makes, it proves I'm not worth it. It proves I'm a fake. It proves I'm an imposter. So this, this failure I just had, it makes you delusional and you don't see things clearly for what they are. That's number one part of delusion. The other part of delusion is it makes you think your dreams and your success is much further away than it truly is. If I can get you delusional believing, well, only 20 years from now, only 30 years from now, if I can get you delusional, what you'll do is you'll start pacing yourself and you'll start acting like somebody who's not going to achieve success, happiness, bliss for 20 years, some delusional distant future.

16:16And when then what happens is you start creating patterns and beliefs, thoughts, processes in your life that perpetually keep it that far away. The truth is it's not that far away. The truth is you're usually one decision, one relationship, one meeting, one new client, one podcast like this you're listening to because they're on a podcast like this. This is, This is the one and only for this type of stuff. You're one away. The delusion is that it's so far away. That's delusional thinking. If you look at the history of most successful people, it's one decision here, one new relationship there, one meeting, one new encounter, one new thought, one new strategy.

16:57Right? One connection away from completely changing their life. so delusion gets you to believe that something's far worse than it is or you're far better than you are that's delusion both those can kill a dream or delusion is a distance issue or depth perception issue so so far we've got three d's it's good isn't it that are gonna when we see them we'll know what they are now when i'm doubting i know that that's a lie and i know that's a weapon of the adversary it's a weapon of failure it's low vibrational frequency when i'm discouraged i I know for sure that someone or something is trying to get me off my game, get me not to believe, get me distracted, get me to quit, get me to give in, get me to forget that I have courage, that I'm strong, that I'm resilient, that I'm bold.

17:42If those things don't work, man, then I'm going to try to get this person delusional. If I can't get you discouraged, I can't get you doubting, I'll get you delusional. I'll get you thinking it's way further away than it is. You're never going to get there. This problem is way bigger than it really is. Or it's way further away the success you want. So those are the three D's so far. The fourth one, which I've never talked about before, the fourth D that the adversary uses, that failure uses, that's low vibrational frequency, is delay. This is the big one. I'm going to get you to delay. Delay making the decision.

18:20Delay starting to write the book. Delay starting to start your speaking career. Delay starting your business. Delay making that hire. Delay making that contact. act delay getting after it delay starting your new nutritional program delay starting the cardio i'm going to get you to delay delay is a massive insidious weapon of the week i have so many people on my team that are always trying to get things perfect right and i'll tell them all the time i don't need this perfect i need it now right perfection is the enemy of success perfection is actually the lowest possible standard because it's never going to be reached and so what happens is you delay.

18:56Most successful people, although they're preparation freaks, have a lower threshold of what they think they need to know before they get started. They've built something in themselves where they go, I'll figure it out when I get there. I'll figure the next step out when I get there. You think about anyone who's ever built something great. What if they had to think through everything they had to know before they get started? They would have delayed and delayed and delayed, and it would have never happened. Take Henry Ford starting Ford Motor Company. Think way back. What if he'd have thought, well, wait a minute.

19:27If I actually build these cars, who's going to fix them? There's no mechanic shops. There's no mechanics because there's been none of these cars. I shouldn't get started until I can have mechanics. What about tires? What about spare parts? What about repairs? Who's going to sell them? Right? If he thought about everything, what happens when fuel? Where are they going to get the gas? Think about all these things. You would never get started. What about Steve Jobs at Apple? They were a board company. What if he started to think, well, wait a minute. What happens if there's no internet right now?

19:57What happens when the internet comes? What happens when this? What happens when technology? What happens? It would be crazy. You would never get started if you had to think through all the things. Successful people get in motion. I can't teach you how to drive a parked car. You've got to get moving. No more delay. Successful people know, once I get into that next level, I'll figure it out when I get there. And when I get to the next level, I'll figure out when I get there. And when life throws me a problem, I'll figure it out when I get there. I just got to get in the room. I got to get to the next step.

20:25You don't have to have every step figured out. And by the way, God laughs at our great plans anyways. You think you got every step figured out until you get hit with a curveball. Mike Tyson has that famous quote, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face. Life punches us in the face. You've got to have this belief that when, not if, I get punched in the face metaphorically, I'm going to get up and figure it out. I'm going to adjust. You watch an NFL football game. They can have all the great scripted plays in the world, and on the third play, the tight end blows out his Achilles, and now they can't run those plays, or the defense presents something they didn't think through before, or a penalty happens, or you get way behind.

21:02Things happen in life, and it's your ability to improvise and figure it out without all of the preparation that gets you. Now, preparation is very critical. The separation is in the preparation. Don't get me wrong. But you can't prepare for everything. Eventually, you have to take a step. Successful people get going faster than unsuccessful people. Unsuccessful, unfulfilled, unhappy people live their life in delay. It's the weapon the adversary uses to get you to lose or at least not to reach your full potential. And when you're not expanding your being like you're capable of and giving to the maximum amount you could and experiencing emotions on the deepest level you could and creating memories that you could have, but you're missing them.

21:48When you delay, you become an unfulfilled human being. And by definition, that makes you unsuccessful. And I can tell you right now, there is a direct correlation between people that delay. Listen, the best time to make that contact usually is right now. The best time to take advantage of a situation is right now. The best time to make a move is right now. Not every single time, but your default answer should be now. Your default answer should be now. There are some things in life that need to marinate a little bit. They need to take a little bit of time. That's the exception, not the rule. But most people live that as the rule.

22:29And the exception is that they don't delay. Successful people, their default answer is to go now. And they will delay by exception, not rule. And so the most insidious weapon that the adversary will use, the devil will use, success will use, failure will use big time. Okay? Failure will use big time, getting you to delay. And so if you're delaying right now, by definition, you're operating at a low vibrational frequency and the adversary's got his hands all over you. Failure has their hands all over you. No more delay. okay it's the fourth d oftentimes the first three d's cause you to do the fourth one which is delay your dreams delay your life here's the truth you don't know how long you have i've had guests on my podcast that are in their 30s pass away i've had friends of mine recently that are in their 50s that i've talked to on a given day and three days later they've been gone We don't know how much time we have.

23:35I think sometimes all of us think everybody else is going to die. Just not me. But I don't know when that's coming for you. It could be in five days, five minutes, or 50 years. But I also know that dreams have an expiration date. And if you delay too long, the dream dies. You'll miss the moment. There's something to timing in life. There's something to timing. And what the adversary is trying to do is to get you to miss your time. Start the business too late. See, what if Jess Bezos started Amazon today and not when he did 30 years ago? You understand? The timing matters. What if that person that you're married to now, you would have waited to ask them out five more years?

24:21You may not have that precious person in your life. So timing matters. And delaying is almost always wrong. It's almost always the weapon of failure. It's almost always the weapon the adversary uses in our life. And so today, when you see discouragement coming, you know what it is, you're aware. You make a shift. When you see doubt or feel or experience doubt, you know where that comes from? You know exactly what it is. It's both the weapon of the weak, the weapon of the adversary, and it's an indicator you're about to do something great. See, if you're a professional athlete, you can't have discouragement or doubt if you weren't in the game.

25:01But because you're in the game, you've got to deal with doubt and discouragement. And delusion, we start making something worse than it is or we start believing we're so incredible and great beyond our abilities. We get a little bit delusional or we believe something's further away than it is and we have a delusional belief system. Once we have that, we now know where that comes from. We have our awareness over it and we make a shift. What if my dream was right around the corner? What if my dream was right now? What if I am immensely qualified to make this happen? What if this problem isn't quite as bad because God's got his hand on my life and there's favor and I'm going to get something for my pain here.

25:39I'm going to get a lesson on the other side of this temporary pain. I'm going to learn something that I didn't know before. I'm going to experience an emotion or have an understanding that I did not have prior. That is why we don't want to be delusional. and then delay. I know what's happening here. They're trying to get me to flinch. They're trying to get me to wait. They're trying to get me to cool it. Trying to get me to keep preparing to get perfect. I know that's a weapon of the weak. That's a weapon of failure. That's a weapon of the adversary. And I'm not going to allow that to be in my life because I was born to do something great with my life.