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- [00:00]
Ed Mylett
So hey guys, listen. We're all trying to get more productive and the question is, how do you find a way to get an edge? I'm a big believer that if you're getting mentoring or you're in an environment that causes growth, a growth based environment, that you're much more likely to grow and you're going to grow faster. And that's why I love Growth Day. Growth Day is an app that my friend Brendan Burchard has created that I'm a big fan of. Write this down growthday.com forward/ed. So if you want to be more productive, by the way, he's asked me, I post videos in there every single Monday that gets your day off to the right start. He's got about 5,000, $10,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app. Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis, like having the avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as well and contribute on a weekly basis. And I do. So go over there and get signed up. You're going to get a free tuition, free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also. So go to growthday.com forward slash ed. That's growthday.com ed this episode brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Shifting a little money here, a little there, hoping it all works out well. With the name your price tool from Progressive, you can get a better budgeter and potentially lower your insurance bill too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance and they'll help find you options within your budget. Try it today@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. This is the Ed Mylett Show. Hey everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. There's a big difference between pain and suffering. Pain is mandatory in getting somewhere in life. Pain teaches us pain is temporary. You can survive temporary pain. On the other side of that pain, you meet another version of yourself. We learn from our pain and it's temporary. Suffering is living in that prison in your mind. Suffering is chasing a dream that's no longer your dream. Suffering is not pursuing your interest in your curiosities and your hobbies. Those are all things we choose. So pain, that's part of life, that's almost mandatory to pursuing something great. There's nothing wrong with having pain in our lives because when we get pleasure, it feels a thousand times better. So pain is going to be there. But suffering is of our choosing. And so many people choose to keep suffering in more and more comfort. My challenge to you today is to no longer do that and to pursue your dreams, to unlock the keys of the prison you've been living in and start to live freely again. Today we're going to talk a little bit about suffering and suffering and comfort. Many years ago, my friend Wayne Dyer shared a story with me. And I tell it a little bit different, and I use it for a different purpose than him. But I want to tell you the story about the four philanthropists. And so many, many years ago, there was this war going on in this village. And in the village, the people that lived there lost the war. And all of the men in the village were imprisoned, and the prison was actually in the village. And so imagine all of the husband and sons were imprisoned in the very community that they grew up in. And there were these philanthropists, there were four of them that all wanted to come along and live their destiny, live their purpose, and make a difference in the world. And so one of the first philanthropists came along and found out that all these men were sleeping in very uncomfortable conditions. And there was, you know, they were sleeping on rocks. There weren't adequate mattresses, and there wasn't great pillows or anything like that. So he said, I'm a very wealthy man, and I'd like to help these men in the prison suffer in, you know, in a little bit more comfor give them some comfort in their suffering. And so I'd like to donate pillows and mattresses so that they could sleep comfortably. And the prison agreed. And he donated all the mattresses and the pillows so these men could sleep in some comfort. And he felt great. He felt like he fulfilled his purpose and his destiny and life and made a difference for these men. The second philanthropist came along and found out that the men were bathing in terribly dirty water and were drinking this water and were becoming malnourished and were dehydrated because they couldn't keep down. And he said, listen, I would like to donate clean water so that these men can have a little bit more comfort in their suffering. And so the prison agreed, and he donated Clean water to the prison. And he felt great about the fact that he did. He felt like I fulfilled a purpose, I fulfilled my destiny. I've made a difference in these people's lives. The third philanthropist found out he lived in town. He was a farmer. And he found out these poor men that were once in the community that were now living right there in this prison, were eating terrible food. It didn't taste good. It was unhealthy. It had some maggots in it from time to time. And he went to the prison and said, listen, I own a farm. I grow fresh food. I would love to be able to donate the meat and the eggs and the produce and the vegetables to these men that are in prison just to give them some more comfort. And the prison agreed and allowed them to donate the food. And this man donated the food. And now the men were eating healthy food that nourished them, that tasted good. And no, he felt great about the difference that he made and felt like I fulfilled my destiny as a person. But then the fourth philanthropist came along, and the fourth philanthropist, he was a saint. And the fourth philanthropist did something very interesting in the prison. He went and got the keys and the gift he gave to the prisoners as he came along. And he had the keys to unlock them from the prison he was in. And he unlocked it, and all the prisoners were released from the prison and no longer suffered at all. He fulfilled his destiny. He fulfilled his purpose. And I share this story with you because in my opinion, so many people are suffering in comfort, meaning they're constantly trying to add things. Even though they're suffering in their life, they do things to feel more comfort in their suffering rather than alleviate their suffering. Rather than what I'd like to think that my show or myself or what I'm going to share with you right now, I have the keys to unlock you from the prison that you live in. The prison of our minds. The prison of the emotions we don't want to feel. The prison of feeling like we're less. The prison of feeling like my life doesn't matter. The prison of not having a sense of duration. The prison of feeling invisible. The prison of always beating ourselves up about our previous sins or mistakes or setbacks or failures. The prison of being worried about what other people think about us. And so many of you and so many of us in our life stay in this prison that's in our minds. And the entire time, all we're trying to do is man, if we could just sleep a little bit better. If I could Feel a little bit better. If I could eat a little bit better, if I drove a little bit better car, if I had a little bit cooler friends, then my suffering, I'd have more comfort in my suffering. And there's this thing in our culture right now where so many of us, all we're really trying to do is have a little bit more comfort, but we're suffering. And I believe suffering comes from a place in our life where we're not pursuing our dreams, we're not pursuing our potential. We're not giving ourselves the gift of what's already within us, which is love and bliss and peace. And we're pursuing these things. We're pursuing that car, that truck, that relationship, that amount of money, that title, that prestige, that like on social, that following. So that maybe as we're suffering, we feel a little bit more comfort. There's these moments of happiness, moments of bliss, moments where we feel okay, but we live in a prison of our own making in our minds. And I believe there are keys to just simply the simple process of unlocking the key and walking out of that prison. And you never need to live in it again. And that's really what my show's all about. See, the prison is living in fear. The prison is what are people going to think about me? The prison is living someone else's dream. So many of us right now are pursuing something or in a career that we didn't even really choose, our parents chose it or people thought we'd be good at it, or we studied it in college and so we're stuck in it, or we've started a business and we're running it and it was originally our dream, but we just suffer every day in this dream that's probably right now. If we checked in and started over is no longer our dream. How many of you right now as you're driving in your car, running on the treadmill or watching this on YouTube, relate where you're like, I am suffering. I'm in this prison that I've. It's my making. It was my dream I no longer have. It was my parents dream that I'm living. It's a job that I know I don't want to do. It's emotions every day I don't want to feel, but that I have create this pattern of feeling these emotions. I have a. See in our lives we have these emotions we're going to get on a regular basis no matter what the conditions are of our life. There's five or six emotions we're Always going to go get. So if our addicted emotions are pain, anxiety, worry, suffering, anger, depression, angst, nothingness, we're going to find a way in our life in a given week, no matter what the conditions are, to get back into that prison of those emotions. Don't you? Don't we? We find a way to do it because we're addicted to that pattern of the emotions. And most people, listen to me, will live their entire life and get to the end of their life and only at the end of their life realize I suffered in comfort. And I could have ended my suffering at any point. I held the keys, God held the keys the entire time. I could have simply unlocked the gate. I could have unlocked the door and walked right out. And I believe that door, those keys are the following things. It's your faith, it's connecting. If you don't have one, connecting to something you believe in that's bigger than you. In my case, you all know that I'm a Christian. But whatever faith it is that you choose, that faith is a pathway. It's part of the keys of getting out of the prison. It's the keys of getting out of the prison. Part of the keys is fighting a dream that's our current dream, not our past dream, not our parents dream, not our friend's dream, but our dream right now. Ask yourself a question. Check in. Am I now living in a prison of my own creation? It was a job I chose. I don't want anymore. It's a degree I'm pursuing I'm not interested in. It's a business. I started that. Now that I've done it, it's not for me, but I'm still in it and I'm suffering in it. But I get a little bit more comfortable with a little bit more money. I go to a concert, I've got good friends, whatever. The thing is you do, I get a good bottle of wine on the weekend. Whatever you do, you smoke weed, whatever your thing is, all you're doing is trying to just be a little bit more comfortable in your suffering. I believe the key out of that prison is to pursue something that's your purpose and your passion and your calling and that your heart tells you. I also believe it's pursuing something that takes advantage of your natural skills and abilities. The prison can be what other people think about us. The prison can also be oftentimes holding our past failures and mistakes like a weapon. Almost like most of us hold this gun to our head regularly and we remind ourselves of our mistakes, of our Sins of our past. And we believe those things disqualify us. I believe the other way out of that prison is to accept you're worth leaving the prison. To accept you weren't born to be in that prison. I believe that to chase your purpose and your dreams, to live your life on your own terms. See, you hold the keys to this. And it's almost like this in life. Wayne said this to me one time. In life there's like this life is like this massive hundred room mansion with all these experiences and things we could be seeing and doing and trying and learning and expanding. And many of these things may not even be a business. It might just be a hobby, it might be a pursuit, it might be an interest, it might be a curiosity of yours. These are the pathways. Curiosity and chasing that curiosity and learning something new and trying new things and experiencing something different, giving everything. See? Total freedom in life. Total freedom. Being out of the prison is a total commitment to something people think, well, if I get into a totally committed relationship, I lose my freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth. Total commitment gives you freedom. Well, if I get totally committed to my business, I'm going to lose the freedom. Not true. Total commitment is the key. Keys out of the prison, half commitments, halfway committed to a relationship, halfway committed to a business, halfway loving what you do. That's the prison. That's the lack of freedom. Total freedom is actually total commitment. Because once you've totally committed, now you're free to create. Now the options are whatever you want them to be in your life. So I'm a huge believer that these keys, those are the pathways out of the prison in our minds. Those are the prisons out of our life. See, Wayne said to me, it's like, like life is like this hundred room mansion and we're born into it and we get into this, we've chose this one career or this one relationship and we spend the majority of our life in that one room, in a hundred room mansion. Think about that for a minute. All the different experiences, things you could be learning, seeing and doing in your life. But you spend almost every day, most of us in the same room, in the same life, in the same mansion of life with the same people doing the same things, suffering, suffering and just a little bit more comfort. And you can dress that room up all you want. You can dress it up all you want, you can have the best blankets, the best food, the best drinks, but you're still suffering. You can leave that room anytime you want. There's hundreds of other rooms in fact, there's hundreds of other mansions that have hundreds of other rooms all over the world. There's a big world for you to experience. My challenge for you today and that pathway out of there. My challenge for you today is to take the keys right now, take those keys and open the door and at least mentally step out for a minute and say, I can end my suffering by pursuing my passion, by giving myself the gift of my faith, by giving myself the gift of my happiness and my bliss. By only being around people who love me and believe in me me and treat me the way I'm worthy of being treated. I'm going to begin to treat myself the way I'm worthy of being treated. I'm going to regularly audit my life and take a look at what my dream is now, not what my dream was when I was 18 or 13 or 25 or whatever your age was at some point. What's your dream now? If you could dream again now, if you could have the emotions you wanted now, if you could pursue your purpose now, what would it be? Those are the keys out of your prison. You were not born to suffer in comfort. You were born to do something great with your life. You were born to leave this prison. You were born to do something awesome, to contribute to the lives of other people. And your past does not disqualify you. And just because you've been in this prison or in this one room, in this hundred room mansion and that one mansion does not mean that you need to live there the rest of your life. At any point, you can make a decision to step right out of that place and begin to create again. And by the way, just the visual picture of stepping out right now, if you gave yourself this gift, I'm going to step out, I'm going to begin to create. I'm going to begin to learn. I'm going to begin to grow. I'm going to begin to pursue my passion. I'm not going to begin to just do the same things that caused me to have a little bit more comfort in my suffering. I want to live blissfully. I want to live greatly. I want to do something awesome with my life. I want to make my dreams come true at any point. You're one decision away from doing that. And today I just want to simply tell you that I believe my content, my podcast, the pursuit of your potential and your dreams and you being that fourth philanthropist for you, for you. You be that philanthropist for you, you be that saint for you. And those pathways again are your faith, are Your purpose are your dreams, Is your courage to change your life? Is your courage to say, I'm unlocking the keys, I'm stepping out, a new person. And maybe it's the same career, maybe it's the same career, but it's a different version of you doing it. It's a more positive, optimistic, confident you doing it. That the suffering isn't the career, the suffering isn't the business. It's the person in the business. It's the person who every day thinks, I've got to worry and be frustrated and be angry and be concerned, and I've got to suffer in order to make this work. There's a big difference between pain and suffering. Stay with me. Pain is mandatory in getting somewhere in life. Pain is a primer. Pain teaches us pain is temporary. All pain is temporary. You can survive temporary pain. On the other side of that pain, you meet another version of yourself. I want to be very clear about that. I'm not going to tell you that pursuing your dream, pursuing your life and life in general doesn't involve pain, because it does. And there's nothing wrong with that. We learn from our pain and it's temporary. Suffering, however, is optional. Suffering is different than pain. Suffering is living in that prison in your mind. Suffering is being with someone that doesn't love you and treat you the right way. Suffering is chasing a dream that's no longer your dream. Suffering is chasing no dream and building someone else's dream at a job when that's not what you want. Suffering is not pursuing your interest in your curiosities and your hobbies. Suffering is not being connected to your faith. Those are all things we choose. So pain, that's part of life that's almost mandatory to pursuing something great. Pain is what makes pleasure feel so good. There's nothing wrong with having pain in our lives because when we get pleasure, it feels a thousand times better. That contrast, that duality, that dichotomy, is one of the beautiful things of life. So pain is going to be there. But suffering is of our choosing. And so many people choose to keep suffering in more and more comfort. And my challenge to you today is to no longer do that and to pursue your dreams, to pursue your potential, to unlock the keys of the prison you've been living in and start to live freely again. I hope that helped you today. Everybody. This lady and her work has been inspiring me and affecting me for a very, very long time. As an introvert, her work really resonates with me. And her latest book is Bittersweet how sorrow and longing make us whole. I cannot wait to have this conversation. I wish we had five hours with my guest today, Susan Cain. Susan, welcome to the show.
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Susan Cain
Ed, thank you so much. So great to be here with you.
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Ed Mylett
You say that the way we meet our pain defines who we are. And I want you to elaborate on that. I've been saying lately that, you know, on the other side of temporary pain, oftentimes we get introduced to another self. Napoleon Hill says that. And think and grow rich. And I find that when I speak about pain, so when I speak about winning and competing and achievement, I get incredible responses from people. But when I speak about pain and suffering and even death and that you know, that it will come for us at some point. I've been speaking a lot lately about my father's passing, that the depth of emotion, the depth of the energy, the depth of the feeling is maybe a hundred times greater when I touch on those topics than just the good stuff of winning and competing and achievement. So what do you mean when you say the way we meet our pains defines who our pain defines who we are?
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Susan Cain
We have a choice with our pain, which comes into every life. And the choice is we can either try to suppress it and ignore it. And if we do that, inevitably we are going to end up taking it out on ourselves in the form of depression or something like that, or on the people around us, or we have the choice of. Of being with it and acknowledging it. And it's not fun. By definition, it's not fun. But there's a way in which we can transform or like try to transform that pain into something else. I mean, I think that's the heart of the creative impulse. For most creative people, they're like looking at something painful in their life. They're looking at their sense of longing and they're trying to turn it into something else and something more beautiful.
- [20:54]
Ed Mylett
Is there a practical thing you can do every day to do that? In other words, when you are feeling these emotions of. I don't know. For me, it's not always pain. Sometimes it's just like melancholy or. I think that's the right word for it. For me, sometimes it's melancholy feeling about things that I enjoy sitting in for a while. I do. But is there a strategy that you use other is because there's a bunch in the book. But is there one thing you would say to someone who says, maybe I'm. Maybe I'm ODing on melancholy? I need to turn it into something powerful?
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Susan Cain
I mean, I guess the question Is, are you talking about being in a state of mind where you are enjoying it and grieving on it, in which case I don't think you need to do anything differently when you're in that state of mind of like, oh, the sky is so overcast and I'm loving this music, that's the state in and of itself to cultivate. But if you're talking about, well, I'm in a state where, where the pain is actually really painful, that's different. And a great technique for that is something called expressive writing, which I talk about in the book. And it's basically just the sheer act of just writing down what you're feeling without any thought of publishing it or anything like that. Quite the opposite. Get it out, write it down, rip it up. And this is based on studies from a guy named James Pennebaker at UT Austin. He's done all these crazy studies showing how powerful the sheer act of writing things down is. It improves your health, it literally lowers your blood pressure, improves your success outcomes in life, greater sense of well being. So it's a way of discharging what you're feeling, but also what you end up doing when you write it down is you're sense making, you're making sense of what's happening and you're figuring out how you want to move forward with whatever has just caused you this pain.
- [22:47]
Ed Mylett
The reason I ask you that is because in the book you sort of state this, this belief system that I agree with, that maybe these are the emotional states of creativity. And then when we look at art, oftentimes it is born out of these sort of emotions. When we listen to music that really moves us, it's born out of them. Even comedy, Ironically, most comedians are touching on something uncomfortable, painful, or the ironies of life. And so most art. Why do I say this to everybody? Because I have the benefit when I experience these. I create speeches that I give or books that I write, or podcasts that I'm going to do, or content that I create. But a lot of people just sort of sit in these emotions. And you asked earlier, which is it for me? And I think most human beings would say this. It depends on the day and it depends on how long. And so I want you to talk about this because I just want to ask you this personally. There's a point in time where I'm in these states of contemplating, you know, you say the fragility of life and how you understand death has a lot to with how you live. I'd like you to Touch on that. Give you a long answer here. Give you a long Runway. So there's that. That. And I do that a lot. Or, you know, just. Just allowing myself to sit in a state of just. It doesn't always have to be 150 degrees of bliss all the time. It's okay to sit on a kind of misty day and just enjoy the gray a little bit. Now, having said that, I think most people who have that proclivity, predisposition, or even disposition, which may be all of us, you can then sit in it a little too long, though. And that's what I mean by the abundance of an emotion. Right. There's a point where you're going, and now I'm not creating out of this state. Now it's impacting me the other way, where it paralyzes me or freezes me or it makes me tired. It can even impact your energy level. So what would you say about all that?
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Susan Cain
Yeah, these are amazing questions. So, first of all, in terms of the creative idea, one of the things I say in the book is, whatever pain you can't get rid of, make that your creative offering. And as you say, there's just so many studies and so many examples that I talk about of the ways in which creators do exactly that, you know, and it's not an accident that so many of our great creatives over time were orphaned before the age of 18. Like, an astonishing percentage of them lost one or both parents before age 18. Because that's what they're doing. You know, they're figuring out how to take that ultimate longing that they're left with with and turn it into something else. But to your other question of, like, how do you know when it's just right or too much? It's a really important point because there's a kind of happy and creative state of melancholy that we were just talking about. And then I think farther down that spectrum, you get to something that looks more like clinical depression, where it's very difficult to be creative when you're actually depressed. I mean, depression is more about, like, an emotional numbness and a hopelessness and a sense of disconnection, whereas the happy melancholy we were talking about, you're feeling intensely connected. So the thing to do is to sort of tune into where you are in that spectrum, Right? And if you feel you're slipping towards something that resembles clinical depression, like, that's a. That's a time to get help as opposed to only thinking, well, how can I. You can keep on trying to turn it into something Else. But you also might need to be looking to outside resources for help.
- [26:16]
Ed Mylett
What about, what about this Buddha? I think it's a Buddhist practice you talk about in the book called Meta. Is that what it's called?
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Susan Cain
Oh, yeah, yeah.
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Ed Mylett
What is that? I think this is a tool that could be used by people sort of in all situations, but maybe particularly the one that I'm discussing, if you could just get into that just for a second, because I think it's super powerful.
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Susan Cain
Yeah, absolutely. So Meta is a practice that basically means loving kindness meditation. And. And I'm actually, by the way, I'm creating my own loving kindness meditation, which will be up on my website in the next month or so for people who are interested in doing my version of it. And that's Susan Cain.net if you're curious. But loving kindness meditation, it's basically a form of meditation in which you actively, unconsciously wish, well being, peace. You know, good things, love to. Interestingly, classically, you first wish it to yourself and then after that you wish it to people who you know very well, to acquaintances. Ultimately, you wish it to the difficult people in your life. In your life. You kind of like move outward from there. What's interesting is for a lot of Americans, they have a lot of trouble beginning with wishing these good things to themselves. So very often people need to turn it upside down and wish it to other people first before they feel comfortable getting around to their own selves. There's no magic, though. You can do it in either direction.
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Ed Mylett
My favorite time in church, I was raised Catholic. My favorite time in church, and when you're a little kid in Catholic church, there's a lot of stand up, sit down, kneel, you know, we're going to say the Our Fathers are repetitive nature to the service. And my favorite part of church on Sundays was the one little moment where you get to turn to your neighbor and say, peace be with you.
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Susan Cain
Oh, yeah.
- [28:06]
Ed Mylett
And I love that part of church. In fact, I miss it because I don't go to that church any longer. And my dad said to me when I was a little guy, and this is even when my dad was drinking, because he was still a really good man, he goes, you know, I do that quietly all the time when I pass strangers. I said, what do you mean, dad? And he goes, oh, when I pass someone, like I open a door, I'm in an elevator, I'll just quietly say, peace be with you. I wish you peace. And he said, even when people walk by us in restaurants, Eddie, I'll do that, and. And that's a practice that I've. I've had all my life because a lot of times with parents, things are caught, not taught, right?
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Susan Cain
Yes.
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Ed Mylett
One of the greatest gifts I give myself all the time is my quiet prayers. When I see somebody, I'll even see a family at the table and just say, peace be with you, you. And just that feeling feels so good to connect with someone's soul who may not even consciously know you're connecting with them. But I have this belief system that subconsciously, spiritually, from an energetic soul perspective, they do feel it. And so I love that you bring that up.
- [29:05]
Susan Cain
I completely agree with you. I have total goosebumps listening to the fact that you do that. And I think not only from a soul perspective, even if you look at it just from a human evolution perspective, we are designed to pick up on each other's cues and we do it in a thousand ways that we're not even consciously aware of, which is. So I think people would be picking it up, you know, from you saying that. And that's exactly what practicing meta does. Like, I notice whenever I'm not as good as I should be about doing this all the time, but I notice whenever I do practice it, you know, then I go out into the world and I'm just sort of like automatically doing some version of what you just said.
- [29:43]
Ed Mylett
Do you know why it works for someone like you and I and almost everybody listening? Because it's going to go to the other thing I want to talk about, which is that I'm an introvert. And some people say, don't ever label yourself as an introvert. No, I. I'm introverted and I love that I'm introverted. And I wanted to. The reason I share this, whatever you want to call it, technique or strategy that my dad taught me, it's just really an act of kindness. It's not really a strategy, but it's also something an introvert can do because you don't have to say anything to give someone a prayer. So it's my. My way of connecting with someone in the unspoken way. And I may never. I mean, there's the truth. I've connected with millions of people this way probably in my life that I've actually never spoken to. To. And what I think a much deeper connection than, hi, how are you? Good. Have a great day. I think much deeper connection is to say, peace be with you, or, you know, I wish you a beautiful day, I wish you bliss. Like, I love saying that quietly to myself for Another person. Don't you agree?
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Susan Cain
Oh, my gosh. I absolutely love it. And I am sure you're radiant, radiating something at them when you're doing it.
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Ed Mylett
I feel that way, too. I do, too.
- [30:46]
Susan Cain
I'll give you another version of something like that that I do. It's almost like the flip side of what you just described. So I wrote in the book about this video that the Cleveland Clinic put out that went viral. Cleveland Clinic is a hospital, and the video was designed to teach empathy to their caregivers. And so what this video did, it takes you through the hallways of the hospital, and you're passing all these random people who you normally wouldn't think one way or another, except in this case, there are these little captions that are underneath each random person as you pass them by. And the captions tell you what the person is going through at that moment. And sometimes it's happy things like, you know, just found out he's going to be a father for the first time. But more often, because it's a hospital, the captions are things like, you know, under a little girl going to say goodbye to her father for the last time. Like, like these heartbreaking things. You cannot watch this video without tearing up. It's impossible. So once I saw this video, I started to do this practice where I just try to imagine what people's captions are as I pass them by, you know, just in everyday life. I love it and I don't know the answers, but there's something about wondering what they are that makes you interact with them completely differently, you know, and care about them in a different way.
- [32:11]
Ed Mylett
I love you. I do that too. And I, I, I, I sometimes, perhaps I'm making it up in my mind and I'm just going to say so. I've never said this before. I've never thought about it consciously to. You just said it. But we get. Everyone gets to listen to you and I talk about this, which is cool, right? This is no longer a podcast. It's just you and I talking. But oftentimes, oh my gosh, this just confirms what you believe so much more deeply. It just dawned on me. I do do that quietly when I watch people or I'm in a place. And it's harder and harder the more well known you are to do it intimately because someone sees you, then they know you. So that's a little harder than for me. But I do do it. And I also, ironically, sometimes sense their pain. And I almost project a story onto them in my mind about what they are insecure or they feel invisible oftentimes, because I think these folks feel so invisible. This is my way of seeing them. Even though maybe auditory wise, they don't know it. And so I actually, it makes me really even confirm your work even more because I don't usually picture them in their most blissful or happy state. I picture them in their PA and their sadness. And that, that just must prove even more deeply. That's how we connect with one another.
- [33:22]
Susan Cain
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're designed to do it right? Like we, the species wouldn't survive if we couldn't look after helpless children who come into this world as crying infants. Like that's what we do. And because of that, like that, that ability radiates outward from there. So, by the way, if people wonder.
- [33:43]
Ed Mylett
Whether this is true, give them this stat. See if I'm a business person listening to this. Okay, what's the business.
- [33:48]
Susan Cain
The research.
- [33:49]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, the business application of this is. Maybe you should stop always trying to connect with people on their victory and their wins and what you or your company can do for them, but begin to connect much more deeply with people, which is their pain and their anxieties and their fears and their story, their sadness. I think you'd find you'd connect a whole lot more deeper, even as a busy person. But give us the research, especially the one about the songs on the playlist.
- [34:13]
Susan Cain
Oh, yeah. Okay, give us both. Okay, so the songs on the playlist. Well, there's a lot to say about that. First of all, people whose favorite songs are sad songs, like, you'll start with the other way. People whose favorite songs are their happy, upbeat songs, they listen to them about 175 times. People like you, who love the sad songs 800 times crazy. And we also know that the songs that make people feel, you know, the chills and the goosebumps and the real feels, they're the sad songs. They're always the sad song songs.
- [34:46]
Ed Mylett
Yeah.
- [34:47]
Susan Cain
And people will say, this is what makes me feel connected to, you know, to the sublime, to the wondrous, to something outside myself. It's always the sad songs.
- [34:56]
Ed Mylett
I love it. I love it. I want everyone to know that. By the way, you and I both always want to get the caveat. We like sunny days.
- [35:02]
Susan Cain
Yes.
- [35:02]
Ed Mylett
Like happy songs too. Just, we kind of have a tendency towards the other. So you're also going to talk about this research, what I was talking about, from a business standpoint, I think you're going to kind of confirm some of that research. Research.
- [35:12]
Susan Cain
Oh, yeah. Well, What I wanted to say about, like, people connecting to each other through their sadness. So, like, there's this amazing psychologist whose story I tell in the book. His name is Dacher Keltner. And he. He's done all this groundbreaking research proving what he calls the compassionate instinct in people and compassion. What it literally means, that word is with sorrow, like, with suffering. So it means, you know, you're reacting to somebody else's pain or distress the way you were just saying. So he's. He's located this in our bodies, basically. Like, if you. Yeah, just one example, and there's a whole bunch of them. But we have a. What's called a vagus nerve. It's the biggest bundle of nerves in our bodies. It governs our breathing and our digestion. So it's very fundamental to who we are and to our survival. And also, when you see another being in pain, your vagus nerve becomes very activated.
- [36:09]
Ed Mylett
Interesting.
- [36:10]
Susan Cain
Yeah, so it's like the same nerve that's helping you breathe is also telling you to respond to the pain of the person to whom you've just wished well in the grocery store.
- [36:22]
David Goggins
Like that.
- [36:23]
Susan Cain
That's how we're designed.
- [36:25]
Ed Mylett
I love it. I just think everyone, maybe this could give you a different perspective on how you interact and view humans and one another. Just this little. I don't think even. Susan, you know how big, big this theory is and that I'm validating as a truth because I think, taken to its logical extension would change the way that humanity interacts with one another, how we treat one another. Our religious and political differences are, you know, our. There's our slight nuances that make us different. This is. This is what would connect people in a much more kind way. It would give leaders of companies and teams and businesses and countries a completely different perspective on how to lead and connect with people and bring them together. So I love, love this work. I have to share something with you about this connecting with people, with their pain. And it'll take me a minute, but my audience knows some of this. But here's how correct your work is. My dad was an alcoholic and a little bit of a drug addict. And the biggest decision of my lifetime was my dad getting sober. And he stayed sober for the rest of his life, like, 35 years. But about three weeks ago, I read your book because I knew we were going to do this. And the next night, Susan, I just want to share with you how profound this work is. And these thoughts are for everybody. So I read your book. I read it in a sitting and that night, I went to bed. Excuse me. The next night when I went to sleep, I had this vivid dream of something I didn't realize that I'm 51 years old, and that is that someone helped my dad. And some precious soul stepped forward and helped my father get sober in the darkest moment of his life when he was losing his family, maybe losing his life. And some precious human connected with my dad. Dad. And changed my family forever, changed my great grandchildren. People listening to this, you wouldn't be listening to this. And guess how he connected with my dad? Through their shared pain and suffering. That person was also an alcoholic, also a drug addict. They knew the shame, they knew the fear, they knew the embarrassment, they knew the frustration, they knew the depression that came with the patterns of behavior. Had that person connected with my dad through bliss and sunshine and rainbows or their own perfection, their own lack of pain, they would have never been able to help my father. They reached my dad through connecting, through shared suffering, through shared pain. And then from there said, here's how I can help you. So from every perspective in life, the connecting point is here, and then how I can help you. Isn't that a great example?
- [38:46]
Susan Cain
Oh, my God. It's an amazing, amazing, amazing example. Thank you so much for sharing that.
- [38:52]
Ed Mylett
And I think I don't have that dream. If I don't read your book the day before, I don't. Because it opens up. That's why Art, this podcast, it'll just. I guarantee everybody. There's millions of people listening to this. Driving in their car, on the treadmill or with their family, they're looking at the person, the next person they see just a little bit differently, looking in the backseat at their babies, and they're looking at someone at the grocery store, and they're going to think about their friends differently. And this. This is where change comes from. The other thing, though, I have to ask you about.
- [39:18]
Susan Cain
I just want to say I totally agree. And I have thought this before about, like, our hopelessly divided politics and culture and religion. Everything that I think what we should be doing is figuring out spaces for people just to be able to share their stories and share the pains that they've gone through without it being connected, at least temporarily, without it being connected to any call for policy change or a political agenda or anything like that. Just for people from different backgrounds, from red, from blue, from everywhere, to just tell their stories. That's it.
- [39:53]
Ed Mylett
Of it. I. I actually believe that. No, I get asked sometimes about overrun for office, and I. That's highly unlikely. But I do believe that that's where change comes from is just saying just please hear me and listen to me and then you can reach your own conclusions. It's when they think that there's a hook coming or a pitch or a close or a something we want you to do is when people are turned off. And I think if you just say, just please hear me, you know, whatever you believe about guns or no guns or school security or mental health, whatever the issues are, to hear some of these parents that just had this tragedy happen in Texas and just to hear their pain, just, just hear them. Many of them have differing views themselves and what should be done about it. But you would reach a more beautiful and correct conclusion if you just listened to people and heard their pain and heard their suffering. What makes a leader? It's a tough question, but one thing's for sure. Sure, a true leader leads by example. And a true leader takes risks too. They plunge into life with determination. For those who lead by example and who approach life with a palpable passion, there's the Range Rover Sport. Each Range Rover Sport model offers a dynamic, sophisticated take on sporting luxury. The Range Rover Sport offers focused on road performance and world renowned off road capability with industry leading features like adaptive off road cruise control, control that monitors ground conditions and acclimates to the present terrain. Agility, control and composure are achieved with dynamic air suspension and adaptive dynamics. Reduces unwanted body movements to deliver smooth and composed handling, true sophistication and excellent maneuverability all on a seriously stylish package. Sophisticated refinement meets visceral power in the Range Rover Sport. A new dimension of sporting luxury. Build your Range Rover sports@land roverusa.com so a few weeks ago I wore this cashmere sweater on the show. A lot of you said you loved it and I got to be honest with you, when I used to try to elevate my style, you know the brand stuff I'd buy would break the bank with me. I hated spending money on stuff like that. But with Quints I get high end versatile pieces at prices that you and I can actually afford. Now you can upgrade your lifestyle without spending all your money to do it and paying huge price tags. Quint says all the must haves like Mongolian cashmere crew neck sweaters from 50 bucks, iconic 100% leather jackets and versatile flow knit activewear. The best part of all, all Quint's Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands indulge in affordable luxury. Go to quints.com ed for free shipping on your order and 365 day return. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com ed to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com ed very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest.
- [42:56]
Jasmine Star
Welcome back to another episode of the Jasmine Star Show. Today my guest is the one, the only, Ed Mylett. Your birthday was rather recent, but your mom gave you your dad's cufflinks.
- [43:09]
Ed Mylett
Yeah.
- [43:10]
Jasmine Star
And when you talk about living in the past, there are elements that are, that are empowering to us and there are elements that are the things that hold us back. When you put your dad's cufflinks on, like what are the stories? How does it empower you? Or does it.
- [43:21]
Ed Mylett
Well, no, big time. That's such a great question. So my dad's the centerpiece of my life. You know, this I talk about in book. I was raised by an alcohol. My dad, my first 15 years of my life, lived a not great life. And the reason I believe humans can change so much is I watched my hero do it. My dad then for like the 11 millionth time tried to get sober one more time, one more try. And there was these themes in his life of one more. So he finally got sober and it was a very emotional thing I write about in the book. And then when he got sober, I said, daddy, are you going to stay sober forever? And he said, I don't know. I'm going to stay so sober for one more day at a time. And I've used that lesson a lot. When I wanted to quit businesses, I just like, I'm not gonna quit for one more day. I'm gonna quit for one more day. And there were all these one mores in my dad's life where he helped one more person get sober. And so only my dad, by the way, my dad never again celebrated. Born April 27, my dad was born April 11. And in between those two, my dad got sober. My dad got sober on 420, which is hilarious. On 420. Only my dad would get sober on 420 the next 35 years. My dad only celebrated that birthday. And so when I put those cufflinks on that my mom gave me makes me emotional to say, but I kind of step into that person who gives things one more try, who I know in your life. The premise of the book is really simple. My dad always told me this. It's not the Bible says where there's no vision, the people will perish. But if you dig deeper, most of us have a vision, like, would we rather be happy or sad? What's your vision? Happy? You want to be rich or poor? You want a jet or commercial? Right. You want a beautiful home like this? Or you want to live in an apartment the rest of your life? Do you want to help a bunch of people and contribute or make no difference in the world? So most people have a vision. Their issue is depth perception. They think they're further away all the time. And so because they think it's far away, they act in accordance with that belief system and they always keep those dreams and visions that far away away from them. But what if the truth is you're not that far away? What if the truth is you're one decision away from changing your life like my dad was? What if you're one relationship, one meeting, one podcast, one interview, one book, one thought, one new emotion. What if you were that far away from changing your life? Then life would look a lot different. Then you'd begin to look for those one mores everywhere. And so when I put those cufflinks on, I have a tendency to look for those one mores more than I do when I don't.
- [45:35]
Jasmine Star
So good. Okay, so I love getting practical. So somebody's listening and they're like, okay, so Ed says, depth perception, the thing I want, is farther than what I think is possible, at least in immediacy. And so I act in accordance to that, which in perpetuity, pushes it farther.
- [45:51]
Ed Mylett
Away, keeps it there.
- [45:53]
Jasmine Star
So then for somebody who's listening, like, okay, let me see if this guy is really talking to talk. I have a vision for X. What are the decisions? What am I looking for when you say, what? One more decision, one more thing. Give me the nitty gritty.
- [46:03]
Ed Mylett
That's the one thing about this book, if I have a criticism of my own book, it would be that it's heavy. It is loaded with, like, detailed stuff. So the second chapter of the book is called the Matrix. And I love the Matrix because Neo was the One, which we can talk about. But what the Matrix really means for me is there's a part of your brain we're going to be really detailed called the reticular activating system. Amen. It's located in the prefrontal cortex of your brain. It is the filter that reveals the world to you. Only the things that matter most to you are revealed by this filter. Perfect example is I just bought a Tesla. I like what Musk is doing, right? So I go, I told my team, give me a Tesla. So I get this, I drove it here today, I get a Tesla. All of a sudden Jay's hold on.
- [46:40]
Jasmine Star
People are listening right now. I just want to take a moment. So I told my team to get me a Tesla. So this right here, this right here, I want you to know this is. All of a sudden I'm like, that's possible. So I'm going to behave as if I am one day away from telling my team, but give me the Tesla.
- [46:55]
Ed Mylett
And by the way, because you believe that you're much closer, by the way, I've also been in a point my life where I'm like, I have no team to tell anything to and my Honda CRS just had the passenger seat stolen out of it, right? So I've been in both places, believe me. And that's probably why it's so clear to me. But all of a sudden I'm on the road, I see freaking Teslas everywhere now. I mean like literally everywhere. Three lanes over, other side of the freeway, babe, white Tesla, babe, red Tesla, babe. They're everywhere. They were always there. Why do I see them now? I see them now because they've been programmed into my res is important to me. So what happens is in life, if you can begin to make your ambitions, your goals, your visions, those decisions, those relationships, your Tesla's, all of a sudden they're revealed. They've always been there. This is the thing people don't understand, there's law of attraction, blah blah, blah. These things have always been there, but you're not hearing them, you're not seeing them, you're not feeling them. Because your RAS is programmed to worry about the things you're stressed about. Your current problem in front of you, the immediate thing you have to do. So how do you do it? You have to do it by repeated, repeated clear visualizations. Because your mind moves towards what it's most familiar with. You're already. Humans are already great at this. They just visualize the stuff they're worried about. They just visualize the tasks they have to do. They don't take control of their imagination and their RAs. And I teach you in the book how to slow visualizations down, how to do them. It's not complicated. You can do it in three or four minutes and it becomes repetitive, it becomes a muscle. It's why like when you walk in a room, there could be 300 people in a room. If someone says quietly the name Jasmine, you hear it auditorily over all the other voices. Everybody's this way because it's in your ras. So these things have always been there. And in the matrix, they slow it down. What happens when you start to program your matrix is your life begins to slow down and you start to see these things. I just played golf. This is crazy. Both a guy, about three weeks ago, they go, hey, I want you to meet this dude. Your net worths are similar. So I get on the first tee and the guy's like, oh, man, I'm a fan of yours. I can't wait to hear about you. I go, that's not how I work, bro. I already know about me. We're gonna talk about you today, right? I'm not talking about me. And so I go, tell me your story. He talk about one decision away. This blew my mind. He goes, well, my story's really quick. Goes, 1986, I loaned a guy $50,000. And he goes, my best friend loaned the same guy 50 grand. A week later, my best friend said, please give me the money back. The guy returned the money. I let the loan go. It turned into 750 million bucks. I said, dude, stop. Who'd you loan that money to? Jeff Bezos? I went, you got to be frigging kidding me. And I said, wait a minute. You really were one decision, one relationship, one loan away from totally change your life. Now, that's extreme. I don't have that story, but I'm a series of small one mores over my life that have transformed me to the point where I'm addicted to it now. And here's the hook, and then I'll come up for air. Most of these things are painful. And on the other side of pain, Napoleon Hill says you get introduced to your other self. If you can survive the temporary, this is even good for you right now as you're building your business and you're doing so great, right? Can you survive the temperature? Most people make permanent decisions on temporary conditions, especially entrepreneurs. They do it all the time. And the truth is, if you can survive the temporary and get to the other side of it, there's a gift revealed to you. I'll give you the big one. You open the interview by saying to me that one of my gifts, and I only have two or three. I've made hundreds of millions of dollars with very limited skills. It's just the truth. But I do have two or three. So does everybody that are unique to them. One of them is what you said. I am good at reading people and being present and listening closely. What's that come from? Let me tell you what it comes from. I'm the child of an alcoholic. And so when I was five years old, I had three sisters and a mom. I had to know what dad was coming through that front door at 5. So that man would come through that front door and this little boy, me, I'd have to read my daddy. Is this drunk dad? Is this tie a little loose? Is his hair messed up? Is he walking a certain way? Is he a little slower? And if it's drunk dad, I got to get my sisters upstairs. I'm going to tell my mom to go take a shower and then I'm going to grab my dad's hand at five and I'm going to do the other thing I'm good at. I'm going to talk to him and I'm going to change his state. I'm going to tell him how good I did at school that day and I'm going to move him around and I'm going to talk to him. If it was sober dad, we just go play baseball in the backyard and have a great time. But I learned to read people because of. Of a tragedy in my life. A tragedy. One of the hardest painful things of my life gave me one of the greatest skills I have that's made me tons of money and helped millions of people. So most of these things that you want in your life are hidden behind temporary pain.
- [51:24]
Jasmine Star
Okay? So for the perpetual cynic and skeptic and the people who I love, I love those who challenge.
- [51:32]
Ed Mylett
So do I.
- [51:33]
Jasmine Star
Some. Somebody's listening and they say it is a skill that Ed Mylett has honed drilled in that now he sees one more. One more, one more. It is the white Tesla. But go back to the Ed, when you were living a much simpler life when somebody did steal the passenger's seat out of your Honda Civic.
- [51:49]
Ed Mylett
Yeah.
- [51:49]
Jasmine Star
Can you give us an example of one more thing that you did that like all of a sudden it started opening your eyes to what was that potential?
- [51:56]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, we have the. I got so broke. So our. I was doing okay. A lot of entrepreneurs, I was doing alright. And then like things went bad. That's entrepreneurship, right? You take off, then you crash. You take off. Can you talk?
- [52:06]
Jasmine Star
You can talk about that. Just got the nutshell version of you were doing okay. What business was this like?
- [52:11]
Ed Mylett
I had a real estate business and a financial business. And so, you know, I had done well and then the market crashed and then I had a foreclosure. Then I came out one morning and Christiana's car was stolen. I'm like, I can't take this anymore. Except when I got back into the apartment, turns out it wasn't stolen, it was repoed. Right? And then we had our power turned off. And then that's bad. But then the worst is we had the water turned off. And so she had to go get a job. While I was an entrepreneur and the water turned off, you can't cook, you can't bathe. I would have to get up every morning with my new bride, walk down our apartment stairs after we had already owned a house that we lost, hold a towel up and we would go to the pool at the apartment complex. There was a shower there, there outdoors. And I'd hold a towel up while my new wife would take a shower and brush her teeth. And then we would switch. I get emotional today about it. And I would hold the towel up, she would hold it up for me. And I remember we would just climb back up those stairs and I'd have to. I'm living a nightmare. And I got to go out into the world and sell a dream. And I decided to go get a job.
- [53:10]
Jasmine Star
Hold on. Yeah, I was living a nightmare and I had to go and sell a dream. Yeah, if that ain't not if that's not the entrepreneur struggle.
- [53:18]
Ed Mylett
It is the entrepreneur struggle. And I still sold the dream. I operated out of my vision and my imagination, not my memory and my history. And so this is so critical. But here's what happened. It's crazy. Here's one more decision I made. I actually went to surrender. I was gonna quit. My brother in law, who worked for LA Cellular at the time, was doing really well. He's making like 200 grand a year.
- [53:39]
Jasmine Star
What was he doing for LA?
- [53:41]
Ed Mylett
Sales manager? And so long story short, I'll make it really quick. He was out on Victoria beach with my sister visiting. So I met him down there. I said, hey, can we take a walk? And my intention on that walk when I took him was to quit and to ask him for this job. And I was so down and we had no water. They don't know this, but like, I mean, I'm worried about eating and I've hadn't told this ever. I don't know why I'm doing this today. We're walk. Because it's you. We're walking. We get like about 50 yards. He's like, so what, bro? And I go to say, can you give me a job? I go to say that, except I and the. I go, how long are you gonna stay at that crappy job, bro? He goes, what? I go, you need to come into business with me. You need to come live the dream, dude. I'm gonna build something big. I've got these plans. Here's what I going to do. This, this, this, and this. And it's going to be amazing. I'm going to be worth millions of dollars. I'm gonna live on this beat someday, bro. You got to come do this with me. And as I'm saying, I'm like, what? Like, I had intended, but I couldn't quit. And somehow that imagination came out of me. I swear to you, Jasmine. He goes, I don't know, bro. I need to think about. I go, you need to think about. I'll give you a day. He quit that job two days later and came to work with me. He still works at that financial company to this day. He's made millions of dollars. I've made millions of dollars. That one moment of decision, walking that beach with him, and he'll hear this. We haven't talked about this in years. Altered my life. Altered his life. And I was just ready to go. I'm out. I was literally on the walk to raise my hands, and something in me said one more time, and everything shifted.
- [55:20]
Jasmine Star
There is coming.
- [55:24]
Ed Mylett
Hey, everybody. I'm excited to share today's conversation with David Goggins with you, but prior to doing that, I want to warn you, the language used in this interview is very strong, and there's profanity used throughout the conversation. Do you like suffering or do you just deal with suffering? Real answer.
- [55:40]
David Goggins
Real answer. Yeah, I like to see. Real answer. I like to get a bunch of men together, okay? Men that are the hardest of the hard. And I want to be with these men, and I want to see them suffer because I'm suffering right along with you. But I want to see me get through it. I want to see what you're made of. I want to see, like, almost like the Coliseum in Rome. Let's fucking go to the fucking Coliseum. And the only way to see who the baddest motherfucker is is to suffer. You can't do it by writing a paper. So let's go. Because why? What I found out through my life was I thought of myself as some weak little bitch kid. And what I found out, and the only message I want to get across to people is once you change one thing, your mindset, you can attack any Everything. And I find it fascinating. I'm fascinated because I'll be in these moments. I put these guys on some pedestal.
- [56:49]
Ed Mylett
Yeah. Which people do with you.
- [56:50]
David Goggins
They do with me, and they shouldn't. And I was this guy who was a piece of. Looking at these. Oh, my God. How are you guys? Just amazing. But once I worked my way up there, I said, my God, man, we can all compete. Let's go. So. So do I like suffering. I like suffering in the way that is competitive. That brings out the absolute best in me and in everybody else. So, like, I want to see a man be defeated. I want to see a man get broken and say, fuck you. I love these men. These men I love. But there's very few of them. There's very few, few of them. And there's very few that are willing to go there more than once. A lot of people, even people who've gone through Special ops, it kicks the out of them to a point where in their mind, what got me bad in Pararescue was when I was going through it, I said, I'm only going to do this one time. And so many people in special Ops, whether they believe it or not, in anything. Five special ops and Ethan, that's hard. I'm only doing this one time. Once you say that you yourself, I.
- [58:05]
Ed Mylett
Gotta tell you off camera, you and I were talking about something. Now we're gonna go to something cool. Okay, well, we've been in something cool. But like, I work with a lot of athletes. When they get out of their career, they made this massive sacrifice all their life to get to the NFL. They make that thing happen. They're only willing to do it once, Right. And when that's over, their identity set on that thing forever. And they just repeat the stories from that time over and over. And I watch them have such a difficult second half of their life. I try to help them with that. I've watched it with my business people. And you and I were talking off camera. So I've started to uncover with me the last couple years that I've been on social media and teaching these things, and if you gave me that mirror test the last couple years, that accountability mirror, when I look in it, I'm starting to look at a dude who used to do some crazy shit that was cool in his life, really accomplished some things, and all these accolades, people follow you, they listen to you. They. They think you something special. You have that. I have that. Clearly, the differences in our lives are too vast to even mention what you've achieved. The things you've overcome are completely different than mine. But I'm starting to realize something about myself that I want to give the audience a gift of, and I want you to talk about it. You know what I've just accepted. I'm only going to be happy when I'm grinding for something. I'm only going to be happy when I'm growing. I don't want to talk about stuff I used to do. I want to do something great with my life. I don't know that I can get to the mental level you have, but I think everybody here needs to know something. If you just think you're going to do something temporarily once, man, you're going to be unhappy when it's over.
- [59:40]
David Goggins
That's right.
- [59:41]
Ed Mylett
How about you right now, when you look in the mirror right now? So Goggins looks in the accounting mirror today, what does he see? And what are your thoughts about that?
- [59:51]
David Goggins
So same with you. What happened with me was like, so who I was, I was this nobody guy, and I created this Goggins and that Goggins. There's David Goggins and there's Goggins. David Goggins is a calm, cool guy that sits back. Used to be a weak kid. Now he's just a normal guy. Goggins is a guy that is willing to tape up his legs to go after it. In that book you read about David Goggins and also Goggins, what I realized in my life is that Goggins is who I love. Goggins is who. Who I created. My dad created David Goggins. I created Goggins. So what's happening with me? And since Can't Hurt Me came out, and since I got on social media, which is why I don't like social media, which why I'm not on there very much, which I give people one time. I have to do me. I have to do me. So. So people get it twisted, man. I am who I am.
- [61:00]
Ed Mylett
Yeah.
- [61:00]
David Goggins
What's in that book is me.
- [61:02]
Ed Mylett
Yeah.
- [61:03]
David Goggins
So now what they see is this guy who's trying to get people to get off their ass. That just happened to happen, man. I didn't set out when I set out to be a SEAL and set out to go to Ranger school and all this other. I did and break records. I didn't set out to please.
- [61:20]
Ed Mylett
Right.
- [61:21]
David Goggins
I didn't sit out to say, hey, pay me now. I got a great fucking story.
- [61:26]
Ed Mylett
Fuck that.
- [61:27]
David Goggins
And I realize now that my life has kind of gotten to a point where people know me. I have followers and whatnot. The biggest depression of my life is you get caught up into helping so many people out. And it's great and I love that. But you lose yourself in all of that shit.
- [61:46]
Ed Mylett
Truth.
- [61:46]
David Goggins
It literally. And people go, man, but. But my guy, like, you're. You're changing. I get all that, man. But what the is motivating you in that book? What's motivating you is a stories I'm telling you about what I did in my life once I stopped living. That I'm no more.
- [62:04]
Ed Mylett
Yes.
- [62:05]
David Goggins
I am not the that you are now being motivated from. So right now in the mirror, I now got back to Goggins. I'm now back to run 100 miles a week. I'm now back to getting the I saw and I talked to my girl about all the time. You, you, you travel, you speak, you, you know, you, you. All this. It's all great and dandy for some. For most people, I'm Goggins. What makes me me is the dungeon. And. Yeah. And people, well, oh, my God, they're gonna hear this. My God. You don't have any peace. Peace in your life. Don't get it twisted.
- [62:41]
Ed Mylett
Weak.
- [62:41]
David Goggins
People who hear me get all poopy pants about how I talk. So be it. What changed me was I had to be hard on myself.
- [62:53]
Ed Mylett
Yep.
- [62:54]
David Goggins
And I have to continue to grind myself into a fine dust.
- [63:00]
Ed Mylett
Yeah.
- [63:00]
David Goggins
Period. That's where I feel good. I think I accomplished something. If things can easy, it's not fun. I must fail at something repeatedly. It has to haunt me. And then once I complete it, I feel like I accomplished something. I don't want to set out and say, oh, there's an A. We're good. It's fucking stupid. No. I want to turn it in a million times and say, you fail. You fail. I said, okay, roger that. And sit there and analyze what I'm doing wrong. Go to these places that people don't go to anymore because all this fucking social media shit and everything's computerized. I want to go to that dark place in my mind. Okay, how are we going to get this done?
- [63:42]
Ed Mylett
I think people, the right people are happy when they're challenged by something. Like when they're pursuing something, when they're challenged. Like when there's. When they're not where they could be. Right. When they're not who they could be. And you and I were talking about this off camera. It's like, I just want everybody to understand this. This is from two people who are sort of in this space. We love helping people, we love making a difference. But what makes us make a difference is the pursuit of who we've been becoming. These challenges, you and all the different ways you have and my way and millions of people in their way too. Like, I don't want people to think, I just want to get to a place and cool it. Because if you get to that place and cool it, I think you're going to be miserable. You've got to still find somewhere. And I want to kind of go in your head a little bit because I've not lived this and very few people have lived this. I want to take you back there for a minute and then at the end I'm going to ask you what that thing looks like next for you. But so this whole thing that you did, you get out. I can't cover the whole military thing because I want them to read the book, right? But then you're like, hey, you really never done any of this before. But this is sort of the formula of what we're talking about. Then the military thing ends and then you're like, yeah, I'm going to go like, right, run. I'm gonna do the bad water 135.
- [64:52]
David Goggins
My cardio was 20 minutes every Sunday on the elliptical trainer.
- [64:56]
Ed Mylett
Okay, that was it, is it?
- [64:58]
David Goggins
So I'm looking at all these different races and one comes up number one, the hardest race in the world. Bad water 135, 135 mile race through Death Valley. I'm like, that sounds nuts. But I did, but it didn't describe that it was a like a couple day race. I'm thinking, okay, that has to be like a fucking seven day race because I don't know people run like that. So I end up calling Chris Kauffman up. Chris Costman is the race director of Badwater and he lives out here in California. He's like, hey man. I'm like, hey Chris. I call him up in the first conversation. I actually have all the emails in my book from me going back. He's a fucking stickler, man. Tell you that. So I call him up and say, hey man, going to do this race. He's like, have you ever run 100 miles before? I'm like, no. He goes, well, to get my race, you have to do 100 mile race and you got to do 100 miles in 24 hours or less. There was only two more races I could do before the deadline dropped. And so I'm like. He goes, you live in San Diego, right? I'M like, yeah, this was Wednesday. I call him up on a Wednesday morning. He goes, well, there's a race on Saturday, and it's called the San Diego One day at Hospitality point in San Diego, where you run around a 1 mile track for 24 hours and see me miles you can get. So I'm like, fuck it, man. This guy's kind of calling me out. I'm get this shit done. I'm a seal. I'm a badass. Been through ranger school and shit. I got this hardest thing I did my entire life, dude, was this one race.
- [66:31]
Ed Mylett
So I go harder than, than getting through hell.
- [66:35]
David Goggins
Yeah.
- [66:36]
Ed Mylett
Wow.
- [66:36]
David Goggins
I was not prepared, okay, at all. So I go, I sign up for the race, I show up, I'm this big bodybuilder looking guy, shirt off, black hat on, you know, and I'm. I set out. So every mile I'm gonna see this blue lawn chair. I had Ritz crackers in myoplex. That was my nutrition. Nutrition, man.
- [66:58]
Susan Cain
No water.
- [66:58]
Ed Mylett
No. No water.
- [67:00]
David Goggins
No.
- [67:02]
Ed Mylett
Come on.
- [67:03]
David Goggins
I, you know, I never drink water on runs and I didn't know about all this. So I go out there and I'm running. I get through 50 miles. I'm gonna cut to the chase because I detail it really well in the book. I get going, I sit down at mile 70 and buddy, I hadn't sat down yet. I sit down and everything falls the apart. Literally, man, I'm like peeing blood down my leg. I have some crap coming out of me and I got 30 miles to go. And I'm in the worst shape of my entire life. And so I won't get too deep into it, man, but I end up going back through my cookie jar and I talk about, you know, my, my, my cookie jar is basically something I invented about. We forget how badass we are when we're suffering because our mind just stays right there in suffering. The cookie jar is a reminder. You know how your mom used to have the cookie jar? You know, you don't know what kind of cookie you're gonna get, but it may be oatmeal raisin, maybe chocolate chip meat, because you know, she's dump some in that motherfucker used to grab one and go. So my cookie jars, the things I've accomplished, failed at, didn't fail at, just. Just kept on grinding through. So I take the. Just one second I calmed down, so I realized, okay, man, I got to be able to just stand up first. Come all dizzy and lightheaded, and I go through this process and I said I might quit, but not yet. I go, this is the worst shape of my life. So I said I might quit. Because when you're not going to quit something, you got 30 miles to go. Your mind spazzing like, I'm up, like I. Like 30 miles, a long way to go. Just fresh. I've already gone 70. I'm the worst in my life. I'm like, okay, so I'm giving my mind some space. Cause if you don't give it space, it's just gonna freak out. So I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna quit. But let me just sit here for a second and drink some water. Now I'm drinking water. I have my crew going over to get some fucking nutrition, some food for me. I'm getting better. So now I stand up. Like, wow, I'm able to stand up now. Cause I wasn't able to. I was all lightheaded. And I'm going on this track and I get to mile 81 and I wasn't going to make the time. I was moving slow.
- [69:10]
Ed Mylett
You're behind time, way behind.
- [69:13]
David Goggins
And this is, this is the craziest thing in the world. And I fucking shit you not. I'm in the worst shape my entire life ever. I've never even been close to this again. Never. Mile 81, I'm not going to make the time as slow as I was moving. And when your body and mind connect, and I think this is the only time I've ever done this, okay, you become a cyborg. I end up running 20 miles at about a 10, 15 mile and get done with that race. I did 101 miles in 19 hours and 6 minutes. And to this day, and I don't, and I don't detail it well with you, but in the book I do, I learned more from that 19 hours and six minutes than I did in all three hell weeks. Ranger school, and this is months. Ranger school is 60 something days. Hell week and all the buds is six months. I was in buds for like 18 months. You know, I went through Delta Force selection twice. You know, pull up records. I learned more in that one race that I wasn't prepared for. That 19 hours brought me from utter misery, happiness, failure, success, depression. I went through every fucking emotion in the world in 19 hours. And you should hear how the race ended then. I really took a shit on myself. I got in that blue chair when the race ended and I literally, it just was over. I was in the worst shape of my life. I got in the tub and they put the shower. Or she put the shower on me. The shower is hitting me as I'm laying in the tub in the fetal position. And what came out of me looked like dirt as I'm peeing. It's not even blood. This is dark brown dirt. And I'm sitting there and she calls my mom, and my mom has a doctor friend over her house. And this guy's one of the best doctors in the country. And he's like, you need to give him to the doctor now. So what I'm about to tell you is going to fuck you up. So I'm sitting there and I think I'm. I think I'm going to die. And worst shape of my life. And I'm in this tub and I'm jackhammering, and I had this hot water hitting me. And I'm literally in the worst pain. My shins, my feet, I'm broken. And I'm just sitting. I'm cramping up. And she said we had to get to the doctor. You know, your mom's worried. I'm worried about, like, we've never seen this before in my life. And I go, I'm not going anywhere. I want to sit here and enjoy this pain. And. And I. And I know the listeners hearing this are going to say, man, you're a fucking nut. No, I'm not. What I got a chance to experience in that 19 hours and six minutes of my life was something I didn't want any painkillers. This was proof positive. What I was feeling is what I just did. I did something without training, without coaching, coaching, without a cheering staff, without any knowledge. I took a raw human being with no training whatsoever, put him out in a condition, and just through this alone, got through it. And I sat there and I was like, this is. It was the best feeling I've ever had and will ever have in my entire. I was in the worst pain in my life, and it was the best feeling I ever had in my life. Not because the pain I was in by the pain was confirmation of my God, did I just do that? And I had completed hell weeks. But that right there was like, don't take this from me, man. And it was confirmation, proof positive that this young kid that came from shit that wasn't shit, that lied and cheated for. I was now the truth.
- [73:34]
Ed Mylett
God.
- [73:35]
David Goggins
I was now the truth. I was a Navy seal. I went through Army Ranger school as honor man. I went through all this shit. I was truth. I became truth. There was no more were lie. And what's funny about all that is the people in my life who were in my life when I was bad, and I call it bad one bad. I had a up way to go, man. They wanna. They're still out there. And it was a. I'm saying I ain't gonna drop names on them. They want to take me back there. They're mad that I'm here.
- [74:11]
Ed Mylett
Yes.
- [74:12]
David Goggins
They want to still make me out to be. Be what I was.
- [74:16]
Ed Mylett
Right. Right.
- [74:17]
David Goggins
They don't like the fact that they're still where the they're at.
- [74:20]
Ed Mylett
That's right.
- [74:21]
David Goggins
They hate that. So on this journey in life, there's a lot of people who are up right now on the journey. There'll always be that in the sewer you came from. That's grabbing at your ankle as you're leaving that sewer. That's when it drags you right the back down because you figured it out. They're not willing to figure figured out. There's not much to figure out. Only thing to figure out is this. And everybody has a different equation. My equation is different than yours. My equation was very different than most people's. And it's not about being sadistic. It was just about that. That right there was kind of like the moment of my life where I realized I don't like to, like to say that I've arrived because you never want to have that I've arrived mentality because you stop. But that was the moment that I realized that I was the truth.
- [75:15]
Ed Mylett
So, hey guys, I just walked in the studio, we're going to record an episode. And guess what I just did before I walked in, walked into my pantry, got my AG1s out, poured it in my glass, made myself a drink of AG1s. I do it every single day. For me, I do it a couple times a day. Why do I use AG1? Number one, supports my energy. Number two, digestion. Number three, immunity. Support, support. And actually I feel a different mood when it comes on. My body gets a little bit more calm, yet I've got more energy. I love AG1. One of my commitments is to take AG1 every day in 2025. It's literally on my goal list. So what are your health goals for the year? And I think whatever they are, AG1 can probably help support them. So this new year, try AG1 for yourself. It's the perfect time to start a new healthy habit. AG1 is offering new subscribers a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3K2 and five free travel packs in your first box, so make sure to check drinkag1.comedmylet to get this offer. That's drinkag1.comedmilet to start your new year on a healthier note. How high is the interest rate for the new Laurel Road High Yield Savings Account?
- [76:24]
David Goggins
This high?
- [76:27]
Ed Mylett
The air is really, really thin up here. The Laurel Road Very High Yield Savings Account Variable Annual Percentage Yield APY is subject to change at any time. No minimum balance required. Fees may reduce earnings on the account. For full terms and conditions, see laurelroad.com savings. Laurel Road is a brand of KeyBank Member FDIC. That was a great conversation and if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show Notes Notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. And you know, there's all kinds of different addictions in life. You know, we can become addicted to alcohol or we can become addicted to a person. We become addicted to drugs, we become addicted to gambling, and all of those are really well known addictions. There's one addiction that I see become so prevalent in our culture today that I do not see being discussed in the business world or in the personal development, the self help world, because it's sort of a scary topic to touch on. And so what I'll talk about today is achievement addiction. And I know that may sound like an interesting thing coming from somebody whose show is all about, you know, achieving your dreams and making great things happen in your life and changing your life, but there can become an addiction to achievement that becomes very unhealthy. And one of my concerns about so many of you that are involved in the, you know, the podcast or personal development world is that you begin to miss the forest for the trees and that you begin to become addicted to achievement in a way that is unhealthy. You know, all kinds of studies. Right now, if you write this down, just remember this phrase right now, process over product, that if you're always focused on the product you're producing and the achievement that you must have, you lose focus over the process. And what happens oftentimes in life is we become so focused on the fruit of our life, we become so obsessed with the fruit that we want to produce in our life that this takes all of our energy and focus away from building the tree that could actually produce fruit for a lifetime. We become so addicted in the finish line and the achievement, this addiction to achievement that it becomes incredibly unhealthy to our long term mental health and also our long term wealth accumulation, our long term building. Because we don't learn the process of delayed gratification and we don't fall in love with the process of doing something great in our life as opposed to always being addicted to the product. And this achievement addiction become incredibly unhealthy. It can become unhealthy because you delay all of your bliss in your life until you get to particular destinations. Once I get this achievement, then I'll be happy. Once I get this relationship, then I'll be happy. Once I get this amount of money, then I'll be happy. And this addiction to the finish line keeps all of the bliss in our joy, in our life into the future. There is a way to be blissful now and still being productive. The other thing that happens when you're addicted to achievement is that you become, it can very carefully, insidiously become a perfectionism addiction where you think everything you have to do has to become perfect. That can cause paralysis, that can cause you. I'm talking about analysis paralysis. That can cause you to not want to take risks or take steps, or step into the unknown. Because it's all about the achievement. It's all about the finish line. This can lead to a life that's really not very harmonious. All kinds of data tells us right now, and I've said this previously, that actually the brain produces more of dopamine, which is our joy chemical, our pleasure center, the pleasantness in our life. We produce more dopamine, dopamine during the process of achieving something than when we actually get to the actual finish line of the achievement brain. Studies now show us that when you get to the end and you get to the dopamine, it actually falls off the charts downwards once you get the achievement. And then you're left wondering, is this all there ever is? You know, is this as good as it's ever going to be? And if you do that enough times, you repeat this achievement addiction pattern. Once you actually get to the achievement, if you do, and it's a very unhealthy way to get there, when you get there, it's not all it's cracked up to be. And eventually you and your brain go, this just isn't worth it anymore. And you stop the journey, you stop feeling willing to do the work that you once did. You may need to ask yourself right now, are you really working like you were working when you were starving and hungry? If you're no longer starving and hungry because there was something Beautiful to those days where you didn't have any achievement. Wasn't there. In fact, in some strange ways, the hardest parts of my story of when my water was turned off and, you know, and we didn't have electricity in my house and cars were repoed and I had had a home go into foreclosure, in some odd way, there was a happiness there that I don't even have now in my life because I was so enthralled in the process of my life. You know, some of the most happy people in the world are the most happy when they're just so involved in process. Why? Because process focus keeps you present. There's all this stuff in personal moment. Be present, cause yourself to be in the present. Don't be in the past, don't the future. The truth is, all there is is the present. And when you're focused on something, that's the work you love in your life, the actual work, the actual dedication to the process, you're fully present. The minute you take your focus to the achievement, you're no longer present and you're focused in the future. This can lead to anxiety, worry, frustration, an addiction that's unhealthy. It can lead to sacrificing lots of other things in your life that matter on the way there. I'm not for a minute. So saying don't bust your tail and do something great, that's. Don't misconstrue what I'm saying. Because I don't believe you can actually enjoy inaction and rest unless you know what it feels like to be completely active and busting it. For me, I only enjoy inactivity after massive spats in my life of full activity. Then and only then can you appreciate rest and enjoyment and unplugging. A life of being unplugged. A life of no process, a life of no achievements, a life of no expansion of your being is a wasted life. I'm talking about nuance here. What I'm saying is that you get so addicted to the achievements that you constantly delay your bliss and your happiness at the expense of other human beings in your life. And secondly, when you get there, you're waiting for all the dopamine then rather than falling in love with what you do to get there. This is not a message about fall in love with the journey. Sure, that's part of it. I'm talking about falling in love with the process. And what's happened to a lot of people is they've become conditioned in their life. There's this conditioning that it's all about the achievement. Why is that? Because that's what we see. We see on espn. What do we see? We don't see the entire game of baseball or football or basketball, whatever the sport is. We don't see them practicing, we don't see them lifting weights and stretching. We don't even see most of the stuff that happens. We only see the highlight. We only see the home run, we only see the great catch. We only see the touchdown, right? We only see the goal, we only see the dunk. We only see the three pointer to win the game. And so we become highlight reel and achievement addicted thinking. That's all that matters. Not only does your brain not work that way, your life won't work that way. And I worry sometimes in this space, this business, personal development, self help space, that everything's pointed to the achievement. And this becomes an unhealthy addiction, as opposed to addiction to the things that can be healthy in our lives. There's also this addiction to accumulation that some. If I can accumulate enough things, if I can accumulate enough awards, if I can accumulate enough money, if I can accumulate enough cars, if I can accumulate enough conquests, if it's a woman accumulate enough men or a man accumulate enough women, if I can accumulate, you know, a jet, I can accumulate things. But somehow, if I can just accumulate a bunch of stuff, that somehow that's an achievement and I'm going to enjoy my life and feel better. And just remember this, in your life, you cannot take it with you. You cannot take these things you accumulate with you. You. But you can leave it here. And what I mean by that is somebody who's accumulated a lot of wealth in their life, I can tell you I want you to accumulate wealth, I want you to accumulate success, I want you to accumulate awards, I want that. But this should not be your obsession. Your obsession should be the work you do in the process, the people's lives you change in the process that you can leave here, see the award, the money, the jet, the house, else, you can't take that with you. But the lives you change, the difference you make, the consciousness you shift, the difference you make in your own family by being the one. The difference you make in other people's families by the work you do in your business, your life, your. Your good works that you leave here. Life's about being in the full present moment, every moment you possibly can be. And then when you're no longer here physically, you leave these things here and they reverberate into History, the ripple effect of the works you do, that's something that's blissful when you're addicted to it, but the actual achievement, not so much. And so I want you to really evaluate this idea of accumulating things in order to be happy as opposed to being focused on what you need to do to change other people's lives. The other thing I want to share with you too is that one way to get out of this is to begin to compete. I like to almost like gamify my life where I'll compete for different things. I'll compete in the gym every day. So it's not about how big's the bicep, how ripped are your abs, or whatever your body fat might be, or your weight or all that, that's an achievement. But to fall in love with the process of actually working out and actually competing to get stronger and faster. Competition is a great diversion from the unhealthiness of achievement addiction. And so I really want today for you just to sit back for a second and ask yourself what does make me happy, right? What does make me happy? And am I spending? Am I thinking I'll spend 99% of my time kind of grinding, but when I get to achievement, man, that's when all my happiness will happen. Or is there a better way to live? Can you actually fall in love and enjoy the day to day process the ups and downs of your life? You know, I'm convinced in my life I made a decision. I don't want a merry go round life. I want a roller coaster life. Most people will choose a life of the merry go round. It just keeps going in the same circle. You get on that merry go round, you go about one time, you start seeing the same things, don't you? And it comes back around again and you see it again, and you see it again, and you see it again. It's nice and calm and slow with that goofy music. And it just repeats itself in a circle very slowly, little ups and downs as you just go in the circle and see the same things. That's a merry go round life. And if you're listening to me right now, you have decidedly chosen. You do not want to live life on a merry go round. You've decided you want the roller coaster, the ups and the downs and the butterflies. And your stomach goes all the way up, right? You know, it's woo. And the scream, yay. And you're scared. That's the journey of life that produces the most bliss is actually the roller coaster life. But I Think. Too many people think, I just want to get off the roller coaster, right? And get to the end of it and achieved that. I finished the ride. And I'm telling you, when you finish the ride, that's when all the butterflies go away. That's when all the joy goes away. That's when all the bliss goes away. The joy and the bliss is in the ride. Even the ups that are going and you know it's coming. You do.
- [87:49]
Susan Cain
Whoo.
- [87:50]
Ed Mylett
All the way down, up and down. I don't want a life that avoids ups and downs. I want the roller coaster. But I want to decide I'm going to enjoy the process of that ride. So you can make two choices. You can choose to get on the merry go round. And if you're listening to me, you don't want to be on the merry go round. If you're listening to me, you either chose consciously to live a life off of the merry go round like 99% of the people do. Same life, same pattern, same conversations, same vacations, same nothing. No growth, no experience, no memories, no joy, no life. That's 99% of people. So if you're listening to me, either you've decided, I want to get off the merry go round or you've gotten off of it. But the other mistake and choice you can make is this up and down thing. I just need to get to the end, to the finish line rides over. And then you get off and you go, yeah, Wasn't that awesome? Right? Wasn't that awesome? That's a mistaken choice. That's the achievement addiction. The right addiction, I believe, is the nuanced one in the middle, which is to accept you've chosen a roller coaster life and the people around you have chosen to be with you in your roller coaster life. And it's to make sure those people around you get what they need as you ride your dream and you ride your roller coaster and that you get what you need, which is the bliss and the happiness and the fulfillment and the contribution that comes with the day to day riding of that roller coaster coaster in the process and not waiting for all of the joy for the end of the ride. And so please guard against achievement addiction in your life. And I'm really hopeful that today helped you really hear something you've never heard before and cause you to begin to think every week I'm producing content. I want you to begin to hear it when I'm doing these interviews through this idea that you're not here to just accumulate and accumulate and accumulate because you can't take it with you. But you can leave the people that you help, the difference you make, the vibrational frequency you change, the consciousness you shift in your own family, in your own being, and the lives of other people. You can leave that here. And I sure would appreciate it. And I know your family would, and I know you will if that becomes your obsession and your addiction. What an honor it is to be with this gentleman here today and to share him with all of you. And it's an honor to have him today because I consider him on earth one of, if not the greatest, expert on the brain, on the inner mechanics of the brain, mindset, and peak performance. I know that's what all of you want to talk about. So I have John Assaraf here with me today. John, thanks for being here. Brother Ed.
- [90:19]
John Assaraf
It's so good to be here. And thank you for giving me the honor to be here with you.
- [90:23]
Ed Mylett
These are strategies that are real, that work that we both do. So there's two prolific entrepreneurs who are now in this space that are saying, these are the things we do, and isn't it ironic that we both do them and we're both addicted to them, and we both attribute it to our success. So please talk about that, brother.
- [90:45]
John Assaraf
So I have my vision boards, and I actually have my exceptional life blueprint that I've created. It's about 50 pages of my prayers, my rituals for my spiritual growth, health, wealth, my money story, my inner mission, my outer mission, you know, some of the stuff either that I have or that I'm creating. And so I create these visual representations to trigger the biggest part of my brain called the occipital lobe and to activate my memory center. So I have vision boards for what I want to create. So I'm giving my brain the exact instructions so that not only it focuses helping me achieve that. What most people don't understand about vision boards or creating goals in writing that are specific is that your brain is a deletion and distortion tool as well. So if you give your brain the instruction of, this is the stuff that's important to me for health, God, spirituality, charity, fun experiences, my children, my mother, my father, myself, whatever it is. And you say, this is what I want to trade my life for, Delete and distort everything else. Now all of a sudden you're using your brain as a deletion and distortion organism in order to be able to help you hyper focus on what you want. So part one is get absolute Clari on what you want. So your Brain helps you eliminate what you don't want. Part one, part two, right? Part two is I tend to be a goal seeking guy, right? And I used to not celebrate the small stuff. And I used to just like, you know, fuck, bigger goal, bigger goal, bigger goal. More bigger, bigger. And somebody says to me like, are you going to like slow down just to enjoy some of the stuff that you actually have done for yourself and for people in your family? And I was like, well, let me create an accomplished board.
- [92:42]
Ed Mylett
So good, so good.
- [92:45]
John Assaraf
So accomplish board. You passed that test on your own 40 years ago. Celebrate that you helped this person who was challenged and celebrate that you know you did this for him or for her or for yourself. Celebrate that stuff to remind yourself. Because I'm tough on myself. Like, I'm like I'm, let's come on, let's go. It's a goal, let's go. And sometimes I forget the stuff that I have done, the stuff that I do do that I need to remember. So I create an accomplishment board and a list so I can just go to it when I feel like, holy shit, am I smart enough to achieve that next thing? Am I good enough? What a lot of people don't know, Ed, is when I was a kid I used to feel like I wasn't smart enough. And when I was a kid it held me back. And today I still feel like I'm not smart enough. And that fuels me to get smarter. So I use, I set big goals. I go, God, I don't have the skills, I don't have the knowledge. But I can figure it out. I've got contacts, I've got friends and there's books, there's Google, there's, there's YouTube, there's Holy Mackerel, I don't need to have all the specialized knowledge anymore. So I have accomplished what was also, you know, a crap board is what conflicts are happening right now. I often say that there's only four things that are holding you back as a human being. Only four. There's not 25, there's four that are the core. One is if your vision and one goal is bigger than your self image, okay? So if you feel you deserve it, you can have this vision and goal and be excited about it, motivated about it. You will not do what it takes to achieve one. 2. If you have limiting beliefs, if you have a vision and goal, but you have a limiting belief that you're too young, too old, whatever the case is, your limiting beliefs will drive your behavior. 3. Fear. Fear of being Embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed or judged. Fear of failure. Fear of disappointment. Disappointment. And we'll talk about disappointment. Or fear of succeeding and failing again. Disappointment. And then the fourth one, by the way, is you're lacking the knowledge and skill required. So that actually sets up a self doubt trigger which activates the Frankenstein brain, which causes you to lose motivation. But most people prefer to master disappointment and comfort zones instead of mastering change. So if I master disappointment, I know what I got. I just have to deal with, okay, this is what I got. And if I master my comfort zone, then at least this is the devil I know. Yes, Versus mastering change. And we know what's going on in our brain. We know what's happening neurologically, biologically, emotionally, physically. And all of that is a skill. It's just a skill. So why not just master change? Why not become an adaptationist right now in the time that you need it the most in the world? Because if you don't, then you're just going to keep repeating the same patterns that are going to get reinforced and it makes it harder in three months, six months and six years. So master change now and make that one of your core competencies and then you master your life.
- [96:03]
Ed Mylett
Oh my gosh, you guys. Anybody familiar with my work know how much I love this man and how much we line up on these things Similarly, I love the way that you phrase things. And guys, one thing about change, one of the reasons we hesitate to change as humans is it's an energy depletion too. Humans kind of want to conserve energy, but guys, we love to gravitate towards what we're most familiar with. We create these patterns in our life and we repeat them over and over and over again. And. And if you're not conscious of what they are, if you don't create new ones, you're just repeating the same life in a different year over and over. And that script that John talked about, your script is the same as it was five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, with slightly different characters and slightly different dressings in the room. This is the Ed Milan show.