You Are Only ONE Decision Away From Completely Changing Your Life!

Summary

Podcast Title: THE ED MYLETT SHOW
Host: Ed Mylett
Episode: You Are Only ONE Decision Away From Completely Changing Your Life!
Release Date: May 10, 2025

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Introduction

In this empowering episode of The Ed Mylett Show, host Ed Mylett delves deep into the transformative power of decision-making and consistent action. Featuring special guests Brendan Burchard, James Clear, Ben Newman, and Tony Robbins, the conversation navigates through themes of productivity, habit formation, leadership, and personal growth. This comprehensive summary captures the essence of their discussions, enriched with notable quotes and actionable insights to inspire listeners to take charge of their lives.

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Part I: Ed Mylett’s Weekend Special – “Invisible Keys to Winning”

Timestamp: [01:53] – [23:13]

Ed Mylett kicks off the episode with a profound exploration of what truly separates winners from the rest. He emphasizes that the difference often lies in the small, seemingly invisible decisions that individuals make consistently over time.

Key Points:

1. Consistency Over Motivation:

   • Ed Mylett highlights that while motivation and inspiration are fleeting, consistency is the cornerstone of sustained success. He states, “The separator is doing the things every day that the average do. It’s doing it on the days you don’t feel like it” ([05:45]).

2. Incremental Improvement:

   • Mylett advocates for making small, manageable changes rather than drastic overhauls. For instance, adjusting your wake-up time by 15 minutes each month can lead to significant transformations without overwhelming yourself ([07:30]).

3. Rhythm and Pace:

   • He introduces the concept of a “rhythm to success,” where top performers operate at a slightly faster pace, making decisions quicker and maintaining a higher energy level throughout the day. “There’s a rhythm and a pace to success that I think most people aren’t familiar with” ([12:15]).

4. Game of Inches:

   • Success is portrayed as a cumulative game of small actions adding up over time. Mylett asserts, “When you stack up those all the times, those are the inches that you fight for that separate the greats from the average” ([14:50]).

5. Dispelling Myths About Balance:

   • He challenges the conventional belief that excelling in one area of life necessitates neglecting another. Instead, he posits that growth in one area can magnify success in others. “What I found in my life, and here’s the truth, that’s a lie. It’s a flawed belief system” ([19:10]).

Notable Quotes:

• “There truly aren’t any secrets. There just really aren’t.” – Ed Mylett ([08:00])

• “Discipline is the ability to do things when you don’t feel like it and when you’re tired of doing it” – Ed Mylett ([16:30])

• “When you’re making history in your life, it very rarely feels like it because you’re in the midst of the work” – Ed Mylett ([21:45])

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Part II: Mastering Habits and Leadership with James Clear and Ben Newman

Timestamp: [26:01] – [95:08]

The latter half of the episode transitions into a dynamic discussion featuring James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, and Ben Newman, a renowned leadership coach. Alongside Brendan Burchard and guest Tony Robbins, the conversation delves into the mechanics of habit formation, leadership excellence, and the science behind performance conditioning.

Segment 1: The Power of 1% Improvements

James Clear introduces the concept of making 1% improvements daily, illustrating how these small changes can compound into significant growth over time.

Key Points:

1. Aggregation of Marginal Gains:

   • Clear recounts the transformation of the British Cycling Team under coach Dave Brailsford, who focused on making 1% improvements in various aspects of performance. This strategy led to unprecedented success within a few years. “If you can actually do this right… he ended up being wrong. They won the Tour de France in three years” ([55:17]).

2. Focus on Trajectory Rather Than Position:

   • Emphasizing the importance of directional growth, Clear advises listeners to prioritize their trajectory—being on an upward path—over their current position. “Am I getting better? Is the error arrow pointed up into the right, or have we flatlined?” ([60:12]).

3. Identity-Based Habits:

   • Ben Newman expands on how habits shape identity. Every small action cast a vote for the type of person you wish to become. “Every time you perform a habit, that’s how you embody that aspect of your identity” ([63:18]).

Notable Quotes:

• “Excellence a lot of the time is not actually about radical change. It’s about a commitment to accruing small improvements day in and day out” – James Clear ([57:00])

• “Every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become” – Ben Newman ([63:18])

Segment 2: Leadership Lessons from Coach Nick Saban

Ben Newman shares insights from working with Alabama’s legendary football coach Nick Saban, focusing on the principles that drive his exceptional leadership and team performance.

Key Points:

1. Leading by Example:

   • Newman underscores Saban’s relentless example-setting, such as maintaining high physical standards despite his age. “If your 70-year-old head coach is sprinting in between drills, what’s the expectation of the player?” ([84:15]).

2. High Standards and Persistence:

   • Saban emphasizes doing things until they can’t be done wrong, fostering a culture of excellence and accountability. “We don’t do things until we get it right. We do things until we can’t get it wrong” ([85:09]).

3. Integrating Mental and Physical Discipline:

   • The coach combines mental fortitude with physical training to ensure his team is prepared both mentally and physically for challenges. “He combines the mental and the physical to allow athletes to realize how much they really have deep down inside” ([86:00]).

Notable Quotes:

• “The standard is we don’t do things until we get it right. We do things until we can’t get it wrong” – Coach Nick Saban ([85:09])

• “We have to be the example to lead the people that really, for him, he believes it’s a blessing to have the opportunity to lead these young men” – Ben Newman ([85:20])

Segment 3: Conditioning Change and Performance

Tony Robbins joins the discussion to elaborate on the role of conditioning and biochemistry in achieving high performance and overcoming personal challenges.

Key Points:

1. Mind-Body Connection:

   • Robbins explains how engaging the body and altering language can shift emotional and mental states, enhancing performance. “We change the body, we change our focus, and we change our language” ([73:05]).

2. Biochemical Shifts in High-Stress Situations:

   • He discusses how elite performers like Tom Brady and his own audience achieve exceptional performance through biochemical states that reduce stress and increase drive. “My testosterone surges to a level that’s insane. But so does my audience” ([75:10]).

3. Immersion Experiences:

   • Robbins highlights the effectiveness of immersive experiences, such as his “Date with Destiny” event, in permanently altering participants’ biochemistry and mindset. “When you do incantations … it’s like conditioning your mind, your body, and your emotions at once” ([78:00]).

Notable Quotes:

• “There is a science to changing your conditioning so you can do it” – Tony Robbins ([80:45])

• “When we climb up the ranks and win championships, it’s not just their work ethic or talent; it’s their unrelenting hunger” – Ed Mylett ([91:34])

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Conclusion

This episode of The Ed Mylett Show serves as a masterclass in personal development, blending insightful solo segments with rich dialogues featuring industry leaders. Ed Mylett, along with guests like James Clear and Ben Newman, provides listeners with actionable strategies to harness the power of consistent small improvements, cultivate disciplined habits, and embrace immersive leadership practices. The standout message underscores that extraordinary success is often the culmination of countless small decisions made with unwavering commitment and relentless perseverance.

Key Takeaways:

• Consistency is Key: Success is built on daily, consistent actions rather than sporadic bursts of effort.
• Small Improvements Matter: Making 1% improvements can lead to exponential growth over time.
• Lead by Example: Exceptional leaders set high standards and embody the behaviors they expect from others.
• Conditioning Enhances Performance: Engaging the body and mind through disciplined routines can transform performance and mindset.
• Embrace Discipline Over Motivation: Relying on consistent discipline ensures progress even when motivation wanes.

Listeners are encouraged to evaluate their hunger and focus levels, establish small, achievable habits, and commit to consistent action to unlock their full potential.

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Notable Mention:

• James Clear's Book: Atomic Habits – Recommended for further reading on habit formation and incremental improvement.

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For a more in-depth exploration and additional insights, listeners are encouraged to tune into the full episode available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other major platforms.

Transcript

[Ed Mylett]

So hey guys, listen. We're all trying to get more productive.

[Brendan Burchard]

And the question is, how do you.

[Ed Mylett]

Find a way to get an edge?

[Brendan Burchard]

I'm a big believer that if you're.

[Ed Mylett]

Getting mentoring or you're in an environment that causes growth, a growth based environment, that you're much more likely to grow and you're going to grow faster. And that's why I love Growth Day.

[Brendan Burchard]

Growth Day is an app that my friend Brendan Burchard has created that I'm a big fan of.

[Ed Mylett]

Write this down growthday.com forward/ed. So if you want to be more productive, by the way, he's asked me, I post videos in there every single Monday that gets your day off to the right start.

[Brendan Burchard]

He's got about 5,000, $10,000 worth of.

[Ed Mylett]

Courses that are in there that come with the app.

[Brendan Burchard]

Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis, like having the avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as.

[Ed Mylett]

Well and contribute on a weekly basis. And I do. So go over there and get signed up. You're going to get a free tuition, free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch.

[Brendan Burchard]

Of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also. So go to growthday.com forward/ed.

[Ed Mylett]

That's growthday.comed.

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[Tony Robbins]

This is the Ed Mylan.

[Ed Mylett]

Hey everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Today's question involves winning and I've been asked, ed, can you please give us one of the invisible keys to winning that separates the winners from the losers in any endeavor? And so I'm going to do that today. You know, there's a million keys to winning, but one of the things I want to take the mystery out of it for you. First thing is, I'm always a little bit concerned. It's trepidatious for me to talk about winning and losing because I know how small the difference between winning and losing is. It's almost too scary to talk about. It's really true. I've watched people get very close to winning, and it's that one little thing they miss, that invisible thing that separates the winners from the losers. It truly is a game of inches and millimeters when it comes to winning in business, winning in sports, winning in life, winning in our body, winning in our emotions. It's the small things I found. And I think most people want to believe that there's all of these secrets to winning because as long as it's secretive and they don't do it, then they've got an excuse as to why they haven't won. But what if the truth is there really aren't any secrets? There just really aren't that we all sort of really know what we need to do to win. But what it comes down to, that little thing, that separator, that's too scary to talk about, is our willingness to do those things and the consistency with which we do them. Here's what I found. The people that are average and ordinary in most endeavors in life do the things they need to do occasionally. And the people that win and dominate do them every day. They just do it more consistently. They do the things that the average do once in a while. They do all the time. And that's the separator. It's not. You can't do something when you feel like it. You can't do things on the days that you feel great. The separator isn't who's more motivated. Right? Motivation is important. Inspiration is important. But the truth is, it's. What do you do on the days that you are not motivated, that you are not inspired? Do you have the habits and rituals and disciplines, the guts, the grit, frankly, to step up and do the things that you know you need to do all the time, not some of the time. And when you stack up those all the times, those are the inches that you fight for that separate the greats from the average. The ones that become the best ever, the goats in their industry, the best moms, the best dads, the multimillionaire entrepreneur, compared to the ones that just do. Okay, it's interesting. You know, there's a rhythm and a pace to success that I think most people aren't familiar with. I can promise you right now that if you spend A day with some of the top entrepreneurs in the world, There's a rhythm and a pace that you probably aren't used to. It's faster, it's quicker. They talk faster, they walk faster, they think faster, they make decisions faster. And it's just a hair like if you watch an average, ordinary entrepreneur, they look like they're working hard. They look like they do things most days, but it's a little slower. The cadence, the rhythm isn't quite what it is for those that dominate. I could tell you there's a rhythm to success. And once you understand that rhythm, which I'm trying to explain to you, it's 15% faster, it's 20% faster. It's not a hundred times. They don't do a million things better, they do a few things better. And they do those things consistently, and they do them faster and more repetitiously. You know, really, the best ability in life is availability. The best ability is availability. It's showing up and doing things consistently on a regular basis that most people just can't have the discipline to do. They get what I call leadership fatigue, or they get routine fatigue. They just get tired of saying the same things over and over again, of doing the same things over and over again. And that's what discipline is. Discipline is the ability to do things when you don't feel like it and when you're tired of doing it, when you're fatigued, when you're bored with doing it. Most winning is not beautiful. It's a grind. And remember this, when you're making history, it very rarely feels like. Rarely feels like it. What it feels like is work. What it feels like is lonely. What it feels like is you're the only one doing it. And that's because you probably are. But what you need to know is that when you're laying those bricks every day and the person that you're competing against is laying them every third day, eventually, even if they're better at laying the bricks, even if they have some magic brick, which there's no such thing, eventually it's the person who can do it over and over and over again, that separates themselves. And the truth is, why don't people do things consistently? Because it's not sexy, it's not exciting, right? You think about the best. If you had a great mom, right? What does she do? She just shows up quietly every day and does the things that make a difference that aren't beautiful, but they. They matter. If you have one like a mom, like I had, it was she was there every morning. She made my lunch every day. On the days when she was sick and the days when she didn't feel like it. She picked me up every day from school. I never needed to wonder whether mom was going to show up to pick me up from school. You all know what I mean, right? Can you imagine if you were raised not knowing whether or not your parent was going to get you from school, not knowing whether you're going to have lunch every day? And I know a lot of you had to grow up that way. But the truth is, like, my mom just did the quiet things that great people do every single day. She did her homework with me every single day. And I did well in school because of that. Whereas some parents did it only when grades were bad, only when they had to, only when there was a problem, only when they felt like it, only when their schedule permitted it. So my mom was a great mom. And some moms are average moms, right? That's what separates you is doing those small things every single day. You know, it's like getting up earlier. In my first book I talk about, you know, successful people get up earlier. They just simply get up earlier. But how do you get up early? You say, ed, I get up at 7:00. I really like to get up at 5:30. Well, you don't all of a sudden start getting up at 5:30. If you got up an hour and a half earlier. This is what most people try. They try to change everything all at once, right? Let me tell you what's gonna happen. By about noon, you're gonna be tired and you're not gonna be your best. The way you get up earlier every day is the way you change everything in life incrementally. So right now, if you get up at 7 and you want to eventually get up at 5:30, do you know what you do? You get up 15 minutes earlier, you won't miss those 15 minutes of sleep. Now you're up at 6:45 and you do that for a month. For a month you get up 15 minutes earlier, you won't even feel the change. It doesn't even seem like a big deal. It's a drop in the bucket, right? It's 15 more minutes. But then the next month you get up 15 minutes earlier. Now you're up at 6:30, you're up at 6:30 and you do that for a month, you won't miss those 15 minutes from 6:45. It doesn't even feel like you've changed anything. But consistently now you're up 15 minutes earlier and then the next month you get up at 6:15 and all of a sudden you went from 7 to 6:45 to 6:30. Now it's 6:15 and before you know it a month after that it's 6am you can reverse engineered all the way back. Several months later you're waking up at 5:30. But you do it incrementally and it doesn't seem like a big change, but it's huge because it's consistent. Same thing in business. If you want to start doing it, it's. It's not making a hundred times more contacts every day, it's increasing your productivity by 15 to 20% and doing it every single day. It's not massive changes. Most of you, if you're an engine, don't need a major engine overhaul. You need a small fine tuning type adjustment. The old days, a carburetor type adjustment. That's the difference. It's these small things. It's doing it consistently and it's this belief system, listen to me, that you're going to become relentless and obsessed with what you're doing. You know what the great ones do? They do the needle moving things, the things that move the needle. They don't just do the routine every day. They do something in their life as a parent, as an entrepreneur, as a leader that moves the needle. Stuff that can make quantum leaps, the hard stuff, the difficult stuff. I teach in my scheduling that I don't do first things first every day. I do feared things first. Feared things first. Get the thing you're most afraid of.

[James Clear]

Out of the way.

[Ed Mylett]

You know how you do something consistently. You build the habit of doing the feared things first in your day. If early in your day, if you've got a call you don't want to make, do that call first. If you've got a meeting you don't want, schedule it first. I try to schedule all my difficult meetings on Mondays early in the day too, because I want to create momentum. If I can do that one, I don't want to do.

[James Clear]

If I can make that call I.

[Ed Mylett]

Don'T want to make. The rest of my day is like downhill. It's like moment going down the hill. As opposed to if you've got that hard meeting or that one call or that contact you need to make and you just haven't made it all day and you make the other ones, you know you're climbing uphill all day till you got to do that one. But if you just knock the feared things first off, then it's like cruising downhill all day. It's much easier when you create momentum. These are the things. It's the pace, it's the rhythm, it's the consistency, it's the availability. It's the game of inches that separate people. It's doing the things every day that the average do. It's doing it on the days you don't feel like it compared to those who just do it. When they're pumped up and excited and they've heard the right podcast or they got the right Instagram message today. These are the separators. And when it comes down to truthfully is this belief system, and here's what I've always said, and I mean this, I think you got to evaluate this truly. If you believe you're far away from something, you will pace yourself that way. I've always heard people say, well, business is a marathon. Life's a marathon. Life is really long. Life can be short if it's miserable. I can tell you that. Life can be short if it's not going very well. And although it's a marathon, the great ones sprint the whole race. That's not that they don't rest. I don't know. You know what I mean? What I'm saying is there's a pace. If you think something's far away, you act like it. See, most people don't lack vision. They have a vision. If you asked them, hey, do you want to be rich or poor? The average person would probably say, rich. Do you want to make a big difference in the world or make none? I'd like to make a difference. You want to contribute or not contribute? I want to contribute. Do you want to laugh or cry more? I want to laugh more. I want to be happy or sad? I want to be happy. You want to go see things and create memories in your life or basically do the same thing over and over again? Most people say, I want memories in my life. So it's not that you don't have a vision, it's that you have a depth perception problem, you have a pacing problem. See, you think your dreams, those feelings, those memories that change that body, that relationship, that amount of money is really far away. And because you believe it's that far away, you've created patterns, belief systems, thought processes in your life that perpetually keep it that far away. You are jogging in the marathon of life, where the winners are running 15 to 20% faster than you. They're up 15 minutes before you. They're making 15 to 20% more contacts. They're doing every day what you do some days because they believe that they're one decision, one meeting, one new contact, one new relationship, one new thought. Maybe one podcast away from completely changing their life. I'm not suggesting to you that it's going to be easy and that's going to happen like that. What I am suggesting to you is that if you think it's really far away and you pace yourself and you do things occasionally, it'll always stay that far away. It'll always be there. It'll always be a mystery. And here's the truth. You and I both know it. There's no mystery to what makes a great mom or a great dad. You know exactly what it is. There's no mystery of what makes a great athlete. You know exactly what that looks like. There's no mystery would make a great entrepreneur. There's no mystery that would make you happier. There's no mystery. The mystery is you. The mystery is, are you willing to do the things every day, to be relentless, to be obsessed, to get out of balance? This notion of balance is a fallacy. If you're going to do anything great in your life, some things are going to be popping at a given time when others aren't. But what if this entire notion that your life is a finite kind of pie, that if you take a big slice out of the business pie, your family's going to suffer? If you really focus on your family, then you're going to suffer in your fitness. What if the truth is that you're an expanding being that vibrates at a very high frequency, and that when you magnify one area of your life, if you do it correctly, it'll magnify and expand the others, not take from it? See, all these questions about what it takes to win or am I going to be out of balance, are from a completely flawed belief system. Two beliefs. One is that it's further away than it really is, and two is that if I'm killing it in one area of my life, another area has to suffer. What if that's one of the great lies of life? What if one of the great lies of life is that your dreams are for other people, that it's for people not like you, that they're doing extraordinary things that you're incapable of doing, as opposed to? The truth is they're just doing things every day that you only do occasionally. They have availability all the time. What if the truth is that the great lie is that it's far away and the truth is that it's one decision, one new thought, one meeting, one connection away. What if that's the great lie of life? What if the great lie of life is that this is for other people and not you? Because I can tell you that that's a lie. The truth is, is that it's very close. And the truth is, is that it's these small decisions that alter our lives. I can tell you straight up, you're a lot closer than you think you are. And what if the third great lie is that, oh, if I'm really expanding one area of my life, another area has to suffer, that I'll become out of balance? I don't even know what balance means. But what I found in my life, and here's the truth, that's a lie. It's a flawed belief system that's been mind virus throughout our culture and our society for years where we have these concepts of balance. Let me tell you what I found that when I am killing it in the gym and I'm a business athlete and I'm strong and I'm spending time in there training my body, that I'm a better businessman. That's what I found. That my gym life, my fitness life expands my business life. You know what I've also found? That when I'm killing it at work and I'm giving it everything I've got, that when I come home, I'm a better dad, I'm a better friend, I've got more insights, more energy to give to other people. When I'm suffering at work, I usually suffer at home. When I'm suffering in the gym, I'm suffering at work. So when one area expands, it magnifies the other areas of life. The reason that we believe it takes from one another and we feed that belief system is we've been programmed into our minds to believe it. I'm not saying that you not need to be careful careful that you don't need to be careful about your allocation of time and making sure everybody gets something. But I can tell you straight up, the fitter I've gotten and the harder I've worked out in the gym and the more time I put in there, the better businessman that I've been, the better businessman I've been. When I'm making a difference in my work and I'm growing and expanding, the more I bring to my family and friends, the more value I have, the more insights I have, the more love I have, the bigger and better version of me I have to share with My family. You remember this. If you're doing a great job as a mother or a father, you're going to bring that love and that comfort and that security and that faith into your work life. And it's going to expand your work life, not take from it. And when you're crushing it at work, you're going to be a better mom and a better dad and a better friend because you're a better you and you're more proud of you and you respect you more. And because when you come from that place, you've got more to give other people. And when you're nailing it in your fitness and you're crushing it and you're fitter and stronger. Stronger. Those aren't hours you're taking from other places. Those are investments you're making in your strength and your vitality and your mental well being so that you are better at work and that you are better in your family. One of those areas expands the others as long as you believe it does. Those are the three lies of life. And today I cleared it up for you. I told you the truth. And so, although there are no secrets to winning, there are lies. There are flawed belief systems that take from winning. And what I have found is that if you do the things that I've described today, you put yourself in a position to win where the probability of you winning is increased. There's no guarantees in life, there's no promises. What we're trying to do is increase the probability and the possibility of our winning. And what starts to happen is you become an impossibility thinker into a possibility achiever. All your life you've had this secret notion about you. Deep in your heart you were known, you were born to do something great with your life. When you were a little boy or a little girl, you just knew it. Maybe even had a family member who made you feel that way. They saw the special in you, didn't they? I'm here to just remind you today they were right. You were right. You were born to do something great with your life. And I mean, yes, you sister, yes, you, my brother. Maybe no one's told you in a while, maybe no one's reminded you in a while, But I want you to know God made you to do something great. He made you in his image and likeness with a big plan. And you're gonna make a difference in people's lives. And what seem to be small ways that end up being huge ways down the line in their life. And some of the things when you're doing it, it's gonna feel really big when you're doing it. But remember what I said earlier. When you're making history in your life, most of the time it doesn't feel like it because you're in the midst of the work. You're in the midst of the fog. You're on that lonely road to success that I've described in other podcasts. If you've not heard those shows, listen to them. It seems lonely, it seems dark. It doesn't seem like you're getting there, but meanwhile, you're making deposits in the bank account of Success every single day. The truth is, the people that win that become the goats that are the great ones, they've just made more deposits in the Success account than those that haven't. And they make those deposits because they do needle moving things. They get up a little bit earlier. They do it more consistently. They believe they're closer than they are. They know that when they're crushing it in one area, they're expanding in others. They know it's a game of inches. They know it's almost too scary to talk about. But the thing they really know is, is that they were born to do it. That they were born to do something great with their life. So I'm here to remind you it's closer than you think. You're closer than you think. There are no secrets. But there are secrets. There are lies, there are flawed belief systems. And hopefully today we've rid you of a few of them. I really believe in you. I don't believe in you because I've met you, because millions of you I haven't met. I believe in you because I believe in God. I believe that he doesn't make any mistakes. And even if you don't believe in God, that's okay. I got enough belief for both of us. And I know that you were born to do something awesome, that you're not here by mistake. I know there's a purpose to you in your life. And I know the more that you do these things I've described, that purpose will be revealed to you. Even if it's not clear to you now over time. It'll be revealed over time. Those deposits, you're making millions of other people in your life. And maybe just a few of them will be the benefactors of making the withdrawals because you did all of the work. The people that you love will thank you someday for doing all of the work you've done just right now. They can't see it right now. Maybe they don't even believe it for you, but I believe it. And I know you're going to do something great. Hope today helped you. Hope every week when we come back on these solo episodes that you go, I picked up another thing. I'm more inspired. I learned something. This is something I'm going to shift. I know for me it was valuable. Today I feel like I was talking to me. I feel like I was talking to me. We're all in this together. We're all brothers and sisters. None of us are better than anybody else. You know, the world is going to try to convince you that we're all separated, that we are all at each other's throats right now. We're all in this together. And although we may have different opinions and belief systems about different things, we're brothers and sisters nonetheless. And we were put here and born to make each other's lives better. And that includes you. You are uniquely qualified to change other people's lives. You're the only person on earth right now with your experiences, your personality, your background, your heart, your mind all combined into one human being. Man, that's pretty special. Man, you're special.

[Progressive Insurance]

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[Ed Mylett]

Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry Me. So you know this. I'm a big believer in coaching, especially when it's from a reliable source. And I think most people should have some interaction with somebody who's helping them get better in their life.

[Brendan Burchard]

So if you're waking up every day.

[Ed Mylett]

And you know you're cable a little bit more but you're not really sure how to get there, listen, success doesn't just happen. Most successful in the world don't figure it out on their own. They have a coach, they have mentors, they got coaches, they have people guiding them every step of the way. That's where Strawberry Me personal coaching comes in.

[Brendan Burchard]

You'll identify your obstacles that are holding you back.

[Ed Mylett]

You'll develop a step by step plan, take action and confidence. You can be held accountable if you want to. Knowing you have a dedicated support staff, a coach behind you every step of.

[Brendan Burchard]

The way instead of relying on guesswork.

[Ed Mylett]

Or waiting for the right time. I've had a personal coach for a long time and it's helped me tremendously in my life.

[Brendan Burchard]

You know I love that Chinese strawberry. If you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back.

[Ed Mylett]

That's what a coach can do for you. They've got the directions.

[Brendan Burchard]

Many times in your life, go to.

[Ed Mylett]

Strawberry Me Ed and claim your 50 credit. That's strawberry me slash ed. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. 26 of Americans who participate in a recent survey say they've avoided seeking mental health support due to fear of judgment. When people hesitate to get help, it doesn't just affect them, it impacts families, workplaces and entire communities. This Mental health Awareness Month month let's encourage everyone to take care of their well being and break the stigma. The world is better when people are healthy and happy. Therapy is a great way to take care of your mental health. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself and it's for everyone. BetterHelp has over 10 years of experience matching people with the right therapists from their diverse network of more than 30,000 licensed therapists with a wide range of specialties. BetterHelp is fully online making therapy affordable.

[Brendan Burchard]

And convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide.

[Ed Mylett]

We're all better with help. Visit betterhelp.comedshow to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L p.comed show very short intermission here folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. 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.

[James Clear]

Today we're going to cut through all of the BS and get to two of the most fundamental things that I think you have to have in order to go achieve at the highest levels. You know, we talk oftentimes about strategies and tactics and mindset and there's a million different things that, you know, we could talk about that contribute to winning in life. But at the highest levels, you were to distill it down to two very simple things that I would wish for you that I see in the people I coach. Like, if I'm going to recruit somebody into my business, what are the things I look for in them? Is it background? Is it intellect? Is it people skills? Is it their ability to close? There's all these things. The things that I look for in people are hunger and focus. It's their ability to be super hungry for what they want, incredibly after it, and the ability to be laser focused. And I want you today to evaluate those two things in you. Let's start with hunger level. I mean, how bad do you want your goal right now? I think there's a lot of people in the world today because it's a really niche thing to talk about. I want this. This is my outcome, this is my goal. Like, how bad do you want, do you want as bad as breathing? Do you want it as bad as anything you ever wanted in your life? And if you calibrate it at the highest enough levels, what I found is the people that are the hungriest, they find a way when you know why you want something, when it's desperation, the power of being desperate is something that most people avoid. They think desperation is a weakness. And I'm here to tell you desperation is one of the most powerful emotions you could possibly possess. Because when you're desperate, you find reserves and reservoirs of ideas, talents, and a strength that you don't know you have when you find yourself in a desperate situation. So ironically, the one thing most people avoid in their life, hunger, which is caused by being desperate. When you're starving, you become desperate. Think of somebody who's starving on the street. They've got to. How resourceful would you get if your children were literally starving and you had to feed them? Right? So the number one thing we need more than anything to win is hunger, which comes from a state of desperation. Yet we're constantly trying to comfort ourselves in the real world to avoid the state of being desperate. And I'm telling you that I think you need to embrace desperation again in your life. Like, do you want it so bad that you're desperate for it? Let me give you an example. I can tell you that I think the times that you've achieved at the highest levels in your life, you might have been the most desperate. If you were sitting here and you're in a meeting right now and someone tapped you on the shoulder, God forbid this ever happened. They said, your child's been in an accident and they've been rushed to the hospital and it's grave, instantly you'd be desperate to get to your child, wouldn't you? Those of you that don't have children, if it was your parents, you'd be instantly desperate to get to them and think about what happens when that desperation kicks, kicks in. All of the things we worry about, all of our fears, all of our concerns, all of the lack of resources we have, immediately fade away. Because we must get to this child of ours, this loved one of ours. So if you were in the middle of a conference and they said, here's another, Your child has been in a serious accident. It's grave. You need to get to them. Would you sit there and think for a minute? Well, I don't want to get up right now in the middle of their speech because what will everybody think about me? I mean, I don't want to make waves here. That would go away. Wouldn't you get right the hell up and run out of the room. If when you got to the back of the room, there was a security guard that said, hold on a minute. Stop. Nobody leaves this room. A very important person's up there speaking right now. Would you go? You're right. Sorry. I don't want to violate protocol. I don't want to go. I don't want to color outside the lines here. You're right. I'll go back to my seat. Would you do that? Of course not. Because you're desperate, whatever is required of you to get to this child, this loved one of yours, you would do. And when you went out to the parking lot and you got into your car and you realized, my gosh, I forgot my keys. I left them in the room, would you go? Well, it's just a sign. I mean, maybe I just don't have what it takes to get to my child. That silly, stupid story. You wouldn't do that at all, would you? You'd immediately respond, you get back up, you'd run in the room, you'd knock the security guard down, you'd go back, you get your keys, you'd run back out. When you turn the car on, it didn't start, the battery was dead. Would you go? Yeah, that's just another sign. You know, maybe I'm just not cut out to get to my destination, to get to my child, to get to this loved one of mine. No, because you're desperate to get there, aren't you? So you'd throw the keys away and you'd run. If you had to go to the next stoplight and carjack a car, you'd say, listen, drive me to the hospital. I have to get to my child. And the person said, no, would you say, stop at the first objection, would you say, well, yeah, I don't know exactly what words you say. No, you don't understand. You're taking me there. And if they hesitate, if you had to carjack the car, you'd carjack it, wouldn't you, when you got there and when you got to the hospital, if they tried to stop you again and said, no, no, no, you got to sign in and fill out all this paperwork. You got to do it perfect, you say, no, that's my child. I've got to get to them, wouldn't you, Whatever it took, you'd get to that loved one of yours. Nothing would stop you. All of the silly things that happen that we let slow us down is related to our lack of hunger and desperation. And so I'm here to ask you, how desperate are you for what you want? Like, here's what I think. I think most people would just like their goals, they'd like their outcome, but they're not hungry for them. They're not starving for it. They're not desperate for.

[Ed Mylett]

For it.

[James Clear]

But when you start to feel that desperation, it's one of the most powerful emotions in the world because you become so resourceful, you become so determined, and all the noise goes away. See, all of these objections, all of these fears, all of these old stories you tell yourself, all the excuses that you're making, and I love you, so I'm saying this to you, are all going back to a lack of real hunger, real desire, real desperation. Because real desperation is beautiful. The most alive you'll ever feel, ironically, is when you're the most desperate. You talk to people who are the closest to death in an accident, and they'll tell you, ironically, it was the most alive I've ever felt. Because you're so desperate to survive, you're so desperate to get through it. Yet in life, we try to avoid this all the time. And I'm here to tell you, embrace the desperation. Seek the desperation. So if you ask me, what do I look for in someone I'm coaching, in an athlete, in a business person, show me somebody hungry. I'll take hunger and desire over iq, over knowledge over skills, every day of the week. Because I can teach you skills, I can teach you the lessons, I can teach you the words, but I can't give you heart, I can't give you hunger. I can't give you desire. I can't give you the courage to be desperate, because desperate people look a little funny. Desperate people don't fit in. Desperate people stand out. You see someone desperate, you're like, whoa, what's going on with them? Desperate people get criticism. And most people would rather not stand out. They'd rather not leave the crowd. They'd rather not take the criticism. They'd rather not take the heat. So most people say, I'd love to be a millionaire, I'd love to win. I'd love my dream relationship. I'd love the best body I could have. I'd love to be happy. But I don't want to look bad doing it. I don't want to seem desperate, I don't want to seem different. I don't want to step out of the crowd. And as long as you're one of those people who won't step out, who won't look a little bit funny, who worries more about what other people think about them than truly winning, you're always going to be held back. The number one thing I want is hunger and desperation, man, Every single time. So evaluate that right now. Listening to this audio or watching this video. What's your level of real hunger? What's your level of real desperation? How bad do you really want it? Or would you just like it? Do you need it like you need to breathe? Do you need it like you need to eat? Do you need it like you need to exist? Or do you just kind of want it? Because you show me two people. You show me one person who's desperate and hungry. You show me another one who'd like it or wants it. You show me one person who's willing to look bad and get uncomfortable and color outside the lines and do whatever they got to do to get to their destination, to get to their child, to get to their dream. And you show me another one who won't. I'll take this person every day of the week. Maybe they don't come from the perfect background. Maybe they don't have all the perfect words. Maybe they don't have all the right relationships. But they got the goodies, man. They got the one thing you got to have to win, which is hunger and desire and some heart. And I know you've heard these things before, but now I want you to be self aware, really. How hungry are you? What are you doing to feed your hunger? What are you doing to feed the fact that you feel like you're starving? Because the more you want something, the lack of it makes you more and more hungry. For example, if I were really hungry and I needed some food, it's one thing to want, it's another thing when that food's right in front of me and I'm not allowed to eat it, I become hungrier. So the closer you bring what you want to you increases itself hunger level, the more repetitious it is, the more you Think about it. The more you bring it into your thoughts over and over and over again, the hungrier you get. That's why repetitive thought about what you want is so critical. So evaluate that. Am I as hungry as I could be? Am I as starving as I could be? Do I want it so bad I'm desperate for it? Do I want it like that person who has to get to their child or their loved ones? Or would I just like it? Would I hope for it? Because as long as you're one of those people, see, in a fight, you show me two people. This is why it's so hard to repeat as a champion in the fighting game. Because you show me someone who's up and coming, who's hungry for that title, who's never had it before, who can taste it, who knows if they win that belt, their whole life's going to change. They're going to be champion of the world. All the endorsements, all the money, all their family life, all their parents lives are going to change. You show me somebody chasing that, hungry for it against someone who's just trying to hold on to a title. And that's why most of the time the challenger beats the champ. It's hard to repeat as a champion because the hunger goes down just a little bit. The greatest athletes, the Kobe's, the Brady's, the Jordans of sports, have a way of feeding their hunger all the time and increasing it. What separates them isn't just their work ethic, isn't just their talent, although those things matter. Isn't just they practice more. What separates them is they're just hungrier. They somehow find a way as they climb up the ranks and win championship to get even hungrier for more. Where 99% of the athletes lose just a little bit of their edge once they get that first championship, that first pro contract, that first big amount of money, that first world championship, they just lose their hunger a little bit. And then there's the elite.

[Ed Mylett]

They get hungrier.

[James Clear]

It feeds the beast. For some of you, have you been hungrier in the past? Let's be honest, in the past, were you hungrier for that first promotion? Hungrier for that first goal, Hungrier for the first house, hungrier for the first relationship, hungrier for the first time you got fit. And if you lost a little of that hunger, where you're just not quite as desperate as you used to be, and so it's feeding your desperation and the way we do that is we feed it to ourselves or over and over again because it Becomes something we must have. We have to have it. Like we got to eat, like we got to breathe. Feed the hunger, feed the desperation. Embrace it. Don't try to look so pretty. Because this desperate state eliminates all the things that hold you back. Your fears, your worries, what you don't know, what the obstacles are, signs, haters, lack of information, lack of blah, blah, blah. It all goes away when you're hungry. The second thing is focus. Can you get laser focused? Human beings can get incredibly great at anything. They put their minds to total immersion in any topic. Most human beings can become great if they give themselves enough time. The truth is, most people overestimate what they can do in a month or a year. And they dramatically underestimate what they can do in five years or 10 years. If you get total immersion in a business, total immersion in your body, total immersion in your faith, you totally get laser obsessed focused at something. It's incredible how great human beings are at adapting and becoming great at it. Many, many years ago, I knew nothing about communicating on camera or starting a podcast. I'll tell you a funny story. When my podcast started, I was encouraged to do it by Tony Robbins. And when my podcast started, he said, hey, you got to order. People say, now you're listening to the number one business podcast in the world that didn't even exist two years ago. Okay? I knew nothing about podcasting, nothing about how this worked. I did not even know what a podcast was. I want you to understand something. When I was first told to have a podcast, I did not know what one was. And so he says, you got to have one of these. I said, what are they? You know, where do you get the microphones? Where do you get the stuff you talk to? Before I had this stuff on camera. This is a true story. He goes, I don't know. Figure it out. My team did it all for me. I'm like, okay, so I Google how to start a podcast. This is how I began what you're listening to right now. Number one in the world right now, Fastest growing show on Earth. I Google how to start a podcast. And Tim Ferriss, who had a successful podcast, had done a podcast on how to start a podcast. And so I listened to his podcast. At the end of it, there was notes. And he said, if you click on this link, it takes you to Amazon. There's a kit there with the microphones and the recording device and all the stuff you do to start a podcast. I thought, okay, so this started by me Googling how to start a podcast. Tim Ferriss at a kit. I listened to the show, I bought the kit, I got back and I said, tony, I said, so now what do I do? He goes, I don't know, set the mics up and just start talking about something. And I'm like, alright. So I do like a 30 minute audio, I set the mics up, I got all the equipment Tim Ferriss said you should have and I'm done. And I call him back and I said, hey, brother, I did the podcast. How do I get what I said out of the machine? And he goes, I don't know. Well, you got, it's on the chip. Take the chip. Now here's how stupid I am. I'm like, chips? I don't. There's no chips. He goes, yeah, there's a chip you put in the machine. I go, I. No one said anything about chips, man. I don't, you know, what do you eat these? Like, no, dummy, there's a chip, like a micro something or other. He didn't know either. You put it in the machine. And I go, shit, I didn't. I don't think I have one of those. So I look and there's no chip. So I literally talked for 30 minutes into a microphone that never even recorded anything. So then I go get the chip, I put the chip in the machine, I do the 30 minutes again and then I call him, I go, okay, it's on the chip. How do you get the chip into the universe where people hear what you're saying, right? Like, you know, this baby goes. He goes, I don't know. I think you stick it in your computer. So I'm on the phone, I stick the chip in my computer. This is the number one show in the world now. I stick the chip in the computer, I go, okay, it's in the computer. What button do I hit so people in the world can hear it out of my computer? I'm not kidding you. He goes, I have no idea, man. I know. Don't know how this stuff works. So finally I figure out, oh, you got to download the chip onto your computer. And then it goes to a thing called Libsyn. And I knew none of this stuff. The first podcast I did never got recorded. I googled how to do it. The chip sat in my computer for two months because I couldn't figure out how to get it out of my computer into the Internet. Okay? That's how my podcast started. But I become laser focused, focused about podcasting. I'm like, oh, then people said, you should record it and put it on YouTube as well. So I've learned. Where do you get the cameras? How do they do it? How do they post it on YouTube? What do you type? I knew none of this stuff. My first Instagram video, literally, true story. I do a 30 minute video. My son's kind of the guru. I do the one minute story. Rather I post it. I got three views the next day, and one like. And I call up. This is what I hear. I call up Tony. And I go, hey, no one listened to my Instagram video. He goes, well, you posted it at one o' clock, man. You need to post around breakfast time. This is what I hear him say. I don't know anything about this stuff. True story. Swear to you. He goes, you got a post around breakfast time and dummy, you got no hash browns in your post. And I'm like trying to not pretend I don't know anything. So I'm going to. I got a post at breakfast time. Why does there need to be hash browns? This makes no sense to me. So now I'm mad. But I pretend to know what he's saying and I call my son. I say, hey, you said you knew about this stuff. You're 15 years old, you're Internet savvy. Don't you know all the videos have to be posted at breakfast times and you got to have hash browns in the video. My son's like, dad, why would it matter what food is in your video? I don't know. But he's telling me it has to be breakfast time with hash browns. We went the whole day, my first post, lamenting the fact that I had no hash browns in my video. Turns out he was saying hashtags, but I didn't even know what a hashtag was two years ago. And so finally we figured out the hashtags, how to post, how to do a podcast. And it leads us to where you and I are here today. That's because I've been focused and obsessed in this field now for the better part of a year and a half to two years. So not only did I figure out how to get into the Internet, now did I figure out it doesn't matter what breakfast foods are in my posts, that it was hashtags. Not only did I understand how what chips were. You don't even know what kind of chips. I think he was talking after the hash browns. You don't even want to know. But suffice it to say, figured out.

[Ed Mylett]

What type of chips.

[James Clear]

A year and a half later for my podcast now. And I like him to do more downloads than Tim Ferriss does, and he does a great podcast. But after learning about his kit and Googling how to do it, to think that it's come this far is mind blowing. Because human beings that get obsessed and immersed in any topic can become great at it. And so can you. So pick what you want and get laser focused. Begin to eliminate all the distractions. You are not hungry enough, you are not starving enough, and you are not focused enough. I say this to you as a friend. What are the things that are stealing your focus? Who are the people that are stealing your focus? And begin to eliminate these distractions. Get laser focused and obsessed on what you want. Be starving and hungry to get it. Be desperate to get it. The combination of desperation and hunger with laser focus over an extended period of time is the formula to be great at something. And you can apply this formula. Get laser focused. Eliminate distractions. Eliminate the things that steal your laser focused on it, your research on it, your obsession on it. Begin to do these things and you will begin to change your entire life. Yes. I want your mindset better. Yeah. I want your identity higher. No question. It's important to have great associations in your life. But dad got it. You've got to get hungry and you've got to get focused. And I know these sound like basic things, but go to any area of your life. You want something right now. Pick the number one thing you want to change. Body, money, business, relationship, faith. I don't care what it is, pick it right now. One to ten. How hungry are you? How desperate are you? One to ten. The most desperate and hungry you could be. Rank yourself. Number two. How laser crazy obsessed with focused are you on what it is you want? 1 to 10. 10. Being hyper psycho crazy, obsessed, focused, nothing's in your way. And to the extent you can increase your desperation and hunger and your obsessive focus will be to the extent that you can flourish. Because when those things convene and converge, all of a sudden, the collaborations, the people, the circumstances, the breakthroughs, the insight necessary begin to reveal themselves to you. And not only that, reveal themselves to you with momentum and speed at which you cannot believe you can wake up a year and a half later, be number one in the world at something that you didn't even know existed before. I'm a testimony to that. And you can be as well. Your success is going to be predicated more than anything on your hunger and desperation level and your ability to get laser focus and a of lot. Eliminate the Distractions in your life. This is what makes us great. I think of athletes that I know. I've watched them get obsessed and hungry early in their careers. And as they make a little bit of money, they start, you know, they're a rapper now, now they're an actor, now, they're a producer, now, they're a business person. And their basketball or football or baseball or boxing or UFC career begins to suffer as their focus gets diminished, as their obstacles, obsession gets diminished, as their immersion gets diminished. The great ones never lose that. They never lose the hunger. They only increase it over time. I always try to lay out for you what the solutions are. And then I like to give you a plan. I want to give you a four step plan to both increase your hunger and increase your focus at the same time. So the first step is always to evaluate where you are currently. So give yourself an evaluation as I've asked you. 1 to 10, how would you rank your hunger and desire level? Are you all the way desperate? Are you the most desperate you possibly could be? Because again, I promise you, this is a healthy form of desperation. Okay, so 1 to 10, evaluate where you are and then also give yourself an evaluation of where you are in your laser. Obsessive, focused.

[Ed Mylett]

1.

[James Clear]

Being completely unfocused, distracted, constantly even forgetting what our goals are. Five is we're on it from time to time. We keep some notes, we evaluate. 10 is just obsessed, crazy. Nothing else matters. Focused. If you're not at least at a level 8 or 9, you're not optimizing your effectiveness level at both of those areas. Number two, you must become more intentional to change those things. So it's just starting out. Everything in life comes from intention. You must intend to increase these things. So I want you to become incredibly intentional at feeding your hunger level, bringing the goal closer to you. Repeating it over and over makes you starving for it. And the more you can increase that state, the more you stay focused. Ironically, there's a connection between hunger and desperation and focus. They're related, so be intentional about them. The story I gave you about if, God forbid, a loved one or a child of yours was in an accident. Can you imagine how focused you immediately become when something becomes that important to you, that desperate to you? What happens is everything else, all the distractions of what other people think about us, any other circumstances, what we don't know, what we don't have, anything scarce to us goes away because we're so desperate, it increases our focus. If you think about anything you've had, that becomes Desperate to you. If there was a burglar in your home, for example, and you were desperate, think about the millions of things you're no longer thinking about and how focused you are in on that one thing. We've all had that time when we're laying in bed at night and we think we hear a noise, right? You become so focused. You hear every little creak in the ceiling, don't you? Every little movement of the floor. You hear your sheets move. Oh my gosh, there it is again. You become hyper aware and hyper focused when you increase desperation. So become intentional is step two. Third, what is your plan? What is your strategy to increase your hunger level, to increase your focus level. So part of that plan might be I need to be around people more immediately who can hold me accountable and repeat back to me what I've told them my outcomes are. I need to put myself in situations where I'm accountable, where I'm a part of a group, where I have to report my results to them. Perhaps it's going public, if it's your body, and going public with this is my intention, the next 30 days, this is what I'm going to do. Putting additional pressure on yourself. Perhaps it's shrinking the time frame down. The sooner we must do something, the more desperate it becomes. In other words, if something has to be done within 10 years, how desperate is that? But if it has to become sooner and sooner and sooner, or even if there just has to be a real date put on, it gives us some desperation knowing that date is coming sometime soon. So what is your plan and strategy to increase your desperation, increase your hunger level and then focus on what's your plan to increase focus? Oftentimes that could be a plan to eliminate distractions. What's your strategy to eliminate distractions? Might be I watch too much television at night and it distracts me from my goal. Perhaps you should remove that television from the room. That's a plan and a strategy to eliminate the distraction. Perhaps it's you being on the Internet too long or playing video games. Maybe you need to eliminate them. Perhaps in your nutrition, you're trying to get fit, the distraction are snatched that you have in your home or alcohol. Maybe they need to be removed from your home. What is your strategy and plan to eliminate distractions and increase focus? Because without the evaluation, without the intention, and without the plan and strategy, an actual plan to increase desperation, an actual plan and strategy. Get creative, get resourceful. It's only with a plan that you can begin to make changes and a strategy Otherwise it's just a thought. And then fourth, what immediate massive action are you going to take right now? I'm talking about right when this audio or video ends. What's the immediate first massive action you're going to take towards that plan? The first step, the first, it's unplug the tv, it's remove the video game, it's throw out the junk food, it's remove a certain person from your life. I don't know what it is, but what is the immediate massive action? Because if we can evaluate where we are and get very clear, because we can't know where we're going if we're not very clear about where we are. In other words, if life is like a GPS and we want to get to a particular destination, the only way we can get clear on getting there is to understand and evaluate and be specific about where we currently are. That way we can build the directions. There's no sense of direction, not just with where you're going, where are you, you must know both directions, places, evaluate what you want and be very honest and evaluate where you are. Now the directions can be drawn out. So we must evaluate number one. Number two, we must make it our intention to do so. We must get intentional, get specific. There's a power to intention, there's a power to pointing our mind, which is a weapon at these issues. Third is our strategy. What is the exact plan we're going to take? Without a strategy, you have no shot. You must have a strategy. The strategy doesn't have to be perfect. The strategy can evolve, but there must be a game plan. There must be something you're doing immediately to start towards this journey. It tells our mind we're making progress. It sends a message of I'm serious about this. And then fourth, you must take immediate massive action. Knowledge is not power unless it's applied and you haven't really made a decision, change anything until you've taken an action. And if we delay the action to later, we can have all the evaluation, all the intention, and a great game plan. No action, no momentum, no progress. So what's the one step, the one action that you're going to take immediately towards increasing your focus and increasing your desperation level. What is the immediate action? Once you have those four things, we now have a recipe to change. And so today's message to you was to wake you up as a friend, as your brother, is to say, listen, if we're going to get this done, if you're going to make things great happen, you got to get very clear on what you want. Very clear. But we have got to get starving, we've got to get desperate, we've got to get hungry to perform at the elite level. And for some of you who are already performing pretty high, the reason these next goals are coming more and more slowly, the reason that progress is slower the higher you climb, is because you're less hungry, you're less desperate, and you've got more distractions, some of you, that are starting out in the very beginning of your journey towards chasing goals. I'm giving you the recipe. You must increase the hunger level, the desperation level, and you must get more focused. But for some of you have already achieved that are listening to this. I'm telling you, I understand it, I relate to it. You're like that champion who's trying to repeat. And although you're not satisfied with where you are and you have big goals and ambitions, you must get honest. Am I as starving and as desperate as I was in the very beginning of my career, in the very beginning of my business, in the very beginning of my journey in my faith, the very beginning in the journey of my fitness, whatever it is? Because I can promise you, if we drew a line back to where you made the most progress, you were the most desperate. And the goals start coming slower, don't they, as we become less and less desperate. You've got to feed that. And then the other thing is, there was a time in your life if you were achieving at a high level, whether it was getting your master's degree or graduating college or passing an exam for your business or getting to your first big promotion, I can promise you, if I went back and looked at you, you were laser focused and all the distractions went away. This is the same formula and the same recipe. Success leaves clues.

[Brendan Burchard]

I went through this string for a while where so many what I call high performing, successful friends of mine would say, have you read Atomic Habits? Have you read Atomic Habits? I'm talking about athletes, business people, entertainers. And I'm like, what the heck is atomic habits? And I finally find out. There's this guy, James Clear. Turns out he's written this book, like 5 million people have bought it. I'm so grateful to share him with all of you today. So, James Clear, welcome to the show, brother.

[Ben Newman]

Hey, thanks for having me on. Great to talk to you.

[Ed Mylett]

I think it's important for people to.

[Brendan Burchard]

Understand this concept you teach that everyone's always talking about taking massive action. You take massive action towards what you want. You're like, yeah, you should do that. But your concept of getting 1% better is much more believable for most people. And so just address that for a second. Why 1% better every day? And how does a habit do that?

[Ben Newman]

Sure. So first of all, I think there's no reason that you can't be really ambitious. Right? Like, I consider myself to be a very ambitious person. I think it's just that you're oscillating or switching between these two modes. You know, like when you're in planning mode, when you're in strategy mode, sure, you can be very ambitious and be very aggressive and stretching yourself and reaching. But when it comes time to take action and execute, you have to scale it down to something that you can achieve that day. In one sense, the biggest unit of time you could ever do something is about a single day, because then you got to go to sleep and then you have to wake up again and do it the next day. So unless you're playing at some point, there's a limit. You can only stay up for 48 hours or 72 hours, and then you break. So that's the largest possible unit that you could ever do a single thing in. And I think more realistically, most of the time, the truth is, you know, you got about an hour or maybe you got two hours to work on this, and then you got to go move on to something else. So we don't have big chunks of time available to us. We need to scale things down into pieces that we can actually work on and execute. So the way that I think about it is when making plans, think big. When making progress, think small. And getting 1% better each day is a way to encourage that. The story that I like to tell, and this is something that I kind of kick atomic habits off with. The story of the British cycling team. And for many years, British cycling was very mediocre. They had never won a Tour de France, which is the premier race in cycling. They had won a single gold medal over like a hundred year span. And they brought this new performance coach in named Dave Brailsford. And he had this concept that he called the aggregation of marginal gains. The aggregation of marginal gains and the way that he described it was the 1% improvement in nearly everything that we do related to cycling. So they started looking at a bunch of things you would expect a cycling team to focus on. Like they put slightly lighter tires on the bike or they designed like an ergonomic seat for the riders. They had the writers wear a little feedback sensor, little chip to see how Each individual responded to training, and then they would adjust the practice schedule. But then they started doing, like, these little 1% changes, these small improvements that nobody else was really thinking about. Like, they hired a surgeon to come in and teach the riders how to wash their hands to reduce the risk of catching a cold or getting the flu. They have this big trailer, like a semi trailer, that carries a lot of bikes in it to major events. And they painted the inside of that truck trailer white so they could spot little bits of dirt and dust that might get in the gears and degrade the performance of the bikes. They have two different types of fabrics. They've got, like, indoor racing suits and outdoor racing suits. And they tested those fabrics in a wind tunnel, and they found out that the indoor fabric was lighter and more aerodynamic. So they asked all of their riders to wear that fabric. They even had all their different writers test, you know, like, a bunch of, like, maybe a dozen different types of pillows. And then they see which one led to the best night's sleep for each person. And then once they figured that out, they brought that on the road with them to hotels for the Tour de France and so on. And, you know, Brailsford said something like, if we can actually do this right, if we actually make all these 1% improvements related to cycling, then I think we can win a Tour de France within five years. He ended up being wrong. They won the Tour de France in three years, and then they repeated again the fourth year with a different writer. And then after a one year break, they won three more in a row. So after having never won for like 110 years, you know, they win five of the next six. And I like to use that story as an introduction to this idea of getting a little bit better, making these 1% improvements, for a couple reasons. The first is it shows you that excellence a lot of the time, maybe we could even say most of the time, is not actually about radical change. It's about a commitment to accruing small improvements day in and day out. Secondly, and I think this is also crucial, it encourages you to focus on trajectory rather than position. There's a lot of discussion about position in life. How much money is in the bank account? What is the number on the scale? What is the current stock price? What are the quarterly earnings? There's all this measurement around our current position. But what getting 1% better each day encourages is to focus on your trajectory instead. Am I getting better? Is the error arrow pointed up into the right, or have we flatlined? AM I getting 1% better, 1% worse. Because if you're on a good trajectory, all you need is time, right? If you have good habits, time becomes your ally. You just need to let time work for you. But if you have bad habits, time becomes your enemy. And every day that clicks by, you kind of dig the hole a little bit deeper. And so it's very much at the core. It's about encouraging you to focus on trajectory rather than position.

[Brendan Burchard]

How did you get to 37.78 times better? Like, where'd that ratio number come from?

[Ben Newman]

Yeah, yeah, it's just math, right? So if you get 1% better, better each day for a year, so 1.01 to the 365th power, then he gets 37 times better by the end of the year. If you get 1% worse, 0.99 to the 365th power, then you drive yourself almost all the way down to zero. Now, look, real life is not exactly like a mathematical equation, right? Your habits are not exactly like this formula. But I do think that it highlights an important concept which is the difference between making a choice that's 1% better or 1% worse on any given day is relatively insignificant. It's very easy to dismiss. And this is, I think, one of the things that makes it underappreciated or underestimated. What is the difference between eating a burger and fries for lunch today or eating a salad or going to the gym for 30 minutes or not? Well, on any given day, not a whole lot. Your body looks the same in the mirror at the end of the night. Scale hasn't really changed. It's only two or five or ten years later that you turn around, you're like, oh, you know, those daily choices really do add up. And I think you see this pattern again and again throughout life. Like take knowledge, for example. The person who always reads for an extra 10 minutes each day. Well, look, reading for 10 minutes a day does not make you a genius, right? It's very easy to dismiss. But the person who always does that over five or 10 or 20 years, yeah, really meaningful difference in wisdom and insight. Productivity is the same way, you know, like the person who gets one extra task done each day, doing one extra thing does not make you an all star. But again, over a 10 or 20 or 30 year career, that can be a really meaningful difference in output. So this pattern shows up again and again. What starts out small, relatively easy to dismiss, compounds, or turns into something much more significant over time.

[Brendan Burchard]

The biggest word, bro. I don't think most people take into account. You and I are both college baseball players, good ones, but neither one of us were surefire first round draft pick major league players. And I think most people don't take into account in their life the compound effect. I don't think they understand it in money. I don't think they understand it in their bodies, both positive and negative.

[Ed Mylett]

And I don't think they understand their.

[Brendan Burchard]

Identity or in just in habits. The compound effect in life of allowing small things to stack up over time has a multiplier effect. And one of the things that I feel like in your work and by the way your work is we're a few minutes in here and I'm like, this is so good. And the reason is one, I believe most people believe they can get 1% better every day. I don't think most people believe that they can completely transform everything in one big leap. I think there's a multiplier though. Do you agree that between doing the right things 1% or just better habitually every single day, not only are you actually making deposits of doing things correctly or better, but there's a part of your identity that starts to change over time about how you view yourself that I am that guy who doesn't eat the hamburger and fries when he can choose to eat the other one. And you stack those choices and behaviors up over time and you start sort of believing maybe you deserve something that you didn't deserve prior. Isn't there a factor of that? Don't you think as well?

[Ben Newman]

This is a huge part of kind my philosophy and book, this idea of what I call identity based habits. But essentially the concept is, and I think this is the real reason that habits matter. The surface level reason the habits matter is they help you be more productive, they help you make more money, they help you lose weight and get fit. And look, habits can do all those things and that's great, but I think the deeper reason that they matter is that every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become. And so when you perform these small habits, when you take these little actions, you're casting votes for a certain aspect of your story or a certain element of your identity. In a sense, every time you perform a habit, that's how you like embody that aspect of your identity. So you know, when you make your bed in the morning, you embody the identity of someone who is clean and organized, or if you write one sentence, you embody the identity of someone who is a writer. And this is why it can be Valuable, you know, even to, like, do one pushup, it's like, no, that does not transform your body, but it does cast a vote for, I'm the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. And eventually, as you build up evidence of that story, as you start to cast more votes for that identity, you have actual proof to believe. This is. I think this is a little bit different than you'll often hear something like, fake it till you make it. And I don't necessarily have anything wrong with fake it till you make it. It's asking you to believe something positive about yourself, but it's asking you to believe something positive without having evidence for it. And we have a word for beliefs that don't have evidence. We call that delusion. Right? Like, at some point, your brain doesn't like this mismatch between what you say you are and what you're actually doing. And so my argument is to let the behavior lead the way. To start by meditating for one minute or doing one pushup or writing one sentence and letting that be undeniable proof that in that moment, you were a meditator or an athlete or a writer or whatever it is. And ultimately, I think this is the real value that habits provide, which is they reinforce your desired identity.

[Ed Mylett]

Boy, this is so good, brother.

[Brendan Burchard]

So good. I don't know why I'm just meeting you now, because our overall belief system about change is so very, very similar. And we're going to talk a bit about how to actually begin to establish habits. But before we do that, I want to talk about the concept of establishing one, because you said something about the one pushup. Reading or listening to something you're talking about, about the guy who would go to the gym for just five minutes and work out. And you said something about this casting the vote for who you want to be or who you're going to be. That was powerful.

[G]

Right?

[Brendan Burchard]

But you're saying before a habit can be. And I don't want to quote you incorrectly, but I want you to elaborate on it because this is profound to me.

[James Clear]

I mean, it's obvious.

[Brendan Burchard]

But if you don't step back and get away from it and look at it, you just really don't realize the truth of it. Before a habit can be improved, it has to actually be established. And I think what happens is, you tell me what you think. Beginning of the year, I'm going to lose 50 pounds. I'm going to do this. I'm going to eat five, then I'm going to starve myself. To 500 calories. So it's not a 1% improvement or I want to get up earlier. I'm going to get up two hours earlier starting tomorrow. Instead of get up 15 minutes earlier, get up a minute earlier. So talk about that for a minute. Just the concept for everyone to just.

[James Clear]

They can take control of their life.

[Brendan Burchard]

Right now by just the establishment of a habit, Right?

[James Clear]

Or right?

[Ben Newman]

Yeah, definitely. Right. So one of the concepts I talk about in the book is this. One of the strategies is this idea of what I call the two minute rule, where I encourage people to build a habit that takes two minutes or less to do. So you take whatever you're trying to do, read 30 books a year becomes read one page or do yoga four days a week becomes take out my yoga mat. And. And sometimes when I mentioned that idea, people resist a little bit because they're like, okay, buddy, you know, I know the real goal isn't just to take my yoga mat out. I know I'm actually trying to do the workout. So if this is some kind of mental trick, then like, why would I fall for it? Basically. Well, I tell the story of this guy Mitch that you mentioned, this guy who I met. I talk about him in Atomic Habits. He went to the gym, he's lost over a hundred pounds, kept it off for more than a decade. And when he first started going to the gym, he wouldn't stay for longer than five minutes. He had this little rule, he had to leave after five minutes. So he get in the car, drive to the gym, get out, do half an exercise, get back in the car, drive home and it sounds ridiculous, right? It sounds silly. You're like, obviously he's not going to get the guy the results that he wants. But if you take a step back, you realize that he was mastering the art of showing up, right? He was becoming the type of person that went to the gym four days a week, even if it was only for five minutes. And this gets us to that deeper truth about habits that you just mentioned, this idea that a habit must be established before it can be improved. It has to become the standard in your life before you can optimize it and scale it up into something more. And, you know, I don't know why we do this. Like, we get very all or nothing about our habits. We're like, we're so focused on finding the perfect business idea or the best workout program or the ideal diet plan that we spend all our time theorizing and researching and looking for a better way. And instead, if we could just master the art of showing up, even if in the beginning it was less than what you had hoped to do. You're establishing a foothold, you're building some small progress that you can advance off of. And it reminds me of Ed Lattimore has that great quote where he says the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door. And man, there are a lot of things in life that are like that, you know, like the hardest part is getting started. The hardest part is establishing the routine, even if it's a lower level baseline than what you ultimately hope to achieve. But the reality is, if you can't become the type of person who masters the art of showing up, even if it's just for five minutes, then it doesn't matter how good the plan is. It doesn't matter how great your theory is. And so I think the two minute rule pushes back on that perfectionist tendency a little bit and just encourages you to master the art of showing up.

[Brendan Burchard]

So good I'm right. Just finished writing a book called One more. And I get asked that sometimes too. And one of the things that I wasn't thinking about it from this perspective when I wrote it, but you can become the kind of person that says, look, I'm going to do. It's my bench press. I'm going to do 10. You do one more, you do 11. I even say if you're riding the treadmill for 45 minutes, you can build that habit of, okay, I'm going one more minute. I do 46. What's the difference in that minute? Well, you stack up that minute over a year. There's a difference. But also your identity begins to change. And I'm not telling you, go from 45 minutes to three hours on a treadmill. So actually, as I was doing this, I wasn't thinking of it from this perspective. But now that I'm thinking about it, actually, our work is sort of converging almost in the exact same space days.

[Ed Mylett]

Listen, all of us are busy and I keep hearing about tonal when it comes to fitness. I'm like, what is tonal? And then they ended up approaching the show. I have so many friends that are working with tonal because let's be honest, we have a million things to worry about every day. Getting in a good workout should not be one of them. Enter tonal. Tonal will pick the perfect weight, track your progress, and suggest what to do based on your muscle readiness. Taking the guesswork out of getting a great workout, working hard is worth it if you're Seeing results. So many people train and don't get any benefit. Don't grow, don't lose the weight. Weight, don't get bigger and stronger. That's what Tonal is built for. Tonal's at home strength training system uses adaptive weight to learn your movement and then set optimal weight for every move. It's really cool.

[Brendan Burchard]

Right now, Tonal is offering our listeners.

[Ed Mylett]

200 off your Tonal purchase with promo code ED MYLET. That's Tonal.com and use promo code EDMYLET for 200 off your purchase.

[James Clear]

Wow.

[Ed Mylett]

That's Tonal.com promo code EDMYLET for 200 OFF. The Range Rover Sport blends power, poise and performance with a design that's distinctly British. Free from unnecessary details, raw power and agility shine in the Range Rover Sport. To truly make an impact, you need to take the lead. You need to adapt to whatever comes your way. And when you're that driven, you drive an equally determined vehicle, the Range Rover Sport. Like you, it was designed to make an impact. The Range Rover Sport combines a dynamic sporting personality, elegance and agility to deliver a truly distinctive drive. The assertive stance of the Range Rover Sport hints at its equally refined driving performance. Defining true modern luxury, the Range Rover Sport includes the latest innovations in comfort and convenience. Use the cabin air purification system alongside active noise cancellation for all new levels of quality, comfort and control. A force inside and out, Range Rover Sport was created with a choice of powerful engines, including a plug in hybrid with an estimated range of 53 miles. Build your Range Rover Sport at range rover.com us/sport. 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.

[James Clear]

My guest today, he's been a friend.

[Ed Mylett]

Of mine for almost 30 years. I was thinking about as I was prepping for this.

[Brendan Burchard]

I've known him for 30 years.

[Tony Robbins]

Holy cow.

[Brendan Burchard]

So, Tony Robbins, welcome back to the show.

[James Clear]

Bro.

[Tony Robbins]

Brother Ed, good to see you, man.

[Ed Mylett]

How does someone condition change?

[Brendan Burchard]

So you use the word patterns earlier, right?

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah.

[Brendan Burchard]

And in both of our work with different people, they've got where they've got because they've developed these patterns and maybe they do read a book or they come to a one day event or something like that and there's change. But how do you condition change in somebody? Is that what you would call immersion.

[Ed Mylett]

Over a three day window or is.

[Brendan Burchard]

It some habitual change when they get back that's task or routine oriented. Conditioning change is kind of the rub. I think it's like the next level of. Of advice that's given to somebody that, you know, I don't see being discussed very often.

[Ed Mylett]

I think it's a hard question.

[Brendan Burchard]

So I'm curious as to what your.

[Ed Mylett]

Answer is about conditioning a change.

[Tony Robbins]

Let me give you two quick answers to it. One is how I did originally, because I didn't know how. Right. I started reading all these books. The first book I read when I was, you know, just, you know, 17 years old. My mom kicked my dad out. She chased me out with a knife. I knew she wouldn't kill me, but I wasn't going back in that house.

[James Clear]

House.

[Tony Robbins]

And I was like, okay, I'm walking in the rain trying to figure out what to do. I stayed in the laundry room of on the second night, first night on the hill and it rained. So the next night in the laundry room of a friend's. And I had small amount of money, like I don't 19, 20 bucks. And I took the bus and I went to this bookstore I'd seen years ago before. And I got this book called the Magic of Believing by Claude and Bristol. And in the book it talked about conditioning your mind and that it talked about not affirmations. I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy. And you're bringing goes B.S. you're not happy. But incantations is. When you speak it, you engage your body with such intensity. Now, today I understand when you want to change something, you change the body, you change your focus, and you change your language. When you change all three of those things radically, somebody's depressed, uses their body a certain way. They talk with a certain tone of voice. They focus on what they can't control. They focus on things in the past they can't shift. They focus on what's missing. It's not hard to figure out what's going to happen. They use words like, I tried, I can't. I don't know. There's what I call a triad. These three things are done a certain way. When you're depressed, if you change that person's body radically, the tempo they speak their voice, you change their focus to what they are in control of. You've changed their language. Everything shifts. Well, when you do incantations, think of like affirmations only speaking aloud with total intensity over and over again with repetition. It's like conditioning your mind, your body and your emotions at once. So I was working in these two banks mom kicked me out. And they were in San Marino, California, near Pasadena, California. And I worked there. I was still in high school. And I would take the buses there because they didn't have a car. My mom kept my car. It was a 1960 Volkswagen Bug. And I got there and I cleaned the banks because it wasn't by the hour, it was by the result. So I cleaned two banks. I was really good at it. I did a really good job. And by finished, by 2 in the morning, I get on the bus.

[Ben Newman]

Bus.

[Tony Robbins]

By 3:30 in the morning, I'm home, I go to sleep, wake up on four hours sleep and go to school. It was pretty brutal. One night I come out of the bank, changed my entire life. I'm waiting for the bus, waiting for the bus, waiting for the bus. 45 minutes, no bus, there's nobody around. It's three in the morning, I gotta get home. What the hell am I gonna do? I know I can call and do this. I'm a million miles away. So all of a sudden a guy comes creeping down the street and he rolls down his window, goes, hey, buddy, I'm at the bus stop. He goes, didn't you see the paper? There's a bus strike, there's no way to get home. So what did I do? Part of it was initially anger with my mother kicking me out. And I'll show her. But then I remember I read this book. So I was doing these every day and every way, I'm getting stronger and stronger. Every day, every way, I'm getting. Every day, in every way, I'm getting stronger. Every day, in every way, I'm getting stronger and stronger. I did that for the first 20 minutes. Been happier and happier, healthier. I ran 13 and a half miles. I never run two miles in my entire life. It became the power that I still tap into this day. I literally found a part of myself by demand, by conditioning. By the end of that, like, I was utterly certain what I can do. You know, when you see an athlete, a kicker, you know, on a football team, a basketball player about to a free throw, and you think they're going to miss it, you can tell before they release the ball, kick the ball.

[James Clear]

They'Re going to miss.

[Tony Robbins]

You see, they're lacking certainty. When you look at somebody like Steph and he releases that ball and he turns and doesn't even look and it's already a swish, People go, oh my God, he's a genius. No, he's being rewarded in public for what he's practiced a billion Times in private, Steph told me he shoots. I've seen him 500 shots every single day of his entire adult life from the time he was a teenager. But just take his 15 year career. Career, 500 shots a day, 14,000 shots a month, 168,000 shots a year. 15 year career is 2.52 million shots he's taken to make 3,300 to be the greatest three point shooter in history. That's conditioning, right? You do it, you do it, you do it, you do it. But there is a way to speed it up. When Stanford came to me and wanted to do that study on depression a couple years ago during COVID they wanted to see, they saw the results. They couldn't believe. Believe it, right. People that get depressed, they had two professors that are gone, no more clinical depression whatsoever. So they want to do the study. The most people, 40, 60% of people that get treated with drugs or treat or psychological treatment are still depressed. That's the meta studies. 40% improve, average improvement, 50% they're half as depressed. They did it with us. 100% of the people. After five days from date with Destiny, not a single person. A year later, 11 months later, nobody does. 17% of the people had suicidal ideation, none with suicidal ideation. How did that work? Well, we changed their perceptual filters. What people focused on, what the things meant to them, what they do. But we did it for five or six days and nights of total immersion. And since they followed me for three years, biochemically, they were interested because they discovered this biochemistry that Tom Brady experiences that the Tampa Bay hockey team that's won so many Stanley Cups, lightning have done on. They go into a state, if Tom Brady's down in the fourth quarter by 10 points and he's got two minutes, there's no way you got to win the game. Something happens to him biochemically. That happens to me every time I'm on stage because they measure me for three years. They call it the championship biochemistry. My testosterone surges to a level that's insane. But so does my audience. They follow me. So at that level, anything you think about, you remember. That's why the retention is so high. You remember where you were in 9, 11, you don't remember where you were in 8, 11, you don't remember those moments because there's not enough emotion, there's so much emotion. Secondly, normally there would be a huge amount of cortisol, that's the stress hormone that gets in the way of your performance. For Tom, for Tampa for me, my cortisol drops through the floor while my testosterone is rising. That puts you in this state of absolute push. Certainty and drive. Doesn't guarantee you're going to win, but it increases your chances about 100 fold. My audience, not only my live audience, my live audience. When we went during COVID to digital, where I had people in 195 countries participating, like we're going to do, for example, for the three days they went around, sent people to 15 different countries, took their blood, just like me, took their saliva, measured them. Every single one of them went through this exact same pattern. And that's why 11 months later, 72% decrease and I've never seen them again. 72% decrease in negative emotions. 52% increase increase in positive emotions. In business, it's all engagement. They measure engaged, disengaged, actively disengaged, engaged. You're really into it. Disengaged is like quiet quitting. You do the minimum actively disengaged of people that are angry and actually trying to screw you over in your own business. Covid's four years destroyed engagement more than any time in the history. Of the measurements at levels no one could even dream of, the one that grew the most was active disengagement. People actually angry, trying to mess up the company. Company we did in six days. They're doing a one year study. Most studies like this are a month to three months. Largest one they've ever done. 750 people at the end of the six days, update with Destiny. Five and a half days, every single person was higher than they were before COVID meaning their engagement was through the roof. But what's really cool is they're measuring it. The year ends this month, but I saw the six month review. Every month they increase their engagement and their effectiveness. And I never spoke to them, yet I never saw them again. Why? Because it's in their biochemistry.

[Ben Newman]

Why?

[Tony Robbins]

Because they have whole new filters in their brain. So you can do it through incantations or you can do it through some form of immersion. They took the best professor at Stanford, won all these awards, had him teach my exact content as a contrast group, word for word, but without the things I do to change biochemistry. And he still got 300% increases in retention that he's never seen before on the content. But mine was 3,000% right. And his wore off after, I think it was eight weeks. And mine a year later was still producing the results. So there is a science to changing your conditioning so you can do it. The rote by incantation, do it rote. By having new rituals. There's so many ways you can do it. But the most powerful way I know of is total immersion. Where we engage your biochemistry and your emotion. And what's so cool about it is time disappears. You know, you ask people what's a long time time? Some people say a century, some people say two minutes. Right. A long time is anytime you're not enjoying yourself. You know, a minute can feel like eternity if it's a horrible experience. But if you're having a great time, time disappears. And you know, even the events, we go 12 hours a day literally around the world. When I'm doing my events here, like the last event I just did to here, Date with Destiny, we had people in 195 countries. So it's every country in the world. We had like we'd start here at 10:00am a.m. it's already midnight. In Australia they go from midnight to about 1 in the afternoon for six straight days in a row. And we lost 1% of the people. Give you an idea. It's that engaging, right? They're in a whole different time zone. It doesn't matter. They're in the zone and their biochemistry has changed. And so that's why I love books. But the reason I still do seminars is because there's nothing like an immersion experience like that. Now people can do it from anywhere on earth or they can come in person and do it too. Because now that Covid's over, we do both.

[James Clear]

Yeah.

[Brendan Burchard]

And that's by way this event@join Tony100.com I want you to go.

[Ed Mylett]

It's just.

[Brendan Burchard]

That's because you have immersion over three days.

[Ed Mylett]

Here's what I just want you all to do.

[Brendan Burchard]

So I'll give you my simple language from that.

[Ed Mylett]

Success, bliss, achievement.

[Brendan Burchard]

Ecstasy is a biochemistry. Yes, it's a neurochemistry and a biochemistry.

[Ed Mylett]

And so if you want to find.

[Brendan Burchard]

Those states of being, it's a biochemistry.

[Ed Mylett]

And so just for a lot of.

[Brendan Burchard]

You, something really simple to do. When you're training physically, if you work.

[Ed Mylett]

Out, you run, you walk, these are.

[Brendan Burchard]

Times where you should be anchoring your goals and your visions of your life. When you're in that elevated state of neuro and biochemistry, it's just a much more powerful anchoring and conditioning for you to create a change in your life. And so elevated emotional or physical states and anchoring the things that you want in your life, your visions and your goals and your ambitions. Now you're anchoring the biochemistry and the neurochemistry the likelihood of those things happening and repeating themselves becomes that much higher.

[Ed Mylett]

This is important stuff for you.

[Brendan Burchard]

The gentleman that I have on the show today has written a brand new book that I love. It's called Uncommon Leadership. Eleven Ways Great Leaders Lead. In fact, I love it so much I wrote the foreword. If you wonder whether I love this man, what he stands for and what he teaches, you need to look no further than his book because I'm right there with him. So, Ben Newman, welcome to the program.

[G]

Ed, my brother, you know how much you mean to me and the opportunity to be with you and I'm so grateful for you writing the forward and just couldn't be any more excited to be with you and your listeners.

[Brendan Burchard]

I want to ask you a question just to begin with on the leadership side because we'll do leadership and performance today. You work with some of the top leaders in every single industry. If you guys don't know, he's the performance coach for Alabama, their football program. I read this. Is this right, Ben? 18 national championships. Is that right?

[G]

18 national championships. And I've been there four years, which is a long tenure for somebody with Coach Saban. So I feel blessed every time I'm in the building.

[Brendan Burchard]

What have you learned from him? I gave you a couple takeaways. What separates him? He's, you know, I've had Dabo Sweeney on my show recently. Urban Meyer's a dear friend. So I'm not going to rank these guys. But you know, he's in the conversation as the goat, if not the goat. What have you learned from him that maybe surprised you when you got up close and personal?

[G]

Three words, be the example. And whether it's the game of football, whether somebody's leading in a boardroom, whether somebody's leading in a classroom room, I believe that you have to be the example. And Coach Saban is knocking on the door of 70 years old. And I actually go to training camp here in two days, my fourth training camp with the team. And you will see him sprint in between drills.

[Tony Robbins]

Really?

[G]

Not like walk fast, Ed. I'm talking sprint in between drills. If your 70 year old head coach is sprinting in between drills, what's the expectation of the player? So he believes you have to be the example to lead the people that really for him, he believes it's a blessing to have the opportunity to lead these young men.

[James Clear]

Yeah.

[Brendan Burchard]

Now that's incredible. By the way, nobody should be sprinting in my business meetings. Maybe I need to do anything. But the other thing you were sharing with me about him, obviously. Standards. I think people think they have high standards. Like I thought I trained really hard until I started training with world class bodybuilders and athletes. And I'm like, okay, compared to what? And oftentimes I'll have business people say, hey, man, I work really hard. I usually say, hey, come spend a couple days with me. Let's see how hard you work. Right. But in his case, you're telling me something about what he said about we were going to do this drill, we were going to practice this. Not until we get it right, but even higher standard than that. You entrepreneurs, you business people, you athletes, listen to what he's going to tell you is Saban's standard that he's learned.

[Ben Newman]

Yeah.

[G]

So the standard is if everybody were to come to practice with me next week or this week, you would hear him say, we don't do things until we get it right. We do things until we can't get it wrong.

[James Clear]

Gosh.

[G]

It'S mind blowing. And oftentimes his messages are so simple, yet they're so profound. And he's a master of saying something that applies to everyone, you know, a lot of times even me. And I'll get a little long winded, right?

[James Clear]

I like to talk.

[G]

And he will say things that are simple, yet it applies to the walk on who may never see time on the field. All the way to. Bryce Young will be our new, you know, starting quarterback this year. I mean, it's incredible the discipline that he has to understand how to communicate.

[Brendan Burchard]

How does he. And we won't talk about Saban the whole time, but you've seen this leaders. One of the things that leaders get, I call it like leadership fatigue. They're always trying to come up with new things all the time to say rather than. I think leadership's about finding new ways to say old things. And so how does he that standards Nuts. Like the whole world has Alabama's target, right? The target is on Alabama's back from the entire world.

[Ed Mylett]

What does he do?

[Brendan Burchard]

That standard of we're going to do this until we can't get it wrong. What does that look like? Is it intensity?

[James Clear]

Is it yelling?

[Ed Mylett]

Is it do it again? Is it do it again?

[Brendan Burchard]

Is it encouragement?

[James Clear]

Is it all of the above?

[Brendan Burchard]

Does he push every emotional button? How do you do that?

[G]

You know, it really starts with off season training, right? There's an expectation, here's the way that we do our off season training. So if somebody goes offsides, let's say we're in February and we're in our fourth quarter training. That's conditioning. Is everybody listening? Conditioning in February for football games that are going to be played in the fall. And you just probably won a national championship in January. And if somebody goes offsides, Ed, he's the first one to blow the whistle, hands on his knees, saying, whoa, whoa, whoa. The way you do one thing is the way you do everything. If you go offsides in this drill in February, it's a 10 yard penalty in November and it might cost us the game. And so he's conditioning his athletes to not just physically perform, but to understand that you have to think about your actions. So he combines the mental and the physical to allow athletes to realize how much they really have deep down inside.

[Brendan Burchard]

So do you, by the way. I want to. And it segues perfectly. So the mental and the physical. I get asked often, you know, what are some of the keys to staying positive, optimistic, high energy. For me, a lot of times it starts with my body and my routines. What I said about Ben in the foreword of his book is, Ben is the example. He's incredibly ritualistic and disciplined in his approach, particularly in what he does, sort of in the mornings too. And the longevity, like your streak of dudes bananas. So give us some insights because you've been around the top guys, so you've sort of formatted, formulated sort of a routine that you do in the mornings that I'm sure is some of this is adopted from people that you've known that are elite performers. Tell them a little bit about your routines and your disciplines and your consistency with them and why you are so consistent.

[G]

Well, first off, let me share a compliment to you and something I'm very grateful for to you. And then I will get to the question. But I think the first thing is I have two coaches. I read books every single day and I have mentors. That means I'm a really high maintenance guy. So I. I am far from figuring this out. And so I'm constantly trying to find what can my edge be, how can I get better? Whether I'm at Alabama, whether I'm working with a billion dollar construction company. I don't want to settle. I'm never finished. I always feel like we can give more. And during COVID I was blessed that you and our dear friend Andy Frisella invited me to speak at an Arete event. And we get done with the Arete event and the three of us had this question and answer that I will never forget.

[Brendan Burchard]

Awesome.

[G]

And you said some things to me that shifted the Belief that I had in myself. Ed and I shared this with you privately, but I want to go public because I think it's important. I appreciate the kind things that you say, but I'm a big believer that you have to set yourself up for your environment. So whether it's consistency in when you wake up, what you eat, how you think, what you feed your mind. And this is what I call a never do it again list. So this never do it again list, if everybody looks down at number 11, okay, you can see Ed's name and number 11. And so after I completed the first part of 75 Hard, I actually wrote a never do it again list because I wanted to capture, now that I understand this next level of my thinking, what are the things I can't go back? And so I wanted to train my brain. If I found this next level, I better be conscious of the fact I can go back. It's way easier to go back than it is to create a new discipline. And so I wrote these words after you instilled belief in me. And I believe one of the greatest acts of leadership is a transfer of belief. And you changed how I feel and how I show up. So every day I say, never forget the belief Ed Mylett shared with me. His words and statement shifted my belief. Ed, I read that every day. And so you're in my morning routine.

[Brendan Burchard]

I knew that, and I'm honored. Thank you for telling everybody else, man. I appreciate that, and I know I.

[G]

Share that with you, but I wanted to go public with that because I think sometimes people see somebody that performs like you, or people will say, wow, you know, I perform at a high level, but this is what it's about. It's about surrounding yourself with people who push you and challenge you to say, no, no, no, you're not done. And so it's been environments, you know, it's working out. If we know that working out causes us to release our endorphins, to feel great about ourselves, to feel confident, why would you choose to not work out? So for me, that's been a big part of my morning routine, Whether it be working out, putting my head in a book. That means a great deal to you and I every single morning, you know, preparing our team who helps me get to the next level. I don't do this by myself. We have a great team. And so there's a very disciplined routine that I believe causes me to show up. When you hear that, ding, ding, ding for the day to start, and I'm ready to take it on mentally, if you bring me adversity, I'll run right at it.

[Brendan Burchard]

You bring bananas level energy to stuff you do. And I want people to get some insight. Is that something you have to work at? I mean, are you conscious?

[James Clear]

Like, okay, I'm about to do a show, I'm about to give a talk.

[Brendan Burchard]

I'm about, I'm bringing monster energy. Or is that something you're naturally just, that's just the way you're wired.

[James Clear]

Why do I ask?

[Brendan Burchard]

Before you answer, I want to tell everybody why I asked that. I don't think most people are conscious that you are always making people feel something one way or the other. And most people are completely oblivious to what they're making people feel. They're not only not self aware, they're not even aware of what they're making other people feel the energy that they put up. So is this just you or is this something you've worked on to build that is now you, Ed?

[G]

This is me. In fact, I'll tell you a funny story. I've never told this story in an interview. And this may have to do with the fact that a buddy of mine is raising money for an illness that his daughter struggles from. So it's top of mind because it just happened. And he set me up with this interview in Chicago. I'm about talking, talking over 20 years ago. And I go to this interview and I get done and his boss interviews me. And the feedback was this guy was way too prepared. That was fake. There's no way anybody has this energy. And it was very adp. And my buddy said to his boss, he's like, that's him. Like that's the way the dude was in high school. Like he's just wired that way. And the guy goes, no possible way. He put on a show for me and, and so for me it's one of those things that's the way that I've always been. And I think a lot of it comes from my belief. And I had to go through a lot of pain and challenge in my life to understand this. We only get one day. I've got the day that's in front of me. So for me to waste it and look, my days aren't perfect. I have challenge, I screw up. I try to be the best husband I can be, I try to be the best father I can be, I try to be the best, doesn't mean I'm perfect. And I don't mess things up. But I've only got one shot every day. And I'M going to bring my best.

[James Clear]

That's why I love you.

[Brendan Burchard]

I think that everyone listening to this.

[James Clear]

I want you to start to ask.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yourself what do I make people feel when they're around me? Because Ben makes you a lot of things one on one. I'll just tell you in a group. He brings great energy, brings belief. Ben has an ability to make people feel good about themselves, to have belief. This is something that all great people have.

[Ed Mylett]

I'm just telling you and you can.

[Brendan Burchard]

Have that when you're quiet. You can do it with a look, you can do with a glance, you can do it with a text, you can do with an email, you can do with a video, video, spoken word. But you need to start to harness a little bit more the control and the awareness of what you're making other people feel when you're in business, sports.

[James Clear]

Family, every aspect of your life.

[Tony Robbins]

This is the Ed Milan show.