7 Signs You’re Not in Control of Your Life | Ed Mylett

Summary

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THE ED MYLETT SHOW

Episode: "7 Signs You’re Not in Control of Your Life"

Date: February 21, 2026
Host: Ed Mylett
Featured Guests: Darren Waller (NFL tight end), Rod Carew (MLB Hall of Famer)

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Overview of the Episode

This episode of The Ed Mylett Show is a powerful solo reflection by Ed exploring the ways we lose control of our lives and how to regain the driver's seat. Through an intense personal story and practical breakdowns, Ed shares seven signs that you may not be steering your own destiny. The show also integrates interviews with NFL star Darren Waller and baseball legend Rod Carew, adding deeply personal insight on overcoming adversity, building confidence, and fulfilling your potential. The tone is motivational, empathetic, and grounded in personal experience and actionable advice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Metaphor: Ed’s Terrifying Taxi Ride

Timestamp: 01:13 – 11:58

• Story: Ed recounts a harrowing 25-minute cab ride through Boston with his daughter. The driver, clearly unfit and erratic, put their lives in danger, culminating with a near-fatal crash moments after Ed and his daughter exited the vehicle (05:10).
• Metaphor: The taxi experience becomes a metaphor for how many of us too often surrender control in our lives, becoming passive passengers rather than active drivers.
• Key Insight:

  “Who's really driving in your life? What's driving the way you behave, what's driving the results of your life?” (03:40, Ed Mylett)

The Seven Drivers That Take Control of Your Life

Timestamp: 11:58 – 28:17

Ed breaks down the primary “drivers” that can seize control, urging listeners to self-audit and identify what’s behind the wheel:

1. Fears

   • Are you making decisions driven by fear?
   • Quote:

     “For far too many people, the front seat is being driven by their fears, and they're in the back seat at the whims and choices and decisions that their fears make on their behalf.” (09:44, Ed Mylett)

2. Other People’s Opinions

   • Are you seeking approval or avoiding disapproval—sometimes even from the memory of people no longer present?

3. Old Stories

   • Are you letting past experiences, pain, or failures dictate your current trajectory?
   • Quote:

     “That old story... it takes you on the same road the same time over and over and over again. It's like having no navigational equipment, no steering wheel, no brake, no accelerator. It's just on autopilot.” (14:44, Ed Mylett)

4. Emotions

   • Do emotions (anger, sadness, anxiety) control your actions?
   • Quote:

     “Emotions are in control of your life, not you. They drive your proverbial life for you.” (19:18, Ed Mylett)

5. Lack of Belief

   • Are self-doubt and low confidence keeping you from taking risks?

6. Patterns

   • Are you on automatic, stuck in behaviors learned early in life?
   • Quote:

     “Why does it surprise us when someone behaves like who they are?... Their patterns are in total control of their life.” (21:16, Ed Mylett)

7. Your Inner Child or Another Person

   • Are you letting past identities or controlling people dictate your path today?

Ed’s Call to Action:

“Get out of the back seat of your life... Step forward and get in the driver's seat again.” (26:55, Ed Mylett)

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Segment: Darren Waller Interview – Living by Hope, Not Fear

Timestamp: 29:14 – 36:16

May Your Choices Reflect Your Hopes, Not Your Fears

• Darren Waller shares how living with hope, rather than acting from fear of pain or failure, changes your trajectory.
• Quote:

  “A lot of times we can look at that mountain and I'm victim of it too of like, man, that's super high up.... What if I fall off?” (29:53, Darren Waller)

The Reality of Doubt (with a powerful anecdote)

• Even after achieving NFL stardom, Darren describes how doubt can still creep in, recounting how he felt after a career-defining 200-yard game.
• Quote:

  "I just came off a 200 yard game...but here I am...hoping to catch this pass with no defender covering me" (33:15, Darren Waller)

• Ed expands on how success often triggers as much doubt as failure, because it tests our self-identity.

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Segment: Identity Is Your Internal Thermostat

Timestamp: 37:36 – 58:53

• Identity as a Thermostat:
  Ed shares his core teaching—the idea that your identity sets the “temperature” of your life like a thermostat. No matter what external events occur, your results return to what you deeply believe you deserve.
• Identity Dictates Effort and Results:

  “If your results begin to exceed your internal thermostat, you will find a way to cool your life back down to what you believe you’re worth.” (39:57, Ed Mylett)

• How to Change Your Thermostat:
  1. Association: Get around people with higher “temperatures” in the areas you care about.
  2. Short, Intense Action: Shock your system with new habits over a 30-day sprint.
  3. Drop What’s No Longer Needed: Identify thoughts, behaviors, or people that served the old you but aren’t needed anymore.
  4. Tell a New Story:

     “You can’t take that old story into the new identity. One of the things we have to do to create a new identity is to begin to tell a new story." (55:15, Ed Mylett)

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Segment: How to Build Unlimited Self-Confidence

Timestamp: 58:53 – 82:24

• Understanding Self Doubt:
  Self-doubt is not inborn; it's implanted by others, often in childhood.
• The Self-confidence Formula:
  • Self-confidence is built by keeping promises you make to yourself, no matter how small, and acknowledging when you do.
  • Quote:

    “Self-confidence is self-trust. Self-confidence is building a reputation with yourself that you keep your word to you.” (61:15, Ed Mylett)

• "Scratch the CD" Technique:
  When negative thoughts arise, mentally “scratch” them as if damaging a CD so they can't play anymore.
  • Quote:

    “When I begin to have negative self talk, negative thoughts, I literally picture... an old record player or a DVD and I just scratch it.” (68:29, Ed Mylett)

• Rejecting Four Flawed Sources of Worth:
  1. I am my possessions
  2. I am my accomplishments
  3. I am what other people say
  4. I am what I look like

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Segment: Rod Carew Interview – Lifetime of Mastery Through "One More"

Timestamp: 88:37 – 98:12

• The Gift and the Extra Mile:
  Rod Carew describes treating his God-given talents as precious, always giving “one more” effort—even the day he retired.
  • Quote:

    "Every day of my 19 years in baseball, I took extra batting practice... And also the day that I retired." (90:24, Rod Carew)

  • Ed reflects on the ripple impact:

    “If I'm running on the treadmill at the gym...do one more minute. And the fact that you're now telling me that you retired and you took one more round of extra batting practice...” (91:24, Ed Mylett)

• Continuous Adjustment:
  Rod details his evolution as a hitter, adjusting his style even late in his career to face legendary pitchers like Nolan Ryan.
  • Quote:

    “I made the adjustment and greater things started happening.” (97:17, Rod Carew)

  • Ed highlights the universal application:

    “It's amazing to me how critical that point is in every area of our life is just making adjustments...” (97:22, Ed Mylett)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Ed Mylett:

  “Am I really in control of my life? My decisions? Or am I a passenger in the backseat of my own life?” (07:45)

• Ed Mylett:

  “You weren’t born doubting, you were born perfect... These doubts and negative thoughts are not your thoughts—they were placed in you by an external source.” (59:20)

• Darren Waller:

  “At the very beginning...I have to be able to trust myself and respect the choices that I make... That’s what moves me closer to the mountaintop.” (29:42)

• Rod Carew:

  “I was never satisfied. I knew the gift that I had, and I knew that I probably could have just gone through life being a mediocre hitter, but I wanted to be the best.” (91:24)

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Actionable Takeaways

• Audit who or what is "driving" your life—fears, patterns, emotions, others’ opinions, old stories, or your true self.
• Take back the driver’s seat by making conscious choices, building habits of “one more,” and telling a new story.
• Upgrade your identity and confidence by associating with higher achievers, shocking your routines, and trusting yourself through kept promises.
• Love yourself through belief, not ego; treat your gifts—however big or small—as precious, warranting daily investment and adjustment.

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For full, empowering context and more compelling stories, follow The Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify.

Transcript

[Ed Mylett]

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[Rod Carew]

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[Ed Mylett]

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[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

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[Ed Mylett]

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[Ed Mylett]

your local retailer or locate [e-mail].

[Rod Carew]

This is the Ed Mylan Show.

[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.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now, on with the show.

[Ed Mylett]

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the show.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

So today I want to share an experience with you that I had recently that really made me reflect on life in general and how we all operate our lives. And so here's what happened. I was on a daddy daughter trip with my daughter not that long ago, Bella. We were in Boston and we had gone out to dinner one night. And after dinner, we called a cab and a cab came and picked us up. And when we got in the cab, I could tell this guy that was driving the cab was an odd dude. He was kind of agitated and fidgety. And we both kind of looked at each other and kind of smirked, thinking this could be interesting. And it really got interesting. And so I'm going to tell you this story, but I tell you this story under the premise that it made me look at life in general and being in control in our life or who or what is in control and how terrifying it can be in our lives to feel out of control. And frankly, in my work, so many people I meet are not in control of their lives. They're not in control of their emotions, their behaviors. And something else is always driving what they're doing. When you can uncover who's really driving in your life, what's driving, the way you behave, what's driving, the results of your life, you can have a significant breakthrough. And believe it or not, this evening I had one. So here's what happens, Bella and I have dinner. It was a great dinner. So great to be able to get away with just one of your children at some time. And so we just had an incredible experience and it ended up being a great weekend, but this night was terrifying. And so we get into this cab and we begin to drive and immediately this guy takes off, screeches out. I said, hey man, you know, hang on a second. I've got the most precious commodity in the world back here with me, which is my daughter, right? This guy starts to accelerate, and my daughter and I ended up being on a 25 minute ride that was one of the most terrifying experiences of both of our lives where we were totally out of control and at the mercy of this person. I don't know if you ever had a cab ride to some of these cities, but sometimes it can almost be funny. You're sitting back there going, the crazy things they'll do. Sometimes it's so scary you're almost laughing. I don't know if you ever had that experience before in a cab, but where they're just driving crazy and cutting people off and not breaking and running red lights. And if you ever did that yourself or even if you were riding with a friend of your car, be like, hey, slow down, take it easy, you're gonna kill us here. For some reason, these things happen in cabs I found in my life, but this one was a totally different level. And so he hits the accelerator so quickly we're both thrown back into the seat where I can't move forward. And I'm trying to tell this guy, because there's a cage, you know, between you and the front, hey man, slow down. And my daughter starts laughing, I think out of fear, you know, that giggle where you're kind of scared. And I start kind of laughing at first as well. We find ourselves doing over 60 miles an hour in the beginning of this ride on one way streets in Boston. I don't know if you've ever been to cities like Boston before, but these are one way streets. You should be going 15 miles an hour maximum. It's dark out, the lights aren't on her. And I don't know the city very well. And we're doing 60 miles an hour. We almost hit a parked car. Then we take a left, almost hit an uncommon car because he took a left turn onto the wrong way of a one way and he's zooming out of it. We're doing 60 miles an hour. And everywhere we went around corners, around bends, the car's almost skidding and we're both yelling him stop, stop. And he's not, he thinks, because we laughed in the beginning, but somehow we're enjoying this and he's actually doing more of it. And it gets to the point where we end up zooming towards this fork in the road. And now we're doing about 80 miles an hour on a road that should be maybe 15 miles an hour maximum. And what happened throughout this ride is we lost total control of our lives. I mean, complete control. We were at the mercy of this person driving. You know what it's like when you get in a cab. I've never met him before.

[Ed Mylett]

I don't know his background.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

I don't know what drugs may be going through his system. I've got my daughter back here whose life I'm now in fear of. I'm in fear of my own life at the same time. And we're going so fast, we're jammed in the back by these seat belts. This was not a normal crazy cab ride. This was something else. And it was a terrifying experience to be totally out of control. And this pilot, this person driving up front, owned our lives. Our entire lives were in his hands, and they weren't in very good hands. And when I tell you that this is the most crazy ride of my life, we ended up pulling on to the on ramp of the freeway, going the wrong way at one point, heading onto the wrong way of an on ramp, certainly towards our deaths. This just happened. And he catches himself, throws it in reverse, does about 30 miles an hour in reverse where we're weaving back and forth the wrong way now and then back, and we end up flying. You can probably picture what this experience was like for us. And now I'm yelling at the guy, you know, you can imagine the words coming out of my mouth. But he's not stopping because he's so worked up. Probably whatever was in his system at the time. And we finally pull up to the valet at the hotel. We were blessed to be staying at a pretty nice hotel. And I could see the valets could see us coming because you could hear the engine roaring from a couple blocks away. You can picture this, and it's dark out, it's raining a little bit now. You can hear our car coming. And we finally corner around the hotel and he screeches into the valet. And of course, we spent those 25 minutes totally out of control in our lives, someone else driving, everything. And as a control freak in my own life, it was a terrifying experience. So I will get into what happened after that, but I had my daughter get out of the car. I said, bella, get out of the car. And me and this man exchanged a few words. It wasn't really very intense because I was still in such shock. Frankly, in hindsight, I wish I was more aggressive with him. And I paid the the fair and I shut the door. And here's what happens next. He takes off out of the valet full speed. And now I'm telling the valet, I'm in the middle of telling the valet, my daughter and I, what this experience just was. And we watch the car. He's. He is still within sight distance of the valet and he hits a car head on. Then he hits a parked car. This was within eyeshot of where we were about 35 to 40 seconds after he dropped us off. He was in a very serious car accident. Now fortunately, by the way, we're just out of the car. So my daughter and I were seconds away from being in that accident. Now fortunately, the people that he hit ended up being okay, and I believe he was okay. And I tell you all of that story because I believe it was a tremendous metaphor for our lives. Number one, it was a terrifying experience. The terrifying part wasn't necessarily just the fear that we were going to hurt ourselves or be killed or hurt someone else, but it was this notion of being completely out of control and something and someone else was driving everything. And I think a lot of people's lives are that way. If you could picture that car ride, I want you to picture your life and I want to ask you a question. Because that crash is inevitable. If something or someone else is driving things behind the scenes in our subconscious mind or in our emotions or even spiritually, we were seconds away from that crash. And my fear is that so many of you, including myself, sometimes have something or someone else driving. And then we're not in control of our choices and our decisions and that we don't do a self audit regularly enough to say what's driving my behavior, what's driving these results I'm getting who's really in control here? Am I really in control of my life? My in control of my decisions, my in control of the choices that I'm making. And more often than not, someone else or something else behind the scenes subconsciously and sometimes even consciously is in control of our lives. And we live our lives out of control. Before I get into some of the teaching that I want to share with you, I want to ask you a question. Do you really feel like you're in control of your life? Do you really feel like you're in control of your choices? Or far too often, are you a passenger in the backseat of your own life, out of control, zigging and zagging dangerously through life, maybe even more dangerously than most people know, maybe more on the edge than most people could ever possibly understand or realize. And I have to tell you, those experiences are terrifying. Not only in that car that night. And what ends up happening at some point is there's a crash and the carnage can be terrible in our lives. And so let's ask ourselves together today, myself included, who's driving right now for you in your life? Are you in the backseat a passenger in your own life, and something or someone else is driving most of your life, in control of too many aspects of your life? So let's look at what some of those things could be that may possibly be driving things. Number one are your fears. The driver of your life. Is that who's in control? Is that who's really driving, who guides things? And you're a pastor in their back seat, sort of being thrown around, out of control because your fears drive your choices and your behaviors in your life. Could that be what's driving right now? And if fears are driving your life, ultimately there will be a crash. If fears are driving your life, you were in the back seat of your life, not in the front seat driving, not in control of your life. Fears could ultimately be driving most of the choices you're making in your life, most of the feelings you have in your life, and most of the results of your life. For far too many people, the front seat is being driven by their fears, and they're in the back seat at the whims and choices and decisions that their fears make on their behalf. Maybe it's not your fears, maybe it's some other person's opinion that you're worried about. Maybe it's judgment still from parents. I have a very good friend of mine who told me recently, she said, I'm still trying to get the approval of my dad, and my father's been passed away for 15 years. Is it some other person's opinion that's driving the choices? You're afraid of the hate you might get from them, the criticism, the ridicule, the frustration? Do you live with someone whose emotions are on edge all the time and you're afraid of their anger, you're afraid of them lashing out, you're afraid of their judgment, you're afraid of their emotions, ups and downs. The roller coaster type person in your life, you're afraid of them. Maybe you don't phrase it that way, but you don't want to offend them, you don't want to work them up, you don't want to poke them too much. Or maybe you've got a parent or a friend or a group of people that you're afraid of their judgment and their opinion, what they'll think of you if you really were authentic and vulnerable about who you are and what you want and what the emotions are that you have in your life. So you, you wear a mask, you pretend to be somebody that you're not to please these people. Is some other person's opinion driving your life? Is it both of them? Is it your fears that drive sometimes?

[Ed Mylett]

And then when your fears decide to

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

get in the passenger seat, some other people's opinion, they're driving now, but you're still on the back seat, totally out of control. By the way. Sometimes we fear the opinion of an imaginary person who doesn't even exist. But we're just worried about what they're going to think.

[Ed Mylett]

We don't even know who they are

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

or what they're thinking, but we don't want to mess it up. And that's a person who lives out of control, just zigging and zagging out of life, half the time going the wrong way, throwing it in reverse. Really scary way to live our lives. Yet so many people live an unexamined life. By the way, I think to some extent I'm talking to myself. I'm a control freak. I know that. And I know that in that car that night, I didn't like not being in control. But I do know that there's been times in my life where there are other things that control me. I wonder why did I make that choice? Why did I say that? Why can't I get control of my emotions? Or why do I keep falling into this pattern? So I relate ask you this. Maybe it's not fears, maybe it's not someone's other opinion. Maybe it is. Maybe it's just an old story that's in control of your life. There's a story you keep telling yourself about your past, about someone who hurt you or some harm that was done or some failure of yours. And you just keep this old story going and it's controlling your entire life. It drives everything you do to this day. Some old story that you just keep carrying and carrying and carrying. My mom did this, my dad did that, my sister this. That divorced this person, hurt me. It may even be a true story. But that old story is driving the car of your life, not you. You've allowed this story, true or not, let's just assume it's true, to control your life. And until you let go of that story, until you surrender that, yes, that happened. But I'm going to create a new story. I'm going to tell you where I'm going. That old story keeps driving.

[Ed Mylett]

And by the way, that old story, you know what it does?

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

It takes you on the same road the same time over and over and over again. It's like having no navigational equipment, no steering wheel, no brake, no accelerator. It's just on autopilot.

[Ed Mylett]

It's like having an auto driven car,

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

but you don't even need to be driving. And it's just this story just drives your life and it's been driving it for too long. So maybe it's an old story that's driving your life and that stories in control of your life, not you. Let me say this. Halfway through, on these different choices, you were born to be in control of your life. You and God, you and your higher power, you and your faith, partnering together. Your fears aren't supposed to be in the front seat, driving your life with you in the backseat, some spectator being thrown around, afraid, other people's opinions, parents, siblings, friends, imaginary people that don't even exist. Their opinions shouldn't be driving your life. But behind the scenes, let's just be real. That's who's driving, that's who's in control. This old story that you keep telling, stop. It's controlling your entire life. It allows you to make no new turns, see no beautiful new vistas, take in anything brand new because you keep repeating the same story on the same track and the same map.

[Ed Mylett]

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[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

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[Ed Mylett]

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[Ed Mylett]

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[Ed Mylett]

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[Rod Carew]

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Quint.com ED maybe it's not an old story. Maybe it is. Maybe it's your emotions that are in charge of your life. Do you have a tendency to get to sadness too quickly? Anger, Anxiety? I think in my case, if I were being honest, I think many times my emotions have taken the front seat and they've driven. I've allowed my emotions to be the driver. I've had a propensity when I was younger, I think anger, I'd have these outbursts. Maybe some of you relate to this and then later I feel so bad. Why was I so worked up? Why did this emotion take over and drove for that entire hour of my life, that entire day, that entire week of my life? Maybe some of you wake up and you have this pattern of sadness. This emotion keeps popping up and it's in control of your life. It dictates the decisions or the lack thereof that you keep making. Maybe it's anxiety, I. I don't know which one it is. But these emotions are in control of your life, not you. They drive your proverbial life for you. It's a scary thing, isn't it, when you feel though, if you're one of these people where your emotions start to, you go, you know it, right? It's coming and these emotions start driving and you're not in control and you can't stop it, you can't turn it off. And then later you look back with regret and you're frustrated with yourself. I think a self audit right now, some self reflection, some examination as I'm talking, their emotions that are driving. Is that the driver that's so scary, that cab driver that night was pretty dang scary, right? Maybe anger is your cab driver, maybe sadness is your cab driver. Maybe anxiety is your cab driver. Maybe your old story's your cab driver, maybe other people's opinions, maybe it's your fears. But when emotions drive our lives, we are an out of control human being. And by the way, even those of you that hang on for those rare moments of total joy, total bliss, those little fractional moments that you're going to get, let's just be honest, 1 to 5, maybe 10% of the time at best in your life, you're going to hang on and delay all of the great things in your life just for those fleeting moments of some little, you know, hit of bliss. As opposed to you being in charge of your life and allowing yourself to experience the emotions you want, anytime you want. You dictate the story, you dictate the opinion, you push away the fears, you choose the emotions. The emotions don't choose for you. Maybe it's not that, maybe who's driving is your lack of belief. Maybe it's your lack of self confidence and belief in yourself. And that lack of belief, that lack feeling that you have for yourself is really in control of your life. That's the cab driver. The cab driver of your life is I don't believe in myself so that I don't believe in myself as the cab driver. It drives every choice I make. It's why I avoid make taking risks. It's why I don't date or I don't see people, or I don't start a business or I don't really go for it in my business, or I don't start building my personal brand or

[Ed Mylett]

I don't write that book or I

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

don't give that speech or I don't reach out to that person that I want to reconcile with. My lack of belief is the cab driver of my life. I'm totally out of control if I'm being honest, because this lack of belief is going on behind the scenes. It's this loop that I keep running that's who's really driving my life, not me. So is it your lack of belief? Maybe it's not lack of belief. Maybe it's just your patterns. You've developed these patterns in your life of thoughts, most of which were installed in you when you were very, very young. And you have these patterns that you just keep repeating over and over. I have, I think of a few friends of mine and why does it surprise us when someone behaves like who they are? You know, I have a few friends I think of recently, like they made some choices that, you know, they've always made these choices. They just, you know, they can go for five months or a year or eight months being a better version of themselves, but ultimately they do the same thing they've always done. They go back into the same pattern, the same choice, the same self destruction, the same pain they cause other people, the same selfishness, whatever it might be. Their patterns are in total control of their life. And so they can go a little while. It's almost like an alcoholic who's like, I can quit for a month, I can quit for six months, I can quit for eight months. Eventually that pattern comes back again. And so are your patterns, the cab driver of your life, are they the ones in charge? Do your patterns eventually come back and they kind of rule the roost. What about this? Maybe it's you as a child is still in control of your life. Things that happened to you when you were a child, the thoughts you had as a child, the mindset, the identity you developed as a child. The five year old, you still in charge. The eight year old, you still in charge. The 12 year old, you still in charge, not the adult. Well, read someone listening to personal development. Listen to the best in the world. Listen to me right now. Not all the stuff you've learned, but it's your patterns or it's you as a child that's in charge. And this little girl or little boy is still in charge of your life rather than this grown strong woman who's capable of taking charge and being the driver. This grown strong man who can make new choices and new decisions and create a new life and treat people differently and feel differently. That's not who's driving, that's not who's in charge. You're in the back seat. And the five year old using the front seat, driving. Nothing scarier than a child driving the car of life. Nothing scarier than a child. Can you imagine a seven year old driving that cab through Boston that night? But so many of you, the seven year old you is driving you through this entire life, this nine year old, this five year old, this two year old, it's time for that to stop. And then lastly, you know what? Maybe there's just another person who's in control of you. Maybe there's a person in your life that you've allowed to take control of you. And those of you that are in that situation right when I said it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Those of you that have a girlfriend that's living like that, or a buddy of yours that's living like that, you know exactly what I'm talking about. This other person controls them. They've allowed this other person to take control of their life, to be in charge of their life, pleasing them, not offending them, making them happy, making them comfortable, pulling them out of their emotional turmoil, tried to avoid that person's emotional outburst or their ridicule in their life. So many people have entered a dependent type relationship, a codependent type relationship with a friend or a loved one, their significant other. And the truth is that other person's in control of your life or their life and not you. And you weren't born to have another person control your life. Nobody is that important that they should be in control of your life, nor should you be in control of their life. And maybe if you're that type of person who you have this propensity that's going to control people, maybe you need to evaluate that today, saying, what am I doing to this person in their life? And if you're being controlled by another person, you've got to ask yourself, when did I surrender control to this person and how do I get this back? Because all of these things are equally or more scary than that cab ride I had that night. Because all you got is this one life. All you've got is this one life, this precious life that you were born to do something great with, that you're supposed to be born to help other people, to live with great emotions, to make great contributions in your life, to have tremendous memories. Not every moment of life is supposed to be blissful and perfect. But the truth of the matter is you should have more bliss, more Abundance, more success, more wealth, more contribution, more memories maybe, than you're getting right now. And it's a scary way to go through life. I want to challenge you today to evaluate what I've covered. To get out of the back seat of your life, to stop allowing your fears, other people's opinions, old stories, your emotions, your lack of belief, your patterns, your inner child or another human being to control your life. And you step forward and get in the driver's seat again. And so that these crashes don't keep happening, this journey of life is supposed to be a rather beautiful one, where we have these awakenings and breakthroughs and discoveries and understandings. I like to say that I'm addicted to the expansion of my being, whatever that means. For some of you, it's the expansion of your contribution is the expansion of your emotions, it's the expansion of your wealth, the expansion of your company, the expansion of the relationships you have, expansion of the difference that you can make. But none of those things are possible if you aren't in the driver's seat, if you aren't in control of your life. And I don't want you to be standing around waiting for that inevitable crash that we saw at the valet that night. You weren't born for that. You were born to do something beautiful and magnificent with your life. And so I hope today you take in an evaluation of who's really in charge, who's really doing the driving in your life. And as I've listed these different drivers in life, these different things that can take control of our lives, that you eliminate the ones that impact you the most and you switch seats and you move them to the back seats. Not like they're always just going to go away instantaneously. Let me be very clear. When you make decisions like this, they don't just disappear, but if you can move them to the back seat and you step forward in the front seat now you're driving and they're spectating. They'll do their best to climb in that front seat from time to time. But if you understand who they are and you're aware of them, you can move them back there anytime you need to and you can drive the results and the emotions of your life.

[Ed Mylett]

Very short intermission here, folks.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

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.

[Ed Mylett]

Welcome back to the show, everybody.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

So this is an interview a couple

[Ed Mylett]

years in the making. We've been going back and forth trying to get this scheduled for a while

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

because I'm a huge fan of this man.

[Ed Mylett]

He's an NFL football player. He's one of the best tight ends in the NFL.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

And we will talk a little football today.

[Ed Mylett]

But really, today has very little to

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

do with football and everything to do about changing your life. And this man's done that. He's immensely qualified.

[Ed Mylett]

I think he may be the most

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

interesting athlete currently in the world because

[Ed Mylett]

of his background, his trials and tribulations,

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

what he's had to overcome, and then the way that he expresses his message

[Ed Mylett]

in his content, I think is going

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

to leave many of you today with a memory you will not soon forget. And so, New York Giants tight end Darren Waller, finally welcome to the show.

[Ed Mylett]

It's great to have you.

[Darren Waller]

Oh, man, it's a perfect time, man. Yeah, we've been working on this, but I'm so grateful to be here.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

Get a quote.

[Ed Mylett]

I want to ask you what this

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

means, by the way.

[Ed Mylett]

I've never done this before, have I? Guys, listen to the show where I

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

read someone's quotes back to them. That's how good they are.

[Ed Mylett]

I'm sure you took these from other

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

places, but you live by them, which is what matters to me. May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. What do you mean when you say that? And, well, how's that manifest itself?

[Darren Waller]

Yeah, I would say that, you know, the life that we want, I feel like the circumstances that we want, the state of mind that we want is all, like, reflected upon, reflected from the choices that we make on a day to day. And I feel like, you know, at the very beginning, the choices that I make, I have to be able to trust myself and respect the choices that I make. And from there, when I do that, I feel like I can look to the future with hope and, like, maintain a vision of, like, what I want my life to look like. And okay, like, that's the mountaintop. It's like, all right, what are the choices that are in the individual steps that are going to take me to get there and just keep those things as simple as possible, like, what can I get to? What can I do today in this moment or within this hour that can, you know, move me closer to or, you know, create the heart and the mind and the framework in me to handle that success or handle that level of anointing? Like, what can I do today to move me towards that? Because a lot of times we can look at that mountain and I'm victim of it too of like, man, that's super high up. Like, dang. I don't know if I'm gonna get there and if I. What if I fall off? What if I don't make it? What are these people gonna think about me? And you start to do things out of making sure that you don't look bad or making sure that you don't slip or making sure that you don't lose when really like there certain losses and failures that need to happen along the way probably to help you get to where you want to go. And that's what with that hope. That doesn't always mean that everything's going to go your way, but it does mean that you're moving in that direction and learning the things and just living a real life of like everything's not always going to be wins, everything's not always going to be positive. But I can, if I. Maintaining that hope and that faith through those circumstances is what's preparing me to make whatever I want, whatever vision I have to become reality, I guess.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

Yeah. You got to ask yourself, everybody, if you're listening to this, how many choices do you think you make on a daily basis out of fear and how many do you actually make out of hope or your vision or your dream? Be really interesting thing to ask yourself like because your autopilot is one or the other. And I will tell you that I think 90 plus percent of people, their autopilot is to operate to avoid pain

[Ed Mylett]

or out of fear.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

And it is. And he's raising his hand and it is not out of dream vision.

[Ed Mylett]

I'm actually doing a podcast on this later today.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

It's not out of the ladder which is dreams, hopes, faith. We don't make our choices unconsciously that way. It's something worth looking at.

[Ed Mylett]

And what if you could just change that by 20%?

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

That 20% of the time at least you moved out of hope and faith and dreams. How do you deal with doubt, Darren? I mean I gotta think first off,

[Ed Mylett]

being a top level athlete, there's a lot of doubt.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

Sobriety, there's doubt coming out and doing this today. You know, putting yourself out on social media like you do daily, teaching these lessons.

[Ed Mylett]

I'm sure not everyone's like, that's amazing what you're doing and wondering whether or

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

not, you know, like you've said you've made some mistakes.

[Ed Mylett]

I have this thing I'm doing right now where I say there's four Ds that I think the adversary or the devil uses to get us off Our dreams.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

And the four are discouragement, doubt, delusion, and delay. Doubt's a huge one.

[Ed Mylett]

There's probably not a human watching this

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

today or listening to it who does not struggle with some degree of doubt.

[Ed Mylett]

And when they look at a dude

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

like you, like six' six, 250, super handsome dude, millions of dollars, accolades, he probably has no doubts, does he?

[Ed Mylett]

And how does he deal with them if he does?

[Darren Waller]

Man, that takes me to one specific moment. There was 2020 season when, which was my best season, and I had a 200 yard game that year. We played the jets, and there's like only six dudes at my position in the history of the league that have done that. And I remember, you know, you play Sunday, Monday is like a lift. Watch the film. Then Tuesday's your off day, and then Wednesday is your first day of practice after the game. And we're at Wednesday in practice. I'm lining up routes on air against like, no defender out there, just catching the pass, just getting warmed up. And in my mind I'm like, all right, like, gotta catch this. Don't drop this pass. I'm like, I just came off a 200 yard game where I caught everything that was thrown at me could not be stopped. But here I am on Wednesday. Like, I hope I catch this pass with no defender covering me. So it's like, even in the midst of success and doing a lot of great things, I'm still battling that doubting mind because it's wired in me since I was a kid of like, I don't know if these people are going to accept me. I don't know if I'm, you know, safe here. I don't know if my performance is ever going to be enough. And then it's like, you do a performance that is not just more than enough, but historically recognized. And I still am like, I hope I catch this pass in practice. Like, it's a. It's a real thing and it constantly has to be revisited and, and sat with. Honestly, like, when it's when doubt comes, like, I was used to numbing it, like with pills, with drinking, with women, like, whenever. When doubt comes in. But it's really sitting with that doubt and being like, well, why am I afraid of that? Like, what does. Like, what is the worst possible thing that could happen? And I'm. Am I. Could I handle that? Like, you know, somebody points at me and laughs or says something in the comments, like, because I fail. Like, can I. Like, what about that scares me so much and that'll kind of point you to more towards answers. So it's still something I'm unpacking in

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

my life that's fascinating to me that

[Ed Mylett]

you have 200 yards against, you know,

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

the best defenders in the league and all these schemes, and by the time

[Ed Mylett]

you got 80 yards, they're schema to shut you down.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

So you end up getting 200 and

[Ed Mylett]

now you're worried about catching a pass

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

in the air with nobody covering you, right? And one of the lessons from that that I've learned, Darren, you know, with my work with athletes, but just humans, is a lot of us think, well, failure causes doubt, and it does. But one of the great triggers of doubt is progress. When you're making progress, it's a huge doubt trigger because now you're going into unchartered territory and what starts to happen in your mind is you start thinking the tools that got me here aren't going to get me beyond here. And it starts triggering these doubts.

[Ed Mylett]

So just remember this, everybody.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

That's why most people don't succeed long term, because they, their results start to exceed their identity. And what they do is they cool

[Ed Mylett]

their life back down. They're like, I'm going to doubt myself right back to where I'm comfortable.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

200 yards.

[Ed Mylett]

I've never done that in an NFL game before.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

Let me cool this thing back down where I get 40 next game and drop a couple passes, right? And if you're on audio, he's nodding, like smiling because progress is a great trigger of doubt in your life. It's a huge one.

[Ed Mylett]

Very short intermission here, folks.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

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.

[Ed Mylett]

Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with ebglis, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four month or longer dosing phase, about 4 in 10 people taking MGLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

Emplis Lebricizumab LBKZ a 250mg per 2ml injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis, that is not well controlled with prescription therapies. Used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. Ebglis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to Ebglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Ebglis. Before starting Ebglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection.

[Ed Mylett]

Ask your doctor about ebgliss and visit ebgliss.lilly.com or call 1-800-LilyRx or 1-800-545-597.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

We heard you.

[Ed Mylett]

Nine years of bring back the snack wrap and you've won. But maybe you should have asked for more.

[Rod Carew]

Say hello to the Hot Honey Snack Wrap.

[Ed Mylett]

Now you've really won. Go to McDonald's and get it while you can. Welcome back to Max out, everybody. I'm Ed Mylett and today I'm extremely excited to share these thoughts with you because I think what we're going to cover today may be the single most important thing that will lead to you reaching the ultimate version of yourself. Your optimal results, your max out level of play or not ever getting there. And so it's that important to me. You know, people ask me often what were some of the decisions and choices and areas I focused on that made the biggest difference for me in my life? And today's topic is the thing that I would probably give you the gift of first, and that is the power of your identity. See, I believe the most powerful force in the world is to be consistent with the thoughts, ideas, concepts and beliefs you hold to be true about yourself. And that is what identity is. Identity is the governor on every single area of your life. It literally sets the temperature for all of the conditions of your life. Shakespeare has this incredible quote that says, we know what we are, but not what we may be. And the who you may be is going to be dictated by your ability to alter your identity because you are going to always be consistent with what you believe you're worth and what you believe you deserve. Or what is your identity. Your identity. The best analogy I could give you is like a thermostat sitting on the wall of your life. It sets the entire temperature for the conditions of your life in multiple areas. And so most people think their life is dictated by external circumstances. They spend their entire life trying to control what is outside of them. You've all heard the great saying that people in 12 step programs talk about, about learning to control the things they can and letting go of the things that they can't control. And the fact of the matter is you cannot always control the external factors that are impacting you in your life. The good news is it's the external things in your life that do not dictate the direction or the ultimate destination of your life. That is a fallacy. Listen to me when I tell you this. External circumstances do not dictate, dictate the ultimate destination of your life. It's an internal game. You and your faith, your God, are what will control the direction of your life, not the external things that are impacting you all the time. And this identity is that internal thermostat. It sets the temperature just like a thermostat sitting on the wall of the conditions of your entire life. Let me give an example of how the thermostat of our lives works. The best analogy I can give you is exactly, exactly how one works in the room I'm sitting in. It sets the temperature of the room. And so the external conditions don't impact the internal temperature of this room because that thermostat regulates the condition of the room. So if we open the door and the windows in this room and cold air blew in here, the thermostat would kick on, wouldn't it, and heat the room back up to 75 degrees. So no matter what hit regulates the temperature of the room. The reverse is also true. If a bunch of hot air blew in the room, if we we open the doors and the windows, the thermostat would cool the room back down and regulate it to 75 degrees. Guess what? That's exactly how your life works. Once you accept this truth, it is a fact that it's not the external things that are happening, it's the internal thermostat. Too often in life, people don't work on changing their identity. They're always working on producing external results. Have you ever known somebody who was wealthy and no longer is? Have you ever known somebody who made a bunch of money and no longer does? How about somebody who was in a great relationship and that relationship no longer exists? How about someone who got in great shape, that is no longer in that shape again? If your results begin to exceed your internal thermostat, you will find a way to cool your life back down to what you believe you're worth. And you're comfortable at your identity. You'll think it's coincidental. Oh, I was this accident happened or this appointment canceled or this circumstance took place. It's not coincidence. All of those things have happened because you set the thermostat of your life and you've regulated what you're going to get. Isn't that incredible that you can learn all the talents, the behaviors, the skills, the tactics, all the strategies that I teach you. But if you don't alter that thermostat internally, you could have all of the skills of a hundred degree producer and you will live a 75 degree existence because you will turn the air conditioner of your life on back down to cool it where you're comfortable. It's also true, by the way, you've seen this in your own life. Maybe you've had something really good going in business before. You've got momentum, it seems like things are happening great. And then you wake up four, five, six months later and you've cooled your life, your business, right back down to where it was before. Maybe you'd save some money at one time and then coincidentally, your car broke down or a bill happened or there was a run of birthday parties and all of a sudden that bank account is back to where it always was. It's not coincidental you've cooled the conditions back down again and so you've seen this happen. Maybe you got in great shape at one point, but your identity wasn't that fit a person and you've cooled it back down to about what you're comfortable being. This is true in your faith and your relationships, by the way, you have multiple thermostat settings. You have one in your faith, you have one in your fitness, one in your money, one in your happiness, right? One in your business life. So there's multiple identities we have. The reverse is also true. There's been times in your life where the circumstances, the conditions were terrible. You thought you'd never get out of it, you're never going to eat again. Well, guess what, you ate again, didn't you? And you heated your life back up to that same place again. So you've proven this over and over in your life, haven't you? So have I. So has every single human being. The governor on our life, the regulator of our life, is our identity, which is the internal thermostat sets the temperature for our life. So the key in life is to learn all the thoughts, the skills, the tactics and the strategies that can heat our life up in the areas that matter most to us. But if we don't simultaneously change the conditions of our thermostat, change what we're comfortable living at change our identity, our worth, change the thoughts, beliefs, concepts and value we hold to ourself. We will cool or heat our life back to the regulated temperature. And so I'm telling you the overall key to changing the external conditions of your life is changing that internal thermostat setting. So that's what we're going to talk about some strategies on today. Just being aware that you need to alter the thermostat is a life changing, liberating condition. I cover this in very specific detail and maxoutyour life, my book, it's a quick read, hundred pages. I wrote it so that every page has strategies on it, no fluff. If you want the book, go to maxoutbook.com if you put in the code, max out, I'll buy the book for you. So I cover this in detail there, but I want to cover it in detail right now with you as well. What you need to be doing is becoming aware of how important it is that you adjust this thermostat setting as you produce better results, as you start to learn new skills and strategies and tactics. See, you can move from an average business into an extreme, extraordinary business with incredible opportunity. But you will produce the same results you're getting in the average business if you don't change that thermostat setting up to 95 or 100 or 120 degrees of what you believe you're worth the thoughts, concepts and beliefs you hold true to be about yourself. So it is the regulator on our lives. And it's the main thing I work on with my private coaching with some of the elite performers I work with in business and athletics and entertainment and politics is me working with them on changing that internal thermostat where we can heat it higher and higher and higher so that they can produce the results and the conditions of their life stay and exceed those levels all the time. In fact, in my own life, I'm always working on my self confidence, I'm working on my tactics and strategies, my ability to influence, right my thoughts, all of those different things. But the thing I'm most obsessed about that I know is going to get me to the ultimate version of me is constantly elevating the temperature in the areas that matter to me, adjusting that thermostat setting higher and higher and higher and higher so that I can get those conditions to match it. Because it always will. You will always get your thermostat setting always in your life. So can I give you any insights as to how to change that thermostat setting I can. Let me give you a couple. The most powerful way, and the easiest way to change your thermostat setting is by adding people to your circle, very close proximity that live at a higher temperature in that area than you do. For example, in your faith, let's just say you're a 75 degree or in your faith. You've already seen this. You can't possibly begin to regularly associate with good godly people who pray regularly, who try to live righteously, and they're 110, 120 degrees of faith in their life and not have that proximity heat you up. Now, you won't get to where they are. You'll get to somewhere between where you are at 75 degrees and they are at 110. Over time, you become 100 degree ER and you alter the thermostat setting through association. Same in business. If you and I were to hang around each other every single day, and let's say you were a 75 degree or in business, hypothetically, and I don't know that about you, but let's just say you were and I was 150° and we hung around each other all the time. Don't you think through that association rig, especially if you had two or three or four people like me in your life, that just over time you don't even feel it? You're at 80, you're 85, you're at 90, you're at 95, and that's where you are. We understand the power of this with our children because we know at school the teachers have influence over them. They're mentors. But the people that really have influence over our children are their friends because they're around them all the time. And so we know it sets their temperature. This is true in fitness. If you're a 75 degree F fitness at every meal, every day, at the gym, all your associations, hypothetically speaking, were with someone who was shredded and fit the way you wanted to. Look at 150 degrees, you know, over time you get heated up and so you can't be with someone every day. You can't be with them all the time. But the key is to get more proximity in the areas that matter, with people whose thermostat setting is higher than yours. I am a product. You are listening to me right now because I've been obsessed with this concept of adding new associations to my life that live in the areas that I want to improve in at higher temperatures than me. It's my obsession to this day. I'll give you a secret. One of the reasons I even do my show is I know that I'm influencing many of these guests in the areas that matter most to them through our proximity. And in some cases, they do it for me. And so I'm obsessed with the power of association. But I don't just associate. See, all personal says, yeah, you're the five people you hang around. Kinda, you really are the five to ten people you hang around. If you're conscious all the time of studying them, of observing them, of asking questions, of the fact that you should be altering your thermostat setting, that's when it really moves. It's not just hanging around, it's consciously and intentionally spending time with people where you allow it to impact you, where you study them, where you really observe them, where you're open to their influence. There has to be a level of trust before you can do that, where you surrender yourself to them. But it's not just being around them, it's intentionally being around people that alters that thermostat setting. So power of association is the main way to do it. Second way to alter your identity is in a short window of time, behave completely differently. In a 30 day window of time in your fitness life, you shock your system into eating or training completely differently than you used to. Or in your business life, you make a hundred times more phone calls, a hundred more contacts. You do something in a very short window of time that shocks you into believing, my gosh, I could never go back where I was before. You trick your brain into believing you're different. There's this part of our brain that always wants to be consistent with what we're worth. Well, if in a short window of time I begin to behave completely differently, your brain begins to believe you deserve something differently. When you begin to do the things nobody else is willing to do, you begin to believe you deserve the results nobody else deserves to get. This is important also because it changes the water line. It's almost like a water line in the pool. If you raise it, it leaves a new mark. Have you ever seen that before in a lake or a pool? We raise the water line a short window of time and it just changes the mark in your life. It changes the thermostat study. So you can alter things in your life in short bursts. And I do this often in an area where I really need to change, like right now. I just started back on a really seriously, deeply committed fitness journey. I want to get back and past where I've ever been in fitness in my life. So I'm going to add some of these new associations. I'm going to train with a new group of people because I've been training alone. I'm going back to training with some people that are fitter than me, men and women that are fitter than me. That's my fourth combination that'll alter my thermostat setting, our proximity. And secondly, I'm going psycho. The next 30 days I'm going psycho. I'm altering my nutrition and my diet dramatically, my workouts dramatically and I'm going to shock my system in the next 30 days into changing the water line, changing that temperature setting. That's the second way you alter identity, alter the thermostat setting so that you alter the external results. I've said this to you before as well. Well see beliefs are so important to guard because once you have a belief, your brain goes to work. And I've said this in another audio video where your brain has to go to work to prove your beliefs to be true. Your brain literally goes to work on finding the evidence to prove you right. And so that identity, you're constantly reinforcing it. Let me give you an example of what I mean. If you believe a certain worth about yourself, a certain identity that impacts the type of action you're willing to take. So if there's a goal you've got set, it doesn't matter what it is, pick a goal. To the extent that you believe it's consistent with your identity is to the extent that you will make an effort towards it. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. However, because what happens is if your identity is here and the goal is there, you will only make an effort congruent with what you believe you're worth. And so that limited effort you make produces the the result not consistent and it reinforces the belief. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy. So you set a goal that is inconsistent with an identity you're working on. You will only make an effort consistent with the identity which will get you to hear, doesn't produce the result and it reinforces this belief you have about yourself. So it's important as you set new goals, as you set new visions, that you also upgrade your identity. Simultaneous, you're in process of upgrading it because that identity impacts the effort you make, right? Impacts the will you put towards it. And that will is reinforced by the lack of result. And so it becomes this self fulfilling prophecy. So your mind has this belief it wants to prove to be true and it starts to find references. So if you believe you're 75 degrees, it's going to start finding legs to put under that table to make it immobile so it can't move to prove you right. And so our identity equals our effort. And the challenge is that effort produces the result. And so this identity has everything to do with the effort you make, which produces the result, which will reinforce the identity or the lack thereof. So it's critical that you upgrade identity with your new visions and goals. The next layer of this is you need to stop what's no longer needed. In other words, there were behaviors and thoughts you've had had in the past that were needed to produce the results you currently have. But you need to stop what's no longer needed. Maybe you're continuing a behavior in your life that's no longer needed. Maybe you're continuing a thought or a worry that at one time was needed but no longer is. Maybe there's a stress or an anxiety or a belief you're holding true to be about yourself that maybe you needed at some point in your life that you no longer need. It could be be something to protect yourself from fear, to protect yourself from harm, or to serve you in getting through a certain circumstance. But if we're not conscious of dropping a thought or a behavior that's no longer needed, we take old thoughts, old behaviors that served an old version of ourself into trying to become the new version of ourselves. So ask yourself that question. What do I need to drop that's no longer needed? Is it a person? Is it a. Is it a behavior, or is it an emotion, One of those things you probably are carrying with you from the past, that maybe you needed to get through a circumstance, maybe you needed to get through a relationship, through a setback, through a failure, or just to produce the results you currently get. But that thought, that behavior, that emotion, that person is no longer needed for you to go to the next level of your identity, the next level of your performance, the next level of yourself. And then finally is this. If you're stuck, you're stuck in a story. That's where you're stuck. There's a story you're telling yourself that doesn't serve you anymore. And you have to evaluate what that story is. I'm serious right now. If you say, ed, I'm kind of stuck where I am. Well, what you need to do is you need to alter your associations. You need to do something in a short window of time. No question about it. You definitely need to evaluate what is no longer needed. And evaluate the story you're telling yourself. There's all kinds of stories we tell ourselves that don't serve us anymore. This is critical. Maybe it's a story about your past, A story about your parents. A story about a previous relationship. A story about a success you used to have. You keep talking about that doesn't serve you to get to the next level. If I can be real with you. Whatever you've achieved up to this point, that story you keep talking about every second you keep spend in that old story about what you've achieved, your degree, some business you had. One thing you were real successful at in the past. Every time you live in that story, you're stripping time and focus from the new story. What's the new story you're telling yourself? You can't have a new identity without a new story. What's the old story you keep repeating? Maybe it's not a success. Maybe it's a failure that you've had. It was a business setback. It was the market. It was the economy. It was someone who did you wrong. A relationship that let you down. A business partner who wasn't consistent. A failure. You've had a poor decision. You made a mistake you made in your life. And you're repeating this story to yourself, simultaneously trying to create a new identity. You can't take that old story into the new identity. One of the things we have to do to create a new identity is to begin to tell a new story. What's your new story? Who are you now? What are you all about now? Where are you going now? What's this new version of you see, here's what's amazing. At any point in your life, you can just decide to write a new script. You could decide to become a whole new character. See, the leading character in the story of your life is you. And guess what? You and God control the script. You could write a new script at any time you want. Listen to me. At any anytime you want, you can simply decide to be a new character. I'm strong now. I'm beautiful now. I'm handsome now. I'm bold now. I'm funny now. I'm smart now. I'm going there now. Stop telling the old story. Here's the truth. Nobody cares. No one cares if you had a failure. No one cares if you've had a setback. No one cares if you had a victory. And none of those failures. None of those setbacks, none of those victories. And that old character you keep playing is the very Thing that will prevent you from becoming this new version of you. It's a story if you're stuck, it's an old story you're telling with an old character. That was last year's version, last decade's version. Who's the new character? What's the new script? What's the new story? I must tell you, I have a lot of weaknesses, a lot of things I do that don't serve serve me. But this identity thing, I get this. It's the key. Now. There's a lot of little mini things in life that matter. There's never one thing. Have you said what's the key? I can tell you it's my addiction and my obsession to working on my identity. It's the thought of mine that dominates most of my thinking that's number one. So I'm conscious of the concept. That's huge. Just being aware of the concept will put you light years ahead of 99.9% of it. Just awareness of the power of identity just now, you knowing about the thermostat puts you in the 0.1% of all the people on the spinning earth right now. And then the next thing I'm really focused on is always adding people to my life in the areas that matter to me, that live at higher temperatures than me. The second thing is I'm constantly doing things in short bursts of time to change the water line. I'm also super obsessed with dropping what's no longer needed. There were certain things I needed to think and do and say, or people I needed to be around, emotions I needed to have that got me to the place I'm currently at, evaluating all the time. What is no longer needed, what emotion, what anxiety, what thought, what belief, what person, what behavior is no longer needed in my life. And then lastly, I never tell the old story. I don't like telling the old story. I'm constantly trying to write the new script, become the new character in my life. And it could just be the new emotions. It could be the new beliefs I have. It could be the new story, the new place I'm moving. But I'm constantly retelling a new story all the time. I'm constantly obsessed with writing the next chapter of my life, not reading the previous ones. The happiest and most fulfilled people. People don't read the past chapters of their life, whether they're good or bad. They are writing new ones all the time. These are the keys of changing the internal thermostat of our lives and ultimately are the keys of changing the external circumstances of our lives. Very short intermission here, folks.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far.

[Ed Mylett]

Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now, on with the show.

[Ed Mylett]

Today we're going to talk about how to build unlimited self confidence. And the reason that I'm covering this topic today is probably more than any other topic. I've been getting asked lately about the struggles people are going through with self doubt, not believing in themselves, negative thoughts about themselves. And I believe the solution to self doubt is to build something bigger than that doubt, which is to build our self confidence. And one thing to know about the fact that you doubt yourself is one. I struggle with it as well. One of the reasons I've had to go learn to build all these tools for myself is because in my life, my baseball career, my academic career, my business career, my speaking career, I've been riddled with self doubt that creeps up all the time in our lives. Am I enough? Am I good enough? Do I deserve this? Is this something that's part of my destiny? Should I be doing this? And if you're a religious person, I believe the adversary. If you believe in the adversary, I believe the adversary's greatest tool that he could use against you to get you to lose in your life is to get you discouraged. And doubting, these are two of the most chaotic things that the adversary can do to us or that we do to ourselves in our own minds is to get ourselves doubting, to get ourselves discouraged. Because you can't win when you doubt and you can't win when you're discouraged. What I found out though about self doubt is that you don't overcome it. You build something bigger than it, which means you build your self confidence. And the greater and greater your self confidence get, it minimizes the impact self doubt has on us. Now why is that so important? It's important because you have to understand one thing about the doubts and the negative thoughts you have about yourself. As hard as this is to accept, these are not your thoughts. You weren't born doubting, you weren't born discouraged. You weren't born born thinking negative things about yourself. Those were thoughts that were placed in you and given to you by an external source at some time in your life. It could even be our parents. Don't do that. Be quiet. Sit down. Be a good boy. Be a good girl. Maybe it was criticism you received as a Little one, that you may not even remember to this day. It could have been a school teacher, it could have been ridicule at school from other children. But when you were young, in your formative years, these negative thoughts about yourself were planted in you by an external source that's so powerful to understand. Because these things you think you believe about yourself that have become really true to you, you don't even really believe they were not your original thoughts. But the power of belief is so incredible in our lives, it's so insidious. Because when we have a belief about something, even if it was given to us by somebody else, our mind goes to work on proving to us that this belief is true. A belief is almost like this table right here, just the top. Once we get it, and what our mind tries to do is it tries to build legs under the table to reinforce that belief. So if somebody told you you weren't enough, or you weren't smart enough or pretty enough, or fast enough, or strong enough, or you don't come from the right place, or you're not in the right culture, the right race, the right religion, the right height, the right IQ as a young person, or you were put down and these beliefs were given to you. What happens is your mind tries to prove beliefs true, so it finds references. So once you think it, your mind finds an example of your life where you weren't enough, another one where you weren't enough, you weren't smart enough, you weren't pretty enough, you weren't handsome enough, you weren't strong enough, and it finds these references and it builds like a leg and multiple legs on a table and pretty soon you can't move it and it's stuck in there as a first. That's why we have to guard our beliefs so preciously, because our mind goes to work on finding these legs, these references, which are real experiences in our life to prove to us that that belief is true. And so although you may believe it to be true about you, these doubts and negative thoughts you have, these were not your original thoughts. That's a powerful thing to understand because you weren't born this way. You weren't born doubting, you were born perfect. You were born believing you were going to do something great. You were born happy, you were born believing you were going to do something special with your life as a baby. I promise you, you had no negative self talk. You had no negative self doubt. These are external sources so important to know because those thoughts aren't really who you are. There's Somebody else's thoughts they gave you because of how they felt about themselves. And so today we're going to talk about how to build self confidence and how to eliminate self doubt. So how do we build the self confidence? The process of building self confidence is actually very easy. Believe it or not, self confidence is self trust. Self confidence is building a reputation with yourself that you keep your word to you that you keep the promises you make to you. When I meet somebody who has a ton of self confidence, I don't look at that as somebody with a big ego. There's a difference. Somebody with self confidence has a reputation with themselves that I do the things I say, say I'm going to do. That's where self confidence comes from. When I meet someone who's not self confident, I know this is someone who has consistently made promises to themselves they've not kept. They've started a diet and done it for a while but not kept it. They've made a commitment and goals to go make a certain amount of money in business and they started down the road, but then they didn't deliver on it long term. To get up at a certain time of the morning and then they don't do it. And so they have a process and a habit in their life more often than not of not keeping the promises they don't make to other people. They don't keep the promises they make to themselves. And so the cool thing is self confidence is an internal game. You do not need external accolades, external admiration in order to build self confidence. You don't need any of those external forces. It's all done internally. You control this and you control this by beginning today to keep the promises you make to yourself. And you have to stack the deck, deck in your favor. Stack the game so you win. It's not good enough just to keep the promises you make to yourself. You must acknowledge it when you do it to you to give yourself credit, to create confidence, momentum is what I call it. So whether that's setting the deck where you're going to get up a little bit earlier, you're going to make a certain amount of phone calls, your business, a certain amount of appointments, you're going to eat a certain amount of calories in your fitness, you're going to spend a certain amount of time with your children or your parents, and you begin to do these things, things you say you're going to do. You say simple things like I'm going to lay out my clothes the night before I go to bed, every night before I Go to sleep. So when I wake up, that decision is made for me. And believe it or not, the fact that you just do something that simple, that you then deliver on, begins to build confidence. You say I'm going to stretch in the morning when I get up and you do it, all of a sudden I'm not going to check my phone for 30 minutes. All these habits I teach, when you just begin to do the things, things you tell yourself you're going to do, you begin to build self confidence, which is this reputation with yourself. So ask yourself a question right now, what is one thing right now, one promise I can make to myself that I'm going to begin to keep starting this minute and begin to do it? It could be how often I'm going to pick up a book and read it. But you begin to stack things you commit to do and then you deliver on them and you acknowledge them to yourself. You're in the process, process of building self confidence. Why is that so important? Of all the athletes I coach, when my athletes are performing at their peak level, they're at their highest self confidence level. In fact, I love when I watch some of the athletes I coach get interviewed and they kind of do this aw shucks, humble routine in their post game interviews. Yeah, you know, just part of the team. You know, I got a lot, I could have done a lot better today, but inside I know these people are incredibly self confident people. Any of you athletes, athletes listening to this, you know this, the great athletes, you know, have incredible amounts of self confidence. You have to believe in you when it's a battle, when you're a hitter against a pitcher, or when you're a quarterback against a defense, or you're a defenseman in the NHL against their best offensive player, or you're a golfer and you have to make a nine foot putt to win a tournament.

[Rod Carew]

Right.

[Ed Mylett]

You better have self confidence. In fact, the separator more often than not at the highest level in sports is not they're a better shooter or a better punch putter or throw the ball a little bit faster. Because everybody throws hard in the major leagues nowadays. It seems right that separators their self confidence. It's true in being a parent, it's true in being a business person. It's true in every area of our life. The separator at the top levels is self confidence. So now you have that first thing that you're going to commit to, that you're going to deliver on. Now what I would ask you to do that now that you've done that is if you really want to build self confidence, can you begin to extend that list 5, 8 and 10 things that you are going to begin to do, that you commit to you, that you're going to do every single day to begin to stack that self confidence, that's going to change it. Now let's go back to the self doubt for a second. Self doubt is the inverse of that. I don't, trust me, I don't think I'm good enough. These are thoughts placed from the outside inside your mind. The minute you acknowledge that that's not my thought, that's someone else's, that's not, you begin to eliminate. I call it like scratching the cd. When I begin to have negative self talk, negative thoughts, I literally picture. And I'm old by the way, but I picture an old record player or a DVD and I just scratch it. I scratch it. That thought gets scratched. I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not good looking enough, I'm not fast enough, strong enough, I'm not prepared enough. Once they enter, that's not my thought. That's something someone gave me when I was a kid and I scratch it. And I literally say to myself scratch it, scratch it, scratch it. And over time it's like a DVD or a CD or a record player. Over time that thought can't be played again in your recorder when you scratch it enough times. So I literally picture scratching and I say scratch it. I experience self doubt, I experience negative thoughts and I scratch them. I scratch them, I scratch them. And over time it almost becomes funny. It's that thoughts impact on me starts to be minimized over time. Every time I scratch it, I picture scratching it like a DVD or a record or a cd and I say it to myself, scratch it, scratch it, scratch it. And what it does is it acknowledges the thought. It loses its power over me. The first time it's still got some impact on me. The second time it might. But the fourth, fifth, seventh time, all of a sudden that thought just doesn't have the impact on me anymore because I acknowledge it's not mine. I've scratched it. And over time my mind just doesn't want to play that song anymore, doesn't want to play that movie anymore. And so that's how I begin to eliminate those thoughts in my mind. I build up my self confidence and I scratch my self doubt. There's also this misconception from people that you are certain things. Meaning some people have this misconception that I am what I possess. In other words, I am my possessions. And so they link their self confidence to the their possessions. And so they're constantly trying to acquire more and more possessions, thinking that's where they get their self confidence from. That's how they're defined as a person. I am my possessions couldn't be further from the truth. It's a hollow way to try to gain self confidence by possessing things. Nothing wrong with going for material possessions. I have all kinds of them, but I don't link my confidence to those possessions. Nor am I deluded into thinking about if I could just possess more things, then I'll feel better about myself. So this is a mistake. There's a flawed thought. Number one flawed thought, I am my possessions. Second, flawed thought, I am my accomplishments. In other words, my self confidence is only linked to what I accomplish. So because I haven't accomplished certain things, I don't have that certain title, that certain award, that certain recognition. I don't believe in myself. I'm riddled with self doubt. I'm defined by my accomplishment, accomplishments. The difficult thing about that is now all your life you're gonna have to accomplish more and more and more in order to feel self confident and eliminate self doubt. You are not your accomplishments, you are not your possessions. You are you. You are perfect, you are beautiful. You were born to do something great with your life. If you're a person of faith like me, you believe God made you in his image and likeness and wants you to do something great with your life. Not that you are your possessions, not that you are your accomplishments. And this is the social media insidious influence it has in our lives. People think I don't feel good about myself. I've got this self doubt. The gateway to me feeling more self confidence is if I could possess more things or if I could accomplish more things. Yes, having nice things will make you feel better about yourself. Yes, accomplishing things certainly is a reinforcement for self confidence, but it's not the pathway to get getting it. The pathway to getting it is doing something great with your life where you keep the promises you make to yourself and acknowledge this self doubt, this self thought, this negative talk isn't even mine. It was given to me when it was impossible for me to defend myself as a child and maybe it even happened in adolescence. And probably some of those incidences have happened for you as an adult. And these ones as an adult are like that thing I said earlier. Oh, it's another talk time. I reinforce the table. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough, I'm not prepared enough, I'm not the right race, I'm not the right gender, I don't come from the right kind of family, I don't have the right education. And we find these references as adults to reinforce these self doubting beliefs we were given by somebody else as a child. Flawed belief is that you are your possessions, you are your accomplishments. Third flawed belief. I am what other people say I am wrong. You are not what other people say you are good or bad. I see too many people that if someone says something negative about them, they believe that's who they are. This is the flawed third belief. I am my possessions, I am my accomplishments and you know what or I am what other people say I am. Let me be clear with you. You are not what other people tell you you are. It wasn't true when you were 18 months old, 5 years old or 54 years old. You are not what other people say you are. So stop letting that dictate your self confidence or fill you with self doubt. And for the record, you are also not the good things people tell you you are all the time. Don't live for likes. Don't live for comments on your social media. Don't do things in your life just to solicit someone saying something great about you. It's a cheap shot, shallow, hollow way to try to gain self esteem and self confidence. It's fleeting, it's short term and it's needy. In fact, the fact that it is a necessity for you to get liked, to get people to say good things, to get comments on your social media or to do so in your presence indicates a lack of self esteem and self confidence. Because we know self confidence is an internal game where we keep the promises we make to ourselves. The fourth type of flawed thinking is I am what I look like. In other words, if I don't look a certain way like what the magazine says I should or social media says I should, if I don't look like these people, I shouldn't have self confidence. And that's ridiculous. I can tell you straightforwardly, you're beautiful as you are. Especially the ladies listening to this or watching this. The world is constantly trying to get you to believe you're not enough. You don't look right, you should lose this weight, you should gain this. This should be smaller, that should be bigger. Whatever it might be, they're constantly messaging women, you're not enough. You're not enough. You're not enough. You are what you look like. And this is true for men as well. Let me tell you straightforward that you are not what you look like. You are your soul, you are your spirit, you are your gifts, you are the contributions you make. You are your intentions. You are perfect as you are. That, that doesn't mean we don't want to look better, doesn't mean we don't want to get into shape. But we want to do that to feel better about ourselves, not for the accolades from other people. We want to do that to feel healthier and stronger and be the ultimate version of ourselves. But by no means does that mean you're not perfect as you are. By no means does it mean you are defined by what you look like. You are not defined by what you look like. You are defined by the content of your character, the way you treat other people and the difference you make in the world. So the four flawed thoughts that I see most right now is I am my possessions. No you're not. I am my accomplishments. No you're not. I am what other people tell me I am and say I am good or bad. No, you are not. And fourth, you are not what you look like. These are flawed beliefs that lead right to self doubt and away from self confidence. So the things we need to do to change our self confidence is a keep the promises we make to ourself and B very important, we must begin to give ourselves credit for those things when we deliver on them. I want you to remember this as well. There's a power to the way we use the two Bs our brain and our body. See, self confidence can also be a state, a physical state. It's very difficult when you're moving your body, sitting up straight, breathing deeply, right, you're in that physical strong state of being, right? Right after a workout. During a workout is when we feel our most confident because our body body's at a peak state. One way to generate self confidence is to move your body into a strong state of being. Move your body literally. Movement creates confidence. If you think about some of the peak times of your life, whether that be the fun time you may be having with your partner, physically, intimately, or laughter or peak performance, running, right, or your great accomplishments, yes, there's a commonality of the way our body is moving at that time. If you think about the times when you're the least confident, usually when you wake up in the morning, isn't it it's the most down, the most fearful, the most anxiety, or before you go to bed at night, these are two times most people experience the most amount of self doubt is right before bed and right when they wake up. Isn't that interesting? One of the reasons is because of how we're moving. We're laying down, we're hunched over, our breathing is shallow, there's no physical movement whatsoever. This creates a stiff state of self doubt right before we sleep, right when we wake up or if you're just kind of depressed or sick, self doubt starts to kick in, doesn't it?

[Rod Carew]

Right.

[Ed Mylett]

If you ever had an injury and you couldn't move like you'd like to. That stagnation of the body begins to create self doubt and strips us of our self confidence. So moving our body is a gateway to self confidence and then our brain as well. We have to take control of our thoughts. We have to scratch the negative ones when they communicate in and replace them with great ones. Now I don't believe self talk works all the time. But I believe saying I am strong, I am good, I intend. I'm a good man, my intentions are pure. I'm a good person, I make a difference in the world. I'm kind, I'm gentle, I'm generous, I'm strong, I'm faithful. Beginning to repeat these thoughts to myself. And these words do generate self confidence. I keep the promises I make to myself. I'm a man of my word. Begin to talk to yourself and think these thoughts. When you combine your brain and your body, you scratch the self doubt, you lose those four stupid beliefs. I am my accomplishments, I am my possessions. I am what other people say I am or I am what I look like. These are completely flawed beliefs. We scratch those, we scratch them. We understand the process of stacking self confidence in our life. We know we are the content of our character. And lastly, give yourself some credit, will you please? And I'm going to tell you where to give yourself credit and that is in the area of your intentions. A lot of my confidence comes from the fact that I keep the promises I make to myself. I know my self doubt are thoughts that were given to me when I couldn't even defend myself as a young little boy. I know that I'm not my accomplishments, I know I'm not my possessions, I know I'm not what I look like and I know I'm not what other people say I am. I understand the process of building self confidence. I scratch the negative thoughts in my life. But I can tell you this, the last place I get my confidence from is my faith and my intentions. See, I know I intend to do good. Not enough of you are giving yourself credit for your inherent goodness. And I mean this. You're special in that regard. You're perfect in that regard. Just ask yourself, what are your intentions as an individual, as a man or a woman? Do you intend to do good in the world? Do you intend to want to help people? Do you intend to be a light in people's lives? Do you intend to make a difference? Do you want to live a good life where you've helped change the world and change other people's lives? Have you ever just asked yourself that? Do you? Because if the answer that is, you know, I don't spend enough time thinking about how good my intentions are. I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to do bad things. I don't want to take advantage of others. I really intend to do good. You know what? You need to give yourself more credit for the power of your intentions. There's a power in life of giving ourselves credit just for the intentions we have. Just ask yourself that. There's two types of people in life. There's the people who intend to do harm, to take advantage of people to cheat, to cut corners, to cause hurt to others for what they think will be their own game. Then there's people who want to be a light. They want to make a difference. They want to help. They want to contribute. They want to be somebody. They want to honor their God. They want to make a difference in the world and their intentions are good. Too often in life, people with great intentions don't give themselves credit for how beautiful and wonderful those intentions are. And so today, just take this inventory of all the things that are wonderful, wonderful about your intentions. And then just take an inventory of your faith. As a person of faith, I know that I'm favored. I know that God wants me to do good in the world. I know that I was made in his image and likeness. There's a power to that. There's a comfort to that. There's a confidence that comes from that kind of a swagger. See, people aren't smirking at me anymore. I'm smirking at them. See, I know I'm not what I look like. I know I'm not my possessions. I know I'm not accomplishments. I'm not what other people say I am. I understand the keys of keeping the promises I make to myself. I understand scratching those limiting beliefs. I know I intend to do good. I don't always do good. I make mistakes all the time. I'm Not a deity, I'm not a God, I'm a man. But I intend to do good. And my guess is, so do you start to give yourself a little credit just for your intentions, know you're perfect as you are, and then to begin to take these massive action steps. The final piece of the puzzle is this, is that you have to believe you deserve to win. And sometimes it's not just that we think we're good, but that we've done so much we must be worthy of winning. See, there's this adage in life. Good people in life won't take more from the table of life than they think they're worthy of and they deserve. See, in business, sometimes short term, we've all seen this. Someone with bad intentions can get ahead short term, but you always reap what you sow. Karma is always a real thing. And eventually the people that take shortcuts, that cheat, that hurt other people, that have ill intent, the world, the universe, God sort of finds a way eventually to get them where they're supposed to be. But good people will never take more than they think they're worth. Which is why the mandatory requirement for good people to win is, is they believe they deserve it. They believe they're worth winning. And sometimes it's not just who we are that we need to believe in, but what we've done in this sense that sometimes you've got to outwork everybody and you've got to be willing to do the things nobody else is willing to do. So you begin to convince yourself, man, I'm doing all the things everybody else is unwilling to do. So I deserve to get the results other people aren't going to get, doing the things other people aren't willing to do. I'm paying a price that's so much greater than other people that I'm worth it, that I deserve to get results they don't deserve to get because I've been willing to do the things they've been unwilling to do. So the last piece is often self confidence can just frankly come from outworking everybody and convincing ourselves. Man, I've been doing the things nobody else is willing to do. I deserve to get the results. Results nobody else deserves to get. And that's a shift in building self confidence. Very short intermission here, folks.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far.

[Ed Mylett]

If you want to hear the full

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

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.

[Ed Mylett]

So let's just talk about you and finishing today. Wouldn't the ultimate version of you not brag, not boast, not tell stories about the past, not worry about what other people thought about you?

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

Right.

[Ed Mylett]

Take criticism very well. All the things that we've discussed today, the ultimate version of you would have none of those things, wouldn't he or she? And that would be the removal of your ego. I believe the way we remove our ego is we love ourselves and we believe in ourselves, and that way we know ourselves. And so what I want to challenge you today is just to start to give yourself a little bit more credit and just know when you see these symptoms arising in your life, these are indications your ego's out of control. Check yourself when it happens. If you have people in your life who embody these symptoms, it's often easy to see the ego things that really repel us in our life. But the fact of the matter is, for me, every single time in my life, when my ego gets the better of me, I have a setback. So listen to me. It's very dangerous to lead with your ego because I'm telling you, you're getting ready for a setback in your life. Where do my setbacks come from in my life? I'm going to tell you where I have setbacks. People ask me, how do I get

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

out of my slump?

[Ed Mylett]

How do I break the habit that I'm in? And I'm going to tell you what it is for me, because it's connected to ego for me. I started to think I had it so figured out when things were going good that I stopped working on myself. I stopped reading the books, I stopped listening to the podcast. I stopped improving myself. And when you do that stuff, the poor result doesn't show up as you're doing it. The poor result shows up 90 to 120 days later. So that's the problem. The failure or the setback is delayed by like 90 to 120 days in everything we do. So in business, if you're really successful right now and you got to a certain point, but you stopped the very activities that got you there, you don't fail the next day, 90 to 120 days from now, you pay the price in your life, don't you? You didn't do the work you were supposed to do. And so three, four months later, all of a sudden, business is down again. So the negative result always trails the negative behavior by about three to four months. For me, my happiness level or my Confidence level. I always, I got it going. And then I stopped reading books, I stopped listening to the right stuff, I stopped the right associations. It didn't happen immediately, but 90 to 120 days later, now my ego is out of control again. And so where my ego rears its head for me is I begin to think I got it figured out. I think I got it going. I believe my own press clippings and I stopped doing the things that are going to get me to the next level. And three to four months later I go, man, I'm in a slump, man. There's a setback right now. What the heck happened? What happened, dummy? Ed Mylett is 90 to 120 days ago, you stopped doing the things required to win. And so the truth is where you are right now. I love you, brother or sister. I want you to win. I opened up today by telling you you're supposed to do something great with your life. But in order for that to happen, you have to do the great things now because the positive results will trail by six months to a year. So negatives come get us 90 to 120 days, but positives don't end up showing up sometimes for six months to a year or longer. It's kind of like when you first start to eat well, you might get a little bit improvement. Then it levels off and you're like, man, I'm eating well, I'm working out. Why isn't my body changing? Because the positive result is six months to a year away, that's why. But if you stop eating well, if you stop working out, you're 60 to 90, 120 days, your body's bad again. Same with our lives. If we're doing something great with our life and it's going to take us six months to a year to see the positive result. And so don't let your ego get in the way of saying, man, I'm doing all this stuff and it's not working. There's a delayed gratification coming the same time. If you are winning right now, don't stop doing the things that got you where you are. Because you're only 90 to 120 days away from a setback. This is how the ego gets us. And so I want to remind you, in conclusion, you're supposed to do something great with your life. You're supposed to contribute, you're supposed to win. But that starts with today, loving yourself, which is believing in yourself. Ok? You can't be yourself if you don't love yourself and you can't love yourself if you don't believe in yourself. And so today, start to love yourself again. I'm not talking about self love. That's not what I'm talking about. You know, some thought, I love me, I love me. You know, Stuart Smalley, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, gosh darn it, people like me, that's going to get you nowhere. Do things that are in congruence with who you really are. Do things that are the removal of your ego. You know what says you have no ego. You're willing to do the work every single day on yourself and in your business even though there's no result that shows no ego. Ego is, why would I keep doing it? There's no result. Or ego is, I got it going, I don't need to do it anymore. You want to know you don't have an ego. You want to know you got your act together. You're doing the work right now to show how much you love yourself, how much you believe in yourself. Knowing the delayed gratification is coming six months to a year or maybe longer from now. I'm here to challenge you to start living like you love yourself, living like you believe in yourself. Because you can't love yourself if you're not being yourself. And the real self, the real you, takes all the steps to care for you, all the steps to improve you, all the steps to grow you. So you know you love you, you know you believe in you. When you begin treating you like that, treating you like that means you don't gossip about other people. You're not addicted to what other people think about you.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

Right?

[Ed Mylett]

You're not some victim. You know better than that. You're not someone who needs everybody else's permission to win. You're not waiting around for results and not doing the work. You don't stop doing the things that help you win. So today, start doing the things that improve you, confidence wise. Listening to people like me, following me on social media, listening to the right podcast, reading the right book in your business, doing the things you know you're supposed to do. Let me tell you what I know about you and your business. You're not confused about what you need to do. If you're a school teacher or you're an entrepreneur, if you're a mom or a dad, if you're a pastor, if you're a young person who's studying and wants to get into college, you're not confused by what you need to do. There's no confusion on what you need to do. There's only the decision of whether you're willing to do it and to do it consistently and to do it even when the results don't show up. Even when the results aren't there. Are you willing to do it? And if you are making progress, you are getting good grades, you are leading your church, you are moving your business forward, you are flourishing at work, do you have enough lack of ego to continue to do the work required to get to the next level? That's the separator. Very short intermission here, folks.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

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.

[Ed Mylett]

Welcome back to the program, everybody. Today is a special day for me. Like it's a surreal day because not only is the man to my left a Major League Baseball hall of Famer, he's got 3,000 hits. He had 388 one year. He's one of the all time greats in Major League baseball, but he's been one of the all time most influential people in my life as a young man. He became a mentor to me. I haven't seen him in decades. And now he's in my living room on my show, which is just going to be an incredible experience. We're going to talk about his amazing life. This will be one of those shows where if you're driving, you're going to pull over because you're going to lose your breath a few times about this man's life story, what he's learned, his lessons and the incredible experience and journey that his life has been. So everybody, this is hall of Famer Rod Carew. Rod, thank you for being here, brother.

[Rod Carew]

Thanks for having me.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

So good to have you.

[Ed Mylett]

What is your takeaway from you had a near death experience. You had a heart attack. You've had a heart transplant from a child who you were kind to as a young man. You've left Panama where basically you had this huge dream to play in the major leagues. You couldn't even watch it on television. You had to listen to it on the radio. Then you're in these stadiums. What do you, what have you, what is. You've had this experience. It's just, it's, you have to read one tough out. And I'm not promoting a book. It's just this is not fiction. If this was a movie, people go, this is like a Disney movie. Forget it. There's no way this is True. It's corny, except it's actually true. And I'm actually sitting here with you right now.

[Rod Carew]

And, you know, it's. When I was a kid growing up, every time that I took the field to play baseball, it was like I was better than everybody else. God had given me this talent and say, here, this is your gift from me. Work at it and continue to better yourself. And I did.

[Ed Mylett]

You did.

[Rod Carew]

I took extra bat in practice every day of my 19 years in baseball.

[Ed Mylett]

Extra every day?

[Rod Carew]

Every day. And also the day that I retired, I took extra bat in practice.

[Ed Mylett]

The day you retired, you took extra bat. You did one more.

[Rod Carew]

One more. Because I was given this gift, and I didn't want to just say, okay, you know, it's all over and done with. But I still had that energy inside of me that I wanted to do more.

[Ed Mylett]

That's incredible. You know, I'm writing a book right now called the Power of One More. And so the fact that you say this, it's something I learned from you, is that you don't remember this, but we'd be hitting. And even if I hit a good last one, you always go, let's do one more. And we'd hit one more. And I have taken that since I was a little boy into in business. I'm going to make one more phone call. If I'm running on the treadmill at the gym, it's 30 minutes ago. Do one more minute. And the fact that you're now telling me that you retired and you took one more round of extra batting practice,

[Rod Carew]

I was never satisfied. I knew the gift that I had, and I knew that I probably could have just gone through life and being a mediocre hitter, but I wanted to be the best.

[Ed Mylett]

You wanted to be great.

[Rod Carew]

Yes. I wanted to be in the class of Willie Mays and Hank Heron and Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson and all these guys.

[Ed Mylett]

But you, and you are. You know, it's interesting to me that people that are listening or watching this right now, they've been given a gift of some type as well. They may not be aware of what it is yet. When it's an athletic gift and it's baseball and there's millions of people, it's kind of obvious, hey, I've got this gift. I'm going to become the best. But there's little gifts, there's an opportunity, there's a new position at your job, there's a chance to improve your financial. There's someone you could meet, and it's that treating it as Precious and doing the extra. Because I'll bet you played with. We won't name who they are, but you played with other guys who had a gift similar to yours.

[Rod Carew]

Oh, yeah.

[Ed Mylett]

And they didn't take the extra batting practice. They didn't work in the off season.

[Rod Carew]

And I used to tell this one player in particular, you are going to be out of this game by age 32. It says, God has given you everything. You can throw the ball as well as anybody. You can hit, you can run, you can field, but you're not using it. He says, well, you know, it's okay. I says, no, it's not okay. You've got the talent. Strive to be greater than some of these other guys that don't care.

[Darren Waller]

Yeah.

[Rod Carew]

You know, but he was out of the game at age 32.

[Ed Mylett]

He really was.

[Rod Carew]

He really was.

[Ed Mylett]

And you had this unbelievable career. How many? How many? You have seven batting titles, right? So, guys, in fact, correct me if I'm wrong, the batting title in the American League is now the Rod Carew Award. They've literally named the batting title every year after this man sitting here. Am I right about that? That kind of means you were pretty good. Yeah.

[Rod Carew]

And. And my buddy Tony Gwynn.

[Darren Waller]

Yeah.

[Rod Carew]

Who they named it after in the

[Ed Mylett]

National League, who's a lot like you, left hander, didn't hit for a lot of power, had to grind, had to work hard. Incredible student of hitting.

[Rod Carew]

And. And we worked the same. We worked the same way every single day. We were working on something, you know, because so many young players can look at video and they want to pick everything, pick themselves apart. You know, instead of looking for one thing that, okay, I'm gonna look for this so that I can go out and spend some time working on it and getting comfortable with it and making the adjustment to make myself better.

[Ed Mylett]

Would you always be learning even late in your career? You've already hit.388 one year. You've led the league in hitting all these times. Were you still trying to find those little inches to improve upon all the time?

[Rod Carew]

Every time I. I went out, it was to improve myself. I'll tell you a story about Nolan Ryan and I, okay. Had this thing between us.

[Ed Mylett]

Okay.

[Rod Carew]

I'm number four on his strikeout list. I've got. He struck me out 29 times.

[Ed Mylett]

Okay.

[Rod Carew]

But I ended up hitting.300 off of him because when I first came up to the league, I used to hold my hands up high.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

You did?

[Rod Carew]

Yeah.

[Ed Mylett]

You didn't have the flat bat.

[Rod Carew]

No, my hands were up High.

[Ed Mylett]

Okay.

[Rod Carew]

And so that's why Nolan struck me out so many times, because I tried to hit that high fastball and there was no catching up. Right. He's bringing E. And so I decided I've got to make an adjustment. So for about three weeks, I took batting practice, extra batting practice, sitting on a stool that swiveled.

[Ed Mylett]

Okay.

[Rod Carew]

And that kept me down. That's why I developed that.

[Ed Mylett]

Come on.

[Rod Carew]

Unorthodox.

[Ed Mylett]

Wait, you're telling me your whole hitting style that you're known for was born out of an adjustment to be able to hit against someone like Nolan Ryan or actually Nolan Ryan?

[Rod Carew]

Yes. And so, you know, take extra BP and I stay down. I couldn't come up. And I did it for about three weeks. And then the first time I faced Noly, I got two hits. And then the next time I faced him, I got three hits. And I remember this one game, he threw me a change up and I bunted it down third baseline for a base hit. And he came over towards first base and he's rubbing the ball. He says he's supposed to hit, swing at that pitch, not bun it. I said, I got a hit, didn't I?

[Ed Mylett]

So people that don't know Nolan Ryan is one of the all time great intimidators. No hit machine, threw hard. Unbelievable, by the way, how many guys throw hard nowadays, the amount of velocity. Now guys coming out of the pen throwing 99, 100 miles an hour, hour. It's unbelievable.

[Rod Carew]

But the difference is they don't do it consistently. They don't throw strikes consistently. They're not pitching today. They're just throwing.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

Throwing.

[Ed Mylett]

Yeah.

[Rod Carew]

You know, and very interesting anyway, to go on with. With the Nolan story. We were playing this game in Minnesota and he was pitching. First time up, I get a base set. Second time I go up to the plate and he's yelling at me from the mound, stand up, stand up. And I say, no, bring it down. And that's how I developed that unorthodox style. That's amazing to me because I had to make an adjustment.

[Ed Mylett (Host/Commentator)]

Wow.

[Rod Carew]

You know, and I made the adjustment and greater things started happening.

[Ed Mylett]

It's amazing to me how critical that point is in every area of our life is just making adjustments. Like, for me, even in my speaking, when I was a young man, I'd speak on stage. There's a certain style of, you know, bravado and intensity. And over time, I thought I. And mainly the people I would reach were young, intense males. And then I started to think, I'd like to reach a broader audience of people that with my message, I had to make an adjustment in the way I communicate. Now my audience is actually more women than it is men, and I attribute that to the adjustments. In business, it's constantly Mike Tyson has that great saying where he says, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face. You have to make adjustments in life and business. If you're listening to this, maybe there's adjustments that you need to be making that you're not aware of, that you're not thinking about, that you're not thinking about in advance.

[Darren Waller]

Sam.