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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice. Progressive loves to help people make smart choices. That's why they offer a tool called Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your Progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies so you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you. Give it a try after this episode@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. This is the Ed My show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. Really excited today to talk to you about your road to success, just your road in your entire life and the things you should expect if you're going to choose the road less traveled. I was reading a couple lines from the Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. It's a great poem. If you've not read it, you should. But he says, two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled. And I think if you're going to pursue success in your life, you have to decide you're going to be on a road that most people are not on. And a lot comes with taking that road. And I think, you know, a lot of times success is glamorized on social media. Right now it looks like it's about Lamborghinis and private jets and, you know, great dinners and amazing stuff like that. But the truth is the journey to success, especially as an entrepreneur or even as an athlete or in really any endeavor, can be a very painful journey. And you can feel very alone. And it's designed that way. And so it often bothers me when I hear people say I need the support from my spouse or my friends or I've got haters, or no one understands me or I'm getting all this rejection and negative feedback from people. I've got haters. That's the road you're on. Those are the signs you're on the road less traveled. Those are the signs you're on the path that most people aren't going to be on, that you're going to a place most people aren't going to go in their lives. And so what comes with deciding to be great, deciding to do something awesome with your life, is all of those things. It's a the other road, the road that almost everybody you know is on, that road's well lit. It's beautiful. There's all kinds of great scenery. There's not a lot of bumps in the road, not a lot of potholes, right? Everything's wonderful on that road. It's also very crowded. The road to success, the road less traveled. Let me just tell you something. That road, it's windy, it's up and down, there's potholes. You're going to have breakdowns, you're going to have blowouts, you're going to have days that you can't, you can't even get it started again. It's a dark road, it's not well lit. It's all kinds of bad things on that road. That's the road to success. And you're not going to see a lot of people there. And then there's going to be a few times you're going to hit a yield sign and everything in you is going to tempt you to yield to the road everybody else is on. Because it looks so good over there, right? Everyone's there. It's well lit, it's sunny out your road, there's ice, it's snowing, it's raining, it's dark, it's windy, it's massive ups and downs, all the breakdowns. And when you hit the yield sign, the reason I'm making this message today, I don't care what level of that road you're on or how far down, by the way, on the road everybody else is on, there's navigational equipment, there's directions. Everyone kind of goes in the same direction. The road less traveled, the road to success. Sometimes you feel like you don't have a map. Sometimes you feel like you don't have any direction or sense of direction. And you get so far down at some days, like, what am I doing? Well, let me just say something to you. When you get down that road, right, you're gonna hit yield signs regularly. They're gonna try to get you to yield and give in and yield back to the other road. And it's your decision right now, when you're listening to me today, to say, I will not yield. I will not give in. My will to win, my will to do something great is not for sale. Because I'm gonna tell you this road is difficult. And I often find it amazing when people say, I'm getting all this resistance, I'm getting all this rejection. That's exactly what it's supposed to be. Let me comes on the road to success. And I know this isn't pretty, but maybe for some of you, say, oh, that means I'm in the right place. If recently, at any point in the last 12 months you've experienced doubt like, lots of doubt. You're probably on the road less traveled. There's no doubts on the easy path. There's no doubts as going to a job every day, collecting a check, going about your business, not trying new things, not challenging yourself, not growing, not contributing. There's no doubt there. What are you gonna doubt? Everybody's doing it, right? So if you're getting doubt, that means you're on the road less traveled. If you have a lot of fear or anxiety on the road you're on, or if you've experienced those emotions recently about what you're doing, you feeling like an imposter, like you have imposter syndrome, like, nobody knows. I don't really know what I'm doing. You're on the road that I think you should be on the right road, the road less traveled. If you felt anything like rejection, like, lots of rejection. You get all kinds of rejection on the road. By the way, you want to go get a beautiful relationship in your life, and you're on a road to that. It comes with rejection. You want to build an amazing business, it comes with rejection. You want to build an amazing body, it comes with rejection. So if you experience that you're on the right road, you're on the road less traveled. You don't get rejection on the road to doing nothing. And so the very fact, what I'm trying to get you to understand is the very fact that you're experiencing these things means you're on this road that I've been on, that most of your heroes have been on, that the people that make a difference, the people that change the world, that change their own world, that changed their family's generational tree forever. Those people, by the way, the people that you know, that are the most happy and fulfilled at some point had to go down this road to achieve those things. Maybe if you felt a lot of isolation, like you're alone. I think the number one thing I felt often on my road and my journey, and even to this day is I feel alone. People don't understand me, right? Just get ready. By the way, if you're gonna do something great with your life, you're gonna be controversial. People are gonna talk about you. You're gonna feel like no one understands you. You're gonna feel like no one else is coming with you. Even when you're surrounded by a big team, even when you've got a bunch of people working with you, oftentimes you feel very alone. It's a very lonely road. You know what happens when you're alone and you're lonely. You learn a lot about yourself. You know, when you're at a big party and it's crowded and noisy, there's all kinds of people around you, everyone's having a great time, you don't learn a lot about yourself. Then it's the times that you're alone and you do feel a little bit isolated is when you actually dig deep into yourself and you find things out about you that you never knew existed. And you work through pain, you work through trauma, you work through difficulties. You're on the right road. You feel any anxiety, you have, any anxiety you've experienced recently, you're on the right road. So I'm actually telling you that these things that seem like the negative things are actually indications. They're actually green lights. A green light is doubt. A green light is fear. A green light is rejection. A green light is isolation. A green light is anxiety. And then here's the other thing that happens when you're on this road because it is so difficult and treacherous, you start really beginning to ask yourself, is it worth it? Is it worth it? And if you've had any occasion in the last recent little while or in the last 12 months of your life to ask yourself, is this worth it? That contemplation of whether it's worth it or not means you're on the right road. It means you're on the right road. See, people that are on that other road, they're not asking themselves if it's worth it because they're making no sacrifice. There's no commitment. Remember this, with no commitment, with no sacrifice, ultimately in your life, there's never any freedom. And so where you really are is you're on a road to freedom. Spiritual freedom, emotional freedom, financial freedom, physical freedom, relationship freedom. You're on the road to have a freedom of choice of your emotions, by the way as well. Now, do I think the entire journey has to be painful? Absolutely not. Am I saying there isn't amazing moments and amazing highs and you can have blissful dissatisfaction on the road. And you can enjoy your life still on this road, 1000% on the road less traveled, you can enjoy your life. You can have beautiful experiences and an amazing relationships. But the truth of the matter is you see all that on social media all the time. Every once in a while, somebody's got to tell you. And also there's some of this other stuff also. There's some pain. Also, there's setbacks. By the way, the only thing that happens on this road is two or three times a year, there's just a massive catastrophe in crisis. I'm just telling you, I have not had a year go by in my pursuit to my dreams. There's not been a crisis or a catastrophe every three or four or five months. Couple times, two, three, four times a year. If you haven't had a catastrophe or a crisis in your life in the last 12 months, you're not doing something great, you're not trying to grow, you're not trying to change things. You're literally trying to change your life, change your family's life forever. So these things come with it. Again, I want to be clear. There's all kinds of amazing experiences and having been on this road, I can tell you the beautiful experiences and the emotions and the breakthroughs and the pride that comes with overcoming these challenging things. Overcoming doubt, overcoming fear, overcoming rejection. That's the juice of life. It's where all the juice is. It's where all the goodies are. It's ultimately where all the rainbows are, is on the more difficult road. You can't get a rainbow if there isn't a storm. And so I just feel like so often people, they listen to podcasts like mine and they, they think, man, my gosh, it's like most people aren't going through. Everyone that's gone anywhere great in their life has had their version of this adversity in their life. And like I said, you're going to be controversial. You decide to do something great, you've decided people aren't going to understand me. People aren't going to relate to me, listen to me. Don't be so caught up in these external voices that are gnawing at you are talking bad about you. You got to listen to your inner voice. That inner voice that's been with you since you were a little boy or a little girl that says you were born to do something great with your life. Anything you've seen me do online, Shopify's probably been involved in it. I was at a speaking engagement this weekend. There were three other very prominent influencers there and each of them were talking about how they use Shopify in their businesses right now, this day, just like I do. Shopify is the commerce platform behind of businesses around the world. And 10% of all E commerce in the US is Shopify. Household names like Mattel, Gymshark to brands that are just getting started with no clients yet. And so I can tell you Shopify is something you need to investigate to help you with your business online. Best yet, Shopify is your e commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. Turn your big business idea into With Shopify on your side. Sign up for your 1 month $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com mylet go to shopify.com mylet shopify.com mylet this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds of because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situation. Here's what I know about you. If you're on this road less traveled, you've always known you're supposed to do something great. There's been this little part of you when you're a little boy or a little girl and just whispered to your spirit, it whispered to your soul. You're supposed to do something awesome. You're supposed to be happy. You're supposed to be blissful. You're supposed to make a difference in other people's lives. And it's okay that you may not know where this is going or what it's going to look like, or even where the end of the road is. It's okay. But all your life you've known this. Here's what's crazy. So have all the other people on the road everybody's on. They heard the same things when they were a little boy or a little girl. They have the same calling. They have the same emotions. They had the same decisions and they yielded. And there's a bunch of them over there that yield. And let me tell you what they live with. See, when they get to the end of their road, it wasn't real bumpy. The weather was pretty good. They get to the end of their road someday, it's the end of their life. They're gonna look back at their life with regret. They're gonna look back and say, I played it safe, I didn't take any risks. I lived. Here's the truth. I lived my life scared. I lived my life afraid I might crash, I might burn. People might talk bad about me. I might be a failure. And so I just rather just kind of cruise. In fact, at some point in My life on the road everybody's on. I just flipped on the cruise control, took my hand off the gas pedal, hand off the steering wheel and it was all about cruise control and hitting the brakes. The road you're on, it's beautiful. It's more beautiful than you realize. You're going to see things you would have never seen. You're going to experience things you would have never experienced. You're going to achieve things that you would have never achieved. And you'll get to the end of your life. And by the way, you may not get where you want to go, you may not get all the way to whatever this place is you think you're going. And for some of you don't even know what it is. You just know it's not where you are now. You just know it's not where I am now. This is not what I was made for. This was not what I was born for. And I'm just going to get on this road. I wasn't born for this. I'm going to get on this other road, I'm just going to start driving and I don't know where it's going to take me, but I'll take a left turn and a right turn, I'll do whatever I got to do. But I know I wasn't born to be where I am right now. And I may not have the exact map, the navigational equipment, nobody's supporting me, but I know I wasn't born for where I am now. And you may get to the end of that life, the end of that road and not even get to a place you thought you would get. But here's what you won't have, you won't have regret. See, I don't think in life we regret the things we try to do and we fail at. I think the regrets in life are the acts of omission, the things we didn't do that we omitted from our life, the opportunities we didn't chase, the dreams we didn't pursue, the challenges we didn't face up to, the curiosities and the learning and the growth we could have had that we just didn't pursue. Because most other people don't. Most other people don't. And so you're not going to have people relate to you. Now listen, on this road you have to be willing to course correct. You got to check in with yourself once in a while. Is this still my current dream? Where am I heading? Where am I going? What does this mean? And I also think you have to just decide, I'm gonna stop trying to get support of all the people around me. If everybody around you supporting you, you're probably not trying to do something very big. You really aren't, because most people don't want you to see you get too successful or too happy because it'll expose them. So don't let people with small lives and small thoughts project their limitations onto you because they're trying to get you to yield, to get on their road. I miss you. You ever hear that? I miss you. I miss the way it used to be. I miss this. They're basically saying, come on, get in the back seat, take your hands off the damn steering wheel, quit hitting the accelerator, and let's just cruise around for a while. And you, inside you knows that you weren't born to cruise. You were born to experience life and to have great memories. No, Great memories come from something that everybody does every single day. The monotony of life. Now, what would I recommend you do to pursue this dream a little bit better? I think you need to find a mastermind or a group of people that you can be around that support your thinking. Listen to podcasts like mine, especially mine, on a weekly basis. And the other thing is, when you're on this road, one thing that will light this road up for you is service. When you're feeling most helpless on this road, get the most helpful. Do everything you can to help other people. When you begin to just serve other people, contribute to other people, encourage other people. See, maybe it's just an act of encouraging words that you give to somebody today. That act of service to another human being increases your vibrational frequency. And when you increase your vibrational frequency, you face less resistance because things begin to become attracted to you as opposed to having to pursue, do everything all the time. Acts of service, acts of contribution in your life at every single level along the way. From the person listening to this who's making negative $10,000 a year in their bank account right now, and they're. They're piling through money and losing money to someone making $100 million a year. Your pathway to more illumination, to more light on where to go next is through the acts of service to other people. What that does is it lightens your life, it enlightens your life and other people. But the other thing it does is it increases your vibrational frequency and things begin to become more attracted to you. Rather than you having to chase everything in your life. I want to remind you, as your friend, the reason I do this show is that I believe there are millions of people on the wrong road. Millions of people on the wrong road. And I also believe there are millions of people on the right road who don't know it. Who don't know it. Because it doesn't look like that on social media. It doesn't feel like it with the people around us. Remember this. When you're in the midst of doing something great with your life, it typically doesn't feel like it when you're doing typically does not feel like it when you're doing it. It's only in hindsight that you look back and say, wow, that was amazing. I can't believe I overcame that. And sometimes the most chaotic parts of our lives, the busiest parts of our lives, the times where we feel like we have the least amount of freedom are the happiest. If I asked you to think back to some of the most, you know, chaotic times of your life where you had the least amount of freedom and some of the most difficult times and you were the busiest, maybe you were the most happy. See if there's a mother listening to this. And I said, what about that pregnancy that you had, that discomfort of carrying that baby and maybe you got sick and you different, you know, issues with being pregnant and discomfort of it and the birth process, no man can possibly relate to it. I'm not even going to try. But that was one of the most difficult times of your life. Yet it's the time that you're the most grateful for and you feel the most blessed. Those of you that were in college at one time and you were crazy studying and cramming for tests and had a job to support yourself and two jobs or three jobs, and you're out of control. And you look back at that time and you go, man, I love that time in my life. Isn't that interesting? Those of you that have had, you know, had to have one or two or three jobs at any given time, and it was very, very difficult. And you're busy and scattered and everyone thought you were crazy some of the happiest times of your life. So sometimes chaos and difficulty and doing something great, all we feel is the chaos and difficult. We don't know we're doing something great. It's only in hindsight that we look back and go, that was when I was the most happy. And so the truth is this, what you really want is freedom. What you really want is freedom. You want a freedom in your relationship, freedom financially, freedom in your career, freedom in your emotions. And I'm Going to tell you, the pathway to freedom, ironically, is total commitment. Most people think, wow, if I commit to this relationship, I lose all my freedom. Nothing could be further. Once you've committed to something, you're completely free now to act on that decision. Lack of commitment is a. Is a jail, is bondage, because you've got nothing to decide to do with your life, to do something great. Total commitment to a business you're starting or pursuing or a new hobby, or this creates total. Once you've made the commitment, all these other options are gone. And now you've got complete freedom to pursue that decision, to pursue that road. And so what you're really on, on the road less traveled is the pathway to freedom and whatever that means to you. And nobody needs to understand it. And you don't need anybody's permission. You don't need anyone's permission. The cool thing about our road, there's no speed limit. There's no speed limit. You can go as fast or as slow as you want to. And I like that part of it. I'm just gonna tell you right now, you were born to be on the road less traveled. And I want to challenge you today to know that when these things come up, these are indicators you're on the right road, not the wrong road. I want you to remember that today. And the last thing I'll tell you is this. Don't yield. Don't yield. There's gonna be all kinds of temptation, maybe even today, to yield to the road everyone's traveling on. See, we make micro decisions every day. Maybe your overall journey's on the road less traveled, but today I'm gonna be on the road with everybody else. Today I'm not gonna work out. Today I'm taking the road, everybody. Today I'm not gonna eat great today. I'm not gonna. Today I'm not going to make a total commitment. I'll get back on the other road tomorrow. See, this road you're on needs to be a lifestyle, needs to be a lifestyle, needs to be a commitment, that there are very few moments where you're in the road with everybody else. If you're on this road the majority of the time, eventually the road gets lit up. Eventually it produces a pathway to freedom and eventually your dreams. And by the way, you'll begin to achieve dreams you never thought you even had before. Because these, these left and right turns and around every corner there's a. A new dream and a new vision and a new experience because you're going to start to go faster and faster, you're going to vibrate at a higher and higher frequency. Here's the deal with the news. I just don't think you know what's true. If you really listen to one sort of a channel and you lean a particular way, they're going to feed you all the things that you already believe, right? If you go to the other channel, everybody's the bad guy there. And you're going to hear all the news there. Everything has spin. Today. It's really difficult. I'll listen to a story like, oh my gosh, they're completely doing this. Then you hear the backstory on another channel. You're like, wait a minute, that's totally not true. Everywhere we look, there's spin in the news. It's unbelievable. So if you want to be more aware of where your news is coming from, welcome to Ground News. It helps cut through all the spin and clutter and noise. Ground News gathers related articles from around the world in one place with context about the source's political leaning, reliability and ownership. Go to groundnews.com mylet today they get 40% off the ground News Vantage plan and get access to all of their news analysis features. That's ground news.com for 40% off the ground News Vantage plan for a limited time only. Ground downnews.com mylet I can just tell you, in my own life, I've made dreams happen that I never imagined I would have never imagined. I have a sister who's diabetic and she was losing her vision. She was actually became legally blind and I had no idea. Over the years, while my sister was struggling, she has type 1 diabetes. I had no idea that, you know, as I was working hard and getting rejected and. And all the negative things that were happening to me and all the anxiety and all the worry and all the late nights and all the early mornings and all the overdrawn bank accounts and all the difficult times. I thought that dream was to become rich and famous and all that kind of stuff. But the ripple effects of what you can achieve in your life are really amazingly unknown around these corners on the road less traveled. And what happened was I actually did build a bunch of wealth and that was cool. And I bought a house in a particular neighborhood. And one time my sister lost her vision to the point where she couldn't drive. And she's a schoolteacher. She couldn't even teach anymore because she couldn't see the classroom. And she's got diabetic retinopathy. And she was starting to get Justifiably depressed. Imagine being able to see and then you can't. I mean, even just close your eyes for five minutes in darkness when you're awake. Right. It's one thing to be born without vision, another thing to lose it. And so one night, my mom had called me and was particularly telling me how concerned she was that my sister was just down and she's living in darkness and she can't go do what she loves to do, what she was born to do, which was to teach these children. She's an amazing school teacher, and she just loved doing it. My sister's not a rich woman financially, but she had a very rich life of contribution. She lives richly, and my family was very concerned about her. And little did I know, all those years when I was working hard and paying this price and see, I didn't know what the rewards would be. There's going to be so many dreams happen for you that you can't even imagine right now. And this is an example of one of them. So although I had become wealthy and I was living in a great neighborhood, it wasn't for the house or the pool or the golf course. I hung up the phone with my mother and I thought to myself, I need to take a walk. I need to take a walk. Just, I was so hurting for my sister. As I was walking down the street, I realized, I won't say his entire name, but I realized, oh, my gosh, Dr. Chang lives in that house, and he helps people with their vision in their eyes. And he created this laser that helps people. And he's an optometrist. He lives in that house. I want to be crazy if he could help my sister. And I called him and to fast forward the story that doctor saved and reversed my sister's blindness. And so my sister now is teaching again, thanks to Dr. Chang. Thanks to Dr. Chang. Now, she doesn't have completely perfect vision where, you know, she's never had any medical issues. But my sister's now functioning again. She can now see her children again. She can see me again. She can see my mom again. She can teach her class again. She can grade papers again. She can do a lot of things. She can't do all of them, but she can do a lot of things that she could never do before this time. And that's because I worked hard all those years, and God was preparing this dream that I didn't even know that I'd walk and knock on Dr. Chang's door, who happened to be my neighbor. And the only reason I lived there is because I fought through the anxiety, I fought through the doubt, I fought through the fear, I fought through the rejection, I fought through the isolation. I fought through all of that thinking all these other dreams and many other dreams came true. But you could have never told me back when I was on that road less traveled and crashing every other day and trying to thinking about yielding every other day that, hey, Eddie, if you stay on this road 20 years from now, you will help cure your sister's blindness, who's not even blind yet. She's not even blind yet. It's amazing to me that of all the things I went through that God was preparing this dream that I couldn't even begin to imagine at that time. Is that amazing? And now my sister sees again. Because part of the reason is I went on that road and so did Dr. Chang. And then we met at some point in our neighborhood on the same road, on the exact same street. I ended up on that road because all the roads I took to get there. And he lived in a house on my road, literally on my road. Knocked on his door, do you think you can help my sister? And he said I might be able to. And he did. He was able to get her to see again. My sister sees again. Because I lived on that road. And I lived on that road because of all the lefts and the rights and the yields and the ups and the downs and the corners and the dark times and the crashes and the blowouts, all of that led to the actual physical and literal road I lived on. The person who could save my sister's vision lived at the end of that road. So when I'm telling you that you don't know what dreams are going to come true, you don't know, but I can tell you none of them come true on the road that is well traveled. All of these micro dreams, ancillary dreams that you will not even dream of right now, you can't even imagine are going to happen because you're willing to pay that price. You're willing to do something great. You're willing to have a life where you will take risks, where you will do something great. And the benefactors of that will not just be you, it will be the people you love in ways you can't imagine. But someday you'll be telling your story just like I am right now. That's just one of thousands of stories that I could tell you that have come true. Dreams that have come true that weren't even visions of mine because of the road I decided to choose in my life. And so I don't want you to cheat you or your family or your loved ones or anybody else out of all these dreams that you haven't even had yet, all these moments that you can't even imagine yet because you yield to the other road. So please, stay on the great road when I tell you you're born to do something great in your life with big ways and small ways. I mean it, and I know it because I've done it myself. All right, everybody. I hope you share today's show with somebody that you love, that you believe in, and persuade them, encourage them to get on the road less traveled. It's the path you're supposed to be on. God bless you. This is the Ed Miler Show.