← THE ED MYLETT SHOW
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- [00:00]
Ed Mylett
So many of you have asked how to see me speak live and for the first time ever, you can come see me speak live in person. All of my speeches have been private events but now I'm teaming up with LifeSurge speaking all over the country. LifeSurge is a one day faith based event where you'll walk in hungry for success and you'll leave ready to build your resources to leave an impact on others. We're talking faith fueled finance, growing your resources, crushing obstacles and then, yeah, using it all for something way bigger than yourself. I'm joining Life Surge in a few cities this year and I'd love to see you there. I'll be sharing the stage with legends such as two time football champion Tim Teachers, star of Duck Dynasty, Willie Robertson and leadership hero of mine John Maxwell, pastor and author Craig Groeschel and worship with artists like Natalie Grant. Tickets are on sale@lifesurge.com and just for my listeners, you can use the code ED30 for 30% off a ticket. There will be a link in the show notes so click through and take some time to join us. Cities are being added all the time, so if you don't see one near you now, check back. I hope to see you there.
- [01:04]
Thaddeus Bullard (Titus O'Neil)
This is the Ed Milet Show.
- [01:08]
Ed Mylett
Hey everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. So I get asked all the time,
- [01:21]
Unidentified Supportive Speaker
how in the world did you go
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Ed Mylett
from having no running water, your apartment, to living on the water, to living
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Unidentified Supportive Speaker
oceanfront, to have another home that's lakefront? How does somebody go from changing their conditions that dramatically in a pretty short window of time? And a lot of different things went into that. A lot of it was blessing. A lot of it was a lot of hard work, all kinds of mental changes that I made.
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Ed Mylett
But there's one area that I've not talked a lot about that I want
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Unidentified Supportive Speaker
to cover today that I think you
- [01:44]
Ed Mylett
need to know if you want to change the conditions of your life that way as well. So when the water got turned off, you know what I had to do?
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Unidentified Supportive Speaker
I had to look around my life. I really had to take an inventory, not just of me, but what was around my life.
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Ed Mylett
And the fact of the matter was
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Unidentified Supportive Speaker
I did not have the right people in my life. I didn't have the people who believed in me. I didn't have the people who supported my vision I didn't have people who made me want to be better in my life. I had a few, but I didn't have enough. I had too many people in my life that have just always been in my life. They always accepted me for who I was. And that acceptance, that lack of belief in me, that lack of standard got me all the way to where I
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Ed Mylett
couldn't even pay a water bill.
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Unidentified Supportive Speaker
I didn't even have a car, never mind electricity for a while. And so it's very dangerous. It was very dangerous for me for who I allowed just to support my limiting thinking, who I had around me. They weren't bad people. There's very few bad people. They just weren't people who were going to get me going in my life where I knew I needed to go,
- [02:39]
Ed Mylett
where I was born to go.
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Unidentified Supportive Speaker
I had read all the books on personal development. I learned about influence, kind of learned how to change my state, how to think differently. Been to a lot of the events that you go to. Why is it that so many people go to all these self improvement, personal development, business events? They get all excited when they're there, they're ready to conquer the world, then they get back home and life very slowly starts to drift back to normal. And that's because environment overrides almost everything in our lives.
- [03:04]
Ed Mylett
That's why.
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Unidentified Supportive Speaker
And so the reason you're so excited when you're at the event, the reason you're ready to conquer the world is the environment supports what you're doing. And so I had to start to address my environment. And environment is the place you are, but most importantly, your environment is the people that are around you. Because write this down, number one, in our lives, the most powerful force that I'm aware of in the world is to be consistent and congruent with the expectations of our peer group. Let me say that to you again. The most powerful force on earth is we become consistent with the expectations of our peer group. You're going to get out of life what the people around you expect of you. And so I had to begin to address who were the people around me and specifically what was the environment that I was in. Because number two, proximity is power. The closer somebody is to you, the more influence they have over you. That's why your personal relationship that you're in is something that must be evaluated at all given times. And people ask me, how do I get more spouse support or partner support, boyfriend or girlfriend support? I don't know that you're always going to get more support. And I don't even know that that's needed. But one thing that's a foundation of all relationships is, does this person believe in me? Most people love us, that's one thing. If we're in a relationship, we kind of feel a level of love. But the deeper question is, do they truly believe in me? And when I started to evaluate my friends that were around me, if I asked myself, were they supporting where I wanted to go in my life, not that they didn't love me or like me. In fact, what most of us do is we love to have people around us who accept us. We say, I want people to accept me as I am. And there's a benefit to that. There's a huge negative as well. If people are constantly accepting this version of you, there's nothing compelling you to go to the next version. There's no stimulus that says, I better change. There's no discomfort because these people closest to us, their proximity has influence over us. So number one thing I want you to ask yourself is, do the people around me believe in me? And if they don't, that needs to be evaluated. People say, well, then what do I do? Do I get rid of them? Well, maybe in some cases. I mean, if they're antagonistic to you, certainly. But what you have to do is begin to add people in your proximity who do believe in you or who will believe in you. If they don't believe in you, perhaps they don't need to be eliminated from your life. But one thing you may need to do is start to reduce their proximity to you. Maybe they're not as close to you
- [05:16]
Ed Mylett
as they used to be.
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Unidentified Supportive Speaker
I've had to do that many times in my life where I've had to eliminate a few people from my life, but very few. This is so critical to you becoming successful because your environmental gain is more important even than your mental game because it's what supports it. And so I want you to evaluate a few things. Do they believe in me? Number two, are they a past or future reference type friend? In other words, when you're around them, what do you find yourself talking the most about? Is it the past or the future? I want to be around people who are constantly talking about either the present, but most importantly, the future. In other words, I want people who are present with me so that when they're with me, we're together. You know, you have those friends too, are constantly not present even though they're in your presence. We don't want that either. But if people are constantly taking me in the past, frame of reference, old stories, old things. Remember when high school, college, previous date, previous vacation, previous business. Remember when? Constantly. You know, they're just always reminiscing. Or are they projecting me into the future? If at least 75% of your conversations aren't about the future with the people that you're around, these are not people supporting your future. They're supporting your past. They're reinforcing your past. The more we talk about something, the more we reinforce its importance in our life. And so this is a very subtle thing, and I think even as I say it, you're going, whoa, they do love me. I think they might believe in me, but, man, we talk about the past all the time. Well, this is somebody who's going to reinforce that state of your life. You need to add people to your proximity who are discussing the future with you. You know, you've heard about triggers before where you can learn in personal development
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Ed Mylett
that, you know, you snap your fingers,
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Unidentified Supportive Speaker
you put yourself in a state, or you walk, you hear a song. It's a trigger, isn't it? You hear a song from some point in your life, it triggers a memory or a song you love right now that triggers you wanting to work out or move your body. So things are triggers. People are also triggers. And if there are people in your life, just by their proximity, trigger events that are prior in your life that didn't serve you just by being around them, they're a trigger. Humans are triggers. Do you have people that just. When you see them, they trigger peace for you? They trigger joy, they trigger abundance, they trigger competing, they trigger intensity, they trigger belief, they trigger confidence, they trigger your desire to grow. Ask yourself what triggers these people are in your life? What do they trigger in you? And you begin to. You start to look at these things, you're going, wow. Well, this group of friends who. They accept me, but I don't know if they believe in me. Then I've got this other group of friends where they believe in me, but we're always talking about the past. And then you know what, they kind of trigger these states of sort of comfort or average in me. Who do I have that's triggering my desire to grow? Who makes me uncomfortable? Who do I have? Like, I kind of clean up the house before they come over. Who do I have where I get excited when I see them? Because not every conversation is the same. I don't know where it's going to go? You should have those people that accept you in your life. There's nothing wrong with that, it's an important thing. But you should have these other people who really don't accept this version of you. They believe in you so greatly, so much that they don't accept this version of you. They don't accept this performance from you. They don't accept this level of happiness, abundance, joy, performance from you because they know how much more you're capable of. Who do you have like that in your life? And the reason that that matters so deeply for us is because, and I want you to write this down, we get our standards in life. We don't always get our goals, we don't always even get what we focus on. We end up ultimately getting what our standards are. Standards dictate everything in life. And the people around us help create that standard. For example, I was at a birthday party last night and the people sitting around me were all very fit people. And dessert came, it was birthday cake time. And I probably normally would have probably had that piece of cake. But the first three people that were asked have this standard for how they eat in their life and when their cheat days are, their cheat meals are. And all three people passed on it. And immediately, almost through peer pressure, I went, no, I'll pass too. And then my buddy goes, dude, it's okay, have a piece. And I said, no, no, no, man, it's good. That standard alters us in every little area. Now that's an obvious example. But we're going to get our standards, our standards of wealth, our standards of faith, our standards of abundance. And the people in our proximity help set the standard based on what theirs are in their life. So the people around you evaluate next, what are the standards they help you set in your life? The other thing we win with is energy. And so ask yourself this, is this person in my life an energy giver or an energy drainer? This is massive. So when you're talking to them, do they feed you energy? You know, there's that one number where it shows up on your phone. You're like, oh, right, you know that conversation. That text is going to be an energy drain. This person's proximity to your life is stealing some things from you. I'm not saying you shouldn't have people in your life who you're supporting and you're helping because we're going to talk about that next. But if the vast majority of people around you are energy neutral or energy drainers, what do you think that's doing to your environment that you're supporting yourself with?
- [10:22]
Ed Mylett
Okay.
- [10:23]
Unidentified Supportive Speaker
Or on the contrary, is this Someone who gives you energy, feeds your energy, feeds your belief, makes you stronger, gives you that juice in your life. Because all of these things, these people around us, all these evaluations, they're creating our environment so that it'll support our thinking, it'll support the changes we're making, it'll support our goals. This is supported by scripture as well. Proverbs 27:17. As iron sharpens iron, so does one person sharpen another. And so one of the obvious questions about this is if someone is lower energy for me or is a past reference person or a trigger that doesn't support me, or they don't believe in me, or they only accept me as I am. If you have some of these issues, what do you do with them? I'll give you three things. I don't think you just eliminate people from your lives. It's not that hardcore a thing, because this is more about adding the right people than it is eliminating people, but it is reducing their proximity. And so I think with people in your life that aren't supporting you the way you want to, number one, I would recommend you be kind to them, be kind in your conversations with them. You don't have to become mean to them or adversarial to them. And I don't even think you need to let them know this. Number two, I think you need to be cordial. But I will tell you that you begin to become three, which is concise. Your dialogue with them begins to be concise. Their proximity to you begins to shrink. And these are things people say, gosh, that's so difficult. Well, do you want to be happier? Do you want to win? I mean, you've already tried the other things, right? You've already started to write goals down. You're already working on yourself. You already got some habits that you're working on. Maybe this is the area. Perhaps this is the area. Those of you that have children, this is an audio or video they should be watching or listening to. Their school teachers influence them. That's their mentors. That's like what we're doing right now, right? But who really has influence over your children? Who really sculpts who they are? It's their friends and it's their closest friends. That's why parents guard those associations so vigilantly. The good parents do, because they know the proximity of these kids around their children are going to influence ultimately who they become. And our lives begin to have a pace that's different than when we're young. But the same exact thing is true for Us, these people closest to us dictate who we become. It's not our mentors, like our school teachers. They have some influence. I have influence, hopefully with you, but not the same as the people that you're texting with when you're done listening to this. Not the same as who you're having dinner with tonight. Not the same as who you have lunch, who you're around at work, who you're around in the evening, who you socialize with, right? They have the greatest form of influence over you. Because in your life, you're trying to build this library of memories, aren't you? And in your mind right now, these memories are going to be different. They're different places, different experiences, different things, right? Different moments, different achievements, different breakthroughs, different feelings. With the same people, with the same people, with the same people, you are likely to build the same types of memories over and over again. So if you love your life right now, if everything in your life is rich and you don't want it to change and you don't want it to grow, and you'd like to keep repeating these memories you're getting now, well, then, by all means, keep these people very close to you and add people as you go. But if there's this party that's. I want to change the memories. I don't want the next 10 years of my life, the feelings, the experiences, the accomplishments, the places I see, moments I have. So all I'm asking you to do today is do an audit on your environment. I want you to audit the people around you in your environment and the things around you. What do you have around you in your environment? Are your goals up on a board? Do you have visualizations? Are you reading things that you can see visually in your life? Are you listening to the right things? These are all part of your environment. But the most important thing are the people that are inside that environment that are around you. And so that's how you eliminate. Now, adding people to your life, the best way to do that is to seek out, go to places where they are. So, I mean, where do they have lunch? Where do they have coffee? Where do they work out? Where do they worship? Go to the places where these people that you think could help you to become good friends and just become a part of that environment. And the more you're in the environment, you'll end up meeting people. It's a strategy, it's work to add people to your life. I could tell you that I work very hard at this. I also believe in the Law of reciprocity. You don't just ask somebody to be your friend. You find a way that you can contribute. You want to become a friend of mine? Say, how can I help you? How can I serve you? Just offer whatever you have. You say, well, I don't have anything to offer people. You'd be surprised. Could you offer me your belief in me? Could you offer me your truth? Could you offer me your prayers? Could you offer me your support? These are real gifts you give people. Not all of them need to be knowledge and breakthroughs and an example and a track record. You'd be surprised. Someone like myself, what just your belief means to me, your support means to me. And I'm the type of person, the people you want in your life. When I feel like you've given me something, I feel obligated, obligated to pay you back even more. And so the way you add people to your life is with the law of reciprocity. Put yourself in environments where they are and begin to offer your belief, your kindness, your support, your love. Maybe it is your collaborations, maybe it is your connections, maybe it is a talent or skill you have. But it doesn't have to be those things. When I was a young person, I ended up adding people to my life that were much more successful than me, much more well known than me. But you know what? As I got to know them, I think they sense this person truly believes in me, they truly care about me. This is a real friend. You have those people in your life as well, where they don't necessarily have all the experience to support you, but they really believe in you, they really love you. And then the last thing I want to ask you today is because for you to add these people to your life, what I just said is the most important thing. How do you show up in people's lives? How do you show up in people's lives? Right now, Are you that person that's an energy giver or drainer? Are you a future frame of reference or the past? Do you help your friends set high standards or the acceptable standards they already have?
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Ed Mylett
Right.
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Unidentified Supportive Speaker
Are you someone who deeply believes in people and they know it, or you just kind of accept them as they are? These are the things you begin to ask of. How are you showing up in other people's lives? Because that will have an awful lot to do with who shows up in your life. How do you show up in other people's lives? And if you begin to evaluate these things, your environment slowly but surely will begin to support your Mental game will be supported by your environmental game. And why is that so important? Because I want to remind you about something. You were born to do something great with your life. You were put here to do something special. All your life, since you were a little boy or a little girl, there was some point in your life where you knew you were supposed to do something great, that you were put here for a reason, that you've got a calling, that you've got a home in your life. You're eventually going to find where you're living the real, true, authentic version of you, your best version, you know, you're supposed to do something great with your life. And right now, if you're listening to this or you watch this, maybe you're not quite there yet. And maybe it's your thinking. Maybe it's some tactics and strategies and habits which I cover all the time on this show. Maybe it's all the mental stuff, but more than likely it's the environmental stuff. It's the standards, it's the people around you that believe in you. It's not just having people that accept you because you want to do something so great with your life. I have this theory that many of you heard that when I die someday, I believe I want the Lord to say, well done, good and faithful servant. But I have this hallucination, as many of you know, that when I die, the Lord's going to do that, and he's going to turn around and say, eddie, I want you to meet the man I made you to be when I made you in my image and likeness. This is the destiny version of you. This is the man you were born to be. And that guy's going to be standing there, and I want to meet him and go, I've been chasing you all my life, man. And he's going to say, boy, you caught me. You did it. I'm proud of you. You had all the memories, all the moments, all the contribution, all the feelings, all the difference, all of it in your life. You made it all happen. You became the man you were born to be. We're identical twins. To me, that's heaven. When I pass away, Heaven is I meet the man I was born to be, and we're identical twins. Hell would be that you'd meet that person and you're total strangers. You're total strangers. That woman, someday when you die and you meet the woman you could have been, and you're total strangers. You went down different paths, different roads, different decisions your entire life, and you never become that Woman, you never become that man. To me, that's hell. So if it's that important to you, that you've always known, maybe it got buried as you got older. Maybe life sort of kicked us around a little bit to where not everyone in our life believed it. And then maybe our parents, our friends, our school teachers just. Life started to happen and we forget who we are. We forget who we are. And you know why you forget who you are? Because of the people that have been in your damn life. Because they haven't supported that great version of you. When you were really little, you knew it, you felt it. Because you were closer to God at that time. And the more and more people were added to your life, they began to treat you in such a way that they didn't expect those things of you. And maybe you've started to accept that. So if it's people that created these limiting beliefs, created this anxiety, created this fear, created this thing about us where we forget our greatness, if it's people who did this to us, it's people who are going to help us get out of it. If it's the environment that stole this joy, stole this belief, stole this confidence from us, stole this sense of purpose from us and passion, it's the environment that will give it back to us again. And we put the people in our lives that we deserve to have, not just that, have always been there.
- [19:15]
Ed Mylett
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. You'll never miss an episode that way. So IMH sponsored the show for a while. You guys, I'll be honest with you. They sent me a bunch of their product and I didn't take it because I was on some other stuff. Then I went on vacation. I brought it with me. Oh my gosh. What was I thinking? Waiting. So if you've been looking for something easy to stick with, that makes it easy to feel better, this might be it for me. It's something I've come to rely on daily. And I wouldn't miss it again. I know when I miss a day. Give your body what it deserves. With I am eight, go to im8health.com ED and use code ED for a free welcome kit. Five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order. Seriously, this is one of those offers you wish you jumped on sooner. That's im8health.com ed and use code ED for a free welcome kit. Five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order. Im8th.com ed coded these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, prevent any disease so most dress shirts make you choose between one of two things. You can look polished or you can feel comfortable. Here's why I love Mizzen and Maine. It's the first shirt I've worn that actually does both. It's comfy and it looks like it just came right out of the dry cleaner. I got to tell you something, I've been on a 14 day road trip and one of them was a wedding. I had this white shirt packed in my bag the entire time. Normally by the time I got to that wedding that thing would have been trashed, right? Mizzen and Main shirt? Nope. Pulled it out. Looks like I just pressed it. Plus it was comfortable when I wore it. That's why I love these guys. Mizzen and Main makes classic menswear with performance fabrics so it's effortless to look sharp and feel great. So right now Mizzen and Maine is offering our listeners 20% off your first purchase at mizzenandmain.com promo code mylet20 that's Mizzen spelled M I Z Z E N and main m a I n.com promo code mylet20 for 20% off mizzen in maine.com promo code mylet20 and if you'd rather shop in person, you can find Mizzen and Main stores in select states.
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Unidentified Interviewer
Ed on a different topic, I've also heard you speak to appreciating that people with limiting beliefs about themselves, about the world, about you often project that onto you. I'm guessing it goes both ways, right? We also have limiting beliefs and we project onto others. Will you speak to the power of understanding when you might be in a relationship with a partner, a spouse, a boss, a leader where their own limiting beliefs might be projecting onto you and diminishing your self confidence, your self esteem or even your self worth?
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Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Yeah, often people that project their limiting
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Ed Mylett
beliefs onto us, they love us, they're
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Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
actually concerned about us. Why are you working so hard? Why is this money stuff matter you? Why do you want to achieve so much? And they're just projecting their small thinking and small beliefs onto us. They're not always antagonistic against us. But how do we know if our friends, our associations serve us? I have a chapter in the book about becoming an impossibility thinker and a possibility achiever and I have a point that I make in the book that 99% of people on Earth today operate out of a filter, a frame of reference in their life, which is their memories and their history. This is the filter in which they think and operate out of.1% of people operate out of their imagination or their vision. So stay with me. History and memories, 99%. Imagination and vision, 1%. Okay, this is a fact. Why are we happier when we're children? We're happier when we're children because we're operating out of our imagination because we have no history. But then by about age 10, we have a history that's been installed in us with limiting beliefs by loving parents. In fact, Scott, I make the contention there's all kinds of child neglect. There's alcoholism and drug addiction. There's a family where we don't show
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Ed Mylett
affection, like what you said.
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Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
I don't say, I love you or I'm proud of you enough. But the most insidious form of neglect of all children in the world is a child being raised by a parent who is not pursuing their potential and their vision and their imagination. This is a form of neglect because everything with children and leadership is caught, not taught. As I said earlier, you are limiting. You're projecting, you're limiting beliefs into those children by not pursuing your potential and your dreams. So here's how you know. When you're around somebody who serves you, are they often saying to you, you remember, remember when? Remember this. When you're around your friends or your spouse, remember this, remember, remember. How about this? Remember, remember. And they're constantly remembering. This is someone who operates out of history and memory. I try to surround myself with friends who don't do that. Where my friends say, where are you going? Isn't this moment amazing? What's your vision? What are you dreaming on? What are you working on right now? Where are you heading, man? Isn't tonight special? So they're in the present, focused on their imagination and their future. This dialogue, if you really think through it, most of you, and I love you, I'm sincere. When you're with your friends, you're reminiscing. There's nothing wrong with doing a little of that. But if it's the dominant conversation, they operate out of their history and memory. And here's what's going to happen, they're going to repeat it. The same emotions, the same thoughts, different circumstances, different people, same life to tie
- [24:39]
Ed Mylett
the two topics together.
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Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
I want people, and most of my friends, I can't get them to Reminisce like, ah, man, let me tell you where I'm going. This is where we're headed. This is how amazing it's going to be. And today's a gift, man, because I get to do it today. Those are the people I want around me. I don't want to be going backwards all the time and repeating the same history by thinking the same stuff.
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Unidentified Interviewer
Ed Mylett's on fire today. Ed. My second favorite aspect of the book is one more question to ask ourselves. You list about 40 plus questions in the book. Things like, is there one more thing I can do to make my family feel more special? Is there one more thing I can do to show my appreciation for the people I work with? What's one more thing I can do to calm myself down today? Couple more. What's one more way I can worry less about what other people think? And then my favorite of all of them is number 12, is there one more thing I can do so people will see me less different than I see myself? I mean, that's so powerful. Is there one more thing I can do so people will see me less different than I see myself? It really speaks to the power of self awareness. Expand on that.
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Ed Mylett
Dude, you're really good. So the quality of our life is the quality of our questions we ask ourselves.
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Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
I have a chapter in the book on thinking. What is thinking? Thinking is the process of asking and answering questions to yourself. That's a thought. Change the quality of the questions in your life, you'll change the answers, you'll change the emotions most of the time. Here's what human beings think.
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Ed Mylett
They think they're not qualified to help people. They're not qualified to make a difference. They're disqualified by their past, something they're ashamed of, a failure, a bankruptcy, a divorce. Maybe they just always felt average and ordinary like I did with Mrs. Smith.
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Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
And they think I'm not qualified to do this. And so the question they keep asking themselves is one that doesn't serve them. But what if the question started to
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Ed Mylett
be, how did my past prepare me for my future?
- [26:42]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
How did what I've gone through prepare me to be my test become my testimony?
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Ed Mylett
Let me give you a quick example.
- [26:49]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
The most important decision of my lifetime was made by my father, which was to try to get sober one more time. There's a chapter in the book called One More Try.
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Ed Mylett
I vividly remember my dad go, I'm
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Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
going to try one more time. And that decision to get sober changed our family tree, changed my unborn children
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Ed Mylett
who are now going to college.
- [27:08]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Max and Bella, their life is different because my dad made this decision. Millions of people that I reach on a weekly basis, their lives are impacted because my dad made this decision. But thank God, there was another human being that I never thought about until three weeks ago. Four weeks ago, Scott. I woke up in the middle of the night. I told my wife, I said, babe, someone helped daddy. And I was emotional. She said, what, honey? I said, someone helped my dad. She says, what do you mean? I said, my dad making the decision to get sober. Getting sober. Someone helped him. Someone asked themselves the right question. How can I help this man? How can I serve him in the darkest moment of my dad's life when he was going to lose his family and maybe take his own life? I don't even know where it was. Some bar, some alley, some coffee shop. Some precious human said, I'll help you. And here's what's crazy. What qualified them to help my dad was the things they were most ashamed of, embarrassed of that they were also an alcoholic at one time and a drug addict. Little did they know when they were lying to their family about their drinking or stealing money to get drugs, that they were being prepared, if they asked themselves the right question at the right time, to change my father's life and consequently mine and millions of other people. The ripple effect of that one question. So when my dad was desperate, this person asked themselves a question, how can I help this man? And they got the right answer. They could help him because of the things they thought that disqualified them from making a difference was the very thing preparing them to change someone else's life. And so for people listening, it's not only do you need to ask that better question, but you need to know that the things of your past that you think disqualify you. A bankruptcy, a divorce, whatever it is, something you're totally ashamed of is probably the thing that pain what's preparing you on the other side of it to meet that other self of you if you ask the right question? That precious soul sky has affected millions of lives. The ripple effect of them asking an empowering question about the things they thought that disqualified them.
- [29:14]
Ed Mylett
In fact, it's what qualified them to help my dad.
- [29:17]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Different question completely flipped the script on my life and millions of other people.
- [29:22]
Ed Mylett
That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way.
- [29:30]
Unidentified Guest with Similar Backstory
Hey, I want to jump straight in. You know, I've had A chance to get through. All the way through Power. One more. I gotta be honest with you, it's by far one of my best books this year that I've been through. I haven't seen so much packed into one set of bookends and I don't know how long.
- [29:47]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, it's a lot.
- [29:48]
Scott Galloway
Yeah.
- [29:50]
Unidentified Guest with Similar Backstory
One of the things that stuck out to me is this. Intention is the currency of identity, or changing your identity. Explain that to everybody, because I thought that was powerful.
- [30:00]
Ed Mylett
Well, I didn't learn. It's not mine. I learned it from Wayne Dyer, actually. I probably made it my own. But many, many years ago, I was running on a beach in Hawaii. I met Wayne Dyer. He ran by me. We ended up sitting on the beach together for about an hour and a half. I was very young. If you don't know who Wayne Dyer is, Google him. He's one of the icons of, you know, thought leadership. Anyway, when we were done, he goes, ed, you're going to change the world. And I don't know if he said that to a lot of people or not, but to me it was incredible.
- [30:22]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
Yeah.
- [30:22]
Ed Mylett
And he goes, and you're just this big brain, the way you speak and make people feel things and, you know, you're very talented, man. He goes, would you. But that's not why. And I said, well. He goes, and please never base your self confidence on, or your identity on your abilities or your achievements. I went, well, what the heck are you supposed to base it on then? And he said, in your case, your intentions. You have a warm, huge, beautiful heart. You want to help people. And your intentions are so huge, they're so beautiful, that that's why you're going to change the world. Always focus on your intention. There's a power to intentions. He happened to be writing a book by that title at the time. Long story short, it was the first time someone had complimented me where I believed it. I've never believed I was that smart or that special or that talented. But I did know I had a good heart. And so since that day, for the most part, man, even preparing for something like this today, my confidence, my identity comes from my intention to serve, my intention to make a difference. So many people are chasing that tail of once I'm achieving something, once I'm really great, then I'll have confidence. That's not where mine comes from. Mine comes from intention. And that's what I recommend in the book.
- [31:21]
Unidentified Guest with Similar Backstory
Yeah, no, I love that. You know, it's one. It's interesting to me. I was Just thinking through that. You know, we didn't get a chance because the event was so busy. We didn't get a chance to spend a lot of time together. But you and I have a lot of similarities in our backstories.
- [31:32]
Ed Mylett
You told me that, but I don't know what they are. Yeah, yeah.
- [31:35]
Unidentified Guest with Similar Backstory
So my father was an alcoholic for a number of years and I watched him really struggle back and forth to try to get a handle on it. And you know, when I was thinking through the intentions, I remember him actually having a similar conversation that your dad had with you. I'm going to try one more time.
- [31:53]
Ed Mylett
Really? Wow. Yeah.
- [31:55]
Unidentified Guest with Similar Backstory
And lo and behold, it did. It did.
- [31:58]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
Yeah.
- [31:58]
Unidentified Guest with Similar Backstory
He's been sober for 35 plus years. Fantastic grandfather and the whole deal, man.
- [32:03]
Ed Mylett
Thank God. That's wonderful. Yeah.
- [32:05]
Unidentified Guest with Similar Backstory
But the intention behind the meat, that intent behind going through by making that, well, an importance.
- [32:13]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Right?
- [32:14]
Ed Mylett
Yeah. I think, I think most of the things we do great in our life come from love. My dad got sober because he loved his family enough to try again. Your dad got sober enough because he loved you and loved your family enough to try again. Hopefully loved himself. But oftentimes, you know, to find something we love, it may not be us, but all great things are achieved through love. And that sounds corny with two dudes talking that lift weights and stuff, but the fact of the matter is, it's true. And when I focus on who I love or what I love, that's much bigger than whatever the obstacle is in my way. And that's always given me the fuel and the energy to, you know, persevere where maybe other people quit or gave in.
- [32:45]
Unidentified Guest with Similar Backstory
Yeah. How much of that intention is cycles into self sabotage?
- [32:51]
Ed Mylett
What do you mean? What do you mean by that?
- [32:52]
Unidentified Guest with Similar Backstory
Well, to me, if you have a focused intention, you're. You're intentionally choosing a direction where self sabotage appears to be a lot more subconscious.
- [33:03]
Ed Mylett
Well, well, self sabotage comes from that internal identity that whatever you're about to go do, you don't believe you're worthy of, or even if you get it, you'll blow it. Like, you've heard me talk many times about the thermostat analogy. It's in the. But the truth is, if you don't get this internal thermostat, your identity, high enough, no matter what you achieve, you're going to turn the air conditioners on in your life and cool it back down again to what you believe you're worth. I just, I, and, and I watch this all the time on my new show. I have a new TV show what's going to be streaming called Change with Ed Mylett. And this woman, one of the guests on the show was a woman. She gained 180 pounds, lost 90, gained it back. Lost 90, gained it back. And I said, the challenge for you, Angie, is you believe you're a heavy woman who happens to have lost weight. And because that's the case, your identity is a heavy woman. You always get back there and turn the air conditioners back on. But what if the truth was you've always been a healthy, fit woman who had gained weight? And if we could switch that identity now, we won't sabotage ourselves again. Sabotage is really the process of getting what we believe we're worth. Yeah, we're really. We're really getting what we believe we're worth. So we're, we're trashing the current results of the current situation to get back to what our thermostat setting is and that we call that sabotage. But it's just getting back to what we believe we're worth. Guys, let me tell you something. Factor's made a big difference in my life. Just talking to one of my producers, he says, I just ordered with Factor. Why?
- [34:19]
Unidentified Supportive Speaker
He's got big goals, just like you and I do.
- [34:21]
Ed Mylett
Factor makes healthy eating easy with fully prepared meals designed by dieticians and crafted by chefs. Let me tell you something. Super nutritious food prepared by a chef. That's what we're talking about here. No matter what your nutrition plan is, they've got a meal for you. No refined sugars, no artificial sweeteners, none of that weird seed oil stuff. And here's the cool thing. It's yummy. It's actually better than you would get in a restaurant. Plus the new MusclePro connection, which helps support strength and recovery. It's convenient, it's fresh, it's never frozen. Ready in like two minutes. No prep, no stress. They're the best. Head to factor meals.com mylet50off use code mylet50off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year.
- [35:04]
Unidentified Supportive Speaker
Eat like a pro this month with Factor.
- [35:06]
Ed Mylett
New subscribers only. Varies by plan. One free breakfast item per box for one year while subscription is active.
- [35:13]
Unidentified Guest with Similar Backstory
Yeah, at least for me. You know, I. Again, we didn't get a chance to super connect just one on one. But, you know, part of my backstory is, you know, overcoming homelessness and some other things to kind of get where I'm at today. And it was something in the book that you mentioned I thought was pretty powerful, and it was A huge shift for me, which is one of the reason I wanted to bring it up, which is this essence of operating out of history versus operating out of future. I kept telling myself I was the high school dropout cause I had to pay the bills and help the family and all that kind of stuff. I kept telling myself for a number of years. And then one of my first mentors, old man Myrick, told me, he said, you know, he said, you're you. There's two ways to think. You can either learn to think like me, you can learn to think like your dad. Which one will it be? Right here?
- [35:55]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, right here.
- [35:57]
Unidentified Guest with Similar Backstory
Talk to me about history, man. Talk to me about operating in a history versus.
- [36:00]
Ed Mylett
Well, 1% of all people operate out of their imagination and their dreams, and 99 operate out of history and memory. And this is a really insidious thing. We don't even realize we're doing it. When we're children, we're happier. Why? My belief is we were just more recently with God. And two, we don't have a history in memory, so we're forced to operate out of imagination. And then at some point for some children like you and I, we start getting a history early because it's thrust upon us with an alcoholic dad or whatever. But for the most part, most kids, it's 10, 12, 15 years old, they start operating of history and memory. And what we do in our life is we move towards what we're most familiar with. So you become familiar with this history and memory and you just move towards it. Same emotions over and over again, same thoughts over and over again. Even if the external circumstances change, we move, we, our life is our emotions, we move towards the same thing. And that ties into associations. We all heard, hey, you're going to be the product of the five people you hang around. That's old school, right?
- [36:50]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Yeah.
- [36:50]
Ed Mylett
How do you know who it should be?
- [36:52]
Unidentified Supportive Speaker
What's.
- [36:53]
Ed Mylett
What's one thing no one's ever told you before? I'll give it to you right now. It's in my book. If your peer group operates out of history and memory, they don't serve you like they should. I'll give you an example. If when you're with your friends, it's like, man, you remember, you remember, you
- [37:06]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
remember that, you remember high school, you remember that one thing, you remember that, you know, you, you.
- [37:10]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, right. And that's what most friends do together. Yeah, I don't have a lot of that. I have a little bit of it.
- [37:15]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
And by the way, my peer group
- [37:16]
Ed Mylett
have Great histories and memories they can operate out of.
- [37:19]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Yeah, but they don't.
- [37:20]
Unidentified Supportive Speaker
When we're together, you almost got to force them.
- [37:22]
Ed Mylett
What we're doing is we're talking about imagination, dreams. What are you working on right now?
- [37:25]
Unidentified Supportive Speaker
Where are you going?
- [37:26]
Ed Mylett
What's it going to look like?
- [37:27]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
You can't. You think you can get Tom Brady
- [37:29]
Ed Mylett
to talk about past Super Bowls all the time? Dude, come on, man. He's talking about, hey, I got this new crypto thing. I've got this new watch. I've got this new business thing I'm doing. I got this nft. We're going to win the super bowl this year in Tampa. I want to get ring eight, whatever it is.
- [37:42]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
You talk to Tim Cook, who runs Apple. He's not talking about Max from 20 years ago. He's talking about what they're working on now and where they're going as a company.
- [37:49]
Ed Mylett
And so the people around you, if
- [37:52]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
it's history and memory, that's one little key. Like, I'm not saying drop people.
- [37:55]
Ed Mylett
I'm not a big believer in that
- [37:56]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
unless they're toxic, you know, but you got to add.
- [37:59]
Ed Mylett
And so this is how critical imagine.
- [38:01]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
It's like, probably, you probably asked me
- [38:03]
Ed Mylett
one of the four or five most important things in life.
- [38:05]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
What is your frame of reference?
- [38:06]
Ed Mylett
History or memory or imagination and vision?
- [38:09]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
It's okay to have some history and memory.
- [38:11]
Ed Mylett
We learn from it.
- [38:12]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
But going back there, you cannot be
- [38:14]
Ed Mylett
in both zones at one time. So if you're in history and memory,
- [38:18]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
you are not envisioning imagination. And you were born to imagine. You were born to dream.
- [38:23]
Ed Mylett
You were born to do something great with your life. And I just remember that's something I want to talk about tonight in my speech. Thank you for giving me that question. Hold on. Go ahead, keep going. I'm gonna write a note down because that was really good. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett 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. So today's gonna be awesome for me, and I'm assuming it will be for you, because I have one of the most brilliant people on planet Earth joining me today, one of the best men I've ever known in my life and truly a great friend of mine, and in just a short few years has become very, very close to me. And I think I'm pretty close to him. He's an expert on leadership. He's one of the most prolific authors in the world. Over the last two decades, he sold literally millions of books. And behind the scenes, he is a mentor to some of the most influential people in the world and every different industry. And this man's handprint is all over leadership in this country and across the world now. And it's all over me. And so it'll be all over you by the end of this hour. So my dear, dear friend, John Gordon, welcome back to the show. Brothers. So great to have you.
- [39:32]
John Gordon
Hey, good to be back. And you know how much I love you, respect you, admire you, and just thrilled to be back with you. The last show we did on the One Truth, I just got an email the other day about it and a text from another person saying this YouTube video, because it's on YouTube now, changed my life. Like they said, this thing was unbelievable. And we talked about over a year and a half, maybe two years ago now, and it's still going out there. That conversation we had about oneness and separateness, so powerful.
- [40:00]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
I want you to talk about the
- [40:01]
Ed Mylett
antenna a little bit. You know, one of the ways that you get there is you change things about your disposition. And so when I was younger, I used to think certain things about me were my strengths or I could get away with them. And what I learned is sometimes it's not a matter of just even developing new skills or talents. It's shedding the thing that holds you back. It's pruning yourself almost. When I was young, I used to think my intensity, my passion was my strength. But very close brother or sister to that was anger. And I was more of an angry type leader. I think that's really hard for most people that watch my stuff now, like I. Or that you were a negative thinker because it's just so contrary to what you see with you now.
- [40:46]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
But mine was anger, and I had to.
- [40:48]
Ed Mylett
I was winning in spite of that thing that I kept telling myself was one of my gifts. And when I finally decided that I was going to grow up and mature and change this thing about myself and tap into better thinking and better behavior, my whole life took off. And you talk about the antenna. You also talk about the fact that it's hard to believe that you're the positive guy that was always constantly, chronically negative. So take those two things together and just dive in on that. Isn't part of becoming successful happier shedding things that about yourself that are holding you back and being honest about what that thing is?
- [41:22]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
And then if I'm right about that.
- [41:24]
Ed Mylett
How does one tap into the good stuff?
- [41:26]
John Gordon
Man, that's a lot right there to unpack. But we have an antenna, and that antenna caused us to tune into two main frequencies. A positive frequency or a negative frequency. And there's a choice between two, and there's only two. And everything in life comes down to positive and negative. It's why there's a main gist in our life. And there's also a shadow part of that. There's duality. And so that anger is caused by something deeper. There's love, there's hate, right? There's confidence. There's a lack of confidence. There's always two sides to every coin, and you have to understand that. And you're either fueled by the positive or the negative. You're fueled by either the wound or the healing. And so often people are fueled by anger because they're hurt. And that anger actually feels better than depression, so it fuels them. But anger and depression are actually very close. Anger is depression that gets off the couch. Anger is depression that gets off the couch and goes and does something and finds the juice to do it. And so I call anger steroids of the soul. It actually gives you temporary boost of energy, temporary power. So it feels good, but at the same time, it's actually destroying you in the process, because it's coming from a place of hurt, a place of a wound. And so many people are driven by this anger or this wound and the need to be successful, the need to be liked, the need to show that their father who left, that they are someone. And so the wound drives them. And it drove me for a long time. This is how I know this so well. My biological father left when I was a year old, so there was a wound that drove me to be successful. Then I lose my job, 30, 31 years old, my wife's about to leave me. I'm almost bankrupt. Everything comes crashing down. The guy that was fueled by all of this had the scoreboard of success and wealth and fame. Everything came crumbling down. Now what am I fueled by? It was a crisis of epic proportions. And everyone will go through this at some point in their life, I believe. And it was during that time I said, okay, I want to make a difference. I want to impact others. I want my life to be about others, not myself. I. I want to get closer to God. I. I knew I didn't have God in my life. And that was a defining moment in my life. And then from there, it became about a healthy ambition. It was a Healthy ambition, which is different than anger, which is different than being fueled by a wound. Now it's being fueled by your healing. Not the wound, the growth, the healing to heal yourself and then to heal others. And from there comes power and peace and confidence and courage. And you can see the difference. Someone who's fueled by love and someone who's fueled by fear. It all comes down to love and fear. What's driving you? The love of others or the fear of not having enough. The fear of not being successful or the love of competing and the love of, of being your best and the love of your teammates one will help you perform at the highest level. The love, the fear will cause you to have short term success, but eventually will be a constraint that brings you down. So I tell everyone, look at what's fueling you and what's driving you. And you're either living from your wound or your healing. And that's how you'll know whether you're on the right path or not. Now, Ed, you were obviously driven by the anger that came from a wound. Then you began the process of healing and self growth, self mastery. And then it led to a different mindset, different perspective, different energy connected to a greater source, a greater power to God. And all of a sudden you now become a conduit for all that God wants to do in the world rather than this person who's blocking, blocking the flow of God's power and peace in your life. So are you being blocked or you actually being a conduit for everything that wants to happen in your life and in the lives of others? And so that's how I look at it from a duality perspective and what each person is facing on this journey. And everyone will move from the wound to the healing. And I really believe this is the path forward for people at work, people in life. More and more people are talking about wounds today because wounds are meant to be healed. And in the healing process, you become your most powerful self.
- [45:31]
Ed Mylett
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. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now, on with the show.
- [45:42]
Unidentified Interviewer or Host
Let's talk about mentors for a minute. How have mentors impacted you on your journey? John, being one of those for you, I assume. And you know, where do you, where do you think that impacts people? If, if you're out there listening, you know, the people that are listening to this show what have mentors done for your life and what could they do for the people listening and watching?
- [46:03]
Ed Mylett
Well, John is one of them. And the idea that I have to live up to him being there last year, it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. In fact, I talked to on Friday because another good friend of mine, John Gordon, was with them and they had met for the first time and ended up, you know, saying, hey, they're both very good friends of mine. And both, you know, connected over that. My mentors, the number one thing, John's one of them. And by the way, the coolest thing is when your mentor moves from mentor to friend, because when they become your friend, then they have way more influence over you, right? Like if you think about with your kids, like their teachers, their mentor, and that teacher has tremendous influence over your child. But who do you really worry about is influencing your child? Their friends, right? And so when you get to that point where you become friends with your mentor, oh my gosh, can they make an impact on you? That's just remarkable. And I consider John a friend. He was moved from mentor to friend. My mentors, the number one thing they've done for me in my life is they've believed in me in such a deep way that I've wanted to live up to how they looked at me. I wanted to prove them right. And so the number one thing, my mentors have seen my giftedness, seen my potential, seen my capacity. They see me as I could be, not as I am. And because they see me as I could be, as not as I am. And they've done it enough that I actually want to work hard enough to live up, to prove them right. That's number one. Number two, my mentors have been further down the road that I want to go down. And that's why I selected them as a mentor. And they have directions. They have directions. And the vast majority of those directions, believe it or not, have come from wrong turns they made that they warned me about that I then don't make. So of course there's been mentors will say, listen, I did this, this and this, and that works. And those have been very effective lessons. But other ones have been, hey, warning, here's a turn I made that I don't think you need to make, or I see you going down a path I was going down. I can just tell you that's a dead end road. Turn around now and head this way. And so they've done that for me. They also give me comfort and security. They've helped create, I Would call what I would call, like, an emotional stability around me, that I'm not alone in this journey. My number one mentor and friend is Jesus. You know that. And he gives me tremendous comfort to know I just did it last night. I was praying last night. I pray on my knees every night, and we're being. You know, I'm just bearing my soul with you today more than I normally would. Like, literally, at the end of my prayer last night, kind of got some stuff going on. I'm like, hey, Lord, just. I'm giving this to you. I got this overwhelming, like, warmth flowed over me, like, hey, I have you, my son. I love you. I got you. And so that's the ultimate example of that. But it also feels good to be able to call John or Lou and say, hey, I got this. And they're like, I got your back. It's gonna be okay. There's some comfort to it. Gives me some emotional peace. They've done all of those things, but they have a sense of direction. There's this, the Chinese proverb that I always screw up. But, you know, if you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back. They have directions. They've seen it. And the most of these people, including me, at this point, I've been down a lot of different roads. I can save you time by the mistakes I've made, and I can give you some sense of direction on what's worked for me and what hasn't worked the best. Mentors also usually ask me questions and don't make statements, meaning they make me work hard within myself to find the answer by asking the right questions, as opposed to just giving me instructions, because that's the difference between, you know, feeding somebody and teaching them to fish. My great mentors have made me do the hard work on uncovering the answers and creating the systems and patterns and habits in my life that'll allow me to solve these types of problems when they come up in the future when maybe they won't be present. What.
- [49:54]
Unidentified Interviewer or Host
What role does faith play in your selection of mentors?
- [49:59]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, it has an. It has. It's. It's now probably the primary thing. I can't say that every mentor I've had has shared faith, because that's not true. I've had fitness mentors who don't share my faith, and I'm like, show me how to get that body right. Or my current doctor who's on my show tomorrow. I don't think we share the same faith. But God still made her in her image and Likeness to serve me. So it's not a requirement for me. I mean, the easy answer would be to say that all of them share my faith. That's not true. I have mentors in certain areas of my life that don't share my faith.
- [50:32]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
And I actually, I gotta be honest
- [50:34]
Ed Mylett
with you, I enjoy having friends around me with different perspectives and points of view. It strengthens my faith. It causes me to question things that I think require questioning to go to the next level. It's actually a really good question. My best friend is not a believer. I'm working on him, but my best friend, his name, his real name's Kelly, but I call him Richard Cabeza on my social media. You can figure out why I call him that.
- [51:04]
Thaddeus Bullard (Titus O'Neil)
Love.
- [51:04]
Ed Mylett
That love that guy. And I. And I love him. And he lives a better life than most of my believer friends, but he's more of a brother to me. Like, I. I love and adore him, and I think over time, things have happened in his life, like. And I think I'm allowed to say this because I love him, but in the last year, he. He lost his sister and his brother and. And his mom's ailing. And I don't want to be too personal with his life because I love him, but. But because I'm so close to him more than a brother. It's now the time that we've started to have these conversations about, well, where'd they go, bro, you know, and what's this life all mean? And now that you're getting near 50, is it all about your Louis Vuitton shoes and your mansion on the ocean and, you know, these other things? And he keeps reaching these conclusions, like, brother, it's not. There's got to be more. And so now we're at that stage where he brings. I think we're having those conversations, but so it's not. Not all of them do share my faith. I think the primary ones, though, I want them to because they understand my point of view and perspective of how I think and what matters to me. And in most cases, if they don't share that same belief system, it's hard to give me the major directions on the major things in my life. But I think you'd be surprised, even with John, who used to run a church, I think you'd be surprised, you know, if I'm being honest about how unspoken our faith is between the two of us. I mean, it's not that it's never spoken, but it's not like, let's pray together every minute that we're together. Nor is faith necessarily the central topic when he and I talk. But I think we both know that's the. The play running in the background. But I think people would be surprised that you would think of you. You and John Maxwell must talk about faith all the time. We don't now. John Gordon and I do. It's just a different friendship. John Gordon and I, about everything always comes back to faith. It's just the nature of our relationship. It's just a different dynamic. So did that answer. I think that answers it.
- [53:10]
Unidentified Interviewer or Host
Yeah. I. I find it, you know, best to live out the way that you want to live. As they say, the old quote is, you know, live right, because you might be the only Bible that anybody ever reads.
- [53:24]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
That's it. That's.
- [53:26]
Ed Mylett
I think that's probably the number one thing that's going on with me and Kelly because he's just watched me live my life up close for 20 years, and I think the older and older he gets, he's understanding the narrative going on behind me and why more than when we were younger men. And I think any of you that are people of faith, I think it might surprise you when God will finally use your life at the right time for that person. And it may not be on your time. It's. I'm finding as I get older, it's like some of my friends, you know, that just never came up. It just never was there and was just great respect and understanding between each other. And now it's starting to, as we all get older. So maybe it'll not be on your time, but it might happen on his time.
- [54:12]
Unidentified Interviewer or Host
Well, man, I know you're gonna love walking into that room in Naples. And I'll say this, which I don't. I don't think I've ever shared this publicly, but since we're on a roll today, I'll share it here. You know, top contractor school for me is. It's my ministry, man. It's the way that, you know, I'm able to impact people not just in business, but personally. You know, so often in construction, man, you see, you know, these people in the trades who. They're amazing trades people, right? They're amazing tradesmen, trades women. But what they've done is they've built a job with a tax ID number. They haven't. They haven't built a company. And our. Our mission as an organization is to be able to take those people and fill in the gaps and give them freedom, build them a life. And, you know, I Just said it to somebody today. I said, you know, people a lot of times get into entrepreneurship because they think there's freedom on the other side. And if you don't have the right advice, you don't have the right mentorship, you don't have the right foundation. What you build yourself is just a bigger cage.
- [55:14]
Unidentified Supportive Speaker
Yeah.
- [55:14]
Ed Mylett
You build yourself 18 different jobs, you don't build yourself any freedom. You end up becoming, you know, a slave to this thing you've built. And by the way, I've done that. I have. Early in my career, I built businesses that created more bondage, more stress in my life than was reasonable. And it's because I didn't have a mentor. The other thing you create, that's not just you, you don't just have you. You've created an environment that supports these contractors. So it's beyond you, it's an environment. And winning in life oftentimes is a matter of feeling that you're in business for yourself, but not by yourself. And so many people feel like they're in business by themselves. And what you've done is said, no, you're not by yourself. You're in business for yourself, but you are not by yourself. And you've got access to information and resources and you and peers that accelerate and save time and reduce stress and give you access to resources that you otherwise would never have had in your life. And so you're not by yourself. That's a huge thing for small business operators, medium sized business operators, and something that. The reason I look old, I think one of the reasons I look older and Sasha, we need to change the lighting in here today. By the way, the reason that I look older is because I did spend the first 10 years of my business career by myself. And I wouldn't wish that on anybody. It was totally unnecessary. I just didn't understand what a mentor could do or coaches could do or mastermind in the sense that the collective mind being bigger than mine on my own, I didn't have any appreciation for any of that until I read Think and Grow Rich. And then frankly, I'm old enough that this stuff didn't exist on the level that it does now. When I was a young entrepreneur, it didn't exist. There just weren't groups like what you've built in this space. The other thing that's cool about what you've done is, I want to say this to you is it's not so broad that there's people. That one guy's got a dance company and some lady's got a taco truck. And so you're in this space and so it defines the space you're in, which I think narrows focus and allows the information to be with a higher level of specificity because everyone's operating in the same industries collectively. And that's brilliant of you because even in our coaching program it's all these different industries. And when it's that broad, the content itself has to remain general and broad. But when you target an industry like you've done, it allows much more specificity and precision. 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. Well, today I thought I had the deepest voice in all of podcasting, but I think you're about to hear a deeper one. We were just joking about that off camera. My guest today I have wanted to talk to for a long time after seeing him speak and obviously I've watched him on TV for so many years. Most of you know him as Titus o', Neill, but I know him as an all time WE hall of famer, He's a philanthropist, he's an author of a book that we're going to talk about today. And one of the most incredible stories you will ever hear in your life, you're about to hear right now. In the next hour I'm going to spend with Thaddeus Bullard. So Thaddeus, welcome to the show, my friend. Good to have you.
- [58:47]
Thaddeus Bullard (Titus O'Neil)
Thanks for having me, man. Yeah, I'm glad I beat you in something in the endures to having the deepest voice on the podcast.
- [58:54]
Ed Mylett
Well, I've also stood next to you and I'm a pretty big dude, but it's not even close. You've beat me at a lot of different things.
- [58:59]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
This is one of the biggest men
- [59:01]
Ed Mylett
and strongest men you will ever meet in your life. I want to know about this belief thing because I think a lot of parents, a lot of people, a lot of leaders neglect to every tell somebody that they love them. Love is like almost this word. You hear it so often, I don't even know if it feels anything anymore. Belief even like your spouse, to have a spouse who believes in you, not just loves you, that's like a different level altogether. I'm wondering your thoughts about belief in people and your intentionality about that and how it affected you beyond just love, but belief because that's a to Me, that's a much deeper level.
- [59:37]
Thaddeus Bullard (Titus O'Neil)
I think it really, for me, comes down to my relationship with God. And I think everybody has their interpretation or their own relationship with God. I was introduced to the church as a youth. I went to church all the time. But I never really understood a lot of things in regards to relationships with Christ, because even in the church, things are manipulated. The Bible's manipulated. People are, in my opinion, you know, kind of feel like they. They walk out of there convicted every Sunday if they're dealing with certain things or whatever. And I know that there are a lot of believers that live throughout the globe, but I don't think there are a lot of people of faith.
- [60:21]
Ed Mylett
What's the difference?
- [60:22]
Thaddeus Bullard (Titus O'Neil)
To me, you know, people of faith move on action. They. They move with love, they move with obedience. And obedience is greater than sacrifice. I learned that at a very young age that sometimes what we feel like we're sacrificing when it comes to God, there is no sacrifice because he has already told us in Jeremiah 29:11. For I know the thoughts that I have for you are thoughts of great things, you know, and a great ending. And so I don't need all the details to move on what God's told me to do. And before, even as a kid, you know, it was that I love you and I believe in you message that stuck with me so much. Because as you said before, a lot of people don't really get told that they are believed in or that people have faith in them. And if I say I have faith in God, then I can't respond to worldly issues the same way everybody else does. I can't be far right or far left when it comes to politics. I can't be far right or far left when it comes to religion. I can't be far right or far left when it comes to sexual orientation or any of that stuff. Because for me, so many people invested in me when they had nothing to gain in return from all different walks and all different backgrounds, that I have no fight or skin in the game when it comes to, like, being anything less than a great human being. And I think when people know that you believe in them and that you believe in what they can do, it gives them a strength and a courage to go out and try something that they normally wouldn't try. Your testimony? My testimony. Like, sometimes I think even for me, at a certain point in my life, I was kind of hesitant to tell my story because I didn't want to be viewed a certain way that I was Weak, you know, but I'm. I'm vulnerable to the obedience of God. I have submitted, you know, like, I don't have to be perfect. Nobody in this world has to be perfect at anything. We all serve a perfect will and. Or God has a perfect will and a purpose for all of us. I got empowered by knowing that this homeless guy at 13 years old telling me that God's going to use you in a mighty way. And at that time, I was on a football field, and I'm walking and I. I said, well, man, yeah, I want to go to the NFL. I want to make a lot of money so I can help a lot of people. And he said, no, it has nothing to do with the NFL. It has everything to do with you. For a guy that's essentially homeless for some people, they look at that situation as hopeless. For me, a couple of weeks later, I come to ask him, how did you end up in this situation? And he said, if I told you I. I was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, I had a big home, a yacht, a beautiful family, would you believe me? And I said, I would have no choice, like, if that's what you told me. And he said, that's exactly what my life used to be. But drugs, alcohol, and gambling ripped me away from my family. And wow, you know, as I think about, like, how believing in someone, I believe that this guy who spoke life into me at a time in which I didn't know him, he didn't know me, I ended up speaking life into him as well as. As well as asking one of my teammates, who. Dad was a very successful businessman in trying to help him not only get reintroduced to the church because his. My teammate wanted me to go to his church all the time, but he was Catholic, and I didn't know that. And he had always, you know, he'd always wanted to get back and go to church. And so since I had this invitation to go to church, you know, I asked if I could invite, you know, this gentleman to church. And next thing you know, he's going from going to church to now working for my teammate's dad to getting back on his feet, to being reconnected with his wife, although they. She had moved on and got married. He hadn't seen his kids in, like, three years. God used me at 13 years old to help this person that told me that God is going to do. Use me for mighty things.
- [64:40]
Ed Mylett
Let me ask you a question. The belief thing, everybody, I want to just put a bow on that. If you ask the average person, hey, who's loved you in your life, I bet that you could name 10, 12, 15 different people that have loved you. Grandma, grandpa, coaches, you know, your, your sisters, your brothers. But if I asked you who's believed in you, I bet that list is shorter. And when you believe in somebody, you are you fit on one hand in their life, more than likely where they really feel your belief. And that is a deep difference you make as a father, as a mother, as a friend. I'm not just a friend of my friends. I, I let them know I believe in them and then I let them know why I believe in them as a leader in business. And I just want you all just to just take that one piece of this away. Here's a big question for you, brother. By the way, remember this, this man goes on to be dominant college football player at University of Florida, ends up eventually in the wwe. He's a Hall of Famer in the wwe. So imagine this, one of the great all time hall of famers in the WWE was conceived in a sexual assault of an 11 year old girl. Now what can you accomplish in your life if that's where this man comes from? He's talking about church. He doesn't just walk the walk. He's actually in the studio at his church right now as we're talking. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. If you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show.
- [66:07]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
So that, you know, out of your book, max out your life. I actually ripped out three pages that I keep. I got a little desk in my room before I go to bed. I do some. I do, yes. And I do some, you know, I do some reflecting. And one of the quotes you have in that book on page 98 is, I'm chasing down the ultimate version of me. The day will come when I get face to face with the destiny version of me. I want the satisfaction of knowing that I spent a lifetime, lifetime chasing down this man. That in the end I caught up with him. That he and I are identical, that I challenged myself, I took risks, I dug deeper, I put in the work and I gave it my all. And I used every ounce of the blessings of God that God gave me and I left nothing in the tank. It's my driving force of my life.
- [66:52]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, I thought that was an awesome
- [66:54]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
quote that's like the man in the Ring quote by Teddy Roosevelt.
- [66:56]
Thaddeus Bullard (Titus O'Neil)
Yeah.
- [66:57]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
So I like.
- [66:58]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Well, I mean it.
- [66:59]
Unidentified Supportive Speaker
Let me show you something.
- [67:01]
Ed Mylett
This is right next to where I work every day. This is my dad. It's a good picture of my dad when he was sober. And this is my dad's one year announcement of his passing, his obituary. And I actually keep this right here where I do most of my work every day. And it's a description of my dad's life. And it says that, you know, no one spread more love in a lifetime than my dad. I keep that nearby because I actually think I was just talking about this. I think. Remember who it was on my show recently? It might have been Matthew McConaughey. I'm not sure who it was. I think it was Matt. But I think about death a lot. And not in a cryptic way, but it gives me a reminder of how blessed I am to be alive. And I'm under no illusion that it's going to, you know, be forever now. My soul's forever. But, you know, ed my. Let the body. You know, one thing occurred to me. I can't believe I'm saying this today, but it's a. It's an interesting day in my family life. I kind of a family issue come up about 10 minutes before I came on here. That's pretty significant. And I was with my dad when he passed away, like physically with him. And when he passed, my mom and my sisters didn't want to stay in the room with him just because it was so sad. So I was with my dad for like an hour and a half before the hearse came. And I know this doesn't sound very motivational, but I think it will be if you remember what I said. And something dawned on me immediately when I was there. And that was that my dad wasn't there anymore. Meaning whoever my dad was was gone. And if you look around that room, my dad's body was still in there, but he wasn't. I had this deep sense my father was gone. Even though I was with his body. My dad's achievements were up on the mantle in the very room we were in. That wasn't my dad. My dad still had problems when he passed away. Those weren't my dad. My dad was a soul and a spirit. And that's who my dad was. He was an energy. He was a force, just like all of you are. We're not our accumulations. We're not our possessions. Even though I've accumulated and I possess a lot of stuff I'm none of those things. I'm not my body. I'm something beyond that. And I want to catch that ultimate version of me. And it's actually something that is not a speech. It's not just something in my book. It's pretty much how I live most of the time. I'm addicted to the expansion of my being. I. I want to know how far I can expand, how much more I can love, how much more I can think, how much more I can feel, how much more I can give the memories that I could have in my life. And so to me, there's this ultimate version God made me to be that I haven't met yet. But I'm excited to meet him, and I'm pursuing him, and I'm pursuing him quickly because I'm running out of time. And so I think that's why maybe when I speak, that people. Whether you think I'm the best speaker in the world or the ninth best or whatever, doesn't matter to me. But you certainly will feel something when I speak, because I feel it when I'm saying it. You can't transfer to somebody that which you're not actually experiencing, not deeply. And so I actually deeply experience this stuff. Like, I have a great time. If you knew me, man, Like, I'll show you Right here, after I got about four hours of work today, is where I will spend most of my time, which is in those cigars that are in that humidor. Right? So, like, I have a great time. I mean, I have a blast the same time. When you're around me, there's an edge to me. And if you're in my proximity and you're a friend of mine, I'm gonna. You're gonna want to be you. Most stuff in life is caught, not taught. You're gonna catch it if you're around someone like me. Like, I live life intentionally. I love life. I'm blessed to be here. I've had two heart attacks. I'm only 52, so I know how lucky I am to be here. In fact, right before I got here, I'm dealing with a very significant family thing that came up, and it's just another reminder of how precious life is. So long answer. I apologize. But it's not just a quote in my book. It's how I try to try to live.
- [70:58]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
Absolutely. So, you know, one of the things I've been teaching people how to invest in commercial real estate for, I know, 22 years. So one of the big difference between those that are very Successful or even successful. Getting to the first deal is mindset. It's getting over themselves and you. The first chapter in your Max Help for Life book, you talk about things happen for me, not to me. Can you get into that a little bit?
- [71:24]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Yeah. You know the other thing too in
- [71:26]
Ed Mylett
buying real estate, because I've done a lot of commercial real estate too, is one of the part of getting over yourself is actually believing you have to know everything before you execute a deal. The reason someone like you so valuable, the reason I agreed to speak to your group after we vetted you because I get about 3,000 speaking requests a year, I only do about a hundred. And so we vet them pretty carefully. I've had somebody take advantage of me in commercial real estate in, in the last year. And so you don't have to know everything to do every deal. And for example, the third deal I did in my life was a strip mall. I bought a strip mall on a seller carry and I made a mistake where I didn't, I did not clear one of the liens through the escrow. I made a mistake and it cost me a lot of money at the time. That happened for me, not to me because I'm the most diligent dude in the world. Now when I do escrow and I've saved myself probably $50 million on things I've caught over the 300 commercial deals I've done, for example, in escrows. So like everything that happens really ends up happening for you, not to you if you believe that. And so even my dad dying, we go back to that like it happened for me, not to me. It's horrible that I lost my dad, but I live more intentionally because I did. I'm a better dad because I did. I'm closer to my mom because it happened, I'm closer to my sisters. I, I'm less focused on accumulating stuff and more about accumulating memories. So anything in your life can happen for you, not to you. And especially if you're going to be in the real estate business, you have to believe that because there's cycles, there's markets and so sometimes the getting is going to be really great and sometimes it's not. And writing out a deal that's not going well for a while, you better believe this is happening for me and not to me. Because if you think it's happening to you, you can make all kind of panic type decisions. Sell when you shouldn't, refinance when you shouldn't. There's all kinds of stuff that you can make mistakes if you don't know things are happening for you. So I think that's a really profound quote. I'm not the only one who says it. I don't know if I was first or third who said it, but I live by it.
- [73:26]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
One of the stories you tell is about the thermostat, which, the first time I heard it, I was like, wow, that's. That's profound. That's so real. Could you just give the brief version of that here and then.
- [73:36]
Ed Mylett
Yeah. The most powerful force.
- [73:38]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
By the way, are you from Massachusetts?
- [73:40]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
I am, yeah.
- [73:41]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, I hear it. You know that I am, too. Did you know that?
- [73:44]
Rich Devini
Yes.
- [73:44]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, I heard it. Yeah.
- [73:46]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
What's. What's New England or. Always a New Englander, right?
- [73:49]
Ed Mylett
Yeah. I'm from Weymouth, by the way, so From Abington. You are.
- [73:53]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Okay. Neither one of us grew up with any money.
- [73:55]
Ed Mylett
That's great. So. And I. I have an island I bought. You probably know, because you follow my stuff, but I was in New England yesterday.
- [74:04]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
Oh, I didn't know that.
- [74:04]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Yeah.
- [74:05]
Ed Mylett
I bought an island called Hope Island. Talk about real estate. All I've. All my life, I want to own an island. I've bought it, I've done. I want everyone there to have hope. Commercial real estate is the fastest way, in my opinion, if you do it correctly, to get wealthy. That exists in the world for an average, ordinary person. Let me just state that really clearly. And so I've done enough. I've done residential, commercial. I built and sold companies. I've done all kinds of stuff. I've invested even in the stock market and made money. But I've also lost money in a lot of things. Commercial real estate is the best and fastest way in my mind to make money. Real wealth, generational wealth that exists in the world. And so that's. That's awesome. In terms of your thermostat, this is a really important thing. The most powerful force on the planet is for you to be consistent with your identity or the way you see you or what you believe you deserve in your worth. And I've watched this over and over, brother, where your thermostat setting is your identity. So if you're a 75 degree or let's just say, and you have multiple settings, happiness, fitness, wealth, love, you have multiple ones. But let's just say you're a 75 degree or financially, right? And you start heating your life up, you do two or three deals, you're at 90, 95, 100, you're starting to really. You're at 100 degrees of financial results. If internally you don't raise the belief that you're worthy of that, you will unconsciously turn the air conditioners on of your financial life and cool it back down to what you believe you're worth. You'll sabotage it and it'll seem coincidental.
- [75:29]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
You're like, ah, a pipe broke. Ah, I made a bad deal. Oh, someone moved out.
- [75:33]
Ed Mylett
The tenant didn't do this. Or the market change. It'll all seem coincidental, except it never is. It's this invisible air conditioner you turn on in your life. Yeah, you can have it.
- [75:43]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
In love, you all have that friend.
- [75:45]
Ed Mylett
Let's say if you're a lady in there who, man, you meet her and
- [75:49]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
she's met the perfect dude and she's
- [75:50]
Ed Mylett
in love, and it's 150 degrees of bliss and you haven't seen her in six months. You come back and she's like, ah, we broke up. He cheated. He wasn't right. He's not who I thought he was. No, you turned the air conditioner on again. And you keep picking the same guy in a different body so that you can cool it back down.
- [76:09]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
And so in your life, you've got to increase the thermostat setting because you can have all the talent, all the skills, all the tools, all the deals
- [76:17]
Ed Mylett
you want, but you will cool it back down.
- [76:19]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
You've all done, as I say this,
- [76:21]
Ed Mylett
you're thinking of a situation in your life where you've done it or someone that you know.
- [76:25]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
And even for me, when I started to get, you know, I was worth
- [76:29]
Ed Mylett
a million, I was worth 10 million, worth 100 million.
- [76:31]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
I got to a particular number and I'm like. And I started to cool it back down again, and I had to read my own stuff. I'm like, wait a minute here. I need to alter my thermostat setting.
- [76:41]
Ed Mylett
Because the reverse is also true.
- [76:43]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
When your thermostat settings high, like 100
- [76:45]
Ed Mylett
and you're doing 70, you will turn the heater on and get it back up, which is a great thing, too. I believe it's the single most invisible force in the world that dictates success. I teach this to my UFC fighters, my professional golfers, my NFL quarterbacks, the politicians I work with, the CEOs, the commercial real estate investors, my kids. Number one force in the world is your identity. You may say, well, what about faith, Ed? Because you talk about faith all the time.
- [77:14]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Part of my thermostat setting is because of my Faith. I believe God made me him, his image and likeness wants me to prosper, wants me to increase.
- [77:24]
Ed Mylett
So part of the fact that my
- [77:25]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
identity is so high is that I believe I have a loving God who wants me to do something great with my life. So my faith is part of my identity.
- [77:33]
Ed Mylett
So it is an.
- [77:34]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
I can talk about that when I
- [77:35]
Ed Mylett
come out there, man. It's the number one mover.
- [77:38]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
You ask yourself, how's it?
- [77:40]
Ed Mylett
Kid from Weymouth, Massachusetts, with average intelligence, right?
- [77:44]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
No connections, not nothing really that impressive about him. How does he become worth hundreds of
- [77:51]
Unidentified Supportive Speaker
millions of dollars and reach millions of people every week?
- [77:53]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
How the heck does that happen? It's the invisible force.
- [77:55]
Ed Mylett
I got a high thermostat setting that I've worked on all my life. And as I got to certain points, I knew the next move had to
- [78:02]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
be a higher thermostat setting every time.
- [78:05]
Ed Mylett
So that's why I do read books. That's why you join groups like this. That's why you listen to my podcast.
- [78:11]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
All those things are drips and increasing
- [78:13]
Ed Mylett
the temperature of your life. So that's how that works. I'm already getting fired up. Look at the veins are popping.
- [78:20]
Unidentified Supportive Speaker
Not even that.
- [78:20]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
I'm not even. It's not even September. I'm not even at Got your deal yet.
- [78:23]
Ed Mylett
And I'm fired up.
- [78:24]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
Yeah, that was so profound the first time I heard it. It's so brilliant. You know, it is. It's a matter of. It's a matter of choice. And it's a matter of just feeding yourself good stuff on a regular basis. It's going to allow you to live at a higher thermostat level.
- [78:37]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, bro, it's really true.
- [78:38]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
And I and all of you have always heard, hey, you're the who you
- [78:41]
Ed Mylett
hang around in my book. I actually teach you the actual tactics to change your thermostat setting. And it's not just who you hang around, although that is a part of it. And if you get this and you do it correctly, it'll alter your life.
- [78:53]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
All of a sudden, let me tell you what starts to happen.
- [78:55]
Ed Mylett
Your reticular activating system in your brain starts to see deals that were there, but you missed all before. See investors that were there that you just never contacted.
- [79:04]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Miraculous things start happening. Like, how in the world did I find this building when no one else wanted it? How did I find the investor? How did I put the deal together? Because your thermostat setting so high, it
- [79:15]
Ed Mylett
delivers these things to you.
- [79:16]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
And that's not manifest hokey Stuff, it's really true and I think I can
- [79:21]
Ed Mylett
teach you how to do it. Obviously, you're an example of that. I mean, look at the success you've had. 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. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now, on with the show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. So to get on this show twice, I have to really be impressed with how you do. To get on the show three times means you're a hall of famer all time on the show. And slash, I really, really like you. And in this case, all of the above fits. The gentleman that's on the show today, he's got a new book out. It's called Masters of Uncertainty. He's highly qualified to write it. I consider him a friend. I like him very much. His background is, I'm supposed to say that he led an elite Seal team, Seal Team 6, when he was in his former lifetime. He's one of the great leaders of all time. I think he's one of the brightest minds that I've ever had on the show before. And we're going to talk about today a topic that is perfect for these times which is really dealing with and thriving in uncertainty. And that's why he wrote the book Masters of Uncertainty, which I've written a blurb in in the front of the book on his behalf because I believe in him in the book so much. Rich Devini, welcome back. Third time's a charm.
- [80:45]
Rich Devini
Ed, thank you so much. It's great to see you, my friend. And I'm, I'm honored to be back and honored to be, be a friend. So thank you.
- [80:52]
Ed Mylett
Likewise, brother. Let's talk about leadership because that's what I always think of when I think of you. And in the book, in segment three of the book, guys, by the way, he talks about team dynamics and leadership and obviously dynamic subordination is this term that just stands out from the book and then you kind of flip it on its butt a little bit in the book, which surprised me. So what is dynamic subordination and what are your thoughts about it?
- [81:18]
Rich Devini
Yeah, so dynamic subordination is, is quite literally the tax organizational structure for high performing teams. That's what it is. And, and I was, you know, this, this came to me in a moment. I was being asked by some executives. I was in front of executives and I had a I had a whiteboard or flip chart next to me. They said, hey, Rich, can you draw for us the task org shape that would describe a high performing team? And I was stumped because the models I had didn't tell the story. I could have done the pyramid with the leader on top and all the word goes down. I can't use that. It's too bureaucratic, too slow. I could have done the flat model, the flat line, right. We've all heard about that. You know, no one ranks anybody. We're all in this together. It's all groovy. Problem with the flat model is that, you know, sometimes it's difficult to figure out actually who's in charge. And you can happen on the right side of that line that's not seen or heard by the left side of that line. In other words, information gets siloed in a flat model pretty easily. And that's not what happens in a high performing team. Finally, I had the Robert Greenleaf Stervant leadership model where he flipped that pyramid upside down, put the leader on the bottom, said, I'm in service to the people in my span of care. That's probably the most beautiful one if I were to pick one, at least philosophically. However, still not how a high performing team operates. Because in a high performing team, burden is distributed. It's not all on one person. And so really largely in frustration, I drew a blob on the flip chart. And I said, where do you think the leader sits in this blob? And, and I got answers like front, back, top, bottom, center. I said, you are all correct. The leader is wherever the leader needs to be in the moment. And this is what we call dynamic subordination. Dynamic subordination means that a team understands challenges and issues and problems can come from any angle at any moment. And when one does, the person who's closest to that problem and the most capable immediately steps up and takes lead and everybody and supports. And then it switches. The environment switches and someone else steps up. It's a dynamic swap between leader and follower. I also call it alpha hopping. That alpha position just hops to wherever it needs to be. This is how all high performing teams operate. And I say this. I was an officer in the SEAL teams, okay? I did hundreds of missions. I was in charge of every single one. It did not mean I was always being supported. In fact, most of the time it was opposite. I was supporting other people, my snipers, my breachers, my assaulters. Sometimes the environment shifted to be in support of me. All this Tells us is that very important concept that our position on a team has nothing to do with our rank or hierarchy. Our position on a team has everything to do with what we're there to control, contribute to the team. And as leaders, it's our job to create that dynamically subordinating environment so that we have the highest performing, most efficient teams possible.
- [83:43]
Ed Mylett
In order to hold that together, though, you have to have trust amongst that team.
- [83:46]
Rich Devini
Yes.
- [83:47]
Ed Mylett
And boy, I tell you, I'm thinking of some businesses that I'm involved with where we had leaders that maybe not even been as dynamic or as talented, but they had really established trust and how we just flowed together as a group. And then other teams I've been on where there just wasn't that trust established by the leader. It just never got established. And no matter how talented we were, how prepared we were, long term, we struggled. You talk about competence, consistency, character and compassion. Of those, what do you think lacks most? And why are all four important?
- [84:25]
Rich Devini
Yeah. So competence and consistency are often what teams, especially in the business world, focus on. Because confidence and consistent confidence is do the thing right. Consistency is do the thing right over time.
- [84:39]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
Okay.
- [84:39]
Rich Devini
Those are in large part visible and measurable. Okay. Skill and skills based. I would even concede the problem is you're missing two very important ones. Character is the next one. And character is a big word. I'd break that down, maybe say integrity. So you have do the thing right in competence, do the thing right over time, inconsistency, do the right thing in character, and then finally you have compassion. Do the right thing because you care about me as a human being. Okay? Now you can build an environment of trust. You could at least start building an environment trust inside of any one of those four elements. It's only when you have all four that you have the longest lasting, most durable trust. And I'll give you a quick example. Okay? Imagine you and I are out having dinner somewhere. We decide, we have some drinks, we decide we're not going to go home, we're not going to drive home. So we, we call a cab. The cab shows up, we jump in the cab, the cab rolls out and within 100 meters runs into a telephone pole. We're not injured, we get out, we find, we find our way home. No, no big deal, okay? A couple nights later, we're out again, we're having dinner, having some drinks. We decide not, not to drive home. We call a cab again, okay? The, the cab shows up. It's the same driver from the night before. Are we going to get back in the car with that driver. The answer is no or not. But rewind that whole scenario. You and I were out having dinner, having drinks. We decide we're not going to drive home. We don't call a cab. We call our mother, father, sister, spouse, brother, best friend. That person shows up. We jump in the car with that person. That person with 100 meters runs into a telephone pole a few days later, are we going to get back in the car with that person? And now the answer is likely yes. Some people are like, nope, still not getting in the car. But we probably will. And the reason is because with that second person, we had all four. With the first person, the cab driver, we only had the first two. We had the consistency of the cab company. We had the perceived competence of the driver. As soon as competence took a hit, trust went away. With that second person, when competence took a hit, we had something to fall back on. And so what we need to focus on is building all four elements through our behaviors. Okay? Behavior trust is a belief. Trust is a feeling that's been rationally justified by that person. So in other words, you cannot make anybody trust you. All you can do is behave in a way that allows someone to choose to make a decision to trust you. And so all this nonsense about someone coming as like, oh, I'll. I'll trust that person when they earn it, or whatever that is, that's nonsense. We, as leaders have to go first in these behaviors and build that environment.
- [86:55]
Ed Mylett
Gosh, this is so good, you guys. This every time Rich is on. So there's two things you're always doing. See how I go, guys? Like, we just keep going with him. There's two things you're always doing, even if you don't realize it. You're always breathing, and you're asking. You're actually also always thinking. And thinking is the process of asking and answering questions to yourself. That's really what a thought is. And so when we last talked, I'm like, this is going to be good. Because now I doubt maybe I'm wrong. I doubt when you were a seal, you were into maybe. Well, probably not true. In the water, you were. But overall, I doubt breathing techniques were the number one thing you were focusing on every single day.
- [87:33]
Rich Devini
No, not at all.
- [87:34]
Ed Mylett
So, yeah, good. So that assumption is accurate.
- [87:37]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
So talk to us about activating
- [87:41]
Ed Mylett
our optimal neurology through either questions or breathing or both. And take as long as you want on it, because this is. Guys, this is almost like pull the car over stuff right here.
- [87:50]
Unidentified Listener or Commentator
Yeah.
- [87:50]
Rich Devini
Yeah, so the breathing. So. So one of our. One of our pathways into our autonomic response, our autonomic nervous system, if you will, is the respiratory system. We have a visual and respiratory system connected directly to the vagus nerve. And we can quite literally shift our. Our physiology from sympathetic, which is our action state, to parasympathetic, which is rest and digest just through breathing alone or through visual tools. Breathing is very interesting because breathing you can actually use to modulate your autonomic response up, down, or even. Or even keep it neutral. So the couple ways to do that. So if you want to up your autonomic response, you want to get more excited, get more engaged, okay, that's Wim Hof does this type of reading, Breath of Fire, things like that, you are inducing some autonomic response, and there's some techniques in the book you can do that. That's typically not what we're talking about when we're dealing with people in stress challenge or uncertainty. Because in stress challenge uncertainty, what's usually happening is our autonomic response is starting to go up too far, and we want to get it back down so we can actually make conscious thoughts and then ask better questions, which we'll talk about here in a second. So a couple ways. Well, one of the ways you can do that is you can do what's called CO2, blowout breathing. Okay? In other words, you're blowing out carbon dioxide. Why does this matter? One of the things that people don't recognize is that when we're, say, underwater or holding our breath, okay, that. That discomfort, that stress that we feel is not because of a lack of oxygen. It's actually, in fact, a. Because of a buildup of CO2. Now, people like free divers and some seals understand this. In other words, you can push past that discomfort because you have different oxygen reserves in your system. This is what freedivers do. That's how they can hold their breath for nine minutes as they know how to push past that discomfort and start accessing the oxygen reserves in another part of their body. I do not recommend this. This is very dangerous because what happens is as soon as you push past that first warning sign, you don't get another warning sign. In other words, you'll just go out. Okay? So I don't want anybody to try this at home, all right? Unless you're a free diver, you do it right? But all this to say is that buildup of CO2 is what's causing the stress. And so what we can do is we can literally Begin to blow out our CO2 and begin to de. Stress just through breath. One of the best ways to do this is called the physiolog. All it is is a deep inhale and then up on top and then a really slow exhale for, you know, eight to ten seconds. So deep in.
- [90:13]
Ed Mylett
So is that a breathe in and then another one?
- [90:16]
Rich Devini
Yeah, breathe in and then a top off. Breathe in. So a nice, fast breathe in, top off, nice slow exhale. You do that two, three, four, five times, you will literally feel yourself calm down. You're bringing your autonomic arousal down. You're bringing your frontal lobe back online in a position where you can start moving and picking horizons. Okay? The other breathing technique I talk about, and many people have heard about this, is box breathing. Okay? Box breathing is, in fact, a technique that if you are at a perfect level of autonomic arousal, we might be like, maybe you and I, we just got on stage, we're like, okay, I'm right here. I don't want to get any more nervous, but I don't want to get any less. I'm. I'm really. I'm charged. I'm right where I want. Box breathing is a great way to do this. Box breathing is simply. You're going to breathe in for a. For a period. So say four or five seconds. I say five seconds. You're going to hold on top for five seconds, you're going to exhale for five seconds, and then you're gonna hold on the bottom for five seconds. It's literally just a square box. You can pick whatever timing you want in any of those lanes, whatever is comfortable for you. But if you do box breathing, it actually keeps you at your autonomic level and allows you to actually engage at the state you're in.
- [91:22]
Ed Mylett
You breathe through the mouth. Do you reach through the mouth or the nose or both?
- [91:26]
Rich Devini
Usually, usually just breathe in. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, but it doesn't really matter, okay? To the extent possible. In through the nose, out through the mouth, but it doesn't matter.
- [91:34]
Ed Mylett
Okay?
- [91:36]
Rich Devini
So this is the way we can actually start to manage and manipulate our autonomic arousal. Once we do that, once we are able to do that and our frontal lobe comes back online, and now we're in business because now we can start asking better questions.
- [91:46]
Ed Mylett
That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. So the gentleman that's on the show today, I wanted to have him on for a long time. I've been a fan of his work. If you're old enough, you remember like the DOS guy, like the most interesting man in the world. I kind of consider my guest today that guy.
- [92:08]
Rich Devini
Oh, God.
- [92:09]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
Go on. It's true.
- [92:11]
Scott Galloway
Sharks have a week.
- [92:12]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
About me, Ed, It's, I'm, I'm telling
- [92:15]
Ed Mylett
you, the reason is, is you can ask him about almost any topic, whether it be money or current issues, the economy, social stuff, emotions, you name it. He's just so well spoken on so many different things. He's a contrarian thinker to some extent. He's also a very intense guy and he speaks his mind. I don't agree with him on every single thing he says, but I find myself nodding and cheering for a lot of the things that he talks about. Been very successful in business, had some exits, had some stuff that hasn't worked out as well. But he's become very, very wealthy man, young in his life as well. Teaches at nyu. He's a professor of marketing there. But this guy is the real deal and his brand's exploded the last few years. So. Successful podcast as well.
- [92:57]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
That's probably enough.
- [92:57]
Ed Mylett
Let's get into the conversation. So, Professor G. Scott Galloway, welcome to the show.
- [93:02]
Scott Galloway
Thanks so much. And let me just say that I'm really enjoying this podcast so far. So far it's just working for me. And you're being. Thanks for your generous comments.
- [93:10]
Ed Mylett
It's true, though. I mean it. And that's why, you know, I do a lot of intros. They're not always that long or that that complimentary. So got a book out right now called the Algebra of Wealth. He's had a bunch of different books that have crushed. But there is something I want to ask you about that is gender specific that I've heard you talk about and I've only heard you talk about it. And that is single parent homes as it affects young boys. I'm not a big gender guy like boys versus girls. I really just think most people are humans. But there is a lot of evidence about boys that are raised without a strong male figure in their lives. And I was with, like I said, I was with my son this weekend and of all the things I am grateful for is he's had multiple strong male figures in his life. He's had myself, he's had two great grandfathers, he said good coaches, good mentors in his life. And I feel like what in addition to being A white male, but what a great advantage it is. And there was another young man with us who his dad's been in and out of his life most of the time and has not had a strong male figures life, has an amazing mother who's worked two jobs and just has done everything she could for him. But in observing both of them in the same screen over the same period of time, I did see a confidence and a way about handling himself and a presence, frankly, to my son, who I'm not saying because he's my son who's had strong male figures and the absence of that in the other.
- [94:39]
Ed Mylett (Alternate Speaker or Continuation)
What do you.
- [94:40]
Ed Mylett
What do you think is the solution to that? And I'd like you to speak to that topic. To so many single mothers listen to my show and have these boys they love so much. What can they do when they. This boy doesn't have that strong male figure.
- [94:52]
Scott Galloway
So it's a generous question. So first, let's talk. Let's talk about the problem. Young men are four times as likely to kill themselves. If you go to a morgue and you have five people who have died by suicide, four of them are men. And if you had any other demographic group killing itself at four times the rate of the control group, three times as likely to be addicted, three times as likely to be homeless, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated, 40% less likely to go to college, I mean, we'd be moving in with programs, but because of the advantages that our generation received, there's a lack of empathy for them. And if you try to reverse engineer to and I do think we're finally having a productive conversation, the numbers are just so overwhelming that people are finally starting to pay attention. And I track everything. I'm pretty into data. I track everything I do. And the number one email I've received over the last three months is some version of the following. I get about 140 emails from strangers a day and number and I categorize all them. The number one email. Is it too late to buy Nvidia? It's hilarious. Everyone's obsessed with Nvidia. The number two email that I've gotten consistently for the last three years is a mom, usually a single mom, asking for advice about her son. And it goes something like this. I have three kids, two daughters, one son. My one daughter's in PR in Chicago, the other's in graduate school at Penn. And my son, who's 25, is in the basement playing video games and vaping and seems just totally lost. There's a variety of Factors that have come together here. One is just biological. Men's prefrontal cortex is 18 to 24 months behind a girl's. They're literally more immature. Have, have your son and his 10th grade friends come over and the, the 15 and 16 year old boys are boys and some of the girls look like the junior senator from Pennsylvania in terms of how they equip themselves. They just two 17 year olds applying to college, a boy and a girl. The girl's competing against a 15 and a half year old. They're just biologically maturing later. And there's something weird going on. I don't know if it's hormones or pesticides, but girls are beginning to menstruate earlier and boys, their testicles are descending actually later. It's actually headed in the wrong direction. So let's move to solutions. One, I think we need to red shirt and by the way, I'm parroting my Yoda on this. Richard Reeves, who's the president of the American Institute on Boys and Men. We need to redshirt boys. We need to start them at six and girls at five. They're just less mature. Two, more vocational programming, bring back wood, metal shop, more freshman seats at universities. If you have an endowment greater than a billion dollars and you're not growing your freshman seats faster than population growth, you should lose your tax free status because you're not a public servant, you're a Chanel bag. I mean you've decided that you're basically in the luxury business. I think we need national service. I think men need to find their fraternity. The thing you also mentioned, which is that if you were to reverse engineer to where boys come off the tracks, it's exactly what you reference. It's when they lose a male role model. We have the second most single parent homes. Dan Quayle was right, kids are better with two parents. Where he was wrong is it doesn't matter if it's two women or two men, but if it's a boy, he absolutely needs male role models. What's interesting is that in single parent homes, girls have similar outcomes. Similar outcomes of college attendance, similar income, similar rates of depression, self harm. It doesn't appear to really damage girls when they lose lose a dual parent household with boys, they come off the tracks. What it ends up, the studies show is that while boys are physically stronger, they're mentally and emotionally much weaker. So what's the advice to moms who are 93% of single parent households? And let me be clear, I was raised by a single immigrant Mother who lived and died as secretary lie to my life. But my mom immediately got men in my life. The neighbor down the hall went out of her way to introduce me to him. Got the sense he was an empathetic good guy. Used to take me horseback riding on weekends. I had a stock. I walked into a stock brokerage when I was 13. I wasn't very popular. I wasn't very good at school. I was into stocks. My mom's boyfriend gave me 200 bucks. Said if you don't go buy stocks by Monday, I want the 200 bucks back. I went down Cy when I was 13. Used to take two dimes to the phone booth at Emerson Junior High School. Column. I own Columbia Pictures and he would teach me about the markets. Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a hit. That's why the stock was up 50 cents a day. I go by Dean Winter Reynolds on Westwood in Wilshire and hang out with him for an hour. Literally. Ed. 45 years later, he and I text each other.
- [99:36]
John Gordon
Wow.
- [99:37]
Ed Mylett
Wow.
- [99:37]
Scott Galloway
Male role models. If you're a single mom, you have to get men involved in your son's life. And also just for men. I've been thinking a lot about masculinity and what it means to be a man. You take care of yourself. You're fit, you're smart, you're kind. You take care of your immediate family. You take care. You start showing love and concern and empathy for your community and your neighbors. But the ultimate expression in my view of masculinity is when you take an active role and you become irrationally passionate about the well being of a kid that isn't yours. Or put another way, if we want better men, we need to be better men. And unfortunately, because of the Catholic church and because of Michael Jackson, if a man who has loved and care to give wants to get involved in a young man's life, there's suspicion, oh no, there's something wrong with him. No, there's not. There's a ton of men out there that for whatever reason, maybe they have their own kids, maybe they don't, who have empathy and concern to give. And here's the thing. You don't have to be a baller, you don't have to be a senator. You just have to be a man trying to live a virtuous life. You know what the most important thing to being a male role model is? Just being there, just spending time with the kid, giving him. There are just certain things a boy is not going to talk to his mom about. So it's a variety of social programs, taxation, vocational programming, red shirting, boys, national service, more freshman seats and we as men. Ed, there are four to one applications for big sisters in the U.S. as for big brothers, men have to get involved in boys lives. That's the bottom line. And we're finally having a productive conversation because whenever I think it really bottomed out. About two or three years ago you started talking about the problems with boys, there was a gag reflex of oh, that means you don't like women. Empathy is not a zero sum game. Civil rights did not hurt white people. Heteronormative marriage did not hurt gay marriage. Recognizing the problems that young men are facing does not mean you're anti women. And who wants more economically and emotionally viable men, women? How many times have we heard from people? I know all these great young women, high character, attractive, professionally on the ball and they can't find a man. No, they can find a man. They just can't find a man that they just can't find a man they want to date. We are creating millions of lonely economically and emotionally unviable men. And it is something we really need to be focused on and we need to stop this nonsense that somehow that empathy is in any way anti women or misogist. No, it's not. Women are making unbelievable progress. We should do nothing to get in the way of that. It's fantastic. But we need to acknowledge something is not right in Houston right now. We need programs and we need attention and we need more men to get involved in the lives of boys.
- [102:35]
Ed Mylett
So much you just said is true. My show, it's funny, when it started, first three or four years is about 80 male and now it's about 70 female. And it's the number one message I get as well is moms concerned about their sons. Which is why I covered the topic today because you guys all know I'm not a big guy on this gender. That gender. I'm a big human person. Having said that, a couple things he said I want to tell you I was watching on the flight backlash. I was watching a biography on Mr. Rogers and same thing he said. Just a guy who loved kids as far as I know, right? And all the flack and criticism. Just a man who lived in a virtuous life who loved kids. We have to not stigmatize these men that would like to get involved in the lives of young men and help them. And the other thing, everybody, you know, ask yourself if you have a son and he doesn't have a male figure, what male figure get in his life. And the other thing to look at that he said that I just want to unpack. The worst combo that I see is a little boy who does not have a male figure who is also not physically fit.
- [103:34]
Scott Galloway
100%.
- [103:35]
Ed Mylett
Look at their body. That young man doesn't have a man in his life. Ladies, that you've got a son and you're allowing him to get unfit physically, that is a lethal combination for where that young boy is going in his life. At least get him physically fit and active and working out and playing a sport and on a good nutrition program. It's a deadly combination for your young boy if he's got both those things against Sam.