A (2:45)

Yes.

B (2:45)

It's not like 24 hours from now you're going to have made it. But what is the trigger? What. Because how you begin says a lot about how you'll finish. Okay. And I think the first thing is to decide on an aiming point. Some epic goal that scares you. Something that you really have fire in your heart about is your goal. It's not somebody else's goal for you. It's not a should go or an ought to go. It's a my heart goal. And that sets the stage for everything that follows. And we're talking about fast growth here. We're talking about making Quantum Leap. And fast growth shouldn't start slow. I think it was William James, father of American psychology, who said, if you want to change your life, there are three rules. Began immediately. Hmm. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.

A (3:56)

Interesting.

B (3:57)

And I just love that quote. And that is philosophically so aligned with what, what we take a client through in the, in the Quantum Leap strategy or the U squared method.

A (4:08)

I guess you could say three things begin immediately. Was the second one.

B (4:12)

Do it flamboyantly.

A (4:15)

Do it big.

B (4:15)

It's. Yeah, it's almost like burn your bridges, you know, we're talking about, give me a real commitment.

A (4:22)

Go all in.

B (4:23)

Yeah. And the third one, no exceptions.

A (4:26)

No exception. No excuses. No exceptions. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Why do you think so many people struggle with figuring out what their big dream or goals are and making that decision? Why is it such a challenge for people?

B (4:42)

Well, a lot of people are fairly content with their life, and that's fine. I think everybody can make a Quantum leap. I don't think everybody needs to. Certainly not everybody wants to. And then you've got people who want to, but they won't give themselves permission.

A (5:03)

They won't give themselves permission.

B (5:04)

Right. And they don't believe in their own potential. I've. I've evaluated hundreds of top level executives over the years that used to be a mainstream part of our business when I was with a firm in Chicago early in my career. And it was just fascinating watching how much potential these top execs were just leaving on the table because they wouldn't take a risk. And a lot of people are really risk averse. And there's just a lot of psychological dynamics that come into play when someone puts himself out there.

A (5:44)

Yeah.

B (5:44)

It's kind of funny how people don't want to fail. They, they can't take the punishment of failure. They don't want to be embarrassed, humiliated, lose money And I think it was. It was Alfred Adler, who was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, one of the legendary psychologists from back when. And one of his quotes I love so much, he said, one of your biggest mistakes in life will be that you take too many precautions. And I see that all the time. If you start to make a quantum leap, you're triggering a new set of dynamics. You're going to deal with a new set of problems. I mean, you're kind of going into a fog of ambiguity. It's this place you hadn't been before. We're not talking about incremental change, you know, we're talking about major change, skipping rungs on the achievement ladder kind of thing. And you kind of open with talking about the lucky you book. And really, it's funny how this idea of, well, I want to achieve big goals, I want to succeed. Okay, well, luck kind of needs to come into the picture because you're probably going to need luck on your side if you're going to do, you know, if you're going to swing for the fences.

A (7:32)

Yes. I want to get into luck here in a minute, but I'm curious first about what you think the biggest traps or mistakes that keep people from accomplishing their goals.

B (7:41)

Okay, good. They think too small.

A (7:45)

Think too small.

B (7:48)

Most people carry their goals around in their head and it's a little too vague. It's not quite specific enough. They don't write it down. Gail Matthews, psychologist, she wrote. She did this study, this piece of her research, and she found that the simple act of writing down your goal, writing it down, getting it on paper and getting it on your laptop or whatever, that that alone increased your chances of success with that goal by 43%.

A (8:22)

Come on.

B (8:23)

Really? Yeah.

A (8:24)

Wow.

B (8:25)

It just somehow it makes it so much more real. But I guess it's kind of like some people, if they just make a daily to do list for themselves, they're more productive the next day.

A (8:38)

Yeah. Writing down what you want to do tomorrow, you're more likely to go do those things tomorrow. Rather than just thinking about all the things on your mind. I have to do these 20 things tomorrow. Maybe you do one or two if you just think about it. Yeah. As opposed to getting it down. And then saying, step by step, here's what I'm going to do.

B (8:54)

Yeah.

A (8:55)

Okay, interesting. So it's almost like making a goal list like you would your to do list. You write a to do list of the things you need to do today or tomorrow, and then hopefully you can get through those things. But most of us don't write a goal list.

B (9:09)

Yeah.

A (9:09)

Where we're going to get through our goals or pursue our goals and then figure out what's the game plan and how do we get accomplished this.

B (9:17)

Another mistake.

A (9:18)

Yeah.

B (9:20)

People look around and when they're trying to decide on what their goal is going to be, they think in terms of what will the world allow me to do? And that really puts boundaries on it, as opposed instead of thinking, what do I want to do? What am I willing to commit to and make happen? It's a. It's a very different game all the time. I see people, they say, I read your book U Squared. Or I read the Quantum Leap Strategy, which is its companion handbook. It's kind of the sequel to U Squared. Well, I want to make a quantum leap, you know, it's time. I've been kind of flatlined. I've hit a wall, whatever. And they make an incremental. They said an incremental go. And. Because they think they've got to know how to get there. If you set a Quantum Leap go, if you pick a worthy enough target, you don't know how to get.

A (10:24)

Yeah. It should scare you.

B (10:26)

Yeah. And the thing about it is everything. You've made quantum leaps before. Every human being has. And the most simple example I love to give, and it proves that everybody's done this before, is when you went from crawling to walking. Yeah. You can't crawl fast enough. You can't play that crawling game good enough to become a walker. In fact, it just. It's a different set. It's a different technique. It's a different set of moves. You're. And same thing when you go from walking to running or from walking, running, whatever, to riding a bicycle. All of those things.

A (11:16)

To driving a car or.

B (11:17)

Yeah, yeah. And. Okay, so what's interesting about any of those things is. Okay, so how did you pull off the success in that particular move? Whichever it was, you failed again and again and again. And people are afraid to fail because failing feels like losing. And I hate losing. You know that movie Moneyball?

A (11:48)

Yes. Great movie.

B (11:49)

It's a great movie. And Brad Pitt in that movie, there's a scene where he's in. In somewhere. Not in the locker room, but some of their quarters around the locker room and everything. And he's talking two or three of the players, and one of them is named Charlie. And they're talking and he says, I hate losing, Charlie. I hate losing. I hate losing more than I even want to win. And it's different yeah. You know, and it kind of reminds me, that's so true. Winning's great, but losing, man, and that's when we get embarrassed. We feel stupid, you know?

A (12:33)

But here's the thing. When we associate. When people associate failure with losing, they're always going to feel defeated. But you and I know that the only way to become successful is you must fail in order to succeed. So how do we rewire our minds or reshape it, knowing that failure is part of the process of success? Not. And it doesn't equal failure being. We are losers. Personally.

B (12:59)

Yeah, I think that. I guess there are several things that we can do. First of all is just stopping for a minute and thinking in our own mind. You know, any. Any major change of. Or any new skill I picked up in my life. I mean, learning to eat. Look at the mess the kid makes, you know? I mean, they just wreck the floor around them when they're learning to eat. The kid doesn't care. The kid has just got, you know, the kid wanting to. Or the crawler wanting to walk. Well, they start trying to walk and they bang themselves up. They fall, they cry. They get a bruise, maybe scraped here and there. But they're not thinking of embarrassment. They're not even thinking about it as failure. They're just thinking about it, it didn't work, okay? And they try again, and they keep learning, and they. They get there, and that's. It's kind of the same thing, whether you're trying to learn some new computer skill or some new athletic sport, you know, whatever. And so I think part of it is just starting with this ideal that failure belongs in the process. If you're not failing, that's the biggest mistake of all. Because you stabilized, you've leveled off.

A (14:33)

You're playing it safe.

B (14:34)

You're playing it safe. There's this whole Chinese proverb that says failure is the mother of all success. And it's so true. If you think about. This is what I think throws us. If you think of a continuum, okay, failure on one end, success on the other, and we think of them as polar opposite, right? Which is that. And think. Are you telling me then, Louis, that failure is a key dynamic in my ability to succeed? You would say, absolutely, absolutely. And if you start toward a goal and you're not making some mistakes, then you've aimed too low. If you know how to do it, you're not staging a quantum leap for yourself. If you've got. If you bring out the game plan, a detailed game plan for this. I'm Going to get there, you've aimed too low. If you've taken the risk out of it, you've aimed too low. You know, there's just a number of key differences between. I'm just going to set a conventional goal for myself. An incremental goal makes sense. It's not scary. I know how to do it and so forth. You know, 10 things, man, that are just dramatically different.

A (16:00)

Yeah. You know, it's interesting because there's a. There's a great meme that I've seen online for years. That's a photo of a baby trying to walk. I might have mentioned this in the last interview we did, where the meme says, you know, when a child is learning to walk and falls a thousand times, he or she never thinks to himself, maybe this walking thing isn't for me.

B (16:24)

Right.

A (16:24)

He just keeps trying, or she just keeps trying. It keeps falling. After the 10th fall, after the, you know, hitting the back of the head a thousand times, the baby doesn't say, I'm just gonna stand on the ground and crawl and keep doing this. It eventually figures out through pain, through crying, through tears. And usually most adults will clap when they fail and say, oh, you almost did it.

B (16:47)

Yes.

A (16:48)

You're. It's like, no one's like, you're a stupid baby. You know, it's like shaming the baby when they make a mistake. They're like, yeah, good job. You hit your head. Keep going. You know, there's this encouragement, but as adults, you know, there is more people laughing at them, shaming them, making fun of them when they try to pursue something that looks like they're going from comfort crawling to, you know, walking running in whatever goal or dream they might have. And so maybe there's a psychological shift that happens in society as we age and as we grow older. So how does someone learn how to rewire their mind or reshape this philosophy that failure is the pathway to success? And even though when you were a kid, more people encouraged you as an adult, you may not get the encouragement. So how does someone learn how to feel empowered internally to. To support themselves when they're failing hundreds and thousands of times on their path from crawling to sprinting in their quantum leap goal. How do we do that internally?

B (17:57)

Well, start with, it may not sound like it's internally, but that's where the impact is. Put your. As much as you can, surround yourself with people who are going to be supportive.

A (18:10)

Yes.

B (18:13)

Because they're going to have a heavy influence on you. There may be a mentor that would Be your wingman through, through the process. And so when you screw up, they'll get set back. You know, they say they're right there, you know, reminding you. So that's external stuff, but it's powerful.

A (18:41)

Yeah.

B (18:41)

The other thing is just try to maintain an optimistic mindset across the board is huge, huge. Because performance begins inside the brain, always has, always will. And it's so, it's kind of like you got this quarterback in your head, right? You got this quarterback up here calling these plays and you can just try to get, try to say, okay, my quarterback thinks winning, winning, winning. He thinks we're growing, we're getting better. Of course, if your brain's limbic system comes in with all this scary stuff, you know, and then you just kind of, you gotta discipline your thinking.

A (19:38)

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B (20:23)

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B (22:35)

It'S just like disciplining. Here you are, you know, with this big endeavor you're shooting for within on the handball thing and that takes a.

A (22:46)

Lot of discipline, a lot of energy, thought time discipline. Yes, for a big quantum leap, trying to go to the Olympics.

B (22:55)

Yeah, I think that's just wonderful. But most people don't think of doing that same kind of discipline, that kind of regimented training almost for their thinking processes. Yes, it's interesting studies that have been done that said you should, you know how many, how many positive thoughts you need to have relative to every negative thought. And the last time I was here we talked about the 5C words and how this negativity creeps into our head. Very pernicious stuff. And most of us, we, we are oblivious to about 70% of the negative thoughts that are making up the big part of the 50,000 or so thoughts a day we have. And so it's being more mindful of where our mind is, what we're feeding into it. I mean, you can sit down, watch the evening news and I can just get all stirred up, you know, and I just see myself going negative and it's so counterproductive. Yeah, so there's the mental discipline part. There's the, the context you put yourself in and the people you surround yourself.

A (24:09)

With as a more important to be more positive thinking or less negative thinking.

B (24:16)

Well again, powerful research, fascinating research on that point. And we used to, over the years, ever since I guess Norman Pence, Vincent Peale wasn't. They wrote the book the the Power of Positive Thinking. Think positive, think, think positive. Be an optimist. You know, think, think more positive thoughts. It's, that's a good dogma, that's a good piece of advice.

A (24:45)

It's better to be positive than negative.

B (24:48)

But. Yes, yes, but what the research has found and we think because if we'll become more positive then that means we're less negative. Right, that's kind of true. But what they have found is that you don't have one attitudinal scale that with optimism on one end and pessimism on the other end, they're two separate scales. And you'll get a lot more mileage out of reducing really cutting down on the negative thinking that is more beneficial to you than increasing positive thoughts because the, the negative does more damage than the positive does good.

A (25:36)

Really.

B (25:37)

And again, that's some very disciplined behavioral research and it's, it just kind of blew people's mind when, when that surfaced.

A (25:46)

How much damage happens to our brain, our heart, our nervous system when we're thinking negatively on a consistent daily basis?

B (25:54)

It can have long term effects on the body. You know, cortisol levels in the body go up and, and first of all it just depletes energy. Usually it's a real energy and not just your energy, but it's depleting on other people's energy too. Attitudes are very contagious. And there was a study done. It's one of the classic studies in psychology of nuns. This started decades and decades ago. And over a period of 50 or 60 years. What they did in this research, they did testing on a group of young females that were going into convent, becoming a nun. So, and they would test them periodically. And after, I can't remember if it's 50 or 60 years, they, they looked at this group of women and what they found, I'm just really collapsing the data down to the bottom line on this. What they found was that those nuns who were more optimistic, you know, they, they were more upbeat, more positive, were living seven years on average longer really than, than the pessimists. Wow. Which, which is crazy when you start thinking that means negative thinking does more damage than smoking.

A (27:28)

Wow.

B (27:29)

2 lifespan. So yeah, that stuff is bad stuff. And it's funny to me that we go through, we go through grade school, elementary school and then we maybe go through college and so on and so forth. I don't remember ever having a class on managing your mental. Mental processes, your attitude, your, you know, and, and so forth.

A (28:00)

Emotions.

B (28:00)

Yes.

A (28:01)

The only time I got that training was in sports after school.

B (28:04)

Yeah.

A (28:04)

Where the coaches are like talking about attitude, have a good attitude, you know, all these different things.

B (28:09)

Yeah.

A (28:10)

That's when I got the most knowledge, was playing sports and failing every single day, making mistakes, having a coach correct and try to hopefully reinforce positive behavior, positive attitudes, positive routines in order to accomplish the goal of winning. But you never really get that in school.

B (28:30)

But, you know, your most recent book, Make Money Easy. I mean, the psychological principles that we're talking about play throughout that book. I love the book.

A (28:41)

Yes, thank you.

B (28:42)

Great, great, great reading.

A (28:43)

It's all about managing the, the emotions with our relationship with money. Because when we're thinking negatively about money all the time, typically, why would we attract more of it? Why would we generate. If we're constantly in a negative mind space around it, or when we have it and we're thinking negatively about it, it's just not going to feel good. And so it's about creating a healthier relationship with money.

B (29:04)

Yeah, yeah. I think it, it's a great book and once again, not something that was coming my direction through any of my education in the early years, which is fundamental, basic thing of life.

A (29:20)

Yeah.

B (29:21)

You know, your ability to deal with money and think about money and manage it, you know, but yeah, it's a human behavior and your attitude comes in in spades.

A (29:31)

Yeah. You have a quote. I love this quote in your book, Lucky you. It says, so let your deepest desire direct your aim. Set your sights far above the reasonable target. The power of purpose is profound only if you have a desire that stirs the heart. That's something you mentioned earlier in the conversation about really having something that like, creates fire in your heart when you're thinking about a goal. Not just something like, yeah, that'd be nice to have this thing, or incremental growth, but really, what is that thing that almost kind of scares you a little bit or maybe a lot? And so I'm curious, what's one mindset shift that you think is holding people back from allowing themselves to believe in something greater and pursue that thing that really stirs their heart?

B (30:22)

Well, sometimes they feel it'd be selfish. Really.

A (30:25)

Why is it selfish to go after our big goals and dreams?

B (30:29)

Well, because. Quite a leap. Goals have a big appetite. They want most of the food on your plate.

A (30:37)

That's true.

B (30:39)

You. You're chasing one right now.

A (30:42)

Yes.

B (30:42)

And that means that other things fade into the shadows.

A (30:47)

Yeah. You got to let go of a lot of other things.

B (30:49)

Yeah. And I think a lot of people feel like I can't do that. That's all me. That that's just a selfish thing, that I don't need to do that. I'm not sure I could pull it off anyway, you know, all this stuff. And so I mentioned earlier, giving yourself permission to do these big things. It's kind of funny when we would. When I'm out there working with. On a half a billion dollar merger, and I'm sitting with the top exec in the acquiring company, and they're mashing these two companies together, and it's difficult stuff, you know, and you got emotions running wild, political stuff, churning egos. Oh, yeah, It's. It's got everything. And so much of the time, my job is giving him permission to do what he knows he needs to do. It's saying, here I am, I'm an expert on the outside. We've done $350 billion worth of merger deals over the years. And so I can say, louis, you need to do this and you need to do it today. Go. And it's like, oh, thank you. And they knew they needed to do it. And so it's giving ourselves permission to do some of the things that it. That's where our heart lives. And another reason that you need to have some real emotional you tied up in it is because you're going to go through some dark moments. We talked about the failures, the setbacks, just the punishments that come your way in the process. And so it's. It's got to matter to you. But that's when life takes on real meaning, and that's when you grow. And if the person is totally comfortable, I start to tilt my head and look at them kind of at an angle, you know, because I'm thinking you can have too much equilibrium in your life.

A (32:51)

Too, like too much balance or too much. Too much comfort or.

B (32:54)

Yeah. To be too comfortable and too much stasis. It's. That's when things. He. Not busy being born is busy dying. That was the Bob Dylan line. We need friction in our life. There is. Because that's when you grow.

A (33:17)

Yes.

B (33:19)

And we've talked before. Okay. When I go to, you know, down the street to L. A Fitness to work out, I don't go there to be comfortable.

A (33:28)

Right.

B (33:29)

I don't go there to take a nap, you know, and yet I think I Think exercise, weightlifting and such is the fountain of youth. I really do. I mean, it, it is such a pervasive positive influence on you. And if you want a better optimism, better, you know, positive outlook on life, exercise about as good a drug as you can find.

A (33:57)

Yeah, you're looking in good shape right now. You're looking strong.

B (33:59)

Not like you, though.

A (34:00)

You lifting a lot?

B (34:02)

Semi regular?

A (34:04)

Yeah, a couple days a week or.

B (34:05)

For my age, I'm doing pretty good.

A (34:07)

Yeah, you're looking really strong. Well, how young are you now?

B (34:12)

I am 83 years old.

A (34:13)

Wow, Amazing. Looking great.

B (34:15)

Well, thank you. Thank you. You're looking so fit. It's inspiring to me. Makes me want to try harder. That's good. You know, but talking about this thing about we need friction in our life, too much equilibrium is a dangerous thing, but people get. It's kind of that status quo. Nassim, Nicholas Talib wrote this book. He's written several fool by Randomness, the Black Swan. And he wrote this book called Antifragile. I love that book. Now, that book is that thick. And he is an amazingly smart guy. But he talks about how some things benefit from being punched around, from friction, from setbacks, failures, you know, stretch and stretch and putting yourself out there and taking the blows, the slings and errors of life, you know, as opposed to sitting in your house, you know, lean back in the. Watching TV all the time. And he says, okay, here's. Here's a good way to picture it. Let's say that you have a box of fine crystal Baccarat crystal champagne glasses, and you're going to send them to Prague. Some friend in Prague. Okay, so how do you pack? Do you package these very, very carefully and then close the box and you stamp all over it. Handle with care. Fragile, fragile, fragile. Handle with care. Okay, but let's say you. Because it gets damaged by friction, we'll say, or turbulence, change. Well, let's say that you've got a basketball, you're going to send it to Prague. So you put it in a box. Same what package it, you know, throw it in there and everything. If it gets slammed around the box, kind of crust. Okay, the ball is resilient.

A (36:23)

Yes.

B (36:23)

The ball comes back and so forth. No damage to the ball, right back the way it was. But if you have something else that benefits from change, from turbulence, from friction, you would put it in there. You wouldn't put any packing around it or anything. And you'd stamp on the outside, throw it around, throw it around, you know, sling it this way, whatever it's antifragile and it's good for it to get that. Well, that's what we need to make ourselves. We need to make ourselves anti fragile. And that means we need to create this disequilibrium in our own lives. We need to stretch. We need to do things that are kind of difficult for us. And then we become less fragile. Yeah, we become better than resilient. We grow from it.

A (37:25)

Yes.

B (37:26)

We don't just get back to we were. We get better.

A (37:30)

We become different. We become a different person.

B (37:33)

Yeah, that's. That's one thing about the difference between small goals and big goals. There's a lot that's been written about the small goals, you know, little bitty goals. And I'm. I'm. First of all, I'm just a massive believer in setting goals for your life. Small goals are good for to do list or if you're trying to develop a habit and some of those kinds of things. But small goals create small energy. They attract small resources, and they're very, very incremental. Big goals create energy, they stir you up, they make you more creative, they attract other people. People want to be part of it. And so when you set big goals, you don't just achieve more, you become more.

A (38:43)

That is true. Then what happens to a human being when they decide to let go of their dreams or give up on their dreams?

B (38:51)

Will they diminish themselves to themselves? Read a quote. I can't remember who said this, but if you can't overcome the obstacles in your path, it's probably not your path.

A (39:08)

So how do we know when to give up on a goal?

B (39:09)

Yeah, let's.

A (39:10)

How do we know? Like, okay, this is. This. This big thing is in my heart and I feel like I'm supposed to go for it. I'm so excited. So I'm going to pursue it for six months or a year or five years. But when do we know to let go of the goal or the dream?

B (39:26)

That's the big question. It's a tough one, too. Yeah, it was. It. And there was a book that came out, not what a couple years back called Quit. Do you read it? They need Duckworth, I think. Okay.

A (39:38)

Angela Duckworth.

B (39:39)

Angela.

A (39:40)

Yeah.

B (39:40)

I didn't.

A (39:41)

She wrote the book called Grit also. Right. She wrote a book called Grit or. No, the. The key thing. I think she wrote a book called Grit or that was like her key kind of.

B (39:50)

And I might not even have the name right on this anyway, but there was a book that came out a couple years ago called Quit. And it's about this whole thing of when hacking, you know when to quit, which is a very, very big, important question. And she, she tells some interesting things, and she talks about poker players, which is where she kind of got into this, this whole idea how to quit, when to quit. And she talks about how, let's say if you're playing Texas hold' Em poker, so you get some initial cards, you already had the Annie to be in the game. There was just some table stakes. Okay. So that's out there. So you already got some sunk costs. All right. But then you get three cards, I think it is in Texas, hold them as your first, first dealt cards. So you look at those, and they said that the expert players, I think the statistic was only 12% of the time they play, they stay, stay in the game. And the more novice players, the weaker players, they will stay in longer, they'll lose more. Yeah, yeah. Because of this sunk cost thing. And they, they don't understand the odds. There's a lot going on there in the game, of course, but it's, it's a tough question. When do you know you should quit? What's giving up and is selling yourself out versus I gave it a fair shot. It's, it's not a good, not, not a good plan for me. And I need to redirect myself, cut my losses and so forth. How do you know? I don't know that maybe you got an answer on this. What would you say?

A (41:43)

Oh, man. I think for me it's. It would be one that the drive is not in your heart as much anymore. Like, if the obstacles are so big that you're just not excited to endure the pain. Like, you have to be excited to endure the pain, the challenges, the setbacks, the failures. And you have to be. You have to enjoy it. I think you have to enjoy it. Maybe you don't love it, but you have to be like, I know it's part of the process, and I still have this fantasy, this dream, this love for the idea of reaching the mountaintop of the goal that I have. And I'm enjoying the process. If you're not enjoying the process, I think it's just going to be that much harder. So I think that's part of it. I think the second part is like, have I exhausted every possible avenue that I can think of? And even then, have I continued to go when I think I've exhausted everything? If so, do I still love it? Then let me keep going. If I don't, then maybe not.

B (42:46)

Does.

A (42:46)

Anyone else have those teachers from grade school that you'll never forget? I never felt super confident in the classroom, but I had a teacher who believed in me and my potential so much that I started to believe in myself as well. And that teacher changed everything for me. As Back to School gets underway, this is the best time to learn more about how to get involved in your child's school to team up with their teachers and make sure everyone has what they need to succeed. The National Education association is made up of 3 million educators and allies across the country dedicated to giving every student access to a great public education. Parents and teachers are a team working together to make sure students have the resources they need to succeed. No matter where you live or who you are, public schools are a place where kids can feel safe, supported, and ready to thrive. Every child belongs in a great public school. From big cities to rural towns, public schools belong to all of us. Learn how you can get involved in your local public school community@nea.org BackToSchool Forged by Nature and alive with fall color Maine does autumn the way it's meant to be. Think quiet, misty mornings, glowing foliage, salt scented breezes, then fresh lobster, just pressed cider and warm donuts straight from the farm. There's no script here, just woods, waves, and whatever comes next this fall. Write your story in Maine. Start planning@visitmaine.com maybe there's a timeframe also. Or maybe there's just like I have so many other things happening in my life that also demand my time, where this is just hurting everything in my life. All my relationships are broken because of this thing. So there might be a number of factors there. But I just. Part of me is like I just never want to be the one that has a goal or a dream and gives up too early because it's hard. And then I regret it forever. Have you ever had a dream or goal so big that you gave up on it too early, that you still regret today? On giving up on it? Yeah, I got.

B (44:48)

When it's such that I'm not going to talk about it, I'll tell you.

A (44:50)

Yeah, that you gave up.

B (44:52)

I gave up on years ago. Ages ago.

A (44:55)

You won't share it? Why? Because it's too painful or because it's too. You feel like.

B (45:00)

Yeah, I mean, that's how. That's how deep it cut. Really? Yeah, that's how deep I cut myself, you know. Now I don't think it was good casting for me in the first place.

A (45:13)

It wasn't the right goal right okay.

B (45:17)

But I wanted it to be, you know, kind of thing.

A (45:20)

Was it more ego driven versus heart driven?

B (45:22)

Yeah, absolutely.

A (45:23)

Wasn't the right goal in the first.

B (45:24)

No, it really wasn't. I wanted it to be.

A (45:27)

You wanted your ego. Wanted it.

B (45:29)

Yeah.

A (45:30)

But your heart is kind of like.

B (45:31)

Right, Let it go. Right.

A (45:32)

But is there anything that your heart really, like, fell in love with, not your ego, but your heart that you never pursued to at least see? Is there a chance I could accomplish.

B (45:41)

This, that you have maybe writing a.

A (45:44)

Novel but you still have the opportunity to do that?

B (45:46)

I still have the opportunity to do it.

A (45:48)

You said a maybe. Is that like a big thing on your heart that you really want to do, or is it more like I'd be cool to do this thing?

B (45:55)

Well, I think it. Yeah. Yeah, there's that. Absolutely.

A (45:58)

But your heart's not screaming at you.

B (46:00)

No.

A (46:00)

You have to be a. A novel.

B (46:03)

Yeah. No, I've had good success.

A (46:05)

Yeah.

B (46:05)

You know, in writing. And I enjoy it. I think it is a talent of mine. And so. But I know it's kind of a. A practical call. A rational.

A (46:21)

Yes.

B (46:22)

Sensible.

A (46:22)

I mean, I'm talking about the. The irrational dream in your heart. Is there anything you regret from.

B (46:31)

I don't know if this would fit your thing. I always wanted to own a corporate jet. Oh, that'd be fun. Yeah. And that. That never came around.

A (46:42)

Okay.

B (46:43)

Now, I never, I guess, went at.

A (46:45)

It strategically and like. You never went all in.

B (46:48)

No, I did.

A (46:48)

You never said, okay, this is what I want. I'm going to do everything I can in the next three to five years to map this out, to be around everyone I know who's got to do.

B (46:56)

Exactly.

A (46:56)

Figure out. You would have. You would have bought one, so you would have figured that out. Yeah, it was. It was an ego. Nice thing.

B (47:02)

It was one of those things. I didn't follow my own rules exactly. Because it's like, well, I don't know how I'm going to do it. Just get that out of your head.

A (47:09)

Quantum Leap. Yeah. You're not. You're not supposed to know.

B (47:11)

I know.

A (47:13)

If it was incremental, you'd be too easy, you know.

B (47:16)

You know, you said something minute ago about. I was reading this book by Scott Adams, the guy that wrote Dilbert cartoons, you know, and he's written a good book about how succeeded almost everything and how most. How failed at almost everything and still succeeded, I think, is the name of it. That's close enough. But he talks in there about this thing about passion and. Is passion a Good signal for your goal selection. And he said, here's what I found. I found that passion is closely tied to talent. And as long as you're really talented in some zone, it's easy to have passion for it. But he said, if you want to see passion fade, let the failure start hitting. Let's say you got a passion to be an entrepreneur, okay. And you into it three years, five years, and you lose all your money, and. And it's just not working.

A (48:26)

Watch the passion not passionate anymore.

B (48:28)

Right. And it gets back to this. Quitting, you know, finding that. Finding that proper spot.

A (48:35)

So do you think in his mind or in your mind, do you think we should be following our passion or following our talent?

B (48:41)

They're. They're probably usually connected. And that your talent is probably your.

A (48:51)

First signal to pursue that. Yeah, Follow that thing.

B (48:55)

Yeah. He writes about. He wanted to become a famous cartoonist. And this idea of setting a goal, keeping it front of mine, that I talk about in Lucky you. He said I wasn't good as an artist. He said I was no good.

A (49:12)

So it didn't have the talent. He didn't have the talent.

B (49:14)

He didn't have the talent. But he loved the idea of being a cartoonist, and he had thought through some real good reasons for that. It didn't require a lot of infrastructure. You didn't have to hire a lot of people.

A (49:25)

Pen and the paper.

B (49:26)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so there was all this stuff. But anyway, how he went at it. He started writing, I think it was 15 times every day. He write down, I, Scott Adams will become a famous cartoonist.

A (49:40)

Wow.

B (49:40)

15 times a day. Every day. Every day. 15 times. So that's clarity of gold. That's keeping the go front of mind. That's being optimistic. And there was relentless pursuit. He did started moving in that direction. He said his first stuff was terrible. You know, he talks about the mistakes he made. Yeah. And it's a fun book. You'd enjoy.

A (50:16)

What's it called again?

B (50:16)

I think it's how I failed at almost everything and still succeeded.

A (50:21)

Scott Adams. Yeah.

B (50:22)

Scott Adams.

A (50:23)

You have this. We're talking about luck here. Your book, Lucky you. You have a number of books. One of my favorite is you Squared. And for those that didn't watch the first episode, we did. I had a Bob Proctor on a number of years ago before he passed, and I asked him, what are the three books that every human being should read that have helped him? And he'd read thousands of books, and he mentioned your name and you squared. And I never heard about you. Maybe this was 2018 or 2017, 2019. I was like, you squared. And then I finally came back around to it a couple years later and I read the book and we connected ever since then. And it's a life changing book and you have a number of companions to it, but the most recent one is called Lucky youy A psychological strategy for multiplying luck and achieving your big ambitions. In the book, you've got a graph that talks about what contributes most to career success. And I don't know if this is towards all success in life or more just towards career. And it's a graph that is a generalized synthesis drawn from research in behavioral economics, psychology and sociology. It's a reasonable estimate, not a precise formula. But in this graph, it talks about luck being the number one factor that contributes towards career success. 30 to 50% range of luck. Then you have effort and work ethic. That is 30 to 40% range. Then you have social capital. Slash opportunity as 10 to 20%. Then you have talent or IQ, which is 10 to 20%. And the same book by Nassam Talib, he says luck is most frequently the reason for extreme success. And I remember interviewing a friend of mine, Scooter Braun, who is a. A big music artist, I mean, a music talent manager who, who kind of discovered Justin Bieber and managed Ariana Grande and kind of all the biggest pop stars of our. Of our generation. And I was like, what's the key to your success? And he was like, it's luck, you know, and obviously it's hard work. I mean, he grinded for years and he did all the right things and he was willing to put more time and energy into anything else than most people. But it was like, you know, finding. Finding Justin Bieber at the right time and then taking the actions to really mold and, you know, shepherd him in his career and building that. And then that created another opportunity with other artists and then bigger talent came in and then it snowballed the momentum. But maybe it would have taken him decades if he didn't have that right timing, that opportunity, that synchronicity that created that relationship. Who knows? Or maybe none of this would ever happen for him. But why is luck such a big thing towards success in life?

B (53:12)

If. If we talked about the biggest success story in your life. Mm. Or my life or anybody else's, it would be that moment of conception. Okay, let's look at this.

A (53:26)

Being born.

B (53:26)

I wrote a blog about this.

A (53:27)

Yeah.

B (53:28)

Your biggest, your greatest success story ever. So you had two parents, you have a mother and a father? Well, the mother. The maximum number of egg follicles that she will have in her life is supposedly between six and eight million eggs. Okay, you were one of those gametes. One out of six to eight million. Okay. The amount of sperm and father sperm is quad trillions.

A (54:00)

Trillions.

B (54:01)

Quad trillions. Trillion, quad trillions, quad trillions. So you're that gamete. Gamete number two. We'll call this first gamete the wonder egg and then we'll call this gamete number two the super sperm. Yeah, one out of quadrillions. Okay. Those odds are just absurd to begin with, but then the connection at that perfect timing. I mean you will never again be that lucky on anything.

A (54:36)

Forged by nature and alive with fall color Maine does autumn the way it's meant to be. Think quiet, misty mornings, glowing foliage, salt scented breezes, then fresh lobster, just pressed cider and warm donuts straight from the farm. There's no script here, just woods, waves, and whatever comes next this fall. Write your story in Maine. Start planning@visitmain.com this is an ad by Better Help. When life gets tough, who do you turn to? Personally, I'll never underestimate the power of a conversation with a friend or a family member, but sometimes it feels like that's all you need, and it's much better than holding on to it. But I will say my life and relationships improved greatly when I decided to actually start speaking regularly to a professional. And BetterHelp can help with that. They've been around for over a decade and have helped millions of people. Out of 1.7 million reviews, they've earned an outstanding 4.9 rating, which is crazy. Getting started is simple. You just fill out a short questionnaire about your needs and preferences. And BetterHelp does the work of matching you with an experienced credentialed counselor. And if it doesn't feel like the right fit, you can switch anytime. Everything happens online and you can even pause your subscription whenever you need. Plus, BetterHelp is a high trust, certified and complies with GDPR standards, which means they meet meet some of the highest global standards for data privacy. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of Expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp, our listeners get 10 off their first month at betterhelp.com Louis that's better. H e l p.com L e w.

B (56:20)

I S I was having lunch I guess the first time that this whole idea of luck even came into my notion really was I Was having lunch at Cafe Pacific in Dallas with a real good friend of mine. He's the. Was the chief economist at the Dallas Federal Reserve bank, and his wife is from Ecuador, and charming couple, lovely people. And we were sitting just having a nice lunch, Patty and I and that couple. And just in the course of conversation, she turned to me and she said, price, what would you say is the number one thing that accounts for your success? You've had a successful career. You know what? And it just came out of nowhere. I said, look. And both of them just looked at me like, what? And I said, well, stop. And then I started to kind of reason through where that came from that said, okay, look, first of all, I was born in America. That's. That's a real advantage. Secondly, I had good parents. Third, I didn't have any major disabilities or anything. Brain functions well enough. And you scroll on and on and you look at these things, and anybody. It's alive is unbelievably good fortune. But there are things that we can do to engineer luck into our life. It does not have to be. We shouldn't allow it to be just a random event. It's a random thing, but it's too important to ignore.

A (58:08)

And so because people just say, oh, they got lucky. They had this opportunity. But you're saying that there is a strategic or scientific way that we can influence more luck in our lives. Is that right?

B (58:20)

Absolutely.

A (58:21)

So how do we create more?

B (58:23)

First of all, we feel like what we want.

A (58:25)

We tell luck what we want.

B (58:26)

Yeah, that's that big go. If, I mean, tell luck what you're shooting for. When you set that goal in that clarity, get it out of your head and down on paper, all of a sudden, you may be surrounded by luck. So that's one thing you can do. Tell luck what you want. The next thing. Luck plays favorites. Luck has a bias. Luck prefers the optimists. Why? Because first of all, they see luck's opportunities when he lays them in front of him. And secondly, the optimist will take the chances. That's true.

A (59:20)

Well, this will. Will be like, I don't believe that's a good. I'm not going to take that or that person. What do they really want from me they're trying to bring?

B (59:27)

Luck gets pissed off when you refuse its chances. And if your heart's not in it, back to that goal thing. Luck doesn't get very interested either. It goes looking for someone who's fevered up, man. Excited some. Yeah. Someone that is cranked in there. And luck Wants to see you working. Mm. If you're not doing anything, luck gets disinterested and goes, try to find somebody that's going to put some energy into this. So tell luck what you want. Believe in it. Be positive. You know, when luck comes before you do something with it. Third thing, most of your lucky. Lucky breaks in life will come via people, you know, somehow, maybe someone you just met or someone you hardly know. In fact, a lot of times that happens.

A (60:24)

The weak ties.

B (60:25)

Yeah, the weak ties.

A (60:27)

Why is it more the weak ties where luck comes from versus the strong?

B (60:30)

Well, if it's your strong ties, you've already checked those out.

A (60:34)

You know them for a long time.

B (60:36)

Well, yeah. You know, if they've had an opportunity for you, it's already been explored. Yeah. You need to be in circulation socially, because luck doesn't come looking for you. It wants to see you out in the world. It's kind of like, don't go fishing in your bathtub. You know, you're not. You know, if you're trying to become a famous artist, but you want. You'll put a. A few of your paintings up on the walls of your garage and leave the door open.

A (61:07)

Yeah.

B (61:08)

You know, not enough. No. And so you need to be out there, and you need to. You need to be a. New, fresh, different experiences, and those things are big. Then you need to give your mind time to speak to you. Your deep mind. You could call this giving yourself a meditative period every day, taking a long, slow walk, not trying to work on a problem, just letting your mind. But in our coaching and training stuff around you squared. And the quantum leap strategy, we talk about the quantum leap ritual, and it's just setting aside a chunk of time every day, probably at the same time a day. Sit down, clear your mind, let the prefrontal cortex go offline and let the theta and alpha waves start to play. And this is where the deep mind, it kind of opens the door and it lets things seep up from your unconscious and. Yes, and it's probably the closest to magic in terms of creating luck for yourself. There are several others that we talk about in the book, but one last one that I could mention. Bring luck to other people.

A (62:32)

That's so good.

B (62:34)

We live in a world of reciprocity. You can call it karma. You can call it what goes around, comes around. But what Emerson talked about, you know, in his essay compensation, he talks about we will be compensated for how we compensate others.

A (62:57)

That we compensate others is exactly Ziggler says, you know, if you want to achieve any goal, help everyone else achieve their goals. Yeah, something like that too.

B (63:03)

You know, and the interesting thing is it's, it's uplifting to you. Just the act of giving, service, giving it will, it brings all of these positive chemicals alive in your body. The dopamine, the serotonin, oxytocin, and, you know, all this kind of stuff. And, and that makes you more willing to accept risks. It makes you more optimistic. Those chemicals are working good things. And so when you're giving to others, you're giving to yourself.

A (63:34)

Yeah. What is one way of thinking or one habit that creates bad luck for ourselves?

B (63:41)

Feeling that we're a victim, Feeling sorry for ourselves, feeling helpless. I am a huge, huge believer in personal accountability. If something goes wrong, how much of that do I own? Probably 95% or 100% of it usually. And anyway, if something does go wrong in my world, the world is typically not inclined to bring me to fix that for me.

A (64:18)

No, people aren't going to come rescue you.

B (64:20)

Yeah.

A (64:20)

They got their own problems. That's right. When we give luck to another, what are we saying to God or to the world when we're constantly generating luck in others? And on top of how do we make sure we're not only a giver to people who are takers?

B (64:39)

Yeah.

A (64:40)

And not thinking, how can I also return the favor in the future?

B (64:43)

Yeah. Or giving it to get something back in return. Don't think in terms of getting something back in return. Don't think, don't count on, don't, don't even talk about it. Don't expect to get praise for being a generous person. Do, do some things anonymously. And I think. And there's one other thing, and it's kind of kin to what you're asking. I think. And it's this whole thing of gratitude. Be grateful that you can give, that you're in a position to give and everybody is in a position to give. I don't care if it's a compliment. I don't think it's. I mean, I don't care if it's just giving someone a pat on the back, asking someone opinion and saying, you know a lot about this. Let me ask your opinion. Well, that's kind of, you know, that makes the other person feel good.

A (65:32)

Yeah.

B (65:32)

But be, be grateful for all the stuff. Gratitude is a huge thing. And you talk about getting the negativity out of your head, you know, reducing the negative thinking. Gratitude is just every day. Stop when the situation, you're bummed out about a situation. You're frustrated that you feeling sorry for yourself. Think what I got to be grateful for here today, around me, you know, in my world. Yes, it's a, it's a beautiful antidote.

A (66:02)

Yeah, you've got again, we've talked about. Lucky you, you've got U squared and the quantum leap strategy. What is the quantum leap framework that you talk about?

B (66:15)

Well, a lot of people, one of the reasons they're unsuccessful with their goals, they don't really have a strategy or they try too many things, they're flailing about. Usually if you want to go into a new area and it looks overwhelming, what do I need to learn? What do I need to do? Usually there's a very small handful of things that have the big leverage and we have these. First, you need a super clear, huge, important lovable aiming point. Okay? Something that is, is going to stretch you and, and it's important to you. So pick a very ambitious aiming point. Second, practice relentless pursuit. Be the crawler. Stay at it, Stay at it. Take the failures as a coaching lesson. Where's the lesson here? Okay, Adapt, Go on. Don't take yourself to the bench and set, set the rest of your life out wishing you'd done something. Aiming point, relentless pursuit. And then the mine work. And the mine work is do the necessary mind work. What is that? Well, that is disciplining your thinking like you would discipline your body or discipline your child or whatever. You know, you follow discipline the way you drive, for Pete's sake. You stay between the lines. You know, you don't run stop signs. Okay, well, put a stop sign in your mind when the negative stuff comes in. No, you know, not going to entertain them, not going to stay there. So part of it is pushing yourself with real discipline and mindfulness to be optimistic. It's huge. It is really, really huge. The other part of the mind work is the ritual that daily opening your mind. First of all, you read through your goal because that keeps going front of mind. And if it goes out of your mind, luck quits thinking about it too. Okay? And during that kind of a ritual, like I said, that's when your intuition can is free to kind of surface bubble up through your head. So we got the aiming point. Relentless pursuit. Do the necessary man work. In the fourth one, we sound so simplistic and nobody does it. And it's the tracking.

A (68:58)

Tracking.

B (69:01)

Track your results. Track your results and measure progress. When I go to the gym that evening, I'm Mark on my calendar, I get to put a square around them around that day. And if you're not tracking, you're hiding from the truth. Hmm. Because tracking is like a truth serum. It says whether you're following the quantum leap ritual, whether you're following this whole U squared method of aiming point pursuit, mine work and tracking. Now, are there other things? There's a zillion other little tactics that one can do, but we're talking about not just 80, 20 in terms of your, your, your trying to achieve greater levels of success. We're saying 95, 5, 95% of the stuff is noise. It's helpful, maybe, maybe even unhelpful. But 5% is mission critical. That's the mission critical.

A (70:05)

Yeah.

B (70:05)

If you will stay with that. Trust. Trust the method. Trust the method. Just do that. People over complicate this.

A (70:14)

Yes.

B (70:15)

And I keep saying that all the time. Trust the method.

A (70:21)

You've been in psychology and high performance learning and teaching and training for six decades now, right?

B (70:29)

Basically five.

A (70:30)

Five, about six, I guess, decades since studying in school to working with individuals one on one to then working with corporations and businesses and high profile individuals. So in six decades, if you could give yourself three pieces of advice. Of all the information you've learned from all the books you've written, all the books you've read, all the research, all the science that was out back then, the science that's out now, if you're like it. I can only give myself three pieces of advice to use to create an incredible life for myself. What would that be for you?

B (71:10)

Take more risks. Believe in myself more. Be willing to fail.

A (71:17)

Why believe in self more?

B (71:20)

There is a saying that the SEALs, the Navy SEALs have. I think it's, I may be a little bit off on this list, but I think it's 40% rule. This is most people, when they get to 40% and it gets harder, they quit. They think I'm three, I'm finished. And that much is left in terms.

A (71:47)

Of true capability potential. Yeah, yeah. 60% left. They haven't tapped into.

B (71:53)

Yeah, we, we don't test ourselves. If you don't take yourself to failure, you don't even know. And it's not just failure this first time. It's, you know, you keep on, you know, in working out. You know, if you're lifting weights, the saying is the last few reps are the ones that count. It's not the ones that come easy on the front end. The first. So you, so you got X amount of weight. You're doing dumbbell curls. X amount of weight. Okay, let's say you're saying I'M going to do 10 reps, take myself to failure. The last few reps are the ones that count.

A (72:35)

Yes.

B (72:35)

And it's not when it gets hard, it's not when it starts to be an uncomfortable. The first one was probably uncomfortable.

A (72:41)

Yeah.

B (72:41)

You know, so living with failure, if you've pushed failure out of your life, you've made a big mistake. People need stretch in their life, they need friction.

A (73:01)

Hypothetical scenario again. You've learned so much in these last six decades. What do you think is going to be the biggest psychological breakthrough in the next six decades for human potential for human advancement? With all the changes that have happened in the world and society, from AI and tech now really emerging over the last 20 years to wherever it's going to be in the next six decades, what do you see as the greatest potential for unlocking human potential in the future?

B (73:35)

Well, it'll be something to do with brain processes, our thinking. In my opinion, because we're learning so much more about the brain, how it functions. We're coming to the point of helping people do more with themselves. I think it's kind of funny, back in the PhD program when I was going for my doctor's degree, is that.

A (74:01)

Early 60s, what was that?

B (74:03)

It was late 60s, late 60s and early 70s, internship and so forth. But like I said, the things that are in my writings, like Lucky you, Quantum Leap, Strategy, and you Squared, that wasn't in any of the, the textbooks.

A (74:26)

No.

B (74:26)

Okay. And those books such as mine were basically ridiculed, certainly discounted, not worth. And I was struck by the fact that, well, those books have some really good advice that I can do with me. I don't have to have a therapist or counselor or, you know, some psychologist or whatever to work on me and make me better, make me more successful. There are things I can do for us. I want to know that. Okay. And during the past 25 years, there have been amazing number of really good books out of the professional community though. I mean, the highly pedigreed psychologist, you know, they've, they've really come into getting that stuff out more to the public. The findings of research and self sufficiency and personal accountability and those kinds of things. And I think, I think that trend will continue.

A (75:32)

Yeah. Do you think people will learn to believe in themselves more with the more tools and research and accessibility they have to analogy in the future or they'll believe in themselves less?

B (75:48)

I don't know. I think we're also intellectually arrogant. We think we've got so much figured out and there's so little we know about everything.

A (75:59)

Yeah.

B (75:59)

I really do. But that's getting into kind of metaphysical stuff, you know, over for me.

A (76:06)

It's interesting because you said the three things over the last six decades. If you could give yourself these three pieces of advice. The second one is to believe in yourself more. And I wrote a whole book called the Greatest Mindset, which is about overcoming self doubt. I think self doubt is the killer of dreams. I think when you have a big goal or big dream and you doubt yourself, you limit yourself from taking the action, building the energy, allowing for luck to come into your life. You, you're just more insecure, you're less willing to take the risk when you doubt yourself. Ah, you're more, you know, on eggshells. And I think learning to believe in yourself is one of the greatest tools that you can have. And you don't need to be smart.

B (76:49)

No.

A (76:49)

To develop that, which for me, I never felt like I was smart because of my school grades. But I learned how to believe in myself and I felt like that's what allowed me to accelerate the results in my life was belief, was, hey, I think I can do this. Let me go try. Oh, I actually was able to do this thing. All right, maybe I can go do this other thing. And now there's another thing. And I was able to stack evidence by having more belief in myself.

B (77:13)

Yeah.

A (77:14)

And almost being ignorant to a lot of the world and being like, I don't have the answers, but I believe I can figure out a way to make it happen. And that belief gave me courage, gave me confidence, gave me the ability to develop more skills. And those things, I think created the luck for me, created more opportunities for me to succeed in what I was dreaming and thinking about. And I truly believe self doubt is going to be the killer of dreams for people. No matter if they have all the best wearable tech that gives them the data and the information, they read all the right books, whatever it might be. If we don't learn the skill of believing in self, we're not going to take more risks.

B (77:53)

Right.

A (77:53)

And we're not going to be willing to fail. So I think that is a massive thing that most people never learn how to do. So how do you think we learn how to believe in ourselves more based on everything you've learned?

B (78:06)

Well, I think we got to put ourselves out there and find the edge of our capacities.

A (78:11)

Yes, yes.

B (78:12)

And learn that failure is an advantage brings, you know, failure is, it's just, it's not a bug in the system. It is the system.

A (78:24)

Yes.

B (78:25)

It's a feature, you know, Use it, man.

A (78:32)

Exactly.

B (78:33)

R.D. lang is psychiatrist, psychologist from back when he said, if I don't know, I can. It's a twisted kind of very cryptic statement and always want to remember this thing and I'll, I'll go back and study it and then I can't remember because it's kind of tricky. It's like if I don't know, I can, I think I can't kind of, you know, if I don't know how to do something, I can't, I think, well, anyway, we read more into it than is there. We don't test our limits and so we never discover what's inside.

A (79:16)

Yeah. Do you feel like you've tested your limits?

B (79:21)

Somewhat, but not greatly. Really? Yeah.

A (79:25)

You got, you know, six decades of work in this, you got 15 million books you've sold, your impact.

B (79:30)

Yeah, but we don't compare, we don't, we compare ourselves to people that are better. We always look at their best side. You're like, oh, and look at our worst side.

A (79:39)

Yeah. Why is that?

B (79:40)

I don't know.

A (79:40)

But if you compare yourself to you 40 years ago and if you would have said when you were, you know, 43 or 42 or whatever it was, and you said, one day I'm going to sell 15 million copies of my books and I'm going to help, you know, multi billion dollar companies acquire and merge and build and I'm going to coach some of the biggest names in the world. And like, what would you have thought when you were 40 of, of that type of dream and accomplishing it? Wouldn't you be like, wow, that's amazing.

B (80:10)

I would have thought, yeah, that's bull. Yeah. You know, I would thought that would be wonderful. But it's kind of interesting. Some people just hire and have a higher need for achievement than others too. It's kind of in the DNA. I don't understand some of that. Some people, we just have different cravings, you know, and I think everybody has a lot more within if they're perfectly, I mean, dazzlingly happy with that. That, that I'm happy for them.

A (80:47)

Yes.

B (80:47)

And I don't want them to feel bad about not wanting to push for more.

A (80:52)

But how much of your potential do you feel like you've tapped at this season of life?

B (80:57)

Tom?

A (80:57)

No, I guess a better question, what is the big goal or dream that you have over the next 20 plus years?

B (81:05)

I want to be healthy, I want to be happy. I would like to continue to figure out What I believe what I think and get it down on paper just to kind of document that because I think somebody else might get some mileage out of it.

A (81:22)

That's not a, that's not something, no big goal. It's like I want to be happy, I want to be healthy and I want to get my thoughts down and help others. No, I don't like money or dream or.

B (81:31)

Yeah, I think it's kind of interesting. Risk taking peaks for. Well, it peaks a couple of years earlier for girls than boys. They're risk taking girls peaks at about age 16. Really? Yeah.

A (81:46)

You mean they stop taking risks around 16 or they start.

B (81:49)

No, it peaks that's at its highest point in their life, probably will peak at that age. For boys it peaks at about 19, 18, 19, 20 into. That's when it peaks. So this is risk taking and then it gradually now lasts. Risk taking lasts longer for boys into the 30s than for women. But, but for. In general, it's a life glimpse.

A (82:19)

You don't like this, then you start to preserve what you've created or you start to like.

B (82:23)

Yeah.

A (82:23)

Be more comfortable.

B (82:24)

What you've figured out this. Yeah. Because early in life we are accumulating. Accumulating. We're accumulating knowledge, friends, contacts, experiences and, and money, skills, all of this kind of stuff. Okay. So. And that continues, it seems to me, until about somewhere in the maybe mid-50s. And then there's this funny turn.

A (82:50)

You want to get rid of stuff.

B (82:51)

And it starts like this and people start. Well, first of all, kids start leaving home and your friend making for most people starts to diminish. Then they scale down their house, they have all these possessions that they bought and everything. And guy, you know, here they start handing that off to kids and things like that. And risk taking really drops and dopamine levels drop and which affects risk taking. And part of it's just people look down the road and say shorter Runway.

A (83:28)

Yeah. Less energy or there's don't care as much.

B (83:30)

Yeah. And I mean what, what are we going to do? Make a 30 year plan, you know, and so there's a practical side to this and there's a, there's a physical capacity side to it because people's.

A (83:43)

Yeah. So much energy, so much time you have. Yeah.

B (83:46)

I mean, listen, it's even, it's even more like, you know, someone may have heart problems and they can't get out and exercise or do things, you know, or all kinds of, you know, that's why I'm a big believer in health, fitness and so forth. Because it is such a big factor in having a good, happy, full life.

A (84:05)

So you're focused more on staying healthy, staying happy, making sure you keep sharing your ideas and thoughts.

B (84:11)

Yeah, I think so. And I don't know now I know that people need goals. I don't care your age. And in fact, they found from studies like in nursing homes, they found, if you will just give someone an assisted living place, give them a plant. This is your plant. Take care of this plant. Their mood goes up. It's just a. And and they do better. We need purpose. We need a sense of direction, goals, something. I think goals are magnetic. In fact, that's another thing that Alfred Adler said, the psychologist. He said that goals are teleological. They pull us toward them. And he says, I think it's George Land that said your future does every bit as much or more to shape you than your past.

A (85:03)

That is fascinating. What is it? What do you mean by your future does everything to shape you as much as your past does?

B (85:10)

Well, if you set a goal that means something to you, you really have. Your heart's invested in that thing, then it starts shaping your life. And we know that we've been shaped by our parents, our teachers, experiences in life, all of that kind of stuff. There's huge shaping, but what you're pursuing shapes you too. And big goes, like I said, you don't just achieve more, you become more.

A (85:41)

That's true. So the smaller the goal we have, the less likely we're going to become our greatest self, is what I'm hearing you say.

B (85:50)

Oh, yeah, I think that's very safe conclusion.

A (85:57)

Interesting. What else am I missing here? Anything else around luck that we haven't talked about?

B (86:06)

Well, I think that we need to take it more seriously and realize that we've got a lot more influence over it than perhaps people would think. And if luck accounts more for career success than any of these other factors.

A (86:26)

And talent and all this. Yeah, yeah.

B (86:28)

Then we should be courting luck. Yeah. And make love to luck.

A (86:36)

Yeah. You know, make love to luck you talk about in the book page 27. Your brain's first impulse is to scan for danger and unpleasant side effects. You automatically focus on the trouble or setback the setback or failure causes. It's a brain pattern rooted deep in our survival instincts. We're just wired that way as human beings. As playwright John Dryden put it, self defense is nature's eldest law. But if we're looking and scanning for danger or unpleasant side effects, and it sounds like constantly failing and Having people make fun of us is the greatest psychological threat is people making fun of us or criticizing us or judging us or talking badly about us behind our backs or not wanting to be around us. Isn't that a great psychological side effect or threat that failure and making mistakes and putting out the big goal you're going to go after in the world when people.

B (87:39)

Yeah, I'm sure that's true. But. But I think that for many of us, I think we're our own worst critic.

A (87:48)

Yes, man, that's true. We probably defeat ourselves more than anyone else.

B (87:54)

Yeah. Yeah. Most people aren't paying that much attention to your life.

A (87:57)

Right.

B (87:58)

Don't take yourself that seriously.

A (88:00)

Yeah.

B (88:00)

It's true. You know, they're not.

A (88:01)

They got their own life.

B (88:02)

Yeah. You can get up, start making a speech and use. Do something. Maybe you spilled some water or just maybe you hit the mic accidentally and on its screeches or something like that and you feel like a fool, you know, and embarrassed and you don't want to do any more speeches. And the crowd, you're not that important. They weren't that big a deal.

A (88:26)

They didn't care. Yeah.

B (88:26)

You know. Yeah. They were oblivious, more or less.

A (88:30)

You know, that's why I think going back to what you talked about in the beginning, it's. It's so important to manage our mind when we're thinking negatively or self critical. Yeah. Because being self critical is not the same thing as being a self coach. And when you're coaching yourself and you're saying, okay, I'm going to analyze what I did right or wrong today and how I can improve, you're giving yourself more empowering feedback based on your failures, based on your setbacks or the mistakes you made towards your goal. Whereas the critic is just making you feel bad. The self critic. So I think try to become more of a self coach rather than a self critic in the pursuit of your dreams.

B (89:07)

Yeah. Be careful how you talk to yourself.

A (89:09)

Yes.

B (89:09)

You talk to yourself more than anybody else in the world. It's true. You know, and if. Manage, manage that dialogue going on in your head up there, that's powerful.

A (89:23)

I love this. I want people to get the book Lucky you A psychological strategy for multiplying luck and achieving your big ambitions by Price Pritchett. They can go to your website and get this book pritchetyou2.com and it'll have this, the book on here. It'll have your accelerator coaching program, which is a, a new coaching program that you have that can help people kind of go through your processes, your training to optimize their life.

B (89:51)

Right.

A (89:52)

What can you share more about the coaching program?

B (89:54)

It's an eight week program and what we've done is we've distilled these key principles from the U Squared Handbook, Quantum Leap strategy. Lucky you. And in other other writings that I've done, like a book I wrote called Hard Optimism and so on. It's an eight week program and I think it is, is powerful but it's very minimal effective dose. Again, it's. What are those 5%, you know, that separates signal from noise. If 95% of all this stuff out there, that's it's good or maybe it's even junkie in the world of how to manage your life and become more successful. What are the, you know, what are those things though that are just the real guideposts that give you the high leverage and that's what it's based on.

A (90:57)

Gotcha. Eight week program. They can go through it. Can you sign up anytime and go through it or is it once every quarter or once a month or how is it?

B (91:05)

Well, this is a fun thing. We just, we're just launching this thing. Ah, okay. Yeah. And our first launch session is in September.

A (91:13)

Okay.

B (91:14)

Mid September. We have another one that we're putting on the calendar in October and then we'll be booking on. Awesome. So very cool. This baby is new.

A (91:23)

Brand new. The YouTube U Squared accelerator coaching program. Make sure you guys check it out pritchetu2.com and it'll take you to that link. Once you get there, you'll see it there. A couple final questions for you. I think I asked you this the last time, but I'm curious of your three truths. If you had to distill all of your work into three lessons, what would those three truths be for you? And maybe you already said it, but I'm curious if you have.

B (91:52)

I would, I would stick with the same thing I said last time. I think is. And those three truths are. First of all, you are the most powerful person in your life. It's not your daddy, it's not your boss and not your mother. It's not your best friend. You are the most powerful person in your life and you have been for a long time. Secondly, you have an amazing capacity for change, truly amazing capacity to change. And third, you are the solution to your future.

A (92:29)

Yeah.

B (92:31)

Own it. Yeah. That's beautiful.

A (92:34)

And what's your definition of greatness? Last question.

B (92:39)

That's going to depend on the individuals. What would my definition of greatness? I guess it would be being able to look back at your life, I don't care if you're 35, 45, 65, whatever, and and say I put myself out there. I put myself out there. I didn't play it too safe. I think we have to do that to be able to say I came anywhere within eyesight of greatness.

A (93:16)

Yeah. No one's gonna.

B (93:17)

And probably you're gonna have to look back and say you want to see the huge screw ups and up to the countless little ones.

A (93:25)

Yes.

B (93:26)

Yes.

A (93:29)

No one's getting out of this place alive. Might as well. You might as well go all in error free. Yeah, exactly.

B (93:34)

And there's it's kind of like we tell clients on the very front end of a merger, there's no such thing as perfect merger. Right. And going slow trying to get it perfect is the biggest mistake you can make. Wow. Yeah.

A (93:45)

Price, thanks so much for being here. Appreciate you sir.

B (93:47)

Such a pleasure.

A (93:48)

Thank you. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you of no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

B (94:46)

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