#121 - 34 Life Lessons at 34: Hard-Won Wisdom From a Father, Husband, Coach & Entrepreneur

it might not be your fault, but it is your problem. So take ownership. There is a lot of things in life that we can bitch about and say, well, that's not my fault. Well, I'm not the one who did that. Well, it's not my responsibility. Okay, but it's on your plate in front of you. You're the only one that can impact it. What are you gonna do about it? Extreme ownership is taking control of a situation and making it better even when it's not your responsibility. That's not my fault, but it is a problem. And I'm gonna take ownership of it 'cause I have the capability of doing so. (upbeat music) Welcome to the Choose Hard Podcast. I'm your host, Cody McBroom. I'm a father, husband, coach, and entrepreneur and the founder of Tailored Coaching Method, a world-renowned online fitness and nutrition coaching company that is helping average people achieve above-average physics and live above average lives. Today's my 34th birthday. I'm recording a podcast on my birthday. For a few reasons, one, I can't think of anything else that I would wanna do on my birthday besides come into the office, coach some people, create some content, get a good lift in, and then I'm gonna head out. So I am gonna get off early today, try to have some fun on my birthday. As I'm recording this, it is Friday, July 24th and I turned 34 years old. And being the avid journalist, I guess, it's not really a journalist, I'm very avid journalist. I journal every single day. I decided something to do for a piece of content that I would post today on social media, which I did, I posted on my Instagram, so I'll link that in here so you can see it. And it'll be a good way if you want to save any of the kind of one-liners or the quotes or the statements I'm gonna go over today, you can go to that post, you can save it, you can refer back to it at a later point. But every single day, I write an insight. There's a lesson on insight that I write down every day. Usually it is sparked by a quote, so inside the Chew's Hard Journal, which you can get at tailoredmerch.com. Or maybe it's tailored coach, no, it's tailoredmerch.com. Either way, you can click the link in the description of this too, but nonetheless, this has a quote every single day, there's a quote on the weeks, there's a quote on the day. So I had to find a lot of really powerful quotes going into this, and I've always just saved them over time. So every single day in the journal has a really good quote, like this one I just opened it up, don't let your practices pollute your piece. Don't let your practices pollute your piece. Bad habits, bad environment, all the practice in your life. If they're polluting your piece, they're causing stress, you need to get rid of them. Don't let that happen, but really good reminders, good insights, good lessons, good quotes. And after each quote, there's a little field below it. There's a little text field that you can write in that says. Something along lines of like lingering thoughts, like what are your thoughts based on this? And it's a good way to reflect on the statement, 'cause I think a lot of people take quotes and they reshare and they're like, oh, I love this quote. Why do you love it? What does it mean to you? And are you doing anything about it? Like are you gonna apply the lesson inside that quote to your life? And a lot of times the answer is no, unfortunately. So I wanted to put something in the journal that says, do something with this, apply this quote. What does this mean to you? What are your thoughts when you read this? What are your reflections based on this quote that you just read? And I decided to grab 34 of those. Now, I do this every day. So as you can imagine, there are a lot more than 34. I have 365 days of journaling at this point over the last from age 33 to 34, essentially. And so I took 34. This is 34 insights and life lessons from the journal of a father, husband, coach, and entrepreneur from me. And what my goal is today is to just share them with you. I'm going to share them and I'm gonna reflect on them. Some of them might have more reflection than others. I don't know how long this podcast is gonna be. I don't know how much I'm gonna get out of this, but even if I just read the statements and I didn't give you any insight or lesson or thought behind it, I didn't reflect or really expand upon it, I think you will get a ton out of this episode. Okay, so I'm gonna dive right in. I'm just gonna start the first quote insight lesson. So we'll just say number one. The number of relationships doesn't matter. The depth of relationships does. I think some of the stuff when I, again, like these are insights from a father, husband, coach, and entrepreneur. And at a certain point in my life, I realized that I'm taking on a lot and with great, there's a scripture in the Bible that talks it's the parable of talents and it talks about basically with great, it's a skill or great talent comes great responsibility or great gifts come with great responsibility, gifts from God being like you are born to do this, you have these skills, you're in eight gifts, these traits, and I agree with that fully. And that is not me saying like I'm so skilled or anything. I had a high school teacher call me. Actually, he DMed me on Instagram and was like, here's my number, call me when you get a chance. So I called him yesterday the day before and we were talking because his stepson is getting into the same industry and he wants me to sit down and talk to them, which I'm gonna do, just share life lessons and stuff. And when I mentioned to him like, yeah, man, it's been 16 years that I've been doing this. It has been like, he's been following me ever since I graduated high school and started doing something. And he's like, it's been 16 years you're doing this. I'm like, dude, it's 16 years. So I say this because it's not gifts, it's like it is gifts. It's the gift to never quit. It's the gift to gab, the gift to talk, the gift to communicate, the gift to connect, the gift to passion, the Lord has given me a lot of gifts, but it's not a matter of like, oh, you're just here. You got this talent, go dude, like, you know, you have a great responsibility now. It's 16 years of crafting a skill and talent. And with through that time comes more and more responsibility. The more the better you get at something, the more responsibility you have to maintain it. The sharper the blade, the more likely it is, you have to further sharpen that blade. You have to maintain it, you have to clean it, you have to literally sharpen it with a tool. So during a journey of 16 years, during a journey of anything of life, of parenting, of entrepreneurship, of marriage, you learn more and more about who you are and the number of relationships you have matters less and less because a lot of them, you know, certain people are in your life for seasons, certain people for reasons and certain people for a lifetime. Not that many are gonna be there for a lifetime. And that's just the reality of it. And most people want what's best for themselves above all else, understandably, rightfully so, but because of that, as you grow and as you go through life, you learn, you learn to accept that more and you learn to read into that more. And then also to practice it yourself to an extent because if you're too goalable, it can buy you in the ass. And I think over the years, I would just say this, I have been burned, I have been leveraged, I've been deceived, I've just learned a lot and it's not low as me, it's life, you know? It's entrepreneurship, it is so, again, these are 34 insights in life lessons that I've taken with me over time. And when I'm reflecting back, I can look at the relationships that are still strong today and the depth is there. Surface level relationships aren't going to last very long. If you're not willing to take things deep, you're not willing to be transparent, tell your story, be honest, ask questions, have experiences, you're just not going to have meaningful relationships with anybody. And I believe that's true in marriage, I believe that's true with friendships and even family, blood related family. I believe that is true with clients and relationships with coaches. That's why we are so passionate about taking it at next level, having tough conversations, sharing transparently and being open about our own difficulties and struggles and stories. Because I think that depth is what creates the bond that really develops a life long or a life changing relationship. Because even if somebody's in your life for a season or a reason, it just means they're not going to be there forever, but it does mean that if they impact you enough to remember that season and remember that reason that they were there, it's because there was depth. So, number of relationships doesn't matter, depth of relationships does. Number two, the more you have, the less more matters. This is something that I think, I think you have to achieve something to realize the achievement or the outcome itself isn't what mattered to you all along, unfortunately. Because it's very difficult to take somebody's word from it for it. Now, there's very few people you can take their word for it and trust their experience and apply it to your own. And that's only gonna happen if you apply number one, which is the depth of relationship has to be there. There's certain people that I trust enough and I know closely enough that they could tell me that result, that outcome, the end game, that's not what you want man. I'm telling you, you want this. And I would trust him and I would believe him. But for the most part, I gotta go find it myself. If the stove is hot and my mom says, don't touch it, it's hot, I gotta touch it to make sure it's hot. Because my mom doesn't have burns on her fingers that I know of. Like as dumb as that sounds, that is the best analogy I can think of. Because you have to have. evidence supporting the thought process or the outcome. So until you make a decent amount of money, I don't think you're going to realize that money doesn't buy happiness until, I mean, this is a perfect example. My wife has been hounding me for weeks. What do you want for birthday? What do you want for your birthday? Do you want to go do something? I'm good. I don't need anything. What do you want? What do you want? Like, bonfire? That's it. Bonfire, yeah. I just want to have bonfire in the backyard. Girl, some brats. Like, it's because what matters to me is like, I want to see my daughter's face when she eats this more. I'm not even going to eat this more. I don't like this more. Right? Like, birthday cake. I'm good. But my daughter wants to make a cake. Whatever kind of cake she wants to make, I'll have a piece with her. And then I want her to stuff her face cake because that's what matters. It's the moments, the less, like, I am so content with less in my life. I wear shirts that are my brand every day. I wear, like, button up flannels from Kirkland, Costco. There were 10 bucks that I got to say are pretty dope. But like, I don't, I don't need designers yet. I don't care about that because those things are to impress other people. I don't need more. I've had Range Rover. I've had like the cars and I'm a car guy. It was empty. I just didn't care. I literally chased that vehicle for so long. Land Rover was like the icon that I wanted when I got it. It was like, oh, whatever. You know, it just, it never matters. Even like bank account money revenue. I just, I don't care. Team size. It was like, I just more, more, more build the team, build the team, build the team. I'm so much happier with a tight knit team of people I love than a massive team of people that I'm trying to manage and keep up with. Like it just does. More is not more. Less is more. So much. Like, so the more you have, the less more matters. And sometimes you won't realize that until you get more because it disappoints you. And sometimes that's okay. Sometimes you got to find out for yourself. I think there's a lot of times where people want to lose the weight. They want to see a number on scale and then they see the number on the scale. And it does nothing for them because they weren't chasing the number on the scale. The number on the scale was a measurement that is as close of an association to the end goal as they could possibly predict, which is totally fine. But if you don't know what the actual end goal is, meaning I want to feel this way. I want to wear this bikini. I want to be able to walk around in a sports bra or without my shirt on and not worry about it. I want to do yard work with my top off as a guy. Women, you can keep your top on. You get the point though. Like what is the feeling you want to have? What is the experience you want to go through and the confidence you want to experience? Like there has to be a thing. Okay, there has to be a thing that actually matters and needs something to you that fills your cup. Otherwise, you're just trying to patch an empty hole. Like it just does not work. The more you add, the less is more is. Number three is a good one. It might not be your fault, but it's still your problem. Take ownership. Let me say that again. So take ownership. Okay. But it's on your plate. It's in front of you. So what are you going to do about it? So why extreme ownership is one of mine. It's one of my companies core values. And I'm going to take ownership of it because I have the capability of doing so. Life is a lot better when you get rid of pointing fingers and thinking about who's fault is what and you just focus on taking ownership. Because a lot of things that are your problems that you have to deal with, they're not your fault. You didn't cause them. You can't control them from happening, but you can control the outcome. You can control how you respond to it. You can control how you show up because of it. That changes who you are. It changes your standards, your values. It changes the outcome that everybody around you feels and sees. And it makes a big difference. Okay. So it might not be your fault, but it's still your problem. Take ownership. And a part of that, I think a big part of why I like lessons like that and in signs like that is because it shifts us out of them. Victim mentality and it starts to allow it allows us to get into a state where we are just taking charge and getting shit done. Life is a lot better when we are consistently moving forward one step at a time. It's like you're walking through mud. That's life. But you're picking your feet up out of the mud and you're taking your next step. It feels heavy. It feels like it's never ending. You gotta just keep doing it. You keep moving forward. Take ownership. Number four, every winner lost more times than any loser ever did. Remember that. I love that. I don't know what quote it was that I read that made me think of this. It was something along lines of failing is just part of success. And that's what this is really pushing forward. But every winner, like if we really think about it, every winner, every successful person, they failed way more times than any loser or failure did. Somebody who is very successful failed a lot more than anybody else below them. The reason they're successful, the reason they're at the top, the reason they want is because they were willing to keep failing until they won. Endurance is the most important trait and skill required for success in anything. If you're trying to lose weight, there's going to be weekends that you screw up the diet. There's going to be days where the scale doesn't budge. There's going to be weeks where the scale doesn't budge. There's going to be training sessions at sock. There's going to be things in the way. You're going to fail. If you're trying to build a business, you're going to fail. You're going to have months that are slower than others. You're going to have days that are unproductive. You're going to have days where you're unmotivated and you feel like an imposter. You're not there. You have no purpose of being there. We're always going to have that shit in the back of our head. But if we constantly remember that every winner, every successful person, every person ahead of us who has what we're trying to achieve, the version of us that is where we're trying to go, they lost way more times than anybody else. And that's what makes them a winner. Their ability to keep failing is what makes them successful. Their ability to keep losing is what allows them to be a winner. Eventually, it looks like you win more than you lose. But that's just because your wins keep stacking because you don't stop. Most people quit when they lose one time because it feels like shit. And that's true. Number five, the faster you can get over it, the more you'll grow because of it. One of my core values has always been. This is not for my company because I don't necessarily think it's always a good business value to have or trade to possess. But in life, for me personally, grace is one of my core values. I try to show grace for a few reasons. One, I, in the main reason, I don't want to have hate on my heart. There's just no reason. I heard a really, really good quote from a pastor recently that said, forgiving others isn't about like freeing them. It's about freeing yourself from that, right? Which is so, so powerful, right? I can forgive somebody. And it's not so that they change. I can't expect somebody to change just because I forgive them. That's why forgiving isn't always about them. I forgive you. Cross your fingers. Hopefully, they'll change, but I can't control if they change or not. So I don't forgive people so that they change. I forgive them so I can be free of that thought and that burden in my head and on my heart. That's why I like to show grace. And so for me, number one, the faster I can get over it, the faster I can forgive and forget, the more I can move forward. Otherwise, it's weighing me down. It's like a ball and chain. It slows you down from growing and getting where you want to go because of somebody else's baggage. That makes no sense. So get over it. The second reason is because if I'm not, like if it's not so destructive that I need to reconsider life or events or anything, I can't move forward unless I just gotta get over it. The faster I get over it, the faster I can start finding growth inside of it. Like when a situation happens, it is very difficult to find the lesson inside of a moment, inside of an experience or a situation. If you are angry, you are sad, you are reacting and not responding, you are anxious, you're not calm. So the faster I can get over this negative emotion, stress, anxiety, overwhelmed fatigue, nervousness, hatred, anger, sadness, the sooner I can just get rid of that feeling, the sooner I can move forward into grace, gratitude and growth. Because you can't grow and you can't be grateful if you're living in hate, anger, disappointment, sadness, frustration. You gotta get rid of it. So the faster you can get over something, the more you grow because of it and the sooner you grow because of it too. Number six, being patient is easy when you have purpose. I would also add that being productive is easy when you have purpose. When somebody's like, man, what are your tips and tricks for like being productive and not getting distracted at work? It's like, I have a purpose. I have a purpose in my life of what I'm chasing. I have a purpose in who I'm showing up as and who God's watching me to become and also I have a purpose behind every single day because I map out the day. What am I doing today? What am I doing on this podcast? What am I talking about? What am I gonna film? I filmed before this. I did work before this. I know exactly what I'm doing, hour by hour every day so that I can say productive. But if I didn't have purpose, I wouldn't be motivated to stick those things. If each one of those actions didn't have purpose, I wouldn't know why I'm doing them. If I didn't know why I'm doing them, I wouldn't do them. I'd stop. Nobody is like productive and crushing through work because they, while not knowing why they're doing something, it doesn't make any sense. You gotta have purpose and patience is the same way. Like I said, I've been doing me and Shannon, my wife, we're talking about this last night. It's like, I told her I was like, pardon me. It's like, holy shit, I'm 34. She's like, that's not old. I'm like, I know, but it's crazy to think because sometimes I don't feel 34. It feels like life just flies by just yesterday. I was a kid, you know, and I was a teenager. And then I was like in college. And it was just like so quick. And now I'm here. And it's like to think that I've been doing the same thing for 16 years straight. I have been coaching people every day towards their fitness and health goals. And I guess a little bit of business goals too, 'cause I mentor coaches too, but nonetheless, I've been doing fitness stuff for 16 years straight. You know, and I might have some friends in the industry that I look at them and they're like, yeah, 25 for me. And that's no, I constantly remind myself of those people. And that's why I told her too. It's like, I always gotta remind myself that most of my friends are older than me. But it just seems like a long time. And it's like, man, how am I able to stay so patient and still work towards those goals? And think about like, man, am I where I should be in the industry, am I known? And is the business big enough? Is it my making an impact like I should be? And then I stopped, I'm like, yeah, because I'm right alongside or just slightly behind some of the people that I love and admire that are 10 plus years older than me in the same industry. It's like, cool, I can be patient because I have purpose, right? So anyway, being patient is obviously very important for everything in life. But when you have purpose, you can be patient. If you don't have purpose, it's very difficult to be patient. Number seven, stop saying easier said than done. Literally everything is. It's an excuse to avoid discomfort and delay action. One of my pet peeves is when people say easier said than done. I hate that because, and I never tell people it drives me nuts, but it does and I usually correct people. Or what I've learned as a coach is just to say, I know it's easier said than done, but, and then I give the advice because it eliminates their ability to say easier said than done back to me. But it's like, yeah, everything is. Everything is easier said than done, literally. It's the worst thing to have in your vocabulary, worst phrase to repeat in your day to day. Stop saying easier said than done. Literally everything is easier said than done. It's easier for me to say I'm going to push record than actually click record. It's easier for me to write what I want to talk about than it is to talk about it. Anytime you catch yourself saying easier said than done, realize that you're making an excuse to avoid discomfort or just delay yourself from taking action. So stop right there, realize that and then take a step back and look at the situation and say, is this something that I desire to accomplish, achieve or acquire? If the answer is yes, your response is not easier said than done. It's how do I get this done and then take action? Everything is uncomfortable, everything requires action and everything is easier said than done. Number eight. Is a good one too. Sometimes I read my own notes and my journal, I'm like, damn, I thought of that. I saw this clip of Lil Wayne and Lil Wayne. Somebody was repeating his verse to him in a mixtape and I want to say it was on the no ceilings mixtape if anybody is old Lil Wayne. I can't believe that's old Lil Wayne fans. But it was actually, maybe it wasn't even that. Maybe it was the old like the drought three with like skies the lemon back on my grizzy. Probably the best mixtape ever drought three. But anyway, somebody recited his verse to him and he goes, oh shit, I said that. That was me and he just starts freaking out his life. I'm the goat, I was dying. Like that's, that's gotta be a cool feeling. You rap so much that you forget your own lyrics and then they surprise you with how good they are. I didn't get that far to this quote, but I do like it. So number eight, a victim's mindset can't exist when you see everything as God training you to become your future self. A victim's mindset cannot exist if you, when you, a victim's mindset cannot exist when you see everything as God training you to become the best version of yourself, to become your future self, to create yourself and the traits and the characteristics. You really think about that. A victim's mindset is, what was me? It's this is so hard, this sucks, help me feel bad for me. That serves nobody, not you and not anybody else. Actually, it does the opposite. It hurts you and it hurts everybody else. Every moment that you think, whoa is me, feel bad for me, anything like that. This is not me saying you can't feel sorry sometimes. You can't feel bad sometimes. You can absolutely vent and wallow away in it for a little bit. Don't post it on social media, we don't wanna see it. Nobody wants to see your sorrows on social media like that's annoying. Talk to your loved ones. I vent to Shannon and if it goes on too long, she just tells me to man up. She's like, okay, enough, this isn't you. It happened, deal with it, now move forward. And I just wanna be like, God damn it, wife. And then I think her. But, and that's true story, that's what happens. But it's okay to do that. It is absolutely okay to do that. However, if you stay in that mode, you never grow. But if you look at everything like, God is training me for something. God is training me to become someone. You can't have a victim's mentality. You can't have a victim's mindset because the moment you do, the moment you're like, what was me? You sit down and you can reflect. I can be like, I hate this. I really don't want this to happen. This is sad, I feel bad. But I gotta find out why this happened. There's a reason for everything. And even if I can't explain the reason, that's not what it's about. About finding a reason as to why this happens. Why is God doing this to me? It doesn't matter. Ask yourself, what do I get out of it? Who do I become out of it? Because nine times out of 10, you won't know why this happened. You won't even know the real version of you that you become for years. I look back at stuff that happened to me and I didn't understand it until now when it was years ago. But I stood back up and I became better and stronger because of it and that strength and that courage and that reflection led to me becoming who I am today. And now I can look back and go, I see why those things happen. It trained me to become this person. I see stuff in my coaching all the time. Something happens to a person in their life. And it's an abnormal amount of frequency of how I can relate to it. Because I've had so many random weird things happening to me good and bad in my life at a young age, 34. So when I talk to clients, I can relate to so many different things. And it allows me to coach people. So there's so many situations in my life. I can look back on and go, that was because of the coach I'm going to become. That was because I needed this skill. That was because I needed to understand this type of hurt or pain or discomfort or suffering. That was because I needed this lesson to then apply it and regurgitate to somebody else. But you can't have a victim's mentality if you're trying to grow through things. So look at everything like God's training you, not like something's happening to you or you're being punished. Number nine failure, sorry, number nine failing is painfully traumatic, but winning can feel like suffering. Both hurt, choose your pain. Failing is painfully traumatic. But winning or succeeding can cause suffering. Both hurt, both are painful at times. Choose your pain. Choose your heart. That's really what it comes down to. It's a good frame to look through because there's going to be like no matter what feeling sucks. It does, but realizing that like the grass isn't always greener on the other side because all grass requires manure, which means there is shit on that side and this side. If you're willing to accept that, it is way easier to overcome that. I think not enough people just accept what is and that's a really big problem. If you accept that winning will have suffering. There will be moments of doubt. There will be moments of pain. There will be moments of boredom. There will be moments of loss, failure. People leaving your life, losing money. I mean, it's just, there's countless failures. If your purpose is within chasing that goal, then it's worth it. If it's not, to be honest with you, failing doesn't even hurt that bad because you fail at something you don't really care about, you're like, oh, well, fuck it, move on. So if failing is really painful, just know that you should probably stay the course. You wouldn't care that much if it wasn't where you were supposed to be. Number 10, nobody gets triggered without some potential truth being involved. I hope people get triggered by me saying that. The only two situations I can think of where somebody would get triggered, including me, I'm human, is if there's some truth involved and you don't wanna admit the truth, or whatever is being said or done, literally hurt. hurts you or your family. If somebody's lie hurts my girls, damn right, I'm triggered. I'm angry. But if somebody tells a truth that's painful to me, that I don't want to admit or in the back of my mind, I know it's true, I'm going to get triggered as well. The point is that if people would reflect before they react, this is something I've worked really hard on, and I say that because every report card of my entire life that I talk too much in the most common thing I heard as in like negative thing, like getting in trouble or like discipline wise, not just like in general. I heard good things too as a kid. But one of the most common things I always heard was think before you speak. Cody, think before you speak. Cody, you got two years in one mouth using proportionally. Your brain's bigger than your mouth. Think before you speak, like it just is inevitable. That's how I am, that's who I am, I just learned it out, right? I've done really well to sit back, calmly think before I express most of the time. Maybe my wife would disagree at times, I have fair enough. But I have gotten better at this. And I think that at the end of the day, this is kind of what needs to happen for I think the world. Honestly, everybody gets triggered nowadays off of everything. And it's like if you just take a step back, number one, half the stuff is not there to offend you or trigger you or disrespect you. You're making it about you, which is actually the most selfish thing that you could possibly do. Don't make it about you. It's not about you. Shut up. Nobody cares. That should be one of these clothes. Nobody cares about you. I say that about me. Nobody cares about me. Nobody cares what I'm doing. Of course, some people do. But at the grand scheme of things, like you just got to be you and do you and just focus on you. If somebody else is saying something, doing something or being something, that shouldn't trigger or offend you in your life. You know, easy it is to unfollow somebody or ignore somebody. I mean, it's unbelievably easy. Why are you continuing to follow somebody that stresses you out that much? That doesn't make any sense to me. So I put this one in here because I saw it in my journal. I don't know what was going on the day. But I think it's important because even on social media, like the people who attacked my social media post where I said peptides really aren't that legit. You should look into the research first. And, you know, there's some GLP ones that are really good, but there's also like GLP ones that aren't prescribed by your doctor and you don't know where those are coming from. And that can be dangerous. That can be or it can just be a waste of money because they're not actually what you think are. It's just nothing you're injecting. But the point is that when I said that in all these people got so mad and they're coming on it, if you look at the people who are commenting, it's all people who say they are peptide coaches, which I don't know what that is. And they're peptide labs that don't need a doctor prescription for them. Like, okay, you're literally selling these peptides that don't work. And I'm talking about random ones that don't work and aren't FDA approved or have any human trials. And you're mad at me because I'm lying. Or is there some truth in what I'm saying? And it bugs you. People get triggered when there's some truth involved, plain and simple. So if somebody gets triggered by what you say, ask yourself, am I being honest? Am I telling the truth? If the answer is yes, you got nothing to worry about. Feel bad for them. It's part of that whole grace principle. If somebody's getting triggered about something I say, I'm only saying what I believe is true and not harmful to people. I don't say things that I think are true that might be harmful to people. Or start shit for no reason. I don't do that. It's not me. I don't want to deal with the drama. But if I say something that I know is true, that is intended to help people and somebody gets mad or upset or triggered, I can sit back and go, am I doing anything wrong? No. Yes. Okay. I feel bad for this person that they're in a state of their life where they get upset about what I say about a topic. That's crazy. Poor person. Number 11, trying to make everyone else happy at the expense of making those you love unhappy makes zero sense. I think there's a lot of times where we try to please to many people. Honestly, about that. I've been a people pleaser in my life and there's still a part of me that is. I think every coach has a big piece of them that is a people pleaser. And there's times where actually I don't even think it's bad. I want to help people and I want to please people. And if I can do that, I'm happy. But if you do that at the expense of your own happiness, that's where it's an issue. If you were trying to please others at the expense of yourself being more insecure, yourself feeling more judged, yourself putting you or your family on the back burner, yourself losing out on your potential experience or opportunity or potential, that doesn't make any sense. You got to put your safety mask on first. Number 12, there will never be a time in your life that you don't have any problems. This is, this one hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember, I actually didn't make this up. Somebody else did. I'm going to be honest. I wrote this down. I can't remember who said it. I think it might have been Alex Ramose to be honest. I can't not remember, but I do remember hearing this and writing it down instantly in my notes because I was like, damn, that is a really good point. There will never be a time in your life where you don't have any problems. And if we really sit back and think about that, that should give us all the permission in the world to go chase whatever it is we want to chase right away. There's no reason to wait. There's no excuse. There's no better time. There's not going to be a situation where it's more comfortable to get started. It's easier to get started. It's easier to take action. It's always going to be uncomfortable. You're always going to have to be dealing with shit. And this is, this has shifted me to a little bit as a reminder to just stay positive in the moments of doubt or stress because if not this, I mean, it's going to be something else. And that's not like, like, well, what's the point of anything? Life is, there's actually a Buddhist quote. And DMX uses it in one of his, one of my favorite songs by DMX, The Rapper. But he talks about life is suffering. So your ability to sit in the suffering. I talk about this in a recent podcast. And I just posted a real about it. Frustration tolerance is something I study. Your ability to sit in that suffering or sit in that frustration and actually control your mind, control your thought, control your actions. That is a really high strong signal of success. But also, it's just a reminder that there's always going to be something. How you handle the things is really what determines the quality of your life. Honestly, yes, experiences, yes, love and people and all that. But there's always going to be problems. There's always going to be negative things. There's always going to be bad news on TV or around you. There's always going to be lies in the media. There's always going to be something. And if you let those things dictate your attitude, your life, your happiness, you lose. You literally lose. So your ability to handle the suffering and handle the problems as they come your way dictates and determines the quality of your life. Number 13, boundaries create freedom by removing the daily decisions that stress you out. This is a very multifaceted statement. I think a lot of people struggle to set up boundaries in their life. Now, this could literally be, hey, you get stressed because you're trying to lose weight and you're trying to eat healthy, what you're trying to eat healthy in the moment, meaning I have a work break. I'm going to go get lunch. Today, I have plenty of time. I'm going to go to Chipotle, nobody's in line. So I'm going to go through my my fitness pal. I'm going to track my meals. I'm going to order right there. It's all good. Everything's happy. You lost weight that day. Boom. The next day, you forget lunch again. I'm going to go back to Chipotle, but your meeting runs late. Now you're late to getting to Chipotle and it's busy as hell for some reason. So there's a line. So you're trying to shuffle through my fitness pal really quick and you can't make your order. So you just say, fuck it and you just decide something. You get the order. You realize you weren't supposed to have all this sour cream. Oh, and you got guacamole. Now your fats are through the roof. Oh, now I'm over my diet. Fuck it. I feel bloated. I weigh in. I'm pound heavy the next day. Screw this. All of that because you didn't set up boundaries. The boundary was planning. The boundaries were the restaurants you chose to eat at. The boundaries were letting them meeting run late, especially if you dictate the meeting time. There's ways to set up meeting targets, meeting frameworks, meeting deadlines, call timelines. I do this all the time in my line of profession. There's also ways to plan ahead. If you get stressed out when somebody calls you at a certain time, I've had this experience where I just answer all the time and then it stresses me out because I don't want them to think I'm ignoring them. But if I answer, then it throws me out of my flow and when I'm out of my flow and I'm not productive. Now it's, okay, well, here's the boundary. I don't answer the phone to anybody after APM. Why? Because after APM, I'm putting my daughter down or I'm laying in my bed with my wife or both in sequence. Or I'm going on a walk. If it's not my night to put my daughter down, I go on a walk, get some air. I can't answer the phone, somebody that throws me out. So what do I need to do? I need to create a boundary. What's the boundary? Do not disturb and then tell the people that I feel bad when I don't answer to that. I'm not going to answer the phone at these times. Guess what? They're not going to call me. And if they do and I don't answer, they understand. And when I know they understand, I don't get stressed out. I call them back later tomorrow. Like it's a boundary to be set. People are afraid to have that conversation with the person. So they keep going through the same loop of stress for no reason. Boundaries create freedom by removing the daily decisions that stress you out. Whether the decision is the last minute I got to find something healthy and fit in my macros or you could have created boundaries around your meal prep and your planning and your schedule so that you don't have to make a last minute decision and lean on willpower and white knuckling through it. Or it means boundaries set to certain people for certain times, for your meetings or your schedule, your routines that you have time for yourself. The decision in the moment always creates stress. You got to create boundaries. Number 14, balance doesn't exist. Just alignment with who you say you are and what you actually want in life. I don't believe balance exists because I don't think life and happiness is dictated by a weight scale and looking at things being evenly spread. I think from a time perspective, whatever you put the most time into, typically has the best result. Now there's a lot of things that go into creating that result. For example, I spend most of my time working, literally most of my time on planet earth is spent working. My goal is to build a big company and provide for my family and then provide for my coaches. My wife spends the majority of her time with my daughter because she stays at home. Does that mean my daughter has a better relationship with my daughter than me? To be honest, in some ways, yes. Because she's responsible for certain things, therefore my daughter relies on her for certain things that she doesn't necessarily rely on me. Even if she can, she doesn't. So how do I really focus on balance here? I don't. I focus on alignment. What are the things my wife does for my daughter that I don't do that allows my daughter to rely on her more? How do I learn how to do those things to make sure if my wife cannot do it for my daughter, my daughter will be forced to ask me and I will be successful with it, therefore she can rely on me. She doesn't always need to know that she can ask me for these things because she never has to. But God forbid she does, I need to make sure that she will get what she needs. How do I make sure that I'm aligned with the man I want to be in front of her? I need to show up a certain way at home. I need to spend a certain amount of time and do things in that time with her. It's all about alignment. Who do I say I am and then what do I want to become? Who do I want to become? And what do I want from my family? If I'm aligned with that, I have balance. I don't need to go partying with the boys to say I have balance between work and life and friendship and my marriage and family. I don't need that. What is my goal? What are my alignments? What are my values? Okay. I spend most of my time doing that. And as long as those things are good, I'm good. Balance does not exist. It doesn't. Kobe, you want to, like, I don't know if Kobe is the greatest ever. Mike Jordan, LeBron. I don't want to fastball. But let's say Kobe is the greatest. It's well documented how much time he spent on fastball. So he was one of the greatest. Did his family love him any less? No. He was aligned with exactly who he wanted to be and exactly who they expected him to be. Plain and simple. Fifteen. The less you feel the need to get confirmation from others, the more you'll feel fulfillment within yourself. This is huge. The less you feel that you need confirmation from them, the happier you will be with the confirmation from yourself within. You will be way more fulfilled inside if you're not constantly looking for confirmation from others and looking for reciprocity from others and looking for reward or applause or compliments. Like, you shouldn't be seeking out those things. I think it's very odd. There's an old old, it's either Socrates or it's Marcus Aurelius that says, like, most men are more concerned with the thoughts of others towards them than they are with the thoughts of themselves towards themselves, meaning I care more about what other people think of me than I do about what I think about myself. That is crazy. And the wild part is most people will give you more confirmation but they will also give you more respect. They will like you more and they want to be around you more if you are somebody who does put yourself first. When you see somebody who has a high level of self respect and they're like, they really value who they are. They have so much self worth. They love themselves. They appreciate themselves. They work hard. They're very aligned. They choose them and they do all those things to them. I want to be around that person. So if you want confirmation from others, see confirmation from yourself first. Your first thought in any situation is conditioned. The action you take after is choice. Your first thought in any situation is conditioned within you and the second, the action you take after that thought is what is choice. This is a really powerful thing because people will be like a couple random situations here. Number one, a client, I just need to get to a place where I just don't want the pizza anymore. No, you'd be weird if you didn't want pizza. I need to stop wanting the wine. No, you'd be weird if you didn't want wine. I shouldn't say that because some people don't want wine. Alcohol is not a good example here. I know a lot of people that don't like alcohol and they don't drink alcohol and they're really happy and I'm actually, I don't drink much so like pizza is a better option. And the point is that you don't have to change the thought. It's okay to have the thought. The part you have to work on is accepting the thought and then the actions you take after thought because if you think about the pizza and then you just devour pizza, yeah, you're not going to get to the goal. If you think about pizza and then you choose not to have the pizza, you strengthen your ability to have willpower and resistance towards a thing that you know you shouldn't have right now. It's okay that you had that thought though. Second example, my daughter, I say this to her because it's number one, we teach like biblical stuff and it says in the Bible like, you know, as humans, especially after Adam and Eve 7, we are evil at heart. Sounds really brutal. But really what it's saying is like at heart, you're going to know what evil is. You're going to know what bad is. It doesn't mean you should act on it to live a godly life means you don't act on it. And so with my daughter, when she does something wrong, there's been times where she's like, I'm such a bad girl and we're like, no, no, no, you're not a bad girl. You're not a bad person at all. Like this is just your first thought. You are very young. You're working on your second action. I never tell her this, but I did way worse stuff. If you're bad, gosh, I don't want you to know how I was when I was a kid, I was a troublemaker. But the point is that the action that follows the thought is what determines who we become. And you're going to start out not knowing what that is. So if you're trying to lose weight for the first time, of course your thoughts don't align with the choices that you should make. It's okay. It doesn't make you a bad person. You don't necessarily need to change your thoughts. You need to change your actions and eventually your thoughts will change based on your actions. Because you'll think of the good before the bad. But it's only when you choose the good instead of the bad when you think of the bad before the good. Initially. Okay. And I tell her the same thing. The easy example that she laughed, but I really like clicked with my daughter. So if you're a parent's listen, you can think of this or use this. I said, I'm like, you know, if somebody falls right in front of me, the first thought I have is to laugh. It's kind of funny seeing people fall. It's actually really funny. My choice, what I do after thinking to laugh is I go see if they're okay. Because they could really hurt themselves. And that clicked with my daughter. It's like, yeah, it is funny. Should I laugh? No, I'm choosing not to laugh, even if I want to. If they get up laughing, I'll start laughing. Hey, if they don't, I want to ask, are you okay? I want to help. So in life, we have all these thoughts. They're all conditioned. That's okay. The action you take after that thought is what matters and that's your choice. You got to train yourself with a good choice. Number 17, the hardest falls create the biggest rebounds. That can be good or bad. There's no way I'm going to finish this podcast in an hour. So I'm going to start cruising through these guys, which is good because I think the first half was like, I went through all the journal and was like pulling out the best ones and I was like, I need some more. And then I started like pulling the second one. So not that these are, honestly, these are actually, some of these are longer. So I don't even need to reflect because they get the point across. But this is a really good one. The hardest falls create the biggest rebounds that can be good or bad. A lot of times when we have a deficit or we have a big loss, if we're willing to keep going, we will have the biggest rebound in the best direction because we learned so much from that fall. Truly. Like, I look at it like a HRV. Like every peak in your heart rate has a small drop before it. But the peak is usually bigger if you measure it than the drop. And the more times you have those drops, the bigger the variability of your HRV, which is why you have to stress your heart rate through conditioning in order to maximize your ability to have a high elevated heart rate and still be healthy and still be training and still be in a good place. Right? It requires that down before the up and it's the same thing with with anything. Now, the hardest falls can create the biggest rebounds too. Like, I mean, if we talk about, like love, it's not always a good thing, but love is a good thing. It's a risk we have to take. Number 18, I stole this from somebody too and I really liked it. A complaint is just an expression of your incorrect understanding of reality or your opinion of reality, which doesn't serve you. There shouldn't be traffic right now. Well there is. So accept it or choose to sit in it with a shit mood. I added a little bit to this, but the point is is that when we're complaining about something, if we take a minute and go, this is just my incorrect understanding of reality or like my opinion of reality, but reality never fails. Reality is always right. It never loses. It's always, it always wins. Therefore, reality doesn't care what you think or how you feel. It is what it is. The sooner you just accept, this is what reality is. The sooner you can move on and stop having a shit mood. This, like if I sit in traffic for an hour and I'm like, there shouldn't be traffic right now. It says who? Why are you the determining factor of traffic or the rain or the weather? Now, I can be mad all day because I'm sitting in traffic or I can just be like, shit, this sucks. Oh, I'm here. Might as well enjoy life I have because I could die tomorrow, right? Number 19. There's going to be a lot of people who I think need to hear this. I don't know who needs to hear this, but I know somebody does. I know it's hard right now, but eventually you will say I wouldn't change it for the world. So the difficulty you're facing will be worth the wisdom you gain. Everything we go through in life, we end up saying that 99% of the time. So the sooner we can realize I will eventually say I wouldn't change it for the world, the more likely it is that you're going to get through this difficult time better. Number 20, if you always keep it real and tell the truth, you'll never have a story to remember. This is a quote from my grandpa that I have written so many times because he told my dad it growing up and my dad told me and I just always try to remember it. If you always tell the truth, you never have a story to remember. I put, if you always keep it real and tell the truth, you'll never have a story to remember. You only have to remember stories if the story isn't true. Really, like if I got a fabricated story to tell somebody something, now I'm thinking about it. I got to remember the story. No, if it's the truth, I just tell the truth. So always keep it real, always tell the truth, you never got anything to fabricate. Number 21, don't focus on being someone others like instead, focus on being someone they can respect. Powerful. There's a difference between night being nice and being kind and I would say being kind is when we are doing what's best, we are doing what's positive, we are doing what's going to help an impact and we are also focused on gaining respect, not gaining popularity. So I just want to encourage everybody, don't focus on being somebody that other people like. I really want them to like me. Why? Give them something to respect and they'll like you. If you have things in common, they'll want to hang out with you. If you don't have anything in common and you don't practice the same, like things or you don't have the same values, you don't live the same kind of lifestyle, you're not into the same stuff to occupy your time with, you're not going to be friends with a person. So what are you really after? You're not after somebody liking you, you're after somebody respecting you. That's a universal trait. Give yourself something to respect and you will gain the respect of others. And that's about how you show up and how you act and what you do. Most fitness and nutrition coaching programs fail because they stay on the surface. They throw macros at you and maybe a generic workout plan and expect you to just stay motivated. But the second life gets hard, you fall back into old habits. And most of the time they don't know how to handle it or help you get out of that rut. True fat loss and muscle growth doesn't happen from quick fixes. They come from coaching based on core values, personal standards and shifting who you are from who you once were to who you are trying to become. That's the foundation of tailored coaching method. We don't just deliver plans. We build self discipline, teach thought mastery and help you develop standards that establish personal accountability for long-term autonomy. So if you're done playing small with your physique or your health, apply for coaching with us at tailored coaching method by going to fatlosstransformation.com or clicking the link in the show notes. Number 22. I think this quote has been whispered in the background of a lot of these other quotes. We can't control what happens to us only what we become from it. There's a lot that is out of our hands and God's hands and it's not in our control. We can't control what happens directly to us. But if we look at it being for us to change, to become somebody that we need to become, to become different to learn something, then we are taking control of the only thing we can control and the only thing that's really going to impact us. This is again, steering away from that victim mentality. 23. The further you go, the less people you'll see around you. There is way more people at the finish line than there are people at the starting line. That's at any race. If you win first place at a marathon, when you start that race, there is a crowd of people ready to go. Then the gunfires and you all run. When you finish that race, if you're in first, if you're in second, if you're in top 10, it's not that many people around you. Why is that? Because people quit when it gets hard and winning requires you to be different. The further you go in anything, the less people will be around you. You'll either make people feel uncomfortable along the way and they won't want to be around you or you will outgrow relationships as you level up, which is not something to be upset about and it's not something to write people off with. It's just a reason to shift the way you spend your time and who you spend your time with. It's just a nature of chasing more in life. Number 24, people with high agency achieve more in life. Plain and simple, there's nothing else to that. High agency, like having a lot of agency in your life means that you are willing to make your own decisions and you are confident in making your own decisions to reach the goals that you have. You don't get triggered or offended as easily. You are on your own path. You are in control of your own actions and attitudes. Agency is extremely important and people do not succeed in life if they don't have agency. The level of confidence that most people should strive for and it takes a lot of mental work. Number 25, everything is hard until it's easy, which I believe is an old Chinese proverb, but it's so it's so goddamn true. Everything is hard until it's easy and remember that hard is a comparative term. So if we don't have something to compare hard to like then we don't know like half the time people say this is so hard and I'm like compared to what because you've never dieted before so now you say it's so hard, but of course it's hard compared to eating shit and not paying attention to it because you're not doing anything. There's no effort there. So dieting is hard compared to no effort at all. I would agree, but does that mean it's so hard that you can't do it? No. What are some hard things you've actually done in your life? That surgery, that sickness, that job that you got fired from, you had to rebuild yourself from, having kids taking care of kids like I can make a big list. Everything is hard until it gets easy and easy is a relative term. It's really just everything is hard until you get used to the hard, which is way better quote. It should start with that. 26. There's always a light at the end of the tunnel, but sometimes that means walking in the dark first. So have faith. The definition of faith is to believe in something you can't see. And to an extent when you are chasing any goal, you can't see it. If you are chasing a new weight law school and you've never been there before, then you kind of don't know what that result looks like. It is a foreign outcome to you and that's okay, but it does require faith. I have to believe I can get to this end goal even though I can't see it. I have to believe I can build this business even though I've never built a business like this before. That requires faith, which means you're going to have to walk in the dark, know that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but you got to walk in that dark tunnel for a while. If you're not willing to do the work in the dark, when no one's watching, you will not reach the light at the end of the tunnel. You will not reach that level of success. 27. The only purpose excuses serve is making yourself feel better right now. Think ahead before making any excuses. Results you are chasing feel better than the excuses do. If we really, really think about why we make excuses, it's because we just want to make ourselves feel better in that moment. It is uncomfortable. I'm going through a challenge or struggle or insecurity. I'm going to make some kind of excuse to not do this thing because it'll make me feel better right now. But the result you're chasing when you finally get there, I promise, they feel so much better than any excuse will temporarily make you feel. We have to remember that on the front end. 28. Being happy at home is 100 times more important than seeming happy at home to others online. Remember that. This is something I often think of because there's so many people online that I don't share a ton of my personal life, but it's just funny when I see it. It's mostly people that I think my wife calls because there's a lot of female influencer she sees and it's like, gosh, they're just perfect life and family and they're so happy all the time and perfect mom and bubble on. I'm like, I don't think that's how the reality is. I think people who try to fabricate or push their, because I think about like this is the easiest to tell for me, when I'm really happy at home and my family is really happy, none of us are on social media. We always forget to take pictures. We're having fun. We're in the moment. We have to constantly remind each other. This is why like, we always go back and we don't have any pictures of all of us. It's always Shannon snapping random pictures of me and Blakely or me snapping pictures of them or just her because we see each other in the moment and we want to capture it, but we never do it when we're all together because we're all in the moment. So I'm too busy being happy with my family at home that I can't share it online. So just remember that being happy at home is far, far, far more important than seeming happy at home to other people online. Number 29, elimination often leads to multiplication, i.e., example, removing things from your life is often the only way to add more. Sometimes you need to remove people, remove places, remove environments, remove social media, remove technologies, remove music, remove ideologies, remove television shows, remove the news, remove negativity in any way, shape or form. Sometimes removal is the best way to multiply. Sometimes removing, even from a business line, sometimes if you have five offers and it's confusing the market, you need to remove and eliminate so that you can multiply the one channel that you're supposed to be in. I think it's really, really important. One of the first things I do when I'm looking at a business owner especially and they want to grow or really anybody who is stressing out about any goal they're chasing, the first thing I do is what can we eliminate. Then I move to automate, which is a sense of eliminate, and then I move to delegate, which is another way of eliminating from you, but it's like let's eliminate everything we can that we don't need this not serving us so that we can focus more of our time and energy on what makes us happy and what actually serves us and in the case of business actually makes us money because it's what we're best at. Then let's automate things that don't need to be us mainly doing it and then let's delegate things to people who want the opportunity to help us so that we don't have the responsibility the possibility of doing it. And we build capacity in our brain to handle more tasks that are important for us individually. So, so key. Number 30, we're on the home stretch. Advice from someone who has no experience as an advice, it's their opinion. This is kind of brutal, but it's true. I don't care if it's your family, if it's your friend, if it's your wife, if it's your husband, if it's your co-worker. If they don't have experience doing the exact thing that you did successfully. Because if somebody's like, oh, I tried that and it failed miserably, I wouldn't do it. Okay, but you failed, so why does that mean I'm gonna fail? And if somebody's like, oh, I don't think that's a good idea or there's no money in that. Or that's kind of ballsy, don't you think? I'm like, you've never done anything. You've literally never done anything. Somebody's like trying to convince you not to lose weight. They're like, yeah, but then you can't eat anything and you can't have fun and that's gonna ruin balance and you shouldn't do that, shouldn't stress about that. Why? You've never been fit, you've never been healthy, you've never seen what it's like on the other side. Don't take advice from people who have no experience or accomplishments in the thing that you're trying to accomplish or achieve. It's not advice, advice implies that they have a strategy that you can use and implement and get better with. That's just their opinion and it's weighing you down. 31, your standards are defined by how you show up on your worst days, not just in the perfect circumstances. I think there's a lot of people who create values and standards and they say that they're this way, but in a stressful moment and a heated conversation in a season of fatigue and being taxed and broken down, can you show up as the best version of yourself? You say that you have integrity, you say that you have followers, you say that you're disciplined, can you do that? In the seasons of life that are really hard because that tells me it's your standard. Otherwise, it's just something you're striving for, which is fine too. But until it is something that you are willing to do and stand by and show up as on your worst days, it is not a standard. 32, good or bad, easy or hard, confused or not, you are right where you are supposed to be, work with it and it'll work for you. I don't know what else I can say about that. Be here right now, you are where you are supposed to be. That is one of the most freeing statements that I have ever read and written to myself. Good or bad, easier or hard, confused or not, I am right where I am supposed to be. And if I work with it, it'll work for me. I believe that through and through a hundred times over. 33, the right thing will always be the right thing. Anybody who has common sense in a good heart and a true conscious, a good conscious in them knows that the right thing is the right thing. The easiest way to just make sure you're always making the right decision, if you could just stop for a second and just ask yourself, is this the right thing to do? It's a very clear answer to yes or no. The right thing is always the right thing, just do that. And number 34, God is good. Jesus is King, life's a gift. Obviously I am a believer and I am a follower of Christ and I love Jesus and he has changed my life. And I hope that he changed other people's lives, but I'm not here to preach or push or anything like that. The main thing I wanna put forward is like life is a gift. It's so special, it's not just because I'm 34 today and it's my birthday and it's another year around the sun. I think about the salt time, it's like, man, what a blessing. Life is crazy, it is crazy, what is pretty fucking cool. We need to appreciate it more. Thank you for spending some time with me, not literally on my birthday, but after my birthday, hear me talk about the lessons, now that it's my birthday, I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I hope it taught you something. I hope some of these stick with you. I hope you do something with them and they're not just like cool buzzwords or hype quotes, but you actually go do something with them. Take some notes, change your attitude, change your actions. I really, really appreciate you listening. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to build this podcast and build this company to do the things we do. If there's any way shape or form that I can help you at all, all the links are in the description of this podcast. Please leave us a five-star rating review and I will catch you on the next one. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)