10 Ways to Build an Environment That Forces You to Win | Ed Mylett

All of my speeches have been private events, but now I'm teaming up with life search speaking all over the country. Life search is a one day faith based event where you'll walk in hungry for success, and you'll leave ready to build your resources to leave an impact on others. We're talking faith fueled finance, growing your resources, crushing obstacles, and then yeah, using it all for something way bigger than yourself. I'm joined in life surge in a few cities this year and I'd love to see you there. I'll be sharing the stage with legends such as two time football champion Tim Teebo.

Star of Duck Dynasty, Willie Robertson and leadership hero of my John Maxwell, Pastor and author Craig Groshell, and worship with artists like Natalie Grant. Tickets are on sale at lifesearch.com. And just for my listeners, you can use the code ED30 for 30% off a ticket. There will be a link in the show notes. So click through and take some time to join us. Cities are being added all the time. So if you don't see one near you now, check back. I hope to see you there. Hey everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed My Let's Show on Apple and Spotify.

Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show.

So I get asked all the time. How in the world did you go from having no running water in your apartment to living on the water to living ocean front to have another home that's late front? How does somebody go from changing their conditions that dramatically in a pretty short window of time? And a lot of different things went into that. A lot of it was blessing. A lot of it was a lot of hard work. All kinds of mental changes that I made.

“But there's one area that I've not talked a lot about that I want to cover today that I think you need to know if you want to change the conditions of your life that way as well.”

So when the water got turned off, you know what I had to do. I had to look around my life. I really had to take an inventory, not just of me, but what was around my life? And the fact of the matter was I did not have the right people in my life. I didn't have the people who believed in me. I'd now have the people who supported my vision. I didn't have people who made me want to be better in my life.

I had a few, but I didn't have enough. I had too many people in my life that have just always been in my life.

They always accepted me for who I was. And that acceptance, that lack of belief in me, that lack of standard got me all the way to where I couldn't even pay a water bill. I didn't even have a car. Never mind electricity for a while. And so it's very dangerous. It was very dangerous for me for who I allowed just to support my limiting thinking who I had around me. They weren't bad people. There's very few bad people. They just weren't people who were going to get me going in my life where I knew I needed to go where I was born to go.

I had read all the books on personal development. I learned about influence, kind of learned how to change my state, how to think differently. I've been to a lot of the events that you go to. Why is it that so many people go to all these self-improvement, personal development, business events? They get all excited when they're there. They're ready to conquer the world. Then they get back home and life very slowly starts to drift back the normal.

“And that's because environment overrides almost everything in our lives. That's why. And so the reason you're so excited when you're at the event,”

the reason you're roaded to conquer the world is the environment supports what you're doing. And so I had to start to address my environment. And environment is all the place you are, but most importantly, your environment is the people that are around you. Because right this down number one, in our lives, the most powerful force that I'm aware of in the world is to be consistent and congruent with the expectations of our peer group. Let me say that to you again. The most powerful force on Earth is we become consistent with the expectations of our peer group.

You're going to get out of life with the people around you, expect of you. And so I had to begin to address, who were the people around me? And specifically, what was the environment that I was in? Because number two proximity is power. The closer somebody is to you, the more influence they have over you. That's why your personal relationship that you're in is something that must be evaluated at all given times.

“And people ask me how do I get more spouse support or partner support, boyfriend or girlfriend support?”

I don't know that you're always going to get more support and I don't even know that that's needed.

But one thing that's a foundation of all relationships is does this person believe in me? Most people love us. That's one thing. If we're in a relationship, we kind of feel a level of love. But the deeper questions do they truly believe in me? And when I started to evaluate my friends that were around me, if I asked myself, were they supporting where I wanted to go in my life? Not that they didn't love me or like me? In fact, what most of us do is we love to have people around us who accept us. We say,

"I want people to accept me as I am." And there's a benefit to that. There's a huge negative as well. If people are constantly accepting this version of you, there's nothing compelling you to go to the next version. There's no stimulus. It says, "I better change." There's no discomfort. Because these people closest to us, their proximity has influence over us. So, number one thing I want you to ask yourself is, "Do the people around me believe in me?"

And if they don't, that needs to be evaluated. People say, "Well, then what do I do? Do I get rid of them?" Well, maybe, in some case, if they're antagonistic to you, certainly. But what you have to do is

And if they don't believe in you, perhaps they don't need to be eliminated from your life. But one thing you may need to do is start to reduce their proximity to you. Maybe they're not as close to you as they used to be. I've had to do that many times on my life where I've had to eliminate a few people from my life.

But very few, this is so critical to you becoming successful because your environmental game

is more important even than your mental game because it's what supports it. And so I want you to evaluate a few things. Do they believe in me? Number two, are they a past or future reference type friend? In other words, when you're around them,

“what do you find yourself talking the most about? Is it the past or the future?”

I want to be around people who are constantly talking about either the present, but most importantly, the future. In other words, I want people who are present with me so that when they're with me, we're together. You know, you have those friends too are constantly not present even though they're in your presence. We don't want that either. But if people are constantly taking me in the past frame of reference, old stories, old things, remember when high school,

college, previous date, previous vacation, previous business, remember when constantly,

you know, they're just always reminiscing or they projecting me into the future. If at least

75% of your conversations aren't about the future, but the people that you're around, these are not people supporting your future. They're supporting your past. They're reinforcing your past. The more we talk about something, the more we reinforce its importance in our life. And so this is a very subtle thing. And I think even as I say it, you're going, whoa, they do love me. I think they might believe in me, but men, we talk about the past all the time.

“Well, this is somebody who's going to reinforce that state of your life. You need to add people”

to your proximity who are discussing the future with you. You know, you've heard about triggers before where you can learn in personal development that you know, you snap your fingers, you put yourself in a state where you walk, you hear a song, it's a trigger, isn't it? You hear a song from some point in your life, it triggers a memory or a song you love right now that triggers you wanting to work out or move your body. So things are triggers. People are also triggers.

And if there are people in your life, just by their proximity, trigger events that are prior in your life that didn't serve you. Just by being around them, they are, they're a trigger. Humans are triggers. Do you have people that just when you see them? They trigger peace for you. They trigger joy. They trigger abundance. They trigger competing. They trigger intensity. They trigger belief. They trigger confidence. They trigger your desire to grow. Ask yourself

what triggers these people are in your life. What do they trigger in you? And you begin to be, start to look at these things you go, wow. Well, at this group of friends who they accept me, but I don't know if they believe in me. Then I've got this other group of friends where

they believe in me, but we're always talking about the past. And then you know what? They kind of

trigger these states of sort of comfort or average in me. Who do I have that's triggering my desire to grow? Who makes me uncomfortable? Who do I have? Like, I kind of clean up the house before they come over. Who do I have where I get excited when I see them because not every conversation

“is the same. I don't know where it's going to go. You should have those people that accept you”

in your life. There's nothing wrong with that. It's an important thing. But you said these other people who really don't accept this version of you. They believe in you so greatly, so much that they don't accept this version of you. They don't accept this performance from you. They don't accept this level of happiness, abundance, joy, performance from you, because they know how much more you're capable of. Who do you have like that in your life?

And the reason that that matters so deeply for us is because, and I want you to write this down, we get our standards in life. We don't always get our goals. We don't always even get what we focus on. We end up ultimately getting what our standards are. Standards dictate everything in life. And the people around us help create that standard. For example, I was at a birthday party last night and the people sitting around me were all very fit people and dessert came. It was birthday

cake time. And I probably normally would have probably had that piece of cake. But the first three people that were asked have this standard for how they eat in their life. And when their cheap days are, their cheap meals are, and all three people passed on it. And immediately, almost through peer pressure, I went, "No, I'll pass too." And then my buddy goes, "Do it's okay, have a piece." I said, "No, no, no, man, it's good." That standard altres us in every little area.

Now that's an obvious example. But we're going to get our standards, our standards of wealth, our standards of faith, our standards of abundance. And the people in our proximity helps set the standard based on what theirs are in their life. So the people around you evaluate next, what are the standards they help you set in your life? The other thing we win with is energy. And so ask yourself this, is this person in my life an energy giver or an energy trainer? This is

massive. So when you're talking to them to the feed you energy, you know, there's that one number where it shows up on your phone. You're like, "Oh." Right? You know that conversation that text is going to be an energy drain. This person's proximity to your life is stealing some things from you.

Because we're going to talk about that next. But if the vast majority of people around you are

energy-neutral or energy-drainers, what do you think that's doing to your environment that you're supporting yourself with, okay? Or on the contrary, is this someone who gives you energy, feed your energy, feed your belief, makes you stronger, gives you that juice in your life. Because all of these things, these people around us, all these evaluations, they're creating our environment so that it'll support our thinking. It'll support the changes we're

making. It'll support our goals. This is supported by Scripture as well, Proverbs 27, 17, as Iron Sharpen's Iron. So does one person sharpen another. And so one of the obvious questions about this is if someone is lower energy for me or is a past reference person or a trigger that doesn't support me or they don't believe in me or they only accept me as I am. If you have some of these issues, what do you do with them? I give you three things. I don't need just eliminate people from

your lives. It's not that hardcore thing because this is more about adding the right people than it is eliminating people, but it is reducing their proximity. And so I think with people in your life that aren't supporting you the way you want to, number one, I would recommend you be kind to them, be kind in your conversations with them. You don't have to become mean to them or adversarial to them.

“I don't even think you need to let them know this. Number two, I think you need to be cordial.”

But I will tell you that you begin to become three which is concise. Your dialogue with them begins to be concise. Their proximity to you begins to shrink. And these are things people say, gosh, that's so difficult. Well, do you want to be happier? Do you want to win? I mean, you've already tried the other things, right? You've already started to write goals down. You're already working on yourself. You're already got some habits that you're working on. Maybe this is the area. Perhaps this is the

area. Those of you that have children. This is an audio or video. They should be watching or listening to. Their school teachers influence. So that's their mentors. That's like what we're doing right now, right? But who really has influence over your children? Who really sculpts who they are? It's their friends. And it's their closest friends. That's why parents guard those associations so vigilantly. The good parents do because they know the proximity of these kids around their children

are going to influence ultimately who they become. Our lives begin to have a pace of that's

different than when we're young. But the same exact thing is true for us. These people closest to us, dictate who we become. It's not our mentors like our school teachers. They have some influence. I have influence, hopefully with you. But not the same as the people that you're texting with when you're done listening to this. Not the same as who you're having dinner with tonight. Not the same as who you have lunch, who you're around at work, who you're around to the evening, who you

socialize with, right? They have the greatest form of influence over you. Because in your life, you're trying to build this library of memories, aren't you? And in your mind right now, these memories are going to be different. They're different places, different experiences, different things, right? Different moments, different achievements, different breakthroughs, different feelings with the same people, with the same people. With the same people you are

like to build the same types of memories over and over you. So if you love your life right now,

“everything in your life is rich and you don't want it to change and you don't want it to grow.”

And you'd like to keep repeating these memories you're getting now. Well, then by all means, keep these people very close to you and add people as you go. But if there's this party that's I want to change the memories, I don't want the next 10 years of my life, the feelings, the experiences, the accomplishments, the places I see, moments I have. So all I'm asking you to do today is do an audit on your environment. I want you to audit the people around you in your environment and the

things around you in your environment. What do you have around you in your environment? Are your goals up on a board? Do you have visualizations? Are you reading things that you can see visually in your life? Are you listening to the right things? These are all part of your environment, but the

most important thing are the people that are inside that environment that are around you. And so that's

how you eliminate. Now, adding people to your life, the best way to do that is to seek out, go to places where they are. So I mean, where do they have lunch? Where do they have coffee? Where do they work out? Where do they worship? Go to the places where these people that you think could help you to become good friends and just become a part of that environment. And the more you're in the environment, you'll end up meeting people. It's a strategy. It's work

to add people to your life. I could tell you that I work very hard at this. I also believe in the law of reciprocity. You don't just ask somebody to be your friend. You find a way that you can contribute. You want to become a friend of mine. Say, how can I help you? How can I serve you? Just offer whatever you have. You say, why don't have anything to offer people? You'd be surprised. Could you offer me your belief in me? Could you offer me your truth? Could you offer me your prayers?

Could you offer me your support? These are real gifts you give people. Not all of them need to be knowledge and breakthroughs and an example and a track record. You'd be surprised. Someone like myself, what just your belief means to me. Your support means to me. And I'm the type of person in the people you want in your life. When I feel like you've given me something, I feel obligated,

“obligated to pay you back even more. And so the way you add people to your life is with the”

law of reciprocity. Put yourself in an environment where they are and begin to offer your belief. Your kindness, your support, your love. Maybe it is your collaborations. Maybe it is your connections.

When I was a young person, I ended up adding people to my life that were much more successful

to me. Much more well-known than me. But you know what? As I got to know them, I think they sense this person truly believes in me. They truly care about me. This is a real friend. You have those people in your life as well. Where they don't necessarily have the all the experience to support you. But they really believe in you. They really love you. And then the last thing I want to ask you today is because for you to add these people to your life, what I just said

“is the most important thing. How do you show up in people's lives? How do you show up in people's lives?”

Right now, are you that person that's an energy giver or trainer? Are you a future frame of reference or the past? Do you help your friends set high standards or the acceptable standards they already have? Are you someone who deeply believes in people? And they know it? Or you just kind of accept them as they are? These are the things you begin to ask you. How are you showing up in other people's lives? Because that'll have an awful lot to do with who shows up in your life. How do you show up in other

people's lives? And if you begin to evaluate these things, your environment slowly but surely will begin to support. Your mental gain will be supported by your environmental gain. And why is that so important? Because I want to remind you about something. You were born to do something great with your life. You were put here to do something special. All your life, that you were a little boy or a little girl. There was some point in your life where you knew you were supposed to do something great,

that you were put here for a reason, that you've got a calling, that you've got a home in your life. You're eventually going to find where you're living the real true authentic version of you, your best version. You know you're supposed to do something great with your life. And right now, if you're listening to this or you're watching this, maybe you're not quite there yet. And maybe it's your thinking. Maybe it's some tactics and strategies and habits, which I cover all the

time on this show. Maybe it's all the mental stuff. But more than likely, it's the environmental stuff. It's the standards. It's the people around you to believe in you. It's not just having people that accept you. Because you want to do something so great with your life. I have this theory

“that many of you have heard that when I die someday, I believe I want the Lord to say, well done,”

good and faithful servant. But I have this hallucination. As many of you know, that when I die, the Lord's going to do that and he's going to turn around and say, Eddie, I want you to meet the man I made you to be. When I made you in my image and likeness, this is the destiny version of you. This is the man you were born to be. And that guy's going to be standing there. And I want to meet him and go, I've been chasing you all my life, man. And he's going to say, boy, you caught me. You did it.

I'm proud of you. You had all the memories, all the moments, all the contribution, all the feelings, all the difference, all of it in your life. You made it all happen. You became the man you were born to be where identical twins. To me, that's heaven. When I passed away, heaven is I meet the man I was born to be and where identical twins. Hell would be that you'd meet that person and your total strangers. Your total strangers, that woman someday, when you die and you meet the woman you could have been

and your total strangers, you went down different paths, different roads, different decisions,

your entire life, and you never become that woman. You never become that man. To me, that's hell.

So if it's that important to you that you've always known, it may be a God buried as you got older, maybe life sort of kicked us around a little bit to where not everyone in our life believed it. And then maybe our parents, our friends, our school teachers, just life started to happen and we forget who we are. We forget who we are. You know why you forget who you are because of the people that have been in your damn life because they haven't supported that great version of you. When you

are really little, you knew it. You felt it because you were closer to God at that time and the more and more people were added to your life. They began to treat you in such a way that they didn't expect those things of you and maybe you've started to accept that. So if it's people that created these limiting beliefs, created this anxiety, created this fear, created this thing about us where we forget our greatness. If it's people who did this to us, it's people who are going to help us get out of it.

If it's the environment that stole this joy, stole this belief, stole this confidence from us, stole this sense of purpose from us and passion. It's the environment that will give it back to us again.

And we put the people in our lives that we deserved to have, not just that of always been there.

Very short in our mission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. If you run a business, you know it's not just what you do, but the time you spend doing it. And nothing makes more time faster than messy accounts payable issues, bills everywhere, approvals dragging vendors blowing you up. It's the kind of low value work that keeps you busy instead

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I'm guessing it goes both ways, right? We also have limiting beliefs and we put it onto others. Will you speak to the power of understanding when you might be in a relationship with a partner espouse, a boss, a leader, where their own limiting beliefs might be projecting onto you and diminishing your self confidence, your self esteem or even your self humor. Off the people that projected limiting beliefs onto us, they love us. They're actually concerned

about us. Why are you working so hard? Why is this money stuff matter? Why do you want to achieve

so much? And they're just projecting their small thinking and small beliefs onto us. They're not always

“antagonistic against us. But how do we know if our friends are association's service?”

I have a chapter in the book about becoming an impossibility thinker and a possibility achiever. And I have a point that I make in the book that 99% of people on Earth today operate out of a filter, a frame of reference in their life, which is their memories and their history. This is the filter in which they think and operate out of, one percent of people, operate out of their imagination or their vision. So, say with me, history and memories, 99%,

a imagination and vision, one percent. Okay, this is a fact. Why do we happier when we're children? We're happier when we're children because we're operating out of our imagination because we have no history. But then, by about age 10, we have a history that's been installed in us with limiting beliefs, by loving parents. In fact, Scott, I make the contention. There's all kinds of child neglect. There's alcoholism and drug addiction. There's a family where we don't show

affection like what you said. I don't say I love you or I'm proud of you enough. But the most insidious form of neglect of all children in the world is a child being raised by a parent who is not pursuing their potential and their vision and their imagination. This is a form of neglect because everything with children and leadership is caught not taught as I said. You are limiting, you're projecting, you're limiting beliefs into those children by not pursuing your

potential and your dreams. So, here's how you know when you're around somebody who serves you. Are they often saying to you, do you remember? Remember when, remember this when you around

“your friends or your spouse or remember this, remember, remember, remember, how about this?”

Remember, remember and they're constantly remembering. This is someone who operates out of history and memory. I try to surround myself with friends who don't do that. Where my friends say, where are you going? Isn't this moment amazing? What's your vision? What are you dreaming on? What are you working on right now? Where are you heading? Man, isn't tonight special? So, they're in the present focused on their imagination and their future. This dialogue,

if you really think through it, most of you and I love you and say, say it. When you're with your friends, you're reminiscing. There's nothing wrong with doing a little of that. But if it's the

dominant conversation, they operate out of their history and memory and here's what's going to happen.

They're going to repeat it. The same emotions, the same thoughts, different circumstances, different people, same life to tie the two topics together. I want people and most of my friends, I can't get them to reminisce like, "Man, let me tell you where I'm going. This is where we're head. This is how amazing it's going to be." And today's a gift, man, because I get to do it today. Those are the people I want around me. I don't want to be going backwards all the time and repeating

the same history by thinking the same stuff. Ed, my let's on fire today. Ed, my second favorite aspect of the book is one more question to ask ourselves. You list about 40 plus questions in the book.

one more thing I can do to show my appreciation for the people I work with? What's one more thing I can do to call myself down today? A couple more. What's one more way I can worry less about what other people think? And then my favorite of all of them is number 12. Is there one more thing I can do? So people will see me less different than I see myself? That's so powerful. Is there one more thing I can do so people will see me less different than I see myself.

Really speaks for the power of self-awareness, expand on that. You're really good. So the quality

“of our life is the quality of our questions we ask ourselves. I've of chapter in the book on thinking.”

What is thinking? Thinking is the process of asking and answering questions to yourself. That's a thought. Change the quality of the questions you're like. You'll change the answers. You'll

change the emotions. Most of the time, here's what human beings think. They think they're not

qualified to help people. They're not qualified to make a difference. They're disqualified by their past. Something they're ashamed of, a failure, a bankruptcy, a divorce. Maybe they just always felt average an ordinary like I did with Mrs. Smith. And they think I'm not qualified to do this. And so the question they keep asking themselves is one that doesn't serve them. But what if the questions started to be, how did my past prepare me for my future? How did what I've gone through

prepare me to be my test become my testimony? Let me give you a quick example. The most important decision of my lifetime was made by my father, which was to try to get sober one more time. There's a chapter in the book called One More Try. I've vividly remember my day ago. I'm going to try one more time. And that decision to get sober changed our family tree, changed my unborn children who are

“now going to college, Max and Bella. Their life is different because my dad made this decision.”

Millions of people that I reach on a weekly basis, their lives are impacted because my dad made this

decision. But thank God there was another human being that I never thought about until three weeks

ago, four weeks ago, Scott. I woke up in the middle of the night and told my wife I said, "Bade, someone helped daddy." And I was emotional. She said, "What?" And I said, "Someone helped my dad." She said, "What do you mean?" I said, "My dad making the decision to get sober, getting sober, someone helped him. Someone asked themselves the right question. How can I help this man? How can I serve him?" In the darkest moment of my dad's life, when he was going to lose his family,

and maybe take his own life. I don't even know where it was. Some bar, some alley, some coffee shop, some precious human said, "I'll help you." And here's what's crazy. What qualified them to help my dad was the things they were most in shame of embarrassed of, that they were also an alcoholic at one time in a drug addict. Little did they know. When they were lying to their family about their drinking or stealing money to get drugs,

that they were being prepared if they asked themselves the right question at the right time to change my father's life. And consequently, mine and millions of other people, the ripple effect about one question. So, when my dad was desperate, this person asked themselves a question, "How can I help this man?" And they got the right answer. They could help them because of the things they thought that disqualified them from making a difference.

What's the very thing preparing them to change someone else's life? And so for people,

“this is not only do you need to ask that better question, but you need to know that the things”

of your past that you think disqualified you, a bankruptcy, a divorce, whatever it is, something you totally ashamed of, is probably the thing that pain was preparing you on the other side of it to meet that other self of you if you ask the right question. That precious soul scar has affected millions of lives, the ripple effect of them asking an empowering question about the things they thought that disqualified them. In fact, it's what qualified them

to help my dad. Different questions completely flipped the script on my life and millions of other people. That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Ed My Let's Show on Apple and Spotify.

Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Yeah, I want to jump straight in.

I've had a chance to get through all the way through power one more. I got to be honest with this by far one of my best books this year that I've been through. I haven't seen so much packed into one set of bookends. I don't know how long. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. One of the things that's stuck out to me is this intention is the currency of identity or changing your identity. Explain that to everybody because I thought that was powerful. Well, I didn't like it. It's not mine.

I learned it from Wayne Dyer actually. I probably have made it my own, but many many years ago I was running on a beach in Hawaii. I met Wayne Dyer. He ran by me. Wayne had a sitting on the beach together for about an hour and a half. I was very young. If you don't know who Wayne Dyer is a Google

to change the world." I don't know if he said that to a lot of people or not, but to me, it was incredible. And he goes, "And you're just this big brain. The way you speak and make people feel things and you're very talented man. He goes, "But that's not why." And I said, "Well,

he goes and please never base yourself confidence on or your identity on your abilities or your

achievements." I went, "Well, what the heck are you supposed to base it on that?" And he said, "In your case, your intentions. You have a warm, huge, beautiful heart. You want to help people."

“And your intentions are so huge. They're so beautiful. That's why you're going to change the world.”

Always focus on your intention. There's a power to intentions. He happened to be writing a book by that title at the time. Long story short. It was the first time someone had complimented me where I believed it. I've never believed I was that smart or that special or that talented, but I did know how to good heart. And so, since that day for the most part, man, even preparing for something like this today, my confidence, my identity comes from my intention to serve, my intention to make a

difference. So many people are chasing that tale of once I'm achieving something, once I'm really great, then I'll have confidence. That's not where my comes from. My comes from intention. And that's what I recommend in the book. Yeah. No, I love that. It's interesting to me. I was just thinking through that. We didn't get a chance because the event was so busy. We didn't get a chance to spend a lot of time together, but you and I have a lot of similarities in our backstories. You told me that, but I don't

know what they are. Yeah. Yeah. So my father was an alcoholic for a number of years, and I watched him really struggle back and forth to try to get a hand along it. And, you know, when I was thinking through the intentions, I remember him actually having a similar conversation that your dad had with you, I'm going to try one more time. Really? Wow. Yeah. And, uh, long ago, I did. It did. Yeah. He's been sober for 35 plus years, fantastic grandfather and the whole deal man. Thank

you. That's wonderful. Yeah. But the intention behind the meat that intent behind going through by making that, um, well, an importance, right? But yeah. I think I think most of the things we do great in our life come from love. My dad got sober because he loved his family enough to try again. Your dad got sober enough because he loved you and loved your family enough to try again. Hopefully loved himself. But oftentimes, you know, it defines something we love. It's it might not be us. But

all great things are achieved through love. And that sounds corny with two dudes talking that lift weights and stuff. But the fact of the matter is it's true. And when I focus on who I love or

what I love, that's much bigger than whatever the obstacle is in my way. And that's always given

me the fuel and the energy to, you know, persevere or maybe other people quit or gave in. Yeah. How much of that intention is, uh, psychos in a self-sabotage? I mean, what's it? Well, how do you mean, what do you mean by that? Well, to me, if you have a focused intention, you're intentionally choosing a direction where self-sabotage appears to be a lot more subconscious. And well, self-sabotage comes from that internal identity that

whatever you're about to go do, you don't believe you're worthy of. Or even if you get it, you'll blow it. Like, you hear me talk many times about the thermostat analogy. It's in the book.

“But the truth is, if you don't get this internal thermostat, your identity high enough,”

no matter what you achieve, you're going to turn the air conditioners onto your life and cool it back down again to what you believe you're worth. I just, I just, and I watched this all the time of my new show, I have a new TV show, what's going to be streaming called Change with that my let. And this woman, one of the guests on the show was a woman she gained 180 pounds, lost 90 gained it back, lost 90 gained it back. And I said the challenge for you, Angie, as you

believe you're a heavy woman who happens to have lost weight. And because that's the case,

your identity is a heavy woman. You always get back there and turn the air conditioners back on.

But what if the truth was, you've always been a healthy fit woman who had gained weight. And if we could switch that identity now, we won't sabotage ourselves again. sabotage is really the process of getting what we believe we're worth. Yeah. We're really, we're really getting what we believe we're worth. So we're, we're trashing the current results of the current situation to get back to what our thermostat

setting is and that we call that sabotage. But it's just getting back to what we believe we're worth. So a well-built wardrobe is about pieces that work together and hold up over time. And a lot of you have been complimenting me lately, getting some DMs. Hey, my lad, I like that sweater a couple weeks ago at that dance sweater on. Where'd you get it? I could tell you where I got it.

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Go to Quince.com/ed for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's QU-I-N-C-E.com/ed free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/ed. So I am eight sponsored the show for a while, you guys want me honestly to set me a bunch of

I brought it with me. Oh my gosh, what was I thinking waiting? So if you've been looking for something

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come to rely on daily and I wouldn't miss it again. I know when I miss a day. Give your body what it deserves with I-M-8. Go to imatehealth.com/ed and use code ed for a free welcome kit. Five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order. Seriously, this is one of those offers you wish you jumped on sooner. That's imatehealth.com/ed and use code ed for a free welcome kit. Five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order. imatehealth.com/ed. Code ed. These statements have

not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose treat cure prevent any disease. Yeah, and at least for me, again, we didn't get a chance to super connect just one on one, but part of my backstory is overcoming homelessness and some other things to get around that today. It was something in the book that you mentioned, I thought was

pretty powerful and it was a huge shift for me, which is one of the reasons I wanted to bring it up,

which is this essence of operating at a history versus operating at a future. I kept telling myself I was the high school dropout because I had to pay the bills and help the family and all that kind of stuff. I kept telling myself for a number of years, and then one of my first mentors, old man, Myra told me, he said, you know, he said, "You're there's two ways to think, you can even learn to think like me, you can learn to think like your dad, which one will it be?"

Right here, right here. Talk to me about history, man. Talk to me about operating at a history versus, well, 1% of all people operate out of their imagination and their dreams and 99% operate out of history and memory, and this is a really insidious thing. We don't even realize we're doing it. When we're children, we're happier, why? My belief is we're just more recently with God. And two, we don't have a history and memory, so we're forced to operate out of imagination. And then at

some point, for some children like you and I, we start getting a history early because it's crossed upon us with an alcoholic dad or whatever, but for the most part, most kids, it's 10, 12, 15 years old. They start operating up history and memory and what we do in our life as we move towards what we're most familiar with. So you become familiar with this history and memory and you just move towards the same emotions over and over again, same thoughts over and over again, even if the

external circumstances change, we move, we regret, our life is our emotions, we move towards the same thing. And that ties into associations. We all heard, hey, you're going to be the product of the five people you hang around. That's old school, right? How do you know who it should be? What's one thing no one's ever told you before? I'll give it to you right now, it's in my book. If you're peer group operates out of history and memory, they don't serve you like they should. I'll give you an

example. If when you're with your friends, it's like, man, you remember, you remember that

“you remember high school, you remember that one thing? You remember that, you know, you yeah. Right?”

And that's what most friends do together. I don't have a lot of that. I have a little bit of it. And by the way, my peer group have great histories and memories. Yeah, but they don't. When we're together, you almost got to force them. What we're doing is we're talking about imagination and dreams. What are you working on right now? Where are you going? What's it going to look like? You can't. You think you can get Tom Brady to talk about past Super Bowl's all the time dude. Come on, man.

He's talking about, hey, I got this new crypto thing. I've got this new watch. I've got this new business thing I'm doing. I've got this NFT. We're going to win the Super Bowl this year in Tampa. I want to get ring eight. Whatever it is, you talk to Tim Cooker runs Apple. He's not talking about Max from 20 years ago. He's talking about what they're working on now and where they're going as a company. And so the people around you, if it's history and memory, that's one little key. Like,

I'm not saying drop people. I'm not a believer. Now, let's they're toxic. You're going to,

but you got to add. And so this is how critical it matches. It's like probably probably,

you probably asked me one of the four, five most important things in life. What is your frame of reference? History or memory or imagination in vision? It's okay to have some history and memory. We learn from it. But going back there, you cannot be in both zones at one time. So if you're in history and memory, you are not in vision in imagination. And you were born to imagine. You were born to dream. You were born to do something great with your life. And I just remembered that's something

I want to talk about. It's not in my speech. Thank you for to give us any of that question. Hold on. Go ahead. Keep going. I'm going to write a note down to those real good. That was a great

“conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed My Let's Show”

on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Welcome back to the show, everybody. So today's going to be awesome for me. And I'm assuming it will be for you because I have one of the most brilliant people on planet earth joining me today. One of the best men I've ever known in my life and truly a great friend of mine. And then just a short few years has become very, very close to me. And I think I'm pretty close to him. He's an

expert on leadership. He's one of the most prolific authors in the world over the last two decades. He sold literally millions of books. And it behind the scenes, he has a meant to work to some of the most influential people in the world and every different industry. And this man's handprint

be all over you by the end of this hour. So my dear dear friend, John Gordon, welcome back to the show brothers. So great to have you. Hey, good to be back. And you know how much I love you, respect you, admire you and just thrilled to be back with you. The last show we did on the one truth, I just got an email the other day about it. And it attacks from another person saying this YouTube video because it's on YouTube now change my life. Like they said, this thing was

unbelievable. And we talked about over a year and a half, maybe two years ago now. And it's

still going out there. That conversation we had about oneness and separateness. So powerful.

I want to talk about being a 10 a little bit. You know, one of the ways that you get there is you change things about your disposition. And so when I was younger, I used to think certain things about me were my strengths, or I could get away with them. And when I learned is sometimes it's not a matter of just even developing new skills or talents, it's shedding the thing that holds you back. It's pruning yourself almost. When I was young, I used to think my intensity, my passion was my

strength. But very close brother or sister to that was anger. And I was more of an angry type leader.

“I think that's really hard for most people to watch my stuff. Now, like I or that you were a negative”

thinker because it's just so contrary to what you see with you now. But mine was anger. And I had I was winning in spite of that thing that I kept telling myself was one of my gifts. And when I finally decided that I was going to grow up and mature and change this thing about myself and tap into better thinking and better behavior. My whole life took off. And you talk about the antenna. You also talk about the fact that it's hard to believe that you're the positive guy that was

always constantly chronically negative. So take those two things together just dive in on that is

part of becoming successful, happier, shedding things that about yourself that are holding you back and being honest about what that thing is. And then if I write about that, how does one tap into the good stuff? Man, that's a lot right there to unpack. But we have an antenna. And that antenna caused us to tune into two main frequencies, a positive frequency or a negative frequency. And there's a choice between two and there's only two and everything in life comes down to positive and negative.

It's why there's a main just in our life and there's also a shadow part of that. There's duality. And so that anger is caused by something deeper. There's love. There's hate, right? There's confidence.

“There's a lack of confidence. There's always two sides to every coin. You have to understand that.”

And you're either fueled by the positive or the negative. You're fueled by either the wounds

or the healing. And so often people are fueled by anger because they're hurt. And that anger actually feels better than depression. So it fuels them. But anger and depression are actually very close. anger is depression that gets off the couch. anger is depression that gets off the couch and goes and does something and finds the juice to the do it. And so I call anger steroids of the soul. It actually gives you temporary boost of energy, temporary power. So it feels good. But at the

same time it's actually destroying you in the process because it's coming from a place of hurt, a place of a wound. And so many people driven by this anger or this wound and then need to be successful. Then need to be like the need to show that their father who left that they are someone and so the wound drives them and it drove me for a long time. So now I know this so well. My biological father left when I was a year old. So there was a wound that drove me to be successful.

Then I lose my job 30, 31 years old. My wife's about to leave me. I'm almost bankrupt. Everything comes crashing down. The guy that was fueled by all of this had the scoreboard of success and wealth and fame. Everything can crumble down. Now what am I fueled by? It was a crisis of

“epic proportions. And everyone will go through this at some point in a life I believe. And it was”

during that time I said, okay, I want to make a difference. I want to impact others. I want my life to be that others not myself. I want to get closer to God. I knew I didn't have God in my life. And that was a defining moment in my life. And then from there it became about a healthy ambition. It was a healthy ambition which is different than anger which is different than being fueled by a wound. Now it's being fueled by your healing, not the wound. The growth, the healing to heal yourself

and then to heal others. And from there comes power and peace and confidence and courage. And you can see the difference. Someone who's fueled by love and someone who's fueled by fear. It all comes down to love and fear. What's driving you? The love of others or the fear not having enough. The fear of not being successful or the love of competing and the love of being your best and the love of your teammates. One will help you perform at the highest level.

The love. The fear will cause you to have a short-term success. What eventually will be a

driving you and you're either living from your wound or you're healing. And that's how you'll

know whether you're in the right path or not. Now, as you were obviously driven by the anger, that came from a wound. Then you began the process of healing and self-growth, self-mastery, and then it led to a different mindset, different perspective, different energy, connected to a greater source, a greater power to God. And obviously you now become a conduit for all that God wants to do in the world, rather than this person who's blocking, blocking the

flow of God's power and peace in your life. So are you being blocked or are you actually being a conduit for everything that wants to happen in your life and in the lives of others. And so

“that's how I look at it from a duality perspective and what each person is facing on this journey.”

And everyone will move from the wound to the healing. And I really believe this is the path forward for people at work, people in life, more and more people are talking about wounds today, because wounds are meant to be healed. And in the healing process, you become your most powerful self. Very short in our mission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes.

You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show.

Well, let's talk about mentors for a minute. How have mentors impacted you on your journey? John B. and one of those for you, I assume. And you know, where do you think that impacts people? If you're out there listening, you know, the people that are listening to this show, what have been toers done for your life and what could they do for the people listening and watching? Well, John is one of them. And the idea that I have to live up to him being there last year

makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I fact I talked to John Friday because another good friend of mine, John Gordon was with them and they had met for the first time and ended up, you know, saying, hey, they're both very good friends of mine and both, you know, connected over that.

My mentors and number one thing, John's one of them. And by the way, with the coolest thing is when

your mentor moves from mentor to friend, because when they become your friend, then they have way more influence over you, right? Like if you think about your kids, like their teachers their mentor, and that teacher has tremendous influence over your child. But who do you really worry about is influencing your child, their friends, right? And so when you get to that point where you become friends with your mentor, oh my gosh, can they make an impact on you that's just

remarkable? And I, I consider John a friend, he was, we'll move from mentor to friend. My mentor is the

“number one thing they've done for me in my life is they believed in me in such a deep way that I've”

wanted to live up to how they looked at me. I wanted to prove them right. And so the number one thing my mentors have seen my giftedness, seen my potential, seen my capacity, they see me as I could be not as I am. And because they see me as I could be as not as I am, and they've done it enough that I actually want to work hard enough to live up to prove them right. That's number one. Number two, my mentors have been further down the road that I want to go down, and that's why

I selected them as a mentor, and they have directions. They have directions. And the vast majority of those directions believe it or not have come from wrong turns they made that they warned me about that I then don't make. So of course there's been mentors will say, listen, I did this, this and this and that works. And those have been very effective lessons. But other ones have been, hey, warning, here's a turn I made that I don't think you need to make, or I see you going down

a path I was going down. I can just tell you, that's a dead end road. Turn around now and head this way. And so they've done that for me. They also give me comfort and security. They've helped create, I would call, well, I would call like an emotional stability around me that I'm not alone in this journey. My number one mentor in friend is, is Jesus, you know that. And he gives me tremendous comfort to know, I just did it last night. It's praying last night. I play on my

prayer and my knees every night. We're being, you know, I'm just bearing my soul with you today. More than I normally would. And like literally at the end of my prayer last night kind of got some stuff going on. I'm like, hey, Lord, just I'm giving this to you. I got this overwhelming, like, warmth flowed over me. Like, hey, I have you, my son. I love you. I got you. And so that's the ultimate example of that. But it also feels good to be able to call John or Lou and say, hey, I got this,

they're like, I got your back. It's going to be okay. There's some comfort to it. He gives me some emotional peace. They've done all of those things. But they have a sense of direction. There's this,

“the Chinese proverb that I always screw up. But, you know, if you want to know the road ahead,”

ask those coming back. They have directions. They've seen it. And, and the most of these people, including me at this point, I've been down a lot of different roads. I can save you time by the mistakes I've made and I can give you some sense of direction on what's worked for me and what hasn't worked. The best mentors also usually ask me questions and don't make statements, meaning they make

giving me instructions. Because that's the difference between, you know, feeding somebody and teaching

them to fish. By great mentors have made me do the hard work on uncovering the answers and creating the systems and patterns and habits in my life that allow me to solve these types of problems when they come up in the future when maybe they won't be present. What role does faith play in your selection of mentors? Yeah. It has, it has, it's, it's now probably the primary thing. I can't say that every mentor I've had is shared faith because that's not true. I've had fitness mentors who don't

share my faith and I'm like, show me how to get that body, right? Or my current doctor who's on my show tomorrow. I don't think we share the same faith, but God still made her and her image and like this to serve me. So it's not a requirement for me. I mean, I know of the easy answer to be say that all, all of them share my faith. That's not true. I have mentors in certain areas of my life that don't share my faith. And I actually, I'm going to be honest with you. I enjoy having friends

around me with different perspectives and points of view. It strengthens my faith. It causes me

“to question things that I think require questioning to go to the next level. It's actually a”

really good question. My best friend is not a believer. I'm working on him, but my best friend is named, my call, his name is Kelly, but I call him Richard Cabesa on my social media. You can figure out why I call him that love that guy. And I love him. And he lives a better life than most of my believer friends. But he's more than a brother to me. Like I had, I love an adore him. And I think over time, things have happened in his life. Like, and I think I'm allowed to say this

because I love him. But in the last year, he lost his sister and his brother. And his mom's ailing. And I don't want to be too personal with his life because I love him. But because I'm so close to him, more than a brother, it's now the time that we've started to have these conversations about, well, where'd they go, bro? And what's this life all mean? And now that you're getting your 50s, is it all about your Louis Vuitton, shoes, and your mansion on the ocean, and, you know,

these other things, and he keeps reaching these conclusions. I brother, it's not. There's got to be more. And so now we're at that stage where he brings, I think we're having those conversations. But so it's not not all of them do share my faith. I think the primary ones, though, I want them to

“because they understand my point of view and perspective of how I think and what matters to me.”

And in most cases, if they don't share that same belief system, it's hard to give me the major directions on the major things in my life. But I think he'd be surprised, even with John, who used to run a church. Think you'd be surprised, you know, from being honest about how unspoken

our faith is between the two of us. I mean, it's not that it's never spoken, but it's not like

let's pray together every minute that we're together. Nor is faith necessarily the central topic when he and I talk. But I think we both know that's the play running in the background. But I think people would be surprised that you would think, you and John Maxwell must talk about faith all the time. We don't. Now, John Gordon and I do. It's just a different friendship. John Gordon and I about everything always comes back to faith. It's just the nature of our

“relationship. It's a different dynamic. So did that answer? I think that answers it.”

Yeah, I find it, you know, best to live out the way that you want to live. As they say, the old quote is, you know, live right because you might be the only Bible than anybody ever reads. That's that's I think that's probably the number one thing that's going on with me and Kelly. Because he's just watched me live my life up close for 20 years. And I think the older an older he gets, he's understanding the narrative going on behind me and why more than when we were younger

men. And I think any of you that are people of faith, I think I might surprise you when God will finally use your life at the right time for that person. And it may not be on your time. It's I'm finding

as I get older. It's like some of my friends, you know, that just never came up. It just never was

there. And was just great respected understanding between each other. And now it's starting to as we all get older. So maybe it'll not be on your time, but it might happen on his time. Well, man, I know you're going to love walking into that room in Naples. And I'll say this, which I don't, I don't think I've ever shared this publicly. But since we're on a roll today, I'll share it here. You know, top contractor school for me is, it's my ministry, man. It's the way

that, you know, I'm able to impact people, not just in business, but personally, you know,

they're amazing trades people, right? They're amazing tradesmen, tradeswomen. But what they've

done is they've built a job with a tax ID number. They haven't built a company. And our mission as an organization is to be able to take those people and fill in the gaps and give them freedom and build them a life. And, you know, I just said it to somebody today, I said, you know, people a lot of times get into entrepreneurship because they think there's freedom on the other side. And if you don't have the right advice, you don't have the right mentorship, you don't have the right

foundation. What you build yourself is just a bigger cage. Yeah, you build yourself 18 different jobs. You don't build yourself when you freedom. You end up becoming, you know, a slave to this thing you've built. And by the way, I've done that. I have, early in my career, I built businesses that created more bondage, more stress in my life than was reasonable and it's because I didn't have a mentor. The other thing you create that's not just, you don't just have you, you've created

an environment that supports these contractors. So it's beyond you. It's an environment and winning in life oftentimes is a matter of feeling that you're in business for yourself, but not by yourself. And so many people feel like they're in business by themselves. And what you've done is said, no, you're not by yourself. You're in business for yourself, but you are not by yourself. And you've got access to information and resources and you and peers that accelerate and save time

and reduce stress and give you access to resources that you otherwise would never have had in your

life. And so you're not by yourself. That's a huge thing for small business operators, medium-sized

“business operators, and something that, the reason I look old, I think one of the reasons I look”

older, can Sasha, we need to change the lighting in here today. By the way, the reason that I look older is because I did spend the first 10 years of my business career by myself. And I wouldn't wish that on anybody. It was totally unnecessary. I just didn't understand what a mentor could do or coaches could do or mastermind in the sense that the collective mind being bigger than mine on my own. I didn't have any appreciation for any of that till I read Think and Grow Rich. And then

frankly, I'm old enough that this stuff didn't exist on the level that it does now when I was a young entrepreneur. It didn't exist. There just weren't groups like what you've built in this space. The other thing that's cool about what you've done is, I want to say this to you is it's not so broad that there's people that one guy's got a dance company and some ladies got a taco truck. And so

“you're in this space. And so it defines the space you're in, which I think narrows focus and allows”

the information to be with a higher level of specificity because everyone's operating in the same industries collectively. And that's brilliant of you because even in our coaching program, it's all these different industries. And when it's that broad, the content itself has to remain general and broad. But when you target an industry like you've done, it allows much more specificity and precision. Very short in our mission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying

the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. Well, today, I thought I had the deepest voice in all the podcasting, but I think you're about to hear it deeper when we were just joking about that off camera. My guest today, I have wanted to talk to for a long time after seeing him speak. And obviously, I've watched him on TV for so many years.

Most of you know him is Titus O'Neill. But I know him as an all-time W. E. Hall of Famer. He's a philanthropist. He's an author of a book that we're going to talk about today. And one of the most

incredible stories you will ever hear in your life. You're about to hear right now. And the next

hour I'm going to spend with Thaddeus Bullard. So Thaddeus, welcome to the show, my friend. Good to have you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm glad I beat you in something. And I do it as to having the deepest voice on the podcast. Well, I've also stood next to you and I'm a pretty big dude, but it's not even close. You beat me a lot. A different thing. This is one of the biggest men and strongest men you will ever meet in your life. I want to know about this belief thing

“because I think a lot of parents, a lot of people, a lot of leaders neglect to every”

tell somebody that they love them. Love is like almost this word. You hear it so often. I don't even know if it feels anything anymore. Belief, even like your spouse, to have a spouse who believes in you, not just loves you. That's like a different level altogether. I'm wondering your thoughts about belief in people and your intentionality about that and how it affected you beyond just love, but

my relationship with God and I think everybody has their interpretation or their own relationship with

God. I was introduced to the church as a youth. I went to church all the time, but I never

really understood a lot of things in regards to relationships with Christ because even in the church, things are manipulated. The Bible's manipulated people are in my opinion, you know, kind of feel like they they walk out of their convicted every Sunday if they're dealing with certain things or whatever and I know that there are a lot of believers that live throughout the globe, but I don't think there are a lot of people to faith. What's the difference? To me, you know, people of faith

move on action. They move with love. They move with obedience and obedience is greater than sacrifice. I learned that at a very young age that sometimes what we feel like we're sacrificing when it comes

to God, there is no sacrifice because He has already told us in Jeremiah 29 and 11 for I know

the thoughts that I have for you, thoughts of great things, you know, and a great ending. And so I don't need all the details to move on what God's told me to do. And before even as a kid, you know,

“it was that I love you and I believe in you, message that stuck with me so much because as you said”

before, a lot of people don't really get told that they are believed in or that people have faith in them. And that's right. If I say I have faith in God, then I can't respond to world elite issues the same way everybody else does. I can't be far right or far left when it comes to politics. I can't be far right or far left when it comes to religion. I can't be far right or far left when it comes to sexual orientation or any other stuff because for me, so many people invested in me when they

had nothing to gain in return from all different walks and all different backgrounds that I have no fight or skin in the game when it comes to like being anything less than a great human being. And I think when people know that you believe in them and that you believe in what they can do, it gives them a strength and a courage to go out and try something that they normally wouldn't try.

“Your testimony, my testimony, like sometimes I think even for me at a certain point in my life,”

I was kind of hesitant to tell my story because I didn't want to be viewed a certain way that I was weak, you know, but I'm vulnerable to the obedience of God. I have submitted, you know, like I don't have to be perfect. Nobody in this world has to be perfect at anything. We all serve a perfect will and God has a perfect will and the purpose for all of us. I got empowered by knowing that this homeless guy at 13 years old telling me that God's going to

use you in a mighty way. And at that time I was on a football field and I'm walking and I say, well, man, yeah, I want to go to the NFL. I want to make a lot of money so I can help a lot of people and he said, no, it has nothing to do with the NFL. It has everything to do with you for a God that's essentially homeless for some people they look at that situation as hopeless. For me, a couple of weeks later, I come to ask him, how does you end up in this situation?

And he said, if I told you I was CEO of a Fortune 500 company, I had a big home, a yacht,

“a beautiful family, would you believe me? And I said, I will have no choice, like if that's what”

you told me. And he said, that's exactly what my life used to be. But drugs, alcohol and gambling ripped me away from my family. And wow, you know, as I think about like how believing in someone, I believe that this guy who spoke life into me at a time in which I didn't know him. He didn't know me. If I ended up speaking life into him as well as as well as asking one of my teammates who that was a very successful businessman and trying to help him not only get

reintroduced to the church because his my teammate wanted me to go to his church all the time.

But he was Catholic and I didn't know that. And he had always wanted to get back and go to church.

And so since I had this invitation to go to church, you know, I asked if I could invite you know this gentleman to church. And next thing, you know, he's going from going to church to now working for my teammates dad to getting back on his feet, to being reconnected with his wife. Although they she had moved on and got married. He hadn't seen his kids in like three years. God used me at 13 years old to help this person that told me that God is going to

put a bow on that. If you ask the average person, hey, who's loved you in your life? I bet that

you could name 10 12 15 different people that have loved you. Grandma, Grandpa, coaches, you know, your sisters, your brothers. But if I asked you who's believed in you, I bet that list is shorter. And when you believe in somebody, you are you fit on one hand in their life more than likely where they really feel your belief. And that is a deep difference you make as a father as a mother

“as a friend. I'm not just a friend to my friends. I let them know. I believe in them. And then I”

let them know why I believe in them as a leader in business. And I just want you all just to just take that one piece of this away. Here's a big question for you, brother. By the way, remember this, this man goes on to be dominant college football player at University of Florida ends up

eventually in the WWE. He's a hall of favor in the WWE. So imagine this, one of the great all-time

Hall of Famers in the WWE was conceived in a sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl. Now, what can you accomplish in your life? If that's where this man comes from. He's talking about church. He doesn't just walk the walk. He's actually in the studio at his church right now as we're talking. Very short in our mission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. If you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed My Let's Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in

“the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. So the, you know,”

I don't know if you book Max out your life. I actually ripped out three pages that I keep. I got a little desk in my room before I go to bed. I do some, I do yes. And I do some, um, you know, I do some

reflecting. And one of the quotes you have in that book on page 98 is I'm chasing down the ultimate

version of me. The day that they will come when I get face to face with the destiny version of me. I want the satisfaction of knowing that I spent the lifetime chasing down this man. That in the end, I caught up with him. Um, that he and I are identical. That I challenged myself. I took risks. I dug deeper. I put in the work in, I gave it my all. Now you've to every answer, the blessings of God, that God gave me and love, and I let nothing in the tank. It's my driving course of my life.

Yeah. I thought that was an awesome quote. That's like the man in the ring quote by Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah. So I, well, I mean it. Let me show you something. This is, uh, right next to where I work every day. This is my dad. It's a good picture of my dad when he was sober. And this is my dad's one year announcement of his passing, his obituary. And I actually keep this right here where I do most of my work every day. And it's a description of my dad's life. Um, and it says that, you know,

no one spread more love in a lifetime than my dad. I keep that nearby because I actually think.

“I was just talking about this. I think, I remember who it was on my show recently. I might”

have been Matthew McConaughey. I'm not sure who it was. I think it was Matt. But I think about death a lot. And, um, not in a cryptic way, but it gives me a reminder of how blessed I am to be alive. And I'm under no illusion that it's going to, you know, be forever. Now my soul's forever. But, you know, Ed, my, the body, you know, one thing occurred to me. I can't believe I'm saying this today, but it's a, it's an interesting day in my family life. I had a kind of family issue come up about

10 minutes before I came on here. That's pretty significant. And I was with my dad when he passed away, like physically with him. And, um, when he passed my mom and my sisters didn't want to stay in the room with him, just because it was so sad. So I was with my dad for like an hour and a half before the horse came. And, uh, I know this isn't sound very motivational, but I think it will be if you remember what I said. And something dawned on me immediately when I was there. And that was that my dad wasn't there anymore.

Meaning, whoever my dad was was gone. And if you look around that room, my dad's body was still in there. But he wasn't, I, this deep sense, my father was gone. Even though I was with his body, my dad's achievements were up on the mantle in the very room we were in. That wasn't my dad. My dad still had problems when he passed away. Those weren't my dad. My dad was a soul and a spirit. And that's who my dad was. He was an energy. He was a force, just like all of you are.

We're not our accumulations. We're not our possessions. Even though I've accumulated and I possess a lot of stuff, I'm none of those things. I'm not my body. I'm something beyond that. And I want to catch that ultimate version of me. And it's actually something that isn't a speech. It's not just something in my book. It's pretty much how I live most of the time. I'm addicted to the expansion of my being. I want to know how far I can expand. How much more I can love. How much more I can think. How much

more I can feel. How much more I can give the memories that I could have in my life. And so to me, there's this ultimate version, God made me to be that I haven't met yet. But I'm excited to meet him

I think that's why maybe when I speak that people, whether you think on the best speaker in the world or the ninth semester, whatever doesn't matter to me. But you certainly will feel something when I speak because I feel it when I'm saying it. You can't transfer to somebody that which you're not actually experiencing, not deeply. And so I actually deeply experience this stuff. Like I have a great top. You knew me, man. Like, let's show you. Right here, after I got about

four hours of work today is where I will spend most of my time, which is in those cigars that are in that humidor. Right. So like, I have a great top. I mean, I have a blast. The same time when you're around me, there's an edge to me. And if you're in my proximity and you're a friend of mine,

“I'm going to, you're going to want to be, you most stuff in life is caught, not taught.”

You're going to catch it if you're around someone like me. Like, I live life intentionally. I love life. I'm blessed to be here. I've had two heart attacks. I'm only 52. So I know how lucky I am to be here. In fact, right before I got here, I'm dealing with a very significant family thing that came up. And it's just another reminder of how precious life is. So long answer, I apologize. But it's not just to quote my book. It's how I try to live.

Absolutely. So, you know, one of the things I've been teaching people how to invest in commercial real estate for 22 years. So one of the big difference between those that are very successful

or even successful getting to the first deal is mindset. It's getting over themselves.

You first chapter in your max out for life walk. You talk about things happen for me, not to me. Can you get us that a little bit? Yeah, you know, the other thing too, and buying real estate, because I've done a lot of commercial real estate too, is one of the part of getting over yourself is

“actually believing you have to note everything before you execute a deal. The reason someone like you”

so valuable, the reason I agreed to speak to your group after we've vetted you, because I get about 3,000 speaking requests a year. I only do about 100. And so we've had them pretty careful. I've had somebody take advantage of being a commercial real estate in the last year. And so you don't have to know everything to do every deal. And for example, the third deal I did in my life was a strip mall about a strip mall on a seller carry. And I made a mistake where I didn't, I did not clear

one of the leans through the escrow. I made a mistake and it cost me a lot of money at the time. That happened for me not to me because I'm the most diligent dude in the world now when I do escrow.

And I've saved myself probably 50 million dollars on things I've caught over the 300

commercial deals I've done, for example, by an escrow. So like everything that happens really ends up happening for you, not to you, if you believe that. And so even my dad dying, we go back to that. I got up and for me not too miss horrible that I lost my dad, but I live more intentionally because I did. I'm a better dad because I did. I closer to my mom because it happened. I'm closer to my sisters. I am less focused on accumulating stuff and more about accumulating memories.

So anything in your life can happen for you not to you. And especially if you're going to be

“in the real estate business, you have to believe that because there's cycles. There's markets.”

And so sometimes it gets going to be really great and sometimes it's not. And writing out a deal that's not going well for a while, you better believe this is happening for me not to me because if you think it's happening to you, you can make all kind of panic type decisions. So when you shouldn't refinance when you shouldn't, there's all kinds of stuff that you can make mistakes. If you don't know, things are happening for you. So I think it's a really profound quote.

I'm not the only one who says it. I don't know if I was first or third who said it, but I live by it. One of the stories you tell is about the thermostat, which the first time I heard it, that was like, wow, that's that's profound but so real. Could you give the pre version of that here and then? Well, yeah, the most powerful force by the way, are you from Massachusetts? I am. Yeah, yeah, I hear it. You know that I am too. Did you know that?

Yes. Yeah, I heard it. Yeah. What's what's New England? You're always in New England, right?

Yeah, I'm from Wamous, by the way. So you are? Okay. No, neither one of us grew up with any money. That's great. So I have an island I bought, you probably know because you follow my stuff, but I was in New England yesterday. I bought an island called Hope Island, talk about real estate. All my life wanted to own an island. I've done, I wanted one of there to have a commercial real estate is the fastest way in my opinion, if you do it correctly,

to get wealthy that exists in the world for an average ordinary person. Let me just state that really clearly. And so I've done enough. I've done residential commercial, I've built and sold companies, I've done all kinds of stuff. I've invested even in the stock market and made money. But I've also lost money in a lot of things. Commercial real estate is the best and fastest way in my mind to make money real wealth generational wealth that exists in the world. And so that's that's awesome.

is for you to be consistent with your identity or the way you see you or what you believe you deserve in your worth. And I've watched this over and over brother where your thermostat setting is your identity. So if you're a 75 degree or let's just say you have multiple settings, happiness, fitness,

“wealth, love, you have multiple ones. But let's just say you're a 75 degree or financially, right?”

And you start heating your life up. You do two or three deals. You're at 90, 95, 100. You're starting to really, you're at 100 degrees of financial results. If internally, you don't raise the belief that you're worthy of that, you will unconsciously turn the air conditioners on of your financial life and cool it back down to what you believe your worth. You'll sabotage it. And it'll seem coincidental. You're like, ah, a pipe broke. Ah, I made a bad deal. Oh, someone moved out

the tenant didn't do this or the market changed. It'll all seem coincidental except it never is.

It's this invisible air conditioner you turn on in your life. Yeah, you can have it in love. You all have that friend. Let's say if you're a lady in there who man, you meet her and she's met the perfect dude and she's in love and it's 150 degrees of bliss. And you haven't seen her in six months. You come back and she's like, ah, we broke up. He cheated. He wasn't right. He's not who I thought he was. No, you turned the air conditioner on again and you keep picking the same guy in a different

body so that you can cool it back down. And so in your life, you've got to increase the thermostat setting because you can have all the talent, all the skills, all the tools, all the deals you want, but you will cool it back down. As I say this, you're thinking of a situation in your life where you've done it or someone that you know. And even for me, when I started to get, you know, as worth a million, I was worth 10 minutes, worth a hundred minutes. I got to a particular number and I'm like,

ah, and I started to cool it back down again. And I had to read my own stuff. I'm like, wait a minute here. I need to alter my thermostat setting because the reverse is also true. When your thermostat setting's high at like a hundred and you're doing 70, you will turn the

“heater on and get it back up, which is a great thing too. I believe it's the single most invisible”

force in the world that dictate success. I teach this to my UFC fighters, my professional golfers, my NFL quarterbacks, the politicians I work with, the CEOs, the commercial real estate investors, my kids, number one force in the world is your identity. You may say, well, what about faith, Ed, because you talk about faith all the time. Part of my thermostat setting is because of my faith. I believe God made me and my him is is image and likeness wants me to prosper, wants me to increase.

So part of the fact that my identity is so high is that I believe I have a loving God who wants me to do something great with my life. So my faith is part of my identity. So it is an I can talk about that when I come out there, man. It's the number one mover. You ask yourself, how's it kid from way myth Massachusetts with average intelligence, right? No connections, not nothing really that impressive about it. How does he become worth hundreds of millions of dollars and reach millions

of people every week? How the heck does that happen? It's the invisible force. I got a high thermostat setting that I've worked on all my life. And as I got to certain points, I knew the next move

“had to be a higher thermostat setting every time. So that's why I do read books. That's why you”

join groups like this. That's why you listen to my podcast. All those things are drips and increasing the temperature of your life. So that's how that works. I'm already getting fired up. Look at the veins are popping up. I'm not even, I'm not even, it's not even September. I'm not even at your deal yet. I'm fired up. That was so profound the first time I heard it. This is so brilliant. So then, you know, it is, it's a matter of, it's a matter of choice, it's a matter of just feeding

yourself good stuff from regular basis. It's going to allow you to live in a higher thermostat level.

It's really true. And all of you have always heard, hey, you're the who you hang around.

In my book, I actually teach you the actual tactics to change your thermostat setting. And it's not just who you hang around, although that is a part of it. And if you get this and you do it correctly, it'll alter your life. All of a sudden, we tell you it starts to happen. You're a particular activating system in your brain starts to see deals that were there, but you missed all before. See investors that were there that you just never contacted. Miraculous things start

happening like how in the world that I find this building when no one else wanted it. How did I find the investor? How did I put the deal together? Because your thermostat setting so high, it delivers these things to you. And that's not manifest hokey stuff. It's really true. And I think I can teach you how to do it. Obviously, you're an example of that. I mean, look at the success you've had. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can

subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in

our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. Welcome back to the show,

everybody. So to get on this show twice, I have to really be impressed with how you do.

And slash, I really, really like you. And in this case, all of the above fits the gentleman that's on the show today. He's got a new book out. It's called Masters of Uncertainty. He's highly qualified to write it. I consider him a friend. I like him very much. His background is I'm supposed to say

“that he led an elite seal team. He's one of the great leaders of all time. I think he's one of the”

brightest minds that I've ever had on the show before. And we're going to talk about today a topic that is perfect for these times, which is really dealing with and thriving in uncertainty. And that's why he wrote the book and Masters of Uncertainty, which I've written a blurb in the front of the book on his behalf because I believe in him in the book so much. Rich to Vinnie, welcome back third times a charm. And thank you so much. It's great to see you, my friends. And I'm honored to be back

and honored to be a big, be a friend. So thank you. Likewise, brother. Let's talk about leadership

because that's where I always think of when I think of you. And in the book, in segment three of the

book guys, by the way, he talks about team dynamics and leadership and obviously dynamic subordinations is term that just stands out from the book. And then you kind of flip it on its butt a little bit in the book, which surprised me. So what is dynamic subordination and what are your thoughts about it?

“Yeah. So dynamic subordination is quite literally the tax organization structure for high”

performing teams. That's where it is. And I was, you know, this, this came to me in a moment. I was being asked to buy some executives. I was in front of executives and I had to, I had a whiteboard flip chart next to me. This said, hey, Rich, can you draw for us the task org shape that would describe a high performing team? And I was stumped because the models I had didn't tell the story. I could have done the pyramid with the leader on top and all the work goes down. I can't use that.

It's too bureaucratic too slow. I could have done the flat model, the flat line. We've all heard about that. You know, no one ranked anybody. We're all in this together. It's all groovy. Problem with the flat model is that, you know, sometimes it's difficult to figure out actually who's in charge. And yes, you can have on the right side of that line that's not seen or heard by the left side of that line. In other words, information gets siloed in a flat model pretty easily.

And that's not what happens in high performing team. Finally, I had the Robert Green Leaf Servant Leadership Model. He flipped that pyramid upside down. But the leader on the bottom said, I'm in service to my, the people in my span of care. That's probably the most beautiful one. If I were to pick one, at least philosophically, however, still not how high performing team operates, because an high performing team burden is distributed. It's not all on one person. And so really

largely in frustration, I drew a blob on the on the flip chart. And I said, where do you think the leader sits in this blob? And I got answers like front, back top bottom center. I said, you are all correct. The leader is wherever the leader needs to be in the moment. And this is what we call dynamic subordination, dynamic subordination means that a team understands challenges and issues and problems can come from any angle at any moment. And when one does, the person who's closest to

that problem, the most capable, a media steps up and takes lead. And everybody fall and supports. And then it switches the environment, switches and someone else steps up. It's a dynamic swap between leader and follower. I also call it alpha hopping, that alpha position just hops to wherever needs to be. This is how all high performing teams operate. And I say, this, that was an officer in the seal team. So, okay, I did hundreds of missions. I was in charge of every single one.

It did not mean I was always being supported. In fact, most of the time was opposite. I was

supporting other people. My sniper, my preachers, my soldiers, sometimes the environment shift that they be in support of me. All this tells us is that very important concept that our position on a team has nothing to do with our rank or hierarchy. Our position on a team has everything to do with what we're there to contribute to the team. And as leaders, it's our job to create that dynamically subordinating environment so that we have the highest performing most efficient teams possible.

“In order to hold that together, though, you have to have trust amongst that team. Yes.”

And while I tell you, I'm thinking of some businesses that I'm involved with, where we had leaders that maybe not even meant as dynamic or as talented, but they had really established trust and how we just flowed together as a group. And then other teams I've been on where there just

wasn't that trust established by the leader. It just never got established. And no matter how talented we

were, how prepared we were, long-term we struggled. You talk about competence, consistency, character, and compassion. Of those, what do you think lacks most and why are all foreign important? Yeah. So, so competence and consistency are often what teams, especially in the business world, focus on. Because confidence and consistency, how about does this do the thing right? Consistency is do the thing right over time. Okay. Those are a large part visible and measurable.

Okay. Skill and skills based, I would even concede. The problem is you're missing two very important

maybe say integrity. Okay. So, you have do the thing right in competence. Do the thing right over time

“in consistency. Do the right thing in character. And then finally, you have compassion. Do the right”

thing because you care about me as a human being. Okay. Now, you can build an environment of trust. You can at least start building an environment trust inside of any one of those four elements. It's only when you have all four of the longest lasting, most durable trust. And I'll give you a quick example. Okay. Imagine you and I are having dinner somewhere. We decide we have some drinks. We decide we're not going to go home. We're not going to drive home. So, we call a cab.

The cab shows up. We jump at the cab. The cab rolls out and with 100 meters runs into a telephone pole. We're out injured. We get out. We find our way home. No, no, no big deal. Okay. A couple of nights later, we're out again. We're having dinner. Having some drinks. We decided not to drive home. We call a cab again. Okay. The cab shows up. It's the same driver from the night

before. Are we going to get back in the car with that driver? The answer is no or not.

Oh, wait. But rewind that whole scenario. You and I are out having dinner. Having drinks.

“We decide we're not going to drive home. We don't call a cab. We call our mother, father, sister,”

spouse, brother, best friend. That person shows up. We jump in the car with that person. That person with 100 meters runs into a telephone pole. A few days later, we can get back into car with that person. And now the answer is likely yes. Some people are like no, still not in the car. But we also, we probably will. And the reason is because of that second person we'd all for. With the first person, the cab driver, we only had the first two. We had the consistency of the

cab company. We had the perceived competence of the driver. As soon as competence took it, trust one away. With that second person, when competence took a hit, we had something to fall back on. And so, so what we need to focus on is building all four elements through our behaviors. Okay, behavior. Trust is a belief. Trust is a trust is a feeling that's been rationally justified by that person. So in other words, you cannot make anybody trust you.

All you can do is behave in a way, but allow someone to choose to make it decision to trust you. And so all this nonsense about someone coming is like, oh, I'll trust that person when they earn it or whatever that is. That's nonsense. We as leaders have to go first in these behaviors and build that environment. Gosh, this is so good, you guys. The third time rich is on. So there's

two things you're always doing. See, all right, go guys, like we just keep going with them. There's

two things you're always doing, even if you don't realize it, you're always breathing. And you're asking, you're actually also always thinking. And thinking is the process of asking and answering questions to yourself. That's really what the thought is. And so when we last talked to like, this is going to be good. Because now I doubt, maybe I'm wrong. I doubt when you were a seal, you were into maybe, well, probably not true in the water. You were, but overall, I doubt breathing

techniques were the number one thing you were focusing on every single day. So, you got good. So I'm at a assumptions accurate. So talk to us about activating our optimal neurology through either questions or breathing or both and take as long as you want on it. Because this is, guys, this is almost like pull the car over stuff right here. Yeah, yeah. So the breathing. So one of our pathways into our autonomic response, our autonomic nervous system, if you will, is the respiratory

system. We have a visual and respiratory system connected directly to the vagus nerve. And we can quite literally shift our physiology from sympathetic, which is our action state to parasympathetic, which is resting digest, just through breathing alone or through visual chills. Breathing is very interesting because breathing you can actually use to modulate your autonomic response up down or even, or even keep it neutral. And so the couple, a couple ways to do that. So so if you

want to up your autonomic response, you want to get more excited, get more engaged. Okay. That's, you know, a whim-hoff does this type of breathing. Breath of five, things like that. You, you are inducing some autonomic response and there's some techniques in the book you can do that. That's typically not what we're talking about when we're dealing with people in stress, challenge uncertainty because in stress challenge uncertainty was usually happening as our autonomic

response is starting to go up too far. And we want to get it back down so we can actually make

conscious thoughts and then ask better questions which we'll talk about here in a second.

So a couple of ways, well, one of the ways you can do that is you can do what's called CO2 blow up breathing. Okay. In other words, you're breathing, you're blowing out carbon dioxide. Why does this matter? One of the things that people don't recognize is that when we're, say, underwater or holding our breath. Okay. That, that discomfort, that stress that we feel is not because of a lack of oxygen. It's actually, in fact, they because of a buildup of CO2.

Now, people, like, freedivers and some seals understand this. In other words, you can push past that discomfort because you have different oxygen reserves in your system. This is what

“freedivers do. That's how they can hold their breath for nine minutes. They know how to push”

past that discomfort and start accessing the oxygen reserves and other part of their body. I do not recommend. This is very dangerous because what happens is as soon as you push past that first warning sign, you don't get another warning sign. In other words, you'll just go out. Okay. So I don't want anybody to try this at home. All right. Let's hear a free dog where you do it. Right.

literally begin to blow out our CO2 and begin to de-stress just through breath. One of the best ways

“to do this is called the physiological side. All is is a deep inhale and then up our top.”

And then really slow exhale for, you know, eight to ten seconds. So deep in. So is that a breathe in and then another one? Yeah, breathe in and then a top off breathe in. So a nice fast breathe. Top off. Nice slow exhale. You do that two, three, four, five times. You will literally feel yourself calm down. You're bringing your autonomic arousal down. You're bringing your frontal back online in a position where you can start moving and picking horizons. Okay.

The other breathing technique I talk about and many people have heard about this is box breathing. Okay, box breathing is in fact a technique that if you are at a perfect level of water number corals. So we might be like maybe you and I, we just got on stage. We're like, look, I'm right here. I don't want to get any more nervous, but I don't want to get any less. I'm really, I'm charged. I'm right where I want box breathing is a great way to do this. Box breathing

“is simply you're going to breathe in for a for a period. So say four or five seconds. I say five seconds.”

You're going to hold on top for five seconds. You're going to exhale for five seconds and you're going to hold on the bottom for five seconds. It's literally just a square box. You can pick whatever timing you want in any of those lanes, whatever is comfortable for you. But if you do box breathing, it actually keeps you at your autonomic level and allows you to actually engage at the stake you're in. You breathe through the mouth, do you reach through

mouth or the nose or both? Usually it's breathing, breathe in through the nose out for the mouth, but it doesn't really matter. Okay. It's to the extent possible and through the nose out for the mouth, but it doesn't matter. Okay. So this is the way we can actually start to manage and manipulate our autonomic realm. So once we do that, once we are, are able to do that, our frontal lobe comes back online and now we're in business because now we can start asking better questions.

That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Edmy Let's Show on Apple and Spotify.

Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way.

Hi everybody. Welcome back to the show. So the gentleman that's on the show today, I wanted to have him on for a long time. I've been a fan of his work. If you're old enough, you're like the dose sec, he's guy, like the most interesting man in the world. I kind of consider my guest today that guy. Go on. It's true. Shards have a week about me, Ed. It's I'm telling you. The reason is you can ask him about almost any topic, whether it be money or current issues, the economy,

social stuff, emotions, you name it. He's just so well spoken on so many different things. He's a contrarian thinker to some extent. He's also a very intense guy that he speaks his mind. I don't agree with him on every single thing he says, but I find myself nodding and cheering for a lot of the things that he talks about. Been very successful in business, had some exits, had some stuff that hasn't worked out as well, but he's become very, very wealthy man, young in his life as

well, teaches at NYU. He's a professor of marketing there, but this guy is the real deal and his brand's exploded last few years. So successful podcast as well. That's probably enough. Let's get into the conversation. So Professor G Scott Galaway, welcome to the show. Thanks so much. And let me just say, I'm really enjoying this podcast so far. It's not so far. It's just working for me. And you're

“being, thanks to your generous comments. It's true, though. I mean it. That's why, you know, I do a lot of”

intros. They're not always that long or that complementary. So get a book out right now called the

algebra of wealth. He said a bunch of different books that have crushed, but there is something I want to ask you about that is gender specific that I've heard you talk about and I've only heard you talk about it. And that is single parent homes as it affects young boys. I'm not a big gender guy like boys versus girls. I really just think most people are humans, but there is a lot of evidence about boys that are raised without a strong male figure in their lives. And I was with,

like I said, I was with my son this weekend. And of all the things I am grateful for is he said, multiple strong male figures in his life. He said, myself, he said, two great grandfathers, he said good coaches, good mentors in his life. And I feel like what an an addition of being a white male. But what a great advantage it is. And there was another young man with us, who his dad's been in and out of his life most of the time. And has not had a strong male

figures like has an amazing mother who's worked two jobs and just has done everything she could for him.

But in observing both of them in the same screen over the same period of time, I did see a confidence and a way about handling himself and a presence frankly to my son who, I'm not saying because he's my son who's had strong male figures. And the absence of that in the other, what do you think is the solution to that? And I'd like you to speak to that topic to so many single mothers listen to my show and have these boys they love so much. What can they do when

this boy doesn't have that strong male figure? So it's a generous question. So first let's talk about

five people who have died by suicide, four of them are men. And if you had any other demographic

“group killing itself at four times the rate of the control group, three times as likely to be”

addicted, three times as likely to be homeless, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated, 40% less likely to go to college. I mean, we'd be moving in with programs, but because of the advantages that our generation received, there's a lack of empathy for them. And if you try to reverse

engineer to, and I do think we're finally having a productive conversation, the numbers are just so

overwhelming that people are finally starting to pay attention. And then I track everything, I'm pretty into data, I track everything I do. And the number one he may have received over the last three months is some version of the following. I get about 140 emails from strangers a day. And number, and I categorize all of them. The number one email is a two-hated buy-in video. It's hilarious. Everyone's obsessed with them video. The number two email that I've gotten consistently

for the last three years is a mom, usually a single mom, asking for advice about her son. And it goes something like this. I have three kids, two daughters, one son. My one daughters in PR in Chicago, the others in graduate school at Penn and my son who's 25 is in the basement

playing video games and vaping and seems just totally lost. There's a variety of factors that

have come together here. One is just biological, men's prefrontal cortex is 18 to 24 months behind the girls. They're literally more immature. Have your son and his 10th grade friends come over and the 15 and 16-year-old boys are boys and some of the girls look like the junior senator from Pennsylvania in terms of how they equipped themselves. They just two 17-year-olds applying to college, a boy and a girl, the girls competing against a 15 and a half-year-old. They're just biologically

maturingly and there's something weird going on. I don't know if it's hormones or pesticides, but girls are beginning to menstruate earlier and boys, their testicles are descending actually later. It's actually headed in the wrong direction. So let's move to solutions. One, I think we need to red shirt. And by the way, I'm parroting my yod on this, Richard Reeves, who's the president of the American Institute on Boys and Men. We need to red shirt boys. We need to start them at six

and girls at five. They're just less mature. Two, more vocational programming. Bring back wood, medical shop, more freshman seats of universities. If you have an endowment greater than

a billion dollars and you're not growing your freshman seats fast and population growth,

“you should lose your tax-free status because you're not a public servant, you're a f*cking”

Chanel bag. You've decided that you're basically in the luxury business. I think we need a national service. I think men need to find their fraternity. The thing you also mentioned, which is that if you were to reverse engineered to wear, boys come off the tracks. It's exactly what you reference. It's when they lose a male role model. We have the second most single parent homes. Dan Quail was right. Kids are better with two parents, where it was wrong as it doesn't matter

if it's two women or two men. But if it's a boy, the absolutely needs male role models. What's interesting is that in single parent homes, girls have similar outcomes. Similar outcomes, college attendance, similar income, similar rates of depression, self-harm. It doesn't appear to really damage girls when they lose a dual parent household. With boys, they come off the tracks. What it ends up, the studies show, is that while boys are physically stronger, they're mentally

and emotionally much weaker. What's the advice to moms who are 93% of single parent households? Let me be clear. I was raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary lied in my life. But my mom immediately got men in my life. The neighbor down the hall went out of her way to introduce me to him. Got the sense he was an empathetic guy. He used to take me horseback riding on weekends. I had a stock, but I walked into a stock

for a virgin. I was 13. I wasn't very popular. I wasn't very good at school. I was into stocks. My mom's boyfriend gave me 200 bucks. Said, "If you don't, go buy stocks by Monday. I want the 200 bucks back. I went down, size 0. When I was 13, you used to take two times to the phone both at Emerson Junior High School column. I owned Columbia Pictures and he would teach me

“about the markets." Close encounters of the third kind is a hit. That's why the stock was up”

50 cents a day. I go by Dean Winter Reynolds on Westwood and Wilshire and hang out with him for an hour. Literally, Ed 45 years later, he and I text each other. Well, male role models. If you're a single mom, you have to get men involved in your son's life. And also, just for men, I'm thinking a lot about masculinity and what it means to be a man. You take care of yourself. You're fit. You're smart. You're kind. You take care of your media family.

But the ultimate expression to my view of masculinity is when you take an active role and you become

irrationally passionate about the well-being of a kid that isn't yours. Or put another way. If we want better men, we need to be better men. And unfortunately, because of the catholic church and because of Michael Jackson, if a man who has loved and cared to give wants to get involved in a young man's life, there's suspicion. Oh, no, there's something wrong with him. No, there's not. There's a ton of men out there that for whatever reason, maybe they have their own kids,

“maybe they don't, who have empathy and concern to give. And here's the thing,”

you don't have to be a baller. You don't have to be a senator. You just have to be a man trying to live a virtuous life. You know what the most important thing to being a male role model is? Just being there. Just spending time with the kid, giving him, they're just certain things a boy is not going to talk to his mom about. So it's a variety of social programs, taxation, vocational programming, red-shirting boys, national service, more freshman seats,

and we as men, there are four to one applications for big sisters in the U.S. as for big brothers.

Men have to get involved in boys' lives. That's the bottom line. And we're finally having a

productive conversation. Because whenever I think it really bothered out about two or three years ago,

“you started talking about the problems of the boys. There was a gag reflex of, oh, that means you”

don't like women. Empathy is not a zero-sum game. Civil rights did not hurt white people. He had a normative marriage, and not her gay marriage. Recognizing the problems that young men are facing, does not mean you're anti-women and who wants more economically and emotionally viable men. Women, how many times have we heard from people? I know all these great young women, high-character, attractive, professionally on the ball, and they can't find a man. They can find a man.

They just can't find a man that they just can't find a man. They want to date. We're creating millions of lonely economically and emotionally unviable men. And it is something we really need to be focused on. And we need to stop this nonsense that somehow that empathy is in any way anti-women or massages. No it's not. Women are making unbelievable progress. We should do nothing to get in the way of that. It's fantastic. But we need to acknowledge something is not right in

Houston right now. We need programs and we need attention and we need more men to get involved in the

lives of boys. So much you just said it's true. My show is funny when it started. First three or four

years is about 80% male. And now it's about 70% female. And it's the number one message I get as well is moms concerned about their sons, which is why I covered the topic today, because you guys all know, I'm not a big guy on this gender that gender. I'm a big human person. Having said that, a couple things he said I want to tell you, I was watching on the flight back last time, I was watching

“a biography on Mr. Rogers. And I think it's just a guy who loved kids as far as I know, right? And”

all the flack and criticism, just a man who lived a virtuous life who loved kids. We have to not stigmatize these men that were like to get involved in the lives of young men and help them. And the other thing everybody, you know, ask yourself if you have a son and he doesn't have a male figure. What male figure getting his life and the other thing to look at that he said that I just want to unpack the worst combo that I see is a little boy who does not have a male figure, who is also

not physically fit. 100%. Look at their ball. That young man doesn't have a man in his life ladies that you've got a son and you're allowing him to get unfit physically. That is a lethal combination for where that young boy is going in his life. At least get him physically and active and working out and playing a sport and on a good nutrition program. It's a deadly combination for your young boy if he's got both those things against him.

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