← THE ED MYLETT SHOW
THE ED MYLETT SHOW
The Hidden Pattern Destroying Your Success (Delete Your Old Self) | Ed Mylett
01:46:10
Loading summary
Transcript201 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign. This is the Ed Milet 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. Now, on with the show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm so excited about today's topic. It's probably the number one topic that I get asked about, which is the topic of self sabotage. What do people do in their life subconsciously and unconsciously to sabotage their success or their happiness, their results in general? I'm going to let you in on a secret. I'm kind of an expert on this topic. And not because I'm so perfect, but because I spent so much of my life sabotaging particular areas that I was making progress in. Whether that was in my financial success, I'd get some financial success or business success and then I'd sabotage it. Frankly, even really in my own personal happiness and peace, I'd feel like I'd get a little bit more bliss, a little bit more happiness, a little bit more peace in my life. Then I'd sabotage the results. Even some relationships that I've had, I've sabotaged them. So I'm kind of an expert on this self sabotage thing. I also think I probably become close to an expert on how to stop it and why it happens in the first place. So what I'm going to give you today is the gift of seven things people do to sabotage themselves. Their success, their happiness, their finances, their body, their relationships. I'm going to give you seven of them. But before I do that, because I think these seven things are symptoms that, in other words, when I outline them for you, if you're doing any of them or more than one of them, you are currently sabotaging something. So they're symptoms, but the root cause the disease is something that's never discussed when it comes to sabotage. And I want to cover that today. What's going on behind the scenes in our mind, subconsciously, unconsciously, that's causing us to sabotage things. Because if we can identify that man, we've got a chance of eliminating all of these seven symptoms I'm going to share with you. And so here's how I look at sabotage. See, our lives are dictated. The most powerful force in our life is our personal identity. Our personal identity is like the thoughts, beliefs and concepts that we hold to be the most true about who we believe we are or what we're worth. It's our worthiness but it's even more than that. It's a combination of our experiences, what we're familiar with, what we believe we're worth, our self confidence, all combined creates our identity or who we believe we are. And our identity is very much like a thermostat setting on our lives. So like in the studio right now, it's set at 73 degrees. I checked it right before I started with you. And what's great about that is that thing set at 73 degrees. Guess what's going on in this theater right now. 73 degrees is happening inside here. Here's why the external conditions do not control the conditions of this studio. Right now it's about 85 degrees outside. Externally it's really hot out there. But in here, 73 degrees. Because what happens externally does not control what happens internally in this theater. And here's the story. Same with your life. It's not the external things, it's not how other people are treating you or events going on in the world, or events going on in your life or circumstances outside of your control that dictates your life. What dictates your life is that thermostat setting, your identity. Let me give you an example. And you've probably seen this before with yourself or friends of yours. See if you have multiple thermostat settings, by the way, you have an identity setting, a thermostat setting for your happiness, your finances, your success, your relationships, your physical body. You have multiple, your faith. Let's just take a few of them. Maybe you've had this happen before in your life. But if you have a 73 degree success, thermostat setting, right? And all of a sudden your business is growing, you're at 80, 90, 95 degrees. Maybe you've got a promotion at work or you own your own business and it's growing, but somehow a year later, it comes right back down to what it was before. Was it all the external conditions? Like if you go, oh, it's supply chain, interest rates went up, the economy changed. It's. It always seems like it, those things, but it never is. Because even in those conditions, some people are winning, some people are losing. What's happened is your success started to get higher than your thermostat setting and it becomes unfamiliar to you, you're not used to it, so what do you do? You turn the air conditioner on subconsciously, unconsciously, and you cool your success back down to what you believe you're worth. Or your identity setting. You've seen this happen in your Happiness level. You really believe, Identity wise, you're 73 degrees of happiness. I know, I've seen this for me or peace of mind. Maybe you have a friend or you personally that you know, they got in shape, they 73 degrees of fitness or wellness or vitality, you know, and you see them and they, and they've lost weight, they're going to the gym, they look ripped and great and you're like, my gosh, you dropped 20 pounds, you look incredible. And they're at 85, 90, 100 degrees of fitness. And then you don't see them for a while and you come back in a year and you notice, oh my gosh, they've, they've gained all the weight back, maybe even plus three or four or five pounds. What happened? Because although they changed their workout and their diet, they didn't change the internal thermostat setting. And so at some point, eventually they subconsciously cooled it back down and they get the body they believe they deserve and they're worth. Maybe you've seen this in a relationship. You have a friend who's just their Love Thermostat is 73 degrees of love in their relationships or how much they're going to allow themselves to enjoy. And then they've got this new person, this guy or girl, they're seeing you, you go to dinner with them, they're so happy. They're all lovey dovey, they're at 90, 100 degrees. He or she's perfect for me. They're my soulmate. They're amazing. You're like, oh my gosh, they finally found 100 degrees of love. But if inside there's still a 73 degree or you come back in a year, maybe you haven't seen them and you're like, hey, what happened to so and so? Oh, it didn't work out. We grew apart, we had different values, just didn't click long term. They cheated, whatever it might be. What happened was you turn the air conditioner on of your life and you cooled it back down to what you believe you're worth. So this identity, this thermostat setting dictates everything. So if we can change that thermostat setting. And by the way, there's lots of ways we do it. In my book, the Power of One More, I have entire chapters on how do you elevate your thermostat setting? I recommend you go get the Power of One More, but I'll give you a few of them today. You always hear you're really the five people you hang around the most. Well, why that matters is because people that you hang around that have thermostat settings higher than yours will heat you up somewhere in between their setting and yours. Let me give you an example of what I mean. You can't possibly be. If you're a 73 degree fitness person, you're a little bit out of shape. But you're hanging around and going to dinner and working out with people that are 100, 120 degrees of fitness and wellness and vitality. They will heat you up somewhere between where you're 73 and their 120 is because you're eating with them, you're working out with them. See, progress is influence, proximity is influence. So they heat you up. Same thing in your success. If, if you start running around, you're 73 degree person of success, you're just kind of right down here. But all of a sudden you start hanging around people that are at 90, 100, 120 degrees. You've got mentors and friends that are 120, 150. They heat you up by proximity. So there's faith, there's association, and there's intention. These are three things I call the trilogy of increasing one's identity. So association is a big one. So that's why it's important to evaluate who are you hanging around. Do they just make you feel good? Do they validate your thermostat settings or do they increase your thermostat settings? So identity is a major, major root cause disease of self sabotage. And again, we're going to cover the seven symptoms in a minute. The other thing to evaluate is in our life, remember this, we like to move towards what's familiar. And we all want to have a sense of self control in our life. So we move towards what's familiar. And we don't like the feeling of being out of control. So I'm going to submit to you something that maybe you've never heard before. You probably have never heard the thermostat analogy, but I'll give you another one. Maybe the reason you self sabotage is because it allows you to predict the future. It allows you to predict what's going to happen, which is giving you the illusion that of self control. Think about that again. Maybe the reason you're self sabotaging is because it allows you to predict what's actually going to happen, because it's going to become familiar. And it gives you this illusion of self control. Maybe that's what's going on behind the scenes. This identity thing where we cool it back down because we don't like to go to the unfamiliar. We don't like to move where we've never been before. And so self sabotage allows our lives to become predictable because they'll stay the way they've always been. Interesting. Now, what are seven symptoms of the two diseases I just described? Number one thing that people do that sabotage themselves. And this is in no order, but I'll give you seven of them. Number one thing they do, they focus on the past. They focus on the past. They look backwards a lot. You know, there's this analogy that the rear view mirror is smaller than the windshield for a reason. Because you should be looking through the windshield. But the truth is the inside of the car that you're sitting in, the present place you're sitting is even bigger than the windshield. And I can tell you that people that are growing, that aren't sabotaging themselves, spend very little time looking in the rearview mirror. They spend some time looking in the windshield forward, but they spend a lot of time fully present at where they are. And if you're looking in the past all the time, you're going to repeat it. If you're looking in the past, the reason you look back there is, it's familiar. The reason you can look back there is, you can predict it. The reason, the reason you look back there is you've tied a story to it that you're very familiar with. And so people that self sabotage keep looking to the past and wonder why they can't move into their future. Or every time they step into a new future, they end up sabotaging it. Because you're bringing the past with you because you focus there. Stop focusing on the past or you're going to be sabotaging. And if you are focusing on the past, you're in the middle of sabotaging something right now. It could be your relationship, your success, your finances, your body, your faith, your emotions. But if you focus on the past, you're going to get more of it. And by the way, even if you're reminiscing about a past that somehow you've created a story that's better than your future, all you're doing is reinforcing the negative emotions of what you have now. Second thing that people do that self sabotage, they focus on what they don't have, they focus on the lack of things. People that focus on lack end up replicating it and getting more of what they don't want to have. When you focus on what you don't have the relationship you don't have the body, you don't have that you're not as beautiful as you want to be, or as tall as you want to be, or as smart as you want to be, or you don't have the connections or the relationship or the degree or what you think is the. The notoriety or the followers on Instagram or the friends or whatever it might be. When you focus on what you don't have, I promise you, that's a symptom of somebody who's in the midst of sabotaging something in their life or who is going to just already look at this. You focus on the past, you focus on what you don't have. You are already turning the air conditioners on of your life. Even if it hasn't shown up in the result yet, it's about to because you're cooling things back down again. The third thing that people, to sabotage themselves do is they compare. They compare themselves to other people. Remember, this comparison is the thief of joy. But they also do something really interesting. They don't just compare themselves to other people, by the way. Let's just stay on that for a second. You're comparing yourself typically to the most filtered, sanitized version of most people's lives, which is what you see on social media. They've taken 900 pictures to post that one. Then they threw a filter on it. Right? And you're comparing what is going on in your real life to the lives of other people. And by the way, I'm going to tell you something. I was at dinner the other night, about two nights ago, and I observed this family that was a couple tables down from us. And man, it was just one of those nights. We've all had that in our family. Nobody was getting along. The kids were screaming. Mom and dad were mad at each other, saying some nasty things, yelling at the kids. One of the daughter had hit the son. We've all had something like that happen, but it was a really difficult night for that family. And man, they were going at it. And it was not a pleasant evening. It was not a joyful dinner. There was not a lot of bliss, not a lot of peace. And I remember the little girl actually hit her little brother and he started crying. The dad said something he shouldn't have said. Then the mom was mad at the dad for what he said to the child. And then the server came over and they said, would you take a picture of her family? And then all of a sudden, all the noise, all the chaos, all the anger, all the Frustration stopped and sat down daddy's lap. You smile. And then they took a picture for four seconds. Hey. And it was like this blissful, joyous picture that in no way, I'm sure they posted, in no way represented what was actually going on in that family at any given time during that dinner. It was four seconds of a fake picture of emotions that weren't taking place. But imagine if you saw that picture of that amazing family and the minute you see it, you compare it to your family and the mess that you think it is right now or the great time. Every doesn't seem like everyone on social media is on vacation. Everyone's partying, everyone's somewhere cool, everyone's got great friends, everyone looks amazing, everyone's happy. And then there's you in your real life. That's one way that people compare. Maybe you compare to the version, the mask that most people wear in front of you, of how happy and successful and confident, and you're comparing their confidence and success, the mask they're wearing, to how you really feel. You know what's the most unfair thing you can do to a relationship that's mature, where you've been in it for 4, 5, 6, 7 years or 10 years, or 20 years? One of the most unfair things you can do is to compare that time that you're in currently in your relationship to the first six months or the first year when everything was new, everything was blissful, you were getting to know one, everyone was on their best behavior, you had no negative memories at that time. And you compare your current relationship with someone to the exact same relationship you had with them except when it started, or worse. You compare the relationship you're into, a previous one you had with another person. It doesn't even need to be another person. It could just be another time with the same person. None of that is fair. Maybe you're comparing your life right now to five years ago or eight years ago, or when you were in this or that or this career or that job. Comparison is the thief of joy. Don't compare yourself to other people. Don't compare yourself to their sanitized versions on social media, the masks they wear. And don't compare your life to another time in your life or a relationship to another relationship or even the current relationship and a just a different time in that relationship. You're getting ready to sabotage your relationship, your success, your happiness, your emotions. If you compare so so far, people that sabotage focus on the past. They focus on what they lack or don't have. And they compare the fourth thing people do that sabotage themselves is they focus on things they can't control instead of the things they can control. There's a lot of different things you can't control. You can't control other people, you can't control their behavior, you can't control the market, you can't control interest rates, you can't control what's going on in the world around you. You know, one of the great distractors in life that steals people's joy is the media. The media is constantly feeding you things that you cannot control, that you ought to be very upset about. And many of the things that you see you should be upset about. There's so many things going on in the world that are tragic and hurtful and disgusting and make you wonder about humanity. And you should spend some of your time focusing on those things and trying to make a difference for them. But at the same time, if you obsess in that world, in the media of all things, you can't control all of them. You begin to become habitual about focusing on other things you can't control in your life. And you're going to sabotage your own life. You're going to don't focus on people, things, events that you cannot control. Now there are things you can have some influence over by speaking out and having an opinion. You understand the difference that I'm making here. You know exactly what I mean. But what I am saying is when you become somebody who repetitively and habitually constantly focuses on events, people, things, circumstances that you cannot control, here's what I do know. You can't control other people. If you think you're going to control that person you're in a relationship with, you're going to sabotage it. If you think you're going to control that client or customer of yours, you're going to control the conditions of the world, you're going to control the market, you're going to control politics in the world, you're going to have a life that's probably going to have a lot of self sabotage. So don't do that. Influence it. Be informed, but don't try to control. Dell PCs with Intel inside are built for the moments that matter, for the moments you plan and the ones you don't. Built for the busy days that turned into all night study sessions. The moment you're working from a cafe and realize every outlet's taken, the times you're deep in your flow and the absolute last thing you need is an auto update throwing off your momentum. That's why Dell builds tech that adapts to the way you actually work. Built with long lasting batteries so you're not scrambling for the closest outlet. And built in intelligence that makes updates around your schedule, not in the middle of it. They don't build tech for tech's sake, they built it for you. Find technology built for the way you work@dell.com DellPCS built for you. So I'm trying to keep fewer things, but I'm trying to keep better ones. Pieces that are well made and easy to wear all the time. And that's why I'm coming back to quints. The fabrics feel about. The fabrics feel elevated, the fits are thoughtful and the pricing actually makes sense. I've been getting a lot of compliments on what I've been wearing on the show. And 90% of what I have on I got at Quince. Quince makes high quality everyday essentials using premium materials like 100% European linen. And they're insanely soft flow knit activewear fabric which everybody knows I love. Their men's linen pants and shirts are lightweight, breathable and comfortable. Basically the perfect layer for spring. The best part is that their prices are 50 to 60% less than similar brands. So refresh your wardrobe with quince. Go to quince.comed for free shipping and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. Go to q U-N-E.com quince/ed for free shipping and 365 day Returns. Quince.comed roll it. Fifth thing that people do who self sabotage. They get discouraged. You know, as a believer, as a faith based person, I believe there's an adversary. And I believe the adversary is number one weapon he will use against you in your life. To get you to sabotage your life is to get you discouraged. If I can just get you down, I don't have to get you to completely fail. That's the easy way. I just need to get you discouraged. I need you to lose an account. I need you to miss a sale. If I'm the adversary, I just need someone to say something mean or negative to you. I just need a couple letdowns to happen. If I can get you discouraged, you'll sabotage the rest of it for me if I'm the adversary. So people that sabotage themselves, they get discouraged. And what discouraged mean is they lack courage discouraged. So the antidote to that is to stay courageous is to feel fear and step into it anyway. Is to feel the rejection and move forward is to have the sale not won or the close not Happen and learn from it and grow from it rather than be discouraged from it. So the fifth thing is people that sabotage themselves get discouraged. The sixth thing they do, they get distracted. They don't focus on the things they can control and they get distracted. They get distracted by social media, they get distracted by the media, they get distracted by what other people are doing. They get distracted by habits that don't serve them. One thing I would encourage you to do is make a list of the things that typically distract you. There's three or four things that constantly distract you from where you're going or what you want. If you're in a relationship, maybe it's being distracted with other people. If you're in business, it's being distracted with the media or social media. It may be in the gym and you're not training as hard as you want to because you're distracted by watching television instead of getting up and going for your workout. Whatever the thing is that distracts you, make a list of those things and do everything you can to eliminate or reduce them. And self sabotage, these symptoms begin to go away. Remember, these are the symptoms of the greater disease of the thermostat and the illusion of control. And then seven, believe it or not, one thing that people do that get a lot of self sabotage in their life is they get a little bit of success. They just get a taste of success. And that taste of success, they cool it. In other words, if it's in their business life, they get a little bit of progress. They get a promotion at their job, or if they own a business, they've grown their income, they're at a level they were never at before. Just a little bit of success, man, you'll start to sabotage things a little bit. I'm amazed when I watch this. But people that get a little bit of progress in their business and then they cool it, they don't make the same effort that got them that little bit of success. Let me say that to you again. The very thing, the effort you made, the behavior, the relentless pursuit that got you that little taste of success. You stop doing or reduce the amount of the thing that got you the success in the first place. And now you're sabotaging the very success you got. Believe it or not, one of the big instigators of self sabotage is a little bit of progress, a little bit of success, you cool it. Literally, you cool down your life with the thermostat. Setting that term, dad, don't cool it doesn't just mean stop your activity Cool. It means you've cooled the life back down, the success back down, the body back down, the emotions back down. You've started cool it down. Because guess what, that little bit of success is unfamiliar. And now you want that illusion of control that I talked about in the beginning. I'm going to get this back to what I'm used to because I can control it, I can predict it, so it's subconscious. But you literally stop doing the things that got you the little bit of success. The very thing you would think we would all, wouldn't we, as adults go, well, I did this, this and this. It got me that result. I will do more of it to get more success. But most people, once they get a little bit of progress, a little bit of success, not only, not even do the same amount, they do less of it. They celebrate too long, they cool it down, they do less of the very activity that produced the result in the first place and it becomes this like chasing their tail thing where they do something to produce a result or an emotion or something in their body and then they do less of it. Take your body, maybe you ate a particular way for three or four months. Amount of calories, amount of protein, amount of hydration, right. Amount of cardio you do, the way you lift it, it produced a change, then you get that change. And not only do you not do the same amount, you should be doing more of it, you do less of it and sabotage the result. Or in business, there's a certain amount of contacts and phone calls or emails or posts you made to produce that little bit of progress and success, you get the success. And rather than doubling down and doing more of it, or at least the same amount of it, you do less of it or none of it and sabotage the very progress that you made. That is the absolute manifestation of turning the air conditioner on and cooling your life back down. So let's review these seven symptoms of the disease of self sabotage. Focus on the past, focus on what you don't have. Compare focus on everything you can't control, get discouraged, get distracted, and have a little bit of success. Those seven things are symptoms of people who are probably going to sabotage their lives. Why? Because they haven't increased their thermostat setting, their identity setting to 85, 90, 100. See, you can acquire all the skills to be successful, all the tools, man. You can have the Ferrari of talents or the Ferrari of opportunities, but if you're driving a Honda of an identity, you're going to get Honda results. No offense to Honda. But you know exactly what I mean, right? The truth of the matter is you've got to find a way to increase that thermostat setting. And that's through your faith, by focusing on your intentions and through your associations to let those people around you heat you up. One thing to evaluate. We talked about comparing and lack and focusing on the past. I'm going to ask you a question. What about the people you hang around the most? If you took a look at the last 90 days of your four or five best friends, when you're around them, when you talk with them, how much of the conversations are about the past? Remember this? Remember that time? Remember when we were there? You remember. You remember, right? Is there a lot of that? Because if that is the case, you're just reinforcing the past. Or maybe you focus on what you don't have. Or maybe they gossip about other people or they're comparing to other people. Maybe they're constantly talking about what's going on in the world or around you or things they can't control. Maybe they help you get distracted. And when you start to evaluate the people that are around you, I can just tell you something. I've had lots of friends in my life that I've added some toxic people I've had to eliminate. But my best friends get me focusing in the present moment or on where I'm going. And we spend very little time talking about the past. And I'm blessed that many of my friends have incredible past. At this stage of my life, they could talk about the Super Bowls they won or the millions of dollars they made, or the company they built and sold, or the amazing family they've raised. They spend very little time talking about the past. Even when it's incredible, they're focused in the present moment or they're looking through that windshield going to the future. They spend very little time. But if most of the conversations you have with the people around you are on the past, you remember this. Remember that party? Remember that time? Remember this thing? Remember that vacation? Remember that time? Maybe they compared other people. Maybe they gossip about other people. Maybe they focus on what they don't have. Maybe they are constantly reinforcing that you're enough right where you're at. You know, that's one of the things that's frustrating to me is this notion that you're enough right where you're at. Well, yes, you need to accept who you are, but there ought to be this part of you that's hungry to grow. I want my friends not to accept me as I am, but to have high expectations of where I'm going. I want them to love me as I am, but believe I'm capable of more. I don't want them to accept where I'm at. I want them to love me, but not accept where I'm at. In fact, I want them to not accept it. I want them to expect success, expect progress from me, but love me where I am, believe in me where I am. I want people around me that see me as I could be, not as I am. And the more you have those people in your life, the less likely you are to sabotage your life. All right, we covered a lot of things today. I want to remind you of one thing. You were born to do something great with your life. And here's the cool part. You have everything within you right now that you need to make your dreams come true. And you belong in your dreams. Let me say that to you again. You belong in your dreams. And if you can stop sabotaging your progress, your emotions, your body, your relationships, your finances, you're going to be there. And so it's a matter of curing that disease and keeping an eye on these seven symptoms. Once you're aware of your thoughts, they lose their power over you. You become an observer of your thoughts. You are not your thoughts. In fact, not everybody and everything you think is true. I think a lot of things that aren't true. And I challenge my own thinking, my own emotions from time to time. And when you get above them and you observe your own thoughts, you go, my gosh, I'm trying to control this. I'm moving to the past. It's all familiar to me. I'm going to focus in the present and project into the future. You can totally change your life because you belong there. You do not belong repeating the past. You do not belong discouraged. You do not belong comparing. You do not belong focusing on the things you don't have. You should not be focusing constantly on what you can't control. You have no business being discouraged. Don't allow yourself to be distracted. And when you get that little taste of success, get hungrier for more because it's great. Progress is power. That's what you were born to do, is to grow and expand. I've said this many times. I am most focused on the expansion of my being. And I'd love you to be focused on that. Get focus on the expansion of you, of your emotions, of your understanding of your life, of your learning, of the difference you can make the Contributions. You can have the experiences and memories that you can currently have in the ones that are coming your way, not on the ones that already happened. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. All right, welcome back to Max out, everybody. I'm so excited to have this guest here today. By the way, she's made a huge sacrifice. She's at the time of recording this. There's a storm where she lives in Texas. Snows rolled in, there's no power. She went and got a hotel room so that we could do this today. So if you see the background, that's where she is. And you wouldn't know it from the background, but this is one of the most remarkable people I've ever talked to in my life. I had the great honor of being on her show. She's a cognitive neuroscientist, which just even saying those things is a miracle that I can get that out of my mouth, never mind understand what it is. She's one of the most brilliant people you're ever going to meet in your life. She's a best selling author. She's got a PhD in communication pathology. She's brilliant. And you're going to write a bunch of notes today. I mean, like a bunch of notes. So, Dr. Caroline Leaf, thank you for being here and making the sacrifice to be here today.
- [29:02]
B
Ed, I wouldn't have missed this. Thank you so much for that lovely introduction and I just absolutely love talking to you. We had the most amazing talk on when you, when I interviewed you and I think you're incredible as well. So thank you.
- [29:13]
A
I'm a big believer that identity drives so much of our lives. And you being, I've heard you talk about this briefly, but, you know, I think we all are trying to become consistent with whatever this identity is that we think we hold for ourselves. And sometimes the lack of an identity is unbelievably detrimental to someone's life. And I've heard you talk about this, being from South Africa and watching what they tried to do with Mandela. And so could you speak for a minute about the power that identity has over us and a little bit of how we can at least be more aware of the identity we hold and how we can change it to serve us if we need to?
- [29:51]
B
Love your question. It's brilliant and it's so important. Yes. I grew up, I was born in Zimbabwe and that had enough, that country alone had enough problems and still has. And then grew up in South Africa and all my kids were born there and we've been in the states now for 13 years. So I was in South Africa in the apartheid era and the transition and the post. And so by the time I was. Had my first child, my second child that Mandela came into power, we actually, I was carrying my newborn baby and in the. To go vote for Mandela literally and with our, with our housekeeper. And you know, that's how significant that is in my, in my lifetime. But I was working in the pre apartheid, if the pre transition in the apartheid era. And it was horrific. I chose to. I worked across all socioeconomic strata and different political areas. So from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor, education, corporate education. And I spent three days a week working in the. What they called the townships which were areas that they had two apartheid separated out absolutely evil. And the reason I chose to work in all the different environments was to understand mind and humanity. So wherever you are, whatever you in, how does this work and how can we use our mind to help us cope with all these different circumstances? So in terms of identity, absolutely what you experience in your nurturing and in the environment that you grow up in is definitely going to affect how you see yourself because every experience is converted through think, feel, choose into brain. So you can imagine a massive forest, which is your non conscious mind. No N And that massive forest is filled with all different shapes and sizes of trees. And in between the green trees, you've got these little black trees and maybe there's a big clump and maybe there's a little one and some trees are little and some green little black trees from a recent experience and some very big ones from long established experience. So something like racism would be a very, very dominant cluster of dark black trees oozing the warning signal of all the anxiety and the stress and the terrible things that come from something as evil as racism, which is pervasive and affecting ability to actually how you see yourself. And so every bit of nurturing is built into your brain. Every experience is built into your brain. So this forest is influencing. In the middle of the forest, just to give a visual. We have this wide full of optimism bias. So I always explain it like a strip of trees that are perfect in the middle of the forest is this untouched area that's just perfect. And that's. We want, we want to really access that. So if you fly your helicopter, which is you in life, you're flying your helicopter and you kind of, if you, as you develop self regulation, you don't just fly your helicopter and bash into a tree and crash, which is what we do. A lot of that's messy. We want to, we want to know how to not do that. So self regulation teaches us how to fly with the pilot and co pilot. So we're flying over this forest and we're looking at where whatever, whatever smoke signals are coming up where the signals. And if you see there that there's so much of that particular type of black cluster of trees, dark and that's influencing how you see yourself, your identity has been affected. But if you look at your, if you really dig deep and you'll see the middle part of the forest which is you, it's Ed who can do something else that no one else can do. But there's these traumatic experiences that are affecting identity. So they can block and they can become so big that they can actually build like a black war against the green forest. So it's almost hard to see who you really are because you're so busy and being involved in that that you're stuck in that cluster. So that's why I say you've got. Self regulation is not sitting and walking amongst those trees and getting lost, which is what we do. But it is actually getting in the helicopter and flying above and saying, okay, self regulate. What am I doing? What, what's what, why? And you. And the only way you can get to the trees and the forest and all that stuff is by looking at the wind warning signals. So these we track and then, so then you would pay attention, gather awareness of four basic signals. The first is the emotional. So let's say that you're feeling a high state of anxiety that could be. Or depression. Now depression and anxiety are not, it's, they're not illnesses. To say you have clinical depression or clinical anxiety is one of the most unscientific statements of our age and has created a huge problem where people are now betting way more with mental health. Not because mental health is on the the rise, but because the mismanagement of mental health is on the rise. We're not allowing people to talk about the story in the forest. We're just saying, oh. Signal of depression. Five symptoms. You can't sleep, you can't get out of bed, you're feeling whatever suicidal. Okay. Diagnosis, label treatment is mainly medication at the current stage is the gold standard. Some therapy if you're lucky. Okay. And that very often the therapy is putting a band Aid on the wound, because they don't deal with the whole origin story. That's terrible. What we have to do is we have to say, okay, so there is the signal. There is this emotion of depression. It's consistent in your life, or anxiety, or both. Very often it's comorbid together, and terror and despair and anger and a whole bunch of others. It's never just one. So all of this is giving you power and giving you control, shifting the power balance. When you do this, gather in this way, and I'll finish the other three in a moment. You are making 1400 neurophysiological responses work for you and not against you. Your blood vessels around your heart are dilating, which is sending blood flow and oxygen to your brain. That's increasing your ability to think more creatively. It's decreasing impulsivity. I can go on and on and on. So then I know my body is in a state of healing, but when I suppress it, if I don't gather awareness, if I just suppress it, my 1400 neurophysiological responses will work against me. So now about blood vessels around my heart. For example, one of the 1400 will constrict. That means less blood flow, less oxygen to the brain, increased impulsivity, decreased cognitive flexibility. That's just a few. There's a lot more, but I'm just giving a few, not to overwhelm. So I stay in a state of increased vulnerability to disease by 75 to 98% if I don't gather awareness. But if I gather awareness, I shift that the moment I gather awareness. In milliseconds, I've gone from brain damage to brain healing in seconds, in milliseconds. That's phenomenal. This is how important mind management is.
- [36:04]
A
So. Hey, guys, have you ever noticed your sheets slipping off the corners lately? I may. It may sound like a weird question, but it bugs me. Or maybe your pillows, they just don't feel like they support you anymore. Most people actually keep their bedding way longer than they should. And I'm telling you on the podcast, the most important thing we keep talking about for your energy, your wellness, and your longevity and your cognitive function is sleep. And that's why I upgraded our bed with bowl and branch. They make everything your bed needs. Their signature organic cotton sheets, pillows, blankets, comforters are all designed to be breathable, incredibly soft, and better over time. I'm telling you, I'm kind of chuggling because they're so comfy and my sleep has improved so much. Upgrade your sleep with bowl and Branch get 15 off your first order plus free shipping@bolandbranch.com mylet and use code mylet that's bowl and Branch B O L L a n d branch.com mylet code mylet to unlock 15% off exclusions apply. It's always when you stop doing something that you realize how much it mattered. I'd been taking IM8 for a while. I was feeling great and then life just kind of got busy and we switched houses and then I skipped a bunch of days. My energy dropped, my focus was gone and it reminded me just how much it had been helping me the entire time I was taking ima. If you've been looking for something easy to stick with that actually makes you feel better, this might be it for me. It's becoming something I rely on. I notice when I miss it. Give your body what it deserves with im8go to im8health.com ED and use code ED for a free welcome kit. Five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order. Seriously, this is one of those offers you'll wish you jumped on sooner. That's im8health.com ED and use code ED for a free welcome kit. Five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order. Imahealth.com ED code ED these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
- [38:05]
B
So then I gather, and this is not hard. It is hard, but it's not hard. It's hard because we have got very. We just wanted. We want quick fixes. There's no quick fix when it comes to mind. This is a lifestyle. So you gather awareness of your emotional stuff. The depression, anxiety, label it, be specific. Then you're going to gather awareness of your physical state. Heart flushing, GI symptoms, tension in your shoulders. What is physically going on alongside this emotional stuff could be a series of things. There's no cookie cutter, anything. You have a unique signal guide. Then you're going to look at your behavioral signals. In other words, what are you doing? How are you speaking? How are you, how are you connecting with others? How are you doing your work? How you just with yourself, all the behaviors, how you speaking, how you whatever, what's your creativity like? So what are your behaviors when you're in this state? And then you're going to go to your perspective. As I start getting specific about looking at these emotional, physical and behavioral warning signals, I'm actually looking at the branches. I'm looking at this, these because they. Memories. The tree is made of memories. So I'm. The signals have drawn me in and those have been these, what I've just described. But now as I land my tree, I'm starting to look a little closer at these signals. And so now I also want to look at what my perspective is. What is the tree trunk? What's the perspective of. What's this giving me? Life sucks or I hate life, or it's not with living or there's just no purpose or what's the. Then you start that. So by the time you've done that, you've objectively gathered all these apples in your basket, you control them. Now you go to looking at the detail. What is this mean? What's the data? That's when you reflect. So reflect is ask, answer, discuss, ask, answer, discuss. Put the thoughts on trial, do that autopsy, that mental brain surgery without the blood. Why? And then you answer why? And you discuss why and you dig, dig, dig. Anyway, so when you write, you can write in lines. But I would recommend you learn how to make a metacog. It is unbelievable. In therapy, when I used to still practice, we would have people battling with schizophrenia, which is not a disease, it is a broken mind. It is someone who's gone through so much trauma that they're disassociating their minds. Disassociated. It's a symptom of an underlying trauma. And very often they can get multiple personalities because it's coping, it's pure survival. So this system of the neuro cycle in the extreme form, we would use that and by the time we got to writing, I could show I could have a subject who had split their personality, their minds because of trauma, as they writing onto the medic in the medical. Which is a pattern in the middle on branches like a tree, like a branch grows, each branch grows out the previous branch and leaves are growing on the branches. That's what you do, you grow branches and you put your words on the branches and you just like literally pour your brain on paper. As we did this, we would. The sub patients would actually see, oh, same, they're talking about the same thing. But suddenly there's three different perspectives. The fourth step is then to recheck. It's to look at what you've written. The third step is messy. It's like words all over the place. The fourth step is where you start connecting. What are the patterns? What is the antidote? What is the. What do I need to reconceptualize, see it differently if we use an algebraic example, we all probably remember X plus Y equals Z. Even if we didn't understand it, I'm sure all of us can recall X plus Y equals Z. And the concept there is that X plus Y creates something kind of new that's over. It's like sort of replaces. I'm not saying that. I'm saying X plus Y equals xy. Reconceptualization is xy because it's your story that you don't want to just Z. I'm putting a band aid on. I'm not fixing the issue. And that's. What if you just. If you just do like 10 CBT, you know, cognitive behavior therapy. Not that I'm saying it's bad. You can use cbt, but CBT fits in step five. If you want it to work for you, you've got to first find out what's going on, and then you. But if you just. Or positive affirmations people use, they're feeling terrible or they want to achieve a goal. Ten of those in the morning, 10 at night, it's a band aid. It's not going to be sustainable because you have to find out what you. What are you trying to drown with the affirmation. So you want the affirmation to work, you have to go through the neuro cycle. Then the affirmation will work as a first step. You know, that's how you've got to change perspective.
- [42:09]
A
That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest.
- [42:19]
C
Hey, I want to jump straight in. You know, I've had a chance to get through all the way through. Power. One more. Good. I got to be honest with you. It's by far one of my best books this year that I've been through. I haven't seen so much packed into one set of bookends and I don't know how long.
- [42:36]
A
Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah.
- [42:38]
C
One of the things that stuck out to me is this intention is the currency of identity or changing your identity. Explain that to everybody, because I thought that was powerful.
- [42:48]
A
Well, I didn't learn. It's not mine. I learned it from Wayne Dyer, actually. I probably have made it my own. But many, many years ago, I was running on a beach in Hawaii. I met Wayne Dyer. He ran by me. We ended up sitting on the beach together for about an hour and a half. I was very young. If you don't know who Wayne Dyer is, Google him. He's one of the icons of, you know, thought leadership. Anyway, when we were done, he goes, ed, you're going to change the world. And I don't know if he said that to a lot of people or not, but to me it was incredible.
- [43:10]
B
Yeah.
- [43:11]
A
And he goes, and you're just this big brain, the way you speak and make people feel things and you know, you're very talented, man. He goes, would you. But that's not why. And I said, well, he goes, and please never base your self confidence on or your identity on your abilities or your achievements. I went, well, what the heck are you supposed to base it on then? And he said, in your case, your intentions, you have a warm, huge, beautiful heart. You want to help people and your intentions are so huge, they're so beautiful that that's why you're going to change the world. Always focus on your intention. There's a power to intentions. He happened to be writing a book by that title at the time. Long story short, it was the first time someone had complimented me where I believed it. I've never believed I was that smart or that special or that talented. But I did know I had a good heart. And so since that day, for the most part, man, even preparing for something like this today, my confidence, my identity comes from my intention to serve, my intention to make a difference. So many people are chasing that tail of once I'm achieving something, once I'm really great, then I'll have confidence. That's not where mine comes from. Mine comes from intention and that's what I recommend in the book.
- [44:09]
C
Yeah, no, I love that. You know, it's one, it's interesting to me. I was just thinking through that, you know, we didn't get a chance because the event was so busy, we didn't get a chance to spend a lot of time together. But you and I have a lot of similarities in our backstories.
- [44:21]
A
You told me that, but I don't know what they are. Yeah, yeah.
- [44:23]
C
So my father was an alcoholic for a number of years and I watched him really struggle back and forth to try to get a handle on it. And you know, when I was thinking through the intentions, I remember him actually having a similar conversation that your dad had with you. But I'm going to try one more time.
- [44:42]
A
Really? Wow. Yeah.
- [44:43]
C
And lo and behold, I did it. Did.
- [44:46]
A
Yeah.
- [44:47]
C
He's been sober for 35 plus years. Fantastic grandfather and the whole deal, man.
- [44:51]
A
Thank God that's Wonderful. Yeah.
- [44:54]
C
But the intention behind the meat, that intent behind going through, by making that, well, an importance.
- [45:02]
A
Right? Yeah. I think. I think most of the things we do great in our life come from love. My dad got sober because he loved his family enough to try again. Your dad got sober enough because he loved you and loved your family enough to try again, hopefully loved himself. But oftentimes, you know, we have to find something we love. It may not be us, but all great things are achieved through love. And that sounds corny with two dudes talking that lift weights and stuff, but the fact of the matter is, it's true. And when I focus on who I love or what I love, that's much bigger than whatever the obstacle is in my way. And that's always given me the fuel and the energy to, you know, persevere where maybe other people quit or gave in.
- [45:34]
C
Yeah. How much of that intention is cycles into self sabotage?
- [45:39]
A
What do you mean? What do you mean by that?
- [45:41]
C
Well, to me, if you have a focused intention you're in, you're intentionally choosing a direction where self sabotage appears to be a lot more subconscious.
- [45:51]
A
Well. Well, self sabotage comes from that internal identity that whatever you're about to go do, you don't believe you're worthy of, or even if you get it, you'll blow it. Like, you've heard me talk many times about the thermostat analogy. It's in the book. But the truth is, if you don't get this internal thermostat, your identity high enough, no matter what you achieve, you're going to turn the air conditioners on in your life and cool it back down again to what you believe you're worth. I just, I. And, and I watch this all the time on my new show. I have a new TV show what's gonna be streaming, called Change with Ed Mylett. And this woman, one of the guests on the show was a woman. She gained 180 pounds, lost 90, gained it back. Lost 90, gained it back. And I said, the challenge for you, Angie, is you believe you're a heavy woman who happens to have lost weight. And because that's the case, your identity is a heavy woman. You always get back there and turn the air conditioners back on. But what if the truth was you've always been a healthy, fit woman who had gained weight, and if we could switch that identity now, we won't sabotage ourselves again. Sabotage is really the process of getting what we believe we're worth. Yeah, we're really getting what we believe we're Worth. So we're trashing the current results of the current situation to get back to what our thermostat setting is and that we call that sabotage, but it's just getting back to what we believe we're worth.
- [47:01]
C
Yeah. At least for me. You know, I. Again, we didn't get a chance to super connect, just one on one. But, you know, part of my backstory is, you know, overcoming homelessness and some other things to kind of get where I'm at today. And it was something in the book that you mentioned I thought was pretty powerful. And it was a huge shift for me, which is one of the reasons I wanted to bring it up, which is this essence of operating out of history.
- [47:21]
A
Yeah.
- [47:21]
C
Versus operating out of future.
- [47:23]
A
Yeah.
- [47:23]
C
I kept telling myself I was the high school dropout because I had to pay the bills and help the family and all that kind of stuff. I kept telling myself for a number of years. And then one of my first mentors, old man Myrick, told me, he said, you know, he said, you're you. There's two ways to think. You can either learn to think like me, you can learn to think like your dad. Which one will it be? Right here?
- [47:42]
A
Yeah, right here.
- [47:44]
C
Talk to me about history, man. Talk to me about operating at a history versus.
- [47:47]
A
Well, 1% of all people operate out of their imagination and their dreams, and 99% operate out of history and memory. And this is a really insidious thing. We don't even realize we're doing it. When we're children, we're happier. Why? My belief is we were just more recently with God. And two, we don't have a history in memory, so we're forced to operate out of imagination. And then at some point, for some children like you and I, we start getting a history early because it's thrust upon us with an alcoholic dad or whatever. But for the most part, most kids, it's 10, 12, 15 years old, they start operating of history and memory. And what we do in our life is we move towards what we're most familiar with. So you become familiar with this history and memory, and you just move towards the same emotions over and over again, same thoughts over and over again. Even if the external circumstances change, the we move, we. Our life is our emotions. We move towards the same thing, and that ties into associations. We all heard, hey, you're going to be the product of the five people you hang around. That's old school, right?
- [48:37]
B
Yeah.
- [48:37]
A
How do you know who it should be? What's. What's one thing. No one's ever told you before, I'll give it to you right now. It's in my book. If your peer group operates out of history and memory, they don't serve you like they should. I'll give you an example. If when you're with your friends, it's like, man, you remember. You remember. You remember that. You remember high school, you remember that one thing. You remember that. You mount. You, you. Yeah, right. And that's what most friends do together. Yeah, I don't have a lot of that. I have a little bit of it. And by the way, my peer group have great histories and memories they can operate out of. Yeah, but they don't. When we're together, you almost got to force them. What we're doing is we're talking about imagination and dreams. What are you working on right now? Where are you going? What's it going to look like? You can't. You think you can get Tom Brady to talk about past Super Bowls all the time? Dude, come on, man. He's talking about, hey, I got this new crypto thing. I've got this new watch. I've got this new business thing I'm doing. I got this nft. We're going to win the super bowl this year in Tampa. I want to get ring eight, whatever it is. You talk to Tim Cook, who runs Apple. He's not talking about Max from 20 years ago. He's talking about what they're working on now and where they're going as a company. And so the people around you, if it's history and memory, that's one little key. Like, I'm not saying drop people. I'm not a big believer in that. Unless they're toxic, you don't got to do. But you got to add. And so this is how critical imagine. It's like, probably you probably asked me one of the four or five most important things in life. What is your frame of reference? History or memory or imagination and vision. It's okay to have some history and memory. We learn from it. But going back there, you cannot be in both zones at one time. So if you're in history and memory, you are not envision and imagination. And you were born to imagine. You were born to dream. You were born to do something great with your life. And I just remember that's something I want to talk about tonight in my speech. Thank you for giving me that question. Hold on. Go ahead, keep going. I'm going to write a note down because that was really good. Before we start the interview with my Next guest. Just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now, on with the show. Hey, welcome back to Max out with Ed Mylett. It is great to have you with us today. And today is a power couple edition of the program. And I cannot think of a more powerful couple to have on the program today. So I'm sure you recognize both these people. But to my right is Brooks Light from the NHL and from the life change space and all kinds of different spaces we're going to talk about here going forward. And this is Julianne Huff to my left. So thank you both for being here today.
- [51:00]
D
Yes, sir.
- [51:01]
E
I appreciate you, brother.
- [51:03]
A
I think that if I want to give people a gift that are. That are watching this, it would be if they could have lunch with you and they could sit down or they got 10 minutes with you and there weren't cameras around and they could just ask you something, Right? So I'll ask you first, Brooks, and then I'll have Jules answer. But if they ask you, hey, man, like, I want to make my family proud of me. I want to chase the best version of me. I want to create this business. I want to transform my body. I want a transformation in my life. Right. What advice would you give me overall on creating a transformation in my life and chasing the best version of me?
- [51:34]
E
The first. Honestly, the first thing I'd ask you is, what do you want? When you ask somebody that question, like, Ed, what do you want? You. And people give you a little she? No, no, no, no. You just you in your life, and sometimes it takes a while for people to get the courage to get it
- [51:52]
A
out and to get clear. Huh? And get specific. It's very general. Too much.
- [51:56]
E
Tell me exactly what you want. Yeah, okay. You want it? Why do you want that? Great. That is exactly. That's what I start in my life. What do I want? Why do I want it? This what I want. I don't know how, but this is what. This is enough for me to then apply my intelligence and my resources, everything to figure out and execute that. But you need to know first, man. You need a target before you can release. You're pulling a bow, you need a. Somewhere to shoot it before you let it go. So I like asking people that question. What do you want at your core? Don't BS me. I can see through that. If you're taking up 10 minutes you got 10 minutes of my time. Let's go. Let's get to it now. And then everything else is a distraction. Everything that doesn't lead to this exact thing that you just told me is a distraction, even though you might like it, Maybe it's part time, maybe get rid of it. As Tony says, burn the boats.
- [52:46]
A
Yeah.
- [52:47]
E
You know, like, my parents had that, that conversation with me at the supper table. Like, what if you can't be a hockey player? Like, dad was a principal. He's like, you should have an education in your back or in your back pocket. I'm like, dad, I'm gonna be a hockey player. And he's like, well, what if you don't? What if you hurt your knee? I rehab it and I become a hockey player. And I burned the boats. I got rid of. This is what I want. And I didn't know how, but When I was 14, I didn't know how I was gonna make the NHL, but the NHL was already in my hands. I owned it. I owned it. It was mine. My friends that would try and get me to drink or go to parties or smoke. Still some of my best friends in my life. They were my groomsmen, but they tried to get me off that path. But I was like, you guys don't even know it. I'm five years away from this in the NHL. I'm 14, but I'm 19 in the NHL already. Like, I knew what I wanted. Didn't know how, but I knew what I wanted. And I knew why, because it was how I was going to express. It was what I needed to do with my life. So I. I would try and get that out of a person. And everything else is a distraction.
- [53:40]
A
100%. I posted today. Today I made a post. I said, the extraordinary are fueled by why, and the average are always stuck with how. And so. And what I find when I ask people that question, it's why I don't do it on the show anymore. I've had too many, even of my own guests. When I go, what do you want? It's very vague. It's very vague. And. And so the rarest thing is to ask somebody that question. They can give you a specific, clear, compelling answer.
- [54:08]
E
The other thing, like, I just. You posted that today. I posted yesterday. If you're going to have one thing in your life, you're going to have one thing. Have a magnificent obsession with getting better.
- [54:17]
A
Bingo.
- [54:17]
E
Whatever it is, whatever's your like, you wake up and that's what I'm doing now. If I'm not in hockey. I'm following the flow of my life. What do I gravitate towards? Because I'm not getting paid for it. But what's. What's my thing that I love that's telling me where I should be? And I have a magnificent obsession with improving that.
- [54:34]
A
Yes.
- [54:35]
E
And it will find a way to monetize itself.
- [54:37]
A
You'll be successful. It really does, by the way. It really does.
- [54:40]
E
And you're obsessed towards your curiosities and your obsessions.
- [54:43]
A
Your obsessions become your possessions. You're going to. You're going to possess what you're obsessed with. And here's the issue for most people. They. They're obsessed with their fears. They're obsessed with what they're worried about. They're obsessed with what other people think about them. They're obsessed with all of these things, and you end up possessing these things.
- [55:00]
E
You said earlier, and I fully believe that we are so much more capable.
- [55:03]
A
Yes.
- [55:04]
E
Than we. Than we even know. There's so much. There's even in you. I mean, you've been uber successful in your life, and, man, you haven't even. You're just starting to scratch. Like, there's. There's so much left. And my wife, too, and me. Like, people. We're doing well, and a lot of people are doing well, and. But we are so much more. And it just fires me up and lights me up to even think, like, just ripping that open. What does that even look like today? Even that thought, like, think bigger. My wife is great at this. She challenged me at this. She thinks so big. And sometimes I'm like, that's not even. You want. Like, you want a spaceship with a hot tub and a yard?
- [55:41]
A
I don't know what you want. I don't even know where we're going here. Come back to Earth a little bit. But, like, we. We think big like that.
- [55:48]
F
Elon Musk and I, we get it.
- [55:52]
E
It's going to pull you higher, and you need to get like you are. I just believe, man, that people are so. Life can be so much better. You're so much more capable. Just sink. Sink your energy and your time, your intensity, your passion into it. Everything else is a distraction.
- [56:08]
A
Dude, you're firing me the haircut right now. Serious. And by the way, I kind of want to, like, punch, slap, go do something big with you right now. But, like. But what's in. But what's interesting about that? Just. And I'm gonna let Jules wrap things up on that. But, like, I just want to Tell you all this, too. Like, watch what we're doing to each other here. The other thing I want you to see, right, is I want you to find mentors and friends who could stretch and move and motivate you. Not just old validate you, not just always make you laugh. Hey, bro, good to see you. I have tons of friends like that. People say, oh, drop your friends. No, you don't have to drop any friend in your life, but you got to add people who stretch you and push you and get you to visualize and inspire you, Right? Like, that's part of the formula. If you don't have them, you got to do it yourself for now, but still be seeking out those people.
- [56:56]
F
So, you know, people always say that, like, with, like, celebrities. Oh, people are always being the yes man. But we have yes men in our personal lives, too. So, like, that is exactly what you said. You know, it's like, it's not just celebrities. It's everybody. Like, we have yes men all over the place. Like, stop validating me. Tell me what to do. Like, just actually, like, call me out.
- [57:16]
A
There should be some friends you ever, like, you got to clean up the house before they come over, man. Like, you should have some people, like, hey, there's some still people you want to have your A game for in your life, right? So this is unreal. I'm just telling you straight up. Like, I'm like, this is unreal. I feel so blessed, but I want to finish with you. So it's hard to add to any of this.
- [57:33]
F
I know it is.
- [57:34]
A
You know, but. But you've had all this experience. You've traveled the world. You had this amazingly unique childhood. You've attracted this dream man. You've had all these achievements, and you're remaking yourself again, which I admire so much. And in five more years, you'll be remaking again. I know that, but what advice would you give to. Maybe it's a woman, I don't know, that's listening to this and says, hey, I want something special in my life. What would you say that maybe we haven't added yet? What would you add to it? Is there something.
- [58:00]
F
I mean, the first thing that just popped in when you were talking just now is that it is about reinventing yourself all the time and continuing to grow. I think, you know, a lot of people are like, you've changed. And your response should be like, thank you. You know, and it's like, you know, and it's amazing that, you know, we tell ourselves our stories of who we are, but that's who we were. Like, we're continuing, growing, and, like, becoming the people that we're building, you know? And, like, as we become the person that we're becoming and the achievements and the things that we want, it's not about what we want. It's about who we want to be when we have all of this. And so I think at the end of the day, it always comes back to us. And it's like, what is it? Not what is it that I want to be, but who is it that I want to be? And I said it, I think, at the very beginning when we were talking about how we met. What you put out into the universe is what you're going to get. And if you're putting negative thoughts, if you're saying, like, I don't know how, I don't know how to do this. I can't do that. I can't do that. Instead of, like, visualizing, putting your goals, like, do a one year, do a three year, do a five year, do a ten year, do it like one month. And do small achievable goals so that you can actually attain them and celebrate them and realize, like, I have the power to do these things. And then you get this confidence of who are you are? And then it just. Things just start happening. Like, it's an amazing thing, whether it's God, the universe, whatever you believe, your own innate willpower, whatever you put out, you're gonna get. And so, like, put out some good shit, guys.
- [59:50]
A
Jules, you're so right. Like, you said something else. I just want to layer on, like, I'm just moved. It's gonna be, obviously, that's so damn good. But you all said earlier, you said something, you said, I'm enough at one point. You're enough. It's like, you have to. To accept right now you have everything within you. You need to go win. You're all you need to be right now to go win. You're getting better. To prepare you for the next moment and the next moment, right?
- [60:09]
F
And one of my. Sorry I cut you off. One of my favorite analogies and visualizations of this is if your cup is full and somebody's pouring into it all this information and, like, more like, you know, I can help you with this. And it's just overflowing. You're like, I can't deal with this. This is too much. It's too much, it's too much. You sometimes just have to pour it out, and then you can start filling up again. You know, it's like, you know what you know right now, and that's great, and that's gonna get you to that next step. But once you're there, pour that damn cup out and start over, you know? And it's like all this new information comes in, and then you're able to actually download it, receive it, so.
- [60:52]
A
Good. Were you gonna say something on that?
- [60:53]
F
Sorry. I get excited.
- [60:55]
E
We do a lot of, like, creative planning stuff in our. In our garage. And it was actually. We were talking about this the other day because we're trying to. She was helping me with the next stage of my life, my reinvention and something we put up on the board. Her brother Derek was also helping, and we put up on the board, what do we want to do? And who do we need to become to do it? And it's exactly what she's talking about is. And we talked about, have your vision, what you want to do. Okay, that's great. And then who do I need to become to do this? And I tell her this all the time. We work on this. I tell her this. I'm building a man that's better than I am right now. So I'm not yet this man, but I have a vision, a concept of who he is. And she'll say, like, there'll be some mornings I'll wake up at 5 or 5:30, go work out or 6 or whatever. She's like, oh, babe, it's early. I'm like, yeah, but I'm building this man that's capable of more when we have kids. He needs to work out before we have kids. So we don't have kids yet. But this man needs to be capable of that stuff before we're even there. So I always work towards this far distant man that's better than I am. And I acknowledge he's better than I am. But I aspire to be like him and gradually just moving that needle every day. And some days I fail, some days I take a step back, oh, my
- [62:05]
A
gosh, I want to kiss you right now.
- [62:07]
E
We can.
- [62:08]
A
No, I'm serious.
- [62:09]
F
We are all just best friends right now.
- [62:12]
A
I just want to say something. It's so good. So I talk all the time that I think at the end of my life, I'm a Christian. I believe that I want the Lord to go, hey, well done, good and faithful servant. But I also think he's gonna go, hey, man, this is the man you could have been. I want you to meet the man you were capable of becoming at the end of Your life. I think you met the person you were destined to be. And my life is chasing down that dude. Every decision I make, I'm trying to chase that dude down. So at the end of my life, when I meet him, he shakes my head, says, hey, man, I've been watching you. Great job. We're identical twins. The worst end of a life would be to go to the end and you meet that woman, and you're total strangers. And she had. She had experiences and memories and contributions and differences.
- [62:50]
F
That's a great visual, right?
- [62:51]
A
So I'm. I'm. My barometer is chasing down that person. Exactly what you said. You're trying to build that better man, build that better woman.
- [62:57]
E
And it's the blissful dissatisfaction.
- [63:00]
A
Correct.
- [63:00]
E
Same thing. You're happy. You're not satisfied. You're still. You love your life. You, like, you look at the life you live at family, like, sure, you have a fantastic life, but still, it's not. It's not. Not that it's not enough. It's just not enough.
- [63:10]
A
It's not enough. It's not enough. I'm enough, but it's not enough. That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way.
- [63:21]
G
Ed Mylett. Jamie, it is such an honor to interview you on your show. This has never been done before. It's you in the hot seat. We're flipping the script and are you ready?
- [63:35]
A
I'm ready. I feel like I'm in great hands with my dear friend here, so let's do this.
- [63:39]
G
You know, I wanted to ask you about something that I think has affected you. I know it's affected you, but so many people listening have this in their life, and maybe they shove it in the back of their mind, but it's still there. And that is this idea of labels. And what I mean is, like, so many of us have had. Maybe it's when we were kids, someone called us a name, or, you know, we're in a situation and someone says, oh, but you're. You're not smart enough, or you don't have what it takes, or you're the wrong fit for this, or you don't come from the right family or. Or this, that, the other thing. And a lot of times we then find ourselves as an adult and that label is, like, stuck, and it's taken root and now it's sort of coming out in our lives and we haven't even thought about it. In years. But it's still there, that identity. When you were, I think it was eight. Eight years old, you were called Eddie Spaghetti. Eddie Spaghetti. Can you share how that happened and how you did or didn't let that label take root?
- [64:41]
A
Yeah. I talk about this in the book a lot, too, is that. And how to overcome it, which I have. That part of me I've leveraged into something pretty strong. But I talk about in the book that a lot of the beliefs we have about ourselves were installed in us. Our identities, these thoughts and concepts we believe to be most true about us, our worth. They were installed in us when we were defenseless as kids. So it's like, be a good boy. Be quiet. Be a good girl. Don't do that. Don't make too much noise. Don't. And you, you sort of just start to develop this identity when you're young. And then when you get out into the world because you believe it, you confirm it, and then you gather more and more references for it. And before you know it, you're 20 or 30 or 35 years old, and it's who you are, and you've proven it. Because of this, your identity is the most powerful force in the world. You're going to be consistent with it. And most of what you believe about yourself, you weren't in control of believing it was put there when you were a child. Well, same with me. So you have this combination of this kid who's at home. Things aren't real stable there most of the time. Sometimes I feel like I overcook that too, because it works. When it was good, it was very loving. And the other thing is, I had this loving mother 100% of the time, right? 100% of the time. And great grandparents and lots of great stuff. But there was this thing, right? So you have that anxiety, going in chaos, going to school. I'm a little guy. I'm shy. I'm very, very shy. You know this about me. To this day, I'm still very introverted, which surprises most people because of the speaking and stuff in the show. But I'm super introverted, and I just started to get picked on. And this Eddie Spaghetti, your meatballs are ready. And the class would sing it to me, and they'd see me get upset. And it started to develop into this pattern of, you're not good enough all the time. And then I remember, you know, a few years later, a baseball coach, really I was, become a pretty good player. But we had a great player on our team who went on to play, like, major league baseball for many, many years. He's still a really good friend of mine. And I had a couple bad games, and I was down, and our coach pulled me into his office. He was sort of a mean dude. He's a good dude, but he was a tough dude. He pulled me into his office. He goes, hey, Eddie Spaghetti, this is. Now I'm a teenager. And he goes, did you ever think that maybe you're just not as good as him? Like, you going, 0 for 3. Like, you can go over 3. He can't. So why don't you just accept the fact you're just not that good? This was my coach, right? And I remember just walking out of there, like, whoa. And then I've shared with you another story that when I became a speaker, someone that I looked up to was like, you know, you're really not that good. You know, like, I can't even listen to you for more than about 15 minutes. And then. And I. I used to think to, like, am I Like, is there something on me that's like, you can just punch me? Like, is there something about me like you People think they can just tell me these things about me. What is it about me? Because other people aren't. What I found out is other people are hearing similar things. And the truth is, I just started to go. I actually asked myself a question that I say in the book. I don't really believe that many good things about myself. What would I need to believe about me that would serve me? What would I actually need to believe about me that would cause me to change the way I show up in the world? What would I need to believe? And all of a sudden, I started to really think about that. How would that guy walk? How would that guy talk? I'm doing an impersonation of this insecure guy. I'm doing an impersonation of a shy person. I'm doing an impersonation of someone who doesn't have confidence. It's an impersonation. It's not who I really am. Well, maybe I can begin to impersonate the person I want to be. And I actually started to impersonate him a little bit. Not fake it, but like, you know what? He'd walk with his shoulders back. His voice would be a little bit deeper than the one I'd walk around with. He'd think certain things about himself. Moreover, he would treat other people a particular way. He would treat other people in a kind and generous and strong way. Almost in an. Almost in an overabundance of kindness and generosity to people and belief and love for people. And a lot of that happened when I worked at the orphanage. I was like, now that's the guy I like. That's the guy that I am. I'm the giving guy. I'm the kind guy. And you know what I found out when I did that? I took it away from me. As we said earlier, it was about other people that I found a lot more peace. So I just started to become that person. And slowly but surely, I think I
- [68:56]
G
am that person that is really powerful. There's, I'm sure, so many people. I'm sure they'll send messages about this, who, you know, see you online, watch your content, and maybe think that everything's perfect and think that you were just born with all this confidence and with, you know, everyone loving you and millions of people following you even through grade school. Right. I mean, we just. We tend to think those things about people that we don't yet know deeply. And then we think when those things happen to us, like, someone tells us we're just not good enough, we kind of hide it because we're embarrassed by it, or we think it doesn't happen to other people. And I feel like you sharing that is so powerful.
- [69:39]
A
Thank you. I think I have a lot of people from high school actually, that follow me now, right when you. When you're. And I think if you were to ask a lot of them, because they've told me this, I just wasn't. I think they would just say to you, like, it just. I wouldn't expect it to be an Eddie. You know, not like, he was a complete. I was just there, if that makes any sense. Like, no, I would not. There was no, like, most likely to succeed in any of my, you know, yearbooks or anything like that, but I don't think, by the time I graduate, wasn't like, he's a complete Dumb. Dumb. But it was just like, he's just Daddy Mylett. You know, he's just Daddy. Like, you would never suspect he would be the person that, you know, might reach a lot of human beings in his life. You know, you just would never have predicted that. And that ought to give everybody hope. If you're not one of those people that everyone's like, no, for sure it's her. I was definitely not that person. You go, oh, just mark it down. He's gonna do something great with his life. No, no one was saying that about me. No one. No teacher, no coach. Maybe a couple teachers. When I was a little, little guy. But most people would not have said that anything significant was ever going to happen.
- [70:41]
G
So good they didn't know you were the one.
- [70:43]
A
That's right.
- [70:45]
G
That's powerful. Because a lot of people are wondering, am I the one? Can I be the one? No one's telling me I'm the one.
- [70:49]
A
And I think the fact that you doubt. I think the fact that you doubt or wonder whether you're the one is indicative of the fact that you probably are. I do. I do.
- [70:59]
G
I just believe that that's so good.
- [71:02]
A
And you know this. And by the way, the reason it's good is because you know that to
- [71:05]
H
be true about you.
- [71:06]
G
That's true. But I never thought about it that way. I know that's true. And I'm just thinking right now I have goosebumps thinking about how many people are listening to this. And right now they know that they're wondering if they're the one.
- [71:16]
A
Yeah. And that makes you probably the one. Yes, that's right. And you know this because it happened in your life.
- [71:20]
G
Yes. That is huge.
- [71:22]
A
All right, this is good.
- [71:23]
G
I want to talk about, you know, story. Can you share with everyone this story? I feel like someone needs to hear this today about your first grade teacher.
- [71:33]
A
Yeah. Mrs. Smith.
- [71:34]
B
Yes.
- [71:34]
A
So, yeah, I'll even elaborate on it a little bit. So I had no confidence at all. And I was getting picked on. This is what I think happened. Mrs. Smith was just a super, really kind lady. And we had moved to the town that we were in then. And so I was also a new kid. On top of being small, on top of being Eddie Spaghetti, on top of being insecure, on top of leaving many mornings where my dad maybe didn't come home the night before, or there was this turmoil the night before. I'm just leaving that house. This little dude, I wish I could go back and hug him, you know, which my mom did a lot of, by the way. And so she knew that I just had no self esteem. And I believe she orchestrated this entire thing. But we were doing testing, like for grades and stuff, for the next grades. And she purposely had, I believe she purposely did this for me. She had someone come in the back of the room and say, Mrs. Smith, we need your smartest student to come take a test to represent the class. And I could see the person in the back. I heard them. And I watched Mrs. Smith go, that's Eddie Mylett. I would pick Eddie. He's the smart boy. And she picks me. And I remember going, oh, my gosh, she thinks I'm the smart boy. And I just looked at her and she smiled at me. And I remember just lighting up. And then the person goes, okay, then, Eddie Mylett, you need to come with us. And I stood up, and it was the first time ever in my life that I was like, I'm special. This is special. And I walked up and went to the back, and I took the test, and I guess I did well. But when I came back in, I didn't say this on the last time I told this. When I came back in at the end of the day, class was over, and Mrs. Smith said, Eddie, can you come up here for me? And I came up and she hugged me. And she goes, you're so special and so smart. You're the smartest boy. She just, like, hugs on me for a minute. And it really changed my life a lot. It changed my life because that was the first time I was like, well, maybe. Maybe they're wrong. Maybe I'm. Maybe I am smart. Maybe I am special. And this beautiful soul knew exactly what she was doing. She orchestrated all that she knew.
- [74:03]
D
There was the.
- [74:04]
A
This child. I think she had this sense something was going on in my home, because kids don't come like that to school, that shy, that timid, unless something's wrong at how, at the house. And I'm telling you the truth, that I have thought about that like, hundreds, maybe thousands of times in my life. That. That event in my life. What a beautiful, beautiful soul she was. So that's Mrs. Smith. It's one of those people, you know, in your life when you close your eyes and you go, there's this handful of humans that make you feel special, make you feel loved and cared for and believed in. And she's on that highlight reel of, like, maybe three or four human beings in my entire 51 years. And the reason that that's important is because I've tried really hard in my life to be that person for other people that they go, he loves me. He cares about me. He, most important, maybe even as important, he believes in me. And then you show people how to live a little better. That's exactly what she did. She was a super, super special person. And little did she know, that little first grade dude would, you know, be on a show with you today.
- [75:25]
G
You know, last night when we were talking on the phone about this idea about how many people don't feel seen. And I'm just imagining, like, the power, right, of her seeing you.
- [75:37]
A
First time anyone saw me. I was telling you last Night that a lot of my work in my life has been. I don't know why it makes me so emotional, but a lot of my work in my life has been about helping people. People that perform pretty well perform their best. And the more and more I've been doing what I do, the more it's occurring to me that that's my role is a little different. And that is that there's millions and millions and millions of people, maybe more than ever in the world, that were like the first grader me, but they're 30 years old. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So today I get to share one of my favorite men I've ever known in my life with. You truly love him. I miss him very much, too. I don't see him nearly as much as I would like to. He's a life architect. He's an artist, he's an entrepreneur. He's the founder of Mosaic, which is one of the most beautiful churches in the world. He's a contrarian thinker. He's a lovely man, a kind, gentle, brilliant man. He's the type of dude that after you've spent some time with him, you can't help but reflect on the time you had with him when he leaves. Every time I'm with him, I find myself thinking about the conversations we had days and weeks, even afterwards. And I have a feeling that that's going to happen for all of you today as well. And, man, is this going to be awesome. It's got a new book out called the Seven Frequencies of Communication, which is incredible because he's incredible. Irwin McManus, welcome back to the show, my brother.
- [77:07]
H
It is so good to be with you. It's just good to see your face and to hear your voice and to get to have this time with you.
- [77:14]
A
Me too, brother. You talked about this recently and it just struck me. This isn't a frequency thing necessarily, but why are so many people. And you said you had a little of this, too, or maybe a lot of it. They're in their own way. They're their own biggest enemy in life. Yeah. What's why how?
- [77:31]
H
I think there can be multiple reasons, but self doubt is a really fascinating thing. It really comes down to what voices you allowed to determine your identity. All of us have a series of voices that speak to Us from childhood all the way through life. But those voices do not matter until you accept them as your voice. So if someone says to you you don't matter, but your voice tells you you do matter, that voice doesn't have power over you. But when you let that voice shape who you are. And I think for me, Ed, I had voices and inside of me saying, don't be too successful. I literally was always my greatest enemy, this voice, because I'm a deeply spiritual person.
- [78:19]
A
Yes.
- [78:20]
H
And I have this. I mean, my life is centered around the person of Jesus Christ and I've never wanted to do anything to invalidate my relationship with him or to cause anyone to ever question my sincerity. So what that did for me is it actually created some self limiting mindsets because I didn't know how to become the full version of myself and not have people question my faith. And when I had to realize eventually, I think this is one of the things I learned from you and so many others is the better you're at something, the more people are going to hate you. There is no way to escape opposition or hate or whatever you want to describe it. And once I could accept that going, even if I'm completely sincere, there's always going to be people who question your sincerity. And so then I went, well, if I'm going to have people who hate me anyway, I might as well be the best version of myself. I might as well move toward optimal performance. And at this point in my life, Ed, I'm at the point where I'm going. I want to have the greatest impact on the world that I can while
- [79:29]
A
I'm still on this earth.
- [79:31]
H
And writing the Seven Frequencies was a huge part of that journey for me. Writing Mind Shift was a huge part of that. And what I'm going to do from this point forward in my life is I'm going to give to the world what I feel will create the greatest contribution on this planet.
- [79:47]
D
I love it.
- [79:47]
H
And you have to decide at some point I will not live my life based on the voices that are speaking at me that I will listen to a deeper inner voice that calls me to the greatest purpose that I have.
- [80:00]
A
That's so good, Irwin, you're so. He's had so much to give you guys and I remember you probably don't remember this, but there's even shame in some people's lives about making a little bit of money.
- [80:13]
H
Oh, I've been, I've had so much shame for that in my own life, Ed. I mean, my wife and I lived I had a salary of less than $12,000 for 10 years because I thought it was ethically wrong for me to make money. We slept on the floor. I wouldn't buy a bed because I told her that was a luxury, not a necessity. I don't know what got into my head. And I remember one day we were married, we had kids, and I said, I think that it's okay. I think God told me it's okay for me to make. Make some money. And she goes, you can make money. I said, oh, I've always known how. I just would have to stop myself. And she goes, well, could you, you know, start, like, now? But I always put a cap on myself.
- [80:55]
A
Yeah, that's right. You did, Erwin. You did.
- [80:58]
H
And. And I. I've always known I could make billions of dollars. I've never had that confusion in my head. And I would. The confusion in my head was, do I give myself permission?
- [81:09]
A
Do you know what you said to me about what you just. Why is this so huge? Why I asked you? I was wondering if you were going to say this. You guys. You won't remember this, or we were at a friend's house, you know whose house it was, that lives on the ocean, and you and I walked into the kitchen, and I kept telling you, you're in this room, and you're like, I've met these guys now, and it's not that big of a deal. And I said, erwin, you could impact millions of people. And you said, ed, and you kind of had this cringe when you said it to me. You go, I think I'm going to allow myself to make some real money now. And even when you said it, there was this discomfort in you. I said, erwin, you have permission to do that. You just got to give it to yourself. Now, I don't know that you remember that moment, but I know where I was standing in the kitchen when you said it. And I just want everybody to hear this. This is a man who's coached some of the most influential people in the world, top people in industries come to him. And even in his case, he had to give himself permission to. To allow some form of abundance to flow into his life because of some sort of a limiting belief around it. Now, if that's true of someone with his eloquence and brilliance, are any of you suffering with something that you're not giving yourself permission to feel, whether that be joy or love or the love of God, your faith to know you can be somewhere in eternity. Maybe it's wealth, maybe it's physical health. But there's probably something today that you're not allowing yourself or giving yourself permission to have and feel and give yourself the gift today like Irwin did. And by the way, once Erwin unlocked that type of permission, he had more financial abundance, but his impact grew with the world changers he now affects. Right, Erwin, that opened up other lanes for you.
- [82:44]
H
Absolutely. And one of the things I realized for myself is I'm just not motivated by money. It just is not a good motivator for me. But I am motivated in seeing people's lives changed. And instead of waiting for someone to finance the vision we have to impact the world, we create, the wealth, we finance it, we help millions of people. It's just so much more exciting, to be perfectly honest.
- [83:05]
A
Yeah, that was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Welcome back to Max out, everybody. I'm Ed Mylett. Let me ask you a question before we begin today. Do you have any sense right now? Like you feel like you're just overloaded and you're over overwhelmed with information in your life? Maybe you're having a hard time getting focused, you get distracted pretty easily. Maybe your concentration sort of suffers a little bit, your memory issues? Well, my guest here today is an expert on optimum brain performance, on learning, on learning quickly, and on maxing out your capacity to think and perform in your life. And it was really born out of some tragedy, out of some difficult events out of his childhood. He started, turned those tragic events into becoming a world renowned expert on brain performance. And today I'm really blessed because I've been chasing this guy for a while. I've wanted him to share his brilliance with you, the audience. And I'm grateful that he's here today because we're about to change your life and change the way you learn, think and perform. So my guest today is the great Jim Quick. Jim. Thank you, Ed.
- [84:11]
D
Thank you so much. I've been looking forward to this so much.
- [84:13]
A
Me too, brother. We've been, we've had great conversations off camera and I'm so excited because I know there's some shows I know that we do that are inspirational and then there are shows I know that are going to inspire. But also by the end of the program, people's lives are just measurably better and they can perform better. And today is heavy note taking. If you're driving in the car, you're going to want to hear it, but you're going to want to get back and listen to the video or something too to write the notes down. We're going to cover. So I want to share something with you because it just happened this weekend and I just from my folks here too, I think one of mine is that I am present with people.
- [84:47]
D
Yeah.
- [84:47]
A
And I do observe people. And so it's really interesting because I think that's one of the things that I love about doing the show and it was fascinating because I never gave any thought as to where that came from because I mean your brain brilliance comes from the fact that you had this damaged brain as a child. Yet it's one of your great gifts and one of the great things. You're intelligent at one of your geniuses. And so this weekend somebody had asked me, why do you think like on your show or even we were at a dinner, you're so present, you're listening, where do you think that comes from? And I didn't know. I thought about it and I said, you know, I'm not sure but you know, it's interesting. My dad was, my dad's sober 30 years now. But when I was a little boy, my dad had a drinking problem. And I never knew as a little boy which dad was going to when I come through the front door at night. And so unlike most kids who would run up and hug dad, I would observe dad when he came home. And so when dad walked through the front door, I'd look at his physiology, I'd look at his eyes, his face, his lips. I'd listen to what his first few words were. And I think since I was about a four year old little boy, I was sort of through that unfortunate circumstance in my family, I developed this intelligence of being present and really being with someone and understanding them and connecting with them and seeing where they really were. And it's ended up serving me as a 47 year old man with you here today.
- [86:10]
D
Wow.
- [86:11]
A
Isn't that interesting? And so many, for some of you listening, I would just say to you that sometimes some of your great genius could be coming from some of what you would think might be some of the more tragic events in your life or difficult events. So just think about that and the
- [86:23]
D
self talk also, you know, when I said I had, you know, age 9, a teacher looked at me, said that's the boy with the broken brain for the whole class. You know. And parents and adults have to be very careful because your External words become a child's internal words. Because every single time I did bad on a quiz, on a test, or not pick for a sports team, which was all the time, I would say, oh, because I had the broken brain that became my internal conversation. And I always tell people when they come to me and they say I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough, I have horrible memory. I always say if you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limitations, you argue for your limits, they're yours. Right? And here's the thing. Your brain is like a supercomputer and your self talk is a program it will run. So if you tell yourself you're not good at remembering names, you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you programmed your supercomputer not to. They say the two most powerful words in English language are also the smallest. I am. Because whatever you put, put after that, complete that sentence with is going to determine your destination, your destiny.
- [87:20]
A
I'm so glad you're saying this because this is typically said by like, you know what I mean too. But motivational people are inspiring people. Now we've got a brain science telling you this is a fact.
- [87:32]
D
So your identity is this. So let's say at a simple level, let's say people want to change their behavior. They want to stop procrastinating.
- [87:38]
A
Yes.
- [87:39]
D
But their identity is I'm a procrastinator. Yes. Ooh, that's gonna be a tough one. They want to change a behavior like, oh, I want to stop smoking. But their identity is I am a smoker. Wow, that's gonna be a challenge. Right? So here's the thing. The reason I bring these distinctions up is because it takes the self loathing or the judgment out of it because you don't have to. If you're not good at something, you could say like, oh, you could address the level that, that's holding you back. Finally below the level of behavior. And this is a big one, is the environment is a level of environment. Environment. Because you could. The behavior is you want to stop smoking, but the environment is around a lot of smokers because it's not. Here's the thing, the people you spend time with is people you become. You know this, you teach this. Because your mirror neurons are always imitating what's around you. And that's the thing. So I want to sensitize you to. Because often the people that hold us back are the people that love us the most, you know, because you know why they're like, oh, you're going to another event, you're listening to another podcast. Why are you reading another book? Spending all that money? And they have good. They can have good intentions, right? Because ultimately people are doing things for, you know, generally, I believe for good reasons. But they can be sincere. But they could be sincerely wrong.
- [88:45]
A
Sincerely wrong. And I love the. I'm not this yet.
- [88:48]
D
Right.
- [88:48]
A
I also want to just repeat things that just. We just. You say brilliant things one after the other. And so this idea that as a parent, your external dialogue becomes your channel, internal dialogue is just riveting. I mean, it's riveting and it's also true, I think, of leaders and companies too. Your external dialogue about your company or about that individual can become their internal dialogue. So what you're saying matters so deeply.
- [89:11]
D
There are six primary questions we learned in school. Five W's and one H. Right. Now watch this. The identity level answers the question of who. The beliefs and values answer the question of why. The capabilities answer the question of how you do it. The behavior is the what. And the environment answers the question of when and where it is fully aligned. And so I feel like we have natural genius inside of us. And if we. When this is aligned with this. When people talk about their mind and their body and their values and habits, when they're all aligned, things happen naturally and they're not have been forced. And my goal for everybody watching and listening to this is that they're smarter than they think. It's just we weren't taught how to do these things. And when you're incongruence and in alignment, things happen. Your natural superpowers, if you will.
- [89:59]
A
Yes.
- [90:00]
D
Come out. Come out organically and not forced.
- [90:03]
A
Boy, that's man, brother, that's so good. I'm processing all of this with you. They'll be mad at me if I don't ask you a tactical question.
- [90:13]
D
Absolutely.
- [90:13]
A
So can you give. Give them. I'm gonna get a couple more things, but thank you for taking the extra time. I'll get DMS and emails if I don't ask you tactically. Ask him a specific tactic to remember a name.
- [90:24]
D
Yeah.
- [90:25]
A
So I have max out. Do you do an association when you remember something?
- [90:28]
D
I do. I do really fast. I would say be suave. Be suave. I'll give you really quick. B is believe. Right? Believe you can. Believe you can. You're right. So stop the negative self talk. Right. So that. That's obvious. The second thing is E is exercise. We already talked about power of exercise practice. Because the bad news is it takes practice to learn someone's name. The good news, not as much as you think. Like, I'm really good at names. But after practicing for a couple months, it's just become second nature, right? Just like parking a car, learning how to type. You do it without thinking. The swab is this. S stands for say the name. When. Tactically. When you meet somebody, you say their name back to them. Because you make sure you observe it correctly. The U is you use the name. Use it three or four times. We talk about that. The A is you ask about a name. This is really great, Ed. When you meet somebody whose name you haven't heard before, you meet someone named Afzal or Ridiger, what can you ask about a person's name? You already said this. You already said it's not travel, entrepreneurship, what's everyone's favorite subject? It's themselves. So what can you ask about a person's name? How do you spell it? Where is it from? You know, what does it mean? I was doing this training at the country's largest Life Insurance Company. 100 people in the room. The training director's name was Nankita. And I was like, in front of the whole group, I was like, that's a beautiful name. How do you spell it? Where's it from? What does it mean? She paused. I was like, nikita, what does it mean? She looked at all her co workers. It says, she said it means graceful falling waters. And I was like, wow. And then her co workers gave that kind of reaction, like a novelty. I was like, wait a second. How long have you worked here? She's like, you know, X amount of years with these people. Yeah. Get a lot of them. Good friends are at my wedding. I was like, out of 100, I said, raise your hand if you knew. That's what her name meant. Out of 100 people, how many people raised her hand? Zero. Zero. And talk about like caring. That became like a 10 year client, right? Because that's the power of a name, the emotion, right? So ask about a person's name. And then V in B suave stands for visualize. And here's a real tactical thing. We tend to be better with faces and names, right? Aren't you? You meet a lot of people, right? People come and you meet somebody. You say to them, I remember your face, but I forgot your name. You never go to someone. Say the opposite. You never go to someone. I remember your name, but I forgot your face. That wouldn't make any sense. But here's the reason why from neurological. Your visual cortex is a lot larger than other parts of your brain. So you tend to remember what you see. Now if you tend to remember what, there's Chinese proverb that goes, what I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand. What I hear, I forget. I heard the name, I forgot the name. What I see, I remember. I saw the face, I'll remember the face. What I do. Going back to practice and exercise, I understand. So if you tend to remember what you see, try seeing what you remember. So quick, visual aid is this. Play Pictionary. A person's name, for example, is Mark. Take a split second and put a check mark on their forehead and you're like, jim, that's so childish. Who are the fastest learners on the planet?
- [93:12]
A
Children.
- [93:12]
D
Children, yes. How fast they can they learn a musical instrument? How fast can they learn another language? Right. They're sponges. And part of how they remember names is they make fun of people. Like they go to somebody, you're like, you know, they go to someone named Jason and Jason the basin. Right. And all of a sudden, like, Jason's in therapy for years. But that's how you learn. Banana fanna. Faux fan. You learn through imagery. Right. They make fun and so that remember more emotion too.
- [93:36]
A
Yes.
- [93:36]
D
Information, you forget information combined with emotion. So person's name is Mary. Imagine you meet someone named Mary. Handshake break. Imagine she's getting married or she's carrying two lambs under her arms. And here's the thing it overcomes in business what I call the six second rule. Somebody tells you something important in a conversation or their name, you have six seconds to do something with it. Otherwise what happens, you lose it. It's gone out of your working memory. Short term memory, it's gone. So this helps you to focus uniquely on both the person and also the name. So, so if a person's name, so for example is, let's say Carol. Imagine they're singing Christmas carols.
- [94:10]
A
Yes.
- [94:11]
D
Right. A person's name is Mike. Imagine them jumping on the table, singing on a microphone for a split second. And then when you say goodbye to them 20 minutes later, you're like, oh, that guy was sitting on the karaoke on the microphone. What's his name? Mike. Right. Because it glues it. And then, by the way, it's a short term, because once you know the person's name is Ed or Athena or Mike or whatever, what'll happen is you
- [94:32]
A
just named everybody here.
- [94:33]
D
Sorry. Once you do that, then the Pictures disappear. Because you know it. You just need something to glue it because there's three parts to your memory. You encode the information, you store the information, then you retrieve the information. But most people can't retrieve it because they're not encoding in a way that makes it memorable. Oh, my gosh. So you make it visual, you make it fun and interesting. So if person's name is John, you can imagine whatever.
- [94:55]
A
Right, right.
- [94:55]
D
And then finally, that's the V. The E in swap stands for end. You always end the conversation using their name, saying goodbye. Using the name. Because if you could walk into a room of strangers and leave saying goodbye to 20 strangers by name, who are they all going to remember?
- [95:10]
A
You.
- [95:10]
D
They're going to remember. That's a standout skill because it's not just what you know. Yes, yes. You can learn faster. It's not only who you know, but it's also who knows you, who knows you and who's going to remember you. That's a standout skill.
- [95:21]
A
That is awesome. Awesome. And the six seconds second rule, if you don't use it, you lose it. So do something within the first seconds. That is brilliant.
- [95:27]
D
There are a few obstacles to effective reading, so let's go through them really quickly. Number one, what keeps me from reading slow is lack of education. You're not born with the ability to read, nobody is. And so we learned it through class, through a training. Right, but when's the last time you took a class called Reading? How old were you?
- [95:46]
A
Probably six.
- [95:47]
D
Six or seven years old. Right, exactly. So we are still, every single person watching this, for the most part, we're still reading like we're a six or seven year old because that's the last time we had training in that one area. Right. The difficulty demand has increased tremendously, but we're still reading like a six year old. So that's number one, get the proper education. Lack of education. Number two, lack of focus. We could all relate to this. You read a page in a book, you get to the end. Just forget what you just read.
- [96:11]
A
Of course.
- [96:11]
D
Because your attention is everywhere. Your mind wanders, you're thinking about the dry cleaning, the clothes, everything, the kids. So here's the thing. You just mentioned that if you read faster, you feel like you wouldn't retain as much and understand it's not, it's not because we weren't taught differently. Right. And so what I would say is the fastest. So I think it's a myth being spread around by slow readers that if you read faster, you wouldn't understand as much because it's a lie. And this is interesting because we have online academy right about speed reading. And we have students in over 180 countries. So we have a lot of data. We found the fastest readers actually have the best comprehension because they have the best focus. So here's a metaphor. Your brain is this incredible supercomputer. But when you read, you feed the supercomputer one word at a time, metaphorically. You're starving your mind. And even if we were to talk to like that through this conversation, it would be like eight days. And what would happen to people very quickly if they were talking that slow? Their mind would wander, they would fall asleep, they would think about other things. They would just. And isn't that. Aren't those the same exact things that happen when you read?
- [97:25]
A
Yes.
- [97:25]
D
Your mind wanders, you fall asleep, you start thinking about other things. Because if you don't give your brain the stimulus it needs, it'll seek entertainment and elsewhere in the form of distraction.
- [97:35]
A
Got it.
- [97:36]
D
Third obstacle. This is the big one. Sub vocalization. Yeah, okay. This is the big one by far. We're talking about your inner voice. Sub vocalization means you ever notice when you're reading something, you hear the inner voice inside your head reading along with you? You hear that hopefully it's your own voice. It's not like somebody else's voice. The reading why keeps your reading slow. The reason why is because if you have to say all the words to understand them, you can only read as fast as you can. Could speak. And that, that, this, this is mind blowing to me. Sub vocalization, Vocal speech. Sub. Like submarine. Inner speech. If you're saying the words to understand what you're reading, you're doing it not right. Because New York City, you don't have to say the word New York City or computer to understand what those. Just like when you're driving, you see a stop sign, you don't say to yourself, stop, 95% of the words. Do you understand what that stop sign means though? Yes. 95% of words are words you've seen before. You don't have to pronounce the words. You know, leaders are readers, right? You read a lot. Tony Robbins read a lot. You know, like Oprah reads a lot. Bill Gates reads a lot. Like John F. Kennedy. You know, leaders are readers. He was a very fast reader. He was said to have read every morning six newspapers with one cup of coffee. Most people, it's the opposite. It takes like six cups of coffee to get through, like A newspaper. Right. And that's the challenge. But he's, you know, let's say, you know, Hugh said the read 800 to a thousand words a minute, but if he could talk at the hour, Talking to about 200, 250 words a minute, there are like 700 words per minute. He's not pronouncing right. You don't have to pronounce words you've seen before. But that's how we were taught as a kid. Like a lot of what accelerated learning is just like success is unlearning bad habits. When you're a kid, you had to say the words out loud because the teacher needed to know you're pronouncing the words phonetically correctly. But later on, remember this, your teacher said, read quietly to yourself, read silently to yourself. And that's when you took that external voice and you put it internal there. And it's been there ever since. Here's the point. When we listen to podcasts or audiobooks, how many people like to listen to it at 1.5 or 2x or 3x and they can understand it too.
- [99:30]
A
Yes.
- [99:30]
D
You can't talk that fast, though. And that's the thing. Right. And so that's why sub vocalization is saying basically, if you're sub vocalizing, your reading speed is limited to your talking speed, not your theory thinking speed. You could understand so much more, so much faster, but you can't talk that fast. It's a bad habit we picked up as a kid. So we did a whole podcast on how to reduce sub vocalization. Right. And. Or our programs, like over 21, 30 days, we teach people methodically how to do it because there's difference than a tip than a trainer, of course, fourth obstacle, I would say. And then we go to solution regression. It's a very bad habit we picked up as a kid. Regression is back skipping. You ever notice you read the something, you go back and reread words or you reread a whole line by accident?
- [100:10]
A
Yes.
- [100:10]
D
You know, upwards of 20, 25% time can be spent rereading words. So how do you know? Now I'm gonna give you just one tip on how to overcome this, which will make a big difference. This tip is gonna help you read 25 to 50% faster with better focus. Now, that's a huge return because like on average, our online program, 300% increase.
- [100:28]
A
I know right now people are like, okay, how do I get more information from this person? And so I want to make sure they know where to go find you the first one is you've referenced this podcast that you have, and I'm a subscriber. There's just stuff every single time you're on there that is valuable, and I like that. Oftentimes it's not even very long. Oftentimes it's just digestible stuff. So how do they find your podcast?
- [100:49]
D
So on anyone's podcast app, search my name. Jim Kwik.
- [100:53]
A
And that is his real name, by the way.
- [100:54]
D
I didn't change it to do it. My father's name, my grandfather's name. It's my life is pretty much planned out.
- [100:58]
A
So go get your podcast and then.
- [101:00]
D
Or they go to. Go to. The best way is actually go to quickbrain.com kwkbrain.com There are actually videos on speed reading. Remember names. I take a live audience up there and they do that. And then links to. All my links to podcasts are there.
- [101:11]
A
So for podcasts and your website, both are also where they can get involved with your programs too, if they choose to. And then also you got a great Instagram account.
- [101:20]
D
Yeah, I mean, the podcast episodes also, we've done episodes on the top top 10 brain foods, how to change your habits, how to change your limiting beliefs. Everything that has to do with cognition, we do it in 10 or 15 minutes.
- [101:30]
A
Okay.
- [101:30]
D
So brain hacks are busy. People want to learn faster.
- [101:32]
A
Brain hacks are awesome.
- [101:33]
D
And then I love your Instagram.
- [101:34]
A
Thank you.
- [101:35]
D
You know, and it's so wonderful. And so I do the lives and the Q&As that are there. And so we like to post things that are just brain hacks.
- [101:43]
A
His Instagram is. You're gonna get addicted to it. It's outstanding.
- [101:47]
D
Like yours. And I would challenge people again, ending with this, to take a screenshot of this episode, tag us both on there, and then share. Remember what you teach. You get to learn twice and you own it. Share your big aha's or your questions, and I'll actually. I'll repost some of my favorite.
- [102:00]
A
So do I. So do I. So please do that. Everybody take a screenshot. Tag both of us. Tell us what your biggest takeaway was. So in finishing. You know, people, when we're done here, they're gonna wish. I wish. You know, I'd ask you so many more things. We got so much done today, but you're such a, you know, just a weight. Wealth of knowledge is unbelievable.
- [102:15]
D
I hope people take pictures, even of their notes. I'd be curious if they take.
- [102:18]
A
I would love to. They're long. I can tell you that because we've covered so much today and thank you. But I think probably, you know, one of the things that I think most people that are listening this, they're trying to change things, whether that be a habit or change their life in general. And you're an expert at this. If someone said they got, I always do this, they got two minutes with Jim Kwik, they ran into you at your Starbucks and you were as busy as you are. He said, I'll give you some two minutes and they could ask you something. I think the vast majority of the people would say, I want to change something in my life. Whether that be a habit or the external results in my life, I want to create a change. What would you say to that person? Where do they begin? What would be a step they could take? What would be a thought they would have in order to create change?
- [102:57]
D
So the obvious thing to say is lifelong learning. Commit yourself to lifelong learning. But that'll be preaching the choir because if someone's watching this right now or listening to this, you know, they, they are exceptional. And I, I applaud anyone who's made it all the way to the end.
- [103:10]
A
Yeah.
- [103:11]
D
What I would say is self love is not selfish. I feel like the biggest challenge people have in life is this fear that they're not enough. And I believe that's what holds us back. And people talk about themselves in relationships, and I think we grow a lot in our intimate relationships because they're a mirror to us. And I also feel like you have to fall in love again with the person in the mirror who has been through so much but is still standing. You know what I mean?
- [103:38]
A
Yes.
- [103:38]
D
And when's the last time, you know, learning in love? I always wish people, you know, this year and their days before lots of life. Lots, lots of love, lots of laughter and lots of learning. But I think they go hand in hand. And self love, it's kind of. I don't want to. You know, people could put it into a hold hands and sing Kumbaya. But I'm saying do the things that you would do for yourself. Because I feel like we're only happy when two things happen. This is my advice. Number one, you need the curiosity to know yourself. Right. Because that's self awareness. That's why we meditate, that's why we journal. That's why we listen to things. It's self reflection. We can have intimate relationship. We build businesses because they puts us through tests and shows us who we really are. So have the curiosity to know yourself. But Once you know yourself, you need the courage to be. Be yourself. You know what I mean? And that's a different game.
- [104:25]
E
Totally different.
- [104:25]
D
You know, and a lot of us, you know, when we're looking back again, we don't want to have those. Those regrets. Yes. And the, the expectations of other people and that's, that's where I think people could. They limit themselves. So I would say my advice to somebody right now is to make sure you dedicate time every single day to self care, you know, and really spend the time to not only know yourself, but give yourself permission to really be yourself. Because I feel like everyone makes smart goals. Right. They're specific and they're measurable and they're action oriented and they're realistic and they're time bound. And I'm all for that, setting goals. But also make them heart goals. Remember I talked about the power of the heart?
- [105:05]
H
Yes.
- [105:05]
D
You know, make them h. Healthy in every area of your life. Make sure that they're healthy in your ecology of your life. I would also say E, Nicole, them enduring. You know, make them enduring. So as we go through hard times which invariably will in business and in life and relationships and health, make sure that they. They're inspiring enough to be able to get you through those hard times. The A is make them alluring. Alluring. Mean they pull you right. They like what they're so attractive. They just like get you out of the. Out of bed. They're alluring. The R is relevant, meaning you want to make them relevant because a lot of people set goals. But are they solving a personal problem problem for you? Are they really relevant to your particular values in life and in relationships and business? And finally the T. I think it's the most important one when you're setting goals. Make them your truth. Because so many people are setting goals and vision that's not really theirs. They picked it up from their parents. You know, they're doctors because their parents were doctors or they picked it up from the Joneses or something outside, you know, know your truth and live from. Live from there.
- [106:04]
A
Sam.