Why You Haven't Met Your Full Potential (Yet) | Ed Mylett

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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. Welcome back to the show. Today's topic is Nature vs. Nurture. It's one of the things I get asked about most with its developing business leaders in raising people

not environment or raising children. Ed, what matters? Nature or nurture. It's been a debate that's gone on for eons. And there's really two camps.

The first camp says that it's all nature. It's all evolution. It's all genetics. How somebody's going to turn out as all their biology. Their talents, their skills, their success level,

their happiness. It's all nature, right? The other camp says, no, it's not nature at all. It's nurture. It's the environment that somebody has raised him.

So, you know, one point of view, like you guys like John Locke, the philosopher, he was a real big guy on that the mind is a blank slate and that we're born into an environment and the experiences and memories that we have,

the situations we find ourselves in, the thoughts that are programmed into us. That's what develops us. Obviously, other people think, nope. That's not the case because two children can be raised

in the exact same house, can't they? Say an alcoholic home like I was raised in. One of them turns out to be, you know, very, very successful and happy. And another child has trouble with alcohol themselves.

Or it doesn't have a high level of success or has problems. And so, really, if it's all environment, why is it that two people can come out of an environment completely different? Same time, you can't really argue the fact

that some of us are born with certain ability, certain talents, certain predispositions.

And so, here's what I'm gonna submit to you

that I have stumbled onto in my life in raising children and raising business leaders and developing them. You ready? Nurture their nature, the great parents,

the great business leaders, nurture the nature of this person. Meaning, let's just take about it from a parenting standpoint. Your child was probably born with certain talents, skills, and giftedness. And as a parent, one of your primary jobs

is to help them discover what those things are. I talk about this lot. In fact, I'm writing a book right now

“that I think is gonna change the world called,”

let me tell you about you. And it's got an awful lot to do with how I've developed my friendships, my children, business people, and telling them about them.

And what that really means is to look inside somebody, to observe them, and to be looking for, what is their giftedness, what are their tendencies, what are their talents, what are their proclivities, and to tell them about those things.

And then once you've identified them, allow the environment you create to nurture that nature. Too often, we pick one camp or the other, and like most arguments in life, both are right, but almost nobody's ever taken on this philosophy.

In fact, I'll bet this is the first time for most of you you've ever heard this before,

'cause I had never heard it before,

until I started developing it, I looked at my children. I thought, well, one of them is a certain way, more than the other one, a little bit, you know, if that's their intellectual level, or their ability to process information,

or their problem solving, test taking skills, right? The other one's maybe a little bit more intense, and has a common sense that's just giftedness, or their humor, their ability to build relationships with people, their athleticism, whatever it might be.

As a leader, and we'll just use this in the parenting context, but this is true in business, the great leaders have a unique ability to observe people and see their nature, see their unique talents and gifts.

I believe everybody was born with two or three or four very unique talents and gifts, special just to them, that's their nature. They were born with, unless it's be honest, you look at your own children or friends of yours

or yourself, you know, maybe your talent is, your gift is your ability to problem solve, or think through solutions, maybe it's your IQ, maybe it's your humor, maybe it's your physical beauty. How you listen to people, you're nurturing ability,

you're intensity, you're passion, you're peace under directs, you're equanimity. There's so many different things, you're engineering skills for some of you. I can't even change a light bulb, right?

You're ability to communicate, right? You're ability to make people feel a certain emotion. It could be whatever, it's sewing, it could be, you know, working on a car, it could be, you know, building a company,

it could be your vision, it could be your marketing ability, your energy. Whatever the talent is,

“one of the keys in life is to figure out”

as early as you can, what those two or three things are that God gave you. And by the way, it's okay if you're even a little bit wrong in the beginning, and maybe you only pick one or two and you've got some hidden ones that will be uncovered later,

I am constantly trying to look for the greatness in them. Now, as a person of faith and as a Christian,

“what I'm really looking at for me, the way I think it.”

So I'm looking for the Christ in them. I'm looking for the gift that was sewn into them before they were even born. And for me, I love opening that up. I see, I look at people like they're a gift,

and I want to have my focus with them in the present. So I think about a present in a gift, and then I think my job is to open up that gift and define inside of it with the talent and the gift is. And so I do that very regularly.

I'm right about it, my book, I'm not covering all of it today, but if you became a friend of mine pretty quickly in the game, I will begin to point out to you. What some of those gifts you have are, that I see. And sometimes it's a revelation to people,

and sometimes it's a confirmation of something

they've always believed it was embarrassed

to believe about themselves or wasn't sure that it was true. As a father, very early on, I started to look, what are their tendencies, what are their gifts? What are they good at, right? What are their proclivities?

And then to point them out, you know, Bellaboo, you're so fast. Now, I can't believe how much faster than you run than everybody in. Man, socially, everybody likes you because you're so funny,

because you're so brilliant and witty, and you've got this ability to make other people feel good about themselves, and they feel connected to you.

“By the way, it's important to begin to nurture”

that part of her nature, Maximus, you're so brilliant. How you can almost have a photographic memory, and you remember things, and you ace every test, and you're so kind and gentle, and you're work ethic is beyond belief, man,

like your ability, everyone likes you, everyone thinks you're kind, nobody's got a bad word to say about you, without work everybody, until notice these talents, 'cause when you point out the Christ in somebody,

or what we'll just call for today's, if you're secular, you know, aren't a believer, if you just point out the giftedness in somebody, you have connected yourself to them, in a way that maybe one or two other people

in their entire lifetime will. Did you hear what I just said? When you tell a human being, I see this gift in you, and they know kind of intuitively it's true about them, or they didn't know, and then they begin to evaluate it,

and prove it. You have connected or yoke yourself to them, in a way that almost no other human being ever will, because you've touched something in them that is so deep, that so innate, that so true,

that you build a bond in a connection with them, and energy of vibrational frequency,

a soul-type connection that really will never have

with anybody else, maybe one or two other people, and you will be able to impact and affect them in a way that most people never will. So as a father, my main job is to love them and to believe in them, to encourage them,

but also to see them, and help them uncover what their gift is, what their nature is, and then to nurture it. As a business leader, when I'm evaluating people, it's to find out, oh, it's your ability to problem self,

oh my gosh, you're the one that's common to pressure. Oh, you're the one who puts different pieces together of a puzzle I've never seen before, right? Or it's your copywriting ability, or your communication at skills,

or your ability to deduce information that's complex into something simple, oh no, you're the person who galvanizes the team, whatever it is, and I'm looking for those things, and then what I'm gonna do is put them

in an environment that nurtures that nature, and now people begin to perform at a superhuman level, and you have a superhuman, supernatural bond with them. And so, I want you to begin to think about that, in the relationships you have with your children,

if you have children, or if you don't, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your friends, how good are you bet? Have you been pointing out to them? They're giftedness and they're greatness.

You do it in a real way, you're not some cornball, right? But over time ago, I told you lately,

literally how amazing you are at X, Y, and Z,

“man, I think you should be using that more to help other people”

to start a business or to do X or Y. This is why so many human beings don't feel good about themselves. And most of that is nurture. It was their environment, okay, because let me just be real with you. A lot of winning is not just mental, it's environmental, okay.

But yet there are people that transcend their environment. But what if you had both, what if you took somebody's nature and you created an environment around them that nurtured it? Now that we've got the environment and the talent

and the gift, they're almost unstoppable. And so, I want you to really begin to think about, why is it that most people don't feel great about themselves? Here's what I think. Conditioning patterns, the way people have treated them,

their environment, and they don't have a defense against it. The defense against that is to know you. And to know oneself is to know what your giftedness is, to know what your nature is, to know what your talents are. And so, when you don't know those things,

or you know them, but you're not utilizing them in your life, then the environment will crush you. And then you begin to lose hope and belief in yourself. In fact, if you're somebody today who's listening to the show or watching it and you've lost some hope

Those external results are the environment, right?

“So, if you're just looking at the results,”

your environment is constantly reinforcing to you, you're not good enough, you're not that special, you're not gonna win, you're not gonna be happy. So, screw all that, which I want you to do is to look inside you.

What are some of your talents and gifts? If you weren't being humble, what are they? Is it your listening skills? Maybe it's just your moral compass. You're humor, how much you truly care about people.

You're intellect, you're physical touch, right? What you look like, maybe it's none of those things. Maybe those aren't your gifts. Maybe your gift is your persistence, your resiliency, your generosity, your faith, okay?

I don't know what it is, but when you begin to look inside yourself and say, what are the things that I'm naturally good at? And maybe often in life,

because somebody is very good at something

and it becomes natural to them, meaning it is their nature. They take it for granted and don't think it's special. Did you hear that? Because something is natural for you to do,

you just don't think it's special, or you think everybody has that, but they don't.

“And so that's why you need a leader with vision”

to say, I see that gift, and then I'm gonna put you in an environment where I nurture it, just pointing it out repetitively, is part of nurturing it, okay? So I stand that we are supposed to be nurturing

people's nature. So if you're sitting here today alone and you're not happy, go inside. What are some of my gifts? And I'm gonna give myself credit for them.

One of my great gifts that I've found in myself is my intentions. You know, I'm not the smartest person in the world. I was not the fastest when I played baseball or the best hitter, you know,

I don't know that I can do everything for my friends or as a father, I've made tons of mistakes. One of my gifts is I believe I have very good intent. And I stack that. And because I had those intentions,

I met a leader Wayne Dyer when I was young, and my dad did this too, and my mom, that was a good boy. That was a good person, that I had a good heart, that I deserved to be happy and to win and to help other people.

One of those gifts is my intent. Now, for me, I think everybody has good intentions.

“That's no big deal, the truth is at 52 years old,”

I can tell you, for sure, that's not true. And so can you. There's lots of people that don't have good intentions. But I do, and that's one of my great gifts that may seem simple.

See, we overlook, we think, well, the gift has to be that I can free 60 windmill dunk. Now, that's a gift, or I can run you like you saying bolt. Whatever it might be, right? Or, man, I have the IQ of an Alon Musk

or the vision of the Steve Jobs, right? Or the beauty of a Beyonce or the singing ability. Yeah, those are apparent gifts, but what are years? And for most of us, those gifts remain invisible because nobody shines a light on them for us.

But once that light shines, all of a sudden, we become the Beyonce of our own lives. We become the LeBron of our own lives. We become the Musk of our own lives. Our happiness, our emotions, our productivity, our achievements,

the way we can contribute to other people, it becomes exponentially different. And so my recommendation, I guess today, is to say to you that in your friendships, with your children, with your parents, with your friends, whoever that might be,

within your business, and even this, with strangers, with people that you just meet, or you want to get better at meeting people, look for their giftedness. In my case, look for the Christ in them, look for their talent and point it out and tell them that over and over again.

Usually, with my very famous or well-known friends, the that little group of people, when people say, how do you get so close to so and so? Because what most people do is spend all their time

telling them how amazing it is the environment

is that they've created for their life. The money they've made, the jet they've got, the TV show they have, the concert they've filled up, the election they won, and they are really focusing all the time on their nurture, like kind of what they've developed.

I spent my time looking inside that person and saying, "Man, you're real gift, isn't that." It's how genuine and kind you are, or it's how intense you are, where it's how relentless you are. And I bond myself in a way that's very unique with them

because I'm looking at that. I'm looking at the internal, not the external, when I meet a human being. Now, by the way, once in a while, that external is one of their gifts, they're physically beautiful

or unbelievably strong. Whatever it might be, that might be, but for the vast majority of people that gift is on the inside, not the outside. We just as a culture only usually celebrate external gifts

and that's who becomes famous, because they have an ability, maybe like I do to speak. That's an external obvious thing, or someone can sing, or run fast, or they're strong, or hit a ball further, or put well,

or in a cage, they can pin somebody. We see the external gifts.

see the internal gifts. So my recommendation to you today is to become an advocate of both points of view. And I can tell you with someone who's built big businesses, who's built a family, who's built a bunch of friendships,

who's a little bit further down the road,

“what our job is in life is to nurture the nature,”

and the giftedness and other people. This will become a muscle you build. It won't be very easy at first, but when you just become intentional and aware of it, you begin to see human beings differently.

You'll immediately connect with them. You will connect with your Uber driver differently, instantly. You will connect with a server on a restaurant. You'll connect with your doctor. You will connect with your friends.

You will make new friends. You will develop and build people in your company

in a way you've never done that before.

You can actually remake your relationship with your significant other. You can fix a relationship with someone that doesn't work. You can get closer to your mom or dad if it's been distant.

And man can you become a world-class parent if you begin to do this. Your whole way you look at people now as a gift, and you're in the present with that gift, and your job is to open it up and look inside and find their nature.

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to do exactly that. From a scientific perspective, really what nature means is biological or genetic predispositions that impact one's human traits, physical, emotional, or intellectual. Nurture by contrast describes the influence of learning

and other environmental factors in someone's life. I like to take advantage of both. I believe we were put here on this earth to help other people to build other people up. To leverage the gifts and talents of one another,

to do something great to advance culture, to advance society. We have flipped that on its back in this culture. We're now what we really do with one another. It's find out the things we don't like. Fight out their weaknesses.

Go for the juggler.

Here's what's wrong with them.

Here's what they think that's stupid. Here's their problem. And we actually now look for the gotcha. We look for the negative. We literally have abandoned finding the giftedness.

What type of country? What type of world would we be? If we all took advantage of each other's beautiful gifts that God gave us and leverage those, and begin to focus a whole lot less on the weaknesses

'cause I've got news for you. As a human being, you were born with flaws. I got news for you. So do other people that you're in your life. So if we're gonna focus on that, those are easy to find.

And that is a terrible way to go through life. It's a terrible way to build a family. It's a terrible way to build a friendship. It's a terrible way to build a country. It's a terrible world to live in.

'Cause that's not what we were born to do. We were born inherently with sins and flaws and mistakes and frailties. But we are also born with three or four great things about us.

“And life is about taking those three or four things”

and leveraging them to the benefit of other human beings. You wanna find a happy person? They may not have made a lot of money yet. They don't have to have made a lot of money yet. You find a happy person.

They have found two or three gifts inside themselves.

and a cause to use those mission,

they'll those gifts in a mission to change other people's lives and some potential way. And their own lives. Say to you again, a happy, blissful person has figured out, oh, these are one or two or three of my gifts.

I'm gonna now figure out how to use these gifts in the service of other human beings in my business and my personal life, in my charitable giving whatever that might be in my family.

Now I'm gonna show you a person who's got a great life. They may not have even got all the way to the promised land yet, but what they have is hope. What they have is a future. What they have is a vision and a dream.

What they have is a purpose. Because now their environment is nurturing that nature. - 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. I am really, really interested to get into this man's heart. Even more of him is brain today.

'Cause he's got a huge heart. He leads with his heart.

And he's had an amazing life story.

Let me set the stage for all of you. I want you to picture a few things really quick. Imagine this man, it's four years old. Someone tried to kill him. Let's try to put him in a dryer.

Tell him who's going to Disneyland. That's it, four years old. By the time he gets to 10 years old, a few men tried to drown him. By the time he gets to 12 years old,

his father's been murdered. And about that point in this young man's life, he kind of just gave up trying.

“And I think a lot of you, unfortunately,”

are at that point in your lives right now where you're considering giving up. And then from there, he ended up going down a wrong path in his life. - It's a crazy story.

Then he ends up getting incarcerated for transact and drugs, which really weren't real drugs. We'll hear about that in a minute. So he got sentenced to 12 years in prison after that. Are you all here in this?

We're about to talk to this man. Then he gets out. Then he signs his record deal with ludicrous things. Like, all right, my life's turned around. Now I'm going to get rich.

Except a few years after that, he's living in his storage unit and living in his car again. He hits rock bottom and then he meets the stranger that kind of changed his life forever.

And from there, from that, what I just described, from that four-year-old to that 10-year-old to that 12-year-old, this man has now reached millions of people with his message. He's made millions of dollars, also,

and completely changed his life. And I'm like, you know what?

“I think people need to know what he knows.”

So that's why he's sitting here today. So Garen Jones, welcome to the show, my friend. - And I was sitting here as if I wasn't me listening to that. Thank you for being brave enough to create a platform like this, so stories like mine have wings.

So thank you, I'm so glad to be on. - Yeah, it's my honor. As you took advantage, you are leveraging part of your giftedness, doing what you know, right? And I think for a lot of people, that's part of the rub as well,

is like, what's my gift? And understanding that you do have two or three gifts that are unique to you. So talk about leveraging your giftedness, where is it? And then maybe a little bit of a tip for somebody

to figure out if they don't know what may be their giftedness could potentially be. - What you were just talking about that heart power? So the EKGs of the heart is like, one of the most powerful frequencies in the world,

most people would use more of their head than their heart. Well, if you imagine a little kid just tapping on your knee going, mom, mom, mom, dad, dad, dad, dad, mom,

and that kid never being acknowledged.

“What do you all think would happen to the relationship?”

20 years from now with no acknowledgment. There wouldn't be one, because there would be no emotional closure. So the stuff you used to love to do as a kid, before you got influenced by the outside world, I'm just talking about the stuff you used to love to do

that brought you the most freedom, is connected to the truest essence of your heart. So how do young lady, and I wrapped this up quick? How do young lady say, how, she's like, I don't know, I have the husband, I have the job,

and I have the money, I just feel like something is missing, I say, what'd you used to love to do when you were a kid? She said, I used to love instantly change. I used to love to dance, I was like, how did you make you feel?

It just made, it's like time stopped. What was the last time you danced 20 years ago? And I literally said, if you know what that relationship is like, if you ignored your kid for 20 years, now imagine your inner child, and every time,

and every day that goes by, the thing that you used to love to do gets walked over and forgotten, that's the inner child going, wow, wow, wow, dad. So what's missing, or potentially, is the alignment of your spiritual self,

And the what's missing part is me telling her, sign up for a dance class, don't talk about, don't think about business.

And when you go there, set a powerful intention

that I'm gonna take the little girl inside of me, dance it. Do it just once, once a week. She does it once a week. Lobito comes back, the relationship with her husband starts thriving, her business, she had quit that one,

got another business, she was like, oh my God, it's like, well, the universe becomes plastic according to the thoughts that you give the most power, and who she was being, was living from the inside out and not the outside in you.

So that, that's so good. That right there, if the entire world could remember at least one thing you did as a kid that brought you the most joy, if you don't remember, ask somebody

“when you're a little kid, what did I naturally graduate?”

What color, what toy, what this? What did I gravitate towards? And just spend five minutes, one to week with it, watch what happens in 30 days. - Okay, I'm gonna give you an example of how brilliant you are, okay?

So one of my, I've taken recently about one of my, like, happiest friends, like, just loves what he does.

Like, listen, there's lots of sources of happiness

in life. In fact, you are the source of your happiness, but when you're in the process of doing something that you're gifted, miss you tap into it at a deep level, when you're in the process of serving other people,

and we've done all the studies now. Actually, you get more dopamine in the process than the achievement. When you achieve something, actually there's a dopamine crash.

It's the pursuit, it's the process, right? It's the actual work. One of my happiest friends, they'd exactly what you've described, and I'll validate your work with this.

He's actually a lawyer, and he's in his 50s. And he's just, this dude's just the study, super happy. But here's the story. He had been an entrepreneur till he was 30 and made a lot of money and was miserable.

And he said, I just, I got to this achievement and I didn't get any happier. And he said, you know what? I started to think about, when I was a little guy,

“like five, 10 years old, what did I really like to do?”

And he goes, you know what's funny? I like to argue. I liked to argue. And he goes, and I was also the dude. If there was a fight on the playground,

I'd go protect the small kid, 'cause he's a big dude. And he goes, so I started to think, when I was a kid, what brought me the most joy, I loved to argue, like kind of debate with people, and he's a young boy.

We all have a child like that, right? So some of you have a child like that. And I would protect people, he goes, I think I want to be a lawyer. So this dude at 30 years old went back, went to law school,

got his law degree, and now as a law practice, and in his 30s found his giftedness and his go zone by tapping into his heart. So this isn't all like this esoteric concept stuff. This is real stuff.

By the way, maybe that thing isn't what you're gonna do for a living, it's gonna be your hobby. For me, I love to run when I was a kid. Yeah. And I've had some major injuries to my legs,

playing baseball, it's a long story, but I really can't run like I used to. And so I recently, I ironically got into writing horses. And I'm like, what is it that I love so much about being with these horses is that I can run again,

and they can run faster than me. So it brings me to, these are all the pathways that when you listen to my show, you guys, and I put brilliant people in front of you, and we get into this thing that you and I are doing right now,

open your mind up, and go around it. You know what I mean? Think about all the places that there's applications of what we're discussing here. Yeah.

Because when you do, you'll understand the genius of his work. By the way, Garen has a book. I didn't mention it called Change Your Mindset Change Your Life, lessons of love, leadership, and transformation, but out for a while, it's, I read it, prepping for this.

It's outstanding. I feel like there's another book in you, by the way. Oh, no, it's coming. Okay, good. 'Cause I really believe that there's another one.

It took me five years to write that book because it's called Change Your Mindset Change Your Life. Every time I kept growing, I kept changing. And my boy, Press was like, Garen, if you don't put that book out right now.

So that was a younger version of me. And I've evolved so much since then. There's-- Well, by the way, one thing they should know

is you have this incredible book

and you look at a learning disability or something in school, right? But it's just, so it's like, whatever your excuse is, I want to put somebody in front of you and we're probably going to take it away, everybody. Yeah.

You just take away people's excuses, but you also feed their dreams. You feed their spirit. 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 Max Out Everybody. Super excited because I've pursued this woman

to be on the show now for a long time. It's been many months. Our schedule's finally got together where we could do it. She's a New York Times number one best seller. Okay, that's pretty big deal.

She's one of the top life coaches on the planet. And she's written a book and I've told her this off-camera that I read every single word of cover to back. It's called Everything It's Figure Outable. And this is Marie Forleo, everybody.

She is awesome and you're going to enjoy today so much.

Thanks for having me. This is awesome and I love you. Remember when I text you, I was like, your phrase max out, it speaks to my soul. Well, thank you.

I kind of do which I said this before, but I wish some of the pre-interview conversation was in the interview because it was so good for me. And so and I know today's going to be great for me and for millions of other people.

So you say something in the book that I talk about all the time.

“I think it's right down this alley of the pursuit”

of what really matters. Do you find it happiness in your figure outableness? And that is this that I really truly believe every human being was born with some special unique gifts. They're different.

That's what makes us special. It could be your humility, your humor, your beauty, your articulation, your intellect, your nurturing ability, your ability to, your engineering ability, your acting ability, your dance ability,

your ability just be peaceful with people. To change people's states, there's so many to teach, right? To learn. There's all these unique gifts. We're all wired with two or three or four

that are really special to us. And when I read this in the book, I can't love this book more. And that is, it makes me emotional because I just think most humans who say,

I don't know what I want to figure out. The pathway to that is your giftedness and you say in the book, the world needs your gift. So talk about that because you say it so beautifully in it the way you do it.

“I think we'll open up people's eyes and hearts.”

Yeah, it's how I end the show. And sometimes add people right to me, watch the show and they say, you know, I love everything you share,

but I always wait for this last sentence,

which the world needs that special gift that only you have. And I feel like it's yet another gift from my mom, who really, I got that messaging over and over because I was kind of a unique child

when people would ask me when I was young, what do you want to be when you grow up? There was a list of 15 things, always. I never had one good answer. And as I became a young adult and even after college,

I still never could answer in one way. I just felt always felt like a misfit. But misfit was a valedictorian in the same hall. But okay, struggled. Like when, you know, I worked on Wall Street,

that was my first job out of school. After like six months, I was like this sucks. I do not want this life. I can't imagine being here 24/7. So I quit that job.

I worked in publishing. I tried so many different things and kept hitting walls because I didn't fit into a traditional box. And it wasn't until becoming an entrepreneur that I could wear a bunch of different hats

and flex all of my different skills and gifts that I actually felt like I belonged. If that makes any sense. So this notion that the world needs a special gift that only you have, I feel like,

especially with so many things happening in the world right now, you know, statistics show

that over 300 million of us worldwide suffer from depression.

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suicide rates are at a 30-year high. And if you look in any direction here in the United States, suicide rates are at a 30-year high. And if you look in any direction here in the United States, suicide rates are at a 30-year high.

Like a lot of us are in a lot of pain. And I think one of the pieces of that puzzle is people don't feel like they're needed. They don't feel like they have purpose or like they matter

They're not contributing or growing.

And any human being that's not contributing or growing is going to go into some dark places.

“I certainly have in the past, you know what I mean?”

If I'm off-kilter and I don't feel like I'm making a difference or I'm learning anything new. Again, this is so, so typical. So for me, this message about encouraging people to identify what it is that they are here to give

and to contribute and to share. I think it is such a pathway to well-being. It's a pathway to fulfillment from a financial perspective. It's a pathway to make yourself not only financially solvent, but if you're ambitions align that way

to make yourself financially free in terms of contribution and what you want to give the world. Often times when I have this conversation with people, they'll say, but Marie, everything's been done before. Everything's been said before.

By people who are more famous, more experienced. Oh my goodness, I see this person came out with X, Y, or Z. I watch Ed show, that's exactly what I want to do. Or I watch Marie show, or that book, that's exactly what I want to say.

And then I tell them this story. So when Josh and I, my partner, we've been together for 16 years. We first got together. I was in my kind of mid-20s around that 25, 26-year-old Mark. And I was bartending and waiting tables.

My coaching business was really tiny. I was doing all the side gigs just to keep things going. And he's an actor. And we were living together. And he would often go away to film a movie or a television show.

And we're in New York City and he would come back to our home. And our trash can would be filled with empty boxes of chef priority and craft macaroni and cheese. And like all of this processed crap food. Because that's just what I was doing.

Right? I was like, Bart doing all the things I just didn't have time.

“He's like, Marie, why don't we start taking some supplements?”

And oh, let's start juicing. And we should get more vegetables in your diet. And I was so stubborn Ed. I was such an ass. I was like, whatever, hippie man, like, it's too expensive.

I don't have the time. I don't have the energy. I'm working like four jobs. Just leave me alone. No, no, no, path mac and cheese.

Fast forward, like three years. And I met this woman. And her name is Chris Carr, and she is a cancer thriver. She's written all of these New York Times that selling books her and I became like really fast friends.

And all she does is tout the benefits of vegan diet and green juice. So I come home one day and I'm like, Josh. I love it.

I met the most amazing woman.

Here's all the supplements we should take. We should get this juicer. I should be juicing. Why? But we shouldn't have done this years ago.

And Josh was like, are you kidding me? I love it. I've been telling you the same thing. Yes. Why couldn't you hear it for me?

And this is the point. Yeah. Sometimes it takes that one person to share a message or a product or a service or a gift in their unique voice in a particular time in a particular way for it to land for another human.

So people listening right now, if they have been holding themselves back either through perfectionism or through saying it's all been said or done before, no, that is not true. If you haven't put in your piece of the puzzle, it has not been said before and then I say this.

If you have an idea or a gift or a product or a service or something that you want to create and you don't do everything possible to put it out there, you are stealing from those who need you most. And I do mean stealing because when I think about it, if there's any clothing designer, any restaurant tour who makes a dish

that you love.

“When I think about Oprah Winfrey, for example, right?”

She could have said, you know what, Phil Donahue, he's got this whole talk show thing right? Cover, the world doesn't need another talk show host. And think about all the goodness, at least for me, she's a huge idol of mine.

Absolutely, incredible. That the world would have missed out on if she held herself back. Yes. You can think about it on a micro scale. Like your favorite place that you go for a guacamole or for pasta or whatever

your thing is, you can look around and they could have said, oh, there's enough Mexican restaurants. There's enough Italian restaurants. Why do I need to add to it? You would have missed out on all that joy.

We can go down the line for anything that you find value from. You're so good. I want to jump in on this because it's so flipping true.

First off, on your gift, everybody, something to think about.

Your gift will come through you giving something to other people. That's why it's a gift. You're going to give it to somebody. So if you're struggling with what that gift is, think about what you could give to people.

That's number one. Number two, oftentimes our giftedness that we don't maybe know we have is hidden in the people we admire most. So if you begin to look at who you admire, like one of my heroes growing up was Martin Luther King.

What do I have in common with Martin Luther King? I'm not African-American. I'm not a minister. His oratory skills are superior to anybody I've ever seen before. But what I loved is he could inspire.

I love that he seemed to care about people. And that I saw something in him that I think I knew was in me. Now maybe I'd manifest it in a completely different way. But if you begin to think about who you admire, ask yourself what you admire about them.

And it's probably because you've identified something in them that lies within you.

that everybody, because what you just said about that special voice, people know that I've had lots of business mentors. And they know many of them are very well-known, very famous people. But what most of you might not know is that my initial mentor, the person who believed in me the most,

was a man in my own company who was much less successful than I became. He was not successful. His name was, he's become successful to this day, but his name was Steve Adams.

And he was a struggling entrepreneur going through his 401(k) but he'd write me letters every month of how incredible I was going to be and how successful. This is why I was in college.

It wasn't even in his company yet. He changed my life by his belief in me when he was not yet successful, but he gave me the gift, 'cause this is a kind man. One of his gifts is this kindness and his generosity.

And he gave me his belief in his kindness

“and generosity, you would think, well, why that matter?”

He wasn't even successful, because it was the messenger I needed. You don't have to have it all together to help other people. So I just, I completely acknowledge what you've said, 'cause you're so right, everybody needs to know that. - Yeah, and another place to look,

if people are looking, like I love the thing, what you admire and other people, something that you might aspire to be, that's a great clue. Another great clue, and I think we discount this, things that come naturally to us, right?

And we assume make an assumption that everyone else has that gift too. It comes naturally to them. I had that. - That's so true.

- So many points in my life where I'm always the one

who can come up with a reframe. I don't feel like I'm a polyana. It's just, my mind is wired to solve problems and it's also wired to see things from different points of view. That's just how I'm built.

And I'm like, doesn't everybody see things this way? No, I have a whole career out of this. - Right, exactly. - So, but it comes so naturally and so easily, and I think so often we humans discount that,

which comes easily to us, and we think that everyone has it. So that might be another pocket of investigation. - I can't even get over how amazing what you're saying is because that's true of even guests on my show. They'll have greatness in them,

and they're like, "Well, everybody has that. I'm like, "No, the reason you're here," right? And this is true of every single human being. And this is not, we're not superior humans. In any way, I'm a goofball.

And I'm an average ordinary person. Happiness is finding out what your gift is and then living your life using that gift and the service of other people. That's, I completely want to acknowledge this.

Like, it's one of the most important things

you've ever covered on the show before because it doesn't get talked about enough. - Also, too, I want to build on that, if we can. - Sure. - In fact, for anyone listening or watching, thinking

that we have special skills or that we're,

“this is another question, like, "Reap, are you always happy?”

- Right." - Are you always up? Are you always motivated? Do you ever have veggies? I have tons of shit-tastic days.

Like, do you know what I mean? - Yes. - I still have tons of self-doubt. You know, we were talking off camera. I just came off this book tour, which has been amazing.

But I had this idea about how I wanted to launch the book and it terrified me. So, my idea was what if a Beyonce concert and a TED Talk had a baby and then through a black party? - It's so cute.

- Like, can I do this? And when I set that out loud, first of all, everything in me lit up and then everything in me was terrified. - Terrified.

- So much self-doubt and I actually documented it. We did a video about the behind the scenes. - It's an awesome video. - Thank you. But I wanted to show people how much fear and anxiety

and self-doubt I have even after a 20-year career. And so, you know, I just, I want to just highlight and underscore that bit that anyone you admire, they absolutely have bad days. First of all, they poop and fart just like everyone else.

- Exactly. - But it's highly likely that they struggle with depression and anxiety and not feeling good enough. - One million percent and the reason

“that it's so important to know is one of what help you to.”

It's here, it's, I'm not gonna let you have that excuse. - Yeah. - It's a convenient excuse to think somebody's different or special or a Martian or superhuman and they're not exactly.

Before we start the interview with my next guest, just wanna 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 Max Out. I'm Ed Mylet and I'm so excited to bring you the program today. The man that my left is literally one of the most interesting men in the world and at least for me.

I can tell you that for today, it's been something I've been looking forward to for a long time to pick this big brain of his. You probably recognize his face and most of you know his name. This is Rob Deirdick.

And this is a guy who at 16 years old dropped out of high school, he founded a professional skateboarding league. He's been a professional skateboarder. He's got 21 Guinness World Records. He's a media stud.

He's a rock star on the entrepreneurial space. He's a branding master, but most importantly for me, this is a guy who's a tremendous husband and a great father. And we're gonna pick his brain about how he's accomplished all of those things here today.

So thank you for being here, brother. Thanks for having me. I've seen it in video and out of experience, what it's actually like to be here live. It's so much more beautiful and remarkable

Thank you, man. I appreciate that.

So usually when I interview somebody,

they've accomplished something in their sport and we talk about that or they've accomplished something in business and we talk about that. The complexity of what you've done. I wonder, and it's probably even good thing

“that you don't always just step back and go, wow, right?”

But the complexity of, and how many times you've remade yourself? Because that lesson at 24, that lesson at 16, I think there was another lesson when you're preparing yourself.

We're gonna talk about later for finding someone like Brianna, that whole thing. So yeah, this really weird thing happened. I'll tell you, when Max was six years old, I was at this car wash.

And there's really nice guys, see, they're all the time. On Saturday, the old guy turns out he's about my age now, but at the time he was old to me.

And just at a nice, since he says to me,

he goes, hey, enjoy the six-year-old, 'cause when he turns seven, the six-year-old's gone forever. And when he turns seven, when he turns eight, the seven-year-old's gone forever, and you got a little kid you know, man,

they just keep becoming these different versions of themselves. And I remember saying back to the guy without trying to be disrespectful, I said, back to him, I said, so when did that stop for you? And he just stared at me, kind of blankly.

And he goes, I don't know, and I said, you should figure that out. And what I respect about you is that you have not settled, the 18-year-old version wasn't the same at 24, the 24-year-old man's done even resemble the 43-year-old,

the 44-year-old, or the 24-year-old, right? Just it shifts all the time. I respect that about you. So that happens, and then you go on from there, we can't document your whole life with you.

- Well, let me say something to that too, right?

“'Cause I think I've heard you say before about how you're”

in pursuit of the vision of something to the effect of you're pursuing the vision of the man that you expect yourself to become, right? Something to that effect.

And I would say when I finally shifted to that,

and that in that pursuit of that individual, I also knew that that individual was slowly changing with the experience that I was having pursuing it, right? And it's not that it's this, you're pursuing something that's not attainable, it's with experience and knowledge

and understanding of yourself, because you're on the journey just to master you, that the more you begin to master you, the more that ideal version of you begins to evolve too. So you're in this sort of relentless pursuit

that's clear that I think at some point, it becomes fully optimized, definitely optimize version of yourself as who you will catch up with, like that won't forever be elusive.

- Oh my gosh, that's right. - And I think, because we're so similar in that sort of idea, it's the moment I realized that growth is actually one of your key attributes, like embrace it and enjoy what you're able to achieve,

but know that that's not part of your makeup, like the relentless of pursuit is actually your makeup. - Oh my gosh, bro. - And that changed, it allows me to not very difficult to look black and reflect,

because I mean, I just enjoy the pursuit so much. - She knew that I mean. - Me too, I've heard you say about this too. You make me feel really good, because although we're a little bit different person,

otherwise, you're probably the most similar person to me that I've met maybe ever. And just that, it's even harder to describe, but we're both just so obsessed with this pursuit of growth and change and experiences and life.

And one of the things I struggle with is my memory. - Yeah. - And I know you still love it. - So I know, like, the gift in the curse. - It's a gift in the curse, I think.

I think maybe one of the gifts of it is, I don't remember all my failures, just hold me back and to keep telling all these old stories, but I really do have a hard time remembering things. In fact, when I get interviewed,

the great gift for me when I'm interviewed, is it forces some recall of memories I didn't have before. You have that too, right? - Well, you think that's 100%. - I don't know, but just talking it out, thinking about it,

with somebody else that experiences it. I think it's more gift than curse. Now, it comes back to haunt you when you're trying to remember the details, like on certain things. And it jams you up a little bit.

Where it jams me up at this state is I'm taking in learning so much at a high level. And then it pushes out stuff that I could really use again when I want to use it for another situation, if you will, especially in business.

But I also, it's also made me super conscious of stuff that I really want to know that I want to remember

“and never forget that I tell myself that as I get there, right?”

- Meaning when a major moment happens, you have the engagement. Meaning wedding children, like a moment with children, like when I really, even just recently taking the helicopter to Catalina to celebrate my three-year anniversary,

like I kept telling myself as it were flying over the city and look at the ocean, like don't, like just feel this, like remember this, look at this, remember this.

- Yeah, that's why you guys, if I started to try to list for you the amount of moments that he can't remember,

but also that have been amazing in his life.

Some of you, you just would literally, it is what he said earlier, it's many, many, many, many, many lives, right? And so I want to touch on some of them where there's lessons, but I just,

I'm going to spend most of my time in your brain and in your heart. So, but you go all the way from, let's be honest, you go from Robin Begg, you got ridiculousness, right? You got all of the moments that happened

on all of these shows too, right? Fantasy factory, like all of these different things. It's just, it's, it's bananas. And so, I'm going to keep in mind, Fantasy factory was basically a moment generator.

You know what I mean from being attacked by a shark to jockey and a horse for a race to like flip in a car for a superbowl commercial, breaking a rural restaurant, jumping a car backwards, like getting towed into a giant wave

and almost dying, like all these crazy, crazy highlight reel that no human being on the planet Earth has. - Correct, right? - It is. - Did you just hear what he said by the way, just slow that down to second, okay?

A mulled by a tiger, attacked by a shark. You kissed a bear on the lips, I think. - I kissed a bear. - Right, imagine. - And he's here, one. - So, that one's just stay on it just for a second

'cause like those are once in a lifetime

“moment you've had over and over and over again, right?”

So, stay on that just for a second. Meanwhile, kicking ass in business, meanwhile, founding a skateboarding. It's like, you make me feel small, which is awesome, right? So, and keep in mind too, they are fully intertwined.

What do you mean, like, I'm negotiating a deal

a five-year, like, multi-million dollar mega deal

with Nike, right, before, like, I got to hang up the phone and break a world record for jumping a car, ramp to ramp 90 feet backwards, right? For a giant Chevy integration deal that Chevy's going to do a deal for being a part of our league,

while launching a complete new company. It's like, you're taking vocals in between this sort of chaos and sort of all aspects of your life. That was a six or seven year run of doing all this insanity while doing all of your business

and normal stuff inside it. - So, that's maxing out these different areas, the pun is intended, right? But like, so, there are people out here who use the complexity of their lives as an excuse, not to succeed in any one

of them, right? So, oh, God, I'm a dad and I've got my business and I got my soccer league or whatever it is. How did you do that? So, if you were to say, here's one of the reasons

how I can compartmentalize and win in different areas, what would be one of the keys? - Just sheer drive and relentless pursuit of success. Not the problem with that was. Is, here you are, you know,

someone that can do anything. You end up, you have the ability to do anything, so you end up doing everything,

“then you end up kind of standing for nothing, right?”

So, you end up meaning so much to so many different people, you're not even sure what you stand for, like, is your passion business? Do you want to do stones? Are you a TV guy?

Like, do you want to be the commissioner of your league? Do you like skateboard? Like, what is, like, I had to stop in realize that because my hope was if I just kept doing all this stuff, one of them would show me the way, right?

So, and as someone that's so driven and who's gifted is execution, the moment you decide to do something, you're gonna do it. I'm gonna do a cartoon in a toy line,

like, okay, I got a cartoon on Nickelodeon in a toy line, in Walmart, I got a tack by a shark to launch it. I'm gonna do a new television show. I got this, I've read an article with Vinnie DeBone, I'm gonna do this clip video show.

It's gonna be the biggest thing I've ever did, like, you wind up doing all of these things

and you basically behind that,

there's 20 of them that aren't working, that you're putting that same energy of running into the wall with, right? And furthermore, it's not leading anywhere

“since you're hoping one will determine what your future is, right?”

And I stopped and, yes, I would look at myself as this highly conditioned stress athlete where you could put yourself onto the deepest pressure and take on 50 or 60 things at a time and operate smooth and happy.

And, but it wasn't until I looked deep within myself and decided, what type of life do you actually want? - It's easier to do when you're sort of in the midst of failure totally. - Totally.

- But you did it in the midst of success. - And so this is what it does, right? It, when I finally transition to the, the next level, or the fully designed version, right? Which I'm on my way, I have to say I'm exactly

two and one half years into.

and what we talk about, right?

“Because since I'm in the middle of transitioning in it,”

when you look at my body of work, it is like, so all over the place, you don't even, it's so hard to land on what it is because the stunt aspect is really interesting, and being a professional athlete,

and then like, oh, you jump up and now you're doing all these businesses, we're partners together

and this super innovative, amazing brand like,

oh, but then no, you're still shooting nine episodes of television a week, you know what I mean? And like, you're still entering your 12th, 13th, and 14th season on ridiculousness, putting you at 10 years and 25 seasons

in 500 episodes of the television on MTV, like it's hard to put down like, what does he really, what would he be known for when really, you would know me primarily for MTV, if you know business or you've had a conversation,

then you're like, okay, this guy is like, jumping in, but my goal is to be known for the life that I created, the life that I lived and the way that I systematized it and built it, that ultimately people could replicate

in their own lives in the future. - But yeah, the example's gonna be bananas, I actually admire the diversity of your success. - It makes a lot of fun, I mean, it's like-- - Brother, come on, I mean,

and I'll tell you another moment too, man, when I, after I got attacked by that, sure, right? 'Cause I'm like, this is so dumb. - Like, this isn't even, this isn't even gonna be good, like, why am I doing this?

That's, every stunt, every stunt. It's like, this isn't even that, this is so dumb in the afterwards, like, no one in the world, no one in the world, right here. - Right, but I remember swimming up off of the,

looking down on that boat and stopping, as I was swimming up and there's like 50 sharks swimming around, telling myself, just look and soak this into your mind

'cause you will never be back here, you know?

- In, and I have that to go along with the great photo

“of that, like, shark on my arm, you know what I mean?”

- 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. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody.

Today's gonna be awesome. I get a chance to share time with someone who's at a deep impact on my life, you know, I feel so close to this man, yet we've only been in person together once. It's the most interesting relationship and connection.

I've had it many, many years with somebody. I love his work, and I have a lot to learn today myself. I told him before we started, this is for everybody else today, but I have some of my own questions as well.

He's got a new book out called The Wealth Money Can't Buy. And I guess I'd call him a thought leader, a humanitarian. I'd also call him just kind to brilliant and someone that I admire because he has started to live life on his own terms, and that takes a lot of courage

when you're as successful as he is. And so Robin Sharma, welcome back, brother. It's so good to have you. - My brother Ed, you are such a kind soul yourself, and I honor you for inspiring lives of millions of people.

And your humility is so special that I want to acknowledge you for that as well. It's amazing to see you.

It's amazing to see you, and he's in the midst of a tour right now.

He's very, very busy. So I have so many things I want to ask you about because the book itself about The Wealth that Money Can't Buy, the reason it's so profound is, about everything we see in our culture now,

is about The Wealth Money Can Buy. And that's become our idol for the most part in our culture. And I want to talk about that and pick that apart first, but first thing I want to cover is, I think in order to understand what you want in life,

“you have to understand why you are the way you are.”

And so one of the things you list in the book is the penum principle. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. And if I am, why don't we start today with you explaining to us about us?

'Cause I think that's what this does. - Well, you know Ed, we fall into a human trap, and we think we see the world as it is, but we see the world as we are. So Joseph Campbell had this idea of the stained glass window.

We all look through our experiences and our programming through a perceptual filter. And so right now, we can see the polychrysis and the wars and the challenges and the cost of living crisis.

Yeah, we can also see beauty. And we can see wonder, we can see opportunity. We can see the chance for service. So the penum principle, first, the first form of, well, up in the book, these are the five forces

that make us us, that make you, you make me me. Number one, pee, penum, our parents.

Our parents taught us how the world worked. And so that early programming stays with us through our lifetime unless we rewire it. Our parents could have said money doesn't grow on trees. Be reasonable, don't trust whatever.

And we pick up all these programs so the pee stands for parents.

Second, the pee and penum, our ecosystem,

our environment, we become our environment. You look at the information we allow into our minds, the information diet. It's steadily transforms us, upgrades us or degrades us. The end is our nation.

If you're from a war torn nation, that's going to affect the perceptual filter through which you see the world. The A are associations. We become our conversations. Everyone we have met in our lives

have left some form of an imprint subconsciously, either positively or negatively within us, everyone. So our associations, all that takes is one conversation, which someone who's life, we want to be living to help us enter a secret universe of possibility.

We never knew was there.

“A secret universe of possibility, that's so good.”

All that takes is one idea to reframe the way we see the world. That's the power of reading, the power of listening to a podcast, the power of a mentor, the power of a mastermind, the power of stripping out the energy vampires and dreams dealers from our life.

And then the enemy, in the penum principle, the five forces that shaped us, the is media. Look at the subtle messaging and the not so subtle messaging. We are receiving from influencers, from the media, from advertisers, constantly in a torrent.

And whether we want to admit it or not, it shapes the way we see the world and shapes the way we feel and it shapes the way we show up. Gosh, it's so true. One of the things I like about the way that Robin writes

and it makes it difficult to interview because there's so many good points, but he writes very small chapters. And so when you read his work, like, that's the question I want to ask him, that's the question, there's so many of them.

And he gets right to the point, it's very strategic. I love your writing style, and I love your thinking style. And so I kind of want to build on a progression, but because of the way that I read the book, we're going to skip around guys.

We're going to kind of just bring you value, but not in any real order or sequence. And so, but once we understand why we are the way we are, there's some simple things you say in there

“that I think bear repeating and some expansion.”

So one thing you say is you say small steps make giant gains. And I think what most people think in life is like, I got to make some major move to change things. But you make the point in the book that, hey, a small step can make a huge difference.

- Sure, what you do daily, the tiny things

are so much more powerful than the big things you might do annually.

So I've had a brain tattoo that I've used for years, and it's small daily, seemingly insignificant to prove when it's done consistently over time, lead to stunning results. Now, we can go more granular on that.

Your date are your life in miniature, and that was one of my intentions today, like just give a fire hose of value to Ed's global community. Your days are your life in miniature.

So don't worry about the week so the quarters of these years focus on this day. And if you can get those micro wins and also create perfect moments and also make some steady progress

towards your personal Mount Everest, you had a great day, but here's the larger point that the days become weeks, the weeks become months, the months become years. So your days are your life in miniature

is a very key point, and what I would add to that is,

if you look at a great company, they were built not by revolution. It wasn't one strategic objective that made Apple. It was built by evolution. Those small little optimizations, those opportunities

to be a merchant of, wow, those little innovations, the little details, and the same with the human life. How do you build a great human life consistency as the mother of mastery? A little wins, tiny triumphs done consistently over time,

or lead you to a life you'll be super proud of at the end.

“And I think last thing I'd say about that”

is that's the power of connecting to your mortality. I think as human beings, are the great postponers. We will create these wonderful days consistently. We will install great habits. We will dream bigger dreams so we become possible

taryons when the kids get older. When we have more time, when there's an ideal period for that. And yet connecting to the shortness of life

as part of your morning ritual, I have some tools to share as we move through our time together that will help your viewers and listeners do that. But just keeping your death and the shortness of life front and center is not negative.

“I think it's hugely inspirational because then you'll”

live to the point. 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. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm excited to talk to this gentleman today because his works fascinated me for a long time. The reason his work is fascinated me for so long.

I went through this string for a while where so many would I call high performing successful friends of mine would say, if you read a topic habits, you read a topic habits. I'm talking about athletes, business people, entertainers,

and I'm like, the heck is it, topic habits?

And I finally find out there's this guy, James Clear,

turns out he's written this book, like five million people about it, and I'm like, well, why have five million people read this book on habits? Because you're supposed to have him, and then I read it. I'm like, oh, it's not one of these like, have a habit book.

It's like how your brain works, how to create habits, how to eliminate bad ones, and physically why in your brain you can do these things and why it's so necessary. So I want to James on for a long time. We finally put it together.

I'm so grateful to sharing him with all of you today. So James Clear, welcome to the show, brother. Hey, thanks for having me on, Chris. Talk to you. Yeah, and I don't want to just talk habits today.

I'm going to talk about some of your productivity hacks, as well. Your work rose is I think I'd call it groundbreaking, because I don't think anybody's really approached habits the way that you have. But let's back up a little bit just for a second

“because I think it's important for people to understand”

this concept you teach that everyone's always

going to take a massive action. Get taken massive action towards what you want. You're like, yeah, you should do that. But your concept of getting one percent better is much more believable for most people.

And so just address that for a second. Why, why 1% better every day? And how does it have it do that? Sure. So first of all, I think there's no reason

that you can't be really ambitious. I can serve myself to be a very ambitious person. I think it's just that you're oscillating or switching between these two modes. When you're in planning mode, when you're in strategy mode,

sure, you can be very ambitious and be very aggressive and stretching yourself and reaching. But when it comes time to take action and execute, you have to scale it down to something that you can achieve that day.

In one sense, the biggest unit of time you could ever do something is about a single day because then you've got to go to sleep. And then you have to wake up again and do it the next day. So unless you're playing, at some point,

there's a limit.

You can always stay up for 48 hours, 72 hours.

And then you break. So that's the largest possible unit that you could ever do a single thing in.

“And I think more realistically, most of the time,”

truth is, you know, you got about an hour. Maybe you got two hours to work on this. And then you gotta go move on to something else. So we don't have big chunks of time available to us. We need to scale things down into pieces

that we can actually work on and execute. So the way that I think about it is when making plans, think big, when making progress, think small. And getting 1% better each day is a way to encourage that.

The story that I like to tell, and this is something that I kind of kick a ton of cabinets off with to story the British cycling team. And, you know, for many years, British cycling was very mediocre.

They had never won a tour to France, which is the premier race in cycling. They had won a single gold medal over like 100 years span. And they brought this new performance coach in, named Dave Brailsford.

And he had this concept that he called the aggregation of marginal gains. The aggregation of marginal gains. And the way that he described it was the 1% improvement and nearly everything that we do related to cycling.

So they started looking at a bunch of things you would expect to cycling team to focus on. Like, they put slightly lighter tires on the bike or they designed like an ergonomic seat for the riders. They had the riders where a little feedback sensor,

little chip to see how each individual responded to training, then they would adjust the practice schedule. But then they started doing like these little 1% changes. The small improvements that nobody else was really thinking about, like they hired a surgeon to come in

and teach the riders how to wash their hands to reduce the risk of catching a cold or getting the flu. They had this big trailer, like a semi-trailer, that carries a lot of bikes in it to major events. They painted the inside of that truck trailer white,

so that it could spot little bits of dirt and dust that might get in the gears and decorate the performance of the bikes. They had two different types of fabrics. They've got like indoor racing suits and outdoor racing suits.

And they tested those fabrics in a wind tunnel. And they found out that the indoor fabric was lighter and more aerodynamic. So they asked all of their riders to wear that fabric. They even had all their different riders testing,

like a bunch of like maybe a dozen different types of pillows. And then they see which one led to the best night sleep for each person. And then once they figured that out, they brought that on the road with them

to hotels for the Tour de France and so on. And, you know, Brailsford said something like,

If we actually make all these 1% improvements related to cycling, then I think we can win a Tour de France within five years. He ended up being wrong. They won the Tour de France in three years.

And then they were repeated again the fourth year with a different rider. And then after one year break, they won three more in a row.

So after having never won for like 110 years,

they won five of the next six. And I like to use that story as an introduction to this idea of getting a little bit better, making these 1% improvements for a couple of reasons. The first is it shows you that excellence,

a lot of the time, maybe we could even say most of the time, is not actually about radical change. It's about a commitment to accruing small improvements day in and day out.

“Secondly, and I think this is also crucial,”

it encourages you to focus on trajectory rather than position, right? There's a lot of discussion about position in life. How much money is in the bank account? What is the number on the scale?

What is the current stock price? What are the quarterly earnings? This is all this measurement around our current position. But we're getting 1% better each day encourages is to focus on your trajectory instead.

And I'm getting better as the error point

it up into the right or if we flatlined.

When you're getting 1% better, 1% worse. Because if you're on a good trajectory, all you need is time, right? If you have good habits, time becomes your ally. You just need to let time work for you.

But if you have bad habits, time becomes your enemy. And every day they click spy, you kind of dig the whole little bit deeper. And so it's very much at the core. It's about encouraging you to focus on trajectory

rather than position. How did you get the 37.78 times better? Like, where did that ratio number come from? Yeah, it's just math, right? So if you get 1% better each day for a year,

so 1.01 to the 365th power, then it gets 37 times better by the end of the year. If you get 1% worse, 0.99 to the 365th power, then you drive yourself almost all the way down to zero.

“You know, look, real life is not exactly”

like a mathematical equation, right? Your habits are not exactly like this formula. But I do think that it highlights an important concept, which is the difference between making a choice that's 1% better or 1% worse on any given day

is relatively insignificant. That is very easy to dismiss. And this is, I think, one of the things that makes it underappreciated are underestimated. Like, what is the difference between eating a burger

and fries for lunch today or eating a salad, or going to the gym for 30 minutes or not? Well, on any given day, not a whole lot. Your body looks the same in the mirror at the end of the night. Scale hasn't really changed.

It's only two or five or 10 years later that you turn around. You're like, oh, those daily choices really do add up. And I think you see this pattern again and again throughout life, like take knowledge, for example.

The person who always reads for an extra 10 minutes each day.

Well, look, reading for 10 minutes a day is not make you a genius, right? It's very easy to dismiss. But the person who always does that over five or 10 or 20 years, yeah, really meaningful difference

in wisdom and insight and productivity is the same way. Like the person who gets one extra test on each day. Doing one extra thing is not make you an all star. But again, over 10 or 20 or 30 year career, that can be really meaningful difference in output.

So this pattern shows up again and again. What starts out small and relatively easy to dismiss, compounds or turns into something much more significant over time. The biggest word, bro.

I don't think most people take into account you and our both college baseball players, good ones, but neither one of us for sure fire first round draft pick, major league players.

“And I think most people don't take into account”

and they're like the compound effect. I don't think they understand it in money. I don't think they understand it in their bodies. Most positive and negative. I don't think they understand their identity

or in just in inhabits the compound effect in life of allowing small things to stack up over time has a multiplier effect. And one of the things that I feel like in your work, by the way, your work is,

I'm all work, we're a few minutes in here, and I'm like, this is so good. And the reason is, one, I believe most people believe they can get 1% better every day. I don't think most people believe

that they can completely transform everything in one big leap. I think there's a multiplier, though, do you agree that between doing the right things, 1% or just better, habitually, every single day.

Not only you actually making deposits of doing things correctly or better, but there's a part of your identity that starts to change over time, about how you view yourself that I am that guy

who doesn't eat the hamburger and fries when he can choose the other one. You stack those choices and behaviors up over time. And you start sort of believing maybe you deserve something that you didn't deserve prior.

Doesn't there factor that when you think as well? - This is a huge part of my philosophy and book, this idea of what I call identity-based habits, but essentially the concept is, and this, I think this is the real reason that habits matter.

The surface level reason that habits matter is they help you be more productive, they help you make more money, they help you lose weight and get fit, and look, habits can do all those things, and that's great.

But I think the deeper reason that they matter

for the type of person you wish to become.

And so when you perform these small habits, when you take these little actions, you're casting votes for a certain aspect of your story or a certain element of your identity. In a sense, every time you perform a habit,

“that's how you like embody that aspect of your identity.”

So when you make your bed in the morning, you embody the identity of someone who's clean, organized, or if you write one sentence, you embody the identity of someone who's a writer. And this is why it can be valuable,

even to do one push-up. It's like, no, that does not transform your body, but it does cast a vote for on the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. And eventually, as you build up evidence of that story,

as you start to cast more votes for that identity, you have like actual proof to believe this, right? This is, I think it's a little bit different than you'll often hear something like, fake it till you make it, and I don't necessarily

have anything wrong with fake it till you make it. It's asking you to believe something positive about yourself, but it's asking you to believe something positive without having evidence for it. And we have a word for beliefs that don't have evidence.

We call that delusion, right? Like at some point, your brain doesn't like this mismatch between what you say you are and what you're actually doing. And so my argument is to let the behavior lead the way. To start by meditating for one minute,

or doing one push-up, or writing one sentence, and letting that be undeniable proof that in that moment, you were a meditator or an athlete or a writer or whatever it is.

“And ultimately, I think this is the real value”

that happens provide, which is they reinforce your desire and identity. - Well, it's just so good, brother. So good. I don't know why I'm just meeting you now

because our overall belief system about changes is so very, very similar. And we're gonna talk about how to actually begin to establish habits, but before we do that, I wanna talk about the concept of establishing one

because you said something about the one push-up, reading or listening to something you're talking about, but the guy who would go to the gym for just five minutes and work out. And when you said something about this casting the vote

for who you wanted be or who you're going to be,

that was powerful, right?

But you're saying before I have it can be, and I don't wanna quote you incorrectly, but I want you to elaborate on it. 'Cause this is profound to me. I mean, it's obvious, but if you don't step back

and get away from it and look at it, you really don't realize the truth of it. Before I have it can be improved, it has to actually be established.

“And I think what happens is you tell me what you think.”

Beginning of the year, I'm gonna lose 50 pounds. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna start myself to 500 calories. So it's not a 1% improvement or I wanna get up earlier. I'm gonna get up two hours earlier, starting tomorrow.

Instead of, get up 15 minutes earlier, right? Get up a minute earlier. So talk about it from just the concept for one to just, they can take control of their life right now by just the establishment of a habit, right or right.

- Yeah, definitely right. So one of the concepts I talk about in the book is one of the strategies is this idea of what I call the two-minute rule, where I encourage people to be able to have it

and take two minutes or less to do. So you take whatever you're trying to do, read 30 books a year, becomes read one page, or do yoga four days a week. It becomes take out my yoga mat.

And sometimes when I mention that idea, people resist a little bit 'cause they're like, okay buddy, I know the real goal is and just to take my yoga mat out, I know I'm actually trying to do the workout.

So this is some kind of mental trick

than like why would I fall for it basically?

Well, I tell the story of this guy, Mitch, you mentioned this guy who I met, I talked about him in atomic habits. He went to the gym, he lost over a hundred pounds, kept it off for more than a decade.

And when he first started going to the gym, he wouldn't stay for a longer than five minutes. He had this little rule, he had to leave after five minutes. So he'd get in the car, drive to the gym, get out, do half an exercise, get back in the car,

drive home. And sounds ridiculous, right? Sounds silly, you're like obviously he's not gonna get the guy at the results of the ones. But if you take a step back,

you realize that he was mastering the art of showing up, right? He was becoming the type of person that went to the gym four days a week, even if it was only for five minutes. And this gets us to that deeper truth about habits

that you just mentioned, this idea that a habit must be established before it can be improved. It has to become the standard in your life before you can optimize it and scale it up into something more.

And you know, I don't know why we do this. Like we get very all or nothing about our habits. We're like we're so focused on finding the perfect business idea, the best workout program, or the ideal diet plan that we spend all our time theorizing

and researching and looking for a better way. And instead, if we could just master the art of showing up, even if in the beginning it was less than what you had hoped to do, you're establishing a foothold. You're building some small progress

that you can advance off of. And it reminds me of Ed Lathamore,

the heaviest way to the gym is the front door. And man, there are a lot of things in life that are like that. You know, like the hardest part is getting started. The hardest part is establishing the routine, even if it's a lower level baseline than what you ultimately

hope to achieve.

But the reality is if you can't become the type

of person who masters the art of showing up, even if it's just for five minutes, then it doesn't matter how good the plan is. It doesn't matter how great your theory is.

“And so I think a two minute rule pushes back”

on that perfectionist tendency a little bit and just encourages you to master the art of showing up. I'm right, I just finished writing a book called One More. And I get asked that sometimes too. And one of the things that I wasn't thinking about it

from this perspective when I wrote it, but if you become the kind of person that's like, I'm gonna do, it's my bench press. I'm gonna do 10. You do one more, you do 11.

I even say, you're right in the running the treadmill for 45 minutes, you can build that habit of, okay, I'm going one more minute at you, 46. What's the difference in that, then it will? You stack up that minute over a year,

there's the difference, but also your identity being instant changes. And I'm not telling you to go through 45 minutes of three hours on a treadmill. So the exercise I was doing is I wasn't thinking of it

from this perspective, but now that I'm thinking about it, it actually our work is sort of converging, almost an exact same space. - That was a great conversation. And if you wanna 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.”

- Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. I'm so excited to share this very profound and deep conversation with Bert Krisher.

You're gonna hear Bert in ways that you have never heard

from him before. We go very, very deep here. It gets very, very emotional. And I know you're gonna love it. But what you are going to get from Bert

that you are used to getting is a lot of adult language. And so I wanted to give you warning in advance because you normally listen to my show, we usually bleep out the couple profane words, but there's a lot of them in this episode

because that's the way that Bert speaks. And we just decided there's too many of them to try to beep, all you be hearing is beeping. So I want you to know today's episode that's a strong language.

The F word is used a lot in this episode. And so just wanted to make sure you knew that up front if you've got young ears or ears, you don't want to hear that language writing with you in the car or anywhere in the room with you.

Today you're gonna hear a strong language on the show. God bless you and joy. I'm kind of obsessed with death, right? And I know you are too. Like I, you said you used to fear more than you do,

but like I am obsessed with it. When I say obsessed with it, I think about it a lot, but it actually gives me a lot of peace. So I was with my dad when he took his last breath. He was literally right there with my dad.

And it like dawned on me when he did it. And after he passed away, my mom and my sister, we had to wait for the herster come was like an hour and a half. My mom and dad don't, my sister and my mom, that my sister's, they don't want to be in the room with him.

So I'm in there with my dad alone. Just me and my dad, right? And like, I'm sorry, I just can only imagine me going, hey, you fake in it, you all, literally with it, I'm gonna be real with you, like their body twitches and stuff.

I'm like a couple of times like, oh, he's back, right? And even when he was passing like their heart rate will go to nothing and it's gone and you're like, they think he's gone and then it comes back. So there is a little element of that.

It's a, it's a really deep thing. And it's like, I know that now.

“Yeah, you should know that a man, everybody should know that”

in advance. Anyway, at some point that stopped. And we were there and it dawned on me like, you know, you start running memories of your dad. Right?

Like, this is the most important man in my life.

But my entire life is my dad. You're the most important in Georgia and I list, right? Like, there's no other man that'll ever be that important. And their husband will be, but there's something with the dad. And so I'm just thinking of memories of my dad

and you know, different things. And then, yes, you look around the room like pictures of our family, there's some of my dad's awards are there. And it's just dawned on me like, it's some point I realized actually my dad's not here, like his body's there.

But my dad's gone. Whatever you want to call it in my case, it's a soul. And I know we're being serious, you know, being serious. They're spirit, they're life force, whatever. And my belief in my faith, it's a soul.

He's gone. So I'm like, it's just dawned on me, man. Like, my dad isn't his body. And then, what could my, who was my dad? My dad's not his body.

So he's this energy, this life force. And when my dad died, in the room he was in was his body. He wasn't that. Was all of his awards. He was any of his accumulations.

We were in his actual house. He didn't get to take his house with him. His car was in the driveway. He didn't get to take his car with him. When my dad died, he had worries and fears and anxieties

and problems. He didn't take those with him. So you can't take any of that crap with you. Like, physically, my dad was gone. So he's not his house, he's not his car,

he's not his awards, he's not his worries, he's not his fears, he's not any of those things. What did he leave? What did he leave? My dad left two things.

My dad left us. He left us, he left us family. He left the lessons we learned, the memories we had, all that other stuff.

that he helped my dad help like several thousand people go get sober and blah, blah, blah, blah. In your case, just remember this. Like, you can't take all this shit with you anyway. But you get to leave all the people you made laugh.

All the lives you changed. And I'm being very serious with you. Millions and millions of people you brought joy to. Maybe it's just for a freaking hour of their life to like, man, that night with bird, I saw,

I was there that night at Red Rocks, right? That one night with you, they remember that the rest of their life. You get to leave that here. You get to leave Iowa.

You get to leave Georgia. You get to leave Lee-Anne. Like, those are the things that matter.

And the reason that that's so powerful for me

is when I walk out and there's 30,000 people, I'm not on the anxiety that I normally have. 'Cause I'm gonna be gone anyway. I don't get to take, but I get to take away all the difference I make for those human beings

when I speak. So I really value you, bro. Like, I really value you. But I don't know if that helps you or not, like, for me, it's like, some of this stuff

we get caught up in all the time. Like, you can't take any of this stuff with you. - No. - Does that make sense? I'm just watching your face. - Yeah, yes, I know, I mean, it leaves an impact

because you think of all the things you've put out. Like, I think of Jimmy Buffett. And I still get his joy. Like he laughed at it. And I love Jimmy Buffett.

Or Jerry Garcia. I still get their joy. Like, I still get to listen to Althea.

“- Do you want to blessing it is that you have what you have?”

- I kind of do. That sounds really crazy, but I kind of, I have in the moment on stage thought, this is really cool. You get to take people out of their memory,

out of their, out of their thoughts for a second, and you get to get them to be present and laugh. And if, and I've said this before, if I can leave anything, I would, my legacy, I would love for it.

I'll get emotional. I get emotional thinking about this. Maybe just a couple times if people, what I'm gone. People just go like, and it'd be so much cooler of purpose here.

Like, God, we'd have so much fun. Like, you, wouldn't be right if purpose here. And he just walked in with a bottle of champagne and a crazy story or like, I just like, I mean, I don't need to care anything,

but like, just for people who go like, God, I wish he was here. That was, that would be so fun. Like, just that, I don't need it to be the world. Just like, like a solid 100 people.

You could just be like, man, imagine if purpose here, like that, that energy, I think it's what, that energy is what defines me.

It's what I've always wanted and search for as a kid,

is I wanted, I wanted people like miss me. And like, I noticed that like, at a certain point, like, if I left the room, no one cared. And if I wasn't there, no one was like, where's Bert? I feel like I'm just building to hopefully get it

to the place where people go like, God, man. Like, I wouldn't be cool if Bert was here. I know my daughters will say that, but that's it. It's just like on a Sunday morning when someone opens a bottle of champagne

and goes like, fuck. Bert would have brought a joint. (laughing) So you've said three or four things that they like in the history of the show

or like my favorite things ever said. And the reason there's a bunch of people crying with you, the one they want that to and some people are sitting there going, I wonder if anybody would miss me. And you were born to do something great with your life,

everybody doesn't mean you're gonna be in millions of people. But someone ought to miss you. There ought to be a difference you've made. And if right now, if this was the last day of your life, the final chapter, you go, I don't know who would miss me.

“That's an indicator you need to make some changes”

and the indicator you need to pursue your dreams. That was like, bro, like, I had no idea where we were gonna go today. And I'm so grateful that we went where we went. So glad it, I'm so happy you asked me to do this.

- Bro, like, honestly, like, come back every couple years and let's just sit down and figure out where you're up. Plus, I wanna be, and please take care of yourself. Like, we would miss you. Like, we don't want you to leave sooner than you need to leave here.

If I asked you this question, 'cause I think a lot of people here, feedback is criticism.

So when people look, that's a fucking powerful statement.

- Yeah, do you hear it? - How do you hear it? When you hear that from people, you've got this number, you got a movie that killed it, you've got your, this dude fills up anywhere he wants right now

and he can do it multiple days. And Bert does. You're making a ton of money, podcast or crush. You know, your life is really, really good right now. There's probably a party that's like, hey, if this is, you know, do you know what you're dealing with here?

Like, I'm pretty functional. So do you hear feedback, even from dude to love you,

“as criticism, 'cause most people, that's how they hear it?”

- Yeah, yeah. And what's thanks is that when I was at my lowest,

starting in January, did a European tour

that I did an arena tour in the States and then I promoted the special.

“I then went to an Australian tour in arenas”

and then I did another arena tour, promoted my movie, I did my fully loaded tour, which was six weeks, I think this year, then did the cruise and the cruise was right before that. But I was at my lowest and everyone noticed.

And I will say that I got emails from, I got texts from everyone. One of them was Tom's age and I just apologized to him the other night. He texted me, worried about you, whatever this night,

and I was like, whatever, ran into him at dinner in New York with Tom. And I said to him, "Hey man, you're not my boy, you're not my wife, go fuck yourself." If you want to be in my life,

sit down and have a drink with me, but I don't hear what you're word out of your fucking mouth.

You don't spend time with me, you don't know my life's like,

I don't wanna hear a fucking word, I said that's Steve Burn. I said that to Tom, I said that to Joe, I said that to I said that to fucking everybody. Because at the time, when someone's concerned about you, you don't hear it that way, you hear them saying

I'm better than you in some way or I got my shit together. You need to get your shit together. I don't know what you hear, but I did not hear it well. And it wasn't until I realized, oh, it was my daughters who said they're word about me.

My daughters, when they went on tour, those were fully loaded, we had, it was extremely stressful. I had a stalker trying to kill me. It was like really bad. Yeah, it was really bad.

And by the way, I got all this is just, it's bubbling over. It really is. And my both my daughters, at the end of fully loaded, and now granted fully loaded,

it is up with the 32 best comics in the world. Every week, it's a new 10 comics. It's my best friends, but the funniest people in the world, and we're cracking beers at this at breakfast, we're eating mushrooms, we're smoking weed,

we're drinking at the show, we get on a tour bus, we party at night, we're gonna get it's fucking fun as fucking shit. I'm 275, but I'm not 300 pounds. So like, and I'm benching 225, 10 times,

I'm strong as shit. I feel good, I feel like shit. I feel like shit, probably, if we're gonna be very honest. And my daughters both said like, like at the gorge, I killed like four beers at the end of the show,

last show, I killed four beers and one of them is an IPA.

“And I snapped, I was like, who the fuck gave me an IPA?”

Like to kill, that was my daughter, Georgia. She was sorry, I don't drink, I don't know what a bud light looks like. - Blaster heart. - Yeah.

- And then, and we're all sitting and we got home, and I just said, you're drinking a lot. And I was like, really, and my sister's like, you look like I wanna put a needle in you and just watch you deflate.

You look bad. Georgia said you're red all the time. Like your face is just red. Now my face is normally red because I'm horrible. I was out in the sun and Florida is a kid,

but, and that's when I kind of took, like, I assessed where I was.

And I was like, I was never meant to be 275.

I was never meant drinking now is to getting me through the day. And when I say that, I wasn't like an early morning, I need drinks, kind of guy. But it was just always there.

And we'd go to play golf and you'd be like, I fuck it. Let's have a, let's have a, let's just do it. Double teedos and soda, just to start. And everyone's fun.

And when my daughters, my wife said it, I was like, all right, and then I was just like, I'll do a cleanse, drop 15 pounds, start all over. And then at the end, I went to my cardiologist and I was trained for it.

I like, didn't drink, took a sandwich, going in, get my blood pressure down. My cardiologist is like, yo, what's going on? He's like, you're the fat, it's you've ever been. And your blood pressure was 120.

(laughing) Over 80, I don't believe this. Right. And that's when I think I started, I started this journey of like going,

if I want to continue my lifestyle, which I do, then I need to be in control of my lifestyle. And I ran into a guy, I was in Austin. And I ran into a guy who was like, you know, his fat is the internet says.

And I was like, huh? He's like, oh, there's a reddit thread about, like an over under, or when you die. And by the way, that death thing is very real. You know, it's not gonna show up.

There's not gonna be like, huge things that show up before you die, just one day, you have a heart attack. One day, you are pushing it too hard. Yep. And give a fear of that.

Oh, it's not as much as not drinking. Okay, not as much as not drinking. So the decision for you long term is just gonna be this. Can you moderate it and can you regulate it?

“And that's what you're gonna have to decide.”

Before we start the interview with my next guest, just wanna 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.

Now on with the show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. My guest today is somebody who's work. I have been a fan of for years, and I have wanted to meet him. One of the great things about this show

is I've met most of the people who's work is made the biggest impact on my life. And I gotta tell you, this man's at the top of my list. His work hits you right between the eyes. And I would categorize it as brilliant.

I just think the way he phrases things and comes right at you with truth is very unique. And he's also been on the list of most requested guests for quite a while.

The book that first impacted me was on F yourself.

I'll give you the clean version. And the book that he has out right now is grow up becoming the parent your kids deserve. And as I read this book, it wasn't just really about being a parent.

It was actually really about being a human being, which makes you a better parent. So that if you're not a parent in your listening to this, trust me every minute of this will apply to you. And if you are a parent, they'll just be an added bonus

because this man's work will impact how you're raising your children. Gary John Bishop, welcome to the show, brother. - Ed's the great to be with you. - Thank you, brother. It's good to have you too.

So I want to get, I read your stuff. And I'm like, I gotta read that again. Crap, it hits you, right? And I want to start out kind of, 'cause it's leads to the parenting thing.

“Even though I think the vast majority of it”

is applies to being human and not just being a parent, being a functional person. You said, you live your adult life either as a reflection of your childhood or in reaction to it. I just think that's really a great place to start.

What do you mean when you say that? I know what it means for me. But are we all sort of acting out of some place from our childhood every single day, even to this day? - Yeah, I mean if you were looking at any area

of your life that doesn't work, there is some echo from your childhood play and not there.

And it's not always obvious because, you know,

your childhood isn't necessarily what you remember. It's a lot of what you forget. And so you're shaped by it in ways that when you study, dig into it, become really surprising. Then I think that's, I think that's the fascinating part

of it, at least for me. - How'd that play out for you? I mean, I know you talked about this situation in the book. It struck me. I think you were four years old.

And the fact that you remember this is compelling to me, but I think your parents were fighting. You're trying to get them to stop. And once you take it from there, I think this was just a good example of that.

- Well, I think, you know, look, if you ask your average person tell me every moment your life, they can't tell you. But they'll tell you some interest and bets. But, you know, for years and years, I, you know, you used to kind of grind the way.

“It mean like, why do people remember that part”

and not all those other parts? And it wasn't until I started to get more deeper in my own development that I started to see them like little milestones that incidents. And so that incident as a four year old

was fascinating to me. I kind of remember the feeling. I don't remember that experience in the book of the sky, but in the feeling for me in that moment was I had no power. I couldn't change it.

I was overcome with this. And you got to get it for a little four year old. This is like wild right, but my experience in that moment was like, I'm weak, I can't, I can't do it. I couldn't stop them from arguing and fighting.

And that moment, as it just a moment for a child, it's like a sea change and their experience of themselves.

I'd never experienced myself that way before it was new.

And then so those little things just sink into the background. And they become what you call ontological decisions. They become decisions that you've made that you're gonna have to know handle because they sink into the background and basically become

your truth, if you like. And that was certainly one of mine. That notion of your truth.

“That's why by the way, we said, whether you have children or not,”

this is about being a functioning human to me. I've never read someone's work. I don't think Gary, where the way you said it, I want to write down and remember it. Like I find myself wanting to quote you more than most people.

And here's something you said about that very thing on the past. This will rock a lot of you. And by the way, I agree with you after I read the book. You said the past wins one way or the other. And then you went on to say it another point.

You say, you are not shaped by the past itself. You're shaped by what you said about it. Meaning to some extent, this past thing is a little bit of an illusion to some extent. Am I right about that?

Because I totally, completely, in my fifties now, realized the profound truth in that.

So like, this is why this book had to be written.

Like I couldn't put my head on the pillow for another night with getting this book out there. Because I keep hearing all that stuff of a generational change in parents. So I'm going to break a generational change.

And I'm like, you are the generational change. And everything falls out of your mouth. You are the generational change.

“And if you want to break anything, it starts with you.”

And so I wanted to people who see what we're trying to break and with generational change, if you like, it's circumstances. So we're looking back. Old circumstances have gone. Those circumstances are not going to happen again.

What we fail to see is the mechanism that runs underneath those circumstances from that generation to this generation to the next generation. So you know, you know, working on the change, you're working on the oil.

You know, you're making no effort at the change. The change itself continues because like, if you go back to that example, I used the book when I was four years old, my parents had no sense that that's what was going on in my head.

And I had no sense at four years old that I was making a wife change in this season, because, you know, you don't, we don't for like two ourselves at four that way. I'm playing with toys and I'm having a good time.

And I'm, you know, doing all the things that are four, you know, would do. But at that moment, that experience boom, it hit me like a wall. And so as parents, this is what I wanted people to get

from this book, like you said, whether you're a parent or not,

“you have to know that there's that you had experiences”

in your childhood that you attached to various incidents and you love like it's about the incidents and it's not. It's about the experience that came out of it. It's the ontologic decision, this whatever you decided, whatever you changed in that moment,

the compounded and let's on with you is an adult. So, so, you know, we've got an eye on all the wrong things and I wanted people to start a seal like, you have to look at your life, your childhood, your parents' life, their childhood.

And if you have children, maybe you'll get a little insight onto what's actually going on with them. No matter how hard you think, you might be trying to guide them another way. - I told you everybody, I'm telling you, his work hits you.

By the way, the way he writes to, he doesn't let you escape you. Every time you try to escape you, it's guys pulling you back to you. And I love that, it's like there's just no BS to this.

And so, I want to stay right on this incident when you were four in this absolute truth that you're talking about.

I always say, it's not the events of our life that define us.

It's the meaning we attach to the event. And one of the difficult things when we're a child is, we don't have the emotional makeup or experiences to attach, we're not really choosing our meaning. When we're capable, we're choosing the meaning

when we're incapable.

“And so, do you then recommend somebody question their past?”

I know that you do, but I'm gonna let you answer it. Do they question the past and then are you having them evaluate an incident and then try to attach a new meaning to it so that they behave differently in the current moment because they attach a different meaning to an event?

Well, what I like people you see is that your mechanism for adding to a situation exists to this day, so it's still exists. What's a mechanism mean to you? What do you mean by mechanism?

So it's like your automatic wiring, your default is highly good, the German philosopher, he could have called it your default ways of being. Okay. The ways that you are by default.

And you know, people don't wake up in the morning and decide to be themselves. They wake up and that self is there. Yes, right? And it's a sad self, it's not a malleable self.

It's like this, that's me that I am. Now, you know, if you hang it on a little one's long enough, especially like that age group like two, three, four, there's no real self there. It's just like that's big expression, right?

There's no set way, but anybody who's a parent will tell you they literally watch their children become set, right? They've literally watched them, right? They're just seven, and it's a 12, and it's a 14. And then suddenly they're just like that way

and they're always that way and they're always,

and they're always that way as a compensation till whatever they felt they had to overcome. That's why it's so casting, by the way, because, you know, like people can get through really, really turbulent times in their childhood

and come out with a whole different thing than somebody who went through a very similar experience, they come out with all different things, why?

what they come out with is whatever they told themselves about it.

And it becomes so tightly intertwined that whatever I told myself about it and the incident, there's no distinction between those two for me as a human being. They're the same thing, right?

So again, for instance, in that moment, I'm four years old, I'm watching my parents argue, it's about me. I'm not observing that like this is about them. I'm observing that like this is about me,

like after I came to some of the self-determination in that moment, what I want people to understand is if they look back in their own childhood, would you think those would just random moments and nothing came out of it?

No, you're the living embodiment of what you decided in those moments. And by the way, when you make that kind of decision,

“that's why there's memories of so fresh, so clear,”

that as the life is about those little memories again, reactivated, those same emotions coming up and getting applied to situations, as I like to say, people love the lives and little vignettes of fighting the same battle over and over and over

and then they die. - Gary, you're on to such profound work here. As a friend, as a brother, I want to encourage you to continue to dig deeper into this and that there's other, but I'm serious.

I've done some work in this myself and started to write about it, and this is new, and this is profound, and we'll talk about those three stages

in a second, but it's why, by the way,

a child can have the same exact two parents, one child takes different meanings from the situations they were raised in, and they have two totally different lives. I'm raised by an alcoholic father, and it ends up that all four of us turned out pretty darn okay.

But usually, you'll see, one of the children is on to be a high performing, the other one ends up being an alcoholic themselves. Same exact environment, same situations, different meanings were attached.

And then that notion that you just said, brother, about that you're fighting the same battle over and over again with different circumstances, but the same battle. Listen to what he says in the book. I tell you guys, I don't ever quote books in interviews, Gary.

I don't do this, but I want you to hear what he said here. Every day of your life, I wrote this down for me, bro. Not for the interview. This is stuff for me, but I'm gonna have it in the interview.

Every day of your life, you find evidence for, and then confirm in your crevices of your mind, quote, you. You talk like you, walk like you, think like you, and react like you. Every single day, you are justifying you.

And one of the main ways you do it is by reaching back into your memories to satiate that beast. Therefore, the past isn't just the past. As evidence for be you being the character

that you've become to this day, the past wins one way or the other. Brother, are you serious? That is so good. I just want you to elaborate on that a little bit.

“Well, when I say people are being in self-indulgent, right?”

It sounds kind of narcissistic, which is another word that just can't stand. But anyway, but it sounds like it's just self-indulgent. What I mean is we indulge self. That as we get up every day,

and we respond to what it wants, right? So we respond to its upsets. And we respond to its desires. And we respond to its quote-unquote needs. So it's like, it's really invite people to get like,

who you are is more like a venue for something to show up. And what shows up every day are the same noises.

And you just go along with that, you finally see

that you're the venue in which all of this is happening. And with a little bit of like a shift, like just a little shift in the way you think, you could get a little bit more observant of that self. Actually, see what it wants to do.

And understand it in those terms. And I look at it more like it's just something. I got to be responsible for rather than something I'm fighting against, like, you know, that's gone a talk. And I'm going to talk.

And, you know, I've heard all the shit that it wants to say, you know, bored by it now, you know. - Stay on that. I may have brought, I gotta tell you,

“it's one of these conversations I'll remember a long time.”

I often say, and if you don't mean it this way, correct me and say it your way. I often say just the awareness of the pattern of me being me, it loses a lot of its power over me when I'm just in awareness.

Oh, I'm doing that thing again. I'm doing me again. I'm doing that thing I do. And what you said is then that former you, the way you just said that,

is not the voice that I can now choose the new voice. Is that what you mean by just being stepping back and getting above yourself a little bit and going,

I'm being me again.

That awareness allows you to then make a conscious choice

as to how to behave or change rather than to keep responding unconsciously.

“Right, so awareness as an a stage that you are either, right?”

Awareness is constantly unfolding phenomenon like as you're as you're going through a day, you get aware of one default response and shift in that moment. You, I mean, I really believe, it's not believe this. I really want people to get this.

In that moment, that shift that you may, you have literally changed the trajectory of your life in a moment, right? Now, because your life where I kept going along that path

“and you just were like, nope, we're not doing that, right?”

So imagine being someone who manages having to catch yourself a handful of times a day, just catching yourself about the going at that action that you know, we typically do, and you're like, you know what? Not today, I'm not doing that.

No, when I wrote my first book,

that was a nine months, 10 month process of catching myself 30 times a day, because the self that I am had no interest in writing a book and had zero interest in you reading it, because you know, I'd be openly scrutiny, judgment,

and ridicule and la la la la. So the kind of self that I had become was going to make that a long process that eventually I would give up on and you say, it's not worthwhile, and I would tell myself some nonsense,

like, I'm going to go out and I love the reaction,

“I see something else, I think we were powerful”

and right in a book, and all I did in that process was just catch, catch, catch, catch, no, not today, I'm gonna write, no, not today, I'm gonna write, and I wouldn't call it necessarily a struggle,

but it was definitely like, it was the first time

I feel as if I really exercised that muscle and producing something that went beyond my work. (upbeat music)