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- [00:00]
A
Y' all enjoyed part one as equally as I did. And so the team and I decided we would do a part two. So we looked at some of our favorite moments from the podcast we've recorded thus far, and we decided to do a deeper dive into those moments and really extract the lessons, the learnings, and the awarenesses that I gained, that the team gained from those moments. So let's dive in. Let's dive into Aaron and much Astaghi.
- [00:26]
B
Been through a lot. Been through a lot of ups and downs. You've seen a lot of the ups and downs. And so the. The good thing about, like, huge failures is it helps you, like, in one sense, like, not get as emotional about it, like, be more of a machine, be more of a solution driven. Like, when I got myself in trouble so many years ago, like, this old thing that I used to tell myself, like, whenever it's like, a really, really bad day happens, it's like sitting there in, like, meditation and going, a year from now, I won't even be thinking about this moment. Like, a year from now, nobody will care. Like, and that applies to anything. You do something super embarrassing in front of your friends. Like, you screw up in a class, you do whatever. Like, some even, like, major things, like people getting DUIs and things like that. Like, there's. There's very few things that, like, a year from now that can't be a distant memory, right? That doesn't impact your life, right? So that's, like, one way to stay centered in the face of is like, hey, a year from now, this is it. And I've had enough experience of, like, what happens when I bet on me and the plan stays forward. So some of it we try to look at in a very practical manner. Like, rather than look at everything else, like, how do we do it? Like, okay, so let's go into solution. Yeah, like, how bad is it if it is bad or not? And that's one way to look at it. And then it's remembering to pay off on the bet. Because a lot of these times on the bets, we can deleverage ourselves, we can say, so is it worth giving away X amount of upside?
- [01:43]
A
There's this saying in investing that every day you're in a bad market, you. You're one day closer to a good market. And every day you're in a good market, you're one day closer to a bad market. If we take what Aaron just said there and we apply it to our lives, every moment you're in a bad moment, you're One moment closer to a good one. And if you truly embrace that mindset and understand that pressure is a privilege. And whatever you are going through, regardless of how painful it is, is going to help you evolve and grow as a human. If you make the choice to your life literally can become limitless. And the other thing he talked about that I believe to be true is we have the opportunity to focus on two things in our life. We can focus on the problem, or we can focus on the solutions. And like Pat Heibin said in his book Six Steps to Seven Figures, what you focus on expands. So if you only focus on the problem, guess what? You will only see problems. But if you choose to focus on only solutions, no matter what hurdle, no matter what obstacle, no matter what problem is thrown in your path, you will find the way and make the way to achieve the solution in spite of it. Because your mindset and your being is solutions oriented. Let's dive into Skyler Williamson.
- [03:04]
B
We run our family like a business. Well, I mean, it starts first with example, right? Like, they see their daddy lead himself every day. Yeah. And, and I don't, I don't expect perfection from myself, but man, I know what excellence is and I'm after excellence. And, and so they see their daddy get up first every day. They see their daddy moving his body, moving his brain. They see their daddy happy, choosing to have good days. They see their daddy, you know, making hard decisions for the family, coming home on time from work. I never miss games. I never missed recitals. I never miss any of that. So. So they see it from an example. But, you know, we've got a vision for our family. If you were to pull my daughter aside, my son, I don't know, he's seven. He's young. But if you pull my daughter aside, hey, what are our values? My daughter can recite our family values. She knows what we're working on right now. You know, we're doing some training at the house, you know, and everybody has their own standard. Like, I don't my standard again. I learned this in the military. It is unfair for you to put your personal standard on other people. They didn't sign up for that. Right. And, and so everybody has their own standard in my family. And look, Daddy is going to say something if you're not living up to the standard. Right? It's your standard, too. You said you wanted to be this person, Right? And so I'm not going to let you quit on yourself. And so we, you know, we talk about that stuff too, but, yeah, I mean, we're, we're getting after it just like we do at work.
- [04:37]
A
I'm not one to believe in this thing called a man crush, but if I had to say I had a man crush on somebody in leadership, it would be on this guy. The way he shows up for his people, the way he shows up for his family, the way he shows up for himself truly inspired me to start living my life a little bit differently. And it wasn't a big giant change that had to be made. I just had to make a 1 degree shift in the things that I was doing. Because what he said there and what I heard was that his kids, his team, his wife, learns more from his actions than they do from his words. And he can say all he wants with his words, but his actions are going to speak exponentially louder. And the other thing that he said that literally should be tattooed on someone's body is don't chase perfection. Chase excellence. Whatever excellence means for you. I found myself very often changing perfection as somebody who's wired for mastery. I'm always chasing perfection. But in reality, what I am now chasing is excellence. Excellence to be the best version of myself I can be and understand that I'm human and perfection is not possible. But so long as I am continuing to hold the standard of excellence, excellence will be achieved. Let's look at Daniel Ramsey.
- [06:05]
B
Today is a different Daniel than, you know, 15 years ago. So I'm on my honeymoon and it's 2 in the morning and I'm still working. So at that moment I was providing work to others, but really kind of micromanaging, like, did you do it? Did you do it? Did you do it? And that's kind of how most people start. The pressure is real. Um, you kind of feel like if it's not perfect, it's your name on it. And if I don't get it perfect, then what does that say about me? And I think that's a common experience that all CEOs, founders, leaders have, especially if they're really, really good and have high standards. I think what happens over time is you have some success. I mean, I think that's in anything, whether it's sports or life or relationships or marriage. You like, you know what good looks like, you hire well, you delegate well, and they surprise you with like amazing results. You start having enough of those patterns, you're like, oh, okay, this is how it's done. And so over time, you have just gotten better and made all the mistakes. Hired somebody, didn't have the right job description. Hired wrong. I've, I've done everything that you can imagine. And, and the way you say stain is you just fall down, you wipe your knees down. You know, sometimes there's blood on the knees. Sometimes it's just a little dirt. But other times, you know your knee's broken for a month or two or a year or two. But again, it goes back to just sticking with it over the long term, knowing that this is how you build a company and you just keep going.
- [07:42]
A
When you really think about that saying of, it doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down, it matters how many times you choose to get up. What Daniel really highlighted in this clip was that in business, in relationship, in marriage, and in life, you're going to get knocked down. There are going to be bad moments. There are going to be moments where you don't show up as a way that you are proud to show up as. But if you make the choice to learn from those moments and not perform the definition of insanity, which is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, you will grow from those failures. You will grow from those setbacks. And in reality, those failures and those setbacks become a gift to you and the leader, the husband, the father, the wife, the spouse, the business owner that you are, because you will be constantly improving and constantly getting back up. Life is going to kick you in the teeth. Life is going to be hard. Wipe your knee off. Like Daniel said, sometimes there might be a little blood. Stay down for a minute. Stay down for a week. Stay down for a month. Just don't stay down forever. And remember this, the only difference between a rut and a grave is how long you choose to lay there. Let's see what Dr. Tori Thompson has to say. You would say that Western medicine is broken.
- [09:03]
B
Very. I think. I mean, it's a very broken system. We're so sick, and a lot of people, I mean, what's the average person on three or four prescription medications? They don't fix anything. They keep your symptoms at bay.
- [09:15]
A
Do you think it's because there's so much money in it, or do you think it's because of a lack of knowledge or do you think it's just a bit of all of it?
- [09:22]
B
I think it's a little bit of all of it. There's a lot of money in sick people and big pharma is a big industry and they control a lot. So I think that that's a hard to overcome. Big pharma is a really uphill battle.
- [09:36]
A
Do you think that we have a cure for cancer today?
- [09:39]
B
I think. I think there's probably several or close to it. You hear these people talk about these amazing things, but again, there's no money in healthy people.
- [09:47]
A
There's no money in healthy people. That's so true.
- [09:50]
B
So sad.
- [09:50]
A
It is so sad. And honestly, like, if you look at the American diet, if you look at the school system, if you look at just any, every single day, what goes on? They don't really want you to be healthy.
- [10:02]
B
No. You're set up from the time you're little to be sick. And then you're told along the way that anyone that goes against that is crazy or out there or, you know, not believing in science. That's the new thing they like to say there's no science behind it. So, you know, you're basically, I don't want to say brainwashed from the time you're a little kid, but everything is set up for you to be unhealthy from the time you're little on.
- [10:24]
A
So, look, this is something I, too, believe very strongly in. Western medicine is broken. The system that is currently running our country is money driven, not health driven. I believe we have solutions and cures for many of the diseases that we are putting Band AIDS on today using prescription medication. But fortunately or unfortunately, at the end of the day, money is running the system. And so what I believe is exactly the way Melissa and I lead our lives. You have to be an advocate for your own health and your children's health. Just because these are the vaccines given at this age doesn't mean you have to abide by those rules. It's okay to ask questions. It's okay to challenge the status quo, and it's okay to say, no, not right now. Let me go do some research and let me come back and make an educated decision based on the research that I'm able to find and the perspective that I then gain from that research, rather than you telling me the decision I have to make for my body. At the end of the day, if we look at our bodies like a car, we only get one of them. If our car breaks down, we trade it in, we take it to the shop, we get a new engine. You really don't have the opportunity to do that with your body. And so I think it's very important to be an advocate for your own health. And I think what Dr. Tory really hit on here was you have to advocate for you, because the system, the system that's being run by money isn't Advocating for you. It's advocating for the dollars that are landing in the pockets of the people running Big Pharma. Let's dive into John Vroman's clip.
- [12:12]
B
I also would, like, work my ass off, not get much sleep. I sacrificed financially. I was a hero in every way I could be. To say, look. Look at how much I'm not making money and how much I'm giving to charity. Aren't I such a good person? And I would do that in a way to try to heal my own traumas, my own wounds. And so. But what was happening was I was really hurting myself. I was burning the candle at both ends. I was falling apart physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, in all ways. And I was literally giving myself into an early grave. And that's what I mean, where I was people pleasing, trying to make everybody happy. But I was also experiencing the burn from that. And that's what led to Tatiana after I had, like, landed my biggest speaking gig and the charity was doing great. And I had written this book about moment making for other people. She said, you're more of a moment maker for the rest of the world than you are for our family. And she was right. And that's what turned into front row dads. Because I realized I was a businessman who happened to have a family, and I wanted to be a family man who happened to have a business.
- [13:22]
A
So of all the episodes we've done so far, that is probably my favorite quote. And it's not my favorite quote because I can identify by being a family man who happens to run a business. It's my favorite quote because that quote literally slapped me across the face. I have allowed external validation to drive the actions and behaviors I take on a daily basis. And I have been a businessman who happens to have a family. Now, I can look in this camera and I can talk to you right now and tell you that I am not proud. But there are no amount of words that can describe the sheer shame I truly feel around living the first 34 years of my life as a businessman who happens to have a family. Now, I'm not holding judgment and resentment toward myself. However, I'm not proud of that. And so therefore, I have the gift, I have the power to choose to be a family man who happens to run a business. And I think one of the unspoken things that John touched on in this clip is sometimes the magic we're seeking lies in the work we're unwilling to do and is told to us by the people closest to us that we don't Want to listen to when his wife Tatiana, shared that perspective with him? I am confident he wasn't like, oh, yeah, you're right, honey. Let me go make some corrections. I am confident he had anger bubble up. I am confident he defended his position and his perspective. But I am also confident, based on what he did following that statement, that he went forward and recognized that there is magic that he was seeking in his life that was lying in the work that he had been unwilling to do. Let's look at what Anthony Toliver had to say. Once I played in the NBA and.
- [15:17]
B
Everything else, it was.
- [15:19]
A
By the time I got to the.
- [15:20]
B
NBA, I looked at it as a tool. Yeah. Like I look at money, like I look at it as a tool. It is not. I don't. I'm not obsessed with it. I don't worship it. It's like, money's a tool, and I want to have a bunch of tools. Right. That's it. And so, same thing with basketball. It's like, this game is a tool, and I'm going to use it to my. Me and my family's advantage for as.
- [15:44]
A
Long as I can.
- [15:45]
B
And when it stops, that's okay. Guess what? It goes back to being a sport that I can watch and enjoy and have. No resentment, no regrets, no nothing. Because I gave it everything.
- [15:58]
A
Yeah.
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B
And I got more than I could ever imagine out of it.
- [16:03]
A
This reminds me of a couple weeks ago when I was trying to do some work on the ranch, and I didn't have the right tools to do the project. What ended up happening was I was still able to get the project done, but it took exponentially longer, and it was exponentially harder. When Anthony talks about money being a tool, what I hear him saying is he recognized that the game of basketball was something he loved and obviously something he was very good at. But it wasn't who he was. He was a man who played basketball. And he played basketball, yes, for the love of the game. But he also played it to understand that it was a way for him to accumulate tools to put in his workbench for a later date. And he recognized that in the moment he was in, gathering as many tools as possible would allow him to live with that toolkit for the rest of his life. And a lot of us spend time telling people what we do. If you sit on an airplane, one of the best questions to ask somebody is not, what do you do? But, hey, who are you? And whenever I get on an airplane, people always look at me and they say, hey, you know what? Do you do? Like, the one time I got on the airplane and I was sitting in first class and there was an old man sitting next to me, and he was in a suit and a tie. And I sat down and I was in my hoodie with my hat backwards, my Amazon jeans, my Amazon sneakers. And he looked at me with, like, disgust, and he's like, what do you do? I was like, well, I'm the CEO of a company. I'm going to do some speaking. And he started lecturing me on how, if I was truly successful, I needed to dress for success. What I didn't understand how to articulate in that moment, but what Anthony's clip just helped me understand how to articulate is being a CEO, going and doing public speakings, podcasting, all of those things are what I get to do, not who I am as a human. They're not my identity. And so when I started to look at things like tools and understand that if I have all of the right tools in my tool bench, that I can accomplish anything I want, desire, or need in my life, I recognized that my identity was not what I was doing for my professional job. Job. Let's dive into Bucky Gobble's episode goal setting.
- [18:29]
B
I don't have a. I haven't set a lot of goals, you know, in my, in my, this, this time of my life. My. One of my deals is to survive as long as I can be around for my grandkids, make sure that I'm. Try to be as good a husband as I can be, you know, not the best.
- [18:44]
A
Yeah.
- [18:44]
B
Because I, as I said, I never tried to push to be the best.
- [18:47]
A
Right.
- [18:47]
B
I want to be as good as I can be. And that. That means a lot. That means a lot. If you can be the best you can be.
- [18:52]
A
Yeah.
- [18:53]
B
That means that takes a lot of work, that takes a lot of discipline to do that. Yeah. And you're going to make some mistakes along the way.
- [18:58]
A
When Bucky said my goal isn't to be the best, but my goal is to be the best me I can be, it really struck a nerve with me. And not in a bad way. In a way that was almost invigorating and exciting because so much of my life I have spent chasing perfection and trying to be the best. And at the end of the day, no matter where you are, there's always going to be someone bigger, someone stronger, someone faster, someone richer, a plane bigger, a yacht bigger, somewhere you look. And so if you're striving from a goal setting perspective to be the best. Honestly, it's delusional. And that was how I was living my entire life up until this episode. And I always felt shame and judgment toward myself for the way I was as a husband or the way I was as a father or even my health, because I was always trying to be the best. And when I recognized I couldn't be the best, I just quit. I quit on myself. I quit on the people around me. I quit on my health. And when Bucky said, don't set a goal to be the best, set a goal to be the best you can be, it all of a sudden gave me permission to lean back in and just be proud of showing up as the best version I can each and every day. Let's hear what Jason Dries had to say. Most often, the magic we're seeking in our life lies in the work we've been unwilling or are unwilling to do. Oh, it's funny, dude. I literally hit on this. And there's. There's a reason we're unwilling to do it. And it's probably from our frame or our misalignment that was given to us by friends, by family, by teachers, by.
- [20:35]
B
Society, by life, by, like, life. And sometimes that. Because that is where the growth is. And the reason that the average person makes the same amount of money for the most of their life is because they never grow. So that work that you're mentioning, the work we're not willing to do, is basically the growth they're avoiding.
- [20:52]
A
Why do we avoid growth?
- [20:53]
B
Because it's hard. It doesn't feel good. And did you have personal. Did your parents talk to you about personal growth? And what happened is there was that time in high school you decided to go really big, and you put everything in and you failed. And it hurts. Hurt so much that you shut down for the next 20 years.
- [21:08]
A
Yeah. And I remember, like, in high school and right after I dropped out of college, everybody told me why I was an idiot, why I wasn't gonna make it. I wasn't smart enough, I wasn't talented enough. And I'm so fortunate to have been surrounded by good people that didn't tell me directly, but said through their communications, put all those people in the trunk of your car until you're so strong that you can bring them back into the front seat. But it was all around mindset for me. Yeah, it was. It was a mindset thing for me.
- [21:33]
B
That's great advice, actually.
- [21:34]
A
Yeah, it was. It was really powerful advice. And it hurt. And I think there's a lot of My friends and family that were hurt by it. But I didn't do it because I didn't like them. I didn't do it because I didn't love them. I did it because I wasn't strong enough to ignore the noise.
- [21:47]
B
Yeah, it's hard, like becoming a coach. When I left my tech paying job, good paying tech job, everybody's like, what's wrong with you? Yeah, you know, and nobody understood me, but nobody, nobody had the voice inside them that I did.
- [21:59]
A
After this episode, the team and I were reflecting on this exact moment from the recording. Because what I actually understood in that moment is most people aren't truly afraid of failure. Most people are actually afraid of success. They're afraid that if they achieve the level of success that they desire, that they'll leave the people closest to them in their rearview mirror. And in reality, that's delusional because at the end of the day, you have the choice, as you achieve the level of success you desire, as to who you surround yourself with and how you bring them along on that journey. And when he really touched on this concept of we're afraid of growth, I don't think he's wrong. But I think what we're really, truly afraid of is how good it could be and what others will think of us if we do achieve that level of success. And what I reflected on is it's not my job to control what others say about me now. I do have to control how I show up for others, and I do have to show control how I show up with respect for others. But at the end of the day, the way that a person feels about me is not mine to carry and not mine to hold. And so rather than avoiding the growth, where most of us are getting it wrong is we're avoiding just truly how successful we could be because we're afraid of that success. We're not afraid of the failure. But that's the safer answer. Let's look at the next clip. Get addicted to the suffering. Like I get in the cold plunge every day. It doesn't get more comfortable, at least not for me. Maybe for some people, maybe I'm just weak, but I'm addicted to it. I'm hooked on it. And I know because on the other side of it is this awesome feeling, is this, like, energy that I can't find anywhere else. And it's knowing that I started my day doing something really fricking hard.
- [23:57]
B
Yeah, well, it's like armor. You start. Start your day with that.
- [23:59]
A
That's right.
- [24:00]
B
Everything else is just a little less intense.
- [24:03]
A
How many people do you think avoid the pain but then complain that they don't have the life they desire?
- [24:11]
B
I think most people like I, I, my, I learned that suffering was a thing in college. Like I attribute D1 Athletics to like my light bulb moment where it's like I thought I worked hard and then I'm dropped in this environment where it's just straight suffering like I've never worked before. And not only that, you can then race and come in last and it's like what? Like I just did all this shit and now I'm, you know, there's nothing to gain from it. And you realize like that's, that's life, like you have to inject yourself into it and there's no outcome guarantee.
- [24:48]
A
I think a lot of us take actions because of the expectation of the outcome. For instance, a lot of people give to others or help others because they believe that the reward will come back to them. And look, I do agree with that, that when you serve others endlessly, it will come back to you tenfold. But if you're serving others with the expectation that it will come back to you tenfold, it never truly does. And a lot of the actions that I take on a day in and day out basis, I am detaching from the short term results and outcome of because I recognized early in my journey that life is almost impossible to predict. I mean, Steve Jobs has that incredible quote that he said at the Stanford commencement speech that you can never connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward. If you try to say, I worked really hard and therefore I will win this game and you lose the game, you will not be willing or able to work as hard as you did prior to that game because subconsciously you know the result even yield it a loss. But if you said, I'm going to work as hard as I possibly can to win this game and put myself in a position to win this game, and regardless of the outcome, I'm going to continue to put in the work. At the end of the day, you will start winning the game, but you can't predict when that will be. The outcome may be today, it may be tomorrow, it may be 10 years from now. But just like Steve Jobs said, when you look backward, you'll be able to connect all the dots and you'll understand that the hard work did eventually yield the results. But it didn't yield the results because that's what you expected. It yielded the results because that was what you continue to do day in and day out. Let's see what Jamie Gruber has to say.
- [26:38]
B
February 2021. I quit my job. When I quit my job, I had to give back almost a million dollars in equity because I had restricted stock units. When I went to my pod with this idea that I was going to quit my job, it was, guys know I should. I got to give a million dollars. That's just not the right decision for me. I got to find something better. Right. I was ready to retract back to old me.
- [27:01]
A
Yeah.
- [27:02]
B
One of the guys, at least maybe two of them, said, a million. Dude, you'll make that in a year. What do you mean? Like, have you seen what you're doing? You'll make that back in. You'll make that equity back in a year. It's not real anyway. It's not in your pocket. It won't be till you're 60.
- [27:15]
A
And it's not really yours. They control it.
- [27:16]
B
Correct. Until they. Until it's yours, right?
- [27:18]
A
Correct.
- [27:19]
B
So you'll make that back in a year, maybe two. So now what are you going to do? I was like, oh, fuck, I guess I'm going to quit.
- [27:26]
A
Do you think you made it back in a year?
- [27:28]
B
Oh, I made it more than that in a year.
- [27:30]
A
I think six months I did.
- [27:32]
B
Right. Because of partnerships I found within gobundance. I found the community. Right. So, yes, I think I made. I know I made all of that back income and equity wise, I made all that back and more. But more than that, man, I gave myself time, I gave myself freedom. I gave myself alignment with who I truly am, the lifestyle that I truly want.
- [27:48]
A
To an extent, what Jamie's touching on is the proximity effect. And what I mean by that is proximity is power. If you surround yourself with people who tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear, you will be stuck living the exact same life you have. Because most people don't have the confidence to tell you what they truly think because you have not created a container to allow for that radical candor to exist. And what Jamie did so brilliantly and what so many of the gobundance members have done so brilliantly is they recognized that in order to get to where they thought was possible or where they desired, they had to surround themselves with people who were not afraid to tell them what they needed to hear. They were not afraid to challenge the status quo, and they were willing to hold them accountable to not buying into their own bullshit of, if I leave this job, I'll lose a million dollars of equity. They asked powerful questions, and there's so much power that comes from a question, if you're willing to ask the uncomfortable one and truly lean in to what's possible on the other side of it. Look, at the end of the day, there's so much power in all of these clips and in all of this content, but if you don't apply it to your life, it's meaningless. And I've recognized through all of these rehashing of clips and all of these re listening to the podcast episodes that I've actually taken action on the lessons that the guests have given me through the interview process. And I hope you can find the way or make the way to take action on the lessons you've heard and create the change you desire in your life. See you all next time.
- [29:34]
B
Sa.