What's going on? Ladies and gents, Robert Sikes
keto Savage.com and today I have special repeat guests, Marcus,
Aurelius Anderson, Mindset Extravaganza is about to
be undertaken. So without further Ado, how are
you man? Paradigm phenomenal?
I love talking to you and I like you said, our conversations are
always a enlightening. So I'm looking forward to get
another one of these and continue to many more in the
future. I agree man.
I agree. That's always a pleasure
catching up with you. I feel like every time we get
off the phone I feel much more just like at peace.
Peace with where I'm at in life, but then also much more, you
know, excited and ramped up about where I'm going.
Like, it just is a mindset. I don't know.
It's like a reboot almost. Yeah.
We re download some software,
get some upgrades and then just keep pushing forward.
She chairman, do you remember the time frame of our last
podcast? We've talked several times since
then, but I do remember, when we recorded the last one, was over
a year ago, I believe. Wasn't it over a year ago.
That wouldn't surprise me. It's been a while.
It's been a minute. It's crazy because I know you've
A lot, you know, happened to your life since then I've had a
lot happened to me since then as well.
I feel like I'm coming coming at you from a very different
Foundation now than I was a year ago.
I was, I was still pretty broke a year ago.
Yeah. You you had tremendous success
and you've improved in Leaps and Bounds and many facets and I've
already told you about officially congratulations, on
your engagement, that's phenomenal, very happy for you
and Crystal again, like you said, you've really expanded You
you're truly taking the entrepreneurial journey and now
you are truly scaling. The Aikido brick is destroying
it. You're a lot of the programs
that you have or just really revolutionizing what's going on
in the space and then it's really helping get to other
people. You've run that Marathon since
we spoke the first time you really kind of dealt into a an
extended fast. Which again these are all the
ways that we really push ourselves and ask more of
ourselves and if if we don't you know try to push the Is at least
in some capacity. It's really difficult for us to
continue to evolve and you've absolutely did a phenomenal job,
you know, doing that over the last, you know, 12 months.
So, I'm really impressed with you when I certainly appreciate
a man, but I definitely don't want this podcast be about me by
any means, but I'm excited to hear what all you kept going on
because you've been, you've been just crushing it on the front as
well. Speaking of fast, you just
concluded your 5-day fast. So kind of give us some insight
actually before before we dump it, jump into the weeds here for
anybody that has Has not heard of you has not listened to the
prior podcast or doesn't know who you are.
Can you give us like a little quick bio on Marcus Aurelius
Anderson? Absolutely, I'm Marcus release
Anderson. I'm a tedx speaker.
A keynote speaker, best-selling. Author of the book that get to
diversity. My tedx talk is by the same name
that give to diversity and clearly, that's kind of what I
speak around. That's why in my wheelhouse, but
it really lends itself really well to leadership as well as
being a personal development, of course.
Just a little bit of a back drop in 2012, always preparing to
deploy with the US Army. I suffered a severe, spinal
injury, a disc in my neck was ruptured.
They send me to the hospital immediately because I was having
a hard time. Just breathing, I was paralyzed
from the neck down and when they operate on me, I lose me on the
operating table twice. So I Flatline completely.
So when I wake up in the ICU, the doctors here a
congratulatory says, hey, you know, we launched you a couple
times, but you live to tell the tale mr.
Anderson But unfortunately, even though they were able to bring
me back to the land of the living, I was told listen what
you have right now which is paralysis has but you're going
to have for the rest of your life.
So start wrapping your mind around that.
And that's when I really kind of began my.
There are many Falls and there are many injuries and many
adversities in our lives. But for me, that was the
probably the lowest point. And the must have followed were
when I really had to take a lot of deep soul-searching and
brutally honest, reality checks and kind of call myself on my
own, you know, Yes, and that's when I really started kind of
crawling back up and seeing what I was really made up because
it's so interesting. And I saw this in the military.
I've seen this in martial arts is Canadian in training as well.
We all have these Concepts and we all have these beliefs about
what we think we'll do when we Face something hard and we
assume from this precious vacuum which we live, that that's what
we're going to do. But there are many times that
I've seen people that I thought that would be incredibly
resilient. I've seen them Buckle Under
Pressure, I've since I've seen Seen some people that I thought
would never be able to get above and beyond any hardship and
they've completely leveled up and and Rose to the occasion
because of adversity. So it's very important to put
yourself within that tether often because if you don't do so
it's really, really easy to start lying to yourself in all
of a sudden. Now, when you actually run into
something really difficult, you really don't know what you're
made of. And if you find out at the last
second, it's almost like jumping, you know, falling in
the water and then realizing, oh, I don't know how to swim.
It's too late. Now you have to already have
this mentality built up within you and for my life between
martial arts and all kinds of other things I've been through.
That's what actually ended up serving me and really helping me
get through my, my difficulty. And, and now that's a, that's
why I'm the man that you're speaking to you today about not,
I love a man like I've got chills up and down my spine
because we really do Vin to them on the first podcast to.
So, if anyone has not heard that one highly, highly, highly
recommend you listen to it, but I mean, I'm on the same page.
100% agree with you like the adversity and just having having
hard shit happened to you, is what defines you and makes you
who you are and mold you into somebody that can actually be
resilient towards life. So I love it, man.
I love hearing stories of people that have just gone through hell
and back. And I love putting myself
through hell and back. Kind of like this magic, is
this, you know, way almost, because I just know that anytime
I'm doing something that's hard. Coming better for it's almost to
a fault to the point where, like I'm doing things unnecessarily
hard but I'm not gonna like it. Always pays itself board.
I agree. And, you know, my book came out
and then David Goggins book has come out a few months ago and
it's really neat to because I had some people that came at me
sideways with this whole, you know, how is it virtually a
gift? How can you think that and the
people that are saying that are coming from a place, where
they're either in hardship, or they don't want to face hardship
and that's why that truth is not.
Ring with them. But then David goggin has come
out recently which even when I was in the military we would
hear Whispers of his name. You know.
Before you know you were in Pre Ranger school and you would hear
about it and you'd hear about this guy that was running until
his feet were breaking and he was pissing blood but that was
what he needed. And the reality for him is he
had such deep seated demons that that was literally the only way
to truly exercise them from him. So like you say having that
hardship is important. But hearing him come out and
hearing him come at such a very, you know, divisive kind of end
of the spectrum. It really kind of helps people
see how important that is and just like you say, I was the
same way I push my body to a fault, I literally felt a lot of
issues and a lot of sympathy ology before my my fall as it
were, but I like you said, I my mind continually just push my
body because as a soldier as an entrepreneur we do not have the
luxury of who's saying to ourselves.
Eggs. Elavil, I don't feel like doing
this for oval. I'm tired and it's an
interesting distinction. No, because for us, sometimes we
understand this is just an emotion and I can control this.
So I'm going to push through this, I don't have to want to do
it to do it. I don't have to be in the mood
to do these Sprint's, or to pick up this.
Wait to do it, but we can get through it.
The other thing is there is kind of that cautionary aspect of
Footwear like you say, sometimes, you know, we don't
want to do irreparable damage. But you know, Gardens forty
percent rule is absolutely in play and even if we can push
ourselves to, you know, 41% of 42% or 43%, that compared to the
average human being is, is above and beyond will ever experience
in their lifetime. I had really hoped to.
I've got David Goggins book, that's like the next step in my
cue to listen to inaudible. We can't hurt me.
And I kind of wanted to listen to it before are recording
today, but the same time I almost didn't want to because I
wanted to see what would happen. Happened.
And then kind of use that as momentum to go into the book,
but I mean your book is awesome as well.
I mean, like, like I think when we met initially, I had just
finished reading the obstacles the way for the first time.
I'm Ryan holiday and, and I had talked about that book on this
podcast multiple times. I'm sure my listeners are tired
of hearing me say it but that book your book and then I'm sure
can't hurt me. But by Goggins is literally
probably going to be my three trifecta.
We're just getting in there and digging deep when you need to,
you know, that's exactly what it is and you'll get to see you
know, you get to hear the same theme but you get to hear it
from different from different points of view.
And since you mentioned holiday and Goggins, you know, I would I
feel that I'm sort of like a meeting between the both of them
because I tried to have that edge.
But I also try to have that cerebral capacity because if all
you have is the intellectual component that's going to
alienate the people that are really about doing shit and had
the blue-collar work ethic and then the people that just want
to push push through. If you don't have that edge and
if you don't have that, authentic reality, then it's not
going to ring true with them and they're gonna be like, well,
this guy is just talking about your flowery bullshit, that's
easy to say and and that's what separates, you know, that's
where the rubber meets the road and that's when you can really
see what somebody's made of as opposed to somebody who's just
trying to pontificate and wax poetic about something that they
may, or may not have actually experienced themselves.
Yeah, 100% agree. A lot of mindset books, man,
they, they are not. Relatable at all.
And I do they fill you up with a bunch of, you know, hoorah
motivation, but nothing sticks. You know, like, nothing is
applicable that you can actually use on a day-to-day basis, which
is one of the reasons I really like, you know, Ryan holidays
work. Because like, even if you're
even if it's not something that's, you know, quote, unquote
hard, like, even if it's not a insurmountable obstacle in your
life, but if you just go through the day-to-day and then your you
find yourself having you know, emotions are strong opinions
towards something. That that could cause you to do
or say something that would not be optimal.
I mean, just simple, like I catch myself amongst all the
time, I'll get flustered over something, stupid and just
minuscule, and then I'll like take a step back and recognize
that look. What just happened, is not
making me have these emotions. I have complete control over my
emotions. How I respond is totally within
my own grasp. That's exactly it.
And almost like with meditation, you know, we're all practicing
stoics in some capacity. So there's never Perfection when
Going to be completely stoic. And, and have this complete
resilience mentally, and be able to just allow things to roll off
of us. But just like you said, it's,
it's the exercise of catching yourself, and they bring new
about yourself back to that Center, you know, ends in and
taoism whatever it is, they call it.
They talk about that. And that's exactly what it's
about. There are going to be
undulations of our of our emotions, but the idea is to be
aware of them to be cognizant of them, and then not to allow them
to control us and understand that we're the ones that are in
complete control. And having that radical
accountability is what really separates.
Like I said people that are truly successful in the long run
compared to people that, you know, grind for a couple of
years and burnout or people the end up inadvertently just sort
of, you know, completely losing their their focus.
And now it's impossible for them to get anything really, where it
should be in the amount of time that they have.
So, I absolutely agree. And that's the other thing to
Goggins was so incredible. Because not only was he able to
take that discipline because I've seen people that have apply
discipline first. Him for example, in college, but
they didn't have the physicality and then I've seen people that
are just animals as athletes that had this, you know, this
natural inclination to be very physical.
But yet, then when you put them in a position to say, okay,
well, we have to memorize this manual.
Get to study the ranger handbook to understand, how to Ambush
correctly, that was their shortcoming.
But for Goggins, he just took that ideal of discipline and
says, listen I'm going to do this.
When I do things physically, I'm going to do this when it comes
to the discipline of diet and then when it comes to learning
something, I'm he you'll read about it and I'm sure you've
heard about it, but he talks about if he needs to to
understand Emanuel. He had to get that manual.
He has to write out amongst all the material about 10 times to
really. Truly get it into his hard drive
and he said, that's the only thing that he could do.
So even in the intellectual capacity, he was still using
that resilience and that just work and just grinding it onto
his, you know, to his brain. So that he could actually recall
it as needed under those times of stress.
And I've always wanted to be able to do those kind of things,
but in my mind for a while, I thought that there was a
separation but he is an incredible example, that really,
really reinforces the idea that discipline as the overarching
premise, in addition to, you know, mindset and some other
things, those are things that will they are evergreen.
They will always be correct, and they will never, they will never
falter in the process. And that's why it's so important
to exercise discipline, and so many different degrees.
He's so whether it be fasting, whether it be a cold shower,
whether it be working out when you don't feel like it.
Whether it being getting up when you don't feel like it.
We're again, like you said, having the ability to step back
and look at either a conversation or somebody's view
on something, it is, you know, contrary to our own.
That's what allows us to really level up and continue to evolve
as opposed to moving backwards. Because, if we're really honest
with ourselves, we are either moving forward in some of these
capacities or we're moving backwards.
There is very little Raw emotion.
And so we have to be very objective and keep ourselves
with that kind of self auditing mindset to keep us going
forward. I can play the angry, man.
I think, I think a lot of people and I'm a big believer in the
fact that people should, you know, be very self-aware.
I think people like a lot of self-awareness these days
especially with like the dilution that, you know, social
media, everything plays, but being truly self-aware and
knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are and leveraging
your strengths and you So focusing on that rather than
putting all the emphasis on your weaknesses is very key.
I'm all for that. But at the same time, there are
so many areas in life where, you know, you have to be able to
bring up those weaknesses and then being able to apply
discipline towards those is going to be, you know, a
Paramount importance, the middle.
There's a lot of things that I do really well at and naturally
gravitate towards. But those things in and of
themselves would never be enough to give me the whole picture to
succeed. To the to the level that I would
want to. So, I mean, like classic example
be like, you know, making a website or learning how to edit
a YouTube video. That that is not something that
comes naturally to me. So I have to go in there and you
know, upon the discipline figure out how to do that.
Watch a bunch tutorial videos and just learn.
And so many people, you know, strive for a greater life or
something more in line with their passions.
Like they, they made to that desire to become a professional
athlete or something, but they don't know how to manage
themselves in the market. So from a business perspective
they met have that natural Talent with the sport or
whatever they given you know trade is our skill said but you
have to apply the discipline to the other areas in order to
bring that overall goal. Closer you absolutely have to.
And like you say, if your self-awareness isn't there, then
it's impossible for you to even be cognizant of the fact that
you're weak in one area. So I was talking to somebody,
not too long ago who are very good at just like you said,
they're very good at their profession, but then when I
pointed out, a couple of places where they were changing their
armor, They can improve, they wanted to just sort of, you
know, disallow that they wanted to dismiss it but that in and of
itself is shows that that's where they need to work.
And again just like with the website or whatever it is if you
can write a check and let somebody else take care of it,
that's fine. But there is a tremendous amount
of edification that you get from trying to do it yourself and the
importance of that is just like with, again, like the prince
reading about Machiavelli. Are this kind of ideals?
We need to read those types of things, not necessarily because
we had that It that mentality that idea of trying to you know,
screw somebody over as it were or be just ruthless in business
but we need to be aware of that so that we don't get victimized
by it as well. It's the same thing when you're
if you have that knowledge that you were talking about the
website. Now if you go to somebody else's
website or if you go to somebody who sent you to there's you have
the wherewithal and you have this knowledge to be able to say
yeah well I can tell that this was you know kind of thrown
together haphazardly on you know WordPress and that kind of tells
you a little A bit of where their priorities are, but if you
see someone and you look at you like man, this thing is smooth
is very user-friendly. Like, the way transitions, you
see, at least that person was smart enough to have somebody
else that can do the work, that maybe they aren't as inclined.
I completely agree, man, what do you think?
Like I know this has been a keen interest in my leg because you
know I feel like I'm very self-aware.
I feel like I've got a pretty good grasp on where my
weaknesses are and you know can then act on improving upon them
but And maybe I'm just totally oblivious and I'm not self-aware
at all. It's impossible.
But how did, how does one go about recognizing and being
self-aware? Like, we all know that
self-awareness is important but there's so many people.
I feel like that are just delusional and there seems to I
mean, I don't know how I would even explain to somebody, okay?
This is how you become self-aware.
Like what, what is the the roadmap to self-awareness so to
speak? Because there's a lot of people
that would benefit from knowing how they are actually.
Viewed in society and what their actual weaknesses are as opposed
to where they, you know, have these these, you know,
self-imposed thoughts that may not be anchoring.
Yes and that's a great place to start and we can start from
macro or micro but usually it's easier to start from like a very
small thing and then move out Ed my let, he's an incredible
entrepreneur, the Mi light show, max out, the book, best-selling
author, incredible, incredible entrepreneur.
And he made a comment. He was talking about.
There were a lot of people that will go through these kind of
things and they'll try to do so many things.
All at one time, but and he was saying how a lot of the thoughts
that we have in our mind around 85 to 90% of them, the thoughts,
and the actions that we do are almost on autopilot.
So for a lot of us, we had this default settings, we get up in
the morning, we could coffee, you know, we check email, social
media, whatever it is, we cannot do that without thinking about
it. So if you want to talk about
your self-awareness and see where you're at, look at the
things that you do every day on autopilot and see where you
stand with that step back and take a good hard look and say,
Say, you know, am I even enjoy my coffee?
Can I even taste it? Really because if you're
drinking your coffee, while you're on the phone and doing
something on the computer, you really not even tasting that
that coffee. If you're working out and you're
thinking about something else, you may not be focusing on that
mind-muscle connection nearly as much as you probably could have.
And the overlying concept for all these things is to have the
the idea of quality over quantity in all that we do.
So have quality in this conversation have quality and
your your attention level. Quality in the food that you
consume have quality in the movements that you do.
When you work out, you're going to get a hell of a lot more out
of doing one all outset to failure.
If you have complete mind-muscle connection compared to doing,
you know, five-pump sets where you're really not getting a
whole lot out of it. So that would be the place that
I was started as just start examining the things that you do
every day that you kind of do without thinking about and then
find the presence in that and by doing that that will help you
see presence that everything else that you do and then you
can expand and everything else if it's a conversation.
Ation, you have every morning. If you see your significant
others say, Hey, you can morning or how are you?
It's a fine. Stop for a second.
And look, look at her body language.
Are they fine? Are they just saying it and then
kind of a lot to dictate the rest of your behavior from that.
So just taking a small examination at those ideals
would give you a pretty good indication where your level of
self-awareness is or probably areas where you can improve as
well. So it seems like it has like a
pretty pretty close parallel to just being present so
self-awareness and being in the moment, kind of Then hand.
What about as it relates to your place in like a community or
like Society? So to speak like that, this is
a, this is a tricky topic because, you know, part of me is
on the side of look, I don't care what anybody else thinks.
I'm just going to do me. Put my head down and work.
And the other part of me is like I care what everybody thinks
because you know we're all a networking, you know, unit
machine and the more efficient all those moving parts and
pieces. Has you know flowing work
together the better. So it's kind of like you know
two sides of the same coin. Yeah it can be a slippery slope
and a lot of times you have to do kind of a combination of both
just like what you were discussing because his two sides
of the same coin. I have to be able to work
ruthlessly and focus on my own things.
But what I have to do is I also had to make sure that I have
some sort of ethos or some sort of, you know, compost at this
pushes me in the right direction.
So if my idea is to become successful financially I have I
understand that with that, I'm able to use that money to
leverage it towards something else.
So for example, every nonprofit that's ever asked me to come
speak. Their goal is to be able to
bring me in, to be able to raise money for their service.
Having said that, if I have the, the wherewithal financially to
be able to write it, write them a check and give that to them.
Now, I'm able to do more good with that in the process.
So understanding where I stand in the environment like you were
saying. But also seeing, you know, being
able to look up. Enough and say okay, where can I
do the most good work and I contribute, where can I help?
And then, where is an area that again?
We talk about networks. There are so many things that we
could get done, if we can reach out to our Network and ask, you
know, maybe second or third Hanley if they understand, you
know, something that we could do to try to improve whatever this
is, it's it's incredible. Where we can do the same thing
with everything from like during the holidays, or with homeless
veterans. There's a lot that can be done.
So we have to be able to take care of ourselves.
You know, kind of kind of the You're putting the oxygen mask
on ourselves before we're trying to help other people out.
It's a, it's difficult to pour from an empty vessel, so we have
to maintain our own, you know, structural Integrity, as it
were, to allow us to capacity to be able to help others in the
long run. So that's it.
And again, it is a slippery slope because for most of us, I
think you're the same way. I am, we're very much about
extremes. Moderation does not behoove us.
And so lots of times you have to once a month.
What I do is I had these five different circles and I look at
these different areas. So like a I look at my own
personal development, like, at my financial development with my
business. I look at my physical
capacities, I look at my relationships, and I look at my
spiritual awareness, and at any given time and these five
circles, I can look back. I'm a month and maybe I crushed
it business, but maybe my workout slip, or maybe my
business, my workouts were awesome that maybe my personal
development wasn't there. Or, you know, maybe I was able
to spend a lot of time in those three areas but then I didn't
get to spend time with my family or my relationship slipped.
If you can do this this will kind of help you.
Back and have a very objective idea of where you stand and you
remove the emotion from it. Because you're just looking at
this, like then diagram this on paper and by doing so that
allows you to have a very truly stoic rationalize.
Look at what's going on as opposed to trying to justify our
Behavior, either in a positive or negative capacity.
Whether this is this is really project managers.
So what are your five circles again?
Because I'm getting something very similar of like these five
pillars that I try and you know, Focus my efforts on.
So what are your five? The first one is just in the
Different ways to go about it but we can talk about business
and finances and I put those in one Circle and all these
circles, you can break them up into different things.
You could actually say businesses one and then
financials another, because if you don't own your own business
you may be thinking. Okay about investing.
So that's one Circle, personal development is another Circle.
So that's about what I'm doing to make myself, you know, better
in a person development capacity, the physical capacity.
So and and within that, that diagram, I always think about my
workouts. I think about my diet.
I think about fasting. And then my relationships is why
I look at as well. Looking at my relationship with
my significant other or people in my family or people within my
network. And that I also look at just
what I'm doing for myself, what I'm doing to educate myself.
So if I'm trying to learn more in the specific arena for a
skill set or if I'm trying to get better at something, that I
know that I'm slipping on those kind of things, helped me a lot.
And what that does is like, I said, lots of times, I'll pour
My energy into a couple of those hookers or three of those
circles and then realize that I have to continue to come back to
these other ones. So again it's not always going
to be balanced, but it's should be at least about having some
sort of consistent, lack of balance to be able to, you know,
create some sort of balance overall, when it's all said and
done. I'm really just like a perfect
segue minimum at the just jump on it while it's there.
But I want to, I want to pick your brain on the subject of
balance, because I am kind of, I don't know.
Like I've got the Five Pillars similar to yours.
I'm probably can't think of them on the spot.
But I think like, career /, business finances, one, you
know, family friends. Relationships is one
spirituality, whatever that may be for the individual as one and
then like health and nutrition is one.
And then she was my, my fifth one self development, I think
was my fifth one. So basically, pretty similar to
yours and I'd try and do something towards all of those
five. I've and, and you know, each
chapter of your life is very different or often times, it is
very different. So like when I was broke and
didn't live close to family and I was, you know, trying to build
a business and just basically lock myself away and grind, you
know, every other aspect suffered except maybe my
training that was pretty good. But like my family, my
relationships, all that was just down the tubes.
And I don't necessarily think that I could have gone as far in
business, at that time. If I had tried to have a sense
of balanced amongst all five pillars, Because you know,
you're going to find points on your life, where you have to
pull from the interest earned. So to speak in the other other
pillars, other circles in order to bring you, no lagging ones
up, at least, that's what I think.
I feel like they can't all be balanced at all times.
So, I've kind of adopted this, this mentality of, you know,
focus on those those five core elements of your life or
whatever those may be for you, but then balance itself is kind
of bullshit. Like, I don't think, I think His
bullshit. You know, like so many people
seek balance in life and I feel like you're going to get a lot
farther, a lot more efficiently if you kind of have an extremist
mentality and you just go all in and then work on that, as
opposed to trying to equally bring all levels and all aspects
of your life up simultaneously, if that makes sense.
You've read my book. So you hear about my idea of
what a true priority is compared to what everybody else does.
And these five colors are important.
These five circles are very But again, even within those five,
we can really only focus our most energy on maybe two or
three of them. So, just like you're saying and
just like, you were saying before with business, it's very,
you know, are our priorities what we shift and undulate, as
are our careers and our lives develop.
So what you do at 25 compared to what you do at 35, or probably
going to be different, they're all going to be important.
But hopefully you from a business standpoint, you want
constantly have to be grinding 16 hours a day The way you did
when you were younger. And that's where we have to find
that medium. And just like, with in my book,
I talk about this when it comes to any of these things when it
comes to being successful, people say it's a marathon and
then people say that it is a Sprint but the reality is it is
a marathon and the Sprint is a marathon of Sprints.
So you're going to have to sprint in a couple of these
Arenas quickly. Very hard for those two or three
things. So again with business, maybe
relationships and maybe some of your workouts me Be compromised
slightly, but that's what's necessary.
And then again life happens. So if you're working really hard
on your business and your, your physical physicality is in great
shape and then there's a death in your family.
Well, you know what? That kind of stops a record for
a second. You have to really address this.
You don't really have the option with the opportunity to decide
that you don't want to deal with that, that have to be taken care
of. That's a fire that has to be
taken out right now. And then hopefully, once that's
taken care of, of course, you're going to be a lot of
repercussions from that, but the idea is to try to refocus and
then we double your efforts. Back into those things so that
marathon and that's pretty mentality.
Have to go hand-in-hand. And we can't always do one or
the other as well as who is like to.
But again, by being able to go through and re-evaluated or, you
know, having goals that are consistent, that are measurable,
that's the key. And without those things, it's
really easy for us to get kind of caught up in the semantics or
chase our tails, and that's where so many people get lost.
It was so important to have, I talk about goal setting, the
idea with the goal is a goal is only as attainable as it is
specific. So how many people, I mean,
we're in February. Now, how many people do we In
January, the city want to be in better shape.
They want to make more money and they want to feel better about
themselves. All those things are great but
they're vague at best. If you tell me that you want to
lose 10 pounds of if you want to lose 10 pounds of fat, if you
want to gain muscle, if you want to be and you know, lift, you
know, 315 and you wanted to make an extra 20 grand a month.
Now, those are very specific ideas and those are measurable
and once they're measurable and we have a deadline.
Now we can reverse engineer and hold ourselves accountable but
with that kind of mentality your again sort of wishing at best
and being a wish, which prettier wish whisper preneur.
So to speak is not going to help you get any further in business.
No, I totally agree, man. I've always kind of I like New
Year's because I feel like it he gives, you know it at least in
my mind, I kind of like wipes, the Slate clean and I can you
know, re-attack all the white boards and and notebooks that
I've gotten the office with just like this new Zeal.
But I've always kind of strayed away from the idea of having a,
you know, quote, unquote resolution.
So to speak. I try and think Of goals, and
Visions more in the terms of like themes, like each year as a
theme and everything. I do in that year has been
moving me closer and in line with that theme in some form or
fashion, but that's much more sustainable.
And actionable than just like a, an arbitrary resolution that
anybody anybody can wish for and people don't even realize what
the word resolution means. They, that means there's
something that's on Rizal. So if you're doing a New Year's
resolution that means that you have an entire year of stuff
that is, Been unresolved. And if it's taken you 12 months
to resolve something, then that's something you should have
already figured out. So, like you said having this
theme or having, you know, a couple of, you know, a quarter
quarterly ideals or whatever it may be, that's in my mind, a
lot, that helps you push a lot further a lot faster and the
classic, you know, entrepreneurial question of, how
can I achieve my 5 year goals, in six months, that really makes
you compress time? That really opens up your
thinking and that really gives you a chance to get shit done as
opposed to saying. Well, you know, this year, I
didn't make what I wanted. Like the next year will be
different. It's like well if you don't
change what you did last year, chances are this coming year,
won't be any different either. So there's that brutal reality
as well as having that courageous optimism
simultaneously to push you forward.
Please Angry completely. I'm gonna I've got a question
for you here and I don't know the best way to even word this
and I'm going to use like bodybuilding for me as my as my
vehicle to illustrate this but I'm curious to see what you'll
say. So with with bodybuilding as
with most things in life, you know, it's the Out of, you know,
constant consistent disciplined effort over years and years and
years. However, in moments of like
contest prep or just really Extreme Action.
When I'm on the total opposite in the Spectrum and I'm just
going all-in and I kind of like just get into this dark place.
I love that. I love that.
I love it. It makes me feel like I'm alive,
but at the same time, it's very damaging and that really
sustainable and Gets in my head in a very negative way.
Like it's so incredibly positive, but it's also got like
the same strength towards negativity.
And I love it. Empowers me, but I feel like it.
It's damaging for the long term and I'm sure a lot of people can
relate with this, with whatever. They're given thing is, you
know, whatever that may be. But this year I'm considering
taking a different approach towards like my next competition
prep, I'll be prepping for a show early.
Next year. So I'll start prepping the
latter part of this year. But for the first time, I've
started tracking my workouts, I've started, you know taking a
much more numerical measured approach as opposed to just
being instinctive and getting in my head and like for instance
rather than doing a set until absolute failure and then doing
another 10 reps that sacrifice form and just like pushes me to
that you know, Insanity level, I'm only doing you know, one or
two reps beyond what I did last week.
And I'm curious to see if having a much more modest much more
measured approach is going to be advantageous from a long game
perspective or it's hard for me man because I want I feel weak.
I feel like pathetic if I don't push myself to that Instagram,
but at the end of the day, I have to look and see what is
going to provide the best most favorable outcome.
And I'm curious to see if it's the Intense, more sustainable
method or the balls to the wall, I think it's going to have to be
a sort of a marriage of both of those and it's important like
what you're talking about now to be able to do that.
Because we see so many people that are very dogmatic in their
mentality when when Arthur Jones and like men sir and even during
a case to a certain extent we're preaching sort of the antithesis
of what everybody else was talking about where they're
talking about a couple of sets to True muscular failure.
And then allowing the body recover, that was that flew in
the face of the Idea of you know, two hours workouts with
set after set up for Seth trying to chase the pump or whatever.
So the beautiful thing about the way you think is you're thinking
of it just like you're talking about, this is Antiquated, I'm
looking I'm collecting data. This is an experimentation, you
know what, work before we're going to go with this and we're
going to see where we stand at the end of the prep and by
keeping your emotion out of it and being Logistics logistical
about it. That's where it's, you're going
to get a lot of material. Even if you don't do as well as
you want, To now you would like, you know what?
Now I know now there's no question in your mind because if
you just Without any kind of, you know, any kind of thought
behind it. If you just like, would grind
year after year, after year. And now your turn up, your
shoulders, your knees or your back.
And now it's unsustainable. When if you think back on your
career and think, man, you know, I wish I would have taken one
prep and just sit back and looked at it logically and
taking the emotion out of it and just looked at it and said, you
know what? Because I see what you're doing.
I see it on your story on Instagram and stuff your PR in
continually. It seems like every exercise
that I see on there. Just like this is a on front
squat, a funeral. Last one up here on this.
So by coming out of from that Antiquated standpoint, I think
that's going to help you a lot. And then I also think that will
happen as we both know, as the prep gets more intense, you're
going to have to be able to channel That Emotion, you're
going to have to be able to channel that that savagery to
push you through. Don't want to go any further.
So to be able to maintain the pace that you're doing.
Now, you're going to have to be able to couple those together
and coming from that standpoint is going to help you a lot.
And again there's so many people that I've seen that are very We
see it in the gym all the time, this person that's doing the
same work out the same way for the last three years and they
look exactly the same. They haven't changed their body,
the saying, they're doing, whatever it is.
And lots of them are, you know, talking more than they are
working on, and that's fine, that's up to them.
But their goals are clearly different than what yours are.
So, it's important to have that self awareness.
And a good look at yourself objectively, because you may
find in six months, he may surprise yourself entirely.
So the darkness is very important because it's in us for
a reason every emotion We have within our bodies from love to
hate, is there has been placed in us for a reason for, but and
it was put there by God or the universe or whatever you believe
in for a reason. So to completely divorce
ourselves from these things, is that our own Peril because
again, that darkness is what helped me survive.
That darkness is what helped me get through.
What I went through, having said that, I see so many people to go
through adversity and they do one of two things, if you absorb
of adversity and you learn the lesson from it, you will We'll
have exponentially increased amounts of empathy for other
people. You will be able to see a person
who's fallen down and says, hey look at that.
We guess you know you're actually looking at this a man.
I remember what it's like to fall down.
I went to help them up or at least have empathy towards them.
There are other people that I've seen and I think we've all seen
that have gone through tremendous hardships or at least
their interpretation of what a tremendous hardship is to them,
because adversity is an individual thing.
It's not a competition, it is objective to each of us.
I mean, it's subject to, I'm sorry.
If we go through adversity and we don't learn the lesson then
that is the set point and we will never develop beyond that.
So these are the people that are emotionally angry all the time.
These are the people that have chronic pain.
These are the people that are pessimistic about all things and
they're the people that are telling you, man.
I must be easy. You know, it's nice to, you
know, wow, look at you must be nice to be able to own your own
business and be successful. Well, they don't see what you
went through, but all they do is they're just looking at where
their hardship is and because they allowed that poison to
really just stay in them. We're going to go beyond that
and so whether they be 20 years old or 70 years old, they're
going to live that existence for the rest of their days until
they understand the being and that that darkness is not going
to serve them long-term. And Tom, will you talks about
it? He calls it the 80/20 ideal of
20% Darkness 80% positivity, because he calls that Darkness
very corrosive and I think that's a pretty good word for it
because it in the end it kind of destroys us from the inside out
if we're not able to temporarily something important.
Positive. He's had a lot of really good.
Really good gyms in there, man. Like I this this is good for me.
I like I like the idea of not dealing in absolutes, so even if
I approach this competition with with zero emotion and think of a
very, you know, scientific approach to it, you know, and I
find that this this method was not as good then I can always go
back to what I know works. So this is not an absolute.
Like I don't have to live in that by this technique which can
be applied to anybody in any form or fashion with anything.
So that's key and then channeling emotions, it doesn't
make sense like the whole stoica mentality is, is largely based
on not that is, so not having emotion, but being in complete
control of your emotion. And I like the idea of
harnessing that darkness and trying rather than trying to
remove it completely. Because I mean, honestly, some
of the biggest breakthrough moments in my entire life have
come from just leveraging that Darkness to the hilt.
So I think it would be remiss for anybody to want it to wish
it away. So I think, you know,
recognizing that it's there and embracing it almost is
absolutely key. That's good, man.
Philosophy or any ideal or any concept.
It's only as functional to us as it is when it comes to serving
us, And in a very objective manner.
So if I just looked at stoicism and I was very dogmatic about
it, then I become limited by it. I it becomes a crutch.
It becomes something that I hide behind to justify or corroborate
my own excuses in some manners. I'm very much of the opinion
that philosophy is simply truth and it's the reason why it was
named what it was. It's just simply because of the
time period and the location of where they were.
So the daoist you nose in Stoicism different.
Religions, obviously, of talked about these trees because
they're Universal. But I also like the idea of
Bruce Lee, who was like just like, you know, you absorb what
is useful? You just car, but he's useless
and then you add What specifically your own.
And the thing that people don't remember about that is that in
and of itself doesn't mean that has to be set in stone.
So what may be serving and useful to you this year in this
prep, may not serve you next year, but without that data and
without that worthless objectivity to look at it and
take the emotion Ocean out of it, it would be impossible for
you to know that and you would simply be just pushing yourself
based on emotion or logic and as a human animal we have both of
those within us for a reason. And so, like I said, if if I'm
on the street and somebody attacks me or somebody else and
they have a weapon, my logic probably will not be at the
Forefront because once that adrenaline has me and I just
react, that's what's going to be the most important thing.
That's where my fight-or-flight instinct comes in.
And that's why the skill set has to be in place.
Not only from a martial art standpoint but the idea to be
able to have this mentality in this truth about us but to also
be able to shove it in the back and the Wayside so that we can
get done what has to get done right now.
And that's what the beauty of the dance of life is.
There's always, this transition between one thing, and another,
and there's always this new thing that we're trying to move
towards and lots of times. Lots of times, this by her own
choosing, lots of it is kind of forced upon us and that's when
we actually learn. If what we believe is correct.
And if what we're made of is true, I completely agree.
Are you familiar with the country Marcus?
So he was at this, this conference this past week and he
said, one thing that really stuck, he said, I forget things
like morning but you know how like something bad happens and
we go through it and after it's all said and done, we almost
always say, I'm really glad And that happened.
It happened for a reason. I learned so much from it.
Like that's almost that's I mean I don't know of any example
where people don't say that. Like, there's always some way to
justify that and have learned from it.
He made a really good point on making an active, you know,
approaching anything - like that in the moment with that
forward-thinking mentality of the afterthought, if that makes
sense. So, you know, rather than
waiting for it to be over and saying I'm really glad that
happened saying that as you're going through it and being
conscious of it, and I feel like like that that's just basically
no waited to, you know, define stoicism but looking at that
way, I think is going to resonate with a lot of people
because you know we all can learn from these bad things in
life but it takes genuine effort to recognize when it's happening
and actually be in support of the most Really crucial and its
key. The the reality is when I got
injured, when I woke up in a bed at 40 years old, you know, broke
divorced that rent unable to move all this knowledge.
I already had I've been doing martial art since I was 11.
I've been studying philosophy in one way shape or form, you know,
since I was 13 or 14. But the thing was in that moment
when the shit hit the fan and it was happening to me and not
somebody else. I don't want to hear all that
stuff. That was like a bunch of Flowery
bullshit. Like it didn't serve me.
It was a bunch of Pap because this didn't help me right now.
And I and if you would have come up to me and said, well, Marcus
you should be grateful. I would have spit in your face
because I want to be able to punch you but that was the most,
you know, have a Serial thing. I probably could have done.
Would have been doing a lot of cuss words out yet?
But I knew deep down that there was that I should be grateful
for something but I couldn't find any gratitude where I was
at. So again that's why it's so
important to have this mentality, a fixed before you
get into the hardship. Because if you wait until that
time, if you're in the heat of battle is too late to learn to
fight. If you wait until you need it,
it's already too late. So that's why it's so important
to again, just like with that mentality had that enlightened
attitude before it happens to you.
And then again, just like before I knew, all these truths when I
was injured, it didn't really seem to make any sense because I
didn't look at it because it was very, it was a brutal reality to
have to face honestly. But once I was able to look at
it and take and take my desire out of it, it took my emotion
out of it and just kind of go the direction that I was being
pushed. That's what really helped me.
It's almost like I had clients that want to be successful
financially but they have like two or three problems in front
of them. Like they're not very good.
Good when it comes to like CEOs or Executives.
They want to make a lot of money for this quarter and they want
to make these bonuses. But yet their people skills are
horrible and when they try to coach their team as their
communication sucks, like they just go to the people and say,
okay you want me to do? X Y and Z and they walk out and
then when I watch them, they said we'll see.
I coach my people every Monday like that.
I don't see why they're not hitting the numbers.
Well, you, you have to lead. By example, you have to give
them an idea that you at least give a shit about them as a
person as opposed to just having this.
All Taskmaster mentality and if all you do is push the gas down,
if all you have is the accelerator down there is
nowhere for you to go if that's not working.
You had to be able to shift your death.
Be able to transition? Yes, take your foot, off the gas
through the pump, the brakes once in a while to be able to
give that separation. And so, that's why it's so
important to be able to have separate gears and to have the
capacity to put the foot down, not only on the gas, but also on
the brake is necessary. And that's where it's really
difficult. Because for most of us again,
like we're talking about extremes, there's your Extremes.
You have one foot on the gas and the one from the break.
You're not going to go anywhere, but you make a lot of noise.
So the idea is to know when to do each of them and that it be
able to adapt as the situation evolves.
Yeah. And see like to me this, this
this is just like keep importance.
Like people need to think proactively towards this because
those hardships, those moments of adversity.
Those obstacles will happen. It's not like this.
Something that's like this, maybe looming, it's like this
will happen. If it doesn't happen, then
you're probably not living life. If boldly enough, I agree, I
adversity is an inevitability and like you said, the reality
is, if if if you're not pushing as hard as you possibly can,
then you're not going to go as far as you can with the time
that you have. And if you're achieving all of
your goals easily, then you're simply not asking enough
yourself. Bruce Lee says that a goal is
always meant to be achieved. It's simply something to shoot
towards and even antivirus Ella was saying, listen, you know, if
you're trying to make 10 million dollars, you'd better be
shooting to make a hundred billion dollars because into
entrepreneurial Endeavor. They're going to be times when
you fall down, or they're going to be things outside of our
control, that just happen. And sometimes it's to our
advantage to sometimes is to our disadvantage.
But that's why having this this operating system, this this
philosophy Is what's going to help us?
Because that's what builds the resilience in and again like you
say like what Aubrey Marcus is talking about or Marcus Aurelius
was talking about, we control what we can control and then we
try to absorb the knowledge from that situation as best we can.
And if we look at it objectively, it will probably
bring them for something that we already know or something that
we forgot about. So for me, line there unable to
move, I had a lot of regret because I realize that I've been
given a lot of opportunities in the four years of my life at
that point. And that I had just wasted a lot
of that time. I had screwed around a lot and I
felt like God or the universe was taking it away from me.
Like okay, we give you 40 years, we gave you all this capacity,
all this intelligence, all this physical ability and you
squandered it. So we're going to take it back
and we're going to give to somebody else's going to use it.
And that was my big, big kind of kick in the ass moment where it
made me realize that if I ever can get out of this bed and walk
again, I will never ever compromise and I will ever never
ever wait to On the things that really mean the most to me in my
life and that made my club. My priority is very clear that
made my goals very clear. And now I just try to operate
within those confines. Every moment that I'm breathing
and then they gave me chills man.
Like, I feel like the idea of self-entitlement just literally
that's probably drives me more crazy.
Any other you know than anything else in life?
Like I feel like like so many people think that they deserve
something that deserve to just live life on their terms.
Terms, you know, living their passion day-to-day, they deserve
to have all the stuff handed to them but you deserve nothing in
life. Like the fact that you're even
on this planet is a gift and if you squander that or live it any
waking moment of it with the thought that you know, this is
your god-given right to just be here and do as you please, then,
then you're you're sadly mistaken because I feel like,
you know, you have to Look at this opportunity and this gift
for what it is and then every single waking moment of your
life, be dedicated to just pouring yourself into it.
So you're constantly adding more value than you take because you
deserve nothing. I absolutely agree.
Just the fact that you're breathing is means that you're,
you know, beyond even that means you've got a lot more than a lot
of other people are doing, you know, as we speak, there are
people fighting for Life as we speak.
There are people that are having a hard time finding clean water
and it's funny because Cuz just like you were mentioning the
reality is they say, You Don't Know What You Got Till It's
Gone, but that's not the case. We know what we have, but we
assume that we will always have and that's what separates like
the person. Who's this, this person who's
constantly taking taking taking, and this person is constantly
giving giving giving. And, you know, as well as I do
when it comes to business, when it comes to entrepreneurship,
when it comes to life, the more you give the more that it comes
back and benefit you in be huge. You it's just that.
A lot of times just like I was like I said before, we assume
that we will always have it. It's the same thing with this
people expect like immediate reciprocity, they think.
Well, if I if I'm not sure this person that I should see an
extra $500 in my bank account this afternoon, that's not how
it works. You're planning to each, you're
putting out this ideal. But again, what that does is
that creates momentum not only in your life but it packs the
people around you and that creates momentum around them.
So even the ideal of they say that you're the average of the
five people that You surround yourself with the most that's
that's true but they don't see. The real thing, what you're
really doing is you're the average of the five emotions
that you're feeling continually. So if you're around five people
that are positive that are uplifting that wants you to win
that are taking you in the ass to be better and celebrate your
victories. Absolutely, that's what you're
going to propagate in your life but if you're around five people
that are like pessimistic hate on, you are resentful.
Are you know, - about everything else in their lives.
They're not taking care of themselves, obviously, that will
bleed over into everything that you do.
And again, like I said, in our lives, were create a momentum
one way or the other. So either, we're creating
momentum into something positive or we're creating momentum into
something negative and it is up to us to make that choice.
Every single moment with every option, with every thought, with
every breath of the take and if we can continue to do that, we
will feed forward. That positivity meaning, not
just this esoteric, positive idea, but this positivity and
improving ourselves, you know, physically emotionally
financially, Really and it's because the other direction as
well. So that's what I love about
taking like stoicism and a lot of these other philosophical
ideals, they're very pragmatic if you can put them in that
right place, but if you just sit around and drink coffee and talk
about it, and you don't actually do anything to push yourself.
Then it's really difficult to even comprehend what this deal,
which were talking about, where the dollars were talking about
or Bruce Lee was even talking about because we haven't
actually achieved it. So that's why it's so important.
Again goggin says, you know do some of the stocks every day.
Day. So when you on that last set or
that lasts forever, you're taking that cold cold shower or
your, you know, reducing your calories for a fast that's key.
Because without that kind of push you will never ever that
adversity is the Catalyst that forces us to get stronger much
in. The same way that last rep for
that last set is what makes us our body.
It makes our muscle adapt because until we do that, we're
kind of going through the motions.
And that's why it's so important to understand it from the
beginning completely agreement, I feel like you and I have a
very Alec on this stuff. So you and I can talk about
these these Concepts and it's like a it's like a shared
appreciated, respected understood language between us
and anybody else that's listening.
It's also gone through some of these these situations and been
in this kind of environment, but for anybody that that may not
be, or may not have gone through such a such a ordeal.
What are some like, like, like his mindset is a pretty abstract
thing, like when it's there, it's Parent.
It's in everything that we do but it's hard to really you know
Point your finger at and quantify.
But what are some like tangible action related items that you
would that you do on a day-to-day basis that somebody
listen to this could also Implement.
I mean, one just kind of thinking about what we just were
talking about with the people you surround yourself.
Like I think auditing your friend list on like a quarterly
basis or like a biannually basis makes total sense like actually
write names of people. You spend time with an audit
them, like you would anything else in a business deal and
figure out if they're truly adding value to your life?
If there's truly a benefit that's coming from then if
they're making you a better person.
And if not, then, act accordingly, but like that, lot
of people would hear me say that and think that that's - of me.
But if you don't actually do things to improve your certain,
your, you know, environment your situation, then, nothing will
ever change. The thing is, like you said,
mine said can be abstract but What I'll do is I'll give you
just a couple of simple things you can do, one of them is micro
adversities every day, so something small that makes you
uncomfortable every single day. I talked, I mentioned cold
showers, but if you did the kind of person who doesn't want to
get into a cold shower and try to blame half breathe and, you
know, have that shock to your system, you know, right now it's
cold outside. So maybe if you realize that
you're going to be walking from your car to your office, maybe
don't wear your jacket and just kind of walk slowly and really
ask yourself man you know is this It's really that bad.
Is this the fear that I so, you know, was afraid of and just
kind of breathe into it. And what that does is that's a
very, very small thing but that's a small drop in the
bucket. It's a small deposit into your
account of resilience, so to speak, right?
So this is a small compounding thing and now when you walk away
from work, now you go back again here, like, and it wasn't nice,
cause I thought it was or a little bit stronger than I
thought I was. Again, the idea of maybe doing a
little bit more cardio, even if you prolong your like delay,
your pleasure a little bit. If you're used to eating lunch
at noon and you can wait until 12:30, it's like, wow, you just
showed your mom your body by using your mind, your mind set
that. I don't have to eat at noon and
then again as you and I have found out fasting we realize
that our body was designed to be able to not eat for literally
days, maybe even weeks at a time because if you and I are like
prehistoric, man, 200? A thousand years ago, we may not
be able to kill another bison. We may kill that bison, eat it
and now we may not eat for a few weeks but that's okay.
Because our body is designed to do that.
It's understanding and respecting what our body does.
But also being understanding of the idea, the notion that we can
harness that as we need to, and if we put that into play every
day, whether it be having a conversation with somebody that
maybe don't agree with and you listen to their standpoint ask
yourself is what they're saying really hurting me.
Is it really that big of a deal that they Eve X instead of Y and
then does it hurt. I mean, I can have a
conversation with them and not even agree with them but it
doesn't hurt me. It's okay for me to listen to
them or you can listen to whatever slant of political news
that you want to and and hear other sides of the story and say
ask yourself. Why do I disagree with that?
What what why does that does that threaten me in some
capacity I can listen to this person's belief system and not
have to believe what they believe.
And if we're able to do that and develop that kind of mental
callous or as a Scoggins As he's like, you know, your couch, your
hands assembly could callous your mind.
If you can do that allows you, the opportunity to grow stronger
in that resilience and then put that practicality in it.
And what you had that idea of being able to absorb, some sort
of hardship would be walking in the cold or not eating that
bleeds over into everything else that you do in your life.
So now when you're at work and they say, hey when you just
spend the stay an extra hour later it's getting old but hurt
and pissed off about, you're like well I'm just going to push
through it and then again, that gives you more confidence in
yourself that And it's that having that you develop this
sort of belief within yourself, you believe your own hype after
a while, but if you aren't doing the work, if you are pushing
yourself, then when somebody says, hey, you're really doing a
great job and then you beat yourself up, mentally, because
you don't think that you are doing a good job.
That's when it's really difficult for you to get to the
next level. And then it becomes a
self-limiting belief, which becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy when it comes to your mind.
So I agree, I agree. What are some like I know what
is when make this personal here? What is the biggest obstacle in
your life right now? Like, what is going on in this
chapter in your life? That is is proving difficult?
And what are some things that that is touchy those far.
Now, I'm in a position where a lot of people are vying for my
attention, which is very, you know, that's a big compliment
and I want to help everybody. But I also understand now that I
simply there's not enough hours in the day and there's only one
of me So just like with this, I mean I'm very selective about
who I'm on podcast with now. You know, I respect you very
much in many Arenas and that's why we're talking again.
But I, you know, if we try to re spend respond to every DM or
every email that's sent to us, it's very daunting and frankly
it's it's a there's no way we can win doing it.
So for me, it's about allocating my time to True priorities, but
being even more specific and having a true It's principal
true 8020 ideal of saying. Well, I could go speak here and
make x amount of dollars or I could go speaker and make less
money, but make more impact or get more potential speaking
engagements or more coaching potentials are more code or more
Book Sales. So it's about looking at the
long game and then understanding that time that I have is very
precious. So what do I want to do with
this? Even if I have an opportunity to
go off in the weekend is begin, make x amount of dollars.
Maybe I can do that. I can push and grind but in the
grand scheme of things it may Be better for me to stay home.
Maybe if I'm feeling sick or maybe, if I'm trying to spend
time with my loved ones, that may be more important than, you
know, a few thousand dollars or even twenty thousand dollars
speaking or doing an event. If it's not going to serve me in
the long run because that money is going to be gone.
Eventually better time as we both know is something that is
very precious and it's a non-renewable resource at what
point does and this is going to be highly individualized.
But you know, when you when you first start out you almost have
Just say yes to everything. Like be a Yes, Man.
Like everything that you do. I mean every speaking
opportunity, every DM, every email, every everything you just
sleep on it and then at some point there's a shift that
occurs and you you have to become more exclusive because in
being more exclusive you're going to bring a higher quality
work and you're going to have a better better a game so to speak
when you when you do perform. What how does one finds it like
largely Financial based? Or is it more like fulfillment
based? Like how does one quantify when
that shift occurs? And that's that's a great
question and it's a perfect, you know, entrepreneurial question.
And like I said at the very beginning, you know, if you're a
speaker and you're making a couple thousand dollars to
speak, you're going to be saying, yes to everything,
you're going to go to Rotary clubs are going to go everywhere
that you can, that will have you speak but then eventually, you
get to a point where you raise your price enough to where now
you value that time more. So you'll get to a point and
we're all object--, I mean we're all unique so we're going to be
some people weren't they say I make an x amount of dollars per
year from speaking. I don't want to take any more,
they're going to be some other people where that money will
always be a driver and they won't be satisfied until they're
made a hundred million dollars. So you have to find out what's
really important to you and where you want to be in that
endeavor. Now as you and I both know, as
we continue it as, as entrepreneurs as you continue
with business and personal development, there are Lead
thousands of unforeseen opportunities that are on the
path and sometimes, they'll follow this guy and hit us right
in the face. But sometimes it's just about
being self-aware enough to look around us too.
So you're going to be saying, yes, a lot of times until you
get financially where you want to be, whether it be out of debt
or making a certain amount of money.
And then after that, you'll start realizing that the money
is not the most important thing. And a great example of this is I
talk about in my book, is that If you ask a 25 year old person,
listen, I can make you a multimillionaire right now, but
you'll be 75 years old. Would you rather be, you know, a
hundred million dollar, you know, have a hundred million
dollar net worth and be 75 or would you rather be broke right
now? But have all the time that you
have before you and even a person 225 realizes the
importance of time because every single one of them will say I'd
rather be broke right now and live my life and have this
experience then to be at 75 years old where they feel their
life is sort of over and had this financial success but not
be able to have the wherewithal to do anything with it.
And that's kind of the way that we should be looking at
everything that we do in life and business and I mean, you're
doing it. Well, you're scaling incredibly
well, you making tremendous impact, tremendous ways in this
entire Endeavor, especially in the key, do, you know, community
and even, you know, that's why I'm doing some of the things I'm
doing. Now, I would rather put on my
own event and have a high caliber of people that show up,
then have then go to a bunch of other people's events.
I said, I started saying no to pitch fests, you know, years
ago. But even now a lot of people
People would try to get me to come there and then even if I
don't pitch, they're going to be pitching.
So I had to be much more selective about where I'm
speaking. And if that means that I say no
to more money, I'm okay with that because I would rather have
a little bit more of my own time and frankly Integrity than to go
out there and have a very predatorial kind of mindset
about what's going on. And I think no matter what it
says, I've got like a very hard line drawing with regards to my
Integrity like no matter, no amount of money or or time or
Prestige can ever, you know, breach what I value my integrity
at that's it's not worth it at that point.
Yeah. What's your integrity for sale?
It's just a matter of time before you fall.
So speak speaking of different events and where you're
allocating your time, talking about this one that you've got
coming up, man, I'm I'm you invited me to come.
I'm very excited to come Chris and I are both going to be there
and I'd love to just kind of flush out the the event itself
and what all we can expect. Yeah, I'm so stoked to have you
there and And to have Crystal there.
And what this is is what I've seen in so many different events
and I've been to all of them. And I've seen every speaker that
you can think of and I've, you know, even share the stage with
some of them. And what I find so often is that
even if they're the best speaker in the world, they had the best
material in the world. Once that person leaves the
event, they're excited for sometimes Tim and sometimes 10
days but then they kind of go back to where they were.
The event that I'm doing on March 30th and Tulsa, Oklahoma
is called, do the work. So what we're going to do is
we're going to actually go through and we're going to
actually do the work and it's all going to revolve around
this. This triangle of control is what
I call it or this triangle of power and that triangle is based
on mindset because this is something that we always have
power over that, we always have control over Viktor Frankl says
between stimulation and reaction and action is our ability to
choose so that's the first part of it.
The second part of that triangle is the Idea of what we put in
our body so that could be food. That can be water, that could be
lack of food that can be lack of water that can also be what we
consuming in a social contents component.
So what books are we reading? What social media re listening
to what news are you listening to or where you fasting from?
If you're just out? Even on social media whatsoever,
just to give yourself a chance to, you know, really relax and
kind of see what's really important to you.
That's the second part of the pyramid.
And then the third part comes down to again, Again, what
you're trying to do from a fiscal standpoint.
So going through and what kind of workout are you doing?
But what are you doing to really push yourself and all those
things come together. So if you're in a 3x5 room and
they say, listen, you know, you can't really do anything here,
you can do burpees, you can do push-ups, you can do sit-ups and
that's the physicality component.
You could have, you can also decide how you feel about if
you're eating or if you're not eating and then you can also use
those kind of ideas about putting them all together.
So for your listeners, who don't know I'm an instructor under
Bruce Lee's protege. Guru Dan inosanto.
So I have direct links to Bruce Lee and I've Loved she can do
Bruce Lee's martial art for as long as I can remember.
So I'll be teaching some of Bruce's martial arts you can do
well on there because I wanted to put, I want to show the
parallel not only the philosophy, but the practicality
of that martial art. And so, no, we're not going to
put on gloves and do UFC stuff, but we're going to go through
and we're going to talk about the concept, the principle.
Why he had his right side forward because I was the
strongest side compared to everybody else why he was able
to take components of Wing Chun that were very functional.
Oil. And then put it into a very
useful manner compared to say, a boxer, How This lends itself to
everything else that we're doing in our lives.
The idea of, you know, absorbing what is useful, this coming with
his useless in Annapolis, specifically grown as he says,
and then we're also going to put the physicality.
So we're going to be doing some, some hiking.
We're going to be doing some marching, and then we're going
to actually take those ideals and put them into.
How do we apply this to business?
How do we apply this mindset into our relationships?
How do we apply this in the personal development and then
put them all together? We're not just sitting on our
asses talking about stuff and waxing, poetic and it's not just
a boot camp where you're out there.
Just, you know, getting smoke all day but now you haven't got
anything out of it. Other than, and I'm sort on
sweaty, it's all this realm that goes across everything that
we've done. And every person that we see
whether it be the samurai or the stoics there is this Renaissance
Man, kind of thing where you have all of these facets and
you're hitting on all of these cylinders.
And that's the key for us to go to next level and all these
things. And again, there is going to be
a lot of things that are going to be.
Pushing us, not just physically, they're going to be questioning
ourselves in a lot of different Arenas, but that's what we need
to do. And even if, even, if we don't
push ourselves in every possible capacity, the idea is to to find
those areas in those chinks, in our army that we don't normally
have, and to shine a light on those shortcomings.
So that's what we're going to be doing.
There is going to be a big day and I'm also going to have my
really good friend, Matt ganyan. They're speaking as my keynote
and just like I said before, this is not going to be a Pitch
Fest. Going to be a price.
You pay you're going to get there and then I'm just going to
give you a mazing wealth, amazing value amazing knowledge
Mass not going to pitch. I'm not going to pitch and this
is going to be more of a the group of people that are coming
or going to be so incredible. These are areas of opportunity
to be able to collaborate to be able to know network.
But also adversity, really brings people together.
And to me I look at this like almost like a graduation.
This is the first of its kind that I've done and the people
that are at this, this first event Point.
There's really going to be a very cohesive strength to them.
And these are people that, you know, not only is friends, but I
hope even from for some people with their business oriented.
This is an opportunity a to find people that are kind of a
similar mindset. And then that networking
capacity is going to be tremendous in the future as
well. So so thank you for letting me
bloviate about that but I'm really excited to have you
there. I'm hoping down, he's going to
be able to make it to and there's a lot of stuff I have in
store for you guys and I think it's going to be unlike anything
else you've ever Minutes, so I'm stoked.
No, I'm incredibly excited to me because I feel like I got mine
set, obviously is a huge, huge part in my life.
And, you know, my success and or lack of success.
You know, I feel like it all comes back to mine said, but
there's very few things that I do to be proactive with mindset,
at least, in my opinion. I feel like I should always be
doing more. My mind says is much more kind
of like a consequence of just the things that have happened to
me as opposed to the things that I've actively pursued.
Dude. So I'm really excited for this
because it's going to be like a very clear direction that I'm
taking to improve upon it. Proactively, and I have utmost
respect for you, and what? All you've gone through and all
you've done. So it'll be awesome to learn
from you, man. Well, thank you.
I'm excited to have you. And like I said, the people are
going to be there is going to be a really, really high caliber
people. And I'm just really excited to
see how everybody responds and what everybody gets from it.
And then in March, It's a say one teach but to learn.
So I'm going to be getting a lot of knowledge and a lot of
reinforcement from it and I'll probably learned a tremendous
amount about stuff that I didn't think about because I'm going to
have that very empty cup that white belt mentality as we go
through the material. So it's going to be awesome.
I'm excited. Learned some martial arts.
Man, I've always, I've always wanted to learn martial arts
have always. I mean, I think, at some point
in life, that will be an outlet that I really pursue, I haven't
been able to add that to my pillar, like we were talking
about, you know, previously. But I definitely We want to
pursue that going forward so this would be a good
introduction for me. Yeah.
It's going to be a great foundation.
And the beauty of it is nobody's going to walk out with the
certification or as a black belt.
But the nice thing is if you can even hold on to a few of those
tools or a few of the ideals even for a like, if you take a
person who's never done martial arts their entire life and you
teach them how to throw a punch and kick, you will see them
stand a little bit more erect. Their shoulders will be back a
little bit further when they walk, they don't have their head
down. Now they look look more.
I wouldn't say a predator but they definitely don't look like
prey because they had that. So Polly.
So that's why to me, martial arts has been so important
because the martial arts are the vessel by which you're able to
create mindset. And that's the way that that's
what makes you move forward with it.
So that's, that's why I love it so much.
And, you know, even people that just want to get in great shape,
that's fine. But I think that if they look at
it, there's a lot more to that that they can get from.
Yeah, I totally agree, man. I mean, I haven't like, I said,
I haven't done any martial arts previously, but I can appreciate
and respect how, you know, having the right approach
towards that. It's just like a parallel.
And a synonym for Life, man. I mean, you know, living with
confidence, living with belief in yourself.
Being a predator and not pray living boldly and with purpose,
I mean, that all his kind of embodied in in the art of
martial arts. Yeah, it's so true and it's, and
it's like, I said it lends itself.
Well, to entrepreneurship, you know, if I'm trying to learn
Bruce Lee says, I don't fear. The man that is done, 10,000
techniques. One time, I fear, the man who
has done one technique 10,000 times.
So that we had that reinforce that reinforces that idea of the
fundamentals and how, anybody who is extremely successful in
business. They have a couple of things
that are really in their wheelhouse and they just Crush
that and they own that space. If they're trying to do a bunch
of other stuff. That's okay.
But they're going to dilute their the results.
It's the same thing with martial arts.
If I can teach you to punches and to kicks and then train, you
and push, you and wait until you're tired and do it in the
middle of the night and wake you up with it and do it when your
Ambush now, you have this. Built into your system, but the
way that I do it when I add adrenaline to it now it
hardwired into your system about five times harder and faster
than it would. If you were used to sit there
and just do it like two days ago.
So I've been doing, I've been teaching martial arts for 25
years. I've learned martial arts from
some of the best people in the world.
I've learned martial arts from even in the military and done
things with, with police, force and stuff, learning, and
teaching them. So, I see what works and what
doesn't work and no, this is not going to be like something.
Or we go up there and try to beat each other up but I'm also
going to give you something that is functional and practical that
you can walk away with us and just that self-confidence alone
that's going to be something. Like I said it's going to help a
tremendous amount of people. And again those small micro
adversities are going to be who view, you know, with huge
dividends on the investment you know, in the future for that
Roi. And I honestly incredibly
excited, man. Like this is going to be a great
week and I've got, you know, no doubt about that at all and what
making his last weekend in March, right?
Yeah, will be more. Artists will be Saturday and
then all day Saturday will do everything and then Sunday
morning will have sort of a breakfast and kind of a time and
give everybody a chance to network and kind of give us you
know kind of their thoughts or if there's any questions or
anything moving forward. But the idea is to get them
definitive skill, set to get them, a definitive plan and give
them a definitive goal when they're leaving.
So it's not just something that they feel good about and they
just throw the, the existence, I mean, throw the opportunity and
experience away the opportunity. Unity and the experience is
tremendous. But what they take from that and
what they put into action is going to be even more important.
That's also done. And is this, is there still any
open slots or like if anybody listening would be Keen to go
there's there's a few slots. Absolutely.
And I'm trying to keep it to where I don't have any more than
30 people there. Because I my mind if I have more
than 30 people and I'm doing the all the teaching myself, it's
going to be hard for me to get them the quality that I want to.
So if you want to do it get in there and get the slots now
before they're all take. And what's the the website too?
And for that are you can just go to Marcus release Anderson.com.
Or if you go to, you know, there's any of my social medias.
If you go to my bio, it's going to have the link to my do.
The work live event and it's all on there and you'll be able to
get all the information that you need and get signed up and get
your spot before they all disappear.
Awesome, awesome. I'll link after that is shown us
to so people can easily find it and get on it.
Take advantage of it marketers. There's very few people, I could
talk to for 77 minutes and it feel like seven minutes but
you're one of them. I get mad.
I feel the same. Yeah, no I mean this this is the
second podcast we've done. We've been on the phone call.
I said several times since the last podcast but we'll have to
you. One of the one of the people
that were just going to have to do like a like a regularly
occurring podcast because I feel like every time we talk it turns
into something that other people would benefit from hearing.
But also it just it does me wonders.
Hopefully it does something for you but it doesn't me wonders.
At least know. I, I absorb a tremendous amount
from you and like I said, seeing what you're doing and seeing how
you're holding yourself. From the Integrity with which
you work that that inspires me because as, you know, in this
space that's a that's more the exception than the rule when it
comes to this. Appreciate it, man.
It's a, it's something. I'm very proud of and I feel
like we were saying about integrity, like I'm nothing I
ever do in life is ever going to breach that because that's what
that's who I am. Like my word is my bond.
You know, like if anything I mean nothing even comes close.
I mean, no sacrifice is worth losing your Equity for.
I absolutely agree. And at the end of the day,
that's all we really have. So, if you, if you sell that
out, or if you break that, then you really have your left with
nothing in your empty agreed agreed.
Well, Marcus until next time, Anna.
I guess I'll see you in person in March, but let's definitely
keep in touch. And if you need anything from
me, man, you've got my number so definitely don't hesitate to
reach out. Absolutely, I appreciate the
opportunity. I'm humbled and honored always
to be able to speak with you and we'll get you.
I'll talk to you obviously. In a few days but also have to
have you on my podcast. I'll be honored to have you on
there and percent man. Count me in for sure.
I'd love to. All right, I'll talk to you
soon. My friend, thank you for having
me. All right, take a Marcus.